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El Cereso Women’s Prison Annex
Ciudad Juarez
November, 2025
Anelia Fuentes did her best to keep abreast with the rapid pace of the woman at her side as they wound through the grimy narrow passageway that led from the cell blocks to the prison’s administrative wing. The passageway always reeked of disinfectant, although never quite sufficient enough to completely mask the underlying odor of decay. Her cellmate called it el hedora podredumbre. The stench of rot. Although Amelia was never quite sure if her cellmate had been alluding to the frequently overflowing toilets, the unwashed bodies in the mess hall, or whether she was referring to the decay of one’s soul. To Amelia’s annoyance, her otherwise silent and withdrawn cellmate would often burst into unsolicited metaphor, more than a few of which were religious in nature.
Amelia’s escort, a tall, imposing black woman, wore the rumpled khaki uniform of a trustee. Although the woman was well known to Amelia, throughout the ten years of her incarceration the two of them had never exchanged anything beyond a nod. Nor had Amelia ever heard more than grunt pass her lips. Amelia had always been told the woman was a mute. Nevertheless, when the trustee unlocked Amelia’s cell and gestured with her head for her to follow, Amelia asked where they were going. Her query was met with the usual shrug.
The trustee was known to the inmates simply as La Negra. She had a reputation for an almost matronly regard for the women prisoners that belied her rather rough appearance. Her generous mouth often curled into a smile that revealed a grate of missing or crooked teeth. The jagged, violet scar that ran from her mouth to her right ear marred what might have at one time been an attractive face. Both ears had the malformed, cauliflower appearance of a pugilist. It was said that she had indeed once been a prrze fighter in the Cuban women’s boxing circuit, a spectator sport reportedly considered a slight notch above cockfighting.
They made their way silently through the passageway that eventually opened onto a large, dusty courtyard. A lattice of thick, dried vines resembling a bizarre exoskeleton sheathed the crumbling red brick walls. In the courtyard’s center stood a pair of withered and barren lime trees. Beneath them, an elderly woman dressed in a faded gray smock looked up from the broom she was using to gather up a scattering of dried leaves and discarded paper cups.
A guard sat in a chair beside a barred entranceway at the far end of the courtyard, a shotgun resting against the wall behind him. As the two women approached, he looked up from his newspaper in annoyance before slowly rising to his fee to unlock the gate.
Amelia had been here only once before, the occasion following an altercation between her and a fellow inmate instigated by a disagreement over their place in line at the mess hall. The incident had escalated into a full-scale riot requiring the intervention of a squad of club wielding guards. The brawl earned Amelia the proscribed beating followed by a week in the hospital ward to recover from a stab wound and then a month in solitary.
The warden at the time was a tequila-besotted lout known for his sexual abuse of the prisoners. Like many others, Amelia had not escaped his predations. It was only with the transfer of La Negra to Amelia’s cell block that the abuse ceased. The warden’s reign of terror had come to an end the year before when an inmate slit his throat with a broken piece of pottery.
By all reports, his replacement proved to possess a more agreeable reputation, going so far as to initiate training programs to enable the prisoners to more easily transition back into life outside. There were even unsubstantiated rumors that he planned to reinstate conjugal visits. By all accounts, he was stern but fair.
Amelia had only laid eyes on the new warden only once, the occasion being the warden’s tour of the laundry room where Amelia worked. He was short, stocky, and taciturn in demeanor.
She remained at a loss as to explain why she was being summoned to see him. To the best of her knowledge, she hadn’t committed any recent infractions other than smuggling extra towels and soap from the laundry. She exchanged these items with the other inmates for contraband tequila and sleeping pills.
They passed through a small office where a secretary, also a trustee gauging from her attire, seemed to be haphazardly stuffing papers into a file cabinet. She acknowledged their arrival with a nod and gestured with her head to an adjoining room. It seemed no one had much to say this morning.
The other room resembled a small foyer of sorts, complete with a couple of high-back wooden chairs and what appeared to be a cracked faux leather sofa. The lone end table beside the sofa held an assortment of dog-eared magazines and a vase containing a sprig of plastic flowers in dire need of a dusting. The walls were adorned only with an outsize, black and white framed photograph of La Presidenta and a small oval mirror in a gilt frame.
Amelia turned and approached the mirror. La Negra hadn’t allowed Amelia time to run a brush through her long mane of tangled black hair, much less given her time to brush her teeth. She still wore the tattered T-shirt she had slept in.
Out of misplaced vanity, Amelia leaned closer and studied her face. She had at one time been considered quite the beauty, but the past decade, cheap soap, a lack of moisturizers, and little incentive to care about her appearance had taken its toll. She reminded herself that she was only thirty-six, but she appeared at least five years older.
Her forehead was deeply furrowed, a fine delta of wrinkles framed her eyes, the dimples around her mouth now sagged, and her China blue eyes looked gray and washed out. She ran her finger over the small scar below her right eye, stretching it to render it less apparent. The foyer’s florescent lighting made her pallid face appear ghostly pale in contrast to her black hair. El rostro de la perdida. The face of loss – this was another of her cellmate’s metaphors that the woman often muttered to herself with exacerbated gravity when pondering her own appearance.
“The face of loss. No shit,” Amelia muttered softly as she turned back to join La Negra who stood mutely studying her. A moment passed, and a buzzer signaled it was time to enter the warden’s office.
