Page 56 of The Right to Remain

Elliott jumped from his chair and moved to the corner. The gurney whizzed past him. A bloody towel was wrapped around the inmate’s head, and she groaned in misery as the gurney disappeared into the examination room. The door slammed shut. Elliott didn’t move. A minute later, another guard entered.

“Change of plans,” he said. “The doctor is unavailable.”

No kidding,thought Elliott.

The officer led him down the hall, back to the intake center. At his direction, Elliott took a seat. The cell unit manager was seated behind his desk, typing away at the computer. Elliott sat and waited, nothing to do but watch the manager work. Finally, the desk telephone rang. The manager answered, grunted a few words to whoever was on the line, and then turned his attention to Elliott.

“That was the warden’s office,” he said. “The strip search was inconclusive, but your lawyer confirmed that you’re undergoing gender-affirming treatment.”

Elliott didn’t answer.

“Our policy manual categorizes trans inmates as ‘high risk.’ High-risk inmates are supposed to be assigned to a single cell.”

Swyteck’s objection to solitary confinement notwithstanding, those words came as a relief to Elliott. But it didn’t last.

“Unfortunately, we haven’t had a single available since George Bush was president.”

The manager wasn’t laughing, and it clearly wasn’t a joke. It was his own cynical way of expressing his frustration with the system. He handed Elliott a blanket, bed linens, and a pillow.

“I can put you with some gangbangers on cell block three. Or you can share a four-bunk cell with Mona and her disciples in block one. Word of advice: Don’t choose the gangbangers.”

Elliott trusted his word and said nothing. The manager called for the guard.

“Bobby, this one goes with Mona and her band of merry women. I want visual checks on that cell documented at intervals not to exceed thirty minutes, twenty-four/seven. Take her up.”

Her.This definitely wasn’t the place to insist on correct pronouns. Elliott’s bigger concern was the need for “visual checks” every thirty minutes. The point surely wasn’t to confirm that the cell temperature was satisfactory.

The officer led the way through the general population area, where tables and chairs were bolted to the floor and inmates on “yard time”wandered around with nothing to do. Women were seated in groups, talking, while others waited in line to use the phones. Suspicious pairs of eyes seemed to follow Elliott, checking out the newbie. Maybe it was his own paranoia, but Elliott could have sworn he heard someone say, “There goes the tranny.”

Elliott followed the guard up the stairwell to cell block 1. They stopped outside the metal cell door and the officer offered one last word of advice.

“Whatever you do, don’t forget to courtesy flush,” he said.

Elliott had learned that rule the hard way as a juvey: flush before your number two even hits the water. An assault on a cellmate’s nose was the quickest way to get your own nose broken.

The cell door opened, and Elliott entered. There were two wall-mounted bunks on each side, more like shelves than beds. The top bunk on the right, nearest to the toilet, was the only one unoccupied. Elliott tossed his bedding up onto the thin mattress, and the cell door closed behind him.

Mona lay in the lower bunk, her hands clasped behind her head. “Step on my mattress on your way up and I cut you open,” she said.

Elliott didn’t doubt it. He used the corner of the sink to step up. Making the bed while in it was a challenge, but he managed. Awful as the situation was, it felt good to stretch out, stare at the ceiling, and pretend to be alone. Until Mona spoiled it.

“How’d you get yourself in here, newbie?”

Elliott ignored her, but she kicked the bottom of his bunk.

“Hey, I’m talking to you! What’s your crime?”

Elliott took a deep breath. He’d been arrested, booked, arraigned, bused from the courthouse, and processed all the way through intake and cell assignment at Miami-Dade’s toughest facility—all without saying a word to anyone. No one had seemed bothered by his silence. An accused man with no voice was utterly normal and acceptable to everyone in this whole screwed-up system. Except Mona.

“Cat got your tongue, newbie?”

Elliott said nothing.

Mona chuckled, unfriendly though it was. “You think you can keep your secret here? Not a chance. That is the flattest chest I ever seen.”

Elliott froze. They hadn’t even visited the communal showers—Elliott was dreading that—and already the jig was up.

“That’s why you don’t say nothin’, am I right? All them hormones you put in your body. Makes you sound like James Earl Jones. ‘This is CNN,’” she said, mocking the late actor’s iconic deep voice.