Jailhouse Rock (PG13)
FlashFic: Written in one hours time approximately three hours after the prompt was posted. Then an additional fifteen minutes were used for editing and grammar and spell check.
Prompt: With a little help from our friends
She walked down the long corridor behind the rotund black woman with half of her weave pulled straight out of her head. Behind her was an older woman with very few teeth that had been mumbling for the past half hour. Next to her was a man, six foot at least and a strong build.
She was tired, hungry and missed her boys. Right now she should be fast asleep under her covers with a feather pillow under her head and the feel of satin sheets surrounding her silk covered body. Instead she was cold and carrying an incredibly scratchy gray blanket that she could not even imagine the material it was made of. It felt like porcupine wool.
She laughed at that thought.
"Webber. HEY…you need to take this." The man beside her barked as he tossed a zip lock baggie onto the top of her blanket.
Inside the clear plastic she could see a toothbrush she wouldn't use on her dog. Maybe to clean her nails after she finished planting roses in her rose garden but not for her teeth. It looked too rough for sensitive gums and enamel. Also there was a generic small tube of toothpaste. It was called "Minty Clean" and she smirked at the simplicity of its name. The third item was a razor. The kind that had only one blade and would slice you from ankle to knee with every swipe. Finally, a bar of soap that you would find in a bathroom of a Jiffy Mart. The kind you get in a box of twenty for a dollar.
This was what she had been reduced to. In one impulsive moment. One wrong decision to go with her heart. To take the leap. To do what made HER happy.
"Leap my ass" she mumbled and the black woman she was walking behind turned and gave her a lethal glare.
Finally the man to her right opened the door they were standing in front of and she walked through the metal casing. The sound was deafening. She looked around to find her number.
B234
Great, she's upstairs. She'll probably get thrown from the railing and probably by the crazy mumbling lady behind her.
She'd seen women like Celeste Hampton before. Every Friday night that she had to work the midnight shift in the ER she would see a Celeste Hampton walk through the doors. Probably raised well or at least well enough but found heroin, crack or meth in her mid twenties and now she's in her early thirties and looks like she's in her late forties. Her children, if she had any and she probably did, were either being raised by her ex husband who hit rock bottom and went to rehab to clean up or by her mother. If not, they were in the foster care system being passed around from family to family until the courts figured out what to do with them or she got off the drugs and attempted to provide for them like she should be doing now.
Then she heard it. The reverberating sound of metal clashing with metal. The door behind her was shut and she was now trapped in a room with at least a hundred women who were here for crimes ranging from theft, drugs and prostitution to assault, child abuse and DUI. And who knows what else. She rolled her eyes at the only thing she could think of to be thankful for. At least the murderers and attempted murderers were housed elsewhere.
Slowly she climbed the stairs and made her way to her room. There were three beds. Well, three slabs of metal. Two were occupied and one of the occupied beds actually had a sleeping young girl in it. The other one had an older Chinese woman who was sitting reading a book while propped up on her bed against the cold cement wall.
Elizabeth looked around and saw a toilet and sink. Both made of brushed metal. Both out in the open with no privacy walls. Attached to each other. She desperately tried to block the mental picture of being able to pee and spit the "Minty Clean" toothpaste out at the same time. She then looked at the only unoccupied slab of metal jutting out from the wall. There was no mattress like the other two women had.
"Great" Elizabeth sighed as she dropped on her slab her blanket, which had thin, at most fifty count thread, starch stiff sheets and a towel, bleach white and matching washcloth. She then placed the plastic 'toiletries' bag on a shelf near the sink/toilet and moved to sit down.
"The mattresses are downstairs. The cell farthest to the left has them in there. You have to go get it yourself." The older woman who surprisingly to Elizabeth had no accent what-so-ever, informed her in a monotone voice.
"Oh, thank you." Elizabeth replied, trying to put and air of sincerity and appreciation in her own voice.
"What'cha in for?"
"What?" Elizabeth asked, wide eyed.
"I'm in for stealing from the Dry Cleaner's I worked for. Shitty rap too, it was my own sister who turned me in."
"Oh, I'm sorry."
