FICTION

By Jane Snyder

What kind of world was it, Dave won­dered, where a woman could put
herself above a man? He was ready for this one. “Whoa there, Sis,” he
said when he felt her hand cup his gen­i­tals under the jump­suit. “You
play, you pay.”

She knelt, rolled his pants’ legs up, exam­in­ing for contraband.
“What does the chicken on your left calf sym­bol­ize?” she asked.

“Oh, that. It’s the cock below the knees,” he said.

She went behind the desk, sat at the com­put­er, didn’t look at
him. He wished she’d ask why he couldn’t get on the chain bus to the
pen­i­ten­tiary with the rest of them.

Because I kill women. He’d spit that into her thick face.

He studied his feet in the stiff plastic sandals. Hammer toes. If he
knew of someone famous with hammer toes he could talk to her about
that.

He opened the sack lunch he’d been given for the trip, bit into an
apple. The skin was flat red like a crayon. The flesh was mealy.

“The apples you buy at the store are shit,” he said. “They grow them
to last a year. That’s why they’re no good.”

She didn’t look up. “You eat it now, you won’t have any­thing to eat
when you get hungry.”

Did she think this was a daycare? On the way to the penitentiary,
the offi­cers always got fast food. The food was never as good as he
remem­bered, but the window at the drive through, the food under the
lamps, smelling the hot grease, would hold him a long time.

He won­dered who’d be coming from the Pen to get him. “What time
is the trans­port team coming?”

“When they get here,” she said.

Dave imag­ined slam­ming her head face down on the desk hard
enough to break her nose. Leave her puffed up for a month.

He was glad when the offi­cers came. Two of them, big guys, slack
where the girl was taut. Shirts tucked in, more or less. That was the Pen
for you, he thought with sat­is­fac­tion. They do things their way.

Dave didn’t know the younger officer; saw he’d left the top two
buttons of his shirt open reveal­ing a sliver of purple T‑shirt. Dave could
have told him he was in vio­la­tion of the dress code, which stipulated
navy, black, or white T‑shirts, and that only the top button of the
uniform shirt could be unbut­toned. He thought of men­tion­ing it to him.
If the officer were to ask him how he knew, he’d say: You think that’s
strange? I’ve been doing time since before you were born, for­got­ten more
than you’ll ever learn.

He knew the sergeant who greeted him. “Easy Money! Ready for a
road trip?”

“With you, Steve?” Dave looked at the girl to make sure she heard
his use of the officer’s first name. “We’ll tear it up.”

His status as an estab­lished char­ac­ter, old school convict restored,
Dave thought to rub it in. “How’s your dad doing?” He turned to the
girl. “His dad was also a Sergeant Gustafson.”

“He was Lieu­tenant Gustafson,” the younger man said, “before he
retired.”

Dave saw the girl’s smirk.

“You must have known my dad from the old IMU, when he was
the day-shift sergeant,” Steve said pleas­ant­ly. He bent over to check the
shack­les on Dave’s legs. “These aren’t too tight, are they?”

The line was meant to remind the offend­er of who was in charge
but there was no snub­bing Dave, who turned to the two younger
offi­cers. “I knew this illus­tri­ous sergeant before he knew me. Your dad
told us all about you when you were playing for Wa-Hi. Quarterback,
right? Man, he was proud of you.”

“Let’s get you settled,” Steve said.

After Dave was secured in the car’s back seat, Steve stayed out in
the rain for a minute talking to the jail officer—wanting to build her up
a little. “You’re good with him. I let him get under my skin,” he said.

She smiled. “You can have him.”

“Here I thought he was irre­sistible to women. But listen, when
you’re a fat boy every­one thinks you played foot­ball. I never did, wasn’t
fast enough. They called me the assis­tant manager. Water boy is what I
was. For four years. He must have me mixed up with some­body else.”

She looked star­tled and Steve guessed he’d said too much. He’d
meant to say some­thing nice to her, not talk about himself.

After home games, his dad took him and the others who hadn’t
made the team for pizza, asked them serious ques­tions about the team’s
chances, praised their con­tri­bu­tions. Steve believed his father respected
him for accept­ing a lesser part.

“Prob­a­bly hasn’t heard a word anybody’s said since the judge gave
him life without,” Steve said. His laugh­ter was in excess of what the
joke war­rant­ed. “Well, till next time. Always a plea­sure.” He was stupid,
he told himself, think­ing she needed any­thing from him.

