Reflections||Tarasia

1.

TARAJI

The sound of the buzzer going off as the prison gates swung open was music to my ears, the soundtrack to my first day of freedom after serving a 20-year sentence. The smell of fresh air was something that my senses had long forgotten, but now it was coming back to me, and I swear I had never smelled anything sweeter. Ok, so maybe the sweet smell was more like pollutant gases and car exhaust, but it was better than the foul odors inside of the prison. The sky looked bluer, the clouds fluffier. Wearing the white chinchilla fur coat and cheetah print body-con dress that I was rocking when I came in, I felt like I was sporting a new skin in my old clothes. It felt good though, because prison blue honestly washed me out.

I never thought that this day would come. There were a lot of people who wanted me to rot in prison, and they almost got their wish, but nobody can keep a good bitch down. After all of the fights with both the inmates and the guards that I had gotten into over the years, I thought that I would grow old and gray inside of those walls. However, God had a different plan for me. Or perhaps it was Satan, because I can't shake the feeling that I made a deal with the devil to get out. Either way it goes, I'm a free woman. I don't know what my plans are. I don't know if I still have a home to go back to. I never thought about what I would do once I got out, because I never thought that I would get out. My future was looking like community showers and constant cavity searches, but now my future just looks like one big question mark. The world was a different place when I went in, but I highly doubt that any place of employment is looking for an ex-convict. I'm not sure how extortion, drug-trafficking, and murder would look on an application.

I didn't have any family members to call. No friends either. I couldn't expect the world to stop and wait 20 years for me, but it would have been nice to get at least one letter from the people that I used to know. I never saw a warm smile visit me within those cold walks. All of the people that I took care of before I got locked up just disappeared. They all benefited from my dirty work, but nobody wanted to stick around and help me clean my life up. My parents are too ashamed of me to even speak to me. I had a boyfriend, but he broke up with me the second the judge banged his gavel on the stand and subjected me to a 20-year bid. I wonder how he's doing now. He probably has a beautiful wife who's a nurse or a teacher or something like that, and they probably have really cute kids- a boy and a girl who look like carbon copies of them. Many nights laying on that cold, hard mattress, the only way I could fall asleep was by fantasizing about what the people from my old life were doing on the outside. I have no idea where I'm going to go. Right now a hotel sounds like my best bet.

As the car that I ordered pulled up, I heard someone shouting my name from behind me. As soon as I turned around, Danielle was throwing herself into my arms with tears streaming down her face. I've never liked hugs or any kind of display of affection for that matter, but I wrapped my arms around her anyway because I knew that she needed that from me. Danielle became my cell mate just a year ago. Within that year she became the only friend I've ever had on the inside. She's serving 10 years for murdering her boyfriend, and unfortunately this is only the beginning of a long, torturous 10 years for her. When I met her, she was like a wounded gazelle surrounded by predatory lions and I felt the need and responsibility to protect her for reasons that I still don't even understand. At first, I didn't want her to cling to me the way she did. I tried everything possible to keep her at arm's length. She was always trying to talk to me and make me laugh, and it was annoying as hell, but as time went on I found that she was a guiding light when I felt myself falling into a dark hole. I'm grateful that the guards are allowing her to say goodbye to me.

Danielle: I'm so happy that you're getting out but I'm crushed that you're leaving me. Get as far away from this place as you can and don't ever look back.

Taraji: That's the plan. Listen to me, Dani, you can't break down. You have to keep your head up and your heart guarded. Those bitches are going to try to fuck with you now that you don't have my protection. Do you remember what I told you about making a shank?

Danielle: Wood is better than glass.

Taraji: Good girl. Try to stay out of trouble. When your sentence flies by, I'll be outside these gates waiting for you. Promise me that you won't do anything to get any more years added onto your sentence. Look me in my eyes and promise me, Dani.

Danielle: I promise. I love you, Raji.

Taraji: I love you, too.

I kissed her forehead as the guards came to take her back inside. She waved goodbye to me, and she never stopped waving even as I got into the car. I waved back as the car started to drive away. After a while I couldn't see her for the tears in my eyes blurring my vision.

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I was entrapped in a daze as I watched the hotel bathroom mirror fog up, studying my reflection as if I was discovering what I looked like for the first time all over again. The scar on my cheek was a cruel reminder of the first lesson I learned in lockup. Pretty bitches get their faces sliced. That was what this bitch named Knuckles told me after she opened my face up on my first day because I wouldn't let her fuck me. I turned in the mirror slowly, examining the scars and bruises on my back, stomach, and thighs, and remember the traumatic origin stories behind every mark on my body.

It felt good to shower in actual hot water, and it felt good to be alone in the shower with only my thoughts and not have to worry about someone slamming me up against the wall and having their way with me. I don't know if I'll ever be able to get used to not having to look over my shoulder, but to know that it's an option is a huge comfort. I must have stayed in the shower for an hour before getting out and ordering a mile-long tab of room service. I hope that my body doesn't reject real food because it's so used to the gray-brown slop that the lunch ladies used to serve in NorthPoint Federal Prison's cafeteria. It still doesn't feel real that I'm out. I'm waiting to wake up from this dream and find myself on that dirty, hard blue mattress. Maybe I've been put in the hole again for bad behavior and I'm just hallucinating all of this because of how deprived I am of food, water, and human interaction. But all of this is real. And as exciting as it is, it's also terrifying. I spent 20 years of my life being told what to do, what to say, when to eat, when to wash my ass- the concept of control is foreign to me. My biggest fear is ending up back in prison because that's all I know. I guess you could say that I'm homesick in a twisted kind of way. There's nothing out here for me. Nothing but my daughter. I have to find her. I have to find Sarai.