Indigo: The Saving Bailey Trilogy #2 (17 page)

Fog settles outside Mom’s bedroom window, covering the grass and sun in a grey, misty curtain. I think it’s late morning, but the fog is playing tricks on me.

“Good morning, sweetie,” Mom says, standing in her pink fluffy robe with a cup of coffee in her hand. She’s staring out the window at the gloomy sky like Sally from The Cat in the Hat. “You looked so cute curled up on my bed when I woke up this morning.”

Cute?
I didn’t think I could still be cute.

“But I have to know—what
are
you wearing?”

Oh, this little number?
It’s a hoodie from Holden’s summer collection:
Hoodies are the new tank tops of summer
.

“And why didn’t you put a nightgown on before you went to bed?”

“I was upset. I didn’t care what I was wearing. And this is Spencer’s jacket, remember you washed his shirt?”

“Oh, well, it makes you look so dark… and with your black hair. Why don’t you wear something more bright and fitted?” she says airily, waving her hand.

“No one sees me but you,” I say, raising my eyebrows at her.

“Why can’t I see my daughter shine like the jewel she is?” she says, taking a slow sip of coffee.

I toss underneath the covers, forgetting the cut on my stomach, but sharp pains remind me. On the opposite side of the bed, an envelope is propped up against one of the pillows. “The letter fairy must have come last night,” I say.

“It’s from the prison, again,” Mom says. “I wasn’t sure if you wanted to read it or not. I know how upset you were after visiting Clad.”

I answer her by tearing it open.

I read the letter silently to myself. No, not in complete silence; tiny noises escape me as Clad’s words pull me in ten different directions. I’m as emotionally tugged, as if this were his very last letter to me.

Dear Tinker Toy,

They said I could call you, the screws did. But I think these letters are more intimate than anything and they will not fade like my words over the phone. This will give you something to hold on to if… I don’t know, Bailey… I opened fire in a building full of children and somehow that doesn’t sit well with criminals who have murdered, raped, and robbed.

Your dad has his eyes on my back twenty four seven, the only time he isn’t around me is when we’re showering or he’s at work. Did you know you can have a job in prison? Me neither.

Your dad’s a barber. I forgot to mention who shaved off all my hair.

If given the opportunity, most the inmates would gladly rip out my organs. You don’t mess with children. I wonder what they think I am. Perhaps I’m more of a man now than I thought. I have gained muscle mass… and facial hair. That makes me a man, right?

Anyway, Bailey. I like writing your name almost as much as I enjoy saying it. Bailey, your dad wants to see you; he says if you are up to it, then he doesn’t care what your mother thinks. You can see us both on the next visitors’ day. How awesome would that be? Now, don’t get yourself worked up about it as I know you will.

Spencer will be there to calm you. He does that, doesn’t he? Like drinking a hot cup of tea. There I go, becoming poetic again; the true Clad shining through like a polished piece of silver.

Love,

Gun Boy.

“What does it say?” Mom asks.

“Oh, he’s doing fine,” I say, folding the letter back up and shoving it into the envelope as quickly as possible.

My answer is not satisfying, I can tell by the way Mom raises her brows and settles them when that is all I say. “I should get ready for work.”

I sit on the bed a while longer, letting Clad’s letter sink in.

That makes me a man, right?
No, saving countless lives makes you a man. Loving a girl so much that you would give up your entire future for her makes you a man. But what I really want you to be is a boy. The same boy who loved me unconditionally and won me over with cookies and sweet words. The same boy who kissed my lips with an energy I have never felt before and may never feel again. You
electrocuted
me.

Angel showed me how to make hooch—prison beer— by combining slices of bread that he had saved from chow time, orange juice, stolen sugar and water. After about six days of fermenting, we had us an alcoholic concoction strong enough to make you forget that you’d watched a man’s organs be pulled out of him like a clown pulling scarfs out of his sleeve.

We have a snitch in the north end and I have a hunch who it is, but Angel doesn’t agree. I think it’s Larson, a squirrely looking Puerto Rican with a short mustache that barely grazes his upper lip.

“Larson doesn’t even know you exist,” Angel said.

