by Bobby Norman
Hub was takin’ it ever bit as badly as Ball had anticipated. “I’m sorry,” he said, then stepped to the sink for a glass o’ water, filled it up, and handed it to Hub. Hub’s Adam’s apple jumped up and down like a monkey on a stick, gulpin’ it down. Ball took the glass back, set it on the counter, and went to his chair. “Listen,” he said, but Hub wasn’t. “Hub, listen to me.” Hub looked up. “I don’t want to get your hopes up, but Dr. Wade and I had an idea. We talked it over, and he said you’d been up for parole three or four times.”
Hub’s mouth said, “Four,” of its own volition.
“Okay. In thirty years, your record’s been pretty good. Dr. Wade and I want to give the board a recommendation that you be released so you don’t…”—again, he was reluctant to continue—“so you don’t have to die...in here…in prison.”
“You think they’d go with it?” Hub asked, slathered in a cold, clammy sweat.
“Well, naturally, I can’t speak for the board, but it couldn’t hurt t’try.”
Hub pictured dyin’ the way Ball’d described. “They ain’t nothin you’cn do? Ya’can’t just go in ‘n chop it out?”
“No, no, no,” Ball said, sittin’ up and shakin’ his head. “Not in here, no. We’re not set up for somethin’ like that.”
Was that a glimmer Hub saw? A straw bobbin on the River Styx? “But it’s possible?”
“Oh, yes, sure,” Ball hmmphed, disgustedly, “in this day and age. Plus, if you had the money.”
“How’s ‘at?”
“It’s a shitty thing, but yes, if you had the money, there’s a surgery that could possibly save your life, but, Hub, it’s very expensive.”
“You mean if I had th’money, I’cd get it cut out?”
“I said it was possible. It’s not like taking out your tonsils or removing a toe. It’s chancy, but, yes, possibly the difference between your living and dying is the almighty greenback.” He stood up and patted Hub on the shoulder, then went to the door and opened it for Pickering. “Sir? He can go now.”
Pickering entered, but Hub, still lost in thought, hadn’t moved. “Hub,” he said, quietly. Hub looked up. “Let’s go,” and he nodded to the door at his back. Hub stood mechanically and walked to the door.
“Dr. Wade and I’ll talk to the board,” Ball said.
Hub nodded, lookin’ both hopeful and hopeless.
An hour later, Ball exited Warden Gordon Grundheim’s office. The Warden was a well-fed, ruddy-cheeked Teuton with hands like hamhocks and legs like oak stumps.
“So,” Warden Grundheim said, “I ‘magine he took it pretty hard.”
“Oh, yes, I know I would,” Ball said. “Believe me, I’ve put a lot into this, and when it’s all said and done, you have to go with your gut, and I believe we’re doing the right thing. And like we’d discussed, you’ll keep it to yourself?”
“Yes, yes, of course.”
“I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your help,” Ball said and stuck his hand out.
“I wouldn’t want to be in Hub’s shoes,” Warden Grundheim said, shakin’ his hand. “Sit out thirty years just to have it end like that.”
CHAPTER 30
One week later, Pickering escorted Hub to the Parole Evaluation Room. His symptoms had increased, he was pale, and he had shed three pounds. A week, gone. Four months (at most, Ball had said) was sixteen weeks, and the achingly slow wheels o’ justice had just gobbled one sixteenth o’ the rest of his life.
The Evaluation Room had the same personality as the rest o’ the prison. Sterile and cold. Heartless. Soulless. Seated on the other side of a large, scarred table were the trio who would hear his plea and determine a possible different future.
The fellow seated in the middle—undoubtedly the big cheese—was a fat, bald-headed, forty-five-year-old, sweaty son of a bitch with a haughtier-than-thou attitude. He coolly nodded to the wooden chair in front center o’ the table. “You can siddown.” It was more an order than an allowance.
Hub’s scootin’ the chair back made an irritating, grating noise, shattering the ambiance. The trio’s faces advertised their disapproval. Hub’s showed he didn’t give a shit. He figured that You can siddown was as close to an introduction as he was gonna get, so he gave ’em his own names. The aforementioned, rotund, ruddy-cheeked cherub would henceforth be Butter Ball. The one to his left—a buzzard-beaked, forty-year-old, desiccated spinster who probably hadn’t been porked in a very, very long time (if ever), and probably wouldn’t be any time in the foreseeable future— would be Hawkface. On Butter Ball’s right, sat a skinny, fifty-one-year-old who’d be Go-Funny Eye, so named ‘cause one bulbous orb stared directly at you while the other looked off north by northeast. He reminded Hub of a lizard-like thing he’d seen pictures of in a dog-eared National Geographic that could work its eyes like that. He wondered if it was possible for the fella to look at, and think about, two things at once. Or, more likely, just be continually confused.
