THE MEAL

If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.

—Rene Descartes

Something rapped on the metal door behind him, and Ray nearly jumped out of his seat.

“Chow time!” The deep voice reverberated through the room, and then the enormous man it belonged to pushed the door open and entered with a small cart full of pre-packaged lunches in white cardboard boxes. He set one down in front of Adem and gave him a fat, plastic spreader as his only utensil.

“Thanks, Nate,” Adem said. The man nodded with a warm smile, then turned to Ray.

“How about you, Mr. Hardt? You wanna sandwich, or would you rather eat in the cafeteria?”

Raymond pulled out his wallet. “The sandwich sounds cheaper. How much do I owe you?”

“Aww hell, I ain’t gonna’ charge you nothin’. You’re a guest, the least I can do is to give a man a sandwich. I hope you like ham, ‘cause that’s all I got left.” He sat a box down in front of Ray and pulled a full plastic utensil set out of another pouch and handed it to him. He then opened a small case on the bottom of the cart and came back up with two bottled waters, icy cold and dripping. He placed one on the table by Ray and slid the other one over to Adem.

Ray stuffed his wallet back into his pants pocket. “Well thanks…Nate, is it?”

“You got it. You boys need anything else?”

“No,” Ray said, looking over to confirm with Adem, “no, I think we’re fine. Thanks so much, Nate.”

“Sho’ thing, boss.” Nate pushed his cart around and rolled it out of the room, pulling the door closed behind him.

Ray moved to open his boxed lunch. “That sure was nice of him, huh?”

“Yeah,” said Adem, “You’d never guess he’s a convicted rapist, would you?”

He stopped and looked at Adem. “You’re telling me he’s an inmate?” Adem answered with an affirmative grunt, then began to smear mustard across the inside of his sandwich, the chain clinking on the table between his hands. Ray stood up. “I think I’m going to take a quick smoke break before eating. I’ll be back in a few.”

“Shuit yourshelf,” Adem responded, his mouth already stuffed with chips. Ray walked out of the room and closed the door, then jogged down the hallway to catch up with Nate.

“Hey, you got a minute?” he called out. Nate stopped and turned to face him.

“Of course, Mr. Hardt, anything you need.”

Ray moved close enough to speak with the man in a soft, hushed tone. “Have you been here long?”

“Oh yes,” Nate said, “be almost eight years come December.”

“How well do you know Adem?”

“Adem? Well enough I s’pose. I heard why he’s locked up in here. I also know he’s a good man deep down. Everyone in here says they good men, that they innocent, but Adem is the gen-you-wine article.”

Ray paused. “Do you think he’s...” He searched for a non-confrontational way to phrase the question.

“What? Guilty?”

“I was going to say mentally unstable, but I guess guilty works too.”

Nate ran his hand down his bushy goatee and bit his lip. “Is he guilty? Only God almighty can answer that. But, crazy?” He smiled and shook his head. “Naw, Adem ain’t crazy. Not no more than me anyway, and not no more than you.”

Ray nodded, silently considering the man’s odd response, and then held out a hand. “Thanks, Nate, you’ve been a tremendous help.” Nate grasped it briefly and offered a curt handshake before releasing.

“Any time, Mr. Hardt, any time.” He turned around and continued pushing his cart down the hallway, and Ray watched him until he turned the corner. No more crazy than me. Ray had to admit, he felt crazy sometimes. The fact that he’d cut his vacation short to visit one of the most notorious prisons in the country was proof enough of that. Granted, he was being offered the most sought after interview in the last two years, but it didn’t make him feel much better. It was just more of the same to him, another chapter in a life he couldn’t seem to leave behind.

After a decades-long career working as a journalist for the New York Times, Ray had come out of early retirement when he was asked to write a book about one of the stories he once covered. An insurance adjuster named Rob Gilmann living in upstate New York, in a seemingly random fit of madness, had murdered his wife and seven-year-old son as they slept. Both of them were found in their beds, decapitated and sexually violated (in that order, the coroner later determined). Gilmann pled not-guilty, but was quickly convicted based on the overwhelming amount of evidence against him. He maintained his innocence in prison, and years later when a friend in the publishing industry asked Ray if he would be interested in writing about Gilmann’s story, he couldn’t resist. After numerous visits to interview the man in prison, it became obvious to Ray that Gilmann was indeed insane. He claimed that on the night of the murders, a pair of angelic beings visited him to warn of an imminent plague on mankind brought about by their displeased creator. They told him that the only way to satiate his wrath would be to offer a blood sacrifice just as they once did in the days of the Old Testament, that he must slay his family to appease the Lord. When he refused, the angels possessed his spirit and forced him to perform the vile acts on his family as he looked on helplessly, and then left him. The authorities didn’t discover their bodies until the next day after detaining Gilmann, who’d tried to kill himself by walking into freeway traffic, causing an eight-car pileup in the process but somehow miraculously surviving.

Ray didn’t believe a word of it, of course. What rational-thinking human being would? Still, the story was intriguing, and he knew that he wanted to write something unique, something that would stand out. That’s when he had the idea to tell the story from Gilmann’s perspective, as if it were the absolute, irrefutable truth. Perhaps angels and supernatural plagues didn’t really exist, but in Ray’s book? Oh yes, they would be as real as apple pie and sunshine.

