Among Women

by J. M. Cornwell

  Pearl kicked off the covers. She was too hot and the blankets itched. The pillow was too hard and thin. Angela’s snoring was too loud. Why is it so quiet? Were she and Angela the only ones left? Had the guards come and taken everyone else away so they could take their time questioning her, punishing her?

  Democracy did not exist in jail.

  The quad was a dictatorship ruled by a smiling tyrant of uncertain temper and absolute power whose black clad harem cats guarded the mice. There was something inherently dangerous about someone who smiled too widely and too much. Pearl knew how hungry some of those cats could get and which mice provided the most satisfying hors d’ouevres before the main course. Right now, it was her.

  It wouldn’t do any good going over and over what she should have done or what might happen. She needed sleep if she was to face a tribunal in the morning. There was a faint possibility that Martha’s mistake might prove to be a blessing in disguise. Pearl might get a chance to speak to an attorney and find out how much longer her sentence in limbo would last.

  That small hope broke through the restless panic that gripped Pearl. As she calmed and her heartbeat returned to a more normal rhythm, the cold seeped past panic-generated heat. She shivered, grabbed her covers and wrapped up. Turning to the wall, and pounding the pillow into a more forgiving shape, Pearl sighed, let go of her fear and slipped down into the formless void where there were no guards to watch, and she could say anything she wanted out loud. There was safety in sleep—and much needed rest.

  Lights. Feet on the floor. Roll call. Toilet. Dress. Breakfast.

  Something told Pearl this was one morning it would be best to color within the lines.

  Betty nodded as Pearl passed and inclined her head toward Pearl’s usual seat. No one else sat at the table, but the bleachers were filled. A surreptitious glance into the guard station was enough to make her feel she could safely exhale, at least for now. She was an innocent woman who obeyed all the rules, and that is how she would act.

  Didn’t make any difference that innocence was of little concern in New Orleans parish under Sheriff Charles C. Foti, Jr. All she had to do was keep her head down and her ears and eyes open.

  When Pearl returned after taking back the breakfast trays, Betty had already dealt the cards. “One quick hand,” she said. Pearl was amazed her hands did not shake. As she got into the rhythm of the game, the worries and anxiety faded. She won the hand. After a silent and grateful ‘thank you’ to Betty, Pearl went downstairs to clean.

  Sheets changed and bed made. Toilet brushed and gleaming. Sink and desk and stool wiped down. Floor swept and mopped. The familiarity of the work kept Pearl calm and she was done by the time Angela returned to the room to plop down on her pallet without comment, crumbs of toast clinging to the corners of her lips and scattered down her shirt.

  Back out on the quad, the watchers filled ringside seats as Pearl sat down at Betty’s table and settled in. Her pens were empty of ink, so she decided to take a break from writing. Might as well be close to the door.

  Sarah’s name was called and she brushed Pearl’s shoulder before walking out. Pearl felt sad and lost. She fought the tears and concentrated on picking up and putting down the cards, anything to keep busy.

  The rest of the day passed like Chinese water torture. Drip - drip - drip. The minutes lengthened into hours. If anyone else had been brave enough to touch Pearl, she probably would have jumped high enough to dust the cobwebs on the ledge over the guard station window.

  No one dared.

  Each trip to use the facilities took her past where Martha usually sat. She wasn’t there. When she asked, they told her Martha was not feeling well and had stayed in her cell. Pearl went down the stairs to see her.

  Martha paced the narrow space between the pallet on her floor and the bunk, muttering and gesticulating, obviously upset. Pearl stepped into the doorway just as Martha turned. Martha stopped and stared at Pearl, then seemed to go boneless as she dropped onto the bunk.

  “They said you weren’t feeling well. Is there anything I can do?”

  Martha stared, unable to speak, her hands clasped as if in prayer. Her lips moved but no words came.

