Because of Nicole’s criminal history and my out-of-state “special visitor” status, it took forever to get past security and into the visitors’ area. Nicole had to be searched, and I had to clear my visit with the watch commander, who had taken a long lunch that day. Now, waiting for Sid, Nicole and I sat like mirror images in parallel universes. Both of us silent, my head propped by my right elbow, her head propped by her left elbow, we gazed warily at the beige wall before us. Neither one of us knew how to understand Ida.
“I don’t know,” I said, my breath feeling as stale as the air in the room. “Either Ida is really stupid, or she is trying to protect Talon.”
“She’s trying to protect herself.” Nicole dropped her head back, her soft, light hair falling back with it. “Ida has fucked every one of Del’s lovers.” She looked at me. “Except you. Right?”
I snorted.
“Can you imagine,” Nicole said, her mouth twitching, “if Ida did sleep with Talon behind Del’s back, and then he killed Del? Oh God.” More twitches and jerky leg movements. “Ida can’t think that. She’d never forgive herself.”
“Do you think we can trust her?”
“I don’t know. Ida’s always been jealous of Del, ever since she came to live with us. She’s done a lot of fucked up things to Del, but she loved her, too. So which side wins in this depends on which way Ida’s psycho winds are blowing. Anyway, I have to trust her. She’s all I have left.”
“He was so horrible today,” I said. “The kid’s mother has been dead two days and not only is he bringing his girlfriend around, he’s letting this woman refer to herself as Khila’s mother. And the woman is doing it. I don’t know who between them is sicker, him or her.”
Tables with connected benches lined the length of the long, narrow room, bookended by two solid metal doors. One door—the door we had entered through—led in the direction of the outside world. The other door, the door Sid was escorted through, led deeper into the prison maze. We were meeting in the visitation area located just on the periphery of the prison grounds, inside the walls, but outside of the prison building proper.
Sid was dressed in a jean shirt, jean pants, and black boots, all slightly too big for him. Ankle and wrist shackles attached to a waist chain rattled as he walked. He sat across from Nicole and me, seemingly unaffected by his circumstances or surroundings.
An envelope lay between us on the table, most conspicuous for its having created huge delays in our visit as the prison guards read its contents and searched it for contraband. I had recognized the writing on the envelope immediately as Del’s, delicate and even.
“They searched it coming and going,” Sid said, flicking the envelope a couple of centimeters toward us. “Just the same shit. It takes an hour to move ten feet in this place. I’m guessing this is what you’re here for.” Now he pushed it across the table. “Sorry to bring you all the way out here, but I don’t say squat on these phones.”
“We came here to see you,” I said. He ignored me.
Nicole eyed the envelope hesitantly. “What’s in it?”
He stared at her, his black eyes tearing up. I reached to pull it closer in order to look inside. Sid slammed his hand down on the letter, making a loud pounding and rippled rattling noise that startled Nicole and me and drew the guard’s attention.
“Who the hell are you?”
“Relax.” Nicole spoke softly. “This is Jenna. She’s an old friend of Del’s and she’s a judge. She’s helping us figure out what happened.” Nicole nodded reassuringly at him. “She’s already helped us a lot, Sid.” Sid released the letter.
I scanned the beige linoleum floor to its periphery, framed by beige plastic wallboards dashed with roach traps. The traps were filled with dead roaches and roach body parts—antennae, legs, wings—roaches who, in the interest of escaping their deaths, had sacrificed an appendage or two. In leaving parts of oneself behind, at what point, I wondered, is keeping on going no longer worth it? The garbage in one corner of the room was overflowing, remains of meals stale to both my nose and my eyes. I hadn’t noticed any odor until I saw the exposed, aging, part-eaten scraps of food. The colors melded into one another, the beige floors into the beige walls, the beige walls into the beige ceiling, the beige surround encompassing the beige tables and benches, just a wash of beige. By the time I brought my eyes back to the table, even Sid and Nicole looked a tint of beige for a few moments.
