Chapter 24 Emily
EMILY
She’d gone to Dr. Stone’s office yesterday morning for the second time in as many weeks, held back her sobs as the doctor lanced the warts, then sprayed them with something from an aerosol can.
Emily had watched carefully, trying to get a look at the label, which was small, with minuscule type, but couldn’t see much.
The good news was that the warts had felt a little better after a few days, in between treatments.
They still burned, but didn’t itch quite as much.
Emily had never experienced anything like this.
Of course, she’d never experienced anything like this entire assignment.
It seemed mad that she was doing it, and even more mad that things like this and lice and bathing once a week were now a regular part of her existence.
How foreign it all was to her. It seemed impossible that beyond these walls there were a million and a half people who bathed regularly, who slept on proper mattresses and saw their families and didn’t have vermin living on their bodies.
But then, that wasn’t exactly true, was it?
That comfort may have existed for many people, but meeting these women at the Mercer had opened Emily’s eyes to the realities of others.
Women who came from broken homes and poverty, who were ill in the mind or body.
She could see now how those things limited a person’s opportunities, dictated the direction of her life as they forced her down paths that were rockier, darker and more dangerous than the ones Emily had been allowed to traverse.
She thought of June Jones’s accusation on the sidewalk back in the spring: I bet you lot have a whole other set o’ rules than the ones the likes of us gotta live by.
She looked around at her fellow inmates now, the ones she knew, like Vera and Gertrude.
Vera would leave here eventually, perhaps with her baby, perhaps not.
Maybe, if she behaved as they wanted her to, she might stand a chance of keeping it.
But what about after? What about the future for any of these women?
Would they end up in June Jones’s brothel?
On the street? Tied to a bad man out of economic necessity?
Lizzie’s words continued to echo in her head, and she knew they would appear in the article.
If it isn’t one prison, it’s just another…
Emily had to bide her time now until the treatment cleared the infection, which she hoped would be before the end of her sentence in December.
She had no idea how long this type of thing usually persisted.
She knew she had enough now for a solid story, but by the judge’s order, there was no way she would be released until her sentence was completed.
But she found, in the meantime, she could hardly sit by and watch blandly as this alleged “reform institution” provided no actual reform or benefit to its residents.
No skills training beyond mopping floors, laundry, and bad sewing.
This classroom may as well have been a cardboard prop for the benefit of the board of governors, and nothing more.
The burning in her groin came then in an almighty wave, and she stood up instinctively to ease the pressure. Twenty-odd sets of eyes in all colours turned and looked at her, waiting, as though she had something to say.
Perhaps she did.
Emily swallowed, walked toward the blackboard, and turned to face them.
“Does anyone want to actually learn how to type?” she asked, an impatient bite to her voice.
“I don’t know about you, but I’m sick of just sitting here doing nothing.
” Everyone stared. “Because I know how to type. I can teach you, if you want. It’s an important skill.
If you know how to type, when you get out of here, you might have a chance at a secretarial job. It can take you a lot of places.”
A couple of the women were frowning, though they looked interested. Others were smirking, as though Emily were a joke. And maybe she was. Who knew. But she couldn’t just sit here anymore.
“It’s um, I’ll start with the keyboard,” she said, casting around for a piece of chalk. She found a small chunk on the floor beneath the blackboard. There was no eraser.
“The keys are arranged based on how frequently we’re going to use them, for the most part. Also, so that letters we often use one after another are spread out a little across the keyboard, so we avoid our fingers getting tied up. Here.”
She sketched out the keys on the blackboard.
“Kwerty?” someone piped up. Emily turned.
“What’s your name?” she asked the inmate.
“Betty.”
Emily smiled wryly. “I know a Betty. I’m sure you’ll be a better typist than she is. And yes, the top left row starts with Q, and we do actually call it the QWERTY keyboard. All the letters are there, plus punctuation.”
“What’s punc—punctulation?” Betty asked. Emily hesitated, surprised, then a little embarrassed at herself. She was going to need to cover off the basics here. She couldn’t assume these girls knew them.
