Authors: Mark Wisniewski
JAN
I SAT IN THE BACKSEAT,
on the far left, watching the orchards outside the window, my mother beside me, Colleen
in the passenger seat directly in front of Tug while Jasper drove in a quiet of his
own.
Then Jasper clicked on the radio, changed music to news, and dealt with an incline
by giving the Galaxie more gas, and Colleen stared out her window but down, at the
yellow and blue wildflowers sprouted through emergency lane gravel. Tug would later
tell me that right then he was trying to decide which was the better time and place
to ask me to delay my return to Arkansas—right away, within earshot of everyone, or
as soon as we got home and found time alone—and those wildflowers kept rushing past,
yellow, blue, sometimes a purplish blur, and, in this stubborn reticence of everyone’s,
Tug remembered overlooking The Crux with
his father during the last silence the two of them shared. Maybe, Tug realized only
now, his father had been silent then because he’d been planning to run off from the
Corcoran household to someplace remote, someplace where no loan shark or wife or anyone
could further bedevil him, and then, on the Galaxie’s dash radio, a forecast called
for clear skies to the south, and the broadcaster went on to announce that a corpse
had been found in a forty-gallon drum discovered by someone on the Saratoga County
Highway Department’s cleanup crew, the identity of the body being withheld until the
next of kin knew, and Jasper braked hard, and my mother actually cussed, and Tug said,
“Turn around.”
And the Galaxie changed lanes violently to make the next exit, then hairpinned using
the overpass and sped east, and everything Tug saw was radiant. He saw radiance through
the clouds, radiance on the grilles of oncoming cars and bouncing off the slow lane—Tug’s
thoughts
themselves
felt
radiant. He told himself this radiance was a result of the angle of the sun at this
time of year, but whatever it was, it had begun too suddenly to be explained away
so easily, and it grew stronger as the speed-trap trooper who’d clocked the Galaxie
gave chase and pulled us over, stronger still as the trooper and Jasper talked, maintaining
this great strength as the trooper sped to escort us, and when the Galaxie finally
stopped near the cluster of black brick buildings, the parking lot asphalt gleamed.
And then there stood Jasper, on that lot, Colleen staying put in the Galaxie as if
there were no way out, and I opened my door just after Tug opened his, and Tug said,
“Jan, please just stay here,” but I followed him and Jasper and the trooper to the
building, and nearly caught up with them just after they stepped in. The trooper told
a sergeant why all of us were there, and this sergeant gathered up forms and a clipboard
and a pen but kept calm, very
calm, as if he, too, knew Tug’s father as the same Tom Corcoran who’d once jocked,
and then this sergeant told Jasper to take a seat in the lobby but said nothing to
Tug—this sergeant was just leading him. Tug was then walking in a hallway he perceived
as being the color of radiant milk, and the sergeant kept on leading, and Tug wanted
every gesture between him and his father’s body long past over and done with: the
nod Tug would give, the squeezing of the wrist by Tug one more time because they’d
squeezed wrists in the grandstand while his father’s winners had won, the touching
of the hair, the thank-you. But Tug also kept thinking his own feet were taking him
toward his father too fast, and the radiance, whose existence made even less sense
in that hallway, seemed to have grown worse.
Then, from maybe four feet behind, I whispered,
“Tug.”
And he turned and saw me.
“I’ll do it if you can’t, Tug.”
“But I need to do it myself.”
“But I’m not sure you should.”
“He’s my
dad
, Jan. The guy’s my father.”
And we kept on, toward a door the sergeant held open, and now, inside the room Tug
entered, any radiance or brightness seemed cast by the room’s overhead lights, and
the sergeant neither spoke nor nodded but Tug kept right on past him and kept going,
and soon Tug kept his gaze fixed on one of the table’s silver legs, because he had
known at first glance. He had known from the shape and from his father’s height, and
from having seen all that radiance, and all he could think was: There’s no need.
And I stood behind Tug, in the doorway, and Tug quickly said, “It’s him.”
“Yes, but we need a direct visual ID,” the sergeant said.
“But it’s him.”
“Mr. Corcoran, I need to be able to swear you saw his face.”
“No, you don’t,” Tug said. “Because his face is beside the point. Just let me sign
that it’s him.”
