Dwight D. Eisenhower
IT WAS A whir of gray outside as the bus sped along the A20 on its way to Limoges. The sky was a dull gray because the cold and dry winter had been cruel to the landscape of central France. The sky was a dull gray because the concept of color had all but disappeared for Mischa Barton.
The bus had a police escort, squad cars at the flanks and front and back. The thwoop-thwoop of the chopper overhead competed with the noise of the bus's engine as it coughed and struggled its way southward at high speed.
There were thirty-four women in that bus, spread out over twenty rows, split by a single aisle right down the middle. Almost three dozen of France's newest prisoners or transferees. They were the worst of the lot. Killers, terrorists, rapists and drug pushers. It was an even mix of black, brown and white faces, evil-looking women with bitter eyes, their postures rigid, brimming with violence and hate.
They were all shackled at their wrists and ankles. Each row on the bus was bracketed by a steel cage that prevented prisoners from contacting those in the seats in front or behind them or across the aisle, just like caged chickens being taken to slaughter. The smell was even worse. The odor from the lack of showers and fear-induced perspiration was almost suffocating.
"Maman! Papa!" a woman two rows in front of Mischa, across the aisle cried out. "Ou sont mes parents?" Her head rolled to and fro as she moaned, pining for her parents.
In front of the bus, Rihanna stared aimlessly out the window, her washed-out expression and slumped shoulders nearly summarizing her condition. Her wrists and forearms were so bony that it was hard to imagine how the handcuffs could have restrained her. Her hair was flat and unwashed. She looked like somebody had awakened her from ten days' slumber and thrown her on this bus.
Mischa looked back over her shoulder. Near the rear of the bus, Nicole Richie sat silently, her expression hardened, as if she were willingly numbing herself. It was the athlete she often wished she could be rising to the surface, preparing for the mental and physical task of incarceration. She had heard the same things Mischa had heard about this prison.
Lindsay Lohan and Mischa were in the same row, across the aisle from each other, the former looking like a child enduring a nightmare. Her eyes were wide with dread as she scanned the bus's occupants, a sampling of the population of the maximum-security prison where they'd soon be housed. She looked far younger than her twenty-five years. She was pretty and petite and as passive as they came. A minnow tossed into a pool of man-eating sharks.
Lindsay looked at Mischa and said, "I can't do this. Not for thirty years." Mischa could barely hear her over the engine and the chopper. But she didn't need to hear the words. She could see it in Lindsay's eyes and trembling lips. Lindsay was coming unglued.
"You don't have to get through thirty years," Mischa told her. "You just have to get through today."
"Maman! Papa!" the woman cried out. "Ou sont mes parents?"
"Ecoutez," hissed the woman in the seat behind Lindsay. "Hey, girl."
Mischa would have ignored her. Avoiding provocation in French jails had become as instinctive for her, as natural as blinking her eyes. But Lindsay was not so smart; she turned back to the woman.
The woman was thickset and unkempt, with thick jowls, beady eyes, and eyebrows that looked as if they'd been put on with super-glue. Her accent was heavy but her English was good. "The woman who---asks for her parents?" she said. "She killed her parents. She---killed them and ate them!"
"Oh, my God!" Lindsay put her manacled hands over her face.
"Would you like to know----who I killed?" she asked.
"No, she would not," Mischa called out. "Leave her the bloody hell alone!"
"I killed my---cellmate----at Rennes----for---ronflement---for snoring."
Lindsay burst into hysterical sobs, her shoulders trembling.
"Girl, they tell me----you are an actress," the woman said, putting her forehead against the steel enclosure that separated her from Lindsay.
"Bugger off, bitch!" Mischa shouted.
"She was an actress, like you----she used to be on le tele---television," the woman said to Lindsay. "I like actresses."
"Pay her no mind," Mischa called to Lindsay.
"Would you like to be my----cellmate, actress?"
Lindsay curled into a ball, her body still trembling. "I can't do this," she cried. "I want to go home! Mischa, I want to go home!"
"Hang in there, love! Everything's going to be all right!" Mischa shouted, gripping the steel cage. She wanted to sound calm and reassuring but it probably came out more like exactly what it was, a desperate plea. This was no time for Lindsay to come apart at the seams. If she entered the prison in that state, she'd be a walking invitation for anyone looking for an easy mark, to any wolf sniffing for blood in the wilderness.
With that, Lindsay leaned forward and upchucked on the floor. That flipped everyone's switch on the bus. They cheered, shouted and heckled Lindsay Lohan, the weakling, the washed-up movie star, the loser in the Darwinian struggle inside of this bus.
The fat woman behind Lindsay didn't relent. If anything, Lindsay's vulnerability seemed to encourage her. She banged the steel cage separating her from Lindsay as if it were a drum. "Une jolie fille comme vous serez tres populaire dans ici," she taunted.
(A pretty girl like you would be very popular in here.)
"Fuck off! Va te faire foutre!" Mischa yelled at the woman, banging on her own steel cage. She was only adding to the commotion, which had reached near-deafening levels. 366Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡt57xaO4ATd
"Voys pouvez fender votre gorge avec cese menottes," she said to Lindsay.366Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEkbiNjEmlW
(You can slit your throat with these handcuffs.)366Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvQlCBdPsLc
Mischa's blood ran cold. That bloody bitch was explaining how Lindsay could save herself the burden of prison and end her life right here on this bus!366Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWZK0iiVE9S
"Vous avez tue le president!" the fat woman shouted for the whole bus to hear. "Vous serez tue pour ca."366Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDL0P0l0HgU
(You killed the president. And for that you will be killed.)366Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpepUK5aanF
"Fuck off!" Mischa cried. "Lindsay---Lindsay! Look at me. Lindsay...."366Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvmNiwLZHih
"Fendez-vous votre gorge!" the fat woman yelled. It became a chant on the bus. "Slit your throat! Slit your throat!" It was like a game for these animals. Who would be the first to break one of the newcomers.366Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡV8hoiNht0v
Lindsay, at this point, hid her face between her knees, her shackled hands over her head. Trying desperately to hide, to drown out everything else. Mischa didn't think she even heard her words of encouragement over the thunderous heckling, whistles and jeers.366Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡE2imjxYIwC
She would need help in prison. All four actresses would. Because what the fat woman had said was true.366Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbkbCN0FptS
Prisoners or not, most of these women were still French citizens. The four actresses had killed their president. Someone, at some point in this snake-pit they were about to enter, would try to do the same to them.366Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXzvaA2J5Xg
