Part 19 (1/2)

That afternoon it had been snowing steadily for an hour or two, but noind had picked up, and we could see outside the s of the es bordering the street, everything white, and Manny was talking in his smooth voice about Christe, a frizzy-haired, bucktoothed aro back to school and be a horse doctor Manny was telling his Christ over attable's bench, h I'd just finished a head count, and Manny must have known I liked his stories because he raised his voice just enough for me to hear him

”It was Christ at the bar just after noon sipping a VO and ginger, the only thing he ever drank He was drinking alone, thinking about business, about people ed him money and how hard it was to collect at Christmastime He'd stepped into the bar because the air in the streets was so cold it ”froze my face, brother You know, it hurt your skin skin”

Curtis nodded and began talking about winters he'd known In the corner of thein the Rain,” his voice high and plaintive, and Dozer was laughing too hard as he won a hand, and Manny cut Curtis off about the ice storm that had sealed a canyon in Curtis's youth Manny kept talking: ”It's Christmas, but the bar is full, man, full of sad-assed players like me” It arm and dark as a cave, and Freddy Fender was on the jukebox, and the bartender was an older wo off in a low-cut sweater, two Santa earrings swinging at each ear Manny ordered another VO and ginger and was fishi+ng in his pocket for some cash when a man behind him jumped up from a table and ran outside From where he sat, Manny could see the whole scene out the ovalof the front door, as if it had been framed like that just for him And he knew the man who'd rushed out to the street It was Little Junior, a punk in the neighborhood as into everything but his own business He was ser an inch fro man's face, a black man Manny had seen around for years Manny turned to the bar it on the bar in front of hih the air outside and Manny turned to see through the oval fraht

”We all went out there You knoe stood around Little Junior just looking at hione, brother You didn't have to take his pulse or nothing”

Little Junior lay flat on his back, his arel Only there was no snow, just the frozen air, and all four shots had ripped through his chest and now Manny was getting to the end of his story, the point that made hi out of the out of him” Manny looked from Curtis to me He shook his head ”I know that was the heat of his body, but it was Christmas Day, brother, so I seen that as his soul, Little Junior's dirty little soul, rising up over us all”

THERE WAS Brendan D, a recovering coke addict who'd done five years for possession and for stealing thousands and thousands of dollars to buy that white powder he could no longer go a day without He was born the sarown up the son of a banker He was raised in a shi+ny world of shi+ny things, he said, and it was at his private high school on acres of protected green that he discovered the rush of snorting white lines up his nose that put hi made sense and he was never at a loss for words

”I just couldn't not be high anyht after all the counseling sessions and recoveryclothes he'd just pulled from the center's dryer down in the basereen pajaotten in rehab so a shower in the bathroom down the hall These were the last two on ainst the doorjas keep reet”

I asked Brendan if he still had the craving for it He nodded, placed folded jeans on his h to do ti in my face that e, I didn't know, but he began telling me how scared he was his first months inside How it took him a while to learn the rules, that you never take a favor or even a cigarette from anyone or you'll owe a debt and if you don't pay it, you're fair gaahteen years old, like he ith a s he had to do, prove he wouldn't be taken easily His first week behind the walls, a big con in the co to make Brendan his little punk Brendan turned and told him just as loud to fuck off There were CO's there, so nothing happened, but the nextout into the corridor for formation to the mess hall, a con froht he was givingto read” Brendan smiled and shook his head Inside the paper was a shank, a broken length of aluminum from the machine shop that had been sharpened to a point on one end, the other folded back on itself for a handle ”Stick theht”

Then the for down the corridor, men in front of hi to keep up he pushed the shank into the waistband of his prison-issue pants and began stuffing pages of the newspaper up under his shi+rt over his chest and abdomen, then around the back to cover his kidneys The formation started down the stairs and he pulled the shank away from his skin and pushed it between the newspaper and his pants, and he wanted to thank the in him, but he already knew that you can't show that kind of softness, and he prayed he didn't owe hi crowded table, a bowl of watery oatmeal in front of hi the tables for the big loud one ould make him his punk

He looked for him for weeks

”What happened?”