Nicole opened the letter and began reading it. “It says that if anything happens to her, there’s a box on the top shelf of her closet in her bedroom that she wants us to get.”
“What’s in it?” I asked.
“Don’t know, but I think that her being dead probably counts for something happening to her.”
“Why’d she send this to you?” I asked.
Sid sighed, shrugged his shoulders, shifted in his chair. “Not sure. I’m the one she could be sure’d be home to get it, maybe.”
“She knew he was gonna kill her?” Nicole asked.
He tilted back in his chair. “Talon made it really clear to Del that she never gets out. If she tried, he told her he’d kill her or Khila, or both. That’s his way. If she did something he didn’t want her to do or didn’t do something he did want her to do, he’d go after what she loved the most.” Sid paused and took a breath. “But the last couple months, something’s been up. I don’t know why, maybe because Del met someone. He could cheat on her but not the other way around.” Sid rolled his head, as if to relieve a strain in his neck. “I know what he’s capable of, so I’ve been getting ready for bad news.” He directed his next comment to Nicole. “You know that Thomas kid? You know I never went anywhere near him. Tal tried to get me to go to the mall that day because he was trying to set me up. When I didn’t go to the mall, Del called me and asked me to come over.”
“I’ve always believed you,” Nicole said. “I know you’re innocent.”
He laughed once. “I’m not gonna go hit some retarded kid. Talon got other guys to kill him and say it was me. Sick motherfucker forced Del to put the final nail in my coffin.” Sid kicked at the floor angrily, the ankle chains clanging against the wooden legs of the table. “Well, now Del’s dead.”
“You plead?” I asked.
Sid breathed out a laugh. “That or face a capital trial for killing a retarded kid. Figured I’d stay alive, try to get myself out of this mess.” He added, “I know how crazy this sounds.” He was talking to Nicole, but did glance momentarily in my direction for the first time. “But I’m telling you, Talon set me up. He made sure I was at the house with Del when the murder went down. Then he told Del that she wasn’t allowed to give me an alibi. It was one of the times when he was trippin’, thinking she was cheating on him. He was proving his power over her to all his buddies. I heard he took bets that she’d do what he wanted her to do. He had her doing all kinds of sick shit to show her off. Well, and to make a few bucks, but she drew a line.” He looked at us sideways, laughed at some silent joke. “I hate to say it, but that’s probably what you’re gonna find in that box, videos of her with other men. Be prepared.”
“I don’t understand.” I scanned his face, absorbing what I was hearing. “You mean sex tapes?” He nodded. “Why? Why’d Talon do that?” What is it with this guy and the videotaping? “Why’d she do that?”
Sid shrugged a little. “Don’t know.” Then he considered what he was about to say next. With a slight smile and raised brows, he offered almost mischievously, “It is Del we’re talking about.”
The three of us, wide eyed and puckered lipped, nodded in sync.
Serious again, Sid said, “I know recently he threatened her with selling the tapes on the homegrown market if she didn’t do what he wanted her to do. For some reason, he was getting more desperate. Maybe he knew she was really gonna leave his ass.”
“Who were the guys in the tapes?” Nicole asked.
“Men they picked up at bars and shit. Guys looking for head who didn’t mind bei
ng videoed.”
I noticed again the roach traps, the linoleum floor, the walls, the doors, the garbage. Then I noticed Sid looking at me differently, felt him taking me in. He was a little boy when I stopped coming around, but some part of him now remembered me. His face changed, went from hard to soft, and his black eyes grew sad. He stared at me as if he were just now seeing me for the first time. And in his softness, he was newly familiar to me as well, with his black, baby-fine hair, thick eyelashes, and dark bowed brows. It was not hard for me to believe Sid had taken a plea to protect Del, because I knew he would have done anything for her. What was hard to believe—shocking—was that she’d let him.
*
“Del,” the little voice had said. “Del.” I opened my eyes. Sid, then two and a half years old, was standing at the side of Del’s bed, his eyes an even height with mine. He was holding his stuffed bear and his blanket. He said, “Del.” When she didn’t hear him, he said it again just as softly. “Del.”
