The Tower

His voice came low and he articulated each word fully, playing with it in his mouth before releasing it to the air. "Welcome back, my child. Welcome to the cage. At first I didn't think you belonged here. But now I've seen you sleep and I know. I know you do. No one in here sleeps, and it's not the sound, it's not the-" he gestured grandly-"ambiance. And it sure as hell's not our consciences. You see, those of us in the Tower, we 'Boat Pokey boys,' we're different. We've seen too much to sleep. We know too much to sleep. What do you know, my child? What do you see?"

"Nothing," Allander said. "I don't see anything."

"BULLSHIT!" Spade boomed. The word echoed through the Tower. No one yelled for him to shut up, and the lapping water outside filled the silence. His voice dropped back to its deep whisper. "I see you turning and rolling and panting, and it's not from jackin' off. What do you see in your dreams, my child? What do you see in your heart of hearts?"

Allander remained quiet.

"Is it the clowns? The ones you're always drawing? There?" He pointed at Allander's drawing. Allander glanced over at it, amazed that Spade could make it out through the darkness.

In the drawing, an enormous clown loomed over the horizon of what appeared to be a medieval castle on a hill. The clown had dismantled one of the castle's towers and held it menacingly in its spidery fingers. Its long fingernails were wrapped around the tower, and a small maiden, hanging from a window, shrieked for help. The clown had a large, painted grin on its face. Its expression was that of a fat child about to indulge in an ice cream cone. The artwork was spectacular; the intricate details betrayed the labored minutes Allander had spent hovering over the paper.

"No," he replied.

Spade drew air in loudly through his teeth. "Clowns to the left of me, rapists to my right, here I am, stuck in the Tower with ya'll." He laughed. "Tell me, my child, why are you too good to talk to the rest of us murderers and molesters?"

Allander did not reply.

"I know your story. We all know your story. You're probably the most famous one in here. All the attention you got in court because of your-what'd the judge call it?-'environmental conditioning'?" He sounded out the syllables of "environmental," making it sound like en-vi-ron-mental.

"But you proved them wrong, didn't you, child? When you look inside, you know, you know like we all know. You know that even if you missed your childhood"-he paused, searching for the right word-"honeymoon, you know you'd still be a twisted, sick motherfucker. Now don't you?"

"How should I presume?" Allander chuckled softly, as if to himself, running his hands through his hair. He lifted his head, and for the first time, Spade caught a glimpse of what was behind his eyes. It made even him draw back, ever so slightly.

Allander continued quietly, but his voice warbled as if under great strain. "You think you can measure the range, the depth of my sickness?" He shook his head slightly. "I don't think you want to walk that landscape." His eyes darted back and forth, flashing over Spade's face, trying to gain entrance to his mind. He pried at it through Spade's eyes, his nose, his mouth.

"You wish what? You wish to explore the common bonds we share as outsiders in our society?" He waved an arm in the air for emphasis, his voice drenched in sarcasm. "Well, then, that much we have in common. Hooray for your insightfulness. But I'm afraid that's where our similarities end. You're a beast who beats the walls of its prison, but what would you do if you were free? What heights, pray tell, are you just waiting to scale?" Allander shook his head, making sounds of disappointment deep in his throat. "I must confess, darling, I find you a bit tiresome."

Spade's upper lip withdrew disdainfully from his teeth, and he scowled as his fury bubbled to the surface. "YOU MOTHERFUCKER! DO YOU KNOW WHO THE FUCK I AM? WHO THE FUCK YOU'RE TALKING TO?"

Allander remained completely still. "Evidently not."

Spade inhaled deeply, his chest rising and falling like a mountain in an earthquake. "I owned faggots like you on the outside. In the slammer, I bent men twice your size over the bathroom sink and fucked them. Because you're protected from me by this"-he motioned to the bars around him-"you think you can step up to me. You know, you know better."

Allander paused and gestured with his eyes, indicating the space above Spade's head. "I'm afraid I don't have Jonsten's delicate temperament." He thrilled at the "I," as if arriving at it after a long and tedious journey. "And, forgive me if I'm incorrect, but it seems that you can't touch me in here, not even through a ceiling, which makes those muscles of yours about as useless as your sluggish brain."