Violence (36 page)

“Yeah, hi, can I talk to Jeannie?” Derek asked sharply.

“Jeannie?” Lyndsey echoed, then innocently offered. “She’s gone for the day, but she’ll be in tomorrow. Do you want to leave a message?”

“No, thanks.” Derek replied and grinned. “I’ll call back.” Derek mumbled and hung up. But he was happy. He had located his prey. He smiled again, tapped the coffee drippings off the pen, licked the residue and circled “Rave Vintage Clothing and Resale Shop” on his phone list. And took a long slug of coffee.

Everyone knows there are no nice areas of Cook County Jail. The visiting rooms were no exception. Jeannie was fortunate. She was called for her 15-minute visit after only a two-hour wait.

She got there at 3:30 PM for the second set of visiting hours and had waited in the long line that perennially snaked down California Avenue under the barb-wire topped walls. She had her ID ready when she went through the metal detectors and pat down. She was going to bring cookies but the person on the phone when she called the inmate locator line told her gifts and food were not allowed. Jeannie forgot cell phones were forbidden, too, and had to lock it up in a coin-operated locker.

Everything was overwhelming. Jeannie had felt she’d seen her share of the seamier side of life but this was the fetid jam in the belly button of the underbelly. The filth. The noise. The feeling of being herded and the vile smells as if you actually were in a holding pen. Family members and loved ones yelling over the shouts of other visitors. Babies that bawled constantly, who must have sensed the desperation and who should never be in a place like this even if it’s thought they are too young to remember.

Once Jeannie signed in and was finally called by a correctional officer her eyes were red and sore from crying: but she was not alone. Everyone there, if they weren’t crying on the outside were weeping on the inside.

“Your conversation can be recorded.” The officer told her. “Number five. No hands on the glass.”

Jeannie nodded and dabbed with a wadded tissue at her nostrils where her nose ring was reattached.

Anderson arrived with the next large batch of inmates, all dressed in their tan-colored prison issues. All were shackled. However, Anderson this time didn’t have the extra box affixed over his handcuffs and could actually move his hands some. He adjusted the elastic waistband on his bottoms as he sat down on the other side of the Plexiglas.

Jeannie sat down on the bolted-to-the-floor stool at position “5” opposite him.

They stared at each other for a long moment.

He looked contrite.

She looked like she’d been up all night.

Neither of them knew how to start the conversation.

Jeannie fought back more tears, sat up on the edge of the stool to speak into the small round microphone that was set in the cloudy, foggy, snot-smeared glass, made murky from eons of spit and exhaled breath. She was going to brace her trembling hand on the glass but remembered that was forbidden.

Anderson spoke first so she could compose herself.

“How are you?” He asked, leaning forward and shouting to be heard over the din.

“I’m fine. Just great. Couldn’t be better.” Jeannie answered loudly, airily.

“You look good.”

“Yeah, right, thanks.”

“It’s good to see you, but you shouldn’t be here.”

“Well, this is the first and last time I’m coming.”

“That’s alright.” Anderson assured her, and raised his voice even more to make sure she could make out his next statement. “I don’t want you hurt in any way.”

“I’m not in any pain. Do I look like I’m in pain?” Jeannie declared, dabbing now at her sad, tired eyes. “I’m not going to kill myself over you or anybody.”

“I didn’t mean-” Anderson cried out with some alarm.

“Damn cold.” Jeannie lied trying to cover up her increasing panic as she wiped her runny nose with the back of her hand. “Did you do it?!!” She asked pointedly, distraught, then remembered. “No, don’t answer! Who cares, right?” She threw a look at the correction officer closest to her. “I know they record everything. That’s so stupid of me, saying that! I don’t want to get you into any more trouble than you’re in!”

Jeannie reached in and took out some over-the-counter cough medicine from the pocket of her jeans.

“They didn’t make me check this, thank God.” She said as she popped out the last three liquid-filled cough gel caps from the 12-count blister pack and tossed them in her mouth, chewing them up. “I used to take antihistamines but now I just take this cough stuff. I’ve had shots for most everything. I’m allergic to cat hair, dog hair, dust. See, you don’t know everything about me!”

