On the outside, things were different; he was different. He was a sanitation worker, hauling away everyone’s unwanteds, keeping people clean and safe. Most people did not realize what filthy animals they really were. The guys in here, though, were a different breed, and even if they weren’t animals, especially if they weren’t animals, they still felt like animals.
Kevin was not an animal. Though back when Dan was ten and Kevin only six, Dan slipped the dog’s collar round his neck and chained him up in the backyard till he cried. But that was just kids’ stuff. Sixteen years later, Kevin was chained up again. He’d been shackled and led out, he sat when and where he was told, behind a shield of inch-thick glass; he was not an animal, but he obeyed. He was already seated and waiting when Dan entered the room.
A big dopey smile hollowed out the bottom half of Kevin’s face, and round wide eyes ate up the top half, like some baby seal on The Simpsons: impossibly cute. Those innocent eyes had helped him get away with it for so long, but when Dan tried to see past their shine, all he found was a bottomless black hole. He was no angel himself, but his brother was hard-core under his fuzzy exterior.
Dan plunked down into the folding chair and lifted the black telephone, the only connection to his kid brother. “Yo,” he said.
“Hey,” he replied.
The seasons had changed, and changed again, since Dan last saw his brother’s face. When Kevin was first locked up, Dan promised he’d come every week, which dwindled into every month, then whenever he could. Time could wear out even the sincerest promise.
“Pop been by lately?” He already knew the answer. He lived with the man and worked with the man—if Pop had gone to see Kevin he would’ve heard all about it. But small talk was small talk.
“Two, three months ago? I forget.” Kevin’s smile faded. “Time in here, you know… It’s hard to recollect.”
“I’m working the truck with him,” Dan said. “It’s hell on my hands, but the paycheck is nice.” His mantra. The thickest work gloves he could find couldn’t protect him from the skin-tearing, bone-crunching work of lifting heavy trashcans all day. Pop laughed at him. With time the skin would thicken up, he said. One day his hands would be tough and meaty. Like Pop’s.
Kevin drummed his thin, bony fingers on the counter. “Well, Pop always said do what you love.”
“Shitty advice, huh?” Dan started out doing what he loved—drinking—and worked for years as a bartender till the bar went up in flames and Pop got him on the trash truck. Kevin went after his love, too—cars—learning how to fix them up, and how to take them apart. Wasn’t long before he was stealing cars, selling off the parts. It was a good gig till he got caught.
“So, where’s Sandy?” Kevin asked suddenly, looking around the half-full room as though she’d gone to someone else’s window.
“Fuck her, man,” Dan replied, pointing at his busted lip, still swollen.
“I wish!” Kevin threw his head back with a throaty laugh. “But I forgot about what always comes with it.” He twirled his finger by his ear in the “loco” sign. He’d had some crazy girlfriends, one who’d even had his baby, but he was, as Pop always said, the agitator. Trouble found him when he wasn’t finding it.
“Yeah,” Dan said. “You’re not missin’ anything.” His neck was stiff; last night’s fight hurt more today.
Kevin sighed, leaning back onto two metal chair legs. “I always liked Sandy.”
“Eh.” Dan shrugged. “If I let that bitch dictate what I can and can’t do in my free time, then I might as well be in here with you.”
Kevin, his nose and cheeks a motley muddle of freckles, resumed his finger drumbeat on the counter. When he spoke, the hole where his right-side incisor ought to have been whistled slightly, the unfortunate result of a particularly rough high school fight, not long before he dropped out and left home. “Least you get to take a dump in private,” he said. He snuck a glance at the clock on the wall behind him, above the guards’ heads.
Pop said being inside would force Kevin to grow up, but with fifteen months under his belt, he was still the same, baby-faced and petulant. With another forty-five months to go, Dan had to hope Pop would turn out right. Eventually.
Dan rubbed the bruise on his cheek, holding back a wince. She’d called four times, no message. By now she’d be at the diner, too busy to call again. His anger was raw, his self threatened, he couldn’t deal with her shit today.
“God, Sandy has a nice rack, don’t she?” Kevin blurted, rocking manically in his chair. “Last time you were here, man, I just couldn’t stop thinking about her tits.”
“Bet you say the same thing after Mom leaves,” Dan said, something in the pit of his stomach igniting.
“For fucking real,” he replied. “Tits are hard to come by in this place.” He blinked his fat bulging eyes. “Hey, tell Sandy to come by and see me.”
“Dude.” Dan couldn’t single out any one thought, so many were zipping around his head at once. “Dude!”
“I didn’t know she was aggro, too.” He looked almost like he could pop off out of his chair, like it was all he could do to contain his energy, rocking and drumming.
“Aggro?” Dan was confused. His brother had had some crazy girlfriends, and he thrived on provocation. “Dude, we had a fight and she threw the remote at me. I ducked it, but kind of lost my balance and fell.” It was stupid, embarrassing even, but hardly aggro. “I biffed the TV and busted my lip.”
“You biffed the TV?” He smirked, let the chair drop to all four of its feet.
“It looks worse than I do, believe me,” Dan said, far removed from his bumper sticker persona.
“Ah,” Kevin said again. “You guys are fucking boring. Made for each other.” The guard by the door called out that five minutes remained for the visitors. Kevin hopped up. “Bet you’re back together next time I see you.”
“Nah,” Dan said, coming to his feet. “She wants me to move in. She flips out every time I go to the titty bar…”
“Whatever,” he interrupted dismissively. “Give it a week, a month tops.”
“Well, I won’t be bringing her back here, if so.” Dan tried to smile but it hurt his lip.
Face-to-face, they almost looked like brothers, the resemblances were so slight. The glass, thicker than the years, kept them on opposing teams. Dan was about to hang up when Kevin leaned closer to the glass, as though to whisper in his ear. He breathed heavily into the phone. “Come back next week, Danny.”
A murky moment passed before Dan tilted his head. “Sure, Kev.”
“Please...” He hung up, severing the connection. In the past, Kevin would wait there till Dan was gone, but now he nodded to the guard, who approached him speedily.
Dan watched, the receiver dangling limply in his hand, as the guard adeptly cuffed and fettered Kevin, escorting him through the sturdy double doors, which slammed shut behind them with a slap. Other people in the visitors’ room were crying, pressing their palms up to the glass. So close. He sank the phone into its cradle.
In the hallway, he took slow steps, unable to recapture his earlier swagger. He noticed now that the tiled walls were dingy, the overhead fluorescents ghastly. Slow steps. Outside the air was brisk but the sun was shining. He had nothing left to do that day, no plans, free time to spare. The drive home would kill an hour: wide open roads through rolling farmlands, big sky, loud music, and his foot on the gas. Maybe he’d swing by Frey’s for a quick nip. The state pen inside its razor wire cage loomed behind him, steely and sprawling, where it would be next week and the week after that, never moving, never changing, never free.
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