“Still got a boyfriend?”
“You know you can’t ask me that.” Rochelle kept it light, her sing-song Mississippi accent adorable. She tightened the suture on Farmer’s fourth stab wound. One more to go. “I told you, though, you’d be first to know if I dump him.”
A major rule – no flirting with the inmates – but she wasn’t giving them her number and address. Play nice, and they go back to their cells feeling better. What’s the harm?
Most guards never told her to stop. Too busy flirting with her themselves. Happy to see Bob was on today. Good as gold.
“What kind of car he’s got?”
“An old truck.” Rochelle wanted to hurry and get these gloves off, get his blood away from her.
“Ford?”
“GMC.” Get him away from her. The rankness. The heat. He was bone thin and greasy, shaved sides and a mullet. Scabs everywhere.
“When I get out of here, I’ll take you for a spin in my Mustang.”
“We’ll see.”
Farmer wouldn’t be out for years, if the other inmates didn’t kill him first.
He said he’d seen the hit coming and tightened up. “Bam bam bam bam bam!” Five jabs. Startled Rochelle. She didn’t know what got him – she’d seen melted toothbrushes, razors set in handles, metal shop discards, ballpoint pens, all turned into weapons – and Farmer would never give up who did it.
She’d taken care of stabbings, overdoses, bleeding assholes, broken teeth, burns, and more.
If he was hurting, Farmer hid it well. “Black with gold racing stripes. Got Rockville woofers. You into hip hop?”
“I’m a country girl.”
“I know you country girls. Twang all day, bass all night, know’t’I’msayin’?”
The guard, Bob, stepped up. “That’s plenty.”
Farmer held up his hands, the right wrapped in gauze from fighting off what would’ve been the fatal blows. “We’re just fooling around. Just joking.”
“Don’t backtalk me, Farmer.” Bob was older. More of a dad-type than the younger guards, who were always flexing.
“Sir, yes sir.”
Rochelle tied off the suture. Snip.
“How’d you get those?” Farmer, looking at her arm.
Scars. Her left wrist, hand, two fingers crisscrossed with raised worms under the skin. She tugged her sleeve down. “Nothing.”
“Someone in here go after you? Need me to kick ass for you?”
“Hey!” Bob ready to take him down.
“Sorry, sir, sorry.” Farmer lowered his voice. “I will, you know, free of charge.”
“No, nobody. I mean, not a person. It was a dog.”
“Your dog?”
“No.” She didn’t want to relive it. Couldn’t help it. “She was my boyfriend’s. Daisy. She was a sweetie.”
“Had pit in her?”
“Mm hm.” Busied herself wadding up trash. Wrappers, tape, wipes, leftover suture.
“Why’d she turn on you?”
“We’ll never know. She was sweet as could be, then all the sudden. Locked on and wouldn’t let go.” Thin-lipped, talking fast. “His dad had to shoot her. Bob? Please?”
The guard took the con’s arm. Farmer hopped off the table. Rochelle was already heading for the bathroom.
“Didn’t mean to upset you.”
She glanced over her shoulder, nodded.
“Tell you what, though. My dog’d never turn on you.”
Rochelle slammed through the bathroom door. Dry-heaved standing over the sink for a minute before settling. This was week three of thirteen. A big mistake to take the contract. Her second prison gig. The first had been six weeks of handing out meds from behind bulletproof glass. No need to touch anyone. Those inmates had been polite. Minimum security, none of them wanting to rock the boat on such a sweet deal.
Of course, you do a good job at one prison, they give you another. A real one.
A knock on the door. Doctor Pham. “You okay in there, Ro? Can I come in?”
“Give me a minute. I’m fine.”
“You sure?”
“I said I’m fine.”
He was ten years older than Rochelle. Short. A marathon runner’s body. Nice enough guy, but again with the flirting. Like, imagine a date with him. Talking about inmates over dinner? And how did a decent-looking, smart doctor like Danny – which he preferred to “Dang” – get stuck in a prison infirmary?
The one time she’d asked, joking, he shrugged. “My mother would love to know the same thing.”
Rochelle’s reflection was blurred. Stainless steel, not a real glass mirror, because the patients would smash it to make blades. Anything they could break, they made a blade out of it.
She told herself, “Fuck Farmer.”
Goddamn him for making her remember Daisy. Four months ago, a lazy Sunday, she was leaving Shane’s parents’ after watching the game, and all the sudden.
