The Way Home

  “Marquis ain’t never been incarcerated. He was in that pretrial jail at Mount Olivet, but no hard lockup.”

  “Marquis isn’t ready,” said Ali, holding Lawrence’s gaze.

  Lawrence smiled. “All right. Maybe I’ll just talk to Ben. See what he got to say.”

  Ali rose from his chair, telling Lawrence it was time to go. Lawrence stood, and the two of them walked toward the door.

  “Damn, you all swole,” said Lawrence, looking Ali over. “I remember when you was one step off a midget. You always did have a chest on you, though.”

  “I got one of those late growth spurts,” said Ali. He was now a man of average height with a fireplug build.

  Above the door, where boys who were exiting the office could read them, were framed, hand-lettered lyrics:

  We people who are darker than blue

  Don’t let us hang around this town

  And let what others say come true.

  “What’s that mean?” said Lawrence, pointing at the lyrics.

  “Means, don’t become what society expects you to become. Be better than that.”

  “Damn, boy, you like Crusader Rabbit and shit.”

  “Not really.”

  “What you gonna do after you save all these young niggas down here? Run for president?”

  “I think I’ll just stay here and work.”

  Ali held the door open for Lawrence, who walked down the sidewalk toward his vehicle, an old Chevy, parked on Alabama Avenue. Two young men stood outside the storefront, talking loudly, laughing.

  “Y’all want to come inside?” said Ali.

  “What for?” said one young man.

  “You can watch television.”

  “Ya’ll ain’t even got cable. Or a remote.”

  “Play foosball if you want,” said Ali.

  “That shit broke,” said the other young man, and he and his friend laughed.

  Ali went back into the office, thinking, He’s right, it is broke. He made a mental note to get some duct tape and fix it, when he found the time.

  THOMAS FLYNN’S last stop of the day was at a Ford dealership in the Route 29 corridor of Silver Spring. It was where he bought his E-250 cargo vans and had them serviced. He dealt with the manager, Paul Nicolopoulos, a good-looking silver-maned guy in his fifties taken to double-breasted blazers and crisp white oxfords. Nicolopoulos always introduced himself as Paul Nichols to his clients, just to make his life easier. Increasingly, many of his customers were Hispanics and other types of immigrants, and they had trouble with his name, which his proud Greek immigrant grandfather had refused to change.

  “Just give me the cheap stuff,” said Nicolopoulos, watching Flynn measure the space with his Craftsman tape. They were in the used-car office, set up in a trailer. Nothing about it was plush.

  “I’m gonna sell you the olefin,” said Flynn. “Twenty-six-ounce commercial, level loop.”

  “The service guys walk through here all day with their boots on, and they’re not delicate. It’s like they got hooves.”

  “The olefin’s made for high traffic. It’s not pretty, but it’s plenty tough.”

  Flynn drew the tape back into the dispenser and clipped it onto his belt. He produced a pocket calculator and began to punch in numbers. He typically took the cost, added his profit, then tacked on the personality defect tax or, if he liked the client or owed him something, gave him a discount. In this way he arrived at a final figure.

  “Don’t hurt me,” said Nicolopoulos, watching Flynn calculate.

  “I’ll only put the head in,” said Flynn.

  “Pretend that I’m a virgin,” said Nicolopoulos.

  “I’ll be tender and kind,” said Flynn.

  “Afterward, will you brush the tears off my face?”

  “I’ll take you to McDonald’s and buy you a Happy Meal.”

  “Thank you, Tom.”

  Flynn closed the calculator and replaced it in his breast pocket. “Twenty dollars a square yard, including installation and takeaway.”

  “Is that good?”

  “I dunno. Did you give me a good price on my vans?”

  “I did the best I could.”

  “Me, too,” said Flynn.

  “When can you put it in?”

  “Early next week.”

  “Perfect,” said Nicolopoulos.

  Out in his van, Flynn called in the order to the mill. He phoned Chris, who was still in Bethesda with Ben, and checked on the status of the job. The two of them were slow, but Chris was conscientious and did decent work. Flynn tried not to lose patience with Chris, though sometimes, depending on his mood, he did become agitated. The trick was to avoid comparing Chris and Ben’s work to that of Isaac and his crew. No one was as fast or efficient as Isaac, but in general Chris and Ben were fine.

