MORE A NUMBING CLOUD OF shock, enfolded in memories and half dreams and awake thoughts all shifting places with each other until the lights were on and the guards were calling everyone to wake up. I blinked at the ceiling, listening, expecting them to be mean and yelling. Surprised that they weren’t. There were just loud calls of, “Good morning, ladies,” and, “Time to wake up,” and noises of groaning, coming-to-life people. Prisoners. And I was one of them. “Six a.m., every morning including Sunday,” Priscilla said from the bunk underneath me. “Clean up the bunk, then breakfast,” she went on. “Better get moving.” I sat up and looked over the edge of my narrow bed. All I could see below me were her knees in orange pants like mine, and her wrists and hands dangling over those. In the curve between her thumb and index finger on her right hand, she had a tattoo—cursive writing of some kind—though I couldn’t read it from up here. “You showing her the ropes, LaSalle?”
