by BT Urruela
Mom, Dad and I sit at the dining room table waiting for Xander when Caleb comes in. He nearly bypasses us to go upstairs, but instead turns and comes back.
“What happened to your face?” he asks with a look of disgust.
“Excuse me?” I say, barely able to contain my annoyance.
“Caleb, just go to your room. This doesn’t involve you,” Mom says, rubbing my shoulder in an effort to calm me.
“Well, it wasn’t her business to tell you about my PlayStation, and she did that. So fuck her.”
Dad immediately stands. I’ve never seen him so angry. “Caleb, tonight is not the night to start with your shit,” he barks.
“My shit? My shit?! You all don’t give two shits about me. Poor little Miss Paige has a run-in with a fist, and you’re all over her like she’s fucking dying. I’ve been getting beat up my whole fucking life. Where the hell have you been?” With each word spoken, Caleb’s anger intensifies. “You’re not even my real fucking family. I don’t have any family.”
“Honey, you never told us about anything like that. We care just as much about what happens to you as we do Paige. We just have to know,” Mom says, trying to remain calm.
“You never care to listen. None of you do. None of you fucking care about me. About what I’ve been through.”
“Of course we do,” Mom responds.
“Fuck all of you. When I’m eighteen, I’m fucking gone. I’m done with this place!” Caleb tries to turn and leave, but my dad rocketing out of his seat draws his attention.
“Then leave! If you think you’ve got it so fucking bad here, fucking leave. We’ve given you everything, son. And if you think somehow we aren’t giving you enough, by all means, just go. But I refuse to let you treat your sister or anyone else in this family like that. I refuse to let you talk to us like that. You have so much more than many others do. You need to grow the fuck up, Caleb.”
Caleb is in complete shock. He doesn’t say a word, but just stands in shocked silence. I’m left speechless as well. As much as I had to say to Caleb before Dad spoke, it’s all evaporated now. I’m thankful for my father defending me, but I’m also sad. As much as I hate Caleb right now, I just wish we could connect sometimes like normal siblings do. I wish I understood what he’s been through.
He turns and heads for the stairs, and I want to cry at the look of regret on Dad’s face.
Xander returns some time later without a word. Though I pester him for information, he tells me nothing. I don’t push it. I’ll get it out of him eventually, though his swollen knuckles tell me enough. He came back right about the time Caleb packed a few bags and took off. Mom raced out after him, but he was in his friend’s car and gone before she could try to make him stay.
It’s been only a day since Paige and Jack headed up to Truman Lake. And God, I miss her already.
It’s not the same around here without her. After her run-in with that piece of shit Cody and hearing what good ol’ Caleb had to say to her that night, it’s not surprising Jack thought it best to take her away for a bit. She fought against it, but Jack insisted. I selfishly wish she had stayed, as a week away from her is not my idea of a good time.
Late-night thinking has me wide awake and dying for some alcohol. Anything to give my restless mind a break. The weed is doing the job at the moment, but I still toss and turn relentlessly. Not that that’s anything new these days. I could be dead tired after a long day’s work, eyelids fighting to close, and I’ll still lay my head on the pillow only to have sleep evade me. I think too much. That’s the problem.
The bright red numbers reading 12:01 on the alarm clock mock me from the nightstand. I think about Paige and the feelings that have undeniably taken taken residence in my heart, forcing me to reevaluate everything I thought I knew.
My life, with all its confusion and uncertainty, has suddenly become a bit clearer. I’ve always wanted love, but there has never been a woman before who has made me feel it—who has made me question my wandering ways. No woman has ever made me want to settle… until her. It makes restless nights like these that much more unbearable.
Letting people in is not my thing. It took a lot to become close to my military buddies, to allow them into my headspace, to accept that I could actually get close to another person. This is different, though. This involves matters of the heart. Am I truly even able to love? Had you asked me that question a month ago, I would have firmly told you no. But now… now everything is a mess. So much about love makes no sense to me, and tonight, I guess, is my night to try and figure it all out.
