Damn, she was bossy. I wasn’t sure why I liked that. If a woman had tried to tell me what to do when I was 16, I was out of there faster than a bolt of lightning. Things change, I guess.
It was good talking to a guy other than my dad. Hulk was cool, but he didn’t speak much and I spent most of the day working by myself.
Not one of my friends from high school had stuck around or shown any interest in getting reacquainted, and I didn’t really make friends in prison, so it was good to talk to someone like a buddy.
“We should catch a game some time,” said Pete.
“Sure,” I said, “so long as it’s not in the next six weeks.”
“Why’s that?”
“Oh my God,” grumbled Bev. “Learning has not taken place.”
“Waal, got a 11 PM curfew and a 10-mile travel limit ‘til my parole’s up,” I reminded him.
“Oh, right,” Pete said quietly. “After that then.”
“Yeah, maybe. Although Torrey and me might not be stayin’ around.”
Bev looked up and frowned. “Why? Where are you guys going?”
Torrey shrugged. “We haven’t made any definite plans, but I don’t think we’ll stay here. People in town are pretty shitty toward Jordan.”
“You don’t have to stay right here,” urged Pete. “There’s plenty of work in Corpus, or Galveston, or even Freeport.”
“Yeah, maybe,” I said, non-committal. “I don’t want to make plans ‘til I’m really free … until it’s real.”
Pete nodded slowly. “I get that. I mean, it makes sense. One of my friends joined the army straight from high school. His folks didn’t have much money and he didn’t want to end up with a large student debt, so he figured he’d serve in the military and get college paid for when he came out. But he didn’t want to plan anything until he was done either. He said he didn’t know what the future was going to bring, not when he had a tour in Afghanistan coming up. He got out this spring. But you know, man, you should think about taking some college classes. Bev says you’re good with cars. You could get yourself certified as an auto mechanic at a trade school.”
I threw a look at Bev, and she smiled encouragingly. I suppose I should have gotten used to people talking about me behind my back. And it wasn’t like this was the usual bad shit or anything.
“Yeah, I’ve been thinkin’ about it. I’ve done some of the ASE certificate, but I didn’t finish…”
“ASE? What’s that?” Torrey interrupted.
“Automotive Service Excellence,” Pete answered. “It certifies repair and service professionals. It’s a pretty big deal.”
“You didn’t tell me about that!” said Torrey, a beautiful smile making her eyes sparkle. “That’s great! Why didn’t you finish it?”
“Well, sweetheart, while the prison workshop was pretty good, they weren’t really big on lettin’ us out for on the job trainin’.”
I raised my eyebrows at her, and she burst out laughing.
“Oh my God, Jordan! You made a joke about being in prison! That’s major!”
I grinned back at her. She was right—it was some turnaround from when she’d first met me. I could tell that Pete felt much more awkward talking about it. Bev just seemed curious.
“Did you want to go to college?” she asked. “Before … before everything, I mean.”
“Sure. I hadn’t really decided on what I wanted to do. Mikey was gonna be pre-med…” I sighed. “But I wasn’t smart enough to do anythin’ like that.” I looked down. “I liked art. I don’t know.”
“You should definitely go!” Bev insisted.
“I kind of think that ship has sailed,” I said, my voice wry.
Bev shook her head. “No, really. People do college classes at all ages.”
“I don’t think it’s for me anymore, Bev. I’ve spent too much of my life on hold and I don’t want to go and spend time with a bunch of kids where I have nothin’ in common with them.”
Pete disagreed. “There are some good accounting courses at the community college. They’d be useful if you want to start your own business some day. People always need good auto mechanics.”
I was beginning to feel uncomfortable with their questioning, and kind of educationally subnormal, as I was the only one of them without a college degree.
It was real nice of them to be so interested though, and I appreciated it. The accounting thing sounded like it might be helpful, but I didn’t dare let myself think that far in the future. I still had six weeks of parole to get through. And a lot can happen in six weeks. A lot can happen in six seconds.
