The Pleasure Trap (23 page)

Kerry rolled her eyes and looked out of the cell past Garcia-Bell. “Where is she?” She sat up.

“Probably somewhere starting more shit with someone else. You in here hiding out?”

“Basically.”

“Well, what was you gonna do if I was her? This ain't some dorm room. She can see your skinny ass right through them bars,” Garcia-Bell said, pointing to the open cell door as she took a seat beside Kerry on the bunk.

The mattress above them was bare. Kerry's first cellmate, a white woman who'd stabbed her boyfriend five times in the head, had bonded out.

“Guess I don't care,” Kerry said. “If I'm going to get beat up, what does it matter if she does it in here or out there? I'm still getting beat up.”

“It would be worse in here. No one around. It'll take a while for the guards to get here,” Garcia-Bell explained. “Plus, Thompson got a lot of enemies. You never know if someone might want to sneak some licks in if she starts something with you on the yard.”

Kerry looked off and laughed a little to herself.

“What? What's so funny?” Garcia-Bell asked.

Kerry's mind switched from inside the walls of the prison to outside where her world was so different. A simple word like “yard” could mean so many other things, none of which included a tiny outside space with nothing but dry, depleted dirt and female prisoners fighting fiercely over turns to use deflated basketballs and rusting gym equipment.

“That word—‘yard'—it reminds me of where I went to college,” Kerry replied, not knowing if she should mention her alma mater, Spelman College, if Garcia-Bell would've heard of the historically black college or knew what the term meant there. In 1998, Kerry's time on the “yard” included watching her best friend Marcy step with her sorority sisters, sitting on the steps in front of Manley Hall, chatting with her Spelman sisters and professors about images of black women in the media, the future of the black woman in politics, and, of course, black love. There, she was a third generation “Spelman girl,” was called “Black Barbie,” and had dozens of Morehouse brothers from the college across the street chasing after her. There, she met Jamison.

“You gonna have to let that shit go—all that shit from outside—who you were, who you thought you were—if you gonna make it in here,” Garcia-Bell cautioned. “Ain't no tea and crumpets behind these bars. In order to survive, you gonna have to knuckle up.”

“Knuckle up?”

“Fight, Kerry. You gonna have to fight. Ain't nobody ever taught you how to fight?”

“You mean, like actual fisticuffs?” Kerry said, watching a group of prisoners who always stuck together walk by her cell.

“Don't ever say that word again, but yes, that's what I mean,” Garcia-Bell confirmed, laughing.

“No—no one taught me how to fight. Who would? Who taught you?”

“My ma,” Garcia-Bell said as if it should've been obvious.

“Please. The closest Thirjane Jackson came to teaching me to fight was how to keep the mean girls in Jack and Jill from talking about me behind my back,” Kerry said.

“Jack and Jill? Like the nursery rhyme?”

“Yeah. It was a social club my mother made me join when I was young,” Kerry said. “Had to be her perfect little girl in Jack and Jill.”

“Well, you far from that now. And thinking about that out there ain't gonna do nothing but get you caught up in here.”

“That's the thing, Garcia-Bell, I don't plan on getting caught up in here. I'm not staying here.”

“Hmm. You keep saying that, but then I keep seeing you in here.”

Kerry had already told Garcia-Bell all about her case—about how she ran up to the rooftop of the Hyatt to find her ex-husband that gray morning—she knew something was wrong, knew something was going to happen. There was a woman up there. The woman was the one who threw Jamison over the edge to his death. Not Kerry. Kerry still loved Jamison. In the hotel room where they'd been cuddling just hours before, they'd talked about getting remarried. Kerry would be his third wife—after he divorced his second wife.

Garcia-Bell already knew the whole story. Like everyone else in Atlanta, rich and poor, young and old, black and white, criminals and non-criminals, she wanted to know how in the world the city's fourth black mayor who'd come from nothing and promised the people everything ended up split wide open with his guts and everything hanging out and his face crushed beyond recognition in the middle of Peachtree Street during morning rush-hour traffic. She'd even heard this very version of events from Kerry's mother when Thirjane Jackson had been interviewed by a reporter with FOX NEWS. But she let Kerry retell it all a few times anyway. She felt Kerry needed to.

“Well, one day you're going to come looking for me and I'm not going to be here. I've got people in my corner rooting for me. It's going to work out. I believe that,” Kerry said.

“People?” Garcia-Bell struggled not to sound cynical, but it was too hard. “By that you mean your ex-husband's widow? The one who's supposedly going to bust you out of here and help you find the killer?”

“Yes. I do,” Kerry replied resolutely. “I told you she knows I didn't do this and she has proof. It's taking her a little time, but she's helping my lawyer build my case and soon, everyone will know the truth. I'm innocent.”

“Sure is taking her a long time.”

“These things take time. You know that yourself.”

“Well, there's long and then there's loooonnnng,” Garcia-Bell pointed out.

“What's that mean?”

“Nothing.” Garcia-Bell stood up, ready to leave. She didn't want to hurt her friend's feelings. Since she was a teenager, she'd been locked up for some reason or another and she knew the worst thing in the world was knowing the one person on the outside who could do anything about her case was doing absolutely nothing. She didn't want to put that on Kerry.

“Come on, spit it out,” Kerry pushed.

“It's nothing. It's like I said—it's taking a long fucking time.”

“But you know the situation. You know Val can't just bust me out of here,” Kerry pleaded in a way that sounded like she actually coaching herself.

Garcia-Bell pointed to the top bunk. “White girl stabbed her old man in the fucking head five times and she bonded out. Ain't got no kids. Ain't have no job. They got a fucking confession out of her. She home.” She pointed to Kerry. “Ain't nobody see you throw your husband from the roof. You got a child. A career. And you say you innocent. And you rich. You mean to tell me that woman and that lawyer she hired to get you out of jail can't even get you out on bond? Come on, girl. You ain't stupid. I know that.”

“It's not that simple,” Kerry said.

“To me it is. You said it yourself: y'all hated each other. Then your ex-husband threw her ass out on the street after she had a miscarriage, and you and the broad got all chummy just because you gave her a couple of dollars so she could get a hotel room. Then your ex-husband ends up dead when she was still married to him and she got all his money and is living up in his house and running the business you partially own. But you think she rushing to get you out of jail? You believe that?” Garcia-Bell paused and looked at Kerry with a friend's concern in her eyes. “Please say you don't. I mean, maybe you want to believe it because she the only card you got to play, but
wanting
to believe it and
actually
believing it—that's got to be different things.”

Tears returned to Kerry's eyes. A lump in her throat obstructed any response to Garcia-Bell's damning assessment.

Garcia-Bell sighed and cursed herself inside for opening her mouth. “I'm sorry,” she said, bending down to look at Kerry. “Look, don't stay in this cell. Get out until lights out and if you need anything, you holler for me.” She looked into Kerry's eyes and kissed her on the lips quickly before walking out.