by Nesly Clerge
The house was wood-framed, on piers, and had been built in the late 1920s in a neighborhood filled with similar houses, along with apartment buildings. Three drooping wooden steps led to the tiny front porch. The exterior that had been painted white, back when someone cared, was covered in grime. Black paint flaked off the doors and shutters that sagged. Weeds neither of them wanted to deal with grew at the edge of the house but stopped where the packed dirt of their postage stamp-sized yard began. Rotting garbage littered the streets and sidewalks most days. Brackish water often pooled by drains no one bothered to clear. It was low-end living, for sure, but fit their restricted budget.
Gunshots, police sirens, and loud fights that went on nearly every night and especially on weekends kept him awake when he desperately needed sleep. Not Kayla, though; she could sleep through any noise, which he many times told her was annoying. She’d shrug and tell him she was sorry he couldn’t sleep but wasn’t sorry that she could.
The cocker spaniel Kayla had begged him for shared their space, oblivious to its surroundings and their struggles. She’d named the dog Fristo. Starks rubbed the scar, remembering how close they’d come to losing the frisky puppy when the pit bull owned by a guy, Devin, who lived up the street, had gotten loose and attacked the spaniel. In trying to pull the dogs apart, the pit bull sunk its teeth into his hand. The trip to the E.R. had taken all but the last thirty dollars in their account, too many days before more funds would come in. The dog’s owner was apologetic and promised to pay all expenses if Starks would please leave the police out of it so his dog wouldn’t be destroyed. Devin’s promise was a lie.
So much of his life had been a lie.
If I had a scar for every lie Kayla’s told me and the pain she’s caused…
It was unimaginable.
But so was everything that had happened since and was happening now.
CHAPTER 39
ONE THING THAT wasn’t a lie was an event that should have sealed their bond as a couple. Thought of that experience and the fear he’d felt for their safety sent shivers through him. No way could he have anticipated then that in the future, his escape from that element was temporary; that one day he’d be living among them; that he’d be considered one of them.
The gas gauge in Starks’s Chevy had red-arrowed on empty while he was driving home.
If he used the bus as often as possible or car-pooled, he could afford to put five gallons in the tank, just in case, and fill it up when more money came in next week. He was okay about doing that, not that he had a choice.
The local convenience store with gas pumps was a half mile from their house and in an even worse neighborhood than where they lived. He was careful to grip and release the nozzle so that no more than those calculated gallons went into his fuel tank. He went inside, grabbed a couple packs of ramen noodles then stood second in line at the register, anxious to get out as quickly as possible.
A yard and a half away and to his left, a man keyed in numbers onto the ATM pad.
The glass door near the ATM opened. A young Caucasian teen wearing dark sunglasses and a hooded sweatshirt entered and glanced around, tapped at a few bags of chips but didn’t pick one. The teen approached the ATM just as the machine dispensed the cash.
“Gimme the cash,” he told the man.
“Fuck off.” The ATM man slammed his right fist into the teen’s jaw.
The teen pulled a .38 from under his sweatshirt and fired three times. Three twenties drifted to the floor. He scooped up the blood-splattered bills and ran out.
Behind the counter, the employee yelled into the phone, “Police! Shooting at—”
That was all Starks heard as he rushed out behind the thief. He jumped into his Chevy parked behind a truck at the other pump. Car in reverse gear he punched the gas pedal, burned rubber, and took out a post near the Do Not Enter sign.
He slammed on the brakes when he pulled into the dirt yard at his house, sending his satchel to the floorboard.
Starks grabbed his satchel and ran toward the door, where Kayla waited for him.
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
“Lock the door.”
“Tell me—”
“Lock the damn door. We’ve got to get the hell out of this neighborhood. I’ve got to find a way. Now.”
“Tell me what happened.”
“I just saw a man get shot. At close range. I’m pretty sure he was killed.”
“Are you okay? Were you hurt?”
“Damn lucky I didn’t get shot.” His breaths were shallow. “Damn it!” He began to pace. “It was such a cold-blooded act. By a kid a few years from needing a shave. For sixty fucking dollars.”
He hurried around in the small house making sure everything was closed and locked. Fristo, wanting to join the game, yapped and danced and followed Starks as he moved from room to room.
Kayla followed as well. “You’re scaring me.”
“I’m sorry. I just want you—us—to be safe. If anything had happened to me, you’d be here, in this wretched place, alone. Without my protection. Bad enough you’re here at times by yourself.”
“I know this is upsetting, but you need to calm down. Would you like some tea?”
“Damn it!”
“What now?”
“I dropped the noodles in the store. We don’t have anything to eat.”
“We have milk, cereal, bread, peanut butter. But I can go get a few groceries if you’d like.”
“Hell no. I don’t want you going out.” He rubbed his forehead. “Besides, we don’t have enough money. There’s only eleven dollars and change in the account. Who knows what we may need it for before more money comes in next week.”
“Strip.”
“Huh?”