Your whole life can change in less than a heartbeat.
“They should offer more college courses in prison!” asserted Bev.
I couldn’t help smiling at her. She sounded so indignant, and I knew it was on my behalf.
“Yeah, well they do. You can get online degrees from accredited colleges. But there’s a lot more that are just for basic literacy and numeracy skills. The majority of the guys inside didn’t get much in the way of formal schoolin’.” I shrugged. “I read a lot of books—whatever they had in the library really. Wasn’t much.”
“What was it like?” asked Bev. “In prison?”
Pete threw her a warning look.
“It’s okay. I don’t mind talkin’ about it. Gets easier.” I glanced at Torrey and she smiled encouragingly. “I don’t really know how to tell you what it was like. It’s borin’, mostly. Degradin’, too.” I laughed although the sound was off. “Just shows the shit you can get used to.”
Torrey held my hand and I looked at our fingers linked together. “I know one thing: I’m never goin’ back there.”
I lay on the sand, eyes closed, my mind drifting to the horrors of the past.
“Prison changes you. By the time I got there, I was already a whole lot different from the kid who arrived in juvie, shit scared and in shock. I’d wised up a lot. I’d been a typical small town kid, thinkin’ I was the biggest, baddest badass in the school, but then you’re locked up with some really sick people. And, well, there’s a lot of time to think, so maybe it’s more that you change yourself, you think about the choices you made and shouldn’t have made.”
Torrey’s hand tightened around mine and I wrapped my arm around her.
“The day starts real early, at 3:30 AM. I don’t know why—maybe just to let us know we’re not like ordinary folk. We go have breakfast at 4:30 AM, which is a bowl of cereal or a crappy little sandwich. The good days are when there’s peanut butter. But it’s never enough to fill you up. Then I’d go back to my cell. I shared, mostly, with one other guy, dependin’ on how many cons they’d got in at the time. Work assignments start at 6 AM, unless it’s a Sunday, then it’s lockdown till 10 AM. Most guys would just go back to sleep. I’d read, do sit ups, pushups, somethin’. It helped get the stress levels down. I mean, considerin’ it was so fuckin’ tedious, everyone was amped up the whole time. That’s what happens when you cage people up. The smallest thing and BOOM. Little things become important—like gettin’ one of the good jobs such as maintenance, or workin’ in the prison garden, or workin’ in the kitchen so you could get extra food. The worst jobs were cleanin’, laundry, and the Hoe Squad, workin’ out in the fields. It was so freakin’ borin’, most of us wanted to work. It also meant you could save up a few cents to pay for soft toilet paper or toothpaste that don’t taste like shit. Most guys spend whatever they can earn on things to make life bearable. A lot of them wanted phone privileges. But that was really expensive, like a couple of bucks for a 15 minute phone call. I didn’t have anyone to call, so that helped in terms of money. Some of the guys really missed their families, especially the ones who had kids.
“By 10:30 AM you’d eaten lunch and then you get a couple of hours to wander around the pod, which is like a group of five or six cells, and talk some, play cards. Then back to the cells again for the count. After that, you’d get maybe half an hour in the rec. Sometimes an hour. There were four b
asketball hoops—games could get pretty rough. You could blow off some steam or get your head pounded. Whatever. Dinner is about 4 PM, then back to your cell. Maybe some TV privileges from about 7 PM, lock up at 11 PM. It was pretty regimented but the routine becomes part of you. You know down to the second and if it’s like more than a minute late, shit starts goin’ down. All the little stuff—it becomes real fuckin’ important when it’s all you’ve got.
“You have to watch your back the whole time, you cain’t trust anyone. The gangs were bad in juvie—that’s how I got this,” and I pointed to my scar, “but not so bad in prison. Some people wanted to make alliances if you were strong, but there’s always a price for that. I kept to myself.
