Renee, next cell to mine?
She’s my best friend in the whole world.
We talk through the walls.
And we make up stories.
And poetry to keep each other goin’.
To keep each other sane.
Renee?
She is havin’ the worst day of her life.
She got declared a dangerous offender. Which means she won’t ever get out.
I mean Renee . . .
She never hurt nobody.
Alls she did is
1. Be Indian.
2. Try to escape, can you blame her?
And 3. Take hostages.
Okay, that sounds serious but I KNOW Renee, and she would never have hurt nobody.
She just wanted them to see how desperate she was.
She wanted them to LISTEN.
They said in the report that she and the other one tied up and tortured the guards for three hours.
It wasn’t like that I know, because like I tol’ ya we talk through the walls.
They did tie them up, but only because they needed them to listen. They did NOT torture them not at all. Okay, one little burn with a cigarette but that was only because the guard called her a stupid Indian. Look. Renee needed to see her children, she has four children she couldn’t never see, and one of ’em was sick with leukemia . . . she somehow thought that they would let her see her children when she let the guard go, it’s all those bad movies, I coulda told her, you’re wastin’ your time, girlfriend. This is not gonna end well for nobody.
That woman loves her children more than life itself and all that happened is she got twenty-one more years.
glory knocks on the cell wall.
Renee?
Hey, Renee!
I got one for ya. It’s time for my Monday poem. Are you listening? Can you hear?
So I am the girl
In your storybook swirl
On Friday I was in a fiery car wreck
and the EMS saved me
So now I wear
this lovely green ribbon round my neck,
but sometimes I bleed through
and the EMS becomes PMS.
Get it? Get it, Renee? EMS and PMS?
So that’s my Monday poem, Renee.
You have Tuesday! Hey. Sleep well, eh.
I’m prayin’ for your Samantha, you know I am. They got good medications for cancer these days, I heard that.
I love you too. I like really love you.