Her eyebrows were so pale they blended in with her ivory skin and gave her face a ghostly, alarmed look. Her hair was milky red – strawberry and creme but somehow dull. She stood in front of me and chatted away with the guard as if they were drinking buddies.
“Hands against the wall,” snapped the female guard. “Shoes off.”
I set my book and ID down on a table scratched with graffiti. I emptied my pockets. Five dollars and two quarters to use the pay phone to call a cab when I was released. I put my hands on the brick wall. Red, the name I have given her because I never learned her name, nodded at me and smiled.
“This really isn’t so bad. I’ll tell you everything you need to know.”
The female guard patted me down and Red. It wasn’t a half assed pat down. She went under my breasts, between my thighs, raised my pants legs, felt the back of my bra. Red talked the entire time about how next weekend she was flying to Dallas and intended to get some exercise. Red and the guard laughed. Exercise apparently meant sex.
We were then shuffled into a processing area. Red waved me to two metal tables, while smiling at the guards and the nurses.
“Fill out the health form,” she said.
“How do you know everybody?” I asked.
“I’m a weekender. I self-surrender every Friday night and am released on Sunday. This is my last weekend.”
“How many weekends have you been in here?” I asked.
“Fifteen weekends.” She laughed and I saw her mark unsure on the pregnancy question. A nurse gave us both plastic cups and directed us to a small cell filled with nine women. Four were setting on a concrete bench and the rest were on the floor. The toilet was in the right corner.
“I have to pee in this cup so no one get alarmed with me pulling down my pants.” All the women laughed at Red. I didn’t. I realized I had to pee in front of everyone. Red pulled down her jeans. She was wearing Spanx. It took her sometime to pull the Spanx down. She sat down on the metal toilet.
“Why are you wearing Spanx?” I asked. I immediately regretted that because it meant I was looking at her pulling down her pants. And yet, I was curious. Spanx were worn to smooth out the body and flatten fat for dresses or jeans when you were dressing to impress and or snare a man.
Red laughed. “There’s this cute guard in here and I keep asking him out to Applebee’s. This is my last week and my last chance to ask him out. He really is cute.”
All the women laughed. Apparently, jail does not suppress femininity.