Guns and Daughters

Natalie sat down beside her best friend Iveliz, took a compact out of her purse and commenced to fine tuning her makeup. “Yuck, I hate my nose, it looks like a little potato.” said Natalie. “What? you have the coolest nose Naty and it does not look like a potato, it’s harmonious, At least your face has character, mine is ordinary.” “Iveliz, coffee mugs are ordinary and so are white socks. You’re face is gorgeous” “That’s not true…” Iveliz replied bashfully, then she continued. “While we’re waiting why don’t you Tell me the rest of that story about that prison thing, please?” she begged. “Okay, I may as well, Yanari is taking forever to get here.” She leaned into Iveliz and began to spin her tale being careful not to awaken the security guard,George, who’s snoring had gained altitude. “After my arrest, they took me to a juvenile jail situated on the outskirts of New York City. The place was a new low-rise facility. Inside, it was antiseptically clean, not at all like the prisons here in the Dominican Republic. I wasn’t there for ten minutes before I got into a fight with another girl in the admission intake area. We were handcuffed to each other the whole time we fought. You know, I can’t even remember what we were fighting about. I guess, In some ways it was there, in prison, that I learned innovative ways of defending myself, when faced with aggression. Anyway, I did manage to split her eyelid before the officers broke us up. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like fighting but if I have to, I make sure I leave a lasting impression, or at the very least, a scar. It was that day that I ultimately realized what the hell I had gotten myself into. I was taken to be housed on the girl’s hall, a dormitory where I lived with fifteen other girls, supervised by two staff officers who kept passkeys on their person at all times. Things went reasonably well for the first five weeks I was there. I had been taken before a New York court judge twice. He reviewed my case and tried teaching me a lesson, by remanding me back to the custody of youth detention both times. I understood at that point that there’s nothing more frustrating than waiting to be judged, when you know you’re guilty. I spoke to one of the boys in the facility that told me that he had been locked up for over a year and a half, on an alleged assault charge. I made up my mind that there was no way I was going to be there that long, well, not if I could help it. The place was impregnable and security was tight. We were watched constantly, all the activities were done like clockwork, and as a group. I just about gave up on any plan of skipping out, until someone made a crucial mistake. One morning, at about 5:45am, in the midst of morning showers, although I know she tried her best not to, one staff had fallen asleep. There were about four girls moving about the dorm getting dressed. The other drowsy staff officer went into the bathroom to put cold water on her face, carelessly leaving her passkeys on the desk. I stared at those unsupervised keys from my unsecured room. It didn’t take me long to form a scheme to get them. I was a little scared at first. The consequence of any escape attempt from a secured detention building, was seven years. But once I made up my mind, that little bit of fear crumbled away, so I crept over and grabbed the keys. With the keys in my hand, I quietly but quickly I moved through four solid doors, until I was at the lower level of the jail. There were two unmarked doors there. I figured out that the first door led to a locker room or something, because I heard people moving around on the other side, so I opted for door number two. That door led to a steel access ladder that I climbed up to a hatch, which opened onto the roof. To my surprise, it opened easily and there was no alarm or anything. I removed my prison jumper and laid it on top of the barbed wire. Then I rolled carefully over the top of the wire, lowering myself to the street, one flight below, and I was out.