photo by Maria Ricker
Release
Katherine Johnson
I am building a boat out of words and crawling inside. The waters are deep and colder now, my feet struggle to touch the ground. The tug of the tide pulls me from shore, my body disinterested in pushing back.
I remember dry land. Sun dappling through kitchen windows onto my bare arms. Mixing batter while Louis guffaws into the Tribune, over some economic policy proposed by The Fed. The year doesn’t matter, but the month is April, drowsy petals unfurling on the saucer magnolia outside. Matthew and Michael tug on my blouse for attention I will divide between them. A lost Lego. A stubborn zipper. The boys are gone now to opposite shores, Louis farther still.
In my lifeboat I will float, head lowered for what follows.
Meaning’s what’s missing. I know this better than anyone, though anyone is eager to point it out, so I consider building oars, to point my bow in some direction. But my words don’t construct straight lines, or strong lines, only rambling thoughts that turn back on themselves to falter, fade away. So I adjust, and throw my body into my charities. Taco Tuesday at the shelter, my quart of salsa, homemade for the homeless, with dried chilies, cumin and oregano from my garden aimed across eight pounds of ground beef. I serve people quietly and while they eat I clean the long kitchen, glimpsing my image, blurry in stainless steel. The Sanctuary Garden behind my church, where I clip boxwoods into exact, exacting crosses, Mary’s arms outstretched toward creamy, luminous hibiscus, lilies, and hydrangeas. Both solitary activities, yet draining nonetheless, and I’ve seen people in worse shape than I pray over steaming plates, or hunch on the garden’s wrought iron benches in contemplation. I could engage them in conversation, loneliness being the common thread, but can’t bear the idea of more pain exposed. My concern drifts to them in flakes of coriander, in moonflowers opening at dusk, reaching for… I don’t know what they reach for in darkness.
Yet when I wake, I long for the sun to set, even counting hours, nine, eight, seven. Mornings I immerse myself deeper in tutoring, and the reason is obvious: I tutor boys, who reside in a state penitentiary. Their careless vitality and casual strength are tools necessary for my boat’s construction. The juvenile facility sprawls along the outskirts of town, a short drive from my home or a half-hour walk on strung-out days, when sleep eludes me and fills me with raw, restless energy.
During those last months – Michael settled in Sausalito, Matthew searching for a townhouse in Boston, his secret wedding another blow, though Julia is lovely, and warm in a way that baffles my son who tries awkwardly with me, weekly on the phone – I doubled then quadrupled my hours. I was working with Kedron who became, unknowingly, the very hull of my construction.
He turned seventeen during our fifteen months together, but was not a large boy, or imposing as many inmates are. He walked lightly and moved his hands continually, as if across unseen currents fueling his words. He began quietly. I’d lean in close to catch his tentative remarks. But in the end, the power of his words forced me aside.
My assignment was to prepare him for his GED. Our problem was that his release date would come before he’d be prepared to take it. It was typical of the institution to assign unachievable goals, and I would normally lower our objective to something feasible, like class credits. I’m not sure when I decided this GED was achievable for Kedron. Possibly I simply needed it to be. The idea caught fire in him, then desire burned silently, in contrast to my own frequent, effusive encouragement. A GED could change his future upon release, granting him options not available to a dropout: community college, the armed forces, trade schools and apprenticeships. We would discuss each option in addition to his studies, for we both knew any mentoring would end once he was released.
We met in the prison library, an enormous room devoid of books any sixteen-year-old boy (or sixty-six-year-old woman) would be interested in reading. Though I did try, leafing through donated volumes on Ecuadoran flora and 18th Century monarchies, as I waited for a guard to bring him from his cottage. Cottage being a euphemism at this point, for the inspiration that had built the brick bunkhouses a century ago, when effort had been made to change young lives, with instruction given in agriculture and carpentry, animal husbandry and welding, had long died. Now inmates were given two-hour school days twice weekly, and little else.
Escorted by a prison guard, he’d arrive. Kedron Collins-Ross, bounding in on startlingly white, State of Illinois-issued sneakers, baggy trousers twice-rolled over, T-shirt wrinkled but spotless. The bounding meant he was coming in alone, for if other boys were coming with him to wait for other tutors, his gait would be shuffled, seemingly disinterested. He gained no status desiring an education. Quite the opposite. But the two of us had lost such pretenses with each other. Onto his shoulder, unexpectedly, I had broken down one morning, something I did not do even with my own sons. He hadn’t appeared surprised.
I would notice his smile first, there was no way not to, large teeth brilliant against milk chocolate skin. Then his hair, also big, aimed out and up. “Miss Wilson, you came back,” he’d say. I knew he was always steeled for me not to.
“Mr. Ross, you’re stuck with me for another –” I’d glance at my watch, “ninety-eight days and three hours.”
“Stuck I am, but not with you,” he’d answer, and pull out a plastic chair to sit on its edge, leaning toward me, hands folded like a prayer on the pitted table.
“Math or science?” I would ask. I was certain he’d pass the language arts and social science portions of the GED. He was a prodigious reader, as were many of the boys, having little else to do sequestered in their rooms.
Here he might stifle a groan. “Science,” he’d choose, if the night had been rough. “Math,” would mean he had slept well, or that he’d earned the privilege to play basketball before bed.
I too might stifle a groan, depending on what we were studying. I had been an art major in college who became the art teacher in an elementary school, and a painter of renown in our area. This is all code for “loathes math.” In fact, sometimes I learned alongside Kedron as he explained a step to me, moments it was impossible for him (though he tried) to hide his amusement.
I said I was a painter, casually using the past tense, and it’s a relief to write it that way, and surrender pretense it is otherwise. I’ve lost sense of color. It seeped away into shades of gray, and my attempts with charcoal blur, as if I’ve lost the ability to see the edges of objects, the outlines of life. But here again – my thoughts wander and become circuitous, tangling on top of each other. Let me backtrack.
I mentioned Kedron’s nights being rough. By this, I mean his nightmares, frequent and draining. They had begun shortly after his daughter Akira was born, to the girlfriend he’d had since he was twelve. He couldn’t be certain he was the father. The timing had been close, she delivered nine months after he was locked up. In a way it didn’t matter, because neither being the father nor not being the father gave him any pleasure. What did matter was that Akira’s birth had triggered the nightmares, and a moment of backstory – just a bit more jumbled boat-building – is necessary here.
His own father had been murdered when Kedron was a year old. At twenty years of age, he was shot in the back while crossing Cicero Avenue at Jackson Boulevard. Whether randomly or on purpose was not clear (he, like his son, had been a member of the Vice Lords, which, coincidentally, had been founded in this boy’s prison in 1957), but Kedron’s uncle was also killed during the retribution that followed. Thus Kedron had been raised fatherless. Motherless too, I gathered, for the only words he spoke of his mother in our months together were the dismissive, “She just wants to get high.” Instead, he’d been shuffled from a grandmother to an auntie, then back to the grandmother then a different auntie, who fought over the government checks mailed out for his care. In admitting that, I heard an edge of bitterness missing from the rest of his story, just when I’d begun wondering if he was beyond feeling emotions, as some of these boys were. The only creature he cared about was his pit bull mix, Bull. While he was incarcerated, Bull was being shuffled from auntie to grandmother, cousin to other cousin, everyone complaining about how enormous he was, and how much he ate. It seemed only a matter of time before Bull ended up gone, and I learned not to ask.
Therefore, I could hardly judge Kedron’s relationship with Aiesha. It seemed they had raised each other, though badly. So beside me he sat, tightly spooling his fear of repeating his father’s fate, while at night that fear unspun into a grim reel of horrifying dreams. His most frequent nightmare was this: He is locked inside a dark, dank cellar with only one way out, the radiant doorway guarded by an enormous, red-eyed demon he is terrified to brush past. To reach this exit, he must pass by everyone he knows; Aiesha, Akira, his family, and his gang brothers.
The nightmare stunned me with its metaphorical simplicity and once I mentioned this to Kedron, he dissected it until the guard came to pick him up, astonished by his subconscious’ insight. In fact, so archetypal were his dreams that he began interpreting them himself, reviewing them with me when he felt particularly haunted. Their message was clear: He needed to leave behind everyone and everything he knew to build a safe future.
Thus his devoted pursuit of a GED, and because his dream analysis took precious time away from, say, geometry, I’d be forced to bring the subject back, though as a mother and an artist his dreams interested me far more. He’d refocus willingly. I came to understand that these nightmares were building in him the resolve and courage he would need upon release, to escape his gang and neighborhood to become a carpenter or pipefitter or, in both our biggest dreams, a college graduate.
Then came the morning he bounced into the library jubilant: his release date had been moved up. Whether for good behavior, as the board claimed, or simply because of budget cuts, he’d be released in May instead of October. I understood his joy. Prison represented the lowest point in his lowly life and walking out of it would be its own radiant doorway. I, living in my own prison, could appreciate the concept of release. But my mind flew to the fact that it rendered our timetable useless – we’d just lost four months to study. Once I mentioned this, he sagged in his chair.
It seemed I spread sadness everywhere I went. “We can double up,” I said.
He shook his head. “You already doubled up.”
Which, at the time, had seemed all I could do, my ability to concentrate shattered. But that was three months ago, and life went on, didn’t it? I attempted humor. “Then we know it can be done, without exploding our brains.”
A stranger to nurturing, his brow furrowed. “You’d do that for me?”
“What else do I have to do?”
He understood the truth to that.
“Then I owe you one.” His brow wrinkled further.
“Okay. When you’re a rich lawyer,” this was our wildest dream, “you can send me to Paris for a weekend.”
“I’ll send you for a month.” He paused. “Paris is Europe, right? Straight up from Africa?”
I managed a smile. “Yes, it is, and you’ll get there too.”
I waded through sluggish bureaucratic waters for permission to spend more time with an inmate. This simple approval took three weeks to obtain, so with under five months left to study, we doubled our library time together. In the ensuing weeks, our progress was foiled by the prison’s lockdowns, whether because they’d lost control of an inmate, or a fight had erupted between rival gangs. When these occurred, I wasn’t allowed inside. To channel my frustration, I planted nine hundred last-minute spring bulbs, digging ferociously; snowdrops then starflowers, hyacinths then bluebells, daffodils then tulips, which would be their rough sequence of blooming. The daffodils would open in April as Kedron passed his GED, the tulips in May as he walked free. I requested permission to plant tulips outside the prison’s front gate and was roundly denied.
