by Malik Will
My mother stood there cleaning as if the world would end should she ever take a break. I remember staring as her back for a long time. From that position, she looked stern and forthright, full of zeal. But I imagined the other half of her body was the opposite. Her eyes salty, submerged in tears, cleverly hidden in thoughts that it may somehow cause me to break. She was in hell and I think I knew why.
“How long have you known?” I asked.
Her back bent as she leaned in closer to the sink. Her face still hidden. “Know what?” she asked.
“That they were seeing each other.”
“She came to me.”
“Who?”
“Your sister. She was wide-eyed and as happy as I ever seen her. She was in love. The way she spoke of him was so grand. He had her heart trapped inside this sparkling safe that could only be opened by him. She made me promise to never tell nobody, especially your father. And I never told anybody about him. I never did. I-I...just wanted her to need me. I wanted her to look at me like a daughter is supposed to. I never...I never knew he’d take her away from me.”
She turned around and faced me, displaying to me all her agony, her eyes damp and swollen. Her cheeks glistened as tears seeped through those once-closed lids. There, an uproar inside of her came and went, a tempest. She bawled. There was nothing I could say or do to stop it. I just sat there in silence. And just as I knew she would, she shuffled all of her sorrow inside this old antiquated box that she subsequently pulled from around her heart, and cast it out to sea pretending all those shiny tears were just a figment of my imagination.
“Child, I’m fine,” she said.
But she wasn’t fine. Even as she bled from the beatings my dad gave her, she’d say, “I’m fine.” Those old wounds are still there; right across her face lays a scar that begins and ends with her eyes.
“It’s okay, Mom.” I rose from the dining table to console her. I placed my hands on her back, gently, and rubbed back and forth. “It’s okay, Momma. It’s okay.”
“Alright now...It’s all right...Everything’s gonna be alright.” I repeated that several times until she stopped shaking.
Through those words, she found strength. She slowly opened her arms, and hugged me, and rubbed my hair, until my warmth subdued her coldness.
“I love you, Momma,” I whispered.
“I love you too, son.”
Quickly, from the embrace we came in such an informal fashion. I guess we just weren’t used to speaking to each other that way. That night was a quiet sort with no words being spoken back or forth between us. All that could be heard was the wind dancing against the glass windows and a group of crickets that sang with no particular rhythm.
How did we get to this point? Oftentimes, I went back to that faithful night—to the moment I walked into Caroline’s room to wake her. I tried to figure out what started it all what made me walk out of that house. Then I remember the letter she left behind and the stinging words that lay inside it. It was the note that pushed me out. And though it was painful to read, I had kept it all those years.
I went into my bags that night, pulled out the letter, and I read, and read, seeking answers to questions I have, for so long, wondered about. Questions like, what did she leave? And where exactly was she planning to run off to?
These questions plagued me. I knew just where to find the answers. But as fate would have it, it lay in a place I never wanted to venture to again—Angola State Prison.
The next day, I awoke to aromas, but this time, it was muffins, not rolls. Blueberry, in fact. Mom had made a whole batch just for me. She knew they were my favorite. Ever since I was a kid, I’d ask, “Can we have blueberry muffins today, Momma?” She’d respond with the same answer, “Soon boy, soon.” I guess soon had finally came.
As I walked in the kitchen, an old familiar face caused me again to lose my appetite. It was Mr. Gaines...again.
“Mornin’, Danny,” he said.
“Hey,” I replied.
“Good morning, son,” said Mom.
“Good morning, Mommy.” I checked her eyes to see if she had been crying once again.
“You doing okay?” I asked.
“Oh, never better, dear! Now go on and have a seat.”
I didn’t move.
“No?” The glee from her face melted. “But, I made your favorite. Fresh blueberry muffins.” She picked a tray of them from the counter and displayed them.
“They do look delicious, but I have some business to attend to.”
“Business! What business?”
“Something about a job.” I tried to be as vague as possible.
“A job,” she said in such a jovial manner.
“Yes, a job.”
Mr. Gaines, of course, couldn’t help adding in his expertise. “You know, I got a few connections down at the rail yard. I can put in a good word for you.”
“No, thank you. I think I can handle it.”
“You sure? ’Cause he got Rebecca’s son, Nathan, a job there a few months back. Tell ’em, Mr. Gains. Go on and tell him.”
