Cargo of Orchids

Editor's Note Though this story is true, some names have been changed. Otherwise there have been few alterations. The writer intended both the Spanish and her translations into English to be included in the text, but in most cases the Spanish has been dropped for the sake of expediency. A few words and phrases and colloquialisms have been retained for flavour, and she would like to thank Paul Oscar Nelson for his input. Also Gustavo Gomez, for his fine-tuning. It is the writer's wish that her name appear nowhere in the book. Part One / Valentine's Day in Jail Stop and imagine for an instant a world where someone is grateful for something. Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho Chapter One Death Clinic, Heaven Valley State Facility for Women If you are a new inmate only recently sentenced by the courts, this will probably be an entirely new experience for you. Inmate Information Handbook When you find yourself listening to their keys and owning none, you will come close to understanding the white terror of the soul that comes with being banished from all commerce with mankind. Pat Conroy, Prince of Tides When a reporter asked Rainy to compare being given the death sentence to being hit by a train, she said, "The train was quicker, the train was softer." I've lived next door to Rainy for ten years, on the Condemned Row. They call it the Death Clinicas if it's a place you go to get treatment for a terminal disease. You can't cure death, but while you wait for it, they make life impossible. In many cases death-row inmates are not allowed to write anything longer than a one-page letter, double-spaced. That they permit me to write this story is not a right, they remind me every chance they get, it's a privilege. If I write gossip, to spread rumours that might end up embarrassing the staff, this privilege will be revoked. So I do as I am told, and "confine all writings to inside the lines." If you ignore the lines, you are considered "out of bounds without authorization and subject to disciplinary action." When I write the word lines, I think of cocaine. My care and treatment counsellor, Mrs. Dykstra, would say the word lines is a trigger, a connection to my former "drug-seeking ways." Not to mention connection. La Reina de la Cocaina is what they called me in the papers after my arrest: the Cocaine Queen. They gave me other names, too. La Madre Sin Corazon. The Mother without a Heart. When I told one reporter I wished I'd been called Oriana Fallachi, a name that sounds like you're having sex without doing it, he said he could understand why a woman like me would want to change her identity. Rainy says I shouldn't take it personally, what they say about me in the press. They always end up bad-mouthing mothers who kill their kids. *** Frenchy, my only other neighbour at the moment, is suing the railway. When the train passes the prison at 2:16 every afternoon, it whistles and wakes her up. Rainy says, what does she expect? She sleeps all day. Every day is a gift, I say. Who can blame her for not wanting to get out of bed? *** Each Christmas Eve we are issued a new calendar so we can start X-ing off the days until next Christmas or our date certain, whichever comes first. But aside from the barbed-wire sculpture meant to symbolize a Christmas tree in one corner of the chow hall, and the matron who has a "negativity scene"what Rainy calls iton her desk, Christmas is like any other day on the Condemned Row. The Salvation Army usedMusgrave, Susan is the author of 'Cargo of Orchids' with ISBN 9780676973082 and ISBN 0676973086.