Prison Windows

Roadrunner doesn’t know what it is to be contained, to look at things you’ll never touch, to be stacked and lined up and smeared but separate from everything else. Roadrunner and I go and see her papa in the prison, and his eyes get all yogurty and wet when he sees us. We hug hello, the fat cotton of her papa’s jumpsuit scraggling against Roadrunner’s skinny cotton T-shirt. I dig into my purse for the baggie of quarters and hand them to Roadrunner to buy her daddy treats. All around us, old men and penny pinchers and wise guys sit alone on one side of tables, and their families sit on the other. The laminated tile and drop ceiling remind me of cafeterias and church basements At the periphery of their vision, you can see nowhere sliding into view. All these men have the electric buzz of the catatonic stunned awake. They tell stories; they want to let their nightmares jester around in someone else’s ears for a change. The edges of these men have been filed off, the guards watch to make sure of that, to ensure no sharpness comes through eager for sudden harm. I leave my cheap legs naked when we go see Roadrunner’s daddy so he can have something to think about after we leave. If Roadrunner acts up, I tell her I’ll sell her to the five women who live down the block, with their hats and their teeth and a neighborhood’s worth of tall tales raising them up. “Roadrunner,” I say, “sing your daddy the anthem; sing him that sea shanty you learned in music class,” and she does, and everyone’s silence sticks tight to the walls until she’s finished. I stare at Roadrunner’s daddy and remember well the muddy swerves of his temper when he drank too much. I remember his tongue, carnivorous and dozing against my own. I remember wishing I’d washed the floor as he laid me down and the smell of him after his suit had cooked him for an entire hot day in the sun. I have dreams and don’t even try to decipher them, because as much as I want them to come true, there’s as much I want to ignore and forget. I bring Roadrunner’s short shoulders under my warping hands. My voice cracks and drains. The ragged engine of my tears starts up when the bell rings and it’s time to go. A blue fever of sadness slugs through me as we file out onto the street. Roadrunner flips a pack of playing cards in the air and catches them. I have been tipped over. Roadrunner, with her breathy exhales, runs to the corner quick and then rushes on back to me.