  Which wasn’t the case with some of the other ex-offenders Flynn had tried to help. At the urging of Chris’s friend Ali, he had hired, at various times, several men who had once been incarcerated at Pine Ridge. A couple of them, genial guys named Lonnie and Luther who had been in Chris and Ali’s unit, had issues with drugs and alcohol, rarely reported to work at an acceptable time, and dressed inappropriately. Another, a large man named Milton, could not grasp the mechanics of installation. Flynn ran a business that grew and was perpetuated by referrals, and who he sent into his clients’ homes made or broke his reputation. He had to let them go.

  There was one guy, a quiet, polite Pine Ridge alumnus named Lamar Brooks, who Flynn had hired and who had acquitted himself well. Lamar was ambitious, had his eyes wide open, and quickly learned the trade. After six months he bought a van and tools, went out on his own, and started an installation service, subcontracting for small carpet retailers in the Northeast and Southeast quadrants of the city. Flynn saw the failure of Lonnie, Luther, and Milton as insignificant in the face of Lamar’s success. And though Chris did not verbalize it, Flynn sensed that Chris appreciated his efforts on behalf of his friends, and that alone had been worth the aggravation a few of these young men had caused.

  “So you guys are almost done?” said Flynn into his cell.

  “Should be out of here in a half hour,” said Chris.

  “What are you doing tonight? You want to come to dinner?”

  “Can’t.”

  “You have plans?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I met a young lady named Katherine today,” said Flynn. “Works over at TCFI?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Are you seeing her?”

  “A little.”

  “Don’t be so effusive,” said Flynn.

  “I’m busy here.”

  “What’s her story?”

  “I gotta get back to work, Dad.”

  “All right. Come by for dinner sometime; your mom misses you. I’ve got a book to give you, too. Guy named Paul Fussell.”

  “I’ve read Fussell.”

  “Have fun tonight,” said Flynn.

  “I need to finish this job…. ”

  “Go.”

  Flynn headed home. It had been a decent day. No serious fires, no major mistakes. Not too busy, but he had closed a couple of deals, and there would be steady work for all his people in the coming week.

  Inside his house, he greeted Django, an adult Lab-pit mix they had adopted fully grown from the Humane Society at Georgia and Geranium after Darby’s death. Django had gotten off his circular cushioned bed that sat beside the couch in the den, and met Flynn at the door after hearing Flynn’s van pulling into the driveway, the distinctive sound of its Triton V-8 jacking up the beast’s ears. Django’s tail was spinning like a prop, and Flynn rubbed behind his ears and stroked his neck and chin. Django weighed eighty pounds and was heavily muscled. The pit in him was most visible in his blockish head.

  Amanda’s car was out on the street, so Flynn knew she was home, despite the utter quiet in the house. In the early evening she liked to pray the rosary in their bedroom. She would be up there now, making the sign of the
cross, reciting the Apostles’ Creed, touching the crucifix and then the beads as she proceeded into the Our Father, the three Hail Marys, and the Glory Be.

  He had come to accept Amanda’s devotion to Catholicism and Christ. He no longer thought it was square or weird, or a Stepford wife phase she was going through, as he had when she became deeply religious in the early days of their marriage. He was thankful for the comfort that religion gave her, even as he was unable to buy into it himself. He had learned to share her with the one he had once called “Uncle Jesus,” whom he thought of as an unwanted relative who had camped out in his home, and in turn Amanda had stopped trying to convert him.

  Flynn grabbed the plastic wrapper from that morning’s Washington Post, which Amanda saved daily, off the kitchen counter. Django began to bark, knowing that the plastic container was no longer a protective cover for the newspaper but was now a shit bag for his nightly walk.

  “Let’s go, boy,” said Flynn, and ecstatically the dog followed him down the hall to where Flynn grabbed his harness and leash off a peg.

