VILLAIN ERA

I sleep on the lower bunk. Not that I sleep much. She tosses and turns all night, but who am I to judge. Like me, she’s got to have a lot on her mind. She was here before me, and I have no idea how long her sentence is, not that that determines when she’ll get out. That there’s no sense in talking might be the only thing we’d agree on, if we did talk. She probably couldn’t hear me over what’s going on in her head. Aside from being holed up in this place, it might be the only thing we have in common.

Women in here, they’ve all got a lot on their minds. Not that that isn’t true anywhere. It’s the one thing I can appreciate about men. If it’s an exaggeration to say they’re dumber than dirt, I think we can all agree sons of bitches don’t fuss over relationships. Women are always rolling conversations around in their heads, which leaves little room for peace of mind. They ask questions, but they only want the answers they want. They need to know, but only what they want to know. They ask where they stand because their very existence is in relation to that other person. Men, they operate independently of the relationship, which as I see it, is more like a female construct. An item on every woman’s wish list. Take the phrase, “love ‘em and leave ‘em.” Men wrote the book on that one. That and “use and abuse ‘em.” Men know how to move on. Women need commitment. They get stuck. They can never quite get it into their heads that they’re the best goddamn thing that ever happened to someone.

Prison is full of women whose revenge went wrong against the men who wronged them. It’s why most of them end up here. When they moan and groan about their pathetic shit at night, I tune out the specifics. It’s all the same. Mostly, I hear their desperation. In that regard, they’re the same as women everywhere: desperate to please, desperate for approval, desperate to be understood. In here, there’s a more pragmatic side: they’re also desperate to prove their innocence. Or desperate to be on good behavior, so they can get out as soon as possible, or avail themselves of whatever piddly perks make it that much easier to get by while they’re in here.

I’ve heard it said that if you’ve got a lot on your mind, you ain’t livin’ right. But don’t mistake my insomnia for a guilty conscience. I’ve always had a lot to think about, and I don’t sweat the small stuff. I’ve got dreams, and aspirations. I know what my IQ is, but I don’t need to be obnoxious about it; I’m smart and I’ve got the goods. I’ve got an imagination, too, thank God. A complete package like mine helps survive a place like this, and it’s never kept me from sleeping before. Trust me, nobody could sleep with the racket she makes.

These bunk beds are metal framed, with shitty pads posing as mattresses. They’re covered in sweat, piss and period-proof plastic heavily doused with l’eau de body fluid and ammonia. And the bedding isn’t exactly pima cotton; nobody’s counting threads on these sheets. The slightest movement creates noise, and she’s a loud breather. When she gets the rhythm going with the rocking, I can hear her heartbeat. That’s the part that gets my adrenaline going. That’s the part that reminds me of Neri.

It would surprise you the amount of exercise I do in this small cell. I even impress myself, but I’ve got standards to uphold. Plus, I’m a person who gets shit done. In the measly 24 inches between my mattress and the underside of hers, counting reps clears my mind: Four sets of 50 crunches, three of 25 leg lifts, and so on. We have an unspoken agreement, she and I, to stay out of each other’s way. When she’s using the floor, I turn my back to her in the bunk, and vice versa. The last thing either of us wants is to lose our shit. Then you never get out. So much happens outside that makes folks go bat shit crazy. In here, there’s solid steel containment that’s like centrifugal force to keep it all in.

When the floor’s mine, it’s full-on burpee time, baby. I’m crazy proud of my drills, I’m not gonna lie: Planked knee lifts, handstand push-ups, my own badass planche I call “dragon lady maltese.” I get so amped, jumping jacks are a cooldown, haha. But I don’t run in place. She does enough of that for both of us, and when she does, it’s like her rocking. It reminds me of Neri.

In civilian life, I spent upwards of 2.5 hours a day in the gym. My total daily workout time, between my crib exercises and my floor work, is about that now. You’d also be impressed with the stretches I accomplish in cramped conditions, but I’ve always been flexible. Gotta keep moving to keep from going soft in here. Also to keep from crazy missing her.

I got to the gym later than usual on the day I first set sight on her. I’d been memorizing lines for an audition and the time got away from me, working as I was to get the voice just right. A lot of famous actors have said it: the best part of acting is being able to be different people. But authenticity is everything, so I focus on getting the character believable. I also want to be different enough to stand out, and familiar enough to be just what they had in mind, which takes intuition and insight, because they sure as shit don’t give a clue in the casting call.

