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Kitabı oku: «If Tomorrow Comes», sayfa 4
Chapter Five
A stocky, stony-faced matron with sable-brown dyed hair was addressing the new arrivals: ‘Some of you are gonna be here for a long, long time. There’s only one way you’re gonna make it, and that’s by forgettin’ all about the outside world. You can do your time the easy way or the hard way. We have rules here, and you’ll follow those rules. We’ll tell you when to get up, when to work, when to eat, and when to go to the toilet. You break any of our rules, and you’ll wish you was dead. We like to keep things peaceful here, and we know how to handle troublemakers.’ Her eyes flicked over to Tracy. ‘You’ll be taken for your physical examinations now. After that you’ll go to the showers and be assigned your cells. In the mornin’ you’ll receive your work duties. That’s all.’ She started to turn away.
A pale young girl standing next to Tracy said, ‘Excuse me, please, could –’
The matron whirled around, her face filled with fury. ‘Shut your fuckin’ mouth. You speak only when you’re spoken to, do you understand? That goes for all you assholes.’
The tone, as much as the words, was a shock to Tracy. The matron signalled to two women guards at the back of the room. ‘Get these no-good bitches out of here.’
Tracy found herself being herded out of the room with the others, down a long corridor. The prisoners were marched into a large, white-tiled room, where a fat, middle-aged man in a soiled smock stood next to an examination table.
One of the matrons called out, ‘Line up’, and formed the women into one long line.
The man in the smock said, ‘I’m Dr Glasco, ladies. Strip!’
The women turned to look at one another, uncertainly. One of them said, ‘How far should we –?’
‘Don’t you know what the hell strip means? Get your clothes off – all of them.’
Slowly, the women began to undress. Some of them were self-conscious, some outraged, some indifferent. On Tracy’s left was a woman in her late forties, shivering violently, and on Tracy’s right was a pathetically thin girl who looked to be no more than seventeen years old. Her skin was covered with acne.
The doctor gestured to the first woman in line. ‘Lie down on the table and put your feet in the stirrups.’
The woman hesitated.
‘Come on. You’re holding up the line.’
She did as she was told. The doctor inserted a speculum into her vagina. As he probed, he asked, ‘Do you have a venereal disease?’
‘No.’
‘We’ll soon find out about that.’
The next woman replaced her on the table. As the doctor started to insert the same speculum into her, Tracy cried out, ‘Wait a minute!’
The doctor stopped and looked up in surprise. ‘What?’
Everyone was staring at Tracy. She said, ‘I … you didn’t sterilize that instrument.’
Dr Glasco gave Tracy a slow, cold smile. ‘Well! We have a gynaecologist in the house. You’re worried about germs, are you? Move down to the end of the line.’
‘What?’
‘Don’t you understand English? Move down.’
Tracy, not understanding why, took her place at the end of the line.
‘Now, if you don’t mind,’ the doctor said, ‘we’ll continue.’ He inserted the speculum into the woman on the table, and Tracy suddenly realized why she was the last in line. He was going to examine all of them with the same unsterilized speculum, and she would be the last one on whom he used it. She could feel an anger boiling up inside her. He could have examined them separately, instead of deliberately stripping away their dignity. And they were letting him get away with it. If they all protested – It was her turn.
‘On the table, Ms Doctor.’
Tracy hesitated, but she had no choice. She climbed up on the table and closed her eyes. She could feel him spread her legs apart, and then the cold speculum was inside her, probing and pushing and hurting. Deliberately hurting. She gritted her teeth.
‘You got syphilis or gonorrhoea?’ the doctor asked.
‘No.’ She was not going to tell him about the baby. Not this monster. She would discuss that with the warden.
She felt the speculum being roughly pulled out of her. Dr Glasco was putting on a pair of rubber gloves. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Line up and bend over. We’re going to check your pretty little asses.’
Before she could stop herself, Tracy said, ‘Why are you doing this?’