God, I wish I could just sleep.
The muffled sound of glass shattering rings from the main house. A scream follows—a horrible, ugly scream that tears from the house in waves and sends shivers down my spine.
Teresa.
I jolt from my bed, waiting a moment to make sure I wasn’t just hearing things. I’m high, so it’s possible my brain was playing tricks on me. I hear nothing else.
I slip on my house shoes anyway, grab a bat from beneath my bed and head out into the still night air, cautiously making my way to the back door. It’s locked, so I go to the front, which I find is also locked. I try to convince myself it couldn’t have been a scream; it must have been my imagination. But I know what I heard… as much as I wish I didn’t.
I open the back door as quietly as I can. My entire body tingles just below the surface. I fight to control my breathing, creeping ever so slowly through the laundry room and into the kitchen. That’s when I feel the crunch of broken glass beneath my shoes. That’s when I spot something in the middle of the kitchen floor.
It’s Teresa. I can tell by the nightgown.
I feel for the light switch and flip it on. What I see nearly knocks me off my feet. Teresa is facedown in a pool of blood that’s quickly spreading out around her. The room is filled with the faint smell of copper. A butcher’s knife stained crimson lies just beside her body and puncture holes dot her nightgown.
I drop to my knees, immediately pressing two fingers to her throat. The feel of the blood against my skin turns my stomach upside down. There’s a pulse, but it’s faint and fleeting. I panic, fighting a mess of emotions that make it hard to process a single thought. I search the house, the bat in one hand and my phone in the other, and I dial 911.
Present
“Xander, you still with me?” Warden Naranjo asks, though his words seem distant.
“Yeah, yeah, sorry.”
“Did you hear what I said?”
“No, sorry,” I repeat, slouched in the chair across from him in his office. I can’t help my thoughts continuously returning to that night.
It haunts me—it consumes me.
“I said, we really need your assistance with this.”
“With what?”
“Xander, have you even heard a word I said? The guy’s throat was slit from ear to ear. That was after he had been fucked to the point of his colon rupturing. Child molester or not, we can’t let this kind of shit go down in here. And I think you know more than what you’re telling.” He folds his arms and leans back in his chair.
“Warden, I told you, I’m just trying to fucking survive. I’m trying to make it through this shit the only way I know how. That means keeping my head down and not getting involved. I don’t know any more than you all do.” I’m not completely lying. I really do try my best to keep what goes on in this place out of my headspace, but I’m not blind. The guy had it coming for a long time, and there’s one group of individuals who paid him extra special attention when he arrived.
He was a shitty cellmate anyway.
“We know who it was, Xander. You know who it was, too. All we need is a statement. We know you saw something.”
“I wasn’t in the cell, Warden. I saw nothing.” I cross my arms now.
He drops his head, shaking it slowly back and forth. “That’s some bullshit if I ever heard it.”
I say nothing, and a look of acceptance settles on his face.
“Fine, Xander. If that’s how you’re gonna play it, that’s how we’ll play it. I’ve been easy on you. I’ve looked past a lot not-so-kosher things because I know you’re one of the few good ones in here. One of the ones not stirring up shit. But you think that dip you’re using is within regs? You think if I flipped your bunk I wouldn’t find contraband? Drugs? We can make it quite a bit harder on you from now on if that’s how you want it.”
“Is that a threat, Warden?” I try my best to keep a look of disdain off my face, but with no luck.
“I don’t make threats. But if you aren’t gonna work with me, I’m not gonna work with you.”
“We done here then?”
He says nothing for a few moments, observing me for any sign that I’m going to give in. Whatever he thinks he’s going to get out of me… he’s wrong. No matter how much I like the guy, I’m no snitch.
He sighs, interlocking his fingers atop his desk.
“Just about. But don’t for a second think this is over. We’ll be coming back to this.”
“Okay, so what else?” He’s not very happy with my tone, but at this point, I couldn’t care less.
He pulls an envelope from his top desk drawer. “There’s a program, in this prison and most others, where family members of the victims have an opportunity to communicate with the perpetrator.”
