Alone

  He was big, he was strong, he was mean. He managed to break various ribs, noses, and wrists of his eight attackers. They got his kidney with a homemade shank, dropping him like a stuck rhino and leaving him to bleed out on the floor.

  One of the white guys came over then. “Baby rapist,” the neo-Nazi said and spat on the man's face.

  He began his plotting, lying twisted on a cement floor, his blood pooling up around his face.

  The prison officials weren't stupid. Put him back in general pop and he was as good as dead. Put him back in PC and someone else was as good as dead. So what to do?

  Stick him in solitary confinement, the only place left. It took the man only one week to realize his sack-of-shit lawyer had been right after all—medium security had been as good as it was ever going to get for a guy like him.

  Now he passed his time alone in a six-by-eight cell. He was allowed out one hour a day, to exercise in a penned-in yard the size of a dog kennel or attend to personal hygiene. From a rectangular window about the same size as his face, he could watch leaves turn from green to gold to brown. Watch trees go from full to bare to covered with snow. Watch the seasons pass painfully slow, month after month, year after year.

  Best he could look forward to now was to become a “runner,” a prisoner who tends to the housekeeping for the cell block, in return for a slightly larger cell. Yeah, it was the goddamn glamorous life for him. Biggest thrill in the world was turning on the TV to stare at Britney Spears.

  So much time. To sit. To brood. To plot what should happen next.

  Prisons were about power. Power was about money. He was hated, he was feared, and now, he was patient. Hoarding cigarettes, building his stash. Waiting for new blood to enter the cement walls, someone who would care less about what he did and more about what could be done.

  It took him eight years. The lucky candidate was a kid, not much older than the man had been in the beginning, except this kid was all skinny limbs and acne-spotted face. Turned out he'd been making indecent movies starring the little girls in his mother's daycare. The kid went straight to PC, where he sat bug-eyed each night, knowing he didn't stand a chance and waiting for the bogeyman to get him.

  The man got to him first. Slipped some money to a guard who in turn slipped the kid the man's note, signed by “Mr. Bosu.” A bit more money, a few more notes, and the kid was greased and ready to go. Mr. Bosu had convinced him. If the kid was planning on surviving, he needed to strike first and strike hard. Build a rep, now, these first few weeks, and everyone would leave him alone.

  The kid bought the preaching; Mr. Bosu graciously offered more mentoring. How to make a shank, how to conceal it. How to extract the sharpened piece of metal quickly and strike with surprise. Oh, and how to pick a target.

  The man didn't care about the Hispanics. Fuck 'em, they'd kill any white guy just for sport. Mr. Bosu had bigger game in his sights.

  It went down on a Thursday. In the cafeteria. Porno Kid was serving the meal to the other maximum security inmates. The right two white guys got in line. Kid said wait, he needed to get fresh food. He went around, no one really paying attention.

  He dropped the first neo-Nazi before the guy ever made a sound. Second had just brought up his tray in bewilderment and the kid was at his throat.

  The man heard stories later. How the kid, one hundred and fifty pounds soaking wet, was surprisingly strong. How he sprung on the two white supremacists like a spider monkey, teeth bared, eyes feral while he slashed away at their necks. The arterial spray shot eight feet. Guys already sitting down didn't know if the red on their shirts was from the two flailing white guys or the marinara sauce on their overcooked spaghetti.

  Pandemonium ensued. Fellow neo-Nazis springing from their tables and, like the thick-headed Neanderthals they were, going after the nearest Hispanic, versus doing anything about the long-armed kid still carving up their fellow gang members.

  Guards burst into the cafeteria, wielding heavy mattresses and firing knee knockers at anyone stupid enough to stand. Place went to full lockdown, alarms screeching, sirens whirling while the kid stood up in the middle of the carnage, held up the metal shank in his bloody fist, and shrieked, “So don't you buttfuckers ever think about touching me!”