Dr Glasco stared at her. ‘I’ll tell you why, Doctor. Because assholes are great hiding places. I have a whole collection of marijuana and cocaine that I got from ladies like you. Now bend over.’ And he went down the line, plunging fingers into anus after anus. Tracy was sickened. She could feel the hot bile rise in her throat and she began to gag.
‘You vomit in here, and I’ll rub your face in it.’ He turned to the guards. ‘Get them to the showers. They stink.’
Carrying their clothes, the naked prisoners were marched down another corridor to a large concrete room with a dozen open shower stalls.
‘Lay your clothes in the corner,’ a matron ordered. ‘And get into the showers. Use the disinfectant soap. Wash every part of your body from head to toe, and shampoo your hair.’
Tracy stepped from the rough cement floor into the shower. The spray of water was cold. She scrubbed herself hard, thinking, I’ll never be clean again. What kind of people are these? How can they treat other human beings in this way? I can’t stand fifteen years of this.
A guard called out to her, ‘Hey, you! Time’s up. Get out.’
Tracy stepped out of the shower, and another prisoner took her place. Tracy was handed a thin, worn towel and half dried her body.
When the last of the prisoners had showered, they were marched to a large supply room where there were shelves of clothes guarded by a Latino inmate who sized up each prisoner and handed out grey uniforms. Tracy and the others were issued two uniform dresses, two pairs of panties, two brassieres, two pairs of shoes, two nightgowns, a sanitary belt, a hairbrush, and a laundry bag. The matrons stood watching while the prisoners dressed. When they had finished, they were herded to a room where a trusty operated a large portrait camera set on a tripod.
‘Stand over there against the wall.’
Tracy moved over to the wall.
‘Full face.’
She stared at the camera. Click.
‘Turn your head to the right.’
She obeyed. Click.
‘Left.’ Click. ‘Over to the table.’
The table had fingerprint equipment on it. Tracy’s fingers were rolled across an inky pad, then pressed onto a white card.
‘Left hand. Right hand. Wipe your hands with that rag. You’re finished.’
She’s right, Tracy thought numbly. I’m finished. I’m a number. Nameless, faceless.
A guard pointed to Tracy. ‘Whitney? Warden wants to see you. Follow me.’
Tracy’s heart suddenly soared. Charles had done something after all! Of course he had not abandoned her, any more than she ever could have abandoned him. It was the sudden shock that had made him behave the way he had. He had had time to think it over now and to realize he still loved her. He had talked to the warden and explained the terrible mistake that had been made. She was going to be set free.
She was marched down a different corridor, through two sets of heavily barred doors manned by male and female guards. As Tracy was admitted through the second door, she was almost knocked down by a prisoner. She was a giant, the biggest woman Tracy had ever seen – well over six feet tall, she must have weighed over twenty stone. She had a flat, pockmarked face, with feral yellow eyes. She grabbed Tracy’s arm to steady her and pressed her arm against Tracy’s breasts.
‘Hey!’ the woman said to the guard. ‘We got a new fish. How ‘bout you put her in with me?’ She had a heavy Swedish accent.
‘Sorry. She’s already been assigned, Bertha.’
The amazon stroked Tracy’s face. Tracy jerked away, and the giant woman laughed. ‘It’s okay, littbarn. Big Bertha will see you later. We got plenty of time. You ain’t goin’ nowhere.’
They reached the warden’s office. Tracy was faint with anticipation. Would Charles be there? Or would he have sent his attorney?
The warden’s secretary nodded to the guard, ‘He’s expecting her. Wait here.’
Warden George Brannigan was seated at a scarred desk, studying some papers in front of him. He was in his mid-forties, a thin, careworn-looking man, with a sensitive face and deep-set hazel eyes.
Warden Brannigan had been in charge of the Southern Louisiana Penitentiary for Women for five years. He had arrived with the background of a modern penologist and the zeal of an idealist, determined to make sweeping reforms in the prison. But it had defeated him, as it had defeated others before him.
