Ch.56I wish it were so! (5)

#056

Two years ago.

“Other rooms got roommates assigned, why don’t I have one?”

Macy asked the guard during evening roll call, pointing to the empty bed across from hers.

“Oh, didn’t I tell you?”

“No. You didn’t.”

The guard chuckled before answering.

“It’s a newbie who’s never been to prison before. The moment she got off the bus, she headbutted Tanner right in the forehead. So she went straight to solitary for five days.”

“Huh.”

Even Macy, who had been in prison for eight years, had never heard of such a situation.

How tough must this inmate be to cause trouble before even entering the prison and end up in solitary?

“So in four days?”

“Probably.”

After the guard answered Macy’s question and headed to another cell, Macy flopped down on her bed, waiting for the troublemaker who would eventually occupy the bed across from her.

Four days later, while Macy was organizing items that other inmates had asked her to get, someone appeared in front of her.

An inmate with pale skin, hollow eyes, and a body so thin that even the smallest size orange short-sleeved prison uniform hung loosely on her frame entered Macy’s cell.

“Are you the newbie?”

“…Yes. Jesse Blueberg.”

Jesse, having introduced herself, was carrying a brown cardboard box filled with supplies she had received while in solitary.

‘They said she was crazy, but she doesn’t seem like it at all.’

She looked a bit intimidated and depressed, but that was the appropriate expression for someone entering prison for the first time.

“You can unpack your stuff over there, and the rest… well, I don’t have much to say. If you need anything or have questions, ask me.”

Macy didn’t have a habit of intimidating newcomers, so she generally left them alone until they adjusted to prison life.

“Yo, Macy. Got a minute?”

“Nicole.”

Nicole, a Black woman with long braids, waved at Macy as she entered the cell.

“Oh, a newbie?”

“Yeah, a newbie. She just came in before you arrived.”

“That’s good. Macy’s a nice friend, so listen to her well. Oh, by the way, I’ve been needing something lately…”

Seeing Jesse nod without talking back to Nicole and quietly organizing her belongings, Macy dismissed her earlier concerns as unfounded.

The problem occurred a few evenings later.

Jesse was diligently drawing a car based on pictures cut from an automotive magazine, using a pen and paper she had gotten from Macy, while Macy was receiving a massage from Nicole.

“Ah, right there. There. Oh, yes, that’s it.”

“Macy, why did you volunteer for car repair work when it’s such a hassle?”

“I had to go because people asked me to get things for them… More! Ohh.”

Macy, the prison’s supplier of goods, preferred to get items herself rather than delegating the task to others, saying it didn’t suit her personality.

Nicole was giving Macy a massage because she couldn’t properly pay for the items Macy had procured for her.

“Do you really need to go this far to get items? I don’t understand…”

“Hey, Macy. Busy?”

Lying on the bed receiving her massage, Macy squinted and looked toward the cell entrance to see the stocky Allison.

“What is it.”

Macy wasn’t particularly fond of Allison either, so she answered somewhat curtly.

“I need some things.”

“Come back in the morning. Business is closed for today.”

“Come on, Macy. Why are you being like that? Between us.”

Despite the cold rejection, Allison responded smoothly, causing Macy to snort before answering.

“Fine. I’ll hear you out. What is it?”

“I was hoping you could get me some cold medicine?”

Macy immediately waved her hands dismissively at the mention of medicine.

“Are you doing this on purpose?”

“What?”

“I told you I might get cigarettes, but I absolutely won’t get anything related to medicine.”

“Come on, Macy. It’s just cold medicine. You can’t even get that?”

“Regardless, no medicine. Find someone else.”

“Tch.”

As the rejected Allison turned to leave, her eyes caught sight of the skinny Jesse deeply focused on drawing a car.

“What’s with the car?”

Seeing Jesse completely absorbed in her drawing and paying no attention to her, Allison felt something twist inside her.

She snatched the car drawing Jesse was working on.

Jesse, who had been concentrating on her drawing, was momentarily confused when it was suddenly taken from her. After realizing Allison had her drawing, she stood up.

“Is this a Porsche? Drawing it however you want…”

“Give it back.”

Jesse stood up and reached for the paper in Allison’s hand.

“Can’t I look at it a little longer?”

“I said give it back.”

“Allison. Leave the newbie alone.”

Nicole, who was watching, told Allison to leave Jesse alone, but it wasn’t going to work.

Instead, Allison looked at Jesse with gleaming eyes, as if she had found prey.

“What if I don’t want to?”

“Give it back…”

Jesse tried to twist Allison’s wrist holding the paper, but her twig-like arms were no match.

“This one’s funny. You think that’s going to work with your scrawny body?”

“I said give it back now!!”

Jesse threw her whole body at Allison to try to get the drawing back, but being so light, it had no effect.

“Go ahead, keep trying, like that’s going to work… AAAGH!”

When nothing else worked, Jesse bit down hard on the hand holding the paper.

“Let go, you crazy bitch! AAAGH!”

Allison tried to push Jesse’s head away to get her off, but Jesse was biting down so hard that her neck veins were bulging, and the more Allison pushed, the more painful it became.

“Wow, we’re going to need a bigger boat.”

“Nicole!”

“What? She’s like a shark.”

Macy glared at Nicole for her admiring joke.

Finally, as the pain in her wrist became too much, Allison loosened her grip on the paper, and it fell to the floor.

