Plain Heathen Mischief Read online

  She wondered when Thomas would realize she’d fallen unconscious. He’d probably keep humping and not even notice, then pull out the guitar and strum “Fire and Rain” like it was some huge treasure. Kiss her mouth before he left and not catch on that she was the same temperature as the room. The comfort slid into her neck and fingered her jaw, and she was gone except for the last little snatch of her face. She turned a cheek flush to the pillow and forgot about breathing. She wasn’t sure she’d come to again, but a melancholy ending had been in the back of her mind for several weeks now. She’d seen the hobgoblins who were riding shotgun with the drugs and booze and handsome boys, knew what there was to know and simply didn’t give a shit.

  two

  Seven months after his last sermon, Joel King is weaving laces into a pair of tennis shoes, watching his fingers lead the strings through the metal eyes, making small crosses from his toes to his ankles, and he’s thinking that not many people know the difference between a jail and a penitentiary. The joint, the slammer, the pen, the hoosegow, the clink, the state’s hotel, the can—it’s no big deal to the bridge-club ladies or the go-getters at the Jaycee meeting, nothing but a slew of funny names for the same sordid spot. Even after he’d been convicted and herded out of the courtroom with an ornery bailiff’s handcuffs biting his wrists, the distinction didn’t seem very important to Joel, just more words in a will-o’-the-wisp, Lewis Carroll, tweaks-and-shades, hide-the-ball justice system that struggled to be incomprehensible, full of phonetic clouds and black velvet curtains.

  Six months in jail, though, had taught him what was what. The pen is the big top, the zenith of time behind bars, the Olympus of isolation, a place crammed with fear and shivs, gangs and sodomy, endless days curling dumbbells, riots, constant tension and a stubborn, rich depravity that leaks from the prisoners, oozing into their gazes and coiling around their words. Penitentiaries are inhabited by men with only a cosmetic connection to humanity, men who have worn a victim’s warm intestines as a necklace, men who have killed without giving it a second thought, men who have slashed and stolen and lied and peddled dope out of a Corvette window to fourteen-year-old crackhead girls and their worthless whore mothers.

  Jail, on the other hand, is an altogether different place, a local cage filled with fools, losers, drunks, yahoos and riffraff, all chatter and threat, punk wannabes who will end up spending most of their lives at mom’s apartment or grandma’s rundown trailer. Jail is home to thirty-year-old ciphers and wastrels, small-timers whose eyes are always narrowed for one reason or another, the men and boys who talk big and then cry and fret in open court when they draw a few months for stealing a lawnmower or wheels from an old Mustang. These are the bush-league criminals, the failures at failing.

  The deal Joel had accepted seemed good enough at the time: guilty pleas to two counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, twelve months to serve, twelve months suspended, and he could do the sentence in the Roanoke city jail, not Augusta or Powhatan or some other penitentiary packed with inked-up felons who would, as his lawyer put it, “bend you over and break you down like a shotgun.” The charges were misdemeanors, there was no mention of rape or sex, he could turn himself in after Christmas and he’d only have to actually pull six months.

  If he had it to do again, Joel is thinking, he might take his chances in the penitentiary, because the tedium of the city jail had almost smothered him. Each day was the same dull progression of idle chatter, crackpot philosophy, food complaints, hopeless escape schemes and jokes about the dandruff on the guards’ brown shirts. Every inmate was planning to puncture the judge’s tires or put sugar in the commonwealth’s attorney’s gas tank or “tell what he really knew,” and on and on and on and on it went, played out against a backdrop of “Freebird,” Metallica and afternoon game shows. Maybe living with a little menace and wickedness would be better than spending half a year in a crowded cell with men who didn’t pay child support and dreamed about becoming NASCAR mechanics.

