Free This Old Man by Lois Ruby Page B

forbidding and cold. I pulled my coat tighter and no longer wanted to see the murderers’ cells.
    â€œWhat?” Jo yelled into the wind. “Don’t you want to see the toilets they shouted through to the cellblock downstairs?”
    â€œNo,” Sylvia said.
    â€œI don’t understand you,” Jo cried. “Aren’t you interested in seeing the Hole? That’s the solitary confinement cells. No light, no sound, no TV. Bread and water, that’s it.”
    â€œWho wants to see that ?” Darlene said.
    â€œI hear there’s a display of all the homemade weapons the guards captured. Did you ever hear of a pig sticker?”
    â€œWhat’s a pig sticker?” Pammy asked.
    Jo gave us a patronizing look. “That’s prison slang for knife. I thought you guys would at least know that much.”
    â€œHow come you know so much about prisons?” I asked her.
    Jo shrugged. “I read a lot. Like, I read about this guy who sliced through the bars of his cell with dental floss.”
    â€œDental floss? Sure!” said Sylvia. “How?”
    â€œThis guy, he dips the dental floss in cleanser, like Ajax, you know? And he wets it, and saws through the bars. I guess it took a long time.”
    â€œI can’t believe that,” Sylvia said.
    â€œIt’s like your dentist says, floss every day.”
    â€œShut up, Jo,” Darlene said, not unkindly.
    â€œYou guys don’t have any adventure in you. Don’t you want to see where the Birdman of Alcatraz used to hang out?”
    â€œNot really,” I said.
    â€œAl Capone. How about Al Capone’s cell?”
    We stuffed the end of her poncho into her mouth and got back onto the ferry for the return trip. A few hearty tourists, probably people from Minnesota or Alaska, got off to tour the prison and wait for the next ferry, but not us.
    The mile back to shore seemed longer and rockier, and Pammy was quite green. “If I have my baby at sea, what country is it a citizen of?”
    We all laughed and then realized Pammy was absolutely serious.
    â€œIt’s going to be a U.S. citizen,” Sylvia said, “no matter what.”
    â€œThen it can get welfare?” This seemed to relieve Pammy’s nausea.
    â€œAnd you know what? It’s going to be a beautiful kid,” I assured her. I felt a little like the proud father myself.
    â€œNot only beautiful,” Pammy said quietly, “but it will be a boy.”
    Ten Thousand Pieces of Gold, I thought.
    â€œAnd he will look just like his father,” Pammy mused.
    â€œMy God, then pray, sisters,” Jo said, waving her arms like a tent preacher. “Pray that it gets some brains, if nothing else.”
    When we got home Elizabeth was in a housecoat and was just finishing up her paper on British social agencies. Jeremy was nowhere in sight. Elizabeth said, “By the way, Greta, Mr. Saxe called.”
    On Saturday? He never worked on Saturdays, and even on weekdays he never called me at home.
    â€œYour mother’s fine, if that’s what you’re worrying about,” Elizabeth assured me.
    â€œThen why would he call on the weekend?”
    â€œHe didn’t exactly call. I called him. I’ll tell you what, we’ll go upstairs, and you can call him back from my phone.” She whispered something to the other girls and led me up to her room. Things were tossed helter-skelter, but the phone was in the very center of her bed. I realized she’d planned all along to have me use her phone. She even dialed for me, then pretended to be busy cleaning out her desk drawer.
    I did not expect a child to answer the phone; I didn’t think Mr. Saxe was a father. So I almost hung up when the sweet voice asked, “Whossis?” Mr. Saxe was on in an instant.
    â€œGreta, how are you, dear?” I heard the other extension in his house click. I imagined that the child had gone back to The Muppet Show .