Ballad Of A Sick Girl, Part I: Intro

I hear the clanking of keys—a tender chime of brass and nickel. The percussive rhythm stays in time with the beat of echoing footsteps. The sound swells toward me. I don't know who or what to expect. I'm fading in and out; my mind tumbling along the deep line that separates reality from imagination. The rubber slippers I'm wearing feel cold against my bare feet. Discomfort oozes from my every pore. I turn my attention to the palms of my hands. Coal-black ink covers each from wrists to fingertips. Dressed in an orange uniform made for someone twice my size, I scan the upper half of my right pant leg and spot a branding stenciled onto the garment—four letters, an acronym.

It's pointless to try and decipher the stamp; I know I'm locked up in jail. But I'm unsure where or why. I know it's Sunday. Father's Day—my new husband's first. Unfortunately, he's spent most of it accompanying my dad's rescue mission to save me from me. It's an undertaking both men know all too well. I am not the object of their concern today, the baby is. I haven't seen my son since the officer pulled him from my car while her partner placed me in handcuffs.

I remember stopping the car and speaking to someone on the phone. I remember the police questioning me. I remember pleading with them to wait for the rescue squad. They're on their way, I promise! I remember how, finally, the officer ordered me into the backseat of her patrol car. But not before retrieving a forty-gallon garbage bag from the trunk and placing it flat across the bench seat—just in case I pissed myself again.

“Smith, Steigler, Cash!”

A loud voice echoes from the other side of the steel door. The two women sitting next to me on a wooden bench each raise one of their hands, so I follow suit. There's a loud buzzing sound before the cell door swings open. A dumpy-looking corrections officer instructs us to move. We walk the corridor, and my knees tremble at every steel door slamming shut—a soon-to-be sourly familiar jangle.

"When the hell are they gonna feed us?" Steigler cries out. “And we're going to need some diapers for her. She's my cousin and coming off a three-gram-a-day dope habit."

She gestures toward the other female inmate, who has yet to speak. I keep quiet, too. I feel confident that someone is on the way here to get me out of this mess, wherever here is. My mother will get me out, no doubt about it. She's a veteran of jails and institutions and must know I've been stuck for hours in a holding cell with a woman in a mental health crisis and her cousin in the throes of heroin withdrawal.

We approach a dumpster-sized rolling bin packed to overflow with scratchy wool blankets and musty bedsheets. An identical container sits next to that one and holds stacks of fire-retardant sleeping mats ready for the next inmate to make a bed in her more permanent accommodation—in our case, on the third floor.

"Why are we going upstairs?" Steigler shouts. "That's maximum security, motherfucker! All I did was hit my husband before he could hit me! Put me in general population, not on lockdown with the murderer bitches!"

The officer ignores Steigler's banter until, finally, we come to a dead-end at a set of elevator doors. The woman in uniform grips the two-way radio on her right shoulder, cocks her neck, and speaks.

"Three females, coming up."

I close my eyes and imagine the elevator doors opening in the five-star hotel's mirrored lobby where I spent last night and the night before, drinking away my marital problems. Sadly, my fantasy is short-lived. My eyes open, and I'm in a room full of women wearing the same orange attire as me. Twenty or so congregate around four bright blue picnic tables. I see a pair sitting close to one another, lovers perhaps, unfazed by it all. They and a group of older women engaged in a clangorous card game don't bat an eye at us. But the rest of them glare in our direction like hungry animals mid-hunt.

A new uniformed guard appears and introduces herself as Miss G. Her body language reads militant, confident, and overtly masculine. Maintaining an arched brow and tightly pursed lips, Miss G distributes the bare necessities of humane punishment: one smelly old towel, a sliver of soap, a tiny tube of generic toothpaste, and a toothbrush without a handle.

"At least we got a fucking kit this time," Steigler whispers to her cousin.

