The Way Home Page 5

  “Black folk couldn’t vote before then?” said Ben Braswell, a big dark-skinned boy with soulful eyes who lived in Chris’s unit. Ben had stolen many cars and had been caught one too many times.

  “Until then,” said Mr. Brown, “some white people in power found loopholes and obstacles to prevent African Americans from participating in the process. The Civil Rights Act made any kind of racial discrimination illegal.”

  “What you think about that, White Boy?” said a husky voice behind Chris.

  Chris did not turn his head, knowing that it was Lawrence Newhouse, who some called Bughouse, doing the talking. He did not feel threatened by Lawrence, nor slighted by the tag, which had been given to him his first day in. Everyone had another name in here, the same way soldiers did on the battlefield, and White Boy, though a supremely uncreative moniker, was as good as any other. Lawrence was stupid running to illiterate, unnecessarily abrasive at times, but not considered dangerous unless he was off his meds, though everyone knew he had shot a boy on Wade Road, which had been his ticket in. He was thin and had almond-shaped eyes and skin that in certain lights looked yellow.

  “Asked you a question,” said Lawrence.

  Chris shrugged, the rise and fall of his shoulders his response.

  “What, you can’t speak?”

  “You mind?” said Ali, turning his head to glare at Lawrence. “I’m tryin to hear this shit.”

  Ali had no intention of defending Chris, but Lawrence annoyed him. Plus, there was that old thing between them. Ali had grown up in Barry Farms, a Section 8 complex in Southeast, and Lawrence had come up in the Parkchester Apartments, a neighboring housing unit. Neither of them were crew members, but there was a rivalry between the young men of the dwellings, a long-standing beef that no one, if pressed, could dissect or explain. Nonetheless, Ali Carter and Lawrence Newhouse had been assigned to the same unit. Boys with a history of animosity, gang related or otherwise, were mixed in with one another and were expected to work out their differences.

  “I say somethin to you, Holly?” said Lawrence.

  “My name is Ali.”

  “There a problem?” said the old man, Lattimer.

  “I’m about to see you outside, little man,” said Lawrence under his breath.

  But instead, when the class was done and the boys filed out, Lawrence Newhouse took a wild swing at a guard for no apparent reason and was subdued by several other guards and hustled down the hall into an empty room, from which the boys could hear shouts and sounds of struggle. The next time the boys from Unit 5 saw Lawrence, just before lockdown that night, his cheek and upper lip were swollen. He and Ali passed each other in the recreation room but said nothing and made no hard eye contact. A couple of the young men, who did not particularly care for Lawrence, dapped him up. Fights between inmates were inevitable and sometimes necessary, but they bought you nothing. When you swung on a guard, you were going to take a beatdown for sure, but you earned a little piece of respect. Even from your enemies.

  CHRIS HAD been inside for several weeks and had been in no fights yet. He had been the recipient of many shoulder bumps and hard brushes, and given out a few, but they had come to nothing. As for his color, he absorbed the usual comments and chose not to respond. Truth was, it didn’t bother him to be described as a cracker. Had he called someone a nigger, there would have been immediate go, but there was no corresponding word for whites that would automatically start a fight. Because of Chris’s indifference, the other young men grew tired of using his race as a launching pad for aggression and dropped it.

  Not that he was feared. He was on the big and strong side, but this did not deter anyone. In fact, it made the smaller boys more eager to drop him. But the deliberate bumps were perfunctory and did not escalate to anything approaching real violence.

  The nature of Chris’s crimes gave him a certain mystique that was useful on the inside. He was the crazy white boy who had cold-cocked a kid for no reason, led the police on a high-speed chase, and outrun them. When asked, Chris told the story true, but in its telling it did sound as if he had no regard for consequences or respect for the law, when in fact, on the night in question he had just acted impulsively. Chris believed it was wise to take this rep as a gift and did nothing to dispel the notion that he was a little bit off.

