The Grim Room (chapter 13)
Chapter 13 of my thriller novel
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CHAPTER 13
Chris exploded awake, sitting up in a ninety-degree angle, sweat drenching his forehead, heart pounding out a mamba dance, eyes pulsing back and forth. He realized he was on Julian’s couch. Oh, Christ. The nightmare, about Folsom, felt so real.
Shucking the covers off, he touched his toes and noticed his flip-phone was vibrating. Voicemail from Jim B. He’d programmed his sponsor into the phone. Good: he’d at least called him back.
A static noise; he could hear traffic in the background. “Hi there Chris, it’s Jim. Thanks for the call. Congratulations on getting out; that’s a huge, life-changing deal! I’m proud of you, son. I hear you on the struggling. It makes sense, seeing as you’re just now getting out of state prison.
“My advice would be to hit lots of meetings, get connected with as many local AA people as you can, and pray first thing in the morning, and last thing at night.” An uncomfortable pause. “And, uh, I think you should find a new sponsor. It’s nothing personal, of course. It’s just that, well, I’m up here in Sacramento, and you’re down in the Bay Area. I think it’s better that you have somebody down there, someone you can meet up with face to face. Again, get connected. Anyway, take care kid. Glad you’re out. Call anytime if you think you’re going to drink. Bye bye, now.”
Chris, in shock, flipped the cell closed. He threw on a pot for coffee.
It was true, like Kid always said, that Chris had been a “sensitive jailbird.” And he was still sensitive, jail or not. He hadn’t been cut out for prison, for the hardness of it, and he wasn’t cut out, he felt right now, for outside life. Sometimes he wondered if he was too emotionally sensitive for the world, period. It was as if he’d been born with a layer of skin missing, a much needed layer. In prison he acted his way through stuff, and he worked out every day, spent his time at the license plate factory or in the library, and joined Kid’s gang, FSP.
Now he was shocked at being “fired” by his sponsor, and he was frustrated and saddened by his brother’s callous words, “I love you, man. We’re all we’ve got. But I can’t change my life to make sure you feel ‘safe.’” Chris felt a rush of abandonment like he’d felt from his parents when they’d been wrenched from this Earth in one single moment.
He resented the fact that his brother didn’t want to see him succeed, and his “sponsor” didn’t care what happened to him. And this brought a memory of Rebecca.
He and Becca had been hiking in the Santa Monica mountains, doing La Jolla Canyon Falls, and when they’d reached the falls, after a very short amount of time, Chris had started to rush her to head back already, even though they’d only been gone for less than an hour (it was a 1.5 mile hike).
“We just got here, what’s your big rush?” Rebecca asked, crossing her arms over her chest defensively.
Chris, looking at the massive falls hurling themselves over granite rock, Douglas-fir all around them, the scent of the wilderness, said, “Because babe. I have things to do.”
Rolling her eyes, she approached, like she always did, and tried to kiss him. He backed off, ignoring her advances. She threw her hands in the air. “Why? Why do you have to do this every time we hike? Heck, every time we go anywhere!”
Annoyed, Chris said, “I’m sorry. I have things to get done.”
Arms crossed again, eyes narrowed, pissed, she said, “Coke. You’ve got to sell coke, and that’s more important than your girlfriend. That’s more important than—”
He stepped toward her. “Of course it’s not, honey. I think about you every minute or two. You know that. It’s just that, well—”
“It’s just that you’ve got priorities and they don’t start with me. Yeah, I get it. C’mon.” She stormed off, angry, her hiking boots clomping the dirt trail, turquoise jacket wrapped around her waist shaking with her walking rhythm, the REI pack taut on her back. Chris, sad that she was right, followed with his tail between his legs.
He hadn’t known, at the time, that he was an addict and that he was cutting too deeply into his own supply, the number one no no for drug dealers. He realized he’d been abandoning her all those years ago, and that he owed her perhaps the biggest AA 9th step amends for harm done in the past. This fueled his desire to see her even more, to make sure she knew he’d changed for the better, he wasn’t the same self-centered kid he was over two years ago.
Like his letter promised, he’d changed. He’d have to find her so he could prove it.
Chris needed fresh air. He grabbed the mug of coffee, took a preliminary sip, nearly burned his tongue off, and headed out the door. Outside, even though it was February, it was sunny and probably 60 degrees. He strolled down 45th Avenue until he reached Judah Street. Here he walked west four blocks—passing Japanese/Chinese and Mexican restaurants, a coin-op laundry, a Circle-K, a hipster coffee shop called Trouble Coffee—arriving at La Playa Street.
He was standing in front of Java Beach Coffee Shop; it was full of people sitting on benches and chairs outside, chattering, smiling, smoking cigarettes and laughing. Chris sighed and felt a pang of sadness, of regret. Why couldn’t he be one of those happy, carefree young people?
Within seconds he was walking over the Muni train tracks, where the train did a U-turn and flipped around to head back towards Cole Valley and Market Street. This was the major connector for people living in Ocean Beach to take public transportation back into the pulsing heart of San Francisco.
