The light under my cell door flickered near the corner as I lay on the cold floor, trying to ignore the bruises and cuts. “If I catch that fishing line, it’s mine, inmate Fargo.”
“Pull it in! Pull it in!” Another inmate called, from the lower left of the tier, if I had my sense of direction right. It was hard to really know with the echoes, but I would pick it up in time if I were inside long enough.
After the attack by Queen, then by the goon squad, I’d been stripped to nothing, detoxed, and tossed in a cell to cool off. After the first day, they gave me a suicide prevention smock. After that, other than passing me a tray through the utility port, AKA the bean slot, they hadn’t really bothered to tell me anything.
You aren’t quick enough C/O!” someone screamed, but now the whole tier was whooping and beating on their doors with deck shoes, knuckles, or something. The officer abruptly stopped trying to catch the small triangle of paper that was being towed along on the string someone pulled from their mattress.
Fishing. It was a game and a business. A profession and the primary form of contraband exchange on the secure tier. From paper, the experienced inmate could fashion a dense triangle they used as a grapple, then with time they could work the stitching out of their security mattress and use it for the deed.
A good fisher could put the line out from under their door, down a top-tier walkway, down to the bottom floor. Another fisher could then send out some contraband on their line, and with some work they’d tangle the lines, allowing the contraband to be moved.
“OH! Intercepted! The Daughters are in the HOUSE!”
"She cut the line! She cut the line!"
Viewed from the right angle, it was art. One line would shoot out, another slamming into it to push it in the right direction. Or, like just then, someone could shoot out a pirate line and steal the cargo.
A cut line happened when someone either tangled their line and broke another's, or in some cases the girls would tear apart their safety razors and line two sides of the grapple. They were very effective, but if you got caught with one it could get your time in solitary.
“Fuck you! You east-side whore! That was just my practice weight, you got nothing,” someone yelled, but I wasn’t sure the tier was buying it. The collective jeered and teased, but other than listening while I lay there suffering, I wasn’t getting involved.
After a few minutes, the noise tapered off, and other than a few hushed conversations between cells. It was mostly silent. That was the way it was. A few minutes of ruckus insanity followed by hours of boredom. Sometimes at night, the C/Os would turn on the TV down in the foyer so we could watch, or so a little voice from the cell to the left of mine had told me.
If Mika has said one thing that made some sense, it was when she told me to stay in my cell and keep my mouth shut. That didn’t keep people from talking to me or trying to get a response, which Mary Teresa Cabalas was doing every few hours.
“The 8th Street Sisters are saying you kicked The Captive-Queen’s ass. They say you did it full hook-up,” The voice paused and I guessed she was waiting for a response, but I wasn’t in the mood to chat.
“That’s badass, Chica, seriously. But you didn’t make any friends, though. The East Side Daughters aren’t playing, though. They pissed you jumped the Captive Queen. They say you are some kind of cop. That true?” again the girl’s voice paused and I could hear her picking at the paint with her fingernail as she waited.
I didn’t bother to answer. I still didn’t know who was who, or what was what, and I was pretty sure I had a concussion.
“I don’t believe that, though. You were hooked up, as they said. We all saw you drug in here. The C/Os, you know, might break some bones, or give you a face full of Tabasco, but they don’t beat someone up so as the lawyers involved without a reason.”
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Another grapple slid past my door, a dope on a rope, just like me. What were they going to charge me with? How was all of this going to go down? With no information coming in, all I could do was dwell on t, and that was making my heart sink. It wasn’t like anyone would come looking for me, not really, anyway.
It had been days, maybe a week, and nothing. Mog and Cam were people I just met. Felix might try looking for me, but it wouldn’t be the first time I’d ghosted him. Henry Holliday, I wasn’t sure he wasn’t involved.
“Hey, new girl,” Mary Teresa whispered, but like normal I ignored her.
