The Murderer's Daughters (6 page)

A cool wind blew across the crowded Staten Island Ferry deck. The water was choppy, and I hoped I wouldn’t get sick. Every time we rode the ferry, Grandma called it the cheapest date in town.

“See, just like I say, for a nickel, they get a place to kiss.” Grandma pointed her chin toward a couple kissing. “Cheaper than a movie and a restaurant, huh? The cheapest date in town. Though maybe he should save up for a barber to take care of all that hoo-ha hippie hair.”

I stared at the man and woman in question. His hair fell down his back in thick, curly ropes. He wrapped his delicate-looking companion’s black velvet cape tighter as he hugged her.

“Why did people start being hippies?” I asked Grandma. Lulu says I couldn’t remember because I was too little, but I know Mama talked about maybe she missed her chance. If she hadn’t married Daddy, she’d said, she could be free also. She’d have gone to Woodstock. I knew this was true, even if Lulu didn’t think I understood anything.

“To be able to do whatever they want and not have to pay attention to what anyone thinks.” Grandma sniffed as she said this, as though she feared I’d run off and become a hippie. Well, if I did, then maybe I wouldn’t
care when people called me Prison Girl. I’d swirl my cape around and make them disappear.

The ferry reached the dock. The scraping and squealing noises it made as it parked forced my shoulders around my ears. Now we’d take a long cab ride, with Grandma watching the clicking cab fare numbers every second. Grandma refused to take the bus. “I’m not riding with that
dreck
going to the prison,” she’d say each time, as though we were better than the rest of the sad people we saw every other Saturday.

Once we were safely sealed into the cab, I leaned my forehead on the dirty window and watched Staten Island silently roll by. These visits were the only times I rode in a car. Single-family homes lined the street; small, skinny trees dotted the square patches of lawn. More sun shone on Staten Island than on Brooklyn. I was positive.

As we got closer to the prison, the neighborhood changed. Ranch houses became big, crumbling homes, trailers, and then stores. Diners and shoe stores butted up to sad-looking buildings with signs announcing
LAWYER/
ABOGADO
. The world became grayer.

Richmond County Prison loomed like Dracula’s castle. Each visit I expected the wide wooden door to fall open like a drawbridge. Wire wrapped the building like a spider’s web. The cab stopped outside the fence by the main entrance, the barbed enclosure keeping us a long distance from the door.

Grandma counted the fare out carefully, peering at the meter as though fearing the bill might rise even as she gathered her quarters. I got out first, offering my hand to help her from the cab. I held her cane. She grunted and rubbed her back before taking it. She stumbled a bit as she closed the cab door. I gasped, picturing her tumbling into the street.

“Are you okay?” I asked. A frantic breathlessness grabbed me. If anything happened to Grandma, what would I do all alone on Staten Island? If anything happened to Grandma or Lulu, I’d be alone in the world.

Grandma held up a hand and waved at me. “Don’t worry. Today’s not the day I’m dying.”

“Grandma, please don’t talk like that.”

“Fine. I promise I won’t die when we’re together. Okay?”

Could Grandma read my mind? Did she know that I went from worrying about her dying in front of me, to crying as silently as I could in my bed at Duffy, imagining her dying alone, her corpse rotting away through the week until Saturday, when I came with my key and opened the apartment?

Please, God, let it be one of the Saturdays when Lulu is with me, not a visiting-Daddy Saturday.

Grandma brushed dust off her dotted navy dress and stood straight. “Come. Your father’s waiting.”

We walked through the gates holding hands. Once again, I patted my jumper pockets, checking for the hundredth time that I didn’t have any forbidden items. Grandma kept a list of rules on top of her coffee table. I’d memorized them the way my teacher said to remember history dates:
Say it in your head, say it aloud, and repeat it five times.

Rule: Children under eighteen must have a birth certificate. A parent or legal guardian must accompany children.

