‘Much obliged.’
Audie sits in the shade and takes off his boots, gingerly fingering his blisters and the cuts on his hands. More trucks pass through the gate, leaving full, returning empty.
Ernie is a talker. ‘I used to be a short-order cook until I retired,’ he says. ‘I make twice that now, because of the boom.’
‘What boom?’
‘Oil and gas, it’s big news. Ever heard of Eagle Ford Shale?’
Audie shakes his head.
‘It’s this sedimentary rock formation, runs right under South and East Texas, and its full of marine fossils from some ancient ocean. That’s what makes the oil. And there’s natural gas trapped down there in the rocks. They just got to dig it up.’
Ernie makes it sound so easy.
Just before dusk a pickup truck arrives from the other direction. It’s the night guard. Ernie hands him the keys to padlock the boom gate. Audie waits in the Dodge. He wonders what the two men are talking about and tries not to get paranoid. Ernie returns and climbs behind the wheel. They negotiate the rutted track and swing east onto Farm to Market Road. The windows are open. Ernie dips his head to light a cigarette, holding the wheel with his elbows. He yells above the rushing air, telling Audie how he lives with his daughter and his grandson. They got a house just outside of Pleasanton, which he pronounces ‘Pledenten’.
To their west a jungle of clouds has swallowed the sun before it dips below the horizon. It’s like watching a flame burn through a soggy piece of newspaper. Audie leans his elbow on the windowsill and keeps watch for roadblocks or police cruisers. He should be clear of them by now, but he doesn’t know how long they’ll keep looking for him.
‘Where are you fixing on spending tonight?’ asks Ernie.
‘Haven’t decided.’
‘There’s a few motels in Pleasanton, but I never stayed in any of ’em. Never had the need. You got cash?’
Audie nods.
‘You should call your girl – say you’re sorry.’
‘She’s long gone.’
Ernie drums his fingers on the steering wheel. ‘I can’t offer more than a bunk in the barn, but it’s cheaper than a motel and my daughter is a good cook.’
Audie makes noises about declining, but knows he can’t risk checking into a motel because they’ll ask him for identification. Police will have posted his photograph by now.
‘That’s settled then,’ says Ernie, reaching for the radio. ‘You want to listen to some music?’
‘No,’ says Audie, too abruptly. ‘Let’s just talk.’
‘Fair enough.’
A few miles south of Pleasanton, the truck pulls up in front of a gaunt house beside a barn and a stunted grove of cottonwood trees. The engine dies clumsily and a dog wanders across the dirt yard, sniffing at Audie’s boots.
Ernie is out of the truck, mounting the steps, calling out that he’s home.
‘We got a guest for supper, Rosie.’
In the depths of an open hall, a light shows from the kitchen where a woman is standing over the stove. Broad-hipped with a round, pretty face, her skin is a milky brown and her eyes elongated, more Indian than Mexican. She’s wearing a faded print dress and bare feet.
She looks at Audie and back to her father. ‘Why are you telling me?’
‘He’ll want to eat and you’re doing the cooking.’
She turns back to the stove where meat hisses in a frying pan. ‘Yeah, I do the cooking.’
The old man grins at Audie. ‘Best get you washed up. I’ll find you some clean clothes. Rosie can wash those later.’ He turns to his daughter. ‘Where do you keep Dave’s old clothes?’
‘In that box beneath my bed.’
‘Can we find sumpin’ for this fella?’
‘Do what you like.’
Audie is shown to the shower and given a fresh set of clothes. He stands under the hot spray for a long time, letting the water turn his skin pink. Luxuriating. Daydreaming. Prison showers were truncated, regulated and dangerous activities that never made him feel cleaner.
Dressed in another man’s clothes, he combs his hair with his fingers and retraces his steps along the hallway. He can hear a TV. A reporter is talking about the prison escape. Audie looks cautiously through the open door and sees the TV screen.