  More than anything, Joel’s jail sentence corroded his minister’s optimism and caused him to look at people differently. Loving his neighbor— tolerating his neighbor, even—became a heavy labor when there appeared to be so little divine spark in some of the men he lived with behind bars. It wasn’t as if these were worthy souls corrupted by Satan’s bait or the devil had taken up residence in their bowels; it was worse than that. There were prisoners who seemed set apart, soulless like dogs or cats or cows, blameless for the most part inasmuch as the whole scheme of good and evil was not anywhere in them. They worked on impulse and instinct, locked out of salvation games they weren’t skilled enough to play. All the explanations and all the noble instruction in the world couldn’t move some of these convicts one whit, nor could the wiles of hell cause them to make the wrong choice. They were what they were. Hardly God’s children, these were his unruly mock-ups, fistfighting for no apparent reason and occasionally masturbating after lunch with a foil packet of Thousand Island dressing and wiping the results on the wall, grinning like monkeys the entire time they worked themselves. Still, Joel struggled not to despise them. They were put on earth by the Lord, borne of mothers who came to visit on Sunday afternoons.

  Joel finished lacing his sneakers and tied the strings tight against his ankles. It was the first time he’d worn comfortable shoes and his own pants and shirt since his day in court. The jail issued orange plastic sandals and orange jumpsuits, and he’d been allowed five pair of white briefs and T-shirts. When Joel had arrived to serve his punishment, he’d naively brought clothes and belts and books and razors and trail mix—“fucking trail mix,” the jailer had hooted—as well as a ziplock bag full of Band-Aids, Handi Wipes and aspirin. “You want the moccasin kit or the water-color kit?” the officer processing him had asked.

  “Pardon?” Joel was standing in a small room with a desk, naked except for his underwear.

  “Which kit you want? The one to make shoes, or the one for painting?”

  “I didn’t realize I got a kit. I don’t really know. What would you suggest?”

  “What I would suggest,” the officer said, smirking and shaking his head, “is you ain’t at no summer camp, and you’ll be leaving your swim trunks and all your other shit here with me.”

  “Oh. Well, then, what do I do about clothes and medical attention and—”

  “We’ll take care of that for you.”

  “What can I have?” Joel didn’t know what to do with his hands. Ordinarily, they would have been in his pockets.

  “Basically, what we decide you can,” was the answer.

  After he was through with his shoes, Joel washed his hands, sat down on his bunk, opened his Bible and read the beginning of First Corinthians. As he did every morning, he prayed, asked to be forgiven of his sins and begged the Lord to restore him to a virtuous life. A few minutes later, Will Cassady, his favorite jailer, appeared with a set of long, sturdy keys, unlocked a series of doors and nodded at him. “Today’s the day, Preacher.”

  The four other men in Joel’s cell stopped jawing and poring over a hot-rod magazine. At first they’d apologized when they cursed or mentioned sex, and for a month or so Kenny—a third-offense drunk driver—had talked to Joel about religion and his children and what he could gain from prayer. In February, though, Kenny wrangled a prescription for Xanax and that was the end of that. Once again, the cell was a cauldron of profanity, childish bickering and body stench, all hope reduced to cars, dope and girl-friends waiting in a motel room with a bottle of Wild Turkey, any notion of restraint or religious deference completely forgotten.

  When Joel stood to leave, Kenny and the other three were quiet, the lot of them staring at him. Kenny flipped a magazine page. “Later on, man,” he said. “Keep the faith.”

  “Hope you walk out of this shithole right into some good times,” added Watkins Hudson. Watkins laughed, showing his teeth and pink gums. He’d been jailed since December for forging checks stolen from a sickly aunt.

&nbs
p; Will took Joel by the arm and guided him into the main run. “I don’t see how you stomached that for six months,” he told Joel.

  Will was one of the respectable jailers, a lanky boy who wanted to be a state trooper and was starting at the bottom of the system. He led Joel into the same cramped office he’d visited upon arriving, pointed at a chair for him, sat down and tore open a large yellow envelope. Will gave him back everything he’d brought to the jailhouse and had him sign a form. In the bewilderment of his first days behind bars, Joel had asked one of the church members to pick up his forbidden personal articles, but his snacks, food and trail mix were still in a locker, returned to him molded and rat-bitten, the wrappers riddled with messy holes.

  Will sighed. “Why in the world did that get left here?”