“There’s lots of dumb shit I could tell y’all, like there’s no point havin’ any good stuff because it gets stolen. Even like a spare pair of the crappy, state-issued shoes.
“The pettiness gets you after a while. You’re not supposed to talk at night, so if anyone makes a noise, phone privileges are withdrawn, sometimes for days. Like I said, that wasn’t a problem for me, but some guys it would push them over the edge. Or they might take the TV, and sometimes they’d take the hot water so it was just cold showers for days at a time. Believe me, that shit mattered. It wouldn’t take much to cause a riot. It was all there, simmerin’ under the surface. And if you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time…” I blew out a breath, “your sentence is suddenly doubled—no time off for being unlucky.”
I shuddered and I felt Torrey’s warm hands on my chest, soothing me, stroking me.
I opened one eye to see her expression of concern.
“Wow,” I said sitting up right quick, embarrassed that I was being so fucking miserable on such a beautiful day. “I should be on Oprah. That show’s still on, right?”
“Nah, man!” Pete laughed, sounding relieved that the mope-fest was officially over. “She stopped that a couple of years back.”
I stared at them in disbelief. “They cancelled Oprah? Wow. I’ve really missed out.”
Torrey gave me a playful shove.
“Of all the things you could miss, you miss Oprah?”
“No, sweetheart. But the only thing I’d miss if I went back now would be you.”
She flung her arms around me, and kissed me hard. It wasn’t until I heard Bev sigh that I remembered we weren’t alone.
“Aw, you guys are so sweet,” she said.
Torrey unhooked herself from me and grinned at her. “I know. Sickening, isn’t it?”
“Just a little,” said Bev, “but I got my own syrupy goodness over here,” and she winked at Pete, who was watching with amusement.
Suddenly, our peace was interrupted by the sound of a car engine, and an old military jeep crested the dune and skidded to a halt next to my truck.
I could see that there were five of them. Two men jumped out first, and I could see them looking at the artwork on the side of my truck, exchanging glances.
“Oh shit!” Torrey cussed, softly. “What do we do?”
“You don’t do nothin’, sweetheart,” I said. “Let me go talk to them.”
She grabbed hold of my hand.
“Jordan, no! There are too many of them!”
“Maybe I should go?” Pete offered, looking worried.
I shook my head.
“Chances are they don’t want no trouble,” I lied, shaking free of Torrey’s hand.
The two guys looked right at me as I walked toward them.
“How y’all doin’?” I said, calmly.
I didn’t recognize them, but that didn’t mean to say they didn’t know me.
“Jordan,” nodded the tall one.
I studied him carefully, but he didn’t seem familiar.
Three girls followed the guys out of the jeep, and I relaxed slightly. There was less chance of something going down if they had their girlfriends with them. I hoped.
“Do I know you?” I asked, keeping my expression carefully neutral.
The tall guy shrugged. “Johnny Sanger. I used to sit next to you in Chem class.”
It had been a long time since I’d thought about fuckin’ Chem class. I couldn’t remember him at all.
“I’ve been in prison since Chem class.”
The blonde girl laughed loudly.
“What did you do?” she giggled. “Blow up the science lab?”
I stared at her, unblinking.
“P-prison? He’s joking, right? You were joking…” She realized no one else was laughing, and her cheeks burned. “You … you were serious?” she gasped.
There was an embarrassed silence.
“What did he do?” she hissed at Johnny.
“I’ll tell you later,” he whispered back.
Then the brown-haired girl spoke.
“Hey, Jordan. I’m Rachel Wheeler. We were in Math together. I sat two rows behind you.”
This was getting weird.
“And you remember my second cousin, Buddy?” she continued. “He was in Mikey’s homeroom…”
My throat closed up when she said his name.
I felt a warm hand in mine, and immediately knew that Torrey was with me.
“Hi,” she said. “I’m Torrey Delaney. My mom’s the Reverend at the Church of Christ in town. And these are our friends Bev and Pete.”