“I bet you it’s Alegore. Yep, it’s Alegore. That guy has had it out for me since the day I got here… gave me a beating as soon as I left the fish tank. It’s him. I know it.”

Angel took a swig of the prison hooch that he refused to let me taste.

“Larson was talking smack with his crew about how I went and shot kids. They said they were going to turn me into ground sausage,” I said, wishing I could have some hooch to forget the venomous threat.

“You didn’t shoot no one,” Angel said, as if I was starting to question the validity of my own memory.

“I know that, but
they
don’t. No one ever thinks about the people I saved.”

“I do.
All the time
. You saved my little girl. That’s why I got you. Larson will have to tear me down first, if he wants to have at ya.”

Yesterday, the men in black gave our bunks a shake down; because someone snitched that we had hooch stashed away. They found the hooch, leaving a path of destruction in their wake. Like two twisters funneling from the sky they touched down, destroying and displacing everything within their wind’s reach.

In one final act of malice, the men in black snatched up Bailey’s baby picture.

“I can’t believe they took it,” Angel says, tearing up.

I want to comfort him like I do his daughter, because their eyes look identical when clouded over with tears. “You’ll see her soon,” I promise. “She looks much better than the picture. You’ll be blown away.”

“Tell me,” he says folding his arms underneath his head, “what does my baby look like now?”

“Her eyes are by far her best feature. They are replicas of yours… but you probably already knew that from the picture…”

“What does her hair look like?”

“Long and jet black. Straight as a pin. Shiny, like yours, but thicker.”

“Is she tall? Is she thin?”

“Oh, she’s got to be at least five seven…” I start to choke up, talking about her makes me miss her even more.

“She sounds like a vision,” he says dreamily.

His breath pauses as he thinks about her. Mine does the same.

“Do you love her?”

“That’s a dumb question, Angel.”

“It must be the hooch talking.”

“I love her… but you haven’t had hooch since the men in black confiscated it yesterday?”

“No man, I got some from my brother, Marcus.” He laughs.

“Holding out on me, are ya?”

“Stuff’s like poison,” he says, his voice slurred with it.
“Made from hand sanitizer.”

“The shit you guys come up with never ceases to amaze me.”

“Living—I mean
rotting—
in this place eleven years has given me a lot of time on my hands,” Angel says. “I hope she remembers who I am.”

“She will,” I assure him.

“I hope that killing Jack won’t overshadow the love I always had for her,” he says. “I did it for her, you know.”

“You’re a good man, Angel. You didn’t mean to kill Jack, she’ll understand that when she sees you again.”

I’m on the top bunk and Angel is on the bottom; it’s pitch black in the room of thirty or so bunks. Even so, I can see his eyes, like two blue flames in the darkness. When I stare at them long enough, I can concede that they belong to Bailey and that she is the one breathing and speaking right underneath my mattress. The fabrication makes me smile at first, but then, as it wears on, the eyes penetrating my soul and my smile falls apart. I feel like I might go with it.

“I’m just some strange man she once knew, long ago,” Angel says, his words having that poetic cling that makes them stretch further than normal words, spanning the distance of the room and returning to us.

But these are not Bailey’s words, so I change them around in my head.
I’m just some strange girl he once knew, long ago.

“Are you getting any of this?” Angel asks.

A few more sentences into the conversation and I have no idea what he’s trying to say, even with a laudable effort on his part to annunciate.

“You’re mumbling,” I say.

“Am I?”

“Yes, the hooch has taken over your mouth.”

“I should go to sleep,” he says, wearily.

“Goodnight, Angel.”

I cross my arms over myself, lie completely still, and wait for sleep to take over my body…

It doesn’t happen.

My arms and legs rustle through the thin blanket like snakes; sleep having no hold on them. I toss and turn, forcing my heart to slow down.

Empty
, I tell my mind. Don’t think. Focus on breathing and not moving. I discard my thoughts, but they come back, reappearing and clamoring all at once. I go about this a few more times before the sandman comes and brings me the sleep I want so badly.

