There on the sidewalk, she read by neon light how he lay on the table, headphones over his ears and a portable CD player attached to his belt. He would not look at the mirrored panel behind which the witnesses sat: the uncle of the girls, the prison warden, two reporters, and the prosecuting attorney who tried him. He was listening, the report said, to Pink Floyd when he died: “The Great Gig in the Sky.”
“He didn’t eat much,” the warden was quoted as saying. “Just a few french fries. A bit of a cheeseburger.”
Shelly stood, silent for a moment, not reading, not thinking, surprised that she felt sorry for Doyle, surprised at her grief and regret. She inhaled quickly, by reflex, then remembered that Chuck waited inside, that she had also ordered a doughnut and coffee. The food seemed more than she could stomach.
Inside, Chuck sat in a booth, the mask off his face now and set on the table. He had eaten a doughnut and a half. “So?” he said.
“He’s dead.” She sat across from him on the cracked red vinyl.
“And he ate your food? Man, you’re just about famous, huh?”
“Chuck, leave it alone.” She wiped her eyes.
“Hey,” he said. “What’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong? What’s wrong.” She turned to face the fluorescent lights, then to the racks of doughnuts behind the counter. Finally, she stared out the plate window at the prison across the highway, at the search lights, the fencing, the concrete. A monster of a building filled with monsters. Danny. Doyle. The worst kind of people. She wanted to close her eyes, but the prison filled the window frame, demanding that she look, that she see. The worst kind of people.
“What’s wrong is you used to be such a nice kid, you know, and I worry about you now. I do. Geez, I hate crying.”
“So stop.”
“I had a hard night, OK? Do me this favor. Scratch that word off your mask. Shake hands with the other team. It’s hard enough making meals for all those punks in jail. I can’t make them for punks at home, too.”
He started to laugh.
“I’m not kidding.” The words choked out of her. “You wear that mask again, you can eat junk food the rest of your life. Eat salty chips until your insides dehydrate, I don’t care.”
“Like you ever cook for me anyway.” He chomped on a doughnut, chocolate smearing the cusps of his frown, that frown he wore to play the dangerous man. He was no such thing, she thought. He wasn’t even in his mother’s league.
She slapped him, so fast, so hard he dropped the doughnut. The frosted side stuck to the floor.
“That’s exactly who I cook for,” she said, her palm stinging. “For the last three years, every day of the week in that god-awful place cooking. For who else? Rapists? Murderers? Grow up, Chuck. I’ve cooked for you.”
Other customers stopped talking, and Shelly knew they stared, worrying they might have to get involved. The bell on the door jingled as a couple of day-shift corrections officers arrived for their morning treat and waved at Shelly, but she ignored them. Chuck shifted nearer the wall, away from her.
She saw how the mark of her hand blotched his pale cheek. Just that quick she could turn on him. Just that quick she could hurt him. Lord help her. She remembered Hank’s face, remembered those moments when his eyes revealed and held back such fury, and now she wanted to kiss each eye in gratitude because she understood, she knew, the rage and violence Hank had smothered.
When Chuck lifted his face he looked scared and angry, and Shelly wanted above all else that he would turn out more his father’s son than his mother’s, that he would learn to put down the stick and to sheath the knife. She stood, hand in purse feeling for car keys, but Chuck stayed seated, fingers at a loss, twisting the bottom of his game-day tie.
Leslie Edgerton
In the Zone
From High Plains Literary Review
I told Manny the whole story. We were staying in on a Saturday morning while everyone else went to the movie. Sat up at the front table, playing double sol and eating Keebler’s Chocolate Chips and smoking tightrolls, Camels. Doing the prison day-off thing.
“I was hung up on her, bro,” I said, trying to explain it to him. “She owned my ass.”
“I been there,” he said, and the way he said it I knew it was true.