He drove, knowing Josh didn’t like driving on the Pass at night.
He said he felt better when Josh had the gun. The driver didn’t carry a
weapon.

Steve had been on this side of the moun­tains when it wasn’t
raining on trips with his wife and daugh­ter to the zoo or the Space
Needle, every­thing shim­mer­ing in wet, wavy sun­light. Tonight, the rain
was so heavy you couldn’t see more than a few feet of road ahead. Like
the periph­er­al vision test at the eye doctor’s, the spot of light darting at
you from any­where and all you can do is wait.

“Amateur night,” Dave said. He’d been talking about King County
Jail where he’d been for the last three months, waiting to go to court on
a motion for a reduc­tion in sen­tence. The motion had been denied last
week. “If you don’t expect any­thing you won’t be dis­ap­point­ed,” he’d
said. “Sugar Tits wouldn’t last a week at the pen­i­ten­tiary. Not a day. Not
an hour.”

“Officer Field is an excel­lent cor­rec­tions officer,” Steve said.

Josh, Steve saw with amuse­ment, straight­ened up in his seat. He
knew when his boss was ready to lay down the lumber. Dave couldn’t
catch a clue. “I just don’t under­stand why a woman would want to do
this kind of work, Steve,” he said.

“For the same reason anybody does, to earn a living,” Steve said.
He’d never under­stand, Dave thought sadly, how quickly
they’ll turn on you. He thought of the heady days after his arrest,
the detec­tives falling over them­selves to bring him coffee, light his
cig­a­rettes. You could smoke any­where then. “It wasn’t rape,” he’d say,
all of them gath­ered around him as if there was no place they’d rather
be. “It was theft of ser­vices.” They’d laugh when there were still bodies
for him to lead them to.

They didn’t usually stop till Ellens­burg but Steve, hoping it would
shut Dave up, turned into North Bend. Get the bath­room trip, and the
coy busi­ness Dave would make of it, done as well.

“This is great,” Dave said, staring out the window. “I haven’t been
here in thirty, forty years.” Steve won­dered what there was to see.
Not the wet woods that came up to the edge of the road. Or Mount Si
behind the QFC. This time of night, you wouldn’t know you were in the
moun­tains if your ears didn’t pop.

The bright­ly lit stores and restau­rants fas­ci­nat­ed Dave. “I can’t
believe how much it’s grown. Look at that. Sushi!”

“Can we get you some?” Steve asked.

Dave giggled, glad to be teased. “Raw fish? No thank you,
Sergeant.” McDonald’s, as he’d hoped. “You order for me,” he said
primly, folding his hands in his lap when Josh removed the cuffs.

Josh offered but Steve paid, saying, as he always did, “Save your
money for the girls.”

Dave had never seen a Sham­rock shake. “God, it’s beautiful.”

“You been reading Har­le­quin Romance books again?” Josh asked.
Dave beamed. Doesn’t take much to make him happy, Steve
thought.

“Seri­ous­ly,” Dave said. “Look how they put the choco­late layer over
the mint.” He ate it all, his double Quarter Pounder with cheese, Steve’s
French fries, the bun Josh didn’t want. “I thank you,” he said.

Dave fell asleep as soon as they were back on the road, the upper
half of his body slump­ing forward, strain­ing against the seatbelt.
Josh turned off the speaker between the front and back seat. “They
look so sweet when they’re sleeping.”

Steve appre­ci­at­ed his tone. He liked his offi­cers to have fun so long
as it wasn’t dirty. “Aw, his little tummy’s full. Keep an eye on him. With
his head forward like that he likely won’t choke but you never know.”

“It made me sick, the way he talks,” Josh said.

“Some people just need killing,” Dave had told them, with modest
pride. Crack whores, he’d called his victims.

“I was getting tired of him too. But I wanted to ask you about the
young lady at the Christ­mas party. Casey. How’s that going? Past due
for the first wife, aren’t you?” Steve asked. He didn’t think Casey was a
good idea. Pretty enough, lots of glossy hair, but her mouth was already
inclined to dis­con­tent. She wouldn’t have the sense to appre­ci­ate what
she had.

“I don’t know what she’d say, is the thing. I mean, what have I got
to offer?” Josh asked.

“Plenty. You apply for sergeant this time, you’ll get it,” Steve said.

“She’s out of my league,” Josh said.

“What matters is if you care about her,” Steve said. Jody, his wife,
had been excited and flat­tered when she was a new hire and he started
paying atten­tion to her. A sure thing.

