Page 82 of The River Is Waiting

I keep walking; I’m not taking the bait.

“He hung himself.”

I turn and face him. Them. The two of them. “Solomon?”

“Bingo!” Piccardy says. “You gonna be the next hang-up?” They’re both smiling. I ask them where they heard this.

“Where’d we hear this, Officer Anselmo?” Piccardy asks. “Do you remember?”

“Can’t say that I do, Officer Piccardy. We heard it somewhere, though.”

“Yeah, somewhere. What a shame, huh? RIP Psycho Boy.”

They stop once they’ve delivered the message, but I keep walking. I’m short of breath, choked up and fighting tears. That poor kid never had a chance.

Counselor Jackson’s coming out of the building as I enter. “Corby? You look upset,” she says. “Are you all right?” I ask her whether she’s heard about Solomon. When she shakes her head, I tell her what I’ve just heard. “Oh my God,” she says. She turns around and reenters the building with me. “I have the number of the facility where he’s been in my office. Let me see if I can find out what happened. Who told you about this?” WhenI say it was Anselmo and Piccardy, she gives me a skeptical look and tells me to check in on my tier. She’ll let me know what she finds out.

I do what she says. Back in our cell, I’m relieved to find myself alone. I sit on my bunk, put my head down, and sob. Ten minutes later, I’m called up to the control desk. Jackson’s standing there, waiting. “False alarm,” she says. “It didn’t happen.”

I stare at her for several seconds, floored by the depth of their cruelty. Then I wipe my eyes, thank her, and walk back down the corridor. Those sick fucks have the upper hand for now, but I’ve got less than a year to go in here. Maybe after I get out, I can find a way to blow the whistle. Expose the kind of shit they’ve been pulling. That would wipe the smiles off their faces.

With the mural project approved, I get to work in earnest. First, I superimpose a grid over the drawing I showed them, figuring it will be less overwhelming for me to think in terms of smaller squares than the mural’s overall expanse. Mrs. Millman provides me with a stack of printer paper so that I can draw detailed studies of the humans and animals I want to include in the painting. From there, I move on to the library’s blank wall and take a deep breath. The wall is eight feet high and fifty-six feet wide. It takes me a couple of hours to re-create the grid. After that, I begin penciling in the details in each square. That takes the rest of the week. I’m nervous just thinking about it, but on Monday, I’ll begin committing color to the wall.

When Emily accepts my call on Friday evening, I spend most of our ten minutes describing what the mural’s going to look like when it’s finished. “You sound so upbeat,” she says. “I’m happy for you, Corby.” When I ask her what her weekend plans are, she says just the usual chores. “Oh, and I have company coming for dinner tomorrow night.”

“Oh yeah? What are you making?”

She says she’ll keep it simple: chicken parmesan, salad, garlic bread. “And I’ll probably pick up cannoli at Romano’s for dessert.”

“God, that sounds so good. Who’s coming over? Evan?”

“Yes. And Amber.”

“The one who teaches with you? Got jilted at the altar?”

“It didn’t exactly happen that way, but yes. I told Evan he should ask her out and so far, so good. This will be their third date.”

Does her voice sound a little sad or am I just imagining it does? I tell myself not to say it, but then I do. “You know, for a while, I wondered if you and Evan might be…”

There’s a pause on her end. Then she says, “Well, to tell you the truth, it was headed that way. But it wasn’t going to work, so…”

“So you fixed Amber up with him instead. Wow, that was nice of you.” I put my hand over the receiver so that my sigh of relief won’t be audible. “So what about Maisie? Is she going over to your mother’s?”

“No, she’s going toyourmother’s,” Emily says. “Vicki’s taking her to seeFrozen Two. Then Maisie’s sleeping over and they’re going to breakfast in the morning.”

“Nice,” I say. “Mom must be thrilled.”

Securus gives us the one-minute warning. “Well, good luck with your mural, Corby,” Emily says.

“And good luck with your dinner party. I wishIwas having chicken parmesan and cannoli tomorrow. Put some in the freezer, will you? I’ll eat it after I get out.” She doesn’t respond. “It was a joke, Em. Okay, love you.”

“I love you, too,” she says. It sounds like she means it, but I tell myself not to read too much into it.

Walking back to our cell, I can’t help but wonder what “it was headed that way” means. Were they sleeping together? Had they talked about him moving in? And who pulled the plug, him or her? I know better than to ever ask these things. I have to let it go. I’m just relieved that, whatever might have been happening, it’s not happening anymore. Amber hasn’tbeen teaching that long, so she’s probably still in her twenties. So good for you, Evan. You’re finally interested in someone your own age.

Mrs. Millman’s scavenger hunt for supplies has yielded a bonanza of paints, brushes, thinner, and other materials. On Monday morning, I take a deep breath, squeeze an inch of acrylic paint out of a tube of cerulean, combine it with matte gel medium, and dip my brush into the mixture. I start with the sky.

Thirty-one days later, another month of my sentence has been served and the mural is finished. Like the plowman in Bruegel’s painting, I’m in the foreground, wearing a red shirt and standing at the top of the steep rock ledge on the opposite side of the Wequonnoc river. My back is to the viewer as I gaze at the scene below. Yates prison no longer exists; I’ve banished the buildings and the security fencing that contains us. The land has returned to its natural state of woods, fields, and streams that feed into the tea-colored river. Cedars and sycamores, maples and elms grow in abundance. In the crotch of a ginkgo tree at the river’s edge, a great blue heron tends to her nestlings as her mate flies toward them, a fish in his beak. A mother turkey crosses an open field, her brood following behind her. They’re unaware they’re being stalked by a pair of predators—two copperheads ready to pounce.

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