Wallowing

The next morning it was my turn to visit the courthouse. I had hoped that we would be out on bail that day. The cop that arrested us said it would be no more than 3 days. Despite the fact I read my charges were non bailable, I had faith in corruption. It was now my god and only hope of getting out of there. I jumped on the bus and sat near the back next to an old lady dressed in a bright pink sari. I preferred the back of the bus in this particular situation.
The guards had the habit of sitting with their AK 47's laying on their lap like little kittens, pointing their firing hole at the cons. Every pothole we passed over we all ducked for safety. The stability of the bus' suspension was more than questionable. And that kitty jumped on the guard's lap like it had just seen a dog.
The 25 minute bus ride though New Delhi, was like waiting for the oncologist to give you your test results. Excruciating, slow, torturous.
The lady sitting next to me saw my angst. She caressed my head softly and suddenly pulled an apple out of her breast and gave it to me. She said, "No cry, you go soon...." It was like an omen, or at least I wanted to believe it was. I wanted to believe in everything that gave me hope. At that moment I believed that a breast sweated apple was an omen of good fortune. I took the holy apple and put it in my bra. That's where we kept things in prison. That's how we rolled.
We were all put in a holding cell behind the courthouse.
Same cell were I waited the very first day before going to Tihar Prison, same place I met Smile and trusted that when she said, "Oh, It's nice in there" It was true. I sat there waiting for my name to be called. Every time your name was called you got to go in front of a judge "Sandeep" (apparently all judges are named Sandeep) and you were a step closer to getting out on that oh so coveted "Bail". 5 hours later my name was finally called. I was escorted through a back patio full of male prisoners into the courtroom.
The courtroom looked like some old folks home storage room. It had furniture piled up to the ceiling and piles of old dusty books under the clerk's desks that looked like they had been there since the British invaded India.
It was filthy, dusty and gave me allergies. It was all a chaotic mess. I stood in the middle of that courtroom hoping that the apple digging a hole on the side of my thorax, was the lucky charm I had been waiting for.
Mr. Paredes, my consul, was busy walking in and out of the courtroom frantically. He was holding a suitcase full of sweaty wads of cash my family had sent over so we could bribe people.
Evergreen's lawyers were giving me the evil eye. Their filthy smirks reminding me how vile humans can be.
Evergreen ignored me as if she couldn't deal with her own guilt of seeing me so destroyed by her wrong doing.
I stared back at her with no expression, no anger and no remorse. My eyes pierced through her saying, I can take it. You haven't won yet. Amidst the chaos in the courtroom and my allergies a sudden strike of Judge Sandeep's Thor hammer announced my fate in broken English. "Bail deeenied!'