Alfonse Galle has been an inmate at the Louisiana State Penitentiary for as long as anyone can remember or even imagine. He isn’t a trustee. He’s just a run-of-the-mill inmate. Normally, within a few years, inmates that are as well behaved as Alfonse earn themselves a trustee status with all of its perks and privileges. However, Alfonse has no use for such earthly accoutrements.
His focus is on the other side.
Alphonse was brought here to serve his time in Angola after murdering his wife — a wife he loved and was faithful to for 16 years. Unfortunately, she didn’t share the same fidelity in the latter 3 years of their marriage.
Christina’s paramour was a guy named Joseph Antrim. At least, that was the name on the coroner’s report. Christina and Joey had found each other through a fortuitous encounter at Scianna’s Grocery in Bogalusa – or, more accurately, re-found each other.
The pair had been high school sweethearts. They parted when Joey went away to drop out of medical school, and Christina went into acting at the University of New Orleans. Christina was the more successful of the two and appeared as a lead in twelve plays over the four years she was at UNO. Joey downsized into nursing, which he still found rewarding. But the fact that he didn’t have the chops to be a doctor twitched the back of his brain for years after finishing nursing school.
After a chance encounter at the grocery, the lovestruck pair found they couldn’t keep their hands off each other. There was a fire in their loins like an over-stoked kiln, and that fire could not be simply ignored. They were discrete for a while… but not for nearly long enough.
See, Alfonse was a romantic and doted on Christina with flowers and other acts of love. There was nothing he wouldn’t do for his bride. Christina appreciated the effort, but Alfonse just didn’t have “it.” “It” being the bad boy flair that her adventure-starved heart craved. Joey, for all of his failings, did.
Joey drove a Harley — an older model bike he had won in a card game. He suspected the bike had been stolen, but didn’t really care. Joey liked to bring his married squeeze and his nefarious bike to biker bars. Bars that seemed dangerous and sexy to Christina.
Alfonse worked nights at the Folgers’ coffee plant, so it gave Christina plenty of time to go all “Born to be Wild” with Joey. Christina and Alfonse had no kids. Turns out, Alfonse was sterile. That fact didn’t add to Christina’s failing opinion of him. However, this lack of offspring made the illicit rendezvous between Christina and Joey even more manageable.
Then, as comfort would have, the amorous couple got sloppy. Christina and Joey began to occasionally imbibe their dalliances in Christina and Alfonse’s home. Of course, Joey was always gone hours before Alfonse got home. This perfect timing was due to the fact that you could set a watch by Al’s daily anal-retentive movements. Al was nothing if not predictable, and his dependability bored Christina to death.
Then came the day that Alphonse got fired from the Folgers’ plant. It was the worst day of his life. Understand, it wasn’t his fault. He was a perfect employee. It’s just that Maxwell House had launched a huge ad campaign and was crushing Folgers in the market. Folgers had no choice but to cut back for a while. Al wasn’t exactly fired; he was “temporarily given an extended leave of absence.” Alphonse drove home that day not knowing how to tell his beloved Christina of their newly acquired, dire economic circumstances. He circled their block five times, trying to find a way to deliver his bride some hope along with the devastating news.
When Alphonse finally got the nerve to walk in the front door, he heard a disturbance upstairs. Some strange grunting and pounding – at least that’s what it sounded like to him. Fearing his bride was being assaulted, he grabbed the double-barreled, 12 gauge shotgun from the front closet and ran upstairs. On the way up, Al checked the chamber to make sure the shotgun was still loaded.
He was always careful like that.
Alfonse drew into the doorway to see what he could never believe: The image of his wife’s bare back sitting atop a pair of hairy legs that extended from beneath her buttocks. Christina was moving in the sultry way she did when she threw Al an occasional sexual “atta-boy” for his romantic offerings.
Al just stood in disbelief, and time remained still as his wife gyrated in slow motion to the voice of Dean Martin on the stereo.
Then, the cold shower of reality slapped Alphonse into the there and now. Christina’s slow motion gyrations became the ecstatic slamming of pelvis against pelvis, and Alphonse raised the shotgun and shut the barrel chamber into place with a loud “clack.”
The clack of the metal engagement made Christina freeze mid down-stroke and spin her upper body toward the sound. Alphonse paused and lowered the gun slightly. Christina, in a brief moment of remorse, mouthed the words, “I’m sorry.” A tear formed in Al’s right eye and threatened to run down his cheek. Then Al, for the first time in their marriage, forgot about putting Christina’s needs first.
Alphonse Galle raised the shotgun, looked down the set of cold steel barrels, and fired.
Christina disappeared.
Joey, being close to eyes-closed orgasm, did not witness the interchange between Al and Christina. But the thunder of shotgun caused him to bolt upright as the horror in his bulging eyes gleamed through the spray of blood running down his face. Joey’s shock lasted all of three seconds before the blast from the second barrel of Al’s shotgun made him disappear, too.
Alphonse didn’t run. He is too honorable of a man for that. He just called the police and cleaned the shotgun while he waited for their arrival. His father had taught Al that you should always wipe down your firearm after you discharge it.
And Al was nothing if not dutiful.
What Alphonse Galle’s father neglected to teach him was how to deal with murdering the woman you love. They say Al had a complete mental breakdown and didn’t talk for two years. When he did finally come out of it, all he would talk about was the angels and demons who constantly surround him. He spoke of “The Realm” incessantly to anyone who would listen.
This is Alphonse Galle. This is inmate 307128Z4 who claims to see angels and demons warring in a dimension called “The Realm” – a dimension that no one else can see. This is what makes Al extraordinary.
And this is why Alphonse Galle will be serving the rest of his life in the psychiatric ward of the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola.