Naked, on the Edge

Shadow of the Valley

One, two, three, four, five, six, turn, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, turn one, two, three, four.

He stopped, scratched his ear and his neck. Several drops fell from the ceiling and he put his fingers to the wet then brought the wet to his mouth and sucked at it. Then, he picked up where he left off.

Five, six, turn, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, turn, one, two.

And then he remembered, and he remembered hard, and he dropped to the damp concrete, his bare knees accustomed to this move after two years, cushioning the fall with thick, bulbous layers of scar tissue. His butchered hands went together, his blood vessels picked up a rhythm of familiar, sweat-driving dread, and he prayed his impotent prayer.

“Lord is my shepherd. Shadow of the valley of death. Do unto others all the days of my life. I pray the Lord my soul to take. Little hands be careful.”

He repeated it until the words lost their meaning and he was freed again from the knowledge of his past, his present, and his inevitable and horrific future. Standing, he felt his way in the darkness to the corner and began again.

One, two, three, four, five, six, turn, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, turn, one, two, three, four, five, six, turn.

His name was Marcus. He knew that. He knew he was thin; he could feel the rib bones and hip bones beneath his naked skin. He knew there were people beyond the darkness, and these people were his jailers. He knew he was fed once a day, and he knew that sometimes, the water he was given through the slot in his door was fouled with urine. But he drank it, anyway.

He knew these things, but he didn’t think about them.

Thinking made him remember, it opened the door of his mind and the truth came in and if he couldn’t pray it away, he would spend the next hours screaming and crying in a corner. And so, he walked. He counted. He prayed. And when weariness came mercifully, he slept, curled against the door in the single tiny sliver of silver light that came through the food slot, his arms wrapped around his knees, his penis tucked between his legs to keep it safe from the centipedes and spiders that shared his cell with him.

Marcus stopped walking and looked at the sliver of light. For a moment, he saw his father’s grim mouth, set hard in soft, fat flesh. Then the vision shifted and he saw the indecipherable countenance of God.

“Shadow of the valley,” he whispered. He went to the wall by the door. His hands suddenly dove forward as if they’d forgotten that the wall, as was the floor, was solid, cold. Immovable.

Like his captors in their judgment.

His hands banged on the wall, and he counted. “One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.” He could count no farther because there was nothing past eight. The cell was six feet wide, eight feet long. The door was six feet tall, three feet wide. The ceiling, which he could touch on tip-toe with up-stretched arms, was seven feet high. He had eight fingers, four on each hand since he’d had his thumbs removed for an infraction he couldn’t remember.

A shiver caught his bare spine and shook him like a mouse in a dog’s mouth.

Dropping his hands from the wall, he turned. He walked.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, turn.

In a tiny nick in the long wall, six feet from the floor, was a spoon. Marcus had kept the spoon from one of his daily meals. In truth, he hadn’t kept it on purpose. It was only a thin metal spoon and could not have been much of a tool for burrowing a hole in the concrete. That was, if Marcus had considered trying to burrow from his cell of eternal night. And he hadn’t. Even if the spoon were a chisel, it wouldn’t matter. He was in a center cell. He knew this; he remembered being brought down here from the main population on the ground floor so many months ago, and remembered the guards stripping him of his clothes, hosing him down to get rid of fleas and lice he didn’t have, then throwing him in and locking the door, shutting off all sounds, nearly all light.

His cell was in the middle of the prison cellar. If he dug through a wall it would only be to find himself in another solitary cell. And then another and another and another. This was not the movies. There was no air vent system to hasten him to the outside world, no sewer system to slide through, no rivers in which to float unseen to a safe haven.

And even if there were, there was no safe haven. Safe from what? His torment in the cell? The random tortures by the sergeant guard? Perhaps. But not from eternity.

Nothing could save him from eternity.

Five, six, seven, eight, turn, one, two, three, four, five, six, turn, one, two.

