prologue: what is and should've never been

(the caged rat)

-o-

JULY 21ST, 2005

4:55 P.M. EST

COLEMAN PENITENTIARY, FLORIDA

Bee stared into nothingness, blinking whenever her vision inexplicably clouded from looking too long. Other than her foot lightly tapping against the tile floor, there was nothing to be heard; fraught silence suffused the area. The acrid odor of bleach tickled her nose, but she didn't bother to rub it.

Her orange jumpsuit created a stark contrast against the white walls of her cell. A fluorescent bulb - so infuriatingly bright, she guaranteed it would burn her pupils if she glanced at it - hung above her. To her left was the sorry excuse for a bed that felt like bricks when she laid on it. On her right was a black sink, and next to it a latrine. There wasn't any toilet paper, of course. ‘Guessed the cushy luxuries of Federal Prison didn't extend to something to wipe her ass with.

Bee rubbed her raw knuckles, anger flaring; her swollen lip tautened in irritation. Only a month into her sentence at Coleman Penitentiary and she's been damned with solitary confinement. Her stumped temper wasn't cutting it anymore, especially when the grounds were chockfull of hard-asses and knock off Tony Monatas.

She got into it with the warden - one of the aforementioned "hard-asses" - yesterday. Ed Carr was a bitter man who wore a pinched expression all times of the day. He was easily the scrawniest, oldest person there, yet he talked a big buck. He was always loud. Always over-sharing his life stories with inmates who couldn't give a fuck even if they tried. The few times he wasn't blowing air up his own ass, he scrutinized; whether it was inmates, guards or the underpaid staff, his dark eyes were narrowed and trained on somebody. Unfortunately for Bee, she fell victim to his latest session of intense eyeballing.

The preluding afternoon was a hot one; the sun scorched everything on the prison-ground. The temperature inside the facility was a few degrees below sweltering. Everyone in the mess hall was cross or exhausted; some in a miserable variation of the two. Despite being raised in Miami's unparalleled heat - which was hell on earth during a midsummer day, or any day, really - Bee wasn't immune to it. She sweated and bitched like everyone else. Joined the animus sweeping across the café through a series of irate groans.

For Ed Carr, this only meant his pinched expression would get tighter. It meant the stick jammed up his ass would reach insurmountable heights and anyone not inured to his attitude would smart. He stood in a corner of the mess hall, arms folded and eyes slanted. The female guard beside him fruitlessly tried to spark a conversation, bumping shoulders and touching his chest too many times to be professional. In a matter of minutes - twenty or thirty, maybe - he'd leave his spot to hobble to the bathroom. In the twenty-eight days she's been incarcerated, she realized he was in there a lot. She'd see Carr zooming through the hallways, gripping his dick for dear life like he'd piss where he stood if he didn't make it soon enough. It was odd, but surely not uncommon for folk his age.

Hell, he might've been watching her, but she was watching him, too.

Bee chewed her food slowly, poking it with her utensil. Unsurprisingly, it was nothing like the savory ethnic dishes she dined on in South Beach. The sludge in her tray was bland and sodden. It left a harsh taste on her tongue and an itching at the back of her throat. After an agonizing third bite, she tossed the spoon. It clattered across the table, leaving a trail of "mashed potatoes" its wake. She took a sip of water-which tasted like city tap-and attempted to wash the cottony taste out her mouth.

It didn't work.

Bee didn't feel him behind her until he spoke, his voice too shrill for a man looking fifty-something years past puberty. Soon following was the odor of mothballs and Old Spice. She wrinkled her nose.

"Enjoying the food inmate?" he asked, taking the empty seat across from her. She rolled her eyes.

"Obviously. ‘Shit was so good I had to eat it slowly." She flashed a grin as fake as the toupee slipping off his head. Carr chortled, but it wasn't at her quip. Instead, he took humor in her discomfort. Laughed at how she managed to become a pariah amongst outcasts. Bee's Pan Am smile fell quickly, a grimace taking its place.

Just a month ago, anyone with a sack big enough to laugh in her face got punched or took a crowbar to the knee. But now she was locked up by the feds, a caged rat, and the street rules didn't apply here. Her jaw ticked.

