suddenly you're whistling too. Darcy turns her boombox up so she won't hear her, but I don't mind. She knows lots of old songs you forget, like "The Sunny Side of the Street." Sometimes when I've got my atlas out I pretend they're on the radio and Etta Mae's got this big band behind her and an old-style microphone. Etta Mae's older than the rest of us. She's got high blood pressure so she gets special meals. Once at lunch the trusty with the cart gave me the wrong tray, and I saw what they gave her; it was all boiled, and no Jell-O, no soft drink. I know it's hard on her, because she's always talking about her Aunt Velma's chicken-fried steak and her biscuits and gravy. When we get on food, we can go.
Lucinda is new and hasn't calmed down yet. Last month she scratched Janille's cornea and they took her off to solitary. She shot her boyfriend's wife when she was eight months pregnant, then waited till her boyfriend got home and shot him in the you-know-what. She says she didn't do it. It's a joke around here hut you can't laugh.
"Like you innocent, Miss Cut-their-head-oft-and-stick-it-in-a-plastic-bag. And you. running over that little girl. You both going to hell, you dumb ugly trash. That's right! And Etta Mac, you gonna hold the door For em."
It's tunny cause we were all like that at first. She still cries at night. She goes through her cigarettes too quick. She'll learn. Etta Mae'll take care of her.
In general population there's a lot of violence, a lot of people moving through. Someone'll melt the end of a toothbrush and stick a razor blade in it. It's not to kill, they just want to mark the other gal up. There's no respect, no sense of being in this together. Over there, you get a lot of denial—gals saying it was the last deal, the last trick, the last job, they were going to quit right after that, like it was bad luck they got caught. A lot of wouldas and couldas. You don't get that here. Just the amount of time breaks you down, makes you accept things about yourself It teaches you things you didn't learn outside, like patience and humility and gratitude. It's like religion that way.
We're locked down twenty-three hours a day. The other hour they let us out to use the exercise yard one at a time. We get a shower once every two days. We get three meals. You think you'd look forward to those things but you don't. They just slide by. Lunch always surprises me.
We all do things. Darcy writes poems. Etta Mae paints and makes origami. Lucinda will have to come up with something, otherwise you lose it.
I drive. I open up my atlas and I've got the Roadrunner pegged at 110, headed for the Grand Canyon, the high desert empty' on both sides, snow in the ditches. I'm cruising through Albuquerque, the neon of the motels shimmering off the hood. It's like they haven't caught me. No one knows where I am. I swing into the drive-in window of a liquor store and pick up a chilled six of Tecate, slide into a Golden Fried and order the carne adovada burrito for ninety-nine cents. Driving all night, I'm three hundred miles out of Needles and the radio's pulling in Mexico. In six hours I'll be on the Santa Monica pier, the water running in underneath me. At the end, I cut a neat three-pointer and head east again, into the blur of convenience stores and Pig Stands, highway cafes and adobe trading posts. The families of accident victims plant white crosses by the roadside, the names almost too small to read —Maria Felicidad Baca, Jesus Luis Velez. The night burns away and Monument Valley comes up like a cowboy movie, like the sequel to Thelma & Louise . The Modern Lovers are on the 8-track and that tach is nailed.
Roadrunner, Roadrunner
going fast in miles an hour
gonna drive past the Stop & Shop
with the radio on
It's been eight years. I've been everywhere.
17
What I'll miss most about the world.
Everything.
My son. I'll miss having fun with him.
I'll miss french fries. I'll miss that first big sip of a cherry slush that
Lucinda is new and hasn't calmed down yet. Last month she scratched Janille's cornea and they took her off to solitary. She shot her boyfriend's wife when she was eight months pregnant, then waited till her boyfriend got home and shot him in the you-know-what. She says she didn't do it. It's a joke around here hut you can't laugh.
"Like you innocent, Miss Cut-their-head-oft-and-stick-it-in-a-plastic-bag. And you. running over that little girl. You both going to hell, you dumb ugly trash. That's right! And Etta Mac, you gonna hold the door For em."
It's tunny cause we were all like that at first. She still cries at night. She goes through her cigarettes too quick. She'll learn. Etta Mae'll take care of her.
In general population there's a lot of violence, a lot of people moving through. Someone'll melt the end of a toothbrush and stick a razor blade in it. It's not to kill, they just want to mark the other gal up. There's no respect, no sense of being in this together. Over there, you get a lot of denial—gals saying it was the last deal, the last trick, the last job, they were going to quit right after that, like it was bad luck they got caught. A lot of wouldas and couldas. You don't get that here. Just the amount of time breaks you down, makes you accept things about yourself It teaches you things you didn't learn outside, like patience and humility and gratitude. It's like religion that way.
We're locked down twenty-three hours a day. The other hour they let us out to use the exercise yard one at a time. We get a shower once every two days. We get three meals. You think you'd look forward to those things but you don't. They just slide by. Lunch always surprises me.
We all do things. Darcy writes poems. Etta Mae paints and makes origami. Lucinda will have to come up with something, otherwise you lose it.
I drive. I open up my atlas and I've got the Roadrunner pegged at 110, headed for the Grand Canyon, the high desert empty' on both sides, snow in the ditches. I'm cruising through Albuquerque, the neon of the motels shimmering off the hood. It's like they haven't caught me. No one knows where I am. I swing into the drive-in window of a liquor store and pick up a chilled six of Tecate, slide into a Golden Fried and order the carne adovada burrito for ninety-nine cents. Driving all night, I'm three hundred miles out of Needles and the radio's pulling in Mexico. In six hours I'll be on the Santa Monica pier, the water running in underneath me. At the end, I cut a neat three-pointer and head east again, into the blur of convenience stores and Pig Stands, highway cafes and adobe trading posts. The families of accident victims plant white crosses by the roadside, the names almost too small to read —Maria Felicidad Baca, Jesus Luis Velez. The night burns away and Monument Valley comes up like a cowboy movie, like the sequel to Thelma & Louise . The Modern Lovers are on the 8-track and that tach is nailed.
Roadrunner, Roadrunner
going fast in miles an hour
gonna drive past the Stop & Shop
with the radio on
It's been eight years. I've been everywhere.
17
What I'll miss most about the world.
Everything.
My son. I'll miss having fun with him.
I'll miss french fries. I'll miss that first big sip of a cherry slush that
Similar Books
