The Glamorous Life (25 page)

“Because we going to see my Boo, my Big Daddy, my friend in the can in Atlanta.”

“What?” Bambi asked in alarm.

Egypt quickly cut her off. “Look, he gonna pay for both of us to come—airfare and hotel plus give us some spending money and everything. He just doesn’t want me to come down there by myself, that’s all. And plus, I don’t really want to go by myself anyway.”

“And what am I supposed to do while you’re visiting with the love of your life?”

“You can either sit and talk with us—you know I don’t have nothing to hide from you—or I can tell him to put your name on one of his homey’s lists. You can call him out, and he can keep you company,” Egypt explained.

“Oh, hell nah! I am perfectly fine cock-blocking at the table with you,” she joked. “Do you think I am about to go on a blind prison date? No ma’am, you got me all fucked up.” She
laughed as she played out the episode in her head. “You think I want be in there for at least five hours talking to a nigga I don’t even like?
Oh, hell nah!
”

The day finally rolled around when she and Egypt headed to Hotlanta for the visit. Egypt was decked out to the fullest, Gucci down: Gucci pants with a plain white Gucci shirt, Gucci loafers and topped off with a full-length Russian mink coat. Her hair lay in the perfect bob, while her nails sported a French manicure.

On the other hand, Bambi was dressed down. She wore a Bebe sport fleece sweat suit and some Bebe sneakers to match. She threw on her big, puffy Bebe coat and was ready to visit the penitentiary. “Shoot, I ain’t looking for no man. I’m not going to put on anything to work these niggas, or get their dicks hard. I’m going to be comfortable,” Bambi told her friend.

When they got there, they entered a white building that housed a small waiting area and a metal detector. They were one of the first ones there, and the officer informed Bambi that she wasn’t on Egypt’s boyfriend’s visiting list. At first, Bambi was going to leave; then a woman who had arrived right after they did instructed them, “Call the duty officer or the lieutenant. I have been coming to the system to see my husband for over thirteen years, and every now and again, they come up with a reason why my name is not on the list.”

They did. The two guards were a little pissed when they asked to see someone in charge. It took another hour for them to get the situation straight, and then they got the word that Bambi’s name had indeed been added to the list and she could go in. They were then told to remove their shoes and put them up on the security belt for inspection. After that they went through a metal detector, which meant if they had underwire in their bras or bobby pins in their hair, they would not be able
to get in. It was at this point that they felt like they had better luck hitting the Lotto than getting in.

After that they were told that they had been randomly selected for a drug test. Both Bambi and Egypt had to rub a piece of paper that looked like a dry Stridex pad all over their clothes and then put it in their pockets. Then they had to give it to the guard to perform a drug test. The guard inserted the piece of paper into the machine, which emitted a long beep, indicating the test was positive for drugs. The officer shook his head, and said, “You can’t come back for forty-eight hours.”

“Oh, hell nah! Neither one of us do drugs, never have, never will.”

“Well, maybe you were around someone who did?” the officer informed Bambi.

“No, we don’t hang out with junkies.”

“Well, the bottom line is you can’t go in.”

As soon as they were about to exit the door, they heard another long beep and then came a loud voice, “
Fuuuuck
no. Yo machine is on crack. Talking ’bout I done used crack cocaine. I am a nurse, and I don’t use no drugs,” one woman went on and on.

“Sir, I am not trying to give you a hard time, but if all three of us tested positive, we need to see the lieutenant,” Bambi said.

They waited for the duty officer to come, and as they waited, every single person in that room tested positive for drugs.

“Now that right there don’t make no sense,” Egypt said. “You mean to tell me you seriously believe that that woman right there is using drugs? She’s got to be seventy or eighty years old.”

“It doesn’t matter what I think; it’s what the machine thinks,” the officer said.

“Can’t you use your common sense and figure out that all of us wasn’t congregated in the parking lot smoking coke and weed before we came in?” Bambi asked the officer.

When the lieutenant finally arrived, he was surprised to see that Bambi and Egypt had not gone back yet. Together they acted as union foremen for the family and friends of federal inmates. Egypt started right in on the man.

