Orange Is the New Black by Piper Kerman Read Free Book Online

layers; between each layer was a gate through which we had to be buzzed. She opened the gate, and I stepped in. I looked back over myshoulder at the free world. The next gate buzzed. I stepped through again, wire mesh and barbed metal soaring all around me. I felt fresh, rising panic. This was not what I had expected. This was not how minimum-security camps had been described; this didn’t look at all like “Club Fed.” This was scaring the crap out of me.
    We reached the door of the building and again were buzzed in. We walked through a small hallway into an institutional tiled room with harsh fluorescent light. It felt old, dingy, clinical, and completely empty. She pointed into a holding cell with benches bolted to the walls and metal screens over all visible sharp edges. “Wait in there.” Then she walked through a door into another room.
    I sat on a bench facing away from the door. I stared at the small high window through which I could see nothing but clouds. I wondered when I would see anything beautiful again. I meditated on the consequences of my long-ago actions and seriously questioned why I was not on the lam in Mexico. I kicked my feet. I thought about my fifteen-month sentence, which did nothing to quell my panic. I tried not to think about Larry. Then I gave up and tried to imagine what he was doing, with no success.
    I had only the most tenuous idea of what might happen next, but I knew that I would have to be brave. Not foolhardy, not in love with risk and danger, not making ridiculous exhibitions of myself to prove that I wasn’t terrified—really, genuinely brave. Brave enough to be quiet when quiet was called for, brave enough to observe before flinging myself into something, brave enough to not abandon my true self when someone else wanted to seduce or force me in a direction I didn’t want to go, brave enough to stand my ground quietly. I waited an unquantifiable amount of time while trying to be brave.
    “Kerman!” As I was unaccustomed to being called like a dog, it took her a number of shouts before I realized that meant “Move.” I jumped up and peered cautiously out of the holding cell. “Come on.” The prison guard’s rasp made it hard for me to understand what she was saying.
    She led me into the next room, where her coworkers were lounging. Both were bald, male, and white. One of them was startlinglybig, approaching seven feet tall; the other was very short. They both stared at me as if I had three heads. “Self-surrender,” my female escort said to them by way of explanation as she started my paperwork. She spoke to me like I was an idiot yet explained nothing during the process. Every time I was slow to answer or asked her to repeat a question, Shorty would snort derisively, or worse, mimic my responses. I looked at him in disbelief. It was unnerving, as it was clearly intended to be, and it pissed me off, which was a welcome switch from the fear I was battling.
    The female guard continued to bark questions and fill out forms. As I stood at attention and answered, I could not stop my eyes from turning toward the window, to the natural light outdoors.
    “Come on.”
    I followed the guard toward the hallway outside the holding cell. She pawed through a shelf filled with clothing, then handed me a pair of granny panties; a cheap nylon bullet bra; a pair of elastic-waist khaki pants; a khaki top, like hospital scrubs; and tube socks. “What size shoe are you?” “Nine and a half.” She handed me a little pair of blue canvas slippers like you would buy on the street in any Chinatown.
    She indicated a toilet and sink area behind a plastic shower curtain. “Strip.” I kicked off my sneakers, took off my socks, my jeans, my T-shirt, my bra, and my underpants, all of which she took from me. It was cold. “Hold your arms up.” I did, displaying my armpits. “Open your mouth and stick out your tongue. Turn around, squat, spread your cheeks and cough.” I would never get used to