“Alright,” she said.
“I’ll see you.” He leaned and kissed her forehead and then walked out.
She listened to him go, his light steps across the porch, then the sound of him driving away. She knew she should turn on the light but she didn’t want to, she was content just lying there like that in the dark, she could still smell his aftershave lotion in the room, feel where he’d touched her. It seemed the first time in weeks, no months, that she’d really felt hope.
2. Poe
His cell it was a very small place, a narrow rectangle, the front side was open but there were bars. Like a dog cage. A horizontal slit for a window, too small to squeeze through, he tried to figure out what direction it was, where he was facing in relation to the river and his mother’s trailer, to Lee’s bed or the couch on her porch. Except no. It would only depress him further, those things—they did not really exist for him anymore. He wondered if Lee would come to his trial, even that he couldn’t be sure of and Christ this thin mattress he couldn’t sleep, he didn’t even have a magazine, eventually his mind would turn in on itself. Inevitable as tides. A turning in. A padded cell, smearing himself with excrement.
He would make a belt for his pants. He sat up and after a minute he was able to tear a long strip from his bedsheet, thread it through the loops of his pants, it would be serviceable, a good belt, like a pirate. Then he was done and once more there was nothing to do.
It was noisy in the cellblock, the televisions were off but there was music playing from every direction, little radios, people banging on metal, conversations shouted across the cellblock, he listened to them they were completely pointless such as
It began to die down around midnight, though it might have been ten at night or three in the morning, he didn’t know. They’d taken his watch. Finally a small amount of morning light came in and he heard footsteps and keys jangling and then his door clicked open. He saw the face of another young CO, a young face with a sparse mustache, trying to look hard.
“They serve breakfast for an hour,” the guard told him. “If you wanna eat you better get your ass moving.”
He had forgotten he had been hungry all night and now he realized he had no idea where breakfast would be served. He knew better than to ask, he would have to find it himself He got up and dressed quickly. That was good making the belt last night, he thought, that was good preparation, from the cell next to him came the sound of a person noisily moving his bowels, it did not sound healthy. Everyone crapped basically in plain view, there was a small curtain you could draw but that was it.
Get to breakfast, he thought.
His cell was on the second floor, along a cement catwalk that ran down the length of the tier. There were steps at the end. It was high enough on the tier, fifteen or twenty feet maybe, you would not want to get thrown off. He wondered why they hadn’t put a bigger railing up. But then it was probably a help if they got rid of a convict that way, it was all about numbers, available spaces, for instance they had reopened the old prison near Pittsburgh, the one they had closed after they opened this one. They’d decided they wanted to lock up more people so they reopened the old prison and started to use it again, and now they had two.
Down on the main floor of the cellblock he followed the general direction of traffic. They were all looking at him but no one said anything, maybe it was too early for comments. In the wide main corridor the people poured in from the different cellblocks and there was a traffic jam of bodies, a backup. He stared straight ahead, up at the glaring fluorescent lights, he stared at the brightly polished linoleum, anywhere there was not a pair of eyes staring back. There was the smell of food and it was not good, it smelled like school lunches only worse.
He reached the cafeteria where it sounded like a riot had broken out, pandemonium was the word for it, whoever wasn’t shouting was talking in their loudest voice, hundreds of inmates, thousands maybe, and not a single guard. But there was no riot. It was business as usual. It was not a good place. It was a place you could get away with anything. He would have to find another spot to eat only it was not like that, there was not a prison restaurant where you could order a steak and have your booth.
There were long institutional tables with the benches attached, most likely so they could not be used as weapons. As for the room itself it was segregated by race, blacks in one area of the room, Hispanics in another, the voices of young men shouting over each other. The whites were visibly a minority, a quieter group, they appeared to be older as well.
In the white area three men were sitting alone at one end of a long table, they were clearly running things, they varied in size but they were all big men and equally sleeved with tattoos. One had a shaved head but a sort of open friendly look about him, another had a black watch cap pulled down to his eyes, the third had a blond pompadour he must have gotten up early to work on. Making a general survey, Poe figured fewer than half the people appeared unusually strong, the others were skinny or pudgy with stringy hair and unhealthy looks, meth- heads, your standard trailer trash. There were plenty of old men as well, just regular-looking old men, men of every age, really. Technically he was trailer trash himself, only he wasn’t. He guessed he would naturally fit in with the better half, the only problem being he had only a football tattoo on one pectoral, over his heart, and another tattoo of his player number on his calf, he wondered about that now, how that would look to the others, he had not known he was going to prison when he’d gotten them. A picture of a knife would have been a better choice, a smoking gun. Or, judging from the tattoos the shotcallers had, something that indicated white power, an eagle, the Nazi SS sign was popular, there was one of Adolf Hitler but you could only tell by the mustache, other than that it could have been anyone, it was one of the stupidest- looking tattoos he had ever seen and the guy would have it the rest of his life.
He picked up a tray and got in line, feeling at ease. He held out his tray and was served two pieces of white bread, eggs from a powder mix, sausage, and green Jell-O, he tried to move the tray to the side but they put the Jell-O right on top of his other food. He took a cup of orange Kool- Aid to wash it down.
Carrying his tray he worried someone might try to trip him but no one did, he found a seat in the white area, at the end of a table by himself. A thin shaggy- haired man smiled and made eye contact with him several times, one of the speed freaks, half his teeth were missing. Poe didn’t acknowledge him. A few others were sitting at the other end of the table, he nodded to the toughest-looking of the group but was ignored.
A black man about Poe’s age came and sat down next to him, he had short dreadlocks, sweatpants, flip- flops, and a torn T-shirt, he might have just come from a workout, he looked like someone you’d see in the gym. He didn’t seem worried about anything. He had crossed the invisible line that denoted the white area of the room so maybe there were exceptions, the three white shotcallers took note but continued their conversation as before.
“ ’Sup,” he said.
“What’s up,” said Poe.
“First day’s a bitch, huh?”
“It’s alright.”
“Dion,” he said. He held his fist out and Poe bumped it and introduced himself
“They probably got a freeze on your account so you won’t be able to get no commissary today, no deodorant, shampoo, toothpaste, anything like that.”
Poe immediately got the sense he was about to be hustled. “I don’t need that shit,” he said.
“You like being dirty, huh?”
Poe didn’t say anything.
