Chapter Twenty-Two #2
Angel’s sitting a couple of chairs down from me and here comes the hot girlfriend, tossing back her long, multicolored braids.
She’s wearing skintight jeans and a blouse that stops just north of her belly button.
From the way her boobs are wobbling around under there, I’m guessing no bra.
The room is hers and she knows it; even the two COs on the platform are watching the show.
As she passes by me, I get a whiff of her perfume and a head toss that makes those braids go flying.
Nice ass, too. Shit, man, I’m getting as bad as all the other horndogs around here.
What I don’t get is why they called me down here if I don’t have a visitor.
Juvie’s got the same situation. Well, I’m in no hurry to go back.
Manny’s been gassy all afternoon and there’s no avoiding the sound or the stink of it, so I’ll just sit here until it dawns on someone that I’m chilling in the visiting room without a visitor.
I wonder who stood up Juvie. His mother? Father? That kid’s messed up.
At the next table over, Cornell and his wife are holding hands and praying.
His back is to me, but I can see she’s got her eyes closed.
The little guy grabs his opportunity. Scoots off his chair and goes running between the tables toward the place where they keep the kids’ toys.
Cornell’s wife’s eyes pop open. She gives the guards a quick look, then shouts “Ezekiel! Get back here or those po lice up there gonna arrest you!” Then it’s Cornell to the rescue.
“Hey, Zeke. You wanna see a magic trick?”
It’s fun watching this kid, but it’s painful, too.
Emily said she wouldn’t consider bringing Maisie here to visit.
That’s another thing I’ve tried not to pressure her about.
In the pictures Emily sends me, her face is getting more angular and her hair looks thicker.
Mom’s taken care of her a few times—not as often as she’d like to, she says.
Betsy’s the alpha babysitter. Mom said Maisie’s talking a blue streak now.
“And singing, too. ‘Row Row Row Your Boat,’ ‘The Eensy Weensy Spider,’ the ABC song.”
“Do you think she misses me?”
“I’m sure she does, but she’s doing fine, sweetheart. Don’t worry.”
I want her to be doing fine. I just don’t want her to forget me.
When Emily finally visits me again, she’ll be surprised that I’ve grown a beard.
It’s come in pretty good—darker than the hair on my head, more brown than auburn with a little bit of gray in it.
Not much, just a patch. I like the not-shaving part, but it gets itchy.
You can’t have scissors here, and I’ve given up trying to trim it with those stupid little nail clippers, so I’m just letting it grow.
The Mountain Man look is in around here anyway.
The only other time I grew a beard was when we were living out in California.
Emily liked it—said it made me look sexy.
Sometimes I think if we had just stayed out there instead of moving back east when Betsy got sick, then all the bad shit never would have happened. …
It’s all women visiting tonight. Wives, girlfriends, moms. I think women are just braver than men.
They’ll put up with the pain of seeing one of their own stuck inside this place out of love .
Most men won’t. Or can’t. Instead, they make excuses.
My dad was a world-class excuse maker long before I landed here.
That day he moved out on Mom and me, he sat down next to me on my bed, all buddy-buddy, and tried to convince me that his leaving was Mom’s fault, not his, because she was a pothead and because our house was always messy and he just couldn’t take it anymore.
What was I? Thirteen? Even then I knew he was full of it.
What I couldn’t decide was whether he believed his own bs or whether it was just something he was trying to make me believe.
Either way, I got it. Accepted that some kids got a soccer-coach-and-take-you-fishing kind of dad and some of us got the short straw.
The indifferent dad and, in my case, the tenured professor who had gone off to play house with his pregnant grad assistant who lost the baby anyway.
I mean, Jesus Christ, he had to leave because the house was messy?
Hire a fucking cleaning lady! A professor screws his student and knocks her up?
Use a condom, you fucking cliché!… Okay, stop!
That stuff’s ancient history. And anyway, what good does it do to keep prosecuting him when I’m here because of my own way-more-colossal failure as a father?
I mean, fuck, Corby, when it comes to fathers who failed their kids, look who’s talking. …
The steel door into this room starts its noisy opening. Whoever’s about to come in is either my visitor or Junior’s.
Nope. Don’t know her. She looks around, then starts walking toward the kid.
