The Free (P.S.)

by Willy Vlautin

  “I have good news for a change, Mora. I’m going to get my girls back. Marie wants me to take them. She called a few hours ago. You were right. She can’t handle it.”

  A large delivery truck pulled up next to them and four men got out and headed for the donut shop. She stood back up. “Geez, I’m happy for you, Freddie. You know I was praying you’d get a break and now you have one.”

  “I can’t believe it either. But you better go,” he said.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said and drove off.

  He parked his car at Logan’s to see three paint vans already in front, waiting. He apologized and opened eight minutes late. He handled the morning rush and drank cup after cup of coffee to stay awake. At 11:00 a semi-truck backed to the dock and delivered two pallets of paint. He checked them in and began restocking the retail floor. At twenty minutes to noon Pat parked his black Ford F-250 pickup in the lot and came in the front doors carrying a liter of Dr Pepper and a frozen turkey and mashed-potato TV dinner.

  “How was it this morning?” he asked.

  “Jenson bought five hundred worth of Super Spec and I finally got the Oldham brothers out of Sherwin-Williams. They came in a half-hour ago.”

  “What did they buy?”

  “Eight hundred dollar’s worth of primer.”

  “That’s good,” he said. “Darn, that’s really good.”

  “The margin wasn’t the best, but I got them here. If I can get them to stay, I can start easing the margin back again.”

  Pat set his lunch in the refrigerator and took off his leather aviator coat and hung it on a hook by his office door. He cleared his throat. “If anyone calls for me tell, them I’m in a meeting and I’ll call them back.”

  “Alright, Pat, but before you go I was hoping to ask you something.”

  “What is it?” he said and went to the remaining box of donuts. He took out a maple bar and a twist and filled a cup with coffee.

  “I was hoping I could get an advance on my paycheck. To tell you the truth, Pat, I’m in a serious jam. I might even need a loan for a couple months. Not much, maybe a thousand dollars? I’m getting my kids back but I don’t have enough money to fly them up from Las Vegas. It’s an emergency or I wouldn’t ask.”

  Pat coughed but he didn’t answer. He just took a bite of the maple bar and washed it down with coffee.

  Freddie waited for him to speak, but when he didn’t he continued. “You know I hate asking anything from you, and I haven’t since your dad died, since you took over here. But now I’m afraid I need help.”

  Pat leaned against the counter and set the donuts and coffee down. “Darn it, I don’t think I can do that right now, Freddie. Things are tight with me as well. I’d like to help, but it’s hard all over. This economy is hitting everybody. That’s for sure.”

  Freddie moved to the other side of the counter from him. His face haggard and pale under the bright store lights. He’d slept three hours the night before, and had already had four cups of coffee. He looked at Pat but Pat wouldn’t look at him. “I know the store’s slow,” he said. “But winters are always slow and this year is better than the last two. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t a dire situation, but I’m afraid it’s pretty bad for me right now.”

  Pat glanced past Freddie to the parking lot where a white painting van was pulling up. “I wish I could help, Freddie, but that’s not the policy that this company has.”

  “The company is you and me, Pat. Everybody else is gone now. I’ve worked here for a lot of years. Your dad hired me out of high school. Your dad would always help a guy out. Always.”

  Two painters came into the store and walked toward the counter. Pat finally looked at Freddie and nodded his head to them, picked up his donuts and coffee, and went into his office. Twenty minutes later he came out and heated his lunch in the microwave. He then went back inside office to call his wife, and Dr. James Dobson’s voice began leaking through the walls.

  Four days later, on Saturday, Freddie closed Logan’s Paint Store at 5:30. He sat in his car in the parking lot looking over a road map. He found a paper bag on the floor and wrote down the miles it would take to get to Coyote Ridge Corrections Center and divided them by the miles per gallon the Comet got. He counted the cash in his wallet and thought he had enough for gas and maybe dinner. He checked the oil and water, and got on the road heading east.

  The Comet stayed in the right lane for three hours while tractor trailers grumbled past and passenger cars sped by. He saw miles of plains and barbed-wire fences and open hayfields and farms and ranches along the way. His car shook and rattled, the steering linkage worn and loose, making the old car sway in between the white lines of the interstate.

  He stopped at a truck-stop twenty miles from the prison, exhausted. He could barely keep his eyes open as he ate dinner in the truck-stop restaurant. In the parking lot, in the backseat of his car, he spent the night in a sleeping bag. The next morning he washed up in the restaurant bathroom, got a coffee to go, and left.

  The corrections center was a series of stark, colorless concrete buildings surrounded by tall cyclone fences, flood lights, and empty fields. He parked and went through the visitors’ gate. He showed his ID, filled out the visitor form, and waited with dozens of other visitors until a guard brought them all to the cafeteria where they took seats and waited until the prisoners were brought in. He looked around at the other people waiting: Mexican, white, and black. There were babies crying and people whispering, and bored kids forced to sit still. The room smelled of Pine-Sol and seemed like any cafeteria in any school Freddie had ever been in.

  It was twenty minutes later when he saw Lowell come into the room in prison-issued clothes: khaki pants, a white sweatshirt, and tennis shoes.