Kedron was vague about when he’d drifted away from school. I guessed it was around sixth grade, because he knew nothing about volumes or angles, prime numbers or exponents. He’d bungle the times table and even subtraction. I’d catch him counting on his fingers. Word problems, an important component of the GED, confounded him. We found an interesting solution when in despair, I reframed a problem. “How much money has D- lost if he gives you thirty bags to sell but you only sell twelve?”
His answer was immediate. “$24.”
My mouth fell open. He’d performed a multistep problem in two seconds. I made a deal with the devil. “We’re going to look at these a new way.”
A new way for me, that is. For him, it was what he’d been learning since he was eleven, when he began running errands on the streets and learning the business. I assume he’d been eager to please them, having no one else to please. I knew he was bright. By the time he started high school, he was selling heroin in South Lawndale and in downtown parks. It was behind Petrillo bandshell he’d been busted. For what was another thing he was vague about, but since he was incarcerated for two full years, I assumed it involved a handgun, and its discharge. Many inmates, once they became comfortable with me, bragged about such exploits, but Kedron didn’t reminisce, much less boast.
With drug trafficking our Rosetta stone, he made fast progress with word problems, Algebra 1, and Geometry (I’m ashamed to admit it, but think of the angles in bricks of cocaine). We slogged through earth science, biology and chemistry, presented in the GED’s science portion. A four-day lockdown caused by a cafeteria fight between the Gangster Disciples and the Latin Kings ruined Easter week for me, though I spent the weekend in Boston with Matthew and Julia, tour book in hand, walking the Freedom Trail.
The GED was administered monthly. Because Kedron’s release date was May 5th, the April 21st date became our natural choice. The tests were lengthy and even grueling, depending on the student’s ability, so they were broken up into two days; on the first day Language Arts and Math, Kedron’s best and worst subjects, and on the second day Science and Social Studies. I was allowed inside the prison those two mornings, where I streamed theorems and motherly advice, the fussy injunctions that had always annoyed my sons as they left for exams, but seemed part and parcel of who I was. Kedron endured it silently, small nods to indicate he heard me, whether or not he was listening. He entered the testing room with my hand patting his back. Then I was requested (ordered) to leave.
Maddeningly, it required five days to get the results, which meant waiting through the weekend. Not allowed into the prison, I spent my days building new birdhouses from rough cedar, using Louis’s old tools, hung neatly in the garage. I helped a local handyman hang them high in my maples, where no one, I hoped, would see their crooked rooflines. I fussed in the yard, worried about my construction as I watched two delicate finches moving in.
Monday morning I arrived at the jail eager, as was Kedron. It took security most of our two hours to find someone to access the grades and when they did, we hurried to her office. Not looking at us, she read them out in a mechanical voice.
“Language Arts, 190, pass with honors.
“Mathematics, 150, pass.” At this I cried out and even Kedron gave an uncharacteristic whoop. She rolled her eyes then continued:
“Social Studies, 180, pass with honors.”
“Science, 140.” She paused. “That would be a fail.”
My elation over his math score – my first joyful moment in nine months – collapsed. I grabbed the edge of the counter and sloped toward the monitor. “There must be some mistake.”
Her reply was robotic, and it occurred to me that she’d had this unfortunate job of giving unpleasant results before. “The mistake is him passing three subjects instead of four. He can study more and retake the science test. We require he waits ninety days, so in…” Echoing Kedron, she used fingers to count. “May June July, he can take the science test again.”
“He gets released in two weeks,” I said.
Her eyes flicked away. “He can find out where his local testing center is and retake it there. It’s just ten dollars, they give a discount for the retake.”
There was so much more than ten dollars standing between Kedron and that retake. I knew it was why she had looked away, and it bothered me she could decide to. So I pushed. “Can’t they make an exception? It gets much more complicated once he’s out.”
“I am cognizant of that fact.” She met my eyes. “You could appeal. But you won’t get a response in time, we both know that. It will be up to his guardian to make it happen once they bring him home.”
So far, no one had even seemed interested in bringing Kedron home. He was guessing that in the end, his grandmother would agree to take custody. This put him back in Lawndale, where she would not be lending him ten dollars or supporting his studies. In fact, she’d be livid he didn’t pitch in with drug money. Incredibly, I had never detailed a program for failure. I suppose that was how badly I needed a victory.
I skirted rules I’d agreed to in becoming a tutor. “I’ll give you the money,” I whispered as the guard came for him. “I’ll find the testing center, and I’ll call you an Uber.” He too was having trouble meeting eyes. I gave him a pat on the back. “You’re going to do this, Kedron. I mean it.”
I saw him nod as he shuffled off with the guard. He had not spoken since his whoop. If he would cry, he would do so privately, I knew that much about him. His manhood was all he had.
I made it to my car, where I rested my head on the steering wheel and waited for my own tears to come, but they didn’t. He was alive and healthy. He was intelligent. He had his whole life before him, and I understood what a treasure that was. He could do this. I drove to the sanctuary garden to ensure no weed had sanctuary. I smelled hyacinths but didn’t look at them, or at the daffodils. They were on schedule. I was behind.
On Tuesday, Kedron refused to see me. From him, this was unprecedented. Typically, if a student refused a session, I gave him a second chance then ended the mentorship. It was an insult to me and a waste of time, while other inmates waited for a tutor. But this was Kedron, so I returned Wednesday and Thursday until on Friday, to my enormous relief, he appeared. Unlike always, he was disheveled, his shirt dirty, his hair matted.
He pulled out a chair. “I got a plan,” he said.
He smelled bad too, but I leaned in. “Yes, you do. You’re getting that GED. You’re going to college.”
Pain flashed across his eyes. He waved a hand. “That’s a pie dream. I got a better plan.”
“A pie dream?”
“Yeah,” he explained, “an unrealistic expectation. There ain’t no pie here.”
“I know what a pie…” I waved a hand too. “Never mind. You’re passing that test.”
“Listen up, I got a new plan. A better one. I cleared it with D-, I’m gonna open a sno-cone stand.”
My jaw dropped.
“He thinks it’s a good idea. Increase his business.” I must have shown my horror. Kedron grinned. “Don’t worry, I won’t be no part of that. I’m gonna sell sno-cones. I been working out the math, see how much I can make. Here, take a look.”
He pushed over a notepad. I saw an expanse of scribbled equations on it, mistakes crossed out, numbers circled. “See, people in the hood love sno-cones. You love sno-cones.”
This was true, as had been established early on, when I’d been struggling to find common ground between us. He continued. “There ain’t no one selling no sno-cones where I live.”
I found my voice. Unfortunately, it was my teacher voice. “Kedron, that was a triple negative! Does that mean no one sells sno-cones, or everyone does? There are stores, you know.”
“I’m telling you no one has a stand,” he said. “There’s a difference in quality. Everyone knows that.”
“There are no stands because it’s Chicago,” I said, “where it snows six months a year.”
“That don’t bother people. At least where I live. Everyone loves a quality sno-cone all the time.”
“No,” I managed.
“Yes,” he answered. “I don’t mean no disrespect Miss Wilson, but I know how it is out there. I’m gonna have people lining up to Lake Street.”
Clearly, he’d been alone too long in his cell. Too much time to think, with zero emotional or psychological support. His idea was so ludicrous I couldn’t grasp how to continue. “I’m sorry, Kedron, but no,” I tried.
“No disrespect to you Miss Wilson but I got a yes from D-. You don’t know what that’s worth. I’m gonna be separate from his business, and make money and get out of Lawndale. Take Akira, maybe Aiesha if she’ll go.”
Now he had the baby at the sno-cone stand too. I shook my head hard. “No. Look – let’s list ten reasons why you should get your GED, and ten reasons why you shouldn’t open a sno-cone stand on Lake Street.”
“Madison.”
“That’s not the point.”
“No, that’s very important. You ain’t gonna sell sno-cones on Lake, the El’s in the way.”
I tugged my hair. “That’s beside the point.” This was going badly. The failed test had shamed him, I knew. He needed affirmation, while I was doing the opposite. I motioned to his papers. “But I must admit, Kedron, I’m impressed by all this math. This looks like Einstein stuff. Why’d you use the Pythagorean Theorem?”
He jumped on it. “See? This is where the stand goes. Crossways. Here’s where this dude sells carnations, we call him Carnation Man. We each get our own space.”
“Where does D-’s man go?” I heard sarcasm in my voice.
It was lost on him. “Right here.”
My affirmation was over. “No. You’re not going anywhere near D’s men, ever again. You’re through with that.”
“I’m easing my way out.” He pointed to where he’d circled 6000%. “Here, look at my profit margin.”
I had created a monster. One not very proficient in math. “No, you look.”
But because of his defeat, he’d built a wall between us as his defense. I was accustomed to this from these boys, certainly in the beginning, until they learned to trust me, to whatever extent they could trust. I knew I had damaged Kedron’s trust by getting his hopes up, then disappointing him. Many other adults had hurt him, and I was ashamed to be on that list.
But I knew I was going to pay for that test and get him there too. So I eased up, and let him explain his unwise business plan. I admired his logic, his thoroughness of planning. I showed I cared by pointing out he hadn’t factored in the cost of incorporation yet, or of liability insurance. We discussed it, then both agreed those could wait a while. I felt that by the time I left for the weekend, I had gained back some trust.
There was a lockdown Monday. An inmate had thrown a table through a window. Because it occurred in the library, I was denied access on Tuesday as well. I realized then the window would take weeks to be replaced as they were processing paperwork for the expenditure, with customary speed. This left me near frantic, since Kedron’s release date was the following Monday. When refused admission, I pleaded with the warden. “You don’t understand. Let us meet in a different room. He’s getting released and he wants to open a sno-cone stand.”
He gave a rare smile. “I love sno-cones. What do you have against sno-cones?”
“Nothing,” I said. “They’re delicious. It’s just that –”
The gatekeeper cut in. “What did you say his name was?”
“Kedron Ross,” I said.