“Maybe. I took her to the opera last week in Spokane. It went pretty
well, I thought,” Josh said.

“Opera? Hoo boy. You’re in deep,” Steve said.

Steve had fought with Jody that morning. He blamed Gwennie,
their daugh­ter, thir­teen years old and already taller than her mother.
Gwennie couldn’t get along with anyone lately, even her friends,
exer­cis­ing her new­found ability to say exactly the wrong thing. Jody got
the worst of it. She’d been making waffles that morning when Gwennie
came into the kitchen, rolled her eyes and took a carton of yogurt from
the refrig­er­a­tor. Steve, knowing he was being a prick, told her to eat the
nice break­fast her mother had made, but Jody, who wanted everything
pleas­ant, said not to worry about it. “If you don’t like waffles, I won’t
make them anymore.”

“Waffles are fine if I wanted to look like you, Mother,” Gwennie
said.

“Will you be wanting a ride to school this morning, Kitten? Your
friends don’t like sitting on the bus with you anymore?” Steve had
asked.

He would have apol­o­gized even before Jody let him know what
she thought of his giving his daugh­ter a taste of her own med­i­cine, but
Gwennie ran into the bath­room and locked the door when he tried.
Jody held bags of frozen peas to Gwennie’s eyes to reduce the evidence
of crying, told her how cute she looked. Gwennie wouldn’t get in the
car with him. Jody took her to school and then came back to get Steve
to drive him to work.

“I didn’t say any­thing that wasn’t true,” he said before apologizing
again. “Can I come see you at lunch?” The other women in her office
smiled at him when­ev­er he went there, seeing a man so crazy about his
own wife.

She shrugged. “You look at her like she’s some­thing you just picked
out of your teeth.”

“That was a pretty cheap thing she said to you, Jody.” How could
she stand it, he won­dered, Gwennie tearing into her then acting like
nothing had hap­pened. She was still a little girl. Hold me, Mommy. I 
want on your lap.

“What you said was cheaper. You’re older and should know better,”
Jody said.

“I’d ever talked to my mom like that and my dad would have
pinned my ears back.” A lie. He knew it when he said it.

She got out of the car before he could open the door for her.

The only people Gwennie was decent to were her grandparents.
Kept a civil tongue, vol­un­teered for chores, refused money from them.
She took it fast enough from Steve after­wards, though.

The look on his daughter’s face, before she’d said that thing about
not wanting to look like Jody, could have been fear.

“Don’t bother with lunch,” Jody said, but she’d let him walk in with
her, thanked him. She wished him a good trip when he called to tell her
he wouldn’t be home till late because of the trip and told her to take the
car. Josh would give him a ride home. Of course she wouldn’t say much
to con­tra­dict him, not with people around.

The rain stopped as they approached Ellens­burg. Steve was glad
to be on dry, flat roads again. He thought of six-year-old Gwennie,
telling him a new joke from school. Proud because she’d mas­tered the
elab­o­rate punch­line. She prac­ticed on Steve when he came home. He
was on night shift then and he’d stay up to eat break­fast with her, hang
out with her while Jody got ready for work. Gwennie, looking sweet
and impor­tant in one of the dresses bought special for first grade,
sprawled against him on the couch crack­ing herself up. When she could
tell it straight through, she asked him to call his father for her. “Grandpa
will love this.”

His dad was on day shift then and would be getting ready for work.
Steve pic­tured him reach­ing for the lieutenant’s bar he kept in a little
tin plate on his dresser and then cross­ing the room to put it on in front
of the mirror.

No hurry in his dad’s voice. Steve heard their mingled laughter
when she’d pulled the joke off. “Isn’t that some­thing,” his father said
over the line. Gwennie smiled up at Steve, invit­ing him to share in the
success of her joke.

“It was better than I thought it would be,” Josh said, interrupting
Steve’s thoughts. “They had police cor­rup­tion and torture. I’d go again.”

Steve remem­bered Josh was talking about opera. “No fat ladies?”

“She was a big girl, Tosca, Floria Tosca, but I wouldn’t call her fat.
In good shape, actu­al­ly. She’d have to be, running and singing at the
same time,” Josh said.

“I’d never have thought of an opera. You young guys are good at
that rela­tion­ship build­ing stuff. But Jody’s got no com­plaints. I take her
to pie night at Shari’s anytime she wants,” Steve said.

“It was cool. They had a com­plet­ed suicide. Floria went up the
stairs to the second floor and jumped out the window. I think they used
a tram­po­line,” Josh said.