“We were broke up and I was taking out some other ladies,” I went on. “One weekend, a Sunday, I must have had four different babes come over, different times, got laid each time. I was having a ball, but it was crazy. No matter how much fun I was having, I still couldn’t get Donna out of my mind. I was fucked up, man.
“Anyway, the last chick left about eleven that night, and I went to bed. To sleep.”
Manny cracked up, leaned back in his chair and laughed with his head tilted back and his mouth wide open.
“I guess you weren’t gonna pound your trouser worm,” he said.
“I guess not. I was just getting asleep when the doorbell rang, and I got up and it was Donna. ‘I got to talk to you,’ she said.
“ ‘Fuck, Donna,’ I said. ‘I’m just about asleep. We’re over, sugar. Why don’t you just leave me alone.’ ‘No,’ she said, ‘I’ve really got to talk to you.’
“ ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I’m just about asleep, and if I don’t go right back to bed I won’t be able to. I oversleep and lose this job, my P.O.’ll violate me.’
“ ‘Okay,’ she said, pushing her way in. ‘You go back to bed. I’ll come with you and we’ll talk in the morning. It’s really important.’ ”
I looked over at Manny. “You know how it is when you’re just about asleep? I told her, ‘All right, come on in, but we’re not doing anything, Donna. I just want to go to sleep.’
“Well, she came in and I went back and climbed in bed and she came in a minute later and crawled in with me, buck naked. I meant what I said, though — I wasn’t going to fuck her. I turned over and closed my eyes, tried to get to sleep again. About five minutes later the doorbell rang again.
“It was a girl I’d seen a couple of times that week. Patsy. ‘Patsy,’ I said, ‘I’ve got company.’ ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Well, that’s cool, I guess. I’ll see you tomorrow then.’ And she left.
“When I came back into the bedroom, Donna jumped up and asked me who that was. ‘Nobody,’ I said, ‘just a friend. She’s gone.’ Donna ran to the front door and must have seen her walking away. She came back, and she was hot.
“ ‘You fucking that girl,’ she said. I said, ‘No, I’m not, but that’s none of your business anyway. We’re broke up,’ I said.
“ ‘That’s it,’ she said, slamming around and throwing her clothes on. ‘I’m outta here.’ ‘That was the original idea,’ I said back to her, and she went out, just about busting the door.
“That’s it, I’m thinking, and went back and lay down. But then I thought I heard voices and got up and opened the door, and sure enough, there’s Patsy sitting in a chair by the pool and Donna’s giving her the business, screaming at her.
“ ‘Donna!’ I yelled down. ‘Get your ass out of here right now or I’m calling the cops.’ I didn’t say anything to Patsy even though I knew she didn’t have a clue what was going on, but I knew Patsy was cool. I figured if I said anything to her that’d fire Donna up again and I’d just tell Patsy the next day what went down and she’d understand. Well, they both get up and head for their cars. Patsy always parked on one side of the complex. I watched for a minute, saw Donna was heading in a different direction, and went back inside. I layback down, but then I got to thinking — I know this bitch — Donna — I better be sure she’s left.
“I went to the front door again, and sure enough, Donna’s dogging Patsy, walking right behind her, yapping at her. I ran out of the apartment along the catwalk. All I had on were my jockeys. There’s a little space where you can look out at the parking lot, and I ran to that. Patsy’s up against a car and Donna’s got her face right up in Patsy’s. I ran downstairs and around the corner and just as I came around the corner, I see Donna’s fist come back and she smacked Patsy. She smacked her hard, dude. I never seen a guy hit another guy the way that broad hit her. I ran over to them and just as I got there Donna’s raising her hand to smack Patsy again. Only she wasn’t hitting her. She was stabbing her. It really didn’t register, though. I got there just as she was coming down with the knife and I grabbed her arm with one hand and Patsy with the other and shoved them apart. Donna went down on her knees and then started coming up, trying to cut me. I ducked my stomach back and at the same time she missed I grabbed the hand with the knife and hit it against my knee. This all happened fast, man. Really fast.