since I was a kid. But I could not have been more frozen by him. He held me as surely as if he had somehow materialized on my side of the glass and wrapped me in his arms.
He stood there framed in the window, a three-quarter-length portrait of an old con, his eyes on me. He gave a little snort.
I broke eye contact, and he sat down.
A guard stood several feet behind him, near the blank wall. (Everything was blank, every wall, every door, every surface. From what I could see, Northern C.I. seemed to be made up entirely of unbroken white plaster walls and gray concrete walls. The facility was new, completed only in 1995, so I assumed the lack of color was part of some crazy-making penal strategy. After all, it is no harder to paint a wall yellow or blue than white.)
My father picked up his phone-even as I write the words my father I feel a little thrill, and my mind reverses the film of my life back to 1961 when I last saw him, in the visiting room at the Whalley Avenue jail; that is the moment of divergence, the whole contingent, ramifying course of our two lives begins there-and I picked up my phone.
“Thanks for seeing me.”
“They’re not exactly standing in line.”
On his wrist was the blue tattoo I had remembered for so many years. It was actually quite small and indistinct, a little fuzzy-edged crucifix that had darkened with age to plum purple, like a deep bruise. I had misremembered it. I had misremembered him: he was only average height, thin, more muscular now than I’d imagined. Ropy jail-house muscles, even at seventy-two. He had picked up a new tattoo as well, much more intricate and artful than the old one: a dragon that coiled itself around his neck so that its tail and snout met at the base of his throat like a necklace pendant.
“About time you come see me.”
I sniffed. The risible suggestion that his feelings were hurt, that he was the victim here, pissed me off. What balls. Typical con, this guy was-always wheedling, angling, gaming.
“What’s it been,” he went on, “a whole life? A whole life I’m rotting away and you don’t have time to come see your old man. Not even once. What kind of kid are you? What kind of kid does that?”
“You practice that speech?”
“Don’t smart-mouth me. What’d I ever do to you? Huh? Nothing. But a whole life you never come see me. Your own father. What kind of kid doesn’t visit his own father for forty years?”
“I’m your son. That should explain it.”
“My son? Not my son. I don’t know you. Never laid eyes on you.”
“Want to see my birth certificate?”
“Like I give a shit about a fuckin’ birth certificate. You think that’s what makes a son? One squirt fifty years ago, that’s what you are to me. What’d you think? I’d be happy to see you? Did you think I’d be jumping up and down, whoop-dee-fuckin’-doo?”
“You could have said no. I wasn’t on your visitor list.”
“No one’s on my fuckin’ list. Whattaya think? Who would be on my fuckin’ list? They don’t let people visit here anyway. Just immediate family.”
“You want me to leave?”
“No. Did you hear me say that?” He shook his head, frowned. “This fuckin’ place. This place is the worst. I haven’t been here the whole time, you know. They move me around. You do bad somewheres else, they send you here. It’s a hole.”
He seemed to lose interest in the subject and he fell silent.
I did not speak. I have found in any Q amp;A, in court, in witness interviews, wherever, often the best thing you can do is wait, say nothing. The witness will want to fill the awkward silence. He will feel a vague compulsion to keep talking, to prove he is not holding back, to prove he is smart and in the know, to earn your trust. In this case, I think, I waited just out of habit. Certainly I had no intention of leaving. Not until he said yes.
His mood shifted. He slumped. Almost visibly, he went from petulant to resigned, even self-pitying.
“Well,” he said, “you came out big, at least. She must’ve fed you good.”
“She did fine. With everything.”
“How is she, your mother?”
“What do you give a shit?”
“I don’t.”
“So don’t talk about her.”
“Why shouldn’t I?”
I shook my head.
“I knew her before you did,” he said. He squirmed in his chair with a leer, wiggled his hips, mimed fucking her.
“Your grandson is in trouble. Did you know that?”
“Did I-? I didn’t even know I had a grandson. What’s his name?”
“Jacob.”
“Jacob?”
“What’s so funny?”
“The fuck kind of faggot name is Jacob?”
“It’s a name!”
Bouncing with laughter, he sang in falsetto, “Jaaaacob!”
“Watch your mouth. He’s a good kid.”
“Yeah? Can’t be that good or you wouldn’t be here.”
“I said watch your mouth.”
“What’s little Jacob in trouble for?”
“Murder.”
“Murder? Murder. How old is he?”
“Fourteen.”
My father lowered the phone to his lap and slumped back in his chair. When he sat back up again, he said, “Who’d he kill?”
“No one. He’s innocent.”
“Yeah, so am I.”
“He’s really innocent.”
“Okay, okay.”
“You never heard anything about this?”
“I never hear about anything in here. This place is a toilet.”
“You must be the oldest con in here.”
“One of ’em.”
“I don’t know how you survive it.”
“You can’t hurt steel.” The handcuffs forced him to raise both arms as he held the phone in his left hand, and he flexed his unoccupied right arm. “You can’t hurt steel.” But then his bravado vanished. “This place is a hole,” he said. “It’s like living in a fuckin’ cave.”
He had a way of swinging between the two poles of hyper-machismo and self-pity. It was hard to tell which one was a put-on. Maybe neither was. On the street this sort of emotional volatility would have seemed crazy. In here, who knew? Maybe it was a natural reaction to this place.
“You put yourself in this place.”
“I put myself in this place and I’m doing my bid and I’m not complaining. You hear me complaining?”
I did not answer.
“So what d’you want outa me? You want me to do something for poor innocent little Jacob?”
“I may want you to testify.”
“Testify to what?”
“Let me ask you something. When you killed that girl, what did it feel like? Not physically. I mean, what was in your mind, what were you thinking about?”
“What do you mean, what was I thinking about?”
