BOUNDLESS (Mama's Story) (4 page)

“What kind of work is there?” I asked. “What do you do?”

“I work in the laundry room,” she said. “It’s okay, I guess, but there are other things. You could land a job assisting the officers if you have an education. They need help with filing and stuff. Or you could do grounds work, which is nice because you get to be outside. You could also work in the kitchen, cooking and stuff, or be on cleanup crew.”

“How is it decided?” I asked. “Do you get to pick?”

“Mr. Harrison will decide for you since he’s your officer,” Willow said. “You can let him know if you have any special skills, but it’s up to him, in the end.”

Kitchen staff didn’t sound too bad. I could cook up a storm and frequently did so at the nightclub. I winced a little at the memory—happy girls noshing on my cooking. Why had they turned on me? I’d given them a place to live, food to eat. If they hadn’t wanted to sleep with men for money, they didn’t have to. Why the hell was I in prison for being in charge of girls who just wanted to make money? It hardly seemed fair.

“Ready to go to dinner?” Willow asked, standing up and stretching.

“Already?” I asked. “What time is it?”

“Five-thirty,” she said. “Dinner’s always at five-thirty. It’s tough to get used to, at first, being so early, but you’ll figure it out. Until you do, there’s noodles.”

“There’s always noodles,” I agreed, following Willow out of the cell. That was one good thing. At least I was making nice with my cellmate. I needed to make friends here. There were too many possibilities for bad things to happen otherwise. And if I was looking at doing years here, I might as well try to get used to it, try to make a life for myself.

Many inmates were making their way to the cafeteria. My nose had been correct earlier, and I recognized the hallway we’d passed as the way to the cafeteria.

“You’re pretty eager for dinner, aren’t you?” Tama asked, sidling up to me. I didn’t like her leer, her face, or her proximity.

“You’re pretty eager for an ass-kicking, aren’t you?” I shot back, pushing my elbow into her to get some distance between her and me.

“I like when they play hard to get,” she said, giving me that eerie grin before melting back into the crowd.

“What’s that bitch’s story?” I asked, turning back to Willow.

She shrugged. “Tama always gets what she wants. If she wants you, she’ll have you.”

“Like fuck she will,” I responded. “Nobody can just have me.”

We got our trays from one end of the buffet line and worked our way up, kitchen workers in aprons and hairnets ladling food onto the partitions. It didn’t look half bad and I was hungry, besides. I imagined myself on the other side of the buffet and that didn’t seem bad, either.

“You can sit at my table,” Willow said. “Usually, people sit with their colors, but you’re new and you’re my cellmate and you did me a huge solid earlier with the cell search. We’ll see how it goes.”

“All right,” I said dubiously, balancing my tray with one hand and carrying a cup of water with the other.

Willow’s table was a raucous assembly of mostly white girls. They eyed me as I set my tray down.

“This is Wanda, my new cellmate,” Willow said, jerking her thumb at me. “Wanda, meet the girls.”

“Hello, sugars,” I said, not being able to help the idea that I had been transported back to high school and the popular girls were deciding whether or not I was up to snuff.

They started talking all at once again as I sat down. Willow slid in beside me and we set to eating. It was simple fare, sure, but it comforted me. I was eating a hot meal. That’s more than I could say before, during my trial. All I got were sandwiches. Compared to that, this was heaven. The corn was buttery, the chicken was well seasoned, and the vegetables were still firm. Whoever was in charge of the kitchen knew what she was doing.

“This is damn good,” I said, my mouth full of chicken.

“You should tell Marlee that,” Willow said. “She loves compliments to her cooking.”

“Marlee?”

“She’s in charge of the kitchen,” my cellmate said, washing down a bite with a swig of water. “You like cooking?”

“I do.”

“Tell Mr. Harrison,” Willow insisted. “They’re always looking for good help in the kitchen. People they can trust. It’s food, after all.”

“I’ll do that,” I said.

After dinner, we didn’t have much time until lights out. Willow and I were in our beds when the guards came by, shining their flashlights into our cell to ensure we were really there. As soon as they passed by, Willow slid out of her bed.

“It’s time,” she said. “Come here.”

I joined her at her cabinet, where she reverently lifted the garbage bag of contraband from earlier. She unwrapped the towel from around it and jiggled the bag a little, seeming to judge whatever was inside by its weight and consistency. Gingerly, she picked at the knot that closed the bag until it came loose.

“What is that?” I asked, peering into the plastic bag. It smelled like something cross between the devil’s Kool-Aid and a chemical that would peel the industrial paint right off of the cinderblock walls of the prison.

“It’s hooch,” Willow told me, her eyes aflame. I’d seen my girls give that kind of look to the customers they had feelings for.

It struck me that hooch—or any kind of liquor—was firmly against the rules of the prison, but I wasn’t about to bring that up. It’d been way too long since I’d had a drop. I’d been bone dry since the cops had plucked me from my office at the nightclub, through the ordeal of my trial, and in this topsy-turvy time in prison. I deserved a drink, didn’t I?

I deserved more than a drink.

“How long have you been making that?” I asked, wrinkling my nose at the odor as Willow jiggled the bag around. I could see some lumpy masses in it, and it made my stomach turn a bit.

