On Thanksgiving morning, Dwayne woke up too early. The deep breathing of sleep surrounded him, an in-and-out shush like the ocean. The eerie quiet reminded him of the first time Wesley took him along.
He had been eleven and squirmed through a doggy door, landing in a foreign silence like this. A dim light above a stovetop had revealed a kitchen.
All he had to do was throw the deadbolt.
The next day, Wesley had patted a twenty into the chest pocket of his shirt. “Just remember, crime don’t pay.” He’d laughed.
Dwayne felt displaced with no Espie spooned against him, the baby squeezed between them, Espie’s little sisters in the bunk against the other wall. Her aunt didn’t like him around, but he had a right to see his kid. Tanisha. How come his baby popped out so dark? Black eyes and all that? Espie had almost blonde hair and smokin’ green eyes. And his Mama and Grammy Rice and him were all light. Espie claimed her grandpa lived in the Costa region of Oaxaca. “People there look like that.”
Espie liked to hold on to him, even when it made his back sweat. She had abandonment issues—her dad in prison, her mom deported, and her aunt not happy about having four kids, plus Espie’s baby, dumped on her.
Life’s a bitch, and then you die. With his hands behind his head, Dwayne lay flat. If he rolled wrong, he could fall off.
Even if it was the middle of the night, he wouldn’t be staring at the ceiling for too long. They served breakfast at five-thirty, and you had to be there for headcount.
His body searched for a way to stretch. He drummed the mattress with his heels. The whole three-tier structure shook.
For the whole of Wednesday evening, the ’roid freak Buster wouldn’t say whether he’d made the call to Espie. Buster had bumped past him in the common room. “Line a mile long,” he’d said and winked at him.
Now who was being top-secret? Buster wouldn’t wait for his turn to use the phone. Dwayne had picked the guy for a lot of reasons. That was one of them.
Buster was fuckin’ with him. Because that was the kind of guy he was.
If she got the message, Espie would pick up his backpack. She would borrow her aunt’s car, or just take it, or ride the bus. She would do anything he asked. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was that Espie screwed up everything. She was unreliable. She’d go up to a cop and ask for directions when she was high. She had no sense.
The inmate under him flipped over, making the upper deck wiggle. He farted loudly.
A putrid stench exploded like a stink bomb. Dwayne leaned over. “What the fuck, man?”
But the guy breathed like he was asleep.
Dwayne nibbled a cuticle. Right now, the most serious charge against him was the possible assault with a deadly weapon. He doubted they had the gun. Without the gun, they didn’t have much. He’d learned that in second grade when he’d stolen some Pokémon cards. Pointing his finger, the sissy student ratted him out.
The teacher had narrowed her eyes but hesitated. Dwayne had been her only black student. The school had learned from his older brother Wesley that his mom would be there in a hot minute. He and Wesley could be “guilty as sin,” as his mom put it, but they were her boys. Especially Dwayne. His problems were his dad’s fault, The System’s fault, and, after that, Wesley’s fault.
The teacher had walked down the aisle and stood, towering over his desk. “Is it true?” she asked. “Did you take his Pokémon cards?”
“I don’t have them.” He had jumped out of his seat and turned his pockets inside out while all the kids watched the drama.
“He took them.” His accuser had curly gold hair and actual tears in his eyes.
Turning toward the kid, the teacher clasped her hands tightly together, and her forehead wrinkled.
Dwayne glared at the kid. “Did you see me take them?” All the Mexicans in the class would be on Dwayne’s side, even though at least one of them had seen him snake into the kid’s pack.
The wuss shook his head.
And while he had this advantage, Dwayne added: “He’s racist.”
The teacher’s head swiveled back and forth between them, weighing the situation. “We’ll continue this conversation during lunch.”
Earlier at recess, Dwayne had tossed the cards on the roof. Even back then, he’d known that lack of evidence made a weak case.
If all the cops had now was another burglary and violation of probation, they might weigh the fact he was eighteen and let him walk. Or do a few months at River House.
He propped himself on his elbows, but with the bunk in the middle of the room, he couldn’t even sit against a wall. He switched from biting his cuticle to worrying his hair. If Espie didn’t pick up the gun and the police found it, everything changed. Use of a firearm. Robbery, not burglary. Assault with a deadly weapon. Hard time.
He could sense the day getting lighter, the dawn sifting down into the open exercise area and sneaking in under the door. Today was Thanksgiving. They’d serve turkey slices for lunch.
When he was little, they went to his Grammy Rice’s house. She made sweet potatoes with baby marshmallows on top, baked to gold perfection. His mouth watered.
