the water soothing, rinsing the blood from your abrasions, and you hear a voice murmur, 'Mmmmmm, you pretty all over.' You think fast, knowing what you'll see when you open your eyes.'
Debbie turned her head to one side and looked up, way up, as if gazing at someone at least seven feet tall.
' 'Hey, Rubella, how you doing, girl?' You want to keep reminding Rubella she's a girl. 'Girl, you feel like a cocktail? I've got some hairspray if you have the Seven-Up.' Or, 'You want me to fix your hair? Get me a dozen pairs of shoelaces and I'll make you some cool extensions.''
Debbie had been looking up with a hopeful smile. Now she turned to the room with a solemn expression.
'And if you can't think of a way to distract a three-hundred-pound sexual predator, you're fucked. Literally. Whatever way Rubella wants to perform the act.'
It was working and she felt more sure of herself, the audience laughing on cue, waiting for the next line.
'Actually, though, being molested or raped by some tough broad isn't as common as you might think. Girl prison movies like Hot Chicks in the Slammer, with inmates running around in these cute Victoria's Secret prison outfits? It isn't anything like that. No, in women's facilities chicks form family groups. The older ones, usually in for murder, are mothers… Really. There may be a father played by a dyke senior citizen. There are sisters and what pass for brothers.
And there are, of course, chicks with chicks. Hey, even in the joint love is in the air. What I did, whenever one of the chicks found me attractive, I'd go, 'Oh, hon, I hate to tell you this but I'm HIV positive.'
And it worked until this one grins at me and goes, 'I am, too, sweetie pie.' No, my most serious problem inside… What do you think it was?'
A male voice called out, 'The food.'
'The food's another story,' Debbie said, 'but not my number one complaint.'
Another male voice said, 'Standing in line.'
And Debbie smiled, one hand shading her eyes as she looked out at the audience. 'You've been there, haven't you? You know about standing in line. And what happens to anyone who tries to cut in? You can buy your way in, give someone in the canteen line a couple of cigarettes and she comes out and you take her place-that's okay. But if anyone tries to cut in…? Listen, since I'm home I do all my grocery shopping at two h.t., so I won't have to stand in line. If I happen to shop during the day, I never buy more items than the express checkout will take, like ten items or less. I watch the woman in front of me unloading her cart and I count the items. If she has more than ten? Even one more? I turn the bitch in. I do, I blow the whistle on her, demand they put her in a no-limit checkout line. I know my rights. Listen, even if the bitch picks up some Tic-Tacs or a pack of Juicy Fruit, and it puts her over ten items? She's out of there if I have to shove her out myself.'
Debbie had struck a defiant pose. She began to relax and then stiffened again.
'And if some guy in a hurry tries to step in front of me?… You know the kind. 'Mind if I go ahead of you? I just have this one item.'
A case of Rolling Rock under his arm. Do I mind? All he has to do is make the move I've got a razor blade off the rack ready to cut him… and I'm back with the ladies on another aggravated assault conviction.
Let me just say, you haven't waited in line till you've waited in line in prison. But even that wasn't the worst thing. To me, anyway.'
Debbie paused to look over the room and the audience waited.
'I should tell you, a number of my dorm mates were in for first- or second-degree murder. Brenda, LaDonna, Laquanda, Tanisha, Rubella you've met, Shanniqua, Tanniqua and Pam, two Kimberleys who went bad and a Bobbi Joe Lee, who played a couple of seasons with the Miami Dolphins till they found out she was a chick. There are ladies you don't want to mess with unless you're behind the wheel of a Buick Riviera, with the doors locked. So in the evening when it's time to turn on the TV? Guess who decides what we watch. Me? Or bigger-than-life Rubella. Me? Or the suburban housewife who shot her husband seven times and told the cops she thought he was a home invader.., coming in the back door with a sack of groceries, four in the afternoon?' Debbie paused. 'To me, the worst thing about prison was a sitcom the dorm ladies watched every evening on local cable TV. Guess what it was.'
8
DEBBIE CAME OUT TO THE lobby bar wearing jeans and a light raincoat, her prison dress and shoes in a canvas bag. She saw Fran waiting and was sure he'd say something about the set-nice going, anything. No, her first gig in more than three years and Fran goes, 'Here, I want you to meet my brother.'
The one turning from the bar with a drink in his hand, Fr. Terry Dunn, black Irish in a black wool parka, the hood hanging about his shoulders. Now she saw him as a friar, the beard, the gaunt face, giving him kind of a Saint Francis of Assisi look. He came right out with what she wanted to hear:
'You were terrific' with a nice smile--'really funny, and you made it look easy, the conversational style.'
'That either works,' Fran said, 'or it doesn't.' Fran serious about it. 'You have to have the personality and be naturally funny. You know what I mean? Not just recite punch lines.' He said, 'Debbie, this is my brother Terry.'
He held her gaze as they shook hands, still with the nice smile. She glanced at Fran and back to the priest.
'I don't have to call you Father?'
He said, 'I wouldn't.'
Now she didn't know what to say. How was Africa? But then wondered if they were there for the whole set. 'I didn't see you before I went on.'
'You'd just come out,' Fran said, 'giving your DOC number as we sat down, in back.'
Terry was nodding. 'You were about to run into your ex with the Buick.'
'The Buick Riviera,' Debbie said.
He smiled again. 'I wondered if you tried other makes. A Dodge Daytona?'
'That's not bad.'
'Cadillac El-doray-do?'
'Eldorado was on the list, but what'm I doing driving a Cadillac?
So
I went with the Riviera.'
'Yeah, that worked.'
Fran, antsy in his tweed sport coat, a sweater under it, said,
'We'll go someplace we can talk and get something to eat.' Debbie lit a cigarette, Terry holding her bag, while Fran told them he'd forget to eat with Mary Pat and the little girls in Florida.
'This guy'-meaning Terry-'all he eats is peanut butter since he got home. Eats it with a spoon.' That was something she could ask: why there wasn't any peanut butter in Africa. Fran led them out of the Comedy Castle, on Fourth in Royal Oak, and around the corner to Main, Fran telling his brother how he'd suggested she act nervous when she comes out, scared, so if the act doesn't exactly rock, the audience would still sympathize with her, like her spunk.
The palest said, 'Debbie doesn't need spunk. She's cool.' Surprising the hell out of her.
She hunched her shoulders saying, 'Actually I'm freezing,' almost adding, 'my ass off,' but didn't. The priest, huddled in his parka, said he was too. So then Fran had to tell them it wasn't cold, it was spring, forty-seven degrees out. Terry said, 'Oh, then I guess I'm not cold,' and she felt in that moment closer to him and knew that if she'd said, 'my ass off,' he still would've agreed, maybe given her the smile.
They got a table at Lepanto. Fran, still on, asked the waitress if they had banana beer, the only kind his brother here from Africa would drink Debbie wishing he'd please get off the fucking stage.
The waitress said with no expression, or showing any interest, 'We don't carry it,' and Debbie could've kissed her. Fran was out of it while she ordered an Absolut on the rocks, but then got back in when Terry said all he
