Black Water (29 page)

“Havin’ t’sit in here thirty years is th’only bad I feel ‘bout it. They killed my sister. Raped ‘er, broke ‘er jaw, ‘er head, ‘er nose, ‘n prittnear all ‘er ribs.” He turned his attention to Hawkface. “One of ’em, probly Matthew, th’dumber o’ th’two, gnawed off one of ‘er nipples. They never found it. After goin’ t’th’trouble o’ bitin’ it off, I doubt he just threw it away.” He turned his attention to Go-Funny. “A body do that t’one o’ yourn, you’d just let it go? Look th’other way? I told th’truth all ‘long, ‘n I’ll tell th’truth now. I hope I sent both of ’em screamin’ t’Hell fire.” He turned blazing eyes back to Hawkface. “You want me t’tell ya what else’s bit?”

Go-Funny noticed her reaction and jumped to her rescue. “That won’t be necessary. Fer sure those’s rotten things, but it don’t give you th’call t’take th’law into yer own hands. ‘At’s what th’law’s for.”

Hub looked from one o’ Go-Funny’s eyes to the other. “It’s all in how ya look at it, ain’t it?”

Go-Funny recognized the jab.

“The law wasn’t gonna be no help. Th’Sheriff was a friend o’ theirs. They wasn’t nothin’ gonna happen t’them ‘n they knew it.” Go-Funny chinned to the file in front o’ Butter Ball. “It says in there you waited for ’em t’come home. That’s where ya got nailed with premeditation.” He wanted everbody to know he could use big words.

“My bible says ‘Turn th’other cheek,’” Hawkface snipped.

“Yers would,” Hub said. “Mine says “An eye fer an eye.” They rurnt my life s’I rurnt theirs, and you know what? I’m tired o’ blabbrin, ‘n if y’all think I’m agonna beg ya t’let me out, yer even stupider’n ya look. It’s ‘bout lunch time, ‘n Wednesday’s chicken ‘n dumplins, ‘n I’druther not miss it. It’s one o’ the few meals in here with any taste a’tall. You know as well’s me I got a cancer ‘n th’doctor don’t gimme but four months at th’outside, ‘n I’d just as soon die in here’s anywhere. It’d be a whole lot cheaper f’th’state t’let me out than keep me in th’hospital, so’re ya cuttin me loose’r not?” He stared ’em down.

Saturday, 9:00 a.m. Hub Lusaw stood in the middle of his tiny cell, his tiny world, for the last time in thirty years, wearing somethin’ other than prison stripes for the first time in thirty years. He’d already been in that same cell five years when Pickering was first hired on as a fuckin’ rookie. Next year, he’d retire, after having put in twenty-five and rising to head bull, Captain, second only to Warden Grundheim.

Prison’s a funny place. Time moved at a snail’s pace. Ever day was an eternity. Day after day, month after month, year after year, very little changed. Things happened on the outside Hub hadn’t been, and never would be, a part of. Bad things. Some as bad as, or even worse than, bein’ in prison. He went in in 1924. It was now 1954. He missed the stock market crash. The Depression. The Second World War. The Korean War. In 1924 there were bombs that could blow you to little pieces. In 1954 there was one that could make you and thousands of your friends and family disappear. Literally. It’d happened. But in prison, he’d been protected from those threats.

He wore an old pair a slacks, a little shiny in the butt and the knees; a sportcoat that didn’t match; what used to be a white shirt, collar a little frayed; one dark-blue sock and one black; and a pair o’ worn shoes with two different colored shoestrings. A suitcase with a clothesline-rope handle sat on the cement floor beside his right leg. It had faded and half-torn remnants of travel stickers and scuffed like it’d been drug instead o’ lugged around.

Inside the suitcase were a couple of changes of underpants, more socks, another long-sleeved shirt, a couple of undershirts, and one other pair of worn pants. They’d given him a tie, too, but he’d decided that was a little much and left it draped over the bunk. He felt silly enough already. The suitcase, everthing in it, and everthing he had on had originally belonged to other prisoners who’d died while under the state’s protection and didn’t need ’em any longer. It looked like Norman Rockwell had painted a much older, bedraggled version of Andy Hardy leavin’ home for his first week at camp. A camp for old, paroled murderers, dyin o’ cancer. Quickly.

Pickering waited patiently outside the open cell door. “Ready?”

Hub picked up the suitcase and stepped to the door. “Ready.”

Pickering pointed with his nightstick at the drawings covering the walls. “What about them?”

Hub looked over his shoulder at thirty years worth of artwork, ran his eyes over it, and turned back to Pickering. “You’cn have ’em,” he said easily and tapped his temple with his fingertip. “I got ’em up here.” He stepped out of the cell.

Pickering looked down the walk and called out, “Mr. Morgan?”

Four seconds later they watched the cell door roll over and clang shut.

“Fuckin’ rookie,” Hub said under his breath.

Pickering smiled, and they strode down the walkway with Pickering leading, for the first and last time.