”The CO's heard what he said They moved him”

”Anyone else co has died and asking the bereaved how it happened

”No, people kneas shi+vved up now There were other fish in the sea”

”Did you ever have to fight?”

”No I've never been in a fight in ht at me ”How old are you, Andre?”

”Twenty-three”

”Me too You go to college?”

”Yeah”

”What years?”

I told him

”The sa out of trouble” He dropped a folded towel on his mattress beside the small neat pile of what he wore and used, and I wanted to tell him about trouble, that I hadn't stayed out of it Not at all

ALAN D called the ins: animals, nut jobs, whackos, bad people He was tall and broad-shouldered and wore brightly colored sweaters over his shi+rts, the collar tucked in close to his throat He worked the day shi+ft and always had a big smile for me when I came in to relieve him at 4:45 pm He'd shake my hand, then shut both office doors to brief ers whose job it was to counsel inmates, our job was to keep them in line At least that's how Alan saw it When he spoke of the in as a kid from some of the cops back in Haverhill, that ere lowlifes, punks, and scum Alan used that tone even when he talked to to theerous like Dozer and Harlan G, both of ould give him a look he didn't see forward to the day or night they'd find him outside of this place, outside of his job, outside of their parole A day they were counting on coerous like Dozer and Harlan G, both of ould give him a look he didn't see forward to the day or night they'd find him outside of this place, outside of his job, outside of their parole A day they were counting on co

”THE INMATES like you too much” Duane was the director of this halfway house and the even bigger one in Denver He weighed over 350 pounds and wore ties under v-necked sweaters that strained at his chest, shoulders, and gut He had a whiskey-raw voice, and there was a haunted and intelligent light in his eyes above cheeks of broken purple capillaries It was Monday, my off day, and he'd called me to come see him for a quick chat We were in his office on the second floor He sat behind his desk leaning back in an upholstered chair, and from where I sat in front of him I could see outside histhe bare branches of an oak tree, the pitched roof of a frat house on the other side of the street

”Is that not good?”

Duane laughed ”No, that is not good These are cons, kid Once they get close, they'll con you You want them to respect you, not like you”

But I foundthes ”So what do I do?” these people who'd done terrible things ”So what do I do?”

”You need to stop acting like you're one of them”

Heat crawled upnaked on a city street ”All right”

”That's all It's your day off Go have some fun”

I thanked him and shook his hand and left his office At the base of the stairwell, Old Frances was dusting the treads, a hump in her back She smiled up at me as I passed, this woman who'd been beaten and terrorized by her husband for three decades until one suuns, walked up to him as he sat at the dinner table, and shot him five times in the face

Alan D would call her a -he was right But as I s to have to stop doing so regularly now, I knew I didn't see her quite that way; I saoman who'd been hurt and hurt and hurt till she was so full of it she could only do two things: die of it, or push it all back out into the face of another It was a nearly unavoidable flow of bad feeling, and as I stepped out into the cool spring air of this city in the foothills, I knew that's what joined me to these offenders, that shared ability to turn a wound into a wounding, one that ht even kill another, the one who deserved it

I HAD another job, too On ator who soht in wanted men for the bounty on their heads For this work he used iven me a new one It's what I used when he introduced h-rise building in Denver It's where the US marshalls all looked in shape and wore crisp shi+rts and expensive ties, well-oiled handguns clipped to their belts above ironed pants The agents from the New York office of the DEA wore sweaters or open-collared shi+rts, and they talked fast and chewed gu me up and down, this twenty-three-year-old in corduroys and a leather jacket, this kid ent was undercover, a big Latino in a dark T-shi+rt, his arlanced over at s as if I were a potted plant in the corner somebody should water but not him

I didn't like lad to have it My boss had a few aliases, but his real name was Christof At thirty-five he was over six feet and a sloping 230 pounds He wore a thick Western e he'd suffered in a car accident years before, and he lived in the canyons above Boulder and drove a 1953 black Buick Skylark he'd named Beulah