I haven’t gotten a part yet, or for that matter, as much as a callback. But if you know Hollywood, you know making it has more to do with nepotism than talent. Like I said, I know I’ve got the goods. Let’s face it, luck plays no small part in how circumstances shake out. No amount of talent stands up against bad luck. There’s talent, and there’s birthright. I’ve got plenty of one and none of the other; a stacked deck from the start, or I wouldn’t be in this hellhole.

I planted myself on the reclining bike, script in hand, so I could go over my lines and still get my cardio in. As usual, there was no one in the gym, which is why I love it and chose this building in the first place, being the loner I am, I admit. Of course, rehearsing is best done out loud, so there I was, cycling away, elocuting at the top of my lungs, and taking in the darkening sky over the Hollywood hills. It was streaked with one of those purple-orange, blood and guts sunsets. Smelled of sweat and salt, like you could be at the beach even though you’re on stinkass Hollywood Boulevard. “Only in LA,” as they say. It was getting hard to read in the fading light, but I was into it and thought I’d power through one more time, when I sensed something so close behind me, it almost brushed against my shoulder. It scared the bejesus out of me, to be honest, and trust me, I am not easily caught off guard. I jumped, and though I’m not quick to come apart, the script just about flew out of my hand.

She was no more than five, maybe six years old; not startling in and of itself. But just imagine this little kid coming up behind you, like you’re her mom, I mean in your space, and there is not a single other soul in the gym. And it’s almost dark. Freaky, right?

“Geez, Kid!” I told her. “You scared the shit outta me.” She stares at me, not frightened. What strikes me most about her, aside from her tininess, is her eyes. They’re wily and playful, also curious, but with an innocence about them. Oh well, all things in time. Of course, I’m also wondering what in hell she’s doing all by herself. “Jesus Christ,” I say, and give her a look meant to say I don’t like kids, only maybe I’m just foolin’ if it’s a special kid. I return to my script. She needs to know I’m the one in charge here, that I’m busy and shouldn’t be pestered or crossed, but also that I admire her smarts and want her to be comfortable with me just joshing around. I continue with a quiet emphasis to impress, reading my lines all breathy. It’s fun, like a real rehearsal.

Well ‘f’ me if she doesn’t get on the elliptical to my right. I’m thinking she’s got a lot of hutzpah, this kid, hopping on the machine closest to a complete stranger when there’s nobody else in the gym, and it’s getting dark. Up to that point, it made sense that I’d gotten carried away and hadn’t turned the lights on, what with being into my craft and what have you, but now I’m thinking what the hell. The cardio machines are only about 18” apart, one of the reasons it’s a nice gym when nobody else is in it, which in my world, goes for any gym. There are four machines in a row, starting with my sit-down bike, then her elliptical, followed by a treadmill, and an upright stationary cycle. This kid’s head hardly reaches the bottom of the monitor. Her arms are stretched straight to reach the machine’s arms, and the footplates look like Big Foot snowshoes for her little bunny feet.

With one hand on the arm and the other on the monitor, the kid presses “GO” and the machine starts up. “I’ll be damned,” I think to myself, “this kid knows what she’s doing. “Beep, beep, beep,” goes the machine, and I see out of the corner of my eye that she’s pressing the up arrow to increase her speed. Her teeny little legs——and by the way, she’s cute as all get-out in her head-to-toe pink stretch terry——are going around in smooth wide circles now, just like an adult comfortable on an elliptical, but nothing like what you could ever imagine a skinny little barely three-foot tall thing with peach fuzz arms could do. Her hands are at the bottom of the arms, because like I said they can’t reach the handles, and her fingers wrap around them like she’s the one propelling the movement. Definitely not her first rodeo. Nor is it mine, I think.

A sign to my left glares at me for the first time, “NO DOGS OR UNACCOMPANIED MINORS ALLOWED IN GYM,” and it occurs to me that any law-abiding citizen, not to mention anyone in their right mind, would have noticed it. I’m looking at the sign, and I’m looking at the kid, and I’m thinking, this is not looking good. And then I’m thinking you’ve got to be driven to succeed if you want to make it in acting, which seems like a reasonable potential defense, if, God forbid I need it. Truth be told, I’d been going to the gym for months and flat out never noticed the damned sign before. Still, it’s beginning to look like I could be royally screwed. My mind does a little rehearsal and even to myself, I sound pretty pathetic explaining why, being as how I don’t have a pet or a kid, I’d straight up never taken note of the friggin’ sign.

I let a big breath out like I’m lifting. I don’t want anyone thinking something is going on here. Which it obviously is, because when have you ever seen a kindergartner training like an Olympian in a dark gym with a stranger. I wonder where in hell her parents are. She pushes the up arrow again, “Beep, beep, beep,” and the speed increases. She takes her sweet time to put her hand back on the right arm, and I realize this kid is headed straight to falling right off this machine and onto her miniature sized keester. On my watch. An alarm is going off in my brain: we’re alone, but we’re still in a public place. I put my script down and my hands up. “Slow down there, girlie,” I say. And she looks at me like five minutes ago never happened. Only I know she’s pretending now, too.