“Little less than a week, now,” she said. “My last batch didn’t turn out so good.”

“What happened?”

“Got caught.” The beads on her braids clacked as she shrugged. “They put me in solitary as punishment. Solitary just made me thirstier. And irritated at whichever bitch ratted me out.”

I knew how the idea of getting thirstier went. I also wondered how Willow figured that somebody told on her. Honestly, that smell told on itself.

“So what do you put in it?” I asked.

Willow leveled a look at me. “Why are you so interested?” she demanded. “You gonna snitch on me, too?”

“Hell, no,” I protested, planting my hands on my hips. “As long as you plan on giving me some to drink. If you tell me that you have hooch and you deny me the right to drink, I’ll sing like a fucking canary. I’m thirstier than you could possibly imagine.”

Willow snorted. “You’re new here,” she said. “You don’t know what thirsty is yet. There are lots of ingredients in it. The most important ones are fruit, sugar, bread, and water.”

Could it be as simple as that? Willow held the bag open for my inspection, eyeing the door to our cell in case she needed to snatch it away in a hurry. I looked at the contents. It’d been a long time since I’d had a drink, but what was floating in that bag wasn’t appetizing at all. I could even see what looked to be mold covering one of the chunks in the liquid. At such close quarters, the odor became an absolute stench.

“And people drink this?” I asked, recoiling in spite of how eager I’d been.

Willow jerked the bag away from me. “You don’t have to drink any, you know, if you’re so picky.”

I snagged her wrist, stopping her. “I’m sorry. I know I can’t afford to be picky anymore. I—I would like to try it.”

“Damn right you do,” Willow declared. “Now hold this.”

She gave me a pitcher with a shirt stretched over it before slowly pouring the contents of the bag through the shirt. I did my best not to gag at the smell of rot. I wanted this, didn’t I? It wouldn’t do to offend Willow anymore than I already had. I had to live with her, after all.

The shirt acted as a filter and caught the bigger chunks—the fruit and bread, I surmised. The rest of the liquid dripped softly into the pitcher.

Once she’d poured the contents of the bag completely out, Willow gathered the chunks up in the shirt and deposited it into the trash bag. It helped a little bit with the terrible odor, but the liquid in the pitcher still stank. I didn’t know how I was going to be able to stomach it, but my brain demanded that I find I way. I wanted this. No, I needed this. I wanted the buzz, I wanted to take the edge off. This could maybe even help me forget that I was in prison for a time.

“It’s a little tough to stomach, at first,” Willow said, taking the pitcher from me and giving me a plastic cup to hold. “Especially if you’re not used to it. And you’re not. You’re new. But it’ll do the trick. Trust that.”

I tried not to gag as Willow poured a few fingers of the foul liquid into the cup. Now that I was even closer to tasting it, it smelled worse, making my throat close.

“Bottoms up,” Willow said helpfully.

I wanted this, I told myself. I did. I needed this. The shit that had happened in the holding cell during my trial—that was an anomaly. That was simply because I’d stopped drinking. I never had to stop drinking, now. I could sink into a stupor any time I wanted with Willow’s simple recipe for hooch.

I tipped the cup back and emptied it into my mouth, pushing past the disgusting taste, the wretched burn on my tongue and scorch down my throat all the way to my belly. I came up gasping and choking, coughing as the hateful brew curdled in my stomach.

“Quiet,” Willow hissed, trying to shush me. I grabbed my pillow and tried to mask my coughing with that, relieved when the fit passed and the hooch stayed firmly in my stomach.

“Holy shit,” I said quietly. “Holy shit.”

“I make a good hooch, Wanda,” Willow said, winking at me. “Stick with me, and you’ll never be thirsty again.”

I thanked whatever God was looking out for me for getting me paired with the girl who could keep me in as much liquor as I could drink.

“More,” I suggested, offering my cup.

“She likes it,” Willow observed, her eyes glowing. She poured me some more, then took a draught herself straight from the pitcher. “Goddamn, that is good. I don’t know what it was, but there’s a higher alcohol content in this one.”

“How can you tell?” I asked, throwing back the hooch in my cup.

“Less rotten taste, more gasoline taste,” she said wisely, filling my cup again.

“Aren’t you going to save some?” I asked, eyeing the dwindling pitcher and draining my cup.

“I’ll just start another brew as soon as I get the materials,” Willow said. “The jig’s up if the guards smell it. It’s hard to keep it concealed once it’s out of the garbage bag.”

“So maybe last time the guards just smelled it,” I suggested.

“Or maybe someone snitched,” Willow retorted, taking another drink straight from the pitcher. “I don’t give a fuck as long as I have my hooch.”

“I’ll toast to that,” I said, holding my cup out for a refill.

We had the hooch dispatched and secured in the trash bag before the guards came around again to check on us. Even with me lying down in bed to pass the check, my world was still spinning. The hooch was strong, and I’d had a lion’s share of it. This was what I needed. This feeling of being away from reality. This was what I craved.

“They’re gone,” Willow said, sitting up again. “You feeling it?”

“Feeling it?” I repeated. “I’m fucked up, sugar.”