It had dorms, not cells. Classrooms you could just walk into. Community gardens to work in, and beautiful, carefully tended landscaping. Nature trails to wander. Color. Ability to see the hills and roads surrounding the place. An inmate was throwing a ball for a dog. Another drove in through the gate at the wheel of an official vehicle.
Nick tried not to shake his head and blink at the cognitive dissonance. This was a prison? There were little things he recognized; the reserved suspicion in the eyes of the inmates, cameras, uniforms, an oppressed sense of behavioral restraint and carefully neutralized personalities. But it was missing unending noise and swagger and metal and concrete and fear.
At the end of it, John faced him. “This is a Federal prison camp. It houses non-violent, primarily white collar offenders. This is where I thought I was sending you. This is where you deserved to go. You would have hated it here, because they make you obey rules and follow orders and eat boring food and stay in this one place for years. But I don’t think you ever would have described it as a form of misery.”
Nick gulped. “It’s pretty. It’s quiet. I made myself like Sing Sing. I would have loved it here.”
“I doubt it,” said John wryly. “It’s still a prison. But when I maintain you deserved to go to prison, this is the sort of place I’m talking about. My parents live near here. I was going to sign up as a volunteer and come visit you and work with you.”
Nick’s jaw dropped a fraction, and he blinked twice. “You — really? You were going to come spend time with me in prison?”
“It’s not unheard of for agents to mentor inmates,” said John. “Wasn’t going to happen in state maximum security, I’d probably get you killed. But in a minimum security Federal outfit, absolutely. There are quite a few agents in the office who volunteer and spend time with people they’ve arrested .”
“Have you done it?” asked Nick.
John shook his head. “Would’ve felt really lame, or like I was coming out to gloat at them being in prison. That’s more …Agent Kasdan mentors a few of the guys he’s taken down. He’s that sort of person, I’m not. But you — no question. I would’ve been here.”
Nick heaved a deep, gut-level sigh of relief, and a confused part of him that was afraid of John slipped away forever.
He’d always seen a kind man who had gleefully and without remorse condemned him to a place that made mobsters cry.
He’d lived in fear for years of crossing that invisible line where one of the most compassionate, forgiving men he’d ever met would flip over to the one who had no problem making him live for years on end in a warehouse made of cement and steel and noise, where almost all of the inhabitants were people you’d cross the street to avoid. He’d never understood John’s dual determination to keep him out of prison and to beat him over the head with it.
The sense of relief continued as they drove away from the prison. Nick felt as though he was breathing fresh air again for the first time in years. He was relaxed, actually relaxed, and deeply content.
“I feel free.”
John glanced sideways at him from the driver’s seat and smiled too. “Uh-oh. What’d you do to your anklet?”
Nick laughed. Actually, really laughed, like a real human being might. He tugged his leg around and pulled his ankle up on his knee, and looked at the anklet. Suddenly, he loved the thing. It wasn’t a shackle any more, it was an extension of that pretty, humane camp and a “welcome home” from his favorite FBI agent.
“If you have time to come up to my apartment when we get home ....” Nick hesitated. “I’d like to show you something.”
“Sure,” said John, with a look so curious it reminded Nick of a dog chasing a stick.
Nick grinned, and laughed. “I’m free again. And I’m happy.”
It took John a moment to get the reference. When he did, he stopped breathing.
It was what he’d told terrified, devastated Nick Aster in a cell in a courthouse basement the day of his sentencing. The day he learned he was being sent to Sing Sing. You will be free again, and you will be happy again.
John had always said he shouldn’t have been sent to maximum security. It had been a cruel edict of a judge who thought he should have been convicted of more than he was. It had also been thanks to testing as a psychopath pre-sentencing, when he had no idea he had a brain injury.
Nick preferred to avoid thinking too deeply about fair and unfair. The truth was he’d committed enough crimes to put him in prison for life, had he actually been caught and convicted for them. On the surface, he couldn’t feel bitter at all about having been sent to prison for five years, even if it was a facility he shouldn’t have been placed in.
“What’s in your head, Nick?” asked John.
“The one thing - you could never understand or empathize with,” said Nick.
He looked out the window at beautiful rolling hills flying by, rich green under rain and a gray sky. He loved long drives with John. The car rumbling on the road, a sanctuary with a person whose company brought him quiet joy. The rambling discussions, arguments, and affectionate silence.
“Can I try?” asked John.
“Okay - logically - I’ve tried so damn hard to accept that I deserved to go to prison,” said Nick. “I can’t stand morons who blame the legal system or the prison staff for their own decision to get drunk and drive their car into a preschool at a hundred miles an hour. I’ve worked hard not to be angry or bitter, and I’m not.”
“But?”