Miss G signals for us to stop walking. We've arrived at a mesh wire gate that opens into one of three similar wings, each housing twelve cells. B-wing welcomes the three of us. The junkie joins another dope-sick girl curled up on the cell floor. Directly across the hallway from her cousin, Steigler continues being a nuisance until the man that beat her ass bails her out. I'm assigned cell number nine. Inside the tiny room is little more than a cold and clinical toilet slash sink made of chromed steel. I lay my sleeping mat on the empty cot to my left. Then, my sheet, blanket, and my kit. My eyes fix on the cinder block structure surrounding me, especially the drab and uninspiring pale yellow color. The doors and trim are painted a pastel blue reminiscent of the sky on a sunny, cloudless day. Because I am an over-analyzer, I find this pigment combination intentional and cruel. I run my fingers along scratches in the paint, and the claw marks tell a story. I read the names of girls before me, and despairing cries out to God. Creative usage of the generic toothpaste spells out a message: F U LIFE!

As I take in the scenery, I grow petrified by looming uncertainty.

Who will sleep across from me in this cell?

Will she like me or hate me?

If I keep staring at the door, will it open?

What if I scream?

I'm dizzy and delirious. My eyes are closing. No, no, no; I can't close my eyes in this place. I hear voices. The women from the blue picnic tables form a single-file line outside my door, and although I don't know them, they terrify me. I listen to them squawk trivial threats and uneducated rebuttals, and I allow that fear to consume me. My pulse throbs hard and fast as my eyelids begin to twitch from the force I hold them shut. When the cell door opens, so do my eyes. In walks this Herculean woman with skin the color of dulce de leche. My eyes follow a single braid of coarse hair tightly spanning from the top of her ears. Her head seems small, disproportionate compared to her immense frame.

Shyly, I introduce myself in a voice that cracks with terror.

"I'm Queen," she says.

I watch as she slips off her orange plastic slippers and places them beneath the foot end of her cot. She inhales deeply through her nose—an exasperated breath to convey a new scent overwhelming her territory. The smell of alcohol permeates the small space so intensely that Queen is shocked I can put off such a stench while coherent enough to speak. I ask her for the time, and she tells me it's shortly after eleven.

"It's lights out at midnight and on again four hours later for breakfast."

"I've never been in jail before," I tell her. "I'm scared."

That's when she asks the question I dread answering.

"So, what got you locked up in here?"

My first instinct is to lie. Perhaps, falsify an elaborate tale of triple homicide or aggravated arson—maybe even a fucking jewel heist. I've manipulated people my whole life; making up stories to get what I want is what I do best. I've got this! Or am I too drunk?

"My charge is public intoxication," I say. "I don't know why the cop thought I was intoxicated, though. I only had one beer—not even a whole beer!" I slur. "Only got half of it down before I fell asleep!"

I'm belly laughing; deep and forced, fake and ugly. Is Queen aware it's a farce to cover up tremendous guilt?

"Where were you drinking?" she asks.

"In my car," I whisper, "with my baby."

"Oh shit, girl! Lexington County, don't fuck around when babies are involved!"

Lexington County—a hundred and some odd miles from home—is where I am.

I go inside my head and concentrate on the past forty-eight hours. I struggle with the picture, but I replay the tape. Friday evening, I decided to drive to my mother's home in Tennessee, rob her prescription painkillers and my stepdad's liquor stash while the two played babysitter. Emotional infidelity has me in a chokehold, and it may as well be my husband's hands around my neck. We got married how long ago, now? Six months? No, it's seven. Seven months. And he's lived a double life all along. Who could blame me for running? I wish I could run right now.

How the hell did I end up here?

Why did the cops come?

Did my husband call the cops on me? My dad?

Don't I get a phone call?

And, where the hell is my mother, for Chrissakes?

"Yo, you alright? Hello?" Queen shouts—chubby fingers snapping.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm good."

I'm not good. It feels as though I've been drilling into concrete for hours. My skull is full of static, and the ringing in my ears just hit a hundred decibels. These symptoms are nothing new, though. Alcohol withdrawal is something I'm familiar with; however, this is my first time experiencing delirium tremens while locked up against my will in the company of a stranger ignorant of my illness.

"I was on my way to see my mom up in the mountains," I mumble, "but I stopped in Greenville, the halfway point and a city where I have history. So I got a room at a bougie hotel and stayed there a couple of nights. Then, I headed back home instead of continuing to Tennessee."

I'm picking at the jagged remnants of chipped nail polish on the dirty toes of my bare feet. It's all coming back to me.

"I got dizzy driving down the interstate. I had to stop. I kept looking at my son in the rear-view mirror, and I just—"

My eyes well up with tears.

