MISS METH OHIO
Kavi sat alone in a sea of women, huffing steam from her coffee cup. Her head throbbed. Her eyeballs were trying to claw their way out of her skull. The murmurs and clinks of morning mess blasted SCUD missiles into her skull. She felt her brains squeezing out her nose, her face a Play-Doh fun factory from hell.
I've really got to cut down to one cup a day," she thought.
Kavi knew exactly what she had to do. If only her nerve-wiggling guts would agree.
Beside her, a hollow-eyed old-timer inhaled a gloopy sausage-like syrup. The rotten smell alone brought Kavi's stomach up to her throat. Add the visual of a ghost-woman slurping near-meat through her flapping lips, though, and you've got the baking soda and vinegar for a vomit volcano.
James' voice echoed through Kavi's head. "Pick one thing and focus. Pick one thing and focus." Kavi focused on her coffee. She took a sip. Its smell (salty) and taste (bitter) kept Kavi tethered to earth. If she closed her eyes, if she shut out the noise, that smell of coffee could be a Saturday morning. The kids could be padding through the kitchen, mussed hair and desperate for sugar cereal. James could be unfurling the paper, pen clicking for the crossword.
Excuse me?" A baby-faced blonde leaned across the table, her voice a warbled birdsong. "Excuse me?" Her pocked cheeks and yellow fangs suggested a complicated friendship with meth.
What," Kavi said. "What is it?"
Are you Kavia Adnan-Byrne?"
Who's asking."
This is for you." The kid plunged a shaking hand down the collar of her shirt.
Is that a gun?!" Kavi sprawled to the cold floor. The world around her suddenly cinched tight, everything black and quiet. Shieße coffee splashed through the air. "If this is going to be it," she thought, "I'll at least use my last thoughts on my family, my kids."
Like a stone dropped in water, murmurs and shifting chairs rippled out from her table. Heads turned. Even before a single drop of coffee hit the ground, someone yelled odds: "3 to 1 against the darkie—three cigarette minimum!"
The kid, however, didn't pull a Saturday Night Special or a prison shank, or even a spork-and-underwear-band slingshot. Instead, Miss Meth Ohio slammed a crumpled note to the table. Its face read: "Kavia Adnan-Byrne/Cellblock W-B, unit 23/County Prison, Potters Village" in even, typewritten letters. With guards rushing in, guns cocked, Kavi snatched the page. The message on its obverse was equally dire and succinct:
The story ends tomorrow. It's going to be a real riot."
Kavi jammed the wadded paper down her shirt.
On the floor!"
I'm already on the floor," Kavi said. "It was a misunderstanding. My friend had an itch and I got jumpy."
The guards switched their focus to the kid. Baby face nodded assent.
"Up," one of the guards barked.
Arms held high, Kavi rocked to her knees and stood.
"Okay," said a jack-o-lantern guard, "eat your breakfast. If I even hear a queef, your ass chills in solitary. Wind cuts through the masonry this time of year, it'll freeze your tits clean off." With a nod she and her cadre returned to the wings, gazes lingering on the Kavi.
Again seated, Kavi scooped a glop of steakish onto her spoon and brought it near her mouth. The smell disappeared, the knot in her stomach gone. In the place of the quivering and the uneasiness, desperation had poured steel resolve into her guts. "Who gave you the note," Kavi whispered.
The kid took a sip of water and coughed. "Was in my mail." She covered her mouth with a curled fist. "No envelope, no address—don't know how it got there."
"Who are you?"
"Nobody. Jamie Ryan. Eighteen months for possession with intent."
"You swear you don't have any idea where that card came from?"
"I swear."
"Hey!" A burly voice shouted from the edge of the room. Every head in the mess hall turned to see the jack-o-lantern guard's rifle leveled at Kavi and her new meth-addict friend. "Not a fucking peep!"
In the beat of a heart, her nerves died away. Calm washed its pleasant light over her muscles. Kavi took a deep, relaxed breath. First taking a healthy slug of the old-timer's coffee, Kavi stood and faced the girl.
"I’m really sorry for this."
The girl’s face twisted. "For what?"
"For this." Kavi exhaled and punched the poor girl square in the nose. For a glorious moment she flashed years into the past, to that horrible, misogynist tech billionaire, to the satisfied swell of landing her knuckles directly onto his dipshitted nose.
The guard practically set off in a sprint across the room, gun leveled. "What the fuck did I just say to you?"
Kavi smiled, arms swinging as the guard restrained her. "Just try to throw me in solitary. I dare you."
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