by K. A. Tucker
A soft buzz sounds on my left, pulling my attention away from her and toward the door where prisoners have been filtering in and out.
An ache swells in my chest as I watch my father shuffle through. It’s only been two weeks and yet his face looks gaunt, the orange jumpsuit loose on his tall, lanky frame.
He pauses as the guard refers to a clipboard, his gaze frantically scanning the faces at each table.
I dare a small wave to grab his attention.
The second his green eyes meet mine, his face splits with a smile. He rushes for me.
“Walk!” a guard barks from somewhere.
I stand to meet him.
“Oh God, are you a sight for sore eyes!” He ropes his arms around my neck and pulls me tight into his body.
“I missed you so much!” I return the embrace, sinking into my father’s chest as tears spill down my cheeks despite my best efforts to keep them at bay. “They made me wait for hours. I wasn’t sure if I’d make it in today—”
“That’s enough!” That same guard who just yelled at my father to walk moves in swiftly to stand beside us, his hard face offering not a shred of sympathy. “Unless you wanna lose visitation privileges, inmate!”
Dad pulls back with a solemn nod, his hands in the air in a sign of surrender. “Sorry.” He gestures to the table. “Come on, Mercy. Sit. Let me look at you.”
We settle into our seats across from each other, my father folding his hands tidily in front of him atop the table. A model of best behavior. The guard shoots him another warning look before continuing on.
“So?” I swallow against the lump in my throat, brushing my tears away. I’ve done so well, hiding tears from him up until now. “How are you doing?”
He shrugs. “You know. Fine, I guess.” He quickly surveys the occupants of the tables around us.
That’s when I notice that his jaw is tinged with a greenish-yellow bruise. “Dad! What happened to your face?” I reach for him on instinct.
He pulls back just as the tips of my fingernails graze his cheek. “It’s nothing.”
“Bullshit! Did someone hit you?”
His wary eyes dart to the nearby inmates again. “Don’t worry about it, Mercy. It’s just the way things are inside. Someone thinks you looked at them funny … Pecking order, that sort of thing. It’s not hard to make enemies in a prison without trying. Anyway, it’s almost healed.”
My eyes begin to sting again. This is my fault. I should never have told him about what Fleet did that night. It’s not like the dirty pig succeeded in his mission; a swift kick to his balls gave me the break I needed to run inside and call the police. Now, had the police done their goddamn job, Fleet never would have strolled into work the next morning with a smug smile on his face and a vivid description of how firm my ass is, and my normally mild-mannered father wouldn’t have lost his temper.
Two weeks in and he’s already been attacked? My father is one of the most easygoing guys I’ve ever met. The fact that he went after Fleet the way he did in the garage was a surprise to everyone, including Fleet, according to what witnesses said.
“Hey, hey, hey … Come on. I can’t handle watching you cry,” my dad croons in a soothing voice. “And we don’t have time for that. Tell me what’s going on with you. How’s school? Work?”
I grit my jaw to keep my emotions in check. We’re supposed to have an hour, but the guard already warned me that Saturdays are busy and this visit will most likely get cut short. So much for prisoner rights. “Work is work. Same old.” I’ve been an administrative assistant at a drug and alcohol addiction center called Mary’s Way in downtown Phoenix for six years now. The center is geared toward women and children, and there never seems to be a shortage of them passing through our doors, hooked on vodka or heroin or crack. Some come by choice, others are mandated by the court.
Too many suddenly stop coming. Too many times I feel like we’re of no help at all.
Dad nods like he knows.
Because he does know, thanks to my mother and her own addiction to a slew of deadly drugs. Heroin is the one that claimed her life when I was ten.
“And school? You’re keeping up with that, right?”
I hesitate.
“Mercy—”
“Yes, I’m still going.” Only because it was too late to drop out of my courses without receiving a failing grade. Though, given my scores on my recent midterms, I may earn a failing grade anyway.
