Chapter Twenty
CHAPTER TWENTY
I’m surprised when I glance at the wall clock behind the circulation desk and see that my two-hour library furlough is almost up.
I’ve only got twenty more pages of Devil in a Blue Dress left to read, but I better get back to our block.
Standing and looking around, I realize that most everyone who was here when I checked in has left.
Now it’s just me and Lester. Should I go over and say hi or leave him alone?
When he looks up at me, I walk toward him, smiling.
“Hey there. Nice to see you again.”
“Uh-huh.” No smile back.
I hold up the Walter Mosley book he recommended. “Hey, look what I’m reading. It’s a real page-turner. Thanks for the tip.”
“Yup.” He returns to his book.
Instead of taking the hint, I just stand there. “Well, I’ve got to get going. But hey, next time we’re both here, I’d love to pick your brain a little.”
“Oh yeah? You a cannibal or something?”
“Ha ha. No, but the last time we talked, you said you were a walking history of this place. I’d like to hear more about that.”
He says nothing.
“And uh, I’m an artist, okay? That was how I used to make my living. So I was wondering if, when you tell me more about the way things used to be, I could sketch you while I’m listening.” Frowning, he asks why I’d want to do that. “Well, because you’ve got an interesting face.”
“Do I? What’s interesting about it?”
“Well, it’s the face of someone who’s learned a thing or two about life. A face of wisdom, I guess you could say. So while you’re telling me about some of your experiences, I’d like to try and capture that quality. Do a couple of quick sketches if you wouldn’t mind.”
“Yeah, I would mind,” he says. “A kindly old black man with a face of wisdom? You want me to sing ‘Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah’ while you’re making your pictures?”
“Uh… what do you mean?”
“I mean you ain’t turning me into your Uncle Remus or your magical Negro ‘cause I ain’t neither one of them. So, no. You can’t ‘pick my brain’ and you can’t ‘capture’ me either.”
I stand there, dissed and dumbfounded. Why’s he being so hostile? What did I do? What did I say?
I go up to the desk to return the book about Connecticut prisons, renew the Easy Rawlins one, get my pass stamped, and get the hell out of there. “Hey, what’s the deal with Lester?” I ask Javier.
“What are you talking about?”
“Last time I was here, he was friendly, talkative. But just now, I thought he was going to bite my head off.”
Javier says he gets moody sometimes. Suffers from depression.
“Why wouldn’t he get depressed with the kind of sentence they gave him?
Fifty years? That’s a lifetime. Mrs. M says he’s gone to the parole board maybe fifteen, sixteen times to try and get his sentence reduced but it’s always no.
” He reaches for my book. Renews it and stamps my pass.
“Hey, did you ever read that other book I checked out for you?”
“ American Genocide ? No, I haven’t gotten to it yet. You need it back?”
“No, you can keep it for a while. Let me know when you’re done with it. I’d be curious about what you think.” I tell him okay and I’m out of there.
Walking back, I keep thinking about Lester—how he’s been stuck in here for decades.
Is he in touch with his kids? Is his wife still alive?
If he’s practically a lifer, what did he do?
And why’d he get so ornery? You ain’t turning me into your Uncle Remus or your magical Negro.
What the fuck, man? Just because I asked whether I could sketch him?
It’s not like I told him he couldn’t get his sentence reduced.
And if he thought I was being racist, he was mistaken.
Someone says you have a face of wisdom, that’s a compliment , Lester.
That night, maybe five minutes after lights-out, I ask Manny whether he’s still awake. When he says yes, I ask him whether he knows an older inmate named Lester. “Big Black guy, uses a wheelchair?”
“Lester Wiggins? Sure. Everyone knows Lester. He’s like a legend in here.”
“I saw him in the library today. He says he’s been at Yates since 1982.”
“Yeah, with a fifty-year sentence. I suck at math. What’s 1982 plus fifty?”
“Uh… twenty thirty-two. So he’s got about fourteen more years to go?”
“If he lasts that long. I heard Lester’s got a lot of health problems.”
“What the fuck did he do to get a fifty-year sentence?”
Manny says he heard he was active in some Black liberation group back in the seventies.
“A couple of their members held up an armored car and shot one of the guards. The guy died the next day. The way I heard it, they wanted to try Lester for murder along with the other two, but they couldn’t pin it on him. So they got him on something else.”
“What?”
“He was married, but he had a girlfriend on the side—a white woman who was a hanger-on with that Black Power group. Some judge’s daughter. Owned a sports car, and one night, when Lester was driving it, they crashed into a bridge abutment.”
“Did she die?”
“No, but one of her arms got so mangled, they had to amputate.”
“Was the accident what put Lester in a wheelchair?”
“Nah, he’s only been using that for the past few years. I don’t think he got hurt much in the accident, but she got a prosthetic arm so they trumped up the charges and put him in here for the long haul.”
That’s when I begin to understand Lester’s about-face from my first library visit to this one.
For the death of my son, they gave me three years.
Lester got fifty years because a judge’s daughter lost an arm and, I’m guessing, because she was white.
Three years as opposed to fifty. No wonder he’s bitter.
No wonder he went off on the stupid white guy who asked whether he could “capture” him.
This call originates from a Connecticut Correctional facility. Press 1 now if you wish to accept this call from … Corby Ledbetter. If you wish to decline—
“Corby? Hi.”
“Hey. Thanks for picking up. Pleasant surprise.”
“Surprise?”
“Yeah. I haven’t talked to you in over a month. I was starting to think maybe you didn’t want to talk to me anymore.”
