This Way Forward
Ian Woollen
Many people claim to have experienced a defining event, something pivotal to never get over, something to explain all their bad behavior. Chaz Reston boasted of several such moments, starting with the death of the family dog, Buddy. A cocker spaniel, hit by a Fed-Ex truck in front of the house. Chaz waxed on about the feel of Buddy’s silky hair to the prison chaplain and his parole officer, Jerome.
Jerome said, “Come on, Chaz. Be honest. Up until age nineteen, your life was easy. Nice spread in the suburbs. Your dad was a fixture at the Statehouse. You had a good education. Leading roles in high school and college theater. And then, boom, up in flames, thanks to a passionate, testosterone-addled mistake. Just own it, pal. Don’t blame it on the dog anymore.”
“The quality of mercy is not strained,” Chaz said.
“Leave it here, man. Let it go,” Jerome instructed Chaz.
They stood together at the front gate on a cool morning in June, readying for Chaz’s release from the correctional facility. Chaz savored the feel of civilian clothes. His backpack slung over a shoulder. The first Monday in June, the beginning of summer. Slowly re-acclimating to the regular calendar, after an extended period of time-blur. In the future, he promised himself, the first Monday in June would be a personal holiday.
Outside the perimeter fence, a milky orb broke through the fog. Sunlight flickered in the treetops along a distant ridge, as if beckoning him back to the natural universe. Maybe he should hike the Appalachian Trail. Maybe he should look into a park ranger job, if his felony conviction didn’t disqualify him.
Craggy Jerome slapped him on the shoulder and offered a final fist-bump. Knowing Chaz’s dramatic abilities, particularly from his contributions to the annual Cellblock Follies, he said, “Break a leg, kid.”
“I’m not a kid anymore,” Chaz said.
Jerome asked, “Why do they say that, ‘break a leg’?”
“Because every play has a cast.”
“Ouch, yo.”
“I won’t miss this place, but I will miss you,” Chaz said.
And, yes, stepping out through the prison gate did feel like walking onstage. Act Two, Scene One of a summer stock drama. Cue the birds. Cue the goodbye jeers from the kitchen squad taking out the breakfast garbage. Cue the shiny limousine. A driver standing beside an open door holding a cardboard sign with Chaz’s name on it.
Wait, what? This was unexpected. The warden’s office, according to protocol, provided a cab ride to the bus station. The cab arrived next. It pulled up behind the limo and honked. Chaz pondered his choice and decided to wave off the taxi.
Jerome said, “Looks like somebody has been counting the days. Maybe your fraternity brothers chipped in to take you to a club.”
“Doubtful,” Chaz said, “More like my father, over my mother’s objections. That’s his style.”
For Chaz’s family, limousines were a frequent ride. A town car and driver ferried him to and from school and play rehearsals and the country club. Thus, okay, no big deal to be met by a limousine as he exited the prison. He turned to embrace Jerome one last time.
“I want to hear from you, but I don’t want to hear of you,” Jerome said.
“I’ll send my press clippings,” Chaz said.
He climbed into the plush backseat and looked around for a bar. If the ride had been sent by his father, there would definitely be a bottle stashed somewhere. None visible. Rule out the old man.
“Where are we going?” Chaz asked.
“I’m not supposed to tell you,” the gray-bearded driver said. A lollipop stick protruded from his mouth and it moved up and down as he spoke.
Chaz grumbled, “Is this a joke?”
The driver shook his head. “Hey, no problem. I know how you’re feeling. I came out of those gates myself twenty years ago,” he said, and adjusted his hat and his sunglasses and pulled out onto the highway. Monday traffic. The driver waved an exaggerated bye-bye to the reflective green signboard warning motorists not to pick up hitch-hikers outside the prison.
“You know how I’m feeling? Good. Tell me, please, I have no idea,” Chaz said.
“Like a lost dog,” the driver said.
“Right, exactly.”
They traveled in silence for several miles. The driver repeatedly glancing in the rear-view mirror. Chaz met his eyes, unblinking.
Finally, the driver said, “How does a guy like you win a stay in the joint?”
Chaz shook his head. “No, sorry. I’m done with that story.”
“Fantastic, just give me the short version,” the driver said.
