Page 129 of Brainwashed

Ineverquestion myself.What the hell is going on??

A voice calls over her walkie, distracting me from my inner turmoil. “Yo, Joy. We’ve got a situation… Don’t bring #89 to the East showers.”

Joy huffs out of frustration, stepping back and whipping her walkie off her holster. “What is the malfunction, Brenner?”

“A pipe burst or something… It’s a mess down here,” the voice of Officer Brenner answers, sounding distressed.

“Fuck my life,” Joy mumbles, glaring at me. She’s quiet for a moment before checking her watch. “What about you guys’ locker room?”

“Uh… you can do whatever you want, but I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” Brenner says warily.

“Yea, yea, I know,” she sighs. “Alright, fine. Just… get someone to fix the goddamn pipe.” She cuts him off while he’s speaking. “Hancock? Jasper? Either one of you copy?”

“What’s up, Jamesy?” A new voice comes over the walkie.

“I have to bring #89 up to gen-pop for a shower.” She blinks at me.

Jesus, all this drama over a shower. If they’d let me, I’d just go bathe in the ocean.

The person on the other end sighs audibly into the receiver. “Okay. You’re the boss.”

“Fuck you,” Joy growls, hooking her walkie back into her holster and grabbing a pair of cuffs. “Alright, killer bee. Let’s do this.” She fastens them to my wrists, then does my ankles with the shackles. “Word of advice; stay close to me.”

I can’t help but gulp as some new nerves fizzle in my limbs. “Why…? What’s going on up there?”

“Let’s just say, word is out that you killed O’Malley. And not everyone thinks he deserved to die as much as you apparently did.”

Shit.

I’m still wrapping my head around all this as she pulls me out of my cell and yanks me along with her, stumbling to keep up. We walk the halls in silence; nothing but the stomp of her combat boots and the clanking of my chains echoing off the crumbling concrete. Before we get to the end of the last corridor in the East, Joy bangs her fist three times on a door.

“Someone go clean up #89’s cell,” she shouts, but doesn’t stick around to chat.

She just keeps pulling me, through the next set of doors, which she opens with keys. Now we’re walking through solitary.

People shout at the sounds of our footsteps, calling through the familiar large red metal doors about how they’rehungryanddying. It causes me to swallow down the memories of being in there for weeks.

As much as I hate being fucked with in the East, at least in there I get regular food and showers.And orgasms, apparently.

Sucking in a breath, I wonder where Dr. Love is right now. I wonder if I’ll even get to see him today, or if he’ll be off hiding. Cowering in hisstraight-guy-who-just-experimented-with-a-man-for-the-first-timecorner for days on end until he finally feels comfortable looking at me again.

I roll my eyes to myself. This is why I don’t hook up with straight guys. Every interaction is followed by all this self-doubt and reflection. It stresses me out. I have enough going on myself, what with murdering my sexual partners and all. I don’t have time to worry about them questioning their identities.

Honestly, what’s wrong with being bisexual, anyway? It’s not like being a man who hooks up with other men needs to be a big deal. If you still like women, great. More power to you.Just do who you wanna do and call it a day, that’s my motto.

There are too many labels. And you know what labels are? They’re just ways for people to feelin control, when in reality, there is no control. The world is chaos.Period.

Joy brings us out of solitary row, and through the winding hallways that lead up to general population. I haven’t been here in a while. I don’t even remember the last time, but it was definitely before I was sent to the East. Glancing around, I’m reacquainted with how different it feels up here.

It somehow feels cleaner, even though really, it’s not. But it’s technically higher up than solitary and the East, so there’s less mildew and ocean smell. Less mold on the walls, though it’s definitely still there.

We walk past the rows of gen-pop cells, first the one I used to live in before I killed Wilkerson, then the rest, where the other inmates are housed. It’s loud as fuck, something I didn’t miss. The shouts are almost deafening. Inmates screaming, fighting, screwing. There’s so much noise, and what’s craziest is that Joy doesn’t even seem to notice it.

I remember I used to block it out, too. But now that I’ve been in the quiet for months, I have the strong urge to cover my ears.

We pass the corridors for the cafeteria, which must have a bunch of inmates inside for breakfast, because you can hear the chatter through three separate doors. Only another minute of walking, and we’re at the showers. It literally took us fifteen minutes to walk up here.

No wonder Joy didn’t want to do this.