“Go to the bedroom and take off your clothes.” She took his hand and pulled him after her. “You need to relax. We both do. Then we’ll dine on cereal or peanut butter sandwiches, or both, by candlelight.”
“Kayla, I’m the luckiest man alive.”
It took several months of scrimping and working overtime, but they finally moved into an apartment in a town an hour away from his school in Houston. The neighborhood seemed to have nice-enough people in it and no crime to speak of.
Starks carpooled to the city to save even more money. Kayla got a sales job in a local upscale clothing store, earning more than she ever had, and she enjoyed the employee discounts. Sometimes too much.
But there was something she didn’t like.
“I can’t take your hours anymore,” she told him. “You’re out of the house by five thirty every morning. You don’t get home until after midnight. You work weekends. All this and we still don’t have enough money. And we never have any fun anymore.”
“For now, it’s necessary.”
The blue glass vase she’d gotten from the dollar store—the vase she’d months ago stopped putting fresh flowers into once a week to brighten the apartment—shattered and sent shards flying when it hit the wall.
“This sucks, Starks. All of it.”
He ran his hand through his hair and said, “It’s the only thing that sucks around here these days.”
Kayla twirled to face him. “You bastard. I handle everything around here. You think I have the energy for that? You think you deserve that?”
Starks glanced around at all the housework that wasn’t being done. At her new outfit. At her fresh manicure and pedicure, which he knew she hadn’t done herself.
“Damn it, Kayla. I’m doing the best I can. I know you’re working, too, but I’m the one who pretty much gets home with time to shit, shower, and shave before I have to leave again.”
She kicked at the broken glass. “This is not the life you promised me. How long will we have to live like this?” She collapsed, sobbing, to the floor.
He lifted her up, cradling her in his arms.
“I know it’s not easy. I promise you that one day these tough times will pay off.”
“You’d better be r
ight because I can’t go on like this much longer.”
CHAPTER 40
THE PAPERWORK HAD taken months to fill out, submit, and be assessed, but Starks and Kayla received financial aid to attend Stanford University.
In response to Starks’s query about a place to live, plus his hesitant comment about their finances, his guidance counselor said, “I know someone with an affordable place in Foster City. It’s only fourteen miles from Stanford, give or take. It’ll fit your budget. If you’d like, I can line it up for you.”
They rented a do-it-yourself moving truck, hooked up the one car they kept to the back, and made the trip in three days. The sale of the other car provided enough money for moving expenses, the deposit and first month’s rent for the one-bedroom efficiency apartment located not too far from one of the lagoons, and enough to tide them over for two weeks, if they were careful.
By the end of their first week there, each of them had found a job that worked with their school schedules. It would be tight no matter what, money-wise, but they’d be able to make it. Starks had created a strict budget they agreed to adhere to.
Near the end of the fourth month, Starks sat at the Formica-covered counter that separated their miniscule kitchen from the only slightly larger living room. The bank statement, checkbook register, and pocket calculator were in front of him. He checked the numbers twice then covered his face with his hands.
“We’re overdrawn by thirty-eight dollars.”
“That’s not too bad,” Kayla said. “I’m getting paid soon. We’ll be fine.”
“You don’t get paid until next week. Rent’s due three days from now.” He threw the pencil down. “The late fee is a hundred bucks. A hundred bucks we don’t have to spare. And there’re the overdraft fees.”
“Maybe we can get the landlord to excuse the late fee. It’s our first time to be late.”
Starks shook his head in frustration. It wasn’t the first time rent was late but he hadn’t wanted to scare her the other times. The late fees were killing them, as was her disregard for the budget.
He exhaled and said, “Sometimes I feel like I’m down a well with no way out. But I’ll figure something out.”
“You’re so good at that, baby.”
How could he stay angry with her when she believed in him so much?
The next day he saw a flyer on the community board in the student union: Car title loans. He grabbed the flyer and hurried to his car. It was worth it to skip a class or two.
Twelve hundred dollars and a thirty-day loan with hefty interest later, he paid the rent and other bills in person, and in cash. He treated a delighted Kayla to a candlelit dinner that night at a nice restaurant overlooking the water. The rest of the money was deposited into their checking account. They enjoyed a lobster a piece, and he relaxed, knowing this would be their easiest month since they’d been together.
The first of the month he went to the bank to cash a check for twenty dollars—the weekly allowance he split with Kayla. He requested a printed receipt with his account balance on it, headed for the door to leave then stopped. The balance amount couldn’t be right. He got back in line and requested a printout of his account transactions.
“Oh God.”
“Are you all right, Mr. Starks?” the teller asked.
He shook his head, his breaths coming fast, and left without answering.
Kayla had, yet again, forgotten to give him receipts so he could enter the amounts onto the check register, or to check with him before she spent, as she’d agreed to. The first loan payment was due, as was the rent. The funds to pay both weren’t there. He could pay one or the other.
His grandfather’s words echoed in his mind: “It’s the man’s job to handle expenses. A woman shouldn’t be made to stress about such things.”
