of care. “That’s why I couldn’t stand to see her homeless and all. Cause she got three, and all of them under six. Ain’t even in school yet. So I understand what it is to have kids and you want them safe and fed and all. She comes to me complaining how she’s homeless and their daddy beat on her and she had to take them kids of hers and leave home. Well, big-hearted me, I had to take them in off the street.
“So I asked her, why in the world would you do something like this to somebody trying to help you out? She says, well I reckoned you’re smart and you know how to talk to people and if you got caught you’d talk your way out of it because you didn’t know it was there. And I told her, ‘Well, it didn’t work out like that, did it?’”
Maggie had been staring at the door, but now she turned to the girl. “You want to smoke that cigarette?”
“Ma’am?”
“You still want to smoke? Let’s go outside.”
“I can’t. I’m waiting for that bitch that put me in here.”
“Come on, you can whup her ass later.”
“I ain’t planning to whip her ass.” She stood, with a glance toward the counter. “But I do plan to give her a piece of my mind.”
“You better.” Maggie led the girl out onto the front steps of the courthouse. Out in the yard, a trusty pushed a pile of leaves against the wind. “You sure don’t want to whup some girl’s ass in the courthouse; they’ll slap you in a cell inside a cell. They’ll stroke you good. If you want to whip her ass, you got to go somewhere else.”
“No,” the girl said. She pulled out her pack and tapped out the cigarette she had stubbed out before. “I ain’t a violent person. I just want her to know what I got to say.”
The steps of the courthouse were cold. They cupped hands for a windbreak, lit their cigarettes, and smoked and shivered together.
“I mean,” the girl said, “it just don’t make sense. You pick somebody up out of the gutter and you feed their children like they was your own. You do everything it says in the Bible to do. And here I get arrested for the very first time in my life. And I don’t do drugs. I don’t drink. I don’t do nothing. I just go to work and clean house and take care of my kids and now I probably got this on my record.”
“You done?” Maggie nodded toward the cigarette.
The girl was not. Maggie had hit hers hard; she had barely stopped to breathe. She flicked the butt of it ten feet out into the yard. “Let’s get out of this wind,” she said.
For a second time, the girl stubbed out her cigarette. This time, she dropped it into the shrubs.
The heavy deputy was at the counter when they came back in. He glanced up from some paperwork and nodded. “You staying clean, Maggie?”
“When can I see him, Burke?”
“Tuesday. Visiting day.”
“But I can’t come on Tuesday.”
“Can’t help you, Maggie.” He turned and took his papers into an inner office.
“He’s the nice one,” the girl said. “That other one—I ain’t seen him yet today—he was mean.”
“What was his name?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know any cops’ names. Never did need to know any cops’ names.”
“Ain’t none of them nice far as I’m concerned. Especially that one.”
“At least he didn’t say nothing smart, like that other one.”
There was a stir in the inner office and both looked up.
“That’s her,” the girl said. “That’s the bitch that got me arrested.”
“That scrawny thing? Hell, you could whup her ass with one hand.” The scrawny thing wore an oversize coat and kept losing her arms in the sleeves. She had long hair strung back behind her ears that fell down every few seconds into her eyes, so that she was in constant motion to pull back her sleeve, tuck back her hair, shift her feet, pick up a pen, sign where the deputy pointed, set down the pen, adjust her hair, and lose her arms again in her sleeves.
“Nervous little bitch, ain’t she?”
“What’re they doing?”
“Looks like they’re fixing to let her go.”
“About time. I posted her bond an hour ago.”
“You done what?”
The girl shrugged.
“After everything that shifty little bitch done you?”
“Who else is gonna do it? She don’t have nobody else.”
“Well I’ll be damned.” Maggie stood, went to the counter, and called, “Burke, Tom Burke, when can I visit my old man?”
“Tuesday, Maggie. Visiting day is Tuesday.”
“But I ain’t got no ride for Tuesday. I got a ride today.”
“There’s nothing I can do about it, Maggie.”
“At least let me leave him some money while I got it.”
“Tuesday.”
“I got twenty dollars to give him for cigarettes.”
“He’ll live.”
“At least let me get him a can of Bugler and some papers.”
The deputy shut the door.
“Fucking prick!” Maggie shouted. “Fat fuck probably shut the door so he could collect his blow job. Possum-headed punk ain’t never worked the starch out of that uniform, but he can tell me Tuesday when I know damn well what day visiting day is. All he can say to me is, ‘What d’you know, Maggie?’ I’ll tell you what I know. I know he was my old man’s buddy growing up but he’s too good to do me a turn even for his buddy’s sake. And then he wants to know am I staying clean, as if that’s any business of his.”
She turned to the girl on the bench. “You want to talk about the way the world is. Well, that right there’s the way the world is. Your old man is doing six months in this little rat hole jail over some bullshit and you can’t even get to see him because some shit in a uniform can’t do you a little favor.”
“I know what you mean,” the girl said.
“No, you don’t know what I mean. Not till you done what I done. Not till you seen what I seen. Not till you heard them bars slam shut behind you and you know it’ll be two long years before you get to hold your babies again. Then you come and tell me what the world is like.”
“You’re pushing your luck, Maggie,” the deputy called from behind the door.
“I
