A Certain Hunger by Chelsea G. Summers

A Certain Hunger by Chelsea G. Summers

Author:Chelsea G. Summers
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Unnamed Press
Published: 2020-03-15T00:00:00+00:00


11

Lingua con le Olive

“A kiss is the beginning of cannibalism,” said Georges Bataille, or maybe he didn’t. I haven’t read the book this quote is supposed to appear in, Erotism: Death and Sensuality, but perhaps I will. I suspect I’d find it interesting, though I don’t know that Bataille’s book would pass the prison’s censors. They’d likely take one look at the title and pull it (while letting far worse tomes slip through the cracks. We’re allowed twenty-five books of our own here in prison, and they circulate like rumors. Truth be told, most Bedford Hills inmates have terrible literary taste. They love Fifty Shades of Grey and Danielle Steele. Mein Kampf, if you can believe it. The complete works of Stephen King. The Diary of Anne Frank—she knows about living in close, unsparing quarters with people you don’t like; it’s an unsurprising favorite. Flannery O’Connor’s stories, tellingly, have a following. As do Sylvia Plath’s writings, because what con doesn’t feel drawn to a melodramatic portrayal of adolescence. If there’s a single thread that runs through the fabric of the penitentiary, it’s that of arrested development).

Here are a few things I’ve gleaned from being a penitentiary librarian: prisoners love self-help books. They glom on to religious narratives as drowning rats to the flotsam of a sinking ship. Cons do, in fact, judge a book by its cover; an unsympathetic author’s picture is enough to dissuade a convict from reading it. They are credulous with regard to titles. Most find great disappointment in Of Human Bondage; a very few will, however, enjoy it.

The incarcerated, by and large, read books that comfort them, which makes them not very different from the world outside. Inmates, like conservatives who strictly watch Fox news or liberals who mainline MSNBC, are vested in their own convictions, by which I mean their opinions, not their sentences—everyone here is innocent, everyone but me. You never see as many innocent people as you do in prison. Everyone here is stuck in the limbo of their own appeal, buffeted in eternal circles with their arms wrapped around sheaves of legal paper. The bubble-wrap of self-delusion swaddles all convicts; they think they’re this close to being sprung free. Almost all are wrong. I myself find serenity in accepting my fate. The unapologetically guilty woman sleeps soundly at night.

“Is this fig?” Gil asked, eyeing the slice of torta limone on his plate.

“Of course not, darling,” I said. “It’s quince.”

Gil took a bite, smiled with satisfaction, chewed, swallowed, and immediately put another forkful of torta to his mouth. Two minutes later, his hands around his throat, his breathing ragged, Gil’s face turned red as arterial spray, then the sanguine hue seeped away, and bloomed a mauve, lavender almost. It was interesting to watch Gil’s skin grow a sweaty gloss and a pallid hue. It was like a sunset, but with motion. Gil looked at me with pleading eyes. I have mentioned Gil was allergic to figs, or perhaps I have not.

“Epi!” Gill gasped and reached out his hands in the universal gesture of supplication.



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