Good Behavior

by Nathan L. Henry

  “I think so.” Evans smoothed his mustache out with his forefinger and thumb, and nodded. “That’s just a feeling. It’s not real, man. It doesn’t have to happen that way.”

  “I know. But essentially, I don’t know what I am. I know what I want to be. I think I do. But I see all these guys who’ve just got nothing, man—I mean nothing. They don’t seem to want anything beautiful or important. I don’t know, maybe they do. They just don’t know how to get it.”

  Evans nodded.

  “There’s a whole fucking world out there, full of languages and philosophy and cultures older than I can imagine. I want to know all this. I want to read everything. And I want to write, man! You realize that? I want to think, I want to know. The thought that I might just be doomed makes me sick to my stomach, man. I know what I’ve done, what I thought, what I wanted, and it all makes sense. It all had to lead here. But now what? Look at everything that has to change in order for it all to lead somewhere else.”

  He got up and came over to me. “You’re in charge,” he said, then slapped me on the shoulder. “It’s up to you.”

  “I hope so.”

  “Good luck,” he said, and we shook hands.

  He opened the door, looked back at me, and sort of half-smiled. Then he walked out, locked the door, and went down the hall.

  I thought about the Invention again. I thought about Nietzsche, Kerouac, French girls, Paris streets, or strolling some Far Eastern city with a notebook in my pocket. I thought about gallery openings and philosophical arguments, and I imagined publishing a book about everything I’ve seen and thought, whatever the fuck that would look like—I could barely even formulate an image of that. And then I thought about coming back to the Paradise County Jail …

  [ FIFTY-SIX ]

  About an hour after the sun had come up that Wednesday morning, Philip and I had been belly-crawling through corn and soybean fields for five hours. We were completely soaked, caked in mud from head to foot, exhausted. We had decided to get rid of the guns. Neither of us was any longer in the mood to engage in a gunfight with the cops, although the truth is Philip never had any interest in the shoot-out—it was my idea.

  So we hid the guns in the tall grass and moved toward the freeway. We were ready to be arrested now. I assumed that because I was still on probation in Indiana, we would both be transported back to the JDC, where all the other juvenile inmates would surely regard us as absolute badasses, just like when I landed there for arson. I pictured myself there in the dayroom, Philip and I recounting our night run to a hundred rapt and adoring fans. Eat fried chicken. Play basketball. Cool off.

  I was wrong.

  While we halfheartedly attempted to hitchhike along Interstate 70, a cop spotted us, and instantly the police helicopter—which had been circling the field since dawn—was above us. We got away from the freeway, jumped a fence, and entered a wooded area, but I’m sure there was a sharpshooter in that chopper. We were beaded the entire time.

  Moments later, the SWAT guys with assault 12-gauges, 9-millimeters, and dogs entered the woods in their black masks. Philip and I hid behind a large tree as they moved toward us.

  I yelled, “We’re coming out!”

  We peeked around the tree. Our hands were up. In the confusion of that moment—those guns on us, the dogs barking, the helicopter just overhead—the cops were yelling at us, “Drop to the ground!” and “Where the fuck are the guns?” Then one of the dogs was let loose. It went for my balls, and had I not jerked my hips just in time, I would not be in possession of my testicles any longer. The German shepherd sank its huge fangs into my upper thigh. It tugged and twisted. It was the worst physical pain I’ve ever felt.

  Then I was down, the barrel of a 9-millimeter shoved painfully into the back of my head, the dog gnawing on me for—I am not kidding—at least another three or four minutes.

  When we were eventually led out of that little patch of woods somewhere in the middle of Illinois in handcuffs, I saw so many cruisers and emergency vehicles that I really expected to see a news crew. Rabid dogs and agitated cops aside, this was, I have to admit, quite a glorious moment—except, there were no cameras.

  What a disappointment. No audience. Just cops.

  [ FIFTY-SEVEN ]

  It was eight o’clock in the morning, August 19, when I limped through Sallyport with my hands behind my back. Three hundred and sixty days ago.

  Leonard squeezed a button on the CB radio on his shoulder, “Sallyport, open up.” Eight o’clock in the morning, one year later (with jail sentences they go by thirty-day months). I was dressed in the exact same clothes I had been arrested in, still covered with hardened mud, holes in the thigh from where the dog had bitten me, stiff with dried blood. My black leather boots had turned gray and cracked. I had a garbage bag in my right hand, full of notebooks and sweatpants and T-shirts.

  Leonard pushed the door open and held it for me. I stepped out into a garage—it smelled of oil and gasoline.

  “You got a smoke, Leonard?”

  He took a pack of Marlboros out of the chest pocket of his uniform and shook one out for me. I set the garbage bag down and rooted around inside until I found a manila envelope with my name on it. I opened it and took out a plastic lighter. I lit the cigarette, and Leonard said into his radio, “Open gate.”

