The benches were another step on the freedom ladder. But the benches were enjoyable to make. And had the immense added attraction of the nameplates …
Avery stroked the wood under his dry hands and reached for a shiny brass plate with a screw hole in each corner.
“Can I have a screwdriver please, Officer?”
Andy Ralph eyed him suspiciously—like he hadn’t used a screwdriver a thousand times before without running amok—then handed Avery the Phillips-head screwdriver.
“Flathead please, Mr. Ralph.”
Ralph took back the Phillips and gave him the flathead, even more suspiciously.
Avery ignored him. Idiot.
He looked down at the plate in his hand and smiled as he remembered the scene of what had been—until SL’s letters—the greatest power trip since his incarceration …
“I hear you’re building benches, Arnold.”
“Yes, Dr. Leaver.”
“How do you enjoy that?”
“Good. I like it. It’s very satisfying.”
“Good. Good.” Leaver nodded sagely as if he were personally responsible for Avery’s upped satisfaction quotient.
“Thing is …, ” started Avery, then stopped and licked his lips nervously.
“What?” said Leaver, suddenly interested.
“I was thinking.”
“Yes?”
Avery shifted in his seat and cracked his knuckles—the picture of a man struggling with a great dilemma. Leaver gazed at him calmly. He had all the time in the world.
“I was thinking …” Now Avery dropped his voice so it was almost a whisper, and looked down at his own scuffed black shoes as he continued haltingly. “I was thinking maybe I could put a little brass plaque on my benches. Not the shitty one I made first, but some of the other ones. The good ones.”
“Yes?”
Avery scraped a match under his fingernails, even though they were already clean.
“With names on.”
His voice disappeared in the whisper and he dared not look at Leaver, who now leaned forward in his seat (to give the illusion that he was part of a conspiracy—Avery knew the moves).
“Names?”
“The … names …”
Avery could only nod mutely, staring at his lap—and hope that Leaver was even now imagining that tears filled the killer’s eyes—and that he had cottoned on to what he was trying to say.
Leaver slowly straightened up again, clicking the top of his Parker pen.
Avery wiped his sleeve across his bowed face, knowing it would add to the illusion of a man in personal hell, and Leaver fell for it, hook, line, and psycho-sinker.
The fucking moron.
Avery screwed the brass plate to his best bench yet and stood back to admire his work.
Oh, his benches were his ticket out of here all right. But they were also tickets to previously unimagined pleasure while he was still stuck in this grimy hellhole.
Now his benches graced the yard and walkways that already evidenced the work of other prisoners, with their foolproof flowerbeds and neat verges. And every time he was allowed out for exercise, Avery made a beeline for one of them.
Other prisoners made benches. Other prisoners now started to put little plaques on them, most with the names of their children or lovers or mothers.
But Avery had no interest in sitting on other benches. He luxuriated against the plaque
And while he did, a large part of him savoured the delicious irony. He was way too smart to show Leaver just how clever he really was.
Or how angry.
Or how desperate to hear from SL.
Despite his newfound control and patience, Avery could not help wondering whether he’d done the right thing in not replying to SL’s last demanding missive.
For the first two weeks after he’d received the bald “WP?” he’d enjoyed knowing that SL was waiting for something that he, Arnold Avery, wasn’t going to give him. That had been satisfying and empowering, and Avery had been energized by the experience.
The next two weeks had been more difficult. While his self-satisfaction continued to some degree, he also missed anticipating SL’s reply to any letter he might have sent. He had to keep reminding himself that he was doing the right thing. But his resolve was tested and he started to wonder if SL had given up. People had no staying power, he worried. Avery had staying power, but he was exceptional. SL had been impatient, so maybe he had also been angry or frustrated or just tired of the sport. The thought that SL might not realize that he was now required to make a concession to appease Avery scared him.
SL’s first communication had heralded the most interesting four months of Avery’s entire incarceration, and he was loath for it to end. Every missive had been a reminder of his heyday, and everyone likes to be reminded of their finest hour, he reasoned.
Week five of Avery’s unilateral moratorium brought despondency. SL was tough. Avery lay awake at nights and worried. He resented it bitterly; his nights had become oases of pleasure since SL’s first letter had allowed him to reexamine his memories in fresh detail in a way he’d thought was long gone. But now he lay awake, unable to recapture those baser feelings and fretting instead over practicalities like the unreliability of the postal system, or the thought that SL might have concocted the correspondence as a kind of sick hoax to bring about the very punishment he was now experiencing.
It was this last thought that finally raised the anger in Avery that kept him strong. Anger was an emotion he had rarely given in to since his arrest. Avery knew that anger was counterproductive to life inside, which required resignation above all else.
Resignation had been his constant companion for years, with his anger at Finlay or Leaver never being allowed to break the surface, although he could feel it boiling in his guts whenever he saw either of them.
Now, in the pitch-black cell which did not even shed the light of a half-full moon on his darkness, Avery mentally added SL to his short but heartfelt list of fury, and resolved that his erstwhile correspondent would get nothing from him—not a word, not a symbol, not a carefully folded piece of Avery’s shit-stained toilet paper—until he’d said sorry.
It was five weeks and four days since SL’s last letter before Avery received the next one.
There was no map, no initials, no question marks, just the single word:
Avery grinned. It had more grudge than grovel about it, but it would do. SL had learned the lesson and had realized that he was not in control in this game, and that Avery should therefore be accorded due deference. With that single word he had acknowledged Avery’s power.
Now Avery sat and wondered how best to wield it.