The prison originally had been built to accommodate two inmates to a cell, and now each cell held as many as four to six prisoners. He knew that the same situation applied everywhere. The country’s prisons were all overcrowded and understaffed. Thousands of criminals were penned up day and night with nothing to do but nurse their hatred and plot their vengeance. It was a stupid, brutal system, but it was all there was.
He buzzed his secretary. ‘All right. Send her in.’
The guard opened the door to the inner office, and Tracy stepped inside.
Warden Brannigan looked up at the woman standing before him. Dressed in the drab prison uniform, her face bruised with fatigue, Tracy Whitney still looked beautiful. She had a lovely, candid face, and Warden Brannigan wondered how long it would remain that way. He was particularly interested in this prisoner because he had read about her case in the newspapers and had studied her record. She was a first offender, had not killed anyone, and fifteen years was an inordinately harsh sentence. The fact that Joseph Romano was her accuser made her conviction all the more suspect. But the warden was simply the custodian of bodies. He could not buck the system. He was the system.
‘Please have a seat,’ he said.
Tracy was glad to sit down. Her knees were weak. He was going to tell her now about Charles, and how soon she would be released.
‘I’ve been looking over your record,’ the warden began.
Charles would have asked him to do that.
‘I see you’re going to be with us a long time. Your sentence is fifteen years.’
It took a moment for his words to sink in. Something was dreadfully wrong. ‘Didn’t – didn’t you speak to – to Charles?’ In her nervousness she was stammering.
He looked at her blankly. ‘Charles?’
And she knew. Her stomach turned to water. ‘Please,’ she said. ‘Please listen to me. I’m innocent. I don’t belong here.’
How many times had he heard that? A hundred? A thousand? I’m innocent.
He said, ‘The courts have found you guilty. The best advice I can give you is to try to do easy time. Once you accept the terms of your imprisonment, it will be a lot easier for you. There are no clocks in prison, only calendars.’
I can’t be locked up here for fifteen years, Tracy thought in despair. I want to die. Please, God, let me die. But I can’t die, can I? I would be killing my baby. It’s your baby, too, Charles. Why aren’t you here helping me? That was the moment she began to hate him.
‘If you have any special problems,’ Warden Brannigan said, ‘I mean, if I can help you in any way, I want you to come and see me.’ Even as he spoke, he knew how hollow his words were. She was young and beautiful and fresh. The bull-dykes in the prison would fall on her like animals. There was not even a safe cell to which he could assign her. Nearly every cell was controlled by a stud. Warden Brannigan had heard rumours of rapes in the showers, in the toilets, and in the corridors at night. But they were only rumours, because the victims were always silent afterwards. Or dead.
Warden Brannigan said gently, ‘With good behaviour, you might be released in twelve or –’
‘No!’ It was a cry of black despair, of desperation. Tracy felt the walls of the office closing in on her. She was on her feet, screaming. The guard came hurrying in and grabbed Tracy’s arms.
‘Easy,’ Warden Brannigan commanded him.
He sat there, helpless, and watched as Tracy was led away.
She was taken down a series of corridors past cells filled with inmates of every description. They were black and white and brown and yellow. They stared at Tracy as she passed and called out to her in a dozen accents. Their cries made no sense to Tracy.
‘Fish night …’
‘French mate …’
‘Fresh mite …’
‘Flesh meet …’
It was not until Tracy reached her cell block that she realized what the women were chanting: ‘Fresh meat’.
Chapter Six
There were sixty women in Cell Block C, four to a cell. Faces peered out from behind bars as Tracy was marched down the long, smelly corridor, and the expressions varied from indifference to lust to hatred. She was walking underwater in some strange, unknown land, an alien in a slowly unfolding dream. Her throat was raw from the screaming inside her trapped body. The summons to the warden’s office had been her last faint hope. Now there was nothing. Nothing except the mind-numbing prospect of being caged in this purgatory for the next fifteen years.
