Page 32 of Pen Me

She waved the envelope in the air and a cold dose of irritation quickly shot into anger and raced through me. I wanted to snatch it from her hand, but I grabbed the bar at the last minute and leaned into it, setting the tray aside on my mattress as I stood to face her.

“You can’t have a girlfriend here. I mean, obviously, you can. There are crazy mother fuckers that do it every day, but shit… look at ‘em.”

I waved down the hall to the cell the big guy, Kevin, was kept in. He paced in front of that door every morning, refusing breakfast so he could harass a guard to give him phone time as soon as the trays were collected. It was a routine for him. So was the phone call that followed.

“Twenty minutes from now, he’s gonna be on that phone, drilling his woman like Inspector-fucking-Gadget.” I dramatically sang, waving my hand in disgust. “What time did you get off work last night? How was traffic? Were the kids awake when you got home. Do you hear him? It sounds innocent. It’s not. He is calculating if she went straight home. Then it furthers, what was on the news… He saw the goddamn news. We all heard it; he leaves the shit on full blast in the evening. There is no question on this protective custody cellblock as to what went on in the metro east last night. None. Nada. We heard it on three channels. There was a shooting in East St. Louis, a home invasion in Collinsville, and Pontoon Beach dragged some asshole in for distribution of a controlled substance. The bastard had twenty pounds of pot, a hundred ecstasy tablets, and two hundred Xanax.”

I paused, still holding up the three fingers I’d used for emphasis.

“Nah, my dude.” Travis, piped up from the cell next to me. “It was two hundred ecstasy tabs, and a hundred Xanax, I’m sure of it.”

“Oh my God.” Larissa laughed. “You two are terrible.”

“Terrible? Terrible is having to listen to that shit every goddamn day, and don’t get me started on the blubbering that commences if her fuckin’ timeline does not compute with his exact mental estimate, okay?”

“Are the trays all gathered yet?” Kevin started in, as if on cue.

“Fuck me.” Travis groaned, stomping away from his door.

“That can’t be me, doll.” I shook my head with conviction. “I ain’t about to be comin’ out my body over no broad.”

Chapter Seventeen

The Attention of a Stranger

Sammy

I held onto his letter for two days before I wrote him back. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to write him back, I just kept crumpling up the papers and starting over. Maybe a part of me just wanted to reread his words now that I’d seen a few articles about his case.

Attempted Murder.

That’s what they were charging him with. I was having a mail fling with someone who was apparently prone to homicidal rages.

If that didn’t just ice the cake of my existence, I don’t know what could have. What was wrong with me? I glanced up at all the wadded up loose leaf pages that scattered my living room and sighed hard.

It looked like a madwoman had been in here scribbling, scratching, wadding and tossing for days. Which is exactly what had occurred as I went through a sea of feelings about the things I’d written. Too flirty. Too wordy. Too much oversharing.

Jesus. Was it a fucking audition all of a sudden? I forced myself to focus and finally penned him back.

Lennox,

If I knew your charges, why would I have asked? I think I saw a news clip, but honestly, I don’t know what list of charges they put together over the incident.

I’ve never really settled into a serious relationship. I enlisted after High School and the military was my life. I thought I found something that might turn serious once, but it was more mess than it was worth, in the end.

You want my list of dating qualifications, you mean?

Fine, here goes:

Honesty

Loyalty

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