The active drug ingredient in the cough medicine was dextromethorphan, which acts as a dissociative hallucinogen. The intoxicating “high” recreational users of the drug achieve ranged from confusion and dizziness to rapid heartbeat and euphoric, psychedelic “out-of-body” experiences. The “dissociation” trippers experience has been said to help victims of physical, psychological and sexual abuse find relief. Some addicts say you need 60 mg to get you buzzing. Each gel cap Jeannie just pooped was 15 mg. Who knows how many she had before she got there. Whatever she took, her manner was increasingly edgy.

Jeannie tapped the empty blister pack against her thigh and shot looks at the other visitors around her with their tense, heartbroken faces: people who had probably been doing this for a long time.

“If you get convicted of what they’re saying you did…” Jeannie asked rat-a-tat. “…how long…” She couldn’t keep it together anymore, the floodgates burst forth and she wept openly.

“This has nothing to do with you!” Anderson insisted, leaning as close to the glass as he could get.

Jeannie sniffed, dabbing at her nose again with the tissue as she started anxiously peeling apart the blister pack packaging.

“I should have known! You used me all along, didn’t you?” She asked accusingly, staring down into her lap, fidgeting with the individual blister pack casings. “I knew when we made love that it was too easy.” Jeannie angrily continued, dragging the serrated edge of the ripped foil pack casings along the skin on her forearm as she spoke. “You had no guilt! You didn’t mention your wife! It wasn’t difficult for you!”

“You should move away!” Anderson pleaded with her, having to watch helplessly as she kept on digging the foil edge into her forearm.

“Why should I move away?” Jeannie asked with a shrug. “I’m finally happy. I decided I’m going to be happy now. Not tomorrow. Not in a year, but now. I’m responsible for my own happiness. I don’t need anybody… Did you like me even a little?”

“More than that.” Anderson said, shooting glances around to see if anyone else was looking at them, or more particularly, Jeannie. He knew if he notified a guard about what she was doing they might make her go to the hospital. He didn’t know if that would help or hurt her. Everything was happening so fast and the clamor only added to the confusion.

“I don’t believe you.” Jeannie defiantly challenged him, shaking her head ruefully. “I must have been a horrible person in some past life. Only a bad person can be this unlucky. I’ve always done what everybody told me to do. I’m tired of trying to pleas-s-s-e e-v-v-very-y-b-b-b-o-d-d-d-y.”

She was really digging into her forearm now with the hard cardboard packaging and the foil pressed together, drawing significant blood.

“Jeannie!” Anderson hissed but it was really a shout.

“You think you can use me because I don’t talk right.” Jeannie continued, still rapidly raking her arm with the foil. “I talk like trash. I’m stupid. I don’t count? Well, I’m not some piece of meat! I deserve good things… I thought you cared about me… Why do I always have to be left behind? I’m not a bad person! There has to be redemption! I’m good! I’m good!”

Jeannie shaken, stumbled out of the booth and raced away.

Anderson stared after her. He sagged on his seat. Chained. Powerless.

The mental health unit at Cook County Jail that Anderson was placed in had its positives and negatives. On the positive side it was protective custody, so Anderson had a cell to himself. It also had a view of South California Avenue. Negatively, he was on lockdown 23 hours a day. Moreover, he had been placed on “suicide watch”, again for his own “protection”, but really it was to squeeze him psychologically. This meant he was under nearly continual observation. By law, inmates have to be looked in on every 30 minutes. Suicide Watch meant Anderson was bothered at least 4 times an hour. Usually more.

Anderson could hear the approaching footsteps of a jailhouse guard. He hoped they would spread out the frequency of their rounds since it was just past lights out. It had been only 5 minutes since he was last “checked.”

The guard sauntered up and stopped in front of the bars of Anderson’s cell and gazed in silently at Anderson who was lying back on his bunk staring at the ceiling. It was a good long moment the guard stood there and Anderson felt increasingly annoyed.
Hell!
Anderson privately seethed, he was exposed enough in the virtually empty padded room where he had to wear a paper-thin gown and sleep on a bed without sheets because too many inmates had hung themselves with their linens over the years. Luckily, the ward was kept warm and temperatures were rising outside but now this virtual round-the-clock abuse coupled with the increasing volume of the haunting gospel-like music they were playing was tantamount to torture.
Give it a fucking break!
Even Anderson began to wonder, with enough sleep deprivation could he be brought to a breaking point where he would admit to anything as long as it stopped the torment?