“I’m - actually kind of traumatized by it. Viscerally, emotionally, it feels like I was hunted down, and this horrible thing done to me for years for no reason. I don’t feel like - it feels like you rescued me from a bunch of kidnappers.”
“You underestimate me,” said John. “I can both understand and empathize with that. I sometimes feel like I really hurt you, did something bad to you. We both know reality, but ....”
“Feelings aren’t always realistic,” finished Nick. “But they are real. I’ve spent most of my life trying not to be someone who ever needed saving, because I didn’t believe anyone would do it. You keep rescuing me when I need it the most. That makes a hell of an impression.”
“I wanna stop controlling you,” said John. “I wanna stop beating you over the head for screwing up, and treating you like a deliberately misbehaving child. But if I do that, I need you to commit to working with me and listening to me. I need you to commit to not taking advantage of a loose leash. I need you to take that as seriously as you take not lying to me.”
“I can’t promise to never --”
“I didn’t ask you for that,” said John. “I’m asking you to try. With sincerity and heart, and all that determination and intelligence of yours, try. There's a reason for the behavior that hurts you and everyone who cares about you. Try to overcome that injury.”
Every time John had asked him to reform himself, it had felt utterly wrong to say yes. It was a topic too complex and messy and buried deep in Nick’s being to explore without trust. Not just on Nick’s part, but on John’s as well.
But now... There was something different about John. His body language was relaxed. His eyes were softer, more vulnerable and expressive. He wasn't taking every possible opportunity to dominate Nick and prove his superiority. He was more open in every way, as though he -
Trusted Nick.
He was no longer the wary law enforcer protecting himself from a criminal. He was an open, sweet, affectionate man interacting with a friend he trusted and respected.
John trusted him. The attack and everything that followed had obliterated walls Nick had carefully constructed for a lifetime. John hadn't shied away from the complex mess within, he'd understood it and was comfortable there. John had needed to know the real story of Nick Aster in order to trust him.
"I get sick with dread whenever I think about going back to prison,” said Nick. “It didn't used to ....I brushed off the really bad, really uncommon stuff. But I don't think I can ever ha
ndle solitary again, or even being restrained, or an aggressive CO. Rikers just showed me how bad it all can really get, and now I can't even leave behind the things that happened in Sing Sing."
John studied him intently, the softness in his expression telling Nick he was trying to be sensitive, trying to understand what Nick was really getting at. "Are you afraid they broke you? Because I don't think that at all," said John.
Nick shook his head. "They did, a little. But I'll heal. Thing is, I do want to try to go straight. Partly because the idea of prison is intolerable. But ....I'm afraid that'll send the message that it works to make prison horrible."
"Send the message to whom?" asked John.
"You. Society as a whole. Prison administrators. COs. I'll go out and shoot someone right now before I give anyone the impression that torturing me into submission worked."
John left one hand on the wheel and rubbed the back of Nick's hand with his thumb. "Or, yourself the impression that it worked?"
Nick's throat tightened. "Maybe."
"So what did work?" asked John.
Nick was surprised how many and how easy the answers to that question. "You guys holding me when I was scared and hurting. You, showing me that nice prison and that you never wanted me to suffer. Finding out I have brain damage, and there's an actual thing wrong with me. Finally believing my father was ....wrong. You telling me I was a good person that didn't deserve what was happening to me in in the IMU. Wanting all these wonderful things in life instead of telling myself to run away from the bad ones, when I'm not afraid of the bad ones.”
“How can you not have wanted those things?” asked John.
“When your whole world is violent and cold, you adapt to that,” said Nick. “I'm convinced people can endure just about anything if it's their reality. My reality was crime and thrills and danger and betrayal and prison, and I was happy enough. It was -- friendship -- and getting used to being loved and feeling safe and trusted and mattering to someone who wasn't just using me. When I have those things to contrast it to, then being treated badly really hurts. It didn't before, not really."
"That makes perfect sense," said John. "Helps me understand something about you, too. I never got how someone as sensitive as you could put yourself in the way of so much pain."
"It wasn't a choice," said Nick. "It was just how life works."
JOHN
“Nick, do you think of law abiding you as small? Powerless?” asked John.
“I …..guess so,” said Nick.
“After this happened, I’m standing by, feeling just awful about my poor friend,” said John. “And you’re somehow getting PR heads fired, creating national media scandals, helping take down an assistant chief of the LAPD, getting innocent men exonerated ....while you’re a practically crippled prisoner!”
“It wasn’t as hard as you make it sound,” said Nick, looking out the window at flooded pastures. “It’s easy to create chaos and break things, especially if you don’t have to worry about what the law says you can’t do.”