Butter Ball flipped through Hub’s file for no other reason than to make him wait. Prisoner fates rested in his chubby hands, and he was there to let ’em know it. Finally, he looked up. “Hubert Marshall Lusaw,” he began, nodding to the file. “ Mm mm mm mm mm Mm! Boy howdy, son, you got quite a hist’ry here. A vi’lent hist’ry.” He clasped his hands, laid ’em on the folder, and looked at Hub over his half glasses. “Very vi’lent.”
“Very vi’lent,” Go-Funny said, confirming fat boy’s proclamation.
Hawkface just pursed her lips and nodded. She didn’t wanna be left out, but felt a third verbal confirmation might be overkill.
“Forty years,” Butter Ball continued, “for beatin’ two fellers t’death.” He looked back at the file. “The Kooms Brothers.”
“Komes,” Hub corrected him.
All three scowled at him. It was obvious they didn’t cotton to bein’ corrected by anybody, and especially by an ugly double murderer with weird hair and a malformed arm.
“Komes,” Butter Ball said, distinctly, acidly. “Thank you so much for settin’ me straight on that.” Then, “This’s yer fifth p’role hearing. You’s turned down on th’others due t’attitude, ‘n aftah spendin all o’ two minutes with ya, it’s easy t’see why. You’d think with a p’role on th’line, you wouldn’t be so up’ty!”
Hawkface and Go-Funny nodded in duet.
“According t’this,” Butter Ball continued, tapping the file with a chubby knuckle, “yer a reeeeal hawd case. That right, Mr. Lusaw, ah you a hawd case?”
Six eyes, five aimed in Hub’s direction, one toward Saskatchewan, waited expectantly for an answer that wasn’t comin’. Hawkface finally cracked the silence. “You ain’t tryin’ very hard t’show you turned around.”
Butter Ball pulled a paper from the file. “Atchur last hearin’ you’s asked if you’s sorry for killin ’em ‘n you said yer only regret waaaaaas…” while he looked for the quote, “Yeah, here we go, ‘that you couldn’t kill ’em but once.’” He slid the paper back in the file. “Mm mm mm, boy, that’s perty cold. You still feel that away?”
“Damn right,” Hub replied.
That caught ’em off guard. They were far more used to “Yes, sir” and “No, ma’am” and “Thank ya s’much.” The Grim Reaper was tappin’ on his shoulder and he was much more concerned about that than what they thought of him.
“Havin’ t’sit in here thirty years is th’only bad I feel ‘bout it. They killed my sister. Raped ‘er, broke ‘er jaw, ‘er head, ‘er nose, ‘n prittnear all ‘er ribs.” He turned his attention to Hawkface. “One of ’em, probly Matthew, th’dumber o’ th’two, gnawed off one of ‘er nipples. They never found it. After goin’ t’th’trouble o’ bitin’ it off, I doubt he just threw it away.” He turned his attention to Go-Funny. “A body do that t’one o’ yourn, you’d just let it go? Look th’other way? I told th’truth all ‘long, ‘n I’ll tell th’truth now. I hope I sent both of ’em screamin’ t’Hell fire.” He turned blazing eyes back to Hawkface. “You wa
nt me t’tell ya what else’s bit?”
Go-Funny noticed her reaction and jumped to her rescue. “That won’t be necessary. Fer sure those’s rotten things, but it don’t give you th’call t’take th’law into yer own hands. ‘At’s what th’law’s for.”
Hub looked from one o’ Go-Funny’s eyes to the other. “It’s all in how ya look at it, ain’t it?”
Go-Funny recognized the jab.
“The law wasn’t gonna be no help. Th’Sheriff was a friend o’ theirs. They wasn’t nothin’ gonna happen t’them ‘n they knew it.” Go-Funny chinned to the file in front o’ Butter Ball. “It says in there you waited for ’em t’come home. That’s where ya got nailed with premeditation.” He wanted everbody to know he could use big words.