After passing through six locked doors and gates, Hub stepped through the last one and watched as the guard closed it, locked it, and waved
adeeos
. Thirty years and no blaring band. No tickertape. No family waitin’ with outstretched arms, tears streamin’ down their happy faces. No diploma from Angola U. All they gave him was a paper that said he’d been paroled, but it didn’t mean complete freedom. He’d be on probation for the next ten years. That was a good one. The only reason they let him out was ‘cause he wasn’t gonna see much more o’ this one. They also made him promise he wouldn’t beat nobody else to death. He turned his back to the gate and took in the differences thirty years had made as it paraded by on the street. When he worked on a road gang, they always carted ’em out through the back gates to work the canals and roadsides way out in the sticks. Out of eye and earshot o’ the good, skittery, law abiding folk.

The prison wasn’t on Mars, though. They saw some o’ the life on the outside. They had access to newspapers and magazines and radio. Cars and trucks passed by the worksite, and they saw the changes made in ’em. Modern lookin’ things, probly went like a bat out o’ Hell. Airplanes flew overhead. Now they made ’em out of metal instead o’ wood and varnished cloth. You could go anywhere in the world in one, soaring across the sky like a bird. Hub still had trouble understanding how anything that heavy stayed up in the air.

As part of his parole agreement, they’d lined him up a job working in a shoe factory. He was supposed to start the next Monday morning at 7:00, for thirty-five cents an hour. Yeah. That’s what he wanted to do until he screamed to death. Make shoes. In his pocket was a hundred-and-thirty-eight dollars and eighty-seven cents. That’s what he’d earned in thirty years. A hundred-and-thirty-eight dollars. And eighty-seven cents.

He’d wanted out for thirty years. And now, here he was. Out. And it scared him. From nothin’ but walls, to no walls at all. From bein’ watched twenty-four hours a day to nobody watchin’, nobody seein’ him at all. He looked to the right. Then the left. He finally picked one, the right, hefted his scruffy suitcase and started off. He got about twenty feet when….

“Hub?”

He stopped and looked around. He didn’t see where it’d come from, and he surely hadn’t expected to hear somebody calling out his name three minutes after he got out o’ prison. Hell, maybe somebody had come to see him. Oh, crap! No. It was probly somebody inside. They’d forgotten somethin’ or changed their mind and was callin’ him back. Well, if they had, they could kiss his smelly butt. He was out and he was stayin’ out. He started back to the gate, ready to cuss somebody out. But then….

“Hub Lusaw?”

It hadn’t come from the gate. He looked across the road to the faded, rusting forty-eight Plymouth sedan with a cracked windshield, and saw a gray-haired old broad lookin’ right at him. She looked a second longer, then swung a flabby arm out the window and pushed down the outside door handle with the heel of her hand. Obviously it wouldn’t open from the inside. The door squealed like it was in pain, and she wrestled her bigself out o’ the car. Adjusting her dress, he winced when he noticed the top of her wrinkled stockins rolled up in garters just beneath her knees. She wore what he’d always referred to as clompy, old-woman shoes. She was probly in her early- to mid-fifties, but as saggy and frumpy as she was, it was hard to tell. She reached into the car and drug her purse off the passenger side. She let the door slam, checked for traffic, and started across the street, her big ol’ watery tits sloshin like hammocks in a storm. She lumbered over and stopped in front of him. He noticed she had half a dozen rubberbands looped around her wrist when she backhanded the sweat off her forehead. Her earrings were clip-ons. Yellow bananas. Her front teeth were rimmed in gold. The grin on her face said she knew somethin’ he didn’t.

“Who’re you?” he asked, suspiciously. There was somethin’ vaguely familiar about her, but it was so far removed it was far more vague than familiar. He noticed a tiny twitchy rise at the corners of her mouth and a sparkle in her eye.

“Th’mother o’ yr’children.”

That blew him back a step or two, and he couldn’t help but look her over. All over. And there was a lot of all! Holy crap! Was that the frisky little devil he used to fuck ever chance he got? The little wifey? Ex-wifey, he reminded hisself. She gave the term
The Old
Lady
a whole new dimension. If he’d had a cross or even two popsicle sticks, he woulda crossed ’em out in front of him for Divine protection. He was too stunned to try to hide it.

“Yeah, well, you don’t look s’good yerself.”

“You come t’greet me, Rae?” he asked, when he finally got a grip.

“T’greetcha? No. It wasn’t nothin’ I’s lookin’ for’ard to, but somethin’ I felt needed doin’ noneth’less. I wanted t’setcha straight on how things are. I didn know whatcha might ‘r might not know. I remarried. Th’Lord’s blessed me with a good husband this time.”

“Well, remarried, huh? Anybody I know?” He only asked because he was still so shocked in seein’ her he couldn’t think of anything else.

She gave it a second, then, “Sam Dimwiddie.”

“Dimwiddie?” Hub tasted, then the light came on and he took a step back. “Why, that’s th’son of a bitch ‘at convicted me!”

“No,” she corrected him, “th’jury convicted ya. Sam just told ’em whatcha done. But yeah, he’s th’one.”