My mind races with his last words. Did he just say what I think he did?
“Now, we need your approval before any communication happens, and we will be analyzing everything that comes in and goes out. It’s for the protection of the victim’s family. Do you understand?”
I can only nod my head. I’m speechless.
“And do you approve?” Another nod.
He hands me the letter, but before I can snatch it away, he pulls it back from me.
“Xander, you need to think about what I’ve said here today. This kind of shit will not go down in my prison. And people who can help but won’t are only going to get away with it for so long.”
“I’ve got nothing to say, Warden.” I eyeball the letter turned upside down, and anxiously wonder who it could be from. Jack, Caleb… Paige?
“For now, you don’t. I have a feeling that’ll all change real quick.” He hands me the letter, and I take it from him without hesitation.
I hold it in my hands for a moment, scared to see who it’s from—and even more scared about what it might say. I turn it over and read the words, but can’t for the life of me believe what I’m seeing.
Paige Watson
PO Box 10461
Truman Valley, MO 36833
The walk back to my cell couldn’t possibly feel longer. I hold the letter tightly in my hands as if it could be stripped away at any moment. It feels like I’ll wake up in a cold sweat to find that none of this is real. But it is. And the exhilaration I feel runs like electricity throughout my body.
I get back to my cell to see who I presume is my new cellmate lying on the bottom bunk. I give him a nod and climb to the top, hoping desperately that he’ll leave me to my letter. But he doesn’t.
His head pops around the side of my bunk. He has disheveled copper hair and a thick, matching beard.
“Not much of a talker, eh?” He’s got a slight country twang, one like I used to hear in Georgia. Not enough to make one truly southern, but enough to let you know they come from below the Mason-Dixon.
“Nah.”
“Shit, they put you with the wrong guy, I guess. I don’t fucking stop.” He flashes a toothy grin, and that’s when I notice finely etched scars on his face. There’s some on either side of his nose, others creeping out from the top of his beard.
“Brighton Young’s the name. But most call me Twitch.”
“Why Twitch?” Why do I care?
“On account of my ADHD, I guess. I’m always moving. Always fidgeting.” I don’t say anything. I could tell him to fuck off, but that might make for shittier time served if I’m stuck with this guy for awhile.
He rests both hands on my bunk and I see tattoos line his right arm—an American flag, a UT Longhorn, a Mizzou Tiger and a can of Copenhagen.
“So, you got a name?” he asks.
“Xander.”
“Well, Xander, what’s a guy gotta do to get a pinch of dip around here?” His eyes wander over to my tin of chewing tobacco on the window sill. “But don’t get me twisted, I ain’t sucking no dick.” He laughs loudly.
“You can grab one. If a man is dip crazy enough to get a tin tattooed on his arm, I guess I can help out.” He takes no offense, though it was definitely a jab. After he grabs a pinch and puts it in his bottom lip, he then returns both arms to my bunk.
“I love me some fucking dip, but not enough to have it inked on my body, friend. This sleeve is for my guys.”
“Your guys?”
He points to the tin. “Corporal Ryan Jackson, KIA January 14th, 2007.” Then to the Longhorn. “Specialist Chad McGinnis, KIA March 18th, 2007.” And finally to the Mizzou Tiger. “Staff Sergeant Jimmy Reardon, KIA June 1st, 2007.”
“Fuck, I’m sorry, man. What branch?” I reluctantly slip the envelope into my pocket and sit up, leaning back against the wall.
“Army. Special Forces. Nine years of service, three deployments. And don’t worry about it. Ain’t the first time people have questioned my tats. Sure as fuck ain’t gonna be the last.”
“What the hell is a guy like you doing in a place like this?”
“Well, that’s quite the story.” He removes his arms from my bunk and takes a seat on top of the stainless steel desk bolted to the floor. He puts his feet up on the matching stool. Though I’d give anything to read the letter right now, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t intrigued.
“Well, I’ve got a life sentence, so start talkin’,” I say, smiling.
