The Warden's Son

by C. G. Cooper

  I swear the air felt lighter on the outside. I breathed in great gulps of it. Never mind the smell of cheap laundry detergent all around. I was free again.

  The gate passed behind us. The guard went back to whatever it was he was reading. I readied myself for a quick exit. I wasn’t going to give Bruce the chance to go back on his word, no matter what Carlisle said.

  But we didn’t turn right; we went left instead toward the town and a bunch of nothing.

  I thought about jumping from the truck; however, we were going too fast. I’d either kill myself trying or get the world’s worst case of road rash. Neither option felt viable.

  On and on we went. I wanted to move. I wanted to see what Bruce was doing.

  Finally, we slowed, and I got ready to bolt. Worst case, I could walk home from wherever we were.

  The engine gunned again, and plumes of dust kicked up behind us. We were on a back road. Maybe a farm road. Trees appeared the next moment as if we’d gone under a tunnel. It was too early to be this dark.

  I was beginning to move the brown paper wrapped packages of clothing when the pick-up swerved left so suddenly that my head slammed against the side of the truck. I reeled, too dazed to make my escape.

  Bruce was looming over me before I could take a breath. He picked me up by the front of my shirt and hoisted me out of the truck bed.

  “You think you’re a smart little shit, don’t you?” he hissed. “Answer me!”

  I shook my head. “I’m not smart.” The tears were coming.

  “That’s right. You’re not smart. You’re a stupid little fucker that sticks his head into business that isn’t his. I should strangle you and leave you to rot.”

  “Then do it,” I said, barely gasping out the words with his fist pushing against my windpipe.

  “I will!”

  “Do it,” I said again.

  Strange. I had no fear. Yes, I was crying. There was too much anger for my ten-year-old heart to contain, and it threatened to burst from my chest and shook my entire body. I had no other recourse but to cry because of it. However, I wasn’t scared. I was pissed beyond words.

  He stared at me for a long time. I felt the tremble of his body as his jaw moved without speaking as if gnawing on something invisible.

  “You have no idea,” he said. “All the planning. All the goddammed planning.”

  I didn't have the breath to ask him what the hell he was talking about. All I knew was that I was choking, and Bruce wasn’t going to stop. I grabbed his wrists, and that’s when he slammed me against the truck. Whatever oxygen I had left was purged from my lungs in a sharp wheeze.

  I was suddenly scared.

  Chapter Fifty

  I tried to lock glares with him, willing the same fierceness he had in his eyes. Nothing: just the fear that spread to every inch of me. Something warm trickled down my left leg.

  Bruce looked down and grinned.

  “You pissed yourself, you little shit.”

  He held me farther away, and the move gave me more room to breathe. My lungs ached for the O2.

  “Let me go,” I wheezed, snot dripping from my nose.

  Bruce leaned his face in real close, so our foreheads were touching. His ashtray breath overwhelmed my senses.

  “If I ever catch you snooping around again . . .”

  He didn’t have to say more. I saw murder in his eyes.

  “I promise,” I said.

  He let me go with a shove, and it was over.

  Brady Bruce–1.

  Pee-stained-blubber-baby–0.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  He dropped me at the greenhouse without a word. I ran home out of breath, needing the smell and feel of something familiar.

  “Is that you, James?” Mom asked from the kitchen when I came inside.

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  “Where were you today? Your brother was looking for you.”

  “I was just out.”

  Mom never pressed. She must have figured that as long I wasn’t sticking my fingers into light sockets or licking wild toads, I was alright doing whatever it was that boys were supposed to do.

  “Get cleaned up. Supper will be on the table in fifteen minutes.”

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  Luckily, she didn’t come to the living room. Luckily, she didn’t see my soiled pants. Luckily, my dad worked late.

  I made it to my room and hurried to strip down to my underwear. A shower sounded better than heaven.

  Pissed-on pants in hand, I was about to close the bathroom door when Larry appeared.

  “What were you doing with Mr. Bruce?” he said.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  “What are you talking about?” I asked, closing the door so Larry couldn’t see what was in my hands.

  “You were in the back of the truck. Mr. Bruce was driving. Did he take you on a ride?”

  There was no way around this. Larry would forget this very conversation right after we had it, or he would keep bringing it up for days.

  What to say?

  “If I tell you, promise not to tell Mom and Dad?”

  His ran two fingers across his mouth like he was zipping it shut.

  “Mr. Bruce showed me a new hiding spot. Best hiding spot you’ve ever seen. I wanted it to be a surprise, but—“

  “Oh, I won’t say anything, Jimmy. I promise.”

  I looked at him like Mom looked at me when she was sure I was telling a fib. “I don’t believe you.”

  He made an X over his chest. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”

  “Okay. How about we go tomorrow, after school?”

  “Yeah!”

  “Shhh.”

  “Sorry,” he said quieter now. “I promise I won’t tell, Jimmy.”

  “Good. Now go away. I want to take a shower.”

  One problem dealt with so, I closed the door and leaned against it. My head ached. My body had rebelled. My brain kicked like a stubborn mule braying at its master.

