Wildlife- Reckoning

by Jeff Menapace

  “You think he’ll come along?” Stacey asked.

  “I’ll ask him tonight.”

  “What’s tonight?”

  “You didn’t really think you were going to come to Miami and not spend at least one night on the town, did you?”

  Stacey started to say something.

  “We’ll go and do anything you want tomorrow,” Morgan continued, cutting her off, “but tonight, your butt is ours.”

  Leigh raised her drink. “Hell yeah it is.”

  Stacey dropped her head, started nodding, and then brought it back up with a defeated smile. “Okay.”

  Morgan and Leigh let out a simultaneous “WOO!” that made both Bryan and Tommy flinch.

  “Let me go outside for Number Two first though, okay?” Stacey said.

  Leigh and Morgan looked at each other. “Uh, we do have a toilet…” Morgan said.

  Stacey laughed. “Oh, I didn’t tell you guys! I quit smoking. Well, I’m quitting smoking.” She explained her three-a-day ritual and their respective names.

  “Even when you drink?” Leigh asked.

  Stacey nodded. “Even when I drink. Three a day—no more.”

  “Very impressive. Proud of you, girl.”

  Pack of Marlboro Lights and a lighter in hand, Stacey started for the front door and said: “Don’t be proud of me until I get to zero a day.”

  “And…the other thing?” Leigh asked delicately, clearly unsure whether now was the right time and place.

  Stacey, not one to hide her addiction, not one to hide from anything, held out her forearm and slapped it, proudly declaring: “Eight years since a needle touched this baby.”

  Both Leigh and Morgan rose. All three embraced.

  When they separated, Stacey motioned to the door and held up her cigarettes. “Be right back.”

  “Wait!” Leigh yelled.

  Stacey froze.

  Leigh disappeared into the kitchen and returned once again with tequila and shot glasses. “One more before we hit the road.”

  “One more and I will hit the road,” Bryan said. “Face-first.”

  Leigh gestured to Bryan’s crotch. “I can see your vagina,” she said to him.

  Bryan frowned. Stacey laughed from the front door.

  “Get over here, girl,” Leigh called to her, pouring the fifth and final shot.

  They toasted, then drank to a great night. Well-oiled, nobody winced this time. Occasional Tales of Debauchery apparently intended on one more story for the anthology.

  Chapter 6

  Clarke Correctional Institution

  Miami-Dade County, Florida

  The corrections officer rapped his baton on the iron cell bars. “Let’s go, Roy. You got a visitor.”

  Stretched out on his cot, Tucker Roy laid the magazine he’d been reading flat to his chest and frowned at the CO. “I didn’t approve any visitor.”

  “Special situation for this one.”

  “Says who?”

  The CO lifted his chin, began smacking the end of the baton into his open palm. “Says me, is all you gotta know.”

  Tucker rolled his eyes. The officer’s status was the only thing keeping him healthy. If an inmate had implied such a threat, Tucker would have given him an enema with that baton. “I don’t wanna see anybody,” he said.

  The CO’s scowl became a smirk. “You’re gonna wanna see this one, ‘Daddy.’”

  Tucker tossed the magazine aside and swung his legs over the side of the cot. He stood and approached the cell bars. “What’s that you said?”

  “I said, you’re gonna wanna see this visitor, Daddy.” The CO’s smirk was now a toothy grin, the gum he was chewing visible as it clicked and popped in a mouth Tucker would kill to put his fist through.

  Tucker Roy, stone-faced as ever (he seldom showed any other expression, seldom needed any other expression), stared unblinking into the CO’s eyes. The CO took a step back—still smacking his gum inside that grin, still brandishing his baton, still facing the iron bars between them, and yet still taking a step back.

  “You saying my boy is here?” Tucker said.

  “His name Travis?”

  Tucker nodded once.

  “Then, yes, I am. You wanna see him or not?”

  Tucker stepped away from the bars and faced his cot. His mind raced. He hadn’t seen his boy in well over five years. Lawyer had agreed to ship Travis up north to some private school in trade for Tucker’s guilty plea. It was the only thing Tucker had insisted on.