He taps the table with his fingertip. “You need to keep up with that, Mercy. Don’t let my mess derail your future. You’ve worked too hard for this, and you’re so close to getting that degree.”
I’ve been working toward my bachelor’s degree part-time since I was eighteen, squeezing in classes at night and wherever I could find the time and money. At twenty-five, I’m two passing grades away from achieving it. Up until now my intention has always been to become a substance abuse counselor, to help other families avoid the same anguish and loss that my father and I live with. That’s why I took the job at Mary’s to begin with.
But shit happened, and now I have another focus, and it is laser-specific.
I swallow. “I’m looking at taking the LSAT.”
“LSAT?” My dad frowns. “That have something to do with being a counselor?” My father isn’t a highly educated man. He spent his teenage years working on cars and skipping class to get high. At some point he decided school wasn’t for him, so he wrote his GED and then got a job in a mechanic shop. It took years, but he finally got licensed.
“No. It’s for getting into law school.” I level him with a serious gaze. “If you’d had a better lawyer than that shyster, you would have gotten involuntary manslaughter at most. Your sentence would have been a sliver of what you’re facing now—”
“No, wait.” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “What are you saying, Mercy? That you’re going to give up on your plans and go to law school just so you can try and get me out of here? I mean, do you even wanna be a lawyer? I thought you hated lawyers.” He chuckles as if the idea is amusing.
Nothing is amusing about this. “I want to be able to hug you without some guard breathing down our necks.” My voice has turned hoarse. “I want my kids to be able to play and laugh with their grandfather.” It’s going to be years before there are actually tiny feet running about. But will my fifty-year-old father live long enough to see the outside again?
“I don’t like this at all.” Dad shakes his head. “How many years of school is it, anyway?”
“A lot less than what you have to serve right now.” Three full-time, plus articling. If I get accepted anywhere. I’ve always excelled in my courses, but this is a new direction, one I’ve never spent a second considering. And then there’s the whole “how do I pay for tuition and survive for three years while I’m going to law school full-time” question. All of our savings went to that joke of a lawyer who screwed my father.
It’s a lot to figure out, but I will figure it out, because there is no way I’ll accept coming here every Saturday for the next twenty-two years to watch my father wither away.
“This isn’t the life I hoped for you. But I know better than to argue with you.” Dad sighs, his shoulders sinking. “So … what’s the weather like? I haven’t been outside yet today.”
“Sunny. Hot.”
“Shocking.” He offers me a wry smile.
Despite my mood, I can’t help but chuckle. It’s always one or the other in the desert. A lot of the time, it’s both, and in July, it’s oppressively so. But the eternal sunshine is the main reason we moved to Arizona from North Carolina after my mother died. It’s a natural mood-booster, my father says, and he has always worried about me inheriting her depression. “I had to change in the parking lot.” The dented blue shitbox that I drive has never had working air-conditioning, so I pulled my T-shirt and jeans on over my shorts and tank top. “Figure I’ll leave these clothes in the car for Saturdays. It’ll be like my prison uniform.”
He makes a sound. “Good call. Maybe bring a paper bag to wear over your head too.”
“Dad.”
“Trust me, I’ve heard the way the men in here talk about women, especially pretty young women like you.” His eyes narrow on a guy three tables over whose dark eyes flitter curiously to us—to me—while a ready-to-burst pregnant woman sitting across from him babbles away. “I don’t want anyone giving you grief when you come visit me.”
“Nobody is going to give me grief.” Except that guard, Parker, but there’s no way I’m telling my dad about him. “And if anyone says anything, ignore it. They’re just words.”
He harrumphs. “How’s the new place?”
I avert my gaze, dragging my fingertip across the table in tiny circles. “Fine.”
He sighs. “That bad?”
