Free Talking Heads by John Domini Page A

so-called utility closet? Angled against the door stood an ordinary police lock, the bar and hook cleaner, newer metal than the door itself.
    Garrison spoke up: “We’re not scared of anything.”
    Kit touched his neck. It took a moment to recall his question.
    â€œI mean,” Garrison said, “there are lights in each of the cells. Lights and a space heater. The animals we got down here don’t need no more than that.”
    â€œWhat about the stairwell, then?” Kit asked.
    â€œThe seepage musta got to the wiring already.” This was the inspector testing the water. “Wouldn’t you say so, Ad?”
    â€œLooks that way,” Ad said. Neither of them glanced at Kit.
    â€œSeepage in the wiring,” Garrison said, “whoa. The electric chair, you know, that’s been outlawed in this state.”
    The three men laughed. They were nowhere near each other, the inspectors on opposite sides of the puddle, the guard across the room. But their echoes linked up over the water and, laughing, they became a single unit. A bloc. Kit kept frowning, thinking about the state payroll. These inspectors must have been just as scared and he was, but for them, the guard’s one-liner was a reassurance, a union card. A reminder that even in Monsod, you didn’t make waves. You didn’t ruffle the surface of pay grade and job title. A “corrections officer” like Garrison, if he started young enough and stayed with it, could retire at forty-five. A “maintenance engineer” like Ad—now nervously fingering hair over his bald spot—was a construction man who’d lucked onto a desk job.
    The men grew quiet. Their look settled on him. The chanting continued, the spacey clap, clap.
    Kit bent to write, tucking his elbows.
    *
    He’d half-expected briefcases filled with instruments. Syringes, weights and measures, test tubes. But aside from the tool belt, all these men had with them were a box of zip-lock Baggies. The belt held only one tool of any size, a foot-long wrench with a head big enough to open pipe fittings. In the other large holster, the inspector kept a couple of half-pint bottles. Baby bottles, Kit guessed. One still bore the white fuzz of an old label. When the man scooped the puddle Kit imagined him drinking the scum. Meantime the other inspector used a jackknife to take scrapings from the walls.
    The guard was the big surprise. Garrison took time to check the cells and the rig on the door to the utility closet. But then the man left. There was more code at the call box, and then he was up the stairs. Before going he actually wagged his finger at Kit: “Stay put, kid.” Kid? The man was gone a while before Kit thought to check his watch. After that it was twenty-one minutes that they were alone.
    Ad and the other inspector went on as if nothing had changed, taking measurements mostly. More ordinary tools, levels and tape measures, T-squares and a plumb bob. More of that wordless tune from one of the cells. A couple of the feeding slots opened for a peek, but nobody called, though maybe Kit heard a mutter, a cough. He felt as if he and the inspectors were ghosts. Once, Ad tugged up his workbooks and splashed out to the center of the seepage, walking on water.
    Kit struggled for a story lead, a fix on Monsod that could jump-start his work here. The obvious analogy of course was to hell, the Inferno, but Kit thought he could do better. He started with the contrast between the outside appearance and this stinking core. As you approached Monsod it looked stupendous, a command center in black concrete and steel. But the life of the place was down here.
    â€œ1st glance:,” he wrote, “high tech in icy waste. Nuke site Antarctica. Last glance: swamp graveyard erupt’n. Bones & bodies exposed in muck.”
    Everything he’d seen was part of the same, too. “Diff betw towers & E Level—mislead. Fact: tech dominance & swamp