  The garage door slowly rose, and beyond it, simultaneously, a ten-foot chain-link gate topped with razor wire, just like the rest of the fence that surrounds the place, automatically swung open. He patted me on the shoulder and gave me an awkward smile.

  I walked out into the world and the sun burned my eyes—they teared up and I wiped at them with the back of my left hand. When the cigarette smoke got into my eyes, I realized it had been a whole year since that had happened—so it hurt like hell. I dropped the garbage bag and clutched my face with both hands. While I struggled with this pain, I felt my mom’s arms around me. She hugged me.

  When I looked up, Dad gave me a nod.

  “Hey,” I said.

  Mom went on hugging me silently.

  “Well, you’re finally out of the clink,” Dad said. “You ready to go rob another place?”

  Mom turned and hit him in the ribs. “Stop it, Hank!”

  We got in the car and Dad did a U-turn in the street. We drove away, and I looked back at the jail. This was really the first time I saw it from a distance. It was just a squat brick rectangle with narrow windows and a fence around it. It looked small. It looked like any other building.

  “Back to Brickville,” Dad said.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Back to Brickville.”

  [ EPILOGUE ]

  I’m sitting at the kitchen table reading, and my wife, Beth, is at the sink washing dishes. It’s been two years since I got out of jail. I set the book down and look up at her. She’s small, and she has blond hair, and although I can’t see them at the moment, her eyes are green. I imagine that I can make out a faint smile on her lips. I imagine that she’s smiling because she’s content, because this is a safe and comfortable home that we have together. She smiles because she’s happy, and she loves me.

  I light a cigarette, and sort of marvel at what an amazingly good place and time this is. I feel a warm balloon in my chest, and I want to break apart because happiness, true happiness, is an unusual and suspicious thing. Right on the heels of this feeling comes the thought that it could end at any moment. Anything could happen.

  It’s hot and the kitchen door is open. Beth can be seen from the alley that runs behind our house and I can hear a couple kids walking down the alley, making a lot of noise.

  I hear one of them say, “Hey, look at that.”

  The other one says, “Aw, man. Sweet piece of fucking ass.”

  “You can do my dishes, baby!”

  “And suck my dick!”

  I sigh, shake my head, and get my shoes on. I go outside. I watch the kids go into a video store a block away, and I follow them in. They’re younger than I’d expected, thirteen, fo
urteen years old. I go up to them and say, “Hey.”

  They turn around. I probably look like I’m about to smash their faces in, because they’re scared shitless.

  “You guys yell at that girl back there?”

  “No,” one of them says. “We didn’t do anything.”

  The other one says, “We were just playing around.”

  “Well, watch what you say. Somebody’s likely to beat your fucking asses.”

  I turn around and walk out.

  I’ve scared the kids, but this doesn’t mean they’ve necessarily learned anything. In fact, I assume it makes things worse. Their fear probably turns immediately to indignation. Who’s that fucker think he is? I have to wonder if they will eventually ambush me with baseball bats in the alley. Some kids are capable of anything.

  I go back into the apartment and kiss Beth on the cheek.

  “You didn’t beat them up or anything, did you?” she asks.

  “No,” I say. “I didn’t. They’re just kids.”

  Acknowledgments

  I want to thank my agent, Dan Lazar (not just for his editorial insight but for his astonishing ability to make me feel like I am his only client, by his constant availability, his concern, and his dedication to his work and to mine, even though I’ve badgered the hell out of him and probably driven him crazy). Dan, I am amazed by your professionalism.

  I want to thank my editor, Margaret Miller, for her wonderful insight, for helping craft this work into a polished piece of damn-near-perfect beauty. I will always be grateful. Thank you for making this book a reality, for having the guts and the awareness to know what it means.

  And thank you, Jenavieve, my wife, for loving me and suffering with me and for me, and for your patience and your sanity, all of which have saved me more than once during this whole process. And, Ross Rosenberg, thank you for all your help and encouragement. And, Dan O’Reilly, thank you as well, for everything. And of course … thank you, Mom, for encouraging me during all of this, even though most of the stuff in this book came as a complete surprise to you.

  And thank you, Gavin Rose of the ACLU of Indiana, for fighting the good fight and winning, and giving me hope when there was none.

  Copyright © 2010 by Nathan L. Henry

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  First published in the United States of America in July 2010 by Bloomsbury Books for Young Readers

  E-book edition published in July 2010

  www.bloomsburyteens.com

  For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to

  Permissions, Bloomsbury BFYR, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10010

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:

  Henry, Nathan L.

  Good behavior / by Nathan L. Henry. — 1st U.S. ed.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 978-1-59990-471-9

  1. Henry, Nathan L. 2. Prisoners—United States—Biography. 3. Criminals—United States—Biography. 4. Juvenile delinquents—United States—Biography. I. Title.

  HV9468.H44 A3 2010 365’.42092—dc22 [B] 2009050684

  ISBN 978-1-59990-572-3 (e-book)