American rust (18 page)

“Why are we going this way,” Poe asked. “Uniontown is on the other side of the river.” He said it and got a faint hope that maybe Harris was going to help him escape, let him out at the West Virginia border.

“I figured taking the scenic route might give us more time to talk,” said Harris. “Not to mention this might be your final chance to see this stuff before you turn fifty. Or at all.”

Poe felt his stomach sink.

“I already told you everything,” he said.

Harris shrugged.

Heading west away from the Mon it was more rolling hills, ancient barns and silos, it was farming and not industry. They were really taking the long way to Uniontown—they would have to cross back over the river again. The land changed quickly as you got away from the river, the old stone farmhouses, it reminded you people had been living here two, three hundred years, there were houses that old. His father claimed that was how long their people had been in the Valley, three hundred years, original founders, but it was more like the original drunkards. In the armpit of history there was always a horse thief Those were the Poes. He wished they had taken the shorter route. Then it occurred to him: this really is your last chance to see all this. That's how serious this is.

Maybe the bum, it occurred to him now it must be Murray, the one who'd recognized him from the football team. Maybe he wouldn't pick Poe out of the lineup but Christ what were the odds of that, he'd known him on a chance meeting and now that he thought Poe had killed his buddy he'd recognize him for sure. Not to mention Poe had given him a good ass- kicking—there was nothing like payback. Murray was going to pay him back that was for goddamn sure and when Poe thought about it that way he was in no hurry to get there at all, he was glad Harris had taken the long drive. He tried to look at every tree, memorize it all. He wondered what the bail would be, it would be steep, he was sure of that, they'd make sure it was too high to pay. They passed a yard where someone had a collection of tractors, forty or fifty of them on a big lawn in front of a little house, he would remember that, and then they came into a town. They must have crossed the river again without him noticing. How long had he been in the back of the truck? They were in Union-town already, it was about to be over, his final ride.

A few people in the street stared until they saw him staring back. There was a man, clearly crazy, walking down the street talking to someone who wasn't there. Let me switch places with him, he'll get three meals a day and a place to sleep. I'll fend for myself, wear animal skins. He wondered where Isaac was. On the road somewhere. He thought maybe Isaac should be here for a while, too, not the whole time, just share a few minutes. Maybe they were even. He had saved Isaac and then Isaac had saved him. Were he and Isaac even or not? Harris opened the partition and passed back the bracelets.

“Make em tight so it looks like I did it,” he said.

A few minutes later they stopped behind a big brick building like the old police station in Buell. Harris led him inside.

There was a tall desk and a cop behind it and some other cops loitering, talking to a man in a suit, a short good- looking young man with a full head of blond hair, he carried himself like a politician. He looked Poe over carefully, as if Poe was a car he was thinking of buying. Poe nodded but if the man noticed he didn't react at all.

Poe was put in a holding cell with two benches; there was a middle-aged man lying on one of them, his hair mussed, wearing khakis and a golf shirt. He smelled like he'd been sweating booze for a long time, he had circles under his eyes and he'd thrown up on himself at some point in the recent past and he smelled of that, too. He glanced briefly at Poe and must have decided Poe wasn't a threat because he closed his eyes again. Poe felt slightly insulted.

After a time Poe was taken out and stood in a room against a wall with five other men who were approximately his age and height. One of the other men standing with Poe was a cop who'd been in the lobby when Poe came in; now he wore streetclothes. They all faced a mirrored window. After a few minutes, Poe was led back to the cell. Eventually Harris came to the cell and knocked on the bars so Poe would look up.

“Well,” said Poe.

Harris shook his head. “Didn't take him long.”

“I guess that's it, then.” He shrugged.

“There's one good public defender around here. I'm trying to get her to take your case.”

“I appreciate it,” said Poe.

“I'll be seeing you.”

“Wait,” said Poe. “Where are they sending me?”

“Fayette.”

“Not the jail?”

“Bail's too high for the regular jail. Least that's what our friend the district attorney is saying.”