  It was a glorious moment, the man thought. He was shocked and pleasantly pleased with his prodigy. Two days later, the kid disappeared of course. Lot of blood in the laundry room, but no sign of a corpse. Word on the street—don't eat the meat loaf.

  The state assembled a task force to look into “gang issues” at the prison after that. And the warden made them sit through a video on “racial sensitivity.” Afterwards, everyone made a real point of saying, “No, it's really about you, not your fucking race,” right before they beat the shit out of someone.

  The man got to feel good for a few days, before going back to his exciting life of watching paint dry.

  Now, however, there were whispers and rumors about the mysterious Mr. Bosu. He had friends, he had connections. This Mr. Bosu, no one was quite sure who he was, but even behind bars, he could get things done.

  The man was satisfied. From within the harsh recesses of solitary confinement, he had done something special—he'd become every prisoner's bogeyman.

  The man knew now, as he ran each day around the exercise yard, as he passed his time doing push-ups and pull-ups and ab crunches and butt squats, that there would be life after this. He was going to get out. He would return to the world. Harder, smarter, tougher than ever before.

  And it would be good.

  Once, he'd been a boy. He'd obeyed his impulses, but he'd made mistakes. Now, he was a man. He was seasoned. He understood the value of patience. And he knew the legal system inside and out.

  There would be no working at McDonald's for the glorious Mr. Bosu. There would be no life of drudgery, showing up every day for some menial job where he was supposed to be eternally grateful just to have his sorry, felonious ass employed.

  He'd served his time. And he was not planning on ever going back to prison.

  Oh no, he had quite a vision for himself. A whole career plan, in fact. He'd thought of it even before he'd been contacted by his mysterious Benefactor X, the one who'd arranged his timely parole, the one who'd passed along a certain list of chores.

  Mr. Bosu was going to make himself a boatload of money. And Mr. Bosu was going to make it doing what he did best: randomly destroying lives.

  The man smiled. He crunched up his disposable coffee cup in a single fist and rose from the table. Now people turned. Now people stared. Then, just as quickly, people turned away.

  Mr. Bosu had made one mistake twenty-five years ago. He had let her live.

  He did not plan on making that mistake again.

  C ATHERINE DROVE TOWARD her father's house. Light was failing, another day meeting a premature death as winter reared its ugly head. She was tired. Bone-deep weary in a way that made her grip the steering wheel too tight and twist about in her seat. Jimmy had always teased her when she drove, how she'd be horrible on a road trip, probably falling asleep and killing herself before ever reaching her first stop.

  Thinking about him now made her feel a sharp, stabbing pain somewhere deep. How long had it been since they'd said a kind word to one another? How many years since they'd even bothered to pretend they were in love? She guessed it didn't matter. He'd been a constant in her landscape and she missed him now the way other people might miss a limb. Once she'd been whole. Now she felt curiously incomplete.

  She arrived in her father's neighborhood. Her neighborhood. Her parents had bought this house when she was five years old. The split-level ranch sat on a quarter acre, surrounded by other modest homes on other modest lots. Little had changed over the years. Her father maintained the same white siding with Colonial red shutters. Tuesday was garbage day. Saturday, people worked in their yards. And every Wednesday night, her father got together with the McGlashans and Bodells to drink beer and play cards. He'd have stories for
her now of their children and grandchildren. Kids she had grown up with who'd gone on to manage grocery stores or work at banks, who drove minivans and now lived in split-levels of their own with tow-headed children and big bouncy dogs. Kids she'd grown up with leading normal happy lives.

  She had wondered sometimes, right after it had happened, why it hadn't been one of them. Why couldn't they have seen the blue Chevy? Why couldn't they have been enticed to stop and help look for some mythical lost dog?

  God, she hated turning down this street.

  She parked her Mercedes in the driveway. Her father had the porch lights on, illuminating the tiny brick walk and four front steps. She took a deep breath, reminded herself to stay on task, and got out of the car.