  Pearl took a step forward. “I didn’t sleep very well either last night. Too quiet.” Pearl glanced up the stairs at the picnic tables where everyone looked down at her. She stepped back into the hall and sat down on the bottom step, leaning forward to see into the cell. “If you feel like it, how about joining Betty and me for a game of gin rummy?”

  Martha nodded slowly. Pearl held out her hand. Martha struggled up from the bunk, bracing her hand on the mattress. She fell backward and, unthinking, Pearl rushed to help her. “If you don’t have that baby soon, you’re going to pop.” Martha took Pearl’s arm.

  “Never been this big before.”

  “Could be twins, or even triplets.”

  “Oh, lordy, I hope not. Got enough kids already. Now why would you go and say something mean like that.” Laughter rumbled up and spilled out. Shaking with the effort, Martha cradled her belly. She could barely speak for laughing. “Lord a’mighty, ain’t that just it?”

  “Sometimes, you just have to laugh.” Pearl let go and stood aside so Martha could go through the door. Legs splayed, she mounted the stairs and held onto the railing. Martha struggled up the steps, Pearl close behind to help. Pearl took Martha’s elbow and Martha leaned heavily on her as she waddled across the quad to Betty’s table and eased into a chair against the wall of the guard station. Pearl sat down opposite her.

  “Cards or dominoes?” Betty asked.

  “Gin rummy sounds good,” Martha said.

  Betty dealt the cards.

  After a few bad hands, the three women got into the rhythm of the game, slapping the cards down, laughing and talking as if it was just another day, another card game. They worked their way through dominoes, talking and laughing, and rising only for meals and the call of nature. The audience on the bleachers soon tired of watching and fell into their usual pursuits: braiding and brushing hair and swapping war stories.

  The sharks circled. The remoras followed. Clownfish darted here and there never far from the safety of the anemones.

  Dinner followed lunch and the television played softly in the background, casting flickering shadows over all.

  “Lights out in ten minutes.”

  Pearl helped Martha down the stairs. “Sweet dreams,” she said and walked down the hallway. Angela was already snoring. She pulled the steel door shut and started to undress when the intercom crackled to life.

  “Martha Armstrong, you’re rolling out.”

  Pearl grasped the cold steel bars and watched. Two guards came across the quad and down the stairs. When they went back up the stairs, Martha was wearing only slippers and nightgown.

  And then the lights went out.

  Thirty-Five

  Everyone passing Martha’s cell the next morning glanced inside as they went up for breakfast, one glance at the cell and the rest of their attention on the four guards in front of the guard station. Their presence was a warning and a promise no one missed.

  Every surface in the cell was covered with Martha’s clutter—the bed unmade, the pillow tossed onto the floor next to the pallet near the door, unchanged from the way it must have looked when Martha was taken out the night before. Pearl didn’t dare look too closely or too long while the guards watched. Keeping her eyes on the woman in front of her, Pearl marched up the stairs.

  None of the usual bantering or chatter accompanied the morning march to breakfast. No one spoke or asked for anything special from the servers behind the steamed glass. The brief clatter of trays sounded too loud amidst the hushed shuffle of feet on the age-darkened tiles. Guards flanked both ends and stood behind the counter.

  No one spoke. No one stepped out of line. No one dawdled. No one grumbled or complained or breathed too loudly. Coughs were quickly muffled and silenced. No one yawned. No one skipped breakfast.

  Ever
yone ate in silence, returned their trays and cleaned the cells.

  Betty was absent from her table after breakfast and did not return to her seat until all the cells were cleaned. The laundry was removed and the carts placed back in the closets before she appeared.

  No one remained in the cells and no one spoke above a whisper the rest of the day. The news that Michael Jackson and his brothers would give a concert, news that would ordinarily have sent almost everyone into rhapsodies of excitement, was greeted with silent smiles and quick whispered conversations that trailed away when the guards prowled near.

  Two guards remained in the booth, the lieutenant and the shift supervisor. The rest of the guards meandered in pairs the length of the quad, black clad orcas sending the sharks and the rest of the denizens to the relative safety of the shoals.

