It ain’t home and I’m not trying to make no new friends in here, but I’m friendly. I’ve just been making a list of all the things I’m going to try to do, once I’m free. I hope nobody don’t find it and take it.

“Here you go, Lewis. You said you wanted to read some of these when I finished, right, man?”

This dude named Hector, who happens to be black and Puerto Rican but looks plain black to me, is handing me two entrepreneur magazines that tell you how to develop a business plan and what to do with your ideas. He’s in here for two thousand dollars’ worth of parking tickets. “Thanks, Hector. I’ll give ’em back in a couple of days.”

“Keep ’em, man,” he says. “Once you know it, you know it.”

The nurse yells out that it’s time for medication and everybody who’s got a prescription or takes any other kinda pills goes over and she gives ’em to us. I get my three Tylenol, drop my magazines off in my dorm, and take a quick shower. When I get back, I read one of the magazines cover to cover till the TVs and radios shut off and the lights go black. I weave my fingers together like I’m about to pray, and I’m thinking about what I would pray for if I was about to pray, but then I just close my eyes and lay here and pretend like I’m twelve years old and this is sleepaway camp and I pray I don’t get eaten up by mosquitoes when we go fishing in the morning. Or maybe I’ll try canoeing out in the middle of that lake.

“Price, wake up. Wake up.”

When I turn around I see the deputy standing in front of my bunk. “Yeah?” I say.

“You need to get up.”

“Why? What’s going on? What time is it?” I ask.

“It’s about four-thirty. You have a sister named Paris, is that correct?”

“Yeah,” I say.

“Well, she called from London and said there’s a family emergency, and we’re not sure what that emergency is, but she’s going to be calling you back in exactly thirteen minutes from now. You need to get dressed so I can take you out to one of the interview rooms, where the switchboard will ring the phone when she calls. You can just pick it up and talk to her from in there. Is that all right?”

“Yeah, I guess. She didn’t say what kind of emergency it was?”

“No, she didn’t. She’ll tell you herself. Now, maybe you wanna hurry up and get dressed.”

“All right.” I slip on a pair of sweats and a T-shirt and follow him out through the pod down a hallway to the visitors’ center, where they put me in Interview Room B.

I’m just sitting here, not knowing what the hell is going on, and I’m scared to even think what it could be, so I just try to make my mind go absolutely blank and keep it like that. I even close my eyes, so I don’t see nothing but gray space and I don’t care if the deputy sees me doing this or not. When that phone rings, I don’t jump. I answer it on the second ring. “Hello.”