Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 75898 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 304(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75898 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 304(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
When we stopped for a bathroom break, he made us line up outside the gas station restroom door and he sent us in one by one. When I took ten seconds too long, staring at my face in the mirror in hope of figuring something, anything, out about what the fuck I was doing here, he pounded on the door and yelled, “Grace, get your ass out here or you’re gonna get it whupped.”
As I exited the bathroom I shot a furtive glance at the other girls. I wanted to ask them if they thought the guard actually could do what he threatened. Wouldn’t it be like a Get Out of Jail Free card for us, if he tried to follow through on that kind of thing? Maybe we could provoke him, and then, like, blackmail him or something when he actually did try it?
None of the others would meet my eyes. With an inward shudder I wondered if that meant that they somehow knew that the guard could do what he was promising.
I got the unwelcome answer only a few moments later. The girl behind me, whose name according to the guard’s clipboard was Frannie, took too long in the bathroom—much longer than I had taken. The guard pounded on the door, telling her to get her ass out here, but unlike me, Frannie didn’t. She called out that she had diarrhea, but even I could tell she was probably lying. The guard opened the door, which made the rest of us gasp, and hauled Frannie out. She didn’t even have her jeans down, but she did have a phone in her hand. They had taken away my phone the moment I’d gotten arrested, so I blinked in surprise.
“Give it to me,” the guard said, turning the blonde girl to face him.
Frannie looked at him with terrified eyes.
“I was… I just…” she stammered. I couldn’t even tell if she was racking her brain for a plausible lie or just scared out of her wits. I tried to tell myself I would have managed to pretend I didn’t care, but a crawling in the pit of my stomach told me I would probably have reacted the same way Frannie was. The guard, a very big black man with muscles bulging out of his uniform, had an expression on his face that seemed to make clear just how serious his threats had been.
Frannie didn’t give him the phone; he plucked it from her hand. Then we all watched in horror as he dropped it to the ground and smashed it with his heel. I saw a shudder of terror go through the blonde girl’s curvy body. Another girl let out a little gasping cry, and I couldn’t help sympathizing; the wanton destruction of a phone seemed an act of brutality that guaranteed more to follow.
“But—” Frannie started. The guard ignored her entirely.
“You can call me Mr. Garrison,” he told her. “Go over to the wall there and stand with your nose against it. Then pull down your jeans and your panties to your knees. You’re going to wait while the rest of the girls finish up their business. Then I’m going to whup you until I think you understand your si-tu-a-tion properly, and you’ve helped these other girls understand theirs, too.”
He pronounced situation in such a distinct way that it sent a thrill of terror through my body. I felt as if until that moment I hadn’t really understood my situation either. I looked over at the wall next to the restroom door where the guard had pointed. My own heart had started to pound at the thought of the other girl having to take her pants down that way, in the open. It was a warm April day, wherever in the Midwest we were—Iowa, maybe, by this time—but obviously that didn’t make much difference.
“Do you understand, Frannie?” Mr. Garrison asked, his voice thunderous. Over by the pump, I saw a middle-aged man turn his head in curiosity to see the scene unfolding at the bathroom.
Frannie’s jaw had gone slack. She seemed frozen in place.
“Do you understand, Frannie?” the guard repeated. “Say Yes, Mr. Garrison.”
“I-I—” the girl stammered.
Mr. Garrison pulled her around and she let out a little cry of discomfort. He marched her to the brick wall and stood her there, facing it.
“Are you going to pull down your own pants,” he growled, “or do I have to do it for you?”
I felt my face pucker into a mask of distress. As the guard clearly intended, I had no choice but to see my own ‘situation’ in Frannie’s. If I had managed to smuggle a phone, I would have tried to use it, too. Not that anyone would have cared too much, let alone come to save me or anything. But being able to text one of my dorm mates just to let them know how hard my life sucked at the moment would have represented an irresistible temptation. And I would have ended up with my face against the wall, faced with Mr. Garrison’s impossible question.