Page 79 of The River Is Waiting

Mrs. Millman sees me, smiles, and walks toward me. “Hello, stranger,” she says. I tell her the place looks great. She nods and thanks me. When I ask her what’s new, she says she supposes I’ve heard that the library’s lost its most faithful patron. I glance over at the table where Lester Wiggins used to sit. Empty chair. I shake my head. Tell her I didn’t know.

“He died in his sleep a little over a week ago. Poor man was suffering terribly toward the end. He wanted so badly not to have to die in prison, but the warden denied the merciful discharge we were trying to get for him. At least they let his son visit him in hospice and pray with him before he passed. Lester wasn’t religious, but it must have been a comfort for him to have Cornell there.”

She says she wanted to organize a celebration of life for Lester here in the library. “But Deputy Warden Zabrowski put the kibosh on it. So we made a little tribute to him instead.” She points to a small display halfway down the room. “Zabrowski says we can keep it up for a week. Then it has to come down and Lester’s wheelchair has to be returned to the med unit.”

“A whole week, huh? What a guy.”

She shrugs. Asks why she hasn’t seen me over here in so long.

“I’d like to say it’s because I’ve been busy,” I tell her. “But the truth is, I’ve had nothing but time on my hands since I got booted off the maintenance crew.”

She says she heard about that. Didn’t it have something to do with that boy Solomon I was helping?

“Yeah. I mean, the kid’s got major psychological problems so they sent himhere? What genius madethatdecision? By the way, I’m sorry about the stuff with the razor blade.”

“No, that was my own fault for being careless. Leaving it on the counter where he could be tempted. I should have known better.”

“At least they finally transferred him to a psych facility.”

“Is he doing any better now?”

I shrug. “I asked my counselor for a progress report. She was his counselor, too. But she says she can’t access that information without written permission from him. I asked for the address of the place where he’s at, but she says she’s not authorized to give me that either.”

“Well, he was lucky you were helping him while he was here. You’re a good man, my friend.”

“That’s debatable,” I tell her. But I like that she said it and called me her friend.

Her smile becomes a frown. “Now what’s this I hear about some of the custody officers giving you a hard time?”

Taken by surprise, I mumble that I’m fine, it’s just a few of them. But how the hell does she know? I solvethatlittle mystery when I glance over at Javier, who’s across the room shelving books. At the last AA meeting, I spilled my guts about some of the shit Piccardy and Anselmo keep pulling. So much forWho you see in here and what’s said in here stays here. I don’t mind so much that he leaked what I said to Mrs. Millman, but who the hell else did he tell? At least I didn’t mention those goons by name. Good thing I didn’t. If it got back to them, who knows what they’d do? Should I go over there and remind Javi that it’s AlcoholicsAnonymousor just let it go? Well, first things first.

“So what did you want to see me about?” I ask Mrs. M. “Don’t tell me I’ve made it to the top of the waiting list for a library job.” Before she can answer me, the phone in her office starts ringing. “Hold on, Corby. Let me get this first.”

Rather than stand there waiting, I wander down to check out Lester’s tribute. The sign on the little table next to his wheelchair saysLESTER HERBERT WIGGINS1941–2019. Four photos are displayed on the table. In one, Lester’s a member of a high school baseball team, the Wilby Wildcats; in the middle of the back row, he towers over his teammates.

In the second photo, a formal wedding portrait, Lester’s the groom in a sharp-looking three-piece suit. He and his pretty bride look to be intheir early twenties. Their faces reveal their innocence about the bad things to come.

The third photo’s a family picture: Lester’s grown his hair out into a misshapen Afro and he’s starting to go gray. His wife, maybe in her mid-to-late forties now, smiles at her husband as if he’snotwearing scrubs—as if the family isnotstanding in the prison yard with guards and security fencing looming in the background. The couple’s kids are dressed like they’re going to church. Cornell’s maybe thirteen or fourteen, his two sisters a few years younger than that; the three of them are wearing matching expressions somewhere between solemn and glum.

The fourth, more recent photo was taken here at the library. Lester is a gray-haired great-grandpa now, decades into his fifty-year sentence. He’s at his regular table, reading a book and ignoring the camera. I recall when I first met him. No, I couldnotdraw him, he said, because he wasn’t my Uncle Remus. I smile, thinking about how firmly I’d been put in my place for being so condescending.

There’s a folded newspaper on the table, too—thePrison Times, dated April 1989. What? They had an inmate newspaper? Under a front-page headline, “Wiggins Wins Fishing Derby,” there’s a picture of a beaming Lester holding a good-sized rainbow trout.Back then we was treated like more than just our crime, I still hear him saying.

Two columns of books, stacked on the seat of Lester’s wheelchair, bear witness to his love of reading. The spines face out, so the titles are—

I flinch when I feel a hand reach from behind and cup my shoulder. “Jesus, Javier!” I snap.

“Sorry, hombre,” he says. “Kind of jumpy today, ain’t you?” It’s more amusing to him than it is to me. I’m always jumpy now; it’s the Piccardy-and-Anselmo effect. “So you like this thing we put up for the old guy?” I nod. “Mrs. M and I were going to give him a bigger send-off, but Zabrowski said no. So we came up with this idea. She told me her and Lester came to Yates the same year, so they’ve known each other forever.”

I tell him I like looking at the photos—being reminded that therewas more to Lester’s life than his incarceration. “How did you guys get them?”

“Cornell put the word out to one of his sisters and she sent them to us. AndMamiwanted to show what a big reader he was, so she had me look up what books he took out over the years and pull some of them off the shelves.”

“Nice,” I say. “Hey, speaking of ‘Mami,’ how did she know I’ve been getting hassled by a couple of the guards in my building? Who would have told her that?” He looks down at the floor, says nothing. “Because the only ones I talked to about that were the guys at last Sunday’s meeting. And I’d hate to think I can’t say what I need to in AA because I can’t trust that it won’t get repeated.”

“Itold her,” he says. “The day after that meeting, she asked me if I seen you lately and it just came out. I’m sorry, man.”

“You tell anyone else?”

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