Last Meal

        His favorite foods—roasted chicken, corn, mashed potatoes with gravy, and a chocolate milkshake—sit on a plastic tray on the scratched plywood table before him, but he knows he can’t enjoy them, or anything, for that matter, with the scythe dangling over his head. They’ve referred to this as his “last meal,” although he really considers his “last meal” the homemade pasta and garlic bread Erica served him before the argument, before his life turned into a nightmare.

He didn’t kill her. The notion never even crossed his mind. Yes, they’d fought when last they’d met, storming away angry. But, even then, he’d loved her and would never do anything to hurt her. Her death shattered him. He still craves her sardonically soft voice, her crooked smile, the warmth of her arms wrapped around him. He still asks himself whether he could’ve done something to prevent her death—Spied a suspicious character when with her? Picked up on some sinister nuance in a family member or friend’s voice when they spoke of her? Bought her pepper spray and told her to watch out for creeps? Gotten together with her on the night in question? And he hates whoever did do this like he’s never hated anyone before. He can’t figure out how anyone who’s heard him speak of her can think otherwise. But they do. Everybody does. His mother has disowned him; his aunts and uncles and cousins have shunned him; his friends have deserted him. When someone speaks his name, their cheeks flush, and their gaze drops, and they vilify themselves for ever having allowed him into their lives. His mother has, on live TV, denounced him, apologizing to Erica’s family on his behalf. In the three years he’s spent in here, he hasn’t had a single visitor.

He tells himself not to think about this; it leads only to him doubting himself, asking himself what he’s done wrong, or what he hasn’t done that he should have, to make them think him capable of such an atrocity. He’s asked himself this question countless nights while struggling to find sleep between his cardstock-thin mattress and scratchy blanket, his cellmate snoring above him, the darkness drowning him. Yet he’s found no answers, leading him to believe that no good answers—and, thus, no good men—exist.

He shifts in his skeletal chair, stomach folding like origami. The guard—a young man named Jayden who seems hardly happier than he to have landed here—nods toward the food and says, “You’re not gonna have a chance to finish if you don’t get started soon.”

           He nods but doesn’t pick up the plastic fork they’ve provided. Instead, he glances at the clock on the cinderblock walls. Half an hour until his date with the syringe. He considers this method a joke—one last fruitless grasp at humanity before committing the crime for which they’ve vilified him. At least with a firing squad, the chair, or the guillotine, they pulled no punches. Bang. Boom. Bullet between the eyes, brain fried, or head cut clean off. No mercy for the merciless; no hesitation for the feckless. Except, of course, in cases like these—cases in which society allows their hunger to pin horrors on someone, anyone, to convince them to do so hastily and without sufficient evidence.

           He glances at the clock again. Twenty-five minutes. Wanting to appease Jayden, he picks up his fork, stabs a piece of chicken, shovels it into his mouth, and chews. He tastes nothing. He doesn’t know why he’s bothered. He does not owe Jayden, or anyone else, anything. The world has forsaken him, so he should, in turn, forsake it. God knows, he’s tried the opposite strategy. He’s spent the last three years swallowing his anger and treating everyone around him with respect, even when none of them deserve it. When asked, he’s said he didn’t plan to eat his pudding and given it away, even when he had looked forward to it, the only thing on his tray that this hellhole hadn’t managed to screw up. He’s let his cellmate, Noah Hillery, who ended up here for offing two women in a park, use his toothpaste and soap when he ran out. He’s bitten back retorts when fellow inmates hurled insults and slurs at him. He’s given the guards and warden no trouble, always deferent. He even risked his life to save Hillery’s in last week’s riot. He’s done it not only because he wants to think himself a good person, but also because he’d seen something in it for him. The thing that, when, as a child, he’d stolen from the cookie jar before dinner, punished him with a stomachache. That, when, as a teen, he’d egged his bully’s house, possessed someone to breeze by and steal his bike. That, when, five years ago, he’d bad-mouthed his boss behind his back, prodded said boss to subsequently pass him up for a promotion. In a word: Karma. He assumed that, if it dished out punishments for doing the wrong thing, it would reward one for doing the right thing. Apparently, he’s mistaken.

           He stabs another piece of chicken, shoves it into his mouth, chews, and swallows. He sips his milkshake; that, too, has no taste. He wonders, idly, whether his nerves have gotten to his tongue, or whether he’s caught COVID. If the latter, he should probably tell Jayden. He may have caught it from or given it to Hillery—he has been acting strange lately, ever since the riot. Tim attributed that to knowing that he should thank him but having too much pride to do so, or simply having come so close to death, but maybe he’s mistaken about that, too.

           He leaves the rest of the chicken and moves on to the mashed potatoes. Bite after bite, chew after tiring chew. He wonders whether it will hurt when the needle goes in, or when the serum courses through his veins, or when his heart surrenders. He wonders whether his life will flash before his eyes; whether he’ll stumble upon some profound wisdom, only to lose it in the next second; or whether he’ll simply look up at the ceiling’s fluorescent lights and hope it will take him quickly. It probably won’t. He thinks the ordeal will prove long, and painful. A universe that would subject him to this despite his innocence surely won’t show him mercy now.

           He’s come to the corn. He’d eat it kernel by kernel, if he thought it would buy more time. Instead, he scoops up a gaggle, shoves it into his mouth, and chases it with a long swallow of his milkshake.

           The warden, Zita Akridge, strides in and motions for Jayden to come to her. He does. They talk in whispers, as if letting a virtual dead man know what they’re saying will in any way affect their plans. They turn to him, the glint in their eyes sharp enough to pierce even his frustration-hardened flesh, and his heart skips. They come to him, and he looks at them, certain that he does not want to know what they have to tell him, as if his situation can possibly worsen. Finally, Akridge says, “Change of plans, Venditti.”

           His eyes widen; his heartbeat accelerates still more. He tells himself not to dare hope, but he’s already done it.

           “Hillery just confessed to what you’re in here for.”

           His jaw drops, his mouth going dry.

           “Says he’s got proof. We’ve got officers checking it out as we speak.”

He shakes his head, feeling as if she’s turned him upside-down and dumped the contents of his brain. He struggles for words and finally manages, “Why’d he do it?”

 “Says he approached her at a bar, and she told him she’d never give the time of day to a creep like him.”

           This should wring his gut. It does. But it also brings something else—an icy wave rolling over him on a scorching day. Of course, he knows that this is far from a done deal; he knows that they will have to find the evidence Hillery has promised, and, if they do, he’ll have to stand trial. But it’s bought Tim time, at the very least, and he knows that, at this point, he could have hoped for no better. Karma.

           As he recovers, he returns his gaze to his corn and resumes eating.

           Suddenly, he’s ravenous.