“No, no. He doesn’t have to do all that. I think I got this in the bag already anyway.”
“You sure about that?” asked Mr. Gaines.
“Yes, I’m sure, sir.”
“Alright then,” he mumbled.
“I’ll be headed out now, Mom.”
“Alrighty, son. Good luck!”
“Thanks! But I don’t think I’ll need it.”
I walked out of that home, knowing the entire story about looking for a job had been all fantasy. The real place I was traveling to was everything but holy. It was gloomy and nauseating, and fervent.
When I arrived at the prison, the guards greeted me with suspicious eyes as they had only seen me once, with my mother.
“What’s your business here, boy,” one of the guards asked as I approached the visitor’s counter. My steps were slow, cautious, my body tense yet faltering.”
“I’m...I’m here to see an inmate,” I said.
The pulled a huge file folder from an overly packed cabinet. “What’s the name?”
“Name?”
“Yes, the name of the prisoner?”
“Oh. I don’t know the name.”
“You don’t know his name?”
“No, sir.”
“Boy, how in the hell do you expect to see someone, if you don’t know their goddamn name?”
“Well I—”
“Speak up, son!”
“He-he murdered my sister.”
“Your sister?”
“Yes, sir.”
The guard removed his glasses, his face rosy from embarrassment. “Forgive me, son. I had no idea.”
“It’s quite alright.”
“You talking about the young girl from Natchitoches?”
“Yes, sir.”
The turned to another, younger, guard. “Jimmy, go on, and escort this young man to red sect.”
“Yes, sir,” said Jimmy.
And from there, we went. I approached the prisoner’s cell. He was once again secluded in the dark, seemingly lacking any life.
“You have a visitor,” said the guard.
There was only silence in the red hat. The young guard grew irate. He smashed his billy club against the cell’s rigid bars. “D’ya hear me?” he shouted.
“Can you give us a minute?” I asked.
“Yeah...You can have ’em. But I don’t know point in it. He’s a mute now. Nothing but a mute nigger.”
“Thank you.”
“I can only give you five minutes in private. We’re really not supposed to let y’all alone, especially in no red hat. I’ll allow it this time though.”
“Thank you.”
Jimmy tilted his hat forward in a gesture and walked down to the opposite end of the cell block leaving me and the prisoner alone.
The silence of the red hat section became even more prominent. All that could be heard were drips from the leaking pipes, and the buzzing of several fl
ies that all called this place a home.
Inside the cell of the prisoner lay an even grayer picture, more gray than this place in its entirety. It was just the sense of villainy inside it. The room, half-lit, half-dark, allowed his downtrodden face to be hidden from the rest of the world.
“I have a question,” I said.
“What may that be?” His reply came undaunted and quick. My mouth was frozen shut by wonderment as I rubbernecked through the cell bars.
“What is your question?” he repeated.
“You know me, right?”
“I do.”
“A few years ago in New Orleans, you saved my life. Why?”
“It was the right thing to do.”
“You called me by my name. But you never told me yours.”
“My name is C.J.”
“How did you know my name is the first place?”
“Because she talked about you like you were her own son. You were her sweet little Danny. She loved you more than anything in the world. The same way I loved her.”
“You could have let me die. But you didn’t.”
“What is your point?”
“I wanna know why,” I screamed. My voice echoed across the room, bouncing from wall to wall, drawing the attention of the guard from down the hall. He pointed at his watch, signaling me of the time.
“I saved you because that’s what your sister would have wanted,” he said.
“Is that why you came? Is that why you came to New Orleans?”
“She told me to look after you long ago, before she went missing—”
“You mean before she died,” I said, cutting him off.
“I don’t know nothing about her dying.”
“You don’t?”
“Look! I have said a thousand times over, I do not know what happened. I don’t know where she went! I don’t know nothing! You understand?”
“Look, I ain’t here for no rehashing, I assure you. But she was indeed going somewhere the night she left. That is a fact!”
“Well, what’s a fact anymore, anyways? All that matters is what is believed.”
His mood changed, different from just a minute ago. His words were filled with rage and cynicism as the language of his body followed suit. Who could blame him?
