Unlikely Friends

by Sahar Abdulaziz

  High school had been a breeze compared to prison life. While inside, Darren left the correctional officers alone. He didn’t want any trouble with them or the other inmates and kept mostly to himself. Which was not an easy feat considering the severe overcrowding issue, not to mention the rash of daily unprovoked violence and fights.

  It hadn’t taken long for Darren to lose his damn mind. By his second day on the tier, they assigned him a cellmate. The mere thought of sharing tight quarters with another man drove him berserk. The correctional officers gave Darren a stern warning to tone his irrational behavior down before he wound up doing the rest of his time in solitary confinement.

  Darren soon learned a hard lesson: prison staff didn’t give a damn’s worth about his or any other inmate’s accommodations. Their comfort didn’t register. Nor did most of their complaints. Their house, their rules, applied. Eventually, Darren grew accustomed to York, his celly—short for a cellmate—being around. York turned out to be the best kind of celly a guy could not ask for. He was quiet, unassuming, minded his own business, and left Darren’s stuff alone. York didn’t want to stir trouble and kept mostly to himself. With only four years left to finish his sentence, York refused to make it stretch for a minute more.

  For the most part, York had been easy for Darren to talk to since he didn’t need to qualify his frustration or hopelessness to York. They were both wallowing away on the same sinking boat: facing time, surrounded by other screw-ups, rejected by society, and branded as losers, but most of all, saddled with families who had long ago written them both off.

  At the beginning of his sentence, Darren wrote Olivia countless letters apologizing and begging her to visit him. “Just let me make it up to you,” he’d write, but she returned them, mangled but unopened. He also tried phoning but had to do it collect. Olivia wouldn’t budge, blocking any calls that came from the prison.

  “The first thing I do when I get out is bang on this woman’s door,” he’d confided in York one evening after getting his last letter returned unopened.

  York had put down the book he had been reading. “You may want to rethink that strategy, my man.”

  “She’s my wife.”

  “She was your wife. You gotta let it go. You’ve got too much time ahead of you to be obsessing over what you’re gonna do when you get out—especially to her. She’s not the reason why your ass is in here. You and I both know that.”

  In desperation, Darren wrote to his mother. As expected, she never wrote or came to visit him. No surprise, with her being a life-long career addict herself. For all he knew or cared, she could have been in prison herself. He never bothered to contact his father.

  Jay tapped a pen on his desk to get Darren’s attention. “Speaking of…job hunt. Status?” Jay’s art of conversation gravitated towards a vernacular consumed primarily of staccato quasi-sentences.

  Darren stared at the ground, buying time to formulate a good enough response in his head. Running a bunch of different scenarios and weighing out which reply would produce what reaction. A complicated game of Cat and Mouse but with high stakes. One slip-up, that’s all it took to send him back inside. The fact was, Darren hadn’t looked anywhere. Too busy trying to get Olivia to give him a break and let him come back home, but there was no way in hell he would admit to that, so he colored his dishonesty with half-truths and hoped for the best.

  “I went to the library. Heard they were looking to hire a handyman or something, but no luck.”

  Jay jotted that fabricated tidbit of misinformation into his notepad. “And today? What’s on your agenda?”

  Darren squinted. “I, err, have group counseling in the afternoon.”

  “With Gallagher?”

  “I guess so.”

  Who the hell is Gallagher?

  Darren made a mental note to recheck his welcome packet.

  Jay marked that down too. Once finished, he placed his pen down and glared at Darren. “I’m only going to say this once.” Darren shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “You have two choices. One, you follow the rules, do your time, get yourself situated and have a nice life, or two, you screw it up, in which case, I’ll send you back inside where you can rot until your sentence is up. With a limited amount of time here, I suggest you choose wisely.”

  Full sentences. This was serious.

  With pursed lips, Darren dipped his head and glared. “We done?”

  “Go.”

  Darren didn’t need to be told twice and bolted for the door.

  “Halt,” shouted Jay. “Confirm again. Where are you staying after here?”

