We Begin at the End(7)
“We’re getting old.”
She blew a perfect smoke ring. “Not me, Walk. You’re getting older and me, I’m just getting started.”
He laughed hard, and then she laughed too. And that was them, Walk and Star, thirty years unwinding till all that was left was a couple of kids talking shit and making jokes.
They passed another hour in easy silence, neither saying it but both knowing there was only one thing on their minds. Vincent King was coming home.
4
WALK DROVE WITH AN EYE on the water, on folding golds and roaring surf.
A hundred miles east to Fairmont County Correctional Facility.
Thunderheads formed like gathered mistakes, the men in the yard stopped and looked skyward.
He pulled into a sprawling lot and killed the engine. The sound of buzzers, men hollering, the lonely wave of caged souls rolling out toward miles of godless plains.
It was not a place for a fifteen-year-old boy, no matter the detail. The judge had sat stone-faced as he made that dazzling call to corrective, the harsh truth of reformation more than a world from that courthouse in Las Lomas. Walk sometimes wondered about the damage done that night, immeasurable, the spiderweb of hurt that shaded so many lives, replacing the new with the old, the fresh with decay. He saw it in Star and had seen it in her father, but none more so than Duchess, who carried that night long before she was born.
A rap on the trunk, he got out and smiled at the warden, Cuddy, tall and lean and grinning. Forget the hardened silhouette, the man ground down and ruthless by the forced company, Cuddy had always been friendly and kind.
“Vincent King,” Cuddy said with a smile. “You look after your own in Cape Haven, right? How is it over there, still a shade of heaven?”
“It is.”
“Got to say, I wish I had a hundred more like Vincent. Most days the boys say they forget he’s there.” Cuddy moved and Walk fell into step with him.
They passed a gate, then another, then into a low, squat building painted a shade of green that Cuddy said they brightened every season. “Most restful color for the human eye. Speaks of forgiveness and personal transformation.”
Walk watched a couple of guys with brushes, trailing the baseboard with care, mouths tight in concentration.
Cuddy placed a hand on Walk’s shoulder. “Listen. Vincent King has served his time, but getting him to realize that won’t be easy. You need anything, you call me.”
Walk stood in the waiting room and watched the wide views and the men that did circuits, heads high like Cuddy taught them the sin of shame. If it wasn’t for the wire that carved the landscape with such brutality it might have been a scene that stopped breath, Our Good Earth, men in jumpsuits nothing but the lost children they once were.
It had been five years since Vincent stopped receiving visitors, so, if not for the eyes, still blue enough, Walk might have had trouble recognizing him. Tall, thin, close to gaunt, sallow cheeks, a long way from the cocksure fifteen-year-old that had walked in.
But then Vincent saw him, and he smiled. It was a smile that had got him into and out of more trouble than Walk could remember. He was still in there, no matter the warnings, the way people said it changed you, his friend was still in there.
Walk took a step forward, thought of opening his arms but then extended his hand slowly.
Vincent looked at the hand like he’d forgotten it could hold a greeting and nothing more. He shook it lightly.
“I told you not to come.” He spoke in a flat, quiet tone. “But, thank you.” There was something reverential in the way he moved.
“It’s good to see you, Vin.”
Vincent filled out the paperwork, a guard close and watching; a man freed after thirty years was not a sight that drew comment. Another day in the state of California.
A half hour later and they were at the last gate, both turned when Cuddy came out.
“It’ll be tough out there, Vincent.” He hugged him, quick and tight, something passing between them, maybe thirty years of decorous routine finally broken.
“More than half.” Cuddy kept hold of Vincent for a moment. “That’s how many come back to me. Make sure you’re not one of them.”
Walk wondered how many times Cuddy had spoken that weighted line over the years.
They walked side by side, at the cruiser Vincent lay a hand on the hood and looked at Walk.
“I never saw you in your uniform. I got the photo, passing out, but here, in the flesh, you’re a cop.”
Walk smiled. “I am.”
“Not sure I can be friends with a cop, man.”
Walk laughed, the relief almost flooring him.
He drove slow at first, Vincent with an eye on just about everything, window low and the breeze on them. Walk wanted to talk but they crawled those first miles in something like a dream.
“I was thinking, that time we stowed on the Saint Rose,” Walk said, trying to sound casual, like he hadn’t practiced conversation starters on the way up.
Vincent looked up, a half smile at the memory.
They’d met up early, ten years old and first day of summer. They’d pedaled down to the water, hid their bikes and crept onto the trawler, breathing heavy beneath the tarp as the sun rose and light passed through to them. Walk still remembered it, the throb of the engine as Skip Douglas and his men aimed her at the endless ocean. He hadn’t even been pissed when they crawled out, instead radioed back and said he’d keep them the day. Walk hadn’t ever worked harder hours, scrubbed the wood and boxes, the smell of fish blood no match for the feeling, a taste of life beyond the borders.