Page 9 of Jar of Hearts
The corrections officer escorts Geo to a double bunk in the back corner, all the way across the room. The women eye her as she passes, and she works to keep a neutral expression on her face so no one will think she’s weak or hostile—in here, one is just as bad as the other. Geo is aware that she looks a little different than the rest of them. Her dark hair is expensively highlighted. She has perfect teeth. She doesn’t have face tattoos—or any tattoos, for that matter. She’s not part of a gang on the outside, nor was she involved in drugs. And unlike the majority of her fellow inmates, this is her first time incarcerated anywhere. She might be dressed in the exact same gray prison scrubs as everyone else, but she’s nothing like them, and it shows.
She’s a prison virgin. And they can smell it on her.
“This is you,” the guard says flatly, stopping at the double bunk.
There’s a sweatshirt on the top mattress, and two tattered magazines draped on the bottom bed. Geo isn’t sure which bunk is unoccupied. “Am I the top or bottom?” Geo asks.
The guard shrugs and turns to leave. “Don’t know. Ask your bunkmate.”
A large white woman of indiscernible age—somewhere between thirty and fifty is Geo’s best guess—waddles over. The inmate has to weigh well over three hundred pounds, and Geo catches a whiff of her sour body odor as she approaches. A messy bun of dry, bleached-blond hair is piled atop her head, showcasing three inches of dark-brown roots. She has no visible neck; what used to be there is now covered by a mass of double chin. Her eyebrows are painted on inmatching thin black lines, and they furrow when she sees Geo. There are letters tattooed on each one of her sausage fingers. Her right hand spells outFUNS. Her left hand spells outOVER.
Fun’s over. Indeed.
The woman takes a seat on the bottom mattress. There’s a short metal footlocker in between each double bunk, and half a dozen photographs are taped to the door, showing the woman when she was slightly younger, and slightly thinner. In one of them, a lean black man stands next to her, and beside him is a young boy. The boy is skinny like his father, but his round face is a good blend of the two of them, with large brown eyes, soft mocha skin, and a grin full of oversized teeth. All three look happy in the photo.
Her bunkmate, intimidating as she might seem, is a mother. Okay, then. It can’t be so bad.
“I’m Bernadette,” the inmate says. Her voice is deep, with a slight accent. Something eastern European. Polish, perhaps. Or Czech. Sliding a hand under the mattress, she pulls out a bag of licorice whips. She doesn’t offer Geo any, but she does offer something resembling a smile. “Everyone calls me Bernie.”
“Georgina,” she says, returning the smile. “Everyone calls me Geo.”
“Welcome.” Bernie looks up at her, and Geo can see rings of dirt around her neck that were previously hidden in the folds of her skin. “Since we’re going to be bunkmates, you should know I have three rules.”
“Okay.” Geo’s still standing, holding her stuff, mainly because she’s not sure where she should put it. Since the woman is sitting on the bottom bunk, she’s assuming the top bunk is for her, but the woman’s sweatshirt is still on the mattress. She doesn’t dare move it.
“One. Don’t eat my food. Ever.” The large inmate takes another bite of her licorice whip, chewing with her mouth partially open. “You see any food lying on my bed, that’s not an invitation to have some. Don’t even ask me for any.”
“Got it.”
“Two. I snore. Loud. You complain to the guard about me, likethe last girl did, and I’ll beat your ass, like I did her. My snoring bothers you, get earplugs from commissary.”
“No problem.” Geo can’t help but think that it will be the woman’s smell that will bother her more than anything else.
“Three. I like the top bunk. You sleep on the bottom.”
“Really?” Geo is surprised. She thought bottom bunks were prized, and besides, she can’t imagine the woman and all her weight climbing up to the top bunk every time she needs to lie down.
“Yeah, the air feels fresher up there. These fuckers in here are always farting and burping, and by midnight it smells like a fucking toilet. I got a sensitive nose,” Bernie says, and her small, mean eyes challenge Geo to disagree with her. “You got a problem with the bottom bunk?”
“Not at all,” Geo says, wondering if anyone’s ever died from a top bunk collapsing. Getting her chest crushed in while she’s sleeping would be a hell of a way to go.
As if reading her mind, Bernie says, “Don’t worry. The bed won’t break. If that’s what you were thinking.”
Geo shakes her head quickly. “I wasn’t worried.”
“First time in Hellwood?” Her new bunkmate extracts another licorice whip and stuffs half of it into her mouth. Her teeth are red from the food coloring. It looks a little like blood.
“Yes,” Geo says, figuring that it’s better to be honest. “Any tips for me?”
The woman shrugs. “It’s not as bad as people think it is. You get used to it. This arrangement is a shit show”—she waved an enormous arm in the general direction of the room—“but it gets better once we get our cells back. I’ve stayed all over. This place isn’t the best, but it’s not the worst, either.”
Geo nods. She doesn’t ask what the woman did to get here. She heard it’s not polite. Neither would it be polite to ask the woman to move so she could sit down on the bed they already agreed was hers. Instead, she points to the photos on the locker door. “Your family?”
“Yup,” Bernie says, and finally grins. “I keep those pictures there to remind me of what I have to go home to.” She finally stands up,leaving behind an indent on the mattress in the shape of her ass and thighs.
The sheets already reek of the woman’s odor, but Geo forces herself to return the smile as she finally sets her things down on the bed. The metal frame groans as Bernie climbs slowly up to the top bunk and lies down. “You got a man waiting for you on the outside?”
“I’m not actually sure.” It’s the most truthful answer she can give. “Hey, are we allowed to use the phones?”