Chaz cleared his throat and shifted into third-person. It was easier. It was happening to somebody else. “A college student meets a cute freshman after closing night of student one-acts. She’d played a trapeze artist and a nun. He’d played a coal miner and a currency trader. They go to a bar and their conversation is right on script, like everything was written just for them. She reveals the existence of a boyfriend up north who she visits on the weekends. As luck would have it, the girl’s car breaks down. Needs a new transmission. Our guy, playing the chivalrous suitor, offers to drive her there the following weekend. He concocts a grand plan and makes reservations at a B&B up in the mountains. Cranking the music and rolling a joint one-handed, he blows right on past the boyfriend exit in the fast lane. He ignores the girl’s objections and promises her the weekend of her life amid the beautiful foliage. Her name is ‘Astrid’. He woos her with the line: “You are so beautiful, Astrid. You should have been born a mathematical theorem.”
“That is a good line,” the limo driver said.
“The problem is that he doesn’t know, unfortunately, Astrid is the only child of bitterly divorced parents and was abducted at age four by her father. So, hell, this unexpected departure from their plans triggers a reaction, a panic attack. It happens while our guy steps out from the B&B to the corner store to buy cigarettes. When he returns, the police await him, summoned by a flashback-distraught, regressed little girl. Our guy is charged with criminal confinement and possession.”
“Seriously bad rap,” the driver said.
“It gets worse. Astrid’s father turns out to be a longtime opponent of our guy’s dad in the Legislature. The publicity around the prosecution and conviction scores points with his base. And our guy’s folks are so pissed, they let him take the fall. Teach him a lesson.”
“And what exactly is the lesson?” the limo driver asked.
Chaz scratched his forehead and tried to prepare for the inevitable cross-examination at home. His parents would demand a business plan. Chaz practiced a look of contrition, eyes cast down left and lips pursed. Never mix the grain and the grape. Never assume you really know anybody.
Chaz said, “Be respectful to women, and henceforth, I will never allow theatrical impulses to get the best of me. In fact, I will be changing my name to ‘Henceforth’.”
“Say what?”
“Nothing,” Chaz mumbled, “Just tell me where we’re going.”
“To a coffee shop near the airport. That’s all I know.”
Chaz groaned and shrugged and forced a smile. Probably one of his prison pen-pals. There had been several frothy correspondences with people from his theater life, who, for whatever reason, were excited by communicating with an incarcerated ‘offender’.
The limousine pulled up in front of a suburban, strip-mall Starbucks just off the highway. Chaz peered out and saw a woman in a tight, blue suit. Waving from a table on the patio. It took a moment. She removed her sunglasses and implanted them in her perm. No longer a blonde. It was Astrid in person. She wasn’t a kid anymore either.
Chaz tapped the driver on the shoulder. “I’ll pay you to wait. This may be trouble.”
“Thirty minutes,” the driver nodded and turned around in the parking lot.
Chaz climbed out and surveyed the mid-morning scene. Motorists placing orders for coffee and pastries in the drive-thru lane. Planes flying overhead. People wearing clothes of all different colors. Birds chasing crumbs on the flagstones. Chaz imagined a sports-commentator voice inside his head, narrating the sights and smells for the guys back in the yard. It was dizzying.
He slowly approached Astrid and called, “Giving me a taste of my own medicine?”
Astrid smiled and patted the open chair beside her.
“I’m not violating a restraining order, am I? This isn’t a trick to send me back to jail?” Chaz asked.
She said, “No danger of that. I ordered you a cappuccino. I seem to remember you like that stuff.”
Chaz nodded and said, “In a former life.”
She smiled. “Ah, yes, our former lives. I’ve had a couple since we last met. Let’s discuss reincarnation. We used to talk about interesting things.”
“Depends on what else is on the agenda,” Chaz said. He felt a prideful sense of consolation that this person was still carrying a torch for him.
“Why here? Why the airport?”
“Sit down and I’ll tell you,” Astrid said, with a delicate, the-meeting-will-now-come-to-order cough. The cough was familiar. The cough had not changed.
Chaz glanced around to see if there were any police or lawyer types lurking. Of course, lawyer types are always lurking. Masquerading as baristas. A tattooed server brought a large cappuccino. Chaz pulled out the chair and moved it away slightly and turned it to face Astrid head-on. Slowly feeling more comfortable because of a distinct lack of interest in this female apparition, even after three years in prison. He wondered why he’d fallen for her in the first place and hoped this was a sign of growth.