Nothing could change his mind. He’d made it up the day they locked that cell door. Now his soul floats down the same river his tears concocted. No words could bring him back to life besides the two he’ll never get to hear, “You’re free.” So every day, a soliloquy erupts that only he and God can hear, where he curses all those who’ve wronged him as he leaves from these prison gates and into the white pearly ones.
For some reason, there were so many words I wanted to say to him, but couldn’t. He was accused of killing my sister and at the same time, remembered for being my hero, and he knew it. There was no reason to remind him of it.
“I have this letter,” I said. “She left it for me. I’ve been reading it for years, trying to see the words between the lines. But I can’t find them.”
“This letter... Do you have it with you?”
“I do.”
I rummaged through my pockets until I found it. I pushed the letter between the cell bars. He stretched his arms from a distance, attempting to grab it. The distance was too far. He was reluctant, but he rose anyway. Finally, from the shadows, he came into the light.
The light showed a face of a relentlessly beaten man, his eyes both yellow and red like the day’s end. The history of his plight was jotted across his face. The saddest part was that he kept his tears right where they dripped; the residue stained his black skin. Imagine: he didn’t even take a second to wipe them. It was if his arm had grown tired after so many times; and now, he allows them to flow free like the Mississippi.
“How did you come across this again?” he asked.
“She left it underneath her pillow. I guess she thought I’d look there.”
He unfolded the letter. His eyes still, but moving, fixated on the words.
“What is it?” I asked.
He folded the paper back, slowly, as it was, and handed it to me.
“Is there anything you can tell me?”
His hands fisted. His eyes bolted in their lids as he sat, absent from here. “This letter wasn’t written for you.”
“What? What are you talking about? How would you know?”
“It was for me.”
I reopened the letter, trying to find anything that would dispute his claim. If it was true, how could I have not seen it? “How are you so sure of this?”
“Because she gave it to me before she left. We had this huge fight about things not worth reminiscing. She gave it to me, but I wouldn’t take it.”
“By Cane River?”
“Yes, by Cane River. How you know?”
“I was told that two people saw y’all arguing.”
He paused once again, there but silent, like a solemn shadow. He shuffled back to the unlit part of the cell and sat. “You believe in fairytales?”
“Pardon?”
“Do you believe in fairytales?”
“No, I can’t say that I do.”
“Why is that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe because they never really happen in real life. They’re just stories to make us feel better.”
He laughed. “Well, you better watch out for fairytales in this town. Or you might find yourself stumbling in one.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well—”
Just as he was about to answer, two words from the guard caused an abrupt end to our conversation. “Times up!”
I waited a few more seconds, hoping he would explain what he meant. But in the presence of the guard, he just looked away unto the dark side of the cell.
“Come on,” the guard urged.
“Right away, sir,” I replied as I kept my eyes locked inside the cell. I was empty, unfulfilled by the tale he told. It was if there was more, much more than the words provided. I just hadn’t had the sense to catch it.
I arrived back home. The kitchen was candle-lit and dark, with the smell of Welsh rarebit dancing off the walls. There sat my mom and Mr. Gaines holding hands.
“Did he tell you anything?” shouted Mr. Gaines.
“What? Who told you where I was?”
“Ohhh...So he did tell you something.”
I stood there, hands damp from sweat, puzzled. How in God’s name did he know where I had been? Two—why the hell was he holding her hand?
“Who told you where I was—the guard?”
“Whose guard?” my mom said. “You’re the one who told us.”
“HUH?”
“Remember this morning? You came in talking about a job.”
“Oh...yeah, yeah! I did!”
“Sooooo...What did he say?”
“It’s probably not gonna work out.”
“Really?”
She turned to Mr. Gaines.
“You know I told ya about those contacts at the rail,” said Mr. Gaines.
“No thank you, sir.”
“Now why not, Danny! It won’t hurt none.”
“Mr. Gaines, why don’t you be like that old lady who fell out of the wagon?”
“What are saying?”
“I’m saying, shut the fuck up and mind your business!”
My mom jumped from the dining table in a fury. “DANIEL FREEMAN! HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MIND!?”
“I’ve had a long day. I’m going to bed!”
“YOU COME BACK HERE. DON’T WALK AWAY FROM ME.”
I ignored her. “Good night, Mom.”
I entered my room and secluded myself underneath the bed’s wool comforters. I laid with my eyes open. I could not sleep. All I could think about were fairytales, nothing but fairy tales.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Through the Valley