“My bible says ‘Turn th’other cheek,’” Hawkface snipped.
“Yers would,” Hub said. “Mine says “An eye fer an eye.” They rurnt my life s’I rurnt theirs, and you know what? I’m tired o’ blabbrin, ‘n if y’all think I’m agonna beg ya t’let me out, yer even stupider’n ya look. It’s ‘bout lunch time, ‘n Wednesday’s chicken ‘n dumplins, ‘n I’druther not miss it. It’s one o’ the few meals in here with any taste a’tall. You know as well’s me I got a cancer ‘n th’doctor don’t gimme but four months at th’outside, ‘n I’d just as soon die in here’s anywhere. It’d be a whole lot cheaper f’th’state t’let me out than keep me in th’hospital, so’re ya cuttin me loose’r not?” He stared ’em down.
Saturday, 9:00 a.m. Hub Lusaw stood in the middle of his tiny cell, his tiny world, for the last time in thirty years, wearing somethin’ other than prison stripes for the first time in thirty years. He’d already been in that same cell five years when Pickering was first hired on as a fuckin’ rookie. Next year, he’d retire, after having put in twenty-five and rising to head bull, Captain, second only to Warden Grundheim.
Prison’s a funny place. Time moved at a snail’s pace. Ever day was an eternity. Day after day, month after month, year after year, very little changed. Things happened on the outside Hub hadn’t been, and never would be, a part of. Bad things. Some as bad as, or even worse than, bein’ in prison. He went in in 1924. It was now 1954. He missed the stock market crash. The Depression. The Second World War. The Korean War. In 1924 there were bombs that could blow you to little pieces. In 1954 there was one that could make you and thousands of your friends and family disappear. Literally. It’d happened. But in prison, he’d been protected from those threats.
He wore an old pair a slacks, a little shiny in the butt and the knees; a sportcoat that didn’t match; what used to be a white shirt, collar a little frayed; one dark-blue sock and one black; and a pair o’ worn shoes with two different colored shoestrings. A suitcase with a clothesline-rope handle sat on the cement floor beside his right leg. It had faded and half-torn remnants of travel stickers and scuffed like it’d been drug instead o’ lugged around.
Inside the suitcase were a couple of changes of underpants, more socks, another long-sleeved shirt, a couple of undershirts, and one other pair of worn pants. They’d given him a tie, too, but he’d decided that was a little much and left it draped over the bunk. He felt silly enough already. The suitcase, everthing in it, and everthing he had on had originally belonged to other prisoners who’d died while under the state’s protection and didn’t need ’em any longer. It looked like Norman Rockwell had painted a much older, bedraggled version of Andy Hardy leavin’ home for his first week at camp. A camp for old, paroled murderers, dyin o’ cancer. Quickly.
Pickering waited patiently outside the open cell door. “Ready?”
Hub picked up the suitcase and stepped to the door. “Ready.”
Pickering pointed with his nightstick at the drawings covering the walls. “What about them?”
Hub looked over his shoulder at thirty years worth of artwork, ran his eyes over it, and turned back to Pickering. “You’cn have ’em,” he said easily and tapped his temple with his fingertip. “I got ’em up here.” He stepped out of the cell.
Pickering looked down the walk and called out, “Mr. Morgan?”
Four seconds later they watched the cell door roll over and clang shut.
“Fuckin’ rookie,” Hub said under his breath.
Pickering smiled, and they strode down the walkway with Pickering leading, for the first and last time.
After passing through six locked doors and gates, Hub stepped through the last one and watched as the guard closed it, locked it, and waved adeeos. Thirty years and no blaring band. No tickertape. No family waitin’ with outstretched arms, tears streamin’ down their happy faces. No diploma from Angola U. All they gave him was a paper that said he’d been paroled, but it didn’t mean complete freedom. He’d be on probation for the next ten years. That was a good one. The only reason they let him out was ‘cause he wasn’t gonna see much more o’ this one. They also made him promise he wouldn’t beat nobody else to death. He turned his back to the gate and took in the differences thirty years had made as it paraded by on the street. When he worked on a road gang, they always carted ’em out through the back gates to work the canals and roadsides way out in the sticks. Out of eye and earshot o’ the good, skittery, law abiding folk.