“Okay, I’m ready,” Chaz said.
Astrid said, “I live in Chicago now. I flew in for this conversation. I stopped pills and drinking a year ago. It’s a new chapter. I want to apologize.”
“You – excuse me, what?”
She continued, “I’m in a recovery program, working the steps.”
Chaz winced at his first sip of freshly ground coffee in two years. “That’s why you had me driven here?”
“It’s called ‘making amends’. Here’s the truth, Chaz. I know you weren’t trying to kidnap me. We were just young and stupid and stoned. I believe that your intentions were simple, schoolboy theatrical. I caused a huge crisis for you and I’m sorry.”
“That’s why you brought me here?” Chaz repeated.
“I wanted to do it face to face,” Astrid said, “Will you forgive me?”
Chaz clutched his coffee. His hands were shaking and the cup started to spill. He set it back down on the glass table and tried to mop up the mess with a napkin. He fell entirely out of character, his entire body shaking, as if some internal grief cue had been delivered that he could no longer resist. He stood and delivered an improvised soliloquy, attempting to express his shame at thinking she was still interested in him. He remembered not a word of it later.
The limousine driver, watching Chaz in the rear view mirror, opened his door and stepped out and aimed a concerned shrug that read, “What the heck, man?”
Chaz signaled: please, one more minute. He wiped his face on his sleeve and stood and chugged the dregs of his cappuccino. He said, “Astrid, honestly, I’m a little confused, a little disoriented. My parole officer, Jerome, would want me to be straight with you. Yes, thanks for this coffee, and thanks for this act of kindness. Frankly, I am the one who should be apologizing. Of course, I forgive you one hundred percent. There is no excuse for what I did. Sometimes, overacting really is a crime.”
Stumbling toward the limo, still weak in the knees, Chaz heard her call, “Where are you going? What are you planning to do?”
Chaz used a standard exit line, “Going to see a man about a dog.” The driver ushered him back into the car and cranked up the air-conditioning. Not necessarily a cocker spaniel. It could be any dog really. A stray. A rescue. Anything with silky hair.
Ian Woollen
Many people claim to have experienced a defining event, something pivotal to never get over, something to explain all their bad behavior. Chaz Reston boasted of several such moments, starting with the death of the family dog, Buddy. A cocker spaniel, hit by a Fed-Ex truck in front of the house. Chaz waxed on about the feel of Buddy’s silky hair to the prison chaplain and his parole officer, Jerome.
Jerome said, “Come on, Chaz. Be honest. Up until age nineteen, your life was easy. Nice spread in the suburbs. Your dad was a fixture at the Statehouse. You had a good education. Leading roles in high school and college theater. And then, boom, up in flames, thanks to a passionate, testosterone-addled mistake. Just own it, pal. Don’t blame it on the dog anymore.”
“The quality of mercy is not strained,” Chaz said.
“Leave it here, man. Let it go,” Jerome instructed Chaz.
They stood together at the front gate on a cool morning in June, readying for Chaz’s release from the correctional facility. Chaz savored the feel of civilian clothes. His backpack slung over a shoulder. The first Monday in June, the beginning of summer. Slowly re-acclimating to the regular calendar, after an extended period of time-blur. In the future, he promised himself, the first Monday in June would be a personal holiday.
Outside the perimeter fence, a milky orb broke through the fog. Sunlight flickered in the treetops along a distant ridge, as if beckoning him back to the natural universe. Maybe he should hike the Appalachian Trail. Maybe he should look into a park ranger job, if his felony conviction didn’t disqualify him.
Craggy Jerome slapped him on the shoulder and offered a final fist-bump. Knowing Chaz’s dramatic abilities, particularly from his contributions to the annual Cellblock Follies, he said, “Break a leg, kid.”
“I’m not a kid anymore,” Chaz said.
Jerome asked, “Why do they say that, ‘break a leg’?”
“Because every play has a cast.”
“Ouch, yo.”
“I won’t miss this place, but I will miss you,” Chaz said.
And, yes, stepping out through the prison gate did feel like walking onstage. Act Two, Scene One of a summer stock drama. Cue the birds. Cue the goodbye jeers from the kitchen squad taking out the breakfast garbage. Cue the shiny limousine. A driver standing beside an open door holding a cardboard sign with Chaz’s name on it.
