He just nodded.
Sonny smiled. He had a nice smile, his teeth big and white, none missing. Wyatt would have expected bad teeth in prison. Also: no visible tattoos or scars, no evasiveness in the way he looked at you, no tics or twitches.
“I know it’s not the most pleasant atmosphere,” Sonny said.
“That’s all right,” said Wyatt.
Sonny gestured toward the plastic seats. He had strong, well-shaped hands, very much like Wyatt’s but older-looking, maybe because one or two of the fingers weren’t perfectly straight. Sonny was strong and well shaped in general, Wyatt’s height to the inch, a little thicker in the chest and shoulders.
They sat in adjoining seats about three feet apart, each half turned to face the other. Wyatt was relieved to sit down: a sudden feeling of weightlessness had overcome him.
“My heart is beating pretty fast right now, I can tell you,” Sonny said. “But not your problem. First, I want to say how much I appreciate this visit.”
“That’s all right,” Wyatt said for the second time, feeling a little foolish about the inane repetition; but if it struck Sonny as foolish, he gave no sign.
“Second-I-” Sonny broke off, turned away, brushed the back of his hand over his eyes. When he turned back to Wyatt, his eyes were clear. “The natural thing is to say something about you being a fine-looking young man,” he said, “but it’s almost like giving myself a pat on the back.”
“Because of the resemblance?”
“Exactly. It’s…it’s uncanny.”
A silence fell over them, kind of awkward, at least for Wyatt, but he couldn’t think of what to say. He glanced at the CO with the dreads, seated in the corner. She was gazing off into space. Even sitting down, he felt weightless.
“You don’t have to stay,” Sonny said. “If this is too uncomfortable or anything.”
“No, no,” said Wyatt.
“But if it gets…,” Sonny began, then noticed a speck of dust on his knee and brushed it off. His khaki pants were spotless, with sharp creases down the fronts of both legs. He looked up at Wyatt and said, “Do you like the name?”
“What name?”
“Yours-Wyatt.”
“Yeah.” He did like his name, always had.
“Good,” said Sonny. “It was either that or Derek.”
“What do you mean?”
“In our discussions about what to name you,” Sonny said. “I’m talking about Linda. Your mom. We’d narrowed it down to those two, when…when…” His voice trailed off.
Derek? That was news to Wyatt. So was the whole idea of this man’s involvement in the choice of his name. Wyatt had always just assumed his mom had picked it on her own.
Sonny was watching him. “Hope that doesn’t bother you,” he said, as though reading Wyatt’s mind. “My being in on the naming and all. Obviously not my right, looking back from later events. Linda’s, but totally.”
“No,” said Wyatt. “It’s, uh…”
Another silence. Sonny rubbed his hands together, maybe trying to warm something up, like the room. “Is the Chuckwagon still around?” he said.
“Chuckwagon?”
“Guess not,” Sonny said. “It was a diner on Fremont Street, across from that little park.”
Wyatt knew the spot, back in East Canton. “A Laundromat’s there now,” he said.
“Yeah?” said Sonny. “I didn’t know that.” He turned back toward Wyatt. “It was tricked out to look like a covered wagon. Linda and I went there a lot. Does she still like BLTs, the bacon nice and crisp?”
“Yeah.”
“She ordered it every time, always with a chocolate shake.” Wyatt had never seen his mother drink a shake. “That’s where we had these name discussions,” Sonny went on, “at the Chuckwagon. Once-might have been the last time, now that I think about it-you kicked. I felt it, you know, in the womb. Linda kind of went still for a second, her mouth full of BLT. I can practically see it.” He shook his head. “But enough of that. You didn’t come all this way to hear an old guy get sentimental. Main point is-you like your name. Got a middle one, by the way?”
“Errol.” A name he didn’t like and never used, not even on official forms, like his license. Also: it was impossible to think of this man as an old guy, and Wyatt wouldn’t have minded hearing more about the Chuckwagon.
“Errol-that would be after Linda’s dad,” Sonny said. “How’s he doing?”
“He died a long time ago.” So long that Wyatt had no memories of him.
“Errol was a good guy,” Sonny said. “Loved baseball.”
“Did he go to any of your games?” Wyatt said, taking a guess.
“Yeah, he did. How’d you know I played?”
“Coach Bouchard told me.”
“What a character. Hope he’s doing all right.”
“They had to cut baseball, on account of the economy.”
“I heard. No economy in here-one of the silver linings.”
“What’s another one?” Wyatt said; a question that came blurting out, mostly on its own.
Sonny laughed. He had a nice laugh, low and musical. “I’ll have to think about that,” he said. He gave Wyatt a quick sideline look. Wyatt had seen Mr. Mannion give Dub a look just like that, one day back in middle school when Dub had surprised everyone by winning honorable mention at the science fair.
“You heard the baseball story from Greer?” Wyatt said.
Sonny nodded. “She says you’ve got a nice compact swing. Interesting a girl would notice something like that.”
“I was hitting at the cage,” Wyatt said.
“Even so,” Sonny said. “You miss it?”
“No,” Wyatt said. “A little.”
“What position?”
“Center field.”
“Meaning you can run.”
“A bit.”
“More than that, I’ll bet. Coach Bouchard always wanted a burner in center-doubt that changed over the years.” He took a deep breath. “I still love baseball.”
“Uh,” said Wyatt, “do you get to throw the ball around and stuff?”
Sonny laughed again. Yes, a happy laugh. How was that happiness possible? “A baseball in the wrong hands is the kind of thing they try to avoid in here. But there’s a lounge with a TV. We’ve got a game pretty much every night during the season.” He smiled. “Not all the guys are baseball fans, of course, but we work it out.”
The visitors’ door opened and the heavy woman in the jogging suit came in with her two kids. They sat at the opposite wall, the baby in the woman’s lap, the little boy beside her but almost at once slumping down to the floor, then crawling under the seats.
“Hey,” said the CO with the dreads.
The heavy woman reached down, grabbed the boy by the pant leg, and pulled him out. The baby began to slide off the woman’s lap. She grabbed him, too. The baby started crying. The boy sat back down on the seat beside his mother, crossed his arms over his chest, looked angry. At that moment, the other door opened and an inmate in khaki entered, followed by another CO, this one white and male. The CO was big, but the inmate was even bigger, a huge guy with a shaved head, goatee, a tear tattoo under one eye, and another tattoo-Jesus on the cross-taking up most of the other side of his face.
He glanced at Sonny and gave him a curt nod. Sonny gave him one back. Then the huge guy walked toward the woman and the kids. The woman and the baby didn’t take their eyes off him, but the boy kept staring straight ahead. The woman said something in Spanish. The man shrugged. He took a seat next to the boy, who still had his arms folded across his chest.