“Ross?” The gatekeeper sat up. “He’s gone.”
The warden nodded. “Why he was released Monday.”
“What?” I cried. “Kedron Collins-Ross? He’s being released next Monday.”
“Board let him go early,” the warden said. “His grandma picked him up Monday night.”
“How was I not told this?” I almost shouted.
“You? His tutor?” The warden paused, thinking. “Don’t you find out when they bring you a new inmate?”
He was acting as if these boys were interchangeable. It felt more than I could bear. “Where did she take him?” I demanded, then realized how melodramatic that sounded. “I mean… What’s his new address? I, I want to send him a book.”
“You know that’s privileged information.” The warden frowned. With alarm, I saw him size me up. I didn’t bother much with my appearance anymore, just assumed I looked respectable. Perhaps my faded jeans were somewhat Bohemian, my long earrings exotic, but my sneakers were Coach and my watch a Movado. Still, I imagined the headline in his head: “Crazed Retiree Snatches Parolee from Grandma – Bizarre Love Triangle Exposed!”
I bit my lip. “Forgive me. For being frustrated that I’ve spent days trying been trying to reach an inmate who isn’t even here, and no one told me so.”
He pulled his focus back. Matters like these he was more than accustomed to. “I apologize, Miss Wilson. But you have to understand this is a large facility, shuffling through piles of paper.” His own voice rose. “Yes, we still use paper.” I nodded as he outlined ideas he’d presented for modernizing operations. It was my attempt to present myself as normal when I felt far from it.
Murmuring my sympathy I left. It was true I cared about Kedron’s success more than was normal, more than I’d cared about any other boy’s in my years of tutoring. I understood that. I wasn’t crazy, but right then I was crazed. Tulips were blooming all over the Fox River valley but not on the west side of Chicago. I’d dreamed of him escaping, and now he was settling on one of its worst corners with a sno-cone stand. He had reached a low so low he couldn’t even see over it.
I drove home and did something I’d never done with an inmate: I searched for him on social media. It was a cardinal rule that tutors not contact inmates once they were released. It was assumed they reverted to their previous criminal lifestyle because, frankly, they had no other options. I knew for Kedron this meant hard drugs and handguns, used casually.
But he’d been determined to end that.
He laughed when I’d mentioned being on Facebook. I’d gotten the impression he considered it quaint. Unfortunately, that was the extent of my social media. Since I knew better than to involve Michael or Matthew – they were in their 30’s, hopelessly old for the job, plus they would have been disturbed at the direction I was heading – I called a neighbor’s son, Alex, a high school boy who did odd jobs for me in the garden. Mop-headed and gangly, he had always come across as a techie to me, something like my young Michael.
He grinned in my kitchen when he heard what I needed.
“What a relief! I thought I’d be digging up more hostas. That was killer!”
His phone already out, he declined my desktop computer. Apparently, anyone on the face of the earth could be found today in a person’s palm. I gave him the facts I knew about Kedron’s life, dismayed by how few I had.
I wasn’t distraught enough to peek over his shoulder, but I did welcome the occasional muttered word. “Snapchat… Instagram… Twitter... WhitePages… WhatsApp… Badoo… Flixster… Vine… YouTube… Flickr…” By WhatsApp he had pulled out the kitchen chair across from me, his earbuds still ensconced, thumbs flying across his miniscule keyboard.
At last he looked up, eyes round.
“Does this kid, like, not exist?”
I sighed. “Must existence include a cell phone?”
He stared at me. I surmised he was trying to comprehend the concept.
“Well, yeah,” he concluded.
I knew the only way Kedron could buy a cell phone was by doing something lucrative, which meant it was illegal. “It’s possible he doesn’t have a cell phone,” I admitted.
Alex’s brows knit. “How is that possible? Like, who is this kid? Dr. Strange?”
I didn’t understand the cultural reference, but got the gist of it. “He’s poor, and he may be in trouble.” I paused, wondering what to add.
But compassion shone now on Alex’s young face. “Tell you what – who in his life has a cell phone? Someone young is best, they’d be more plugged in.”
I stumbled, trying to recall his grandmother’s and aunts’ names, all unique and multi-syllabic. Kedron had never told me his mother’s name. D- had slipped out as Darius once, but he’d never disclosed more. Other than that was Bull, the dog.
Alex leaned forward again, earbuds back in, working with what I’d given him. Nearly a half hour passed as I pretended to work the Trib’s crossword, then he looked up, blinking to refocus. He pulled out his earbuds.
“It’s not a lot. But I found a couple things. His grandmother, if her name is R-E-S-A-U-N-N-A and not R-E-S-H-A-W-N-A, has a Facebook account. She hasn’t used it in a couple years but,” he shrugged, “you could message her and it might show up on her home screen. My mom’s do.” He slid his thumb again. “And something else. It’s pretty cool, from a technical, level-of-difficulty viewpoint.” He allowed himself a modest smile. “I found Bull on SoundCloud about two years back. See this profile pic, of a dog? He looks like a monster! Anyway, he complimented a song someone posted. Not the dog, of course, but the person behind it. He’s probably your boy.” His brow furrowed again. “I don’t think you should listen to it, Mrs. Wilson. It’s pretty reprehensible. But you can message the guy who uploaded it, named, um, Lil Bangboy. They’re probably friends, the song only has twenty likes.” He looked at me, new respect on his face. “Like, gang friends, Mrs. Wilson. Do you have those?”
“I do not,” I answered.
“That’s good,” he said, though he looked disappointed. “Because, no offense, I don’t think you’d exactly fit in. I mean that as a compliment. Anyway, I sent you the links. That’s all I could find.” He stood and stuck his phone back in his pocket. “Sorry it wasn’t more. That’s really weird.”
“It’s more than I had, Alex, which was nothing,” I said, pressing a twenty into his palm. I hoped it would make him avoid telling his mother this story, as she’d make him return it. I was uneasy about word of this spreading, for reasons I didn’t wish to analyze. He refused it until he accepted it, with a vow to pay it off soon with manual labor.
I wondered, once he was gone, what to say in a Facebook message to Resaunna. Firstly, it required a Message Request, which required a Friend request, which I made. Then I took a moment to look over her six public posts. They showed her at six different parties with six different cocktails. I tried not to judge.
Instead, I went to Lil Bangboy’s song on SoundCloud which was much worse, including sexual positions that would land any adult in the ER. After determining the laborious process (for me) of entering his group to leave an inquiry, it turned out I needed to wait for approval. From whom I could not fathom.
In other words, I had two slender leads which required patience. I stared at my kitchen table, remembering the morning decades ago when Louis and I had bargained down its price at the Kane County flea market. Eighty dollars had meant so much back then. I rubbed my finger along the grooves Matthew had worn, trying too hard to erase the evidence he’d been writing with a Sharpie. The gouge Michael had made, parking his ice skates on it. I would go back to tutoring one morning a week now. The extra hours, the aimless hours, stretched around me before settling down upon me. Under their weight, I sagged. When I’d tried to sketch my crabapple blooming yesterday, my hand shook. My little boat was sinking.
I sprang up. Not letting myself think, I grabbed my bag and hopped inside my car. Filling the gas tank because it would be a lengthy drive, I took the river road that brought me to the highway. Traffic got heavier as I merged onto the Eisenhower and I changed lanes impatiently until I reached my exit. Central Avenue.
It was a ridiculous strategy, I realized as the ramp ended, to locate randomly one individual within a crowded, congested area like the West Side. Potentially dangerous too, but inmates had claimed that people from the suburbs were their best customers and were therefore protected. Thus I wasn’t so much afraid as overwhelmed by my stupidity. Nevertheless, I drove up Central to Madison, where Kedron planned to establish his sno-cone operation, then drove east to Cicero, where his dad had been killed. Kedron would never walk beyond that, I knew, the border of his gang’s turf. Then I drove systematically down the streets within that rectangle.
I was approached four times at lights. It seemed rude to leave the window closed with people trying to talk to me, yet foolhardy to unroll it. I compromised by opening it several inches to convey my disinterest in what they were selling. “You straight?” they all began with, which confused me because in answering, “Of course,” they became more intent on a deal. I confess I purchased a fine white powder in a baggie for ten dollars, from a young boy with a runny nose and deeply ingrained dirt in his hands – the reasons I made the purchase. Heading back to the highway, a left past Jehovah’s Transformation Temple, then a drive alongside Columbus Park, I was shaken.
But not beaten. On my next trip I spotted Carnation Man, in a baggy black suit, patrolling the corner of Laramie and Madison, anchored by Cash Loans on Car Titles. His sunglasses hid any surprise that a sixty-six-year-old white woman in a Lexus was purchasing sickly flowers from him.
“Have you heard anything about another vendor joining you here?” I asked.
His body stilled. “Sellin’ carnations?!”
“No, not carna–” A car behind me honked.
“Listen up motherfucker,” he yelled behind me, whipping off his glasses. “Lady’s making a purchase!” Then to me, eyes blazing, “I ain’t heard nothin nor seen nothin.” He smacked the roof of my car. “That’s my story. Good day, madam.”
I drove home with deepened anxiety. Had I upset the delicate balance that was Kedron’s life on the streets? Would Carnation Man kill him, I wondered stupidly, with poison shot from his boutonniere? His flowers, lying on my passenger seat, their tips tinted orange, broadcast a direct warning to me: Stay out.
But I couldn’t. Not for long. In subsequent weeks I made additional purchases when it was clear the person needed money, including the boy who still had the runny nose, who called me Lexus Lady.
“No, I don’t want three. The extra twenty’s for you,” I told him, pushing through my narrow gap a ten and a twenty. “Buy oranges. You need vitamin C.”
“Lady, you tryin’ to get me in bad? Take three. But not at once, this snow’s strong.”
“Okay, but buy oranges,” I repeated driving off, vaguely ashamed I’d tried to undermine his business ethic.
It was the end of June when I found Kedron, on my sixth venture out. As established by the Pythagorean Theorem, he stood three yards from the streetlight, five yards from the wagon in which Carnation Man stored his carnations, and four yards from Cash Loans on Car Titles. Its glowing sign cast a warm sheen upon Kedron’s stand, made of plywood painted glossy white, a striped umbrella affixed to the left. Though relieved to see he stood behind a sturdy wooden structure, still alive, my heart sank that he was there at all. The massive Bull, gleaming brindle, sat alert on his right.