  The shower did little to soothe my twisted nerves. It did clean me of my own filth.

  I was careful to rinse my pants, socks, and underwear, so there would be no proof for my over-inquisitive mother. I could hang them outside my bedroom window, and they’d be almost dry by the time Dad came home.

  Just like George Washington, I thought, hiding piss pants from his parents after a day facing down the enemy. I cursed the idea, got dressed, and headed toward supper in a disgraceful, defeated daze.

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  When I got to school the next day, all I wanted to do was tell Kenji about what had happened. But he wasn’t there—not that day or the day after. When I asked the teacher, she said something about a planned absence. Usually, that meant someone was going on a vacation.

  Kenji hadn’t told me about a vacation, and when I tried to call him at home, no one answered. Remember, these were the days before cell phones. If you weren’t at home, you weren’t getting the call.

  Perhaps they’d gone to visit family in Japan. Maybe it was a funeral.

  Death. All I could think about was death.

  My death.

  Larry’s death.

  My parents’ death.

  Morbid? Yes.

  An obsession? Definitely.

  A ten-year-old has no business thinking about death day after day. I knew that, and I tried to ignore the thoughts. They kept coming. I’d see a car passing by the school bus, and I would think that it might be the last time I’d ever see that man driving to work because he was probably going to get hit head-on and die. We’d have a lesson in school about the Civil War, and the only details I could focus on were how many soldiers died in each battle.

  Death surrounded me, strangled me at night, twisting and turning in my dream state, always reaching.

  The good news came on Thursday. I’d stepped off the bus when I saw a familiar form walk around our house.

  “Carlisle!” I almost screamed it, so grateful for someone to talk to. It had been five
days since Kenji had left.

  “Hey, Jimmy.”

  He looked good. Not perfect, but a lot better than before. Like he’d had a few days of rest in a comfy place.

  “James,” said Mom. I swung around to see her standing on the porch with a rolled-up magazine, tapping it in her palm like a nightstick.

  “I’ll get my homework done, Mom.”

  “That’s good. I also need you to watch your brother.”

  “But, Mom—“

  “James, if you want to eat something besides rice and beans, I need to go to the store.”

  Larry came bounding from the house like a puppy off a leash. Mom went back into the house to get ready to leave.

  “Come with me,” Carlisle said with a wink in his voice.

  We followed him to the greenhouse where he set my little brother to building his very own fort in one of the greenhouse beds.

  “Where’d all the plants go?” Larry asked, already making mounds of dirt with his hands.

  “It was time to turn the soil and get ready for next season.”

  Larry didn’t have any response to that. Happy with his army men and dirt, we left him to his task.

  Carlisle and I went to his office. I filled him in as quickly as I could, making sure to include Bruce’s enigmatic statement about “the plan. “

  Carlisle sat and listened quietly, nodding. He was back. Calm and ready for whatever trouble lay ahead. It made me feel ready too. Up until that very moment, I’d been a bundle of jangled nerves.

  I needed a big chug of water after I finished. Carlisle let me swig from the hose. It was all I could do not to swallow the nozzle whole.

  “What do you think?” I asked, panting after my long drink. “Do you think he’ll tell Dad?”

  He rocked back in his seat and thought for a moment, breathing heavily from his nose. I felt like he should have a pipe to puff on, like some wise old professor.

  “No,” he said finally. “Don’t you go telling nobody—no sense in complicating things. But I’m worried about this plan of his. What’s behind it?”

  “And why did he let me go?”

  Carlisle chuckled. “That one’s easy. Too many witnesses. Me. My friends. If anything had happened to you, we’d all know who was responsible. Hell, I’ll bet he was driving like an old granny on the way home to avoid any chance of an accident. If there is anything Brady Bruce cares about more than his own tail, I’d like to see it. No, he wouldn’t take that kind of chance.”

  “So, what do we do?”

  He smiled at me. “I’ll think of something. I promise.” Then he leaned in. “By the way, I’m proud of you.”

  I hung my head. “What for?”

  “You stood up to him.”

  I didn’t have a choice, but I think I understood what he meant.

  “I peed myself,” I said, the shame eating me up. I had to say it. I didn’t deserve the praise Carlisle was giving me. I needed to knock it down a few notches.

  I had expected Carlisle to throw his head back and laugh. He didn’t. I felt him staring.

  “Look at me, Jimmy,” he said solemnly.

  I couldn’t bear to look up. Carlisle repeated the order. With my chin on my chest, I turned my pupils to him.

  His face was as stern as I’d ever seen it. “You did what any man woulda done in the same situation. Now how does that feel?”

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  “Come on, Larry,” I impatiently said as we trudged home.

  He liked to dawdle. Anything to lengthen the time he had with me, but I wasn’t in the mood. Carlisle said he’d come up with something. I wanted that something now.

  Larry picked up a rock and turned it over and over in his palm.

  “Look, Jimmy.”

  “It’s just a rock.”

  “No, it isn’t. Maybe there’s a diamond inside.”

  “No diamonds around here.”

  “You don’t know everything there is to know.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  That stopped him dead in his tracks, hands on his hips.

