House of Sand and Fog

by Andre Dubus III

  But now she looks confused, her too-red lips parted, her forehead furrowed. She shakes her head once, the way the hard-of-hearing do. A second ago I’d felt like hitting her over the head with the truth of my story, telling her the charges against me, telling her about the Behranis, holding her face in everything. But she looks so vulnerable right now, so pathetic in her pearls and dress and makeup, trying to make a good impression on my jailers, I can’t say more. I shake my head and point to my throat. “I had an operation. I shouldn’t talk right now. Call this number.”

  I write Connie Walsh’s telephone number on the memo pad they leave in each cubicle for us, my shoulder squeezing the phone to my ear, and I hold the pad to the glass. My mother is quiet on the other end, and this should be familiar to me, her silence as I keep the truth from her. Frank is punching the number into the computerized Rolodex on his watch, and I’m looking into my mother’s eyes, as dark as they’ve always been, tiny pink capillaries broken in the whites, but now they don’t look cold or hard, though not warm either. Under her eyes is a small packet of flesh her pancake foundation can’t hide. She raises her chin, her red lips pressing together, and I am the hunter who has caught an old deer in his range only to lower my bow. And this wall of safety glass between us doesn’t feel like a bad thing, more like something natural, inevitable. Her eyes stay on mine longer than I can ever remember. I can look at her for days. Then she blinks, stands quickly, and turns to go as if I’ve already left. I wave at Franky but he is hanging up the receiver and I don’t wait for him to look up.

  I walk past the cubicles and out onto the second tier. I can hear the TVs and the chatter and Jolene’s hoarse laugh coming from below. I see her sitting at one of the tables playing cards, blackjack, it looks like, and she’s the dealer. The table is full of her women, all black except for a new blond girl who is sitting quietly between Jolene and Big April, an obese woman whose chins sag to her cleavage. I stop on the stairs and watch Jolene take Big April’s money, a small mound of pieces of notepad paper. The air is heavy with cigarette smoke, and the sunlight from the open rec door makes it look heavier than it is, bluish, a wide band of it hovering over everyone’s heads. I think of Lester, his Toyota station wagon pulling away from the neon light of the El Rancho Motel, disappearing into the fog. There is a loosening warmth between my legs and I want to feel him inside me again, but feel sure now I never will.

  Behind and above me the deputy tells me to move along, no loitering on the stairs, and Jolene looks up and laughs. “Get down here, Remote.” And I smile at her and nod like she’s just said something I never understood before, but now finally do.

  I descend the stairs, my eyes on the wide flat cloud as I walk down under it, this blue ceiling of smoke we make. And I feel it above me as I move past the women at the phones, past other women at other tables, all of them smoking, blowing out thin angry streams into the air, and I stand at Jolene’s shoulder. She stops dealing and looks up at me, her dark eyes waiting, though she’s never heard me speak, and I nod at her pack of Marlboro Lights. At first she doesn’t seem to understand what I want, but then I smile, and put two fingers to my lips.