For a large part of my life I went through great pains to make people leave me alone. As I sat in the holding cell, completely alone, the irony did not amuse me. I came to the conclusion that being alone, really alone, was not as much fun as I had hoped. I figured someone would have to come back to my cell at some point. I had to go to trial and would probably meet with my public defender at some point. So I tried to pass the time in some way that did not make me go crazy.
I never did require much sleep and laying down to rest on the hard bed was a fruitless endeavor. I tried to remember stories. I had hoped to be able to replay movies and books that I loved in my head. To my dissatisfaction, my memories were unreliable. The stories that I was able to remember came back to me all at once. I seemed unable to serialize them again, which meant that pulling up the memory of an excellent novel did not pass the same amount of time it took me to read it.
I ran out of books and movies and began to think of Shakespeare. I ran through a list of my favorite plays and entertained myself by reciting lines by heart. I laughed while I spouted insults in iambic pentameter at the brick walls. I had entertained myself for a while when a line came out of my mouth that turned my mood sour.
“If you please to call it a rush-candle, henceforth I vow it shall be so for me,” I said to the little window in my cell door.
That line was not from one of my favorite plays. It was from my least favorite. It was from the play that I was loathe to attribute to Shakespeare because it contained some of the most misogynistic events to grace the stage of the Globe Theater. It was a line from “The Taming of the Shrew.” That play had aggravated me so much when I first read it from an anthology of Shakespeare’s works that I would later refuse to participate in the read-through for English class. But as I sat and listened to the sound of Katherina’s words coming out of my mouth, I found a renewed hatred for it. I sat on my bed, disgusted with myself for being able to remember that line. It was the scene where the shrew, having been tamed, agreed with her husband that the sun was actually the moon and that, if he so desired, she would say it was but a candle.
I pursed my lips together before I could degrade myself with any more of Katherina’s lines. I had hated that play when I was younger because I identified with Katherina the maiden. As I sat in my cell, I hated the play even more because I identified with Katherina from fifth act. I slouched against the brick wall and burned with self-loathing and anger at Petruchio.
Then, an idea popped into my head. What if Katherina waited for Petruchio to pass out after an evening of too much wine? What if she tied him to the pallet with jute and then sat on top of his chest? She could pick up whatever they used for pillows in those times and press it to his smug face. Should could hold it there while he struggled to breathe. She could retaliate for all the cruel tricks he pulled on her. She could be absolved of the crimes she committed against herself. While his heartbeat slowed, Katherina could get back at him for locking his naked, hungry wife up in a room. When his body went limp, she could finally forgive herself for bending to his will and for changing herself to conform to what Petruchio considered the ideal wife.
I had not written a story of my own for a long time. Since I was unable to experience my favorite stories from memory, I decided instead to construct the story of a vengeful Katherina in my mind. It had been so long since I had written anything that I had almost forgotten the thrill I received from the creative process. When I was younger, I had a tendency to retreat completely into my own head while I wrote. There was nothing better for forgetting your bleak surroundings than creating a world of your own.
The walls of my cell drifted away and I was no longer incarcerated. My mind expanded to provide enough space for me to walk around. The ideas flowed from a cloud of thoughts above my head. They fell to the ground like a dark rain and coalesced into a stream. The plot was fluid at first and shifted back and forth while I organized the details. When the story line started to make sense, the stream thickened and froze. The dark water became hard and formed an asphalt path. I let my imaginary feet walk up and down the road. I stopped occasionally when the road was not smooth and imagined the pavement to melt and become liquid. I would stoop and blow gently on the shimmering, black liquid to flatten it and allow it to harden once again. I walked up and down the road, smoothing and expanding until I had the makings of a terrific story of revenge and redemption.
I was caught up in my hallucinatory creative world but I was not delusional. I was not just re-writing the story of the shrew. I wrote my own story at the same time. It was while I produced an alternative fate for Katherina that I finally realized what I wanted for myself.
I was so absorbed in my writing that I barely heard the faint sound of a key being inserted in the lock of my cell door. A small part of my mind recognized the sound but it took so much time for the rest of my brain to realize what it meant that I was actually startled when the door swung open. I was drawn out of my fantasy and I blinked my eyes open to the harsh light of the cell.
