Page 77 of The River Is Waiting

“Please. It’s urgent.”

“Excuse me for a moment, gentlemen,” Rickerby says. “All right. What is it?” Her back is to her guests, so they can’t see how pissed she looks. I tell her about having filed a grievance against two of her officers because of an incident I observed and that I’ve gotten no response. She glances down at my ID. “Look, Ledbetter,” she says. “There’s a procedure to follow and a chain of command. You can’t just jump the line because you feel your complaint is more important than everyone else’s.”

“Warden, Idon’tthink that, but I wanted you to know that two of your COs have been bullying some of us. And that one of them pepper-sprayed a—”

“Stop right there, Inmate Ledbetter. I’m not having you litigate whatever problem you’re having with my officers. Let the grievance process take its course and consider it an opportunity for you to practice patience. And in the future, don’t interrupt me when you can see I’m busy with guests.”

“Yes, ma’am. I apologize.” And screw you, Your Highness. Maybe if you got off your throne and looked around, you’d see what’s going on around here.

Two days later, my complaint comes back to me in inmate mail. Stamped across it diagonally in red, it says “Dismissed.” The followingday, my letter to the SPCA is slipped through the tray trap of our cell door. It’s been opened but there’s no postmark. Those fuckers! It never even left the compound.

I pace, kick stuff, stop to look at the calendar. Tomorrow’s the twenty-fifth. Merry fucking Christmas!

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

March 2019

Day 600 of 1,095

A red-haired boy, age eight or nine, and I are fishing from a rowboat. The boat drifts among flowering lily pads on that pond where a kid in my fourth-grade class named Eddie Elrod tried to swim from one side to the other but drowned halfway across. The boy might be Eddie or he might be Niko; I’m not sure. Whichever one he is, his bob plunges underwater. “Got something!” he says, and begins to reel it in. But what comes to the surface isn’t a fish. It’s a large bird—a great blue heron. Flapping the water off its wings, it skids across the pond’s surface and takes flight. The fishing pole dangles beneath the heron until it’s shaken loose and falls back into the pond. I watch the bird, unburdened now, fly farther and farther away from us. Us? I’m alone now. The boy is gone.

I smile, remembering that Eddie Elrod had blond hair, not red. The boy in the boat must have been Niko.

“Hi, Ledbetter.”

“What? Who’s there?” The tapping on my shoulder stops. “Did I wake you? Sorry about that.” I know the voice. In the darkness, his whispering against my ear makes me flinch. “Just wanted you to know that Emily’s been looking for it online. She’s using a different name, but I recognize her. Hope nothing bad happens to her, because some of the guys on those websites are dangerous. Well, nighty-night, Ledbetter. Get some sleep.”

After I hear him leave, I start to shake. My breathing is fast and shallow. That’s bullshit about Emily, but it’s jarred me. Hasn’t he made his point? When the fuck is this going to stop? Deep breaths, deep breaths.

From the top bunk, Manny asks what’s going on.

“Nothing. Go back to sleep.”

“Was someone in here? I thought I heard someone.”

“You must have been dreaming.”

“Oh. Okay then. G’night.”

“Night.” A couple of minutes later, he’s snoring.

When my shaking subsides, I roll off my cot and walk to the back of the cell. Look through the narrow sliver of window to the outside. Not much to see. The empty visitors’ parking lot, the tipped-over garbage bin. It’s probably been raided by that fat raccoon I’ve seen on other sleepless nights. The lamppost light is flickering, getting ready to die. Above it, the moon’s waxing or waning, I’m not sure which.

Back in bed, I keep shifting positions but can’t get comfortable, can’t settle down. I’m furious with myself for thinking I could take on those two sons of bitches and win. I should have known better. Ididknow better, but I became so intent on making them pay for what they did to Solomon that a kind of temporary insanity took over. The insanity of ego maybe.

My father sometimes woke me out of a sound sleep, too, but he didn’t whisper; he yelled.What goes on in this house stays in this house, he was fond of reminding me so that I wouldn’t blow his cover. At his college, he was the well-respected professor. At home he was the tyrant whose specialty was verbal abuse.You know who brings home report cards like this, Corbin? Losers! People who are never going to amount to anything.… You want to know why I never ask you to come with me to university parties, Vicki? Because you’re an embarrassment, that’s why!… Maybe taking on Solomon’s tormentors was a belated attempt to take on the illustrious Professor Ledbetter, the bully who demeaned and humiliated Mom and me and then made his escape.

I was never going to win that fight either. Justice wouldnotbe served.

Three fifteen according to Manny’s clock radio. Goddammit! How can I be exhausted and wired up at the same time?… In that fishing dream, Niko was older than he was the day he died. School-age, third or fourth grade maybe. So, at least in my dream state, he lives on and grows. I didn’t end his life after all. Desperate to shut off my mind and get back to sleep, I do something I haven’t done in a long time. “Hey, Niko? Are you there? It’s Daddy.” I’m mouthing the words but not speaking them out loud. “I think I saw you tonight in a dream. Was that you?

“I’m still here in prison. Still doing my time for having taken you out of the world. Out ofthisworld, anyway. I’m still clean and sober and I try every day to be a better person than I was the day you died. You’ve been my North Star in this effort, buddy. Do you know that?

“In AA, there’s a prayer where we ask for the wisdom to know the difference between what we can change and what we can’t. I’m in a tough situation right now because Iwasn’twise enough. See, I saw something bad happening to this kid I was kind of looking out for, and my ego convinced me I could take on the system and stop it. But doing the right thing in here isn’t the same as doing thesafething, and there’s been these two guards who are out to get me. The good news is that that kid, Solomon, got transferred out of here. How much do you see, Niko? Do you know how he’s doing? I worry about him.

“I worry about your sister, too. Firstyoudisappeared from her life and thenIdid. Do you think this might have screwed her up—made her feel abandoned or whatever? Your mom sends photos of Maisie and writes me sometimes about the things she’s into: Disney princesses, tea parties, swimming lessons—she’s in the Guppies class. In return, I send her notes and drawings, stories I write and illustrate to try to keep her memory of me alive. Her favorites are the one about her and her best friend, Jeremy, who’s a giraffe. I was into writing and drawing their third caper when I realized Jeremy Giraffe was a stand-in for you.

“I have trouble accepting that your mother keeps your sister away from this place, and maybe from me. I thought she’d change her mindafter a while, but she’s stayed firm on that. The last time we talked, she said Maisie’s had to sit in time-out a couple of times at her nursery school for hitting other kids. Boys, not girls. Your mother says it’s just normal kid stuff, but is it? Where’s that anger coming from? And how might this affect her down the line? There was such a strong bond between you two. Is that somehow still intact? Do you watch over her, Niko? Even if she can’t see or hear you, can she feel you’re still there?

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