  “Hey Freddie,” he said. He sat across from him. “It must not be good news if you’re here.”

  “It’s not,” Freddie replied. He looked at Lowell. His hair was back in a single braid. He’d lost weight and looked worried and tired. “Marie wants me to take the kids back. The thing is I can’t work two jobs and keep them so I have to sell the house. Anyway, I can’t have them around the basement even if I could scrape by moneywise.”

  Lowell sighed and looked down at the table, but he didn’t say anything.

  “I’m sorry about this. You know I am. I just don’t know what else to do.”

  “When is this happening?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure. I don’t have the money for airfare. Marie says she’s broke, too. I even asked Pat for a loan.”

  “I bet that went great.”

  “I asked for a thousand but he wouldn’t do it.”

  “You should quit on him,” Lowell said and looked around the room. “You should just walk out. He’d be screwed; he doesn’t know shit about the paint business.”

  “I know,” Freddie said.

  “But you won’t?”

  He shook his head. “I can keep Logan’s going. I can get my kids through high school with that job.”

  “You want to work for Pat that long? You want to support him while he buys new cars and sits in his dad’s office a couple hours a day?”

  Freddie didn’t answer.

  “I’m sorry I’m in a bad mood, Freddie. I just didn’t need to hear what you’re telling me. My sister says she’s going to stay in my house when I get out. So I either have to live with her or find a new place. And then another cousin of mine forgot to put oil in my motorcycle and burned the engine out. Shit ain’t going my way. And now this . . . You’ve always been straight with me, Freddie, and we’ve been friends. But you’re one of those guys who works his whole life and tries not to do the wrong thing, and all it gets you is guys like Pat. You make rich guys richer and all they do is ask for more, and you always give it to them. Let me just say this, if you work for Pat for ten more years, I don’t want to know you, Freddie. ’Cause it’ll say something about you that I don’t want to see . . . Look, your basement
is the only thing I got going for me when I get out. I don’t have my truck. I won’t have my house. I won’t have shit.”

  “I’m sorry,” Freddie said.

  “You’re sure?”

  Freddie nodded.

  “I’ll make sure Ernie comes in a couple days to get rid of them,” Lowell said and then stood up and walked back to the guards.

  Outside in the parking lot Freddie sat in the Comet trying to get it to start. He’d flooded it, but even so he kept trying until the battery finally died. He got out of the car, took his jumper cables from the trunk, and opened the hood and waited for someone to come out.

  A young Mexican woman with a baby and a toddler came through the last chain-link gate of the prison ten minutes later. She was a short, stout woman barely five feet tall. Her son, who was just able to walk, held her hand and she held a shopping bag and a baby in her other. They came to a white pick-up truck and she put the baby in a car seat and buckled the young boy in and shut the passenger-seat door.

  Freddie walked over to her as she opened the driver’s side. “Excuse me,” he said. The woman seemed frightened at first, but then she smiled and said hello to him. She had two silver teeth that Freddie thought made her seem beautiful and exotic somehow.

  “I’m sorry to bother you,” he said. “But my car won’t start.”

  “No gas?” she said.

  “I have gas. Bad battery. I need a new battery,” Freddie said. “Or maybe a new alternator. Maybe a new car.” He grinned.

  “A jump?” she said and smiled back.

  “If you don’t mind.”

  “I don’t mind,” she said and got up onto the bench seat. She shut the door and rolled down the window. “This truck is too big. I need a ladder.” She smiled again. “Where is your car?”

  “It’s over there,” he said. “The old black one with the hood up.”

  She started the truck and pulled up in front of the Comet. He opened her hood, placed the jumper cables on her battery, and then onto his and got in his car and started the engine. He got out again, took the jumper cables off, shut his hood and then the truck’s, and walked over to her.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Do you come every Sunday?” he asked.

  “Every time we can, but I hate coming to this place.”

  “Have you been coming a long time?”

  “Seems like it,” she said and smiled. “And you?”

  “It’s my friend who’s here. It’s my first time coming to a prison.”

  “I wish it was mine,” she said. “Today I tried to bring in tamales to him ’cause it’s his birthday. He loves my tamales. They didn’t let me give them to him, but at least I tried.”

  “Is he your husband?”

  “Yes,” she said. “But he’s not much of a husband now.”

  “Well, thanks again,” he said and began to walk back toward his car.

  “Wait,” she said.

  He turned around.

  “Do you want the tamales?”

  “Of course,” he said and smiled, and so again she smiled and her silver teeth seemed to shine. They looked at each other for a long while, both longing and desperate. He wanted to say something more to her. He didn’t want the moment to end. But her boy, who was staring at her and bouncing his legs on the bench seat, said something in Spanish. She took her eyes off Freddie, shook her head, and answered him. The baby was in the car seat asleep. She looked in the grocery bag and took out a tinfoil package and handed it to him.

  “Will you be here next Sunday?” she asked.

  “No,” he said. “I won’t be here again.”

  “Then it was nice to meet you,” she said and rolled up her window and drove away.

