"Sure, Mr. Stone. Look, I know guys like you. They flatter you one minute and walk out the next. My father walked out when I was young. He had his faults, but he had his kinder, tender moments too, like the night he decided to sacrifice his booze money on a Barbie doll, or when he'd let me ride around on his shoulders at the local mall when my legs were too tired to walk."
Her honesty surprises me, and I feel like I should be honest too. I say, "You're right. I'm far from perfect. I've fucked up in a lot of ways. I've hurt people. I'm not proud of that, but I'm working on it, you know?"
"Good. At least you recognize that. Let me ask you a question. What constitutes a 'perfect' day for you?"
"Easy. Any day not spent in this prison."
"No, I mean, outside of here."
I find myself looking at the kindness of her face. The way the corner of her mouth is turned up in the beginning of a smile. Her empathy. Her soft blue eyes and her red hair burning like a perfect halo around her head. She's the first person in this place who seems to give an ounce of shit about me. I take a deep breath, and wrack my brain for the right answer before responding.
"Let's see. If I'm honest, I don't need much to have a perfect day. A roof over my head, a warm bed, a good meal—maybe a woman next to me, kicking my butt in a game of Uno or something." I say this and laugh. "I just mean that I'm happy with the simple things. Being in here has put that into perspective, you know? I bet you think I've gone soft or something."
"No, no I don't. I get it. After my dad left my mom and I, I felt the same way. I mean, any day that I wasn't worried about filling up the bathtub with water because our utilities were getting shut off was a good day. So long as we had a roof, a meal, and a bed, I was happy. Of course, I always envisioned having a man by my side too, but I've learned that's a ridiculous thing to hold onto."
I notice that we are now both locked into each other's gaze. I can't believe she's opening up to me like this. I mean everyone in this place keeps a healthy distance—the only thing I ever hear coming from people's mouths are either rules or insults, so this is different. I take a quick look around the room and notice that we are alone. The guard is gone, and so is everyone else. So, I lean a little closer. I notice that she seems to be leaning into me as well. We are so close now that I can feel her breath on my upper lip. I want to touch her hair, her cheek. But just as I'm about to touch her lips with mine, a guard runs in and we both snap our bodies back like rubber bands.
For a moment, I'm worried that he saw us, but judging by his frantic entrance, I can tell that he hasn't. His mind is on something else.
"Kerri, we need you! There's a lot of blood!" he says.
Kerri
The guard looks frantic. His hair is disheveled and he is acting panicked. His shirt is has come partially untucked. I wonder if it's a true emergency, or if he's overreacting… he's new here. How long has it been, maybe a couple of weeks? In any case, he hasn't seen it all yet. He's as green as they come, so that wouldn't surprise me.
"Kerri, we need you! There's a lot of blood!" he says.
"I'll be right there," I say, and then I look over at Lucien Stone. My mind is flopping between the current emergency and this man sitting in front of me. His soft, brown hair and his broad shoulders are just begging me to touch them. Did we almost just share a moment? He was leaning into me—and I was leaning into him, but I'm not sure where we were going. And to top it off, he's an inmate. What am I even thinking? I can't believe I'm having these thoughts. What are you doing? I ask myself. You'll get in serious trouble. Now is not the time to compromise your career. Do you really want to go and mess everything up now? My pep talk seems to help, but looking at Lucien—his strong arms, and his soft, full lips, and—I-I don't know. He stirs feelings in me that I thought I no longer had, at least not since Jonathan. But my mind snaps back to the present and what I do know is that I have to leave him right now, and follow the guard.
"I'm sorry, I need to go. Just uh—t-take it easy, OK? Don't overextend that arm and I promise you'll be fine. Give it time, and stay off the weights. Bones don't heal overnight." I watch as he just looks at me, unable to find anything else to say, and I have no choice but to turn away and leave him.
I follow the guard into the next room and I see a man sitting in one of the plastic chairs. He's pudgy, with a haircut that looks as if it were cut with a bowl—perfectly round and reaching to the tips of his thick eyebrows in the front, and the tips of his ears around the sides. I don't actually see the back of his hair right way, but it all looks symmetrical. I look at his nose and see that it is swollen and an angry purple color at the bridge. It's leaking a steady stream of blood down his lips and chin, and it's pooling onto the floor.
"What happened?" I ask.
The inmate doesn't look at me, and keeps his eyes on the floor. I prod him a second time and then he mutters, "It was a dare… My cellmate had five packets of Ramen noodles and a honey bun. I've been lookin' at those damn things for weeks. He probably wasn't even gonna do nothin' with 'em, but I wanted 'em so damn bad. I would've done damn near anythin' for 'em. What was I supposed to do? I don't have any commissary money. I thought it was my lucky day."
"So, what did you do?" I ask, trying to get to the bottom of things.
"Well, my cellmate dared me to snort two fat lines of table salt. He said if I could pull that off, I could have 'em all. On account of my stomach growling and my mouth practically drooling all over the place, I took him up on it."
"And that's why your nose is bleeding and swollen?" I ask.
"No, not exactly. So, this dude sets the lines up, and cuts them perfectly straight—made them extra big—that bastard—and I snorted it all up. And let me tell you, it burned somethin' awful! I'm not lying. I swear, it was like someone had lit a match up there, and I was dancin' around our cell in a panic, and I'm not even one to dance. But then I had a sick feeling in my stomach—like I had swallowed a bunch of water from the ocean, but I figured I'd get rid of that feeling with the honey bun—sweeten up those taste buds. But then as soon as I go to grab it, that son of a bitch says he was just kiddin'. Can you fuckin' believe that? Who kids about somethin' like that? He says he just wanted to see how stupid I could be, and that was it. That's when we got into it. I think he broke my nose."
I step closer and inspect his face. "I agree," I say. "It definitely looks broken to me. I see some bruising starting to form just under your eyes as well, which is also a sign of a beak. If the fracture is bad, you could need surgery, but right now, I think it'll heal on its own. Despite all this blood, it doesn't look too bad."
I grab an ice pack and bring it back. "Here, use this and keep your head tilted back. I'm going to pack a bit of gauze into your nostrils—it may hurt a bit, but that should help stop the bleeding. But do me a favor please. Quit putting things up your nose, OK?"
The inmate chuckles a bit. "Sorry, I can't promise you that ma'am. I got the honey bun and the Ramen after all, and you know what? I'd do it all again for those damn things. Little packages of heaven if you ask me."
I shake my head but decide to not prod him any further. And then after I stop the bleeding, I turn to the guard. "Jesus, Ger
ry. With the way you ran in here, you'd think someone lost their head!" I say, laughing. "Next time, hold the drama, OK?"
"I know—sorry 'bout that. It was just a lot of blood to see all of a sudden, I guess."
"I’m just giving you a hard time. I suppose it's always better to err on the side of caution," I reply. "You can go ahead and take this inmate back now. He should be just fine."