I unrolled my passenger window and leaned over. “Kedron!” I yelled. He didn’t notice. I was several yards away at the light, and I noticed then that his sno-cone business was indeed brisk. He was shaving blue ice into a ball, while several customers waited.
Could I leave it at that? Simply witness that he was living his dream, and drive home to determine my own? Cars behind me honked. I turned a quick right, which put me behind Kedron’s cart with still no ability to stop, because the car behind me had also turned right. Another honk, and I drove down the street.
In the end, I parked my car almost a block away. Now I will confess I was afraid, stepping out, with no metal framework around me, wondering if my car would even be there after I talked to Kedron, if my keys in my purse made it that far. Like a caricature, I clutched my purse to me as I made my way down the sidewalk.
There would be no lengthy wait in line for me. I had earned the right to disrupt operations.
“Kedron.” I came up behind him, and tapped him on the back.
He whipped around, an empty paper cone in hand. His eyes flew open. Bull gave a low growl.
I’d been ready for Bull and fished out the rawhide. “Kedron, thank God you’re alive! I’ve been searching everywhere…” I broke off, feeling a wet tongue on my hand. “Yes, Bull, good boy, it’s all yours.”
“Miss Wilson, what you doin’ here?” He shook his head, topped with a striped beret that somehow clung to his carefree Afro. “This ain’t no place for you. Go home.”
“I know that,” I said, because I truly did. I was afraid on this street, and the looks I received, though not antagonistic, seemed derisive. I was, simply put, an easy mark. “But your GED, you’re so close. I can’t just let this go.” Why couldn’t I just let this go? I too shook my head.
I saw quick sympathy, a fleeting moment that honored our fifteen months together. Then it was gone. “Miss Wilson, leave. I’ll retake it when business slacks off, after the holidays. I’ll have money and a car by then. I’m gonna study business, start me a franchise.” He made a sweeping gesture with the empty cone. “Now go.” Finished, he turned his back on me.
I felt tears but couldn’t define their source. Relief, that I’d found him alive. Pride, that he was making an honest living. Grief, that he’d unhesitatingly severed our bond. I turned and left, still clutching my purse. I made it most of the way to my car.
“Fucking Gucci’s?!” A young man, tall, concave, swung from a gangway and loomed before me, joggers pulled low to expose most of his boxers. A stocking cap sagged on his head. “What size you got?”
“Eight,” I replied honestly, and reached down to remove them.
“I’ll take eights. What else you got?”
“Leave her alone, Jamal.” I whirled around. Kedron stood before me with a sno-cone. “Don’t you fuckin’ mess with her. Miss Wilson, I’m guessing strawberry’s your favorite. It’s on the house.”
I was brushing away tears again. “Thank you. It is, as a matter of fact.”
“Jamal, see she gets to her car. Miss Wilson, I gotta run. Mind me now – let it go.”
Jamal escorted me, skipping backward, apologizing. It seemed Kedron the Sno-cone Man had some street cred. Serving time did that, I knew. I imagined not many locals knew he’d spent it in a library, memorizing the times table.
The sno-cone was refreshing. At my car, I handed Jamal the shoes.
“Give them to someone you love,” I said. I hoped there was such a person.
“I’m all over it,” he promised.
~ ~ ~
I didn’t go back after that. I didn’t belong there, my window to Kedron had closed, I accepted the authority in his voice. Maybe that was more of his street cred.
What do we live for? I filled my living with odds and ends, their edges still blurred. I imagined my sons moving closer, and Julia giving me a grandson, or granddaughter, or both. I imagined noise in my home again and movement, stairs squeaking, floors thudding, doors thumping. I baked and gardened and volunteered and subbed for the art teacher at my old school, who was fighting bronchitis, though I myself could create no more than unartful phrases, to shape this boat I was crawling inside.
I fussed over bad weather: was he out there in thunderstorms selling sno-cones? I worried over every shooting in the news, dismayed there were so many. As the weather cooled, I worried over his sales, then his health in falling temperatures. Fall collapsed early and winter replaced it. Was he selling sno-cones in snow? I pulled the afghan higher as I watched the news or tried to read. I ached for Louis every evening on the other end of that afghan, good-naturedly tugging for more.
As it turned out, Kedron didn’t belong there either. I learned that in my driveway one icy morning, picking up the Tribune, for he had made the front page. Shot in the back like his father, by someone making the same right turn I had made. My breath left me. I knelt inside Louis’ old jacket on the paving stones cold and hard, and there in the driveway, in my secluded cul de sac, I had my first breakdown since that morning in the library, when I’d tried to tell Kedron the treatment plan. I felt my body shudder, my slippers fall off, and when I made it into my house, my fingers were frozen claws around the newspaper. There was some link between these two deaths, I knew, something beyond their timing, this bow and stern of my new life. In the waters between them I was drowning.
I was sitting on my hallway floor then, slumped against a wall covered in photographs of forty years together, feeling their smiles haunt me. I didn’t stand until I was calm, then I calmly stood, haunted. I went to the kitchen and sat in Louis’ chair. When I was ready, I read the article, which included a school photo of a younger Kedron. It was a notable homicide because a sno-cone stand had been involved, a quirky detail that some editor had decided set it apart. I was grateful for that. It proved Kedron was special, not only to me. The details of the funeral were easy to find. They were everywhere except Resaunna’s Facebook page.
I stayed in the back at the funeral. Neighborhood watch groups and outraged citizens filled the storefront church. There were cries and militant shouts. I peered forward but couldn’t decipher his mother. I spotted Resaunna and Aiesha, holding little Akira. I traced their departure, then waited while others gave condolences. I watched Akira, squirming in Aiesha’s arms. Did that mean something? She wore a creamy, crushed velvet coat, tiny braids everywhere. She’d inherited her daddy’s hair. As others fell away, I approached them, watching them stiffen.
“I loved your grandson,” I told Resaunna.
In the silence that followed I began again, aiming my words toward Aiesha. “He was a wonderful young man. I know you’ll never forget him. But I brought something for Akira, to help her remember.” I handed Aiesha a gift bag. Inside was a gold locket I’d bought at Tiffany’s, with a tiny copy of Kedron’s photo inside, cut into an oval. She didn’t open it. I imagined it being pawned for something actually useful.
“She’s the one that got him to open the stand,” Aiesha told Resaunna, louder than necessary. “She had the idea he was going to better himself. Thank you so much, Miss Wilson. It sure paid off.”
I felt myself crumble, and wondered how that looked on the outside. “I am so sorry,” I whispered. I tried to raise my voice. “For… everything. For your loss.”
“For everything?” asked Aiesha. “You think I want this present?”
But I had already turned to leave, jamming my hands in my pockets. I felt it then, the rawhide. I turned, though it was hard, to ask, “Where’s Bull?”
Outraged, they answered simultaneously.
“Who gives a fuck about a dog? My baby’s daddy is dead.”
“Bitch I let it go, wasn’t no one could handle it but K.”
I untangled their sentences outside, savage north wind blowing. Aiesha’s words were more than I could bear. I filed them away. Resaunna’s words echoed. “Let it go.” Those had been Kedron’s last words to me. Because he knew me, and knew I didn’t let things go, and perhaps I should have been at his stand every day no matter what he said, until he climbed inside my car and I made everything different for him.
Louis was granted five weeks. Thirty-five days for our lives to unspool from diagnosis to death. An excruciating treatment plan with a low success rate he quickly dismissed, while I wasted irreplaceable hours furious with him, pleading with him to fight. A strong man, he didn’t. A weak woman, I always did. I could take a fight, because I could not endure defeat. I told myself it was my strength. I know now it is my weakness. I have my own nightmares, though I didn’t share them with Kedron, or with anyone. I am drowning in the ocean, falling through darkening shades of gray falling deeper, growing darker. I fight to rise to the surface but, for some reason, don’t know which direction that is.
I wake up gasping for air as if I’d been underwater, terrified of where I’d been and where we were heading. Louis was buried on a warm September day, but I shook that entire day and night, alone in our bed, under three blankets. The coldest part of winter, I learned, was picturing him trapped inside frozen ground.
It was too much for me. I drove off, unrolling my car window. “Bull!” I began shouting. “Bull!” The wind scoured my skin and snatched his name. “Bull!” I yelled, wending my way down streets and alleys, vacant now with cold. We’d had a long-haired pointer but slipped a red coat on her for winter days this bad, just for quick walks. A short-haired dog like Bull wouldn’t last long. “Bull!” I yelled.
I found him in the alley behind Cash Loans on Car Titles, shivering beside a garbage can he’d upended, trash everywhere. “Bull.” I leaned over to open my passenger door. “Come on, Bull, good boy.” I pulled the rawhide from my pocket.
Canine teeth can chatter. I know that now because his did, as he made up his mind. Everything comes down to trust in the end. Especially in the end. Bull sniffed the icy air and caught the scent. But he looked me in the eye first for a long moment, with what I recognized as discernment. Then he bounded in. “Good boy, Bull,” I murmured.
He was so large he spilled out of the seat, though he tried to sit neatly. The car trembled with his shivers. It was impossible to lean around him, so I jumped out, ran around to close his door, then returned. Warmth surrounded us. He gave a mighty shake to thaw out. My car heaved. I heard a jangle, and reached out my hand. Two worn dog tags, in the shape of bones. My boat had found its oars.
Without warning, I felt a release, a loosening in my chest. A weight lifted by a burden accepted. Such is life embraced, its loss as well. I laughed out loud with the knowledge. When was the last time I’d breathed? I inhaled. I exhaled. I looked at Bull.
He was ignoring the rawhide, still studying me. I studied him. I felt his slightest movements, rocking our boat. There was just barely room for the two of us inside. Squeaking, thudding, and thumping were inevitable. I remembered something else.
“Here you go, boy.” I pulled out the breakfast sandwich I’d bought with my coffee, one bite taken then immediately rejected. Bull did not reject it. He did not even chew. I felt my smile, and he grinned back, his body still shaking, a sprig of bright basil upon his immense pink tongue.
I could paint that tongue, I thought. I see that pink, and that green. With my trembling hand, I could do that.