  And now his boy was back. After more than five years. Jesus, that would make him what? Eighteen? Nineteen? A man. Though much as it pained him to think it, using “man” and “Travis” in the same sentence just didn’t feel quite right, no matter how old he was. Not the bravest of boys, his Travis. The one and only member of the infamous Roy clan that fell far, far from the tree—and then kept on rolling. And Tucker supposed living these past several years up north at some fancy private school wouldn’t be doing his boy’s nerve any favors either.

  But so be it. It was his boy. And somehow his boy had pulled a trick or two in order to get visitation rights without first securing inmate approval.

  Why, though? Tucker immediately thought. Why not simply apply for visitation rights like everyone else was required to do? He would have agreed to his boy’s visit without question.

  Perhaps Travis wanted it a surprise? Or perhaps Travis was ashamed, his lying ways years back starting one hell of a clusterfuck that escalated into the deaths of most of the members of his family, not the least of them being his mama, Tucker’s wife. Escalated into the reason his daddy was now spending the rest of his life in jail.

  Either way, it didn’t matter. His boy was here.

  Tucker faced the CO again. “I wanna see him,” he said. “I wanna see my boy.”

  Chapter 7

  The visitation room was modest in size. A few small windows with bars. Cracked, drab paint on concrete walls. A handful of armed corrections officers holding up those walls. Five small cafeteria tables spread about, each with rows of bolted stools.

  Cold and utilitarian through and through, the room was an effective reminder as to where you were, that even if inmate and visitor were capable of escaping within each other’s eyes, they need only blink and be reminded they would never escape the truth.

  A buzz from the gate, steel bolts sliding and clanking, and Tucker Roy was led into the visitation room to see his son.

  Only he didn’t see his son.

  What he saw seated at one of those cafeteria tables with the bolted stools, the only visitor in the room that day, was a hardened, rough-looking man. A man with shoulders as broad as his. A man with an expression as stony as his. And then, after a step forward and upon closer inspection, a man with a face that unequivocally resembled his.

  ***

  Tucker approached the table. Travis stood. Tucker was shocked he had to look up at his boy. Travis was an inch taller than his father’s six feet. Maybe two. His body was lean and solid, thick forearms dangling out of his white tee like tanned bowling pins. On the end of those pins were hands that looked bigger than his own, the knuckles on his right hand gnarled and bulbous—the unmistakable hallmark of a fist that had been used far too often.

  For a brief moment, Tucker wondered whether he was still in his cell. Had fallen asleep while reading on his cot and was now dreaming such a meeting with his boy. Because, well, how could this man before him be his boy? He looked more like an inmate than Tucker did.

  Tucker nodded once and said: “Travis.”

  Travis nodded once back. “Daddy.”

  Neither man smiled.

  “You grown some,” Tucker said.

  “Mmhmm.”

  “Look different than I expected,” Tucker said.

  “What’d you expect?”

  Tucker shrugged. Still no smile…from either man. “I don’t know. Just something different, I guess.”

  Travis stuck out his lower lip and began a slow nod,
not unlike the gesture of a man listening to and humoring another’s blatant lie. “Well, maybe you’ll think of something soon enough. We gonna sit?”

  Tucker extended a hand. “After you.”

  Travis smiled, dry and lipless. “Awful nice of you, Daddy.”

  Travis’s patronizing manner raised an antennae or two on Tucker. Even before prison, Tucker’s awareness of the subtle cues that led to conflict were razor sharp. Now, since his stay at a place like Clarke Correctional, they could slice steel.

  Travis seated, Tucker now took his. They sat across from one another, father and son, saying nothing for a brief moment, just staring at one another as though both were there against their will.

  “So, how you been, son?” Tucker eventually asked. His voice was low and direct. And despite his words, it was not a how you been? kind of question. More of a is there a problem? kind of question.

  Travis exhaled, long and slow. He did not answer his father, just patted the stool beneath him and said: “Feels good to sit.”