  Martha’s cell door remained open and untouched. No one moved in and nothing was moved out.

  Betty dealt out cards in the morning and dominoes after lunch. Pearl concentrated on the cards and forced her mind away from the pages hidden in the desk drawer in her cell for fear one of the guards might pick it directly out of her thoughts. If she were caught with the rest of the pages, her identity as the author would be known.

  Only Angela, oblivious to the stifling atmosphere or the deadly under current, chattered and flitted from group to group. She stopped a pair of guards to ask when her canteen order would be delivered and was told to sit down and wait. Undaunted, she asked the other pair of guards who stared at Angela with such a deadly pointed gaze she backed into a picnic table and nearly fell over. She waited until the guards had passed and silently slipped down the stairs to disappear into the shadows of the cell.

  A little while later, Deputy Walpole came in and announced that canteen would be delayed until Wednesday. The look on her face said she was enjoying the bad news far too much. Bloody lips pursed and eyes glittering with suppressed glee, she smacked the clipboard on her thigh and marched out. A muffled groan whispered along the quad and Angela, standing out in the hallway down below, smacked her hand on the bar. It sounded like a whip crack. “That’s some bullshit,” she said and stomped off to the cell where she threw herself down on the pallet.

  The shuffle and slap of cards on the table echoed off the walls and vaulted ceiling. The barely discernible buzz of conversation stopped. Everyone watched and waited, hoping visitor’s day wouldn’t be delayed or canceled. Even the braiding girls on the stairs were silent, huddled together like chickens that knew foxes were in the yard.

  The following day was much the same. The inmates were silent and wary. The guards marched up and down. Meals were served and everyone waited for something to happen.

  Wednesday was visitor’s day. It was a much quieter and subdued crowd. Usually, the women gathered on the stairs or at the picnic tables waiting their turn to be beautified. Hair was washed and braided and no one minded showering for the audience, more intent on getting a turn in the showers before putting on their cleanest clothes.

  Pearl never bothered fussing about her appearance. No one had come to visit her in five weeks and she had no other clothes except for those she washed and hung up every night. The Velcro straps on her sneakers were separating from the cloth and she had stopped removing the straps, working her feet into the shoes and carefully wiggling past the straps until she could smooth them into position. She could not afford to be left barefoot when—if—she rolled out.

  The guards called the names and the women left and came back without a word, holding their breath until they were free of scrutiny and safely in the visitor’s room. Smiles disappeared and tears were dashed away as soon as the women passed the guards, emotions tamped down and held in check. Everyone was on the alert.

  Down in the cell, Pearl slid her hand all the way to the back of the desk drawer checking to see if her papers were safe. Paper rustled against her fingertips. The breath she had not known she was holding exploded in a hiss. Safe.

  She started at a noise from the door, grabbed the snaggle-toothed comb and shut the drawer. She dragged it through her hair while looking in the mirror at her image, fuzzy around the edges in the scratched, brushed metal surface.

  “They didn’t come. Tyrone won’t allow it.” Angela fell to her knees, sobbing and pulling at her nappy, uncombed hair. “Social worker said their father was within his rights.” She spat out the bitter words, her face twisted with anger. “When has he ever been their father?” She kicked at the door and turned toward the wall. “All right, when he stole them, but not since the baby was born. His mama didn’t like him being with me, so he come home to mama, tail ‘tween his laigs. It’s not right.”

  Pearl laid down the comb and knelt beside Angela. “They can’t keep your children from you. Look how many other women see their children every week, even their little babies.”

  Angela sat up. “Yeah. I saw Martha’s mama holding the baby, waiting.” She swiped at the tears.

  “Did you see Martha?”

  “No. Just Martha’s mama and the baby.” Curling her bony legs beneath her, Angela leaned back against the wall. “I thought Martha rolled out. Her stuff’s still there and her mama come to visit, but I didn’t see Martha. Isn’t that strange?”

  Pearl nodded. Martha must still be somewhere in the building and the guards hadn’t told her mother. “Yeah.”