Release
Katherine Johnson
I am building a boat out of words and crawling inside. The waters are deep and colder now, my feet struggle to touch the ground. The tug of the tide pulls me from shore, my body disinterested in pushing back.
I remember dry land. Sun dappling through kitchen windows onto my bare arms. Mixing batter while Louis guffaws into the Tribune, over some economic policy proposed by The Fed. The year doesn’t matter, but the month is April, drowsy petals unfurling on the saucer magnolia outside. Matthew and Michael tug on my blouse for attention I will divide between them. A lost Lego. A stubborn zipper. The boys are gone now to opposite shores, Louis farther still.
In my lifeboat I will float, head lowered for what follows.
Meaning’s what’s missing. I know this better than anyone, though anyone is eager to point it out, so I consider building oars, to point my bow in some direction. But my words don’t construct straight lines, or strong lines, only rambling thoughts that turn back on themselves to falter, fade away. So I adjust, and throw my body into my charities. Taco Tuesday at the shelter, my quart of salsa, homemade for the homeless, with dried chilies, cumin and oregano from my garden aimed across eight pounds of ground beef. I serve people quietly and while they eat I clean the long kitchen, glimpsing my image, blurry in stainless steel. The Sanctuary Garden behind my church, where I clip boxwoods into exact, exacting crosses, Mary’s arms outstretched toward creamy, luminous hibiscus, lilies, and hydrangeas. Both solitary activities, yet draining nonetheless, and I’ve seen people in worse shape than I pray over steaming plates, or hunch on the garden’s wrought iron benches in contemplation. I could engage them in conversation, loneliness being the common thread, but can’t bear the idea of more pain exposed. My concern drifts to them in flakes of coriander, in moonflowers opening at dusk, reaching for… I don’t know what they reach for in darkness.
Yet when I wake, I long for the sun to set, even counting hours, nine, eight, seven. Mornings I immerse myself deeper in tutoring, and the reason is obvious: I tutor boys, who reside in a state penitentiary. Their careless vitality and casual strength are tools necessary for my boat’s construction. The juvenile facility sprawls along the outskirts of town, a short drive from my home or a half-hour walk on strung-out days, when sleep eludes me and fills me with raw, restless energy.
During those last months – Michael settled in Sausalito, Matthew searching for a townhouse in Boston, his secret wedding another blow, though Julia is lovely, and warm in a way that baffles my son who tries awkwardly with me, weekly on the phone – I doubled then quadrupled my hours. I was working with Kedron who became, unknowingly, the very hull of my construction.
He turned seventeen during our fifteen months together, but was not a large boy, or imposing as many inmates are. He walked lightly and moved his hands continually, as if across unseen currents fueling his words. He began quietly. I’d lean in close to catch his tentative remarks. But in the end, the power of his words forced me aside.
My assignment was to prepare him for his GED. Our problem was that his release date would come before he’d be prepared to take it. It was typical of the institution to assign unachievable goals, and I would normally lower our objective to something feasible, like class credits. I’m not sure when I decided this GED was achievable for Kedron. Possibly I simply needed it to be. The idea caught fire in him, then desire burned silently, in contrast to my own frequent, effusive encouragement. A GED could change his future upon release, granting him options not available to a dropout: community college, the armed forces, trade schools and apprenticeships. We would discuss each option in addition to his studies, for we both knew any mentoring would end once he was released.
We met in the prison library, an enormous room devoid of books any sixteen-year-old boy (or sixty-six-year-old woman) would be interested in reading. Though I did try, leafing through donated volumes on Ecuadoran flora and 18th Century monarchies, as I waited for a guard to bring him from his cottage. Cottage being a euphemism at this point, for the inspiration that had built the brick bunkhouses a century ago, when effort had been made to change young lives, with instruction given in agriculture and carpentry, animal husbandry and welding, had long died. Now inmates were given two-hour school days twice weekly, and little else.
Escorted by a prison guard, he’d arrive. Kedron Collins-Ross, bounding in on startlingly white, State of Illinois-issued sneakers, baggy trousers twice-rolled over, T-shirt wrinkled but spotless. The bounding meant he was coming in alone, for if other boys were coming with him to wait for other tutors, his gait would be shuffled, seemingly disinterested. He gained no status desiring an education. Quite the opposite. But the two of us had lost such pretenses with each other. Onto his shoulder, unexpectedly, I had broken down one morning, something I did not do even with my own sons. He hadn’t appeared surprised.
I would notice his smile first, there was no way not to, large teeth brilliant against milk chocolate skin. Then his hair, also big, aimed out and up. “Miss Wilson, you came back,” he’d say. I knew he was always steeled for me not to.
“Mr. Ross, you’re stuck with me for another –” I’d glance at my watch, “ninety-eight days and three hours.”
“Stuck I am, but not with you,” he’d answer, and pull out a plastic chair to sit on its edge, leaning toward me, hands folded like a prayer on the pitted table.
“Math or science?” I would ask. I was certain he’d pass the language arts and social science portions of the GED. He was a prodigious reader, as were many of the boys, having little else to do sequestered in their rooms.
Here he might stifle a groan. “Science,” he’d choose, if the night had been rough. “Math,” would mean he had slept well, or that he’d earned the privilege to play basketball before bed.
I too might stifle a groan, depending on what we were studying. I had been an art major in college who became the art teacher in an elementary school, and a painter of renown in our area. This is all code for “loathes math.” In fact, sometimes I learned alongside Kedron as he explained a step to me, moments it was impossible for him (though he tried) to hide his amusement.
I said I was a painter, casually using the past tense, and it’s a relief to write it that way, and surrender pretense it is otherwise. I’ve lost sense of color. It seeped away into shades of gray, and my attempts with charcoal blur, as if I’ve lost the ability to see the edges of objects, the outlines of life. But here again – my thoughts wander and become circuitous, tangling on top of each other. Let me backtrack.
I mentioned Kedron’s nights being rough. By this, I mean his nightmares, frequent and draining. They had begun shortly after his daughter Akira was born, to the girlfriend he’d had since he was twelve. He couldn’t be certain he was the father. The timing had been close, she delivered nine months after he was locked up. In a way it didn’t matter, because neither being the father nor not being the father gave him any pleasure. What did matter was that Akira’s birth had triggered the nightmares, and a moment of backstory – just a bit more jumbled boat-building – is necessary here.
His own father had been murdered when Kedron was a year old. At twenty years of age, he was shot in the back while crossing Cicero Avenue at Jackson Boulevard. Whether randomly or on purpose was not clear (he, like his son, had been a member of the Vice Lords, which, coincidentally, had been founded in this boy’s prison in 1957), but Kedron’s uncle was also killed during the retribution that followed. Thus Kedron had been raised fatherless. Motherless too, I gathered, for the only words he spoke of his mother in our months together were the dismissive, “She just wants to get high.” Instead, he’d been shuffled from a grandmother to an auntie, then back to the grandmother then a different auntie, who fought over the government checks mailed out for his care. In admitting that, I heard an edge of bitterness missing from the rest of his story, just when I’d begun wondering if he was beyond feeling emotions, as some of these boys were. The only creature he cared about was his pit bull mix, Bull. While he was incarcerated, Bull was being shuffled from auntie to grandmother, cousin to other cousin, everyone complaining about how enormous he was, and how much he ate. It seemed only a matter of time before Bull ended up gone, and I learned not to ask.
Therefore, I could hardly judge Kedron’s relationship with Aiesha. It seemed they had raised each other, though badly. So beside me he sat, tightly spooling his fear of repeating his father’s fate, while at night that fear unspun into a grim reel of horrifying dreams. His most frequent nightmare was this: He is locked inside a dark, dank cellar with only one way out, the radiant doorway guarded by an enormous, red-eyed demon he is terrified to brush past. To reach this exit, he must pass by everyone he knows; Aiesha, Akira, his family, and his gang brothers.
The nightmare stunned me with its metaphorical simplicity and once I mentioned this to Kedron, he dissected it until the guard came to pick him up, astonished by his subconscious’ insight. In fact, so archetypal were his dreams that he began interpreting them himself, reviewing them with me when he felt particularly haunted. Their message was clear: He needed to leave behind everyone and everything he knew to build a safe future.
Thus his devoted pursuit of a GED, and because his dream analysis took precious time away from, say, geometry, I’d be forced to bring the subject back, though as a mother and an artist his dreams interested me far more. He’d refocus willingly. I came to understand that these nightmares were building in him the resolve and courage he would need upon release, to escape his gang and neighborhood to become a carpenter or pipefitter or, in both our biggest dreams, a college graduate.
Then came the morning he bounced into the library jubilant: his release date had been moved up. Whether for good behavior, as the board claimed, or simply because of budget cuts, he’d be released in May instead of October. I understood his joy. Prison represented the lowest point in his lowly life and walking out of it would be its own radiant doorway. I, living in my own prison, could appreciate the concept of release. But my mind flew to the fact that it rendered our timetable useless – we’d just lost four months to study. Once I mentioned this, he sagged in his chair.
It seemed I spread sadness everywhere I went. “We can double up,” I said.
He shook his head. “You already doubled up.”
Which, at the time, had seemed all I could do, my ability to concentrate shattered. But that was three months ago, and life went on, didn’t it? I attempted humor. “Then we know it can be done, without exploding our brains.”
A stranger to nurturing, his brow furrowed. “You’d do that for me?”
“What else do I have to do?”
He understood the truth to that.
“Then I owe you one.” His brow wrinkled further.
“Okay. When you’re a rich lawyer,” this was our wildest dream, “you can send me to Paris for a weekend.”
“I’ll send you for a month.” He paused. “Paris is Europe, right? Straight up from Africa?”
I managed a smile. “Yes, it is, and you’ll get there too.”
I waded through sluggish bureaucratic waters for permission to spend more time with an inmate. This simple approval took three weeks to obtain, so with under five months left to study, we doubled our library time together. In the ensuing weeks, our progress was foiled by the prison’s lockdowns, whether because they’d lost control of an inmate, or a fight had erupted between rival gangs. When these occurred, I wasn’t allowed inside. To channel my frustration, I planted nine hundred last-minute spring bulbs, digging ferociously; snowdrops then starflowers, hyacinths then bluebells, daffodils then tulips, which would be their rough sequence of blooming. The daffodils would open in April as Kedron passed his GED, the tulips in May as he walked free. I requested permission to plant tulips outside the prison’s front gate and was roundly denied.
