Prisoners must dress in orange T-shirts, orange gym shorts, and orange sneakers so they are easier to recognize should they escape. Townies tend not to dress in all-orange clothing to avoid looking like a prisoner, but Esther brought me a similar orange getup to wear in solidarity during my visit to the Gene. When Tim Lu sees my outfit, he says, “Oh, how adorable, the victim identifies with the Grade F.” Tom Lu unlocks the door leading inside the jail and takes me down a series of hallways. I carry a peach pie, which Thelma made for Johnny to entice him to start eating again.

The building’s interior looks as though an earthquake of at least six on the Richter scale has struck. Usually buildings can repair themselves, but the Gene certainly seems less efficient in this regard. Doorways are so crooked that doors are beveled to close properly, deep cracks run across walls, patches of plaster are missing from ceilings, floorboards are loose and squeaky, and nail heads jut out of them to trip us up. “Watch your step,” Tom says, pointing out a nail head or two. He leads me past the offices of the prison guards, who wear their purple armbands. At the end of another hall is a door marked WARDEN.

Tom knocks and calls out, “Ms. Finkle, Mr. Merciful is here.” He leads me into the office but does not leave till the warden shoos him away. Lydia Finkle is a doe-faced, straw-haired girl. She wears a sweatshirt inside out so the fluffy cashmere-like side is exposed. Pinned to her sweater is a badge illustrating a campfire. I do not know how to interpret these direct references to my letter. Is she being flippant or supportive? She sits in a swivel chair cranked to its highest height, and consequently her feet do not touch the floor. She is swinging them, and I wish she would stop.

Reginald Washington is also here. I tell myself not to stare at his splotchy skin, but it is difficult because I find his vitiligo beautiful. It reminds me of a jigsaw puzzle or an island nation such as Malaysia. The council president is wearing a striped necktie over an E = mc² T-shirt. He also has a lime-colored pick wedged into his Afro.

He is perched on one end of a threadbare couch and motions for me to sit too. I take a seat on the opposite end and hold the pie in my lap. The pie contains a nail file because Esther insisted Johnny could use a little levity. Esther and Thelma are waiting in the lobby and have suggested certain things to tell Johnny. He should stay hopeful, for instance, because we will do our utmost to free him. He should stick to the truth at his trial. The jury, we are sure, will realize he is no longer the boy he might have been in America.

Reginald says to me, “I want you to know I am personally opposed to this meeting. It sets a dangerous precedent.”

The warden sighs and stops swinging her feet. “Oh, Reginald,” she says. “Let’s not go down that road again.”

“It’s a form of blackmail,” he says, wagging a finger at her.

I turn to my council president. “How did you feel when you first came to Town?” I ask. “Did you come here different from the boy you used to be? Did Zig change you in any way? Did he make you more confident? More adjusted? I imagine a boy with your condition must have attracted his share of cruelty back in America.”

Reginald exhales dramatically. “What is your point, Oliver?” he says. “That Zig adjusts all of us for the better? That he did the same for John Henzel? Well, that’s your opinion, one that other people—like a certain Charles Lindblom—may not share.”

The warden cuts in: “Reginald, we shouldn’t say what other witnesses may or may not think.”

Reginald gives her a pouty look.

“We should proceed with the visit,” the warden says. “The Grade F is waiting.”

So we rise, and the warden extends her hand to me. I shake it quickly. Her palm is dry, as though she rubs chalk dust over it. “I was a fan of cashmere,” she says, looking me in the eye. “But that was another lifetime ago when I was a very different kind of girl.”

Reginald guides me through the hallways of the ground floor to a staircase leading to the upper floors. When we reach the fourth floor, I get a sinking feeling because I notice that heavy furniture has been placed in front of certain doors. The doors are not barred like in a jail in America. They are the same kind of solid wooden doors found in any dorm in heaven.

As we walk down the hall, one prisoner shouts from his room, “Hey, you guys, I need clean sheets. I wet the bed again.”

Three jailers in armbands slide a dresser away from Johnny’s door. One jailer is Ringo, the British fellow who dragged me out of the gymnasium. He nods at me and says, “You watch yourself in there. That chap is unpredictable. He threw his breakfast tray at me this morning. I brought him another one.”

Once the dresser is out of the way, Reginald taps on the door. “Hello there, John. It’s President Washington. I’m here with your visitor.”

Reginald unlocks the simple push-button doorknob, swings the door open, and strides inside.

Johnny Henzel is sitting on a mattress placed directly on the concrete floor near the far wall. I feel both glad and glum—glad because here he is, alive and kicking, and glum because he looks paler than I.

“I’ll be your countdowner,” Reginald says. “I’ll wait here in the doorway and time your visit.”

Johnny motions me over and pats the mattress. I kick off my running shoes and join him there. He is wearing the standard orange shorts and T-shirt, and orange-ringed socks. His eyes are dark and sunken, his lips dry and cracked. He runs a hand through his bristly hair.

“Hey, Boo,” he says, his voice hoarser than on the night he arrived in Town. “What’s new?”

“Hello, Johnny.”

