by John Hart
“Be that as it may”—the DA raised his voice—“the defendant was dishonorably discharged after attacking a highly decorated superior officer. It took four men to subdue the defendant, and three were severely injured in the process, two to the point of hospitalization in intensive care. It takes a dangerous man to do that kind of damage, and local authorities don’t relish the responsibility of keeping someone like that in custody. Our jail is overcrowded. Its officers lack the training necessary to deal with someone as demonstrably violent and capable as this defendant.”
“Your Honor—”
“I have a letter, Your Honor, from the warden at Lanesworth Prison attesting to the dangers of holding Mr. French in custody. Even at a state prison farm—with all its facilities and experienced officers—this defendant was suspected in two unsolved killings and multiple beatings—”
“Suspected, Your Honor. Neither tried nor convicted.”
“Your Honor, if I may approach with the letter.”
“Hardly necessary, Mr. DA. Your request is unusual but well within the prerogative of your office. If you want the defendant in state prison, that’s where I’ll send him. Madam Clerk, enter the order and call the next case.”
* * *
An hour passed before they came for Jason. He spent that time alone in a cell.
“Open five.”
When the door opened, Jason blinked but stayed where he was.
“Come on, let’s go. Your ride is here.” Jason waited five beats, then rose as if from a Sunday nap. The guard stepped back, and four others entered to bind Jason in full restraints. “All right. Nice and easy.” They formed up around him, and Jason began the shuffle step that kept him on his feet and moving. They traveled one hallway, and then a second. A bus waited in the parking bay. LANESWORTH PRISON. INMATE TRANSFER. “Stop here.”
Beyond the bus, a concrete ramp sloped to the open street. Jason heard distant traffic; tasted the fumes. When the bus door opened, a uniformed corrections officer stepped down. The name tag said RIPLEY. Jason knew him. “Paperwork?” He held out a hand, and one of the local officers gave him a clipboard. Ripley dashed off a signature, and handed the clipboard back. “Any problems I should know about?”
“Meek as a kitten.”
“We’ll take it from here.”
Ripley summoned two officers from the bus, Jordan and Kudravetz. Jason knew them, too. They got him up the steps and onto a bench. When Ripley mounted the bus, he threaded between the seats until he reached the place Jason sat. He was midfifties, broad, strong, and prison-pale.
Jason met his eyes, and said, “Captain Ripley.”
“Prisoner French. Do you understand what’s happening and why?”
Jason nodded once. He knew.
“Would you believe me if I said I’m sorry for you?”
Jason met the guard’s steady gaze. Captain Ripley wasn’t a bad guy, just trapped, like the warden was trapped. “I would,” Jason replied.
“It’s a long drive,” Ripley said. “At least you have that.”
He returned to the front of the bus, locked the steel mesh door, and sat on the other side with Jordan and Kudravetz. The driver cranked the engine, and rolled them into traffic. Jason watched the city slide past, the businessmen and tall buildings, the construction crews and pretty women. A clutch of hippies filled a street corner, protesting the war; and Jason watched them slide past, too: the men who’d never fought, the women with angry faces and flowers in their hair. A moment’s resentment flickered, but Jason was too much a prisoner to really care.
He thought of Tyra, instead.
He thought of X.
When the city fell away, it took little time for the fields to spread out and the forests to rise. The bus made multiple turns, moving ever eastward until the roads narrowed and buckled. The driver downshifted when it got bad, but the old bus still rattled and clanked.
The prison was close.
Jason saw it in the tangled woods and narrow cuts, and in the ditch lines filled with stagnant water.
Not just close, he thought.
Here.
The bus slowed on cue, turning at an enormous block of stone where words, carved long ago, told the sad, grim truth of things:
LANESWORTH STATE PRISON FARM, 1863
ABANDON ALL HOPE, YE WHO ENTER HERE
Before his time at this place, Jason had never read Dante, but could now quote entire passages. “Through me the way to the suffering city; through me the everlasting pain.”
Ripley turned his head, his fingers hooked in the mesh. “What’s that, prisoner?”
“Dante’s Inferno,” Jason replied. “Divine Comedy. The gates of hell.”
“I don’t get it.”
“I just hate that sign.”
Ripley didn’t understand or care enough to ask again. “Four miles,” he said; but Jason knew that, too.
Four miles of private road.
Eighteen thousand acres.
The prison crowned a rise in the center of all that emptiness, and Jason felt a familiar chill when he saw the blackened stone. Ripley said, “Welcome home,” but Jason heard a softer voice, instead, a knowing whisper and the long-ago words of Dante Alighieri.
Nothing was made before me but eternal things,
And I endure eternally.
The voice belonged to X.
Jason was home, indeed.
19
After Jason’s court appearance, we sat in my car, waiting for a bus to slide out from the belly of the courthouse. Chance was not happy about it. “Tell me again why we’re doing this.”
He’d said it before, but few things were real to me now: Becky, my brother, this question of manhood and war.
“Can’t we go to the quarry or something?”
“Chill,” I said. “That’s the bus.”
