Free Cargo of Orchids by Susan Musgrave Page A

over again”; it was almost as bad as “old-fashion taste.” He said he didn’t want to sleep with someone who corrected his grammar, and I said, is that what Brutus is doing these days, correcting your grammar?
    Carmen, Bonnie, Little Shit Shit and I rode with Thurma out to the prison every Saturday morning most of that spring (I’d sold my car because I couldn’t afford the insurance now), and for two hours we sat, always at the same small square table in a corner of the visiting room, played cards and drank bad coffee from the machine. Once a month, a social would be held in the gymnasium, often with entertainment for the visitors—a movie, a skit put on by the prisoners, music or a comedy routine. I saw little of Mugre, who spent all his time rehearsing. Mugre was going to play a prison guard in a production staged for the Halloween social in November, Angel said.
    I became Angel and Gustavo’s unofficial translator, rendering everything from prison regulations and lawyer jokes into English, and translating the guards’ demands into Spanish also.
    Counts and Accountability
    12:20 a.m.… Counted in your assigned bed
    3:00 a.m.… Counted in your assigned bed
    5:00 a.m.… Counted in your assigned bed
    4:00 p.m.… Standing count in your assigned cell
    9:15 p.m.… Counted in your assigned cell
    Memo from Corrections Services Canada to Inmate Gustavo Corazón Gaviria:
“There will not be any kicking of the volleyballs or basketballs. If you come to the recreation yard wearing a jumpsuit, it will remain on.”
    Memo from Corrections Services Canada to Inmate Angel Corazón Gaviria: “
Authorized items may be considered contraband when found in excessive quantities or altered in any manner. Possession of unauthorized contraband [sic] is subject to disciplinary action.
    The following Food Services–issued food items are allowed for possession by inmates at any one time
:
    2 chocolate bars
    15 packets of sugar.”
    Memo from Corrections Services Canada to Mugre Corazón Gaviria:
“It is against the rules to tie a knot in a handkerchief and throw that around.”
    On the last weekend in June, the Native Brotherhood sponsored a social. Thurma couldn’t find a car, so she and Carmen and I travelled to Agassiz by bus. We were about tophone for a cab to take us the rest of the way to the prison when a car pulled up at the curb. Bonnie rolled down the window, and I was hit with a cloying pine-forest smell coming from the green Christmas tree dangling from the mirror “Climb in,” she said.
    The passenger doors were riddled with bullet holes and rusted shut; Bonnie had meant it literally when she told us to “climb in.” I struggled through the window, across the laps of the women packed in the back. The front of the car was empty except for the driver, a big man with two braids and a beaded headband. He didn’t look at us. “This in Kono, my brother,” Bonnie said. His name meant “a tree squirrel biting through the centre of a pine nut,” she explained.
    Little Shit Shit, dressed in the same deerskin jacket and pants she’d worn since the first time I’d met her, lay sprawled on Bonnie’s lap. She snatched my purse and began chewing on the strap.
    “She sure likes your bag,” Bonnie said, as the woman next to the window reached over and offered me a toke. I said no thanks, and tried to get my purse back before Little Shit Shit took an interest in my credit cards as well.
    Bonnie said she would be sending out her wedding invitations soon. “All we need now is permission from the attorney general,” she said.
    Kono began speaking, choosing his words as if measuring each one for its impact. “Why should you ask the attorney general for anything. He is not
our
attorney general.”
    I nodded. Best to remain neutral, especially when someone is giving you a ride, though judging by the noisescoming from under the hood, and the smell of the fumes, I was surprised when the car made it as far as the prison. Kono