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GREAT EXPECTATIONS

“H
ello, son.”

“Hi there!” I don't think he noticed that I'd stopped calling him Dad. Not just because he wasn't my dad, but because I wished with all my heart he was. I wished I'd never become involved in this masquerade, and yet if I hadn't, I never would have
met
Onondaga John.

It was a warm, early spring day, surprising in upstate New York, where we often have snow up to our downstairs windows in March.

We sat in the prison visiting room. This was our third meeting. The first had been at Thanksgiving. The second at Christmas.

John Klee's face was lit by the few bars of sun that came through the high windows in the place. He had deep blue eyes, the color of his uniform. He told me once there was a saying:
True blue will never stain.
It meant that a truly noble heart will never disgrace itself … but it also referred to the blue aprons worn by butchers, which wouldn't show bloodstains.

“Johnny, today I want to tell you something I've never mentioned. Make yourself comfortable because there's a story attached.”

“When isn't there a story?” I said with a smile. “Go ahead, sir.”

He loved to talk about his life before Redmond, as though the young man he had once been was now understood by a gentler, wiser elder. He talked of his mistakes, some of them what he called “whoppers.”

“I had no patience, Johnny, that was my one big flaw. I wanted everything right away.” He'd said that both times. He said, “I don't hold that against myself, though. Growing up, I was the poor kid, the one whose family got the charity box from the Rotary Club every year. Grown up, I was a show-off—never drove a black car if I could get one fire-engine red. My wheels squealed around corners and my horn played ‘Sweet Talkin' Guy.'”

He didn't tell me sob stories, nor did he make himself the hero of his tales. He just wanted me to know him. He wanted to know me too. Not really me—he'd never know
me.
But he wanted to know his son.

My real name is Brian Moore. I am Millie Moore's kid, one of these single-parent children. So in the beginning it sounded like fun to pretend I was Onondaga John's son.

My mother's bed-and-breakfast, called the Blue Moon, specializes in the families of men locked up in Redmond Prison, right in our downtown.

When you cater to a crowd of women (mostly) whose brothers or husbands or fathers are doing nickels and dimes, you get to know them. Onondaga John is doing two quarters, and of that fifty-year sentence he's served only sixteen years.

We call Mrs. Klee, his wife, Polly Posh, because there is something posh about her, something glamorous—even though, as she likes to say, her days of Concorde flights and mansions, silk sheets and chauffeurs, are over. She is a forty-eight-year-old con's wife. Her rich family want nothing to do with her. Neither does her son, the real Johnny. He moved in with his grandparents when he was eight years old. Now, at Oxford House, he tells his prep school pals that his dad is dead.

For a long while Onondaga John didn't want anything to do with his son either. He was ashamed of himself, and uncertain about how the boy felt toward him. Early in his sentence Polly had said something about not wanting to bring a little kid to Redmond Prison, not wanting to have him see his father that way. Onondaga John thought there was a possibility she'd lied to their boy, maybe said he was on some secret mission far away … maybe even said he was dead. It wasn't uncommon for prisoners' wives to keep the truth from their kids.

Onondaga John didn't even ask to see pictures of Johnny Jr. Let Polly bring up the boy the way she thought best.

He asked her if Johnny needed anything, if everything was okay with him—general references, but nothing specific. Polly guessed Onondaga John was too proud to face a little tyke walking through those iron doors, calling out “Daddy.” Not
his
son! Leave well enough alone.

Polly was just as glad he felt that way. She never had to tell her husband that the boy had turned into Little Lord-It-Over-Everyone. She never had to tell Onondaga John that his son claimed to be fatherless.

Then came the fatal day when Onondaga John told Polly he'd like to meet his son. “Isn't he around sixteen now?”

“Yes.” Polly told my mother she was thinking right then and there that
I
was around sixteen too.

“Does he know about me, Polly?”

“Yes.”

“Bring him along next time. I'm not planning to become a daddy to him suddenly. I just want to see him.”

“Sure,” Polly said.

