Then they put some raving lunatic in the cell at the end of the hall. Before that, it was quiet. They had locked me up around 6:30 that evening. (Holding cell at a suburban police department, in the same building as the other public works. A jail by any other name, I suppose. But hardly County.) I was the only one there. One of the cops stopped by around seven. "You want anything from McDonald's?" he asked. I was on suicide watch, checked every half-hour. "You should have killed me." Exhausted to the point of barely being able to move, I don't remember when I fell asleep, but it was early. And I dreamed... Then they put some raving lunatic in the cell at the end of the hall. Hard to tell what time it was, with those lights on all night. The walls were solid block -- not bars -- so I never saw him. But I heard him; pounding against the concrete and screaming like a madman. A deep, guttural wail of panicked urgency, "Wake up! Wake up!" Over and over... Finally, they came in to shut him up. I heard the buckles of restraints and the ensuing commotion as they tried to get him to stop banging his head. "She's not waking up," I heard one of the cops say, "She's dead." And the howl echoed against brick. A caged animal, fifteen feet from my own cage. Then that same cop (wearing latex gloves) walked down to check my cell... "Strangled his girlfriend," he mumbled, "She was pregnant." ...then walked away. And the lunatic continued raving: "Wake up! I didn't mean to kill you!" Over and over... But the pounding had stopped. So, after about an hour, I went back to sleep. In the morning I could still hear him, sobbing quietly at the end of the hall. A couple of hours later, they opened my door and escorted me to the lobby where my girlfriend was waiting with my doctor. Her eyes were red. She put her arms around me and assured me that I was going "someplace safe." As my doctor signed the paperwork, I suddenly felt bad for him having to come here on my account. My girlfriend walked me to a van outside, and I regarded somewhat numbly the morning I had tried to evade. They put me in a back seat, and my girlfriend sat beside me. She buckled her seatbelt, then reached to the floor and removed a 9-mm Beretta from her bag. My doctor was too late to stop her. She shot me in the face -- took half my head off. Then she stuck the gun in her own mouth and blew the back of her skull open. Died instantly. I nudged at her corpse, "Honey..." I said quietly, "Are you still awake?" Eventually, they put me at the end of the hall. (Ashes in an urn. A tomb by any other name, I suppose.) I was the only one there. But it wasn't quiet. I kept screaming, over and over...