"I panicked. I called my dad and begged him to bring my husband to get my son and me."

"And then your ass fell asleep?" Queen smirks.

"Yeah, I went to a nearby gas station, got a beer, drove to a lot, and parked," I say. "I woke up to an officer knocking on my window."

"Damn, girl," Queen shouts.

Standing between our cots, she slips off her orange uniform and is left wearing only a white tee shirt and panties. She has Sweet Pussy inked in cursive above her right knee. I watch her fold her orange uniform into a tight square and neatly place it atop the bath towel she's folded half lengthwise. Next, she carefully rolls the contraption to resemble a rustic lumbar pillow from Williams and Sonoma. Finally, she tucks the makeshift bolster behind her neck before swaddling herself from the waist down with her musty bedsheet and scratchy blanket.

A gray plastic bin—the type bussers use to clear tables in twenty-four-hour diners—sits beneath her cot and stores her belongings. She reaches her hand in and pulls out a tattered, spineless paperback. Then, without diverting her eyes from the page under her bookmark, she says, "Dead of summer too. I sure hope you had your air conditioning on in your car when that officer woke your ass up."

I tell her I did, but I'm lying. Knee-walking drunk or not, I know better than to imbibe while behind the wheel of an idling automobile. A wave of nausea washes over me, and I'm not surprised. Once the liquor wears off, and the guilt, shame, and remorse show up, so does the stomach bile. Worse, there is no escaping—nowhere for me to run.

Rat, meet cage.

***

I wake to the sound of the buzzer. It's morning, and a petite brunette with piercing green eyes glares at me from inside the doorway. Queen slowly shuffles over to her and takes two purple trays and two red cups. The door slams shut.

"Take a tray. Take it from the bottom," Queen says.

"You can take my cup too if you want it. I don't drink that shit."

I try, but my hands could be more steady. I take one tray and balance one cup on top like an amateur circus act as the drink spills over the rim and onto a pile of what looks like congealed vomit—it's corn grits. I peer into the cup. The beverage is pale and cloudy, like lemonade, and I'm so dehydrated that I finish it in one gulp.

"What the fuck is this?" I ask, gagging.

"It's supposed to be milk," Queen says, "but they put saltpeter in that shit, and I plan on having more babies when my ass gets out of prison, okay!"

I need some clarification: Peter, who?

Famished, I bite off over half of a silver-dollar-sized mystery patty and chew. Forceful regurgitation ensues, sending small chunks of fodder over the tray, the wall, and my trembling legs. Queen shakes her head from side to side and, with her mouth full of food, tells me it's my turn to clean when they come through with the mop. The room fills with loud and melodic mouth-whistling noises. Indeed, I'm sonically hallucinating. But, wait, no, this is happening. The opening jingle to the Andy Griffith Show whirls throughout the third floor. Queen and I can hear the notes as if the broadcast is coming from inside our cell. Over and over, it plays.

The whistling, like the shrieking of unrest, has no narration, opening credits, or even a pause. Instead, the audio track continues on a loop. Just the whistling, over and over and over. It must be a third-floor thing. Maximum security lockdown, alright. Queen and I are allowed to leave our cell for an hour per day. We spend the other twenty-three trapped inside this box. Finally, the whistling stops. Not a second later, Miss G's raspy voice takes over.

"Get ready to clean up, B wing!"

Queen gives verbal instructions for scrubbing to her standards while her head stays buried beneath her blanket. She makes sure I know not to mop the floor of our cell if the bucket visited C-wing first.

"Them bitches on C got lice, and they don't rinse that mop out!"

Her head emerges.

"Black people don't get lice on our heads. We get it in our pubic hairs, and that's crabs, okay!"

Queen pronounces okay with vigor and ends nine out of ten sentences with it.

I plant my face against the five-inch square piece of frosted plexiglass that covers the hole in our cell door that Queen calls a window. I see the silhouettes of two figures approaching.

"I don't know what you are looking for, inmate. Are you in a hurry? You got somewhere to be? Sit your ass down and wait your turn. This bitch is eager to clean this morning, Peaches."

Sitting up from her cot, Queen wipes the sleep from her eyes. "Peaches is a run-around," she says. "Monica is a run-around too. She's the girl who brings the food trays."

