The Guardian Read Online Free PDF

back.”
            Dawn sat up quickly.  Was she hiding the knife behind her back?  In the waist of those awful orange pants?
            “Don’t worry. I won’t bite you.” She leaned back against the cell bars.
            “I don’t know Rondell.”  Dawn quickly confessed.   “I only knew one person in that beeper shop-- the guy I rode here with from Louisiana.”‘
            “Did you know what was going down?”
            “No. Not at all.  He told me if I drove him to Winnie, Texas, he’d give me five hundred dollars.  One of his trucks had broken down on the side of the highway—“
            “One of his trucks?”  Ruthie laughed.
            “He owns a trucking company.” Dawn said.
            “If he owns a trucking company, don’t you think he got people to take care of shit that break like that damn truck? Girl, you stupid!  What he needed your ass for? You were a mule.  That was a big ass drug bust. It was all over the news. Your face was plastered on TV. Those niggas were gonna use your car to bring all that dope back to Louisiana. Do your people know you’re out here?”
            “I called them from holding last night.”
            “What are you gonna do?”
            “There’s not much I can do. My bond’s a million dollars.
            “A million dollars?! How much dope did y’all have?!
            “I don’t know. I didn’t see anything.”
            “You got kids?”  Cassandra asked.
            “Kids?  No.  I still live at home with my parents and my brother.”
            “I’m just trying to get up outta here, man, and see my kids.”  Cassandra said with a grimace.  “Fuck a man.  Rondell ain’t nev’a been a daddy to them girls noway…did you see him there?”
            “I have no idea who Rondell is.  I only knew one person in the beeper shop.  Wasn’t introduced to anyone—“
            “Rondell owns X-Communications.”
            Dawn pictured Kendrick, the six-foot-four thin African-American man with the dreads tied up on top of his head and how ridiculous she thought his hair looked against that god awful printed shirt he wore.  She remembered the multiple piercings in his nose and ears and the tattoos on his face.  “I’m not sure.  Sorry.”
            Cassandra was one of the six girls inhabiting Cellblock D at the Harris County Jail and now sat slumped against the bars, her legs outstretched, ankles crossed, the expression on her face vindictive.
            “Well, you saw somebody .”
            “I don’t remember.”
            Cassandra snorted, “You remember.”
            “She remember!” Dolores yelled across from her cell.
            “Leave her alone, Cass’.  She said she don’t remember seeing Rondell.  Why the fuck she gotta lie about that?”  Ruthie interjected.
            “I just ain’t seen him in a while, that’s all.  Now, we both locked up.   And if he was there when all that shit went down, he’s going to prison for a long time.”  She sighed.  “I’m worried about Lil’ Tae and Asia.   My momma ain’t gonna keep my girls forever.”
            And there they were.  Four of the six young women locked up in Cellblock D of the Harris County Jail, all with problems the size of boulders resting on their pathetic shoulders.  Bitter and inculpable young women, yet clueless about their future.   It was midafternoon.  Hot and humid temperatures rose above ninety-five degrees, but lucky for them, the beaming summer sun barely made its way through the single-barred window up above the wall-mounted television.  The cellblock was expansive and cool