“Mr.—”
“I’m not scared, sir. It’s just that I
know
.”
“Tug, get it over with,” I said.
“I can’t.”
And I set a hand on a hip and walked straight over and lifted the sheet. The head
was enlarged, swollen or waterlogged, the neck ugly as hell, and the hair looked oddly
dry, like a clipped-off horsehair braid I’d found as a child in the hot-walker’s dilapidated
stable. But the hair here had thinned precisely as Tom’s had, and it had receded that
same distance past his darkest age spot, and what helped me endure this viewing of
this ugliness was Tug’s motionlessness, and our silence.
DEESH
THE THING ABOUT BEING RELOCATED
this time is that I now appreciate it more for what it is, a chance to see as much
of the world as someone in custody still can, the world of bright storefronts, of
striding employed people late to meet someone they care about, of the grins on kids
being made fun of by their pals.
And then I am there, in Queens again, this time blocks from LaGuardia Airport, rolling
onto a tree-lined road divided by a guardhouse, the bridge to Rikers Island, the only
way on or off the island other than a swim that would kill any escapee, and it hits
me that the city bus just ahead must be a Q100. In my youth I made jokes about the
Q100—about how desperate women used it to visit their bad-boy lovers—but now, as this
rattling van I’m in keeps close behind such a bus, I imagine how Madalynn and Jasir
would
feel riding a Q100 to see me, or waiting for one in Queens while innocent residents
walk by.
Then we roll off the bridge and onto the island itself. And it turns out Rikers isn’t
just a building or two. Goddamned Rikers is more like its own town, and my mouth goes
dry, one breath almost a gasp, though I’m also trying to see as much as I can, guessing
which brick structure will house me, which loops of razor wire might be my view. Then
I know which structure, since the van has stopped beside it. And then I’m being escorted
out of the van and into that structure, joined by more uniformed guys, two, then three
more, each with holstered black guns and varnished billy clubs, and they take me up
flights of stairs to the third floor. They leave me untouched as we head down the
only route possible, a narrow concrete walkway flanked by opposite and adjacent cells,
one cream-colored steel door to my right, one to my left and so on, until the walkway
dead-ends at an unpainted cinder-block wall, which I stop to face directly, maybe
four feet from it.
To my right, a steel door has been slid open, into the wall. A guard uncuffs me and
says, “Okay.”
And you don’t feel the claustrophobia until you step inside, but for me the sense
of panic sure does then come on fast, my face well beyond flushed by shameful heat
when one of the guards slides the door closed and it clicks. I am shivering. I am
chilled yet perspiring. I am up against the door to try to see out my only window,
fingernail-etched Plexiglas maybe a foot square over steel bars painted the same cream
color. And looking straight out, I can see only the cinder-block wall of the cell
across the narrow walkway, though if I try hard, I can decipher part of the Plexiglas
window on the cream-colored steel door across the walkway roughly six feet
to my left, behind which someone, a brother maybe, tries to see me until our eyes
meet.
And, no, there will be no hearing him. There will be no hearing anyone but myself.
There is stillness here about as pure as the stillness that welcomed me into those
woods in Pennsylvania, though this stillness conveys terror more than that one did
freedom: Neither moonlight nor sunshine will reach me here. There’s a mattress on
a bed bolted to the wall, and there are two thin blankets. There is no pillow. And
the toilet is kid size. The floor is gray, unfinished concrete. As is the low ceiling.
If I look at the ceiling, I feel so trapped I get dizzy.
So you won’t sleep on your back, I decide. I also know there will be no sleep tonight.
Feeding the stillness around me is hunger inside me that wants people more than food.
I would beg out loud for Madalynn right now if anyone could hear me. I caution myself
to focus on innocent, grammar-school memories of her, since any desire for her tonight,
as the woman she grew into and still is, will no doubt prove to be foolish.
I sit on the edge of the mattress and stare at the blank wall. I have no reliable
sense of time, but it must be hours before I accept that I will have a view out of
the barred window only—that is, no window through which to see the outdoors. And often,
throughout these hours that I sit here alone because of what I’ve done and haven’t
done, I think of Jasir’s future.
What will he tell his friends about me?