“I’ve only got ten years, but I don’t think it’ll take quite that long.” He laughs. “I was wounded in my last deployment. Medically separated from the Army and moved back home to Arkansas. Fucking hated it. Hated all the millennial pieces of shit making fucking excuses for everything. Hated the mundane nine-to-five life I found myself living. Hated the fucking boredom of being normal.” As I watch his hands go from clasped together to crossed to his knees and back, I can’t help but think ‘Twitch’ is a fitting name for him.
“Found myself enjoying a life outside the law. Started simple… forging checks, making counterfeits, that kind of thing. Not outta greed or anything like that, just for the thrill of it all. Though the thrill died off quickly. There ain’t no adrenaline rush that comes with forging fucking checks.”
“Nothing like serving in combat, I’m guessing.”
“Precisely. So what’s an old Army vet to do? Next best thing… I start robbing armored carriers. A few banks here and there. I fucking got off on that shit. I used all the shit the Army taught me to fuck the system. And I got pretty damn good at it.”
“So how did you find yourself in here?”
“I wasn’t as good as I thought I was, I guess.” He smirks, his hands finally settling behind his head.
“Picked the wrong accomplice, and the fucker turned me in to save his own ass. That was a couple years ago though. I’ve escaped from two other prisons since then.”
“Damn, dude, that’s impressive.”
He shrugs. “It’s what I do.”
“So you said you were wounded. What happened? If you don’t mind me asking…”
“Nah, you’re good, man. One thing you learn as a wounded veteran… you better get used to telling your story.” With one quick motion, he pops a row of dentures from his mouth and a prosthetic eye from his right socket. He smiles, showing the empty space in his mouth nearly three inches wide. I try my best to keep the look of shock from my face, though my efforts are futile.
“Crazy, right?”
“Dude, I had no idea. I mean, I saw the scars, but I didn’t expect that.”
“No one usually does, though a lot of the time I do have
some Forest Whitaker eye going on.”
He laughs and I can’t help but laugh too, though I feel like shit for it.
“I got hit by an IED in Baghdad. I was the gunner in my Humvee. Shrapnel came up through the roof of my mouth, shattered my jaw, blew out my teeth and lodged in my eye.”
“Holy shit. You lucky fuck!”
“Yeah, it was fucking crazy. I was in a coma for a month. Didn’t even know what happened until I woke up with a big-ass metal contraption holding my jaw in place and bandages covering my right eye.”
My mouth is gaping. I’m blown away at how nonchalant he is about this. Though the letter is about the only thing I can think about, I’m both impressed and saddened by this guy’s situation. He seems to not have a care in the world as he slips his dentures and prosthetic back in.
“Anyways, I noticed you had a letter with ya when you came in. I know what that means in a place like this. Sorry about keeping you. I’ll leave you to it.”
“No issues at all. I’m honored to be sharing a cell with you. I’ve made quite a few military friends over the years and respect the hell out of what you all do.”
“Appreciate it, my man.” He grabs an extremely thick book from the desk and holds it up. 11/22/63 by Stephen King. “Now I’ve gotta get back to this girthy bitch.”
He climbs back on his bunk, and for a moment, I almost forget about the letter entirely. I’m still awestruck by this man’s story. It takes a few moments to regain composure, but when I do, I pull the envelope from my pocket and tear it open. For the first time in a long time, I have a feeling of hope and optimism. She reached out, and no matter what this letter says, it means she hasn’t forgotten me. It means that maybe—just maybe—I have the chance of convincing her of the truth.
Xander
It’s taken me a year to write this. A year to build up the courage. As I sit here and write, my hands are shaking. I’m filled with so much anger. So much hatred toward you. Do you realize what you’ve done to my family? How the fuck could you do this to me? I thought I knew you. I thought you cared about me. I thought you cared about my family. You surely pulled the wool over all of our eyes. I’m just so confused and so incredibly heartbroken. I miss my mother every single day. I ache to talk to her again. To hug her again. But you stole that from me. And why? Why my family? Why my mother?
