Nancy (part 2 of 3)

When the police brought Nancy through the shouting crowd and into the courthouse she had been shouted at, punched once in the back of the head, and hand cuffed. She was angry but the anger was tempered by a blast of air-conditioned air when they entered the courthouse.  When she heard a tall bald man say, “She’s a fiery little girl,” she wanted to jump at him. She heard her grandmother from 1,000 miles away say, “A joke isn’t a joke but a flash into their soul.”

Nancy embraced the dark side of that joke and became its punch line, “I could be your little girl if you let me go.” Residual laughter from the officer’s comment was just dying down but picked up from her suggestive and painfully obvious sexual ploy. This time instead she heard Joshua Barnums, an old friend, say, “Just do the opposite. It’s why I finally married Crystal and now we're together, forever.” The phantom voices quieted in Nancy’s head. Then she said, “I bet you couldn’t handle me if you had the chance.” Grandma would not be happy but Crystal would be laughing her face off.  The police officers stopped laughing at that and some looked at the tall one to see if he would respond.

A shorter, older one responded, “we deal with princesses like you all the time.  This whole fiasco isn’t about you.  So just keep your trap shut and you won’t be bothered.  But just because you're some young Newtopian girl does not mean we’re just going to let you go.”

“She is pretty pretty,” the tall one said. “Maybe we could work something out.”

“Not even a question,” the old one said.  “If you felt the gravity of this whole confusing prison transition... No way. You suggest anything like that again today and I’ll actually write you up.” The old man turned to Nancy, “We just laugh sometimes, if you’re ever in our shoes you’ll know, sometimes all you can do is laugh.” His sour face looked more exhausted than malicious.

“I don’t usually, it’s really not like me to say things like that,” she said mostly to herself, defeated.

She sat on a bench facing a beige wall and another, empty bench.  The tall, bald one came over to her when the short, bald one left. “I could show you a good time.”

She did not look at him but asked, “When am I getting out of here.”

“When I say you do,” he snapped.

Another officer watching the conversation said, “When they finish processing the inmates.”  The tall one looked over, offended but said nothing.

A few quiet minutes passed until the bailiffs escorted the one who had looked like Senator Baxton’s security guard to the bench across from her.  The bailiffs spoke to the police until another pair of courthouse security brought out the female convict. Nancy stared at the man, now almost certain it was Marcelli.  He had looked around, at her, at the clock, and then at her.  That was when they both knew.  He stood up suddenly but when three police officers and four bailiffs turned and the old, bald man said, “Hey buddy,” Marcelli sat back down. “That’s your last warning, just watch yourself,” he finished.

Not before long a shuffle came from the door where the rest had come from.  Galvin came out flanked by two officers with shotguns.  The air tasted foul all of a sudden: like sweat and blood, like Sumeet’s room.  There was grunting and pointing, is someone throwing up? Guards were pushing prisoners and police were pushing police.  Then one was pushed just too much and hit Galvin’s escort into Galvin.  Now it smelled like her past when she was a kid. 

Her brother, George, stopped by her class in first grade to drop off her lunch.  She had forgotten it.  She was so worried that she would starve to death she felt sick with relief when she saw him with the brown paper bag.  He said, “Here!” She was so disoriented all of a sudden.  Her head hurt and there was food all over her face.  Her brother laughed at first. And then she threw up and felt warm blood gushing from her nose.  Why did he hit me with my lunch? Why do we hit each other?

The smell in the small hallway in the courthouse was just like the smell in her classroom, across her face, and on her clothes that day back in first grade.   When she stood up she said, “I hate this.”  She looked at Galvin who had bitten a guard and had a bloody mouth and chin.  But then Nancy realized a stillness and followed Galvin’s arm out and to the shotgun he now was pointing at one of the guards.