A bus emerged and rolled past us—same white paint and black letters—and I saw my brother inside. I knew where they were taking him, so I couldn’t explain this need, but I wanted to see the prison and make it real. I stayed far back, but kept the bus in sight as it moved through the city and into the countryside. It took an hour to reach the far, empty place where Lanesworth waited for my brother, and when we got there, I stopped on the verge of the state road, and watched dust rise as the bus split a brown-green field and disappeared under a canopy of trees.
“We’re not going in?” Chance asked.
“This is far enough.”
“Finally, some sense.”
He spit through the open window and I felt a wave of anger. “How many times have I been there for you, Chance? When your dad left. When your mom got sick. I could name a hundred others, and I didn’t bitch about any of them, did I? I went to the hospital. You lived in my room for a month.”
“Dude…”
“Two damn minutes, all right?”
He didn’t apologize, but Chance played tough about the things that really mattered. His mom was one. I was another. When dust settled in the field, I turned across the road, and drove us out.
“Did you get what you needed?” Chance asked.
“I’m not sure what I needed.”
“Look, man. If he didn’t do it, he’ll get out. Not for the guns, maybe, but you know…”
I had no response, and the rest of the drive was like that. In the city, I dropped Chance at the mall. His reasons were simple. “If I’m going to cut school, I may as well have some fun. Sure I can’t talk you into it?”
“Not today.”
“I can come with you if you want.”
“Nah, go on. I’ll see you later.”
I left him on the sidewalk, and drove to Sara’s condominium. There was no answer when I knocked on the door, but I saw an upstairs curtain twitch. “Sara, come on.” I knocked again. “Sara!”
When the door opened, she looked puffy and pale. “What are you doing here?”
“I don’t know. I wanted to check on you.”
“Well, now you have.”
She
leaned on the door, but I caught it before it closed. “Sara, wait.”
“We should have never gone out with you.” She showed her face again, pinch-lipped this time. “You. Your brother. She’d be alive if we hadn’t.”
“You can’t believe that.”
“Do you know how she died?”
“How could I possibly know that?”
“Her parents know. The cops told them and they told me.”
“Sara, listen—”
“She was cut to pieces, chained up and tortured and cut to pieces. They say it took hours.”
“I don’t know what to say.” I truly did not.
“Your brother’s an animal. Don’t come here again.”
She slammed the door, and I tried to not see Tyra as she’d described her.
What if it’s me? I wondered.
What if I’m the one who’s wrong?
When I turned away from Sara’s door, I noticed the man in a car across the street. I didn’t think about him one way or another until I stepped into the road, and saw that he was not so much old as old-looking. That seemed familiar, somehow: the loose skin, and how he watched me walk. Even in my car, I thought he was watching. I told myself it didn’t matter. He was just a creepy old dude in a creepy black car.
It took four blocks to remember.
I’d seen him in the courtroom crowd, three rows back and staring at the DA. I took my foot off the gas, and replayed the scene: the judge on his bench, the DA, sweating bullets as he stammered at the judge, and looked fearfully into the crowd. The old man from the car had been right there.
Lanesworth …
The DA had been talking about Lanesworth.
The same man on Sara’s street could not be a coincidence.
I turned across traffic, and everything was fast: my heart, the drive. On Sara’s street, I drove faster.
Be there! I prayed.
But he was gone.
I pounded on Sara’s door, thinking she should know about the man on her street, or that maybe she already did. “Sara! Open up!” I beat on the door for two full minutes. I wanted answers. I wanted to talk.
Sara, apparently, did not.
I thought about it as I drove from the city: Sara’s anger, the man on her street.
* * *
At home, I found my mother in the kitchen, beautifully dressed and made up to perfection, humming as she swept about the room, stirring pots on the stove, bending to remove a tray of cookies from the oven.
“Mom?”
She saw me, and beamed. “Gibson, hello! Such a lovely day!”
There was no mention of Jason or court or the fact I should be in school. She kissed my cheek, and I smelled her perfume. “What is all this?”
“Can’t a mother cook for her family?” She turned on the same smile, the same glittering gaze. “Are you home for lunch? This is for dinner tonight, but I can whip something up in a jiffy.”
I had no easy response. The whole scene had a patina of make-believe: the sunlight and the apron, another burst of day-bright smile.
“They say the temperature will break by dusk. Perhaps we should dine on the patio. Your father always liked that.” She dipped a spoon in sauce and tasted it. “Paprika,” she said; and I realized then that she was strangely, deliriously happy. Worse yet, I realized why.
The bad son was in prison.
She thought the good one was safe.
* * *
Too troubled to stay in the house, I drove back to the city, ending up in a parking lot I knew better than most. The building was redbrick and small, its windows as spotless and crisp as the poster taped inside:
THE MARINE CORPS BUILDS MEN
A recruitment officer was watching through the window, and waved at me to come inside. He’d done the same thing a dozen times on different days, but today, I got out of the car and actually went inside. The officer was medium-sized and medium-aged, but his feet rode the linoleum at shoulder width. An empty sleeve was pinned on his chest beside a name tag that said MCCORMICK, J.
