One of the CO’s who’d been cheering loudest said he was writing us both up. If you’re written up in jail it adds to the charge sheet when you finally get your court date. If you’re already in prison it can send you into solitary and deducts from your “good time” for early release.

As I stood motionless with my head under the CO’s arm, facing Angie, who was similarly corralled, a woman spoke up from the middle of the crowd. Everyone in the room, CO’s and inmates both, quieted down at once. The woman said that there hadn’t been any fighting, just basketball, and where that knife came from she didn’t know, but she could swear I hadn’t pulled it.

“That’s right,” several voices affirmed. “You were there, Cornish, you saw. They was playing one–on–one. Angie musta tripped in her own sweat.”

Cornish was another CO who’d been watching the game, if that’s what you could call my outing with Angie. He asked the first speaker if she was sure, because if she was he wouldn’t issue either of us a ticket on account of the holiday weekend.

“Uh–huh, I’m sure. Now I’m going to get me a pop. It’s a hot day.” She was a tall woman, with skin the color of toffee and thick graying hair pulled back from her head in a knot. As she moved toward the vending machines in a corner of the room, the crowd parted, like the Red Sea.

The guard who’d been clutching me let me go. A couple of women came over to slap my palm and tell me they’d been with me from the start. Others, perhaps members of Angie’s gang, gave me an evil eye and some pretty inventive insults.

CO Cornish grabbed my arm and told me I needed to get back to my cell to cool down. And what was my name? Warshawski? “You’re new, right, oh, in the jail wing. Then you shouldn’t be down here for prisoners’ recreation. Jail–wing recreation is in the mornings.” I opened my mouth to say I’d been ordered down here at three, but shut it again. Don’t trouble trouble, my mother always warned me, and trouble won’t trouble you.

A woman CO, one of only two or three I’d seen since arriving, was appointed to escort me back to the jail wing. “Lucky for you Miss Ruby spoke up when she did. Otherwise you’d have found your bail request doubled for sure.”

“Miss Ruby? Who is she?”