“Why would you say that?”
“Well, you know. I am a jailbird.”
“If that’s supposed to be funny, it’s not. Actually, I’m relieved to hear your voice. How’s it going?”
“Oh, you know. Fun times down here. You been getting my letters?”
“I’ve gotten two. God, that first one was…
when you wrote that you weren’t sure you wanted to live anymore because you didn’t think you could survive for three years in there.
And that same day, the TV news said the police were investigating another suicide at Yates.
I lost it, Corby. I was so scared it was you that I went out in the backyard, wailing and walking around in circles. ”
“Oh, jeez. I’m sorry, Em. That suicide was a guy from our block, but on another tier. I’ll spare you the details. But listen, things are a little better now. I guess I’m getting used to the place.”
“Your second letter said you got a new cellmate. I was relieved to read that. Your first one sounded horrible.”
“And I held back some stuff. But this new bunkie’s all right.
Kind of annoying but harmless enough. Actually, I sent you four letters—so you should be getting the others pretty soon.
Oh, and I’ve been going to meetings. That’s been helpful.
There’s this one I like that meets on Sunday after church and—”
“You’re going to church?”
“No. Only the first time because I got there early. It’s interesting, though, the way they improvise around here.
The service is set up in a corridor. The altar’s a sheet of plywood on top of two sawhorses.
Kind of surprising who gets into the Communion line.
I’m no expert on Catholic Masses, but I’m guessing this is a pretty unconventional one.
The priest is doing time like the rest of us. But enough of that. How’s Maisie?”
“Good, overall, I think. I upped her daycare to four days a week and she still goes to my mom’s on Friday.”
“How’s she adjusting?”
“Well, some days she’s fine when I drop her off and some days she resists. Which is typical, I think. She balks at going to my mother’s sometimes, too.”
“The girl’s got good instincts, huh?”
“Don’t start, Corby. I know she’s not your favorite person, but Mom’s been super helpful these three months.”
“And super happy that I’m out of the picture, I bet. Okay. Sorry. Is Maisie still asking about Niko?”
“Not as much as before. Hard to tell, but I wonder if her memory of him is fading. I’m not sure if I should let it happen or try to keep those memories alive.”
“I guess you just have to play it by ear. Take your cues from her.”
“And I can run it by Dr. Patel. I’m seeing her this coming Tuesday.”
“Really? Wow. What for?”
“Just some things I want to work on.”
Like what, I wonder, but I know not to ask.
“By the way, Maisie’s been talking about you a lot lately. Daddy this, Daddy that. We look at photos, watch videos on my phone. Niko’s in some of them, too, but her focus is on you. It’s all about her daddy.”
With my free hand, I swipe away the tears in my eyes.
One of my nagging fears is that my daughter’s memory of me will fade away over time.
“God, I miss her so much, Em. Miss both of you. I know how busy you are, how much you’re balancing, but I haven’t seen you since I came here. Maybe some weekend soon—”
“I want to see you, Corby, but to tell you the truth, I dread having to see you at that place. But I am going to visit. I promise.”
“That would mean a lot. And maybe Maisie could—”
“Please don’t start that again, Corby. I’ve made myself very clear on this subject. I’m not bringing my daughter inside a men’s prison.”
Our daughter, I want to say, but I drop it. Ask her whether she’s talked to my mother recently. When she says she hasn’t, I remind her that Mom has said she’d be happy to babysit Maisie. Neither of us says anything for several seconds. Then the canned voice breaks the silence.
You have one minute remaining.
“I still can’t believe they cut your calls off at ten minutes,” she says.
“Well, lots of times there’s a line of guys waiting to use the phone, so I can understand that.
What I don’t appreciate is that Big Brother can listen in on our conversations in the interest of ‘safety and security.’ That’s their excuse for everything they say no to.
‘Sorry, it’s a matter of safety and security. ’ Man, they love that phrase.”
“But that’s an invasion of privacy.”
“No such thing as privacy at this place. I learned that the first day I got here when they strip-searched me. Oh, hey, before I forget, in one of the letters you haven’t gotten yet, I ask you for a favor.
Could you go on Amazon and order me a sketchbook and some charcoal drawing sticks—the skinny ones?
I was thinking about drawing some cartoons for Maisie, maybe making them into a story for her. ”
“That’s a great idea,” she says.
“And when you order them, have them shipped right to the prison. They won’t let you carry in something when you visit or send a package from a home address.
It has to be sent directly from the retailer.
And don’t send me a sketchbook with one of those spiral binders.
They’ll deny it because of the metal. You’d be surprised how creative some of the guys in here can get if—”
And that’s it. Cut off without any goodbyes or I-love-yous. When your ten minutes are up, they’re up.
So why is she seeing Dr. Patel? That time we went for grief counseling, she was negative about her.
I wanted to keep going—I did keep going—but Emily opted out.
I remember at the end of that first session when Dr. Patel asked her what she hoped to get out of therapy if we continued.
Em said she wanted to get clear about whether or not she could find a way to forgive me—and that if she couldn’t, she didn’t think our marriage could survive.
Is that what this appointment is about? Is that why she doesn’t pick up half the times I call?
Is she leaning toward divorcing me? I have a sinking feeling that’s what it is.
And if I’m right, how’s that going to affect my relationship with Maisie?
Emily won’t let me see her while I’m here.
What happens if, when I finally get out of here, I’m a virtual stranger to my daughter?
Whether she divorces me or not, I’m still Maisie’s father. Emily can’t deny that.