I roused myself. “Hey, what’s the matter?”
Sid stared at me for a moment, his black eyes glassy, his soft black hair bed messed. “I no feel good.” Del sprung up from behind me. “I no feel good,” he said again.
“Jenna,” she reprimanded, “why didn’t you wake me up?” Del climbed over me from her place near the wall, landed on the edge of the bed, and picked Sid up onto her lap.
I sat up. “He just came in, I think.” Rubbing my eyes, I said, “I just woke up, too.”
Her hand on his forehead, Del looked at me. “He has a fever.” She hugged him and stood up. “I think he needs aspirin. Go put water on for tea.” I climbed out from under the covers and followed her out of the room. Del went to the bathroom with Sid. I went on to the kitchen. Moments later, Del appeared. “We don’t have any aspirin. Can you go get some?”
It was two a.m., but I didn’t hesitate. We searched our pockets. I had one dollar and Del had two, leftover from a movie we’d gone to earlier. I pulled on clothes, stuck my feet in loosely laced sneakers, and headed out the door. My plan was to ride my bike to a minimart a few blocks away that we knew to be open all night. It was the summer before our tenth-grade year. The warm night air was dense with moisture. Its thickness and stillness had trapped in it scents of engine oil, burned trash, fresh paint, mixed with something raw—cut grass, maybe. The houses were dark, the windows in them darker. Fences threw shadows. There were voices in the distance, but I couldn’t tell from which direction they came.
As I approached the end of the block and turned the corner, I was surprised to run into a group of young men huddled in a circle. They had cigarettes and beers and were laughing loudly and talking in Spanish. They parted to clear the way for me, and I rode through them. One of the men called to me, then said Del’s name. I stopped, took a better look, and realized he was a guy who often flirted with her. Another said something in Spanish I didn’t understand. The guy standing next to him who spoke a little English interpreted. “Where are you going so late? He wants to know.”
The man who had first called to me was behind me again saying Del’s name. He apparently had recognized me as her friend. He was gesturing big tits, to identify her to the others, and laughing. The other guys nodded agreeably and laughed, too.
I said, “I’m getting baby aspirin.”
The man who had asked where I was going now became more alert. “Baby aspirin?” he said with a heavy Spanish accent.
“For Sid.” I pointed in the direction of Del’s house. The man spoke in Spanish to a woman sitting on the porch. She disappeared into the house, returning a few moments later with a bottle of baby aspirin.
I took it from her and held out to her the dollars I had in my pocket.
She declined the money, smiled warmly. “Mamita, how old are you?” she asked in uneasy English.
I was backing up on my bike to turn it around. “Fourteen.”
“Go straight home,” she said. “You hear me?” I nodded, thanked her, and rode away.
Back at Del’s, I let myself in and found Del in the bathroom with Sid. Sid was sitting in the tub; Del was helping him drink tea and honey from a cup.
I handed the bottle to her and told her where I’d gotten it. She fed Sid two aspirin.
“He had diarrhea,” Del said, explaining the bath. “I called my mother.”
“Is she coming home?”
Del shook her head. “She can’t leave work. She told me to call my father.” Del ran a washcloth over Sid’s back, tousled his hair.
He watched her, smiled a little, played with a boat in the water, said her name—“Del”—to himself.
She gave him more tea. “I called the number I have for him.”
I sat down beside her and tucked her hair behind her ear to get it out of her way. She turned her face to me but kept her eyes someplace else. “A woman answered.”
“Did you ask for your dad?”
A slower, more deliberate head shake. “I hung up.” Now she looked at me. “I can’t believe he’s gonna do this. He’s just gonna leave her with four kids. She can’t do it. He knows she can’t do it.”
Del released the plug to allow the tub to drain. “Stand up,” she said to Sid. He did. Then he raised his arms over his head asking to be picked up. Del wrapped him in a towel and lifted him to her. She put him down on the floor and got a clean diaper. Sid lay down for her and allowed her to diaper him. “Come on,” she said, lifting him again. As she headed for the door she called back to me, “Can you get Benny?”