I stare at her and wait for her to translate.

"They're going to be here for a while awaiting other warrants. Usually, multiple sentencing hearings. So, they make the bitches run around and do chores and shit," she confirms that I'm still paying attention before continuing. "After she sprays the bleach, wipe everything down with one of those."

She points to a stack of small boxes, each of which contains a single maxi pad. "Get that thing all up inside the toilet! Sweep up that mess you made, and put your damn shoes on, girl! I don't even walk around barefoot at home. Don't you know parasites live inside your floor and get up in your body through your feet?!"

***

My head is pounding. It's like, where my brain should be, there's a snare drum instead, tap, tap, tapping to the beat of my racing heart. I fear I may lose consciousness, so I lay down.

"The judge usually does arraignment hearings in the mornings, before lunch," Queen says. "If I were you, I would go my ass to sleep until they come to get me. Ain't nothing you can do but wait."

I drift off but wake in a cold sweat whenever a transmission comes through on Miss G's two-way radio as she does her rounds. I listen for my name, some codeword in the auditory stream that will instruct her to let me out of my cell. Then, with my hands clasped behind my back, she'll lead me through the mesh wire gate. Next, we'll move through the rec room, where I count four blue picnic tables. Now, we're passing the three-person shower stall with the clear plastic curtain sweeping the moldy tile. One last path around the guard tower, and finally, we cross the threshold that tracks the stainless steel doors of the elevator and head to the first floor. My mom is parked outside the booking area, waiting in the sunshine—her frail frame propped up against the driver door of her electric blue hatchback. A cigarette nearly burnt to the filter rests between her bony fingers. I run to her. Let's get out of here, Mommy. Please take me home now.

I'm only dreaming, of course. I toss and turn in futile attempts to find a comfortable position to wait, sleep, and dream while wide awake. The fluorescent lights are so bright that even with my eyes shut, the backs of my eyelids seem incandescent. There will be no more sleeping today, though. Not for me. Not here. I'm freezing, wrapped in the wool blanket but sweating profusely. My husband claims he can smell when I've been drinking heavily. He's not lying; my cold sweats reek bittersweet. Like a potent strain of medicinal marijuana, it's an earthy but metallic scent; think copper wire or the must of a wet forest, densely covered in spore-bearing mushrooms. I stink of pheromonal decay for several days after a bender. I need a shower, but it's time for chow. 

I scan a sectioned food tray and notice some suspicious luncheon meat unidentifiable to the naked eye. The cold cuts are grayish-pink in color and dressed in a transparent film so slimy that it mirrors the reflection of the bulbs in the overhead light fixture. There are four slices of stale white bread, one packet of generic mustard, a watery pile of cold corn kernels, and a checkerboard square of chocolate cake sans frosting. According to Queen, the cake is the best part. She takes my piece without asking. After the trays are collected, I watch Queen as she carefully disassembles her pillow. She shakes her uniform shirt and pants hard like my grandmother did when she pulled fresh laundry from the dryer in preparation to fold. Then, back in uniform and armed with her toothpaste and toothbrush without a handle, Queen slides her feet into her slippers and walks over to the cell door.

"Get your soap and your towel, girl. You about to have one hour to fight for a five minute shower and a ten minute phonecall, okay!"

I stay close behind Queen as she moves across the rec room with prowess, strolling confidently toward the nearest hanging telephone.

"Stay close," she says. "You're after me."

It's my turn to pick up the receiver and dial my mother's phone number, but I can barely operate a touch-tone phone. The robotic voice on the other end of the line prompts me for my PIN, but I don't have one.

I call out to whoever is close enough to hear me.

A slender, mousy, and primarily toothless girl appears over my shoulder. With a slight lisp, she introduces herself as Jennifer. I watch her watching my hands shake.

"Let me dial it for you," she says. "What's the number?"

The phone rings eight times before I hear a click, then my mother's voice.

"Ashley. Baby, are you okay?"

She sounds frightened and worried.

"Are you here? Are you working on getting me out of this place?"