“I’ve seen you before,” he said. “Ten times, at least.” He gestured to the desk, and we sat, one on either side. His eyes were dark, the gaze measured. Medals hung beside the empty sleeve. “You’re wondering about the arm. Most do. Enemy bayonet. A severed artery.”
“Vietnam?” I asked.
“Khe Sanh in ’68.”
“Is that why…?” I trailed off, pointing at the Purple Heart on his chest.
“Is that the reason you’re here? You like the idea of medals?”
“I never think about them.”
“Every boy does.”
“I’m not a boy.”
“You sit in the car like a boy.”
It was flatly said. Heat rose in my neck and face, and I hated that. “Aren’t you supposed to recruit me?”
“This is the Marine Corps, not the army.”
I started to stand, the air between us like the edge of a storm.
“First, tell me why you came inside. Why today? What changed?”
It was a good question. I had no ready answer. “My brothers fought,” I finally said. “I graduate soon.”
“Were your brothers marines?”
“My father, too. He fought in Korea, my brothers in Vietnam. The oldest died at Cam Lộ in ’67.”
“What unit?”
“First Battalion, Third Marines.”
“I’m sorry for your loss, son. I’m sure he was a fine marine.”
“PFC Robert French. He was.”
The officer blinked at last. “You said French?”
“Robert, yes. Drafted out of high school. When he died, my other brother enlisted.”
The officer leaned forward, the same fixed look in his eyes. “Your other brother is Jason French? Gunnery Sergeant Jason French, from here in Mecklenburg County?” He slid a newspaper across the desk, and pressed his finger on the headline. “This Jason French?”
I saw a picture of my brother beneath a headline that spoke of murder and court and custody. “He didn’t kill that girl,” I said.
“I believe you.”
“No one else does.”
“Those people don’t matter, civilians. They don’t understand the man your brother is, they can’t.”
“Understand what, exactly?”
The officer leaned even closer, his mouth a firm, straight line. “I want you to give your brother a message. Tell him it’s from First Lieutenant John McCormick, Second Battalion, Twenty-Sixth Marines. He doesn’t know me, but that won’t matter. Tell him it’s from every combat marine who knows what he did in Vietnam.”
“I still don’t understand.”
“Kid, you’re not supposed to.”
Something in the air had changed, not the edge of a storm, but the stillness, behind. “What message?” I asked.
“Simply this.”
The officer gathered himself, dark eyes glinting as his chair scraped in the empty room. He blinked away what looked like tears, and I watched in quiet dismay as he stood tall behind the desk and, with his last good arm, saluted the marine who was my brother.
20
The intake officers processed Jason as they would any prisoner. They photographed and fingerprinted him, then took off the chains, the county-issued clothing. The strip search was perfunctory, and Jason endured it without comment. The smells were the same, same colors and sounds. He didn’t know where in the prison they’d house him, but knew how the walk in would play. The first time, there’d been jeers and threats; no one had known him.
This time, there’d be silence.
Just like when they’d walked him out.
Jason looked at the observation window on the second floor above the intake center. A man stood behind the glass, lights dimmed, but Jason knew it was the warden. He had the same narrow shoulders, the same defeated slump. Seeing him there, some part of Jason was angry—he wouldn’t be at Lanesworth without the warden’s approval and participation—but it was hard to ho
ld on to the emotion. The man was his own kind of prisoner.
“Are you ready?” Captain Ripley put his hand on Jason’s shoulder, but Jason didn’t move.
“Where are we going?”
“Not to X, not yet.”
Jason studied the man’s features. He had a square face, wide-set eyes, and a nose like a fist. “You’re still running his detail?”
“I am.”
“Still six of you?”
“Other than his fast-approaching execution, not much has changed.”
“How soon?” Jason asked.
“Not soon enough.”
Ripley nodded at another officer, and a steel door slid on metal tracks, a hallway stretching away beyond it. Jason took the first step, and Ripley fell in beside him. They walked in silence, down one hall, then another. “The warden wants to make you comfortable. Isolation wing. Private cell.” He stopped at the main door of the isolation wing. A second guard let them in. The first cell was empty. “This is yours.” Jason stepped inside, but Ripley seemed loath to leave. “You didn’t kill her, did you?”
“What do you think?”
“I think X has long arms and some reason to want you back inside. Any thoughts on reason?”
“None.”
“Either way…” Ripley shrugged with sad eyes, and Jason felt a moment’s pity. No guards on X’s detail had a wife or kids. Too dangerous. The warden’s call. But there were means of hurt beyond torn skin or broken bones.
Ripley gathered himself as if remembering that one of them was an inmate. “Anyway. He wants to see you at five o’clock. Those are for you.” He meant clothing, stacked on the bed: jeans, a linen shirt, and loafers. The guard offered Jason a pack of cigarettes. “Here, you’ll need these more than me.”
He left and locked the door, and Jason contemplated the scars on his hands. Some were from the war and other fights, but most had come from fights with X. Same with the headaches, the nightmares, the poorly healed ribs. Lighting a cigarette, Jason stared at the cold, blank walls. The men he’d fought with in Vietnam were dead or scattered. His father could barely meet his eyes, and he’d not seen his mother in years. Only Gibby seemed to care if he was in prison or not.