“You gonna fake the bills?”
“If I have to. Alabama Power will bring in their own lines in the next five years or so. It’ll work itself out.”
“So I’ve only gotta lie to your wife for five years.”
“Tops.”
“What about Moa?”
Roscoe hadn’t thought about Moa, though he should’ve. She had a place in every plan that unfolded on the farm. Moa was Wilson’s wife, and she was the land’s matriarch, her presence both firm and embracing. She was only eight years older than Marie, but when Marie’s mother had passed away, Moa had taken up the role. She was tall and slender and coffee colored, much lighter than Wilson, and she rolled her hair under on each side in a shape like a wave. Roscoe knew she kept a soft spot for him, defending him most chances she got, but he knew, too, that she’d never lie to Marie. He didn’t think Wilson could lie to Moa either. Their relationship was built of evening walks to the pond, their three children back at the house with Gerald. They were easy with one another, quick with smiles and gentle chiding.
“Would you be able to keep it from her?” Roscoe asked.
Wilson pried at the wood, the nail whining as it let go. “It’d probably be better if she didn’t know. Should something go poorly, it’d be good she not be a part of it.”
“Nothing will go poorly.”
Wilson shook his head and lifted the old rail, tossing it into the neighbors’ grasses. “Here”—he lifted up the new one—“think you can hold an end for me?”
It was the first farmwork Roscoe had helped Wilson with, and he didn’t mind taking it on. He told himself he didn’t need to go back to the powerhouse at Lock 12. He didn’t need to leave. He would stay here and make this land successful. He would have his work back, a job of currents and wires, forces and reactions, and the farm would grow so strong that it could run itself. Marie could return to teaching, if she chose. She could set up a small school on the land, use the books in her father’s library. They would reclaim something in their marriage, and Roscoe would figure out how to know his son. They would be all right.
OVER dinner, Moa remarked on his mood. “Goodness, Mr. Roscoe. You sure is fit this evening. What’s got you so excited?”
Marie looked at him with her eyebrows raised, her face saying, Yes, what exactly is this? Judgment was in her expression, prickly as cornstalks.
“I received some fine news today.”
Roscoe and Wilson each sat at one head of the table. Roscoe had Marie to one side and Gerald to the other, and Wilson’s family flanked him, too — Moa and Charles to the left, Henry and Jenny to the right. They sat exactly that way for their weekly meals, their two families always coming together in the big house on Wednesdays.
“Well?” Moa pried.
“Alabama Power wants to electrify some rural properties, and we’re one of the first on their list.”
Curiosity seemed to be edging out the disappointment on Marie’s face. “We’ll get power here on the farm?”
“That’s right, and they asked me to run the lines in — contract work.”
“Does that mean we’ll get lights, Pa?” Gerald asked.
“That’s exactly what it means, Son, and what’s more — we can get that old thresher running.”
“You know we don’t have the money for that,” Marie said. “Let alone the fuel it’d take to make it run.”
“That’s it, though,” Roscoe said. “I can convert it to run off electricity.”
“Wouldn’t the electricity be expensive, too?”
“Electricity won’t run anywhere close to fuel prices.”
Roscoe saw Marie wanting to smile, but she fought it, keeping her face in its rigid calm. “I thought farmwork was beneath you.”
“It’s just not mine. This is.”
Roscoe followed Marie’s eyes around the table. They stopped on Wilson, who sat still and quiet. “What do you think of this, Wilson?”
Wilson’s face was as unreadable as his silence. “Well, Ms. Marie, Roscoe’s discussed it plenty with me, and I think it’s just what the farm needs.”
Wilson’s belief — genuine or feigned — was enough to make Marie believe, and Roscoe watched the faintest smile cross her face. “You’ll do this work?”
Roscoe nodded, and the gesture set them apart. They were alone for a moment, as they had been before Gerald’s birth, alone and young and hopeful, walking the banks of the Coosa River, watching the water make its way to the dam where it would build electricity. They were mesmerized by their future — all the light and power and change — filled with it, their own excitement rushing and flowing. Roscoe realized he missed those sensations. He missed his wife.
CHAPTER 2 / ROSCOE
The wall around Kilby Prison is twenty feet high, with four strands of barbed wire along the top. Every other strand is charged with sixty-six hundred volts of electricity. The other two are grounded, and so far as I know, the live ones have never been cut.
From the front Kilby looks like a redbrick school, a place for teachers like my wife. Shrubs line the front walk to the double doors, with globe lights on either side of the entrance. An eagle spreads its wings in a circle over the tall letters spelling out the prison’s name.
The year is 1926, which seems as if it should mean something, more than a quarter of this century gone. I’ve been in this place for three years, and that, too, seems as if it should mean something. I just passed my thirty-third birthday, and my life has become only years before Kilby and years during. I hope for years after, but not too frequently. Hope makes disappointment that much harsher when it arrives.
Fall has come again, thin winded and tawny, and I’ve just finished my work tarring up the cracks between the thirty-foot sections of the wall that open up with the cold shift. The warden pieces together a crew to paint the gaps with tar, and I’ve been part of it since I came. I’m pulled from other work, and it’s a good job to get for those few weeks. Out of the shirt factory and the cotton mill, out of the dairy. There’s air to breathe along the wall, wafting in through the openings. Across Wetumpka — Montgomery Highway is the oak grove. Grazing pasture is to the east and fields of corn and beans and mustard, cotton to the north. Even the dirt and gravel in the pit to the west is something sweeter than the scent inside the wall. Stick your eye to those cracks and it’s the world out there, a world we paint over with tar. The air gets sticky and black, and then we’re closed back into Kilby. There’d never be the time nor the tools to make one of those cracks fit a man through, but we dream about it, think about excuses to get out to the yard alone. We may sneak a fork or two out of the mess hall. We may chip at those cracks with the rocks we find. We don’t talk about it. We don’t work together. Escape is solitary as confinement, or should be.
I was on the wall when Deputy Warden Taylor sought me out. “You’ve made a name for yourself. Bondurant and Chaplain — they’re singing your praises. Best worker they’ve ever had and other such remarks. That true?”
“Can’t speak for anyone else, sir, but I do my best with the work that’s given me.”
“Seems you might be a good fit at the pens. Come on out first thing tomorrow. I’ve sent word to your other foreseers so they won’t be putting out the call.”
“Yes, sir.”
So today, I’m heading to the gate to meet him at the dog pens.
Beau’s guarding the east side, and he spits his tobacco juice right at my feet. “Taylor making you one of his little bitches?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“Won’t win you any points with your cellmates — not that you’ve got many points as is.” He laughs. “Bet you’re thinking if you make dog boy, you’ll make trustee, ain’t ya? I’m sure Mason’s told you it’ll keep you safe, those trustee ranks, but I’ve seen plenty of trustees in the infirmary.”