Katherine Dunn - Attic

Glad-Ass is getting ready to roll the gates. She hauls back on the long lever in the matron’s room and all the gates rumble open simultaneously. The roar and clang wakes everybody for breakfast. Kathy is already in the bull pen. They say she does hard time. They say she does her time on the streets. She climbs the bull pen bars every morning to look down into the streets.

We are going down for breakfast. We all line up in front of the door and Glad-Ass comes to open it. We march out past the matron’s desk which is always covered with pale intriguing folders with one of our names on each one. When Mrs. Eliot is on duty there is a flower in a small vase. When there is a flower the line swoops toward it, each head bobbing at the flower and then rising to go on. The girls from B tank are waiting for us in the elevator. It is as large as my mother’s bedroom and moves slowly. None of us know which floor the kitchen is on but we all know that it is down from the thirteenth floor.

The kitchen is not like the huge dining halls you see in prison movies. It’s more like the cafeteria of a small poor high school. It’s no larger than a large living room and there is no wall between the cooking and eating areas. There is a long counter with hot food trays on it. We pick up plates and spoons and file past the counter. The male trusties who work in the kitchen stand behind the counter and put food on our plates as we pass. They look at us but Kathy says they’re dosed with saltpeter every day and never know whether it’s in the coffee or the stew. None of them are fat and we look at them. The dykes joke with them like men joking together in front of their women.

There are four long tables. Two for B tank and two for C tank. We sit six on each side of the table eating our mush or pancakes with the spoons. We had forks until Jean tried to kill one of the girls from B tank. There is little talk at the table though it is not forbidden. We eat mechanically, not looking at each other out of consideration. If we want seconds we must not get up but we can call one of the men over and ask him for it. Many of the girls call men over. Rose never needs to call anyone. Two of the men watch her all the time and bring her everything before she runs out.

The matrons sit at the table with the deputies who guard the men. They talk quietly watching us. One of the deputies comes over frequently to talk to Rose. He whispers and she laughs throwing back her head and showing her fine teeth. She says she screws that deputy on the streets and he thinks the kid she is carrying is his. He gives her cigarettes. He is nearly bald and as dark as Glad-Ass. Even with her belly Rose is very beautiful.

Goldie wipes funny. She spreads her legs and puts her right hand down between far back with the tissue and pulls forward so if it’s smeary it all gets wiped forward into her cunt hair and cunt. I never thought of other people wiping different. I always reach around my right side with my right hand and down between till I can feel through the tissue it’s just below the hole and then wipe up to where the crack widens and then look at the tissue and fold it over and do it again. It’s neater and if it’s a shallow pot you might dip your hand or the tissue into the water going in from the front. From the back you have to be careful not to hit your knuckles on the seat but you learn to sit farther forward — probably all men reach around the back because of the balls in the way — men don’t wipe when they pee — when I pee I wipe the way Goldie does and when I do both I wipe twice — once each way — if you shit you almost always pee too at least a little — maybe men wipe their pricks if they pee while they’re shitting — just a little dab at the tip to blot it while he’s got the tissue handy anyway — all these girls — pulling down their pants and hiking up their skirts — fat pale bottoms spreading over the edges — I wish I could piss like a man, standing up so cool — belly thrown forward — shoulders back — head down watching — give it a shake and stuff it back in — pulling out on the pants and in on the gut to zip. It even sounds different — a steady pouring instead of all this splash and spray and you can’t aim — they were coming to repossess the furniture and she wanted to keep the rug — pistachio or spumoni and soft — she loved it and crouched with her skirt pulled up to her armpits and her chin on her knees staring down at the rug with her face very red and her hands folded tight — arms gripping her belly and we could see her water and the long brown steaming out in the cold room and it fell and first one end hit and then the other end and the first end bounced up a little like a log when it topples and she was crying and her nose was running and she was talking and she smeared it all over in the long hairs of the rug until they matted and stank in long strokes with an old newspaper and wanted us to come and do it too but we ran away and hid behind the cold furnace and heard when the knock came at the door and waited a long time to go up. She was cooking on a hot plate where the gas range had been and the rug was gone.

On the chalk board where the menu is usually written, someone has forgotten to erase the MERRY XMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR signed ARVID OWSLEY, JACKSON COUNTY SHERIFF. On the table in front of the window someone has forgotten to take down the little Christmas tree. Its needles fall faster than the snow outside the window.

Jean is brushing her hair. It is pink and electric. She has no eyebrows but draws them red and arching on her white face. Jean is a prostitute and works bars. She came here after I did but she has been here many times. On the day she came Kathy told us she had been seen downstairs being booked. Everybody was glad to see her. She spent the first night in the key-cell. The second night she slept in 4 cell. Since then she has been in 3 cell with Rose and the others. Sometimes Kathy teases her about being a one-night stand. Jean takes out her picture of Pudge. “That’s my little girl….Isn’t she sweet?” and kisses the picture. Pudge is short and fat. In the picture she is wearing a motorcycle jacket. Her hair is short, slicked back in a D.A. Pudge is a taxi driver. Usually Pudge brings Jean two cartons of cigarettes once a week on visiting day. One week she didn’t. All that week Jean cried at night and fought with everybody. On the next visiting day Jean came back from the window crying. She said she felt horrible for having been so angry at Pudge. The snow had been very bad and Pudge had spent the money on boots to keep her feet from freezing. Jean explains how she can’t have children but they were going to arrange for Pudge to get pregnant and then they would raise the child. They would love a little girl. Jean is very tough but her face is lovely when she talks about it.

Goldie is asking for Kotex — she throws her hip out and pouts and looks up at Kathy saying may I please have some — and Kathy smiling looking down at her with her hands flat in her back pockets says sure they’re in here — and holds aside the key-cell curtain and Goldie flounces in expecting the pat on her ass and they are gone for a long time and everybody whispers making jokes like at parties when people disappear into bedrooms — and then Goldie comes out with her ponytail half undone and her face red and they kid her saying did you get what you wanted and Kathy says nothing — just strolls around the bull pen and everybody respects her.

Each morning after breakfast there is Jesus humma on the intercom. There is a speaker in the back wall of each cell. A man says:

Hail Mary, full of Grace,

The Lord is with thee.

Blessed art thou amongst women

And blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus….