Even with them low-quality goody-goody songs, Sirius start to make a li’l bit of a name for hisself, and this Jarvis guy got a gig interviewing him for a fanzine called Fresh. They talked for a long-ass time, probably ’bout social justice or some other bullshit that make people think they gotta wear hemp instead of smoke it, and for the first time since Delicious, Sirius got real comfortable and start talking ’bout some of what had went on there, and it blew Jarvis mind. That egged Sirius on, and he start telling Jarvis ’bout how he had escaped outta there through that drainpipe and lived in it for three weeks while he gone through the agony of being apart from me, eating lizards and stealing sweet potatoes to get by, and how he could only move at night, in the moonlight, and that it took him ’bout another month of living in a swamp to figure out where the hell he at and how to get the fuck out, until one morning, at dawn, he get up the nerve to hitchhike, but he only checking for cars he know Delicious people wouldn’t never drive, like a Subaru or a beat-up Volvo. He wait for almost a eternity, too, ’cause folks in that area don’t be driving no liberal automobiles. But eventually some black folks from outta town in a Volkswagen picked his ass up and drove him far as Shreveport. He spent six months working low-wage jobs out there before he gone back home to Houston—moving and construction, frying up pancakes at some nasty 24-hour diner, cleaning toilets for the crazies out at West Oaks Hospital. Good times!
Jarvis couldn’t believe how good Sirius story was. Meaning good like journalists says it—a real bad nightmare for the motherfucker it happen to, but good to write down and put in a goddamn newspaper for some idiots to gape at. At the time, though, Jarvis mostly reviewing bad rap music for Fresh, but he want to be more like a hard-news man. So he decide to do a exposé on Delicious for the Houston Chronicle, ’cause it be a chance to do some good for Sirius, bring some people he felt was bad guys down, and get his own career going at the same time. But once he had actually got up there to Delicious and brung back that tape of Darlene, Sirius ain’t want to do the story no more, ’less they did a rescue up there. ’Cause it’s one thing to get the story out, right, but a whole nother story to get them people out. Jarvis told Sirius that soon as How told the management that some newspaper guy done talked to Darlene, it gon be like Lockdown City up there, so they gotta move fast, and Sirius agreed that they need to go back to do a rescue that same night.
They got up near the chicken house round 5:00, parked the car behind some bushes. Sirius had remembered that it was always this one moment for ’bout a half hour right after roll call but before lock-in when you could drive a car through kinda fast and people could jump in and take off, something Michelle had noticed first, but she ain’t never figured out how to get in touch with the outside world and work it out. She and Tuck knowed shit was maybe gonna go down ’cause Tuck done talked to the dude in the car and when How beating Darlene she talking ’bout Sirius coming back, so they’s on the alert. Right when How beating up Darlene, Tuck watching from a few rows down on that same detail and he seen Jarvis and Frankie making a getaway down the road. He figure while everybody gawking at the violence, he gon wave that Subaru down and get gone hisself. The car ain’t stop, but Jarvis slow down a li’l, stick his head out the window and then Tuck begging them to come back at roll call. Tuck told Michelle they said yes even though he ain’t heard nobody say nothing.
That evening they seen the car and they snuck they ass into the corn and then into the car real fast ’fore anybody could see. They panting and sweating like they just run a marathon. Sirius told Tuck they gonna have room for ’bout five people with a few belongings, but one rule—he said he wouldn’t take nobody nowheres ’less they brought Darlene and Eddie. Sirius said to find some other folks who want to go right then and Tuck like, You crazy? But Sirius ain’t budge on that shit and Tuck had to tiptoe back over before they closed shit up and ask folks if they wanna get free without creating no drama.
Tuck thinking he gonna have trouble keeping down the numbers of people who wanna go, but when he told just a few folks that Sirius B out there in a car right outside, the first three people went, Nah, all skeptical like they thinking he tryna trap em, and when he got all passionate and angry with em, talking ’bout how he telling the truth, and to go see for theyself, but the car be well hid behind them bushes, it made him look worse. ’Cause sometime the harder you keep saying you on the level, the less motherfuckers believe you. Lotta them had forgot that Tuck just a real bad alcoholic and ain’t hardly never dealt with Yours Truly. Or they said to theyself that his drinkahol had made him start seeing pink elephants and whatnot, like he ’bout to have a breakdown something. The brother can’t win. Hard-core addicts be judging his ass for being a alkie. Ain’t that some shit? He just hoping that nobody blab to How or Jackie. Who end up also agreeing is just TT, who by that time woulda said yes to a escape plan that relied on a combination of Jesus, Michael Jackson, and Bigfoot. Problem was, TT said he had a special stupid detail down near the depot he had to go to right that fucking minute.
Tuck run back to the car and told Sirius that they gonna have to rescue TT near the depot. They had to wait until he got drove there, and then they seen that Gaspard still be in the store doing, like, inventory or some bullshit. Sirius told Jarvis to get out the car and go pretend to interview Gaspard behind the counter, and while he doing that, Sirius gonna jump out the car and go find TT. At first Gaspard tryna shoo Jarvis away, wondering how he even found the joint, but Sirius had told Jarvis to flatter Gaspard ass, and that worked. Gaspard wouldn’t say nothing ’bout the goings-on at Delicious, and he definitely ain’t want to say nothing with no tape going, but he did like to jabber his ass off ’bout everything else in the known universe. Jarvis kept him going just to give Sirius extra time; he damn sure ain’t get no information for the piece outta Gaspard, just some bullshit ’bout college-football history, a couple random stories ’bout a deadly tornado that happened forty years ago, and a lotta advice ’bout how to catch a fish with a string rolled around a fucking twig.
While that shit be happening, Sirius start hunting round to see if TT in one them fields near the depot. It be some big grape-growing areas off to one side out there, surrounded by corn, and sometime maybe one or two people get sent out there, who they watch from a distance (but close enough to shoot), and if you be crouching down and moving real quick through the stalks, then you could maybe find somebody picking or putting on pesticides or fertilizers or what have you on them grape plants. And maybe escape the same way.