Prisons

by Rob Edwards

  Delton slapped both hands on his forehead and sat back in his chair. “Fuck, I’m an idiot.”

  “Son, look at me.”

  Delton dropped his hands to the table and looked up at the woman across from him. “I’m glad you said that. It means I hit you up-side the head just in the nick of time.”

  Delton couldn’t help but smile.

  “As of right now, I have been informed that you have been dropped from this program. I don’t know if I can straighten this out or not but I’m gonna try my darndest.”

  “You think you can fix this?”

  Taysha shrugged. “We’ll see. But if I do, I want you to keep in the forefront of your mind who you are doing this for, so you never go off the nut again.”

  Delton nodded. “Got it. I’m doing it for Danna.”

  “That’s a nice thought, but no.”

  “Oh, I get it. I have to put all my energies into the boy.”

  “Nope.” Taysha leaned in. “You’re doing this for me.”

  “What?”

  Taysha sat back and threw her hands up. “Don’t act like that. I get paid extra for being in this. If you get kicked out I lose a really good gig.”

  Delton smirked.

  “It ain’t funny, son. Christmas is seven months away and my grandkids always got a list as long as my arm.”

  Chapter Nine

  Sipping on her favorite stress snack, a chocolate chip malt from Lance’s Drive-In Burgers, Judith sat in her car in her usual spot, kitty-corner from Grant Park. She had spent a great deal of time at that spot watching a man she knew from her days at Danser bring his wife, who was stricken, too early, with multiple sclerosis. Over the years, Judith had tracked the progression of the woman’s disease. She went from walking slowly, to walking with a cane, to using a walker. And in just the last few weeks, they’d shown up with her in a wheelchair. Judith knew the disease was debilitating and destructive. She also knew the man loved his wife very much. She’d heard him talk of her at work. He was the kind of man who would do anything for his wife and never complain, because he knew every day he had left with her was a gift.

  It gave Judith some peace to know this kind of love existed in the world.

  The credit union commercial ended on the radio and “Ironic,” by Alanis Morrisette began with its subtle guitar strums. Judith sighed, and tapped the power button on the radio. Now was not the time to listen to that song. It was “ironic” that it even came on the radio just then. Shaking her head she sipped on the straw only to hear a deep gurgling sound. It was a horrible noise—the dying cry of one of the most delightful treats ever. She shook the cup. It was nothing more than a used shell now. She had sucked the sweet soul out of it and still she felt crummy.

  Tossing it into the bag, she knew who she needed to talk to right now. She picked up her phone, and tapped on Darlene’s face in the favorites section.

  “Hey, Jude. How’d it go?”

  “Don’t ask. Can you watch Noah for a little while longer, while I go see Dad?”

  “Oh no. It didn’t go well?”

  “I’ll tell you later. Are you good with Noah?”

  “Sure thing. He’s here being a regular Lego architect. We’re good.”

  “Thanks, Sis,” Judith flipped the phone closed and started the car.

  Judith was told at the front desk of Pleasant Oaks Retirement Home that she could find her dad in the reception hall. They called it the Reception Hall even though it was the everything room, from event and meeting room, to the dining hall where they ate every meal. All other times it was used as a commons for the residents to just hang out. Entering the well-lit room, she searched for her father. There was a large group of men watching baseball on the big screen TV. There were foursomes scattered here and there playing euchre. And then she spied her dad at a small table over by a window, playing chess. Perhaps, with some unseen dad power, he could feel her presence, because he looked up, smiled his gentle smile, and waved her over. She walked to him and kissed him on the cheek.

  Grabbing a chair from another table, Judith slid it over and took a seat. Her dad gestured to the man across from him. “Jude, this is Lee Dunham who’s losing to me today.”

  Lee chuckled, “Yes, I am. It’s nice to meet you.”

  “Nice to meet you, Lee,” She shook his hand.

