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

"Okay," Tom said. "Hit it."

Ricky and I didn't move. Domino sat up and looked. The heels of Tom's jail-issued flip-flops were wedged between the bars. Tom tightened the noose, then looked at each of us and let go with the hand behind his back. The top half of his body inched away from the bars, the brunt of his weight still held by his heels. The noose tightened, and his face turned red.

"Come on, you motherfuckers, hit the button."

One foot at a time, Tom kicked the flip-flops off. They each landed on the floor with a slap. He stepped off the flat steel that was holding his weight and began to die. The muscles in his chest convulsed and Karen began to dance again—ugly and desperate—an aging stripper, a whore. Tom's struggling seemed to reveal her true self, shedding layers of beauty and falseness. I didn't look away, though; I still wanted to touch her. I didn't care what she was as long as she would touch me back. And she would, I knew—I saw it in her eyes, in the split second when her closed eye opened, then shut again in a wink meant only for me.

I got off the bench, put my arms around Tom's legs, and lifted him with my shoulder.

"Don't touch me, don't touch me," he gasped.

Ricky walked over and hit the panic button.

"What's the problem?" the woman's voice asked.

"Some fool's trying to hang hisself."

Italian Tom pissed his orange pants and the warmth covered my shoulder. In a matter of seconds, the door slammed open and several guards entered. A female guard climbed the bars and cut the sheet with industrial scissors. Tom and I fell to the floor and the breath left my chest as my head struck the metal edge of the picnic table, then the concrete floor. She cut the noose from around his neck, and I heard his gasp for breath and could feel it as if it were my own. I could feel his sad life on top of me and it was suffocating.

The guards worked to stabilize Tom's neck as I lay there feeling the cold floor growing warmer with the wetness flowing from my head. I felt myself softening, sinking into the hot springs beneath Kalamazoo.

I tried to sit up but the female officer put her hand gently on my forehead to keep me down. She kneeled in front of me, close enough that I could smell her herbal shampoo. I looked at her name tag, "Lillie." I wanted to ask if that was her first or last name. I wanted to ask her: Do you like to watch snow come down late at night? When did your parents divorce? What's your favorite movie? Do you cry when you don't get mail for a long time? Would you want to be president? Are you happy? Do you hate the news? Does the sight of a jet slicing through the cold, thin air break your heart?

But I couldn't speak. I was afraid that if I spoke, she'd take her hands from my body. So I lay there and looked at Lillie as the water began to boil and the horses started to run.

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