The matron opened a cell door. ‘Inside!’
Tracy blinked and looked around. In the cell were three women, silently watching her.
‘Move,’ the matron ordered.
Tracy hesitated, then stepped into the cell. She heard the door slam behind her.
She was home.
The cramped cell barely held four bunks, a little table with a cracked mirror over it, four small lockers, and a seatless toilet in the far corner.
Her cell mates were staring at her. The Puerto Rican woman broke the silence. ‘Looks like we got ourselves a new cellie.’ Her voice was deep and throaty. She would have been beautiful if it had not been for a livid knife scar that ran from her temple to her throat. She appeared to be no older than fourteen, until you looked into her eyes.
A squat, middle-aged Mexican woman said, ‘Que suerte verte! Nice to see you. What they got you in for, querida?’
Tracy was too paralysed to answer.
The third woman was black. She was almost six feet tall, with narrow, watchful eyes and a cold, hard mask of a face.
Her head was shaved and her skull shone blue-black in the dim light. ‘Tha’s your bunk over in the corner.’
Tracy walked over to the bunk. The mattress was filthy, stained with the excreta of God only knew how many previous occupants. She could not bring herself to touch it. Involuntarily, she voiced her revulsion. ‘I – I can’t sleep on this mattress.’
The fat Mexican woman grinned. ‘You don’t have to, honey. Hay tiempo. You can sleep on mine.’
Tracy suddenly became aware of the undercurrents in the cell, and they hit her with a physical force. The three women were watching her, staring, making her feel naked. Fresh meat. She was suddenly terrified. I’m wrong, Tracy thought. Oh, please let me be wrong.
She found her voice. ‘Who – who do I see about getting a clean mattress?’
‘God,’ the black woman grunted. ‘But he ain’t been around here lately.’
Tracy turned to look at the mattress again. Several large black roaches were crawling across it. I can’t stay in this place, Tracy thought. I’ll go insane.
As though reading her mind, the black woman told her, ‘You go with the flow, baby.’
Tracy heard the warden’s voice. The best advice I can give you is to try to do easy time …
The black woman continued. ‘I’m Ernestine Littlechap.’ She nodded towards the woman with the long scar. ‘Tha’s Lola. She’s from Puerto Rico, and fatso here is Paulita, from Mexico. Who are you?’
‘I’m – I’m Tracy Whitney.’ She had almost said, ‘I was Tracy Whitney.’ She had the nightmarish feeling that her identity was slipping away. A spasm of nausea swept through her, and she gripped the edge of the bunk to steady herself.
‘Where you come from, honey?’ the fat woman asked.
‘I’m sorry, I – I don’t feel like talking.’ She suddenly felt too weak to stand. She slumped down on the edge of the filthy bunk and wiped the beads of cold perspiration from her face with her skirt. My baby, she thought. I should have told the warden I’m going to have a baby. He’ll move me into a clean cell. Perhaps they’ll even let me have a cell to myself.
She heard footsteps coming down the corridor. A matron was walking past the cell. Tracy hurried to the cell door. ‘Excuse me,’ she said, ‘I have to see the warden. I’m –’
‘I’ll send him right down,’ the matron said over her shoulder.
‘You don’t understand. I’m –’
The matron was gone.
Tracy crammed her knuckles in her mouth to keep from screaming.
‘You sick or somethin’, honey?’ the Puerto Rican asked.
Tracy shook her head, unable to speak. She walked back to the bunk, looked at it a moment, then slowly lay down on it. It was an act of hopelessness, an act of surrender. She closed her eyes.
Her tenth birthday was the most exciting day of her life. We’re going to Antoine’s for dinner, her father announced.
