The Residue Years (2 page)

New kicks in hand, you tug our Princess to the gift shop, chiding her the whole way to hurry. Just inside she dashes for a stuffed animal display, grabs a big brown teddy off the floor, and strokes it against her cheek. Next scene she's struggling behind you with a bear twice her size. The new duo stake out a space in
the aisle while you browse cards, feeling your heart catch speed. You make a choice right before your hope for making one fades, and, with our Princess trailing, shuffle up to the register, where a cashier with white hair and capricious hands calls her a pretty young lady and smiles gamma-esque.

Today my real daddy birthday.

That's wonderful, the woman says, and how old are you?

Without a word our Princess uses two hands to make three fingers.

Wow! Such a big girl, the woman says, then to you: You have a beautiful daughter.

Agreed, her mistake ain't surprising. In the past, just a glimpse of you could stop a strong heart: a man's, a woman's, no matter, but at present, that effect's been oh so vitiated; though who knows, maybe your powers are on the comeback. The lady says good-bye, and our Princess waves like a beauty queen.

In the visitors' lot cardiac miles later, our Princess unbuckles herself, twists around for a better view of the building. She mentions how big her daddy's house is, a comment you don't hear for being distracted, for searching your bag too long for the card and a pen, for waiting for what might feel like all a nigger's good time spent in the hole for words, a single word, to show its face.

My eldest,

Happy birthday! Happy birthday! Happy birthday!

Let me tell you, I had a lot of trouble finding a card that said the right things. Till it dawned on me, there aren't any right things to say. Only to do. So from now on, no more sorry or I
promise or I swear. But what I will say is keep watching…

Mad crazy Love,

Mom

You fix your hair and glance at our Princess, whose face is pinched at the blank space where her visor mirror should be, a frown that strikes a gong in your chest, not to mention, if the car's clock is right, you're late for last-visit. But check it, you ain't the only one running on the late show, so is the big-boned Indian chick one of these smooth-talking rogues brags he hooked playing Collect Call Lotto. The Indian chick shows up every week wearing filthy jeans and laceless Keds with a sumo baby wedged on her hip, looking just the right type of desperate to accept a hella-pricey call from an unknown prisoner and open her heart to unorthodox love. Soon as you step foot inside, our Princess asks about the bars and you explain, the best way you can, if there is such a way, that the bars make sure nobody leaves without permission.

Daddy on time out?

We could say that, you say.

The buzzer sounds and you and the Princess stomp, huff, hike to the end of a line. Up ahead there's a cluster of anxious convicts waiting by the visiting room entry, all of them penitentiary-fresh in clothes stiff with smuggled starch and their cleanest canteen-bought tennies. We have to ask that man to get him, you say, and point towards reception. And when it's our turn, you let him see our gift.

Dude working reception is a redneck, probably from one of those towns farther south where they chop logs, breed behemoths, and
keep tacit population caps on anyone resembling us. The cracker has a buzz cut, square chin, hard green eyes, and lips lean as a basehead's word. Lucky for us, our Princess is oblivious as she rushes up and holds the gift high.

This for my real daddy.

The redneck ignores our Princess, scans your license against the list, announces with a smirk that he can't find your name.

Please, you say. Sir, can you please double-check.

Look, miss, there's nothing wrong with my eyes, he says.

But it must be some mix-up, you say.

He darts his green stones over the list and drags a thick stump thumb down the columns. He seems sad to find your name, but perks up at the sight of our Princess holding the gift. Contraband, he says, snatching the box out of her hands and tossing it aside, and though you shouldn't give him the joy, stand and stand your face collapsed and shoulders heaving till he shouts, next, next, looking into a part of you that ain't for him to see.

One of our few black COs is working the visiting room. Dude was cool months back, but got passed over for a promotion and, ever since, has made it extra tough on everybody that ain't white. Dude's extra-heavy-handed search is misdemeanor assault everywhere in the first world. To top it off, he stalks you all the way to your seat, the last of seats near light. With care you help our Princess climb onto the seat.

HOLD THE FUCK UP! That ain't what happens. Enough with this fantasyland shit. Our Princess with you on today's visit, who the fuck am I fooling?

We know what
really
happens is this: We urge at each other
through the window and who I don't see—our Princess—gives me the feeling of a weight-lifting wonder knocking me breathless. You sit down and stand up, sit down and stand up, sit down and stand up, your smile disassembling. I called her all last night, called her all this morning, and nothing, you say. She never once picked up.

Am I surprised? Try not. This place ain't built for dreams. Out back sits a rusted pig-iron weight pile and a dim-lit rec room stuffed with slanted pool tables and mended chairs. The radios, the TV's: Everything electronic here is from another era. It's no wonder the PA translates speech to garble. This building is as old as everything—B.C. See wire punching holes in weak Sheetrock, hear water gagging through old pipes, and, my word, the air most days is thick enough to choke you dead. Late nights, guards with keys to unlock every bolt ever produced patrol our dorms, funky boxes crammed with the noise of grown men snoring and the slosh of no few of us undersexed heedless convicts touching ourselves.

Mom, here's the truth of the truth of the truth: There ain't an expectation these walls can't change, not a one, though truthbe-told a nigger should be steeled against this grief, should, since I'm seasons and seasons into my set, have spent days and days and days gazing through cyclone fence, spent months of wake-ups and lights-out and chow time and count time and (a time or two) hole-time. Everywhere inside this place is flaking fish-colored paint, which is proof the white boys in charge would give not a shit if we died from breathing lead. And believe me, sometimes it's as if I
could
die here, fall comatose on a mattress so thin, it takes prayer for a wink of sleep. Weeks and weeks go by with no more than the Wednesday transport to get me through, the tiny
comfort of seeing dudes more inconsolable than me slug off a bus dressed in a dingy one-piece and the orange plastic slippers that chafe your feet to bleeding.

