You Are Free to Go. Sarah Yaw

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СКАЧАТЬ lands on his prominent left cheekbone.

      From Administration there are exactly seven locked doors Moses must approach and await a guard to let him through. If there are other guards, employees or civilians passing through, he must stop exactly where he is, step aside, back against the wall, eyes averted, and wait until the passageway is cleared. Once cleared, the guard can let him pass and lock the door behind him. Upon entering B block there are several doors in a row. He must wait for the first to be unlocked, then step through, wait for the guard to lock the door behind him, step aside while he unlocks the next door, step through only a few feet, and, once again, await the guard as he locks the door behind him. It is a laborious commute replete with a lot of waiting around, and when he’s had a long day, like today, he feels the burden of his incarceration.

      To finally enter the open gallery of the ground floor of B block is like pulling off a stop-and-go highway into neighborhoods of suburban residential quiet. But instead of green everywhere, it is a concrete landscape. The calm is not typical. He lives in special quarters where the inmates are mostly older, mostly quiet, mostly peaceful. This is where they bring tours of college criminal justice students, local dignitaries, state DOC officials, and others the prison administration wants to impress. The only thugs are Collin, Georgy, and Don, but they are here because it is a privilege to live here and they are afforded ill-begotten amenities all the time. Moses ignores the loud television and the men milling around. He is exhausted from delivering letters, sore on the temple from forty-three, covered in spit and desperately in need of a piss. But before he reaches his cell, he hears the distinctly lazy voice of Sergeant Ed Cavanaugh coming from within.

      “I’m quite sure Gina is still alive and nothing has happened to her, Jorge. She’s living in New York City and working for the Evening News with Arthur Fairchild. Jorge, you know this. You watch the show in the evenings just like Sid and me. We watch him almost every evening and we always look for Gina’s name at the end of the program. Besides, I’m sure Shell would have told me if something had happened to Gina.” Moses watches Ed bob and duck as he talks to avoid the flutter of wings.

      Sergeant Ed Cavanaugh is either mean or weak, depending on his mood. He’s never kept his pecker in his pants and whenever he cheats on his wife everybody knows it because he blows up like a balloon and has to get bigger pants. This is widely known because he has a confessionary streak a mile wide and he talks to the wrong people about the wrong things a lot, including prisoners. Cavanaugh thinks he’s father of the year because of all the good he’s done for Jorge—and Moses doesn’t fault him that. He has done that. But Moses believes that the faith Jorge shows in him is his one miscalculation in life.

      Cavanaugh is sitting on Moses’ cot, his knees off to the side because the space between the cots, which is less than a foot, does not fit his giant legs. Cavanaugh holds a letter in his hand. It is not one of Gina’s letters, the ones Jorge rereads all through the day and into the night, remembering his daughter first as a little girl who wrote only in crayon, then as a whiz kid in science and math, then as a lanky, ivy-bound teenager who broke his heart by abandoning their mutual love of science, ornithology specifically, to study broadcasting, and who, today, is a fancy Upper East Side resident and producer of serious TV news. This is a different letter. From the door of the cell, Moses can see that Jorge wrote it himself. This agitates Moses. Jorge never writes a letter without having Moses read it for errors of spelling or subject-verb agreement, even the letters he writes to his daughter, because Moses learned his grammar from nuns and Jorge, a perfectionist, is afflicted by his mother tongue.

      Cavanaugh leans forward with a dramatically knitted brow. He worries his fingers along the edge of the letter and ignores Moses. The cell is already crowded and simply can’t fit three men, two cots, the locker that doubles as a desk, the comby, a seatless john and sink in one, and at least ten sparrows. Birds fill the room and fly playfully just over their heads; the cell is just seven by seven by seven. Jorge sits slumped by the weight of a great and recurring worry for his daughter. A small sparrow with a red thread tied to one leg sits on his shoulder, preening and chirping a sweet chirp that is returned by another sparrow sitting on the locker. There are spots of dried white droppings on the floor, on the edge of the sink, on Moses’ clear plastic typewriter, on the concrete walls and the edge of the john, even on Gina’s diploma from Brown. Jorge has not cleaned today.

      “Well, I can’t remember who is dead and who is alive anymore of these days,” Jorge says in a moment of honesty about the slips and jumps his mind’s been making. But the confession isn’t anything Moses wants to hear. Lately, a lifetime of poorly treated epilepsy is catching up with Jorge. He’s forgetful. He’s confused. And at his very worst, he’s questioned his deepest beliefs.

      Everybody likes Jorge. He’s kind and he lives his faith and everyone believes in his goodness. The guards. Even Georgy, Collin, and Don. Without him, Moses would get his ass kicked daily. Of this Moses is only too aware. When Jorge’s family was still a family and they used to come inside for respite weekends in the trailers in the yard and Moses was left alone to fend for himself, he would get pummeled. Jorge would return with the pink glow of love and Moses would have a purpled eye ready to pop like a ripe plum. Without Jorge, he’d be ashes by now. Without him he would surely run into the fist that would kill him, but that’s not the half of it. In Moses’ weakest moments, when he needs something to believe in, Jorge is his faith.

      Moses steps further into the cell and walks into Cavanaugh’s knees. The birds respond with a group ascent out of the cell. Moses swats at them; they know to scatter when he arrives. Cavanaugh is not so well-trained. Instead, he looks at Moses but doesn’t see him. He looks worried. Jorge is scaring Cavanaugh into believing that he is near the end with his dementia, and Cavanaugh, that pussy, is buying it. Of course Moses knows this is stupidity. Jorge’s been slipping for years.

      Cavanaugh finally stands. He towers over Moses, looks down at him, and they resume their roles. Moses lowers his head, backs out of the cell and waits for Cavanaugh to notice that he’s waiting to go in. As an afterthought, Cavanaugh waves his huge hand, and Moses scurries directly to the john. He pisses and drains some of the life from his aggravation.

      Jorge says to Ed, “If Gina is still alive, as you tell me, then it must be Gina, not Marie—do you hear me, Ed? Not Marie!—that comes for claiming me. I am afraid for what she would do. Gina will bury me; I will have the last rights. Marie will throw my ashes into the trash or forget me behind in the back of the closet when she moves to Miami and I will be stuck in purgatory.”

      “Do you mind?” Moses says looking at Jorge. “I’d like to have some peace and quiet. I have reading to do.” He sits on his cot and pulls the World Literature Anthology onto his lap. He opens to “Death in Venice,” and as he begins to read, he thinks of Lila and is disgusted with himself. He fears what he is about to learn about Aschenbach.

      Cavanaugh fills the cell door and blocks the light. “Jorge, I assure you. You have a long life to live yet. You’re healthier than most men I know. But in the event…” Ed stops. “I will make sure Gina gets this letter. You’ll be in good hands.” Ed steps forward and leans down awkwardly and shakes Jorge’s hand. Jorge grabs on. “I wasn’t a real father. Not like you are,” he says. “But without you, Gina would have had a death in my heart long ago.”

      “Oh, come on with all the faggotry,” Moses says. “We’ll cry when you’re dead, Jorge. In the meantime, peace.”

      Jorge waves his hand at Moses and laughs at him. “You, friend, will miss the most of me.”

      “I won’t miss all this noise.”

      Ed looks at Jorge with concern. “Good night, men.”

      When he’s sure Ed is gone, Moses swings his feet to the side of his bed, squeezes down on his knees between the cots, his back to Jorge, and pulls the cooler of Lila’s hair out from under it. He СКАЧАТЬ