7:30. Mischa counted the minutes. 7:40. 7:50. The guards called out the ten-minute warning before lights out.313Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjwIeaeLDEb
The others settled in for sleep, or to light up their hash and blow the smoke out the window. It was quite a rogue's gallery in cell 524. They had a carjacker (Felice) and two killers (Rosalie and Adelaida). They had a deranged arsonist (Beatrice). Then there was Janine, in for dealing cocaine, though by all indications---stringy hair, pale face, trembling hands, and constant smoking----she was more of a user than a seller. Janine was in rehab but it wasn't going so well. She mumbled to herself and chewed her fingernails down to bloody stumps. Her forearms looked like they'd been a attacked by a pack of wild cats.
Finally, there was Lise, a big, nasty woman from a town in northern France called Viernoît whose crime, as far as Felice understood it, was dating a Saudi man who was accused of terrorist activities within France. They called her charge criminal association, or something to that effect, and she'd been at JRF for almost three years without having been put on trial.
Other than Felice, they didn't talk to Mischa much. Rosalie, the unofficial leader, had made it clear to her that her problems could not become her cellmates' problems. They might help her inside the cell, but outside these narrow walls, Mischa was on her own.
Today hadn't been a bad day. Mischa did a shift in the infirmary, where she worked as a nurse's assistant, and helped them save an attempted suicide. She played gin rummy with some of the women in the day area. Dinner included a pork chop that was actually edible. Mischa's cellmate, Janine, the coke addict, showed her photos of her little boy, Nicolas, and she helped her make a collage she taped the wall. In her world this was an up day.
But it could be a bad night. Mischa never knew. They didn't come for her every night anymore. Maybe Jolette didn't like working the overnight shift every day. Or maybe she and Coralie figured it was more effective to mind-fuck her, that the anticipation would be worse than the torture itself. They'd be right. Mischa didn't sleep well, waiting for them, listening to every footstep she heard outside of the cell, wondering if it was one of them coming for her, if it was going to be the steam pipe or the "scarcrow" or the "seat." Nightsticks or pepper spray. Sleep deprivation or screaming in her face all night.
When they didn't come, she would do it all to herself anyway, in her dreams, her nightmares, except those were worse. There was blood and violent rape and they tore at her flesh and her sisters were there, watching, calling out to her, and sobbing.
Coralie and Josette were with Mischa even when they were physically absent. And they knew what they were doing. Even when they gave her a night off, they walked by the cell, they hovered at the door a moment, they rattled the hatch. They made her wonder. They made her sweat. Sweating wasn't hard when it was more than ninety degrees outside and about a hundred within this cramped cell.
Mischa had been there six weeks. She didn't know precisely when it happened. But she was starting to change. She was curling inward. She saw deprivation, fear and despondency all around her, but she found it harder and harder to worry about anyone besides herself. She started to lose everything that made her human.
Yesterday, she watched Adelaida, the Spaniard, whose tooth had become infected and had turned black, scream into the intercom for a dentist for the fifth day running, and all she could think was that her problems paled in comparison to Mischa's. She watched Lise, the thickset one, who was in prison basically for having a boyfriend from Saudi Arabia, as she coughed incessantly for the third day in a row, and her only concern was that she didn't want to catch whatever she had. (Of course, she would. They all caught one another's maladies.)
She was no longer Mischa Barton, the actress, anymore. She was D-11-1315----un trois un cinq. The number tells anyone that in the year 2011, she was the 315th person admitted to JRF, and that she was assigned to cell block D. The red border around her ID told everyone that she was considered an "extremely high escape risk."
Rosalie and Lise lit up their hash a few minutes ago, trading the cigarette back and forth and blowing the smoke out their barred window. They knew that the guards, if they came for Mischa, wouldn't come for a few hours yet. Even if they did, they wouldn't object to the hash, being the ones who likely sold it to them. If they didn't, then they turned a blind eye during visitation while it got passed from visitor to inmate. They sure as hell didn't turn a blind eye for free.
In fact, nothing was free in this shithole. Possession wasn't nine-tenths of the law at JRF; it was ten-tenths. Prisoners guarded whatever item they possessed, from cigarettes, to combs, to books, to a 1/2 cup of apple juice, with uncompromising propriety. You want something, you give something; the old barter system. The currency could be anything, the most common forms being cigarettes and sex. Or something you wanted from the commissary---toiletries, a radio, clothes, stationary. Sometimes it was a favor. Lise, for example, not being the most ambitious or tidy gal, let Adelaida get high with her last night if she agreed to make Lise's bed for a week (nobody could leave their cells unless their beds were made, which was not a problem for Mischa, as she didn't have a bed).
Lights out. Rosalie and Lise kept smoking, the orange tip of the cigarette glowing in the darkness. Adelaida read a fashion magazine with her night-light. Beatrice, the deranged firebug, hummed to music on her headphones.
An hour passed. Two. Three. With her own night-light, Mischa read and reread letters from Zoe and Hania. They were glad to be back in New York State, she could tell. Back with their friends. The ink was smeared from her tears, which fell in healthy quantities off her cheeks. This was when Mischa cried. When the lights were out or when everyone was asleep. When nobody could see her.
Near midnight she heard footsteps. She watched the small sliver of light under their cell door, waiting for the shadow to cover it. It happened soon enough. The shuffle of boots on concrete, coming to a stop at her door. The latch unlocking. Mischa's heartbeat fluttered. She held her breath. One part of her mentally prepared for another night. Another part begged them to go away, to leave her alone.313Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpqk063zn9h
Leave me alone. Please leave me alone! Just one night of peace!313Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5VVjWe6v4t
Mischa hadn't waved the white flag yet. But they sure as hell were winning!313Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSuz9WA67LK