Will my time here be a secret he never shares?
Of course, I’m trying not to consider who I’ll meet in this building. There will be
mostly brothers, so if I’m known as the cop killer, will I be a hero? And if so, will
I be spared from the jailhouse horrors no ex-con ever talks about?
Questions beyond these run through my mind. I sit down. I stand. I remember Gabe’s
kindness. At some point I’m sure Gerelli is bound to visit momentarily, but he doesn’t.
I promise myself he is now working for me, and after this promise wears thin, I start
to doubt Gerelli the man—his resolve, his smarts, his goodness.
So when the door slides open and I hear, “You have a visitor,” I have roughly as much
respect for Gerelli as I do for Bark. Again there are guards, this time two, and again
I am handcuffed, the three of us led down the stairs by a black administrator too
large to take shit from anyone. He nods me into a room walled by Mets navy blue cinder
block, where he alone uncuffs me, has me undress completely and raise my arms and
widen my stance; he sees all of me but touches none of me. He stuffs my clothes into
a metal bucket marked with the same number as the one on the gray jumpsuit he hands
me. He never once looks me in the eye, and he cuffs my wrists tighter than anyone
has yet.
Then he has me leave the room, and we are walking again, his palm on my left shoulder
blade, pushing in a way that hints he’s behind schedule. And then we are cutting through
a small office to enter a room centered by a white wooden table with three stainless
steel rings bolted into it, a visiting room. And here, I notice as I’m cuffed to one
of the rings, stands Gerelli, behind the table, wearing that same green suit, setting
himself up on a folding chair while I sit. He places his briefcase on his lap and
says, “Not so great news, Mr. Sharp.”
“What is it?” I say.
“I contacted the three people you wanted to see.”
He opens the briefcase, pulls out a legal pad, flips his way to a new sheet, pats
his inside jacket pocket to find a pen he clicks twice.
“And?” I say.
“Well, they’re not here,” he says with a glance behind him.
“Did you expect them now?”
“To be honest, Mr. Sharp? People who will visit an accused generally do so right away.”
“Generally,” I say.
“Correct. The pattern is more visitors sooner and very few later.”
He jots phrases on consecutive lines.
“Let me be candid with you, Mr. Sharp. You’ve been charged with murder. Nine out of
ten times, that means the people you know would rather not think about you. Let alone
visit.”
“So who’s my one out of ten?” I ask. “You?”
“I’ll tell you who it
isn’t
,” he says. “This friend of yours, James.”
“You saw him?”
Gerelli nods. “First thing this morning.”
“What did he say?”
“It’s what he
didn’t
say, Mr. Sharp. Didn’t and thus very likely won’t. What he did say was, essentially,
that I should contact his attorney. Who, as it turns out, is the same guy who represents
your friend Mr. Barker. Which, of course, means we need to prepare a case that assumes
that both of these lifelong friends of yours will, as character witnesses, prove hostile.”
“You’re saying James will lie, too.”
“No need to lie to harm character, Mr. Sharp. I mean, we’ve all lived lives.” He jots
something, again with a question mark. “And of course nothing’s for certain,” he says,
but then I wonder exactly how much extra cash Bark gave James last we all saw each
other—plus, Bark, I realize, has been James’s only employer for years.
Then Gerelli says, “Your buddy James did request that I ask you one thing.”
My gut guesses James’s question—Who would
you
side with?—but all I say is “What’s that?”
“His precise words were ‘Why run?’ And I hate to say this, Mr. Sharp, but those two
words kind of sum up what we’re up against. Let me be clear here: By no means do I,
personally speaking, want to second-guess anything you did or failed to do in the
past sixty-some hours. After all, you are, right now, still alive, and survival itself,
no doubt, has been a great challenge for you. But all of my compassion for you aside,
Mr. Sharp? People
will
ask why you ran.”
“I know,” I say.
“And unless we can give them an adequate answer—which, trust me, I am already working
on—we’re going to be up against it.”
What I’m hearing right now in this room, I tell myself, is lawyer talk, and its essence
is that Gerelli has already lost hope. And now here this Gerelli is, glancing at his
watch, which means he has other work to do, for other clients if not for me, not to
mention he might have his own love and children and all of that.
