At one point, as Kell had been clambering onto the flatbed, he’d missed his grip. He would have smacked his chin right against the flat, hot metal, but Marston had been there to save him. Standing close by, Marston had moved in, a gleam of sweat along his neck, his arms reaching around Kell’s chest to stop him.
“Oops, there,” Marston had said, and if his hand lingered on Kell’s back, it didn’t mean anything.
Maybe it did, and maybe it didn’t. Kell didn’t know. Only that Marston had saved him from hurt, and had saved him from looking like an idiot in front of the other parolees, and that he was now mooning around the mess tent like a thirteen-year-old girl hoping to see her favorite crush. Plus, the two cooks, who had come in and were gearing up for dinner, were looking at him askance as though they suspected he was about to five-finger the silverware.
On impulse, Kell went to the makeshift office and library area at the side of the mess tent, picked up the receiver for the landline, and dialed Wyoming Correctional.
If he was lucky, Bede would be in the break room and one of the phones in the phone bank would be free.
When the operator came on, he told her who he wanted to talk to, Obadiah Deacon, and gave her the number to the landline.
“I’ll try,” she said. “He might not be in the break room.”
“Thank you,” he said, and hung up.
As he waited for the call back, he took off his hat and held it in his hands, absorbing himself in the weave of fine, cream colored straw, listening to the birds squawking outside the mess tent. Counting each draw and exhale of his breath.
Time sure did move differently in the valley. It went slower, without so much hustle and anxiety, and certainly without as much worry.
Everything in his life seemed open-ended, but for now, he was where he was. Waiting for Bede to call him. Waiting to figure out what was going on inside of him, especially when Marston would look his way, checking to make sure Kell was okay.
The phone rang. He picked up the receiver.
“This is Wyoming Correctional,” said the operator. “I have Obadiah Deacon on the line; do you accept the call?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, his breath speeding up, a sense of joy spreading through his chest like wings.
There was a click, and then Bede’s voice.
“Hey,” said Bede, in his usual, laconic way, as if nothing affected him and nothing ever would. “You called. Are you still there or did you light out?”
Theremeant in the program, and Kell nodded, clutching the phone tighter. In Bede’s mind,lighting outwas the option preferable to sticking around and being treated as badly as if you were still in prison.
Kell knew he could have gone first thing if he’d wanted to. But he’d been tired and soul-weary and putting up with Wayne’s snoring and his initial dislike of Kell was a small price to pay for simply stopping to rest for a while.
“I’m here,” said Kell. “Still here.”
“How is it?” asked Bede.
“It’s good,” said Kell, thinking he might tell Bede about the great mattress on his cot, the terrific food, the work that wasn’t too bad, although he was struggling to keep up with the pace of the other men. Bede wouldn’t have that problem, for sure. “You should apply.”
“It’s not for the likes of me.”
There was silence on the line. Kell could hear Bede’s breath, could hear the rattle of something in the background. The faint click and hiss on the line because, of course, the call was being recorded.
“It could be.” Kell nodded, his throat a little thick because Bede had been good to him and deserved some place better than prison. He’d been on the inside for five years, after all, and surely had done his time, so it was time he got out.
“You’d fit in better than me, that’s for sure,” said Kell, now. “I can barely keep up, but there’s this guy—”
“A guy?” asked Bede.
“He works on a different team,” said Kell, as if that was the qualifying characteristic that set Marston apart from the others.
It was, but there were other things about Marston, a swirl of sensations that seemed to refuse to be tied down but that he suddenly wanted to explain to Bede. Partly because of the idea of convincing Bede that if he applied for the program and got accepted, good things could happen to him, too, and partly with the idea that if he could explain the situation with Marston, he could understand it better himself.
“And?”
Behind this single word response was a flicker of that night, the first night he’d shared a cell with Bede, when he’d offered Bede a blow job, or whatever, in return for protection.
