House and Home

Kevin Farmer could taste his impending freedom and it scared him. Man sweat and industrial cleaner filled his nostrils with the odor of lost hope. His fellow inmates rattled the confining bars of their cages, celebrating Kevin’s march. Kevin acknowledged them with weak smiles as a knot twisted in his gut. Each step brought him closer to the outside—thrust into a world he hadn’t been a part of for eleven long years. The hallway might have ended at the gas chamber for the way he felt.

“Give ‘em hell, Kev.” Some voices rose above the din. “Hope we never see ya, again.” Kevin barely heard them.

He stopped at a cell near the end. A large man sat on a cot with his head down, his tattooed arms swallowing his bald head.

“Chet?” Kevin called to him in a subdued tone. “Aren’t you going to say goodbye?”

Chet looked up with gleaming eyes. A tear streaked down over scars of long-ago street battles. He stood and walked to the cell door, and gripped the bars tight enough to whiten his knuckles.

“I’m going to miss you, Kevin.” His voice was like sandpaper.

Kevin’s eyes burned and he swallowed hard before speaking. “I’ll visit you. I promise.”

“No,” Chet said with vehemence. He reached his arms through the door and grabbed Kevin by his shirt, pulling him close. Chet’s muscled body flexed with the effort. “Don’t come back here. This place is your past. I’m your past. It’s going to be hard adjusting out there. Trust me, I know. I’ve done it too many times. Don’t let memories of here make it harder.”

“I won’t forget you.”

Chet put his arms around Kevin’s shoulders and squeezed. The metal of the bars cooled the exchange; otherwise, Kevin would have lost control.

Chet pushed away and said, “You better not.”

*          *          *

The natural light seemed brighter outside the prison walls—and warmer. He scanned the parking lot and saw his mother standing beside a fifteen-year-old Chevrolet. Her hands were on her hips. A flowery hat couldn’t hide her impatient scowl. Kevin sighed and walked towards her.

“Thanks for coming and getting me, Mom,” he said.

He reached out his arms to hug her. Belinda Farmer turned away and opened the driver’s side door. “Who else is there, Kevin? Even after eleven years, everyone remembers.”

He settled into the passenger seat and buckled his seatbelt. “I really appreciate you letting me stay with you. If I had anywhere else—“

“Don’t thank me. I’m only doing it because I’m your mother and that’s what’s expected. I haven’t forgotten what you did, either. Not a soul in town would ever let me.” She stared straight ahead, her body rigid.

They sat in silence as the car cruised along the turnpike. Kevin steeled himself to ask his mother a question that burned in him like an eleven-year-old ulcer. “Why didn’t you ever visit me, Mom?”

Belinda’s mouth tightened into a line. “You got my letters, didn’t you?”

“But I wanted to see you.”

“It’s a long drive, Kevin and I’ve been busy. Things have been tough. Life had to go on for some of us after you got locked up.”

Kevin looked at the floor. “I know that. I guess it left you with a lot of extra work at the store.”

“That’s one of the things that changed. I didn’t tell you in the letters because I couldn’t bring myself to write it out.” Belinda turned to him, her eyes ablaze with fury. “I had to sell the store, Kevin.”

“What?” Kevin gasped for air. “That…that store’s been in our family for like—well, it’s always been ours. Gramps mortgaged his home to keep it afloat. Why’d you sell it?”

“It was going under. Nobody wanted to shop in a store owned by someone who raised a murderer. And, when they did come in, I wanted them to leave. The way they looked at me was unbearable. The things they said were humiliating.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Sorry don’t make it any easier.”

Kevin clutched at his stomach as guilt closed its viselike grip on his insides. The prison shrinks hadn’t prepared him for this.

It’s going to be hard adjusting out there.

Sometimes, the simplest men had the most wisdom.

*          *          *

Meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and gravy tasted like ambrosia after the years of prison fare. He hadn’t had a home-cooked meal since the night he was arrested. Kevin and Belinda ate in a tense silence—a reminder of past family meals. Silverware scraping plates transported Kevin back in time.

Dad sits at the head of the table like a lord holding court. Mom digs into her meatloaf with her head down, shoveling the meat as fast as possible. Kevin knows she is hiding a damaged face. She needn’t bother. He heard the violence from his room last night.

“Don’t just sit there staring at your mother. Do you plan on eating?” Dad’s face is serene as he asks the question over a lowered newspaper. Kevin wonders how the bastard remains so calm after meting out so much damage less than twenty-four hours ago.

“Yes.” Kevin answers.

“Yes, what?”

Dad’s eyes burn with barely controlled rage as he glares at Kevin. Kevin starts to shake and fumbles for the correct response. “Yes…Sir.”