  The cold hit her hard. She shivered uncontrollably. She looked up the street, where night gathered just beyond the trees, forming a dark tunnel from which there would be no escape. She looked down the street and saw the same.

  And suddenly, passionately, she hated this damn place. The house, the yard, the 1970s neighborhood. It had been an act of unkind fate that had brought her parents here. And as far as she was concerned, it was a bigger act of conscious cruelty that made them stay.

  “It's not the neighborhood,” her father had told her mother again and again right after it happened. “It was one man. We move now, and what will Catherine think?”

  I would've thought you cared.

  She drew in her shaky breath, realized she was close to losing it, and forced her hands into fists. Think of a happy place, she told herself a little wildly. Then thought, Fuck it, and headed for the door.

  Her father was already waiting for her. She came up the steps and he opened the wooden door, leaving her to manage just the screen while he stood patiently to the side.

  Inside, he took her coat and, as was his custom, said, “How was the drive?”

  “Fine.”

  “Traffic?”

  “Not bad.”

  He grunted. “Heading in, though, getting back to the city on a Saturday night . . .”

  “I'll manage.”

  He grumbled again about traffic—he didn't like where she lived any more than she liked where he lived—then gestured weakly to the small living room. Carpet was still gold shag, the sofa a brown floral print. Catherine had offered to replace the furniture for him once. He'd shaken his head. The sofa was comfortable, the carpet durable. He didn't require anything fancy.

  Catherine moved to the edge of the tiny love seat and sat perched with her hands upon her knees. Entering this room always felt like entering a time warp; she never knew where to look or how to feel. Today she chose a spot on the carpet and fixed her gaze there.

  “I need to talk to you about something,” she said quietly.

  “Are you thirsty? Want something to drink?”

  “No.”

  “I have some soda. Root beer, right? That's what you like.”

  “I'm not thirsty, Dad.”

  “What about water? Long drive like that, you must be parched. Let me get you some water.”

  She gave up arguing. He shambled into the kitchen, then returned with two glasses of water in daisy-printed plastic cups. He took the brown La-Z-Boy. She remained on the love seat. She drank some of the water after all.

  “You know what happened,” she said at last.

  Her father couldn't seem to look at her. His gaze was ping-ponging around the room. He finally found the portrait of her mother, hanging over the mantel, and she thought his face looked old and sad.

  “Yeah,” he said at last.

  “I'm sorry it ended like this. I'm sorry . . . I'm sorry Jimmy's dead.”

  “He hit you,” her father said, the first time she'd ever heard him acknowledge it.

  “Sometimes.”

  “He wasn't a good man.”

  “No.”

  “You liked his money that much?” her father asked, and she was shocked by the sudden anger in his voice.

  She faltered, her hands shaking harder. She tried another sip of water, but the cup trembled in her grasp. She wished she could just bolt from the room.

  “He was good to Nathan.”

  “He never cared a rat's ass for either of you.”

  “Dad—”

  “You should've left him.”

  “It's more complicated—”

  “He beat you! You should've left him. You should've come here.”

  Catherine opened her mouth. She didn't know what to say. Her father had never made that offer. He'd never even commented on her marriage. He'd attended her wedding, where he'd shaken Jimmy's hand and told her new husband good luck. After that, he'd been busy with his card games and veterans' groups and routines. He'd appear every Thanksgiving and Christmas at her in-laws', eat some turkey, hand Nathan a present, give her a kiss on the cheek, and that was it, he was gone again, back to the neighborhood that he loved and she abhorred. Sometimes she wondered if things might have been different if her mother had lived. They would never know.

  “It doesn't matter anymore,” she said at last.

  “Guess not.” Her father drank some water.

  “There's an issue though. The Gagnons, Jimmy's parents, are suing me for custody of Nathan.” She brought up her chin. “They claim I'm abusing him.”

  Her father didn't say anything right away. He drank more water, then twisted the cloudy plastic cup in his hands, then drank some more. The silence dragged on. Catherine grew bewildered. Where was the wild denial? Where was the leap to his daughter's defense? Sixty seconds ago he'd been claiming she could've turned to him for help for her broken marriage. Now where was he?