“That's great.”

“I'll keep your mother informed.”

Poe shrugged.

“Stay out of trouble if you can,” said Harris. “If you can't, just make sure the other guy gets it worse. First day's always the hardest.”

After Harris left, the man in the golf shirt sat up and looked at Poe.

“Who do you have to blow to get that kind of treatment,” he said. “None of those fuckers has said a single goddamn word to me.”

“I doubt it's the kind of treatment you want,” said Poe.

“I'm on my second DUI,” the man said.

“Well, I'm sure they'll let you go again.”

“I dunno. I said some dumb things to the cop.”

“They got bigger things to worry about than you.”

The man sat back down on the bench.

“Christ,” he said. “I've got tenure committee next week.”

“What does that mean?”

The man looked at Poe. “I'm a professor. Actually I'm a poet.”

“At CU?”

The man shook his head.

“I don't give a fuck,” Poe said. “It ain't like I'm going there.”

“Why are you here anyway” the man said.

“Don't worry yourself.”

“C'mon, man. I don't care.”

“Supposedly I killed someone,” said Poe. “Except I didn't.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Jesus,” said the man. But his mood seemed to brighten after that. He went to the sink and washed his face and lay down on the bench and closed his eyes.

Poe felt himself getting angry, he thought you should belt this guy in the face, consoling himself on your situation. Except he was done with that behavior. No that wasn't true. Where he was going, most likely he was not done with that behavior at all. He watched the professor, smelling like puke but resting easily.

Finally a cop came and took Poe to a garage where they put him in a van with a cage in the back of it. He waited there a long time, the cage was like a cage for large animals, bear dogs or something, he closed his eyes. He doubted it was past two in the afternoon but it felt like a long time since he'd been home. He didn't know how long he'd been in the van when he heard the driver's door open and close and then the garage opened and they drove out into the light. The driver didn't say a word and Poe didn't feel like waking up anyway, he was thinking about Lee, the last night, it was hard to figure her out. They'd gone to a motel and done it until morning, but there was something off about her. A married woman, what did you expect? He could see it clearly in his mind, her face in the dark, it was as clear as looking at a picture, that was how you remembered things, by thinking about them over and over, only sometimes you'd begin to remember them differently. He began to feel carsick with all the narrow swooping roads; it was an old van. He had no idea where they were, woods and fields, fields and woods, a never- ending succession, country roads, dipping and turning all the time, he would be sick. When they finally stopped they were at a large compound with low buildings at the top of a hill, it looked brand- new, could have been a school except for the forty- foot chainlink and razor wire. There was a good view of the river, four squat gun towers, and a man driving a white pickup truck down the space between the fences, patrolling. Inside the inner fence, in what was clearly the prisoners yard, there was no grass, only dirt, prisoners standing around in blue shirts and tan pants, there were two separate areas, it looked like weightlifting benches.

The paint was fresh and bright white and the steel razors at the tops of the fences reflected the sun and the big windows on the guard towers were spotless. Someone came out to open the gate. Poe watched it close behind him and get farther and farther away. Inside one of the buildings they took the big manila envelope with his wallet and watch and counted the money again in front of him and made him strip. He stood naked facing the wall. There were two guards; both had their batons out. Here it comes, he thought.

“Open your mouth and lift up your tongue. Run your fingers through your hair, all of your hair now. Turn around and pull your ears forward.”

Poe complied.

“Bend all the way over and spread your cheeks wide.”

The men stood at a safe distance. Poe did everything they said.

“You got anything in them boots?”

“In what?”

“Your shoes, boy. You got anything in em?”

“No.”

“Do I have to cut them open to look inside them?”

“Please don't cut up my shoes.”

Poe turned around. One of the guards was feeling around inside his shoes with blue latex gloves. Both guards wore gray uniform shirts and black pants, cheap material; their shirts were pilled from being washed.

“Turn the fuck back around,” said the short guard. “I won't ask you again.”