He looked across the street at the piece-o’-junk Plymouth, then back to her. “He must be doin’ real good t’keep ya in such finery.”

“He took bad sick with ‘is liver a while back,” she said defensively, “and th’doctor bills like t’cleaned us out, but regardless, we’re gettin’ back on our feet ‘n I’ll stick with ‘im. That’s more’n some do.” Which was aimed directly at Hub.

“Well, ‘at’s a real fine piece o’ information t’gimme on th’day I get out. Thank ya so much.”

“If you don’t wanna hear th’answers, don’t ask th’questions.”

“Sam Dimwiddie. Well, ain’t that somethin’. I thought somebody’a shot that asshole b’now.”

“Yeah, well, yer a good one t’accuse a body o’ bein’ a asshole. He treats me ‘n th’boys decent. I feel awful guilty bein’ here. He thinks I’m at m’sisters, ‘n this feels like a lie. We don’t live in Oledeux no more, ‘n th’boys think yer dead. I told ’em that.”

“How’d I die?”

“Stabbed t’death. I didn want ’em growin’ up with a father in prison, so I told ’em you’s kilt in a knife fight. It didn take much for ‘em t’believe it.”

“Does God know ya lied?”

“Yes ‘n I’m sorry for it, but I had t’get on, ‘n it was hard ‘nough ‘thout havin a husband in prison fer murder. Some years ago I let m’Lord ‘n Savior, th’sweet Son o’ God, Jesus Christ, in m’heart, got dunked, saved, got all m’old sins washed clean by His redeemin’ blood ‘n changed m’sinnin’ ways,” she said proudly, if a touch defiantly. “I try my damndest everday t’walk th’straight ‘n narrow.”

“Well,” Hub said, nodding, “lyin ‘r not, I’m sure God ‘preciates it, but for my part, I ain’t never had no hard feelin’s.”

As she got over the initial shock, feelings stored away for three decades started crawlin’ out o’ the mental woodwork. “Well, it cuts me t’th’quick t’say it,” but she would anyway, “’n’ sweet Merc’ful Lord God ‘n Jesus Christ ‘n th’B’loved Mother Mary fergive me, but I did. For a long time.”

“Did what? I got lost tryin’ t’keep track o’ all th’one’s you’s askin forgiveness from.”

“Hard feelin’s, Hub, you smart-mouth sinner! I thought I’s over ’em but I reckon not. If I thought God was lookin’ th’other way, I’d spit on you! Kick you where you’s always the proudest. I don’t know if killin’ George ‘n Matthew’s whatchu set out t’do ‘r ya just went off th’deep end like th’lawyer claimed. It ain’t my call t’say you’s right ‘r wrong. Th’deed just rurnt a lot o’ lives. Yers, mine, th’boys. I ain’t agonna tell ya where we’re livin ‘cause I don’t wantcha tryin’ t’find us.”

“Speakin’ of, how’d you know I’s gettin’ out t’day?”

“Last time I come up ‘n you wu’dn’ see me’s when I made up m’mind t’cut ties ‘n go f’th’big D. I went t’th’fella who was th’Warden at th’time ‘n asked t’leave a note in yer file t’let me know if ‘n when ya got out. They called me last week ‘n told me. Said it was ‘cause you’s havin’ a problem.”

“Well, only if ya call dyin’ a problem.”

“They said it was cancer. I’m sorry ’bout that. Heard it’s an ugly way t’go.”

“Why’d you give a damn?”

That got her goin’ again. “‘Cause I’s stupid ‘nough at one time t’love ya, but b’lieve you me, I’m over that!” She pursed her lips shut, yanked her handbag open, and pulled out a wad o’ bills rolled up in a rubber band and helt it out. “So here! It’s five hunerd dollahs. I hope it helps. It’s th’best I’cn do.” She shoved it in his hand, and his reflexes took it.

He was totally confused. “I don’t want no money from you, Raeleen.” Although he did have a good grip on it already.

“Hub, th’Good Lord fergive me, but I have dreaded this day fer thirty years. Th’thought o’ you’s like a scab ‘at itches, keeps fest’rin’ ‘n won’t heal up ‘r go away. I don’t mean ya no hurt, but I was so hopin’,” she pointed toward the prison gate, “you’d die in there so’s I wudn hafta face ya like this. I wantchu t’take it. It’ll appease m’conscience some fer any hurt I mighta caused ya. I want shed o’ you, Hub Lusaw. Out o’ my life, out o’ my mind, ‘n out o’ my conscience, ‘n maybe b’givin ya that money’ll help do that. Don’t try t’look us up, please, it’d only make things bad. I hope th’money helps ya make a new life.” Then she thought about that. “Or what’s left o’ this’n easier.” She started backing, took one last sorrowful look, and shook her head. “You used t’be good t’look at, ‘n now ya just look awful. It’s th’wages o’ sin, Hub, sure as anything. Get down on yer ’knees ‘n ask th’Lord t’wipe yer sins away ‘fore it’s too late. Nobody’s too far gone that He can’t cleanse their soul. Even yers.” She looked like she was about to cry. “I’m sorry, Hub, g’bye.”