I think it was heartache that led me back to Brother Mike’s house. The bundling of anger and pain reminded me of those times, three or four in number, when I’d been cast aside unexpectedly in a relationship. Of course, I could not help but think of the collapse of my own marriage, but that pain was different. With Brother Mike I wanted explanations, I wanted to know what had been true and what had been lies. This betrayal was elemental and threatening, touching the taproot of familial insecurity, like the suspicion that your father didn’t really love you.
When I visited his office, I learned from one of the weak sisters that he’d been suspended from work for his contact with Crowley. That hit me hard. When I tried his home phone, it rang and rang, not even an answering machine to leave a message. And so I took up the one privilege left to me, established by his facade of friendship, and drove to his home, prepared to knock until he answered, to yell until he calmed me down. I wanted to be the child and hold him at fault for all the cruel failings of the world.
But when I turned off the highway onto his bumpy, snow-chopped lane, another irrational thought came over me. The ruts in the lane looked deeper, more trafficked than I remembered, and I pictured other visitors and feared I would find
him harmed. All the anger in me turned to worry. So I drove through that quiet forest a little too quickly for my own good, crashing through the branches in the Land Rover like a mechanical rhinocerous, and burst onto the lawn before his house.
His car was not there. The house looked sealed. I left my engine running, a lack of commitment to bravery, and stepped out of the cab of the truck. If I’d had my .357, I might have unholstered.
The porch was slanted beneath my feet, the railing tipped ever so slightly toward the yard. There were vases with small plants in his windowsill. A tabby cat moved out from behind a curtain and revealed itself on the top of the sofa within. Darkness inside, and no response to my banging. I hollered his name with disdain and frustration, as though I had come for the rent, even though I just wanted to see the sweatered shoulders and that white top of hair emerge from some back room, befuddled by concentration, and hear his stammered offering of tea.
No mailbox to check. I tried to remember whether there had been a box out by the highway. I peered in more windows along the side of the house, and when I got to the backyard, I saw the low mound of tarps that was his kiln. A little lump came to my throat. He’ll be in there, I announced to myself, slumped against the wall, eyes closed. I don’t know why I felt so certain about it. I approached. The warmth had ebbed, but there was still an aura of old fire, a smell of hide even in the cold winter sun. I held my hand out. I could not hear that whispering river sound of flame whooshing about. I started
lifting tarps clumsily, searching for a door. Finally I found an entrance, low to the ground, like a tunnel into a snow cave or a sweat lodge, and I hunched over and snuck in.
The fire was gone, but the heat and the smell were still thick inside, a taste of ash and smoke. I couldn’t see much at first, had no sense of the space inside. It could have been infinite. And then little cracks in the darkness appeared. Hair-line fractures of light. Slants of shelves showed up with small figures squatting on them like ghosts. I touched the baked clay and felt the warmth; the surfaces were not smooth like porcelain, but rough and gritty, deeply lined. Perhaps it was too soon to move the pieces, but it seemed wrong that they were still here, left behind. I swept my foot low along the floor to make sure no one was slumped unseen within.
I was sweating in my clothes, wet from the dense heat and stewed in betrayal, my bones the marrow for a murky soup. I felt exhausted suddenly, worn out by the untrustworthiness of other people, the litany of disappointment and lies. Wallace had been the first betrayer, but that was incremental, almost gentle in development. I’d idolized him, and he’d rebuffed me with his bureaucratic disdain, and then the corruptions had begun to acrue. MacKay’s betrayal was more complicated. I could not even articulate the reasons why the difference between his act and his true feelings mattered, except that I’d been led along by the former and left wanting by his lack of strength. And now Brother Mike was gone, too, somehow the harshest loss of all.
My phone rang. I didn’t want to answer in the dark, so I plunged through the low tunnel and out into the light again. I
saw that it was Ditmarsh, and part of me thought, this is Brother Mike calling me. He knew I was looking for him. He wanted to explain.
But the voice on the other end was Melinda Reizner.