Prison was the reason Grandma Zelda had ended up as our legal guardian, even before Mimi Rubee died. Mimi Rubee wouldn’t take me to visit Daddy, but after I begged and begged, she finally agreed to let Grandma Zelda take me, making Grandma the guardian, even though Aunt Cilla screamed at her for it. Now there was no way for me to stop. Grandma expected it, and Daddy, well, I didn’t know what Daddy would do if he didn’t see me anymore.

Rule: No hats, food, jackets, drinks, gum, or candy. No provocative clothing. Nothing in your pockets.

The skinny lockers where we had to place everything smelled like dirty coats and rotten food, probably stuff people tried to smuggle past the guards.

Rule: You may embrace the inmate briefly at the beginning and end of each visit.

I dreaded and waited for those hugs.

Rule: Inmates may receive, in total, five small soft-covered books, except for those deemed inappropriate by the Officer in Charge.

As we walked down the long, dingy hall toward the check-in place, I prayed for Officer McNulty to be the officer in charge. He’d smile and
barely glance at whatever books we’d bring. The worst one, Officer Rogers, always threw away at least one book a visit for being what he called racy. When I asked Grandma what
racy
meant, she shook her head and said, “None of your beeswax.” Susannah said it meant sex. I knew about sex. Nothing was secret at Duffy.

Rule: Inmates may receive, in total, five family photos. No portrait photos may be larger than 4
×
6.

I had two dollars saved toward a camera from the quarters Grandma sometimes slipped me. Lulu, knowing about my plan to give Daddy pictures, warned me not to ever take her picture. Not to give to
him,
she’d say.

Grandma touched my jumper pockets. “Empty
?
”

I nodded and followed Grandma down the hall. Women, children, and a few men lined up in front of the guards. I stretched up on my toes to check the guard on duty. McNulty! Still, even with him in charge, little bubbles of dread filled my throat. I clenched and unclenched my fists. I didn’t see Susannah.

A pale, mushy woman stood in front of me, her scalp showing through thin red hair. Behind Grandma, a short woman wearing giant silver hoop earrings muttered “damn” every other second. Her Afro looked even bigger than her head.

“Think they’ll let Angela Davis through with those cockamamie earrings?” Grandma whispered, tilting her head back.

“Shush.” I wasn’t sure who Angela Davis was, but I didn’t think Grandma meant it as a compliment. I tried not to peek to see if the woman had heard. My stomach growled. I wished I’d eaten more candy on the ferry.

When we got to the front of the line, Officer McNulty smiled at me. He was tall and straight, like the soldiers guarding the palace in England. “Back again?”

I grinned back big and lifted my arm, waiting for him to pat me. He did it fast, not like some of the others. I hated them.

“Your dad’s waiting impatiently.” Officer McNulty’s kind face made it seem as if he really wanted me to have a good visit. I tried to think of things to say which would make me sound good.

“You have a nice day, Officer,” I said. Afro-Hair-Woman smacked her teeth as though sending me a message.

Officer McNulty squeezed my shoulder. “You’re a good girl, Merry. Go see your daddy.”

Grandma and I stepped into the visiting room. Beige tiles were dotted with spots that I imagined impossible to scrub out in a million years. Probably blood and bits of brain left from prison fights.

Metal tables with rubber edges and attached benches lined the room. Visitors and families sat across from each other, men always seated facing away from the windows. Weak sunlight washed over the backs of their denim shirts. We sat as far apart from anyone as possible, pretending we were anywhere but here.

My father sat at the end of the room in his usual spot. I barely remembered before-prison-Daddy anymore, the Daddy who’d lived with us and then the Daddy who Mama threw out. That Daddy was bloated, and had dirt under his fingernails and thick hair falling in his eyes. Prison-Daddy had muscles and a crew cut and looked handsome as the pictures from when he first married Mama, the photographs on top of Grandma’s dresser. I’d tried to show Lulu, but she’d pushed the pictures away just like anything about Daddy.

I studied the photographs every time I visited Grandma, tracing the lines of Mama’s beautiful face, the veil like a magic cloud around her head. In black and white, Mama’s lipstick appeared dark as blood.

