Loomis's prison, Falconer, has had many names and undergone many evolutions, but it is as effective as ever at intensifying its inmates' captivity. After nearly a year of his life sentence for fratricide, he still thinks of this fact with extreme sadness. Leaving a friend as he tells the story of his commission of kidnapping, battery, and burglary on a hot July morning, Loomis reports to the visitors' room. His wife, Marcia, awaits him. The depth of her resentment is clear. Even now, Loomis cannot help but admire his wife's beauty. She almost became a model. Instead, she became a painter -- a badly failed one. Instead, she spent much of her time with friends, often abroad, stole money from Loomis's accounts, and defrauded others of theirs. When their relationship was good, it was great. When it was bad, it was awful. But in their way, they had built a life together, despite her resentment of him and herself. Unfortunately, this did not stop her from cheating on him with more than one man and more than one woman. Back in the present, the two remember how they drifted apart, how his opioid addiction reared its ugly head, how the last year of their marriage descended into hateful chaos. He still loves her. After Marcia leaves, Loomis watches the crowd of visitors walking out of the prison. Even as he envies their freedom, the fact that their captivity is just as omnipresent as his depresses him significantly. Later that day, Loomis fetches his food and greets Bandit, his cat and one of the prison's nearly four thousand. But to his shock, a powerful prisoner, Tiny, convinces the guards to carry out a genocide against the cats -- one of them ate his potatoes. In a sickening scene, hundreds of cats die. Many more escape, but all Loomis can do is sit on his bunk and pray.