It's no wonder why years later this year could mean more yearning—at least for me.

But hey, Mom, there's a chance you'll find love—the suckers might be right. And hey, let's take heart, you're sober, off-paper, working—swelled with what gets you, me, a human through.

Look around. See the room bathed in borrowed light, couples whispering across tables, intractable-ass kids darting between the seats, hear the vending machines ejecting snacks and coins, the kitchen crew knocking pots behind the rolltop gate, an officer or two snickering under his breath.

This is what we have, Mom, what we made, and we must make do.

So we reach out, the two of us, you and your eldest young bastard, and hold one another for a time that flouts the limit of allowed contact.

 

De Paul Drug Treatment Center

DIVERSION CONTRACT

Name:____________________________________Case No:___________________

I here by agree to enter the diversion program. By doing so I understand I must adhere to its obligations and responsibilities as mandated by the judge, program manager, field supervisor, and other approved treatment providers.

CLIENT RESPONSIBILITIES

1.  I must tell the truth

2.  I must attend all court sessions as ordered

3.  I must follow the treatment plan mandated by program personnel

4.  I must not violate the law. (If I engage in any criminal act, I may be prosecuted for the charges pending against me)

5.  I must obtain gainful employment within 90 days of release into phase two

6.  I must tell my field supervisor within 48 hours of a change of address or telephone number or change of employment

7.  I must get permission from my field supervisor before I leave the state of Oregon

8.  I must submit urine samples upon request

9.  I must complete at least 40 hours of community service or pay $500

10. The program is at least 12 months and I will pay a monthly fee of $50.00. I must have a zero balance in order to move on to complete the program.

11. If restitution is owed, I must pay the amount in full as ordered by the court.

12. I must follow the directives given to me and remain drug free. If I fail to do so, the judge may impose one or more of the following therapeutic or punitive responses:

CLIENT RIGHTS AND BENEFITS:

1. During the time that I am in enrolled in the program the prosecution of the criminal charge(s) against me will be stayed.

2. If I successfully complete the program, the criminal charges against me will be dismissed and I can never be convicted for those charges:

3. I can quit the program at any time, but if I so choose, I will be prosecuted on my pending charges

4. If I quit the program or I am terminated, anything I have said concerning my drug use while in the program cannot be used against me in court.

5. If I am terminated from the program my conduct while in the program may be considered by the judge at sentencing

Client signature

Date

WHITE / CLIENT

YELLOW/CASE WORKER

PINK / PROGRAM

Had them planned, changed them, and
changed the changed ones.
—Grace

The days. Our days.

DePaul Center rehab days: Breakfast at 6A, group counseling at 8A, one-on-ones at 10A. We take lunch at noon, and we can eat or not with what seems most mornings as no matter to them. Afterwards it's another required group: either NA or AA, though neither of which are any anonymous. At 2P or 3P depending, it's our last afternoon group, then lo and behold a bit of free time after that—what amounts to a few of us in the TV room and/or our room and/or wandering halls and/or sitting outside enjoying a smoke. Two or three hours to do as we please, save their long list of rules, before we're back once again on their clock. Dinnertime's at 5P, and a girl—when am I not one?—should get something in her stomach if she hopes to survive. The after-dinner meeting is optional, though if we're lucky or blessed or what-haveyou, it's forsaken for a visit, which, by the way, they arrange by letters: A–J on Mondays and Wednesdays and K–Z on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

But this or that week, Sunday to Sunday, sunup to all hours, what you'll find here are experts—or else a bunch of them that make the claim. As in my sweet neighbor, who just reached the
halfway, who can name almost any sixties slow tune. As in the former debutante always stitching or crocheting. As in the handsome guy from the top floor who swears he can name most any car trouble just by listening. It seems forever I've been an expert at reading people, and, like everyone else here, the
here
being a place we call by another name, I've also been an expert at other things, the worst of which is lying—to others, to myself.

In this city, it rains, rains so much you best get to liking the rain, so much I've come to love fixing my face to the sound of the rain, love to draw my brows and paint my lips and glue my lashes and, day by day, dot a mole on my cheek—my beauty mark. Most of these females act like just cause we're here, how we look don't count, but I got news for them, program or no, inpatient or out, looking good is a full-time occupation. And it ain't no days off!

No time off if you're smart from reading people either, which is a skill, a talent white folks have stamped with fancy names: rapid cognition or off stage thought or automatic processing, though I call it what my grandmother—God bless her soul—Mama Liza did, which is your first mind, and like Mama Liza would say, we all got a first mind; it's just some of us are too fool to follow ours.

I flow past chattering TVs and trilling alarm clocks, past rooms swelled with whispers or troubled breath, flow past posters of quotes, past a boldface placard of the center's rules, skip right on down to Girlfriend's room. Girlfriend's got her door swung wide while she fusses over a closet of what must be hand-me-downs from a shaky stool. Really and truly, she's always straightening this or that or sweeping or running a rag along dusty sills or hand-mopping her floors or tucking her bunk with corners made for hospitals, or an army base.

By the way, your first mind comes to you in seconds—or less. If you're listening, it tells you how much you'll like a person, if you can trust them, it tells you where to rank them; with your first mind you figure how old, how smart, whether they keep a bank balance or specialize in bounced checks.

Girlfriend, who holds her weight—who don't?—in the wrong places, quakes off the stool. Hurray, she says. Hurray. This time next week. This time next week and you're on your way.

What she means is I've almost reached the end of this stint, which, so help me, is my everlasting last.