Chapter1
Kell
The walls of the meeting room where Kell now faced the parole board: one white guy, one black guy, one white woman, weren’t like walls in other parts of Wyoming Correctional. In most places, the walls were painted-over concrete blocks, pale yellow, pale green, pale blue. In contrast, these walls were wood paneled, but the wood was fake.
The fluorescent lights did their best to make it seem like day, but there were no windows, or maybe the old air conditioner that shuddered and shuddered while pumping out icy cold air was where the window used to be.
The vibe of the room made it feel fake. To Kell, as if the parole board wasn’t actually interested in processing him for release thirty days early, that they actually meant to find fault in order to increase his ninety-day sentence to ninety years. But that was his own fear talking.
When two cops had arrested him in the Union Pacific rail yard in Cheyenne, they’d not quite known what to do with him. While he was being processed, as, evidently, riding a train without a ticket was illegal, he’d been told that due to his age and the nature of the crime, he’d be jailed for ninety days and released if and only if he promised never to hop on any train without a ticket.
Kell had agreed, readily, not even bothering to cross his fingers behind his back because, hell, he didn’t owe the state of Wyoming anything, nor did he owe the rail system anything. He didn’t owe anything to anyone, let alone the three people he now faced who wanted to know what Kell was going to do upon release and how he was going to support himself.
“We understand you don’t have a high school degree and that concerns us,” said the white guy, Mr. Howell.
He wore a wrinkled tie over a wrinkled white shirt, as if he’d gotten up late to come to this meeting, or he didn’t care and had decided that Kell wasn’t worth looking nice for. That’s what Kell’s dad had always brought up in any conversation, that looking nice was so important, keeping up appearances, making an impression.
“You need to be able to make your way in the world,” said the woman, Mrs. Allwood. She had a prissy, tight mouth, and she kept blinking at Kell as if trying to bring him into focus. “You can’t do that without finishing high school.”
If anyone knew how hard it was to support himself without a high school degree, it was Kell. The last two years of his life had shown him that and what he didn’t need right now was the black guy, Mr. Webber, taking off his glasses and polishing them for the zillionth time as if Kell’s situation was so troubling he couldn’t see straight and needed to clean his glasses just to be sure he understood what was going on.
“If you are taking this as seriously as we hope, Mr. Dodson, then you should be able to fill us in. Otherwise.”
Mr. Webber paused to adjust his glasses for the two zillionth time, looking at Kell all the while like he hoped Kell would be able to produce that piece of paper that would allow the parole board at Wyoming Correctional to open its doors, hand him his stuff and his gate money, and let him walk the hell out of there.
At that point, Kell would find the nearest set of rails stretching into the distance, and he would follow them until the land sloped in such a way that would make it easier for him to jump a train to the coast. That or a nice two-lane highway where hitchhiking was not, as yet, outlawed.
Sometimes hitching was best, sometimes hopping a train. It all depended on the weather, his mood, the speed at which he wanted to travel, and whether or not he wanted to have a conversation with another human being while doing it. Not that the parole board needed to know any of this. Kell was on his own for his transportation, and that was just fine by him.
“I am taking this seriously,” said Kell, hurrying the words when he realized that they were looking at him in utter silence, waiting for his answer with the intent and serious expressions of three preschoolers waiting to cross the street under the watchful eye of the crossing guard. In this case, the crossing guard represented the warden, who was not there, and would probably sign any recommendation of theirs without really looking at the content. “And I fucking told you already. I’ll probably get a job at McDonald’s or something.”
“And how will you get there?” asked Mr. Howell.
“I’ll walk,” said Kell with as much derision as he could possibly manage. “Duh.”
“There is a McDonalds in Torrington,” said Mr. Webber in tones that Kell knew he was meant to know were serious and concerned. “But it’s six miles from the prison.”
“So?” asked Kell, because it had never behooved him while on the road to give a shit. Or to act like he gave a shit. “I can walk six miles.”
“When you get there,” said Mr. Howell as he scratched his chest between his shirt buttons. “They’re going to want to know your job history when you apply. According to our records, you left home two years ago when you were seventeen. It was at the end of your junior year, and you’ve never had a job.”
“My parents wouldn’t let me get a job.” Kell slouched in his chair, shoving his hands into the pockets of his prison issued blue jeans, scratchy and thin at the same time. “Guess they didn’t figure that would fuck me over so bad, huh?”
This was not the response the parole board wanted from him, that was for sure. Mrs. Allwood’s face got even more tight and pinched, if that was at all possible, and Mr. Webber looked suitably grave and concerned about Kell’s predicament.
The expression on Mr. Howell’s face was equally grave and dubious and on the verge of being sad, as if Kell’s parole would not be granted early, perhaps maybe never, simply because he’d never had a job in high school.
His parents had always said that his education was more important than anything. They had given him a generous allowance, as well as providing him with everything he needed for school, and track and field, and science lab, everything.
Before leaving home, he’d never wanted for anything.
After he’d left home, after being honest with his parents turned out to be a shitshow, he swore he’d never go back. Which, of course, was an idea that the parole board had brought up early on. Kell’s response had been suitably unsuitable, made all of their faces twitch, and then become quite stern, so Kell was sure the subject would come up again before the meeting was over.
“You don’t seem to have many options, Mr. Dodson,” said Mrs. Allwood. “You don’t want to go home. You have no job skills, no high school degree or GED, so we’re all very concerned about you and your ability to be successful on the outside.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Howell with a hearty nod, as if this was the very first time in this seemingly endless meeting that this particular concept had been brought up. “We’re all very concerned about your potential for success.”
Chewing on a hangnail on his thumb, Kell’s brain was empty of alternate responses to this concern. He’d said everything he could think of in response to it, that he didn’t care, that he’d get by, that he was headed to the coast and surely there were jobs there. But evidently the entire country was unsuitable for a nineteen-year-old on their own, particularly with Kell’s background and history.