Then he leans back in his chair so far it tilts, and now, rounding the doorway behind
him, is Madalynn—Madalynn as stately as ever—and I see no speck of her that’s not
knock-dead beautiful, her hair pinned back off her strong cheekbones and delicate
neck.
“Hey, Deesh,” she says.
I want to say
Maddie!
—but all I do is nod.
“Now what you done?” she says with a hint of playfulness, and I glance at Gerelli,
who stands to let her use the folding chair on his side of the table, gets a folded
one from against the wall, sets it up a bit behind her right shoulder, which she glances
over before her eyes kill mine.
“He needs to be here?” she asks.
“Mr. Gerelli?” I say.
“Yes, I do,” Gerelli says, and, already, I’m sure, I’m losing her.
“Well,” Madalynn says, “I figured you could use seeing me.”
And I say, “Always.”
Then she and I sit, her eyes searching my face, looking, I sense, for anything at
all having to do with me that’s to-the-core true, and here goes another rush, up my
neck, of that now familiar heat I give off with shame, and as it leaves my face I
know that, yes, since grammar school, it’s been her, Madalynn, one way or another,
here and there and wherever I’ve been, who has drawn such heat from me.
And I want to tell her this, but my thoughts jump to where she and I might now be
if Bark hadn’t pulled that trigger, or if I hadn’t joined him to haul junk as a way
to make cash, or if I hadn’t kidded myself by thinking Jasir didn’t need a father
just because I’d done without one.
“But the thing is,” Madalynn says, “is that you never
did
see me.” She huffs out a sigh. “For pretty much every day of our seventeen-year-old
son’s entire life.”
It hits me that she said nothing at all like this on that sidewalk in Brooklyn. Then
again, she was talking with Bark. This is what she was saving for me, I think, and
I feel both lucky and empty.
“I’m sorry, Maddie,” I say.
“Of course you’re sorry,” she says.
“I’m sorry because I love you,” I say, and with these words I’m not trying to play
her, just plain sharing what I’ve felt for years.
She jabs a thumb over her shoulder at Gerelli. “He tell you to say that?”
“No, Maddie. He—”
“See, but, Deesh? I will
always
wonder if he did.”
“Why?” I say. “I swear, Mad: You don’t need to wonder. Why do you need to wonder?”
“Why do I need to
wonder
?”
“Yeah.”
“Deesh,
you
,
the man who is now
here in prison
,
are
the
reason
I have
wondered for almost twenty years. You think love can just, that far down the line,
up and turn wondering off?”
And all I can think is: She said love.
“Anyway what does all of that really matter today?” she asks. “I mean, Jasir’s been
talking about signing a piece of paper to agree to get blown up in some war.”
“You’re saying he wants to enlist?”
“No. But he might
need
to. The point is, Deesh, we’re all a lot older than you think we are. I realize you
want to be all lovey-dovey with me now, but it’s not like you can suddenly just start . . .
being there
after you’ve been gone for so long. I mean, face it, Deesh: People, you know,
adjust
.”
“But Maddie, you also have to remember something. That, you know, my being gone caused
me
to adjust.”
“So?”
“So, for what it’s worth . . .” And here, rather than go off on some blue streak like
Gabe might have, I think, Forget it. You screwed this up long ago. You should’ve stayed
in those woods, away from everyone, Gabe included.
Then Madalynn says, “What?”
“Nothing.”
“Just tell me, Deesh. You don’t now, you might never.”
I picture myself fishing in Gabe’s boat as I did—with Bark’s gun no longer in my mind—and
think:
Stupid.
I take a deep breath and notice Gerelli watching me closely, ready, it seems, to
do what lawyers do.
“It’s just,” I say to Madalynn. “That I—”
“Mr. Sharp?” Gerelli says, and I wave him off with a frown that says chill.
“It’s just that—you know,” I say to Madalynn. “I want you to believe me.”
All three of us, Madalynn, Gerelli, and I, wait.
“I mean, believe that I didn’t shoot anyone,” I say.
And here I can actually see, on Madalynn’s face, the brunt of an onslaught of thoughts
running through her mind, Bark’s story on the news among them.
“Maddie?” I say. “I’m telling you. I didn’t kill anyone.”