COVERAGE

My stomach groans with hunger and my bladder is full to the point of discomfort but I deny these things. I have decided they are not important. Instead I sit straight and attentive, my eyes attuned to the screens in front of me. “She’s good at her job,” I want my higher-ups to remark. “No, she’s great at her job,” I want someone even higher up to say, and for them to nod their head as a single unit, one giant approval. 

It’s my first week of employment at Bodham’s Prison for Women and as a woman myself, I’m well aware I’m assumed to be weaker than my fellow colleagues, mostly male. I cannot allow weakness. They’ve put me in the security room to moderate the CCTV activity of the prison, to see how I fare here. I’m watching, but I’m also being watched. Russian dolls of perception.

In the upper righthand corner then, a swift movement. I double click on Cell 68’s CCTV and assess. Occupant in Cell 68 is tying what appears to be a shoelace around and around her arm, for what purpose it’s unclear. Novelty? But she shouldn’t have the shoelace in the first place. I radio my superior, Randy. “Cell 68 in possession of non-lethal contraband, Cell 68 in possession of non-lethal contraband. Appears to be a shoelace of some sort.” I wait for Randy’s reply. “Copy that.”

On the CCTV screen Occupant in Cell 68 is still tying the shoelace around her arm. I shift in my seat and almost wince. My bladder is at full capacity. But I refuse to be the new girl who requests coverage to go potty every few hours. We all have needs bigger than the job, but we purposefully reorganize those needs and place this job on top. Like an angel at the apex of a Christmas tree, where she belongs.

I see one of my colleagues enter Cell 68 on the CCTV screen. The occupant tries to hide her shoelace. My colleague steps forward, holds out his hand. After a few beats of consideration, the occupant reluctantly hands it over. My colleague leaves, and Cell 68 is once again free of any sign of concern.

I fight the urge to smile as I click to return to the full screen. Nice catch by me. Without moving my chin, I angle my eyes down to my watch. An hour and a half left. I can do this.

Randy radioes me. “Scott’s walking your way, you need a 10?”

“No,” I say into my walkie. “All good.”

“Are you sure?” Randy sounds about as surprised as a head of prison security can be, that is, vaguely.

“Positive. I’m gonna finish this one out.”

“Copy.” Randy disconnects. I shift in my chair and my bladder protests again, but I decide it is irrelevant. There are more important things than expelling piss from my body in a timely manner.

Most of the women are asleep. It is 4AM. My eyes land on the Occupant in Cell 10. She’s pacing. She’s paced like that three out of the four nights I’ve been here. The other night she lay curled up in a ball on her cot and didn’t move all night. She was so still I zoomed in on her CCTV a few times to make sure she was still alive, and considered radioing Randy about it. But I didn’t, and tonight, on my fourth night, she’s back to pacing.

My stomach omits an ornery growl. I ignore it like a parent does an irritating child. Not now, hush. Occupant in Cell 68 has laid her head to her pillow. Occupant in Cell 17 is using the bathroom, squatting over her prison potty, her private parts blurred out by AI software. The recent developments in AI are the only reason the cameras can be placed in these women’s cells at all. Before auto-blur, CCTV could only be in public rooms. My job was a lot less important.

Still the woman Occupant in Cell 10 walks back and forth in her cell. I feel the muscles in my face begin to contract into a yawn, but I stop them, and their suggestion of sleepiness.

Occupant in Cell 10 slows to a stop. I watch her. She turns, slowly, and I can see her face in full on the CCTV. I watch her angle her chin up. She sets her eyes on me through the screen. I freeze. 

She can’t see me. The seeing is one-directional, me to her – but her eyes seem to bore into mine. My throat feels dry. I reach for my water bottle but it’s empty, and anyway my bladder is so full–

The woman’s mouth starts to move. Immediately I enable audio – another new feature. Privacy is naught. Her face appears enlarged on my screen, and I hear her voice.

“I don’t want to do this.” the woman in Cell 10 says, her voice breaking. I stare at her face. She looks vaguely familiar – but how–

“I don’t want to do this, Natalie,” she repeats, this time adding a name. My name. My stomach contracts on the air it holds.

“I didn’t want to do this, but I heard you were working here and I just –” The woman breaks herself off and sobs into her hands.

I hear Randy’s voice from my walkie. “Natalie. Everything OK?”

I am frozen. I cannot answer Randy. I can only train my eyes on the woman in Cell 10. As though I am a prisoner awaiting execution.

The woman wipes the snot from her nose and looks back up into the security camera. Back up at me. Her face contorts in pain and rage.

 “Abel is the devil,” she sneers. 

I feel as though I am falling back, backwards in my chair, although surely I remain upright and rigid to the cameras that watch me–

“Natalie,” Randy says again from my walkie. “Do you need coverage.”

From the CCTV, the woman leers up at me. “Your brother is the reason I’m here. But he’s the monster. And he walked free! How is that fair? HOW IS THAT FAIR?”

The woman I now recognize as Serena, the mother of my estranged brother’s children, raises her pitch to a demented screech.

“HOW IS THAT FAIR? NATALIE! DO YOU HEAR ME?”

“We’re sending Scott to cover you,” Randy says through the walkie. “Natalie. Confirm receipt.”

I watch as Serena screams up at me from her prison cell, spittle flying from her mouth. I watch as not one, but two, of my colleagues open her door and restrain her, and how much force it takes to get her down, and keep her there. I think of Abel, who I purposefully haven’t thought of in years, and what he could have done, to her or to others. I thought I’d be safe here, in the lion’s mouth. Not even here. Not even here.

The door opens behind me and I hear Scott’s voice. “I’m here. Take your ten.” I feel warmth spreading beneath me, something like love, no, not like that at all. I realize there’s a wetness to the warmth. Looking down, I see that my neglected bladder has taken it upon herself to release her toxins, to find her own relief in the body of someone who denies her.