But a few minutes later, the door grinds open again and there’s Emily! I wave. She looks around the room, sees me, and waves back. Walking toward me now, she’s smiling but I can tell from her eyes that she’s upset.
“Wow. I can’t believe you’re here on a Thursday.
I’ve missed you, Em. Can I get a hug?” She nods and we reach for each other, arms extended across the table.
It’s awkward embracing like that, plus her body feels rigid.
And bony. Jesus, how much weight has she lost?
When I rub the back of her neck, her body unclenches and she tears up. “Hey,” I whisper.
She lets go before I do. Wipes at her eyes, composes herself. “Have a seat, Em. When they called me down here, I thought it would probably be my mom. And then, when nobody showed up, I thought, well, whoever it was must have changed their mind. But here you are. God, I can’t believe it.”
“I said I’d visit you when I could, Corby. I couldn’t get here any sooner.”
She sounds defensive. “No, no. I know how busy you are. I just meant I didn’t expect you’d be able to come on a weeknight. Hey, remember, we have to keep our hands on the table where the goons can see them.”
She glances over at the two COs up there on their platform, talking to each other. “I can’t believe they have women guards here,” she says. “Why would a woman want to work at a place like this?”
I shrug. “How’s Maisie?”
“She’s okay.”
“Still have her ear infection?”
“No. She finished her amoxicillin a few days ago so I’m sure it’s cleared up.
She’s been more needy, though. She really enjoyed those two days when I stayed home with her, but now every day on the way to daycare she starts whimpering.
And she keeps claiming that another kid is pinching her.
Mrs. Matteson says it’s not really happening. ”
“That’s weird. Why would she make up something like that?”
“Who knows? Anxiety, maybe. Either that or she might be trying to guilt-trip me. When I picked her up this afternoon and told her Amelia was going to take care of her tonight, she started claiming that her ear hurts again. I’m sure she’s faking it, but I still felt like Bad Mother of the Year when I drove off.
I mean, what if her ear does hurt? What if some bratty kid is pinching her? ”
“Wouldn’t it be easier if you visited on the weekend? It’s busier then but—”
“I’m here tonight because I can’t visit this coming Saturday.
I’m at that all-day curriculum conference in Sturbridge I told you about.
I’m more or less expected to go because I’m the math coordinator.
The district’s going all in on this Eureka program next year, so they want a couple of us to try it out and report back about how it went.
And Sunday’s the day I catch up with all the things I have to let go during the week. ”
I nod, commiserating. “Marcia going with you to the conference?”
“No. She’s on child-rearing leave. I told you that, Corby.”
“Yeah, I guess you did. So you’re flying solo then?”
“No. The new teacher and I are riding up together.”
“New as in first-year teacher? How’s she doing?”
“ He’s doing great. The kids love Evan. He’s a natural. He goes out and plays with them at recess. All my third-grade girls have crushes on him because he’s young and cute. I had to intercept love notes from two of them this week.”
It’s the first time she’s fully smiled since she got here. Maybe someone else is crushing on this Evan, too. “So is this guy right out of college?”
She shakes her head. “He taught at another school for three years, but he was low man on the totem pole, so when their enrollment went down, he got RIF’d.”
“Laid off, right? You teachers and your acronyms. How old is he?”
“Twenty-four, I think. Maybe twenty-five.”
“Married?”
“Single. Well, divorced. Why?”
“No reason. Just wondering. Hey?”
“What?”
“I love you so much, Emily.”
“Love you, too,” she says, but she looks uncomfortable saying it.
A disturbance at the far end of the next table distracts us. “But listen to me, Mom! Just listen to me!” It’s Juvie, shouting at his mother. She says something to him that you can’t hear. “Yeah, but you’re not even listening to me!” He’s got everyone’s attention, including the COs.
“They had no business putting that kid in this place,” I tell Em. “He’s hostile and I think he may be cutting himself. He gave me some shit when we were waiting to come in here. He doesn’t even look old enough to be in prison.”
“They arrested him on his eighteenth birthday,” Emily says.
“I was talking to his stepmother when we were waiting to be let in here. Do you know what he did?” I shake my head.
Not sure I want to know. “He took his father’s gun, walked to the dog pound near where they live, and shot six dogs who were out in their pens. ”
“Jesus Christ, what was that about?”