10 August 1978
Weird
In the exercise yard, in the afternoon, Nat purposely dropped out of the game. Left a bunch of guys he didn’t like anyway to play basketball without him, pretending to have pulled a muscle in his calf.
He caught Roger’s eye as he limped over to a picnic table in the corner of the yard. Four corners, four guards. So of course he headed for Roger’s corner.
He had something to say. And Roger seemed to catch that.
Roger leaned on the table with him and they watched the game.
“So, what do you have for me?” Roger asked. “Anything?”
Nat watched the game a moment longer in silence.
Then he said, “It’s just weird—”
“Ah. Nope. You lost me at weird.”
“No. You didn’t let me finish. That isn’t what I was going to say. I wasn’t going to say they were weird. Just that it’s weird … you know … for me. Like, in a few months I’m going to be going back to his house to live. And I was only there for, like, a couple days. So it’s all new and strange to me. But I sort of know him now. From all these visits. So I thought it would be OK. But I don’t know her. So now it’s all new and strange again. It’s like … I guess weird isn’t the right word, but I can’t think what is.”
“Scary?”
“Maybe. Yeah. I guess.”
A pause, during which Nat wondered how he had done.
Roger spun around suddenly and grabbed Nat by his prison jumpsuit. Brought his face close. Nat winced, and braced himself. He was about to be read the riot act about something. But he had no idea what.
But then, within that private moment he had constructed, Roger winked at him. Slipped a folded bill into the single breast pocket of the jumpsuit.
“Now that has a ring of truth to it,” Roger said.
Then he let him go again, and Nat brushed himself off. Settled his breathing.
Roger pushed off from the table and began to walk away.
“Wait,” Nat said.
Roger stopped and turned around again. Walked back close.
“Why was that worth ten dollars to you?” Nat asked quietly. He knew it was important that none of the other guards heard, or knew.
Roger took a deep breath. “Because … from where I sit, nobody seems to know why the hell they do anything. Oh, they have some story for publication. But it always rings like bullshit. Because it is bullshit. Way I see it, that’s what fills up a place like this. Bunch of scared little idiots running around lying to everybody about why they do what they do. Even themselves. The older I get the more it bothers me. So I just wanted to see if you could do it. You know. Given some time to think and some genuine incentive to get it right. I guess I figured if you could do it, anybody could.”
“Gee, thanks,” Nat said.
27 September 1978
Happy To
Nat slouched into the visiting room as he did every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. He scanned the room for The Man, but saw only some other guy’s parents and an old woman.
When he looked more closely at the old woman, she looked up.
It was his grandmother.
Nat looked over at Roger, who glanced away. He wanted to catch Roger’s eye. To ask, without words, why Roger hadn’t said anything. Why he hadn’t favored Nat with a warning. But that appeared to be a game Roger was unwilling to play.
Nat stood in front of her table for quite a long time. Until Roger came up behind him, placed a hand on each of Nat’s shoulders, and sat him firmly in the chair.
“Hello, Nat,” the old woman said.
Nat said nothing.
“So. Still not speaking to me after all these years?”
“Where’s the man who found me in the woods?” Nat asked. Feeling awkward about the phrasing, but not being sure what else to call him. Nathan? Mr. McCann? The guy who, unlike you, is supposed to be here?
“He agreed to stay out in the waiting room until we were done talking.”
“If you ask my opinion,” Nat said, “we are done talking.”
“Well, I have a few things to say.”
Nat frowned and slumped deeply into his chair. His impulse was to walk away, but he resisted it, knowing Roger would only reseat him.
“First of all,” she said, “I have a question to ask you. And the question is this: what was I to do? Was I supposed to tell you, when you were just a little slip of a boy, that your mother did such a horrible thing to you? Would that have been the thing to do?”
Nat looked her straight in the eye for the first time, and she predictably averted her gaze.
“Yes,” he said flatly. “That would have been the thing to do.”
“Why? Would you care to tell me why that would have been a good way to handle things?”
“Sure,” Nat said. “Happy to. Because then I would have known that my mother was a rotten piece of crap who didn’t give a shit about me—” Nat felt her rise to object to his language, but he raised a hand and she retreated again. In his peripheral vision he saw Roger take a step forward, then just freeze and wait. “No. I’m not done. I would have known all that about her. But I would have known I could trust you. And then I would have had one person in my life I knew I could trust.”
They both stared at the table for an awkward space of time.
“Well, I’m not sure I agree with you,” she said. “But let’s say you’re right. I’m human and we all make mistakes. Right or wrong, I did what I thought best. You can forgive me for that. Right?”
Nat didn’t answer. Because he did not forgive her.
“After everything you gave me to forgive?” she asked.
It’s news to me if you ever forgave me for anything, Nat thought. But he said nothing.
“And the other thing I came to say to you. I know you’re getting out next week. When you turn eighteen. And if you really have learned your lesson now … and I can only hope you have … if you will absolutely promise me that there will be no more violence and no more stealing and lying, and that you’ll get a job and walk a straight road … you can come back home. And we can try it again.”
Nat had just opened his mouth to tell her where she could stick her patronizing little offer when he remembered that Roger, the rudeness police, was standing within hearing distance.
“No thank you.”
“Excuse me? What did you say?”
“You heard me. I said no thank you.”
“So where are you going to go?”
“Back to Nathan McCann’s house.”
“Are you trying to tell me that man has actually welcomed you back? After everything you’ve done? That sounds like a pipe dream to me. I would think he’d have washed his hands of you long ago.”
“He will never wash his hands of me!” Nat shouted, slamming the table with the heel of one hand. Out of the corner of his eye Nat saw the other guy and his parents jump. Roger gave him a stern look of warning. “If he washed his hands of me, why is he out in the waiting room right now?” Nat asked, still quite agitated. “You go ask him if I’m welcome with him. And while you’re at it, tell him to come in now. And you go home. And don’t ever come back here again. This conversation is over.”
At first, nothing. No movement. No reply.
Then the old woman sighed deeply. Rose heavily to her feet with a grunt.
Nathan purposely did not watch as she walked out of the room.
“Hell of a way to talk to your own grandmother,” Roger said.
“You stay out of this,” Nat snapped back.
Surprisingly, Roger returned no comment.
Nat looked up again to see Nathan McCann lower himself into the chair across from him.
“So,” the old man said. “Did you and your grandmother have a good talk?”
“No,” Nat said. “It sucked. But at least it was our last talk. That was the only good thing about it.”
“You know, she calls me. Every week. To see if you’re OK.”
“No,” Nat said. “I didn’t know that. You never told me that.”
“I’m telling you now,” the old man said.