He was waiting. His hands and face were pressed against the thick, tinted glass windows of the shiny new jail. Intrigued by the circles his warm breath made, he was entertaining himself by making a pattern of them. It was dark and the little red car stood alone directly under his window. Every morning and evening, he watched her long legs appear from the door of the car, her skirt hiked up. Depending on where she parked, the angle of the car, he thought he could see up her skirt, see the fabric of her underwear. He imagined that she was naked under her clothes and what he had seen was her pubic hair. It would have to be red, he thought. Red pubic hair.
            He was angry at her now. She didn't always come out at the same time, but never this late. She was fucking someone, he was certain. He had given her the eye, making her his woman, and she was fucking someone right now, right this very minute. He saw those long legs wrapped around another man's neck, saw her reaching for him with lust-filled eyes. He wanted to take his fist and beat the lust right off her face, see some pain instead. She looked like a schoolteacher or a probation officer, but she was nothing but a whore. They were all whores.
            He kept his body against the glass but craned his neck around toward the common room, where other prisoners were sitting at the stainless steel picnic tables and laughing at some sitcom or cop show on the television. Laughing like a bunch of hyenas in a cage. They loved cop shows. When one of the television cops got shot or hurt, they all applauded and whistled. But that would stop soon—the laughter. In a few hours they would be locked down for the endless night and the laughter would stop; the other sounds would begin. They would talk to each other in the dark, their voices echoing off the bars from one cell to the other. And they would listen. In the blackness was another world.
            Sometimes he heard men crying like babies. It made him sick. They would talk about their wives, their children, even their mothers. They would talk about God and the Bible, about redemption and forgiveness. And the other sounds. The groans and moans of sweaty, smelly, disgusting sex. They tried to stop it, the keepers, but they never would.
            Men were men, he thought. And men needed sex. But he would never stoop that low—become an animal like the others, allow them to steal his manhood, his machismo. Not him. No matter what they did to him, or how many years they locked him up. He was a Latin lover, a ladies' man. Women always said he was handsome. They all wanted him. All he had to do was choose the one he wanted.
            He pushed the lower half of his body against the window, looking down on the parking lot. He imagined himself on the floorboard of her car, waiting for her, and felt himself hard and erect against the glass. Then he saw her face, heard her scream, and the aching between his legs intensified. He rotated his hips against the window, his mouth falling open. His heavy breath smoked a circle and spread to ragged edges, reminding him of bloodstains. He jerked his body away from the glass, stood completely still, let anger fill him. He was no pussy boy who jerked off in a cage.
            They'd put him in a cell with a black. Not only a black, but a stupid black, an older black. He had friends inside, home-boys from the streets. But they'd put him in a cell with a fucking black and now he had to watch him, keep his eyes open even in the dark of the night.
            Laughter, hoots, and whistles rang out from the common room. This was the best part of the day. But he couldn't leave the window, not until he saw her. She had taken this time away from him, this redheaded whore.
            "You'll pay, bitch. You'll pay," he uttered against the glass. "And you'll fucking beg. You'll beg."
            This morning when she'd come to work, he'd been at the window, waiting. Something about her troubled him, triggered a blinding rage to see her beneath him, her mouth open in a scream of terror. He'd seen her somewhere before. Not from the window, but close. He remembered that she had freckles, little alien dots across her nose and cheeks, something he could never have seen from the window. But he knew they were there. He could see them in his mind. Most Hispanic women didn't have freckles. He'd never had a woman with freckles.
            "First time for everything, man," he said, chuckling. "First time for everything."
            "What youse laughing 'bout, boy?" a large black man said, shuffling into the cell. "Youse always standing at dat window and laughing likes a crazy man. They gonna cart you off, they sees you. You listen to Willie, boy. Willie knows. They done get plenty pissed they sees you."
            He spun around and spat at the black man, "Fuck you. They'll drag your black ass off, but they ain't touching me. I got friends, you know, family. I got connections. I'll be out of this place when you're on a bus to the joint."
            "Maybe so," the black man said, heading to the bunk, his head down. "Maybe so."
            He pressed on. The black man was big, but he was old. "You're a fucking loser, man. You got your ass busted for shooting some dumb kids for trying to steal your car. If that'd been me, I'd never got caught. I've gotten away with things make you look like a pussy. You hear?"
            The black man had rolled over on the bunk, facing the wall. "You look at me when I talk to you, boy. You know who I am?"
            The black man remained motionless on the bed. The Latino moved closer, sure of himself now, excited at his power. In the bunk the black man looked small, defenseless.
            Leaning into the bunk, he hissed, "I've done things make your frizzy hair stand on end. Man, I've done things make shooting a couple of kids nothing. Richard Ramirez. You know him? The Nightstalker." He started poking himself in the chest. "Friend of mine. That's what. Fucking friend of mine, man. Fucking brother. Front page in the paper too, man. On every front page in the country."
            The black man slowly rolled over and fixed him with his huge round eyes. "Boy, youse not right in your head. Get 'way from me now. Let old Willie alone. I ain't starting nuthin'. Let old Will alone."
            "You ever fucked a white woman, Willie? You ever put your black dick in a white woman's pussy? How 'bout a red-head? You ever fucked a redhead with freckles and skin as white as a fucking baby? Soft, too, Willie. They soft, man. Their skin's like velvet, like one of them paintings."
            The black man ducked to keep from hitting his head on the upper bunk and stood to his full height, at least six-six or more. He put his hands in front of him to shove the other man back, but it wasn't necessary. The Latino was backing away, his face ashen.
            "I knows whats youse done, boy. I's heard whats youse done. And if'n I was you, I'd be quiet 'bout it. Willie's been to the big house, boy. They don't like boys like you. Boys do the things you done."
            He was cowering in the corner, pressed against the back wall, only inches from the filthy open toilet. Just the mention of prison filled him with terror. He was small, his body unconditioned and wasted from drugs and alcohol, his power sucked from the helplessness of his victims. In jail he could survive, but not in prison. He knew what would happen to him there.
            He took the few steps to the window and stared out again. "This is your fault, you bitch," he whispered. "This is all your fault."