Antoine’s! It was a name that conjured up another world, a world of beauty and glamour and wealth. Tracy knew that her father did not have much money: We’ll be able to afford a vacation next year, was the constant refrain in the house. And now they were going to Antoine’s! Tracy’s mother dressed her in a new green frock.
Just look at you two, her father boasted. I’m with the two prettiest women in New Orleans. Everyone’s going to be jealous of me.
Antoine’s was everything Tracy had dreamed it would be, and more. So much more. It was a fairyland, elegant and tastefully decorated, with white napery and gleaming silver-and-gold monogrammed dishes. It’s a palace, Tracy thought. I’ll bet kings and queens come here. She was too excited to eat, too busy staring at all the beautifully dressed men and women. When I’m grown up, Tracy promised herself, I’m going to come to Antoine’s every night, and I’ll bring my mother and father with me.
You’re not eating, Tracy, her mother said.
And to please her, Tracy forced herself to eat a few mouthfuls. There was a cake for her, with ten candles on it, and the waiters sang Happy Birthday and the other guests turned and applauded, and Tracy felt like a princess. Outside she could hear the clang of a street-car bell as it passed.
The clanging of the bell was loud and insistent.
‘Suppertime,’ Ernestine Littlechap announced.
Tracy opened her eyes. Cell doors were slamming open throughout the cell block. Tracy lay on her bunk, trying desperately to hang on to the past.
‘Hey! Chow time,’ the young Puerto Rican said.
The thought of food sickened her. ‘I’m not hungry.’
Paulita, the fat Mexican woman spoke. ‘Es llano. It’s simple. They don’ care if you’re hungry or not. Everybody gotta go to mess.’
Inmates were lining up in the corridor outside.
‘You better move it, or they’ll have your ass,’ Ernestine warned.
I can’t move, Tracy thought. I’ll stay here.
Her cell mates left the cell and lined up in a double file. A short, squat matron with peroxided-blonde hair saw Tracy lying on her bunk. ‘You!’ she said. ‘Didn’t you hear the bell! Get out here.’
Tracy said, ‘I’m not hungry, thank you. I’d like to be excused.’
The matron’s eyes widened in disbelief. She stormed inside the cell and strode over to where Tracy lay. ‘Who the fuck do you think you are? You waitin’ for room service? Get your ass in that line. I could put you on report for this. If it happens again, you go to the bing. Understand?’
She did not understand. She did not understand anything that was happening to her. She dragged herself from the bunk and walked out into the line of women. She was standing next to the black woman. ‘Why do I –?’
‘Shut up!’ Ernestine Littlechap growled out of the corner of her mouth. ‘No talkin’ in line.’
The women were marched down a narrow, cheerless corridor past two sets of security doors, into an enormous mess hall filled with large wooden tables and chairs. There was a long serving counter with steam tables, where prisoners lined up for their food. The menu of the day consisted of a watery tuna casserole, limp green beans, a pale custard, and a choice of weak coffee or a synthetic fruit drink. Ladles of the unappetizing-looking food were thrown into the tin plates of the prisoners as they moved along the line, and the inmates who were serving behind the counter kept up a steady cry: ‘Keep the line moving. Next … keep the line moving. Next …’
When Tracy was served, she stood there uncertainly, not sure where to go. She looked around for Ernestine Littlechap, but the black woman had disappeared. Tracy walked over to a table where Lola and Paulita, the fat Mexican woman, were seated. There were twenty women at the table, hungrily wolfing down their food. Tracy looked down at what was on her plate, then pushed it away, as the bile rose and welled in her throat.
Paulita reached over and grabbed the plate from Tracy. ‘If you ain’t gonna eat that, I’ll take it.’
Lola said, ‘Hey, you gotta eat, or you won’t last here.’
I don’t want to last, Tracy thought hopelessly. I want to die. How could these women tolerate living like this? How long had they been here? Months? Years? She thought of the foetid cell and her verminous mattress, and she wanted to scream. She clenched her jaw shut so that no sound would come out.
