Albert never told anyone of what the guard did to him. But sometimes he smells...

Albert never told anyone of what the guard did to him. But sometimes he smells the guard's stink in his sleep, a combination of chewing tobacco and hair oil and testosterone and dried sweat that had been ironed with starch into the clothes…Albert has always wanted to believe this emblematic moment in his life was regional in origin, born out of ignorance and fear and redneck cruelty, perhaps one even precipitated by his own recklessness, but he knows otherwise.
Albert has learned that certain injuries go deep into the soul, like a stone bruise, and that time does not eradicate them. He knows that the simian creature that lived in the guard and executioner took root many years ago in his own breast. He knows that under the right circumstances, Albert Hollister is capable of deeds no one would associate with the professor who taught creative writing at the University and whose presence at a faculty meeting was so innocuous it was not even remembered.