The prison wasn’t on Mars, though. They saw some o’ the life on the outside. They had access to newspapers and magazines and radio. Cars and trucks passed by the worksite, and they saw the changes made in ’em. Modern lookin’ things, probly went like a bat out o’ Hell. Airplanes flew overhead. Now they made ’em out of metal instead o’ wood and varnished cloth. You could go anywhere in the world in one, soaring across the sky like a bird. Hub still had trouble understanding how anything that heavy stayed up in the air.
As part of his parole agreement, they’d lined him up a job working in a shoe factory. He was supposed to start the next Monday morning at 7:00, for thirty-five cents an hour. Yeah. That’s what he wanted to do until he screamed to death. Make shoes. In his pocket was a hundred-and-thirty-eight dollars and eighty-seven cents. That’s what he’d earned in thirty years. A hundred-and-thirty-eight dollars. And eighty-seven cents.
He’d wanted out for thirty years. And now, here he was. Out. And it scared him. From nothin’ but walls, to no walls at all. From bein’ watched twenty-four hours a day to nobody watchin’, nobody seein’ him at all. He looked to the right. Then the left. He finally picked one, the right, hefted his scruffy suitcase and started off. He got about twenty feet when….
“Hub?”
He stopped and looked around. He didn’t see where it’d come from, and he surely hadn’t expected to hear somebody calling out his name three minutes after he got out o’ prison. Hell, maybe somebody had come to see him. Oh, crap! No. It was probly somebody inside. They’d forgotten somethin’ or changed their mind and was callin’ him back. Well, if they had, they could kiss his smelly butt. He was out and he was stayin’ out. He started back to the gate, ready to cuss somebody out. But then….
“Hub Lusaw?”
It hadn’t come from the gate. He looked across the road to the faded, rusting forty-eight Plymouth sedan with a cracked windshield, and saw a gray-haired old broad lookin’ right at him. She looked a second longer, then swung a flabby arm out the window and pushed down the outside door handle with the heel of her hand. Obviously it wouldn’t open from the inside. The door squealed like it was in pain, and she wrestled her bigself out o’ the car. Adjusting her dress, he winced when he noticed the top of her wrinkled stockins rolled up in garters just beneath her knees. She wore what he’d always referred to as clompy, old-woman shoes. She was probly in her early- to mid-fifties, but as saggy and frumpy as she was, it was hard to tell. She reached into the car and drug her purse off the passenger side. She let the door slam, checked for traffic, and started across the street, her big ol’ watery tits sloshin like hammocks in a storm. She lumbered over and stopped in front of him. He noticed she had half a dozen rubberbands looped around her wrist when she backhanded the sweat off he
r forehead. Her earrings were clip-ons. Yellow bananas. Her front teeth were rimmed in gold. The grin on her face said she knew somethin’ he didn’t.
“Who’re you?” he asked, suspiciously. There was somethin’ vaguely familiar about her, but it was so far removed it was far more vague than familiar. He noticed a tiny twitchy rise at the corners of her mouth and a sparkle in her eye.
“Th’mother o’ yr’children.”
That blew him back a step or two, and he couldn’t help but look her over. All over. And there was a lot of all! Holy crap! Was that the frisky little devil he used to fuck ever chance he got? The little wifey? Ex-wifey, he reminded hisself. She gave the term The Old Lady a whole new dimension. If he’d had a cross or even two popsicle sticks, he woulda crossed ’em out in front of him for Divine protection. He was too stunned to try to hide it.
“Yeah, well, you don’t look s’good yerself.”
“You come t’greet me, Rae?” he asked, when he finally got a grip.
“T’greetcha? No. It wasn’t nothin’ I’s lookin’ for’ard to, but somethin’ I felt needed doin’ noneth’less. I wanted t’setcha straight on how things are. I didn know whatcha might ‘r might not know. I remarried. Th’Lord’s blessed me with a good husband this time.”
“Well, remarried, huh? Anybody I know?” He only asked because he was still so shocked in seein’ her he couldn’t think of anything else.
She gave it a second, then, “Sam Dimwiddie.”
“Dimwiddie?” Hub tasted, then the light came on and he took a step back. “Why, that’s th’son of a bitch ‘at convicted me!”
“No,” she corrected him, “th’jury convicted ya. Sam just told ’em whatcha done. But yeah, he’s th’one.”
He looked across the street at the piece-o’-junk Plymouth, then back to her. “He must be doin’ real good t’keep ya in such finery.”