The Mexican woman was saying, ‘If they catch you not eatin’, you go to the bing.’ She saw the uncomprehending look on Tracy’s face. ‘The hole – solitary. You wouldn’t like it.’ She leaned forward. ‘This is your first time in the joint, huh? Well, I’m gonna give you a tip, querida. Ernestine Littlechap runs this place. Be nice to her an’ you got it made.’
Thirty minutes from the time the women had entered the room, a loud bell sounded and the women stood up. Paulita snatched a lone green bean from a plate next to her. Tracy joined her in the line, and the women began the march back to their cells. Supper was over. It was four o’clock in the afternoon – five long hours to endure before lights out.
When Tracy returned to the cell, Ernestine Littlechap was already there. Tracy wondered incuriously where she had been at dinnertime. Tracy looked at the toilet in the corner. She desperately needed to use it, but she could not bring herself to do so in front of these women. She would wait until lights went out. She sat down on the edge of her bunk.
Ernestine Littlechap said, ‘I understan’ you didn’t eat none of your supper. Tha’s stupid.’
How could she have known that? And why should she care? ‘How do I see the warden?’
‘You put in a written request. The guards use it for toilet paper. They figure any cunt who wants to see the warden is a troublemaker.’ She walked over to Tracy. ‘There’s lotsa things kin get you in trouble here. What you need is a friend who kin he’p keep you outta trouble.’ She smiled, showing a gold front tooth. Her voice was soft. ‘Someone who knows their way around the zoo.’
Tracy looked up into the black woman’s grinning face. It seemed to be floating somewhere near the ceiling.
It was the tallest thing she had ever seen.
That’s a giraffe, her father said.
They were at the zoo in Audubon Park. Tracy loved the park. On Sundays they went there to listen to the band concerts, and afterwards her mother and father took her to the aquarium or the zoo. They walked slowly, looking at the animals in their cages.
Don’t they hate being locked up, Papa?
Her father laughed. No, Tracy. They have a wonderful life. They’re taken care of and fed, and their enemies can’t get at them.
They looked unhappy to Tracy. She wanted to open their cages and let them out. I wouldn’t ever want to be locked up like that, Tracy thought.
At 8:45 the warning bells rang throughout the prison. Tracy’s cell mates began to undress. Tracy did not move.
Lola said, ‘You got fifteen minutes to get ready for bed.’
The women had stripped and put on nightgowns. The peroxided-blonde matron passed the cell. She stopped when she saw Tracy lying on her cot.
‘Get undressed,’ she ordered. She turned to Ernestine. ‘Didn’t you tell her?’
‘Yeah. We tol’ her.’
The matron turned back to Tracy. ‘We got a way of takin’ care of troublemakers,’ she warned. ‘You do what you’re told here, or I’ll bust your ass.’ The matron moved down the hall.
Paulita cautioned, ‘You better listen to her, baby. Old Iron Pants is one mean bitch.’
Slowly, Tracy rose and began to undress, keeping her back to the others. She took off all her clothes, with the exception of her panties, and slipped the coarse nightgown over her head. She felt the eyes of the other women on her.
‘You got a real nice body,’ Paulita commented.
‘Yeah, real nice,’ Lola echoed.
Tracy felt a shiver go through her.
Ernestine moved over to Tracy and looked down at her. ‘We’re your friends. We gonna take good care of you.’ Her voice was hoarse with excitement.
Tracy wildly jerked around. ‘Leave me alone! All of you. I’m – I’m not that way.’
The black woman chuckled. ‘You’ll be any way we want you to be, baby.’
‘Hay tiempo. There’s plenty of time.’
The lights went out.
The dark was Tracy’s enemy. She sat on the edge of her bunk, her body tense. She could sense the others waiting to pounce on her. Or was it her imagination? She was so overwrought that everything seemed to be a threat. Had they threatened her? Not really. They were probably just trying to be friendly, and she had read sinister implications into their overtures. She had heard about homosexual activity in prisons, but that had to be the exception rather than the rule. A prison would not permit that sort of behaviour.