Though the publisher had some misgivings about the books presentation, Ray eventually convinced them to give it a chance, and when it was finally released, it became an instant runaway bestseller. After that, every publisher in the country was knocking down Ray’s door to sign a long-term contract and write about someone else, someone even more sinister and awful and exciting than Gilmann. Convicts were contacting Ray every day, begging him to come and hear them out. Ray obliged, but only for the most promising tales of woe. Thus, a new career was born. He continued writing hit after hit, and hadn’t stopped since.

Sometimes people would ask him if he felt guilty about presenting his stories in the way he did, knowing that they were gross perversions of the truth. He would always answer the same way. Even if we didn’t agree with it, it was their truth, and they deserved to have a voice as much as anyone. That’s what he told them anyway. It wasn’t a philosophy to which Ray actually subscribed. As far as he was concerned, the “truth” was whatever delivered the best sales and the fattest advance. He didn’t believe a word that Gilmann or any of the other pieces of garbage he interviewed over the years told him. They were a means to an end. That was all. Each successive book only served to harden him into an even more extreme skeptic, every new story wearing away his empathy like a river wears down a pebble stone, until there was nothing left but a raw, hardened core.

After his sixth book came out, a tale of a serial killer in Alaska who claimed that he was unwillingly under the control of the Russian government, Ray discovered that his wife had been having an affair with the friend who had initially convinced him to enter the world of publishing. She told Ray that his time on the road had left her alone and craving attention, but that she wanted to work through it and stay together. Ray refused. He regretted it every day since.

There weren’t supposed to be any more books after that. No more interviews, no more trips. Ray was done. He was in the middle of a long-term vacation in Florida—one which he was seriously considering making more permanent—when the call came from Angola. At first he said no, but there was something about this one that he couldn’t stop thinking about. It wasn’t the opportunity to interview one of the most infamous murderers of this century, or the chance to get back into the publishing business. There was something else. Ray couldn’t shake the feeling that Adem Comeaux’s story would be different. He wanted…no, needed it to be true, ravenous for an opportunity to finally justify his many years of hard work. More importantly, it would prove that he hadn’t lost his wife for nothing. This would make it all worth it.

Now, he was sure that he’d been dead wrong.

Ray paced back and forth in the prison hallway, reaching up and habitually rubbing his bald head, then pulled out his cell phone and punched in a number.

After a few rings, a sultry female voice on the other end answered, “Duncan and Sons, Private Investigators, how can I help you?”

“Martha, it’s Ray.”

“Hey Ray-Ray, how’s Miami treating you? You soaking up some sun?”

“It was fantastic, if only you knew. But I’m actually not there anymore. I’m in the middle of a big interview and I need a favor.”

“Anything for you Ray, you name it.”

“Can you look up someone by the name of...” Ray concentrated for a moment and then came up with the name. “Lanston Conroy. That’s LANston, no G in the middle. He used to be a history professor at LSU, and now he might be living in Terrance, Louisiana.”

“Lanston Conroy,” she repeated, “got it. Anything specific you need to know?”

“No, the basics will do fine. I have a hunch and just need to check it out. If I need more I’ll get back to you. Thanks, Martha, you’re a sweetheart.”

“Sure thing, Ray. Maybe you can pay me back by taking me with you next time you hit the beach, huh?”

Ray laughed. “I’ll keep that in mind.” She hung up with him, and Ray slid the phone back in his pocket. Without hesitating, he passed the two guards and walked back into the conference room where Adem had nearly finished his sandwich and sat down. “So what did you say?”

Adem looked up, confused. “Hmm?”

“You said this guy you met at the bar, the professor, he told you that your grandfather had seen or heard this so-called demon. What did you say?”

“You get right to the point, don’t you, Ray?” Adem finished chewing, then wiped his mouth and pushed his boxed lunch to the side.

“Well?”

“Well what? I left.”

“You left?”

“Hell yeah I left. Ray, if some stranger approached you in a bar and told you what Lanston told me, what would you do?”

Ray shrugged and held up his hands. “I don’t know, Adem, I really don’t. I guess maybe I would have left, too. But then again, I’ve never heard the fields singing to me in the middle of the night, either.”

Adem pointed a finger in Ray’s direction. “That’s a very good point, and don’t think for a second that it slipped my mind as I was walking out of that bar. I was pissed off, sure, but on some level I couldn’t help but wonder if...” He squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

“If he was right?”

“Yeah,” Adem said, “if he was right.”

The unopened lunch box still sat in front of him, and Ray realized he hadn’t yet eaten. He looked at his watch and briefly debated calling off the entire interview and heading home. He could see where this was going. Yet, like Adem, he also couldn’t help but wonder. What if?

“Okay,” Ray said. He opened up the box and pulled out the large ham sandwich. He was here anyway, so the least he could do was take advantage of a free lunch and listen for a while longer until Martha got back to him. He picked up his pen in the other hand. “So what happened after that?”

Adem swallowed and breathed deeply through his nose. “After that, everything went downhill, fast.”