Grace After Midnight_ A Memoir - Felicia Pearson [20]
One thing that was on my mind was escaping. Wasn’t my idea, but a girl in my cell called N. Actually, N got the idea from watching MacGyver, the TV show about a secret agent.
In one episode, some dude escapes jail through a ceiling. Then he sprinkles pepper behind him so the dogs can’t pick up his trail.
“We can do that,” said N. “Look up in that ceiling. We can push back that tile and crawl out to the street, pepper it up and be outta here.”
I was skeptical, but what else did I have to do? N convinced me and also convinced S, the other girl in our cell.
N had me to steal some pepper from the kitchen. Then we got us extra blankets and towels we’d use to climb up to the ceiling.
N thought she had her little operation together.
But then S freaked out.
“I ain’t doing it!” she screamed. “We’ll get caught and get shot.”
“Shut the fuck up,” I told her.
She wouldn’t shut up so I stomped her a few times until she did.
“You don’t gotta go with us,” I said, “but if you say a word I’ll bust you up so bad you won’t be able to open your mouth ever again.”
I thought that settled that, but I was wrong.
S kept freaking out and a week later wound up telling the CO—the correctional officer—about our escape plan.
CO came by, saw our stash of pepper and stack of blankets and started laughing.
“You fools,” she said.
We didn’t say nothing.
CO got a stool and pushed back the tile where we’d hope to escape.
“Come on up here,” she told me and N. “Look at your escape route.”
“I don’t need to look,” I said. “I know what’s up there.”
“What?” asked the CO.
“A brick wall thick enough to keep a tank from breaking through,” I said.
“If you knew that, why in hell were you looking to climb up there?” she asked.
“I wasn’t. We dropped that idea soon as I saw the wall. We innocent.”
“Well, you’ll have time to think about your innocence when I put you both on administrative lock 23/1,” said the CO.
That meant holed up for twenty-three hours with one hour for fresh air.
“But we didn’t do shit,” I said.
“But you were going to do shit,” she snapped.
I started to argue, but why?
THE STRIP
I’d never been more than a few miles outside Baltimore.
Probably Father’s house beyond the county line was the farthest I’d even been.
Never been to L.A. Never seen Hollywood. Other than what I’d seen on TV or in the movies, didn’t know nothing about Las Vegas.
So why am I dreaming about that big Strip with all those fancy hotels and their huge neon signs flashing Stardust, Caesar’s Palace, the Mirage, and Treasure Island?
Why am I seeing myself in Vegas, shooting craps at the table and playing the roulette wheels?
In this dream, I’m riding around in limos and sipping fancy drinks in the VIP sections of the nightclubs where the rap stars go to chill. I’m sitting in the front row of a heavyweight fight and I’m betting heavy. My man is winning and the crowd is cheering, the money’s rolling in, the chips are red and green and yellow and blue, the blue lights of the after-party are low and I see the faces of all the stars. Mary J. is there. “That’s my wife,” I declare. Biggie’s there. Faith. Dre. Coolio. Da Brat. Latifah. Nas. Fugees. The party’s on and poppin’.
But moving around the room, I feel something’s wrong. I don’t know what, but my stomach ain’t right. My head ain’t right. My head is starting to spin. My stomach is starting to ache. I’m feeling sick. Did I eat something rotten or drink some poison?
For all the bad feeling, I keep looking for someone. Don’t know who it is, but I gotta find this person because this person is in deep trouble. I leave the party room and run through the casino, run outside on the Strip, run down the Strip, the neon lights racing over my eyes, my eyes searching every which way to find—who?
Everything goes blurry. Everything gets scary. Now there are niggas with knives and guns chasing me and I’m sweating and screaming, “Don’t! Don’t! Don’t!”