Tears trickle down my cheeks faster than I can wipe away. I don't want others to hear my desperate cries, but my mother's voice sends me over the edge where I have no control over my emotions. I've become one reaction after another. I hope my mom can hear my pain. She needs to know that I'm harboring an ocean of shame and regret in my belly, and it's overflowing making waterfalls of my eyelids. I can't wipe away waterfalls.

"I'm in Tennessee."

Her words sting like razor blades slicing my skin. I buckle at the knees and crouch as far as the armored phone cord allows.

"You're not getting me out?!"

My tone goes from terrified and hopeless to agitated and aggressive.

"I can't, Ashley."

I fear if my body hunkers down any further, I'll drop this telephone receiver and become a puddle on the concrete floor. My head feels like a helium balloon. At any moment, it might leave my body and float away.

"Don't call your dad either. He can't talk to you. He says if the two of you speak, you will get into an argument because you are too much alike."

My father doesn't want to hear my voice because underneath my cloak of addiction, beyond my betrayal of his trust, I'm his little girl and suffering. He's no stranger to alcoholism, anger, resentment, or prison, but he got sober when I was a child.

"He is on the phone, noon and night, trying to find a bed for you at a rehab center. Every member of his Alcoholics Anonymous homegroup is on the job. Hundreds, if not thousands, of people are praying for you," mom says. "But he's not getting you out of your situation until there is a safe place to land."

I don't believe in prayer anymore, and I think rehab centers are a scam, but before I can remind my mother of that, I hear the robot voice again.

"Your time has expired. Goodbye." Click.

***

Three days after the arrest, I make it to court, where a judge sets my bond amount. After being escorted from the chambers and back into my cell, I recount the details to Queen. Her response is laughter, which feels condescending, so I snap back.

"How much is your bond?" I ask.

"I don't have a bond, okay," she says. "Well, let me clarify."

She stretches her hands and cracks her knuckles before crossing her legs in a way that seems too ladylike.

"My bond for attempted murder is two hundred and fifty thousand, meaning my family would have to come up with twenty-five grand to get me out. But they couldn't get me out because of my federal charge of manufacturing and distributing crack cocaine. That charge has no bond. So, I will serve fifteen years in federal prison for that shit, and I didn't even get caught with nothing."

I want to correct her. The word she's looking for is anything, not nothing. But I resist the urge. Queen is on month eleven at LCDC, and within the week, the US Marshalls will escort her back to Florida, where she will finish her incarceration in federal prison. Queen is interrupted by the buzzer. When the door to our cell opens, I see the pale-faced officer, and she's not alone. Our new cellmate's arrival compromises the zen of my and Queen's living space. There are only two cots in this cell. It's an inconvenience for me to move my orange plastic slippers from underneath the sidebar of my cot. The foot end of my bed is too far a reach. Not to mention, I've finally procured a novel through the bartering of cold oatmeal, and I'm storing it down there, in the exact spot where the intruder lay curled up. She walked in half dead, and now she's fast asleep—snoring like a chainsaw.

I grab the top end of my sleeping mat and roll it under a couple of turns to make a pillow; this cuts nearly two feet of bedding off, leaving the backs of my legs exposed to the cold metal of the cot. My head is spinning, though, and the pad helps. Finally, I'm in a comfortable position to read. Too bad I can barely get through the first paragraph of this book. It doesn't matter anyway; I'm too distracted by the newbie's strident, vibrating snores to absorb a plot. I slide down to the edge of my cot and reach for the toilet paper roll. I rip off a couple of sheets and ball them between my fingers until I have a semblance of two earplugs. 

Then, the lights go out. Sleep is unimaginable, so I picture a neon-lit room somewhere in the building's damp basement. Floor to ceiling, and wall to wall, the place is packed with towering stacks of fire-retardant sleeping mats. A parolee sharing a cigarette with three fellowmen flicks ash onto the floor. Tattoos cover his hands and fingers––the line work is sloppy, certainly that of a prison yard tattoo artist. He slices each mat at the seam with a switchblade and removes bulks of stuffing, leaving only a few clumps of poly-fill inside the shell—just enough to be snide. I watch his filthy fingers stitch each seam back together without attempting to hide their ruthless tamper. Indeed, I picked the sleeping mat with the least amount of clumps left, that's for damn sure.

***

It's morning again, and Queen's voice startles me awake. She's telling our new friend it's her turn to clean up.

