The Nobody People by Bob Proehl (manga ereader TXT) 📕

legs bloomed with bruises. Territory markings. The shiner was a bold announcement of Mister Benavidez’s claim on her and his ability to hit her with impunity. There are no consequences for the guards here, although it took them a few months to realize it. The woman offers the jar to Carrie.

“It’s dehydration that does it,” she says. “I’m grateful not to freeze, but the heaters suck the moisture right out of you.” Carrie waves off the concealer, although she’s aware of the dark circles under her own eyes. Because they are mothers, the women in Hall H treat Carrie like a daughter, with gentle corrections and cluckings. They size her up with loving disappointment Carrie recognizes too well. Carrie does the minimum preparation for the day, the maintenance a body needs not to become decrepit or offensive, and leaves the mothers to their self-care.

Bundled in an army surplus parka, Carrie meets Miquel outside. The inhibitors are weaker out here. Sometimes she feels the tingle of her ability returning, a song she almost remembers. Miquel opens his jacket like someone selling counterfeit watches in Washington Square Park. A cord dangles out of the inside pocket. He waggles his eyebrows at her lasciviously.

“You have time?” she asks.

“The kids’ll be gluing cotton balls to cardboard all morning. Each shepherd needs a sheep.” He nods to one of the guards, who leans on an elaborate rifle, a gun out of a video game. Carrie digs her fingernails into a spot high up on her scalp.

The disposition of the laundry in its off hours depends on who’s guarding it. Most nights and early mornings, it’s a rendezvous spot for guards and female prisoners, consenting or not. One night, sneaking out of Hall H for a smoke, Carrie watched Mister Herschel drag a girl in there, a blonde in her late teens who works with Carrie in the commissary. Mister O’Keefe held the door open, then winked at Carrie as he shut it. “Don’t worry, Plain Jane,” he said. “We only want the pretty ones.” It should have been Carrie’s moment to rise up. Instead, she stubbed out her cigarette and retreated to her bunk. She shoved her earbuds in as if they could shut the world out and held on to Miquel as tightly as she could.

The guard outside this morning, Mister Bailey, is sweet on both of them. He’s older and avuncular and regularly ribs Miquel about marrying that girl. Miquel smiles warmly at him. “I really appreciate this, Mister Bailey.”

“I’d appreciate if you’d call me John,” says Mister Bailey. All the guards are Mister except for Warden Pitt. A lot of them are ex-military and ex–law enforcement, along with some hobbyists, gun nuts, and weekend warriors. They’re paid by someone, but no one’s working at Topaz Lake purely for the paycheck. The individual guards’ attitudes range from genocidal to paternal, and they go by Mister as an indicator of status, if not specific rank. Carrie and Miquel have discussed this. Never call them by their first names, never delude yourself that they’re your friends. John might tip his cap at you in the morning, but it could be Mister Bailey’s gun butt smacking you in the temple by afternoon.

“Mister Huerta mentioned you smoke a pipe,” Miquel says.

Mister Bailey nods sheepishly. “Everyone’s entitled to one vice.”

Miquel deftly slips him a pouch of high-end pipe tobacco, which Mister Bailey pockets without looking at it. He opens the door for them. “Don’t worry,” he says. “I’ll make sure you’re alone.”

“No peeking at the keyhole,” Miquel says, throwing him a wink. Carrie gives a razor-thin smile as they close the door.

“We could actually just have sex,” Miquel says. Carrie takes in the room. First laundry shift starts at eight. Thirty women will file in, stoking boilers and washing the clothes of Topaz Lake’s 643 residents. In the winter, the cinder block walls of the building sweat. Droplets of water reverberate off the tiles.

“You take me to the nicest places,” she says.

“We don’t have to do this,” says Miquel. “It’s only two of the kids. I checked you last night, and you don’t have any.”

“I’ve been itching since you told me.” They don’t mention the word because it sends her into paroxysms. Carrie examined Miquel’s scalp for nits as he slept, then woke up in the middle of the night scratching at her own frantically enough to draw blood. This is the prophylactic measure she’s chosen. Miquel finds an outlet and plugs in the borrowed hair clippers, flipping the switch to make them buzz like an engine revving in the small tile-covered room. The clippers are shiny, metallic, weaponized. These are military-grade, not the kind you’d pick up in a Rite Aid. Most of the guards at Topaz rock the high-and-tight, a quarter inch of bristle protecting their pates from the wind. Whoever runs Topaz recruited the straightest of the straight. Softies like Mister Bailey slide in under the radar, along with sympathizers like Mister Guzman on the western fence. Miquel could coax Windex tears out of a robot’s eye, but most of these boys are John Wayne wannabes who look at their captives like cattle and keep kind thoughts at bay with discipline and routine.

“You sure?” Miquel asks one more time. The clippers hover at the nape of Carrie’s neck. She can feel the chittering of their metal teeth.

“Fucking do it,” she says.

—

Hayden’s out back of the commissary, smoke rising from their cigarette, steam squeaking out through the lid of the hot lunch cart. Wednesdays, Hayden and Carrie run lunches out to the work crews. Today, they’re headed to southeast quad, where Bryce and a half dozen others try to crack the frozen soil to dig graves for three prisoners who made a break for it last week. Carrie didn’t recognize their names, although she’d know them on sight. Official word is they fell. Misadventure is the most common cause of death here. Gravity’s high around Topaz, Mister Benavidez likes to say. The bodies have been