“Butcher’s Bill/COD (Nobody Eats at Brunch)

Every morning it was five hundred pushups before sunrise. On the inside, Wood did all he could in order to avoid feeling as though he were being bossed around by the Piglets, as he called them. Telling you when to eat, bathe, sometimes, speak. It was the same edge that led platoon and battle buddies to wake at 0400, seeing Wood in a full sweat, that had made him a leader.

Back in the world, adjustments that would take some men years to make – if they stayed home – were easy for Wood, who would knock down sets of 50, sitting at the desk in his one-man cell, writing five hundred word stories or critical essays and social commentary in between. By the time the wake-up call came, and guards rapped their asps on doors, Wood was wide-eyed, eating a fruit bowl and oatmeal. The Piglets hated that. Some guys had gotten word about Wood’s life before his incarceration, and by the time he landed at The Big House and took his walk, men stood at their doors, giving head nods and other subtle salutes that expressed the prisoner’s collective reverence.

And on his first afternoon inside, Wood received a call on a phone that acted as a personal landline.

Thalia always made Wood smile – she was the only one that wore the kind of magic necessary to make such a daunting task seem like child’s play. Her hair was thick and her shape was full and proportioned. She…