Someone to Love

-7-

The next day was Saturday so I pretty much had all day to do whatever I wanted. After breakfast, I went to a place I had always enjoyed growing up: the library. When I was little, Dad always took me and Daijah to the library. He thought it was "fundamental," and whatnot. I just enjoyed picking up a picture book and being able to go anywhere I wanted. I could go to Paris with Madeline, or eat strangely colored food in Green Eggs and Ham. Wherever I wanted to go or do, all I needed to do was pick up a book. That was probably why I was so gifted in Literature growing up. I sucked at pretty much everything except cheering and Literature. It was like books were my happy place.

I scanned the shelves and finally decided on a good book to read. I found a table near the wall and started my adventure. Just as I was finishing up the ninth or tenth chapter, a bunch of women came in. All of them were black. One was thin with a shaved head and puffy bags under her eyes. Another had her hair in two nappy puffs at the top of her head. The last one was thin, yet athletic with this really curly hair and clear skin. They came in and started laughing and joking.

"Yo, Black Cindy, did you see how she thought she could beat me? Can't nobody beat me." The shaved-head one said.

"Bitch, anybody can beat you. You're two feet tall and weigh three pounds." She put up three fingers and then burst out laughing.

"I know you ain't talking. Over there looking like Respushia's sister." the athletic girl joked. "At least I'm fit."

"Yeah, as much dick as you used to suck, I bet that neck real fit!" They all burst started laughing again. Quite frankly, it was disturbing me. This book was getting really good and I couldn't concentrate on the plot with them cracking jokes about each other's weight. When they all got quiet, however, I knew the conversation had switched gears and a new topic was up for discussion: me.

"Who is that?" the lady called Black Cindy tried to whisper.

"Oh, that's Bernard. She just got here yesterday. From what I heard, she's from Florida." the athletic one also failed at whispering.

"Florida peaches." Black Cindy marveled, sitting back and looking up as if she could actually see the sun.

"That's Georgia, dumbass." Shaved-head pointed out. "Florida has them grapefruits and oranges and shit."

"Whateva! All I'm worried about are those white sand beaches and that clear blue ocean."

"Bitch, what you know about the ocean. Ain't no ocean in here."

"Shut up. I've seen pictures. I wanna be there so bad."

"Yeah, yeah. We all wanna be somewhere but here, evidently."

"So, uh, what she do?" Black Cindy tried whispering again. She failed miserably.

"From what I heard, she killed a dude who tried to rape her."

I was fed up. I was sitting right here. Was I invisible now? "You do realize that I can hear you, right?" I mentioned, putting my book down.

Black Cindy scoffed. "Bitch, we don't give a fuck what you hear. Ya got ears."

"So you obviously don't understand that when you're talking about someone, you're not supposed to let them hear."

"Bitch, don't make me smack you." she stood up now. "I will wipe the floor with you. You already look like a mop with that wild head of hair. You know they have combs at commissary, right?"

I stood up, too. "Evidently they don't. Otherwise you would've combed the naps out your head this morning."

She was just about to come over when this other girl came in. Her hair was braided and she had on a grey hoodie on top of her brown shirt. "Yo, Cindy, Janae. Vee just called a meeting."

"Alright." Cindy said, eyeing me. I bucked at her, feeling so badass. "You watch your step, bitch." She and Janae left, following the hooded female.

I sat back down and went back to my book. The puffy-eyed girl came over and pulled out a chair. Sitting down, she said, "That's a good book. And you got some nerve, coming in here talking to Cindy like that."

I looked up from the pages. "Why are you talking to me? I mean, I don't mean it like that, but your friends seem to not like me already."

"That's 'cause you bucked up to Black Cindy. She don't play."

"I'll keep that in mind. I just find it annoying when people have to go off of 'he say/she say' when I'm sitting right here. If you guys wanted to know, all you had to do was ask."

"So is it true?"

"What?"

"That you killed a guy who tried to rape you."

I fought the tears back down. I was done crying over that. "Yeah. He tried to rape me. So I kicked him. Evidently, he got stabbed by my stiletto and he fell off the balcony and onto a windshield. So know he's rotting away in hell while I rot away in hell." I rolled my eyes and dog-eared the page I was on.

"That's some deep shit to go through. I'm sorry."

"Thanks. I'm Tri. This whole last name thing is getting annoying."

"Poussey."

"Okay, please don't hate me, but is that your real name or your prison name because you're a lesbian?" I asked. The first normal person that I met could possibly be a dyke. Wonderful.

Instead of getting offended, she laughed. "Yeah, it's my real name. My dad was in the miltary and um, he named me after this place in France where a bunch of kings were and stuff. So."

"That's really cool. So you've lived in different places?"

"Yeah. A bunch. But my favorite place was Germany. There's plenty hot girls in Germany." she laughed.

"So you are a lesbian." I meant that to be a question, but it sounded more like a statement, or a realization.

"Yes. I'm a lesbian, since you wanna use technical terms and all that."

An alarm went off, so Poussey and I lied on the floor. "What exactly are you?" she asked as we lied there.

"A person?" I joked. It felt nice to smile. I hadn't done it in months.

She rolled her eyes. "Well, yeah. I mean what race. You can't be just black with all this curly hair. Plus not many black people have naturally hazel eyes." She pulled a strand of my hair while looking at my eyes which I honestly thought weren't all that special.

"My biological dad is black and my surrogate mom is white."

The alarm finally went off. Getting up, Poussey asked, "What?"

"It's difficult. I can explain it, but I don't know if you have something better to do, or-"

"Not really. There's not much to do when you're in here." We both sat back down.

"Well, I grew up in a gay household. I have two dads. Their plan was to have three kids, my biological dad would father two, my other dad would father the other. The rule was that whoever they picked to be the surrogate, the other parent couldn't know who it was until just before it was supposed to happen. So I have an older sister, Daijah, who's older than me by seven years, and a younger brother who's younger than me by six years."

"Wow. I don't even know how to respond to that."

"Yeah, I know, it's a lot to take in. I'm used to it by now."

"You're gonna have to tell me more about you, Tri. Is that short for something?"

"Katrina."

"I like saying your whole name better. Tri sounds like a pretentious cheerleader."

"Maybe I shouldn't tell you, then, that I used to cheer."

We both laughed. Maybe I could do this. You know, the whole 'surviving prison' part.