“I thought you should hear it from me,” she said somberly.
I asked her what, and a dozen possibilities seemed likely, all of them bad, but it was none of those things.
“Our reasons for keeping Roy Duckett in dissociation”—she hesitated for the right word—”collapsed. I’m glad I didn’t make more of the suspicion you told me about.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“We asked Joshua Riff for a formal statement, and he recanted. Actually, worse than that, he claims he said no such things to you, that you’re lying.”
We were shackled together, it seemed, this little miscreant and me.
“He must have been put under pressure,” I said, pulling myself together, talking my way back to rationality, arguing my own lie. “You saw him in the infirmary. They kicked the shit out of him.”
“No doubt, but that doesn’t help my case. It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have put you in the position. You need training and years of experience to make those kinds of professional assessments.”
I could no longer listen to her superior put-downs. Outside in the cold, my lungs had opened up. I breathed freely, and thought, Melinda Reizner, Josh Riff, two more I couldn’t trust.
Josh got delivered back to B-3 on the same day Fenton and Roy were returned as well. To Josh it seemed as if the range didn’t know what to do. Roy and Fenton, Fenton and Roy. Fenton went inside his drum and stayed there, sulking. Roy limped the range hall talking to people here and there. He was loud. He made bad jokes. He complimented some of the boys and humiliated others. For a whole day he didn’t visit Josh’s drum, just walked right on by. Screen Door told Josh everything was going to be okay. He listened because Screen Door had such an earnest and concerned twist to her face. But Josh didn’t trust anyone. Whenever he left his drum, he paused an extra second at the doorway to see what moved at him from outside. In the range hall, he maintained a distance from others, though he knew they could always jostle or swarm him on the stairs. He kept his hands in his pockets, like everyone else, but he gripped a two-inch piece of filed-down toothbrush in his left fist. Unlike metal, the plastic didn’t go off whenever he walked through one of the detectors.
He pledged other new habits. He was determined to keep his drum spartan and tight, not a speck of dust, not a crease in the bedsheet, the blanket tucked, his boots lined up, his clothing folded precisely, his letters and the two books he’d
managed to scrounge stacked spine out. He wanted to understand the exact condition of his drum at a glance before he entered it, to know if anyone had been inside, jack or con. Even when everything looked safe, he would still check under the cot before sitting down. He wouldn’t shower. He would wash his clothes in the sink with a bar of soap and wash his body by hand. He would relax only when the big lock jammed across the door at key-up.
By the end of the next day Roy had them all cowed. He engaged in head-bowed conversations with hardened men. He clapped backs and moved on to others. He nodded sagely and burst out laughing. Josh started to relax when the laughter became more frequent. Fenton was invisible. Fenton was sulking. Screen Door told him it wasn’t over yet. Josh understood what she meant when he heard a great roar of noise that evening and stepped out of his drum to see what was happening at the rec tables.
Past the shoulders and heads he could see Roy bouncing, literally bouncing, like a spring-loaded thing. Then he saw a stick rise up in the air and swing around, and he heard a whoosh of appreciation from the crowd. Despite his anxiety in tight groups, Josh squeezed through until he reached the edge of the cleared circle. A thick-chested, long-haired inmate Josh had seen around but never talked to stood with his back against the railing, trapped and feral. Roy bounced. Josh had never seen such lightness in him, such energetic spring, and then Josh realized that Roy had detached his peg leg and held it in his fist like a sword. Rather than crippling Roy, it was as if detaching the false leg had freed him to shift
forward and back with frightening leaps. The other inmate held a lightbulb, of all things, in his hand, and thrust it forward like a weapon. Roy swung the peg leg around again, thwacking the hand so hard the bulb smashed and the fragments flew through the air, spraying liquid in a quick burst and a smell of turpentine everywhere. Then Roy came around with another swing of the peg leg, a crack to the side of the head that brought the man down. He planted his peg leg in the man’s back like a flag and spoke to the group.