Wait, what? This was unexpected. The warden’s office, according to protocol, provided a cab ride to the bus station. The cab arrived next. It pulled up behind the limo and honked. Chaz pondered his choice and decided to wave off the taxi.
Jerome said, “Looks like somebody has been counting the days. Maybe your fraternity brothers chipped in to take you to a club.”
“Doubtful,” Chaz said, “More like my father, over my mother’s objections. That’s his style.”
For Chaz’s family, limousines were a frequent ride. A town car and driver ferried him to and from school and play rehearsals and the country club. Thus, okay, no big deal to be met by a limousine as he exited the prison. He turned to embrace Jerome one last time.
“I want to hear from you, but I don’t want to hear of you,” Jerome said.
“I’ll send my press clippings,” Chaz said.
He climbed into the plush backseat and looked around for a bar. If the ride had been sent by his father, there would definitely be a bottle stashed somewhere. None visible. Rule out the old man.
“Where are we going?” Chaz asked.
“I’m not supposed to tell you,” the gray-bearded driver said. A lollipop stick protruded from his mouth and it moved up and down as he spoke.
Chaz grumbled, “Is this a joke?”
The driver shook his head. “Hey, no problem. I know how you’re feeling. I came out of those gates myself twenty years ago,” he said, and adjusted his hat and his sunglasses and pulled out onto the highway. Monday traffic. The driver waved an exaggerated bye-bye to the reflective green signboard warning motorists not to pick up hitch-hikers outside the prison.
“You know how I’m feeling? Good. Tell me, please, I have no idea,” Chaz said.
“Like a lost dog,” the driver said.
“Right, exactly.”
They traveled in silence for several miles. The driver repeatedly glancing in the rear-view mirror. Chaz met his eyes, unblinking.
Finally, the driver said, “How does a guy like you win a stay in the joint?”
Chaz shook his head. “No, sorry. I’m done with that story.”
“Fantastic, just give me the short version,” the driver said.
Chaz cleared his throat and shifted into third-person. It was easier. It was happening to somebody else. “A college student meets a cute freshman after closing night of student one-acts. She’d played a trapeze artist and a nun. He’d played a coal miner and a currency trader. They go to a bar and their conversation is right on script, like everything was written just for them. She reveals the existence of a boyfriend up north who she visits on the weekends. As luck would have it, the girl’s car breaks down. Needs a new transmission. Our guy, playing the chivalrous suitor, offers to drive her there the following weekend. He concocts a grand plan and makes reservations at a B&B up in the mountains. Cranking the music and rolling a joint one-handed, he blows right on past the boyfriend exit in the fast lane. He ignores the girl’s objections and promises her the weekend of her life amid the beautiful foliage. Her name is ‘Astrid’. He woos her with the line: “You are so beautiful, Astrid. You should have been born a mathematical theorem.”
“That is a good line,” the limo driver said.
“The problem is that he doesn’t know, unfortunately, Astrid is the only child of bitterly divorced parents and was abducted at age four by her father. So, hell, this unexpected departure from their plans triggers a reaction, a panic attack. It happens while our guy steps out from the B&B to the corner store to buy cigarettes. When he returns, the police await him, summoned by a flashback-distraught, regressed little girl. Our guy is charged with criminal confinement and possession.”
“Seriously bad rap,” the driver said.
“It gets worse. Astrid’s father turns out to be a longtime opponent of our guy’s dad in the Legislature. The publicity around the prosecution and conviction scores points with his base. And our guy’s folks are so pissed, they let him take the fall. Teach him a lesson.”
“And what exactly is the lesson?” the limo driver asked.
Chaz scratched his forehead and tried to prepare for the inevitable cross-examination at home. His parents would demand a business plan. Chaz practiced a look of contrition, eyes cast down left and lips pursed. Never mix the grain and the grape. Never assume you really know anybody.
Chaz said, “Be respectful to women, and henceforth, I will never allow theatrical impulses to get the best of me. In fact, I will be changing my name to ‘Henceforth’.”
“Say what?”
“Nothing,” Chaz mumbled, “Just tell me where we’re going.”
“To a coffee shop near the airport. That’s all I know.”
