how many times she has rubbed her hand across her head,
rubbed it back and forth, rubbing off sweat or as a nervous
gesture. She is exhausted by now, but she can’t sit still, even at
the head of this awful room where she waits with the others.
The others are mostly black with bouffant hairdos and vinyl
miniskirts and bare shoulders and nearly bare chests. The
others wear heavy, shiny makeup and high-heeled shoes. A
Legal-Aid lawyer comes over to me, N has pointed me out:
don’t worry, he says, she will only do six months. I am like a
demon possessed. She will not have to go to that prison, not
this night, not ever, I will not have her there. Bail is set at $500
and there are two hours before she will arrive there, go through
the maze of jails and holding cells and end up there, to be
strip-searched and raped by hands, by speculums, by doctors,
by police, by prisoners. I am in a frenzy. Bail bondsmen galore:
I go to them one after another: I call up everyone for money: I
get her out: I take her home. I go to an old friend who helped
me when I was in jail: she calls a lawyer who used to be a
prosecutor: he demands $2, 000 but she won’t do six months,
she won’t do shit. All this happens before I give a thought to
A. He eventually gets two years. He protects her. He was a
friend. Let’s hear it for that sweet pimp. We have a lot of
money to raise: have to get back to business. Can’t afford to
be squeamish.
*
The boutique, it turns out, belonged to a former lover of his,
and
could have gotten away, she chatted with the police for a while
73
before they realized anything was wrong: but didn’t: wouldn’t
leave A there alone. He does two years, doesn’t implicate her
at all. We need money.
*
No more squeamishness about the streets. No more timidities.
*
Especially we try to borrow money, because we need it fast:
from old school chums: it brings rich women back near us:
near us: but we are too used, too disreputable now, for them
to want to be that close: they help a little: they eat while we
beg for coffee with hungry eyes: sometimes we get coffee. It is
bitter: school chums: rich school chums: keep N out of jail.
*
A is gone from this time on. We don’t raise bail for him. We
don’t go to court. We owe him. N is free. But we don’t think
about it now. We forget about him altogether.
We never sleep at the same time: one of us always has a knife.
We eat speed. We pick up tricks as fast as we can find them.