Kedron was vague about when he’d drifted away from school. I guessed it was around sixth grade, because he knew nothing about volumes or angles, prime numbers or exponents. He’d bungle the times table and even subtraction. I’d catch him counting on his fingers. Word problems, an important component of the GED, confounded him. We found an interesting solution when in despair, I reframed a problem. “How much money has D- lost if he gives you thirty bags to sell but you only sell twelve?”
His answer was immediate. “$24.”
My mouth fell open. He’d performed a multistep problem in two seconds. I made a deal with the devil. “We’re going to look at these a new way.”
A new way for me, that is. For him, it was what he’d been learning since he was eleven, when he began running errands on the streets and learning the business. I assume he’d been eager to please them, having no one else to please. I knew he was bright. By the time he started high school, he was selling heroin in South Lawndale and in downtown parks. It was behind Petrillo bandshell he’d been busted. For what was another thing he was vague about, but since he was incarcerated for two full years, I assumed it involved a handgun, and its discharge. Many inmates, once they became comfortable with me, bragged about such exploits, but Kedron didn’t reminisce, much less boast.
With drug trafficking our Rosetta stone, he made fast progress with word problems, Algebra 1, and Geometry (I’m ashamed to admit it, but think of the angles in bricks of cocaine). We slogged through earth science, biology and chemistry, presented in the GED’s science portion. A four-day lockdown caused by a cafeteria fight between the Gangster Disciples and the Latin Kings ruined Easter week for me, though I spent the weekend in Boston with Matthew and Julia, tour book in hand, walking the Freedom Trail.
The GED was administered monthly. Because Kedron’s release date was May 5th, the April 21st date became our natural choice. The tests were lengthy and even grueling, depending on the student’s ability, so they were broken up into two days; on the first day Language Arts and Math, Kedron’s best and worst subjects, and on the second day Science and Social Studies. I was allowed inside the prison those two mornings, where I streamed theorems and motherly advice, the fussy injunctions that had always annoyed my sons as they left for exams, but seemed part and parcel of who I was. Kedron endured it silently, small nods to indicate he heard me, whether or not he was listening. He entered the testing room with my hand patting his back. Then I was requested (ordered) to leave.
Maddeningly, it required five days to get the results, which meant waiting through the weekend. Not allowed into the prison, I spent my days building new birdhouses from rough cedar, using Louis’s old tools, hung neatly in the garage. I helped a local handyman hang them high in my maples, where no one, I hoped, would see their crooked rooflines. I fussed in the yard, worried about my construction as I watched two delicate finches moving in.
Monday morning I arrived at the jail eager, as was Kedron. It took security most of our two hours to find someone to access the grades and when they did, we hurried to her office. Not looking at us, she read them out in a mechanical voice.
“Language Arts, 190, pass with honors.
“Mathematics, 150, pass.” At this I cried out and even Kedron gave an uncharacteristic whoop. She rolled her eyes then continued:
“Social Studies, 180, pass with honors.”
“Science, 140.” She paused. “That would be a fail.”
My elation over his math score – my first joyful moment in nine months – collapsed. I grabbed the edge of the counter and sloped toward the monitor. “There must be some mistake.”
Her reply was robotic, and it occurred to me that she’d had this unfortunate job of giving unpleasant results before. “The mistake is him passing three subjects instead of four. He can study more and retake the science test. We require he waits ninety days, so in…” Echoing Kedron, she used fingers to count. “May June July, he can take the science test again.”
“He gets released in two weeks,” I said.
Her eyes flicked away. “He can find out where his local testing center is and retake it there. It’s just ten dollars, they give a discount for the retake.”
There was so much more than ten dollars standing between Kedron and that retake. I knew it was why she had looked away, and it bothered me she could decide to. So I pushed. “Can’t they make an exception? It gets much more complicated once he’s out.”
“I am cognizant of that fact.” She met my eyes. “You could appeal. But you won’t get a response in time, we both know that. It will be up to his guardian to make it happen once they bring him home.”
So far, no one had even seemed interested in bringing Kedron home. He was guessing that in the end, his grandmother would agree to take custody. This put him back in Lawndale, where she would not be lending him ten dollars or supporting his studies. In fact, she’d be livid he didn’t pitch in with drug money. Incredibly, I had never detailed a program for failure. I suppose that was how badly I needed a victory.
I skirted rules I’d agreed to in becoming a tutor. “I’ll give you the money,” I whispered as the guard came for him. “I’ll find the testing center, and I’ll call you an Uber.” He too was having trouble meeting eyes. I gave him a pat on the back. “You’re going to do this, Kedron. I mean it.”
I saw him nod as he shuffled off with the guard. He had not spoken since his whoop. If he would cry, he would do so privately, I knew that much about him. His manhood was all he had.
I made it to my car, where I rested my head on the steering wheel and waited for my own tears to come, but they didn’t. He was alive and healthy. He was intelligent. He had his whole life before him, and I understood what a treasure that was. He could do this. I drove to the sanctuary garden to ensure no weed had sanctuary. I smelled hyacinths but didn’t look at them, or at the daffodils. They were on schedule. I was behind.
On Tuesday, Kedron refused to see me. From him, this was unprecedented. Typically, if a student refused a session, I gave him a second chance then ended the mentorship. It was an insult to me and a waste of time, while other inmates waited for a tutor. But this was Kedron, so I returned Wednesday and Thursday until on Friday, to my enormous relief, he appeared. Unlike always, he was disheveled, his shirt dirty, his hair matted.
He pulled out a chair. “I got a plan,” he said.
He smelled bad too, but I leaned in. “Yes, you do. You’re getting that GED. You’re going to college.”
Pain flashed across his eyes. He waved a hand. “That’s a pie dream. I got a better plan.”
“A pie dream?”
“Yeah,” he explained, “an unrealistic expectation. There ain’t no pie here.”
“I know what a pie…” I waved a hand too. “Never mind. You’re passing that test.”
“Listen up, I got a new plan. A better one. I cleared it with D-, I’m gonna open a sno-cone stand.”
My jaw dropped.
“He thinks it’s a good idea. Increase his business.” I must have shown my horror. Kedron grinned. “Don’t worry, I won’t be no part of that. I’m gonna sell sno-cones. I been working out the math, see how much I can make. Here, take a look.”
He pushed over a notepad. I saw an expanse of scribbled equations on it, mistakes crossed out, numbers circled. “See, people in the hood love sno-cones. You love sno-cones.”
This was true, as had been established early on, when I’d been struggling to find common ground between us. He continued. “There ain’t no one selling no sno-cones where I live.”
I found my voice. Unfortunately, it was my teacher voice. “Kedron, that was a triple negative! Does that mean no one sells sno-cones, or everyone does? There are stores, you know.”
“I’m telling you no one has a stand,” he said. “There’s a difference in quality. Everyone knows that.”
“There are no stands because it’s Chicago,” I said, “where it snows six months a year.”
“That don’t bother people. At least where I live. Everyone loves a quality sno-cone all the time.”
“No,” I managed.
“Yes,” he answered. “I don’t mean no disrespect Miss Wilson, but I know how it is out there. I’m gonna have people lining up to Lake Street.”
Clearly, he’d been alone too long in his cell. Too much time to think, with zero emotional or psychological support. His idea was so ludicrous I couldn’t grasp how to continue. “I’m sorry, Kedron, but no,” I tried.
“No disrespect to you Miss Wilson but I got a yes from D-. You don’t know what that’s worth. I’m gonna be separate from his business, and make money and get out of Lawndale. Take Akira, maybe Aiesha if she’ll go.”
Now he had the baby at the sno-cone stand too. I shook my head hard. “No. Look – let’s list ten reasons why you should get your GED, and ten reasons why you shouldn’t open a sno-cone stand on Lake Street.”
“Madison.”
“That’s not the point.”
“No, that’s very important. You ain’t gonna sell sno-cones on Lake, the El’s in the way.”
I tugged my hair. “That’s beside the point.” This was going badly. The failed test had shamed him, I knew. He needed affirmation, while I was doing the opposite. I motioned to his papers. “But I must admit, Kedron, I’m impressed by all this math. This looks like Einstein stuff. Why’d you use the Pythagorean Theorem?”
He jumped on it. “See? This is where the stand goes. Crossways. Here’s where this dude sells carnations, we call him Carnation Man. We each get our own space.”
“Where does D-’s man go?” I heard sarcasm in my voice.
It was lost on him. “Right here.”
My affirmation was over. “No. You’re not going anywhere near D’s men, ever again. You’re through with that.”
“I’m easing my way out.” He pointed to where he’d circled 6000%. “Here, look at my profit margin.”
I had created a monster. One not very proficient in math. “No, you look.”
But because of his defeat, he’d built a wall between us as his defense. I was accustomed to this from these boys, certainly in the beginning, until they learned to trust me, to whatever extent they could trust. I knew I had damaged Kedron’s trust by getting his hopes up, then disappointing him. Many other adults had hurt him, and I was ashamed to be on that list.
But I knew I was going to pay for that test and get him there too. So I eased up, and let him explain his unwise business plan. I admired his logic, his thoroughness of planning. I showed I cared by pointing out he hadn’t factored in the cost of incorporation yet, or of liability insurance. We discussed it, then both agreed those could wait a while. I felt that by the time I left for the weekend, I had gained back some trust.
There was a lockdown Monday. An inmate had thrown a table through a window. Because it occurred in the library, I was denied access on Tuesday as well. I realized then the window would take weeks to be replaced as they were processing paperwork for the expenditure, with customary speed. This left me near frantic, since Kedron’s release date was the following Monday. When refused admission, I pleaded with the warden. “You don’t understand. Let us meet in a different room. He’s getting released and he wants to open a sno-cone stand.”
He gave a rare smile. “I love sno-cones. What do you have against sno-cones?”
“Nothing,” I said. “They’re delicious. It’s just that –”
The gatekeeper cut in. “What did you say his name was?”
“Kedron Ross,” I said.
“Ross?” The gatekeeper sat up. “He’s gone.”
