The Innocents

Chapter Six

We were allowed a few creature comforts in prison.

Books, music, correction officers choice only, and television. The remote was safe guarded by whoever was on duty that day so most of the time we were stuck watching old cartoons. We had what they liked to call a gym consisting of an exercise ball, two ten pound weights and a yoga mat. Taped to the wall were certain exercises and how to perform them. Also a full length mirror and a very noisy and apparently about to fall and slice you apart ceiling fan. I spent most of my time in there, falling into a prison cliché' and working on my muscles or lack of every chance I got. I always heard that endorphin's helped your mood. Sometimes they did. Sometimes they didn't. What killed my mood was having to do it all in front of a guard who watched my every move in some sort of hungry lion kind of way. I got used to marching my sweaty butt back to the ward with my head held high.

We weren't detained twenty-four hours a day. We had freedom to roam our ward. It was sort of like the dorm in my college except we weren't allowed to leave. There weren't any windows either. They allowed us to self-destruct without sunlight, but watching every piece of our old lives fall.

Inmates were at the bottom of the food chain here. Even the orderlies outranked us only because they could leave when they were finished. They came through at night, mostly cleaning offices and the grounds since we did most of the cleaning of the wards, showers and cafeteria ourselves. We were all assigned jobs. You were lucky to get one since it helped take the focus from you wallowing in self pity. Some jobs were more desirable than others. Everyone wanted to work in the kitchen, but those jobs were reserved for those favorited by the guards and counselors. Counselors, by the way, were assigned to each and every girl. Mine was quite the enigma.

My first thought when I first Mrs. Krenshaw was that she was an officious scarecrow of a woman.

She wore pants suits. All the time. She dressed in mostly grays and blacks. The collars of her blouses were buttoned just under her chin. High arched eyebrows that always gave a look of surprise. Her hair, glossy and black, always pulled tightly and fixed into a bun on the very top of her head. She wore red lipstick. It popped against her pale skin.

The walls of her office were the color of red wine and surprisingly comforting. In the center was her command post, a large executive desk polished to a sheen with one of those leather tops, set against a gigantic painting of what appeared to be an English countryside and seemed to be covering up the window that had once been there. On her desk sat her monitor, a solid brass lamp with a cream shade, a photo frame faced toward her and a clear vase with some fake Azaleas in them. I touched them right away to make sure. I had a habit of doing that. All around me were various monitors. I had never seen so many in one place before save for an electronics store. In the far left corner stood a water cooler with tiny cups on top of it. I hovered in the doorway. She pulled out a seat for me before sitting down at her desk. She motioned for me to sit so I did.

"Drew," she said, her voice soft. "It's nice to finally meet you."

I told her that the pleasure was all mine and gave my best faux smile because I had only been at The Iron Rose for three days including the two in Limbo and I thought that the anticipation might have killed her.

There was always this stigma on therapists that they were only there for the money and they merely pretended to care about your feelings. Most of the time you would go to them by choice. You had a death in the family, a divorce or something tragic has befallen your life that even God or alcohol couldn't aid in your healing. Sometimes it was the aids such as booze and the constant relying on this fabled guy above that drove you to such lengths as to pay a fellow human being to listen to your laundry list of issues. They've heard it time and time again. Your life isn't anything different from the next guy, but they make you feel like it is and they'd give you that sense of importance before cashing your check. I never met anyone who truly cared about me except my dad and he wasn't here.