  “Martha’s mama just waiting, bouncing the baby on her lap and waiting.”

  Before Pearl could ask any more questions, she heard her name called. “Caldwell, you got a visitor.”

  “Go on, girl.” Angela nudged Pearl. She stood up and walked down the hall, up the stairs and over to the door.

  “You Caldwell?” the guard asked, pen poised over the clipboard.

  Pearl nodded.

  The quad door opened and suddenly she was in the hall following another black clad guard down the outer hall and through a narrow room cut up into booths with scratched and smeared Plexiglas separating the narrow room from a larger waiting room. Paired phones hung on the walls of each pegboard partition. Tubular gun metal gray chairs with duct tape covering nearly the whole seat or slashed dark green plastic seats vomiting dingy cotton sat beneath narrow Formica ledges braced between the partitions. “Third booth,” the guard said as she pushed Pearl’s shoulder. “Over there.”

  An older black woman bounced a baby on her knee. Pearl thought it must be Martha’s mother still looking for her daughter.

  She sat down in the chair and peered through the hazy Plexiglas wall where Cap motioned her to pick up the phone. Reaching for the phone with hands gone numb, she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She put it to her ear after using the tail of her blue and white striped cotton shirt to wipe the greasy film from the handset. “How?” was all she could get out.

  “Baby, you look good.” Cap grinned at her. “You look real good.”

  “If you say jail agrees with me,” she warned.

  Cap chuckled.

  Tears slipped down her cheeks and dripped onto the counter. “Where have you been for five weeks? Why didn’t you come before now?”

  “We only have fifteen minutes,” he said and touched the Plexiglas between them.

  Pearl raised her hand and touched the other side. “You’re here. You’re finally here,” she said, all anger dissipating in the miracle of seeing a familiar face.

  Pearl cried silently, nodding as he explained.

  He had come to the jail every day, but was told there was no Pearl Caldwell in the system. After two weeks, he stopped coming, but he kept calling. There was no record of her. Habit became ritual until he was told that morning he could visit. Cap called off work and got downtown as soon as he could. Yes, he had seen Laura and Leo and told them she had surfaced. No, Chip was still on the rig. Yes, they were fine. “How are you?”

  Pearl didn’t understand how she had suddenly appeared in their records. Martha! Was this some kind of bribe to soften her up? Wasn’t it enough that they had stolen five weeks of her life, cut
her off from her friends and left her without communication, without an attorney, without a day in court?

  Furiously rubbing the tears away, she listened. All the things Pearl had left with Cap—her purse, ID and money—his wife had found. “Debbie threw out everything but the money. She spent that. I found your purse in the trash when I got home one day. When I asked her about it, Debbie said she thought I was holding out on her. She was furious. Thought I was planning to leave her or that I had stolen the money. She spent it all on lottery tickets it to keep it from being found.”

  “Did she win anything?”

  Cap shook his head. “When I told her I was holding it for a friend, she offered to let you stay with us as a way to pay the money back.”

  “I can’t stay with you and your wife. I do not even know if I’m ever getting out of here.”

  “Haven’t you seen a lawyer?”

  “No.” Pearl explained what had happened to her during the past five weeks, telling him everything but about the stories and articles smuggled out and printed in the newspaper.

  “Oh, yeah. I forgot. I heard about that.”

  That got Pearl’s attention.

  “Where?”

  “On the radio. I guess it was in the newspapers, too. One of the women—I think she was Korean or something—was on the radio a couple days after they read one of the stories. She said it was about her sister. The guy on the radio asked who wrote the stories and she refused to say. And there was more.

  “The DA was interviewed in the Times-Picayune about what he planned to do. The DA said he’d look into it, like he has a choice. The article said the author was anonymous.”

  “Time’s up.” A guard tapped Pearl on the shoulder.

  He nodded. “You’ll be out soon. Come to the café when you get out and I’ll take you home with me.”

  “I can’t live with you and your wife.”