  They walked their usual route through Friendship Heights, Django stopping at the houses where he knew other dogs lived, barking excitedly at the canine faces that were barking at him through doors and windowpanes. When Amanda walked Django, she stopped to talk to neighbors and occasionally strangers, but Flynn was not gregarious that way and politely nodded or said hello but kept up his pace. He was a workingman in a neighborhood of what he thought of, rather archaically, as professionals and yuppies, and as an adult he felt he did not fit in here, despite the fact that this had been his home almost his entire life. Sure, he ran a successful business and cleared six figures every year, but to his knowledge he was the only homeowner in Friendship Heights who drove a cargo van to work, and he believed that people looked at him and saw a guy who was not as educated as they were, not as accomplished, and, on some level, not in their class.

  This was largely in Flynn’s mind. In reality, most of the neighbors liked Thomas and Amanda Flynn and had never been anything but friendly and inclusive. Flynn knew this, yet he could not keep those feelings at bay.

  He stopped, as always, at the rec center and playground near their house. There in the grass Django sniffed about, found a spot he liked, and commenced to take a crap. Flynn looked at the playground, where young parents stood talking to one another while their children played. “I’m going to enroll Emily in the French-immersion program,” and “Skyler loves science; we’re taking him to the Smithsonian tomorrow,” and “Dylan is strong at soccer; we’re looking at a sleepaway camp for him this summer. Maybe he’ll get an athletic scholarship someday!”

  Enjoy it now, thought Flynn. There’s nothing but heartache ahead. Okay, some of you will be luckier than I was. But not all of you. So enjoy your dreams.

  Flynn made a glove of the plastic bag and scooped up Django’s shit.

  Amanda was standing over the granite kitchen counter, chopping a red onion for a salad, when they returned. Beside the cutting board sat a ziplock bag containing chicken breasts in a marinade of salad dressing. Flynn guessed he would be grilling the chicken shortly. His plan was to pour himself a bourbon over ice and take it out on the deck while he worked.

  “Good day today?” said Amanda. Django pressed his nose into her thigh by way of hello.

  “Not bad,” said Flynn, going to the sink. He pushed down on the plunger of a liquid-soap dispenser, turned on the faucet, and began to wash his hands. “You?”

  “I had to pay the insurance for our guys. But a couple of receivables came in, too.”

  Flynn ripped a paper towel from a roll and dried off. “Our son’s got a girlfriend, I think.”

  “Yeah?”

  “She works in the office at the warehouse. Nice-looking girl. I doubt she’s educated…. ”

  “Don’t be such a snob.”

  “I’m not.”

  “I didn’t go to college. You saying you have regrets?”

  “Hell, no.”

  Amanda stopped chopping momentarily as Flynn walked behind her and placed his hands on her waist. She was twenty pounds heavier than she had been as a teenager but carried it naturally. She had kept her curves, and the thought of her naked still excited him. He pulled her shoulder-length hair away from her neck and kissed her there and took in a clean smell of soap and lotion.

  “How do you know she’s his girlfriend and not just a girl?”

  “Just a feeling I had,” said Flynn. “She has your hair color and build. You know what they say about boys trying to date their moms.”

  “Stop.”

  Flynn saw the lines at the corners of her eyes deepen and knew that she was pleased. “I don’t blame him.” Flynn cupped her breasts and kissed the side of her mouth.

  She turned in to him. They kissed and in no time it went from love to passion. Finally her skin became flushed, and she chuckled low and gently pushed him away.

  “That was nice,” she said.

  “We’re done?”

  “Why does every kiss have to lead to sex?”

  “Because I’m a man?”

  “A caveman, you mean.”

  “They don’t bother with kisses.”

  “Go pour yourself a drink.”

  “Trying to get rid of me?”

  “Not entirely,” said Amanda.

  “So, later on tonight…”

  “Perhaps.”

  Flynn walked toward the dining room, where he kept a small bar.

  “What’s her name?” said Amanda to his back.

  Flynn said, “Kate.”

  He made a drink. He drank it rather quickly, and reached for the bottle on the cart.