  The other thing that served him well was his ability to play and sometimes excel at basketball. The Pine Ridge half court, out in the field, was an asphalt surface land-mined with fissures and weeds, equipped with a slightly bent rim with chain netting. The rim was unforgiving, but once Chris learned its idiosyncrasies, he was good with it, and word quickly got around that he could ball. At first he wasn’t chosen for pickup because of his color, but the guards forced the issue, and soon he was out there, getting hacked and bumped like everyone else. Playing those games on Saturday afternoons, and holding the court and bragging rights with what would become his team, which included the tall and athletically gifted Ben Braswell, was the high point of his week.

  There were no other peaks. The boys were indoors most of the time, and the atmosphere in the unit buildings fostered depression. With clouded Plexiglas substituting for glass, little light entered the structures, so even on sunny days, their world seemed gray, colorless, and grim.

  By design, the boys did not have a say in the rules or conditions at Pine Ridge. There was no suggestion box. The boys took orders or they didn’t. They were ordered to go from one place to another, to keep in line, to get out of bed, to get in and out of the showers, to get to the cafeteria and to leave the cafeteria, to hurry into class and to leave class, to move into their cells. The guards didn’t ask. They shouted and they commanded, often with obscenity-laced language.

  Chris found himself bored with the sameness of his life inside. He was smart enough to know that he was being punished, that the boredom, the attitude of the guards, the tasteless food, the scratchy old blanket on his cot, all of it was intended to make him want to act right so he could be released and not return. But still, the treatment and surroundings didn’t have to be so harsh all the time. The boys got it, they knew they weren’t on some field trip, but it seemed counterproductive to get shit on day after day. After a while, the way they got treated felt less like punishment and more like cruelty.

  So with bitterness they acted out and broke rules. They talked out of turn in class and swung on guards and one another. Many smoked marijuana when they could get it. It was brought in by a guard who walked it through the gatehouse by taping it under his balls, and it got paid for by money the boys’ relatives gave them on visiting days. The weed, stashed in ceiling tiles, was occasionally potent but frequently was not, and most times it produced headaches over highs, but it was something to do.

  Because the scent of marijuana was often in the air at Pine Ridge, and because the high was evident in the boys’ eyes, this indiscretion was not a secret and the boys were piss-tested and strip-searched at random. They knew they would most likely be caught and that a drug offense would potentially increase their time inside, but most of them didn’t care. The warden ordered urine tests on the guards, too, and some of them came up positive. The guard who was selling, a man who arrogantly drove his BMW 5-series to work and thereby generated suspicion, was eventually served a warrant at his residence, where a search turned up several pounds. He was fired and prosecuted, but another guard saw an opportunity and stepped into his shoes. Wisely, this guard continued to drive his old Hyundai.

  It was said by some that the juvenile prison system tainted everyone, employees and inmates alike.

  Not all succumbed to the atmosphere. There were guards who did their jobs straight and felt they were achieving some kind of good.

  Pine Ridge’s superintendent, Rick Colvin, was one authority figure most of the boys liked. He managed to remember their names and ask after their well-being and their families. He was decent, and the boys felt better when he was on campus. But Colvin was not always around. His was a nine-to-five job, an
d his absence was felt at night. The regular guards went home in the evening, leaving duties to the crew of the midnight shift, who the boys considered to be the scrub members of the security team. Ali said, “The low end of the gene pool get the shit hours,” and it seemed to be so. These were also the men and women who woke them up in their cells at 6:30 in the morning. They rarely did so with empathy or kindness.

  THE NIGHT after Chris assured his dad he knew how to jail, he was in the common room of Unit 5, hanging out on an old couch, reading a paperback novel, not paying attention to what he was reading because as usual the boys in what was called the media room next door were arguing about what they were watching and what they would be watching next on the scarred television mounted high on the wall. Also in the common room was an old Ping-Pong table, looked like a dog had been chewing on its corners, where two boys played. One of the boys liked to slam the ball and then ridicule his opponent about his inability to return the slam. It was hard for Chris to concentrate.