“Little hands be careful. Shadow of the valley of death.” He hit the floor on his knees, his clutching fingers finding each other in the dark like brittle insects driven to copulation, his mind, his heart, his soul tearing at each other, clawing each other to shreds in certainty of his eternity.

He’d been told by the old, craggy minister of his fate.

“God will not forgive you,” the minister had whispered after sentencing had been pronounced. “You are beyond the grace of God and no prayer, no supplication, no pleading will deliver you from the eternal damnation in the lake of fire.”

To Marcus, who had been sitting in the jail cell awaiting delivery to the state prison, the minister’s words hadn’t registered. He’d been angry, furious beyond reason that he’d been sentenced to life for a murder his brother had committed. He’d been there, certainly, he’d even taken the Twizzlers they’d found in his grimy pockets. But he hadn’t killed the shop owner. Brad had done that with a blow to the skull with a tire iron. Marcus had stopped in his tracks in the shop’s candy aisle and had stared as the owner dropped to the floor like a sack of potatoes. Brad had screamed for Marcus to come on come on come on let’s get the fuck out of here when a shopper came in, the little door chime tinkling. The man had been carrying a concealed weapon, newly legal in their fine state, and had shot Brad with a single blast directed at the forehead.

The tire iron had been in Brad’s fist, but the shopper didn’t feel there was enough dramatic justice to have a dead murderer to present to the police. You can’t discipline a dead murderer before the public. And so he’d claimed that Marcus had wielded the iron, and as Marcus had used the iron many times in the jack when helping Brad change blown retreads on his truck, his prints were on it. He was convicted.

The shopper had been praised for attempting to stop the robbery and save the already-dead owner’s life. Marcus, sixteen at the time, though tried as an adult had not been given the death penalty as most citizens had screamed for, but life in prison. Two times over.

Five, six, seven, eight, turn, one, two, three.

He was sorry now. He knew he shouldn’t have listened to Brad. Brad was his brother and Marcus loved him but Brad didn’t know shit about right and wrong. God have pity, fuck it all, where was Brad now? In the never-ending lake of torment? Of course he was.

Forever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, turn, one, two, three, four, five, six, turn, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, turn, one, two, three, four…

“Your tongue’s ticklin’ my ear!” whined Tonya. “You feel like a old wet worm.”

Jimbo pinched Tonya’s cheek then pulled back and tugged the sweat-crusted brim of the guard’s hat down, covering Tonya’s eyes. “A wet, willin’ worm, honey,” he said.

Jimbo grinned and lit a cigarette. He was good-looking, and Tonya knew she was lucky to have him like her. He was twenty-three, muscular, and covered with knock-out tattoos. She’d first seen him in the 7-Eleven in his guard uniform, buying a pack of smokes before he went to work. She worked behind the counter. When she’d slid the pack across the countertop to him, he’d put his hand on top of hers and said, “Want to light one for me?”

Tonya, at nineteen, was ecstatic. She’d never had a boyfriend before Jimbo, had never even been touched in that way by a boy before. Her height, six-one, had scared off most boys, and besides, she was skinny and flat as a train track and her bottom teeth poked out a little. So, with a trembling match she’d lit a cigarette for Jimbo, and the next morning when he got off work and came back by the store, she’d gone out with him and lit more than that.

Dating hadn’t exactly been what she’d thought it would be, and she didn’t have any girlfriends to compare notes with, she only saw what couples did on movies and on the T.V. But Jimbo kept coming back for more, so she figured it was going okay.

They’d been dating for four months now. At first, Jimbo had made love to her easy, in her bed or his, once out by the pond and once in the back of his pickup on the overlook at Raven’s Roost. Then, it began to change. It wasn’t making love anymore. It was screwing, fucking, humping. And she had the bruises to prove it. But he was her boyfriend.

Most of the time now he scared her. But he was her boyfriend.