“There ain’t no reason for us to be so uptight. We’re all men here, and we all need each other to get by. Doesn’t matter whether you’re friends with me or friends with the other fellow. Me and him get along fine, so it’s about time you do, too.”
Passive faces staring back at Roy, then some nodding, then more talking to one another in reasonable tones. Roy spotted Josh and gave him a big wink. When the crowd cleared, Josh remained. The only thing he could think to ask was why there was water in the lightbulb. “Homemade napalm.” Roy laughed. “A gasoline and dish soap cocktail. Explodes when you turn on your light, and those flames stick to your skin. I caught Gabe there trying to fix it in my drum when I wasn’t looking. Fuckers don’t know when to give in.” Roy snapped his peg leg back on, a kind of hook or wedge underneath the stump.
Screen Door dropped Josh a note that night and said the big talk between Roy and Fenton was on, kites flying between drums like mayflies.
The next morning after chow Roy appeared in front of Josh’s drum door. It could have been an echo of that other
time, so long ago, but everything had changed since then. Josh’s face was a mass of lumps and ridges, sore spots and gaps. Roy was less a clown then a king revealed. Roy gave Josh’s drum a long look, then nodded almost solemnly.
“Shitty digs,” Roy said. “They used to use this drum for bugs and junkies. You been rolled.”
“It’s all right,” Josh said. It was a hell of a lot better-looking than when he’d found it, and he sort of resented Roy looking down his nose.
“You need to spruce it up a little,” Roy insisted. “I’ll get one of the boys to come by with a can of paint and give these walls a coat. Get you some cardboard furniture, too. You’d be amazed what Sykes can make out of cardboard.”
After lunch Fenton stood there with a small television set in his arms. Josh waited for the hammer to hit. But Fenton just nodded politely and stuck the TV up on the shelf. It was an old model, the kind that had a black casing. The newer TVs were slightly larger and had clear casings so that an inmate could not hide something inside the box.
“Wobbles mentioned you didn’t have a pot to piss in,” Fenton said. “One of the boys moved on and left this behind.”
Josh didn’t flinch, didn’t move. Fenton was not his old self. His edge was less sharp. Then he met Josh’s eyes.
“Don’t take it personal,” Fenton said. “I know you got rolled and I know you were stand-up about it. The other guys just jumped to assumptions. We’re all good now.”
Josh nodded. The beating, the con job that had suckered him in. All good now. When Fenton left, he allowed himself
to stare at the TV. He’d wanted one for a long time, and the longing surged in his heart. He eased himself up off the bed and moved toward it, then turned around rapidly when he saw Fenton at his door again, knowing it had been a trick.
“Forgot the cable hookup,” Fenton said, tossing Josh a snake.
Before evening jug Jacko arrived with an armful. “I took up a collection,” he said, unloading the belongings on Josh’s bed. A blanket, a homemade hot plate, a porn magazine, a book of matches, a half bag of beef jerky, a metal coffee cup, a bottle of shampoo, a pair of socks. “Since I’m one-quarter Indian, Wobbles says I ought to know all about welfare.”
The chow bell rang, and all drum rats still walking and breathing lined up for the forward march. Josh felt like a new man, reprieved, bewildered, visited upon by angels, like Job restored, but also wary, still waiting for the hammer. Screen Door must have hung back in her cell until Josh passed, because she fell in behind him. “You can take your hand off your prick now. Nobody’s going to sneak up on you anymore,” she whispered cheerily in his ear. Josh, holding the sharpened toothbrush tight in his left pocket, reduced his grip and wondered whether he had been that obvious all along.
I worked the eight-to-four and got through the routine fortified by stoic bitterness. In any emotional sense, I was no longer of the COs, but among them, sharing a range of similar duties. The conversation in Keeper’s Hall tightened up when I entered. There was no open mockery as with Ruddik, but the vibe was real, as though they were afraid of being turned to stone by the snake-haired Medusa walking by.