The dog was three years old, never aggressive in the year and a half she’d dated Shane. As much as they insisted it wasn’t her fault, Rochelle couldn’t shake the feeling they blamed her. Shane and his dad pried Daisy’s dead jaws off her arm. Rochelle cried apologies while her wrist bled and the meat of her fingers bulged out. Shane’s mom wrapped not-one-of-her-good towels around it, shouting, “Get the truck! Get the truck!”
Things hadn’t been the same since. Not obvious at first. She’d call it drifting. Their nights apart, a week or two, he missed Daisy’s heavy lump on the end of the bed, trapping his legs under the sheets.
Rubbed a little water on her face. “Fuck Farmer. And fuck me, too.”
2.
The rest of the afternoon was routine. COVID tests, athlete’s foot, and insulin shots. There were stabbings every day, ODs a few times a week, but the rest, meh. Most of the men kept out of trouble, trying to get through this and go home. The ones who thought prison was home caused all the drama.
The infirmary was fine – all the tools sterilized, the blankets and gowns bleached, beds in working condition, working machines – but not as good as needed to take care of this heaving sea of men. It was like a school nurse’s office. Yellow paint on cinderblock walls, floor tile from the eighties. Sometimes she even felt like a school nurse. Wondered if giving these big, bad cons a lollipop would help.
A half-hour before her shift was over, some EMTs and a couple of the younger guards showed up with a patient, a white guy in shackles wearing nicer clothes than the standard inmate – a white dress shirt and black jeans, clean Nikes – but engulfed by them. The jeans bunched up where a belt cinched his waist, the shirt ballooned around what was left of him. Shaved head, swastika on the nape, 88 above his right ear.
Rochelle called Dr. Pham over. “Danny? Cancer?”
She hitched her head in the direction of the skinhead, Bob now unshackling him on an exam table while the EMTs watched.
Danny touched Rochelle’s elbow – why did men have to be touch every woman they knew? “A few nights ago, he was vomiting blood. I had to come in at one in the morning, Abdominal pain, nausea all week, his cellmate said. Losing weight. I had him taken to the hospital.”
“So, he’s back now?”
“Not much they can do. Hepatoma. Liver cancer, stage three. Late stage three.” Lowered his voice. “He needs a transplant, but he’s too sick. Going to try chemo, shrink the tumor.”
A shout from the exam room. “Fuck this, man! Shit hurts.” A string of strangled coughs gave Rochelle goosebumps.
“What did he do? I mean, convicted for, you know?”
Danny gripped her elbow again, goddamnit. “You saw the tattoos? Aryan, Nazi. Cooked meth. But he dealt with blacks, you know. Dealers. One ripped him off, he strung him up. Old school lynching.”
Rochelle gritted her teeth. “Eech.”
“Yeah. He deserves what he got. But it’s our job to keep him going.”
Danny told Rochelle to inject some Zofran in the man’s IV line. She worked up a grin and got the drug ready.
“Hey, I hear you’re not feeling too good. We’ll fix you right up. This works pretty fast.”
“Never fast enough.”
Tried not to meet his eyes while trying to get an impression of him. He had some definition, but losing his fat, he reminded her of an after photo on Naked and Afraid. Lots of other tattoos – “AB” and “12” and a coat of arms and some other slogans in spiky German-ish fonts she couldn’t read.
She faked some bedside manner. “I’m Nurse Rochelle. What’s your name?”
“You really don’t know?”
“We haven’t met before.”
His head lolled, rustling the paper covering the exam table. “I mean, I’m kind of famous.”
“I don’t watch the news much.”
“I apologize.”
She injected the anti-nausea med. “It’ll kick in quick.”
Emil took deep breaths. Rochelle tossed the needle, glanced at the clock. Ten minutes past quitting time.
“You can call me Emil,” he said. “Everyone here, you know, nicknames. They call me Baldar.” Hard swallow. “The Beloved God, can you believe it?”
“I don’t know you, but I’m sure someone loves you, right?”
He grinned, thick with ache. “You really don’t know me, do you?”
“If you’re not in People Magazine.”
He turned towards her, revealing the tat above his other ear, two lightning bolts. Arched over those, BALDR. “You’re right, it works fast. Sorry. For, you know, cussing.”
“I hear worse all the time.”
“You don’t deserve it. I mean, you’re helping people. Scumbags, shitheads. Least we can do is act decent.”
“It’s okay. I mean it.”
Danny wandered over now that Emil had calmed down. “If you want to stay in the infirmary tonight, we can give you some Toradol. Maybe help you sleep.”