The office’s frigid air surprised her. She hadn’t experienced air conditioning in ten years and she found t herself shivering in her threadbare, short-sleeved T-shirt. The warden, Moreno was his name, sat slumped over his desk myopically studying what appeared to be sheaf of documents. He glanced up briefly at the two women before returning his attention to the papers.
“Déjanos, por favor,” he said finally, looking up and nodding at La Negra who nodded back and walked out, carefully closing the door behind her.
Moreno removed his thick, heavy-framed glasses and squinted at Amelia. He had a fleshly face, a perfectly round head, and balding, closely-shorn salt and pepper hair. His watery eyes were as small and dark as bullet holes. The sleeves of his rumpled white shirt were rolled up past his elbows revealing surprisingly slender forearms in contrast to his thick torso. A clutch of pens in a plastic sheath graced one of his shirt pockets. He resembled more a high school math teacher than a warden.
Amelia scanned the rather Spartan office for a moment before returning her gaze to Moreno. He gestured with his head for her to take a seat.
“Do you prefer we speak in English or Spanish?” he asked in the kind of deep, hoarse voice that could only come from years of smoking, an impression confirmed by the ash tray at his elbow piled high with cigarette butts.
His question caught her off guard. She tried to recall the last time she had spoken more than few sentences in English with anyone other than with herself during her frequent desultory midnight soliloquies. She welcomed the prospect of hearing English spoken after so many years speaking and hearing only Spanish. It would seem like conversing in a foreign tongue.
“English,” she replied with some hesitation.
“Does that surprise you?” Moreno asked. “That I speak English?” He gestured with his thumb over his shoulder at a small, framed document on the wall behind him.
“I have a degree in criminal justice from Arizona State and one year of law school in New Mexico.”
He picked up an open manila folder from his desk and studied it.
“Why only one year?” she asked, her inquisitiveness surprising her as much as it seemed to surprise him.
The veins on his temples appeared to swell as he considered his reply. “It may surprise you to know that I at one time studied for the priesthood. It was my mother’s wish, not mine. I lost the calling when I lost my faith in God. I quit law school for much the same reason. I lost my faith in the law. Does that answer satisfy you?” he asked with sudden brusqueness. “Would you like some coffee?” he asked, obviously wishing to change the subject. “I can have…”
“No thank you.”
He picked up the file on his desk and opened it. “It says here that you were once an actress.”
She snorted in amusement. He looked up at her.
“No?”
“Selling female personal hygiene products on television hardly counts. I performed in one off Broadway play and I was offered a starring role in an independent film. That was until the producer found out I was in a Mexican jail,” she replied with obvious bitterness.
He grunted and dropped the folder back onto his desk. “I have read through your trial record. You were convicted of murdering your husband. Dismembering him and disposing of his body.”
“It never happened. I didn’t kill him. As much as I would’ve liked to,” she added.
Moreno merely stared at her. “Yet in the ten years you have been here, you have never filed an appeal of your case. There were perhaps some extenuating circumstances? Domestic abuse? Marital infidelity? There is no reference to your state of mind. It seems you could have at least attempted an insanity plea. Depression.”
She turned her head away and said nothing.
“I understand though that you pleaded not guilty. You insisted that your husband was not dead. You asserted that he faked his death. Why…”
“Look, just tell me why I am here,” she interjected.
He looked at her for a moment before replying. “It seems your sentence has been commuted. You are to be released in one week.”
She stared at him, her mouth agape, unable to form a reply. She dropped her head into her hands. She felt herself shivering again, not because she was cold, but because of a mixture of relief, disbelief, and rage.
She finally looked back up at Moreno. “I don’t understand. Why?”
He shook his head. “No sé. All I know is that the order came down from the Attorney General’s office in Mexico City directly to the Chihuahua Bureau of Prisons. I must admit that this is unusual. To my knowledge, it is indeed uncommon for a twenty-five year sentence for this kind of capital offense to be commuted. Perhaps, you have a friend in high places?”
She turned her head and swiped at her eyes with the heel of her hand. “A friend? I don’t have any friends.”
“Nevertheless, in one week you will be released.”
“Why do I have to wait a week?” she stammered. “Why not today?”
He shrugged. “The bureaucracy, I suppose. If it were up to me…” He shrugged. “Look, I will have you placed in the hospital ward. It is the best accommodations I can offer until…”
“I don’t want to go to the hospital ward. There’s someone there that wishes me dead,” she said in response to his questioning look. “I prefer solitary. It will give me time to think,” she added.
“Very well. At least you will be safe there.”
“May I go now?”
He nodded and she started to get to her feet, but hesitated. “I am curious about how you ended up here?” she asked. “I mean a warden of a women’s prison.”
He seemed to consider his answer for a moment. “It has been said that women are the architects of society. Women have…Let me just say that I have yet to lose my faith in your gender.”
“The architects of society. I don’t believe I’ve encountered many of them in here.”
Moreno shrugged. “Nevertheless, you might always prove the exception.”
“I doubt it. No, I plan on being more like Kali. You know, the destroyer of worlds,” she added in response to his look of bemusement. She stood and started for the door.
“Señora Fuentes, …”
She turned and looked at him. “It’s not Fuentes. Not anymore. It’s Wright. Amelia Wright.”
He offered her a wistful smile. “So, Amelia Wright. Please do not disappoint me.”
She nodded and walked out, closing the door behind her. La Negra sat on the sofa waiting for her.
“Llévame el solitario,” Amelia said, brushing past the trustee.