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Part 1
Chapter 1
“Put more of that cheese on my plate.” This directive murmur that edged on the possibility of a growl came from the cigarette-blackened lips of a woman in an orange jail jumpsuit, whose stereotypical back-braided cornrows and decidedly mean mug announced that not only had she been incarcerated for a very long time, but that this was likely not her first incarceration and it wouldn’t be her last.
Six feet tall with a wide back and muscular arms, she was standing toward the middle of a rowdy line at a metal food-service counter in the gray-walled cafeteria at the Fulton County Jail. All around was a mess of loud, trash-talking female inmates in various stages of eating dinner and wide-eyed guards with their hands on their guns.
“I can’t do that!” This uneasy response that was dipped in fear came from the Vaseline-coated lips of a woman whose orange jumpsuit was hidden beneath a white apron. However, this inmate’s stylish two-strand twists that only had three inches of gray at the roots made it clear that not only had she just gotten to jail, but also that she didn’t plan on staying and still wasn’t clear about how life had led her to that place. Indeed, like half of the women in the jail, Kerry Ann Jackson had maintained that she was no criminal. But that didn’t stop officers from putting her in handcuffs and placing her behind bars for allegedly tossing her ex-husband off the roof of a downtown Atlanta skyscraper.
“You better put more of that cheese on my plate, bitch!” The murmur coming from the black lips was definitely now a growl.
“But I already gave you the serving. One scoop. That’s it,” Kerry tried to rationalize, pointing to the soggy pasta shells on the growler’s plate. Kerry was standing behind the service counter, holding a one-cup serving spoon over the pan of pasta shells and processed cheese that was supposed to be macaroni and cheese. The kitchen manager had given her one instruction: “One serving spoon per inmate. You fuck that up and you’re back on the toilets.”
“You think I’m simple, bitch? I know what the fucking serving is, but ain’t no cheese on mine.” She slammed the tray on the counter in a way that made the soggy noodles shake in the soupy yellow cheese sauce on her plate, and all eyes to the front and back of the line looked over at the spectacle. Guards chatting nearby craned their necks to get a look.
Kerry was ready to disappear. If the pan of artificial macaroni-and-cheese surprise were big enough, she would’ve jumped right in and swam to the bottom to escape. Drowned herself in the yellow paste just to avoid what could happen next. And it could be anything. Anything. She’d been in holding at the jail for three months and in that time she’d seen women spat on for less. One woman got stabbed in her right tit for chatting up one of the female guards who’d been sleeping with another inmate.
“Problem, Ms. Thompson?” a youngish white male guard with tattoos up both arms posed, approaching the confrontation from the back of the line.
Cornrows looked at him through the corner of her eye and spat, “Nah—none at all.”
The guard looked at Kerry. “You okay?” he asked rather politely. He’d been working at the jail for over five years and in that time he’d seen Thompson and her cornrows come and go and stir up trouble in the jail each time. Kerry was new to him.
“I’m fine,” Kerry lied nervously.
“Move it along then, Thompson.” The guard nudged Thompson in the back with his index finger.
After taking two steps, she looked back at Kerry and mouthed, “You mine.”
Fear shot through Kerry’s veins like electricity and she would’ve tried to run right out of that cafeteria had it not been for a whisper in her ear from the inmate serving green beans beside her.
“Girl, don’t mind Thompson. She all talk. She’ll set shit off, but if you buck up at her, she’ll back off,” she said, dumping green beans onto another inmate’s plate. She was Angelina Garcia-Bell, a Latina with a short black buzz cut and beautiful long eyelashes that looked out of place on her mannish face. She was one of the two friends Kerry had made since she’d been locked up—the other was the inmate who’d gotten stabbed in the tit. “I told you that you can’t let these chicks see you all scared. Bitches feed on that shit in here.”
“How am I supposed to seem like I’m not scared when I am scared?” Kerry whispered, watching Thompson continue to peek back at her as the guard forced her down the line. “I’ll just be glad when this is all over and I can get away from these people. When I can go home. See my family—my little boy.”
“Won’t we all be glad when that day comes?” Garcia-Bell agreed, scooping out another serving of green beans. “Won’t we all?”
Most evenings after dinner, Kerry didn’t go into the recreational common area to watch soap opera reruns on the outdated projection television with the other inmates. Instead, she’d head to the library, pick up a book, and sit at one of the tables in the back of the room where volunteers taught GED prep classes. There, she could read and think and pretend none of this was happening to her.
But Kerry didn’t do that after the incident in the cafeteria with the macaroni and cheese. To avoid
a confrontation with Thompson, she went straight to her cell and climbed into her bunk, vowing to stay there until the lights went out and later the sun came up. Maybe tomorrow would be different. Maybe Thompson would’ve forgotten their spat in the cafeteria. Maybe Kerry would wake up and be away from this place altogether. Tomorrow, she’d be sitting on the back deck of the Tudor off Cascade drinking margaritas with Marcy. Tomorrow, she’d be driving up I-85 in the old Range Rover with the windows down and the air-conditioning on. Music blasting, open road in front of her. Going to wherever she wanted. Tomorrow, she’d see Tyrian. Jamison. Home.
Kerry laid back in her bottom bunk and looked up at the picture she’d tucked into the spring beneath the top mattress. Two faces smiled down at her. A man and a boy with the same brown skin, dark eyes, and pug noses. They were standing beside a large wooden sign that read CHARLIE YATES GOLF COURSE AT EAST LAKE. The boy, who was a little taller than the man’s waist, held a golf club in his hand. The man’s right arm was draped around the boy. Both looked proud.
A tear left Kerry’s eye and rolled back toward the pillow beneath her head. She closed her eyes tightly and tried to go back to the day she’d taken that photo. It was Tyrian’s first golf demonstration, about nine months earlier. She and Jamison were already divorced by then, but that day was peaceful. Agreeable. Tyrian woke up that morning so nervous, anxious, and excited that he wouldn’t stop asking his mother questions.
“What if I lose? What if it rains? What if it snows? What if I faint? What if my coach faints? What if no one comes? What if too many people come?” he listed so intensely Kerry wondered how a six-year-old could come up with so many worries. But he’d always been very smart. Advanced. Precocious. Like his father.
“And what if everything is perfect? Just perfect?” she’d said, placing his clothes on his bed. “Have you thought about that, my little worrywart? What if everything is wonderful and everyone has a great time?”
Climbing from beneath his bedsheets, Tyrian looked off to consider this like he was much older and wiser. “Okay,” he said after a long pause. “It could be perfect. You’re right, Mama.”
Kerry winked at Tyrian, kissed his cheek, and said, “I’m always right.”
And she was right. While her ex-husband was usually late to Tyrian’s practices at the golf course and had gotten into the habit of using his recent victory in a tight race for mayor of Atlanta as an excuse to be absent to most of Tyrian’s scheduled events, he was waiting outside the golf course, right by the sign, when Kerry and Tyrian arrived. Sitting in the backseat of his mother’s truck, Tyrian squealed with the delight of a six-year-old son when he saw his father standing beside the sign.
“Daddy’s here! Daddy’s here already! He really came!” Tyrian cheered, tearing off his booster-seat seat belt before his mother could pull into her parking space and turn off the engine.
