I cleared my throat and glanced toward the door. The car was here and waiting, sitting idle in the parking lot.
Harry followed my gaze and pulled in a deep breath before saying, “Anyway, I'll see you around, okay?”
I nodded, not knowing if I’d ever see him again. Not knowing what I was going to do without him. “Yeah.”
“I'm proud of you, son,” he said as another officer told me what we already knew—that the cab had arrived to pick me up. “You have a good life, okay?”
I reached out to grip his arm, squeezing to ensure he knew I meant it when I said, “Thank you, Harry.”
Then, because I wasn't going to say another goodbye, not to him, I turned and walked through the doors and gates and everything that had kept me separated from the outside world for nearly ten years. I got into a car for the first time since I had been a much younger man and gave the driver the address to the shitty apartment building I had once lived in with my mother.
I watched Wayward Correctional Facility disappear from view, and as the distance grew, a strange, crushing sense of homesickness settled deep into my gut. I knew I should've been happy to be out, to be driving away, and I guessed, in a way, I was. But I couldn’t help that I was also sad and more than a little scared of what I'd face on the outside. The world had never been very kind to me, and I didn't expect it was about to start now. Especially when I had a big, fat sign taped to my back that read CONVICTED FELON in bold red font.
But I wasn't going to think about that now. Not when I had a present in my bag and I was too excited to not open it.
So, I tore away the paper to find a small envelope taped to a white box. When I pulled the envelope away, I gasped to see I was holding the box for a freakin’ iPhone—something I’d never held in my hand before, let alone owned.
“What the fuck, Harry?” I muttered, furrowing my brow as I opened the envelope with hands that hadn't shaken this much since the first time a guard had told me to bend over and spread ‘em.
Soldier,
So, before you start thinking that this is way too extravagant of a gift for me to be giving you, let me remind you that you're a free man now and I can give you whatever the hell I want. So, accept it and move on.
Also, it's activated and paid for. So, don't worry about that either.
My number is the only one currently on it. Use it. I told you I wasn't saying goodbye, and I meant it. Whenever you need me, I'm there, day or night—don't hesitate.
You are cared for, Soldier, and as long as I'm around, you will never ever be alone in this world. You will always have somewhere to go. Remember that.
Harry
CHAPTER NINE
AN UNWELCOME SURPRISE
Wayward Correctional Facility was two hours away from where I’d grown up on the south shore of Connecticut, and I spent the ride checking out my new phone while the cab driver made invasive small talk.
“You were a prisoner, huh?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I replied, turning the phone on and marveling at the smooth, bright screen.
“How long were you locked up?”
“Uh … nine years and some months.”
“Wow, man. What’d you do?” His eyes flicked to the rearview mirror to meet mine.
“Killed my best friend,” I muttered while pressing my pointer finger to the icon that looked like a phone. It took me to a list of Favorites, and the only name on that list was Harry.
The cab driver grumbled a shaken, “Shit,” as I fumbled my way through sending a text to my only living friend.
I just got myself out of two awkward hours of small talk, I typed with a triumphant smirk as the driver turned the radio up. Thanks for the phone, by the way. I know you don’t want me to say you shouldn’t have, but, man, you shouldn’t have.
And I told you not to worry about it, Harry replied almost immediately. Hope you didn’t scare the driver too much. Tell me when you make it home.
I smiled at his message, feeling for the first time since I had been a child what it was like to check in with someone.
Man, it felt nice.
The cab pulled up to the curb outside the apartment building I used to recognize. But it didn’t look the same now.
That was what was funny about the passing of time. Things were constantly changing around us, but when we were actively witnessing that change, it was subtle. We didn’t notice until we sat back years later and thought, Huh, what the hell happened to this place? But if you went away for a while, our minds were tricked into believing that change happened all at once, with the snap of a finger, overnight, because for us, it did. And that type of shock, man … it really fucked you up.
“Holy shit,” I muttered under my breath at the sight of the trash and overgrown grass and graffiti splattered across the front of the building.
“You need anything else, man?” the driver asked, not bothering to look at the building.
“No,” I replied, opening the door slowly, unable to tear my eyes from the place I used to call home. “Thanks.”
The cold December air encircled me with a crushing sense of foreboding as I stepped out onto the crumbled sidewalk. A gust of wind lifted the hair off my neck, almost as though the universe were sending a message—a warning—and I wondered for a moment if I should listen.
But I’d never been one to pay attention to caution and alarm bells, and I walked up to the door like I was about to step through the mouth of madness.
And I soon found out that was exactly what it was.
***
The scream came instantly the second I opened the apartment door, and I almost thought about running away, thinking I’d had a lapse in memory and unknowingly broken into the wrong place. Until I peered inside, past the kitchen and into the living room to see my mother, naked from the waist up and hurrying to cover herself up.
Then, I remembered she’d told me once that she had a boyfriend. Silly me for believing it wouldn’t have lasted this long—unless, of course, it was a different guy.
I clapped a hand over my eyes, giving her the privacy to hide what I didn’t want to see. “Hey, sorry. I should’ve knocked but—”
“What the fuck are you doing here?!” she shrieked.
I dropped my bag on the kitchen floor. “I don’t have anywhere else—”
“Hey, Soldier.”
After almost ten years of being away, there were voices I was sure I wouldn’t recognize if I heard them again. I knew I wouldn’t be able to pick out my old boss from the grocery store out of a lineup, and if you asked me to recognize my first-grade teacher by voice alone, I wouldn’t be able to.
But there were some voices I’d always remember, and when I dropped my hand, not caring about my mother’s nudity anymore, I was faced with the wicked grin time wouldn’t let me forget.
“Levi.”
Levi Stratton stood in my mother’s living room, zipping his pants up. He was missing his shirt and shoes, and given the casual way he moved around, it didn’t take a genius to figure out he was comfortable here.
I wanted to throw up.
He walked over, every shitty tattoo on full display, and looked me over. “God, how long has it been? Oh”—he tapped his temple—“that’s right. Just short of ten years, isn’t it?”