  “Been on your feet for a spell?” Tucker asked.

  Travis shook his head. “Not really. Just remembering when sitting used to be a chore, is all.”

  “How’s that?”

  “First six months at Hattenworth,” Travis said matter-of-factly. “Hurt too damn much to take a seat.”

  Tucker’s poker face dropped. He couldn’t help it. “Hold up. You say Hattenworth?”

  “That’s right.”

  “What the hell were you doing there?”

  Another patronizing jut of the lower lip, a shrug, a splay of the hand, his tone still matter-of-fact. “Well, that’s where they sent me, Daddy.”

  “Where who sent you? Deal was for you to go to that school up north.” Tucker’s poker face wasn’t returning anytime soon. He was genuinely confused and upset, one of his greatest fears realized. That fear being The Hattenworth Home for Boys in south Florida.

  Referred to as Hell on Earth by those in the know, Hattenworth held a long and harrowing reputation for abuse behind its walls, both from fellow students and staff. Especially staff. The institution had been under scrutiny for some time, yet somehow always managed to emerge any investigation unscathed.

  “You seen this deal in writing, Daddy?”

  Not the best of readers before prison, Tucker could only look away. “I seen it,” he said, still avoiding eye contact with his son.

  “You seen what it said?”

  Tucker’s anger at his own ignorance was redirected towards his son. “Well, maybe I seen it, but maybe I didn’t understand every damn thing. You ever seen one of them lawyer papers, boy? Miles long and like trying to figure the Daily fucking Jumble. I took the son of a bitch on his word.”

  Travis snorted. “To think I’d live to see the day a Roy admits to taking some fancy lawyer on his word.”

  Tucker looked away again. Rage coursed throughout his body.

  A moment of palpable silence between the two. Inmates shouted in the distance. Buzzers periodically sounded. Iron clanged and boomed.

  “So, like I was saying, Daddy,” Travis eventually began, “it sure feels good to sit. You take little things like that for granted, you know—the simple pleasure of being able to sit without pain.”

  Tucker slowly set his gaze back on his son. His rage had subsided some in consideration for his boy’s well-being, but it was anything but gone. It would sit and fester inside him like an untreated wound, begging to be treated. The ideal treatment being that of his fist repeatedly hammering into another inmate’s face. No, scratch that, hammering into another inmate wearing his lawyer’s face.

  “Worked you hard, did they?” Tucker responded.

  Travis cocked his head. “Well, I guess that depends on what you mean by ‘worked.’”

  “You saying you caught a lot of beatings?”

  “What, on my behind? You think they paddled the boys or something, Daddy?”

  Tucker said nothing.

  Travis cocked his head again, drilled his gaze into his father’s. He might have been a detective angling the truth out of a suspect. “Why do I get the feeling you know exactly what I’m talking about but just won’t say?”

  Travis was right. Tucker did know; Tucker didn’t want to say. His rage was now a cocktail with guilt. It burned in his chest and gut and begged to be heaved right back up with an agonizing roar. Still, he swallowed it down all the same, tried his best to display one of those rare expressions of his that amounted to sympathy. He sure as hell felt it.

  “I know what you’re talking about, son,” he said evenly.

  Travis gave another patronizing little nod. “You ever experience any of that since your stay here, Daddy?”

  Tucker closed his eyes and shook his head.

  Travis smiled and dropped his head as though he’d expected no other reply. “No, I don’t suppose you did. Big, bad Tucker Roy, from them infamous Roys. No one dared, did they?”

  “I been tested,” Tucker said.

  “And defended yourself well, I imagine.”

  Tucker said nothing.

  Travis went on. “At Hattenworth they didn’t care that I was a Roy, Daddy. What with Meemaw and Uncle Harlon dead, you locked up for life, nobody was worried about what might be coming to them should they test me.” He sucked his teeth, upper lip curling with disgust. “And they did test me, Daddy. Only I didn’t have your size and experience to do anything about it, did I? I wasn’t but one of the smallest boys there.”

  Tucker remained quiet.