  THIRTEEN

  BEN LIVED in a one-bedroom unit in a group of boxy red brick apartment houses set near the Rock Creek Cemetery in upper Northwest, steps away from Northeast. The neighborhood was not dangerous, nor did it carry an air of tension like the foster homes in which he’d been raised. After the rush hour traffic died down on close-by North Capitol Street, a commuter route in and out of the city, the atmosphere was fairly quiet. His apartment got little sun, was furnished with Goodwill and Salvation Army stuff, and roaches scattered when he turned on the kitchen light.

  Ben’s place was nothing to brag about, but it was the first living quarters he’d ever had to his self outside lockup. It was his and it was fine. Only bad thing was, the management didn’t allow pets. He wanted a dog.

  Ben didn’t own a car or possess a driver’s license. He hadn’t been behind the wheel of a vehicle since his days of joyriding and grand theft. For a while he’d been barred from getting a license, but he was clear to obtain one now. Chris had been urging him to take the test. It would be easier on Chris, and make Ben more valuable to Mr. Flynn, if he could drive the vans. He supposed he would do so eventually, but he was not in a hurry. He preferred to take small steps.

  Other than for work, Ben had no need for a car. He was on a bus line, and he was not far from the Fort Totten Metro station. You stayed in the District, it was easy to get around.

  He liked to take walks in the cemetery, eighty-some acres of hills, trees, monuments, and headstones, some of the nicest green space in D.C. He entered at the main gate, at Rock Creek Church Road and Webster Street, and walked up past the church to the high ground, where the finest, most ornate monuments were located, and down a road so narrow it did not look like a proper road, to the Adams Memorial, his favorite spot. A marble bench faced the statue, the monument shielded by a wall of evergreens. On his weekends off, he’d sit on the bench and try to write poetry. Or open a paperback novel he had slipped into the pocket of his jeans.

  Ben could read.

  He had been at Pine Ridge until the age of twenty-one. The incident with Calvin Cooke had kept him behind the fence and razor wire, even as his friends had been set free. At eighteen, Ali and Chris had rotated out when they’d achieved Level 6. Lawrence Newhouse had been released, violated the conditions of his parole, was reincarcerated at th
e Ridge, and went on to do adult time for gun charges, first at Lorton before it closed, and then at a penitentiary in Ohio. By the time Ben had walked free, he was the old man of the facility. The guards had clapped him out, the way faculty did for kids graduating elementary school.

  Under supervision, he lived in several halfway houses with other men. He stayed to himself, kept his appointments with his parole officer, walked by unlocked cars without stopping, was piss-tested regularly, and always dropped negatives. Chris, by then employed by his father, put him on as an assistant and taught him the carpet-and-floor-installation trade. Ali, then a student at Howard but already working the system, found out about a special night program at UDC, funded by the District and local charities, set up to educate ex-offenders. Ali got Ben enrolled.

  There he met his teacher, a kind and patient young woman named Cecelia Lewis. In the schools of his youth, and his high school classes at Pine Ridge, he had worked with instructors who tried to get him to read, and corrected him, always corrected him, when he could not make out words, and he became ashamed and got to where he hated to look at books. Miss Lewis read to him, which no one had ever done. She read from newspapers, comic books, books written for teenagers, and then from adult novels, not fancy ones, but clearly written books with good characters that anyone could appreciate and understand. She would read from a book, and he would hold a copy of that same book and follow along, and after months of this, twice a week at night, the words and sentences connected and became pictures in his head. He was reading, and a door opened, and when he went through it he felt as if things were possible now that had not been possible before. It was like putting on a pair of prescription eyeglasses for the first time. The world looked new.

  Of course, he fell in love with Cecelia Lewis. He picked flowers from people’s gardens and window boxes on his walk to the Red Line train, handing them to her when he arrived at her classroom, and he wrote poems, sensing they were awful but giving them to her anyway to let her know that she had reached him deep.

  They never did make it to bed. They never even kissed. When he finally expressed his feelings to her, she told him that it would be inappropriate for a teacher to have that kind of relationship with her student, that it was certainly not him, that she did care about him as a person, whatever that meant, and that they should remain friends. Her eyes told him something different, they said she was into him, but he understood her reticence and didn’t press it further. When the semester was over, he never saw her again. No matter. Cecelia Lewis had changed his life, and there would always be a place for her in his heart.