Chapter Three #2
He snorted. Jenny also didn’t eat gluten. Something about inflammation markers and the red tones in her skin.
“Can’t, or won’t?”
“Can’t. He’s got that gluten disease. You know, the one that gives you crazy shits.”
“Celiac?”
“I think one of my cousins has it. My mother stopped inviting her to holiday parties on account of how she’s always destroying the plumbing.”
He set down his notepad. “Celiac? Really ?”
The guy was a wall of muscle. No way was his ultimate weakness a wheat protein.
“Got it straight from Norm. He tried to petition the warden on your boyfriend’s behalf, but she says the only special meal order the prison does is kosher.”
“Will you stop calling him that?”
Rat leaned against the bed bars. “Apparently, he’s sensitive to all kinds of shit. Sugar, dairy and soy. They make his joints swell up with some kind of food arthritis. A regular prima donna. ”
Rat waited, but when he didn’t get a reaction, he pushed off the bed. “You’re no fun at all. Why do I bother with you?”
He wasn’t listening. No gluten. No sugar, no dairy, no soy. What did that leave him? He waited for Rat to go away, then climbed down.
Twenty minutes later he kicked Eli’s bed.
It had been a day and a half since the library incident, and he hadn’t spoken a word to him since.
He’d thought Eli’s perseverance would continue, but maybe the man was learning about personal space.
He knew he ought to be happy about that, but the change unnerved him.
He didn’t like things that didn’t come with explanations .
Eli didn’t open his eyes. “Hi, Samuel.”
“How’d you know it was me?”
“Your particular brand of hospitality.” The man paused. “Also, you smell like Reese’s cups.”
“You can smell that from here?”
He took a somewhat discreet sniff of himself, but all he could detect was the shitty prison detergent.
“Hunger sharpens the sense.”
He was appalled . “You still haven’t—It’s been over 48 hours!”
“I’ve done 100 hour fasts before.”
That boggled the mind. “ Why ?”
“To rest my gut after glutenings, mostly,” Eli said. “Why is it that you can ask questions of me, but won’t answer any of mine?”
True to form, he ignored the question and upended his new purchases onto the bed. Eli’s eyes sprang open. “What—”
“No more fasting.”
Eli picked up one of the packages on his chest. Sardines.
“They’ve got Omega 3’s, right? That’s good for inflammation. There’s some salmon there, too, in those pouches.”
Eli sat up. Packages and pouches slithered off him and onto the bedspread.
Suddenly nervous, Samuel found himself rambling. “I wasn’t sure if your commissary account was up and running yet, and the stuff I gave you before were things you couldn’t eat, so I—”
The man was smiling. Not smirking. Not grinning. Honest to God smiling, with his teeth flashing, and eyes crinkling, and Samuel knew he was in trouble.
“You’re amazing,” Eli said, as if he hadn’t just ruined a man’s life. “Thank you. And you’re right. My commissary account still isn’t linked up yet.”
As if that wasn’t enough, Eli then swept a space clear on the bed and pointed his invitation.
It was the smile Samuel would blame later.
He was still dazed by it, and not in any fit state to make reasonable decisions.
He sat where indicated, more pliant and cooperative than he’d ever been in his life.
Eli was impressed. “This is a better haul than I was expecting. I might actually survive on this, even if Nathaniel can’t manage the special meal order.”
Samuel was beginning to come back to himself. It was easier now that Eli was sorting through the food, like the spell of that smile had been broken—or at least weakened.
“Who’s Nathaniel?”
Eli flashed him a grin. “My murderer-hating husband.” He ripped open a bag of mixed nuts after checking the ingredients. “Don’t suppose I could trouble you to eat the M&M's out of these for me?”
He expected the man to dig in, but Eli only ate an almond, a cashew, and a peanut before setting the package down. That broke his brain a little. “Aren’t you hungry?”
Eli brought the pouch of sardines up to his mouth and ripped it open with his teeth. “Labels are useful, but they’re not foolproof. If I haven’t reacted in half an hour, I’ll eat a little more. I have to go slowly with unfamiliar brands.”
Samuel knew that if he’d gone more than two days without food, he’d have gnawed his own leg off, but there was Eli, calmly and reasonably explaining his plan, as if his stomach wasn’t eating itself to ribbons.
“Why didn’t you come to me? ”
“Hmm?”