My boyfriend, she thought. She had no idea exactly what he wanted today, a fuck in the prison basement? Probably. Just so he didn’t try to put ants down her blouse like he did one time in the woods so she’d buck harder when he came.

They stood alone at the end of a narrow hallway in the far reaches of the prison. Jimbo had a tangle of keys hanging from his belt. It made him look very sexy.

“Now don’t be making any noise, you hear me?” Jimbo warned Tonya. “My friends aren’t going to say anything but Captain Harner will have me out of here on my ass if he finds I got you in here. He’ll probably fine me or even have me arrested. Fuck. You want me locked up in here with these stinking criminals?”

“’Course not.” The gum she’d had resting in the side of her mouth made its way back to her teeth. She stretched it, blew a bubble, and it popped. “Now, what are we gonna do, Jimbo?”

“That’s for me to know and you to find out. And you be a good little girl and keep your fucking mouth shut. You hear me?”

Tonya nodded.

“It’s gonna be underground.” His brown eyes sparkled, his square jaw cracked in a smile. He unlocked the steel door to the cellar stairs, tugged the door open, and grabbed Tonya’s hand.

Tonya had come into the prison easily, under pretense of visiting a prisoner, Eddie Stratford, who had twenty-five years for armed robbery. Eddie had no desire to see Tonya; she reminded him of his old girlfriend that he tried to kill one time, but he was willing to play the game in exchange for the cash and cigarettes Jimbo was able to provide. “Hi, Tonya, good to see you how’s the baby how’s the job?”

Jimbo had then sneaked Tonya away from Eddie and hid her in the male guard’s restroom. With help and a bribe from another couple buddies who worked check-in, Jimbo’d gotten her signed out. In the restroom, Tonya’s donned an old uniform and put on Jimbo’s cap. Her heart had beat irregularly with dreadful hope.

Then Tonya and Jimbo had slipped deeper and deeper into the prison confines, through the gates and down the passageways, Tonya bending low beneath the bulk of her costume so the prisoners wouldn’t notice her. Jimbo’s friends winked as they passed. After many twists and turns, they came to the stairs leading down to the solitary confinement cells.

“Ain’t supposed to use the cells down there no more,” Jimbo explained in a hushed voice as he’d opened the panel to the light box and flicked a switch, throwing yellow glow down the steps. “Warden don’t even know we use ’em. Say it ain’t humane. Fuckin’, pussy-lickin’ ACLU. Fuckin’ crybabies. It’s their damn fault. What do they think punishment is, a party and a birthday cake? I say screw ’em. Hang the thieves, the drug-addicts, the dealers, the murderers. Hang the goddamned white-collar crooks and those women who don’t get off welfare in a year. Torture ’em first then string ’em up where the public can watch and take pictures. Put the pictures in the post office.”

“You mean there’s guys down there in cells?”

“That’s what I’m saying. Keep up with me and keep your goddamn thoughts to yourself.”

Tonya nodded.

“I know what I’m doing, okay?”

“Okay,” said Tonya. She didn’t know anything about criminal justice, but Jimbo sure did. He knew about everything, cars, politics, religion, hunting. He would make a hell of a president, she thought. Straighten everything out. She followed Jimbo down to the cold concrete floor of the cellar, keeping one hand in his, the other on the crumbling wall. The smell, wafting up from the cellar, was strong, a blending of wet and mildew and cold sweat.

“Only got two down here now,” said Jimbo. “Both murderers. Since neither of them made it to death row, some of us guards decided we would give ’em a little treat down here for a while. Captain Harner approved it, and the warden won’t never hear of it ’cause he doesn’t take much stock in the day-to-day. One’s of the criminals down here’s an old fart, been in prison for, shit, over thirty years now. We put him down here for throwing food in the cafeteria. Now he can throw it all he wants, nobody knows or cares. That’s him there.”

Jimbo pointed. Tonya looked.

The cell was directly in front of them. It looked like a steel closet, with a slot in the door like a mail slot. There was no door knob, only a keyhole. Tonya guessed you tugged the door open with the key. Above their heads, the long, bare fluorescent lights pulsed and hummed.

