Namesake

一

    Six O' Clock. Six O'Clock meant the smallest streak of morning. Six O'Clock meant the loud crushing crunching sound of the cell doors being unlocked all at once. Six O'Clock meant If you weren't at that doorway by the time the guards rolled by, that was yo' ass. And for the fifth time since I got here, that bitch Esther wasn't standing next to me behind these bars. Shaking my head, I just knew she'd had enough of the hole; but she never fails to surprise me. See, Esther had this theory that she could escape if she tried enough. She also had a backup plan, that if she tried to escape enough they might just get tired of bringing her ass back inside, and let her out.

Right..this bitch..

   At the end of the count, I laid on that cold hard excuse for a mattress. Not being able to sleep since I got here, my mind raced and played over the images I couldn't rid myself of.

    I stood there at the end of the sidewalk, loose postured. Peering out at the merging highways. My shoes were about a foot apart, and with a glance down I caught sight of 15 cigarette buds beneath me. There are 5,280 feet in a mile, and 25 miles from there to my house. If I walked from that spot straight home, it's safe to say I'd step on 132,000 cigarette buds on the way there...But I guess it would have only mattered if I was actually going home. Once I stepped onto the stairs of that tattered old bus, I had no thoughts on what fate was awaiting me. All the thinking in the world couldn't have prepared me for this moment. That of course being my excuse for not thinking all my life. Not thinking when I snatched that old lady's purse when I was ten; or the time I stole my aunt's record player from the garage and pawned it when I was 17, or when I robbed that bank three months ago, and held all those innocent people hostage. On the contrary though. I was thinking three months ago. I was thinking about my damn self.

"If you hit me, imma beat the shit out of you. If you shoot me, imma kill you. If you kill me, my niggas gon go kill yo whole fuckin family just so you gotta live with that shit. JUST SO. You gotta live knowing that shit was yo fuckin fault. and that's just how it is."
"Jamisha, get in this damn house and stop playin with them ole' dusty lil' boys! What I tell you? Don't make me have to wait by this door neither! Come on in and wash your hands for lunch."
"Mama, I'm 14. When are you going to just accept me for who I am? You can't baby me forever. I won't be around that long, and neither will you."
The smack after those words could have stopped a sixteen wheeler at full speed, and I'd live with that bruise, that imprint of her hand on my cheek, and  that scratch from her nails for the rest of my life. Kicking anybody's ass that stared too long. See, that one day with my mother made me know for a fact that this was who I was meant to be. It was the way I was born to live my life and she hated it. But I hated her for what she did to me.

Standing out on the yard, with my hands buried deep into my olive green winter coat. We all got them, and around this time we all looked like an army of cold angry females. Simply because that's what we were. You couldn't tell us that being inside where it was warmer was what we wanted, because the difference between out here, and inside those confines, was humanity. Being locked up, and looked at and counted made you feel inhumane.