Behind closed eyelids a nightmare unfolds itself like I’m watching a Steven Spielberg horror film. There’s a large number of people—children, women, and men—lined up with white flowers in their hands. Black dresses, veils, and suits. Grave faces and weepy eyes. I’m at a funeral.

The line leads to a shiny black coffin and a girl, crouched over it with her back to me, sobs bitterly. I put my hand on her shoulder and comb my other through her silky hair. Everything is black here, except the flowers and faces. The girl raises her head and looks through me with glistening, blue eyes. It’s Bailey, but her skin is grey and rotted. She opens her mouth to say something and a black moth flutters out of it. She unravels like a spool of thread, a swarm of black moths taking her place.

Next in line is Angel. He lifts open the coffin and suddenly the funeral is open casket. He drops his white flower in and wanders off. I move forward in two long strides, I feel the silk inside the coffin, the flower petals and hair. I lean in and am met with a corpse as pretty as if she were alive and dancing. Bailey, once more, this time in a long ivory gown that comes to her ankles and pearls tightly strung around her neck. Her hair in spirals, spewing out from beneath a crown of white lilies. The flowers from the mourners are arranged in a bouquet, her frail hands, as white as the pearls around her neck, holding tightly to it, resting on top her still, unbeating heart.

Angel is pacing like a mad dog. My heart pounds in my chest; every centimeter of my skin is dotted with sweat. A strange sound bubbles up from my throat; strangled screams
.

“Oh, you’re awake,” Angel says, ceasing his nervous pace. “What? What is it?”

“Nightmare,” I breathe.

He tightens his lips in an attempt to hold back a laugh. “Nightmare?”

“Yeah, like the kind your daughter has suffered from every night since Jack’s death,” I say, in an angry rush. “You better get used to it.”

He stares at his black rubber sandals, then back up at me. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” I say.

“What was the dream?”

I’m not about to tell him that I dreamt of his daughter’s funeral.

“A dinosaur.” I shrug.

He lets out a laugh and I share it with him, although mine comes out sounding hysterical.

“You know what’s scarier than a dinosaur?” he asks.

“Larson.”

“Because he isn’t extinct.”

“Not yet,” I say, holding up a plastic toothbrush that I have been storing under my pillow for safekeeping.

“Save it, Gun Boy, some battles are better not fought.”

“What are you, my dad? I thought you were my bro.”

“I’m old enough to be your dad, and if you marry my daughter, wouldn’t that make you my son in-law?”

“Marry Bailey?” I shake my head. “No, never. She has Spencer.”

“I still think you have a shot.”

“Do I have your approval then?” I grin.

“Sure, I mean you already saved her life, right? I think you’ve earned her.”

“Will you come to the wedding, jumpsuit and all?”

“Of course…your folks ought to like that.”

“Only you,” I say. “They wouldn’t be there.”

“Why not? They upset you’re in the slammer?”

“I can’t say what they think about it, because they’re gone,” I say. “But they probably wouldn’t be too happy.”

Angel takes off his barber’s apron and sits down on the bed. “What got ‘em?”

What got ‘em?
Because the story of death is more hard-hitting than the story of a lifetime
. Angel is fascinated with what takes people out of this world; a fascination he shares with his daughter.

What got ‘em?
Maybe it was a shark, or a home invader, maybe a bear they had been raising as a pet
. No, my parents’ passing is far less interesting than that, yet it still needles away at me when I speak or think of it.

“We were driving up to New Mexico on a road trip. We’d been driving for twelve hours straight, my sister Aleck and I were crammed in the back seat with all our luggage.”

“How old were you?” Angel asks.

“Fourteen… and Aleck was eighteen. We started bickering, I pulled her hair. You know, dumb kid stuff. My parents told us to cut it out or they’d make us walk back home.”

“They weren’t serious, right?”

“They were angry,” I say. “They made us get out of the car, had us both convinced we would be walking all the way back to Florida. They were just trying to scare us. Make us behave. They drove away and only got about fifty feet… when it happened.”

“Car crash?” Angel says.

“T- boned,” I say. “The car flipped three times and then burst into flames. My mom was pronounced dead at the scene and Dad slipped into a coma that lasted about a month before my grandma—his mom—let him go.”