“Nick, you’re brilliant,” said John, braking when a truck cut in front of him and doused the windshield in dirty rainwater. “You're knowledgeable, artistic, and brave. You've got amazing inner strength and goodness. As good as you are at being a criminal ….you'd be one spectacular good guy. Unleash Nick Aster on doing something good…. you'd probably end up eliminating world hunger or something.”
Nick looked at him, eyes sparkling. ”I had visions of night janitor at Burger King.”
“Jesus, Nick. Someone or something fucked up your sense of self-worth, bad. The only way you can do great things is as a bad guy? In your spare time between prison and murder attempts, you created an art project the Times not only published, they called it one of the most important art projects of our time. You ….are good to your core, and have an unimaginably strong spirit.”
“Strong? I spent every hour since that attack cowering, crying, and panicking,” said Nick.
“You spent them in physical and emotional pain in response to severe trauma.” John looked at him steadily, keeping one eye on the road. ”You awe me. You face humiliation and pain that would break me with a strength that’s borderline superhuman. That young man who went into prison terrified and heartbroken, got through it comforting others, and on a whim formed the most powerful force for nonviolent leadership the facility has ever seen, is.... unbelievably strong.”
“It wasn't selfless,” said Nick. ”I felt compassion for the people I was in there with, but I wanted the power and resources and protection it gave me. I gamed the system and human nature for everything I could.”
John looked sideways at him. “You are a far, far better person than you or I have ever given you credit for.”
“What did I just say to you?” asked Nick, rolling his eyes.
“You had money and connections,” said John. “Most inmates would have bought and coerced their way to that power and protection. You earned it.”
“I used my money and connections, believe me,” said Nick dryly.
“You were telling me you want it all?” said John. “Well, I wonder if you’ve got some misguided notion inside you that’s saying you don’t ever get to be happy. Your childhood fucked you up, you’ve got brain damage - why are you listening to the ‘you have to be miserable’ refrain? You’re telling yourself you can only have love and a family if you’re willing to be submissive and bored to death, and that’s bullshit. You’re hooked on the adrenaline rush? So am I. Tell me FBI work isn’t as much fun as forging some legal document.”
“Uh - right now? Being your consultant? This is my one shot at any kind of law enforcement. I’m a felon who didn’t so much as graduate high school.”
John raised an eyebrow. “You’ll never be an FBI agent, and yes, that is society breathing a sigh of relief you hear. But they do hire consultants and work with talented contractors. Believe me, a convicted felon getting released on an anklet and permanently partnered with an FBI agent is a hell of a lot more far-fetched. You could probably work for the CIA, too, they like unprincipled renegades with psychopathic tendencies -”
“Hey!” protested Nick. “I am not going to work for the CIA.”
“And don’t you want to go to school anyway? You wouldn’t get some sort of a thrill from excelling at that?”
He gave John a sideways glance. Don’t go all serious on me now. “I earned some college credits in prison. Mostly I was too -- uhh….ill-behaved to qualify for the program, but when they did let me I held a 4.0. And I was the art teacher. A professor for a university outreach program audited one of my classes and told me he’d help me through the admissions process if I ever wanted to attend when I got out.”
“Decent school?” asked John, visions of the Trump School of Finger Painting dancing in his head.
“Pratt Institute.”
“Holy shit, Nick. Do it!” John shook his head to re-align the incongruous images of solitary confinement cells and luxury apartments and art professors, and it spat out the image of Nick teaching in a top hat holding a magic wand while wearing Versace. There was a tiger in there somewhere too, probably giving Nick an adoring look and purring.
“You’re not small, you’re larger than life. You’re the most absurd human being I’ve met in my life, and I mean that as a compliment.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Little Nick
JOHN
John recognized the rapidly blinking, watery eyes and the deep, deliberate breathing. Nick was trying not to cry.
“May I?” asked John, motioning to what was on the table. Whatever it was, Nick had laid it out while John was using the bathroom. This was show and tell, Nick Aster style.
Nick stepped aside in wordless assent. They were old photographs, stacks and stacks of them. Notes, birthday cards -
Birthday cards? They were all from one person, all arranged in what looked like order.
“Who was Alan?” asked John.
Nick’s eyes fi
lled a little more with tears. “US Marshal. He was the guy - assigned to us when we went into the witness protection program.”
“Good guy? Bad guy?”
“Good guy.” Nick swallowed. “Really good guy. He - was the only person who ever sent me a card every single year. He - sometimes reminded me that people really could care about me for more than a few years.”
“Growing up in WITSEC couldn’t have felt like the most stable foundation,” said John, pulling a chair out for Nick.
Nick took a moment to respond, his mind lost in the past. His eyes were distant, focused somewhere beyond the New York City skyline glittering outside the broad glass panes of his apartment windows.
Broken Blue Lines: Love. Hate. Criminal Justice.: An FBI Crime Drama / LGBT+ Love Story Page 55