“Uh, here,” she said, drawing a period, comma, colon, and question mark on the blackboard.
“These symbols are punctuation. I’m sure you’ve seen them.
We use them in writing, and typing, to convey certain information about the way the sentence is being said.
A period means a sentence has ended, a comma is a brief pause, et cetera. ”
A girl in the front row frowned. A couple of others were snickering.
“You use a lot of big words for a Mercer girl,” one of them said.
Emily shrugged. “I read a lot of books.”
“And those always get used when somebody writes?” another inmate piped up, pointing at the blackboard. She was sitting at the back of the room.
“A lot of the time, yes,” Emily said. She hadn’t intended to get into a basic English lesson.
She examined the group; so many were young, not much older than Eliza, and Emily wondered then whether Eliza was literate.
She knew she herself had had more opportunity than other women to stay in school, but it was a shock that so many clearly didn’t have even a basic education.
She swallowed hard as an uncomfortable realization settled on her.
This was actually what most women’s lives were like.
She was privileged to know how to write and read and type.
She never would have considered literacy a privilege. Until now.
“Why are you bothering with this?” Thelma drawled. She was slouched down low in her chair.
Emily fought to keep her contempt in check.
“I just think…” She felt the entire group’s gaze on her now, penetrating and curious.
Judgmental. “I mean, aren’t you all just bored to death?
” she exploded. “Don’t you want to at least spend this hour doing something interesting?
So much of what we do here is utter nonsense.
Cleaning floors that were cleaned by another shift fifteen minutes before, scrubbing each other’s clothes until our hands bleed on them and we have to start all over.
” Her voice rose in anger. She thought of her grandmother again, and the words tumbled out.
“My nana worked in a laundry for decades, working her body to the bone, and she could hardly spell her own name. I got to…uh…” She caught herself before she spilled about being university educated.
“I got to finish high school, and learn how to type, because she wanted more for her daughter, and my mom wanted even more for me. So all I’m saying is it’s okay to want something more, to work for something more.
Women’s opportunities are so limited, and I think it’s important to find them and grab them and try to make something of them any time you get the chance.
” She was breathing hard. “So if you want to leave this damn place knowing how to type, with a real skill, I’m willing to teach you. That’s all I’m saying.”
She glanced at Thelma, who rolled her eyes dramatically and sank even lower. Everyone else was quiet for a moment, and then several people nodded. Others still looked skeptical, or amused. Emily cleared her throat.
“We’re going to need paper,” she said. “So you can all—or anyone who wants to learn—have one of these ‘keyboards’ to practice on. There are only two actual typewriters,” she said, glaring at the dusty old Remingtons on top of a cupboard in the corner.
No one had bothered to cover them, and who knew if the ink ribbons were fresh. But paper would suffice for now.
She managed to find a few sheets along with some crayons in the store cupboard.
She tore the sheets in half so they would have enough, then distributed them, instructing each girl to copy the chart on the blackboard.
She had spent so much time in classrooms her whole life, and it felt odd, though not unpleasant, to be on the teaching end now.
But she was galvanized. She had enough for her article, and it vexed her that she couldn’t go home, hole up in her bedroom and hammer it out.
She had to wait, she had to get healthy, and then she would blow the lid off this godforsaken place.
In the meantime, maybe she could effect some kind of positive change in these women’s lives.
At the end of the class, Emily gathered the sheets and stuffed them, face down, into the back of the store cupboard until next time.
Based on my experiences to date of both the ineptitude and punitive disposition of the Mercer prison’s administrative staff, I felt compelled to conceal from the warden and matrons that the women were now actually learning the skill they were ostensibly meant to be acquiring during the unsupervised typing class hour.
Only time would tell what their reaction would be if they were to find out about the clandestine education occurring right under their noses.
“Ow!” Emily gasped as a bead of blood bloomed on her index finger. She set down the offending needle and winced.