“All these folks here have tested positive. This woman right here is eighty-five years old, walking with a cane. I am willing to bet you money she hasn’t been using any drugs. Something is wrong with your machine.”

“Well, I’ll tell you, there’s nothing I can do since we already logged the tests into the book. The rules are the rules. The bottom line is we paid a whole lot of money for this technology and—”

Bambi interrupted. “You mean we,” she said as she pointed to all the folks who had surrounded the lieutenant. “We as federal taxpayers have paid a lot of money for this machine that is either broken or hasn’t been serviced.”

“That’s right,” the visitors said, getting a little hyped.

“Ma’am, understand I have a job to do here.” The lieutenant was starting to get nervous. “What is it that I can do to make you understand it from my point of view? I don’t want to have you leaving here in an uproar, but understand that we have rules.”

“Well, listen, I only see one way of solving this, and I am sure we will all agree.” It got so quiet that Bambi could hear a pin drop as everyone listened attentively. “Look, you say nothing is wrong with the machine, right?”

He nodded.

“Well, if you truly believe that, then why don’t you take the
drug test? If it comes back positive, then it’s clear that something is wrong with the machine. However, if it comes back negative, then we will all leave in total silence.”

He agreed and took the test. The long beep occurred again. Embarrassed, he was finally convinced that the machine was indeed broken. The visitors were all let in without any more harassment. One of the ladies asked Bambi, “Are you a psychologist?”

“No, I am a party planner. I have a business called Events R Us. If any of y’all ever need a party, let me know. I have some cards in the car. I’ll give them to you when we leave.”

“We think you are in the wrong business, considering how you manipulated his mind,” another lady said, and the woman murmured in agreement, boosting up Bambi’s ego.

Once they were finally in the visiting room, Bambi felt like a kid in a candy shop as she looked around.

“
Dammmn …
it’s some fine-ass niggas up in this place here toooooday,” she said as they sat down in the plastic brown chairs to wait for Shawn, Egypt’s friend, to come out.

“They talk about it ain’t no men—shit, that’s because they all locked up. I tried to tell you there was some quality dudes here, but you don’t listen to me.” Egypt rubbed it in her friend’s face.

“Maybe I need to organize ‘love on lockdown’ matchmaking systems. I know a bunch of chicks that must not be hip to all the fine-ass male specimens in this place. The niggas on the street ain’t got nothing on these men! I don’t see a ugly one in sight.” Bambi looked around the room, inspecting every guy at every table. “Well, the one over there, but he is so clean-cut that I could work wit him,” she told Egypt as she continued turning around in her chair, not caring what females were thinking of her as she stared in every man’s face there.
Egypt ain’t crazy, after all. Shoot, if I didn’t have Loot’chee I’d hook up with a pen pal or two myself.

“I feel like writing to the president asking him just exactly what the hell is he thinking, keeping all these fine-ass dicks—I mean men, and black men at that—behind bars in a cage,” she told Egypt.

The next day Bambi dressed up more stylishly for the visit than she had the day before. She pranced around the visiting room, going to the snack machine and cooking a chicken sandwich in the microwave for Egypt and her man. About two hours into the visit, she went up to make some popcorn when she heard a deep, soft voice say, “Bambi.” The sound was so sweet it made her underwear wet. She turned around and felt a shock wave when she saw who it was.

“Don’t speak to me!” she snapped, trying to put up her guard.

“What? What the fuck you mean, don’t speak to you?”

“That’s what the fuck I said,” Bambi said, as sassy as she knew how.

“Whoaaa, whoaa, watch yo mouth. I think you got it all wrong,” Lynx tried to explain to her.

“I got it all wrong? Let me remind you, you were supposed to be the man of my dreams, to protect me—”

He interrupted her. “I still intend to be.”

“You asked for one chance. I gave it to you, and you blew it. You decided to disappear.”

“I can explain if you just listen.”

“Look, I took you to meet my mother! I believed in you! And you played me just like the rest who you talked shit about and claimed to be so much better than.”