“It’s lacking charm,” I admit. Anyone who has lived in Phoenix for long enough knows which areas of the city to avoid, and when my dad’s conviction was passed and we accepted the fact that I’d need to downgrade from the two-bedroom apartment we were sharing—a downgrade from the house we had before that—we started looking for cheap one-bedrooms closer to work and campus. We found one. A relatively clean, quiet twelve-unit complex with decent management and minimal needles littering the parking lot. A diamond in the rough, my dad called it.
Turns out it’s more like a diamond in Mordor.
The couple two doors down—Bob and Rita—fight like they’re sworn enemies. I’ve watched her launch glass from their fourth-storey balcony, aiming for his head as he runs to his car. The cops have been there twice that I know of. It’s only a matter of time before an ambulance is wheeling someone out—my bet is it’s Bob.
And then there’s my next-door-neighbor, Glen, a hairy-chested guy who I hear every morning through the thin walls masturbating to the tune of my 7:00 a.m. alarm and who likes to knock on my door in the middle of the night, bleary-eyed and wearing nothing but his boxers. He always asks for Doritos. I tell him I don’t buy Doritos—I hate Doritos—but he keeps coming back. I’m beginning to think Doritos is code for something else.
I don’t open the door for him anymore.
And I’m not telling my father any of this. He has enough to worry about in here.
The guards come around, tapping several inmates on the shoulder to let them know that their time is up. That earns countless pained expressions from both prisoners and visitors alike. My dad and I watch as people embrace, some adhering to the rules while others hold on until they get a bark of warning.
That’ll be us before long, and then it’ll be another week before I make the hourlong drive up here.
My heart sinks. “What’s your cellmate like?”
Dad smirks. “His name is Crazy Bob. And yes, they call him Crazy Bob to his face. Haven’t asked what he’s in for, and I don’t think I wanna know. He likes the violin and NASCAR. Hasn’t tried to shank or rape me in my sleep yet.”
I frown my disapproval for the poor joke. “The violin and NASCAR. That’s an odd combination, right?”
“Yeah. You could say that,” my dad agrees. “But Crazy Bob is odd. He seems all right so far. Been in here over ten years now. Knows everything about everything. He’s been giving me the lay of the land, so to speak. Where the minefields are, so I can avoid ’em.”
“That’s good. And the food?”
“The peas are mushy, the potatoes are grainy, and I’ve fixed tires that had more give than the meat they served last night.” He chuckles. “So, kind of like your cooking. In fact, did you take a job in the kitchen that I don’t know about?”
“Har. Har. Har.” Leave it to my dad to try to make jokes in terrible circumstances. But he’s always had a natural ability to defuse any tense situation.
So how did he end up getting punched in the face?
I bite the inside of my cheek, wondering if I should push. Finally, I can’t help it. “Dad, why did someone hit you?”
He waves it off. “Aww … it was nothing—”
“So then tell me about it, if it’s nothing,” I challenge, wielding that sharp edge in my voice that Dad swears is like listening to a recording of my mother.
The longer he studies the smooth surface of the table, the more I’m convinced that my gut is right and it’s not just a matter of a pissing contest or a funny look.
“Dad …”
“Apparently Fleet’s got family or something in here. He wanted me to know he wasn’t happy with what happened to Fleet, is all.” Dad shrugs nonchalantly. “So now I know. I’m just gonna stay out of the guy’s way and everything’ll be fine.” His jaw tenses. He’s more worried about it than he’s letting on.
Rightfully so. My father is locked up in here with a family member of the guy he killed and he’s already attacked him.
I think I’m going to vomit.
“We need to tell the guards—”
“No.” He shakes his head firmly. “Trust me, no, Mercy. That won’t do me any good in a place like this. Fulcort’s known for … Well, let’s just say I’m a guy with no friends, no affiliations. I’m best to fly under the radar.”
I frown. “What do you mean, affiliations?”
His gaze drifts around the room. I follow it, taking in the various men in orange jumpsuits. The population of Fulcort penitentiary is made up of every age and skin tone—short, tall, fat, skinny, clean-faced, scruffy.