‘Audie Spencer Palmer was nearing the end of a ten-year sentence for an armoured truck robbery in Dreyfus County, Texas, in which four people died. Authorities believe he scaled two fences using bed sheets from the prison laundry after short-circuiting one of the alarm systems with a chewing gum wrapper…’
A young boy is sitting on the rug in front of the TV. He’s playing with a box of toy soldiers. He glances up at Audie and then at the screen. The story has changed. A weather girl is pointing to a map.
Audie squats on his haunches. ‘Howdy.’
The boy nods.
‘What’s your name?’
‘Billy.’
‘What game are you playing, Billy?’
‘Soldiers.’
‘Who’s winning?’
‘Me.’
Audie laughs and Billy doesn’t understand. Rosie calls from the kitchen. Supper is ready.
‘You hungry, Billy?’
He nods.
‘We best hurry or it might all be gone.’
Rosie makes a final survey of the table, putting a knife, fork and plate in front of Audie, her arm brushing his shoulder. She sits and motions to Billy to say grace. The boy mumbles the words, but says ‘amen’ clearly. Plates are passed, food spooned, speared and consumed. Ernie asks questions, until Rosie tells him to ‘be quiet and let the man eat’.
Occasionally, she sneaks a glance at Audie. She has changed her dress since before dinner. This one is newer and hugs her a little tighter.
When the meal is finished, the men retire to the porch, while Rosie clears away the table and washes and dries the dishes and wipes the benches clean and makes sandwiches for tomorrow. Audie can hear Billy reciting his alphabet.
Ernie smokes a cigarette and props his feet on the porch railing.
‘So what are your plans?’
‘I got kin in Houston.’
‘You want to call them?’
‘I went west about ten years ago. Lost touch.’
‘Difficult to lose touch with people these days – you must have really made an effort.’
‘Guess I did.’
Rosie has been standing inside the doorway listening to them. Ernie yawns and stretches, saying he’s about to hit the sack. He shows Audie to the bunkhouse in the barn and wishes him goodnight. Audie spends a moment out of doors looking at the stars. He’s about to turn away when he notices Rosie standing in the shadows near a rainwater tank.
‘Who are you really?’ she asks, accusingly.
‘A stranger who appreciates your kindness.’
‘If you’re fixin’ to rob us, we don’t have any money.’
‘I just need somewhere to sleep.’
‘You told Daddy a pack of lies about your girlfriend running off. You been here three hours and you haven’t asked to use the phone. Why are you really here?’
‘I’m trying to keep a promise to someone.’
Rosie makes a scoffing noise. She is motionless, half in shadow and half out.
‘Who do these clothes belong to?’ Audie asks.
‘My husband.’
‘Where is he?’
‘He found someone he liked better ’n me.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Why? It ain’t your fault.’ She looks past Audie into the darkness. ‘He said I got fat. Didn’t want to touch me any more.’
‘I think you’re beautiful.’
She takes Audie’s hand and places it on her breast. He can feel her heart beating. Then she raises her face, pushing her lips against his. The kiss is hard, hungry, verging on desperation. He can taste her hurt.
Breaking her grip, Audie holds her at arm’s length, looking into her eyes. Then he kisses her fore
head.
‘Good night, Rosie.’
4
Prison tried to kill Audie Palmer every day. Awake. Asleep. Eating. Showering. Circling the exercise yard. Through every season, scorching in summer, freezing in winter, rarely in between, prison tried to kill Audie Palmer, but somehow he survived.
To Moss’s mind, Audie seemed to exist in a parallel universe where not even the worst of deeds could alter his demeanour. Moss had seen movies about people returned from Heaven or Hell because something in their life had been left undone. He wondered if maybe Audie had been sent back from Hell because of some glitch in the devil’s bookkeeping or a case of mistaken identity. If that was so, a man might appreciate penitentiary life because he had witnessed so much worse.
Moss first set eyes on Audie when the young man walked up the ramp with all the other new arrivals. As long as a football field with cells on either side, the ramp was a cavernous place with a waxed floor and fluorescent lighting that buzzed overhead. The mainline prison population watched from the cells, catcalling and whistling at the fish. All at once the cell doors opened and people spilled out. This only happened once a day when it was like rush hour on the subway. Prisoners were settling accounts, placing orders, collecting contraband or looking for targets. It was a good time to draw blood and get away with it.
