The Enchanted by Rene Denfeld Page B

me in a time like this. I hold their pages to my face, and I howl inside that I cannot decipher their signals. It is all gibberish. And without this avenue out, my entire world comes crashing down.
    Once in such a time, I slit my wrists with my teeth and rubbed my wrists on the walls like some crazy Manson killer. That didn’t end well. The guards cursed and busted in my door and dragged me out by the hair to the infirmary. The infirmary is a place where they pipe in poisoned air, hoping you will die. No one wants to waste money on psychiatric medicine here, or cancer treatments, or any treatments. The taxpayers don’t want to waste their money saving the lives of killers, and I don’t blame them. The infirmary wards are filled with men yipping with the late-stage pain of cancer or bleeding through their bowels or raging in diabetic deliriums. They kept me strapped to a table for days until I got sores from the rubbing of my shoulders drumming the cot. I still have the scars on my shoulder blades, like angel wings that never exploded.
    Now when these dark times happen, I curl into a ball on my cot and make a cape with my blanket. I remind myself I am not dust, but I should be. I tell myself I am made of the same cells as life itself even if I am a mistake.
    I pretend it is rain I hear, crying down the gutters, and not the wet slap of flesh or the dark laughter in the cells of the Hall of Lifers far above me, or the crying of a boy in pain.
    T he white-haired boy has been in the infirmary twice, getting sewn up like a torn doll. When he appears to eat in the mess, he looks like someone broke his limbs from the inside.
    He never sits with Risk and his cronies. That would be unthinkable. He sits with the other punks at the worst table in the mess. The men at that table are broken, and even the kindest among us treat them like refuse. The white-haired boy sits with the others as if he is not there. He stops talking. He eats his mush and gray sponge meat in silence.
    Days and weeks pass. And then one day a guard appears at the cell door. Without ceremony, he opens the door and gestures to the white-haired boy. When the boy looks at Risk as if to see if it is true, Risk doesn’t look up from where he lies on his bunk.
    Risk had his payment, and now the treat is over. Well, mostly over. The open playtime is over. Risk needs to make another call to the yes telephone if he wants another fresh cellie.
    The white-haired boy cannot believe his luck. He bolts from the cell, too nervous even to gather his kit. With each step down the hall, the slick sweat of relief breaks out more on him. He can feel the rough stones again beneath his feet.
    The same old ancient fart is in the cell, wheezing like nothing ever happened. The boy sits on his bunk in a sweaty daze. His whole body, his entire soul, hurts. It’s over, he thinks. Thank God it is over.
    But the next day he finds out it is never over.
    He goes to mess like any other inmate. Only he isn’t any other inmate, not anymore and never again. He could be transferred to another prison, and somehow they, too,would find out. It is amazing how the prison grapevine travels. He tries to carry his tray to a table where one of his shop classmates sits, and he is met with killer eyes. He turns to another table where everyone gives him the cold eye. Rebuffed, he backpedals. There is a moment of icy uncertainty as he stands in the middle of mess, the tray held in sweating hands. Finally, he walks forward to the only table he has known. The men there clear a place for him silently. Behind them, Risk and his crew laugh and turn away.
    After lunch, the white-haired boy walks out on the yard. He doesn’t know where to go. He goes to the baseball diamond and stands there for a while, watching a few guys enjoy the honor of playing with the only ball. They don’t invite him to join. He walks around the track, stopping to look at the tiny corner of the yard where the old men