1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 217 10 Travel to Death-Worlds Joshua M. Price We are sitting in the cramped living room of a second-foor walkup. A young man is telling me what happened to him at the jail. I have never met him before. His com- panion, another young man dressed similarly in loose jeans and a long-sleeved shirt, keeps coming in and going out of the room. Tey apparently have several dogs in the next room, all of them pit bulls. I know this because each time the friend comes in, he brings in a diferent fully grown dog on a tight metal chain. Each dog pulls and twists at the chain by turning its neck and trying to jump, in that muscular, pugnacious pit-bull way that makes them seem so aggressive and terrifying. Other dogs bark in the next room. Te ritual is odd—bringing dog after angry dog into the room singly and without saying anything. Although I don’t know this man, and although he does not look at me or give me any reason to feel any warmth, I instinctively trust him at least enough to believe that he will take care of my well-being, and so the dogs do not intimidate me at all; to the contrary, I have a desire to reach out and pet each one as it pulls at its chain. Te presence of these dogs distracts the young man from his nar- rative. He also keeps getting cell phone calls and text messages, as does his friend. At length, the young man leaves the room for a few minutes, accompanying his friend into the kitchen (or whatever it is), and then he comes back, re-centers himself in his story and continues his narrative. “I was in the jail when my appendix burst. I was in my cell. Te pain was unbelievable. I was sitting there and I could hardly move. I was able to tell a guard but I could tell he didn’t really believe me. He told me I have to go to medical [the medical unit]. But I couldn’t walk. I was doubled over in pain. I was able to make it in a wheelchair. I only saw a nurse at frst. All they gave me was Pepto-Bismol. Pepto-Bismol! I was like that for days. I couldn’t do anything. Eventually, I was able to see a doctor and he told them that this was serious and they sent me to an outside hospital. Tey told me I was lucky, that I could have died. Man, that pain was the worst of my life. I pled guilty just to get out of that place.” Te man tells his story plainly and succinctly. He is not exactly perfunctory, but neither does he dwell on the story. He is not particularly expressive emotionally. © SUNY Press 2018