“Listen,” he said as he threw up his hands and looked into her eyes. “That day I left you, the feds picked me up. I was
down at the jail and couldn’t call your cell phone collect, and that’s the only number I had for you. You were so busy with your guard up when we first met, all I ever had was a cell phone number for you. And when I got on a three-way to try to call your cell, you never picked up.”

She knew he might possibly be telling the truth because she never answered numbers that didn’t look familiar to her. So she listened as he continued to explain himself. The smell of his prison-bought Fahrenheit oil was practically winning her over just as quickly as the explanations he was running down to her. “Cook’em-up got locked up too, but he beat his case. When he got out, I told him to go by your business and let you know what was up, but he said they kept telling him you were out of town. I thought about you every day, and I still intend to do everything we planned.”

She wanted to break down and cry, especially when she realized they could have had a two-year-old son or a daughter together. Tears formed in her eyes as she hugged Lynx. When they embraced each other, the white prison guard, who was a hard-looking woman, frowned in disapproval. The woman had extremely short hair and walked like a man. She came over and told them there was to be no physical contact and that they must return to their visiting table.

They both acted as if she hadn’t said anything. “Who’s up here visiting you?” Bambi asked Lynx.

“This shorty, but nothing for you to worry about.”

“You mean to tell me you got a bitch up here visiting while you over here confessing your love to me?”

“I had to get someone to roll with me since you wasn’t around. You trying to come hold me down? You trying to come through on a regular to see me? What’s up?” He looked in her face and smiled.

“Go tell that bitch to leave
right now
! Tell her thanks, but her services are no longer needed now—that wifey Boo is here now. We appreciate her, and I’ll gladly pay her if she need to be paid for any stamps, cards, photos, or gas money that she might have dished out. Then get her funky-ass name off your list, and when you send me the institution confirmation forms that her name is off, I’ll do whatever I need to do to help make the time pass by until you come home.”

He shook his head in disbelief, but before he could respond to her foul mouth, the female guard told them again, “Look, you two need to go over to your table, or I’ll have your visit terminated.”

Bambi stared at the woman for a minute and rolled her eyes, but she knew she had to bite her tongue or be put out, so she chilled.

“Look, I am going to take care of that, but make sure you got me,” Lynx said.

“I got you! I promise!”

She studied Lynx’s body language as he went back over to the table and told his visitor that she had to go. The girl looked over at Bambi and gave her a deadly look. Bambi looked right back at her and then waved to her and mouthed, “Bye-bye, beeatch!” along with a big Miss America smile. The girl read her lips and rolled her eyes. Bambi could see the smoke coming from her head. Bambi just smiled.

“What’s going on?” Egypt asked.

Bambi happily explained and then said, “Oh, I need to make sure of his government name, so I can write him and get him my address.” Bambi hopped up and went over to where Lynx was sitting and asked him his mailing name.

As Lynx’s former visitor left, a new batch of folks came into the visiting room. Bambi played it off and sat down at Lynx’s
table. The female guard had left the visiting room right before Lynx’s visitor had made her exit, and the other guards didn’t even catch on to what was going on. Before they sat down, they went to take pictures. Then they sat and began to catch up. She could feel the other visitors’ and inmates’ eyes on them, wondering what was going on. She could not care less. She was with the man she’d always felt she was destined to be with.

The next two hours flew by, when a male guard yelled out, “Ten more minutes.”

“Damn, time flies when you’re having fun,” she said to him, mad that time was up already.

“Look.” He grabbed her hands and said, “You never asked when I was coming home or how much time I got.”

“Because, Lynx, I don’t really care. If you got twenty years, then I’ll be coming here for twenty years.”

He laughed. “That’s sweet, and I’m glad I know where yo heart at, but I’ll be leaving here for a halfway house in three months.”

“For real?” She smiled. “I’ll pick you up.”

“Thanks, that’ll be real good! You know if you pick me up, I am going to want to stop at a hotel to get some of that good stuff I’ve been missing.”

She smiled and said, “I wouldn’t have it no other way. I better be the last one you was with and the first one you going to be with.”

“No doubt. Hope you can handle a nigga like me. All backed up. You know I am going to tear you up, right?”