“Do you have a mom?” I deliver it more like a demand, and she nods. Another demand, “Where.” She points outside. It’s fully dark now. I can’t see out the glass that lines the gym. “Can your mommy see you?” I ask. And she nods yes. Bull crap, I think, examining the darkness. “You’re outta here,” I tell her. She hesitates and I give her a look to show I’m not messing around. Plus, I want to get back to my script and this whole turn of events is too much work and stressing me out.

I turn the lights on and push the door open for her to walk outside. She gives me a look like she doesn’t want the game to stop. “Go on,” I say, “go to Mommy.” And then, I swear I don’t know what got into me. I should have known better. Maybe it was those sweet innocent eyes. Maybe I wanted to protect her. I asked her name. “Neri,” she said.

Outside and around the corner of the building, there is a long table with eight people laughing, talking, eating, drinking. A lively group, real animated. There are large tin foil pans of food and several bottles of wine on the table. They’re clearly oblivious to the missing child in their midst. They are also quite nicely dressed; five smooth, suave dudes, mobster types (arms dealers, for a reason I cannot explain, comes to mind) with silk shirts open to hairy chests, and expensive loafers with no socks. There are three women with their hair done up and lacquered, thick false eyelashes, and button-busting cleavage. These broads are dripping with jewelry, shiny and sparkly like three f’ing Christmas trees all lit up on the dim rooftop patio, any one of them looking like that skank whore who insisted I call her “Mommy.” Five jokers who can’t keep their hands to themselves, that’s 10 oily paws all over three women. I remember men like that. Get a room without me, you sick fucks.

They don’t notice me until I’m at the end of the table. Then they smile at me, eye contact and everything; a real audience. I know my cue and smile back. “Hey!” I say, and step on stage, “I brought you your beautiful baby girl!” I knew it was wrong for me to know her name, so I don’t say it, but I hadn’t committed a crime. No harm no foul, I say. Maybe they’re not mobsters, I think. My eyes are darting from their faces, which are friendly and unsurprised, to the food, which looks delicious, to the windows behind them, which are not in the slightest bit transparent and there is no way they could see this little waif working out in the presence of a potential child molester, let alone me. That’s child abuse, not that anyone is asking my opinion.

Emboldened by their friendliness. I smile more widely and say, “I was just working out in the gym, you know, where there’s a big sign (and I stretch my arms out, grand performance style) that says, “no unaccompanied minors.” I’m projecting, loud and also giddy now, opening the Oscar envelope, holding out for the big surprise, and the winner is… and add, “But lucky for you, I am not a dangerous person!”

One of the women, geez is she a dead ringer for my sick slut of a mother, starts scooping up mounds of food right under my nose, so I can smell it over the oppression of after-shave and perfume. “Please!” She’s saying, shoving a laden paper plate at me. And I say, “Oh no! No, no, no, just wanted you to have your little girl!”

But who could resist the food. I take it, and another woman puts two perfect pieces of fancy layered cake on another plate and thrusts it at me, “Please! It’s opera cake! Take it!” And of course, it looks irresistible. But I know up-to-no-good when I see it, and there they are, grinning and pushing food on me like they’ve got something to hide. I figure I got my message across, so I exit stage left, my hands full with their bribes, leaving them with their little sprite. But I’m thinking, they could be child molesters. Or maybe traffickers.

I’m not much of one for sweets, on account of maintaining my physique——you understand the importance of camera presence and all——but they say after a workout is the best time to eat carbs and sugar, so I devoured both pastries as soon as I got home. They were as delicious as they looked. The taste lingered on my tongue, just like the sight of her wouldn’t get off my mind. How can those people be so clueless and leave a kid in the gym alone, I wondered. And bribe me to keep my mouth shut, no less. People like that should be punished. It’s a cryin’ shame that some of us have all the bad luck, not that I had reason to put myself in that category, not just yet.

It didn’t take long to see I was solidly screwed. There were signs I should have noticed, and I’m not talking about the no-kids-in-the-gym sign. The setup as a whole was hard to see coming and even harder to dodge. Before I knew it, it was pinned on me. That stench in the gym bathroom, that’s different. That, I should have figured out.

There was a metal utility door on the wall next to the toilet that was open every time I went in there, even though I routinely kicked it closed. If I stooped down to peer in, it was too dark inside to see, and the smell was so vivid and rank it all but knocked me out. Looking back, it was my bad, not just my dumb luck, that I never thought that smell must mean something.