  “So what brings you in today, Honey?” Her father said, his voice now soft and frail. Judith could see how time had taken him down. He reached for a chess piece with a hand withering from years, skin bunching up around the knuckles. Skin drooped under his chin and around his eyes. But what Judith always keyed into the most was the voice—once strong, loud, and firm— now soft, quiet, and calm.

  She thought about the other important voice in her life, her mother’s sweet, tender voice, like a song when she spoke. Just the sound of it eased the all the tensions of life. Judith had kept a few voice mails on her old phone after her mother had passed away that she would listen to often. But when she switched phones they were lost. Judith went into a depression for another week. It was like losing her mother all over again.

  “Eh?” Her dad said.

  Judith shook her head back to the moment. “What?”

  “What brings you in today?”

  “Oh, you know.” Judith took a deep breath. “Sometimes a girl just wants to see her dad.”

  He smiled and patted her shoulder. “Well, a dad always wants to see his daughter.”

  She smiled.

  “Everything okay?” He looked at the board to see Lee move his rook two spaces sideways.

  “Just...” Judith sighed. “Life.” She put her elbow on the table and leaned into her hand heavily.

  “Darlene told me about the thing you got Noah into.”

  “Remind me to hit her later,” Judith said. “But Noah isn’t getting into it.”

  “Why’s that?” her father asked.

  “Because it turned out to be a very bad situation. And not one I’m looking to expose Noah to.”

  Her father reached down, slid a bishop three spaces diagonally right, and left his finger on it, scanning the rest of the board. “What happened?”

  “I met with the guy today. In fact I just came from there. He was a complete jerk who had this attitude against me for no reason at all.”

  Her father released his finger from the bishop and took off his glasses. He grabbed the corner of his shirt and wiped the lenses. “I guess that doesn’t matter, does it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re not the one who has to spend each day with him. He’s Noah’s guy. It probably should’ve been Noah who went to meet with him instead of you.”

  “Dad. What are you saying?” She pulled her head back from her hand, and looked at her father, trying to see if he was joking with her. “Noah doesn’t know any better. It’s my job to protect him from things like this.”

  “Things like what? People that you don’t like?”

  “He had a real attitude. Like he was about to go off the rails kind of attitude. I’m not going to put Noah into that kind of environment.”

  Her father put his glasses back on and looked her straight in the eye for the first time this visit. “Jude, how much better is Noah getting just going to a regular school every day?”

  “He has autism, Dad,” Judith said. “He’s not going to ever grow out of it.”

  “But is there a chance he could improve?”

  “Yes, but…”

  “Has he showed any signs of it in the last two years at his school?”

  “Not yet. But it’s a process.”

  Her father shook his head. “Doesn’t sound like a very good process to me.”

  “I can’t believe I’m hearing you tell me it’s a good idea to put Noah with a crazed prisoner.”

  “I don’t believe he’s crazed or they would have never picked this guy. What I do believe is that my grandson, who is facing so many challenges, should be able to get every opportunity available to him. Th
ere’s a doctor at a very fine university who thinks this would be a good program for the boy. So much so, that he was selected, out of God knows how many other children, and assigned a person to work with him.”

  “It’s an experiment, Dad,” Judith pleaded.

  “Sure it is,” Her dad said. “But life is an experiment.” He looked back up from the board again. “Look, I know it’s hard for a parent to let a child go out on his own, especially one with so many challenges, but I also know that you can’t protect them from everything forever. Once in a while they have to bump their knees, skin their elbows, and even deal with people with attitudes.”

  “I’m not afraid of this guy giving Noah attitude. I’m afraid of him getting pissed off and hitting Noah…or worse.”

  Her father nodded his understanding while watching Lee move his rook across the board to take his bishop. “Well, if you’re truly worried that it could be a violent situation, I get your unwillingness to move forward. But I have a hard time believing they would pick violent criminals for a project with kids.” He moved his queen to take the rook. “Check.”

  Lee winced. “Crap. You led me right into that, you son of a gun.”

