Adrian let that sink in. The guard who’d brought him from his cell gestured at an empty hall. “Mr. Wall.”
Adrian turned, not sure what he thought about all these strange words.
Mr. Wall …
Ex-con …
The guard lifted a hand, indicating a hallway to the left. “This way.”
Adrian followed him to a door that cracked bright and split wide. There were still fences and chain-link gates, but the breeze was warm on his cheek as he turned his face from the sun and tried to quantify exactly how it felt different from the one that shone in the yard.
“Prisoner coming out.” The guard keyed a radio, then pointed to a place where gates rolled on wheels. “Straight through the gate. The second won’t open until the first one closes.”
“My wife…”
“I don’t know anything about your wife.”
The guard gave a shove, and Adrian—like that—was outside. He looked for the warden’s office and found the right windows three floors up on the east wall. For an instant sunlight gilded the glass, then clouds slid across the sun and Adrian saw him there. He stood as he liked to stand. Hands in his pockets. Shoulders loose. For a moment the stare held between them, and with it enough hate to fill another thirteen years of Adrian’s life. He thought the guards would appear, too, but they didn’t. It was he and the warden, the slow tick of a dozen seconds before the sun burned through and mirrored the glass again.
Walk out proud, boy.
He heard Eli’s voice as if he were there.
Let them see you tall and straight.
Crossing the parking lot, Adrian stood on the edge of the road and thought maybe his wife would come. He looked once more at the warden’s office, then watched one car blow past, then another. He shifted from foot to foot as the sun walked up the sky, and the first hour stretched into three. By the time he started walking, his throat was dry and he’d sweated through his shirt. Staying on the verge, he kept one eye out for cars, and the second on a clutch of buildings dropped like blocks a half mile down the road. By the time he reached them, it was over a hundred degrees. Lots of shimmer coming off the road, lots of pale, white dust. He saw a pay phone next to a self-storage place, a shipping company, and a bar called Nathan’s. Everything looked closed but the bar, which had a sign in the window and a rusted-out pickup angled in near the front door. Adrian fisted his hand around the wad of bills in his pocket, then turned the knob and walked inside the bar.
“Uh-oh. Free man walking.”
The voice was rough and sure, the tone amused but not in a bad way. Adrian stepped closer to the bar and saw a sixtysomething man in front of rowed bottles and a long mirror. He was tall and wide, grizzled hair pulled back over a leather vest. Adrian limped a little closer and returned the half smile. “How’d you know?”
“Prison skin. Wrinkled suit. Plus I see about a dozen of you every year. You need a cab?”
“Can I get change?”
Adrian held out a bill, and the bartender waved it away. “Don’t sweat the pay phone. I’ve got ’em on speed dial. Take a load off.” Adrian sat on a vinyl stool and watched the man dial. “Hi, I need a cab at Nathan’s.… Yeah, out by the prison.” He listened for a moment, then covered the phone and said to Adrian, “Where to?”
Adrian shrugged because he didn’t know.
“Just send the cab.” The bartender hung up the phone and moved back down the bar. The eyes were gray under heavy lids, the whiskers yellow-white. “How long were you inside?”
“Thirteen years.”
“Ouch.” The bartender held out a hand. “Nathan Conroy. This is my place.”
“Adrian Wall.”
“Well, Adrian Wall”—Nathan tilted a glass under the tap, then slid it on the bar—“welcome to the first day of the rest of your life.”
Adrian stared at the glass of beer. It was such a simple thing. Moisture on the glass. Cool when he touched it. For an instant, the world seemed to tilt. How could things change so much so fast? Handshakes and smiles and cold beer. He found his face in the mirror and couldn’t look away.
“It’s a bitch, isn’t it?” Nathan put his elbows on the bar and brought the smell of sun-cooked leather with him. “Seeing what you are and remembering what you were.”
“You did time?”
“Vietnam POW. Four years.”
Adrian touched the scars on his face and leaned closer. Prison mirrors were made of polished metal and not so great for showing a man his soul. He turned his head one way, then another. The lines were deeper than he’d thought, the eyes wider and darker. “Is it like this for everybody?”