"I've noticed you haven't been getting along with any of the inmates, Woods." He said, finally addressing her by her actual name. Everyone in the prison knew it; it was plastered on every news station from the head of United States to the toes of Brazil.

Bee shrugged flippantly, picking her nails.

"'Not a social person."

"Well maybe you should start being one." he said, leaning in close as if he was telling her the key to life. He rose a grayed eyebrow, cocking his head at her. "I don't think you understand prison culture the way I do. These women here are savages. They like to group themselves together in tight, little cliques, and anyone who doesn't find a niche are the first targeted in petty rivalries. That whole ‘lone wolf' shit doesn't carry over well in Coleman. Especially when you're the youngest one in here."

Carr's hard eyes bored into Bee's, hoping to garner a reaction. However, Bee was indifferent. She threw a hand in his direction.

 "So is Fed. Prison like National Geographic to you or somethin'? Animal Planet? Do y'all not have cable in the lounge room?"

His expression soured just the slightest. Her smirked kicked up.

"You're very funny."

"I'm hilarious."

"I understand the mentality of girls like you, Woods." He said after a long moment, nodding unhurriedly as if a puzzle pieced together in his mind. "You're young and stupid as a box of rocks. You're fresh outta' high school; that's got you thinking rules are a thing of the past and you can do whatever the hell you like. So you do just that. You get caught up with a bunch of forty-year-old coke traffickers because they feed you lies that you live outside the law. That as long as you keep your legs open and your mouth shut you can get a free ride through life in the express lane." He shook his head, feigning pity. "But it doesn't work like that. And because you failed to realize it, you're stuck here with me and the rest of these bitches in the middle of Bumfuck Nowhere, Florida."

Bee shut her eyes for a second, leaning over the table and mocking his position. Head tilted, fingers clasped, a dollar store Dr. Phil voice in action. She was used to pseudointellectual men projecting onto her, thinking they could analyze her with a conversation, a few oversimplifications, and a background check.

"That's one helluva coincidence, ‘cause I know the mentality of guys like you, Carr. You're a disgusting old man hangin' onto his glory days by a thread." He glowered at her, lips puckered. "Judging from that nasty limp when you walk, you got injured back when you were on the force - police or military - so you had to quit ‘cause you couldn't keep up no more. You're in the bathroom every other hour, so I'm guessin' your bladder is with the shits. You tell people about your boring life ‘cause you're afraid once you take a dirt nap a couple years from now, nobody will remember you.

"You can't understand that the age of being a mediocre white man reaping all the benefits is starting to come to an end, so you take your ass to the nearest federal prison where you can still feel powerful. You wanna' feel like a big, strong man again, so you spend your time harassing a buncha' women who ain't got shit else to live for anymore. Then you came over here thinkin' I was gonna' let you walk all over me ‘cause you got a shiny little badge and gun." Bee shook her head, curling her upper lip. She grunted disapprovingly. "But it doesn't work like that. Cause now you're stuck here with me and the rest of these bitches in the middle of Bumfuck Nowhere, Florida."

His face grew ruddy as he seethed in a silent rage. Bee shrugged, reclining in the chair. She propped her feet on the table and locked her fingers behind her head. "But what do I know? All I do is open my legs and keep my mouth shut."

People failed to realize that Bee wasn't some just junkie idiot who fucked around with the wrong people and locked up for it. She was attentive, excruciatingly diagnostic and had a precise judgment of people; if Bee didn't hate the cops so much, she'd make an incredible interrogator. Ed Carr was an open book; figuring him out was the easiest thing she's done since arriving.

"You've got some damn nerve talking to me like that."

She quirked an eyebrow. She was a caged rat, but he was a neutered dog. "And what are you gonna do about it? Spank me? Choke me?"

Ed Carr didn't spank or choke her. However, he placed her in isolation for insubordination. She didn't go down without a fight, though, trying to take a few swings at him when the guards dragged her away. She got a good hit on one overaggressive bitch twisting her arm, but the other three rent-a-cops had her pinned to the floor in seconds.

She stared up at the blinding light of her cell, blinking. The pipes groaned within the walls, and her foot stopped tapping.

Ten more years of this and she was out.