  “Whadda you mean?”

  Shit. He knows.

  “I mean, is the address on your submission form still current?” Jay asked, flicking through his notes.

  Unsure whether Jay posed a rhetorical question or a set-up, Darren got ready to tell his second lie of the day. “Same address. Nothing’s changed.” He held his breath.

  Jay slapped the desk with his palms. “Good enough.” He slid the paper into the folder, presumably Darren’s file. “Then have a good day, Mr. Crane. Shut the door behind you.”

  Dismissed.

  ***

  Back in high school, Darren aspired to open a repair shop—“Crane’s Automotive Repair Shop.” He had always been handy with his hands, gifted with mechanical intuition, and a real natural with tools. While he may not have known the difference between an adjective and an adverb, he sure could take apart and put together a carburetor with his eyes closed. His friends joked that Darren had the uncanny ability to give beat-up old engines ready for the graveyard a second, if not a third, life.

  Then he started hanging out with the wrong crowd. Started to drink and use drugs to fit in. Began stealing prescription drugs from his mother’s medicine cabinet finding them easy to conceal, consume, and sell.

  Darren hit the rave scene running and got heavy into it. As a cheap designer drug, Ecstasy’s only job was to keep the user high; however, because it was also a stimulant, it kept Darren awake for days experiencing hallucinations. His vision became distorted and blurred, he often saw shadows where shadows didn’t exist, and he swore items were shifting despite being entirely still. All in good fun until his occasional drug use morphed into a severe and addictive habit.

  Darren and Olivia had met back in high school. Two sweet, regular kids under intense social pressure to conform and fit in. Two ordinary, sweet teens saddled with family problems and unable to cope. Childhood sweethearts who found safety in the arms of one another.

  Olivia had been a better student than Darren, but not by much. She struggled to make good grades while he chose to ignore his studies and get high. Olivia knew Darren used, but most of the kids she hung out with in high school either drank, smoked, popped pills, or experimented with something. She didn’t come from a life of intoxication, so for her, his drug use hadn’t seemed like a big deal, comprehending too late how her boyfriend’s occasional use had turned into full-blown abuse.

  Olivia’s mother had never liked Darren. She’d seen trouble from day one and had repeatedly warned her daughter to stay away, but the more she had pressured or threatened Olivia to drop Darren, the harder he’d worked to convince Olivia to screw whatever her mother thought.

  Darren leaned on the wall behind the school where all the potheads hung out. “I know she’s your mom’s and all, but fuck her, Liv.”

  “You don’t understand, she’s really mad this time,” Olivia explained. “I mean, like, the maddest I’ve ever seen her. This morning she threatened to send me away to some military boarding school or something if I keep seeing you.”

  “She’s bullshitting. You’re sixteen. You could legally drop out if you wanted to.”

  “No, I think it’s seventeen to drop out in Pennsylvania.”

  “Whatever.” Darren opened his palm. “Take this and chill already.”

  “I can’t. I have a test, third period, and if I fail, she’ll really kill me.”

  Darren p
opped the Ecstasy in his mouth. “Suit yourself.”

  Olivia kicked a pebble at the wall with the bottom of her sneaker. “It wouldn’t kill you to do better in school too, you know.”

  “What for?”

  Olivia shrugged. “For your future.”

  Darren laughed. “My future, huh. That’s a joke, right?”

  By his last year, Darren had slipped so deep into drugs he could no longer keep up with his studies. As soon as he turned seventeen, he dropped out. And without immediate family for support or guidance, he dove into a loop of dysfunction, spiraling from Ecstasy to crack to heroin in no time flat. However, funding his demanding habit soon took precedence in such a way that he wound up doing anything to score. Behaviors that, if sober, would have appalled him. Such as when he asked around to find out what his drug dealer’s girlfriend wanted for her birthday and then stole that specific item to his dealer to trade for drugs. Or that time he attended a church service just to abscond with the money from the offering plate. As a drug addict, his moral depravity knew no boundaries, no obstacles. His cravings to satisfy his compulsion took priority over any genuine feelings he may have had. Nobody around Darren was safe, not even his daughter.