“I’ve got stronger shit in my cell.” He winked at Rochelle. “You didn’t hear that. If it’s up to me, I’d rather go back to my pad. Dying man’s wish, Doc?”
Rochelle almost said Don’t give up hope before remembering who he was.
“We can do that.” Danny stepped away to talk to Bob.
Rochelle, just curious. “What now? Chemo?”
“At least it gets me out in the sun between the van and the clinic door. At least I can wear some decent clothes.”
“You have a good night, okay?”
“Thank you, nurse.”
She left him peaceful but drained. She clocked out, getting her purse and keys from security. Buzzed through several gates to the parking lot. Every night the end of a sentence.
3.
Home now was a room in a nice old lady’s house in a neighborhood full of Trump signs and American flags. Calling it “home” was a stretch. Her trailer in Dothan, Alabama, was several hours from Tallahassee. Paying rent there plus renting this room was draining her cash, but she couldn’t imagine driving so far, exhausted, to sleep barely five hours and do it all again the next morning.
She parked on the curb, palmed her pepper spray, and made the tense short walk up the drive. You never could tell – past “patients” might look her up. She let herself in with the key and made small talk with Mrs. Dufresne in the kitchen, who’d baked banana bread. Rochelle hated the stuff and begged off. She microwaved a frozen Chinese in her room and started phone tag with Shane, a game she was sick of playing. Missing each other by minutes. A few hours later, almost too drowsy to talk, one of them would finally connect.
Shane always ended, “Come home soon.”
He didn’t mean it anymore.
Shane drove trucks. Not semis, but delivery trucks for a lumber yard, one all the contractors used. A mindless job, paying him all he needed. A thirty-six-year-old man living with his parents, no rent, but an empty bank account due to electronics, guns, and a motorcycle. He swore, one day, he’d build his own cabin on their land. Rochelle wasn’t holding her breath.
No urge to call. Let him stew tonight. She’d say she was “out with friends” or some bullshit. Between the background noise of The Bachelor and the neighbor’s yappy mutt, Rochelle checked her Facebook and Insta. For a lark, she Googled Emil Haugen. Baldar.
Bad idea.
He had a Facebook page, and it was up to date. Don’t know why she was surprised. The prisoners got more perks than the public knew. Some ran businesses from their cells. Legit ones, not drugs. Baldar’s page a few days ago: Welp, it’s Cancer, folks. The Devil caught up with me. Followed by a long string of “Fuck cancer” comments from hundreds of well-wishers who blamed the blacks and Jews for Emil’s illness.
On the Google news tab, Emil’s mug shot, a more full face. A smirk. The story was as simple as Danny had told her – he hung a black dealer he thought had cheated him.
Her phone went: –melon moonshine, cut the burn with a –
Shane.
Twelve-oh-six.
“You up?”
“Dozing. If you hadn’t called.” Giving up on the out-with-friends baloney. Too tired to lie. “You okay?”
“Alright. Hot one, a/c in the truck couldn’t keep up.”
“I met a Nazi today.”
Shane laughed. “Aren’t you surrounded by them?”
“No, I mean, met, really met. He murdered a man. He’s got cancer.”
“Real Nazi or wannabe Nazi?”
Rochelle slumped onto her pillow. “Are you listening? He hung a guy. Now he’s got cancer and I have to help him.”
“Mm hm.” Clicks in the background. Playing a video game, as usual. “That…that’s crazy. You be careful.”
She worked in a prison surrounded by guards. How much more careful could she be?
“Someone asked about my scars today. On my hand.”
“What’d you tell them?”
“I told him the truth.”
One click. He’d paused the game. “What truth do you mean?”
“The same one as usual. No one noticed before. Guess I hide it well.”
“Mm hm.”
She yawned, but neither of them wanted to hang up. First to say, “Well, I’m getting tired,” was admitting defeat. Rochelle knew exactly how Shane was going to play the coming break-up – bore her into submission.
Rochelle yawned again, louder, and said, “Well, I’m getting tired…”
4.
Danny asked if she wanted to go to chemo with Emil, keep an eye on him. “Pretty dull. Bring a book.”
Rochelle hadn’t read a book in years. The last thing she wanted after a day at the prison was an active hobby. She’d rather veg at home, stare at a screen. At the chemo clinic, she wanted to talk with other nurses, or to the guards, or to Emil.
Anyone except Shane, pretty much.
Might as well grab some magazines from the checkout line in case it went to crap.
