Only the Moon Watching

Chapter 14: What's He In For?

"Well?" asks Shiv. She's reading a magazine on my bed when I reenter our room after court. "Guess it didn't go well, then?"

"Six months," I say, shrugging. "I'll get out just in time for fourth of July," I smirk.

"Is that your favorite holiday or something?"

"Well it's a great time for fireworks..."

"Ha!" Shiv collapses the magazine on her chest and grins up at me. "I'm glad you're sticking around, you're funny. But – if you're gonna be stuck here you've got to go through initiation."

"Initiation?"

I sit on her bed and pull off my crocs. My feet are sore – is it from standing around all day? Again, I can barely remember my hearing... It was so surreal it's all a blur. So are the words Shiv says next:

"First things first: we've got to teach you to make Pruno."

"Prune-oh?"

"Prison wine," Shiv grins. "That's why I wanted you to start collecting oranges. You need fruit, some hot water, a big bag to brew it in. You've gotta keep it hidden from the Gardas, obviously, I'm not doing all the work just so they can drink it! It's like having a flour sack baby in school, you've gotta burp it, look after it, check on it in the middle of the night..."

"Did your school actually do that? I've only ever seen flour sack babies on old TV shows."

"Nah, I've only read about it, really." She puts on her Irish accent again: "I've raised many a wee pruno baby, but."

She tosses me the magazine and sits up.

"Have you got a steady hand?"

"Why?"
"Grifta stole your orange. Tear out a bunch of letters and write her a ransom note."

"Ha ha," I toss the magazine back at her. "I'll just steal another one at breakfast."

"Takes more than one, we'll have to save up for a week or so. I'm best at making it because I haven't got tits."

"Because why?" I grin.

"I can shove the oranges down my shirt, you know. There's room for them." Shiv shrugs. "Layer them under a sweatshirt, hunch my shoulders. Garda Girdle would notice but the male guards never do. If any of them asked I'd say I was on my period and that makes my tits bigger. Not like they'd know! Were there any oranges in commissary, do you remember?"
"I don't think so. No, wait. There's a bowl but they're all rotted and green, already. And now that I'm stuck in here I need to make my money last, anyway."

"Fair enough," Shiv says, laying back on her bed again. She gestures for me to toss back the magazine and lays it on her chest. "Who are you getting it from, then?"

I pull my feet underneath me, protectively, and turn my face away so she doesn't see me blush. "This guy. Mike."

"Oh so you love him?" she asks bluntly. "Is that why you aren't drooling over Steak yet?"
"No!" I say, so firmly it sounds like a lie. I look away from her, embarrassed. "But I took the fall for him. We were – we are – best friends on the outside. Stealing the fireworks was his idea, he went to get his car to haul them away and that's when the cops busted me. We were in my neighborhood – gated community–" I explain. "But he'd ridden in with me so there wasn't a record of him at the gate. And I didn't snitch on him either, I just let the cops take me away."

"Nice of him to pay you back, I guess." Shiv says, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

"Yeah, twenty bucks for commissary? Totally worth the six months I've gotta be in here with only a toilet for entertainment!"