Past Great Highway, and the bike path, he meandered along green benches bolted to the concrete walkway. Surfers and joggers filed past. Finding a staircase, he descended to the sand. It felt odd to be walking on the beach, and that scene from Shawshank Redemption came to his mind. There’s a scene in the end, after the two main characters have both gotten out of prison, where they meet in Zihuatanejo, a small fishing village in Mexico. Red, the narrator of the film, is told by Andy, who first devises the plan to go to the village, that the Mexicans say the Pacific has no memory. And the last scene, very powerful, is all about hope. Hope.
Chris, walking with his shoes off, his toes sinking into the hot sand, tried to imagine hope. He needed a meeting, badly. And he still hadn’t gone to see a therapist, worked on a resume, or looked for jobs. At least he sold the gun. That was one thing to check off the list. But with his brother’s words echoing in his head, Jim B giving him the toss, Silver being inaccessible, as well as Rebecca, he felt hope-less. And the meeting hadn’t been at St. Thomas Aquinas. Ok, smart-ass, go to another meeting. Chris sighed loudly. Right.
Nearing the rising tide, seaweed strewn within the water, he watched that great big sea and did, in fact, sense hope. It was possible, right? That he could get back on his feet, find Rebecca, start over? He was out of prison, that counted for something, didn’t it? Of course it did.
A football flew over his head and a man, tough-looking and massive, ran for it, passing by Chris. Out of the blue, his mind retreated to Folsom.
Cell #28.
The cell had been typical. Tiny. Restrictive. Not a life but an existence. Every morning, 6:30, the guard—Don Hicky—would yell for them to walk out, bleary-eyed, standing in front of their cells to be counted. You could hear Bell Johnson or Tim Grayson—other tier guards—calling out numbers.
Chris’s bowels would always tense up when he heard this, every single time. The guards couldn’t carry guns because they were outnumbered by inmates, seeing as California prisons were so overpopulated. But the guards scared him nonetheless; they had power, Chris had none. The guards who walked the towers—like Tower 26 behind the arches—did carry guns, big semiautomatic ones that could cut a hole in your head the size of Jesus.
A set of waves came in. The waves rolled like big, untrustworthy forces of nature—they could crush you if you didn’t know what you were doing. The water sucked and spewed white frothy foam and curled, crushing the calm blue water beneath the giant waves. Seagulls carelessly glided above him, free as anything he’d ever witnessed, wings outstretched without movement, letting the wind carry them. Again he thought of freedom, of hope; he wanted to be like those birds, up in the sky, away from pain and fear and rejection and human expectations and abandonment.
Little fish jumped in the rising tide. The smell of salt water and seaweed and the damp, soggy sand filled Chris’s nostrils. The coastline was long and the sand wet and grayish. Around a curve he could see a restaurant high up on a pinnacle, above the water.
Jarred out of his memory, he watched a surfer catch a wave, riding toward shore, snapping his board back and forth, riding the moving beast, sending spray in all directions. Chris felt like he was riding the waves of life, out in the turbulent waters of new freedom. Or new something. Was it freedom he was experiencing, or some new kind of internal prison? He couldn’t quite tell yet, but whatever his emotions were doing—he’d learned about emotions in AA—they were rocky, at best. Like those waves out there in the foggy sea. Yes, there were beautiful waves breaking and the solitude of nature; but there were also predators. Great white sharks, for instance. Kid in sea animal form. Every environment contained its power structure.
A desire for drink came to him out of nowhere again. Jim beam and Guinness. Pyrat Rum. Red, that bartender. Red was the right kind of bartender. He gave you the benefit of the doubt. Sure, he’d teased him about his I.D., but in the end, he’d let it go. Even though he hadn’t drunken the damn thing. Chris stopped and pulled a cigarette out of his jeans. Watching the ocean way out there, squinting against the bright sun, he lit the smoke.
Chris rounded a curve of coastline and stared back. The whole beach was beginning to fill. Human beings. People with lives. Careers. Friends, families, lovers. He was nearly 30 years old. Had nothing to show for his life. Except a coke-dealing record, dead parents, and a prison stretch.
Kid came into the exercise yard one day. The exercise yard was surrounded by multilayered chain link fences. Outside of the chain link fences were the real fences, covered with thick, rolled, rusty barbed wire, the razor-sharp barbs a warning. The exercise area was in the corner past the running track which surrounded the grass. The guard towers stood around the whole area; armed guards held AR-15s, observing the prisoners carefully.
Chris was lifting. He could bench 220. He only weighed 170; pure, hard muscle. That had been one thing Chris had always maintained, even on the outside while dealing and battling his alcoholism.
Kid stood behind Chris, while he was mid lift. Kid sneered, holding the barbells steady, looking at Chris. At first, neither said a word. Chris—only a few days in—had seen this guy trolling the yard.