  Her father turned in his chair to look at her. “Jude, the biggest thing a parent should worry about is not protecting their kids, but overprotecting them so much that they will never have the where-with-all to handle the world on their own when the parents aren’t around anymore. And I think in Noah’s case, that would concern you much more than putting him with a guy who may have an attitude. In fact, I would think it would scare the hell out of you.”

  Judith stared at her father. She remembered times as a teenager, when he said things she disagreed with and she was positive he was the most stupid person in the world. She realized she much preferred that to now, when she disagreed with him, but felt he was probably the smartest man she ever knew. She had nothing to say. No perfect words to counter his argument. And somehow saying “Whatever” like she flippantly threw out when she was 16, wasn’t going to cut it here. Judith leaned over, threw her arms around him, and buried her head in his shoulder. “Dad, I’m scared.”

  “Judith, I have news for you,” he said. She felt his arm slowly reach around her shoulder. “I can’t tell you how many nights I lost sleep because I was scared or hurting about something having to do with you and Dar. Being a parent takes a special kind of strength. It takes more gumption to let your kid fall flat on his face to learn a lesson, than it does to catch him before he ever gets a bruise.” He leaned his head against hers. “Jude, you’re a good mother. And if all your alarms are going off and telling you this is the wrong move for Noah then don’t do it. Just be sure.”

  Judith lifted her head and kissed his cheek. “Thanks for always being my dad. And just so you know, my alarms are going off like crazy about this. There’s no way I’m sending Noah into this program.”

  He smiled. “I understand. And for the record, I don’t think that fear ever goes away. If you knew how much I still worried about you and your sister everyday…” His soft voice trailed off.

  Judith looked up at him. “I’m sorry I still give you so much to worry about.” Then her phone buzzed. She pulled it out of her coat pocket and saw Darlene was calling. “Hold on, Dad, it’s Dar.” She tapped it. “Hey, what’s up?”

  “There’s a woman here from the Two Rivers Correctional Facility. She says she’s Delton Hayes’ counselor and she wants to talk to you.”

  “His counselor? What does she want?”

  “Ahhh…I just said…to talk to you.”

  Judith rolled her eyes. “Okay. Tell her I’ll be right there.”

  “All right. Tell Dad I…” Judith tapped off the call. “Gotta go, Dad. There’s someone from the prison at my apartment to talk about this.” She kissed his cheek one more time.

  “Okay, Hon. Tell Dar I said hi.”

  “I will.” Judith stood, and set the chair back to the other table. “Nice to meet you, Lee.”

  “Yeah,” Lee waved, but never took his scowling face off the chess board.

  Outside Judith noticed an envelope on her car windshield. As she got closer she realized it was a parking ticket. She looked at the space where she was parked and to her horror she saw blue lines. “Oh, no.” She jerked the envelope from under the wiper and ripped it open. Her knees wobbled when she saw the $200.00 fine for parking in a handicapped space. Closing her eyes, Judith screamed to the sky. “Fuck!”

  Chapter Ten

  When she opened the door to her apartment, Judith saw a short African American woman sitting on her sofa talking to Darlene. She threw her purse, keys, and the damn ticket down on a stool next to the door and took off her jacket.

  “There she is,” Darlene said. “Hey, Jude, this is Taysha Williams. Taysha, this is my sister Judith Higgins.”

  Taysha stood with a bright pleasant smile, and offered her hand. “It’s so nice to meet you, Miss Higgins.”

  “Sure, what can I do for you, Miss Williams.” Still burning about the ticket, Judith plopped down into a chair next to Dar.

  “Well, uh…” Taysha sat back down. “I wanted to take a moment and discuss your meeting with Delton.”

  “Yeah?” Judith scoffed. “What’s there to discuss?”

  “Well, Delton had just come from a disappointing phone call with his little sister, and he was a bit out of sorts.”

  “Out of sorts?” Judith sat forward. “Your boy went off the rails, Miss Williams. I was afraid he was going to jump me.”

  “Oh, Miss Higgins, there’s no need to worry about that. Delton wouldn’t hurt anybody.”

