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As Artie promised, the restaurant has sawdust on the floor and ancient waiters. It’s seems clear that ordering anything other than a steak would be blasphemous. Though he asked her out months ago, life intruded, and she never took him up on it. Then seeing him at Miles’s trial, she was moved and arranged to have dinner with him.

“Thank you for coming to the trial.”

“No big deal. How are you doing?”

“It depends.”

“On what?” Artie’s straightforwardness takes getting used to.

“In one way, I’m glad the trial is over, but in another I wish it wasn’t. I think about Miles all the time, worry about how he’s being treated. I work myself into a state of anxiety that only abates when I visit.” Has she said too much? “Does that make any sense?”

“Celia, you don’t know how not to make sense.”

“I don’t think that’s true, but thank you.”

“How is your brother Richie?”

“What do you mean?”

“After that stunt at the trial, I wondered if there were repercussions.”

“No. But my sister says he’s back in his virtual cave.” A stab of guilt assails her. She hasn’t called or visited Richie since the trial ended a while ago. Busy with her new job and traveling to visit Miles, and then there’s Sam and—

“Another drink?” Artie asks.

“I’ve already had two.”

He shrugs his big shoulders as if to say, What does that matter?

They’re driving along the bumpy dirt road leading away from the prison. Artie’s a slow, careful driver. The only radio station without static offers country music. In the past weeks, he’s been kind, showing up at her place with food and wine, phoning her often. Sam doesn’t seem to mind Artie’s visits. Or if he does, he’s chosen to share his angst with Maria, not her. So far, Sam hasn’t wanted to visit Miles, and she hasn’t pushed him.

Attica, Miles told her, was the name of an ancient Greek territory, which made them both laugh because the visitors’ room, with its chicken wire fence and bolted-to-the-floor tables, defies even a semblance of civilization. In some ridiculous and ludicrous way, she’s adjusted to speaking to him in a place as uninviting as this one is. It amazes her how much a being can adapt to. And she continues to hope that the slow seep of acceptance is also happening for Miles. He doesn’t complain or won’t to her.

At first she feared finding him depressed, distraught, or worse. But he was soon part of a group that was organizing prisoners to make common demands about horrible conditions. Miles assured her it wasn’t about expecting the comforts of home, just the right to exist as human beings.

She hasn’t missed a visit since he’s been there, but her brief time with Miles is never enough. They talk about his father, her father, everyone in between. They discuss politics, government, religion, philosophy, class, or he does. He’s proud of his background, says that working-class people are like blue jays, ubiquitous but beautiful when they fly. He’s become her teacher. She’s become the repository of his thoughts. He told her how the collective came to its decisions, how most of the time he was afraid. He said he was sorry to be caught but not sorry about saving the lives of potential draftees. Did doubt cross her face? “Mom,” he said, “change is like the wind. Can you see the wind?” She’s grateful that he isn’t filled with regret, a useless, painful emotion.

“Did it go well?” Artie interrupts her thoughts to ask the same question he asks after each visit. She’s thankful that he drives her and that he waits outside the prison until she’s done. It’s not his son.

“Okay, I suppose.” And hears the desultory tone of her own voice. “Each departure feels like a rending.”

His large hand slides over to squeeze hers.

The car rumbles past untamed brush, weedy fields, and embedded boulders with no house in sight, a landscape more strange than beautiful. Birds flit from one side of the road to the other; their songs enter the open windows. With Miles locked away from nature, she believes it’s her duty to see everything.

A man’s figure lopes into the center of the road from nowhere it seems, and Artie stops the car.

He’s tall, skinny, wearing a faded blue baseball cap and short-sleeve shirt tucked into jeans, his feet in sandals. He looks old, his cheeks sunken, but there’s no gray in the reddish-brown hair leaking out of the cap.

With hand edge to brow, the man salutes them.

“What’s up?” Artie asks in his usual gruff voice.

“I’d appreciate a lift to the highway. You can say no or yes.”

Artie looks at her. She shrugs, though he could have a gun in his pocket. But he looks fragile, and he’s already climbing into the back seat.

“Call me Paco, not the name I was born with. Then again, I don’t know who that was.” He rests his chin on the front seat between them, releasing a piney scent. “Coming from the prison,” the man states.

She nods.

“A brother?”

“My son.”

“Terrible place but no worse than some outdoor areas I know.”

“That’s one way to look at it,” Artie mutters.

“When you accurately describe a situation, you own it,” the man says with a certainty that surprises her. “On the other hand, if you can’t see it straight, you’re lost.” He looks at her. “Your son . . . what’s he in for?”

“He’s a political prisoner,” she says surprising herself and no doubt Artie as well.

“Political prisoners disagree with the system, and those who agree own the jail keys,” the man says “When the situation reverses, the other side gets the keys.”

“He fought against the Vietnam War,” she tells him, not sure why.

“War does it every time. Don’t matter which one. Whoever makes it home is a survivor. No house big enough to store his baggage.”

Having him gaze at her is disconcerting.

“There are two ways to survive,” the man continues. “A person can be filled with hate or with love; either one provides energy to keep life going.”

He drops each word as if it’s an omen.

“The present war is an immoral undertaking. On the other hand, it will teach us not to engage this way again. So it’s unworthy and worthy.”

Is he putting them on? Maybe he’s one of those itinerant preachers. Or maybe her need for solace knows no boundaries.

“Have you taken note of the strange doings?” he suddenly asks in a lowered voice. “Earrings on men, wild hair on everyone, long dresses in the morning?”

“There are reasons for not conforming,” Miles told her. Being out of order upsets the expectable, forces people to really see, not just look, he said. But she has no desire to share this with Paco.

“So you live in those fields,” Artie says.

“My body resides there and at times elsewhere.”

“Where will you go after we drop you off?” she asks.

“I don’t know. But I do know the state troopers around here aren’t friendly.”

“I guess we’ve been lucky,” Artie mumbles.

“No such thing as luck,” the man states. He starts to cough, deep, rasping, phlegm-filled exertions, and closes his eyes. “Rest your eyes and your body rests,” he says more to himself and leans back in the seat taking his piney scent with him.

“Paco,” she calls softly, “are you okay?”

“Either you heal or you die,” he murmurs.

They’re approaching the ramp that leads to the highway. Maybe they should take him to a hospital or—

“I’ll get out here.” His hand on the door handle.

“But it’s nowhere; I mean, you won’t get another—”

“I’ll manage or I won’t.” He climbs out slowly, then stands to the side and once more salutes them.

“Odd bugger,” Artie says, as the car speeds toward the highway. “At first it seemed he saw everything in black or white, but actually he’s stuck in the gray zone.”

She glances at Artie’s large face with hardly a definition of bone, and a tinge of admiration spirals into consciousness. She hadn’t seen him as thoughtful before, and like a new view of an old picture, it surprises and comforts her.