Only the Moon Watching

Chapter 23: Six Miserable Months

"So you know he'd get you flowers!" Vapor gushes, doodling roses on her arm in red pen.

"And you could get breakfast for dinner and read together, that's a cute date night, isn't it?" lisps Ripper. (I wonder what her idea of a cute date book is – The Silence of the Lambs?)

"I talk on the bowl, too," brags Needler. "I know all the boys schedules. This morning they're in the laundry room, and this afternoon half of them unload groceries off the truck and the others sweep the library. We should ask Girdle if she'll take us to check out books!"

"That's a weird way to say 'glutes,'" says Shiv.

Breakfast finished, Tangler sticks her hand into the air, calling for Garda Girdle like she's rudely signaling for a waiter. "Miss," she says in a whiny, teacher's pet voice. "Do you think we could visit the library today? Vapor wants to learn a new story to tell her kid."

Garda Girdle looks at the drawings on Vapor's arm disapprovingly and confiscates her pen. "Give that to me and don't draw anything in the margins."

The library looks exactly like the commissary: same unpainted cinderblock walls, flickering half-broken fluorescent lights, and heavily barred door – except the shelves are half-heartedly stocked with books instead of snacks.

"Most are magazines," Shiv points out, disapprovingly. "Years out of date, too. I heard one of the Garda's moms is a hoarder. Every time he visits he brings us a trash bag or two of magazines from 2007. If there are ever good books people steal them to make things out of the pages. The Catholics fold them into little beads and make rosaries. One girl makes Origami wedding rings. Tangler rolls them into Q-tips–"

"Toilet paper don't work for that! It's too flimsy. And the Q-tips in commissary are off brand–"

"All the musty, crumbling books get left on the shelf." Shiv says, pointing. "The moldering ones – that's a good word. Only the moldering ones are left."

She grabs my arm and leads me to the Romance section, signified by a water-stained pink Post-it. The books are barely sorted, not even in alphabetical order: Twelfth Night sits next to Cat's Cradle at one end with The Fault in Our Stars shoved between two Jane Austens at the other.

I pick up Cat's Cradle but Shiv yanks it out of my hand.

"No, when the boys show up you want to be reading something more substantial. Thicker, I mean. Let them know you like a really big, meaty book. It's a subliminal messaging thing."

"Are you sure you're talking about reading?"

"Shhh, someone's coming!" says Tangler, as Shiv smirks at me.

Needler hisses "Act busy!" and we all hurry to sit in the aisle, draping our legs across each other casually, opening our books to the middle and pretending like we've been deeply absorbed in reading. I lick my thumb to turn a page (I've never done that before! I must look so stupid!) and lower my eyebrows, like I'm really considering something.

"Morning, Sergeant!" says a squeaky voice. A blonde with a boyish face and heavily-blurred neck-tattoos enters the room pushing a mop, with extra cloth drying pads thrown over his scrawny shoulders. Four more men follow behind him. I scan them out of my peripheral vision, pretending to be too invested in my reading to look up and give them my full attention.

Shiv glances though, and shakes her head at me. I don't know what that means: No, Steak isn't here? Or, Don't look yet, play it cool!