  Judith scowled. “Are you crazy? He’s in prison. He’s capable of anything.”

  “Judith,” Darlene said, patting her sister’s hand. “Calm down.”

  “Calm down?” Judith pulled her hand back, and turned on her sister. “Darlene, you weren’t there. He had this crazed look in his eyes!”

  “Kind of like you do now?” Darlene said. “Look, Sis, I know you want to protect Noah, but Taysha here just wanted to explain something. She’s not here to argue with you.”

  Judith could sense her eyes filling with tears. Tilting her head to the ceiling, she took a deep breath, and blew it out slowly through her mouth.

  “What’s wrong, Jude? Did something go wrong at Dad’s?”

  Judith closed her eyes and shook her head. “No.” A tear escaped from her right eye and she immediately wiped it away. “But when I came out, I saw that I hadn’t been paying attention where I parked, and I had a ticket for parking in a handicapped spot.”

  “Ouch,” Darlene said.

  “Yeah, ouch.” Judith sniffled. “Two hundred dollars that I can’t afford to pay.”

  “Oh, I get it. That makes sense to me,” Taysha said.

  “What makes sense?” Judith asked.

  “You had a troubling moment before you came here, and you were less than gracious at our first meeting.” She looked over at Darlene. “I was about to walk out of this room thinking this white woman was off the rails.”

  Judith smiled. “I’m sorry, Miss Williams.”

  “It’s Mrs. Williams, and let me ask you something. Do you know why Delton is in prison?”

  “Yes,” Judith nodded. “I read his file. He robbed a store at gunpoint.”

  “That’s not the real story,” Taysha said. “He wasn’t robbing the store for money, he was robbing it for food. It wasn’t even a working gun. It didn’t have a trigger. He found it in a dumpster that he had climbed in, just to find food for his sister to eat. Their mother spent all the money on drugs, and they didn’t have anything left for food. His sister was so hungry she was crying all night, so he tried to do something about it.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Darlene said.

  “No, ma'am,” Taysha said. “And they were sure the parole board was going to let him out. But that didn’t happen. They put him in this program instead. And when he tried to explain it to his little sister, she was ve
ry upset, and hung up on him. So Delton came to your meeting, feeling like he let his little sister down again. All he wanted to do was make it all right with her. He was frustrated and couldn’t think of anything else.”

  Judith took another deep breath.

  “Jude?” Darlene said.

  Judith nodded. “Okay, Mrs. Williams. Setup another meeting with Delton. We’ll try this again.”

  “That’s good news,” Taysha said with a smile. She stood. “And please call me Taysha.”

  Judith stood and shook her hand. “Thank you, Taysha.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Judith sat in the room alone, looking over at the mirror. The fact that there could be someone behind that glass watching her, creeped her out. Fortunately she didn’t have to wait long before Taysha entered, with Delton following. When his eyes met Judith’s, he looked down, sheepishly.

  “How are you, Miss Higgins?” Taysha pointed to a chair and Delton sat in it. Taysha took the chair next to him. “Well,” she said with an overly joyful breath. “Here we are again for Take Two.”

  There was a moment of awkward silence. Delton put his hands on the table and never took his eyes off them.

  “Delton, do you have anything to say to Miss Higgins?” Taysha prodded.

  “Yeah. Uh…” He said quietly. He put his hands in his lap and sat up straight. His eyes only met hers every now and then when he spoke. “I wanted to say that I’m sorry for my attitude last time we met. I was upset before I came into the room, and I took it out on you. I apologize.”

  “Thank you, Delton,” Judith said. “Your apology is accepted. It takes maturity to own it when one screws up.”

  Delton gave her an appreciative smile and a nod.

  Taysha nudged him with her elbow. “And how do you feel about the project?”

  “I’m actually looking forward to working with your son. I think it will be a great opportunity for me. And I hope I can make a difference.”

  Judith crossed her arms on the table and leaned in close. “Okay, Mr. Hayes. Let’s cut the bullshit.”