Excerpt from The Graybar Hotel by Curtis Dawkins, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"Me neither," said Ricky. "Let me out."

In a later segment Oprah showed her audience that the one glass of wine they might have while playing cards at a friend's house was actually equivalent to one shot of whiskey—because the glass of wine was filled to the top. "So watch out," Oprah warned.

"Shit," said Ricky. "Drunk-ass Tracy Gold damn near kills her kids in that wreck, and all I did was smoke a rock. I should be on Oprah, not in fucking jail."

"Ain't that some shit?" Tom said. We all nodded in agreement. It was some shit all right, though I'm sure we all had different ideas about what exactly that shit was.

The food in jail was usually good, and that night we enjoyed the best Kalamazoo County had to offer: chunks of dark-meat turkey stir-fried with vegetables in a soy sauce gravy. I watched Tom stir the tip of his spoon in the sauce, like he was mixing oil paint for a portrait. First he sniffed it, then he dabbed some on his tongue. "This cook really knows what she's doing," Tom said. "Just enough garlic and allspice."

I wondered how Tom knew that the cook was a woman, and as always, Ricky came on cue. "How do you know a lady made it?"

"Come on," Tom said. "Because it's softer, warmer. It's obvious. You taste things like that when you slow it down a little."

"The fuck you mean slow it down?"

"I mean really taste it," Tom said. "Close your eyes if you have to. Nobody tastes anything anymore. They just shovel, shovel, shovel. But man, food is just like wine—hold it in your mouth and concentrate, you can seriously taste the terroir of the ingredients."

"Terr-what?" I asked.

"The taste of the land where the ingredients were grown."

Ricky took a bite and smiled. "I taste something, all right. It tastes like a field and hay."

"Yeah," I said. "And a barn."

"I think you guys are really getting it," said Tom.

"And cows," Ricky said. "At least what comes out of cows—very definitely some bullshit."

Tom smiled. "Seriously, though. Maybe you can't, but I can taste all those things. I can taste the earth that grew it, and I can taste the prayers of the lady who made it for us."

The idea that someone might be praying for us shut us up and we ate. I tried to taste the softness Tom talked about, and prayers inside our sauce. Domino ate his quickly so he could go back to sleep.

The guard took our trays and I guess Tom figured he had a good seven minutes to get it done. He took the top linen sheet off his bunk and began twisting it into a rope. "Well, fellas," he said, "I'm checking out of the K'zoo motel. I've had enough of this county shit—a man needs a coffee and cigarette after a meal like that. So after that guard walks past again, I'm going to sling this sheet up and get myself back to the joint. Once I'm up there, just hit the panic button."

Tom sat shirtless on the picnic table bench and looped the end of the sheet onto itself. Karen Sharon moved and swayed as he worked; she seemed to gyrate with every pulse of his muscles as he tied the noose. Tom threw the sheet on his bunk. I felt nerves tingle in my hands and feet.

"If you on parole, you're going back in a month anyway," said Ricky. "You ain't got to pull this fool shit over a cigarette."

Tom either didn't hear him or pretended not to hear. He glanced toward the bars and listened for the guard's footsteps. I told myself the whole fake suicide would be just that and nothing more—it would go smoothly, and in just a few minutes, Tom would be gone and our cell would be peaceful again.

The guard stepped past and barely glanced inside. Tom picked up the sheet from his bunk. "Nice knowing you guys," he said. He stood on the edge of the bench and tied the free end of his sheet around one of the long, horizontal slats of steel. He climbed up to the third steel slat, put the noose around his neck, and held on with a hand behind his back. With the lights behind him, all his green tattoos became dark, muddied blotches, and even Karen Sharon looked instantly older. I could see her as she was, after years of alcohol abuse and living with her shallow soul.

Excerpted from The Graybar Hotel: Stories, by Curtis Dawkins. Copyright © 2017 by Curtis Dawkins. Excerpted with permission by Scribner, a Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc