The Third Slice

“Where do I find peace, when the pieces are hidden?”

Wow, this is actually really good, I think as I take a bite of biscuits and gravy with powdered scrambled egg.

I can taste the rare pepper seasoning actually adding a morsel of flavor to the normally bland meals. And the way the gravy soaks into the biscuit makes for a pleasing texture. This is easily my favorite meal now. How could I have thought this was garbage a week ago? The meal’s missing one thing though. My milk. I look across the way and see Straggle Tooth at the table, and lo and behold, he has his milk.

“Bastard,” I mutter under my breath.

I’m halfway through my meal when a commotion starts to grow behind me. I glance over my shoulder and see two dudes yelling insults and pointing at a tray.

And just like that, a symphony of chaos erupts in the middle of an opera. The violins whine notes like “punk bitch,” the sounds of two bodies struggling to maim each other pour out of the tuba and trumpet, the percussion goes CLACK CLACK, CLACK CLACK, and the copper yells like a sostenuto. (Typically, the middle pedal on grand pianos, the sostenuto pedal allows a copper to sustain certain notes while inmates remain unaffected.) Everything echoes off cold concrete walls and vibrates into the ears of a hungry audience.

All of us are watching the fight now while moving slowly toward our cells. One of the guys is much bigger and manages to body-slam his foe to the ground. Biggie tries to lay some ground-and-pound through Smallie’s guard when the copper starts pepper-spraying, effectively stopping the scuffle dead in its tracks. A few moments later, the goon squad dressed in black and equipped in full battle rattle comes rushing into the section, shouting orders before they’re even through the door.

“Hurry up! Get to your cells now! Rack in and close your doors! Hurry up! MOVE MOVE MOVE!” Big and Small are cuffed right away, then escorted out of our section.

“Well, there goes our morning. We’ll be lucky to get out before lunch,” JJ sighs.

Well, back to bed.

“Hey homie, get up, trays are coming around,” JJ wakes me up to say.

It’s lunch time and we’re still locked down. The copper walks around opening our cup ports, and a few minutes later, passes out orange plastic spoons. Trustees are the only ones allowed out of their cells, so they bring our trays right to our door.

I eat on autopilot because I’m still half asleep, remembering the interactive movie my brain just put me through. The dreams have been getting longer and more vivid every night.

Nothing happened in my dream to make me wake up in a sweat this time, but it’s wild how memories and imagination come together to create a show just for me. John was there talking about visiting Mars, and the woman I used to love kept throwing peanuts at him. Then suddenly, we were all preparing to bungee jump off a helicopter that had already landed.

Why don’t dreams make as much sense when I write them down?

Dinner came and went two hours ago, and we’re still locked down. I spent the whole day lost in thought, flipping through magazines, and listening to JJ ramble on about the drug game. Magazines are all JJ reads, so that’s all I’ve got right now. Library will be coming around next week and I can’t wait.

I’ve always loved books, and the one good thing about this jail is the massive library collection I’ve been told about. I’m already planning on rereading some of my favorite fantasy series. Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time (He died before finishing so Thank God for Brandon Sanderson, who’s literally the best writer of our generation, and finished the series.) Big phat books with tons of words, perfect for filling the hours. I mean days. I mean weeks. I mean months, I mean…

“She’s on one. She could have let us out an hour ago,” JJ says, acting like his time is being stolen from him. “We still need to shower and you know they’re gonna be ice cold ‘cause everyone else on this side of the jail will shower first, taking all the hot water.”

He’s actually got a point. The showers are only hot in the morning and lukewarm in the afternoon. Showering after dinner usually means a chilly shower, but now we’ll be shivering. Sixty seconds of teeth chattering is mandatory after how gross I feel, being stuck in a bathroom for so many hours straight.

I turn my head to look at the copper station for the millionth time to see who JJ is referring to. Officer Parker must have at least fifteen years on me, platinum-blonde hair pulled back tight in a ponytail, little square glasses like a librarian would wear, a hint of pink lipstick, and an athletic figure sculpted from plenty of sweat and quick heartbeats.

She must have heard my lusty thoughts, because out of nowhere she looks up from her work and stares straight in my direction. Her icy blue eyes… oh wait, I used that description in Chapter 1. Ummm, her sapphire blue eyes… no, not dramatic enough. The electric lightning shooting out of her liquid spheres strikes me, causing the first two layers of my epidermis to react like a photon realizing it’s being observed, making follicles erect on the back of my nape, making… Way too much. Ugh… she gets the blood pumping through my entire body.

“Yo!” My celly sticks his face to the crack of the door and yells into the section. “Are we getting out tonight?”

“Not if you keep asking!” Miss Electricity yells right back.

“Dumb lesbian,” JJ mutters.

The speaker blares, causing JJ and I to jump. “What did you just say!?”

“I said ‘dumb profession.’ Why come here forty hours a week to be locked up in cement walls with no windows just for a stupid paycheck?” JJ says it boldly, but he’s looking at me with wide eyes.

“Because some of us actually make a living by not selling drugs. And guess what? I get to go home and have a nice juicy steak, while you’re stuck eating slop.”

“Yeah, all of a sudden you eat meat. Righhht,” he retorts, his permanent grin making its return.

“God, you’re a little shit. You’re lucky I’m in a good mood or I’d write you up and send you to max for harassing a guard,” she says in a tone more banterous than serious.

“Come on, you know you love me. Now for real, what’s going on? Are we getting out soon or what?” he asks with puppy-dog eyes on his breath.

“Yes, now leave me alone. The sooner I get this report written up, the sooner I’ll let you guys out,” she says, ending the conversation.

What in the hell did I just witness? So, they don’t hate each other? Is she actually mean or not? I don’t understand.

“You can tell Officer Parker wants me, huh.” JJ says to me with one hand over the speaker. His eyes are twinkling and he looks like a man confident he can pull off one of the thrilling challenges in this underworld: banging a female guard.

“I don’t know what she wants honestly. I thought she was about to pepper-spray our cell.”

“I used to be a clothing trustee on my last stay here. Notice how she got in at 5:30? She works the graveyard shift and after we’d get done folding laundry or doing changeouts, she’d let me and the other trustees stay in the TV room to watch shows until like two in the morning. But bro, she’s got a temper too. Like, she’s one person I would not fuck with if she’s fired up. But God damn she’s smokin’, eh?” he says, turning to look toward the guard station.

“Hell yeah she’s smokin’!” I say truthfully as I look her way again.

“Spades?”

“Shuffle and deal,” he says, sitting down on the toilet to pee.

During our game he talks about his baby mama on the outs. He shares the good, the bad, the ugly, and the crazy. He also tells me about his girlfriend on the side. With her though, it’s just the good and the crazy.