  Travis continued. “Yeah, so for them first six months I couldn’t completely sit down. Had to go sorta cheek to cheek, if you will.” He chuckled in spite of himself. “The teachers, they seen it; they knew what was what.” He shrugged. “They would just look at you and smile. You know why they smile, Daddy? They smile because they know their turn is next. They know you been broke, and they know you ain’t said nothing about it, otherwise they woulda heard. A boy who been broke and keeps his mouth shut? Hell, that’s Christmas to them.”

  Tucker felt an odd pull in his gut. It climbed upwards, raking his throat and burning his eyes. A self-loathing instantly followed, his body’s inability to control his emotions like a betrayal. He had to look away.

  “Something wrong, Daddy?”

  Still avoiding his son’s gaze, Tucker shook his head. “I’m fine.”

  “Then you won’t mind if I continue?”

  Still refusing to look at his son, he said: “What for?”

  “What for? For the reason I come.”

  Now he looked. Control re-established, all signs of angst gone. “Reason?” he said.

  “Forgiveness, Daddy. I come to grant you forgiveness.”

  Chapter 8

  “Forgiveness?” Tucker said.

  “That’s right, Daddy.” Travis leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. Tucker spotted a crude prison tattoo on his son’s sinewy forearm, the black lettering raised, red, and raw. Recently made.

  “Rationem III,” it read.

  Tucker had never seen nor heard the wording before. He guessed it was something biblical. More important matters kept him from asking.

  “Forgiveness for what?” he said instead.

  Travis chuckled. “Jesus, Daddy, after what I just told you, you gotta ask that?”

  The cocktail of rage and guilt was stronger than ever in Tucker’s gut, but he kept it down like a seasoned drunk, face stone again, showing no cracks. His son’s behavior was not that of a man coming to grant forgiveness, despite his claim. He wasn’t quite sure what it was just yet. There was an arrogance about him—the sly gloat of a man holding an unbeatable hand.

  “I tried to do right by you, son,” he said.

  Travis raised an eyebrow. “That so?”

  Tucker said nothing.

  Travis unfolded his arms and put his hands behind his head. “Went on for a spell,” he said. “Went on for quite a spell.” He turned his head, eyes dropping, voice now soundi
ng detached as is common in unpleasant recall. “Things started getting a little better after a group of boys tried to call my bluff. I told them anything they try to put in my mouth is coming right off.” He shrugged, his gaze, his voice both still far away. “Like I said, they tried calling my bluff. I bit that thing and tore it right off like one of Uncle Harlon’s gators going after a hunk of meat. Spat it right back at ’em with a big old bloody grin on my face.” Travis shook away the memory and sat up straight, interlocking both hands on the table in front of him. He looked his father dead in the eye.

  Tucker stared back. He fought to remain stone on the surface, yet underneath, the now familiar cocktail roiled in his belly, threatening to rise again. He was helpless to it. He had not envisioned this hardened man before him forced to do such unspeakable acts; he envisioned his little boy as last he remembered before going off to prison. And rightfully—agonizingly—so. It was his little boy as last he remembered who’d been forced to endure such horror.

  “You all right, Daddy?” Travis asked for the second time. “If I’m upsetting you in any way, I can stop.”

  And for the second time, Tucker lied. “I’m fine.”

  “It’s just we ain’t seen each other in so long, you know?” Travis said, still with that subtly arrogant tone, although by now Tucker’s radar for such contradicting behavior was weak, all his efforts going towards controlling his emotions. “Figure we got some catching up to do.”

  “You say so,” Tucker said.

  Travis nodded. Leaned back in the chair with both hands behind his head again. This time he did not look away in recall. He kept his eyes on his father, the memories to come, perhaps, not requiring such detachment in order to be voiced.

  “Word got around after my gator impression with that son of a bitch’s pecker. People started leaving me alone. Some tried now and then, but I’d toughened up a good bit. Started learning how to give and take a beating. Got real good at taking a beating.” He sucked his teeth again. “I started getting fit, hitting the weights…”