The probate judge, a decent old man with snow white hair, found himself agitated by all the ill will and complication in this family. While offering them formal best wishes and the ongoing availability of his advice, he quietly and desperately hoped he never saw these people again, then darted off like a fugitive, describing the situation to the first colleague he ran into as “a chandelle off a shithouse.”
Paul had been out of prison only a little more than a year. He was still occasionally in touch with his two cell mates, who had named themselves Kahuna and Moondoggie after characters in Gidget; and while he had sometimes been afraid of the other prisoners, they themselves were chiefly afraid of freedom, though they experimented with it, between sentences, like a dangerous drug. He had served his time for a manslaughter conviction, years stolen from his life but economic opportunity of a kind he might not otherwise have enjoyed. Driving back from a Masons’ banquet with his father-in-law passed out on the front seat, Paul had rear-ended a motorcycle at ninety-five miles an hour, liquidating its driver. On the way home from the dilapidated county jail out from which Sunny Jim had bailed him, Paul devised a remarkable conversation.
“Why were you going so fast?” Sunny Jim asked reasonably.
“I wasn’t.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You were.”
Sunny Jim slowed down to concentrate on the talk. “I’m not following you,” he said.
“You were driving,” said Paul. “You killed the motorcyclist.”
As Sunny Jim pulled over, the hiss of pavement changed to gravel popping under the tires. He was silent.
“I dragged you over to the passenger’s side and sat at the wheel till the Highway Patrol arrived.”
Sunny Jim studied every pore on Paul’s face.
“Why would you do that?”
“Why? Because you have more to lose than me and you’re too old to go to prison, which is where I’m undoubtedly headed.”
Sunny Jim turned the engine off and let traffic flash past behind him. He seemed far away. Paul was thinking of an old country song, “Wreck on the Highway,” and its chorus, “I didn’t hear nobody pray.” This was a special moment, and Paul hoped that over the long haul it would pay like a slot machine.
“I won’t forget this, Paul,” said Sunny Jim, a faint vibration stirring his accustomed baritone. “I’ll never forget what you’ve done.”
Paul was now due for his weekly appointment with Geraldine, his parole officer. He was fascinated by the atmosphere of the office itself, which, with a stern receptionist in front and offices on either side, was somewhat like the waiting room of a dentist’s office. There were usually several parolees in attendance, including a few “short leashes” as Geraldine called them, who went to the farthest office on the right, which handled electronic monitoring and chemical castration.
He did not want to suggest to her — at all! — that he was taking advantage of the intimacy that had grown between them. Paul was well dressed, straight from work, transformed from ex-con to CEO in a matter of a few short blocks. He was on top of the situation in terms of heading off any clever remarks he might make on impulse. But she was glad to see him and greeted him with real warmth, right in front of her secretary, whom Paul had already checked out and scratched for the bench knees she so unwisely revealed below her skirt. Geraldine even held the door for him! When they sat down, she behind her desk, he in a small, disadvantageous chair so deep he felt he was gazing out over his own pelvis, she moved to the corner of her desk to make him more comfortable. Geraldine was a big-boned, good-looking girl whose slightly out-of-date teased hair put her at risk in Paul’s eyes. When he’d pointed her out to Natalie late one night, she’d said, “Baby, let’s kiss those seventies good-bye!”
“I think I can update these forms almost without talking to you.”
“Well, I haven’t been anywhere, just working.”
“But things have changed, Paul.”
“Yeah, and like I’m rolling in it.”
“You got a bit of training, I guess, under your former father-in-law…?”
“Uh-huh, he was sure grateful I did the time.”
“Well, it looks to me that this is all a fairly happy outcome.”
“You mean, I’m getting the time back?”
“You’ll have to talk to God about that,” said Geraldine with an alarming laugh.
Paul wasn’t having it. “Is that who you work for?” he said with a hard, level gaze.
“Sorry, Paul, my powers are more limited. I just work for the State of Montana.” At length, Geraldine continued, her eyes on an empty portion of her desk. “I enjoyed our evening together, Paul.”
He was still smarting over the flippant reference to his lost years, and his previous resolutions were dust. Let her get away with this piece of nauseating sentiment and she’d be asking, “But what about us?”
He waited for her to look up, then said, “You know something, Geraldine? You look great on your back. It’s your best side.”
She began to write on forms from the file folder in front of her. “I have only myself to blame.”
“Oh? Well, when they locked me away, I didn’t know who to blame.”
“I’m sure you didn’t.”
Geraldine looked contrite, even a little shaken. Paul saw that she actually cared for him and wondered where he could go with this, only he wasn’t interested. Instead, he resolved never to see her again, or not to see her in that way, even though she was pretty good at it and put plenty into her work; but if she couldn’t behave like a real professional, there was no point in acting lively and objective when you got within ten feet of a desk. He was going to be keeping these appointments for a while and had to make a binding resolution with the State of Montana Parole Board; he didn’t need her half-goofy on the far side of his file folder.
“I don’t think there’s anything new for you,” he said, indicating the forms. “My work situation, as discussed, is much improved. I’m still in my apartment, but I’m looking at houses. I’m looking at a new car. When the conditions of my parole so allow, I plan to travel the Pacific Rim which, as far as I’m concerned, is where it’s at, but not until I am so allowed. I would like to go to New York for some threads—” he smiled “—but only with your permission.”
“And your domestic situation?” She abruptly flipped several pages over.
Paul smiled at this little diversion. “Under the terms of my father-in-law’s will, there is considerable motivation for me to reconcile with my wife.” He declined to add that as sex-sherpa to the Whitelaw sisters he would no longer have time for her.
“You know, I’ve never actually—”
“But I don’t see that as a real possibility.”
“—seen her, though I know she lives right around here.”
“Beautiful.”
“What?”
“She’s beautiful. Inside and out. Yeah, she lives around here. Her deal is cows, et cetera, her horse.”
“Well, it’s so nice that… she’s beautiful,” said Geraldine. “I like horses myself.”
“You know, Geraldine, beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes to the bone.” Paul considered this and enjoyed watching her squirm. People are so hard nowadays that you can’t buy a good squirm if you try. But he decided to let her off the hook.