The Man on the Park Bench

Maude Travis stepped onto the porch, hobbled to the swing, and groaned as she sat next to her son. She smoothed the lap of her print dress and began peeling the potatoes she’d brought with her in an aluminum pot.

  "It's just like him to be a day late," she said, looking at Jack. She pushed gray bangs away from her face with the back of her wrist. "I've never knowed one time he wasn't late."

  The swing’s coiled springs squeaked as they swung slowly. It was only mid morning, but it was already getting hot. Jack unbuttoned his shirt and exposed his smooth white chest to what little breeze there was. Small sweat beads had formed on his high cheeks and the long bridge of his nose. He hitched up slightly from his slouched position and turned toward her.

  "Maybe they had to keep him over a day or something," he said. "You know, paperwork, stuff like that."

  "No, three years is three years," she said. "They could'a kept him locked up 'til Monday night, I guess, and he'd have come home on Tuesday. But this here is Wednesday already."

  Jack couldn't refute that logic. He looked down the potholed street the direction his brother Ray would probably come, from the gas station where the Greyhound bus stopped six blocks away. There was no sign of him. Garbage pickup wasn't until the next day, but he noticed overflowing containers in front of several houses, all sitting forward on their postage stamp lots and presenting peeled painted fronts and an occasional ceramic dwarf or reindeer or waterless birdbath to the street.

  As he looked, a blue police squad car approached. It slowed as it passed the Travis house, then sped up again.

  "That's the second time they've been by this morning," Jack said.

  "My God. Why can't they just leave him alone? He's done his time. Remember, that's the way they did back when he was here. They just hounded him and hounded him until they got him on that gas station holdup. I still think he was innocent."

  "Ma, he said he did it," Jack said.

  "Yes, well, that's what he said. He probably said it just to shut them up. I wouldn't doubt it."

  She turned to look at him. "Don't you start acting like him, too." She dropped a peeled potato into her pan and picked up a new one. "Ray started running around when he was younger'n you are, and look at what it got him. Speaking of which, just where was you last night?"

  "I was with Bob," he said. "We were just hanging around."

  "Well, watch who you do this hanging around with. You could do better than Bob Martin. You better watch it, or you'll wind up no good."

  She paused with her peeling and squinted up the street through the top of her bifocals. "Is that somebody walking this way?"

  Jack looked and nodded. "I think it's him. Yep, it's him all right."

  "My goodness, he's here." She stood and adjusted her dress and stepped to the porch railing. "That's him, all right. I'd know that walk anywhere."

  She took the wooden steps sideways, one at a time, in deference to arthritis brought on by too many years of scrubbing floors at the Federal Insurance Building downtown. Jack reached out to offer her help.

  "I can walk by myself," she said. "He looks a little taller, don't he?"

  "Yes, Ma." Jack took her arm anyhow, and they walked toward Ray. He looked up and saw them.

  "I'm home, Ma. Hiya, Jack, how's things?" He hugged his mother and winked at his younger brother.

  "Where have you been?" she asked. "My goodness. You've been out of prison for two days, and you just now come dragging in."

  He kissed her on the cheek. "I'm sorry, Ma. I spent the night with Mike. We had a lot of old times to talk about."

  "Well, you should'a come home and seen your momma first, Ray. Help me up the steps here, and let's sit a minute."

  Her sons, one on each arm, helped her negotiate the steep steps. She sat in the swing and picked up her potatoes, and Ray sat on the railing. Jack sat on the swing, too, and watched his brother. He did seem taller, and heavier built. He was a man now at twenty-one, and had a dark, two day old beard. They sat for several seconds, watching their mother peeling with utmost concentration.

  "I got me a job, Ma," Ray said. "One of the guys that got out earlier told them about me."

  "Well, that's good, Ray. What kind'a job?"

  "It's being a sewing machine repairman at the StarTex pants factory up in Waverly. They said I could learn on the job."

  "Why, that's nice, Ray. You always did like to fix up cars and such."

  "I did maintenance up at State, too. They want me to start right away. Monday, they said."

  "Oh. That soon?" Jack watched his mother's face and saw her eyes glisten. She pushed the hair back again and quickly wiped her eyes. "Well, then I guess you'd better be there when they want you. When do you have to leave?"

  "I ought to leave by Friday," he said. "So I can find a place to stay and all. Ma, I'm going to make somethin' out of myself up there. That jail bit is no good. I don't think I could'a stood another day there. Not one more day."

  "That's good. I—I better get these on the stove." She stood quickly and turned away. The back of her wrist went back to her eyes again. "You want to get that door for me?"

  "Sure."

  Ray held the screen door open and followed his mother inside, talking. Jack started to get up and follow, but thought better of it. They probably had a lot to talk about. Besides, he didn't really know how to act around his brother.

  Jack sat back down in the swing, and soon the rhythmic squeaks of the springs set his mind free. Isolated snatches from the past swam by. His first day of middle school when he got to go to his brother's building. His brother's arrest and trial, his mother crying in her bedroom next to his.

  A sound in the street caught his attention and the police cruiser pulled up to the front of the house. The policeman on the passenger side, shorter and heavier set than the driver, rolled his window down and motioned toward Jack. He got up and walked slowly down the steps.

  "Isn't Ray home yet?" the policeman asked.

  "Nope. He ain't here."

  "We know for a fact he came in on the bus yesterday. We checked."

  "What you want him for?" Jack asked. "He’s already done his time."

  "You sure he's not here? You lie to us, you're in big trouble."

  "He ain't here. What do you want him for?"

  "Somebody broke into Mason's hardware store last night," the policeman said. "We just want to talk to him about it, that's all."

  "Well, he didn't do it. I know that."

  "And just how the hell do you know that? You said you haven't even seen him yet."

  “I just know it."

  "Well, we'll be back. When he comes you tell him to stay here."

  The policeman rolled the window back up and the car pulled away. Jack stood motionless for a second, unsure. He looked back at the house, then the police car. Suddenly he lunged at it and banged on the trunk. It screeched to a halt and the passenger side door opened.

  "I know he didn't do it," Jack yelled. "I know it because I did it!"