THE GIRL THEY CALL Wee-Wee looks nervous and that makes you nervous.
She’s in the hallway after you get processed and the guard sends you through the door. You are supposed to follow the schedule now, a piece of paper handed to you, a list of things you need to accomplish if you want to use the phone, take out books from the library, have a visitor.
Remanded to
For a period of
Until such a time as
You feel cold, so cold inside, like your heart has been wrapped in cloth very tightly.
Wee-Wee motions to you. She shakes her head.
Her voice is urgent as she pulls you closer, her breath hot in your ear. You can barely understand her.
Just drop. Cover your head. Don’t scream. Curl up tight.
She keeps looking back at the double doors, the ones that lead to the dorms, where all our bunks are. Suddenly, there is shouting and screaming behind the doors.
You say, Wha—
But there isn’t any finishing because the doors burst open and a stampede of girls appears, followed by fierce-faced guards, and Wee-Wee is pulling you down to the ground.
Cover your head. Don’t scream. Curl up tight.
A horde of girls stomp over you and Wee-Wee, kicking and punching as they move to the front doors of the hallway, the ones that lead to the lobby. Alarms begin to sound as they break through.
Shoes in your face, against your cheek, down the length of your back.
You can feel so many things being crushed down in you.
Just like in the hospital, the night your mother died, you think, This can’t be happening.
But it is.
Next to you on the floor, Wee-Wee’s eyes are leaking. Her lips shake.
Effluviam, you think. Maraschino.
Out loud, you whisper, Perpendicular. Entropy. Magnolia.
Wee-Wee stares at you, shoes whizzing by her face. What are you doing?
Ampersand. Sussuration.
Wee-Wee whispers, Lava. Sara Lee.
The lights go out but the alarms stay on, and the words keep coming, from both of you, long into the night.