HALF FULL
In the bathroom, I crouch over the bowl with the cup between my legs. I follow the graffiti scribbled on the door. It’s quiet. I get up and peek under the stall just in case. No white Nikes. I pee into the cup.
I come out of the bathroom with my duty completed. A male police officer comes toward me. A balding redhead. Freckles. Goatee.
“Are you Olga Bokuchava…?”
“Yes,” I say. “You need my urine, officer?”
HALF EMPTY
When I reach the cup of urine toward him, he lunges at me. He grabs the cup from my hand and pulls my arm behind my back. Then the other.
“What are you—” I try to call out.
A female police officer with her hair slicked back in a bun steps toward me. She’s holding an envelope wrapped in cellophane.
“Is this yours, ma’am?”
I try to keep my wits about me. Both my arms are twisted at my back.
“Officer, I’ve never seen that before in my life.” I decide to play it cool.
“Then what was it doing in your locker,” the officer asks.
“My locker?”
“Number six. That’s your locker, ma’am.”
OH NO
The officer unwraps cellophane off the envelope, unfolds it and pulls out a brownish-smudged handkerchief. She unwraps the sticky handkerchief. There, in her hand, like a fresh-cut flower, is a thick kitchen knife.
“Ms. Bokuchava… you understand that this is a murder weapon.”
UN, DEUX, TROIS
They drag me through the dining area. The customers turn their heads and look at me.
“Lisette,” I shout out.
She’s behind the counter. She looks at me too. Her cupid’s bow is pinched.
“You have to tell them,” I yelp. “There was this woman… her name is Sally!”
Lisette doesn’t say anything. They are pulling me and she’s watching.
“Lisette!” I yell, “Lisette!!”
Lisette mouths with satiny precision, un, deux, trois…
ONE CALL
At the station, they cuff me to the chair. I’m allowed one call. They put the telephone at the edge of the desk. They hand me the receiver. I should call Angelina. My fingers drift from one number to the next. Numbers from the middle of the night. I’m braiding them together.
BAD LUCK
“Da?” he husks on the phone.
“Nicky, I’ve been arrested,” I spit out.
“Yes, Olga,” he replies. “Go with it.”
“…go with it?”
“Just do as they say.”
“Nicky, they’re saying I murdered someone!”
“She’ll contact you soon, don’t worry.”
“Who? Who?”
“Oh,” he pauses. “Sally.”
Then his line is dead. And it’s bad luck to talk into a dead receiver.
NOT HERE
The guard pushes me down a cement hallway.
“Don’t I get a lawyer?” I squeal.
“Not here,” she replies, prodding me forth.
THE ROOM
It has a metal door. A code box. The guard types in the code. A small light flashes green and the door springs open. She nudges me and I walk in. The door closes behind us. Inside, another small light turns red.
A metal table. A white plastic basket. A camera in the corner pointed at us.
“Take off your clothes and put them in the basket,” the officer says.
I peel myself like a potato. I feel shyer by the layer. I’m firm and raw. One hand over my groin. The other covering my chest.
“Your jewelry,” she says.
I lift my hands to my earlobes and take out each gold stud. I put them carefully into the basket on top of my clothes.
“Your necklace.” She’s losing patience with me.
“What necklace?” I mumble.
“Don’t provoke me, Bokuchava, the one you’re wearing.”
I look down at my collarbone. The dangling star. Misha Moshe Misha Moshe. I put it in the basket.
“When will I get it back?” I ask.
“When they say you can leave,” she answers.
“How long will that take?”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
She thinks for a moment. Then, there is a bloom in her face.
“On… Mercy. Faith. Justice. Blood Type. Star sign. Caste system. Poetry,” she says.
SMALL
I’m wearing state-issued underwear and bra. Wall-white. They smell sour and over-washed. Over them, light blue cotton pants. White T-shirt. Light blue zip-up hoodie.
They got my sizes all wrong.
The underwear is loose at the crotch.
The bra straps are uneven.
The waistband of the pants is stretched out.
The hoodie is missing its draw-string.
My body is a state-issued shape.
DEAD END
She takes me down one last hallway. Concrete walls. Dead end. There, a room. Not a room. A cell. A metal toilet, no cover. A sink. Bunk beds. On the bottom one, there’s someone. A body. A woman. Her knees are up against her chest, hands folded across her face to block the light.
“Get up, Tarasova,” the officer says her way, “and say hi to your new roommate.”
I’m pushed inside and the gate is locked.
TANYA TARASOVA
She doesn’t get up until the officer has left. When she does, she lowers her feet to the floor then rises. It’s somehow theological. White socks, yellowing at the toes. Her blue sweat pants are fitted. Her sweatshirt shows off her tits. She’s got blue eye-shadow on, and blue irises inside her dark, sunken eyes. Her hair’s behind her ears, long and brown and shiny, as if it’s squinting.
I see two gold earrings in the shape of hearts.
TWO HEARTS
“They let you keep your earrings?” I ask Tanya.
She smoothes out her hair without looking at me.
A PROMISE
Finally, she lifts her eyes. Then she lifts her hand. Then she extends her square-tipped teal acrylic fingernail at my face.
“I’m going to fucking kill you,” she whispers.
STAY
She tells me. I crouch down against the wall. Near the toilet. Just in case. It smells like steel. And pee.
I stay there for a long time. I stay there even when Tanya lies back down on her bunk. She sleeps. I stay.
MUSIC
That makes no sound accompanies me.
I prop my head up with my elbow on the steel toilet seat. The bars make shadows. The moon runs across them and brings them to life. Several times I think it’s Angelina. Tip-toeing. But it’s just moon playing the prison like a harp.
SLEEP
Tanya’s snoring now. I’ve got my arms around my knees. I think about Angelina. What she thinks about me, absent. What she
