‘…Shall I tell you about my life… they say I’m a man of the world… I’ve flown across every time… I’ve seen lots of pretty girls…’
Rodriguez had phoned Jac’s office and been put through to John Langfranc. ‘We wanted to play somethin’ for him here on the prison radio. Felt, yer know… that’s the least we could do. Do you happen to know his favourite tune?’
Langfranc didn’t, but he had a number for Jac’s mother and sister. He’d phone them and ask, and phone Rodriguez straight back. Langfranc hadn’t wanted to give their number to an inmate or get them involved in whatever prison relationships Jac might have forged.
Langfranc phoned back minutes later, having just spoken with Jean-Marie. There were four choices: Sting’s ‘Roxanne’, Simply Red’s ‘Holding Back the Years’, Oasis’s ‘Wonderwall’ or Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Man of the World’
‘The last apparently because it was also his father’s favourite song.’
Rodriguez could only find ‘Roxanne’ and ‘Man of the World’ in the prison record collection, and given his own rap-sheet history and Haveling’s likely reaction to him playing a song about a hooker, there was only one choice left.
‘…Played today for Jac McElroy… one of those who took the time and trouble to care — because, God knows there’s few enough o’ them left these days — and paid the price for it…’
More maudlin a song than Rodriguez would have liked, maybe more ‘tired-drone’ territory, but the words weren’t too bad a fit, perhaps even would have described part of his own life… and he loved that guitar work, reminded him of his main man Carlos S.
With everything that had happened with Jac McElroy, Larry’s emotions were already raw and close to the surface. He lay with his back flat on his bed listening to the song as it played, staring up at the grey ceiling. It had in fact been his suggestion to Rodriguez that they play something for McElroy.
He’d already prayed for him, even though he no longer had an altar: just a four by three foot upright board where his altar used to be, covering the fresh cement laid behind. But he’d used the board to pin-up the photos from his altar that meant something to him. Only five of the religious photos sent by Peretti’s aunt from Perugia Cathedral, though, made the transfer, the majority were of Larry’s family: his mother, father, Franny, Joshua. Most of all, Joshua.
Joshua a year ago, the most recent photo, standing with his mother at the side of a brown Buick, probably Frank’s; Joshua blowing out the candles at his eighth birthday party; Joshua at five or six in front of Orlando’s SeaWorld, again with his mom — Larry aware that often the person who’d snapped the photos had taken his place in their lives; Joshua at three years old, looking up from playing on the floor with some toys.
But the only photos to have any life and movement in them were the two taken shortly after Joshua’s birth: one a week after Francine had come out of hospital, lovingly cradling Joshua in her arms; the other with himself holding Joshua aloft towards the camera, beaming proudly: ‘Look, unbelievable, isn’t it: he’s mine, all mine.’
From just those two photos, Larry was able to roll out in his mind everything else that had happened around that time: when the birth was announced in the hospital, his mother bought a cigar and a small bottle of champagne from a nearby liquor store, a ‘Benjamin’ — she didn’t want to encourage him to drink too much, she’d defended when he’d remarked about its size — barely gave them half a glass each to toast with. Rocking Joshua in his arms at every opportunity he got, staring down at his cradle at night in wonderment sometimes for as much as an hour, feeling Josh’s tiny fingers and the gentle fall of his breath against the back of one hand; staying awake sometimes for hours and checking regularly, fearful as he listened out that that gentle breathing might have suddenly stopped; and when Joshua did wake up in the middle of the night, crying, Larry swaying him softly in his arms and humming a Viennese waltz to get him back to sleep — Francine laughing as on one occasion she found him slumped in a chair asleep with Joshua still in his arms, the humming having lulled both of them to sleep…
The images playing clearly on his cell’s grey ceiling, where he’d played most of them through the years.
And then nothing. Nothing but static, frozen pictures. His whole life with Joshua condensed into just a few months, then nothing after that. Larry tried as best he could to shift those other images, give them some movement in his imagination — but he’d never managed to bring any life to them as they scrolled across the grey ceiling.
Only in his dreams sometimes could he imagine talking or playing ball or mock-sparring with Joshua as he was in those photos when he was older, hugging him now and then — and then he’d awake to the cold reality of his cell, a slow tear already at the corner of one eye, even before he faced again the cold, static photos and the tears began to flow more freely. All those lost years. Gone. Gone forever.
He’d stare at the photos wide-eyed, as if trying to immerse himself in their world, his body not moving, only his breath slowly rising and falling as the tears streamed down his face. Immobile, static. Frozen. As if somehow if they were both in the same pose, frozen, he would feel closer to Joshua in that moment.
Static. And that’s probably just how he in turn had seemed through the years to young Joshua. The Stone Mountain. A pitiful grey figure frozen inside his prison cell, with little colour or movement or life that Joshua could attach to it.
In all the years, he’d never told Joshua how much he loved him, Francine neither. Oh sure, he’d told his precious God how much he loved them, many a time… but in all their visits or his letters or e-mails with Joshua, he’d never said it directly. Just talked about day-to-day stuff, How are you? How are things at school? Basket-ball team, huh… New computer, that’s nice… What are you reading these days?… Given a few tips where he could.
Arm’s length. Holding at bay his deeper feelings. As if afraid that if he opened up, the dam would burst on the tidal wave of emotions he’d bottled up through the long years. Hold it back… hold back. Be strong… be strong.
And he’d been the same when Jac McElroy had visited: played his cards close to his chest, kept everything tight inside, guarded, given McElroy a hard time. Sure, McElroy had mainly just been doing his job, but as Roddy had said, he was one of the few that had actually taken the trouble to care, had stuck his neck out and gone that extra mile for him. And now…. and now…
The tears welled heavily in Larry’s eyes. Roddy hadn’t told him which song he’d be playing, but as he heard the softly lamenting guitar riff and opening words, he found the tears impossible to bite back any longer. Was that how it would forever be set in stone for his — probably short — time on this earth? His epitaph? Never able to tell people how he truly felt… only his God. Holding back… holding…
And as Peter Green’s soulful cry — ‘I just wish I had never been born’ — cut through the cold concrete caverns of Libreville prison, finally the dam did burst: he cried for the lost years, cried for all the things that now he might not get the chance to say, cried for having let Franny and Josh down — deserting them just when they needed him most — cried for breaking his mother’s heart, cried for Jessica Roche’s long-gone soul… and now for Jac McElroy too. How many more? Maybe best that he was going soon… He cried and cried until it became a pitiful sobbing that racked his entire body.
Sudden rapping on the side wall, three sharp knocks, startling him.
‘You okay in there, Larry?’ Theo Mellor’s voice from the next cell. ‘You okay, man?’
‘Yeah. Yeah.’ He clawed back some composure, wiped some of the tears away with the back of one hand. ‘Bad song choice, that’s all. Real bad song choice.’