  One day, while Olivia had been out shopping, Darren, desperate for a fix, sold Harper’s crib, the one Olivia’s mom had bought when she’d come over one day unannounced and found her grandbaby sleeping on the cold floor. When Olivia returned home and found out what Darren had done, she went berserk. Threatened to leave him until he pulled out of his pocket their next hit. Then all was forgotten. Washed away in a fog.

  Together the pair existed in a state of limbo, a never-ending, vicious cycle. Stealing, lying, manipulating to get high, only to crash. Up-down-up-down, and all along. After a while, nothing but addicts and dealers comprised his inner circle. For him, Harper barely existed. Often left to fend for herself. Neglected. Not even her safety could compete with her parent’s drug habit.

  But like all drug abusers, Darren’s biggest delusion had been in convincing himself that nobody knew what he was up to. That he felt, appeared, and sounded just fine. Completely unaware of how to everyone else, his speech and thought patterns seemed grossly disorganized, schizophrenic-like. How his body had started to appear emaciated from loss of appetite, his face tired and gaunt. Dark circles under his eyes only served to accentuate his pale complexion. But the biggest giveaway was in that drug-fiend way he walked around, always scratching and slumped over in the strangest positions. Often mistaken for older than his mere twenty-plus years.

  For Darren, every choice, every decision, every action centered on acquiring the next high, the next hit. Nothing else mattered. Not his dream of opening his own business, rapidly blowing up in a puff of smoke. Not his dwindling circle of drug-free friends, who, after catching him pilfering through their personal belongings for anything to steal or hock, eventually gave up trying to get through to him. And not Olivia or even the child he had on the way. Darren risked it all for the promise of that next high, adamantly refusing to get help, blinded to his irrational and destructive behavior. The rest of the world had the problem, not him. So deluded…so convinced that he controlled his destiny, when in fact, his thought patterns remained muddled, self-serving, and trapped in a heroin cloud of chaos.

  ***

  Darren headed down the hall and upstairs to his room. He needed to be away from everybody to rethink his plan of action. Come up with another way to convince Olivia to take him back, to give him another chance. He hadn’t meant to lose his temper the way he did, but she could make him so mad.

  Why had he assumed Olivia would be easy to win back over, considering all that transpired the night he had abandoned her over six years ago? Maybe because of how pliable and easy to manipulate she had been when they were both younger…dumber…and needed each other. But he didn’t see any of that in her now. More of a determination and willpower, and that scared him.

  He thought for sure when he chucked her mother’s vase, Olivia would have given in. Instead, she gave him lip. Then, when he lunged, she kept mouthing off. Staring straight at him with hate. Yes, most discernibly, hate.

  She despises me.

  Darren shook his head, utterly confused. This new stubbornness wasn’t at all expected. Coupled with Harper’s lack of respect, he was in for a real ride.

  Before Darren had a chance to close his door, he heard his name being called.

  “Crane! You got a visitor,” yelled the unfamiliar voice.

  Darren shut his door, confused as to who would be coming to see him. At the bottom of the steps, he stopped short and groaned. “Oh. It’s you.”

  CHAPTER 10

  Irwin

  “I’m sorry, ma’am, but we are a library. We loan out books. We do not sell postage stamps,” said Irwin to the elderly woman stooped before him, holding out her change purse. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

  The woman mumbled a few colorful obscenities in response, which Irwin preferred not to bother decoding. She flipped him the bird before hobbling away.

  “Next!”

  “Hi,” greeted an attractively dressed woman about Irwin’s age.

  “Can I help you?”

  “I need to return these.” The woman placed a stack of five thick books on the desk, all nonfiction history novels.

  Irwin opened the first book and scanned the date. Then the next. As he made his way through the pile, a document from the fourth book slipped out. An old, turn-of-the-century birth certificate. At least over a hundred years old, by his humble estimation. “Is this yours?” he asked.