"Oh, okay, yeah, okay," the woman mutters. "When is the food coming? I'm starving."

She introduces herself as Mrs. Boulviere and her body quivers as she struggles to stand up. Her voice is raspy, and her accent tells me she's spent a long time in South Carolina's Lowcountry. The jargon she's using is Gullah Geechee—the native tongue of my hometown. Her head bobs like a kitschy dashboard figure as she claims a four-year-old misdemeanor warrant for shoplifting resulted in her arrest. I listen to her tale of returning some stolen merchandise to a store to acquire cash to support her crack habit. My mom used that trick when I was a kid. I can see her now, driving up and down each aisle of a retail parking lot, scouting for discarded receipts. Once she snatched up a few, we'd walk into the store, and she'd locate a few of the items listed on the ticket by matching up the SKU. Then, we'd make a beeline to the customer service desk, where she would place the store's inventory on the counter next to someone else's proof of purchase and demand a refund. Voila! Fifty, sometimes a hundred bucks. Her biggest take was from a home improvement megastore—seven hundred and some change—and she barely pulled it off. The item was not ideal; a household water heater. She needed assistance moving the hefty appliance from the display pallet onto an oversized shopping cart. Luckily, the accommodating employee didn't insist on rolling it out the door for her, or the jig would've been up.

Mrs. Boulviere can't weigh more than ninety pounds. Her face is hollow, supported by stark cheekbones that bring out the darkness around her eyes—two perfect black circles, like a tweaked-out Uncle Fester. I don't want to talk to her any longer because her stories resurrect childhood memories I was sure I'd drowned with alcohol. She smells like a crack house, too; a scent I became familiar with at seven years old when smoking a joint or snorting a line at a party didn't satisfy my mother's craving for escape anymore.

The pale-faced officer is back at our cell door and calling me over to her.

"Here's the Bible you asked for."

"You gone find God now and shit?" Queen asks.

"I need something to read other than the teenage angst novel Jennifer gave me! It's garbage!"

She turns to face me, her big brown eyes widening.

"You better finish the book you started. Everybody knows if you get out of jail and leave an unfinished book behind, you'll be coming back to finish it, okay!"

Queen dances a jig from the sink to her cot and back to the sink. She moves her arms in a rowing motion—a maxi pad in one hand and a soap bar in the other.

"And you best believe my ass will finish my damn book before the night is over!"

She glares in my direction.

"Well, you've only got a couple more hours of light left, girl, and I see at least a hundred pages left beneath your bookmark, so you better stop dancing and start reading."

I don't want Queen to stop dancing, and I don't want her going anywhere as long as I'm here. She is the light when things get dark. Her snapping fingers bring me out of the fog when I get lost in my head. In a place full of unexpected twists and turns, Queen is straight and narrow, and she's likely unaware of how terrified I am to lose her. The overhead lights flicker before powering off. I hear movement within the cell. It's Queen, slowly slipping into her orange plastic footwear. I find her shape, and my eyes follow it as she moves toward the cell door, romance novel in hand. She props herself against the steel door, wrapped tightly in her scratchy wool blanket, and reads page after page—visible only by a scant sliver of light seeping in from the B-wing corridor.

***

It's morning again. Miss G's echoing voice disturbs me awake.

"Addington, you got two minutes to get dressed and get all your shit ready to go. They're waiting for you at transport."

The door slams shut, and my heart sinks into my gut.

"Glory hallelujah!" Queen sings. "I'm getting the fuck out of this bitch, y'all! Damn, these eleven months felt like eleven years, okay! Glory be to the Lord on this fine day!"

She drops the grey bin onto the cot and neatly places her belongings into a wrinkled paper bag. Electricity radiates from every nerve ending within her dancing body. She sways, sings, and is so damned happy that I can't help but be pleased for her. Still, I am sad and irrationally frightened. I slip on the orange pants, then the shirt. My uniform top is stained around the armpits by the toxins my body has sickly secreted—a putridity detectable from a few feet away. I certainly don't want to lift my arms, but I need to hug Queen. I move toward her. Disregarding the mysophobia she openly maintains, I wrap my arms around her. Whether or not she appreciates such an intimate form of farewell matters not at this moment. She reciprocates the gesture, and her embrace is a pleasant surprise. The hug becomes a slow dance, and I lay my head on her shoulder.