  Ali Carter was seated in a fake-leather chair with riveted arms, ripped in spots. It was comfortable and he had commandeered it. Most of the other furniture here had been purchased out of a correctional facility catalogue, items made of hard plastic, indestructible and impossible to sit in for long periods of time. Ali, like Chris, was reading a book, but he did not seem bothered by the noise.

  Chris had been given his book by the reading teacher, a young woman named Miss Jacqueline who wore white shirts with black brassieres underneath and tight pinstripe pants to their school. Miss Jacqueline came to school twice a week and worked with the boys individually, and after she visited she was the subject of much talk in the units and fantasies that led to masturbation when the boys got into their cells. Chris had heard Shawshank, the old guard, talking to Superintendent Colvin one day, complaining about Miss Jacqueline’s style of dress, and how she “oughtn’t be looking like that in here,” and how she was driving all the boys crazy, walking around with her behind “all tight and full in them pinstripes.” Chris agreed, but he liked looking at her just the same, and he liked the way she smelled of lavender when she leaned toward him. It was nice of her to give him the book, too.

  “All right,” said Ben Braswell, entering the room, tapping Chris’s fist, and sitting down beside him. “Those pieces took my head up, man.”

  Chris had bought some marijuana with the money his mother had slipped into his pocket and had passed a couple of buds on to Ben.

  “What I owe you?” said Ben.

  “Nothin.”

  “I’ll get you later, hear?”

  “We’re straight,” said Chris. Ben never had money and had no way to get it. No one visited him, ever.

  “We gonna ball this weekend, son?”

  “No doubt,” said Chris. “Better play while we can. It’s startin to get cold out.”

  “Cool weather means gobble time,” said Ben. “They’ll be servin a special dinner on that day, too. Turkey and stuffing, cranberry sauce, everything. They did last year, anyway. It was tight.”

  Thanksgiving was just another day to Chris. But he said, “Sounds good.”

  He didn’t want to taint Ben Braswell’s vision of the upcoming holiday. More than any other boy Chris had met at Pine Ridge, Ben saw the brightness in things. His attitude was positive, he was never cruel to be cruel, and he didn’t bully anyone out of boredom. Ben kept stealing cars, though, and the court kept putting him back inside.

  “Hey, Ali, what you reading, man?” said Ben. “That book looks thick.”

  An open hardback book rested in Ali’s lap. He took his eyes off the page and looked over the top of his specs at Ben. “Called Pillar of Fire. Miss Jacqueline gave it to me, said it came out just last year.”

  “That’s a big-ass book.”

  “You can read it when I’m done, you want to.”

  “I ain’t gonna read shit, Ali. You know that.”

  Because you can’t read, thought Chris.

  “It’s about that time Mr. Beige was speakin on,” said Ali. “The Civil Rights Act, Dr. King, LBJ, all that stuff. You know, that president Chris called a leader.”

  “He was,” said Chris.

  “Yeah?” said Ali.

  Chris concentrated, tried to arrange his thoughts in a logical manner so he’d sound as if he knew what he was speaking on. For some reason, he wanted to please Ali.

  “He did good, even though he wasn’t all pure inside. My father told me that Johnson was… he was a product of his environment.”

  “Your pops meant that Johnson was racist,” said Ali.

  “More like, he couldn’t really help what he was.”

  “Way I heard it, the man told nigger jokes at the dinner table,” said Ali.

  “Maybe he did,” said Chris. “But he signed that act because it was the right thing to do, even though he might not have been feelin it in here.” Chris tapped his chest. “That’s what I meant when I said he was a leader.”

  “Okay,” said Ali. “You’re right. Not only that, he lost the South for his party when he did that, and they ain’t never got it back.”

  “What the fuck are y’all talking about?” said Ben.

  “You ain’t all that stupid,” said Ali, looking directly at Chris for the first time. “You just tryin to act like you are.”

  Chris blushed. “My father told me that, is all.”

  “Your father read books?” said Ben.

  “History books and shit. He’s got a library, like, in our living room.”

  “Your father,” said Ali with a small smile. “Your living room. Books. A library.”

