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ONE

It wasn’t supposed to end this way

In a flash of steel, yes; a flurry of gunshots, a chorus of strangledwith the distant wail of sirens, certainly A properly draainst i doom, even a dash of treachery, absolutely And then the fatal blow, a few s undone, and fade to black: a fitting end for a life of wicked pleasure

But not like this

Not with Dexter in Durance, horribly wronged, slandered, unjustly accused of doing terrible things that he did not even get to do Not this time, that is This time, this one catastrophic multihomicidal time, Dexter is as innocent as the driven snow—or perhaps the sand on South Beach would beon South Beach is really innocent, anyof wicked whithy It just doesn’t include anything from current events, more’s the pity Not this time

And not like this Not locked away in the tiny chill ill-sht Correctional Center—and on the top floor, at that, the special purgatory reserved for the most heinous and unrepentant monsters Every basic freedo, subject to scrutiny Dexter’s entire world reduced to this tiny cell, no more than a thick steel door and even thicker concrete block walls, broken only by a sliht A narrow ly referred to as a “mattress” A sink, a toilet, a shelf Dexter’s World

And no more than this, no connection at all to the outside, beyond the narrow slot in the door that delivers the Officially Nutritious ht distract me from contemplation ofh bitter experience that the two most popular titles in the library are “Not Allowed” and “Don’t Have It”

Regrettable, lamentable, even pitiable Poor Sad-Sack Dexter, tossed on the sterile institutional scrap heap

But, of course, who could have sympathy for a monster like me? Or as we must all say in these days of conscience fueled by lawsuits, alleged e it The cops, the courts, the correctional system itself, and e that I aement of any kind, flee the scene wherein lay the murdered body of Jackie Forrest, famous actress, and coincidentally known to be re, with the bodies of my wife, Rita, and Robert the famous actor, not to mention the very much alive but scantily clad Astor, hter She it ho killed Robert “Faee and then killed Rita Poor buht and instead tumbled it all into deep, dark, endless, and possibly per—and very nearly became Robert’s next victim

My story is sihtforward, and unassailable I learned Robert was a pedophile and had taken Astor While I looked for hi of Fools Crown Derby, Rita—helpless, hapless, hopeless Rita, Queen of the Scatterbrained Monologue Dear Ditzy Rita, who could not find her own car keys if they elded to her fist—Rita found him before I did Robert thumped her on the head, fro

a romantic escape with his True Love, Astor While I lay bound and helpless, Astor stuck a knife in Robert, set me free, and so ended this zany, madcap adventure of Doofus Dexter, Bumbler Extraordinaire If there really is a God, which is, at very best, extremely debatable, he has a terrible sense of hue is Detective Anderson, a ence, wit, or competence And possibly because I am so very liberally endoith all three, and additionally because he knewhe could only drool and dream of, Detective Anderson absolutely, without compromise, hates me Loathes, despises, detests, and abhors the very air I breathe And so ood thing Even quicker, I moved from Person of Interest to Suspect, and then…Detective Anderson took one quick glance at the crime scenes and formed a simple conclusion, undoubtedly the only kind he can form Aha, quoth he, Dexter Done It Justice is served Or words to that effect, probably a great deal si in my promotion from Suspect to Perpetrator

And I, still reeling from the death of Jackie, my ticket to a new and better life, plus the death of Rita and her entire book of delightful recipes, and the sight of Astor in a white silk negligee—still reeling, I say, from the utter destruction of All the Order and Certainty that was Dexter’s World, past, present, and future—I find hly to my feet, handcuffed with hands behind my back, and chained to the floor of a squad car, which drives ht Correctional Facility

Without a kind word or sylance from anyone, I ae concrete, barbed wire–bedecked building, and into a roo room of the Greyhound station in Hell The roo with desperate characters—killers and rapists and thugs and gangsters all, iven no tied monsters, no chance for a Hail Felon, Well Met Instead, I araphed, fingerprinted, stripped, and issued a lovely orange juht colors say spring! The aro somewhere between insecticide and leiven no choice of color, nor of odor, and so I proudly wear the orange, which after all is one of the trademark colors of my alma mater, the University of Miami

And then, still festooned with restraints, I aht here, to my new home, the ninth floor, and deposited without ceremony in my present tidy nook

And here I sit in TGK The joint, the slaantic correctional wheel, which itself is only a little piece of the massive and coldly inco Corrected What is it, I wonder, that they hope to Correct? I am what I am, irredeemably, irretrievably, implacably—as are most of my fellow desperadoes here on nine We are ers, and these can no otta whistle, fish gotta swiotta find and flense the slippery wicked predators However InCorrect that may be, it irreversibly Is

But I am in the Correctional System now, subject to its clockhims and institutional hardness I a to be Corrected while the proper for thatquite a while There is so around inabout a speedy trial—and I have not even been arraigned Surely this is souards, and they are not terribly chatty, and I have no opportunity to ht answer my polite questions about due process So I a in the system—a system that I know far too well is far from trustworthy

And in the meantime? I wait

Life is, at least, siular I am awakened at four-thirty am by a cheerful bell Shortly after, the slot in my cell’s door, sealed over by a steel flap that is held shut by a very strong spring, reluctantly opens and ue of the cart made for that purpose Ah, delectable viands! Institutional cereal, toast, coffee, juice Alh! What bliss

Lunch is siht of gour a cheeselike substance, carefully hidden under a piece of soft and fluffy green stuff that is clearly synthetic recycled iceberg lettuce Beside it on the tray, some lemonade, an apple, and a cookie

In the afternoon, under the watchful eyes of my shepherd, Lazlo, I am permitted an hour of solitary exercise in the Yard It is not really a yard at all; there are no trees, no grass, no lawn chairs or toys It is in fact a wedge-shaped concrete floor whose only virtues are that it is open to the sky and contains a netless basketball hoop Of course, this ti in the afternoon, and so even this sed I also discover that once I ao back towet, I return to hts-out at ten A sireat rewards one reaps from solitude and si, but perhaps they will e I have plenty of