Kid had a shaved head. The drooping handlebar mustache; a common AB (Aryan Brotherhood) thing. A wife-beater. FSP was tattooed on his collarbone, and beneath that a swastika. But another tat—on his shoulder—he would soon learn was the AB insignia: a three leaf clover with a 6 on each leaf (666). Two swords crossed behind the clover.
“Workout time’s over,” Kid said, gently. It was said as if he were Chris’s caretaker, letting him know the time was up and he had to go take his meds now. This instilled more fear and insecurity in Chris than ever. No brutal outburst, no beating, no psychosis. Gentle, almost soft.
Chris was scared shitless.
He let the barbells clank down on the rests and lowered his arms.
“Don’t get up,” Kid said. Gentle, still.
Chris felt like running. But, of course, that was not an option. Not in the Big House. Things were circular there, they came back to bite you in the ass.
Kid explained everything, Chris laying on the bench press mat, staring upside-down at Kid. Their first fucking encounter. Kid was big, real big. An inherent rage and violence was so real, so obvious within Kid, that his strategy of acting gentle must have been his hottest weapon.
Timidly, still upside down on the bench press mat—Kid wouldn’t let him budge—Chris swallowed and said, “Alright. I’m in. I need protection in here. But I have one condition.”
Kid smiled widely. The guy was certifiable; Chris knew it right then. This was crazy, Chris thought: Why would he join a white power racist clique in prison? Why would be bash the Irish and Catholicism? He had nothing against these things and he sure as hell wasn’t a racist. Sure, all his friends were mostly white, but that had been circumstance, not choice.
“Son, you don’t get to state conditions. Where the hell do you think you are, the Ritz Carlton?” His voice was hoarse, deep, gravelly.
Chris prayed internally, very quickly, and looked back up at his aggressor. “I just don’t want to do any drugs, that’s all. I’m in for selling and I’m trying to stay sober.”
“You look like a pretty boy to me,” Kid said. “Are you a faggot?”
Upside-down, defenseless, Chris took the heat. Kid extended his white, veined palm. Chris shook the hand. The initiation would be next. The oath. The jumping.
“Don’t worry, kid,” Kid said, “You don’t have to use if you don’t want to. Hell, I even respect a man trying to clean up. What’s your name; what do they call you, son?”
Breathing a sigh of relief, Chris said, “Chris Doyle.”
Kid shaved Chris’s head and rubbed the red scalp roughly, standing behind Chris in the bathroom, almost half a foot taller. If another inmate walked in at that moment, it would have seemed odd. Sexual. It wouldn’t be until later that…
His reverie was broken by a yellow Lab, barking up a storm, running feverishly around his legs. The dog had thick stringy fur and he skipped around Chris’s calves like a crazed beast. The dog licked Chris’s skin. A woman ran up, smiling.
“Sorry about that,” she said. “Baxter’s playful. He loves strangers, don’t you, Bax!” She knelt down and pet the dog, firm, sensitive pats. She loved the Lab, Chris could tell.
Love. Such a lost and terrifying word. Oh, Becca. Baby. God I need you, Becca; where are you? This thrust a frustrating mix of excitement (at finding her) and fear (at not having her now) into his mind, and he wished more than anything that he could go back in time, to La Jolla Canyon Falls, and treat her better, the way she deserved to be treated all along. He could make the easy choice now of ditching the stupid coke and choosing the obvious: the woman he loved. How had he been so idiotic? How had he been so selfish? He recalled that in the Big Book of AA it said that alcoholics were “emotionally childish and grandiose.”
“You have a dog?” The woman said, ripping apart his thought, still smiling.
“No.” Chris was having a hard time concentrating.
The woman tilted her head, squinting at him oddly. “Well, have a nice day.”
A surfer squeezed past him, barely missing cutting Chris’s hand with a fin. That bastard. It was alright though. This was outside. The real world. Chris tapped his temple. The real world. Let it go, Christopher. No violence will help you here. No fear is needed. Kid is only in your head; he doesn’t exist anymore except in a dirty, cramped cell in Represa, California. Inside. For the long haul. He won’t get out for ages. Right?
The FSP guys formed a human barricade in a corner of the central rec yard, a concealing semi-circle, protecting Kid and Chris. The underlings kept an eye further out in the yard. A whistle meant: guard. A clap meant: unknown visitor. A loud cough meant: stop what you’re doing. An indecipherable yell meant: trouble.
The soldiers stood their posts. Kid told Chris to lower down to his knees. Kid walked up close, placing his huge white hand on Chris’s shoulder, saying, “FSP, an offshoot of the AB, asks for your mind, your heart, and your life. Do you give us that?” Kid ogled Chris straight in the eyes.
Chris, nervous and scared as a child is for the first time without his mother, shakily repeated back, “I give you—FSP, offshoot of the AB—my mind, my heart, and my life. I swear this.” A hard jack of terror gripped his soul after saying these words. This was so sick, this whole situation. It was wrong, him being in prison. He didn’t belong here; he needed to be in rehab.
But it was too late for that.