Photo by Eva Hartnagel.
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The Second Time

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My uncle’s truck was on the blink while he waited for a new carburetor and so I horsed the RV onto the interstate to Indiana to visit Cheryl-Anne again. It was a wild
hair decision. My uncle said I was a damn fool to go back and see her. Wasn’t once enough? She’s the one who caused you grief. Took a year of your life. I said, maybe
I’m a slow learner, but once wasn’t enough because there’s still unanswered questions.

He said, maybe you don’t want to hear the answers.

Or maybe there aren’t any.

But I had to figure things out. I wanted to know why it all happened the way it did with me behind locked doors eating gorp for a year. You don’t just lose a year – and your freedom – and shake it off like water off a duck’s back. We need to know why things go wrong and we didn’t even see it coming. I don’t buy that theory anymore that ignorance is bliss. I used to think so, especially in prison. But I think now that ignorance is just ignorance.

As I pulled into the prison lot, I wasn’t as nervous as that first time, but it still made me uneasy to be there and I sat for a moment, my eyes closed, my head against the headrest. I even thought about drinking a beer from the mini fridge, but going in with booze on my breath was dumb. The guards would figure me for a fuckup destined to land back in the joint myself.

I forced myself to make eye contact with all the guards on the way in, to seem like I wasn’t afraid. Just a guy visiting an inmate. No big deal. Like a walk in the park. But each time a door slammed, I still winced, and the guards still noticed. They probably thought, once an inmate, always an inmate. Maybe in the backs of their minds they figured, you’ll be back someday. Just a matter of time. Maybe that was in the back of my mind, too, but only as one of the bizarre and strange thoughts you can’t control, that nonetheless terrify the holy shit out of you.

I fidgeted while I sat in the little booth waiting for Cheryl-Anne. Like waiting for the start of some horror flick you know you’re going to hate but you must watch it anyway. She came out looking a little better, her hair washed, I figured, and brushed into shape. Like the first time, I opened by dancing around the real purpose of the trip.

“So, how’s the food treating you, Cheryl-Anne?”

“They changed the sauce on the chipped beef. Now it ain’t half bad.”

I nodded, smiled thinly.

“Something to build on.”

“You can’t change the noodle, but you can change the sauce,” she said.

“What’s that?”

“Somebody in here said that the other day. You hear all sorts of things.”

“I reckon you do.”

“Why are you here again, Davis?”

“Do you get many visitors?”

“My mom comes regular, bless her heart. My ex a couple times, too.”

“What do you suppose he wants?”

“God knows,” she said. “Maybe he just enjoys seeing me here, like this.”

I chuckled, and she did, too, after a few seconds.

“A sense of humor will help see you through.”

“If you say so. But you’re not here to buck me up, Davis. Just why are you here? I already said I was sorry.”

“Is that enough, do you think? Just saying you’re sorry?”

“I don’t know what else I’d say. I’m sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. How about that?”

I sniffed and looked away a moment before looking back into her eyes.

“I can’t say that a dozen of sorry is better than just one. It’s all just words.”

“What else do we have?”

“I don’t rightly know. Maybe – tears?”

“I’m all cried out, Davis. I truly am. The well’s run dry for now. I ruined my life. Yours, too, I guess. I certainly didn’t help it.”

“It’s not ruined,” I said bravely. “Just -- bruised.”

“More like trampled,” she said, trying to smile but failing.

“They gave me all that money, you know.”

“You deserve it. Make good use of it.”

“I am. I’m renting an RV. You know, cutting costs when I can.”

“A house on wheels. I envy that, Davis. You can go anywhere.”

“Well, so far just Indiana and Michigan.”

“Maybe you need a road trip,” she said. “Just get away from everything and explore. Florida maybe.”

“Too many Republican lunatics in Florida. But you never know.”

“Well, in here you always know. What’s next anyway. Every day is the same.”

“Live in your little world,” I said. “Just the few feet around you. Stay inside it, like a turtle relying on the safety of its shell. And live day to day. Don’t think about weeks or months or years.”

“I’ve got plenty of those.”

“But you don’t have to think about them. They don’t exist. Only day to day does.”

“It’s hard not to think about it – the future.”

“Try. Block out the future for now.”

“How?”

“You’ll figure it out.”

I don’t know why, exactly, but I chose that as the moment to get up to leave. I just wanted away from slamming doors and smirking guards. And I guess I was torn between despising her and wanting to somehow help her.

“Will you come back, Davis?”

I stared at her a few a few seconds. She was pitiful, deflated, but I decided I couldn’t hate her. There’s nothing to be gained from that. Hatred is wasted energy. It can corrode you from the inside out.

“Maybe,” I said. “But I can’t predict anything. Or promise.”

“I understand,” she said, looking down. “Nothing’s promised. I’m getting that.”

“Good for you, Cheryl-Anne. But if I do come back, what can I bring you?”

She thought a moment, her eyes searching my face.

“Shampoo is good. And cigarettes. Some cigs always go far in here.”

“Yeah, I know. I remember.”

She glanced over her shoulder at the guard, who’d stepped closer, ready to grab her arm and lead her away.

“Davis, do you think you will come back?”

I glanced at the guard. He avoided eye contact but appeared patient.

“We’ll have to see. It depends.”

“On what?”

I could see the anguish in her yes. She wanted something to hope for, to believe in, to see her through. I’d been there. I’d made it through by living in my little world, the immediate few feet around me. I didn’t know if she had that in her. She was certainly going to find out.

“Well, I’ll see what I can do,” was all I could come up with.

“I understand,” she said so quietly I barely heard her.

Her face darkened and I saw a solitary tear, perhaps all she had left, ooze from an eye and streak down her cheek. She dabbed it with the back of her hand before the guard helped her up and out the door.

That’s what I’d come for, that tear.

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