Poe did.

“Alright. Now bend over three times quickly. All the way down to your toes.”

Poe did.

One of them rapped the baton against the wall.

“Do it quick,” he said. “Doubletime.”

Poe did.

“Nice form,” said one of them.

“What was that for?”

“In case you had a shank up your ass. You put something up there and you bend over too quick it'll cut your guts open from the inside.”

“I don't have anything,” said Poe.

“So keep it in mind for the future. That's a regular part of the drill.”

They gave him his boots back and tossed him an orange jumpsuit that smelled like someone else's sweat.

“I don't have any socks or underwear,” Poe said. The men ignored him. They led him to another room where he was directed to stand in front of a large desk behind which sat a heavy- set black woman. He greeted her and she ignored him. She verified his name.

“Do you feel suicidal?” she said.

“No,” he said.

“Are you a homosexual?”

“No.”

“Do you have any medical conditions or allergies?”

“No.”

“Have you ever thought about hurting yourself?”

“I just told you that,” he said.

She gave him an exasperated look.

“Whatever,” he said. “What about my lawyer?”

She acted like she hadn't heard him. He sat there watching her write. He could feel the anger building up inside him but he kept his head on, it would not help him to let his fire get built up.

The woman put his file aside and began looking at other papers that seemed to have nothing to do with him, then she was writing something in her day planner. He stood in front of her desk with his arms behind his back. He stood for a long time. He shifted from foot to foot; his leg fell asleep. Finally she motioned to one of the guards and Poe was taken into another room where an inmate trustee, a short gray- haired black man in his sixties, handed him a pile of sheets, a towel, and a pillow, and asked his clothing sizes.

When the guards had gone back into the other room, the trustee said, “How much you want for those boots, my man. Timberlands?”

“Red Wings.”

“Well tell me what you want for them.”

“They ain't for sale.”

“Don't test my motherfuckin patience, dawg.”

Poe didn't say anything. The man left and came back and tossed Poe a pair of polyester khaki pants, two pairs of socks and underwear, and a blue denim button- down shirt.

“None of this is the right size,” Poe said.

“You are one stupid- ass fuckin fish, you know that?”

He could have picked the little man up and crushed his skull but for some reason the inmate was not afraid of him. He changed out of the orange jumpsuit and into the new clothes and one of the guards came back and Poe picked up his bundle of sheets and followed him down a long narrow hallway. They passed a guard station with inch- thick Plexiglas, were buzzed through a steel door and into a broad corridor as long as a football field. The corridor was empty except for a pair of guards patrolling and an inmate pushing a mop. The floor was highly polished and the smell of floor wax and solvent overpowering. Following the guard, Poe passed several doors and could see into the cellblocks, he could see men sitting around on chairs and tables, he could hear music blaring. Poe expected the guard to explain where they were going but he didn't.

Finally they reached a door and the guard turned and the door clicked and they entered the cellblock. It was a long wide space with two tiers of cells on each side and a large common area in the center. Several televisions were turned up to maximum volume, blaring
Jerry Springer
and rap videos. There were tables on which men were playing games of some sort, checkers or maybe chess, some wore the same khakis and blue denim shirts as Poe did but most wore sweatshirts or pants that didn't look state- issued. Immediately the noise died down in the room as people sized him up.

“I like them shoes,” called one of them.

“Look at that pretty- ass motherfuckin fish.”

“Some tight- ass Britney Spears booty down there. I be grabbin on that shit and …” Out of the corner of his eye, Poe could see one of the inmates making an exaggerated humping motion.

“Bullshit nigga,” said another. He called to Poe: “I'ma take care of you, baby. Don't let these other motherfuckers worry you. You too pretty for them.”

There was loud laughter and competing catcalls about what they would do to him.

Poe looked to the guard to say something to quiet the inmates down but he didn't.

“Don't you worry, fish,” said someone, “that punk- ass CO won't say shit to us. Will he. Cause that nigga is next in line after you.”