The van rides were silent, strictly enforced. Even when Rochelle asked how Emil was feeling, the driver shut her down. “Not a word.”
Two guards – driver and passenger – plus a third sitting on the backbench. None of them worried Emil could overpower them, but were terrified his biker pals would swarm the van and murder everyone inside to free their exalted asshole of a leader.
Emil told the guards, “You think I’m worth a dime to them? Soon as I was locked up, a new king of the hill took my place.”
Boring van rides to chemo. Boring van rides back to prison.
At the clinic, there was slack in the rules, especially on Bob’s days, him not trying to impress her by being a hardass.
“So you don’t keep up with the news?” Emil nodded at her Marie Claire. He had his own room, not allowed out with the normies. He wore a knitted beanie to hide his head tattoos. Leaning back in the recliner, arm on a pillow, lifesaving poison flowing through the IV.
“It’s just so depressing.”
“How will you know who to vote for?”
“My daddy tells me.” She curled her lip a little. “I didn’t even vote last time.”
“I didn’t miss it until they told me I couldn’t no more.” He held in a cough. Gritted teeth. “This whole thing…this…pain. I wish they’d give me better meds for the pain.”
“Want me to get someone?”
“Might as well. Best they can do for me is super-Advil. A Band-Aid on a broken leg.”
One of the clinic nurses showed up. A shot of Toradol, a shot of Zofran. Barely a word. The nurse left, and Emil kept his head down, his body tight, for a minute before letting out a breath. He pointed at Rochelle’s magazine. “Can I read it when you’re done?”
Home, no one waiting to ambush her. As per usual.
No message from Shane. She couldn’t think of more than three words worth saying to him, so she didn’t bother calling.
Past two in the morning, the phone went – melon moonshine. Why would he call at two in the morning, knowing she needed her sleep? Let the voicemail get it.
The next morning, a text waiting for her. Sorry about last night. I thought you’d pick up. Got someone u’ll wanna meet. I named him Spawn.
Pics attached. A young pit, smoky gray with white blotches. Adorable.
Spawn.
She got chills.
5.
Farmer was back. One of his wounds had gotten infected. He must’ve scratched the living hell out of it. Full of bloody pus. She cleaned it, slathered on antibiotic ointment, and bandaged it.
“No scratching this time. You hear?”
“Still got your boyfriend?”
“Maybe not for long.” Why’d she say it? Caught off guard? “You never can tell.”
He was bruised all over. Guy couldn’t stay out of trouble, came out grinning.
“Invite’s still open for the drive. Soon as I get parole.”
“Sounds like a good time.”
He jutted from the bed, as if going in for a kiss. “Call it a date, then?”
Rochelle rolled her stool away. “No, let’s not.”
Where was the guard?
“I thought we were having fun? What did I do?”
“Don’t scratch. Leave the bandage on overnight.”
“The fuck did I do?”
Rochelle got up and backed away from the exam table. “All right, we’re done here.” Loudly.
The guard, jacked-up wannabe deputy, finally showed. “Farmer, you piece of shit. On the ground!”
“No, leave him. It’s fine.”
Might as well have shouted at the Atlantic Ocean. He threw Farmer to the ground.
“The fuck did I do?”
Scuffle. Knee on his back, wrenching his arm around. Another guard. The alarm wails. More guards. More noise.
Under it all: “The fuck did I do?”
6.
Emil had a sweater now, even though it was mid-eighties outside. A blanket across his lap. “Do you mind if I ask about your scars?”
Might as well. “My boyfriend’s pitbull got me.”
“Can I take a gander?”
She held out her arm, turned it this way and that. Showing Emil wasn’t the same as showing Farmer. She felt comfortable around him. Hated to admit it.
He sucked air through his teeth. “Oh my God.”
“A freak thing. She loved me. One day, snap. They had to shoot her to get her off.”
“It’s the beast in them. We can breed them into angels, but they never lose that killer instinct. I’m sorry.”
“Some freak thing.”
“Does it still hurt?”
She thought of walking into cold supermarkets, or waking up on February mornings in her raised trailer, the floor frigid. The aches she’d feel out of nowhere. Or when she flexed her fingers, the skin too tight. “Not anymore.”
Bob was their guard today, keeping an eye out but not helicoptering. Rochelle and Emil talked more. She bought magazines she thought he’d enjoy. Newsy ones. The guy was dying. She didn’t like him, like, “like” him, but he wasn’t bad to kill time with. He never talked about white power or badmouthed black people. After a while, he began napping more each session, jolting awake when the pain hit.
