Remember what happened. Remember what she said, remember what you did. Remember. Remember. Remember.
I awoke with a snort and blurred eyes. The cement floor was cool and rigid against the back of my skull. I knew where I was, the makeshift jailhouse, a basement of what used to be a decent hotel. I never stayed there, except then, and I didn’t want to judge the place on that experience.
My hair ground against the hard floor as I attempted to orient myself in the small room. There was a black man to my left, who sat solemnly on the wood bench that was drilled into the concrete wall, another who pissed into a tin bucket in the right corner, a thin man with toilet paper wrapped around his feet, and more that served as a pillow, who sat too close to the tin bucket and stared at a dark stain on the ground, and a fourth man who swayed on his feet, in wet underwear against the back wall.
“How you doing fella?” The first man on the bench asked me.
“Not sure yet,” I said. I had only moved my head and was afraid to asses further damage. I slid my elbows under me; my shoulders felt like they has been abused thoroughly. I couldn’t help but grunt.
“You’re pretty messed up. You remember what happened?”