  “The illnesses?” her father asked at last.

  “They claim I'm doing something to Nathan, tampering with his food, I don't know what. They think I'm intentionally making him sick.”

  Her father looked up. “Are you?”

  “Dad!”

  “He's in the hospital a lot.”

  “He's sick!”

  “Doctors never found anything.”

  “He has pancreatitis! Right now. Call Dr. Rocco, call anyone in that damn place.” She was on her feet. “He is my son! I have jumped through every hoop I know trying to do right by him. How can you . . . How dare you! Goddammit, how dare you!”

  She was yelling now, literally yelling, like a wild woman, with the veins bulging in her neck, and it occurred to her in the back of her mind that this was what she'd wanted to do for days. Ever since Tuesday morning, when she had picked up the phone and heard Jimmy casually discussing with some lawyer his plans to divorce her.

  “You're sure she won't get anything?” he'd asked the lawyer. “I don't want her touching one red cent.”

  “No Nathan, no money,” the lawyer had assured him. “It's all taken care of. I can file the paperwork within the hour.”

  “I love my son!” she screamed at her father now. “Why doesn't anyone believe that I love Nathan?”

  And then she broke. Her legs gave out. She collapsed on the horrible brown sofa, her shoulders heaving, a strange hiccupping sound coming from her throat. She couldn't find herself. She was lost, drowned in some would-be moment, where Jimmy had left her and Nathan had left her and she was back in her rat-infested apartment, no family, no money, all alone. A blue Chevy would turn down the street. A hole would open in the ground. There would be nothing to save her anymore.

  Her father was still sitting across from her. He had his gaze locked intently on the portrait of her mother. That finally gave her strength. She pulled herself together, wiping the back of her hand across her dry eyes.

  “Will you support me?” she asked quietly.

  “You need money?”

  “No, Dad.” Her voice grew terse again. She forced herself to speak calmly, as if explaining to a child. “There's going to be a hearing. A custody hearing. I met with my lawyer this afternoon. The Gagnons will bring in witnesses to testify that I'm a bad mother. I need my own witnesses who will say I'm a good mother. Or at leas
t,” she amended, “that I'm not a threat to Nathan.”

  “Where is Nathan now?”

  “He's in the hospital. He has pancreatitis.”

  “Shouldn't you be there?”

  “Of course I should be there!” She tried taking another deep breath. “But I'm here, Dad, talking to you about Nathan's future, because despite what anyone might think, I don't want to lose my son.”

  “The Gagnons aren't bad grandparents,” he said.

  “No. In their own way, I'm sure they love Nathan.”

  “He's all they have left now.”

  “He's all I have left, too.”

  “I think they would provide for him,” her father said.

  Catherine blinked her eyes, feeling slightly delirious. “I would provide for him, too.”

  Her father finally looked at her. She was startled by the anguish she saw in his face. “You used to be such a happy child.”

  “Dad?”

  “I got out the home movies. I was cleaning out the attic, going through some stuff. I'm getting some arthritis, you know; it's tough to mount the stairs. So I thought I'd better get to those boxes, get them cleaned out while I still can. I found the old reel-to-reels. Watched them last night.”

  She couldn't say anything. Tears glistened in her father's eyes.

  “You were so pretty,” he whispered. “Your hair back in a ponytail, tied with a big red bow. Your mother used to comb it out for you every morning and you'd pick a ribbon for the day. Red was your favorite, followed by pink.

  “You were in the backyard. Your birthday, I think, but I didn't see a cake. Other kids were over and we had filled the kiddie pool. You were laughing and splashing in the water, shrieking when I turned on the hose.

  “You were laughing,” he repeated now, almost helplessly. “Catherine, I haven't seen you laugh in over twenty years.”

  Her chest went tight. She thought she should say something. She ended up shaking her head, as if to deny his words.