She was taken down a series of corridors past cells filled with inmates of every description. They were black and white and brown and yellow. They stared at Tracy as she passed and called out to her in a dozen accents. Their cries made no sense to Tracy.
‘Fish night …’
‘French mate …’
‘Fresh mite …’
‘Flesh meet …’
It was not until Tracy reached her cell block that she realized what the women were chanting: ‘Fresh meat’.
There were sixty women in Cell Block C, four to a cell. Faces peered out from behind bars as Tracy was marched down the long, smelly corridor, and the expressions varied from indifference to lust to hatred. She was walking underwater in some strange, unknown land, an alien in a slowly unfolding dream. Her throat was raw from the screaming inside her trapped body. The summons to the warden’s office had been her last faint hope. Now there was nothing. Nothing except the mind-numbing prospect of being caged in this purgatory for the next fifteen years.
The matron opened a cell door. ‘Inside!’
Tracy blinked and looked around. In the cell were three women, silently watching her.
‘Move,’ the matron ordered.
Tracy hesitated, then stepped into the cell. She heard the door slam behind her.
She was home.
The cramped cell barely held four bunks, a little table with a cracked mirror over it, four small lockers, and a seatless toilet in the far corner.
Her cell mates were staring at her. The Puerto Rican woman broke the silence. ‘Looks like we got ourselves a new cellie.’ Her voice was deep and throaty. She would have been beautiful if it had not been for a livid knife scar that ran from her temple to her throat. She appeared to be no older than fourteen, until you looked into her eyes.
A squat, middle-aged Mexican woman said, ‘Que suerte verte! Nice to see you. What they got you in for, querida?’
Tracy was too paralysed to answer.
The third woman was black. She was almost six feet tall, with narrow, watchful eyes and a cold, hard mask of a face.
Her head was shaved and her skull shone blue-black in the dim light. ‘Tha’s your bunk over in the corner.’
Tracy walked over to the bunk. The mattress was filthy, stained with the excreta of God only knew how many previous occupants. She could not bring herself to touch it. Involuntarily, she voiced her revulsion. ‘I – I can’t sleep on this mattress.’
The fat Mexican woman grinned. ‘You don’t have to, honey. Hay tiempo. You can sleep on mine.’
Tracy suddenly became aware of the undercurrents in the cell, and they hit her with a physical force. The three women were watching her, staring, making her feel naked. Fresh meat. She was suddenly terrified. I’m wrong, Tracy thought. Oh, please let me be wrong.
She found her voice. ‘Who – who do I see about getting a clean mattress?’
‘God,’ the black woman grunted. ‘But he ain’t been around here lately.’
Tracy turned to look at the mattress again. Several large black roaches were crawling across it. I can’t stay in this place, Tracy thought. I’ll go insane.
As though reading her mind, the black woman told her, ‘You go with the flow, baby.’
Tracy heard the warden’s voice. The best advice I can give you is to try to do easy time …
The black woman continued. ‘I’m Ernestine Littlechap.’ She nodded towards the woman with the long scar. ‘Tha’s Lola. She’s from Puerto Rico, and fatso here is Paulita, from Mexico. Who are you?’
‘I’m – I’m Tracy Whitney.’ She had almost said, ‘I was Tracy Whitney.’ She had the nightmarish feeling that her identity was slipping away. A spasm of nausea swept through her, and she gripped the edge of the bunk to steady herself.
‘Where you come from, honey?’ the fat woman asked.
‘I’m sorry, I – I don’t feel like talking.’ She suddenly felt too weak to stand. She slumped down on the edge of the filthy bunk and wiped the beads of cold perspiration from her face with her skirt. My baby, she thought. I should have told the warden I’m going to have a baby. He’ll move me into a clean cell. Perhaps they’ll even let me have a cell to myself.
She heard footsteps coming down the corridor. A matron was walking past the cell. Tracy hurried to the cell door. ‘Excuse me,’ she said, ‘I have to see the warden. I’m –’
‘I’ll send him right down,’ the matron said over her shoulder.
‘You don’t understand. I’m –’
The matron was gone.
Tracy crammed her knuckles in her mouth to keep from screaming.
‘You sick or somethin’, honey?’ the Puerto Rican asked.
Tracy shook her head, unable to speak. She walked back to the bunk, looked at it a moment, then slowly lay down on it. It was an act of hopelessness, an act of surrender. She closed her eyes.
Her tenth birthday was the most exciting day of her life. We’re going to Antoine’s for dinner, her father announced.
Antoine’s! It was a name that conjured up another world, a world of beauty and glamour and wealth. Tracy knew that her father did not have much money: We’ll be able to afford a vacation next year, was the constant refrain in the house. And now they were going to Antoine’s! Tracy’s mother dressed her in a new green frock.
Just look at you two, her father boasted. I’m with the two prettiest women in New Orleans. Everyone’s going to be jealous of me.
Antoine’s was everything Tracy had dreamed it would be, and more. So much more. It was a fairyland, elegant and tastefully decorated, with white napery and gleaming silver-and-gold monogrammed dishes. It’s a palace, Tracy thought. I’ll bet kings and queens come here. She was too excited to eat, too busy staring at all the beautifully dressed men and women. When I’m grown up, Tracy promised herself, I’m going to come to Antoine’s every night, and I’ll bring my mother and father with me.
You’re not eating, Tracy, her mother said.
And to please her, Tracy forced herself to eat a few mouthfuls. There was a cake for her, with ten candles on it, and the waiters sang Happy Birthday and the other guests turned and applauded, and Tracy felt like a princess. Outside she could hear the clang of a street-car bell as it passed.
The clanging of the bell was loud and insistent.
‘Suppertime,’ Ernestine Littlechap announced.
Tracy opened her eyes. Cell doors were slamming open throughout the cell block. Tracy lay on her bunk, trying desperately to hang on to the past.
‘Hey! Chow time,’ the young Puerto Rican said.
The thought of food sickened her. ‘I’m not hungry.’
Paulita, the fat Mexican woman spoke. ‘Es llano. It’s simple. They don’ care if you’re hungry or not. Everybody gotta go to mess.’
Inmates were lining up in the corridor outside.
‘You better move it, or they’ll have your ass,’ Ernestine warned.
I can’t move, Tracy