"SHUT UP! BOTH OF YOU BEFORE I KICK YOUR ASS!" The young blonde had rolled over to display a bluish purple shiner on her right eye and a busted lip.
"Don't mind her; she's just cranky when she gets woken up. Her husband did that to her but when the cops found them, she was holding their drugs so she's up for possession. I'm Chun by the way. I got three more months and I go home."
"Elizabeth….three months huh? What did you steal?" she asked as she continued to look around the room and out the metal bars that were slid open.
"Well, I had been stealing money from the Dry Cleaner for over three years. I was the manager and I had set up a dummy vendor. I cut myself a check once a week. Made over a hundred grand but the damn CPA started asking questions while doing the business' taxes. I got busted and plead so I would only get six months."
LIGHTS OUT IN TWO MINUTES
"I'll go with you, you'll never be able to drag the mattress upstairs by yourself in two minutes and if you aren't in your cell they'll cut down our phone time tomorrow. Then this place will break out into a riot and you'll have to go to solitary for your own protection."
"Thank you" Elizabeth said.
Elizabeth followed the woman. The magnitude of where she was slowly sinking in. This wasn't right. She hadn't stolen from anyone. She hadn't raised a hand or even a voice to anyone. She had not lied, done drugs, driven while intoxicated. She hadn't done anything to deserve being in a place like this.
It was his fault. All HIS fault.
She would never forgive him for this.
For the next seven hours she tossed and turned but never found a moments peace. Not once did she find the position or the comfort to be able to close her eyes and sleep. Everything, every sound was magnified tenfold from the cold concrete walls and the steel bars and furniture.
Finally she heard it and she let out the breath she hadn't realized she had secretly been holding.
WEBBER, B234, ELIZABETH WEBBER…LET'S GO, BRING EVERYTHING, YOU'RE OUT OF HERE
Leaping off the makeshift metal bed she grabbed the unopened plastic bag from the shelf and shoved it in the middle of her mattress with the starched stiff sheets, the gray itchy blanket and the miserable pillow made of a rolled towel and washcloth. She rolled her mattress with all of the items inside and hefted it up. She stood in front of the metal barred door until she heard the familiar buzz she had heard all night long at various intervals. The door slid to the side and she stepped out onto the top walkway and headed for the pile she saw near the "mattress room".
She was finally going home.
Once she made her way through the concrete and metal maze of the Port Charles Minimum/Medium Security Detention Center which was attached to the Port Charles Police Station, she was ushered out into a lobby where her husband was waiting for her.
That RAT BASTARD
"With a little help from our friends in blue….I finally found out you were here. I was so worried Elizabeth. Why did you use your maiden name? Why didn't you call me?" He asked as he went to pull her petite five foot two frame into his chest.
"Fuck you Jason, if it wasn't for you and your constantly baiting the PCPD with your illegal activities but never being convicted, they never would have arrested me."
"What did I do?" Jason asked, clearly surprised that she was pinning this, her first ever arrest and stint of a few hours in lock up on him.
"You piss these cops off all the time so since they can't get you, they'll get anyone close to you. Oh and it was the police that used my maiden name for fear that the name MORGAN might get my ass killed in there" She replied practically spitting at him.
"That may be true but I didn't buy you that brand spanking new cherry red Ferrari for you to try to kill yourself." His fatherly tone brought out the innocence in her she had been fighting to squelch since she had set foot in this building for fear of it being the reason she really DID get her ass killed.
"I wasn't trying to kill myself. I just wanted to go fast." She whined.
"The arrest sheet says the officer clocked you at one hundred and sixty two miles per hour Elizabeth. Jesus, baby, we've got two little boys. And on the cliff road's one and only straight away."
"Yeah well, I wanted to see what it would do and besides…next time I say I want to go for a ride, I suggest you get off your ass, put down the remote and take me on the back of your bike."
"If it means never having to bail my wife out of jail for reckless driving by speed over twice the posted limit, then I will."
"You promise?" She asked, now leaning into his side and pulling both hands together on the other side of his waist.
He leaned down and pressed a kiss to her hair and pulled her in closer. "I promise you anything you want. I love you Elizabeth."
"I love you too Jason. Let's go home."