In the parking lot, a little more sunlight to the end of the day, maybe winter finally creeping off. I noticed my door was unlocked. Had I forgotten? Nothing seemed missing. I sat in the cab, turned the motor over and the defrost on high, listening to the radio. Bad weather coming, according to the talk on the radio. I watched the fog on the windshield transform into streaks and the streaks become words.
It dawned on me as my heart knocked around my chest that you tell yourself to be careful, but you can’t sustain the vigilance. Eventually you relax. You stop paying attention, and that’s when they show up behind you, their breath in your ear.
I dialed Ruddik’s number on my cell automatically, hardly taking my eyes off the windshield. I didn’t want to be alone.
We met in the parking lot of a Home Depot after the store closed that night. Ruddik parked beside me, walked over, and climbed into my truck.
I pointed at the windshield. The words and the upside-down fallout shelter symbol were gone. I’d washed it all off with the side of my hand and a bit of spit.
“It said, ‘Home Delivery, Tues Night, 9.’ I think they want me to deliver the drugs to Fenton’s cell tomorrow night. I was waiting for a phone call.”
The weather had gone colder again. Brisk particles of ice hung in front of the headlights. I was exhausted, and barely hanging together. I longed for a drop off in tempo, a return to lull, a day when I did not dread an unexpected happening.
Ruddik agreed with my interpretation, but he seemed more interested in the means of transmission.
“Someone painted the words into the windshield with water,” he said. “You couldn’t see it until the defrost went on. Primitive invisible ink, like lemon juice on paper, something a kid would do.”
“They wrote it from the inside,” I said. Did he not understand why this rattled me so badly? “It was a CO. It had to be. Who else would break into my truck in the middle of the day right in front of Ditmarsh?”
“Probably,” he said. “I’ve got some more unpleasant news, unfortunately.”
“I already know about Roy and Fenton back on the block.” I did not need his calm.
But Ruddik shook his head. “Not that. It’s Hadley’s lawyer. He’s gone missing, but they found his car in a ravine half covered in snow.”
My throat went all tight, and I stared out the window. “You think that’s got something to do with me?”
“You asked Fenton for help with Hadley. Maybe he put something into motion.”
“Jesus,” I whispered. I wanted to lower my face to my shaky hands and stay hidden there, never look up again.
“I don’t think I can do this anymore,” I said.
His hand came up to my shoulder, a little human warmth to the grip, not just an awkward squeeze of consolation, but something else. Did men ever realize how bad their timing could be?
“Are you working tomorrow night?” he asked.
I nodded. “In the bubble.”
“I said you didn’t need to do any more heavy lifting. I’ll take the drugs to Fenton. He won’t care where they come from, as long as he gets them. Then the pressure will be off you. No more rough stuff.”
“He’ll want me to do it again,” I said. And again, I thought.
Ruddik laughed. “I’m not sure about that. Don’t you think he’d rather work with someone who can deliver them right the first time?”
I snorted, betraying the fact that my nose was running and my eyes were teary from the stress.
“I’m going to turn Fenton,” Ruddik said, ignoring my emotion. “This will be my introduction to him. And over the next few weeks I’m going to let him know everything I know already, enough to keep him in prison for another lifetime unless he works with me, and then he’s going to help me go after the keepers and COs. We’ll learn who’s real and who’s wrong. And it will be thanks to you, Kali, that we got there.”
Thanks to me. Maybe I’d get a gold watch.
“Where are the drugs?” he asked.
“I was scared of leaving them in my truck, so I hid them in my house.” In my underwear drawer.
“So bring them tomorrow. Bring them in one last time and pass them over to me once you’re inside.”
I shook my head like a stubborn five-year-old.
“I want to get rid of them now. Not tomorrow. Right now.”
“Okay,” he said. “We’ll do it now.”
In separate vehicles we drove back to my place. He followed me into my room when I went to retrieve the pills. I passed them over, and we stood there facing each other, not knowing what to do next. I felt sordid and small, and I think he understood that. His arms came around me. My need for him was helpless and juvenile. But when we fucked, it was much rougher and harder than that, and the urgency of it, the violence in it, came from me.