“Hey, I know you’re scared. It’s okay, you wouldn’t be human if you weren’t scared coming into this place. There are some bad bitches here. East Side Daughters are some of the worst. They weren’t always though,” I listened, and waited. This girl wanted to talk so I was going to let her jaw all day long if got me a little education.
Used to be the standard shit. East side and West side girls fight over contraband and secrets. But when the Captive Queen rolled in its things changed, but we knew it would, things are changing on the street. The shit is messed up, and none of it makes any sense.
I got people on the outside who say there is some new junk on the street. People are dying for it, but it’s more like moving merc, than selling product.”
That name got my attention, and slowly I pulled myself up against the cell wall. Mary Teresa must have heard me because she paused, then kept talking, taking my movement for the interest that it was.
“The Chort, that new Motorcycle club, took over the downs, totally wiped out the Red State Mafia, but that was after, the Captive Queen took over in here. Word is, join or die. Word is they already got the C/O’s in their pocket,” the footfalls of seeming moving down the tier passage made Mary fall silent, and I froze for some reason afraid to breathe.
A few minutes went by as the echo of the footsteps drifted away, before Mary Teresa spoke again, “Thing is, I don’t care if you’re a cop. None of mine do. If you aren’t just some fish who just got pulled in, if you are something real and fighting those fuckers, you aren’t alone. We know the Captive Queen isn’t right, none of this is right,” she paused again a very loud breath released like she decided something.
“Drugs being moved that nobody is using. Independent organizations suddenly going full loyalty to the Chort MC, it doesn’t make sense. Only the 8th Street Sisters are fighting back. But we were no one’s bitches, anyway. We didn’t spin off any group of man-child bikers, or lower rider man babies,” her voice rose as she spoke like she was repeating a call to war or something and suddenly she bellowed, “8TH STREET SISTERS!”
A call and return like nothing I’d ever heard before, “SOME BAD ASS BITCHES!” a chorus roared out. Shortly after another lower muddle return came, the rivals.
“Shut you skanks!”
“You’re badass at eating ass!”
“Quit on the tier!” A voice sounded over the intercom and after a few seconds, only the muttering and low-level complaining were still buzzing in the background.
Mary Teresa moved again, closer to the door or something because I could hear her clearer, though she was talking very low, “we don’t know what shit is going down, but you want some protection in here, you want your back covered, we got you, say the word and I’ll talk to some people.”
“Thanks, but I think they’ll be coming for me before you get a chance,” I said, breaking my silence.
“No one is coming, chica. Everyone thinks it’s all a bad dream. Everyone thinks a C/O will come and tell them there was a mistake. You got friends here, or you don’t,” she had moved back to the rear of her cell, her voice growing less distinct.
“Yeah, I don’t think that’s who is coming,” I lay there thinking until they collected the night meal trays, then I lay back down again until the tier lights went down, and with the fading light, my own hope dwindled as well. I’d not be lying to y’all if I said I wasn’t feeling low because I was. It was like some unnatural blanket had been tossed over my spirit and was pulling me down more and more.
For hours I lay on my back looking at the walls. The tier was quiet after lights out, but it wasn’t silent. Whispering conversations could be heard, but not made out. One, in particular, started to catch my attention, a low hissing voice that laughed deep in her throat in a way that gave her a devious sound.
“Hiss…ssscchh…hahaha…skiff…”
I rolled over and put my pillow over my head.
“Skkiifff…she’s coming for you….hahaha”
“What the hell?” I said too loudly and immediately the tier erupted in, “Shhhh!” sounds and muttered complaints.
“The lady comes for you.”
The voice said again this time, however, it sounded like it came from the cell to my left, “What did you say Mary Teresa?”
Crawling off my cot I tiptoed to the door and leaned down close to the bottom of the door, “Evil is just hatred, hate is just anger, anger is just pain. How much pain can you be put through before you’re just like us? Before you become evil?”
Something in that voice was cold, cold, and dead and it felt way too familiar. Not familiar like Mary Teresa, familiar like…a nightmare.