“Is it dark in that cell?”

“Guess so.”

“No lights at all?”

“Don’t think so.”

“How do they see in there?”

“They don’t, idiot.”

Tonya took a deep breath that stung her nose. She shifted one foot to the other. “How long’s that guy been in solitary?”

Jimbo shrugged. “I don’t know. Couple, four months. He don’t make a sound, but he’s alive ’cause he eats what we stick in the slot. He’s got a mattress, too, so he can’t complain. Homeless people ain’t got mattresses, so this asshole should send us a thank you note, don’t you think?”

Tonya said, “Guess so.”

Jimbo put one arm around Tonya’s waist, glanced around, and then put one hand on Tonya’s right breast. “Shit, it makes me hot, being one of the good guys.”

“Where’s the other con?”

“Cell over this way,” said Jimbo. He gave Tonya’s breast a healthy, painful squeeze, then ushered her down the hail thirty feet, past other steel doors and knob-less keyholes. Beetles scurried into drains; brown, fat-bodied spiders clutched draglines in the shadowed corners. God, don’t let him want to put spiders down my blouse, Tonya thought. Half-way to the second con’s cell, Jimbo spun around, put his hands down the front of Tonya’s guard pants and kissed her neck. “Can’t stop, baby,” he hissed, and Tonya tried to think of what he was doing to keep her mind off whatever the hell he might be asking her to do in a few minutes.

He took up the spoon and felt it and put it into his mouth, pretending there was food on there and that it tasted good. He sucked the good food, it was mashed potatoes with pepper this time, then licked the spoon eight times until it was clean. He licked his lips and put the spoon back in the nick. Then he paced.

One, two, three, four, five, six, turn, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven.

He remembered again. The sledgehammer of memory slammed him in the back of the head and he stumbled.

God pity me have mercy why why why don’t please don’t I don’t want to die I want to live forever so I won’t go into the lake of burning torment God no! Marcus fell to his knees then stretched prostrate, his cheek losing skin on the concrete.

“Lord is my shepherd,” he said to the floor. “I pray the Lord my soul to keep. Shadow of the valley, all the days of my life.” He burst into sobs. His tears were thick with salt. If he could have killed himself at that moment, he would have. But that would only bring him into hell more quickly. There was nothing ahead of him but life’s agony. And then death’s agony.

When the crying eased, he touched the tears on the floor and brought the wet to his lips. Then he stood, found the wall, and walked.

Jimbo pulled his fingers out from Tonya’s bush, sucked them, and then shoved his hands into his pockets.

“Can’t push that too far,” he said. “I want something raring to go when my time comes. I’m a steel rod, baby.” He winked. “You like steel rods?”

Tonya said, “What do you mean, when your time comes?”

“It’s gonna be something special today,” said Jimbo.

“What is it?”

Jimbo said, “I mean this.” He walked another ten feet then planted his hand on a steel door. “There’s a lover boy in here, ready and waiting.”

Tonya came over and touched the door, too. She peeked in through the food slot and couldn’t see a thing but tar-blackness. She had promised herself to do anything for Jimbo. He was her man. He bought her stuff. He liked her ass. He didn’t hit her. Anything, she had told him. But her stomach turned with uncertainty.

There were many things she’d done to keep Jimbo happy. She’d let him pee all over her in the bathtub once. She’d screwed him in a gravelly parking lot where a gang of construction men could look down on them. She’d gone without panties into a hardware store then bent over to show the clerk what kind of nails she wanted to buy while Jimbo watched through the store window.

But she’d never fucked somebody else. Especially not no damned con in solitary confinement.

“You want me to fuck him?” she asked.

“He’s probably too weak to hurt you, baby,” said Jimbo. He touched her cheek and tweaked her nose.

“You mean he’d want to hurt me but he’s too weak?”