Anderson looked over at the guard who was normally an impassive bull of a man but right now had a weird, cryptic, pursed-lip look on his face.

“You’ve become quite a media star.” The guard finally grumbled hoarsely.

“Yeah, thanks.” Anderson answered bitterly. “Do me a favor, why don’t you turn that music off.”

“Why don’t you?” The guard snapped in reply, gesturing with a nod to the window.

Anderson, puzzled, got up and looked out his barred window, standing on his tiptoes to see through the 6-inch transom crack in the glazed, wire-meshed glass. What he saw amazed him.

The music Anderson was hearing was coming from a crowd of people, maybe a hundred or more, gathered on the street below. They were singing a hymn backed up by a boombox. Most held candles. Many held hands. Those that didn’t clapped and helped keep time.

Some people held posters, what looked like signs of support but they were too hard for Anderson to read from this distance. At first, Anderson didn’t believe they were there for him, but then two women holding the ends of a large rectangular piece of white cloth moved under the light of a street lamp and he could clearly make out the message written upon it with spray-paint: “We Believe in Noel.”

It was also too dark now for Anderson to see the news trucks that were parked in the shadows but he could see the various TV teams “going live” with on-the-scene reports.

Anderson groped the tapered edge of his cell window to boost himself higher on his toes and get a better look at the crowd.

The guard walked away.

Anderson soon sagged, dropping back against his cell wall, tears welling in his eyes as the singing outside continued unabated into the warm spring night.

CHAPTER 36

         R
ave hadn’t been open long for the day when Derek walked in shortly after noon for the limited Sunday store hours that stretched until 5 o’clock. A vintage rock tune blared from the store’s speaker system. Derek wore a baseball cap pulled low to conceal his identity and had sunglasses on even though it was an overcast morning.

Derek looked around the store as Lyndsey finished setting up her cash drawer at the register.

“Help you find something?” Lyndsey chirped brightly in greeting.

“Just lookin’ for somethin’, for my girlfriend.” Derek answered, almost snarling.

“Let me know if you need any help.” Lyndsey offered as Derek moved away from her. She thought he was really creepy but then she had seen a lot of sketchy creeps. She shrugged the encounter off.

Derek lingered at a rack, and gazed furtively over his sunglasses at Jeannie who was just arriving for work.

Jeannie secured the back door where she entered after parking her car in the rear parking lot. She was wearing fingerless Gothic-style gauntlet gloves now that extended over her wrists and forearms, hiding any evidence of self-injury or the “cutting” that she had done.

“Morning. Sorry.” Jeannie groaned as she clomped up behind Lyndsey and stuffed her handbag under the counter.

Derek sneered secretively, ran his tongue over his yellowed teeth. He could almost taste Jeannie. He continued to follow her movements as she settled in to her work routine but suddenly Derek sensed he too was being watched.

Derek caught a movement in his peripheral vision, and snapped his gaze outside where he saw this spindly, leather-clad punk-ass bitch of a dork gaping at him through the store window.

It was Jack Trax.

Derek locked on to the odd stranger with menacing purpose.

Trax immediately averted his stare, loitered momentarily and walked off.

Derek couldn’t figure out who this strange cat was who was watching him. He wondered if he was one of his former prison punks from the early days who recognized him and maybe wanted to go down memory lane. Whatever the motive, Derek was suspicious and was surely going to find out the reason for the dogging. Derek pulled his cap even lower and headed out of the store.

“Couldn’t find anything?” Lyndsey apologized perkily as Derek left. “Awww, better luck next time.”

Jeannie never gave Derek a look. She started helping another customer who had ambled into the store.

Outside, Derek stood on the sidewalk scanning and finally locked on Trax who was across the street now. Derek took down his sunglasses for a better look at this person who still was unfamiliar to him.

Trax, trying to act casual, glanced up to find Derek staring directly at him. A flash of fearful recognition passed over Trax’s face and he ducked quickly into a nearby coffee shop.