The Gloaming Light

9

Odds are you wanna hang me like that loudmouth Dirge-fender down the way this morning. Least he knew your decision when he got his supper last night. He launched straightaway into his take on the same old, same old mewling with something like, “No . . . no . . . wait. This damn DBC cake’s gotta be for somebody else. Please, I’m begging you.”

I wasn’t here in this hellhole for more than two hours before hearing about that cake. Being the only woman prisoner in a whole cellblock stuffed to the gills means not playing Sardines with a bunch of asshats in a regular cage till they take the long drop and the handful somehow avoiding it get shipped off after sentencing to make room for the steady flow of newbies. But I still gotta put up with all their yammering even though the guards try keeping a lid on it as best they can.

One thing about the goings-on inside this place flying under the radar maybe is how the kitchen crew gives you a heads-up you’re at the end of your rope, no joke. Some saps drawing short straws piss and moan about their lot in life and not standing up in court or picking their last meal like back in the day, but that kinda sniveling goes over like a lead fart.

See, a cheese omelet and Potatoes O’Brien for breakfast means your number’s up at sunset while poached Chinook and egg noodles for supper means you got till sunrise.

It’s anybody’s guess why the cooks go to all the trouble of making something special when most of what we eat is slop barely fit for hogs. Who knows? Could be somebody with enough clout wants to feel better about themselves when the Meltdown’s all said and done.

Craziest part’s getting your very own mini DBC cake—as in Death by Chocolate—along with a little noose in red piping.

How’s that for a wicked sense of humor?

Hope I never find out if it’s anywhere near as good as . . .

10

 Like I was saying, that’s why they call it DBC cake in case you’re wondering. That is, if you’re still awake there after another tough day in court, more likely than not kicking back at home in your easy chair with AR specs on and a beer in hand.

Anyhow, back to last night with that Dirge-fender caterwauling about being too young to die and how he was innocent and his DBC cake had to be for somebody else and blah, blah, blah.

One of his cellmates must’ve got fed up ’cause I heard some serious scuffling, then it got quiet as it ever gets till dawn when the pallbearers drug his sorry ass out of here—pallbearers, that’s what we call the guards taking you out to the yard to cash in your chips.

The loudmouth made up for lost time with all his blubbering about his right to a jury trial and the evils of martial law till the hangmen slapped a hood over his head, Chaplain Eddy said a few words, and the doofus took the long drop so the rest of us could breathe easier.

Gotta tell you, whoever came up with the bright idea of keeping me locked up alone inside this lousy jail cell that went from a sweltering oven at the end of July to a walk-in freezer here of late sure knows how to rub salt in my wounds.

Bad enough being the only woman in this earsplitting shitpit for months on end not counting Huzjak, but then you go and add injury to insult by tormenting me day in, day out with being in smelling distance of a big old river like the Columbia and all its feeders. Every time the wind shifts and clears out some of the god-awful stench and that trail of cheap woody perfume through the wide-open, barred windows on either end of the block, I smell tidewater and fish and more than you’d ever wanna know.

I swear even pent-up in this damn maze of a rathole I can still tell when it’s slack tide or spring tide or neap tide. A couple weeks ago I felt late summer slipping into early fall and another season of record-breaking high water coming our way, sure as I’m sitting here. Lay of the land might be different from the Coast Range down around home, but all I gotta do is close my eyes, and I’m back out on the Alsea before the Meltdown.

And no lie, every morning I wake up thinking about it—Jordy’s always with me, of course—and daydream about it till I fall asleep and dream some more.

But the worst part’s being on ground level with the gallows right out there in my sight line. Anytime a guy gets strung up—which you know better than anybody happens like clockwork around here—I feel the life getting choked out of me all over again.

I turn away and cover my good ear against the sound of creaking rope and pinch my nose to block the smell of doom, but that death dance in the gloaming light always draws me in what with their feet flailing at eye level and so many of their tent poles rising up under those baggy jumpsuits.

Can’t believe how long it takes me to get my . . .

11

Keera says you probably figure me telling the truth about what I had to go through like this is gonna make me come to my senses in a flash—what Little Mom called a lightning bolt moment. That’s all fine and good, but if I wind up with a noose around my neck, nothing else means diddly-squat.

Any which way you slice it, I’m getting the short end of the stick for doing whatever I could to survive the Meltdown like a whole lot of others did and would’ve done if they’d been in my shoes—including you—left out to dry like we were with all the other horseshit going on.

Guess none of that matters now ’cause you want my life story start to finish and that’s exactly what I’m gonna dish up, come hell or high water. So here’s the skinny on me, the real me this time.

Can’t blame you for being suspicious after I tried conning you with that innocent refugee line nobody other than Chaplain Eddy and my own lawyer seemed to nibble on, if she even did.

But there’s one thing about me you can bet your bottom dollar on. When I’m cornered like I am right now with no place to turn, I face the music and sing along as best I can.

You already know it’s gonna have a raft of heartache in tow ’cause of all the unluckies like me you heard about holding the line for close to four years and the pictures you saw of those that didn’t, so I doubt you’ll be surprised by much of anything.

Course what the hell do I know about you? Nothing—while you wanna know everything about me.

Well, this is your wheelhouse not mine, so that’s just how it goes.

Shit, I don’t even have anybody to carp at about having to carry on a one-sided conversation with a damn gizmo inside this closet of a cell reeking of outhouse so far from home except for you maybe listening.

How’s that for pitiful?

So hold onto that fancy robe if you’re still wearing it ’cause here comes the confession you ordered me to make before Huzjak bodychecked me out of court this morning.