Free Sweet Hell on Fire by Sara Lunsford

belonging to the inmate. Now, officers are supposed to do this before the property comes to Seg, but while searching incoming property on various occasions, I found hooch (homemade alcohol) made from oranges and Kool-Aid in a shampoo bottle, tobacco, tattoo needles in lamps, and shanks hidden in legal material.
    Then before new inmates could be admitted, we have to search the cells, under the door, on top of lights, vents, drawers, every surface or space that could possibly hold contraband. While doing all of that, we still had to keep the cell house running efficiently by taking guys three at a time to the shower—one officer per inmate—and handing out and picking up trays for chow, then monitoring the porters while they cleaned the cell house.
    And of course, since I was new meat, the inmates all tucked their heads straight up their asses. They knew I couldn’t tell exactly whose voice was whose, so I was serenaded with every filthy thing anyone could think of to say to me, from talking about how when they caught me alone they’d fuck me bloody, cut new holes in me to fuck, or alternately how I was too disgusting to fuck even for a guy who’d been in prison, etc., and so forth. One said something about what a good lay my mother was and asked me how much dick I could take.
    They told us in training not to engage them with this sort of behavior and eventually they’d stop. Eventually? Fuck that. I lobbed that last one back. “Probably not as much dick as you.”
    The whole cell house erupted in laughter and catcalls.
    So of course the insults went back to my weight. One asked how much lunch I’d brought and if I had time to be out there on the tier when I had my food waiting for me in the office.
    I told them no, I didn’t bring a good lunch, and one said, “Girl, don’t tell me you don’t eat. Not with an ass like that.”
    “Oh no, punkin. I eat. I eat good . In fact, when I get off work tonight, I’m going to the buffet, and I’m going to eat crab legs.”
    “Ha, I knew it.”
    I don’t even like crab legs. You couldn’t pay me enough to put sea spider in my mouth. Or lobster. They look like big water roaches. But when was the last time any of these turds had any crab legs?
    “Then I’m going to have some shrimp and steak. Maybe some lobster. A couple glasses of wine. And hell, just because I’m so fucking fat, I’m going to have some pizza too. All cheesy and juicy and…”
    By this point the whole cell house had gone quiet. They were listening to me describe food they hadn’t had in years, some that a few of them would never have again.
    “Fine, we get it. We get it,” an inmate whimpered from his cell.
    “Oh, do you? I mean, you wanted to talk about what I eat so I thought I’d share. I think I’ll be bringing leftovers in my lunch tomorrow. I’ll be sure to set the fan at the office door so you can all smell my rib eye, loaded baked potato, and honey-glazed carrots.”
    They quieted down somewhat, but there were still a few jeers as I walked past. I didn’t let it get to me though. I listened. I listened so I could learn the inmates’ voices and identify which cells they were coming from, a skill that would serve me well later.
    Especially when inmates would scream obscenities at me and then later ask me to fix their cable. “Hmm, I don’t see either ‘Cunt’ or ‘Time Warner Cable’ on my shirt, so I guess you’re shit out of luck.”

“Oh no, this can’t be right, Lunsford.” The Captain’s mustache twitched as he looked through his roster, flipped the pages several times to make sure what he was seeing on the paper wasn’t a lie, or to make sure it wasn’t going to change the longer he looked at it. “There can’t be three women down in Seg. Women don’t belong in Seg anyway.”
    What? Are you kidding me?
    The other two women who would be down there with me looked at him as if he’d grown another head.
    One day a week, there were three women on shift in Segregation.