King Perry by Edmond Manning

emerging into a spot we visited earlier this afternoon.
    “Recognize this place?”
    “Their back patio,” Perry says, peering around.
    I frown. “Back patio?”
    “I can’t think of the word. It’s the, the exercise yard.”
    “There you go.”
    The prison yard stretches into a big rectangle with four giant rows of cement bleachers facing San Francisco, inviting convicts to sit and watch life across the bay. The absence of any amenities suggests an intention to taunt men with “Here’s what you’re missing.”
    I scurry across the moonlit space to the slim shadow at the base of an enormous wall, and Perry follows. A black wrought iron staircase attaches to the exterior prison wall. Although solid and secure, the structure feels so exposed and so steep, you can’t help but feel the whole thing is precarious and rickety. Now, there’s a good word: rickety . Shadows cast through the latticework create an intricate spider web on the wall below. We leap up each step until we arrive at the impossible door barring our entrance to Alcatraz. We make no discernable sound, or rather, we have the ocean to thank for masking the noises we do make.
    At the top, I feel him twitch next to me, his head darting from side to side, so while I fiddle with the mechanism on the lock, using small tools and wire from inside my jacket, I ask him to recalculate my release age after a twenty-five-year sentence, give or take six years for being a model prisoner. He’s freaking out; I need to keep him occupied while I’m busy.
    “Do you think they’d let me work at the prison library?” I say. “I could make book recommendations to other prisoners based on what crimes they committed.”
    “Vin,” he says, trying to play along, but his voice betrays terror.
    “Thieves would appreciate poetry, and murderers get nonfiction, biographies, I would think. Biographies of famous British people, mostly. The Tudor kings or something.”
    A moment later, the door swings open with surprising silence, the bank vault opened at last. Good. A red glow spills out, its source nothing more sinister than an exit sign bolted to the ceiling, yet somehow it still pulses impending doom.
    In the moonlight, I see Perry’s eyes, a snapshot of Halloween horror because while maybe his brain has accepted that he’s here on the island, he hadn’t anticipated we’d actually go in the prison.
    I say, “I oiled the door Monday night. It’s more work than you would think being the Human Ghost.”
    From within his ski mask, Perry shakes his head from side to side, like a kid refusing vegetables.
    I step inside and reach my hand back to him. Already, red light devours half of my body.
    He says, “No.”
    “Cross this threshold, my king. We can do this.”
    He looks at me, and I think at this second his brain tenders its resignation, collapsing under stress. With no remaining faculty for resisting, he takes my hand and allows me to pull him inside and push the door closed. The mechanism clicks locked.
    Bathed in the red light, I kiss him deeply, spooling a different light into him, one that he needs, all my love, to survive this next challenge. Perry breathes sharply, but he’s trying to soften his rapid breathing, so we kiss more naturally after a moment, lips and mask fabric creating an interesting friction. Soon I feel a warm pressure in his lips that suggests he’s at last feeling this, maybe even enjoying it.
    I grip the back of his head and kiss him so hard that we’re both statues. After a half minute, I break it off and he whispers, “Damn.”
    I tug his hand. He nods with a sexy confidence.
    “Take off your ski mask,” I say.
    He complies, and we tuck them into our back pockets.
    He takes my hand, and unless I’m mistaken, something inside him digs this, despite the fear. We’re two adventurers, disobedient school kids who have abandoned the tour. We tread with silent footsteps up and down the sullen galleys, occasionally reminding each other of