Where I really kick myself for not putting two and two together is when the kitchen sink in my apartment backed up. I’d just walked in after a workout and was still sweating, although I’ve always thought my own B.O. smells better than most. A dank putrid smell hit me. The kitchen sink was almost full of mucky water bubbling to the surface. It was rising fast, like it was going to spill onto the floor. I turned on the garbage disposal, and the water rose higher for a few seconds, then sputtered and gurgled, threatening to splatter its filth all over me and the apartment. I switched the disposal off and the water swirled and stagnated, even murkier. Just my luck it was Friday night, so the building manager responded to my text not to use the sink and that someone would be out first of the week.

It was near the end of the day Thursday when maintenance came and said the water was coming from the unit above me. I don’t know much about plumbing, but with the backed-up pipes being under the sink, it didn’t stand to reason. I’d been without running water since the weekend, and relieved it was fixed, so I didn’t ask for details. Furthermore, your Honor, can I be reasonably expected to tie the gym bathroom and my own kitchen sink together, in that they’re five floors and across the building from each other? And besides, who would think of such a thing.

I’m shaking my head, though, for not smelling something fishy with how absent-minded and jolly they were with that little girl out of their sight. They with their dry-cleaned clothes and gold chains and whitened teeth and perfect hair. They who do no wrong their money can’t undo. I may be just another poor struggling actor in Hollywood, but I still don’t know how it came down to me being the one who had done something wrong. Something really sicko wrong.

Stupid me for not connecting the clues. And stupid me——when two cops knock on my door and ask me about a little girl who was last seen in the gym, a little girl who was recorded on the gym security camera on the elliptical machine right next to me on the reclining bike, a little girl who was seen walking out of the gym, her hand in mine——that I still didn’t put it all together.

No wonder those two cops yanked so hard on the cuffs. No wonder they spat on me. No wonder their eyes seethed with hate. There were cops and forensics freaks everywhere. Turns out Neri wasn’t the only one. The real zinger is that they were finding little body parts, like little kiddy bones and whatnot in various stages of decay in the building’s plumbing and utility cleanout system. They cuffed, Mirandad and booked me, and I was charged, arraigned, convicted and thrown in here, well, it seems like in less time than it took to clear my kitchen sink on that fateful night I should have been savvy enough to put it all together.

I doubt this broad above me ever did anything legitimately wrong. She’s docile; not the type to so much as scratch an itch. And then she goes and makes enough noise without ever opening her trap to nearly make me lose my mind. I told you these mattresses are just pads covered in hard plastic, so it’s not me goin’ all cray cray in here and makin’ shit up. I’m holding it together pretty well, if I do say so myself, considering California Institution for Women is no State botanical garden. The landscape’s more surreal, I’d say; booby traps and landmines, shit you don’t see until you step on it, all rigged to trip a person up and keep you in forever. The only thing I can cop to is not leaving the gym the second I saw Neri. I should never have tried to find her parents. I should have hightailed it out of there.

I can tell when she’s fallen asleep because she starts up, real slow and noisy. She hurls her body to one side, like somebody’s tucking a plastic tarp under her, and then pushes her back the other way. But instead of wrapping her up all nice and neat, and rolling her out of here, like somebody for real getting it over with – don’t I wish – she keeps rocking, back and forth, bam to one side, bam to the other, all crinkly and crunchy sounding. It’s enough to rattle a monk.

In music, it’s called a crescendo, but this is no symphony. There are no symphonies in prison. There is a lot of singing, which doesn’t irk me like the bickering and snickering, and the giggling, and whining. I like music as much as the next person. In here, it’s usually Motown, or Rap, or Hip Hop. Recently, everybody’s favorite tune is, “Pussy Palace,” about this woman’s husband laying chicks in their mansion. I do like singing that song. The King Princess one, too. Not just because of her boss name. If pussy is God anywhere, it would be in here. On the outside, pussy loses every time.

I saw the couple on one of those celebrity crib shows, back when I used to watch that kind of thing, and I could have tipped her off right then. Got me why she needed the smug bastard, being rich and famous in her own right, no thanks to his sorry ass. But no. She was sucker punched just like the rest of the sucker femme fatales in this joint and everywhere else. Sorry to say I too fell into a trap. Bamboozled like all the other dumb broads. Hoodwinked hook, line and sinker, despite how it all reeked; a different kind of screw-over, but a screw-over just the same. So much for talent. So much for brains. So much for special. Sometimes, you only come to your senses by being stunned senseless.