“What would have been cool is if she’d bounced back up,” Steve
said.

“She went down pretty hard, so I was hoping. She must have
grabbed on to some­thing to hold. I didn’t want to ask Casey,” Josh said.

“No,” Steve said. You had to hand it to Josh, swing­ing for the fences
in loving that girl.

“I hope it works out for you. With Casey.”

“I got us the shirts they were selling at inter­mis­sion. I hope she
didn’t think that was too much. I’m wearing mine now,” Josh said.

Jesus, what a chump Steve thought.

Josh had bought a record­ing of the opera too. They’d played it on
the drive back from Spokane, Casey war­bling along in her thin, highpitched voice, not knowing she was off tune. He smiled, think­ing of
that. Asked Steve how his dad was doing. “I always liked him.”

Well, I like him too, Steve thought, telling himself Josh meant
well. “Mom thinks the new med­i­cine is helping. He never says much.”

If his dad had claimed Steve played foot­ball, the inmates would
know he was lying. Some of them got the news­pa­per sent in, liked
knowing when an officer got divorced or arrest­ed for a DWI, and they’d
have noticed his name wasn’t in the sports pages.

His father never said he was disappointed.

You get to Ellens­burg, in no time you’re in Yakima, a longer haul to
the Tri-Cities, then Walla Walla. On the trip over, they’d seen pel­i­cans on
the shallow ponds along the Colum­bia. You didn’t see them on the river
much, easier fishing in still waters, Steve guessed. Nothing to see now.

He glanced back again at Dave. Small, limp in sleep. His victims
had been small too, none older than fifteen, and he’d had the advantage
of sur­prise. Pros­ti­tutes, sex workers you’d say now. What else? No one
with a choice would get into a car with Dave. He’d put the body in a
garbage bag before he dumped it, called the bags his sig­na­ture. He
was famous enough, a four­teen-year-old from L.A., spot­ting the box of
garbage bags on the back­seat, jumped out of his car at a traffic light.

The police praised her quick think­ing and her accu­rate descriptions
of Dave and the car. One of the detec­tives said he wished she was his
daugh­ter. Steve thought that would be a sat­is­fy­ing ending, the detective
adopt­ing her. He was ten then, watch­ing the news with his brother,
Dougie, and his mother and father, waiting for the meat­loaf to be done.
He imag­ined the detec­tive asking the girl for per­mis­sion. “I’ll be good to
you,” he’d tell her solemnly.

Steve was dis­ap­point­ed when the camera showed the girl’s mother
getting off the plane at SeaTac, crying. “Thank you, God, for bringing
my baby home to me.”

“Prob­a­bly sold her in the first place,” his dad said sharply, making
them look up. “Her baby didn’t get to Seattle from Los Angeles on her
own.”

He didn’t under­stand his mother’s dis­tress. “Oh, honey. How can
you say that?”

His dad tousled Dougie’s hair. “I’m taking you gen­tle­men to the
barber shop tomor­row,” the gesture at odds with the reproach­ful tone.

“We don’t need to watch this,” his father said, getting up to turn
the set off. He asked Steve’s mother what kind of pota­toes she’d made.
What­ev­er she said, mashed, baked, scal­loped, fried, he’d say it was his
favorite.

Some­times Steve won­dered what the girl had made of her second
chance. Like his father, he mis­trust­ed the mother, remem­ber­ing the way
she’d looked into the cameras as if she’d been waiting all her life for
them to show up. Maybe the girl believed she’d out­wit­ted death because
she was intend­ed for some­thing special. Or, as seemed likely to Steve,
she carried the other girls with her, imag­ined the moment when they’d
known they were going to die. She’d be fifty now.

When the rain stopped, the road seemed safer. Steve remembered
the trip his family took every summer to Wallowa Lake when he was
a boy. They’d leave early, drop the dog off at his grand­par­ents. His
grandma had a cooler of food for them. Fried chicken, three-bean salad,
stuff they liked. “Finally, some real food,” his dad would say. “She’s
starv­ing me, mom.” They’d laugh, knowing he was teasing; laugh again
when she’d say his dad should be ashamed of himself.
“I was glad to do it,” his grandma said, when his mom thanked
her for the food. “You just go and have a good time.” His mom had
begun working part time at the credit union when Dougie started
kinder­garten, and his grandma thought she was working too hard. It
couldn’t have been much of a day off for his mom, he thought, not the
way women have spa days now, but she looked forward to the trip all
summer. They all did.

