Dance of the Bones

John didn’t have many happy memories from his childhood, but pot roast was one of them. Amos Warren had made killer pot roast. When they were out on a scavenging trip, he’d cook it in a cast--iron Dutch oven, keeping it bubbling for hours over a bed of mesquite coals. When they were in town, he’d use a different Dutch oven, a shiny aluminum one, to cook the roast on top of the stove. Although John watched him do it often enough, he never quite mastered the art of making the stuff, but the cooks at the prison came surprisingly close.

Even on days when he wasn’t feeling one hundred percent, John still made the effort to go to the dining room for dinner on Saturdays. By the time a tray came to his cell it was usually dead cold. That evening, even though John was physically drained by his long encounter with Brandon Walker earlier in the day, he asked for an attendant to come wheel him to the dining room. He would have preferred having Aubrey do the job, but Aubrey’s shift ended at three. By dinnertime, he was long gone.

Jason, the kid who came to get him, was a new hire. He was competent enough, but he was young and naive. He also talked a blue streak, chattering away like a magpie. John didn’t pay much attention because he didn’t want to get involved. There was no point. He already knew the guy would be a short--timer.

A strict seating hierarchy was maintained in the dining room. The various gangs stuck together, with their members sitting at predetermined tables. The far corner of the room held the tables for inmates who weren’t necessarily affiliated with any of the other groups. It was a form of exile that meant the -people who sat there were farther away from the food lines and the trash cans than anyone else. They were also farthest from the door.

John liked to think of his usual table, the most isolated one in the room, as a United Nations of sorts. It certainly wasn’t the safest location, due primarily to the presence of two Anglo child molesters, one older—-a lifer—-and one several decades younger. The two weren’t necessarily friends, but they stuck together to watch each other’s backs. Everyone else maintained a certain distance, because they knew, without having to say so, who was wearing a target and who wasn’t.

There were several arsonists in the group, including two Korean brothers, twins, who had specialized in burning down dry cleaning establishments, and a Vietnamese guy who had torched his own nail salon. His ex--wife, who happened to be inside the salon at the time, perished, which meant her ex--husband was there for a stretch, twenty--five to life. In addition, there were several unaffiliated Indians at the table—-a taciturn Hopi, a San Carlos Apache who wasn’t friendly with anyone, and a recently arrived young guy who didn’t talk much but who was most likely, John thought, Tohono O’odham in origin.

The Vietnamese guy, who went by the name of Sam, was the one with whom John had the most in common. He was the best educated of the bunch and had taken to heart John’s suggestion that he read his way through the encyclopedia as a way of passing the time. He was enthusiastic about it and was already halfway through volume C. Their occasional and mostly brief dinnertime chats often centered on esoteric things the two had learned from their individual courses of study.

Jason was still chatting away when he parked John’s wheelchair at the end of the table. That was his spot because climbing over the picnic--style bench seating was impossible for him.

“Okay,” Jason said. “Gonna go have a smoke. I’ll be back for you in fifteen.”