white shirts with black brassieres underneath and tight pinstripe pants to their school. Miss Jacqueline came to school twice a week and worked with the boys individually, and after she visited she was the subject of much talk in the units and fantasies that led to masturbation when the boys got into their cells. Chris had heard Shawshank, the old guard, talking to Superintendent Colvin one day, complaining about Miss Jacqueline’s style of dress, and how she “oughtn’t be looking like that in here,” and how she was driving all the boys crazy, walking around with her behind “all tight and full in them pinstripes.” Chris agreed, but he liked looking at her just the same, and he liked the way she smelled of lavender when she leaned toward him. It was nice of her to give him the book, too.
“All right,” said Ben Braswell, entering the room, tapping Chris’s fist, and sitting down beside him. “Those pieces took my head up, man.”
Chris had bought some marijuana with the money his mother had slipped into his pocket and had passed a couple of buds on to Ben.
“What I owe you?” said Ben.
“Nothin.”
“I’ll get you later, hear?”
“We’re straight,” said Chris. Ben never had money and had no way to get it. No one visited him, ever.
“We gonna ball this weekend, son?”
“No doubt,” said Chris. “Better play while we can. It’s startin to get cold out.”
“Cool weather means gobble time,” said Ben. “They’ll be servin a special dinner on that day, too. Turkey and stuffing, cranberry sauce, everything. They did last year, anyway. It was tight.”
Thanksgiving was just another day to Chris. But he said, “Sounds good.”
He didn’t want to taint Ben Braswell’s vision of the upcoming holiday. More than any other boy Chris had met at Pine Ridge, Ben saw the brightness in things. His attitude was positive, he was never cruel to be cruel, and he didn’t bully anyone out of boredom. Ben kept stealing cars, though, and the court kept putting him back inside.
“Hey, Ali, what you reading, man?” said Ben. “That book looks thick.”
An open hardback book rested in Ali’s lap. He took his eyes off the page and looked over the top of his specs at Ben. “Called Pillar of Fire. Miss Jacqueline gave it to me, said it came out just last year.”
“That’s a big-ass book.”
“You can read it when I’m done, you want to.”
“I ain’t gonna read shit, Ali. You know that.”
Because you can’t read, thought Chris.
“It’s about that time Mr. Beige was speakin on,” said Ali. “The Civil Rights Act, Dr. King, LBJ, all that stuff. You know, that president Chris called a leader.”
“He was,” said Chris.
“Yeah?” said Ali.
Chris concentrated, tried to arrange his thoughts in a logical manner so he’d sound as if he knew what he was speaking on. For some reason, he wanted to please Ali.
“He did good, even though he wasn’t all pure inside. My father told me that Johnson was… he was a product of his environment.”
“Your pops meant that Johnson was racist,” said Ali.
“More like, he couldn’t really help what he was.”
“Way I heard it, the man told nigger jokes at the dinner table,” said Ali.
“Maybe he did,” said Chris. “But he signed that act because it was the right thing to do, even though he might not have been feelin it in here.” Chris tapped his chest. “That’s what I meant when I said he was a leader.”
“Okay,” said Ali. “You’re right. Not only that, he lost the South for his party when he did that, and they ain’t never got it back.”
“What the fuck are y’all talking about?” said Ben.
“You ain’t all that stupid,” said Ali, looking directly at Chris for the first time. “You just tryin to act like you are.”
Chris blushed. “My father told me that, is all.”
“Your father read books?” said Ben.
“History books and shit. He’s got a library, like, in our living room.”
“Your father,” said Ali with a small smile. “Your living room. Books. A library.”
“What?” said Chris.
“How you end up in this piece?” Ali shook his head and lowered his eyes back to his book. “You don’t belong here, man.”
IN HIS cell that night, Chris lay on his side on his cot and looked at a charcoal sketch that Taylor Dugan had done of him, taped to the wall. It was made from a photograph she had taken of him in her mother’s basement, the night he was arrested. The sketch showed him shirtless, drinking a beer, with a cocky, invincible smile on his face. It had come to him through the prison mail, along with a note that simply said, “Thinking of you and miss you.” On the bottom of the sketch, Taylor had put her signature. Underneath his figure she had printed the words “Bad Chris.”
That’s me.
It was me. And now I’m here.
The smile in the sketch seemed to mock him, and Chris turned his back to it. He stared at cinder blocks and felt nothing at all.
SIX
Thomas Flynn’s business was called Flynn’s Floors. Despite the name, which he’d chosen because of its alliterative effect, the majority of his work was actually in carpet. He avoided wood flooring jobs, which were prone to costly error, and for the same reason he turned down work that involved ceramics. “I prefer not to deal with that,” he’d tell customers. “It’s outside my comfort level in terms of expertise.” To builders and subcontractors, he’d simply say, “I don’t fuck with tiles. You can fix a carpet mistake. With ceramics, you screw up, you’ve got to eat it.”
He catered primarily to the residential trade, with a smattering of commercial work in the mix. Much of his business came from referrals, so he spent a good portion of his day calling on potential clients in their homes, checking work that his installation crew had already done, and putting out any attendant fires. Amanda handled the paperwork end of the business-inventory, bills, receivables, payroll, insurance, and taxes-from the office they had set up in the basement of their house. Flynn was a good closer and could mother his crew and talk dissatisfied clients down, but he had no interest in the clerical aspect of the business, while Amanda was efficient in paperwork and the collection of moneys. Their talents were complementary and they knew their roles well. Take one of them out of the equation and Flynn’s Floors would not have been a success.
Flynn drove a white Ford Econoline van with a removable magnetic sign on its side, advertising the company name and phone number. His crew, headed by a hardworking El Salvadoran named Isaac, rode around in an identical van that Isaac drove home at night and parked on the grass of his Wheaton home off Veirs Mill Road. Chris, when he was still speaking to his father, called the vans the Flynn’s Floors fleet.
Like many salesmen, Flynn did not believe in showing up at a client’s house looking like he made more money than he needed. He felt that it was prudent to look humble and hungry. His work clothing was plain and square, Dockers from Hecht’s, polo shirts bearing the company patch when it was warm enough, long-sleeved cotton-poly blends in the winter and fall, Rocksports on his feet. For a while he had gone through the Vandyke phase, in the rebel yell manner of a white Major League baseball player, but he saw too many guys with double chins doing the same thing, and it screamed middle-age desperation when in fact he wasn’t there yet. Amanda said it made him look pleased with himself rather than honest or smart. He shaved it off.
Flynn looked in the mirror and saw what others saw, a guy who went to work every day, who took care of his family, who made what would always be a modest living, and who would pass on, eventually, without having made a significant mark.