  “Oh, wow! Thank you. I forgot I put that in there.” She took the document and hugged it tightly to her chest. “What was I thinking?” She had a lovely smile. “This belonged to my great-grandmother. I’ve been doing a bit of research lately, family-tree stuff. I’m trying to learn a bit more about how and when she came to this country and what she must have gone through to get here.”

  Irwin nodded. “While we have an extensive shelf of books about this period upstairs, you may find the e-books and film footage more helpful. The film cannot be removed from the library, but you could read through old newspaper clippings, birth records, that sort of thing. It may prove useful in your search.”

  “Oh, terrific. You’re wonderful. Upstairs?”

  Irwin blushed and pointed. “Anything else?”

  “No, but thank you, again. I would have hated to lose this,” she said, waving the birth certificate. “Well, bye.”

  Irwin reddened. “Next!” he called.

  From across the room, Harper was watching him, evidently amused.

  When did she get here?

  He hadn’t seen her slip in.

  How much of that last interaction did she catch?

  By the know-it-all smirk spread across her selfie-snapping-teen-blog-posting-face, all of it. Irwin repaid the girl’s grin with a sneer.

  Undaunted, Harper apparently took Irwin’s reaction as an invitation and ambled up to the side of the reception desk.

  The next person in line, an elderly gentleman, decked out in hunting gear, a camouflage cap, and an orange vest, moved forward. Harper leaned her elbows on the desk to rest her chin on her palms. “Hi, Irwin.”

  “Mr. Abernathy to you,” he quipped back without looking at her. “Can I help you, sir?” he asked the patron.

  “Yep,” answered the gruff man, scratching a trail of stubble on his neck so thick and coarse, it looked as if it could suffocate his neck. “Where do you keep the e-books?” he bellowed loudly.

  Irwin cocked a brow. “I’m sorry…what did you say?” He leaned in closer. He couldn’t have heard correctly.

  “He wants to know where you keep the e-books,” Harper replied piercingly, a smirk tugging at her mouth, clearly enjoying herself.

  Irwin ignored Harper giving the man his full attention. “E-books are online, sir,” he explained. “They are electronic books in digital form. We don’t keep them; we have th
em on file, on computers. You can download them and watch or read them on your computer or any other electronic device.”

  “Oh,” grumbled the man, seeming disheartened and still somewhat confused. “Well, I don’t have a computer,” he complained. “Now what do I do?”

  Irwin’s jaw tensed. Before executing one of his infamous sharp retorts, Harper interjected and came to his rescue.

  “No problem. The library has a bunch of computers,” said Harper cheerfully. “Do you have a library card?” she asked the man.

  “Of course I do.” The man whipped out a bulky, well-used wallet from his back pocket. With shaky fingers, he slowly thumbed through his collection of cards until he found it. “There you go,” he said slapping the card on the desk as if playing poker with a full-house. “Now what?”

  “Do you want me to set him up at one of the empty computers, Mr. A-ber-na-thy?” asked Harper, giddy with smiles.

  Unfazed, Irwin answered the patron, “You have thirty minutes,” and slid back his card.

  As the man busied himself returning his card to his wallet, Harper leaned over and whispered to Irwin, “You’re such a colossal snob, you know that?”

  Roger, standing nearby, laughed, then quickly pretended to cough.

  “Go,” replied Irwin. “Next,” he called out.

  Harper slipped her arm through the gentleman’s and gently guided him to the computer station by the children’s section.

  “I like her,” said Roger over Irwin’s shoulder. “She’s got spunk.”

  “Next!”

  A few minutes later, Harper returned to her chair. Funny how Irwin had designated that chair as hers in his mind.

  For all Harper’s prior giggles, Irwin thought the kid looked tired. And a bit sad. He chalked it up to last night’s fiasco. However, he didn’t have long to ponder before Regan soared from the children’s room to the front desk. Her purple glasses bounced on the bridge of her nose as she stomped towards him in full combative mode.