Story code: ST-001488
Part 2: Insufficient Funds
The dead silence in the heavy metal receiver was absolute. Maria slammed her palm against the switchhook, pressing it down and releasing it in a frantic, hammering rhythm.
“Please,” she whispered, her breath fogging the scratched plexiglass of the dayroom’s phone bank. “Please, give it back.”
She lifted the receiver to her ear again. A dial tone buzzed, followed instantly by the synthetic corporate voice. “Please enter your assigned Inmate Identification Number.”
Maria punched her six-digit PIN into the sticky metal keypad. Her fingers shook so violently she double-tapped the last number and had to hit the asterisk key to clear it. She re-entered the sequence, her eyes squeezed shut as she prayed to a god she hadn’t spoken to in years.
“The balance on this account is zero,” the automated woman chirped, entirely indifferent to the panic radiating off Maria’s skin. “To add funds using a credit or debit card, press one. Please note, a twelve-dollar connection surcharge applies to all external deposits.”
Maria slammed the receiver against the metal box. The loud crack drew a sharp glance from the correctional officer sitting inside the elevated, glass-walled control bubble in the center of the room.
She had nothing to deposit. Her debit card was sitting in an evidence locker at the precinct, three hundred miles away in a city she hadn’t seen in eight months. The private telecom company that owned the prison’s phone lines held a monopoly over her connection to the outside world, setting arbitrary peak pricing hours that drained her meager prison wages in minutes. She had spent a month scrubbing the cafeteria floors to earn the fifty dollars she had just burned through.
She turned away from the plexiglass. The dayroom was a cavernous, echoing chamber of cinderblock and steel, filled with the roar of sixty women shouting over each other, playing cards, and watching a television bolted to the ceiling. Behind Maria, a line of four women waited for their turn at the phones.
At the front of the line stood Jackson, a tall woman holding a small, crumpled piece of paper with a phone number written in pencil.
“Jackson,” Maria gasped, stepping into the woman’s personal space. The unwritten rules of the unit strictly forbade this, but Maria couldn’t feel the floor beneath her feet. “Jackson, I need your PIN.”
Jackson’s eyes narrowed, her posture stiffening defensively. “Back up, Maria. I’ve been waiting an hour. My sister is only home for another twenty minutes.”
“My son is dying,” Maria said, her voice cracking as she grabbed the sleeve of Jackson’s issued gray sweatshirt. “He’s having a severe asthma attack. He dropped his inhaler. He was choking when the line cut. Please. I just need one minute. One minute to call an ambulance.”
Jackson stared at Maria’s trembling hands, her expression conflicted. Phone time was the highest currency on the block. Giving up a PIN meant giving up a lifeline.
“I’ll give you my commissary for a month,” Maria pleaded, tears finally spilling over her lashes and cutting hot tracks down her cheeks. “My stamps. My hygiene kits. Anything. Jackson, please, he’s nine years old and he’s completely alone in that apartment.”
Jackson exhaled a sharp breath and stepped aside, gesturing toward the phone. “Two minutes. That’s it. And you owe me your next three store orders.”
“Thank you,” Maria sobbed, already spinning back to the metal terminal.
Jackson leaned over her shoulder, quickly punching a series of numbers into the keypad. The automated system chimed. “State your name for voice verification.”
“Renee Jackson,” Jackson said loudly toward the receiver.
“Voice accepted,” the machine responded. “Enter the destination number.”
Maria’s fingers flew across the keypad, punching in her home landline. She pressed the receiver so hard against her skull that her jaw ached. The line clicked, hissed, and began to ring.
One ring.
Two rings.
Maria stared blindly at the chipped paint on the cinderblock wall. *Pick up, Leo. Just pick it up from the floor. You don’t have to talk, just hit the button so I know you’re breathing.*
Three rings.
Four rings.
“Hi, you’ve reached Maria and Leo,” her own recorded voice echoed cheerfully in her ear. “Leave a message!”
“No, no, no,” Maria choked out, her knees buckling. She hung up and instantly began dialing the number again.
“Hey,” Jackson warned, tapping Maria’s shoulder. “What are you doing?”
“He didn’t pick up,” Maria said frantically, inputting the destination number again. “I have to try again. He might have crawled away from the receiver.”
The phone rang four times and went straight to voicemail.
The panic blooming in Maria’s chest turned cold and hard. He was incapacitated. He couldn’t reach the phone. If the thick mucus had entirely blocked his airways, his oxygen saturation would be plummeting. Brain damage could begin in minutes.
She slammed the phone down and dialed 9-1-1.
“We’re sorry,” the automated corporate voice declared immediately. “Direct calls to emergency services are restricted by this facility’s security protocol. If you are experiencing a medical emergency, notify a correctional officer.”
Maria dropped the receiver. It dangled by its heavy steel cord, swinging against the wall. She turned and sprinted across the polished concrete floor of the dayroom, shoving past a group of women playing spades. She hit the glass wall of the control bubble with both hands.
“Officer Reynolds!” she screamed.
The guard inside jumped, spilling coffee onto his desk. He glared at her, reaching over to press the intercom button. His voice crackled through the speaker mounted above the glass. “Step back from the window, inmate. That is a direct violation.”
“I need you to call an ambulance to my home address in the city,” Maria yelled, pressing her face against the glass. “My son is having an asthma attack. He’s alone. He’s choking. He’s not answering the phone. You have to call 911 for me!”
Reynolds frowned, his eyes flicking down to his computer monitor and then back to her. “I can’t dispatch external emergency services from this desk. You need to put in a formal request with the unit counselor.”
“He doesn’t have time for a formal request!” Maria shrieked, slamming her fists against the reinforced glass. “He’s nine! He’s going to die on the floor of my apartment while you sit there!”
“Inmate 4490, step back from the glass right now,” Reynolds commanded, standing up and unclipping the radio from his belt. “I will call for backup and have you taken to segregation. Do not make me tell you again.”
Maria froze, her hands splayed against the cold glass. If she went to segregation, she would be locked in a concrete box for twenty-three hours a day. She wouldn’t have phone access at all. She would have no way to know if Leo lived or died.
She slowly lowered her hands and backed away from the bubble. She had one option left.
She ran back to the phone bank. Jackson was already picking up the dangling receiver, scowling.
“Jackson, please,” Maria begged, grabbing the steel cord. “I need one more call. I have to call my neighbor to go knock down the door.”
“You said one minute,” Jackson snapped, pulling the phone away. “My sister is waiting.”
“I will give you my meals. I won’t eat. I will give you everything,” Maria whispered, her voice breaking. “Please.”
Jackson stared at her for a long, agonizing second, then shoved the receiver back into Maria’s chest. “Make it fast.”
Maria snatched the phone and dialed her next-door neighbor’s number. It rang three times before an older woman’s confused voice answered.
“Hello?”
“Mrs. Gable, it’s Maria,” she rushed out, her words tumbling over each other. “You have to go next door to my apartment right now. Leo is having an attack and he’s not answering the phone. You have to get inside.”
There was a heavy, terrible pause on the line.
“Maria?” Mrs. Gable whispered, her voice tight with anxiety. “I can’t. The deadbolt is locked from the inside. And… Maria, I’m standing in the hallway right now. I can hear him wheezing through the door, but I can’t get it open.”