“You knew you couldn’t eat what I bought you, and you knew they’d continue to keep screwing up the special meal thing. So why didn’t you come to me? We could have done this two days ago.”
Eli fished a sardine out with his fingers. The slimy things looked repulsive, and the smell alone was enough to knock someone out. Eli caught him staring and tilted the pouch toward him. “Pardon my rudeness. Would you like some?”
He clapped a hand over his mouth and nose and Eli laughed again.
How could even the creases around his eyes be lovely?
“Nathaniel reacts the same way. Though he can stomach them with mustard and a little hot sauce. It also helps if I toast them in a sandwich first. Do they have condiments in the commissary?”
He didn’t remove his hand until the offending pouch had been withdrawn.
“Only ketchup and mayo, though the COs will sometimes give you their leftover packets if you ask for them. Carnivore—CO Park—is your best bet, but I’ve got a collection you can dip into in the meantime.
Some are expired, but I read that expiration dates on non-perishables are arbitrary, and you can safely—what are you doing? ”
Eli had tilted the packet of sardines up to his mouth and was letting the oil drip into it. He lowered the pouch. His lips were glistening. “A calorie’s a calorie.”
“That’s rancid fish gunk.”
“Rancid fish gunk full of Omega-3’s.”
He had to swallow bile. “Your husband’s never going to kiss you again.”
Eli set the pouch down and reached for the next one. “I’ve got four years to get the taste out of my mouth, don’t worry.”
“You’ll get out in two if you keep your record clean. ”
Eli brought the next sardine to his mouth. “And we can have visits three times a week, right?”
“Unless there’s some kind of lockdown, or too few staff to supervise. It happened last Christmas, but it wasn’t one of my visiting days.”
“They split them up?”
“Chop the alphabet in half. I get Mondays and Thursdays. You get Tuesdays and Fridays. We both get Saturdays.”
“An hour, right?”
“And two hours Saturday.”
Eli smiled. “I didn’t know that. Nathaniel will be thrilled. What time are your visitors coming Saturday?”
The question threw him off. “Why?”
“We can schedule for the same time. Nathaniel wants to meet you.”
Guilt like a flagon of kerosene spilled into his brain, and with it came the image of a vengeful husband lunging at him with a broken bottle. How did Nathaniel know he was looking at his husband? But that was a stupid question. He’d just assume everyone in the prison was after him.
“Jenny usually comes at four.”
“Jenny,” Eli repeated. “Your girlfriend?”
“Of course not,” he said. And then realized his mistake. His words, and even more so, his tone had outed him more effectively than a direct confession would have.
Eli laughed when he saw his expression. “Sorry, I just wanted to see you blush again. She’s your sister, right?”
His embarrassment flashed into anger. He started to get up, but then Eli’s hands came down on his shoulders and he said, “No, no, I’ll let you throw the peanut butter as many times as you want, just don’t go. Nathaniel will kill me. ”
“Kill you?” It was that, more than the hands, that made him pause.
Eli sat back. “He says I’d better treat you well. ‘Like a goddamn prince’ was how he worded it.”
Samuel was obviously missing something. Maybe it was married-people jargon. Either way, he wanted no part in it. He pushed the hands off his shoulders. “Enjoy your fish,” he said, meaning choke on it.
Eli grinned and hefted the pouch again. “Does this mean I can start stalking you again?”
“No.”
“Don’t be like that. Are you really leaving? Do you want me to die of loneliness?”
“You seem to be good at making friends around here.”
Eli pointed a sardine at him. “You’re the only one I’d call a friend.”
His hand missed the bed rail. “I’m not your friend.”
“Is there a different word for it in prison? Maybe brothers?”
"No, just— God —You’re so weird.”
Eli popped the sardine into his mouth. “Look, if you stay, I’ll make it worth your while. Ask me anything and I’ll answer it.”
Any question? Yeah right.
“Good night, Thompson.”
“Pearson-Thompson,” the man corrected. “I wasn’t going to share Nathaniel’s name with these guys, but with you it’s all right.”
That brought the anger back. “No, it’s not alright. I’m not your friend, so keep your trust locked up inside or your husband isn’t going to sleep a wink until you get out of here. ”
He had already stalked off, but still managed to catch Eli’s, “Sleep well, Samuel.”
The fucker.