hold your mud, or you’re dead.’
It was Big Bertha who backed down. She gave Ernestine a contemptuous look. ‘I ain’t in no hurry.’ She leered at Tracy. ‘You’re gonna be here a long time, baby. So am I. I’ll be seein’ you.’
She turned and walked away.
Ernestine watched her go. ‘She’s a bad mother. ’Member that nurse in Chicago who killed off all them patients? Stuck ’em full of cyanide and stayed there an’ watched ’em die? Well, that angel of mercy is the one who got the hots for you, Whitney. Sheeet! You need a fuckin’ keeper. She ain’t gonna let up on you.’
‘Will you help me escape?’
A bell rang.
‘It’s chow time,’ Ernestine Littlechap said.
That night, lying in her bunk, Tracy thought about Ernestine.
Even though she had never tried to touch Tracy again, Tracy still did not trust her. She could never forget what Ernestine and her other cell mates had done to her. But she needed the black woman.
Each afternoon after supper, the inmates were allowed to spend one hour in the recreation room, where they could watch television or talk or read the latest magazines and newspapers. Tracy was thumbing through a copy of a magazine when a photograph caught her eye. It was a wedding picture of Charles Stanhope III and his new bride, coming out of a chapel, arm in arm, laughing. It hit Tracy like a blow. Seeing his photograph now, the happy smile on his face, she was filled with a pain that turned to cold fury. She had once planned to share her life with this man, and he had turned his back on her, let them destroy her, let their baby die. But that was another time, another place, another world. That was fantasy. This is reality.
Tracy slammed the magazine shut.
On visiting days it was easy to know which inmates had friends or relatives coming to see them. The prisoners would shower and put on fresh clothes and makeup. Ernestine usually returned from the visitors’ room smiling and cheerful.
‘My Al, he always comes to see me,’ she told Tracy. ‘He’ll be waitin’ for me when I get out. You know why? ’Cause I give him what no other woman gives him.’
Tracy could not hide her confusion. ‘You mean … sexually?’
‘You bet your ass. What goes on behind these walls has nothin’ to do with the outside. In here, sometimes we need a warm body to hold – somebody to touch us and tell us they love us. We gotta feel there’s somebody who gives a damn about us. It don’t matter if it ain’t real or don’t last. It’s all we got. But when I get on the outside’ – Ernestine broke into a broad grin – ‘then I become a fuckin’ nymphomaniac, hear?’
There was something that had been puzzling Tracy. She decided to bring it up now. ‘Ernie, you keep protecting me. Why?’
Ernestine shrugged. ‘Beats the shit out of me.’
‘I really want to know.’ Tracy chose her words carefully. ‘Everyone else who’s your – your friend belongs to you. They do whatever you tell them to do.’
‘If they don’t want to walk around with half an ass, yeah.’
‘But not me. Why?’
‘You complainin’?’
‘No. I’m curious.’
Ernestine thought about it for a moment. ‘Okay. You got somethin’ I want.’ She saw the look on Tracy’s face. ‘No, not that. I get all that I want, baby. You got class. I mean, real, honest-to-God class. Like those cool ladies you see in Vogue and Town and Country, all dressed up and servin’ tea from silver pots. That’s where you belong. This ain’t your world. I don’t know how you got mixed up with all that rat shit on the outside, but my guess is you got suckered by somebody.’ She looked at Tracy and said, almost shyly, ‘I ain’t come across many decent things in my life. You’re one of ’em.’ She turned away so that her next words were almost inaudible. ‘And I’m sorry about your kid. I really am …’
That night, after lights out, Tracy whispered in the dark, ‘Ernie, I’ve got to escape. Help me. Please.’
‘I’m tryin’ to sleep, for Christ’s sake! Shut up now, hear?’
Ernestine initiated Tracy into the arcane language of the prison. Groups of women in the yard were talking: ‘This bull-dyker dropped the belt on the grey broad, and from then on you had to feed her with a long-handled spoon …’
‘She was short, but they caught her in a snowstorm, and a stoned cop turned her over to the butcher. That ended her getup. Good-bye, Ruby-do …’
To Tracy, it was like listening to a group of Martians. ‘What are they talking about?’ she asked.
Ernestine roared with laughter. ‘Don’t you speak no English, girl? When the lesbian “dropped the belt”, it meant she switched from bein’ the guy to bein’ a Mary Femme. She got involved with a “grey broad” – that’s a honky, like you. She couldn’t be trusted, so that meant you stayed away from her. She was “short”, meanin’ she was near the end of her prison sentence, but she got caught takin’ heroin by a stoned cop – that’s someone who lives by the rules and can’t be bought – and they sent her to the “butcher”, the prison doctor.’
‘What’s a “Ruby-do” and a “getup”?’
‘Ain’t you learned nothin’? A “Ruby-do” is a parole. A “getup” is the day of release.’
Tracy knew she would wait for neither.
The explosion between Ernestine Littlechap and Big Bertha happened in the yard the following day. The prisoners were playing a game of softball, supervised by the guards. Big Bertha, at bat with two strikes against her, hit a hard line drive on the third pitch and ran to first base, which Tracy was covering. Big Bertha slammed into Tracy, knocking her down, and then was on top of her. Her hands snaked up between Tracy’s legs, and she whispered, ‘Nobody says no to me, you cunt. I’m comin’ to get you tonight, littbarn, and I’m gonna fuck your ass off.’
Tracy fought wildly to get loose. Suddenly she felt Big Bertha being lifted off her. Ernestine had the huge Swede by the neck and was throttling her.
‘You goddamn bitch!’ Ernestine was screaming. ‘I warned you!’ She lashed her fingernails across Big Bertha’s face, clawing at her eyes.
‘I’m blind!’ Big Bertha screamed. ‘I’m blind!’ She grabbed Ernestine’s breasts and started pulling them. The two women were punching and clawing at each other as four guards came running up. It took the guards five minutes to pull them apart. Both women were taken to the infirmary. It was late that night when Ernestine was returned to her cell. Lola and Paulita hurried to her bunk to console her.
‘Are you all right?’ Tracy whispered.
‘Damned right,’ Ernestine told her. Her voice sounded muffled, and Tracy wondered how badly she had been hurt. ‘I made my Ruby-do yesterday. I’m gettin’ outta this joint. You got a problem. That mother aint gonna leave you alone now. No way. And when she’s finished fuckin’ with you, she’s gonna kill you.’
They
