Nowhere but Home A Novel - By Liza Palmer Page 0,27

one of us knew what forever meant,” I say, walking into my room and placing the card back into the recesses of my luggage.

8

Gentleman Jack Bourbon

As I drive over the river and through the woods to the Shine Prison just twenty minutes away, I call Dee and tell her what I’m doing. Her response is subdued. This particular job definitely has a ghoulish edge to it that might dampen the normal celebrations a new job would bring. This job might change me. I’d know the terrible things people are capable of. That isn’t something I want to sign on for, but my life hasn’t been free of that already. I’ve seen the dark side firsthand and I know the complicated relationship we humans have with right and wrong. I’m painfully aware of how human beings can turn other human beings into something that’s below an animal.

I pull into the visitors’ parking lot just outside the barbed-wire fences that surround the prison. Guard towers anchor each corner of the compound, and as I walk to the entrance I swear even the wind is hesitant to float over these parts. The air is still. The humidity follows me through the door like a monkey on my back.

“Queenie Wake to see Warden Dale Green?” I ask the woman behind the glass.

“I knew the Queen Elizabeth herself wasn’t coming on down to Shine!” the receptionist says, laughing with the other woman in the front office.

“You probably get that all the time,” the other woman says.

“Yes, ma’am,” I say.

“Well, Queen Elizabeth, I’ll be right with you. I’ve been dying to say that forever!” The women cackle together. They look like every other receptionist. Matching floral separates, sentimental doodads littering their desks, and yet they’re here. The first faces visitors see when checking in at a prison. The receptionist looks up after talking a bit with another woman in the front office. She continues, “Juanita’s going to come get you in a second. Go ahead and have a seat, Queen Elizabeth,” the woman says with a wink, motioning to the bank of chairs just behind me. I thank her and take a seat.

Sterile. Beige. Nothing to observe or draw conclusions from. Every now and again a guard comes in and talks with the ladies in the front office. They are easygoing; it feels like any other office. Except. Except there are hundreds of men just beyond those walls who are behind bars. What am I doing here? I should just work part time at Merry Carole’s salon. I don’t need to be doing this. What do I think I’m going to find here? Is this—

“Queen Elizabeth Wake?” A round woman in a fuchsia blouse and flowery skirt comes through the front-office door. Her cocoa skin shimmers with sweat, as the heat of the day has sneaked into the waiting room with the opening and closing front door. Her sensible shoes squeak and settle as she walks over to me. I stand, wiping my palm on my pants as she approaches.

“Please. Queenie,” I say, shaking her extended hand.

“We spoke on the phone. I’m Juanita,” the woman says, motioning for me to follow her through the front office. I oblige. She continues, “Now, Warden Dale is right through here. He’s ready for you to go on in, if that’s okay by you.” Juanita’s shoes squeak down the long, sterile hallway.

“Yes, ma’am,” I say, trying to take in everything. It’s a wraithlike symphony of sounds. The echoes bouncing off the institutional walls are not unlike those of a schoolyard or a playground, but the speed has been slowed down so the voices are lower. My gut is telling me to run. The instinct of impending danger is on overdrive. The authoritative yells are vomit inducing and the voices they quiet are menacing and frenzied. I feel as though I’ve stumbled onto the front lines of a looming rebellion.

“Don’t mind it. They keep to themselves and you get used to it,” Juanita says, without so much as a look back my way. I nod and focus my eyes on Juanita’s waddling floral skirt just in front of me. She continues, “Right through here.” She opens a heavy metal door. The door shuts behind us and the rebellion is silenced. She walks through the anteroom, with its deep woods and rich fabrics. I follow close behind her. She knocks on the wooden door.

“Come on in,” I hear from just beyond the wooden door. Juanita opens the door and motions for me