“Is it okay if I come sit next to you?” Jeannie was looking at me. She was trying to be friendly, because the corners of her mouth went up and her eyes were slightly crinkled.
Everyone stared at us. Jeannie ought to leave me alone. Didn’t she get it, that I didn’t want to talk to her? I didn’t want to talk to anyone anymore, except Iris Kastelein who said she was my sister, and maybe Mo, who I trusted because you have to trust someone. But Mo was sitting next to Jamal.
Maybe my mother was another one I wouldn’t mind talking to. It had been a very long time since I’d seen her. The last time she’d come to see me was when I was in prison. She’d said, “Don’t kid yourself, Ray. You’re better off in here. At least now I don’t need to worry about you anymore.”
Since I didn’t say anything, Jeannie seemed to take it for granted that she could sit down next to me. I made myself a bread and liverwurst sandwich. At mealtimes I still ended up eating whatever wound up at my end of the table, even though the only thing I considered palatable was the chocolate spread.
“You’re mad at me, aren’t you?”
I nodded with a mouth full of bread.
“I know it isn’t any consolation, but I was really upset to have to send you to solitary. You got so violent that I didn’t have a choice.”
I looked out the window, hoping she’d take the hint and stop talking. There was a small robin sitting on the wall. You didn’t see those very often in here. You didn’t see any birds very often, as a matter of fact, not even in the yard. Birds didn’t want to be here, apparently.
I thought about my own backyard, which was always teeming with sparrows, chickadees, and robins. Then I thought about my fish. I really, really wanted my fish back.
“Are you listening to me?”
In my head I saw Venus, Saturn, King Kong, and François swimming up to the glass. Every time their heads hit the transparent wall, I’d hear a soft bonk.
“Ray?”
The bonking grew louder and louder and the fish kept reeling through my head. They wanted to get out. Out.
I couldn’t help yelling. Or was I howling? All I knew was that there was a horrible sound coming from my throat.
“Calm down,” I heard Jeannie say from somewhere far away. She put her hand on my arm, but I slapped it away. I didn’t want to be touched, especially not by her.
The buzzer went off—the buzzer that sounded whenever there was a fight on, or if Ricky started throwing things at the television. A couple of seconds later the doors swung open and two guards rushed inside.
They twisted my hands behind my back, making me bend over. Big drops started plopping down on the table. They were coming from my eyes. I was crying. That was it. That’s what you do when you’re sad. That realization, strangely enough, made me feel calmer. I was no longer bawling, just sniffing.
“Get up.” One of the guards yanked at my arms. It hurt. A lot. I was forced to do what he said.
“Wait.” Mo came up to us and started waving something in front of my face. It was a white napkin. “Do you want to blow your nose, Ray?”
I nodded.
“Let him go a second, let him dry his face.”
The guards did what Mo told them.
I took the hanky, dabbed at my eyes, and then blew my nose. I felt light-headed, but I’d stopped crying.
“I think he’s already calmed down,” Mo told the guards. “You can leave him here. I don’t think there’s any point taking him to the solitary unit. But thanks for your help.”
“Mo,” said Jeannie in a voice I couldn’t interpret. “What are you doing?”
“Tell you later.”
The guards left the floor and nobody spoke. Then Rembrandt said, “Let’s give Mo a big hand.” And everyone began to clap.
It felt a bit as if they were also clapping for me.
Mo let me stay in my cell the rest of the day, to recover. The door wasn’t locked; I could leave if I wanted to. I studied the photos of my fish for a while and tacked them up on the wall next to the others. I’d first sorted them alphabetically by name, and then by color.
Thinking of different ways to sort the photos of my fish took so much time that I decided to skip dinner. Mo offered to have them bring me food in my cell, but I wasn’t hungry.
“Tomorrow you’re going back to having regular meals again, though,” said Mo, and then he left me alone.
Over an hour later there was a knock on the door. It was André.
“Good evening, Ray.”
I quickly took the photos down off the wall. You never knew what André was going to do.
“I just wanted you to know I’ve taken over Mo’s shift.”
“Okay.” I waited for him to leave. But he stepped into my cell and shut the door. I clenched my hands around the edge of my bed to stop them from thrashing around.
André sat down next to me.
I shifted away from him a little, still clutching the bedframe, the way I’d clung to my mother’s hand when she’d brought me to the Mason Home when I was nine. Look, Ray, a Ping-Pong table. You’re going to have a great time in here.
“So,” he said.
“So,” I echoed.
“Everything okay?”
I nodded.
“Have you recovered from your stay in solitary?”
I nodded again.
“Strange, isn’t it, that they found drugs in your suite?” The social worker scratched his chin. “Do you have any idea how they got here?”
I shook my head no.
“You don’t?”
“No.”
“Are you quite sure?”
I nodded.
“Great.” He got to his feet, opened the door, but then seemed to change his mind. “And nobody’s ever talked about it to you?”
I shook my head, but at the same time realized it wasn’t true. Someone had talked to me about it. Rembrandt.
André shut the door again. “You don’t seem very sure about it. Think again.”
I let go of the bedframe; my hands immediately shot out wildly. “Leave me alone!” I said.
The buzzer went off, the signal that the cell doors would be locked for the night.
André’s eyes blinked behind his glasses. “I’m keeping an eye on you, Boelens. Don’t try anything funny, you hear?” Then he left the cell.
Unlike every other night, this time lockdown felt like a reprieve.