The warden nodded. “Why he was released Monday.”
“What?” I cried. “Kedron Collins-Ross? He’s being released next Monday.”
“Board let him go early,” the warden said. “His grandma picked him up Monday night.”
“How was I not told this?” I almost shouted.
“You? His tutor?” The warden paused, thinking. “Don’t you find out when they bring you a new inmate?”
He was acting as if these boys were interchangeable. It felt more than I could bear. “Where did she take him?” I demanded, then realized how melodramatic that sounded. “I mean… What’s his new address? I, I want to send him a book.”
“You know that’s privileged information.” The warden frowned. With alarm, I saw him size me up. I didn’t bother much with my appearance anymore, just assumed I looked respectable. Perhaps my faded jeans were somewhat Bohemian, my long earrings exotic, but my sneakers were Coach and my watch a Movado. Still, I imagined the headline in his head: “Crazed Retiree Snatches Parolee from Grandma – Bizarre Love Triangle Exposed!”
I bit my lip. “Forgive me. For being frustrated that I’ve spent days trying been trying to reach an inmate who isn’t even here, and no one told me so.”
He pulled his focus back. Matters like these he was more than accustomed to. “I apologize, Miss Wilson. But you have to understand this is a large facility, shuffling through piles of paper.” His own voice rose. “Yes, we still use paper.” I nodded as he outlined ideas he’d presented for modernizing operations. It was my attempt to present myself as normal when I felt far from it.
Murmuring my sympathy I left. It was true I cared about Kedron’s success more than was normal, more than I’d cared about any other boy’s in my years of tutoring. I understood that. I wasn’t crazy, but right then I was crazed. Tulips were blooming all over the Fox River valley but not on the west side of Chicago. I’d dreamed of him escaping, and now he was settling on one of its worst corners with a sno-cone stand. He had reached a low so low he couldn’t even see over it.
I drove home and did something I’d never done with an inmate: I searched for him on social media. It was a cardinal rule that tutors not contact inmates once they were released. It was assumed they reverted to their previous criminal lifestyle because, frankly, they had no other options. I knew for Kedron this meant hard drugs and handguns, used casually.
But he’d been determined to end that.
He laughed when I’d mentioned being on Facebook. I’d gotten the impression he considered it quaint. Unfortunately, that was the extent of my social media. Since I knew better than to involve Michael or Matthew – they were in their 30’s, hopelessly old for the job, plus they would have been disturbed at the direction I was heading – I called a neighbor’s son, Alex, a high school boy who did odd jobs for me in the garden. Mop-headed and gangly, he had always come across as a techie to me, something like my young Michael.
He grinned in my kitchen when he heard what I needed.
“What a relief! I thought I’d be digging up more hostas. That was killer!”
His phone already out, he declined my desktop computer. Apparently, anyone on the face of the earth could be found today in a person’s palm. I gave him the facts I knew about Kedron’s life, dismayed by how few I had.
I wasn’t distraught enough to peek over his shoulder, but I did welcome the occasional muttered word. “Snapchat… Instagram… Twitter... WhitePages… WhatsApp… Badoo… Flixster… Vine… YouTube… Flickr…” By WhatsApp he had pulled out the kitchen chair across from me, his earbuds still ensconced, thumbs flying across his miniscule keyboard.
At last he looked up, eyes round.
“Does this kid, like, not exist?”
I sighed. “Must existence include a cell phone?”
He stared at me. I surmised he was trying to comprehend the concept.
“Well, yeah,” he concluded.
I knew the only way Kedron could buy a cell phone was by doing something lucrative, which meant it was illegal. “It’s possible he doesn’t have a cell phone,” I admitted.
Alex’s brows knit. “How is that possible? Like, who is this kid? Dr. Strange?”
I didn’t understand the cultural reference, but got the gist of it. “He’s poor, and he may be in trouble.” I paused, wondering what to add.
But compassion shone now on Alex’s young face. “Tell you what – who in his life has a cell phone? Someone young is best, they’d be more plugged in.”
I stumbled, trying to recall his grandmother’s and aunts’ names, all unique and multi-syllabic. Kedron had never told me his mother’s name. D- had slipped out as Darius once, but he’d never disclosed more. Other than that was Bull, the dog.
Alex leaned forward again, earbuds back in, working with what I’d given him. Nearly a half hour passed as I pretended to work the Trib’s crossword, then he looked up, blinking to refocus. He pulled out his earbuds.
“It’s not a lot. But I found a couple things. His grandmother, if her name is R-E-S-A-U-N-N-A and not R-E-S-H-A-W-N-A, has a Facebook account. She hasn’t used it in a couple years but,” he shrugged, “you could message her and it might show up on her home screen. My mom’s do.” He slid his thumb again. “And something else. It’s pretty cool, from a technical, level-of-difficulty viewpoint.” He allowed himself a modest smile. “I found Bull on SoundCloud about two years back. See this profile pic, of a dog? He looks like a monster! Anyway, he complimented a song someone posted. Not the dog, of course, but the person behind it. He’s probably your boy.” His brow furrowed again. “I don’t think you should listen to it, Mrs. Wilson. It’s pretty reprehensible. But you can message the guy who uploaded it, named, um, Lil Bangboy. They’re probably friends, the song only has twenty likes.” He looked at me, new respect on his face. “Like, gang friends, Mrs. Wilson. Do you have those?”
“I do not,” I answered.
“That’s good,” he said, though he looked disappointed. “Because, no offense, I don’t think you’d exactly fit in. I mean that as a compliment. Anyway, I sent you the links. That’s all I could find.” He stood and stuck his phone back in his pocket. “Sorry it wasn’t more. That’s really weird.”
“It’s more than I had, Alex, which was nothing,” I said, pressing a twenty into his palm. I hoped it would make him avoid telling his mother this story, as she’d make him return it. I was uneasy about word of this spreading, for reasons I didn’t wish to analyze. He refused it until he accepted it, with a vow to pay it off soon with manual labor.
I wondered, once he was gone, what to say in a Facebook message to Resaunna. Firstly, it required a Message Request, which required a Friend request, which I made. Then I took a moment to look over her six public posts. They showed her at six different parties with six different cocktails. I tried not to judge.
Instead, I went to Lil Bangboy’s song on SoundCloud which was much worse, including sexual positions that would land any adult in the ER. After determining the laborious process (for me) of entering his group to leave an inquiry, it turned out I needed to wait for approval. From whom I could not fathom.
In other words, I had two slender leads which required patience. I stared at my kitchen table, remembering the morning decades ago when Louis and I had bargained down its price at the Kane County flea market. Eighty dollars had meant so much back then. I rubbed my finger along the grooves Matthew had worn, trying too hard to erase the evidence he’d been writing with a Sharpie. The gouge Michael had made, parking his ice skates on it. I would go back to tutoring one morning a week now. The extra hours, the aimless hours, stretched around me before settling down upon me. Under their weight, I sagged. When I’d tried to sketch my crabapple blooming yesterday, my hand shook. My little boat was sinking.
I sprang up. Not letting myself think, I grabbed my bag and hopped inside my car. Filling the gas tank because it would be a lengthy drive, I took the river road that brought me to the highway. Traffic got heavier as I merged onto the Eisenhower and I changed lanes impatiently until I reached my exit. Central Avenue.
It was a ridiculous strategy, I realized as the ramp ended, to locate randomly one individual within a crowded, congested area like the West Side. Potentially dangerous too, but inmates had claimed that people from the suburbs were their best customers and were therefore protected. Thus I wasn’t so much afraid as overwhelmed by my stupidity. Nevertheless, I drove up Central to Madison, where Kedron planned to establish his sno-cone operation, then drove east to Cicero, where his dad had been killed. Kedron would never walk beyond that, I knew, the border of his gang’s turf. Then I drove systematically down the streets within that rectangle.
I was approached four times at lights. It seemed rude to leave the window closed with people trying to talk to me, yet foolhardy to unroll it. I compromised by opening it several inches to convey my disinterest in what they were selling. “You straight?” they all began with, which confused me because in answering, “Of course,” they became more intent on a deal. I confess I purchased a fine white powder in a baggie for ten dollars, from a young boy with a runny nose and deeply ingrained dirt in his hands – the reasons I made the purchase. Heading back to the highway, a left past Jehovah’s Transformation Temple, then a drive alongside Columbus Park, I was shaken.
But not beaten. On my next trip I spotted Carnation Man, in a baggy black suit, patrolling the corner of Laramie and Madison, anchored by Cash Loans on Car Titles. His sunglasses hid any surprise that a sixty-six-year-old white woman in a Lexus was purchasing sickly flowers from him.
“Have you heard anything about another vendor joining you here?” I asked.
His body stilled. “Sellin’ carnations?!”
“No, not carna–” A car behind me honked.
“Listen up motherfucker,” he yelled behind me, whipping off his glasses. “Lady’s making a purchase!” Then to me, eyes blazing, “I ain’t heard nothin nor seen nothin.” He smacked the roof of my car. “That’s my story. Good day, madam.”
I drove home with deepened anxiety. Had I upset the delicate balance that was Kedron’s life on the streets? Would Carnation Man kill him, I wondered stupidly, with poison shot from his boutonniere? His flowers, lying on my passenger seat, their tips tinted orange, broadcast a direct warning to me: Stay out.
But I couldn’t. Not for long. In subsequent weeks I made additional purchases when it was clear the person needed money, including the boy who still had the runny nose, who called me Lexus Lady.
“No, I don’t want three. The extra twenty’s for you,” I told him, pushing through my narrow gap a ten and a twenty. “Buy oranges. You need vitamin C.”
“Lady, you tryin’ to get me in bad? Take three. But not at once, this snow’s strong.”
“Okay, but buy oranges,” I repeated driving off, vaguely ashamed I’d tried to undermine his business ethic.
It was the end of June when I found Kedron, on my sixth venture out. As established by the Pythagorean Theorem, he stood three yards from the streetlight, five yards from the wagon in which Carnation Man stored his carnations, and four yards from Cash Loans on Car Titles. Its glowing sign cast a warm sheen upon Kedron’s stand, made of plywood painted glossy white, a striped umbrella affixed to the left. Though relieved to see he stood behind a sturdy wooden structure, still alive, my heart sank that he was there at all. The massive Bull, gleaming brindle, sat alert on his right.