“I’m Susan,” said the black girl. “This is Jennifer,” pointing to the blonde, “and you already know Rachel. I met these yahoos in college, and Buddy’s my fiancé.”
She held out her hand to Torrey and then to me.
We shook hands awkwardly, while Bev and Pete gave her a quick smile.
Jennifer started to unpack the jeep but Johnny stopped her.
“Uh, we won’t be stayin’ here, sugar,” he said, quietly. “We’ll leave them to their picnic.”
“But it’s so lovely here!” she frowned. “You said there wasn’t a better spot for miles. Surely we can share? You guys don’t mind, do you?” she asked, turning to me.
“You should probably listen to him, Jennifer,” I said, seriously. “He won’t want his girlfriend hangin’ out with an ex-con who’s just got out of prison.”
She froze, a cooler slipping from her fingers and landing on the soft sand.
“Oh!” she breathed out.
“Well, nice meeting all of you,” Torrey said, deliberately. “You do what you like—we’re going for another swim,” and she took my hand and steered me away.
“Are you okay?” she asked, when we were out of earshot of the others.
“Yeah, I guess. It was just … I don’t know what that was. I mean, other than Allison, the first people from the old days that I meet … and it’s fuckin’ Johnny from Chem class?”
Torrey snorted out a laugh.
“Yeah, what are the chances? I can’t picture you in Chem class. Did you blow anything up?”
“Not in class. I remember one Fourth of July, Mikey and me emptied out a whole bunch of black powder from fireworks to make one mother of a rocket.”
I couldn’t help smiling at the memory.
“And?” prompted Torrey.
“Scared the shit out of everyone. I got grounded for a month.”
“Just you?”
“Sure. Mikey was on the football team by then. They couldn’t ground him.”
Torrey laughed sadly. “That sounds about right. Do you want to go swimming, or should we just sit here for a while?”
“Here’s fine.”
I sank down onto the sand and she sat next to me, draping her arms over my shoulder.
“It’ll get easier, Jordan,” she said, softly. “All these ‘first times’; they’re bound to be awkward, but people will get used to seeing you around again. Then they’ll be talking about the next interesting subject.”
I shook my head slowly. “You don’t know small towns, sweetheart. Folks still gossip about things that happened two and three generations back at least. They know each other’s business better’n they know their own.”
I winced at the mental image that conjured up. I really had no interest in seeing Pete’s skinny ass, or anything else.
But as we walked back, it was clear that Bev and Pete weren’t alone: my former classmates were still there.
“I guess they want to be friendly,” said Torrey, lightly.
Great.
The silence was slightly uncomfortable as I sat down, but Bev and the girl named Susan seemed to be doing their best to keep a conversation going.
The blonde girl stared at me as if I was about to attack someone or share anecdotes from Prison Break. Johnny looked bored, and Buddy was smiling at his girl like she was the most fascinating thing he’d ever seen.
I probably looked like that when I was with Torrey.
Rachel zeroed in on me as soon as I sat down.
“Do you remember when you dated my older sister, Yvonne, for like a week, when we were sophomores and she was a senior?”
I frowned, trying to remember someone named Yvonne. It didn’t sound familiar, although…
Johnny laughed.
“Jordan ‘dated’ a lot of girls back then!” he said, waggling his eyebrows. “If even half of the locker room talk was true, you bagged most of the girls on the cheer team.”
I winced, and avoided looking at Torrey.
“Ha, you were a trouble magnet, for sure,” he laughed. “But even so, all the girls wanted him, and all the guys wanted to be him.”
Not anymore.
Rachel giggled. And then I remembered her, too.
She’d chased after Mikey for a whole year before she finally gave up and started hitting on me instead. She was a nice looking girl with some good assets, but that laugh. It sounded like nails being dragged along a chalkboard. Yeah, I definitely remembered her.
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