Right?
My fellow inmates began their daily rituals. We don’t have roommates in our twelve-feet-by-seven-feet cells, but we can look in on almost every other inmate. This is supposed to be “healthier” than the older ones where there was no social interaction and too much isolation. I wish they hadn’t bothered, because the less interaction the better. Earl Clemmons, a serial rapist, starts his day by offering the rest of us a play-by-play of his morning constitutional. He includes sound effects like cheering crowds and full sportscasting, mimicking one voice for the straight play-by-play and another offering color commentary. Ricky Krause, a serial killer who cut off his victims’ thumbs with pruning shears, likes to begin his day with a song parody of sorts. He twists lyrics, taking old classics and giving them his own perverse spin. Right now, Ricky is repeatedly belting out, “Someone’s in the kitchen, getting vagina,” and cracking up harder and harder as those around him shout for him to shut up.
We get in line for breakfast. In the past, those of us housed in this wing had our meals delivered, which makes it sound like we used DoorDash or something. No more. One of our fellow inmates protested that forcing a man to eat by himself in his cell was unconstitutional. He sued. Inmates love lawsuits. In this case, however, the prison system happily exploited the opening. Serving prisoners in their cells was expensive and labor-intensive.
The small cafeteria has four tables, each with metal stools, all bolted to the ground. I like to meander and wait until everyone else is seated, so that I can find the stool that will put me as far away from the more animated of my fellow inmates as possible. Not that the conversations aren’t stimulating. The other day, several inmates got into a heated one-upmanship over who had raped the oldest woman. Earl “bettered” his opponents with his claim of sodomizing an eighty-seven-year-old after he broke into her apartment via the fire escape. Other inmates questioned the veracity of Earl’s claim—they thought that he might be exaggerating just to impress them—but the next day Earl came back with saved newspaper clippings.
This morning I get lucky. One table is totally open. After scooping up some powdered eggs and bacon and toast—I’ll skip the obvious comment about how awful prison food is—I take a stool in the farthest corner and begin to eat. For the first time in forever, I have an appetite. I realize that my mind has stopped going back to that night or even that photograph and has started to focus on something ridiculous and fantastical.
How to escape from Briggs.
I have been here long enough to know the routines, the guards, the layout, the schedule, the personnel, whatever. Conclusion: There is no way to escape. None. I had to think outside the box.
A tray slamming down on the table startles me. A hand is stuck into my face for me to shake. I look up and into the man’s face. People say that the eyes are the windows to the soul. If that’s true, this man’s eyes flash NO VACANCY.
“David Burroughs, am I right?”
His name, I know, is Ross Sumner. He’d transferred in last week, purportedly waiting on an appeal that would never happen, but I am surprised they’d let him out of his cell at all. Sumner’s case made headlines, the stuff of streaming-service documentaries and true crime podcasts. He was a superrich prep—do they still use that term?—who’d gone psychotically bad. Ross, who was handsome in a Ralph Lauren–ad way, had murdered at least seventeen people—men, women, children of all ages—and eaten their intestinal tracts. That was it. Just the intestinal tract. Body parts were found in a top-of-the-line Sub-Zero freezer in the basement of his family estate. None of these facts are in dispute. Sumner’s appeal is based on the jury’s conclusion that he is sane.
Ross Sumner still holds his hand out and waits for me to take it. There is a smile on his face. I would rather French-kiss a live rodent than shake the man’s hand, but in prison, you do what you have to. I reluctantly shake the hand as fast as possible. His hand is surprisingly small, dainty. As I pull mine back, I can’t help it—I wonder what that hand has touched. Supposedly, he slit his victims open while they were still alive and used his hands—including that hand—to rip open the slit and reach inside the abdomen and grab hold of the intestine.
So much for having an appetite.
Ross Sumner smiles as though he can read my thoughts. He is about thirty years old with jet-black hair and delicate features. He takes the stool directly across from me. Lucky me.
“I’m Ross Sumner,” he says.
“Yeah, I know.”
“I hope you don’t mind me sitting with you.”
I say nothing.
“It’s just that the other men in here”—Ross shakes his head—“I find them rather coarse. Unrefined, if you will. Do you know that you and I are the only college graduates?”
“That so?”
I nod. I keep my eyes on my plate.
“You went to Amherst, am I right?”
He pronounced Amherst correctly, keeping the H silent.
“Fine school,” he continues. “I liked it better when they called themselves the Lord Jeffs. The Amherst Lord Jeffs. Such a majestic name. But of course, the woke crowd didn’t like that, did they? They have to hate on a man who died in the eighteenth century. Ridiculous, don’t you think?”
I play with my powdered eggs.
“I mean, now they call themselves the Amherst Mammoths. Mammoths. Please. That’s so pathetically PC, don’t you think? But here’s something you’ll enjoy knowing. I went to Williams College. The Ephs. That makes us rivals. Funny, no?”
Sumner gives me a boyish grin.
“Yeah,” I say. “Hilarious.”
Then he says, “I hear you had a visitor yesterday.”
I go stiff. Ross Sumner sees it.
“Oh, don’t look so surprised, David.”
He still wears the boyish grin. That grin had probably gotten him far. On a purely physical level, it was a nice grin, charming, the kind that opens doors and lowers inhibitions. It was also probably the last sight his victims saw.
“It’s a small prison. A man hears things.”
That is true. Rumor has it that the Sumner family is not afraid to use their money to influence his treatment. I believe those rumors.
“I try to make it a point of staying informed.”
“Uh-huh,” I say, keeping my eyes on the eggs.
“So how did it go?” he asks.
“How did what go?”
“Your visit. With your…sister-in-law, was it?”
I say nothing.
“It must have been something, right? Your first visitor after all this time. You seemed distracted before I came over.”
I look up. “Look, Ross, I’m trying to eat here, okay?”
Ross throws up his hands in mock surrender. “Oh, pardon me, David. I didn’t mean to pry. I wanted us to be friends. I have been starving for any sort of intellectual stimulation. I imagine you must feel the same. Both of us being graduates of the Small Ivies, I thought we would have a bond. A rapport, if you will. But I see now that I’ve caught you at a bad time. Please forgive me.”
“It’s fine,” I mutter. I take another bite. I can feel Sumner’s eyes on me.
Then he whispers, “Are you thinking about your son?”