Sonny Lucas was twenty two and had never set foot in as much as a police station, let alone Death Row of a state penitentiary. He was directed to his seat in the kiosk by a Bond movie henchman prison guard. Sonny reflected for the thirteenth time in twenty nine minutes on how closely the reality of visiting a man on Death Row resembled the innumerable fictional depictions of it he had seen. That the man he was visiting was his father, and that they were meeting for the first and last time in their lives, placed this iteration firmly on the ‘True Life Drama’ cable channel. To his left a dirty yellow plastic phone sat squat and mute, bolted to the kiosk wall.

He looked down at his hands, slowly turning the palms toward him, as if unsure what to do with them.

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Forty four year old double murderer Sal Lucas entered the visiting room between two hulking prison guards, his feet and hands tied together and to each other. He reflected for the second time in five days on how the failure of his final appeal had led to his seeing parts of the prison for the first time in his eighteen years inside. As he took his seat, one of his wrists was chained to the desk in front of him as the other was released to use the phone on the kiosk wall beside him. He had asked more in hope than expectation for this meeting with the son he had never seen or spoken to. He had no idea then why he was asking, just as he had no idea now what he wanted to say. Although the Good Lord Jesus knew he hadn’t been short of time in which to reflect on such matters.

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There was a <tik tik> on the thick thick Perspex. Sonny’s eyes remained fixed on the palms of his hands. In the soft folds of the flesh there he saw grit from the prison air and minuscule droplets of sweat conspire to create…