Jimbo frowned. Tonya didn’t like his frown. “I don’t know, Tonya. Don’t press me. He’s been there a while. He ain’t gonna hurt you.”

“How long he’s been there?”

“Two years. Longer than I been here. But, like I said, what the warden don’t know won’t piss him off. This con’s got no family, no lawyer checking on him. He could stay here his whole life for all I care.”

Tonya’s head began to pound. “Ever see him?”

“No. But I been down here for feeding. He eats, so he’s alive, just like the other one. Hear Captain Harner took off a couple the guy’s digits one time.”

“What’s a digit?”

Jimbo made an exasperated sound deep in his throat, and Tonya shivered.

“Harner hates rule breakers and human trash,” Jimbo continued. “He even put a buddy guard of mine down here in a cell for a couple weeks for smart-mouthing off.” Jimbo laughed. “Harner’s right on.”

“Why don’t you just go on and let the cons here die? I mean, if the warden don’t know and all. You think they ought to die, right?”

This seemed to make Jimbo think. His lip drew up and one eye squinted. Then he smiled. “Damned paperwork is one reason. But I guess it’s more fun like this, too. Kind of like a secret club. You like secret clubs?”

Tonya’s nose wrinkled. She hoped it looked cute. But in truth, it was a spasm of fear. “Yeah. But what if he’s a queer and don’t like me? He might hurt me then, Jimbo.”

“I’ll be watching, so if he starts to hurt you I’ll kick his ass, how about that?”

“Well….”

Jimbo took Tonya’s arm and shook it. “Well, what? You gonna do this, aren’t you?”

“Sure. ’Course I am.”

Jimbo nodded, then put a key into the hole in the door. “Thought so,” he said.

He knew every corner of his room, every crack, every lump, every chink. His fingers were his eyes and they were rough but clear. Sometimes, though, his mind became his eyes and it showed him the cell from above, a clear picture with him in it, twenty years old, naked, shivering, and doomed.

“I’m sorry,” he said to himself. Five, six, turn, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, turn, one, two. “Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, three, four, five, six, turn, one, two, three.”

His hand rode again over the nick with the spoon. He took it out and carried it with him, dragging it along the wall’s surface so he could hear something besides his own voice and his own breathing.

There was rattling at the food slot, and he ran to the corner and crouched, covering his head with his hands and the spoon and screaming “I’m sorry!” The phantom fingers flamed into agony, recalling their disciplinary amputation, wondering if the fingers beside the scarred spaces might be next.

“He’s screaming!” said Tonya.

“Shut the fuck up and get in there,” said Jimbo. He pulled the door open, and the dim light spilled onto the bare-floored cell.

He saw the silhouette in the middle of the blinding light, a tall, thin human form with long hair. It wasn’t a guard. It was a devil.

Death was here, and it was time to step into the lake of eternal fire and damnation for his unending punishment.

“I’m sorry!” His knees pulled up to his chin and his eyes blurred. “Not now, please!”

The devil stopped in the doorway, said something he couldn’t hear, then took a few more steps. The minister had said to Marcus, “When you die, you’ll wish you could kill your spirit, too, because it’s going to suffer for ever and ever and ever, you murdering bastard!”

Marcus’ throat twisted, and he sputtered in a strangled hiss, “No, please.”

The devil, in a surprisingly high-pitched voice, said, “Be quiet.”

And so he was.

“Be quiet,” Tonya said to the man in the corner. He was hard to see, hard to imagine. Jimbo had said the man was weak and couldn’t hurt her.

He better not, she thought. Or I’ll kick him in the nuts.

“Don’t just stand there, seduce him,” whispered Jimbo. “Bring him out where I can see and take off your clothes. Spread your things and get him going. Damn, this is going to be something!”

Tonya said, “Come out here, let me see you.” She clenched her fists at the ready. “Slide over here into the light.”

