Innocent Until Proven Guilty

The main difference between where I was (which felt like limbo) and real prison, as far as I could tell and based on what I’d learned as a very faithful viewer of court TV was that I wasn’t in a cell and I didn’t have to get my picture taken holding a number that looked like it was off a cereal box. The only way I knew that time hadn't stopped was because every two seconds I checked it. The minute I had gotten through those high-security front doors two guards had literally attacked me and took my stuff, carrying my bags away down the hall. Then, when they came back, they took me into a tiny room with white concrete walls, a white table with two little white chairs and a white door. Very color-coded. Depressing too. Anyway, then they took everything but my watch and the clothes I am wearing and locked me in. The only way I really know that I'm not a juvenile delinquent still is because they spared me from having to wear that sickly orange jumpsuit. How I hate jumpsuits.
(I detest orange too.)
I had plenty of reasons to hate this place so far without even getting to know it. For one thing, the little white room I was in was FREEZING. I calculated that in approximately fifty minutes, if the temperature kept up, I would die. Seriously, if I had boots, I’d be quaking in them.
The air conditioner came on. This was so not platinum.

Finally, a greasy guy wearing a pinstriped suit and smoking a cigarette slid in and sat in the white chair opposite me. He reminded me of a snake.
"Want a cigarette sweetie?" He asked in a soft slithery lisp that made my skin crawl.
I gave him my best withering glance. He got the point. At least, he better have.

Putting his nobly elbows on the table and holding his hands, he leaned across the table at me and spoke up.
"So sweet heart, I'm the manager of this, ah, establishment, and these are my guards; Fifi and Fofo." As if on cue, the two black guards that had tackled me and taken my stuff away stuck their heads in the room in unison and nodded; then sharply withdrew them. Wow. With names like that, their mom must've really hated them.
The creepy dude with the weird suit turned back too me and continued; "As you well know, you are here to teach my...sympathetic detainees math, grammar, and etcetera. You will get paid"-my ears perked up at that-"and receive breaks where a qualified teacher will take over until you get back."
Good. Breaks. That's what I'm talking about. Time to show Jess some respect.
I was starting to like this guy.
"So...how long are the breaks?" I asked inquisitively, hoping that I might get days off to go visit my cousin Vivian (who happened to live in New York) and go on shopping sprees.
"Every week you get two day breaks, weekends off, also every three weeks you get a free week." He answered. My eyes would've bugged if I didn't know how to control myself. That was a lot for a teacher, much less a teenager. Awesome.
I forgot about how sleazy he was immediately. I felt like I was being handed pure, solid gold. 20 tons of it. I never got that much time off work at my job at Paul's Fruit Market.
"Where do I sleep and...Stuff?" I asked. I was going to ask where I should go to the bathroom, but I figured that was a bit too private to share with a guy that I hardly knew but was more than capable than flogging someone.
“Fifi and Fofo will show you your room and washroom when I’m finished with you.” He gave me a crusty and tartar covered smile. Ew.
“Um, so, what classes will I be teaching?” I asked, attempting to draw the subject away from that view.
“Ah, yes, you will be teaching a selection of prisoners English and Math.” He answered with a wave of his hand. I suppressed a shiver when he said that. It wasn’t anything about the stupid classes I had to teach, but the way he said prisoner, almost like it was funny.
And I don’t find that kind of this funny.

The metal door closed behind me with a small popping noise as the rubber slots slid in, so that the door was completely suctioned on. You could kill someone like that, I thought absentmindedly. Lucky I had a window or else I might have stopped breathing from lack of oxygen. I hurried over to the small window and opened it. The view was absolutely splendid. Not.
My room looked out onto the stupid barbed-wire fence, and you couldn’t see a thing past it except trees. And who wanted to look at trees all day? They were just filled with mud, bugs, and bark. Nothing interesting about them or anything.
Of course not.
They’re trees.

I turned back to the room. It was small, dense and dingy. There was one flickering light hanging from the dirty ceiling, the bed was worn and when I sat down on it, it creaked. There was a small wardrobe in the corner that smelled like puke inside. It also seemed to have something that might’ve once been a fish sandwich. I quickly closed the door and, in my paranoid state, buckled the doors together.
There was a small desk next to the window that had been scribbled on and practically used as a graffiti wall. A three-legged chair sat next to it.
I began unpacking. I decided then and there as I tucked my socks into my moth-eaten pillowcase to make the most of it, after all, I was going to be here for a whole summer.
I hurried to pack everything into a spot that would be safe for it (not the wardrobe). I sat all the things I would need for the next day on the yuckidy writing desk. Yuck.
Outside it was becoming dark, and the light flickered dimly. I doubted I would get the privilege of a new light bulb. I looked out the window. Behind the trees I could vaguely make out the outlines of city lights. Once a city, always a city.
I remembered vacantly that Mike had landed me here. I remembered the day I had first begun to hate him. In fourth grade, when I had beaten him in a chess game, because I had had the better strategy. That was the day he had spit in my baloney sandwich when he lost. Even though I had detested baloney (hey who doesn’t? I mean, come one, who goes for fake meat? Fake cheese is another story though…) May faulty logic undermine your entire philosophy, I had told him. I snorted. Well, I had been right. He never won a chess game after that. Maybe I had put a curse on him. I had been pretty mad.

At about the time my watch said 10:30, my light flickered out. I decided it was no good trying to read in the dark. Not bothering to change my clothes, I jumped onto the bed and curled up. I shrieked and jumped up. My bed had felt like it was made of nails. I wasn’t going to try and sleep on that, so I took my blanket and curled up on the ground.
I stared at the blank opposite wall, thinking I was never going to fall asleep in this place.
I was asleep a minute later.