So I’m out from under. Safe. I don’t have to worry about a thing anymore. Ramona will take care of everything for the next ten or twenty or thirty years. I go to work, I come home, I eat and sleep, and if Ramona decides she wants me to, I’ll even manage to perform stud service. But I’m not really here. I’m like one of the condemned convicts on death row, the ones who have no hope left — I’m already dead in my prison.
Dead man walking.
Anthony Munoz
I don’t know, man. They picked up Mateo in Southern Cal, all the way down near the border in some town called Chula Vista. He had a knife and he tried to rob this liquor store and the owner busted his arm with a bottle. They said he was trying to get money so he could cross over into Mexico. Where’s the sense, man? He was always goin’ on about how he’d never be caught dead in Mexico. L.A. was the place he wanted to be, he says, and he went right on through L.A. to this Chula Vista, heading straight for the border.
They’re bringing him back to Pomo pretty soon. I ain’t decided yet if I’ll go see him or not. The old man says he won’t, he washes his hands, and the old lady says she will, Mateo needs her as much as he needs God’s forgiveness, but I haven’t made up my mind yet. Sometimes I think I ought to, sometimes I think I’m better off if I wash my hands, too. Same as with Trisha and my kid. Sometimes I think I oughta go ahead and marry her — cool it with the drugs, get a job, maybe even finish school nights. And sometimes I think I’m better off the way I am, free and easy, get high and get laid whenever I want, go anywhere and don’t answer to nobody.
I don’t know, man. I just don’t know.
One thing I do know. I don’t want to end up like Mateo. Kidnapping, assault, attempted rape, attempted armed robbery... he’s gonna be in prison a long time. He could’ve killed somebody, too. Maybe he would’ve, someday. If I’d gone with him like he wanted me to... man, I don’t even want to think about it.
My big brother, Mateo. I always looked up to him. I always thought he was the coolest. But he’s not, no way. Es un don Mierda. He’s a real nobody, man. He’s a real Mr. Shit.
Richard Novak
My world has shrunk to a six-by-eight rectangle, to steel bars and concrete walls, to a hard mattress and a sink and a toilet. I’ve exchanged police blue for inmate orange; I’m looking out through the bars instead of in; I’ve become what I always despised. And so I pace a lot. I lie staring at the ceiling or sit staring at the walls and bars. I think too much. I even pray a little. Eva would be proud of me if she knew. She always said it’s never too late to reach out to God. Always said if you talk to Him, He’ll listen and understand and forgive.
Maybe she was right. I hope He can forgive me, because I don’t think I can ever forgive myself.
It’s not Eva I think much about, or even God. Mostly it’s Storm, and that crazy night, and what I did to her and to myself, all the things I threw away when I picked up that paperweight and brought it smashing down. Sometimes it seems it was someone else who committed that insane act — an impostor in Chief’s clothing. How could I have done it? And why? Love, hate, jealousy, passion... none of it seems very real now. Or very important. It’d be easy to believe that it was outside forces driving me, fate lifting that paperweight and smashing it down to complete some cosmic purpose. But I don’t buy that. It wasn’t outside forces, it was converging forces inside me. My responsibility. My guilt. All mine to live with for the rest of my natural life.
So many regrets, so much thrown away. Because I think about Audrey, too, more and more often. All the good things she is and tried to offer me. I ask myself why I couldn’t see her then as I see her now, why I couldn’t feel for her then what I feel for her now. Storm is the easy answer, but there are no easy answers anymore. My responsibility. My guilt.
She’s still there for me now; she comes to see me nearly every day. But I’d be a fool to expect her to be there when I get out of prison. My lawyer is confident he can plea-bargain the charges against me down to second-degree homicide, maybe even felony manslaughter. At the minimum that would mean a sentence of eleven years, with the possibility of parole in five to six. I can’t ask Audrey to wait five or six years for a convicted felon. I won’t ask her; I don’t have any right to put that kind of burden on her. She has so much to give — let her give it to someone else, somebody better than me.
You’re not given more than a couple of chances in this life. Screw them up, waste them, and that’s all there is. You get what you deserve then. You get exactly what you deserve.
Douglas Kent
One of the croakers sidled into my white rubber room a little while ago. I opened one eye to a slit, and when I saw that he wasn’t one of the shrinks with their idiotic questions (“Had any stimulating conversations with your bedpan today, Mr. Kent?”) or a nurse with a needleful of temporary fixative for the shakes, shimmers, and other fun by-products of alcohol withdrawal (perfectly calm at the moment, Kent had no desire to have his ass punctured unnecessarily), I decided to wake up and be sociable for a change.
The croaker, however, didn’t look particularly sociable. Very solemn, he was. Like a judge about to pass sentence on a miscreant. Which, as it developed, was precisely the case.
“I’m afraid I have unpleasant news for you, Mr. Kent,” he said.
“Is that so?”
“There is no easy way to say this, so I’ll be blunt. We have the final results of all your tests, and they’re conclusive. You have cirrhosis of the liver.”
“No surprise there, Doc.”
“No, I suppose not.”
“Prognosis? Terminal, eh?”
“Barring a regenerative miracle, yes.”
Is that you I hear chuckling maniacally, Pa, you old fook? Well, clear a place for me in the hot coals and dish up a shot of sulfur and brimstone. When I get down there, we’ll hoist one together and then go spit in Old Scratch’s eye.
“How long do I have, Doc?”
“That depends.”
“On where I end up and whether or not I have access to any more of the nectar what brung me here. Correct?”
“Essentially, yes.”
“How long with the best of care and nary another drop of demon rum?”
“A year. Possibly eighteen months.”
“And how long with continued pickling?”
“You’d be dead in three months. I’m sorry, Mr. Kent.”
“Sorry? Sorry? Why, Doc, you couldn’t have brought me a better gift if you were Santa Claus and this was Christmas morning.”
Kent smiled. Kent winked. Kent could have kissed him.
Where there’s a will, there’s a way.
Trisha Marx
Just when I thought I’d never hear from John Faith again, the letter came. I knew it was from him even before I ripped open the envelope.
Dear Trisha,
I don’t have many friends, so I’m not very good at saying good-bye. Maybe this isn’t the best way to say it to you, but it’s my way and I hope you won’t mind.
Thank you for being my friend when I needed a friend the most. I’ll never forget you, Trisha.
Good luck. And don’t ever stop caring.