"Thank you for being nice to me," I whisper.

"I didn't do nothing for you but braid your hair and beat your ass at cards," she smiles. "Here, trade mats with me. Mine's like a pillow top mattress compared to that flimsy piece of shit you've been sleeping on."

When the door to our cell opens, so do the voices behind the other eleven units on the wing. Hoots and hollers follow Queen as she sashays toward the mesh wire gate. Eyes of friends and foes peer through each tiny window, fighting for a view of her departure.

"Bye, bitch!"

"The Queen is leaving the castle!"

"Godspeed, my nigga!"

And, just like that, she's gone. Thirty-six hours later, I make bail. Miss G escorts me from my cell. We pass the picnic tables, the shower stalls, and the glass-enclosed guard tower and stop when we reach the stainless steel elevator doors. Then, I hear her speak into the radio unit for the last time.

"One female, coming down."

I wipe away beads of sweat from my forehead and fish inside my black leather handbag, searching for an unopened pack of Marlboros. Because I'm no longer drinking alcohol, I fancy myself a smoker. I'm an addict—a whole escapism fiend. Although I have nearly one month of sobriety under my belt, I suppose I'm a lifer for a fix. Cigarettes seem like an okay alternative to gut-rot whiskey.

It's a brutally hot afternoon in the seaside town of Beaufort, South Carolina—it feels like I'm underneath a gas oven broiler. Seeking air-conditioned refuge, I push open the wood-paneled door and quietly enter the small, one-floor building. The name of the clubhouse is Alano Hall—shorthand for Alcoholics Anonymous. Beyond the clouds of cigarette smoke are smiling faces and lively banter. To my right is a small kitchen. It's empty, so I walk in. I pour from a carafe of weak and stale coffee, fill a styrofoam cup, and then add a spoonful of sugar. I stir as slowly as possible, but not because I've got the shakes. Almost every withdrawal symptom has ceased, but my social anxiety remains aglow.

Since being released from jail, I have attended at least one twelve-step meeting per day, sometimes two or three. Mostly, I avoid eye contact with others and stare at a list of AA's Twelve Steps—a framed poster print decorating the nicotine-stained wall. Some group members are reserved and quiet, while others are loud and boisterous. And, then, there is Vicki—my new sponsor. I'm here tonight to meet her privately in a backroom to discuss the fourth of those dozen steps I mentioned.

Straight away, I tell Vicki I have big news.

"I'm not going to rehab. My dad and I discussed it. Since I'm taking every measure to stay sober at home, he thinks, and I agree, that my family needs me here," I say. "I want to do this without clinical intervention—with your help, of course." 

“I see that in you, girl. I do," Vicki says. "I've seen people ready, and those not ready. You can do it, and I will help, but I'm only an instrument of God's work."

I'm still getting acquainted with this God idea. But a list of the lived experiences that pissed me off once and likely still do—that I can handle. Vicki calls this a resentment list, and as we review all six pages of mine, she opens my eyes to the possibility that all of the hurt in my soul exists because I store it there, arsenal-like. Finally, she suggests that the pieces of my broken heart I use as hand grenades are running out, and it's time to wave the white flag.

"So, what do I do next?" I ask.

"Prepare for tomorrow's confession!"

Twenty-four hours later, Vicki picks me up for our dinner engagement.

"Do you like Mexican food?" she asks.

I tell her Mexican is fine. I'm nervous, and I hope she doesn't pick up on it. I haven't had dinner with a friend in years. The last leg of my drinking career took me to a hermit-like solitude. Something so commonplace as having dinner with a fellow woman makes my stomach sick. Inside the restaurant, a host leads us to a booth in the back. We slide into the tall banquettes, and I motion toward the drink menu and ask Vicki if this place makes a decent margarita.

"I've heard they don't use enough tequila," she says. "But, was there ever enough? I drank the well dry a few times!"

I reach for a hot tortilla chip and break it in two. My hands are shaking, dammit.

"It's time to get everything off your chest," Vicki says. Her tone is warm, and her energy is ideal. Still, I'm perplexed, mortified, and clueless.

"Where do I even begin?" I ask.

"Start with the first time you tried escaping reality."