How many of these men are like my father, I wonder.
How many of them don’t belong in here?
Probably a lot less than the number of men who earned their cell.
My dad drops his voice. “You see that guy over there? With the tattoo on his face? Don’t be too obvious.”
I shift my gaze to my left, spotting the guy in question easily. Half his face is marred with ink—a scaly dragon with talons—making him look downright scary. He’s sitting across from a young pretty Latina girl with fake nails long enough to be used as a weapon in a place like this, I’d hazard. “Yeah.”
“Crazy Bob says he’s high up in some notorious LA gang. Anything that guy wants in here, he gets. Anything.”
“So become his friend.”
Dad chuckles. “That’s not how it works.” He glances over his shoulder at the group of inmates filtering in. “See that one there? The third in line?”
I watch a heavyset man with pock-marked cheeks and unkempt gray hair stroll in. He must be in his seventies, with a belly that strains the waistline of his prison garb. “Okay.”
“He’s got the warden and plenty of the guards in his pocket. Even dragon-face stays away from him. He could put a hit out on anyone and it’d be done in a day, inside these walls or not. That’s what Crazy Bob claims, anyway.”
I watch the man lumber along. Maybe it’s the jumpsuit and shaggy mop on his head but I’m picturing him stretching pizza dough or selling car insurance from behind a chunky old desk circa 1970, not swimming at the top of the food chain in a maximum security prison, scaring LA gangbangers.
“What’s his deal?”
“Mob boss. Big into the drug trade.”
I feel my eyebrows pop. “As in, like, Al Capone?”
“As in, you betray him, he takes out your entire family first and then you, and then he pisses on your ashes.” Dad’s voice drops to a whisper. “Crazy Bob told me that some clueless do-gooder guard came in here last year, stirring the pot against the corruption. He didn’t last long.”
“As in fired?”
“As in stopped coming in. His family hasn’t heard from him since.” Dad gives me a knowing look.
“I feel so much better knowing you’re spending your days with these kind of people,” I mutter, nausea stirring in my stomach. I study the mob boss as he passes. He walks with ease, as if he owns this room and he knows it. And maybe Crazy Bob isn’t blowing smoke. Maybe he does own this place.
Curious about who he’s here to see—one of his mobster minions, probably?—I let my gaze follow him to the four-person table in the far corner.<
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And find myself suddenly ensnared in a storm.
Gabriel
* * *
I was prepared for two things when my eyelids peeled open this morning: one, that I’d be nursing a fucking epic hangover for most of the day after last night’s festivities, and two, that I’d be in an extra-pissy mood by the time I made it up to this shithole.
What I did not expect was to be sitting in Fulcort with a raging hard-on for some chick visiting her old man.
But there you have it.
Fuck.
I’ve been coming here once a month for the last three years to see my father and I have never laid eyes on that woman before. I’d remember. Those sharp cheekbones, that thick jet-black hair. Those fat fucking lips, the kind that were made for wrapping around my cock and sucking slowly. She’s hiding her body in baggy clothes—standard protocol, though she’s taken it to the extreme; she’s one step away from men’s sweatpants—but her arms are toned, her neck is slender and long, her olive skin looks silky soft. I’m a betting man and I’d bet there’s a tight ass and tits that sway when she’s riding hard hiding beneath all that.
I didn’t notice her at first. I came in, settled into my dad’s usual table in the corner of the room, and started surveying all the degenerates filling the room on this fine Saturday afternoon, killing time until Dad decided to grace me with his presence.
And then I spotted her over there, her pretty brow furrowed in worry as she leaned over the table to get as close to the man as possible without setting off the guards, and I haven’t been able to peel my gaze away since.
It’s been forever and a day since a woman has stirred my blood like this.
What’s even more interesting is that she and the guy she’s visiting—her dad, maybe?—leaned in to share a few whispered words and then those big, brown eyes of hers shifted to the inmates coming in.