  “What?” said Chris.

  “How you end up in this piece?” Ali shook his head and lowered his eyes back to his book. “You don’t belong here, man.”

  IN HIS cell that night, Chris lay on his side on his cot and looked at a charcoal sketch that Taylor Dugan had done of him, taped to the wall. It was made from a photograph she had taken of him in her mother’s basement, the night he was arrested. The sketch showed him shirtless, drinking a beer, with a cocky, invincible smile on his face. It had come to him through the prison mail, along with a note that simply said, “Thinking of you and miss you.” On the bottom of the sketch, Taylor had put her signature. Underneath his figure she had printed the words “Bad Chris.”

  That’s me.

  It was me. And now I’m here.

  The smile in the sketch seemed to mock him, and Chris turned his back to it. He stared at cinder blocks and felt nothing at all.

  SIX

  THOMAS FLYNN’S business was called Flynn’s Floors. Despite the name, which he’d chosen because of its alliterative effect, the majority of his work was actually in carpet. He avoided wood flooring jobs, which were prone to costly error, and for the same reason he turned down work that involved ceramics. “I prefer not to deal with that,” he’d tell customers. “It’s outside my comfort level in terms of expertise.” To builders and subcontractors, he’d simply say, “I don’t fuck with tiles. You can fix a carpet mistake. With ceramics, you screw up, you’ve got to eat it.”

  He catered primarily to the residential trade, with a smattering of commercial work in the mix. Much of his business came from referrals, so he spent a good portion of his day calling on potential clients in their homes, checking work that his installation crew had already done, and putting out any attendant fires. Amanda handled the paperwork end of the business—inventory, bills, receivables, payroll, insurance, and taxes—from the office they had set up in the basement of their house. Flynn was a good closer and could mother his crew and talk dissatisfied clients down, but he had no interest in the clerical aspect of the business, while Amanda was efficient in paperwork and the collection of moneys. Their talents were complementary and they knew their roles well. Take one of them out of the equation and Flynn’s Floors would not have been a success.

  Flynn drove a white Ford Econoline van with a removable magnetic sign on its side, advertising the company name and ph
one number. His crew, headed by a hardworking El Salvadoran named Isaac, rode around in an identical van that Isaac drove home at night and parked on the grass of his Wheaton home off Veirs Mill Road. Chris, when he was still speaking to his father, called the vans the Flynn’s Floors fleet.

  Like many salesmen, Flynn did not believe in showing up at a client’s house looking like he made more money than he needed. He felt that it was prudent to look humble and hungry. His work clothing was plain and square, Dockers from Hecht’s, polo shirts bearing the company patch when it was warm enough, long-sleeved cotton-poly blends in the winter and fall, Rocksports on his feet. For a while he had gone through the Vandyke phase, in the rebel yell manner of a white Major League baseball player, but he saw too many guys with double chins doing the same thing, and it screamed middle-age desperation when in fact he wasn’t there yet. Amanda said it made him look pleased with himself rather than honest or smart. He shaved it off.

  Flynn looked in the mirror and saw what others saw, a guy who went to work every day, who took care of his family, who made what would always be a modest living, and who would pass on, eventually, without having made a significant mark.

  He had been fine with this in the past. His aim was to instill values, work ethic, and character in his son, and to see him through to adulthood, when he would become a productive member of society and in turn pass this along to his own children. That was what he felt he was here for. That was how all of this “worked.” But when Chris jumped the tracks, Flynn’s belief in the system failed. There just didn’t seem to be a point to anything anymore. He knew that this attitude, this inability to find purpose in his daily routine, was a sign of depression, but knowing it did not restore any sense of meaning to his life.

  It was true what some folks said: When your kid is a failure, your life has been a failure, too.

  Still, he continued to go to work. He had bills and real estate taxes, and the responsibility of maintaining employment for Isaac and his crew, who had families they were supporting here and family members they took care of in Central America as well. “It” hadn’t worked out for Flynn, but that didn’t mean these men and their loved ones had to suffer, too.