Chapter 18 #2
“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.
The other cellmates laughed. “Seriously, we got a tranny?” the one in the lower bunk asked. She was the oldest one in the
cell, probably late fifties, her hair mostly gray.
“Definite tranny,” said Mona. “I can always spot ’em.”
She was speaking right into Elliott’s ear, which made him jump. Mona had climbed out of her bunk without making a sound, and
she was staring Elliott straight in the eye.
“Get your ass down here, tranny.”
Elliott was too scared to move. Mona yanked him from the top bunk and thew him onto the floor.
“Get up!” said Mona.
Elliott pleaded with his eyes to the other cellmates. No one was coming to his aid. He slowly climbed to his feet. Mona stepped
closer and got right in his face. The disgusting smell of bologna on her breath was enough to make him vomit. Mona reached
for his neck and pinched the skin below his chin with her thumb and index finger. She wasn’t strangling him, but she had fingers
like a vise, and the pain was intense.
“Girlfriends, answer me this,” said Mona. “What’s that surgery called where they yank out a kid’s tonsils?”
Elliott bristled, fearful that she might rip out his throat with her bare hands.
“Tonsillectomy?” gray hair answered.
“That’s right. Tonsillectomy.”
Mona released her grip. Elliott took a breath, but the relief was short-lived. Mona poked him in the abdomen with her index finger and held it there, as if drilling through his belly to the spine.
“What about when the doctor cuts out your appendix?” asked Mona. “What’s that called?”
The younger cellmate answered. “Appendectomy, I think.”
“Very good, that’s right,” said Mona. She stopped drilling her finger into Elliott’s belly, and the pain slowly subsided.
Then her eyes narrowed, as if she were staring right through Elliott.
“Now, here’s the bonus question: What’s that operation called when they make a woman into a man?”
The cell was silent. Finally, Mona answered her own question.
“Add-a-dick-to-me.”
Mona didn’t laugh. One of the cellmates snorted and then fell silent, as if not sure Mona was trying to be funny.
Elliott was at his limit. He’d hardly slept since the indictment. The day had been a living hell since his arrest. And now
he was trapped with a beast of a woman inside a concrete box, where it was “survival of the fittest.” If he didn’t stand up
for himself, things would only get worse. Anger was building up inside, begging to escape, but he was too terrified to do
anything about it.
“Is that what the doctor gonna do to you, newbie?” asked Mona, speaking in a low, threatening voice. “He gonna add a dick
to you?”
The bologna on Mona’s breath was overwhelming, and she was hissing right in his face.
“Or maybe he done did it already,” said Mona, giving Elliott a knowing smile. “Guess we could wait for shower time and see.
But I don’t like waiting.”
Mona’s phony smile drained away—and then she grabbed Elliott’s crotch.
Elliott snapped. He launched himself at Mona, finding power in his legs he didn’t know he had, swinging his fists with the
speed of a jackhammer. A left hook caught Mona right in the jaw and knocked her to the ground.
“Fight, fight!” the cellmates shouted.
Elliott pounced on Mona, fists flailing, but Mona was a street fighter. She rose up from under him like an Olympic weight
lifter, and in one surreal moment, Elliott felt his body leave the floor. He was suddenly airborne as Mona put the force of
her entire body weight into him and slammed his spine against the upper bunk frame. It was as if the oxygen had been sucked
from Elliott’s lungs, and it was impossible to draw a breath. He landed on the concrete floor with a thud, and the world around
him swirled in a blur of confusion. Mona kicked him in the crotch, again and again. Elliott doubled over in pain, barely conscious.
“Keep your mouth shut, tranny,” he heard Mona say in a coarse, threatening whisper into his ear.
The next thing he saw was the steel rim of the toilet rushing toward him, or so it seemed. His face met the metal, a rush
of hot blood sprayed the bowl, and Elliott slumped onto the floor.