Their grandpa would walk out to the car to see them off. “Watch
out for them Jack­alopes,” he’d say and act sur­prised when Dougie told
him there was no such thing.

His grandma’s food was for supper. They’d go up to the summit in
the gondola and have lunch at the restau­rant. It was always exciting,
getting out at the top from the still swing­ing car and walking on the
trails. They’d feed the chip­munks, give them nick­names, tell them
they’d see them next year.

They’d sit on the restau­rant terrace and look across at where they’d
been. Al fresco, his mother said every year. “Like some­thing in Europe,”
and Steve would think yes, this is what Europe must be like.

They did every­thing. Rode horses through the dry, fra­grant woods—
the only thing his dad didn’t do with them. “It isn’t fair to the animal,”
he’d say, check­ing to make sure they were cinched in. “Having to carry
my weight.” His mom rode, laughed when his dad told her she looked
like a cowgirl, like Dale Evans. His father would be waiting for them
when they got back, would lift Dougie and their mom down, let Steve
dis­mount on his own, say how well he did it, and go with them when
they went to the stables to say goodbye to the horses.
Steve loved the ride, felt sorry for his dad for missing it. Ashamed of
his bulk. Not much of it left now.

After­wards they took a paddle boat out on the lake. When they
were hot from the sun, their dad took them swim­ming, Steve’s favorite
part. His mom said it was too cold and his dad would tell her to go
to the gift shop. “Foufou store” his father would call it, making them
laugh. “Treat your­self, honey.”

His father sent them soaring out over the water, again and again.
When they paddled back to him, they’d dart under water, clamp­ing onto
one of his legs. “Lake’s full of blood­suck­ers,” he’d say, and pull them
into his arms.

When his mom called them for supper, she’d scold his dad for
letting them get so cold and excited. “You’re as bad as they are.”

They’d stay at their picnic table to watch the sun set over the lake.
When he and Dougie got rest­less, his dad gave them money for ice
cream. They’d eaten coconut cake and water­mel­on already, but that was
the kind of day it was. “Make sure you and your brother stay away from
the deer, Stevie,” he’d tell him. Tame deer were a feature of the park.
They liked seeing them up close, wanted to pet them. “They’re cute but
see how high they jump? They kick you, it’s going to hurt.”

Steve, holding Dougie’s hand, lis­tened solemn­ly, imag­in­ing he was a
Jedi warrior receiv­ing instruc­tions from Obi Wan Kenobi.
When they came back his parents, close togeth­er on the bench,
made room for them. His mom took Dougie on her lap. Steve leaned
into his dad.

The sun set then, a red ball drop­ping into the lake. Day to night.

Dougie turned into a baby, crying, begging to stay. “It’s all right,
Big Guy,” his dad said, picking him up. “Didn’t we have fun?” Steve,
knowing he was the real big guy, carried the cooler.

Dougie was asleep before the car started, but Steve, wanting to hold
onto the warm dark and the murmur of his parents’ con­tent­ed voices,
tried to stay awake.

He noted the indi­vid­ual quality of the stars as they emerged, how
some were bright and others blurred and pretty. Thought sud­den­ly, just
when he couldn’t stay awake any longer, that it was all right to let go
because they were there, his mom and dad. More days with them, laid
out ahead of him, always.

Steve wasn’t working tomor­row. He could sleep in, then see his
dad, watch TV with him, what­ev­er he wanted. He could give his mom a
chance to get out for a little while. “I don’t need a babysit­ter, you know,”
his dad would say when she left. He was irri­ta­ble now, sometimes.

“I know, Dad. I just like to be with you.”

“We’ve got that in common, then. I like being with you too.” His
dad never had much inter­est in dis­ci­pline or instruc­tion, he got enough
of that at work, Steve guessed. His gift as a father was his enthusiasm
for his family’s company.

“God, I was a dumb little kid,” Steve said into the night. “Obi Wan
Kenobi never called anybody Stevie.” He’d ask Gwennie to come with
him to his parents’ house tomorrow.

“I’m not quite under­stand­ing the context, but Obi Wan Kenobi isn’t
real,” Josh said. “I thought you knew that, Stevie.”

Their laugh­ter was loud enough to wake Dave who was glad to
leave his dreams, be with the younger men, see the white lights from
the penitentiary

This story orig­i­nal­ly appeared in Stonecoast Review Issue 18.

Photo by Shashank B.