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uncool. Restraints bound my arms to the bed. The room smelled of disinfectant and lavender air freshener. I was washed and clean, for the first time in weeks. Cold against my butt I felt a bedpan, and poking into my flesh I felt a catheter; in my arm was an IV drip.
    I stayed very still but all I heard was the soft, dreamy hum of hospital equipment and air-conditioning. I didn’t call out for the nurse. I was clean and in a bed and not in a dank, forgotten cell and no one was kicking me.
    The comedian on the TV bitched about his wife. He poked fun at the insane demands of his kids. I wanted to strangle him for his blind ingratitude. He didn’t know how lucky he was. Then I just closed my eyes and I slept again, clean and comfortable, on sheets instead of stone.
    When I woke, my mouth tasted sour with sleep. Still bound. Bedpan and catheter. A nurse entered the room and inspected me. She didn’t let her eyes meet my gaze.
    “Hello,” I said.
    She didn’t answer.
    “Where am I?” I croaked.
    She still didn’t answer. She checked my vitals and made her notes and then she left. I tested the strength of the restraints. I wouldn’t be breaking loose… On the table now, pushed to the side, stood a green bottle of Boylan Bottleworks Ginger Ale, my all-time favorite soda. It’s made in New Jersey and you can’t get it everywhere. And a bottle of Heineken, although since I’d taken up parkour I didn’t drink very often. Both bottles glistened with beads of cold. Stacked next to it were books by my favorite authors. Pecan pralines, my favorite candy. A Hubig’s fried pie from New Orleans, a childhood treat from oneof the few times when my folks lived in the States when I was a kid. A prickle of sweat formed on my back. This was some new torture.
    Then a man stepped into my room. Broad-shouldered, dressed in a neat, bland gray suit, gray tie, blue shirt, his hair cut down to a burr, slices of gray in the goatee. Howell.
    “Hello, Sam. How are you today? You’ve slept quite a bit, which is just what you need to get back on your feet.” His voice sounded kind, like he really cared how I was. Soft, quiet, and immediately I hated him again. The past months had taught me that I had no friends and no patience with those who pretended to be my friend.
    He saw the fire in my eyes and for a moment he glanced away.
    “Where am I?” I said.
    “You’re in New York City. I will be your liaison.”
    “What do you mean, liaison?”
    “You’re being released.” He flinched a smile at me.
    I didn’t believe it. It must be a trick. I made myself breathe. “You found my wife?”
    “No.”
    “Then why…”
    “Your innocence has been established.” Now Howell’s voice stiffened, and the words felt a shade rehearsed. “We regret the inconvenience.”
    I could neither laugh nor howl at the four small words, their pitiful sentiment, their complete inadequacy to the hell I had endured. When I found my voice, it sounded cracked. “Established how?”
    “It doesn’t matter, Sam. We know you’re innocent.”
    I closed my eyes. “Then you’re lying to me. You must have found Lucy.”
    “No,” he said. “I swear to you, we do not know where she is.”
    The silence between us, broken by the comic’s rantings in the background. I reached for the remote and my fingers fumbled for a grip. Howell picked it up and turned off the television.
    “I don’t believe
you
now.”
    “This is no trick, Sam,” Howell said. “We know you’re innocent. Just be grateful for your freedom.”
    Grateful. Freedom
. The words sanded against each other in my brain. “You people tortured me. You held me prisoner, without a lawyer, without cause.”
    “It didn’t happen, Sam.” Slowly, Howell unbuckled the straps binding my legs to the bed. He moved with caution, like he was removing the top of a basket holding a cobra. He looked up to catch my stare and swallowed, as though realizing he should not show fear. “You will be integrated back