Still, there was a nagging doubt. She decided she would stay awake all night. If one of them made a move, she would call for help. It was the responsibility of the guards to see that nothing happened to the inmates. She reassured herself that there was nothing to worry about. She would just have to stay alert.
Tracy sat on the edge of her bunk in the dark, listening to every sound. One by one she heard the three women go to the toilet, use it, and return to their bunks. When Tracy could stand it no longer, she made her way to the toilet. She tried to flush it, but it did not work. The stench was almost unbearable. She hurried back to her cot and sat there. It will be light soon, she thought. In the morning I’ll ask to see the warden. I’ll tell him about the baby. He’ll have me moved to another cell.
Tracy’s body was tense and cramped. She lay back on her bunk and within seconds felt something crawling across her neck. She stifled a scream. I’ve got to stand it until morning. Everything will be all right in the morning, Tracy thought. One minute at a time.
At 3:00 she could no longer keep her eyes open. She slept.
She was awakened by a hand clamped across her mouth and two hands grabbing at her breasts. She tried to sit up and scream, and she felt her nightgown and underpants being ripped away. Hands slid between her thighs, forcing her legs apart. Tracy fought savagely, struggling to rise.
‘Take it easy,’ a voice in the dark whispered, ‘and you won’t get hurt.’
Tracy lashed out at the voice with her feet. She connected with solid flesh.
‘Carajo! Give it to the bitch,’ the voice gasped. ‘Get her on the floor.’
A hard fist smashed into Tracy’s face and another into her stomach. Someone was on top of her, holding her down, smothering her, while obscene hands violated her.
Tracy broke loose for an instant, but one of the women grabbed her and slammed her head against the bars. She felt the blood spurt from her nose. She was thrown to the concrete floor, and her hands and legs were pinned down. Tracy fought like a mad-woman, but she was no match for the three of them. She felt cold hands and hot tongues caressing her body. Her legs were spread apart and a hard, cold object was shoved inside her. She writhed helplessly, desperately trying to call out. An arm moved across her mouth, and Tracy sank her teeth into it, biting down with all her strength.
There was a muffled cry. ‘You cunt!’
Fists pounded her face … She sank into the pain, deeper and deeper, until finally she felt nothing.
It was the clanging of the bell that awakened her. She was lying on the cold cement floor of her cell, naked. Her three cell mates were in their bunks.
In the corridor, Iron Pants was calling, ‘Rise and shine’. As the matron passed the cell, she saw Tracy lying on the floor in a small pool of blood, her face battered and one eye swollen shut.
‘What the hell’s goin’ on here?’ She unlocked the door and stepped inside the cell.
‘She musta fell outta her bunk,’ Ernestine Littlechap offered.
The matron walked over to Tracy’s side and nudged her with her foot. ‘You! Get up.’
Tracy heard the voice from a far distance. Yes, she thought, I must get up; I must get out of here. But she was unable to move. Her body was screaming out with pain.
The matron grabbed Tracy’s elbows and pulled her to a sitting position, and Tracy almost fainted from the agony.
‘What happened?’
Through one eye Tracy saw the blurred outlines of her cell mates silently waiting for her to answer.
‘I – I –’ Tracy tried to speak, but no words would come out. She tried again, and some deep-seated atavistic instinct made her say, ‘I fell off my bunk …’
The matron snapped, ‘I hate smart asses. Let’s put you in the bing till you learn some respect.’
It was a form of oblivion, a return to the womb. She was alone in the dark. There was no furniture in the cramped basement cell, only a thin, worn mattress thrown on the cold cement floor. A noisome hole in the floor served as a toilet. Tracy lay there in the blackness, humming folk songs to herself that her father had taught her long ago. She had no idea how close she was to the edge of insanity.