When that cell shattering crescendo quiets down, it’s still fast, but no longer lurchy. Just back and forth like a metronome, light and even, like she’s rocking in a little cradle, whooshing like a lullaby, a little feather tickling my cheek. This is when I think of Neri. She keeps this up until the logical conclusion is she rolls right onto the floor and out of here, like they did those little girls.

I’ve thought about her so much, it seems like it really happened. I’ve imagined bringing her home, and cradling together every night, and sometimes most of the day. Not in a bad way, but like a mother who really loves her kid, not like that malicious whore who passed herself off as my mother. Or like sisters, like I’d be taking care of my little sister, like we were both little kids. I’d get up once and a while and take a few bites of yogurt from the fridge and kiss her with some in my mouth like a mama bird to her baby, and she’d lick my lips and we’d both be smiling and saying, “Mmmmm yummy,” and that would be all we’d need.

We’d cradle like that, our bodies back and forth, not really a full on rocking motion, just a little to and fro, and she loved that and would sleep, her eyelids fluttering, and opening just a bit to look at me, her face so calm and at peace, her little fingers wrapped around mine just like those fingers on the elliptical, pretending to steer, but content that I was in control, and we would just stay like that, in rhythm together. My baby. My little sister. Both of us little kids. Sweet and innocent, that’s how it was. Not bad. Not bad like those women and their sleazy male friends with their smarmy fingers. and their toothy grins, and their treats, and let’s not forget their sshh sshh sshh secrets.

I lay in bed for hours with her rocking back and forth and it’s like I’m right there with Neri, listening to her slow even breath that smells like yogurt and honey. She’d have a sweet tooth, and when I’d ask her what she’d want to eat, it would always be, “Just something desserty.” She was so friggin’ adorable. When I was sure she’d be sound asleep, I’d walk across the street to the bakery and buy something sweet and creamy. The opera house eclairs were our favorite. I knew they were like the dessert her people gave me that first night, so maybe they reminded her of them. She’d pick at the layers one by one, taking little nibbles until it was only cream, then lick it gone and start on the next layer, until it was all gone. She’d hold up her fingers and have me lick them, like silly little sisters would. She’d smile all the while I was licking away, and I’d be like, “Mmmm, yummy,” and she’d giggle. That is how I imagined the time passing. And then it really would pass, and it would be morning, and the night in here wouldn’t have been half bad.

In prison, we’re allowed to eat in our cell once a week. The tray of slop they put under the grate is even worse than D-hall’s, a variation on the usual mash of beans and meat. Yet one night, the dessert was very different. Thin sheets of ivory cake layered with sweet cream and topped with smooth black chocolate, all glossy and gooey.

I swear I almost heard an aria when the tray slid under the gate, so much like an opera cake it was. I picked it up and licked at the sweet cream oozing out of the sides. It reminded me so much of Neri, I couldn’t take just a little nibble. I stuffed the whole thing in my mouth, letting it explode in there before it slid down my throat, filling myself with the sweet memory of her. I stared at the crumbs in my hand and licked them up, like they might otherwise disappear. Looking now at the tray, it’s like the opera cake had never even been there.

The next day she started in on her calisthenics right after breakfast, so I turned toward the wall in my bunk. She’s running in place and I’m thinking how amazing it is that someone who rocks so heavily in her sleep can be so light on her feet. She’s barely tapping the ground, and then she starts going faster and faster, and I’m thinking I can almost hear the “beep, beep, beep” of Neri’s elliptical, and I’ll be damned, but I really can hear it, and little Neri is right next to me, her little feet light as a feather just barely kissing the pedals and there she is, my own little angel, flying over those foot plates like they weren’t even there, come to visit me because she can’t stay away, because she loves me, because she knows what we had is good and pure, because I am the best goddamn thing that ever happened to her.

Betty-Jo Tilley is a Los Angeles-based writer with personal essays about losing her home in the January 2025 Pacific Palisades Wildfires in The Keepthings and The Opposite of Nihilism. Her ongoing battle at the cruel, relentless mercy of her real-life horrific and villainous homeowner’s insurance company——with its sense of confinement, entrapment and confusion——gave birth to the speculative noir of “Convicted.” Lit Angels and Scavenger’s Literary Magazine have published her fiction, Eclectica Magazine her creative nonfiction, and The Coachella Review her critical work. She is a regular contributor of author interviews to Kelp Literary Journal, a 2023 fiction graduate of UCR’s Palm Desert Low Residency MFA Program, and a realtor of 39 years. She loves any good female rage-y, revenge-y story, but if pressed to choose a fave, it’s hard to beat Melanie Finn’s slow escalation of calculated fury in The Hare.