hunters and fellers of timber in her casebook would.
“Lunch, good idea, the Cave sounds fine, but about what, talk to me about what?”
“Don’t worry about it. It’s actually a great opportunity the way I look at it. I’ll tell you when we get to the Cave and have something good to chew on while we chat.”
. . . .
“Please Jack, can we move one more time? I don’t like this table either.”
It wasn’t possible to find a table in the food court of the Cave that was perfectly centered, the tables had been laid out in a helter-skelter fashion, to give the place a more casual, less orderly air. Zora was still trying. Trying Jack’s patience.
“Jesus, Zora, this really bothers you, doesn’t it? Sure, find another one.”
They picked up their trays—his with the customary hot dog and soda and hers with a berry smoothie and an edamame-and-fusilli salad, a fusion dish if ever there was one. And moved a couple tables over.
Once seated and for Zora, measured out properly:
“I’ve been in therapy for this Jack, still am. It can make life difficult for me, it really can. And others.”
“Don’t mind, honestly. But have you gotten to the deep of why you do it, why everything in the middle?”
“It’s a compulsion, I need to have things centered or they start to close in. Fingers on the throat. I panic. What I’ve learned in therapy is it’s my way of dealing with all the uncertainty in life. I’ve tried to find other ways of dealing with it, normal ways. Can’t do it. And I refuse to go on meds. I’m stuck I guess. Seems to bother others more than it bothers me, unless it’s a place like this with no rhyme or reason to it.”
“Well, you’re right about that, whoever designed this place was like the anti-you. Your nemesis.”
“Very funny. Speaking of my nemesis, what does the Judge want? Come on, that’s the whole reason we came here and I have to see you eat that nauseating hot dog.”
Zora was not a strict vegetarian, she ate chicken and fish aplenty, but her sympathies ran more in the herbivorous direction than the carnivorous one. It didn’t help that Jack chewed like a cave man. A gourmand he wasn’t, nor a master of etiquette in general.
“Ever heard of the Gatekeeper?”
“Yeah, who hasn’t, most famous female serial killer in American history, right? Over in Arizona.”
The Gatekeeper’s real name was Dorothy Krause. Like the Unabomber, she’d gotten an acronym in honor of her peculiar talents: g ouge, a mput ate , keep . Aside from dozens of stab wounds in their pulped-up chests, her five victims had been found with their eyes gouged out.
And when the police found Dorothy, half a mile from the bodies in a ramshackle shelter on a small tract of undeveloped BLM land outside of Phoenix—she’d been homeless for years, schizophrenic since her teens—she had in her possession five sets of severed hands and five sets of severed feet. Trophies, mementos, toys. Dueling psychiatrists didn’t prevent her from being found competent to stand trial, and she was currently on death row in some hellhole.
“Know where she is now?”
“No, really didn’t follow her story that closely, too sick and twisted. Pray tell.”
“The Drome.”
“No shit!”
Zora put a little too much juice in her voice and surrounding eyes swept over at her. She fixed her face with the sheepishness of apology and then overcompensated by whispering to Jack.
“Wow, that close. Now I’m officially freaked out.”
The Drome was only a mile away from the city limits of Madison Springs. In more official parlance: United States Penitentiary, Administrative Maximum Facility, Madison Springs, Texas. But pretty much everyone within eyeshot, or anywhere really, called it the Madison Springs Supermax, the Drome for short. MSSM. A palindrome.
The Drome was 100% supermax, on top of which it had its very own death row, a super-dupermax of sorts, the Gatekeeper’s new home. Zora couldn’t imagine that the
“Lunch, good idea, the Cave sounds fine, but about what, talk to me about what?”
“Don’t worry about it. It’s actually a great opportunity the way I look at it. I’ll tell you when we get to the Cave and have something good to chew on while we chat.”
. . . .
“Please Jack, can we move one more time? I don’t like this table either.”
It wasn’t possible to find a table in the food court of the Cave that was perfectly centered, the tables had been laid out in a helter-skelter fashion, to give the place a more casual, less orderly air. Zora was still trying. Trying Jack’s patience.
“Jesus, Zora, this really bothers you, doesn’t it? Sure, find another one.”
They picked up their trays—his with the customary hot dog and soda and hers with a berry smoothie and an edamame-and-fusilli salad, a fusion dish if ever there was one. And moved a couple tables over.
Once seated and for Zora, measured out properly:
“I’ve been in therapy for this Jack, still am. It can make life difficult for me, it really can. And others.”
“Don’t mind, honestly. But have you gotten to the deep of why you do it, why everything in the middle?”
“It’s a compulsion, I need to have things centered or they start to close in. Fingers on the throat. I panic. What I’ve learned in therapy is it’s my way of dealing with all the uncertainty in life. I’ve tried to find other ways of dealing with it, normal ways. Can’t do it. And I refuse to go on meds. I’m stuck I guess. Seems to bother others more than it bothers me, unless it’s a place like this with no rhyme or reason to it.”
“Well, you’re right about that, whoever designed this place was like the anti-you. Your nemesis.”
“Very funny. Speaking of my nemesis, what does the Judge want? Come on, that’s the whole reason we came here and I have to see you eat that nauseating hot dog.”
Zora was not a strict vegetarian, she ate chicken and fish aplenty, but her sympathies ran more in the herbivorous direction than the carnivorous one. It didn’t help that Jack chewed like a cave man. A gourmand he wasn’t, nor a master of etiquette in general.
“Ever heard of the Gatekeeper?”
“Yeah, who hasn’t, most famous female serial killer in American history, right? Over in Arizona.”
The Gatekeeper’s real name was Dorothy Krause. Like the Unabomber, she’d gotten an acronym in honor of her peculiar talents: g ouge, a mput ate , keep . Aside from dozens of stab wounds in their pulped-up chests, her five victims had been found with their eyes gouged out.
And when the police found Dorothy, half a mile from the bodies in a ramshackle shelter on a small tract of undeveloped BLM land outside of Phoenix—she’d been homeless for years, schizophrenic since her teens—she had in her possession five sets of severed hands and five sets of severed feet. Trophies, mementos, toys. Dueling psychiatrists didn’t prevent her from being found competent to stand trial, and she was currently on death row in some hellhole.
“Know where she is now?”
“No, really didn’t follow her story that closely, too sick and twisted. Pray tell.”
“The Drome.”
“No shit!”
Zora put a little too much juice in her voice and surrounding eyes swept over at her. She fixed her face with the sheepishness of apology and then overcompensated by whispering to Jack.
“Wow, that close. Now I’m officially freaked out.”
The Drome was only a mile away from the city limits of Madison Springs. In more official parlance: United States Penitentiary, Administrative Maximum Facility, Madison Springs, Texas. But pretty much everyone within eyeshot, or anywhere really, called it the Madison Springs Supermax, the Drome for short. MSSM. A palindrome.
The Drome was 100% supermax, on top of which it had its very own death row, a super-dupermax of sorts, the Gatekeeper’s new home. Zora couldn’t imagine that the
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