The fire smolders and dies and Dad hides behind the paper again. Kevin releases the pent up air in his lungs and starts to poke at his dinner. He peeks at Mom. Her eyes lock on him and her mouth drops open. The bruised eye looks like obsidian against her ashen face. She drops her head again when she realizes he is looking at her.

“Are you going to just stare at me or eat your dinner?” Mom’s voice broke through Kevin’s reverie like a rock through glass.

“Sorry, Mom.”

“Are you afraid I’m going to steal your dinner?”

Kevin looked down at his arm wrapped around his plate. He released the dish and sat up. He would never have relaxed in the prison galley. One second of inattention and you went hungry.

“Do you ever hear from Dad?” Kevin asked, trying to bury thoughts of incarceration.

“He calls every now and again, but I don’t answer. He’s just as much to blame as you for what’s happened.”

Kevin looked down and his shoulders slumped. “Don’t say that, Mom. I’m the one who killed Melissa Bach, not Dad.”

“If he wasn’t screwing that sixteen-year-old slut, would you have killed her? You should have killed him instead of her. People would’ve understood that. Everyone knows how he used to treat us.”

“I don’t want to talk about it. I didn’t mean to kill her. I just wanted her to leave our family alone.”

Belinda slammed her fork down on the table. “Strangling her didn’t accomplish that, now did it? She’s causing us more problems dead than she ever could’ve while alive.”

“Don’t blame her. The fault’s all mine.”

Belinda scowled and walked out of the room. Kevin could just make out the words she muttered as she left. “Damned straight it’s your fault.”

The vise tightened, threatening to squeeze his guts out.

*          *          *

The store manager held Kevin’s application and read it again with a humorless smile. Kevin watched him from over the cluttered desk, wringing his hands.

“Kevin Farmer,” the manager said for the fifth time. “And you want to work in my store.”

“Yes, sir.”

The manager leaned over the desk and held the application up, close enough to Kevin’s face to smell the drying ink. “I don’t want a murderer working here.” He punctuated each word with a tear of paper.

When he finished, he showered Kevin with the remains. “Now get the hell out of here before I give you the justice you truly deserve.”

Kevin stood and brushed the paper from his hair and shoulders. He looked up at the glowering man and tightened the honed muscles on his arms, “You should be careful how you treat people you know are capable of killing.”

Stomping towards the door, Kevin felt an urge to pick something up—anything—and beat the grocer with it. He reined in his anger. He didn’t want to prove everyone right by violating his parole. He opened the door.

“I’m not some little girl. You’d find it a lot harder this time, punk.”

Kevin slammed the door before he lost his battle against the rage.

*          *          *

Kevin opened his eyes to the dim glow of the rising dawn. He suspected that the guard’s whistles in the prison were rousing the inmates at that moment. He looked around the room, still trying to wrap his mind around the concept of freedom. The walls were bare. He had torn down the posters of his youth, exposing the dull white paint underneath. He longed for the gray he was accustomed to, but those days were gone.

He made the bed with the ‘quarter bouncing’ tightness expected by the warden. He showered with a feeling of strangeness. The shampoo was flowery and the soap alive with a fresh fragrance. Although these were unlike his showers in prison, they weren’t what gave him the odd sensation. He lingered under the hot water for the first time in forever. That’s when the difference hit him—solitude. He enjoyed it until the water turned cold.

He dressed in ill-fitting clothing he bought at a thrift shop and lay back on the tiny bed. At least some things are the same, he thought. His mind drifted back to the incident in the store manager’s office and his jaw clenched.

He remembered the day when he saw his first violent altercation in the prison. The viciousness of the attack horrified him. That was when he met Chet.

The galley is quiet as a dark-skinned Hispanic walked with a purposeful stride towards a slender Caucasian. A crowd of gray-clad prisoners follows him like the churning of a motorboat’s wake. The force repels Kevin, but he feels himself caught up in its frenzy.

The Hispanic grabs a meal tray off the table and brings it down with all the force he can muster.

Crack!

The tray explodes and the Caucasian crumbles to his knees. A kick to the jaw puts him on his back. The Hispanic jumps on him and pins the man’s shoulders with his knees.

“Pendejo, you fucked with the wrong Dominican.”

Fists rain down as the Hispanic’s fury is unleashed. Facial bones breaking remind Kevin of cracking nuts on Thanksgiving. Blood flies and the beating continues even after the Caucasian is unconscious and unable to feel it. The guards finally arrive and Kevin wonders why it took them so long.

Kevin’s body goes cold and he shivers uncontrollably. Breaths come to him in slow quick gasps.

An older man puts an arm around him and says, “It seems cruel, but it’s what the guy had coming.”

“It was brutal. What’d he do to deserve that?” Kevin asks through trembling lips.

“He stole a magazine from his cell.”

“Seems harsh.”