“I tell you, I know how it’s going to sound, but they should have a little mercy, give me something stronger.”
“You said you had stronger stuff in your cell.”
“Just kidding. I mean, yeah, I can if I wanted. One hotshot is all it would take.”
Not what she’d thought he meant. Rochelle wondered what she’d do in the same boat. “Why don’t you, then?”
Shrug. “Don’t want to give anybody the satisfaction. I need a real painkiller to make me feel better until they can swap me a liver.”
Not what Danny had told her. The last update was he was getting worse, not better. They’d have to stop chemo soon and try to keep him comfortable. Maybe he knew. Maybe he was putting on a brave face.
“Listen,” he lowered his voice. “You wouldn’t want to, maybe, bring me some good pills, would you?”
“Excuse me?”
“Some Oxy? Leftover from the dentist or…” A glance at her arm. “From when this happened? Or did you use it all up? I can’t blame you.”
Quick peek at Bob. “Jesus, shut up.”
“Why not?”
“The way they check us when we get to work? Are you kidding?”
He raised a hand. “Not at the prison. I mean here.”
“Here.”
“Sure, here, before your shift, hide a bottle in a bush. I’m not asking for much. Some Oxy or Vicodin or, what have you. I’m begging.”
Another glance at Bob. “Someone’s always watching. I’d get caught.”
“You mean Bob? I wouldn’t worry about Bob.” Emil leaned towards her, the blanket falling from his chest to his lap. “Bob’s one of us.”
7.
Back to the infirmary. Routine. Another brawl, broken nose, broken ribs. Rochelle asked for the next day off. Said she wasn’t feeling so good. Clocked out and drove home.
He’s one of us.
Bob? Dad-bod Bob?
And us made it sound as if she was, too.
She’d lied to Emil. She had plenty of Oxy left from her dog bite surgery. Plenty. She’d been careful with them, not wanting to get hooked. But tonight, she wanted one or two, to sleep as long as possible.
She parked on the curb outside Mrs. Dufresne’s house, started up the drive.
“Hey, you? Are you the nurse?”
A woman’s voice from the dark. Rochelle gripped her pepper spray. “Who’s there?”
Another car across the street, an old Ford Taurus, a woman climbing out of the passenger side. Rochelle couldn’t see the driver.
“Are you the prison nurse?”
“I think you need to leave.”
“I only need a minute.”
Rochelle’s thumb rested on the spray trigger. “Please leave.”
The girl stepped into Mrs. Dufresne’s garage light. Older than she sounded. Bleached blonde hair with streaks of purple. Splotchy cheeks and wide hips that didn’t go with the rest of her. She wore unflattering yoga pants and a T-shirt, Rob Zombie, which almost reached her knees.
“Listen, I was hoping you could help me? You know my brother? Emil?”
In her right hand, a plastic grocery bag. Rochelle didn’t want to know. She felt like someone else was watching, hidden.
“Did you follow me? You aren’t supposed to be here.”
The girl noticed the pepper spray in Rochelle’s hand. “If you just listen to me for a minute. One minute.”
She wanted to shout, yell, get a neighbor’s attention. She didn’t, though. She was too curious. “Alright.”
The girl unfurled the bag, not heavy enough to be a gun or knife or a brick of heroin. She pulled out a small amber medicine bottle. “He said to give these to you. Maybe they can stop him hurting so bad? Until they can operate?”
The girl held out the bottle. Rochelle didn’t want to take them from her directly. How did she know if Emil even had a sister? Could be a sting. Could be the girl was wired.
But she had bags under her eyes. Tear-streaks.
“What are they?”
“Our mom had some Oxy from when her knees were replaced. There’s only a handful. Please?”
Rochelle wanted to shout What about the family of the man he killed?
But said, “We can’t. I’m sorry.”
“Please. He said you’re a nice person, you’d understand.”
A stone-cold racist killer. A man who’d spent years stoking hate. Would she do the same if he was a black guy, a Crip or Blood who’d killed a white man? Or a terrorist, an Arab, who’d bombed an airport or a wedding? What if anyone else was sitting in the chemo chair besides Emil?
“Set the bottle of the ground and get out of here. Now.”
“Thank you so much.” The girl crouched and left the medicine bottle on the driveway, not far from an anthill growing in a crack. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” If Rochelle could’ve made it sound any more nasty, she would’ve.
The girl skittered across the road to her car and it rolled off, squealing belt and bad muffler. Rochelle stayed still for the longest time and listened hard. Past the girl’s echoing car, the cicada song, rustling trees. Nothing. There was nothing.
