Blow Fly

96

OFFICERS IN THE POLUNSKY UNIT wear gray uniforms and black baseball caps.

Handcuffs dangle from the belts of the two officers walking Jean-Baptiste through a series of heavy doors slamming shut so loudly, they sound like large-caliber pistol fire inside a steel room. Every explosion is an empowerment for Jean-Baptiste as he walks freely, only his wrists shackled. All around him, tons of steel magnetize him into solar flares. With each step, the power grows stronger.

"Can't understand why anybody would want to visit you," one of the officers says to him. "This is a first, huh?"

His name is Phillip Wilson. He drives a red Mustang with the vanity tag KEYPR.

KEEPER. Jean-Baptiste figured that out the first day he was here.

He says nothing to the officers as he moves through another door in a wave of searing heat.

"Not even one visitor?" replies the second officer, Ron Abrams, white, slender, with thinning brown hair. "Pretty pitiful, aren't you, Monsieur Chandonne," he mockingly says.

The turnover rate among corrections officers is very high. Officer Abrams is new, and Jean-Baptiste senses that he wants to walk the infamous Wolfman out to the visitation area. New officers are always curious about Jean-Baptiste. Then they get used to him and then are disgusted. Moth says Officer Abrams drives a black Toyota SUV. Moth knows every car in the parking lot, just as he always knows the latest weather update.

The back of the tiny visitation booth is a heavy wire mesh painted white. Officer Wilson unlocks it and takes off Jean-Baptiste's cuffs and shuts him inside the booth, which has a chair, a shelf and a black phone attached to a metal cable.

"I'd like a Pepsi and the chocolate cupcakes, please," Jean-Baptiste says through the screen.

"You got money?"

"I have no money," Jean-Baptiste quietly replies.

"Okay. This time I do you a favor, since you've never had a visitor before and the lady coming in would be stupid to buy you anything, asshole." It is Officer Abrams who speaks so crudely.

Through the glass, Jean-Baptiste scans the sparkling-clean, spacious room, believing he doesn't need eyes to see the vending machines and everything in them, and the three visitors talking on phones to three other death-row inmates.

She is not here.

Jean-Baptiste's electrical current spikes with anger.