Chaz groaned and shrugged and forced a smile. Probably one of his prison pen-pals. There had been several frothy correspondences with people from his theater life, who, for whatever reason, were excited by communicating with an incarcerated ‘offender’.
The limousine pulled up in front of a suburban, strip-mall Starbucks just off the highway. Chaz peered out and saw a woman in a tight, blue suit. Waving from a table on the patio. It took a moment. She removed her sunglasses and implanted them in her perm. No longer a blonde. It was Astrid in person. She wasn’t a kid anymore either.
Chaz tapped the driver on the shoulder. “I’ll pay you to wait. This may be trouble.”
“Thirty minutes,” the driver nodded and turned around in the parking lot.
Chaz climbed out and surveyed the mid-morning scene. Motorists placing orders for coffee and pastries in the drive-thru lane. Planes flying overhead. People wearing clothes of all different colors. Birds chasing crumbs on the flagstones. Chaz imagined a sports-commentator voice inside his head, narrating the sights and smells for the guys back in the yard. It was dizzying.
He slowly approached Astrid and called, “Giving me a taste of my own medicine?”
Astrid smiled and patted the open chair beside her.
“I’m not violating a restraining order, am I? This isn’t a trick to send me back to jail?” Chaz asked.
She said, “No danger of that. I ordered you a cappuccino. I seem to remember you like that stuff.”
Chaz nodded and said, “In a former life.”
She smiled. “Ah, yes, our former lives. I’ve had a couple since we last met. Let’s discuss reincarnation. We used to talk about interesting things.”
“Depends on what else is on the agenda,” Chaz said. He felt a prideful sense of consolation that this person was still carrying a torch for him.
“Why here? Why the airport?”
“Sit down and I’ll tell you,” Astrid said, with a delicate, the-meeting-will-now-come-to-order cough. The cough was familiar. The cough had not changed.
Chaz glanced around to see if there were any police or lawyer types lurking. Of course, lawyer types are always lurking. Masquerading as baristas. A tattooed server brought a large cappuccino. Chaz pulled out the chair and moved it away slightly and turned it to face Astrid head-on. Slowly feeling more comfortable because of a distinct lack of interest in this female apparition, even after three years in prison. He wondered why he’d fallen for her in the first place and hoped this was a sign of growth.
“Okay, I’m ready,” Chaz said.
Astrid said, “I live in Chicago now. I flew in for this conversation. I stopped pills and drinking a year ago. It’s a new chapter. I want to apologize.”
“You – excuse me, what?”
She continued, “I’m in a recovery program, working the steps.”
Chaz winced at his first sip of freshly ground coffee in two years. “That’s why you had me driven here?”
“It’s called ‘making amends’. Here’s the truth, Chaz. I know you weren’t trying to kidnap me. We were just young and stupid and stoned. I believe that your intentions were simple, schoolboy theatrical. I caused a huge crisis for you and I’m sorry.”
“That’s why you brought me here?” Chaz repeated.
“I wanted to do it face to face,” Astrid said, “Will you forgive me?”
Chaz clutched his coffee. His hands were shaking and the cup started to spill. He set it back down on the glass table and tried to mop up the mess with a napkin. He fell entirely out of character, his entire body shaking, as if some internal grief cue had been delivered that he could no longer resist. He stood and delivered an improvised soliloquy, attempting to express his shame at thinking she was still interested in him. He remembered not a word of it later.
The limousine driver, watching Chaz in the rear view mirror, opened his door and stepped out and aimed a concerned shrug that read, “What the heck, man?”
Chaz signaled: please, one more minute. He wiped his face on his sleeve and stood and chugged the dregs of his cappuccino. He said, “Astrid, honestly, I’m a little confused, a little disoriented. My parole officer, Jerome, would want me to be straight with you. Yes, thanks for this coffee, and thanks for this act of kindness. Frankly, I am the one who should be apologizing. Of course, I forgive you one hundred percent. There is no excuse for what I did. Sometimes, overacting really is a crime.”
Stumbling toward the limo, still weak in the knees, Chaz heard her call, “Where are you going? What are you planning to do?”
Chaz used a standard exit line, “Going to see a man about a dog.” The driver ushered him back into the car and cranked up the air-conditioning. Not necessarily a cocker spaniel. It could be any dog really. A stray. A rescue. Anything with silky hair.