I unrolled my passenger window and leaned over. “Kedron!” I yelled. He didn’t notice. I was several yards away at the light, and I noticed then that his sno-cone business was indeed brisk. He was shaving blue ice into a ball, while several customers waited.
Could I leave it at that? Simply witness that he was living his dream, and drive home to determine my own? Cars behind me honked. I turned a quick right, which put me behind Kedron’s cart with still no ability to stop, because the car behind me had also turned right. Another honk, and I drove down the street.
In the end, I parked my car almost a block away. Now I will confess I was afraid, stepping out, with no metal framework around me, wondering if my car would even be there after I talked to Kedron, if my keys in my purse made it that far. Like a caricature, I clutched my purse to me as I made my way down the sidewalk.
There would be no lengthy wait in line for me. I had earned the right to disrupt operations.
“Kedron.” I came up behind him, and tapped him on the back.
He whipped around, an empty paper cone in hand. His eyes flew open. Bull gave a low growl.
I’d been ready for Bull and fished out the rawhide. “Kedron, thank God you’re alive! I’ve been searching everywhere…” I broke off, feeling a wet tongue on my hand. “Yes, Bull, good boy, it’s all yours.”
“Miss Wilson, what you doin’ here?” He shook his head, topped with a striped beret that somehow clung to his carefree Afro. “This ain’t no place for you. Go home.”
“I know that,” I said, because I truly did. I was afraid on this street, and the looks I received, though not antagonistic, seemed derisive. I was, simply put, an easy mark. “But your GED, you’re so close. I can’t just let this go.” Why couldn’t I just let this go? I too shook my head.
I saw quick sympathy, a fleeting moment that honored our fifteen months together. Then it was gone. “Miss Wilson, leave. I’ll retake it when business slacks off, after the holidays. I’ll have money and a car by then. I’m gonna study business, start me a franchise.” He made a sweeping gesture with the empty cone. “Now go.” Finished, he turned his back on me.
I felt tears but couldn’t define their source. Relief, that I’d found him alive. Pride, that he was making an honest living. Grief, that he’d unhesitatingly severed our bond. I turned and left, still clutching my purse. I made it most of the way to my car.
“Fucking Gucci’s?!” A young man, tall, concave, swung from a gangway and loomed before me, joggers pulled low to expose most of his boxers. A stocking cap sagged on his head. “What size you got?”
“Eight,” I replied honestly, and reached down to remove them.
“I’ll take eights. What else you got?”
“Leave her alone, Jamal.” I whirled around. Kedron stood before me with a sno-cone. “Don’t you fuckin’ mess with her. Miss Wilson, I’m guessing strawberry’s your favorite. It’s on the house.”
I was brushing away tears again. “Thank you. It is, as a matter of fact.”
“Jamal, see she gets to her car. Miss Wilson, I gotta run. Mind me now – let it go.”
Jamal escorted me, skipping backward, apologizing. It seemed Kedron the Sno-cone Man had some street cred. Serving time did that, I knew. I imagined not many locals knew he’d spent it in a library, memorizing the times table.
The sno-cone was refreshing. At my car, I handed Jamal the shoes.
“Give them to someone you love,” I said. I hoped there was such a person.
“I’m all over it,” he promised.
~ ~ ~
I didn’t go back after that. I didn’t belong there, my window to Kedron had closed, I accepted the authority in his voice. Maybe that was more of his street cred.
What do we live for? I filled my living with odds and ends, their edges still blurred. I imagined my sons moving closer, and Julia giving me a grandson, or granddaughter, or both. I imagined noise in my home again and movement, stairs squeaking, floors thudding, doors thumping. I baked and gardened and volunteered and subbed for the art teacher at my old school, who was fighting bronchitis, though I myself could create no more than unartful phrases, to shape this boat I was crawling inside.
I fussed over bad weather: was he out there in thunderstorms selling sno-cones? I worried over every shooting in the news, dismayed there were so many. As the weather cooled, I worried over his sales, then his health in falling temperatures. Fall collapsed early and winter replaced it. Was he selling sno-cones in snow? I pulled the afghan higher as I watched the news or tried to read. I ached for Louis every evening on the other end of that afghan, good-naturedly tugging for more.
As it turned out, Kedron didn’t belong there either. I learned that in my driveway one icy morning, picking up the Tribune, for he had made the front page. Shot in the back like his father, by someone making the same right turn I had made. My breath left me. I knelt inside Louis’ old jacket on the paving stones cold and hard, and there in the driveway, in my secluded cul de sac, I had my first breakdown since that morning in the library, when I’d tried to tell Kedron the treatment plan. I felt my body shudder, my slippers fall off, and when I made it into my house, my fingers were frozen claws around the newspaper. There was some link between these two deaths, I knew, something beyond their timing, this bow and stern of my new life. In the waters between them I was drowning.
I was sitting on my hallway floor then, slumped against a wall covered in photographs of forty years together, feeling their smiles haunt me. I didn’t stand until I was calm, then I calmly stood, haunted. I went to the kitchen and sat in Louis’ chair. When I was ready, I read the article, which included a school photo of a younger Kedron. It was a notable homicide because a sno-cone stand had been involved, a quirky detail that some editor had decided set it apart. I was grateful for that. It proved Kedron was special, not only to me. The details of the funeral were easy to find. They were everywhere except Resaunna’s Facebook page.
I stayed in the back at the funeral. Neighborhood watch groups and outraged citizens filled the storefront church. There were cries and militant shouts. I peered forward but couldn’t decipher his mother. I spotted Resaunna and Aiesha, holding little Akira. I traced their departure, then waited while others gave condolences. I watched Akira, squirming in Aiesha’s arms. Did that mean something? She wore a creamy, crushed velvet coat, tiny braids everywhere. She’d inherited her daddy’s hair. As others fell away, I approached them, watching them stiffen.
“I loved your grandson,” I told Resaunna.
In the silence that followed I began again, aiming my words toward Aiesha. “He was a wonderful young man. I know you’ll never forget him. But I brought something for Akira, to help her remember.” I handed Aiesha a gift bag. Inside was a gold locket I’d bought at Tiffany’s, with a tiny copy of Kedron’s photo inside, cut into an oval. She didn’t open it. I imagined it being pawned for something actually useful.
“She’s the one that got him to open the stand,” Aiesha told Resaunna, louder than necessary. “She had the idea he was going to better himself. Thank you so much, Miss Wilson. It sure paid off.”
I felt myself crumble, and wondered how that looked on the outside. “I am so sorry,” I whispered. I tried to raise my voice. “For… everything. For your loss.”
“For everything?” asked Aiesha. “You think I want this present?”
But I had already turned to leave, jamming my hands in my pockets. I felt it then, the rawhide. I turned, though it was hard, to ask, “Where’s Bull?”
Outraged, they answered simultaneously.
“Who gives a fuck about a dog? My baby’s daddy is dead.”
“Bitch I let it go, wasn’t no one could handle it but K.”
I untangled their sentences outside, savage north wind blowing. Aiesha’s words were more than I could bear. I filed them away. Resaunna’s words echoed. “Let it go.” Those had been Kedron’s last words to me. Because he knew me, and knew I didn’t let things go, and perhaps I should have been at his stand every day no matter what he said, until he climbed inside my car and I made everything different for him.
Louis was granted five weeks. Thirty-five days for our lives to unspool from diagnosis to death. An excruciating treatment plan with a low success rate he quickly dismissed, while I wasted irreplaceable hours furious with him, pleading with him to fight. A strong man, he didn’t. A weak woman, I always did. I could take a fight, because I could not endure defeat. I told myself it was my strength. I know now it is my weakness. I have my own nightmares, though I didn’t share them with Kedron, or with anyone. I am drowning in the ocean, falling through darkening shades of gray falling deeper, growing darker. I fight to rise to the surface but, for some reason, don’t know which direction that is.
I wake up gasping for air as if I’d been underwater, terrified of where I’d been and where we were heading. Louis was buried on a warm September day, but I shook that entire day and night, alone in our bed, under three blankets. The coldest part of winter, I learned, was picturing him trapped inside frozen ground.
It was too much for me. I drove off, unrolling my car window. “Bull!” I began shouting. “Bull!” The wind scoured my skin and snatched his name. “Bull!” I yelled, wending my way down streets and alleys, vacant now with cold. We’d had a long-haired pointer but slipped a red coat on her for winter days this bad, just for quick walks. A short-haired dog like Bull wouldn’t last long. “Bull!” I yelled.
I found him in the alley behind Cash Loans on Car Titles, shivering beside a garbage can he’d upended, trash everywhere. “Bull.” I leaned over to open my passenger door. “Come on, Bull, good boy.” I pulled the rawhide from my pocket.
Canine teeth can chatter. I know that now because his did, as he made up his mind. Everything comes down to trust in the end. Especially in the end. Bull sniffed the icy air and caught the scent. But he looked me in the eye first for a long moment, with what I recognized as discernment. Then he bounded in. “Good boy, Bull,” I murmured.
He was so large he spilled out of the seat, though he tried to sit neatly. The car trembled with his shivers. It was impossible to lean around him, so I jumped out, ran around to close his door, then returned. Warmth surrounded us. He gave a mighty shake to thaw out. My car heaved. I heard a jangle, and reached out my hand. Two worn dog tags, in the shape of bones. My boat had found its oars.
Without warning, I felt a release, a loosening in my chest. A weight lifted by a burden accepted. Such is life embraced, its loss as well. I laughed out loud with the knowledge. When was the last time I’d breathed? I inhaled. I exhaled. I looked at Bull.
He was ignoring the rawhide, still studying me. I studied him. I felt his slightest movements, rocking our boat. There was just barely room for the two of us inside. Squeaking, thudding, and thumping were inevitable. I remembered something else.
“Here you go, boy.” I pulled out the breakfast sandwich I’d bought with my coffee, one bite taken then immediately rejected. Bull did not reject it. He did not even chew. I felt my smile, and he grinned back, his body still shaking, a sprig of bright basil upon his immense pink tongue.
I could paint that tongue, I thought. I see that pink, and that green. With my trembling hand, I could do that.