  21

  It was late into the night and near the end of Pauline’s shift when she took her last break in the girl’s room. Jo lay on her side in the dark and stared out into the hallway watching the hospital traffic pass by.

  “So you’re a volleyball player,” Pauline said and sat across from her.

  “How would you know that?” said Jo and turned on the bedside light.

  “The shoes in the closet.”

  “How do you know what volleyball shoes look like?”

  “I know a few things. I’m not as dumb as I look.”

  “I won those at a tournament when I used to play.”

  “You must have been pretty good.”

  “I wasn’t really.”

  “I bet your parents were proud of you.”

  “It’s the only thing my dad likes about me.”

  “I’m sure there are other things.”

  “No.”

  “I didn’t think you’d be an athlete,” Pauline said and sat back in the chair and stretched her arms.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know, but I like that you are.”

  “In a small town anyone can do sports. You don’t have to be good.”

  “To win shoes you probably have to be pretty good.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “If you say so,” Pauline said. “Do you like chocolate?”

  “Everybody likes chocolate,” said Jo.

  Pauline reached into her shirt pocket and took out a handful of miniature Hershey chocolate bars. She placed them in her palm in front of the girl. Jo took two and Pauline set the rest on her bedside table and looked at her watch.

  “So how did you get them?”

  “The shoes?”

  Pauline nodded.

  Jo opened the first chocolate and put it in her mouth. “Well, one time my mom drove me and this friend from school to a volleyball tournament. She made us all pray before we got out. It took a long time. She just sat there and went on about God and how he was going to help us win. It was really embarrassing, but at the end of the tournament we were both on the team that won. We each got a voucher for a pair of new volleyball shoes from Nike, a medal, and a ball.”

  “Maybe the praying worked.”

  “Maybe,” Jo said.

  “I’d like to watch you play volleyball sometime.”

  “I won’t play anymore, but that’s alright. I didn’t like it that much and anyway I’m too short.”

  “Maybe you’ll take it up again someday for fun.”

  “Maybe.”

  “I always liked playing,” Pauline said. “I was even on a team for a while, but in the end I was always scared of the ball.”

  “The ball doesn’t hurt that much when it hits you. That’s what you have to remember.”

  Pauline laughed. “I knew that. At least in my mind I did, but at the very last second I’d always turn away.”

  “You’re not supposed to do that.”

  “I know. That’s why I didn’t last.”

  “Can I ask you a question?” said Jo.

  “Sure,” Pauline replied.

  “I was wondering why your mom doesn’t take care of your dad. Did she die?”

  “No, she’s alive but she left town a long time ago.”

  “Where did she go?”

  “Phoenix, Arizona.”

  “Why did she go there?”

  “She met a man at work and had an affair with him. He wanted to go there.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Five,” Pauline said and looked at her watch.

  “Do you have to go?”

  “I have four minutes left.”

  Jo opened another chocolate and put it in her mouth. “Were you upset when she left?”

  “Sure, I used to hate her because of it.” Pauline reached over and took one of the chocolates, opened it, and put it in her mouth. “But really, my dad . . . well all I can say is that I can’t imagine being married to him. It must have been pretty awful.”

  “Why didn’t you go with her?”

  “Maybe you should be a detective. You sure ask a lot of questions.”

  “I don’t like guns,” Jo said. “Detectives have to carry guns. But I like tryin
g to figure out things.”

  “Maybe you could be a detective that doesn’t carry a gun. It could be your trademark.”

  “Maybe,” she replied and looked at Pauline. “Why didn’t you go with her?”

  “Because she didn’t want me to. I mean, I didn’t want to stay with my dad alone. I hated it there. My dad can be really crazy. And crazy is a tough one. ’Cause it always comes out different but then it’s always the same, too. She knew all that but left me with him anyway. That says it all, I think.”

  “Did she ever tell you why she didn’t take you?”

  “Not really. I don’t think about it anymore, but when I was your age I was obsessed with it. I used to get really depressed. But the truth is I never asked her why because I didn’t want to know the answer. ’Cause really I already knew the answer. So in the end I just decided I would never talk to her again.”

  “Was it hard doing that?”

  Pauline nodded. “And it wasn’t the smartest decision. Being mad like that takes a lot of energy. It wears you out in a bad way, I think. As I got older I started seeing things differently, maybe from her side. She wasn’t the most courageous woman. Maybe she thought she had to save her own skin, and maybe she thought that guy was her only shot. Or maybe she just didn’t like me enough to take me. I don’t know. It doesn’t really matter why, I guess. It took a long while but I learned to forgive her, ’cause I didn’t want to spend my whole life angry. That doesn’t mean I have to like her or that I have to keep in touch. It just means I’ve put her behind me more or less.”

  “Did you ever go to Phoenix to visit?”

  “No,” Pauline said and stood up. “I had to figure things out on my own. The first thing I learned is that you can be and do whatever you want. You just have to get up each morning and try to get there.”

  “Getting up is hard,” Jo said.

  “It’s hard but not that hard. I’ll help you.”

  “Why would you say that?”

  “ ’Cause it’s true.”

  “But why would you help me?”