She hated herself.
-melon moonshine…
Dropped her keys, the pepper spray. Reached for her phone. Shane had sent ten more pics of Spawn, then said, Are you okay? Are you mad at me?
She lifted the pill bottle, bracing herself for a SWAT team.
No sirens, no flashing lights, no barking megaphones.
She went inside, didn’t bother eating, and took one of her own pain pills. Hoped for good dreams.
8.
Next chemo day, Rochelle shook the pills from the bottle, added the rest of her own – figured “in for a penny, in for the whole enchilada” – and wadded them into a tight ball of plastic wrap. She stopped by the clinic early and buried the ball next to a hedge before driving on to the prison.
If she’d expected the bust to come at work, well, wrong again. She soared through check-in, same as usual. No one gave her a funny eye or questioned her.
At first, it didn’t look like Bob wasn’t coming along . Instead, couple of boys in sunglasses and no sideburns chiseled out of granite. They’d be on her like, you know, on rice. Once Emil was seated and shackled, though, Bob showed up right before she climbed into the van. Told a granite boy, “They want you in the yard.” Much more exciting than babysitting the dying Nazi. Bob smiled at her and took his place in the front passenger seat.
It felt weird. Not right at all.
Emil was an ass to the clinic staff, the pain getting to him. “Watch it, goddamn it,” to the nurse setting up his IV bags. She tossed a blanket on his lap, but he whipped it off. “I’m not an old lady, bitch.”
It was out of character for him, Rochelle thought. But what was character for him? She’d only known him as this prisoner, wasting away, doing his best to fight the inevitable. When they were mostly alone, later, Bob stepping out to visit the men’s room, Emil cleared his throat.
“I’m sorry about Geneva, my sister, last night. I don’t know what she was thinking.”
“She was doing what you told her to. I’m right, aren’t I? You say you’re sorry, but it doesn’t mean shit.”
“Believe what you want, but I’m sorry. What I mean is, if you did happen to bring something for me, I’d be really grateful.” His voice straining, eyes veiny.
All you’re doing is giving a dying man some peace. Nothing more.
Rochelle stood, handed over her copy of Shape. “I’ll be right back.”
Outside, she waited until the coast was clear, then dug up the ball of pills. So stupid. It was so ungodly stupid.
She freed a couple and shoved the rest into her pocket. Tight fist around the wad. Back inside, Bob resettled in his spot, asking, “Everything okay in there?”
One of us. “Fine.”
Rochelle took the blanket from the floor where Emil had tossed it. She tucked it around him, slipped the wad out of her pocket, and underneath the blanket on his lap. “You got a place to put this?”
“Yeah.”
“Here.” She took the two loose ones, patted them into his hand. “Need water?”
He popped the pills into his mouth and took the paper cup of water she held out for him. One gulp. Two gulps.
“You don’t know how much I appreciate it.”
“Whatever.” Rochelle plopped back on her chair. “Never again.”
“Okay.”
“A one-time deal.”
“Fine, whatever you say.”
She snapped the magazine out of his hand and opened it randomly, pretended to get back into wherever she left off. She didn’t see a word of it.
“Rochelle.”
She cut her eyes towards Emil.
“You’re the best.”
He slept most of the ride back. Rochelle had the urge to pee real bad but her bladder was dry as the desert. Just an anxious urge. Everyone got out of the van, the guards helping Emil down. How much weight had he lost since starting chemo? She couldn’t imagine enduring his pain for a sliver of a percent chance to survive, only to stay in prison if he did. What a losing bet. But a life in prison was still life, at least.
He held back a moment. The guards stopped. Bob and Rochelle stopped. Emil turned to Rochelle and said, “You’re welcome.”
She didn’t know if a person could say it any nastier.
What had she done?
In the infirmary, the noise hit her. Chaos. She rounded the corner. There was Danny, his scrubs a massacre, giving brutal chest compressions to a man on the table, blood dripping into pools on the tile. One of the guards helping him shouted, “He’s gone, it’s over, Doc, can you hear me?”
Danny stopped, hands on his hips. “Shit!” He kicked the wall. Stared towards Rochelle, disgusted.
She stepped closer to the body on the table. Too much of a mess to recognize. Except his hair. Shaved sides and a mullet. Farmer.
You’re welcome.
Rochelle spun towards the guards leading Emil to a recovery table. He was staring right at her, shit-eating grin on his sunken face.
What had she done?