“Slide over here into the light,” the devil said. On his butt, dragging against the rough of the floor, Marcus went. He kept his head down, his knees up. He didn’t want to see the face of death.

“Lay down.”

Marcus lay on his back. He wondered if, in the moment of death, there would be at least a second of peace. He closed his eyes. The devil said, “Open your eyes.” He did.

The devil knelt beside him. It was a she-devil. Her face wasn’t clear, but her hair was golden, catching the light from behind her. She had on guard’s clothes. Like the wolf in sheep’s clothing, the devil came in disguise. A thief in the night. She would strike him now, and claw out his open eyes before she sucked his life away and then spit his worthless spirit into damnation.

A hand reached out and touched him on the face. It was warm, not icy cold or firebrand hot. Marcus waited. She took her hand away, stood, and stepped out of the clothes. There was no tail, no scales. Only smooth skin.

Marcus’ heart picked up a new rhythm, one he’d not felt before. “What…?” he asked.

“They did cut off your fingers, didn’t they?”

“Yeah. Captain took them. And now you’re gonna take the rest of me?” Marcus heard the doom in his own words. The devil would chop him up and then put him back together so he could burn alive forever.

“That’s pretty shitty,” said the devil. “Doin’ that to some person.”

Marcus blinked. What had she said?

How can I do this? Tonya thought. He’s fucked up big time. He’s ugly and he ain’t got all his fingers. Shit.

She could feel Jimbo’s steady, horny gaze on her back. She could feel her own insides recoiling at the idea of this con’s naked, stinking flesh against her own. Slowly, she knelt again and put his hand on her breast. He was so cold and thin it was as if she was trying to fuck a dead man. Touching him was the worst thing so far Jimbo had made her do.

“Seduce him,” growled Jimbo.

Her voice was pine cone dry as she said, “Hey, honey, I’m going to take you to heaven.”

She’d said heaven.

Before he could think more she was touching him, pulling his hand up from his chest and placing it on her breast. His breath caught and the hairs on his arms went erect. His penis, which he had covered with the spoon, did likewise.

No, it’s a lie!

He jerked his hand away and sat up, thrusting the spoon in her direction to keep her

from touching him again. It sounded as if she swore quietly, then she reached out again. “Don’t you want to go to heaven with me?”

“The minister said I was going to hell!” Marcus screamed.

She sighed and rubbed her face. She said, “Let me touch you.” Her hand went to Marcus’ crotch and she caught his penis with warm fingers. She began to rub and tug gently. “Come on, honey. I’m your angel today.”

Marcus didn’t resist. He watched her as she aroused him. Her eyes were visible this close, and they were beautiful eyes.

She had said angel. She had said heaven. Heaven.

Oh, God. She meant it.

He dropped the spoon onto the floor.

Oh my God. Am I forgiven?

His smell was the worst. But she told herself not to think about it. Get it done, get it over and get out of this place.

She let go of the penis and folded herself around the thin, stinking convict, her lips rolled in so she wouldn’t inadvertently try to kiss his fouled mouth and rotting teeth. Her hands, less critical than eye or nose, explored the ravaged territory of his body. He was indeed young, no older than she was. On his chin was a growth of long, prickly hair; on his head filthy, limp hair that came at least to his shoulders. His cheekbones were prominent, and his shoulders narrow. There was no hair on his chest, and his heartbeat could be felt through the skin.

“I’m your angel,” she said. “Let’s go to heaven.” She rolled onto her back, pulling the thin man with her. He tried to resist, but he was light, like a featherless bird. He said something she couldn’t understand, and she said, “Yeah, honey, that’s right.” Her legs opened and she found the penis once more, now hard as a stick, and guided it into her slit. She felt his face come down on her right, and he said, clearly, “Am I forgiven?”

“What?” she asked.

The man was crying now, even as his hips began to pump. “Am I forgiven?”

She opened her eyes. Over the man’s head she saw Jimbo, hands on hips, clearly disappointed with this pathetic show of lust. Then she looked at the man, whose face was turned to the floor, his bony hand beneath his nose. A drop was on his nose and it was shaking.