As soon as the paper dropped, Jesse casually removed her mouth from Allison’s arm and picked up the fallen paper, saying:

“You should have just given it back nicely, you crazy bitch!”

Macy, surprised by Jesse’s sudden behavior after being so quiet all this time, spoke in a bewildered voice:

“Why, why is she acting like that?”

Normally, Macy would have intervened earlier, but she hadn’t expected Jesse to react that way, so her response was delayed.

“…Crazy bitch!”

Allison shouted, examining her arm where Jesse had bitten her.

Seeing her wrist with teeth marks deep enough to draw blood, Allison strode toward Jesse and raised her right hand to slap her cheek.

-Smack.

“You’re trying to lay hands on my roommate in my cell?”

Macy had suddenly stood up and positioned herself between Allison and Jesse, grabbing Allison’s raised arm.

“Macy, get out of the way! Look what that crazy bitch did to my arm!”

Allison shouted furiously, but Macy looked at her indifferently and said:

“None of this would have happened if you hadn’t provoked her. Right, Nicole?”

“Huh? Oh. Yeah, that’s right. Jesse’s been so quiet these past few days.”

With those words, Allison and Macy locked eyes in an intense staring contest.

The atmosphere was so tense that Nicole, standing nearby, audibly gulped.

But no fight broke out, and Allison was the first to look away.

“…Teach your fucking roommate some manners!”

“She doesn’t need teaching if people don’t mess with her. Go back to your cell, Allison.”

When Macy growled, Allison clutched her arm and left the cell.

As soon as Allison was gone, Macy sighed deeply and approached Jesse.

Jesse seemed unbothered by the situation and was busy smoothing out the crumpled parts of the paper she had placed on the desk.

“Jesse?”

When Macy spoke cautiously, Jesse glanced at her briefly before continuing to focus on flattening the wrinkled paper.

“Why did you do that?”

“That fucking bitch was pissing me off.”

“Still, you could have let it go quietly, right?”

At Macy’s soothing voice, Jesse replied in a more docile tone:

“…I want to control myself, but sometimes I just can’t. There’s something wrong with my head, they say.”

“Anger management issues?”

“Yeah, something like that.”

Jesse didn’t want to react that way, but when faced with dismissive comments or situations she didn’t like, anger would rise up first.

“Still, try to hold back as much as you can next time, okay?”

“…Okay.”

Macy tried her best to calm Jesse down, but it wasn’t a problem that could be solved just by soothing words.

Macy had been lecturing Jesse for two years.

“Jesse, I told you not to bite people just because you don’t like them, right?”

“Jesse, is it true you tried to crack someone’s head with a broom because they gossiped about you?”

“Jesse, I told you not to kick people in the head!”

“Jesse, I heard you went to solitary last time because you confronted a new guard to intimidate him!”

Although Macy was known as the mother figure of Block 2, she wasn’t actually anyone’s mother.

Sometimes she would get genuinely angry and try to slap Jesse or give her some form of punishment.

But in the end, Macy came to see Jesse as her daughter, and Jesse saw Macy as her mother.

The reason Jesse was able to live in Block 2 without major issues until Dexter fixed her frontal lobe was because Macy helped her until the end.

After the release ceremony, Jesse entered Macy’s cell for the first time in a while and sat on Macy’s bed.

Soon, Macy sat down next to Jesse, and Jesse cautiously asked:

“Macy. Why have you been so good to me these past two years?”

Macy’s eyes darted around at Jesse’s somewhat embarrassing question before she answered:

“Do you know what state you were in when you first came here?”

“What was I like?”

“Skinny as a rail, fresh out of solitary, all hunched up and trembling… like a foal about to die at any moment.”

“A foal?”

Having been called a crazy bitch, piranha, or a twig before, Jesse was unfamiliar with this new comparison and looked at Macy questioningly.

“Yes, a foal. I took care of you a little, and you started running wild… you have no idea how much I had to clean up after you.”

“Ah, no… I know very well.”

She didn’t realize it before, but recently she had come to understand how much Macy had done for her.

“But I’m glad there haven’t been many complaints about you lately.”

Macy said, comforting Jesse.

“What you did to Allison today wasn’t right, but at least you showed restraint. Try to keep it up like this in the future, okay?”

“…I’ll try.”

While Macy and Jesse were talking amicably, Dexter, who was in the staff area, let out a deep sigh.

“Ah, I’ll probably be called soon.”

“By whom?”

Dan, standing next to Dexter and eating pudding with a spoon, asked.

“The warden is coming today.”

“The warden? Why?”

“She’s supposed to have lunch with the new guards for encouragement. It was originally scheduled a few weeks ago, but she’s been busy and kept postponing it until today.”

“Oh, that. She won’t say much. Just enjoy it casually.”

Dexter, concerned about meeting the highest-ranking person in the workplace and wondering if she might be as uncomfortable as the OSA deputy director, sighed deeply.

“Ah, I don’t want to go.”

“Hey, the warden is cool. It’ll be fine. Gomez from the next block went drinking with the warden after work and threw up on her shoes.”

“That’s crazy. Wasn’t he asked to resign?”

Dan nodded at Dexter’s question while eating his pudding.

“On the contrary, the warden called a taxi and took him home.”

“Wow, she really is cool.”

“Anyway, don’t worry too much, just go and have a comfortable conversation. Really, it’s nothing special.”

As Dan maintained his expression while continuing to eat pudding, Dexter crossed his arms and worried.

‘I’m sure it’ll be fine.’