It didn’t take long for someone to discover Audie. Normally, he’d be news because he was young and good-looking, but folks were more interested in the money. There were seven million reasons to befriend Audie or to beat the shit out of him.
Within hours of his arrival, his name had spread on the prison grapevine. He should have been shitting bricks or begging to get into The Hole, but instead Audie calmly paced the exercise yard where a thousand men had paced a million paces before. Audie was no gangster or wiseguy or killer. He didn’t pretend otherwise and that was always going to be his problem. He had no pedigree. No protection. To survive in a penitentiary, a man needs to form alliances, join a gang, or find a protector. He can’t afford to be pretty, or soft, or rich.
Moss watched all this from a distance, curious but with no skin in the game. Most fish tried to make a statement early, marking territory or warning off predators. Kindness is seen as a weakness. Compassion. Benevolence. Toss food in the trash before you let another man take it from you. Never offer your place in the queue.
The Dice Man tried it on first. He offered to get Audie some prison hooch. Audie declined politely. The Dice Man tried a different approach. He upended Audie’s chow tray as he walked past his table. Audie looked at the puddle of gravy, mashed potato and chicken. Then he raised his eyes to the Dice Man. Some of the other cons laughed. Dice Man seemed to grow six inches. Audie didn’t say a word. He crouched down and began scooping up the mushed-up food, putting it back on his tray.
People cleared back a little, sliding along benches. They all seemed to be waiting for something, like passengers in a stopped train. Audie was still squatting on the floor, picking up food, ignoring everyone. It was like he inhabited a space of his own creation, outside the thinking of other folks, a place that lesser men can only dream of reaching.
The Dice Man looked at his shoes. Gravy had splashed on them.
‘Lick it off,’ he said.
Audie sighed wearily. ‘I know what you’re doing.’
‘What’s that?’
‘You’re trying to goad me into fighting or rolling over, but I don’t want to fight you. I don’t even know your name. You’ve started something and you think you can’t back down, but you can. Nobody is going to think less of you. No one is laughing.’
Audie stood up. He was still holding the tray.
‘Do any of you think this man is funny?’ he shouted.
He asked the question so earnestly Moss could see people giving it some serious thought. The Dice Man looked around like he’d lost his place on the page. He swung a punch at Audie because that was his usual fall-back position. In the blink of an eye, Audie had swung the tray into the side of the Dice Man’s head. Of course that only provoked him. He roared forward but Audie was faster. He drove the corner of the tray into the Dice Man’s throat with such force that he dropped him to his knees where he curled onto the floor, struggling to breathe. The guards arrived and took the Dice Man to the prison hospital.
Moss thought Audie had some sort of death wish, but that wasn’t the case. Prison is full of people who believe the world doesn’t exist apart from in their own minds. They can’t imagine life outside the walls, so they bring their own world into being. A man is nothing inside. He’s a grain of sand under somebody’s shoe, a flea on a dog, a pimple on the buttocks of a fat man. The biggest mistake a man can make in prison is to believe he matters at all.
Each morning it began again. Audie must have fought a dozen men the first day and another dozen the second. By lockdown, he’d been bashed so badly that he couldn’t chew and both of his eyes were like purple plums.
On the fourth day, the Dice Man had sent word from the prison hospital that he wanted Audie Palmer dead. His gang made the arrangements. That evening, Moss took his chow tray to the table where Audie was sitting alone.
‘Can I sit down?’
‘It’s a free country,’ mumbled Audie.
‘It’s not though,’ replied Moss. ‘Not when you’ve been in prison as long as I have.’
The two men ate in silence until Moss said what he came to say. ‘They’re going to kill you in the morning. Maybe you should ask Grayson to put you in The Hole.’
Audie raised his eyes above Moss’s head as though reading something in the air, and said, ‘I can’t do that.’