Grammy Rice liked to clasp his cheeks between her two palms and say, “You are a good boy.” By the time he was eight, he was shrugging away in embarrassment. But she kept doing it—still did the part of clasping his face between her two palms—as if she wouldn’t let go of the baby he’d been, peering into his eyes like she could divine some golden glow deep down inside. Nowadays she said, “You have to change this path you’re on. There isn’t anyone can do it for you. There’s so much life and future ahead of you. So much possibility.”
Dwayne flopped back flat on his back.
“Stop shaking the bunks,” Adams growled up at him. “I don’t want your lice sprinkling down here.”
“Shut up, Looney Tunes.”
At least the interruption chased away thoughts of Grammy Rice. This Thanksgiving he’d miss getting high with Espie and lifting Tanisha up and down in his arms, making the baby smile and drool.
That time, with the Pokémon cards, he’d asked Wesley to help him onto the roof.
When Wesley saw the cards, he’d slapped him upside the head. “You stupid little bitch.”
The impact had made his eyelids tap wildly like thumbs texting a message. “You take stuff!”
“You stole Pokémon cards?” his brother hissed. “We climbed up here for Pokémon cards!” His hand slipped into Dwayne’s pocket. It came out empty. “Didn’t the kid have money? No candy?”
As Dwayne stretched on his jail bunk, he smiled to himself. What a stupid runt he’d been. Pokémon cards. He didn’t even know how to play with them.
After breakfast, he edged up to Buster. The giant’s round head sat between massive shoulders like a boulder in a valley. The boulder rolled slightly to indicate the exercise area.
“Try lifting these.” Buster shoved two chairs across the concrete.
“I didn’t come out here to lift weights.”
“I know, Sweet Pea,” Buster said, “but you better be doing something besides standing here jawing with me. Feel me?”
Dwayne lifted one chair up over his head. “Satisfied?”
“No!”
He banged it down.
“That looks like you’re getting ready to throw it. Try this.” Buster squatted, grabbed a metal chair leg in each fist, and rose, extending each arm at shoulder level. He lowered the chairs to his thighs and winged them out again.
“I ain’t doing that.”
“Why? ’Cuz you can’t?”
Dwayne sucked his teeth. “Just tell me about the phone call.”
“You tellin’ me what to do?” Buster kept lifting the chairs. His expression didn’t change.
“No.”
“Then pick up some chairs and act like you’re doing something besides having a little heart-to-heart with me.”
Dwayne separated two chairs from the stacked pile. He dipped down and fisted a leg in each hand. When he tried to stand, the chair leg in his right hand pitched sideways, wrenching the muscle around his shoulder. Both chairs crashed to the floor.
Buster snorted. “Need to work on your technique.” He placed his two chairs on the concrete and squatted. “Grab both legs in the same place, in the middle. Make sure you’re balanced before you stand.”
Dwayne rubbed at his shoulder, but crouched.
“Okay,” Buster said, “I talked to that piece of yours.”
When Dwayne tried to stand, both chairs wobbled. “What did she say?” His arms shook. He pulled his elbows inward and lowered his body back toward the floor.
“Not so easy, is it?”
Dwayne tried to stand again with the chairs in his hands. “Not hard.”
“That’s it—work on that manhood.” Buster resumed his workout, grunting on his upswing. “She said ‘Uh-oh.’”
“Uh-oh, because I’m in jail, or uh-oh, about the stash?”
“Uh-oh, like how the hell do I know?” Grunt. Exhale.
“What did it sound like?” Dwayne dropped the chairs onto the concrete.
“You want me to interpret your ho’s uh-oh?”
Dwayne viciously twisted a piece of hair.
Grunt. Exhale. “She said uh-oh like my hard cock was coming at her.”
Because your shriveled ’roid nuts scared her. Survival instinct kept Dwayne’s mouth shut and his body locked in place.
“Let’s see you do some reps.” Buster’s chairs rose and fell in smooth arcs. “She sounded like she already knew something was wrong.”
“But she was going to go pick it up?”
“Said she’d get it.” Buster let the chairs bang to the floor. “You just make sure that squeeze of yours deposits the cash. I need that Jack Mack and chocolate to keep my strength up. Wanna have us a nice Thanksgiving.” Buster wiped his forehead and left the exercise yard.
Watching the hulk lumber into the communal area, Dwayne shook his arms to stop his muscles from shaking. If he didn’t get money for Buster’s commissary account by that evening, the price would go up to some unknown amount. And if he didn’t get the money at all, he was in for a world of hurt. Even if they transferred him to River House, Buster would get his payment. It might be in blood, but he’d get it.