  “Who knows,” Joel said, genuinely puzzled, and tossed all of it into a trash can beside the desk.

  “Good luck to you, Joel.”

  “Thanks.” Joel held out his hand, and Will shook it.

  “So, are you goin’ back to preachin’? Are you still a preacher?”

  Joel considered the question. “I’m not sure what I am.”

  “You’ll be okay.” Will slipped the paper Joel had signed into a file.

  “I hope so. It’s kind of you to say.”

  “You mind if I ask you something? You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to. I mean, you’ve been tried and convicted and done your time and the case is over. I was wonderin’, curious. A lot of folks don’t think you were guilty. You sure don’t seem like the type to me.”

  Joel lapsed into a battened silence, sat mute and stock-still as if he hadn’t heard the question or—if he had—meant to repel it rather than answer. He was focusing on Will and choking the urge to tell this sympathetic boy that yes, you bet, there was more to the story than the obvious, run-of-the-mill tawdriness of an old-goat minister romping after a beautiful teenager, the same tired song and dance. It would’ve been nice to be granted a ticket back into common society for five minutes, briefly freed from the ranks of the shunned and reviled. But no matter how truthful his response, it would seem self-serving and convoluted, and it was well nigh impossible for him to explain his situation to a callow jailer. Also, critical portions of the tale were still mysterious to Joel himself, details he couldn’t provide and gaps he couldn’t close, so he’d sound just like any other convict, claiming he didn’t know how the dope wound up in his sock or the pilfered TV materialized in his trunk, his defense a crude farce.

  Will finally broke the quiet. “I didn’t mean to upset you,” he said apologetically, absorbing Joel’s ferocious silence. “Or to pry.”

  Joel ended the debate with himself and opened his features. “Not your fault,” he remarked, looking at his watch. The band felt taut and odd on his wrist since he hadn’t worn any jewelry after entering the jail. “I pled guilty, Will. What else can I tell you? I’ve served my six months and would just as soon put all this behind me.”

  “Sure.” Will tapped the folder’s spine against the desk. “Okay.”

  Joel pitched him an unconvincing grin. “Hey, no one in this place is guilty, right?”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  “No offense, but I hope this is the last time we see each other under these circumstances,” Joel said. “Thanks for treating me so fairly.”

  “I got a couple more things to finish here, and we’ll have you gone before you know it.”

  Joel left the jail with his Good Book tucked under his arm, stepped outside for the first time in a long while, into the heat and sounds of the city. He heard a car’s motor turn over and take hold and the harsh, steady warnings of a garbage truck that was in reverse, backing down an alley. He pulled as much breath as he could through his mouth, tasted summer on his tongue and felt hot, syrupy air hang at the beginning of his throat. Mildly disoriented, he shaded his eyes and checked the horizon, trying to locate Mill Mountain, where a huge electrical star—a five-pointed landmark made from steel and neon tubes—capped a stout peak. The high site was visible from almost every quarter of the city, even during the day, before the sun dimmed and the juice was switched on. Buildings blocked Joel’s view, though, and he wasn’t able to find the star. Sprawled gum-popping in his bunk and dawdling through clichés and possibilities, he had wondered how this moment would feel, and now that he was out from behind bars— a free man—he saw and sensed hundreds of things routine and familiar and felt no different than he had the day before or the day before that. There was no elation or relief, no sense of commencement or finality, only the nagging numbness of awaiting whatever might come next.

  Roanoke had been a splendid fit for him, an agreeable city with a frank, homespun skyline, two liberal-arts colleges where the kids were always dancing, painting, acting and singing, a farmers’ market and a civic center that booked New York production companies, weeklong circuses and famous rock-and-roll bands. The community, though, had never outgrown itself, and invariably Joel would cross paths with a neighbor in the soup-and-pasta aisle at the grocery or happen into a conversation with a stranger while eating a downtown hot dog and elbow-leaning against the counter at the wiener stand. He would very much miss this part of the world, all its people and its gracious, comely aspects.

