The Graybar Hotel. Curtis Dawkins

right part, the part that’s gone wrong. But you’re the one who’d know about that—you’re the professional.”

      “I don’t know anything about lobotomies, actually.”

      “Well, regardless. I’d like it out. You probably don’t understand the perils of a torturous brain.”

      “Is that an insult?” asked Doctor Stan.

      “Is it?” Arthur asked Jill, who shrugged.

      “Don’t direct your questions to her, and don’t answer my questions with a question of your own. I’m here to look out for your safety. And frankly, your attitude smacks of suicidal tendencies. We can put you on C-Wing, you know. But I’ve heard you’re a sleeper, so I doubt you’d like that.”

      “Doctor Stan, I’m not going to kill myself. But I am tired. So if we’re done—”

      “Today is different, Arthur. They’re going to come and get you for your video arraignment. I’m here to assess your mental state for the proceedings, so you need to answer my questions. Again, do you know why you’re here?”

      “Because of what I did.”

      “That’s good. That’s pretty much all I need. We’ll talk more later, Arthur. Maybe.”

      Doctor Stan nodded to the deputy, and the deputy then swung the steel door open with a loud squeak from its hinges. Arthur walked out, stood against the wall, and waited as the door shut, locking the two clinicians in.

      He was left in a small room with the deputy where a table held a color television set with a miniature camera on top. There was a fax machine on another table behind him. On the TV screen was a live shot of a desk and empty chair, a Michigan and an American flag, another desk with another fax machine, a neat stack of bright white paper.

      Arthur stared at the empty office for so long he was actually surprised when the judge walked in, robed in black. He sat in his leather chair and tapped the microphone. “Can you hear me?” he asked. He wore halflensed spectacles and his hair was white and short. His assistant entered and sat at the fax machine. “Can you hear me?” he repeated.

      “I can hear you,” Arthur said. “You’re coming in loud and clear. Bravo, X-ray, marshmallow. Romeo Romeo wherefore tango.” There was no end to the words he could hear himself saying—like rabbits from a hat. “Alpha, bravo, calypso, sangria, doctor, doctor, yellow, night-light.”

      The judge’s assistant fed a piece of paper into the fax machine, and the machine behind Arthur began to beep and spit out the same piece of paper at him. The closed-circuit television, the real-time fax relay, the hum of the paper rolling from the machine—it made him feel as if he was being executed by lethal injection. He closed his eyes and imagined the warmth of the serum surging through his body. So calm, so nice, it was hard to care that you were about to die.

      His uncle Jimmy Ray had died that way. In Texas, right? No, Kansas. He had uncles in prison all over the country. It might have been Stateville, Illinois—regardless, he had gone with his mother. She could barely walk, and there were no chairs in the witness room, only the window. His uncle looked tiny in the brightly lit room. His arms were strapped to the sickly green gurney. A microphone hung from the ceiling and a red phone stuck to the wall. Jimmy said, “I’m real sorry for all the pain I caused.” Arthur’s mother cried. Between sobs she kept saying, “He was so good. He was so good.” She may have been talking about Jimmy, or she may have meant her other brother that Jimmy had killed.