hand that feeds

Jo Jo Baby was twelve years old when they nabbed her. She’d followed meticulous procedure as usual—man enters room, man takes off all clothes and jewelry, all of man’s clothes and jewelry go inside special zipped bag, zipped bag goes inside bathtub, bathroom door is closed. Only this time Jo Jo was distracted by the particular putridity of this man’s stench, and didn’t shut the bathroom door completely. They heard everything via the tiny wire in his gold wrist watch and were outside waiting. Jo Jo Baby was thirteen years old when she gave birth to Nelson, son of the prison guard who stuck his dick in her every afternoon after lunch. Seven years were added to her sentence when she tried to abort him with a number two pencil under the table during indoor recreation. She gave birth with ankles and wrists shackled tight to the metal bed frame and they were only released once they took him away. Three days later she was found in her cell with slit wrists. They took her to the hospital already dead. The day nurse laughed when he saw her rolling in lifeless. I remember that whore. Yep, he said, lifting the elastic band of her bloody pants, couldn’t forget a hole as sorry as that one. Jo Jo Baby was already halfway to hell. Or so they said. The last words scratched onto her prison cell’s wall: WHAT MEANS DEATH ON THIS PLANET OF RELENTLESS ASSAULT. They sent the small, empty body to the furnace, took the ashes out with the trash. Sixteen years later to the day Nelson sat on the front lawn looking up at the clouds. Who’s my real mother? He asked them. Upon hearing his words the clouds parted. He thought for a moment he could make out the shape of a face in the space between them. Time for dinner! Came the evening call. He went inside and slurped his chicken soup. By the time he cleared his plate, he’d already forgotten about the whole thing.