  He glanced at a crowded intersection and saw Edmund Brooks jogging toward him, doing his best to navigate an unruly sidewalk, veering around a woman and her small dog and snaking through people and a light pole and a rumpled panhandler who’d set up shop on the curb, just above the gutter. Edmund was wearing one of his fine suits, and his shirttail had started to work out of his pants during his dash down Campbell Avenue. He waved at Joel from a block away and slowed to a fast walk, bouncing and chugging for several steps as he changed gaits. When he finally pulled up in front of Joel, he raked his hand through his hair and wiped a sleeve across his forehead. “Oh my, I’m sorry to be late. I couldn’t find a parking spot anywhere near the jail,” he said. He was sweating clear streaks that started at his sideburns and trickled down to his jaws.

  “It’s no problem. I only got released a few minutes ago, and I figured you’d meet me here, not inside.” Joel smiled and grabbed Edmund’s hand. “I should be thanking you. You’re kind to come and get me.”

  “Glad I could help. Least I could do, good as you’ve been to me.” Edmund put his arm over Joel’s shoulder. “I guess it’s great to be done with everything, huh?”

  “Yeah.”

  The two men departed the jail’s front entrance with Edmund’s arm still draped across Joel’s shoulders. Several church members had written Joel while he was incarcerated, and a few had left him books or magazines at the administrative desk, but Edmund had been his most reliable friend, stopping by for Sunday visiting hours to talk about sports and restaurants and swap harmless jokes. One afternoon, Edmund seemed glum—unusual for him—and he’d asked Joel to pray with him. The two men bowed their heads and Joel offered a prayer; at the end they both said amen. A week later, when Joel mentioned that his sister in Montana had agreed to let him stay with her, Edmund clapped his hands together and promised him a ride west. “I drive to Vegas every couple months or so, gamble a little and check on some investments. Just let me know the date you’re gonna need to travel that direction, and I’ll work around your schedule. You’d be doin’ me a favor—the company would more than make up for the detour. Anyway, what’s a couple extra days on the road?”

  They were leaving straightaway, as Joel hadn’t seen any reason to loiter around town, and had walked three blocks when Joel heard someone shouting his name. He checked behind him, and Will Cassady was loping down the sidewalk, coming in a rush. Joel stopped where he was, watching Will get closer and closer.

  “What in blue blazes is he doing?” Edmund wondered out loud.

  Joel shrugged. “I’m not sure. You think they made a mistake or something? I counted the days myself. I’ve done my sentence, every second of it.” He noticed a tingle in his stomach, felt his heart accele
rate.

  Will hurried to a halt in front of them. He was wearing his hat and didn’t seem winded by the sprint. “Hey, Preacher.” Will held up his hand.

  “Hello, Will,” Joel said. “What’s the matter?”

  “I’m glad I caught you. Some civil papers just come through, and I’m afraid I got to serve ’em on you.”

  “Civil papers?” Joel repeated. “I don’t understand.”

  “Uh, they’re divorce papers, sir. From your wife. She’s filed for a divorce.” Will looked at the ground as he was explaining his business.

  “It seems safe to assume they’re from his wife if it’s a divorce suit,” Edmund said. He was very poised.

  “Right,” the policeman answered, handing Joel a collection of papers. “I’m sorry to come racin’ after you and all, but they just got to us and I knew you was leavin’ for Montana and what a mess that would be, gettin’ you properly served out there.”

  Joel didn’t know what to say.

  “Study ’em real good and hire yourself a lawyer. You’ve got three weeks from now to answer what she’s filed.”

  “Why? Why would she . . . ? The timing, I mean.” Joel looked at him. “Why would she do this the very day I’m released?”

  “Well, sometimes it gets complicated to file for divorce when your husband or wife’s in jail. A few of the judges make the other side pay for a guardian to look after the one incarcerated, so if you ain’t got long to serve, it’s cheaper and less hassle to wait. It’s probably nothin’ spiteful.”

  “She could’ve at least shown him the courtesy of telling him in advance,” Edmund complained. “Pretty inconsiderate, if you ask me.”