The jailer opened a file cabinet drawer and took out two large grocery bags that were folded and stapled neatly across the top. The name "Boggs" was written on one, "Latiolais" on the other.

"Here's their stuff," he said, and handed the bags to me. "If y'all want to stay up there tonight, you can get a per diem."

"Lookit what you send up there, you," Tante Lemon said. "Ain't you shamed? You put that little boy in chains, you pretend he like that other one, 'cause you conscience be bothering y'all at night."

"I had that boy in my jail eight months, Tante Lemon, long before he got in this trouble," the jailer said. "So don't be letting on like Tee Beau never done anything wrong."

"For taking from Mr. Dore junkyard. For giving his gran'maman an old window fan ain't nobody want. That's why y'all had him in y'all at jail."

"He stole Mr. Dore's car," the jailer said.

"That's what he say," Tante Lemon said.

"I hope I don't have to pay rent here tonight," Lester said, and brushed cigarette ashes off his slacks by flipping his nails against the cloth.

Then Tante Lemon started to cry. Her eyes closed, and tears squeezed out of the lids as though she were sightless; her mouth trembled and jerked without shame.

"Good God," said Lester.

"Gran'maman, I be writing," Tee Beau said. "I be sending letters like I right down the street."

"I got to go to the bathroom," said Jimmie Lee Boggs.

"Shut up," the jailer told him.

"That boy innocent, Mr. Dave," she said. "You know what they gonna do. T'connais, you. He goin' to the Red Hat."

"Y'all get out of here. I'll see she's all right," the jailer said.

"Fuck, yes," Lester said.

We went out into the dark, into the rain and the lightning that leapt across the southern sky, and locked Jimmie Lee Boggs and Tee Beau into the back of the car behind the wire-mesh screen.