He took out a new loan with the old principal added on, keeping this new loan hidden from Kayla, just as he had the original one. She didn’t want to be bothered with such details, as she’d reminded him when he’d previously chided her about their budget.
Nor would he include her in such decisions that were his alone.
I’ll think of something, he told himself.
***
Sitting in solitary at Sands, he brooded at how consistently Kayla had ignored his repeated requests to do what was needed to keep them out of the hole that kept getting deeper.
Could he really fault her for not doing better? After all, he’d failed to learn his lesson regarding her, and here he was, in a different kind of hole.
One he couldn’t buy his way out of.
Then he recalled the glimmer of an idea he’d had recently and forgotten about. He glanced up at the spider’s web. His foggy mental image was gradually taking shape, its edges beginning to sharpen.
CHAPTER 41
THE CUFF ON the steel door opened.
“Dinner. Get it now or it’s going on the floor.”
Starks sprinted to the door. He caught the tray just as it was about to topple forward. Slop again. A far cry from the lobsters he and Kayla had enjoyed that night long ago and all the times since. He’d been so proud about how he’d handled all those tricky money situations back then.
Maybe Demory had a point about pride; though, the counselor certainly didn’t know the whole story.
The men of his family were all about pride. How could he or anyone expect him to be any different? It had been drilled into his mind that the man ruled the house. That responsibility came with ruling, no matter who, no matter what, was ruled. How could a man with no pride ever fulfill such obligations? Surely one required the other. Didn’t it?
Yes, he was a proud man. Or had been.
Maybe there’s more than one kind of pride, he thought.
This was a consideration he’d never made before. Had the wrong kind of pride been his undoing, cost him everything?
No. Kayla was at fault.
What had she been thinking, for Christ’s sake? She’d listened to friends and family, even when their advice went against common sense, but balked at the idea of him telling her what she needed to do.
She should have known her place, as he had.
He picked up the bread roll on his tray, bit into it. Stale. Still, he chewed.
All he’d ever tried to do was make sure she had the life she wanted, and help her enjoy it, as well as do whatever it took to put them in good standing in their community.
His grandfather had told him that one of his responsibilities, especially once he’d become successful, was to help others, beyond just his family. He’d helped others. Lots of others. Lewis Mason, for one. Brilliant chemist, frail geek, annoying as hell. The man had gotten six years in Waltgate, in upstate New York, known to be one of the worst prisons anywhere. Mason had been sentenced for drug trafficking. It should have been for operating without any street sense. He’d begged Starks to help him avoid a heavy sentence.
He’d discussed with his grandfather whether he should or shouldn’t help Mason.
“Freddy, you don’t know when you’ll need other people. When you help others, they owe you.”
So he’d hired the best lawyers, practically funded Mason’s entire defense. The little genius owed him, big-time. Mason had put his Purdue smarts to use at Waltgate and had become a force to reckon with. That made him the perfect person to offer advice about how to survive prison.
Jeffery was the only one he’d trust to contact Mason. But that meant he had to call Jeffrey
Two days before, he’d asked about using the phone and was told not as long as he was in isolated confinement, unless it was to call his attorney. That wouldn’t work. He didn’t want Parker asking questions.
Starks forced himself to eat the beans in congealed broth.
He feared going back into general population, but knew he had to. He was too restricted in here. After all, he was a target no matter where he was. Mason could tell him something that was useful, he was sure of it.
Next time he saw Demory, he’d ask
him to call Jeffrey, or see if the counselor could arrange for him to make the call. He’d also ask Demory to recommend he be removed from solitary confinement. The sooner the better.
His brows drew together, his mouth turned downward. Putting his fate into the hands of others was not the way he’d been taught to live. Not the way he had lived.
One more discomforting feeling to add to the growing list.
CHAPTER 42
“UP AND AT ’em, Starks. Time for your hour in the cage.”
Jakes and Simmons again.
He held his wrists out, grimacing when Jakes slapped the cuffs on. “I haven’t seen Officer Landers around. Is he on vacation? Sick-leave?”
Jakes secured the restraints and said, “Not your business.”
Starks shuffled to the door then stopped. He looked right then left.
Simmons shoved him into the corridor. “You don’t have to look both ways here. This isn’t a street corner.”
During the walk through the corridors, Starks resisted checking behind him. The days of getting even minimum pleasure from being in fresh air and moving with more freedom seemed over. At least for now. The possibility he could be rushed at from the back, could be stabbed in the back, gnawed at him, as it had since the threat from the gang member. Bo staring him down during his outdoor time added to his fear.
This was not paranoia, he told himself; this was facing facts.
This time, however, neither Bo nor any recognizable member of his gang were outside at the same time.
Most of his shots made it through the hoop.
Maybe things were looking up.
***
Demory studied Starks for several moments.
“You look less upset today,” he said.
Starks rested back in the chair, stretched his legs out in front of him.
“I’m not doing too bad, all things considered.”
“Glad to hear it. Ready to start?”
“Ready when you are.”