Moss thought Audie was being naïve or stupidly brave or maybe he wanted to die. This wasn’t a struggle over missing money. Nobody in prison can spend seven million dollars – not with the worst drug habit or need for protection. And it wasn’t about the small stuff like chocolate bars or extra soap. In prison, you fuck up, you die. You look at a person the wrong way … you die. You sit at the wrong table at chow time … you die. You walk on the wrong side of the corridor or the exercise yard, or make too much noise when you’re eating … you die. Petty. Stupid. Unlucky. Fatal.
There were codes to be lived by, but these were not to be mistaken for any sense of camaraderie. Incarceration put people close together but it didn’t bring them together, it didn’t unify.
The next morning at eight-thirty the doors opened and the ramp filled. The Dice Man’s troops were waiting. They’d given the job to a newcomer, who had a fibreglass shank hidden up his sleeve. The others were stationed as lookouts or to help him ditch the weapon. The fish was going to be gutted like a fish.
Moss didn’t want any part of it, but there was something about Audie that intrigued him. Anybody else would have surrendered or kowtowed or begged to be put in solitary. Anybody else would have looped a bed sheet around the bars. Audie was either the dumbest sonbitch in history or the bravest. What did he see in the world that nobody else did?
Prisoners had spilled out of the cells and pretended to be doing business but mostly they were waiting. Audie didn’t appear. Maybe he’d taken his own way out, thought Moss, but then came the crashing symbols and a thumping baseline of ‘Eye of the Tiger’ turned up loud, blaring from Audie’s cell.
He appeared, bare-chested, dressed in boxer shorts, long socks and trainers darkened with bootblack. Dancing on his toes, throwing shadow punches, he had a sock on each fist stuffed with toilet paper to look like enormous boxing gloves. With his face beaten to a pulp, he looked like Rocky Balboa coming out to fight Apollo Creed in the fifteenth round.
The kid with the shank didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Audie danced and jabbed, ducked and weaved, wearing those ridiculous gloves. But then a strange thing happened. Niggas started laughing. Niggas started clapping. Niggas started singing. When the song finished playing, they carried Audie above their heads like he’d won the heavyweight title of the world.
That’s the day that Moss be
st remembers when he thinks of Audie Palmer – watching him dance out of that cell, throwing punches at phantoms, ducking and weaving at shadows. It wasn’t the beginning of something or the end of something, but Audie had found a way to survive.
Of course folks still wanted to know about the money, even the guards, who had grown up in the same dirt-poor projects as the men they were watching, which left them open to bribery and smuggling contraband. Some of the female correctional officers suggested Audie transfer funds into their bank accounts in return for sexual favours. These were women who could eat their own weight in burgers, but who started looking mighty fine after a few years inside.
Audie refused their offers. Not once in ten years did he ever mention the robbery or the money. He didn’t lead anyone on, or make any promises. Instead he conveyed a sense of calm and equanimity, like a man who had banished from his life all superfluous sentiment, all longings and all patience for the nonessential. He was like Yoda, Buddha and the Gladiator all rolled into one.
5
A beam of sunlight settles on Audie’s eyelid and he tries to flick it away like an insect. The light comes back and he hears a giggle. Billy is holding a small mirror and angling the sun through the open barn door.
‘I can see you,’ says Audie.
Billy ducks down and giggles again. He’s wearing tattered shorts and a T-shirt that’s too big for him.
‘What time is it?’ Audie asks.
‘After breakfast.’
‘Shouldn’t you be at school?’
‘It’s Saturday.’
So it is, thinks Audie, rising to his hands and knees. At some point during the night he rolled off the bunk and curled up on the floor, which felt more familiar than a mattress.
‘Did you fall out of bed?’ asks Billy.
‘I guess I did.’
‘I used to fall out of bed but I don’t any more. Ma says I outgrowed it.’
Audie emerges into the sunlit yard and washes his face at a pumpjack. It was dark last night when he arrived. Now he can see a clutch of small, unpainted houses surrounded by rusting vehicles, spare parts, a water trough, a windmill and a woodpile stacked against a crumbling stone wall. A small black boy is riding a bicycle that’s too big for him, sitting on the frame to reach the pedals, navigating between fluttering chickens.
Life or Death Page 3
