Let The Great World Spin: A Novel - By Colum McCann Page 0,109

the radio and came out of his brown van, where he sat waiting, and said thank you to us all, and just pushed that old guy back to his van. Funny thing is, there was a piece of lettuce stuck to the old guy’s wheelchair, inside the wheel. Corrie pushed him to the truck and the piece of lettuce went round and round and round.

Corrie was like: “Remind me never to eat salad, ever ever ever again.” That cracked us up. That was one of the best nights we ever had under the Deegan. I suppose Corrie was helping us out. That old guy was made of cash. He smelled a bit bad, but he was worth it.

—

Every time I get a piece of lettuce in the prison chow now, I just have to laugh.

—

The boss matron likes me. She had me in her office. She said: “Open your jumpsuit, Henderson.” I opened it up and let my tits hang out. She just sat in her chair and didn’t move, just closed her eyes and started breathing heavy. Then after a minute she said: “Dismissed.”

The femmes have a different shower time than the butches. That don’t make no difference. There’s all sorts of crazy shit goes on in the showers. I thought I’d seen it all, but sometimes it looks like a massage salon. Someone brought in butter once from the kitchen. They had it already melted down. The matrons with their nightsticks love getting off on it. It’s illegal but sometimes they bring the guards in from the male prison. I think I’d jerk them off just for a pack of cigarettes. You can hear the oohs and ahhs when they come around. But they don’t fuck or rape us. They stop at that. They just stare and get off on it, like the boss matron.

I had a British trick once, and he called it getting me jollies. “Hey, luv, any chance of gettin’ me jollies?” I like that. I’m gonna get my jollies. I’m gonna hang myself from the pipes in the shower room and then I’ll get my jollies.

Watch me dance from the jolly pipe.

—

Once I wrote Corrie a letter and left it in his bathroom. I said: I really dig you, John Andrew. That was the only time I ever called him by his real name. He told it to me and said it was a secret. He said he didn’t like the name—he was named after his father, who was an Irish asshole. “Read the note, Corrie,” I said. He opened it up. He blushed. It was the cutest thing, him blushing. I wanted to pinch his cheeks.

He said, “Thanks,” but it sounded like Tanks, and he said something about how he had to get himself good with God, but he liked me, he said, he really did, but really he had something going with God. He said it like he and God were having a boxing match. I said I’d stand ringside. He touched my wrist and said, “Tillie, you’re a riot.”

—

Where are my babies? One thing I know, I used to sugar them up way too much. Eighteen months old and they were already sucking on lollipops. That’s a bad grandmother, you ask me. They’re gonna have bad teeth. I’m gonna see them in heaven and they’re gonna be wearing braces.

—

First time I ever turned a trick I went and bought myself a supermarket cake. Big white one with frosting. I stuck my finger into it and licked. I could smell the man on my finger.

When I first sent Jazzlyn out, I bought her a supermarket cake too. Foodland special. Just for her, to make her feel better. It was half eaten by the time she came back. She stood there in the middle of the room, tears in her eyes: “You ate my goddamn cake, Tillie.”

And I was sitting there with icing all over my face, going, “No I didn’t, Jazz, not me, no way.”

—

Corrie was always talking that shit about getting her a castle and all. If I had a castle I’d let down the drawbridge and allow everyone to leave. I broke down at the funeral. I shoulda kept my ’posure, but I didn’t. The babies weren’t there. Why weren’t the girls there? I woulda killed to see them. That’s all I wanted to see. Someone said they were being looked after by social services, but someone else said that it’d be all right, they said the babies got a