“Dude, that shit’s gonna give us salmonella or E. coli or somethin’，” Jag—serving three years for stealing his ex-wife’s car, following an ugly divorce that had granted her both vehicles—replied. “Like, I dunno how long that’s even been in there.”
“Definitely long enough that I don’t remember loading it off the truck,” Chuck muttered, looking both skeptical and grossed out.
I turned it over in my hands, looking for a clue of its age or if it would kill us if consumed. “I don’t see a date on it or anything.”
“That’s ‘cause they don’t give a fuck if we die of food poisoning,” Jag said. “They probably hope for it. One less mouth for tax payers to feed.”
“But, hey, man, if you wanna risk it, go for it. Happy birthday. Have a lovely case of diarrhea,” Chuck muttered with a snort, nudging an elbow at Jag’s ribs.
Jag laughed and grabbed for a bag of potatoes to peel for dinner. “Nothin’ better than kickin’ off a new year with the runs.”
Harry wandered in, his hands stuffed into his pockets, and greeted us with a, “Good evening, fellas. How’s it going?”
“Same shit, different day,” Chuck grumbled, opening the freezer to grab the patties I’d just put away.
I turned on the stove, getting it ready to fry up the mystery meat. It had been stupid of me to expect I could eat something other than what I’d been choking down the past nine years of my life. And why? Because it was my thirtieth birthday?
I hadn’t been special to anyone since I had been twelve when Gramma was still alive. What the hell had made me believe something would suddenly change now, especially as a convicted felon?
So, we cooked while Harry supervised, and then I ate my dinner with a little less enthusiasm than usual. Chuck and Jag did me the solid of rounding up a couple of other guys to sing a rousing chorus of “Happy Birthday,” and they gifted me with a Twinkie someone had grabbed from the commissary. It was nice—more than anybody had done for me in years—and I enjoyed my Twinkie with the stupidest smile on my face. Because when I closed my eyes, sitting with my back against the library wall, I almost felt normal.
I had come in to find a new book to read, hoping there’d be something I hadn’t read yet, and thought I’d enjoy a few quiet minutes alone, surrounded by the warm scent of musty, old books. And now, I sat on the floor, finishing my birthday present with my arm wrapped around my knees, as I breathed deeply and imagined I wasn’t here, trapped within these stone walls. I was on the outside, free to come and go as I pleased. Free to breathe the fresh air or buy a pizza whenever I damn well felt like it without worrying if it would give me salmonella.
The years were somehow passing slower now, and the monotony of life behind bars was taking its toll. The more time I spent at Wayward, the more I began to wonder when I’d ever see the outside again. It had been nine years since I’d been arrested, eight since I’d begun my sentence, and I knew it could be any day when they decided to release me back into the wild. I mean, why not? For the most part, I hadn’t done a fucking thing wrong since being locked up, apart from a few minor misdemeanors that hadn’t earned me anything but a little bit of time in solitary. I worked hard, I mostly stayed to myself or was otherwise friendly, and I never gave a guard or the warden shit.
God, when I really thought about it, why had it already been nine years of model citizenship without a single mention of what a good job I was doing?
I groaned, flopping my head forward against my arms, as my heart started a war with my head.
I was comfortable here. I liked the routine of it, the safety of it. And there was a reason I was here—a damn good one. I never forgot that. Not once. But, man, I missed freedom. And right now, I really missed pizza.
“Hey.”
I opened my eyes with a jolt to see Harry standing before me, and I said, “Man, you’d make an awesome thief, you know that? Nobody would know you were coming.”
He chuckled and offered a kind smile. “I think I’ll stick to my day job, thanks.”
Then, he handed me what looked like a piece of paper. “Here. I came to give you this.”
“What is it?” I asked skeptically before accepting the white bundle that turned out to be a folded-up paper towel.
Inside was a slice of pizza.
“Oh, man, Harry …” It was stupid, the way my eyes teared up at the sight of the melted mozzarella and sliced pepperoni.
“We had pizza for dinner in the break room. So, I saved you a slice.” He nudged the toe of my beat-up canvas slip-on sneaker with the toe of his shiny shoe. “Happy birthday, Soldier.”
“Don’t ever let anyone say you’re not my favorite,” I said before taking a big bite.
It wasn’t the freshest, and it was a little cold, but, holy God, nothing had ever tasted better, and I groaned like I’d just received the best blowjob of my life.
Fuck. I missed that too. Women. Blowjobs. Sex. The guys and I talked about it sometimes, remembering the people we’d had at one point or another, but most of the time, I preferred not to think about it at all. It didn’t suck so much that way. But right now, with the pizza and pepperoni mingling joyously in my mouth, I recalled other things I wouldn’t mind tasting, and it left an ache so dull in my chest.
Harry chuckled. “Good?”
“You have no fucking idea.”
I took another bite, and as I chewed, I left behind the memory of women and instead thought about a time from even longer ago. A whole other fucking life really, and I said, “The last time I had pizza on my birthday was the only time I had a party. My grandparents—I told you they raised me in the beginning, right?”
Harry nodded, a hint of melancholy touching his eyes. “You’ve mentioned it a few times.”
I’d known Harry for eight years, and there were only so many things to tell.
Hell, it was likely he’d heard this story before too. But he didn’t stop me from telling it.
“Right. Anyway, my gramma wanted me to have a normal birthday, I guess, and had me invite a couple of friends over. Billy was one of them. We ordered pizza, and right before I sat down to eat, I went to the bathroom to take a piss and walked in on my mom popping pills.” I studied the pizza crust. The hardened bubbles of sauce. The crispy edges and softer middle. “All my grandparents had ever wanted was to give me a normal childhood while still protecting my mom. She was their only kid. I always got that they genuinely thought they were doing the right thing, and I don’t blame them for anything ever, but …”
“All we can do is our best,” Harry said, injecting a bit of wisdom into my moment of reflection. “Even if our best isn’t all that good at all.”
I nodded thoughtfully, turning the piece of crust over in my fingers. “It’s crazy. Like … sometimes, we have these moments, you know, that are so profound in our lives, but we have no clue they’re happening when they’re actually happening. And all Gramma wanted that day was for me to be a normal kid, but there was Mom, fucking it up again. Gramma could never stop the inevitable. The only way she could’ve done that was to stop protecting her own daughter, and no matter how bad shit got, she could never abandon her.”