The Safe Way

Mark's asshole throbbed as he picked out the five biggest cucumbers on the shelf, bagged them, and threw them delicately into his shopping basket. His semi-hardon only grew stronger as he thought of the night ahead: cucumbers were so much better than dildos because you didn't have to wash them off when you were done and could even eat them. Until he saw an unmistakable platinum bowl-cut peeping over the mountain of onions just beyond the rows of cucumbers in front of him. "Warden Randall," he yelled.

The short watermelon of a woman revealed herself fully, a plastic bag in one hand, a tie-twist in the other. She nodded. Then nodded again. "Mr. Dennison."

"There you go with that fucking nodding again. You got Tourette's or OCD or something?"

"No, I don't, Mr. Dennison. I think it's best that we don't speak-"

"Why not?"

Warden Randall's eyes narrowed behind the puffy fat of her eyelids. "Because I know what you did. You're a stone-cold killer-"

"What are you talking about?"

"I know you murdered Officer Lickies and Officer Swallow and Washington and Jackson." She nodded once, then stopped her head abruptly and stepped a foot closer to Mark. "And Licebringer too. I swear, if I didn't know for sure that Anderson escaped, I would know that you murdered him too-"

"Whoa, wait a minute. Are you accusing me of something here?"

"Yes, and you know damn well-"

"And what evidence do you have?"

Warden Randall shook her head and looked down to the bag and tie-twist in her hands, which she was continuously threading through her stubs of fingers. "That's just it. I know you did it. But what I don't know is how you did it without leaving anything behind. No hair, no fingerprints, no semen, no DNA at all. Sometimes, I think you're-"

"What?"

Randall shook her head, her wispy, evenly-cut hairs falling around her ears and forehead. "Nevermind. I tell you, though, if Assistant Warden Beering wasn't so convinced you didn't murder them, I would launch a full investigation-"

"How is old Hector, that fucking fruit?"

"His name is Hectric-"

"Yeah, whatever." Mark giggled. "How'd he get a name like that? Can you imagine how many times he got beat up growing up?"

Randall stymied a smile and began to nod. "It was nice seeing you, Mr. Dennison-"

"Fucking call me Mark already-"

"Okay, Mark." She placed the knotted bag and twist-tie in the child-seat of her shopping basket. "But let me warn you: never approach me again-"

"What the fuck, Pam?"

"Listen-"

"Ah, come on, can't we be friends?" Mark pointed to his basket. "I mean, let's have dinner tonight, me, you, and your daughter-"

"Leave my daughter out of it." Randall's face contained all the blood in her gelatinous body, a cherry on top of a ruined, sloppy, vanilla sundae. "I swear-"

"You swear a lot-"

"Mark, I'm telling you-"

"No, I'm telling you. I think we could make good friends. And we could even invite old Hector-"

"Hectric-"

"Whatever. We could even invite him over, too. Like a family, the four of us. Especially since it's obvious you two are-"

Randall's fists balled at her sides. She stomped one foot that made her grocery cart rattle. "I don't care what you know about me. But I tell you, I don't take kindly to threats-"

"Who's threatening anybody?" Mark grinned, his semi-hardon scraping against the zipper of jeans. "Just tell me one thing-"

"What?"

"Where do you live?"

Homecoming

The sun's always brighter on the outside, the air's always cleaner, the water's always clearer. Mark squinted his eyes toward the cab that pulled in front of him and got in, his unlaundered jeans and T-shirt, which he hadn't worn in 18 months, crinkling fresher against the leather seats than any of his jail overalls ever would have. "Ferguson Court," he said.

"You gots it, brother-"

Mark shoved his right hand into his pocket and grabbed the $125 he'd made during his time in Cedarville State Prison as an upstanding citizen-inmate with no behavior infractions on his record. He laughed.

"Damn, you a young'un for that place-"

"Seventeen-"

"Damn!" The black man's yellowed eyes met Mark's in the rearview. "What the fuck you do-"

"Drugs-"

"Musta been a lot of drugs-"

"Yeah, they got me with a kingpin charge. Tried me as an adult when I was sixteen-"

"That's fucked up, man-"

"Yeah. Wasn't even my shit-"

"No way-"

"Way-"

"How much you get-"

"Twenty years-"

"Damn!"

"With all but two years suspended. Got out in eighteen on good behavior-"

"And just in time too. People gettin' whacked left and right in that motherfucker-"

"Yeah, it's scary-"

"You goin' back to school?"

"Nah, college. Got my GED in Cedarville-"

The man's eyes widened, then narrowed as he glanced down at the radio. "You like this?"

"Turn it up-"

The man laughed, the gray hairs on his head dancing with the black shiny ones. "You gots it-"

"They can't fuck with me now
Huh? Fuck with me now
No, they can't fuck with me now
Can't fuck with me now
Let's go"

As the yellow Crown Victoria slid around the corner into Ferguson Court, the cabbie turned down the radio. "Which one?"

"That one-" Mark pointed out the window.

"All right, man-" The cabbie looked out the passenger side window at the blonde woman standing on the porch of Mark's house. He turned to Mark with a giggle that flashed his platinum grille. "Smart, my man. Got that pussy all lined up-"

Mark looked out and laughed. "Yep, all lined up." He grabbed all the money from his pocket and gave it to the cabbie in a clump of green and gray. Then got out and hurried to the stoop, where he met Sarah, weaved one hand through her hair, pulled her head back, and slipped his tongue into her open, waiting mouth.