  “Take your hands off your hips,” I said. “You look like you’re in a bikini contest.”

  “I’m telling Mom you’re mean to me.”

  “Go ahead and tell her.”

  “I will!”

  I exhaled my frustration. The adrenaline rush of my meeting with Carlisle was blowing away like an untied balloon. I bent down to look him in the eye. “I’m sorry. Can you hurry up? I’m hungry.”

  He grinned and grabbed my hand. As much as I was not in the mood for his shenanigans, I was equally not in the mood for the whole loving big brother thing.

  We’d rounded the house when a new station wagon pulled down the drive.

  Denny Bell stuck his head out the window. “Hey, boys!”

  “Hello, Mr. Bell.”

  “How many times do I have to tell you, Jimmy? It’s Denny. Remember?”

  There was nothing but airy kindness in his tone. I saw a figure shifting in the passenger seat, and it was Mrs. Bell. It looked like she was asleep. Denny cast her a look of concern, as if for my benefit.

  “Mrs. Bell isn’t feeling too hot. Baby’s coming soon. Anyway, better get going. You boys have a good night.”

  “Byyyye, Dennyyyy,” Larry sang.

  I watched the station wagon drive off. Paper tags. New car. Cool. I wanted a new car. I bet Denny’s air conditioning worked. Not like ours, always blowing hot air on the days that we needed arctic cold, not to mention the radio station tuned to staticky boredom.

  Larry was distracted again. I was about to tell him to hurry up when something caught my eye. A solitary figure. Upon the wall. My body turned to ice.

  I grabbed Larry’s hand and ran the rest of the way home.

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  “No!”

  Blackness consumed me. I tried to gulp in air as I twisted and turned.

  It took me a minute to come out of it.

  Fourth nightmare of the night.

  Apparently, Mom thought two nightmares was enough. She hadn’t come in the third time either. Maybe I wasn’t screaming as loudly.

  I spent the rest of the early morning staring up at the ceiling, imagining.

  Brady Bruce watching me.

  Brady Bruce following me.

  Brady Bruce killing me.

  By the time the sun peeked through my curtains, I was half-convinced that Bruce would be waiting for me in the bathroom.

  No Bruce in the bathroom.

  It was terrible having the bastard in my head. At least if he was physically there, I could shut out the sight of him by closing my eyes.

  I managed to get through the rest of the night without another nightmare. I successfully programmed myself to dream about riding Marauder into battle, flanked by an army and destroying Brady Bruce, the despotic ruler of Bruceland, once and for all.

  That morning, Kenji still wasn’t at school. When I again asked my teacher, she gave me a look that said, “Don't ask me again because I don't know, and I don't get paid enough to find out.”

  The day dragged on, and I lugged my way with it. I ate lunch alone now. That’s hard to do when the cafeteria is packed, but I found a way. No eye contacts. No words. The others got the idea. They let me be. I’ve since heard that it’s the same with new prisoners. Inside every man is the body language of self-imposed loneliness waiting to be employed for survival.

  We’d just gotten back to the classroom when the counselor poked her curly head inside the door jamb.

  “May I have James Allen, please?”

  The teacher waved me to follow.

  I figured it had something to do with my behavior. I wasn’t playing the game. I was a loner now, an outcast, stamped “defective.”

  “Bring your things, please, Mr. Allen,” the counselor said.

  I ignored the stares. They probably thought I was being committed. The crazy kid finally gets carted-off to the looney bin.

  I followed her clickety-clack h
eels down the hallway, ignored by the counselor.

  When we got to the office, the principal was there. He was a beanpole of a man with legs like yardsticks in slacks.

  “James, your mother is on the way.”

  “Am I in trouble?”

  “No. You’re not in trouble.”

  “Then why am I going home?”

  “Your mother is coming to pick you up. She’ll explain when she gets here.”

  These masters of public relations plopped me onto a stool in a corner without further explanation. I watched the clock’s minute hand click from space to space. I'd never noticed how thick the black lines on a clock were.

  It took Mom a good thirty minutes to arrive. When she did, she looked a mess. Her customary makeup was nowhere in sight, and her eyes, rimmed in red.

  “Oh, James,” she said, rushing in to hug me.

  “What is it, Mom?” I was feeling that panicky feeling now. I‘d convinced myself that there was a problem at the prison. Maybe an escape. Dad liked to get us all together when that happened. Surround us with guards, and we were okay.

  But Mom never cried at a prison break.

  She pulled me to my feet. “I’ll tell you in the car.”

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  “James, Kenji is sick,” she said and bit her bottom lip while she drove.

  “Okay,” I said.

  She looked at me in the rearview. “It’s not good.”

  “Okay,” I repeated.

  Again, the rearview look. “Do you know why I picked you up from school?”

  I shrugged.

  She made a noise of quiet frustration and drummed on the steering wheel for a moment, Then, Mom pulled the car over and put it in park. She leaned her arm over the seat and looked me in the eye. “Schools don’t normally let you go home when your friend is just plain sick, right? You know that.”

  Now the realization began. My death dreams came back in a rush.