She, in turn, began to tremble. “Sure. Sure you are, honey.”

He sighed, a sound soft and gentle and full of rapture.

The angel said he was forgiven.

God had sent her, and he was forgiven. The minister was wrong. Marcus was not damned to eternal fire. Oh, God, he thought.

He held the angel, he loved her and praised her. It was over. It was done. He was no longer despised. He was no longer hated.

She loved him in return, touching him with her unearthly warmth, healing him with her divine breath.

He came inside her, humbled and grateful. “Bless you, angel,” he said. “Thank you. Thank you for saving me.”

There was a long pause. Then she said, “You’re welcome.” Then she stood up, looked at him a moment longer, and left the cell. The door shut, and it was dark again.

“That sure wasn’t much,” said Jimbo as he locked the door and turned on Tonya. “What the fuck was that, anyway? A game of patty-cake? That was as sexy as a junior high school dance.”

“Fuck you, asshole,” said Tonya, her words stammered, caught on her tongue but spit out before they could change their mind.

Jimbo’s eyes widened. One hand went up as if to strike her. “What the hell did you say?”

Tonya said, “I said…I said fuck you. I’m through with your games.”

Jimbo shoved her and she landed on her butt on the hall floor. But she didn’t take her gaze from him, and with growing anger she said, “You ain’t gonna treat me like shit no more.”

“I treat you like I want, bitch!”

“I’m not a bitch.”

Jimbo laughed. “You’re a bitch of the worst kind. You’re a mindless, stupid, buck-tooth bitch.”

“No.” Tonya took a hissing breath through her teeth. She said, “I’m…I’m an angel.”

Jimbo eyes rolled up and his head followed, angling back on his neck, his mouth dropping open. A howl of glee came out. “Angel? What the fuck are you talking about? I ought to crush your skull for talking trash like that! Goddamn, did that guy screw with your head or something?” Suddenly, he grabbed her by the throat and hauled her up. She clawed at his fingers.

“Did he screw with your head!?”

Tonya let herself go limp. She gasped, “No. It ain’t nothing. I’m kidding, just spoutin’ off. Sorry.”

Jimbo glared at her then loosened his hand. “What’d you say?”

“I said I’m kidding. You kid with me. I thought it’d be funny. It wasn’t. Sorry. Let’s get out of this place. I’m cold.”

“You best be sorry. I ought to beat the devil out of you when I get you back to my place. I just might, you slut. What was that shit, that angel talk?”

“It wasn’t nothing.”

Jimbo grabbed her arm, gave it a painful tweak then let go. The two moved down the hail and climbed the steps to the main floor, leaving the dark solitary cells behind.

Tonya thought, I’m an angel.

“Bitch,” muttered Jimbo.

I’m good, she thought. I don’t deserve Jimbo’s shit.

Jimbo pushed Tonya through the door at the top of the steps and locked it. The keys jingled haughtily. “Put the damn hat back on,” he said. “Pull it low like before, you whore.”

She did.

As they walked through the corridors, Jimbo dragging her, pissed off more than she’d ever seen him, Tonya watched for the best moment to shout and yell that she was being kidnapped. Wouldn’t old Jimbo be shocked at that, and wouldn’t his smart mouth be silenced when Captain Harner came to help her, an innocent female in the hands of an ego-crazed guard? Wouldn’t Jimbo be surprised to find himself handcuffed and taken away? Maybe to have a digit whacked off by the trash-hater? Maybe to have a little time down in a solitary cell himself?

Wouldn’t the pussy-licking ACLU look pretty good to him by then?

Marcus found the spoon and a corner. He slid down, wedged himself deep into it, and said his prayers. Then he dragged the sharp spoon handle across both wrists and waited as the blood and warmth and life drained away, the weight of himself flowing away and lightening him for the flight to heaven.