I picked up Sid’s bear.
The three of us lay down in her single bed together, me so close to the edge, I had to lie on my side and balance my weight inward. Our bathing suits hung in Del’s window over her bed, drying in the night air and tracing the light breeze. Sid was between us, dressed in soft, clean pajamas and clutching Benny. He quickly fell asleep, his breaths low hums and occasional snores. Del whispered over his head, “I think the aspirin helped. He feels cooler.” Her hand moved from his head to my hair, which she stroked, then wrapped around her fingers. I took her hand and kissed it. “What do you think is going to happen to us?” she asked.
*
Sid had been a very pretty boy, and now he was a very pretty man. He was staring at me, his expression a mixture of sadness and curiosity. “What is it?” I asked, the love I was feeling for him now palpable.
“Del did whatever Talon told her to do. Except”—his eyes fixed on me—“she wouldn’t fuck another woman.” He laughed as if he’d just said the most absurd thing. His head slightly tilted, his eyes narrowed, his tone questioning. “I mean, of all the places to draw a line, right? Not even when she was tooting. She wouldn’t fuck another woman, not for money, not for nothin’.” To me, his voice daring, “Why do you think that is?”
“How should I know?” I said, unsure of what he wanted from me and feeling strange and confused by this information. “Maybe it grossed her out.” I meant, maybe I had.
“Right.” His tone was resigned, his owl eyes drifting away hopelessly.
My heart sank as I began to understand what he was struggling with, what seeing me had brought up for him. The idea that Del couldn’t help it was all he had left. What if Del had kept some things sacred, and he just hadn’t been one of them? He’d gone to prison for her, when maybe she had had the wherewithal to act protectively.
Sid shifted in his chair, wiggled his wrist a little to release some pressure from the wrist cuff, and then he turned his attention back to his own story. “Del told the police I wasn’t with her that day, even though I was. After that I pleaded because, you know, my alibi went south and I looked like a total liar every which way.”
“You said Del met someone,” I said. “Did you ever meet him, or do you have any idea where we might find him?”
“Shit no!” Sid dropped his head back and closed his eyes. “I wish I did, because whoever he is, he knows the whole story, and maybe he could help me out now that Del’s dead. Talon did this to her. I kn
ow it, and he’s gonna get away with it the way he gets away with everything.” In order to run his right hand over his brow he had to lower his left hand to the waist chain. “I should have known better. Del begged me to take the plea for her sake and for Khila’s. If I refused, then I think in the end, she would have said what was true. But she was so desperate, and I knew what else he did to her, I knew she was right to be scared. She said she needed time to work this out. She swore she would find a way to get me out.” Staring at me, he said, “Now what am I gonna do?”
Sid impatiently waved his head at the guard, signaling he was ready to go. The guard approached. As Sid stood up, I looked at him, aware I might never see him again. I wanted to say something encouraging, but what?
Over his shoulder he said to Nicole, “Tell Mom I said hi.”
*
As we left the prison grounds, Nicole said, “So what now, Sherlock? We break into asshole’s house to get that box, get caught, he goes to butt-fuck Texas, and we live next door to Sid. Isn’t that what you legal people call poetic justice, or some shit like that?”
I laughed a little. “No.” I tried to roll down my window, eager to let the air wash the stale prison scent off me, only to be reminded the window was stuck and the handle broken.
Nicole put a cigarette in her mouth and hit the lighter. “You’re a judge, goddamn it. Can’t you just tell the police this was a murder? Can’t you just tell them to go get the box from Talon’s house?” It took her several tries to line the lighter up to the tip of the cigarette. “Or what about my brother, don’t you know anyone who could help him, you know, get out of prison?”
I tried to respond to her questions, but all I could think about was the nausea I felt and trying to keep from vomiting. Nicole was swerving in and out of the lane on the road, the car was filled with cigarette smoke, my window was broken, and when I shut my eyes I saw roach traps and writhing puppies. My phone rang, and had it not been Jake Mansfield, I would never have risked answering in that state.
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