Chet turns Kevin around so they are eye-to-eye. “Kid, you need to understand. There’s no police or courts here. We got only one way to punish people—violence.”

“But he hit him so many times. What do they do if you steal something valuable?”

“Everything a person has here is valuable, and there’s no difference in the crime. The punishment is always ruthless. It’s how things stay sane around here.”

Kevin shudders. “That’s sane?”

“You don’t wanna see insane.”

Justice in prison was harsh, but clean. Kevin wished it were the same on the outside.

*          *          *

Breaking glass, crashing furniture, and raised voices came from the open windows of the Farmer house. Kevin smiled as he turned the front door’s knob. Finally, something he understood.

“How could you take that son of a bitch in? He ruined our lives,” a familiar voice yelled.

“I couldn’t have him living out on the streets. I’m his mother.”

“Rotting on the streets is too good for him. That killer destroyed this family.”

Kevin walked into the battlefield that was the living room. The room was in chaotic disarray and his mother cowered in a corner, pinned there by Karl Farmer. Kevin’s father raised a threatening fist over Belinda.

“Welcome home,” Kevin said, his voice like ice. “Dad.” He spit the last word out as if it soured his mouth.

Karl whirled around and Kevin recoiled from the fury in his face. “There’s the family homicidal maniac. How was prison, Kevin?”

“Just leave, Karl,” Belinda said.

Karl addressed her without turning. “Shut up, bitch. This is father son time.”

“Don’t talk to her like that. Listen to her and leave before something bad happens,” Kevin said in an even manner that he didn’t feel inside. “I may have been the one who tore down our family, but only after you’d already cracked the foundation.”

“Oh, because I fucked a girl who wouldn’t spread her legs for you?”

The front of Kevin’s head went numb. He could feel his temple throb. “I didn’t try and get with Melissa. I had a girlfriend. But what would you know of that? You had a wife and it didn’t matter. You just couldn’t resist a child who said yes.”

Karl’s face reddened. He marched purposefully towards Kevin and stopped inches from his son. Kevin looked down on his father for the first time in his life. “Call me a diddler, or statutory rapist, or whatever you like, but I didn’t kill anyone. You can never call me a murderer.”

As Karl started for the door, Kevin grabbed him by the arm and pulled him back close. “If you ever end up inside, you may wish they called you that instead of child molester.” He pushed his father towards the door.

Karl hurried out, stumbling as he glanced back at his son.

Belinda rushed to Kevin’s side and breathed, “You don’t know what you’ve done.”

“Yes, I do. I told that asshole to leave and he left.” Kevin looked close at his mother’s swelling cheek. “We don’t need him around here—never did.”

Belinda grabbed Kevin’s hands and squeezed them tightly. “He said if I don’t throw you out, he’ll kill me.” She looked up at Kevin and he saw terror in her eyes—and a plea. “I won’t do it, but I…I think he means it, Kevin.”

Kevin’s head started to throb. “I’m not feeling well. I think I’ll go lie down. Don’t hold dinner for me.”

“Are you okay?”

Pulling her into an embrace, Kevin whispered, “I’ll be fine, Mom. Everything’s going to be fine.” Almost as an afterthought, he added, “I love you.”



*



“I wish you were here with me, Chet. I need your advice,” Kevin said into the darkness. “Is this the right thing to do?” He received the expected reply of silence.

He stretched his leg out to relieve a cramp. He’d been crouched behind the strange couch for hours—alone with his doubt. He chewed another antacid tablet. It wouldn’t help. The burning in his solar-plexus was not heartburn. Voices pushed through the pulsating pain in his skull.

“Sorry don’t make it any easier.”

“I’m going to miss you, Kevin.”

“Damned straight it’s your fault.”

“Don’t come back here.”

“I don’t want a murderer working here.”

“It’s going to be hard adjusting out there.”

“Rotting on the streets is too good for him. That killer destroyed this family.”

“This place is your past.”

“He said if I don’t throw you out, he’ll kill me.”

Kevin grabbed his temples and cried out. His brain felt like a nuclear bomb detonation. The voices melted together and he couldn’t differentiate the speakers.

Headlights beamed through the room as a car pulled into the driveway, relieving Kevin of his painful reveries. He hunched down lower as he heard the diver side door close. His calves burned from flexing them after being inactive so long.

A key slid into the lock of the front door. Kevin was sure he hadn’t bolted it after disengaging the lock. The thumping of his heart threatened to pop right through his chest. His vision blurred for a moment while adjusting to the adrenaline.

The door opened. Kevin readied himself to lunge.

His target turned on the lamp just inside the entrance and Kevin saw the face of Karl Farmer in its glow.

“I tried, Chet,” Kevin whispered. “I'm sorry, but I have to come back home.”