I set the peach pie on the floor beside a plastic tray containing a bowl of Raisin Bran, a glass of carrot juice, an apple, and a few figs on a paper plate. Maybe this will be the meal he will eat at the end of our visit. Beside the tray is a sketch pad, along with a wooden cigar box.

I wonder if I should hug Johnny. I am usually allergic to hugs, but ought I make an exception? Johnny gives me a guarded look, as though he is a little afraid of me, or shy.

The room is the same size as our dorm room at the Frank and Joe, but other than a small chair-desk, there is no furniture. A few orange T-shirts are stacked in a corner with balled-up socks piled atop them. The walls are crisscrossed with cracks. The tiny window is too high to look out of, and I suppose it does not slide open. Off the main room is a closet-size space containing a toilet and a pedestal sink.

“Listen, Boo,” Johnny whispers, leaning close. He does not smell oniony, so the jailers must prod him into showering. “Take a peek inside my pencil case. There’s something I want you to see, but I don’t want the jailers to know about it. Understand?”

I glance at the cigar box. Various dog breeds are printed on it: poodles, Great Danes, boxers.

“Yeah, they let me draw in the slammer,” he says a little louder so Reginald can hear. “I’d go nuts if I couldn’t draw.”

I pick up the box. I lift the lid.

Heavens! Inside, sitting on a raft of colored pencils, is Blaberus craniifer.

I shut the box. Johnny takes it from me.

My eyebrows raise. “How?” I say.

“He came out of my sink,” Johnny whispers, nodding toward his bathroom. “He followed me here like a lost dog tracking down his master. The jailers don’t know. They can’t know or they’ll take him away.”

“Seven minutes!” Reginald calls out from his post in the doorway. He is like a zoologist observing the behavior of two monkeys placed in the same cage.

“Rover has helped me find a portal.”

“A portal?” I whisper back.

“I’m getting out of here,” he says in an urgent whisper. “I’m going back home.”

“But how?” I glance around the room. “Where is this portal? The sink? You cannot fit down a sink, Johnny.”

“I can’t explain. There’s no time. But you gotta promise me something.” He grips my hands and stares me in the eyes. How dark his irises are. “Promise me that no matter what I say at the trial, you’ll go along with it.”

My stomach clenches. “What do you plan to say?”

“Just promise me. You have to. Don’t wreck this for me. Please! I’m begging you, man.” Johnny’s eyes tear up, the whites reddening. His upper lip trembles. His nose starts to run. “Please, Boo.”

“But, Johnny, who is Gunboy?” I keep my voice down. “The boy in your nightmares, who is he?”

He wipes his nose with the back of his hand.

“You wanna know?” he whispers, even hoarser now. “Gunboy is madness. My madness, your madness, everybody’s madness in this f*cking nightmare of a heaven.”

“Our madness?”

He cradles his pencil box in his lap. He speaks to it, or perhaps to his roach, when he says, “I was sick in the head. Gunboy was the mad me, the crazy me. He’s been hunting me for a long time. Even back in America, he was after me.”

“But you are not Gunboy anymore, are you?”

“Maybe I am. Maybe I’ll always be a little bit mental.” He looks at me again, eyes still glistening.

Reginald calls out, “Two minutes!”

“I’ll explain everything later, okay? Just promise to back me up at the trial. Don’t contradict what I say. And don’t tell nobody you’re doing this. Not even Thelma and Esther.”

I simply stare at him. I do not know what to say.

“Promise me, Boo!” he says louder. “You owe me.”

What do I owe this boy, this Gunboy? I do not know, but I nod nonetheless. “I promise,” I say.

“Time’s up!” Reginald shouts. He strides into the cell and grabs me by the arm. “Come, come,” he says, digging his fingernails into my biceps. I do not move, so he wrenches me up, and I cry out in pain.

In a flash, Johnny grabs Thelma’s peach pie. He rises and smashes it into the side of Reginald’s head. Peach preserves smear across the president’s cheek. Piecrust sticks to his E = mc². A nail file and an aluminum plate fall to his feet.

Reginald lets go of my arm. He backs toward the door, barking, “Guards! Guards!”

“Look, Boo!” Johnny says. “A piebald covered in pie.”

“Get out, Oliver!” Reginald orders, wiping his face furiously with his hands. “Wait outside.” He points into the hall.

I stay put.

Ringo dashes into the cell and says, “Oh, what’d you do now, Johnny boy?”

“I’m sick to death of this lunacy,” Reginald says, picking peach slices off his clothes and flicking them in Johnny’s direction. “It has no place in our sweet hereafter.”

A second guard appears. Burly. A black crew cut. He walks toward Johnny, puts up his dukes, and punches him square in the nose. Johnny stumbles back and falls to the floor. I try to go to him, but Ringo grabs my arm.

The burly guard jiggles his fist and says, “Ow, that hurt.”

Johnny lies motionless on his side, blood dripping from one nostril. Then he reaches out, plucks up a peach slice lying nearby, and plops it into his mouth. “Happy now, j*ckoffs?” he mumbles. “I’m eating.”