How long would it take for Apollo to “regain” what had been “lost or taken away?” A son. A wife he’d thought he’d known. A marriage. Three lives.
Apollo had time to consider all this as he waited with 149 other men in cells, the prisoners called them bullpens, as they were prepared for release from Rikers Island. The men were so tightly packed against one another that two had already fainted where they stood. Apollo, and the other men, had been in the bullpen for eleven hours already as the guards ran through whatever mysterious procedures demanded a half day to get done. Anyway, Apollo had been quite lucky compared to some of the other men here. On Rikers Island for only two months. And he’d been held in Taylor, filled mostly with short-timers. It had been as calm a bid as a man could hope for. Apollo was processed—his clothes and belongings handed to him in a brown paper bag—the only prisoner leaving who didn’t want to be released.
Four blue and white buses filled up, and the atmosphere bubbled. The men on Apollo’s bus ranged in age from seventeen to fifty-eight, but every one of them bounced in his seat like a child off to sleepaway camp. One of the guards on the bus occasionally growled for the prisoners to be quiet. You’re grown-ass men! he’d say, but he was wrong. They were kids again.
Kids up early. Prisoners released from Rikers Island were driven from the jail out to Queensboro Plaza before dawn. Dropped off with their bag of possessions and an envelope containing just enough money for one ride on the subway and a grande cup of coffee. Apollo sat by the window and watched the bus cross the bridge into Queens. He hadn’t been scared for even a moment in prison. He followed orders, he never made a phone call, he always wore his ID and kept his shirt tucked into his pants. An untucked shirt could send certain guards into an unfathomable rage. He made an impression on no one and liked it that way. The story of Emma Valentine and Baby Brian, as their son came to be known, made the news. Baby Brian killed by his mother; Emma Valentine disappeared and on the run. His family had become the cast in a horror movie. Was it any wonder he wanted to become invisible in jail?
The act that landed Apollo in prison, using a shotgun to hold three people hostage, that was its own story, too. There hadn’t been much sympathy for him inside Rikers. No veteran prisoner wanted to help keep his spirits up. Everyone had their own problems. They were on Rikers, after all. Apollo considered this a relief. He existed in a state of suspended animation. A body compelled to move here or there, eat on schedule, shower once a day, but there was nothing more to him. Apollo became convinced his heart had failed, or been removed, when he’d been in surgery for his eye. It made sense that he felt no fear in jail because he wasn’t actually alive. He died when Brian died.
But as the bus approached Queensboro Plaza, he felt revived, revitalized. This wasn’t a good thing. His heart pulsed in his chest, and he felt invaded by some alien presence. The men around him were joking about how quickly they’d cop once they arrived. Before the plaza had been made over, there was a Twin Donut where prostitutes waited for the newly released men to get out. They’d be stuffed up together, four women to a booth, quite aware of how desperate these men would be for their service. An old-timer shared this information in nostalgic tones.
“They still there,” another man said. “They wait at the spot on Twenty-seventh Street now. Panini Grill.”
“What the fuck is a panini?” the old convict asked.
One of the youngest laughed. “Things change, old head. You can’t fight that.”
Apollo’s heart beat louder with each block they passed. For most men leaving Rikers, the Queensboro Plaza drop counted as a remote location. So many of them were from Brooklyn or the Bronx or Uptown, and the trip home from here would take hours, easy for the plaza to feel like one last fuck you from the Department of Corrections. But Apollo knew Queensboro Plaza well. Had a good idea of exactly how long it would take to get him back to Washington Heights.
He hadn’t been home since the morning Brian died. Not once. He’d been discovered by the super who called the paramedics, and they took him to New York Presbyterian Hospital. He stayed there until after the surgery to repair his eye. Upon release, he went to Lillian’s to recover. While there he met with detectives from the NYPD and agents from the FBI. Brian had been dead three weeks by the time Apollo returned to Washington Heights.
He didn’t go home though. Instead, he showed up at the Fort Washington branch of the New York Public Library wielding a semiautomatic shotgun. He took three hostages, Emma’s co-workers. Basically, he’d lost his mind—he wanted them to tell him where Emma had gone. He wouldn’t believe they didn’t know. The police had to be called in. There was a standoff that lasted six and a half hours. Despite all this, Emma’s co-workers refused to press charges and even testified on his behalf when he appeared in court. Apollo spent two months on Rikers Island. And now, as the hint of dawn appeared in the sky, Apollo Kagwa was free again. He hadn’t told Lillian he’d be arriving, hadn’t spoken to Patrice since he’d gone to jail. No one else left. Remarkable to think his inner circle consisted of only four human beings.
The men departed the bus like soldiers on leave. Maybe Rikers released the men in such a remote location, at a time so early, because they wanted to risk as little collateral damage as possible. Like the thinking behind doing atomic testing in the desert or on some distant isle. Though there were always casualties in those cases, weren’t there? The land of the Bikini Atoll remained uninhabitable to this day. Apollo felt as if he glowed with grief, poisoned with mourning instead of radiation. He couldn’t go home. He could not be in that place. Not yet. This was why he might’ve been the only man on the bus who didn’t want to board it. Everyone else wanted to get back home, but Apollo Kagwa had no home anymore.
APOLLO ARRIVED AT Bennett Park and didn’t even realize how he got there. It had been five-thirty in the morning by the time he reached Washington Heights. His body had become used to hitting the park with Brian at that hour, so even after months away, that’s where his body took him. He had an appointment downtown at eleven, but that was a long time from now.