She Sends Kisses

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Part Four: Keeping Ahead of the Storm

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Weeks later, I'm sitting in the common room, playing checkers with Jay. A bunch of the girls are hanging around in front of the TV, watching the news. I'm willing to bet none of them watched the news on the outside, but in here we count on the midmorning news to fill us in on what's going on in the real world.

Right now, they're doing a story on some middle school teacher who was arrested for attacking one of his students, and the girls are doing a running commentary.

"Crazy ass son of a bitch," snaps one of them. "That was my daughter, I'd cut his dick off and shove it down his throat. Fucker'd never make it to trial."

A couple girls nod and murmur their agreement.

Even in a max security prison, there's a code of ethics, a food chain. You've got your rare serial killer, but they're usually in a different unit. Most of the chicks in here are in for murder or attempted, and most of them just got sick of getting the shit beat out of them all the time. You've heard the story. Some guy beats on his wife or girlfriend one time too many, and she goes all J. Lo on him, like that movie "Enough". The ones in here just weren't smart enough to set it up first and claim self defense. They just snapped one day.

Then you've got your assaults, repeat offenders (usually gang members), armed robberies, dealers, prostitutes, and the occasional wrongly convicted, in that order. Pretty much the same over at the guys' facility, from what I hear.

The only hand that beats murderer is sex offender. We don't get too many of those in here, and even the ones we do have made the mistake of boinking the neighbor's 17-year-old son, or one of their senior students. There's a lot of them at the guys' jail, but most of the time.. they don't last too long.

There's definitely some honor among thieves, because they go ballistic over that shit. You talk to someone who killed their entire family without blinking an eye, and they'll tell you how sadistic and fucked up a child molestor is. There was only one chick since I've been here that was charged with pimping out her kid. She made it three days before someone took her out right in her cell, and they never figured out who.

Jay jumps her checker over a couple of mine to hit the edge of the board and points at the one piece of hers I've managed to take out, which I use to king her. I always sucked at this game, anyway, but it passes the time.

I hear a cheer go across the room, and turn around to face the television.

Time for the weather report.

Let me break it down for you. The guy who does the weather report is hot. I mean, Brad Pitt meets George Clooney by way of James Dean hot. Prison gets a lot of chicks in bed with another chick, for sure, but most of 'em straighten out if they ever make it outside. Around here, watching the weather guy is as close to porn as we're allowed to get.

Even I can't resist, and I've always preferred a nice rack over a dick--but this guy manages to make me give a shit whether it's raining in the midwest.

Everyone stares for awhile, and a sigh makes its way around the room when he says "Back to you, Tom." They all start chattering about what they'd like to do to him, and how they ought to get him to come do a story here--on what, the weather inside the pen?

Suddenly, something the anchor says catches my ear, and I start yelling. "Everyone shut the fuck up!" I jump over the couch and get as close to the mounted TV as I can, while I get bitched at from behind. I ignore them and listen to the woman giving the report.

"--location here at the Los Angeles County Courthouse, where the young woman who, one month ago, confessed to killing twenty-two year old Katrina Silber, was sentenced today to serve twenty-five years to life in a state facility. Twenty-one-year-old Buffy Anne Summers, of Sunnydale, California, plead guilty to charges of aggravated assault and voluntary manslaughter. Friends and family declined--"

I don't hear the rest, because one of the guards comes by and turns it off. Everyone else groans as they're ushered towards the door that leads outside, but I stare blankly at the girl's head in front of me. I just keep thinking this isn't happening, that it's a dream or a spell or something.

For once, I don't work out. I just sit on a bench with a lit cigarette, looking through the fence to the outside world. The one I'll probably never set foot in again, for as long as I live. Everything in here seems muted, and everything out there.. brighter than usual. Before I know it, they're calling us back in again.

I walk back to my cell in a haze, staring at the grey walls as though they've got some hidden answer carved in them. There's gotta be more to the story, right? Maybe some demon posing as a human.. I'm sure it'shappened. It's all just a mess and Giles will figure it out eventually, because that's what he does.

I try to imagine Buffy surviving a max security prison, and even with her Slayer strength, I don't see it. She's too soft, too spoiled. She doesn't have a clue how it works in a place like this, where everyone is out to get you. There's no friends in prison, just people that haven't screwed you over yet, and people you haven't screwed over yet. I try to picture Buffy Summers, Sunnydale's very own knight in shining press-on nails, doing hard time.

Probably right here.

Jesus.