“Maybe you can, but I’ve moved on from that business. Got way too hot after Tuscarawas.” He finishes pouring and looks at you. “Can’t thank you enough for staying strong on that one.”
You say quietly, “Of course, T.”
“You just never know who’s gonna snitch and who’s gonna stand tall. Thing was, I never would’ve pegged you for the latter. You showed a lotta courage doing that time, boy.”
You say nothing, accept the compliment. In truth, when they arrested you, you were eager to make a deal. Anything to get yourself out of trouble. Point the finger right at Tawrny and let them sweat him for whoever paid the money to get access to the plant—those greeniacs and their lunatic bomb makers. You’d never even heard of them before an FBI agent was barking at you about the terrorism enhancement. Then a lawyer walks in, who, surprisingly, says he’s your lawyer. A little twit hotshot from Philadelphia. He claimed he was taking your case pro bono because he thought you were getting done wrong by the government. This didn’t quite sit with you. He got you aside and said, Here is your story: You went to the spot out by the access gate to get high, and that’s it. You tested the waters with him about flipping, and he told you no, that’s only going to make your situation worse. The government will do what it will do, but if you stay strong, you’ll be walking out in no time, he promised. Confess to any material support for terrorism, and there’s no flipping that’ll save you. The federal prosecutors want these people caught. Best to take a simple lie and ride it. Still, the Feds had been convinced you had a connection to the greeniacs, so they’d thrown the book at you. Fifteen-year sentence in the hopes that you’d spill. But you stood in the courtroom as the sentence came down, chewing your cheek to shit and repeating to yourself what your lawyer had said: You’d never serve all that. After the trial the guy vanished. You never heard from him again, and a part of you knew you’d been played. That the lawyer was hired by somebody, not to help you but to keep you quiet. In the end, all you got charged with was trespassing and possession. From minor celebrity to just some numbnuts who’d shot up by a fence and left his DNA on a padlock. You lopped off most of the time by signing up for the Prion Rescue and Conservation Corps (PRCC, or the “Prick” as it was known).
“Sorry, don’t got no marshmallows.” Tawrny sets the steaming mug down in front of you. It has a picture of the sun peeking over green hills and reads WELCOME TO COSHOCTON, HEART OF GOD’S COUNTRY. You sip, and the chocolate is so delicious. Finally, Tawrny gets to it.
“Reason I wanted you to come by, Keep, is, like I was saying, I gave up moving product. That’s a young man’s game. Money’s tight, though, so I been working with the folks from before. From Tuscarawas.”
You feel a permanent unease. It rides with you always.
“Didn’t really work out for me last time, did it?”
“No, I admit, that was not ideal. But they did right by you, didn’t they? Got you out in five years—”
“I got myself out,” you correct him.
“They got more opportunities. And they took note of you. You stayed a soldier.”
Though it once would have terrified you to show this man anger, it’s been too hard a road, and he looks too weak. You lean forward and jab the table with your index finger like you’re trying to puncture it.
“I got myself out. And why do you care anyway? You’re some greeniac now? Blow some more power plants up? What do you care about these people?”
Tawrny meets your gaze, demonstrates he still has no fear of you. You’ll always be a tweaker to him.
“I got no horse in their race, boy. But I’ll tell you something, these greeniacs, as you call ’em—they pay. And they’re smart something fierce. This lady I’m talking to asked about you specific. And, Keeper, there is some serious money involved. I’m talking a bag. You want to hear her out.”
With a scrape of wood on wood, you push back from the table and stand. You hate leaving the hot chocolate behind.
“Ain’t never wanted to hear someone out less.”
“Give it some thought, Keeper,” Tawrny says, blowing on the steam and sipping delicately. “Opportunities like this, you shouldn’t sneeze at ’em.”
“They can keep their money, trust me.” You leave Tawrny and storm into a night beneath cold stars. It takes you an hour to walk home.
At church the next evening, you walk your mom across the parking lot while Toby holds Raquel’s hand. He bounces in front of you in his small winter jacket and tiny tie, ready to shoot out of himself like a lawn sprinkler. Your mom moves slower every time you see her, and she insists on holding your arm. A fear of ice. Other churchgoers pull in in their SUVs and pickups. Hair is combed, shirts tucked, and the women’s shoes are the finest in the closet. Ahead, Toby and Raquel are working through an excited conversation, Toby’s mumbling facilitated by the rapid splashing of his hands as he signs. Raquel signs back patiently, each move of her fingers and fists like she’s conjuring a spell. You still don’t know much more than the basics. You could’ve learned that first year inside but you didn’t. You didn’t do much of anything.
“Careful on these stairs,” your mom says, more to herself. She’s dyed her hair an assaulting reddish color that doesn’t look remotely natural. Every part of her sags. She clutches your arm and steps gingerly like she’s crossing broken glass. You have an urge to slam your hip into her and send her sprawling.
You stop to greet Reverend Andrade in the foyer of his church but have to wait for the family ahead of you. A fat couple and their three porker kids. You look out across the field to the spot, now covered with snow, where years ago you were saved. That feels so, so long ago. From another life.
“My mom,” you say to Andrade when you reach him. His eyes light up.
“Such a pleasure,” he says, taking your mother’s hand in both of his and pumping it profusely. “I’d heard tell of you, but here you are in the flesh!”
“Least for now,” says Mom. “Day’s not over yet.”
Most of your mother’s comments these days are about dying. The reverend compliments her outfit and asks if she’ll be staying long.
“Just until the evening. Got my shift at Hortons tomorrow morning.” You can tell your mom doesn’t like Andrade, maybe because he’s of Salvadoran descent or maybe because he’s overly friendly. Then again, your mom has never taken a liking to almost anyone that you can recall. Not since Joe Biggs, the HVAC kingpin, at least. You’re plenty surprised when she says, “Keeper speaks highly of you. Sounds like you and your church have done him a world of good.”
Andrade positively beams at this.
You and your family sit in the third row on the left-hand side of the aisle because this is where Toby always likes to sit. Most of the other children his age end up on the right-hand side where the families cluster, and you don’t have to learn sign language to understand that Toby is deeply fearful of other kids. He has reason to be. He often comes home crying, scraped, bruised, nose bloodied. He is the plaything of other, stronger children. The hearing aids are not helping him speak the way Raquel had hoped, and what’s most frustrating is there’s this thing, a next-generation cortical modem, this electrode array they could put in his brain that would restore his hearing immediately, but it is well out of any price range you’ll ever sniff.
When Andrade takes to the lectern, he’s smiling wider than the sun. His blue shirt and slacks are pressed, and his tie has little bicycles. Ginna sits in the first row, and he winks at her. You drift in and out of his sermon, as usual.
Seven months into your sentence in Chillicothe, the reverend came to visit. “You got a raw deal,” he told you in the visiting room. You sat beneath a mural on the walclass="underline" a Black guy and a white guy helping to erect an American flag like at Iwo Jima above the motto PRION: BEGIN YOUR JOURNEY. “But I’m not giving up on you. And as soon as you’re home there’ll be a place for you in the church. Always.”