My stomach lurched when I saw Daddy, followed by a hollow hunger.

“Baby girl!” he said. We embraced briefly, as allowed by the guards, me trying to tug away the moment we touched. I hated when Daddy held on for even one second longer than the rules permitted, certain a guard would yell at me or, worse, at Daddy. I’d seen a prisoner dragged away for yelling at his so-fat-it-hung-over-her-pants wife. Everything on the man had seemed shriveled, but his fat wife had shrunk away as though he were Charles Atlas. The guard had come over with his heavy brown stick and just banged him right across the shoulders and hauled him off.

“Oh, my God, look,” Grandma had said. “He
klopped
him right across the back!” I was afraid to ask Daddy if he ever got
klopped,
but I’d thought about the brown stick ever since.

Daddy inspected me just as he did each visit. “How do you grow so much in two weeks?”

“Not from the garbage they feed her at that place,” Grandma said.

“At least she gets a good meal from you once a week, huh, Ma?”

“Oh, please.” Grandma slapped the air with a dismissive hand. “I can barely see the pots anymore, let alone cook.”

I slid closer to Grandma and placed my hand over hers. Her skin felt like paper you’d kept for a long time, paper you’d folded and unfolded until it became limp and cottony. Daddy’s earliest letters were like that now, those I kept at Grandma’s house.

“So how’s school?” he asked.

I shrugged. “Okay.”

He wrinkled his face. “Just okay? Is someone bothering you?”

“No. Everything’s fine.”

“I better see some good grades on your report card, miss. Getting-into-college grades. You don’t want to end up like your old man, do you?”

I stared across the table at him, puzzled. College would have kept him out of prison? Did he know something about me? Did he know that sometimes I hated people so much it burned? Like Reetha. How did I know I
wouldn’t kill someone? Maybe Aunt Cilla was right; it could be in my blood. That was probably why she never wanted us in her house. Maybe I’d go to prison one day.

“Don’t be a fool, Joey.” Grandma shook her head. “You sound crazy when you talk like that.”

Grandma hated my father saying anything about why they’d locked him up. She wouldn’t talk to me about it either. No one would, except Lulu, and she only talked about how much she hated Daddy and how seeing him was so stupid.

“What do you want from me, Ma?” Daddy asked. “How many fascinating topics do you think I can come up with in here? Should I talk about how the Black Power guys want to kill the guards?”

“Shush,” Grandma said. “They could be listening!”

I looked around to see if anyone had heard him.

“Should I talk about how I’m becoming an old man in here?”

“Stop. You’re only thirty-one. You’re a young man. You’ll get parole. You’ll be out before you know it.”

Would we live with him if he got out? Would Lulu let us?

“Who’s talking crazy now?” Daddy asked. “I’ll be a hundred before they let me out. I got life. You think they’ll let me go with ten years? Twenty years?”

“You’ll get parole hearings.” Grandma twisted a white handkerchief with black diamonds around the edges. I peeked to see if the guards had noticed. Prison families never looked at other families; we kept our fights low and quiet, leaking out a little at a time.

Daddy shook his head and pressed his lips together as though blaming Grandma for something.

“All the girls made pumpkin pies last night,” I lied. “For fall.”

“At that place?” Grandma didn’t look like she believed me one bit.

“Yes.” I stared right at her. “We carved pumpkins and cooked the insides down to make pies.” I’d read that in a book, about how long pumpkin took to cook, and about the stringy, raw stuff inside.

“That sounds good,” Daddy said. “Too bad you couldn’t bring me a piece, huh?”

“Yeah, too bad.” I avoided looking at Grandma.

“Boy, it’s been a long time since I had pumpkin pie. Did you put a lot of cinnamon in? And ginger? I always liked spicy pie.”

“It tasted exactly like cinnamon hots,” I said.

Grandma pinched my thigh under the table.
Enough,
her sharp fingers said.