A policeman I didn’t recognize pulled the door open and looked inside. The cop then turned to look at someone I couldn’t see and nodded. A man in his fifties stepped into the doorway. He was so tall I thought he might have to stoop to enter my cell but he simply ducked his head a couple inches. The gray, disheveled hair on his head brushed the frame as he passed.
“Nicole,” he said in a sleepy voice. “My name is Robert Otis and I have been hired to defend you.”
I laid on the bed, as awestruck by his lanky height as by what he just told me.
“Hired,” I said. “I didn’t hire a lawyer. I was expecting the public defender.”
“I’m sorry to disappoint you,” said Mr. Otis as he ran his long fingers through his silver hair. “If you would rather rely on wit and knowledge of an employee of the state to provide your defense in court I could always go back to bed.”
Something about his words and his tone reminded me of Mr. Warner, my high school English teacher. I liked Robert Otis immediately.
“Well, you’re already here so I might as well see what you have to say.”
Mr. Otis turned to the cop and said, “Excuse us.”
The cop gave me a quick look and said, “I’ll be right outside, sir.”
My lawyer and I watched the cell door swing shut and when the latch clicked he turned to look at me again. He sighed and I noticed he was looking at my wrist.
“I didn’t mean to do that,” I said.
“Good. Suicide makes you look unstable. If we’re going to make this work, you will need to appear as solid and sane as a brick wall. Do you understand?”
I nodded and sat up on the bed. I scooted down and leaned against the wall. I pointed to the other end of the hard bed with an open hand.
“No, thank you. We don’t have much time. I am not really supposed to be here yet and I wouldn’t be if your friend wasn’t so persuasive.”
I looked at him with a confused expression but he continued without clarification.
“The prosecution has not filed charges yet, but as soon as they do you will be arrested. If the cops or the lawyers for the other side try to talk to you, the only thing you say to them is this: speak to my attorney.”
I nodded.
“I need to hear you say those words.”
“Speak to my attorney,” I said meekly.
“That will work. You might need to say that many times today. You might need to say it loudly and with more conviction to get it through the thick skulls around here. Do you understand?”
I nodded again.
“Okay, once charges are filed and you are officially arrested, you will be moved to the county jail. I can come visit you there as much as I want but I probably won’t see you again until that point. Between now and the next time I see you, what are you saying to the cops?”
I smiled and said, “Please speak to my attorney.”
“That’s better.”
The cell door squeaked as it was pulled open again and the same cop looked in and cleared his throat.
Robert waved a dismissive hand at him.
“Listen to me and we can make the best of this situation,” said Mr. Otis before he turned to walk towards the hallway.
“Wait,” I said just before he ducked under the door frame. “Who hired you?”
“Your friend, Trevor Kinsey,” he said and walked out into the yellow hallway.
The policeman pushed the door closed again and I heard him lock it. I strained my ears to listen to the footfalls of the two men as they walked down the hallway. Their steps died away and I heard another door shut loudly. I was alone again. The brief interruption of my solitude happened so fast, I had to convince myself that it actually happened. I played the conversation with Robert Otis over and over again in my head. His final words echoed in my brain. They repeated over and over like a tape loop. Those four words rang like a bell in my mind. The darkness and fear that had built up in my thoughts since I was put in my cell was pushed back a little.
I had been afraid since Officer Lewis shut my cell door that I had seen Trevor Kinsey for the last time. I had tried not to think about it, but the idea that Kinsey was lost to me was horrifying. Last night was the first time I spoke to him in eight months but the time we spent together while I confessed my crime had brought back feelings of familiarity and comfort that I always got from being close to Trevor. It was telling of our relationship that we could feel this way and even have a joke or two while I was sitting on the dead body of a man I had just murdered. I sat with my back against the brick wall of my cell and thought about how he looked at my breasts when I stretched. I bent my legs and hugged my knees to my chest and thought of the look on his face when he took the bottle of whiskey from my hand. His crooked smile was exactly the same. It was like we never grew up. It was like we were still in high school. I smiled and thought about sitting on the porch swing of his parent’s house.
I let my head fall back against the bricks behind me.
“Your friend, Trevor Kinsey,” I said out loud.
I closed my eyes and tried not to cry.