That night at the Blue Moon, Polly asked my mother and me, “What would it hurt if Brian visited him, said he was his son?”

“Well, Brian,” said my mother, “here's your chance to be an actor. Here's your chance to prove to everyone at that school you're the Tom Hanks of Redmond, not some flop!”

“He can't
tell
anyone he's doing it!” said Polly. “And who said he was a flop?”

“That's what they think of him,” said my mother. “Ask him.”

“Why do they think that, Brian?” Polly asked me.

“Not every kid comes across as interesting.
I
don't.” That was putting it mildly. I didn't “come across” at all, except as El Nerdo.

“This might make you
feel
interesting,” Polly said, “even if you can't talk about it.”

I said, “It'd be a change anyway.”

I thought the main thing would be seeing inside Redmond. You live in a prison city your whole life never knowing what's behind those walls. You see the guys going and coming on the buses in and out of Redmond. Going with a birdcage and the shiny new suit the state pays for. Coming, manacled to a plainclothesman, not wanting to look you in the eye.

But the main thing didn't turn out to be Redmond Prison. It was Onondaga John himself. Right away he asked me how I felt about things, and he told me how
he
did. He said his favorite author was Charles Dickens and one of his favorite books was
Great Expectations.
What do you like to read, he wanted to know, and whose music do you like? What do you want to be someday? “An
actor
?” he said. “Hey! Hey!” he said, grinning at me, looking as pleased as though I'd just unlocked the front gate and said “You're free.”

I'd never had an adult male interested in me unless it was a guidance counselor wanting to know why my fingernails were chewed down to the quick, or why I couldn't stop rubbing away my eyebrows.

I'm okay when I'm at the Blue Moon. I belong there, setting up the chips for the poker games, listening to old Mrs. Resnick cry that her hubby no sooner gets out than he goes right back in, answering the rattle of bells at the front door, always eager to see if it's someone new, someone whose relative we've seen on Court TV.

Everyone there likes me too. Everyone knows I'll sneak a peanut butter sandwich to them late at night. I'll let the cats up the back stairs to sleep with those who need a little fur and purr around their necks. I'll get them thrillers or romance books from the library with my card. I'll watch the spooky stuff on TV with them in our parlor, and I can sit in for card games too. Bridge, poker, and gin.

Follow me out of the Blue Moon, down two blocks and over three, and you've seen me land in enemy territory: Redmond High School.

Mousey Moore, on the short side with thin brown hair and bird legs, arms just as skinny.

At the Blue Moon I babble and crack jokes and listen and hum.

In that puke-yellow brick building with the flagpole out front, I am duh. I scurry down the halls like the mousey they've named me. Not even mouse. I am littler. My whiskers bristle with fear. My nostrils quiver. Inside, everything trembles.

“Hey, Mousey, did you bring a cheese sandwich for lunch?” Someone has tossed an empty Coke can at the back of my head.

“Did the mousey bring cheese for himself? Did you, Mousey?”

“Yis.” I can't even make it sound like yes. It hisses out of me between chattering teeth:
Yisss.

“Is the cat after you, Mousey?” I feel a sneaker press down on the back of my shoe.

“Nip.” For nope—nip, and I skitter down the hall to get away, oh-oh, not in the boys', it'll be worse in there. Try by your locker. Just open the door and hide by your locker.

But there is no way for someone like me to hide at school.

I hide in my head, fantasizing that I've grown tall and strong enough to fight them. Or suddenly so unbelievably handsome and amusing they all long to be my friend.

I pray for days when something
big
is going on in the town or the world, taking their minds off me.

Now Onondaga John was at the end of his story, which was about his courtship of Polly Posh, how he adored her, and how frightened he was of Mr. Pullman, her father: rich and powerful, six foot three, with a booming voice. Pullman would look down his nose at John Klee and say things like “Don't wear brown shoes again, fellow. It's not a man's color.”

“You don't know what that's like, do you, Johnny? To be scorned. Polly tells me you have lots of friends at your fancy school. What's its name?”

“Oxford House, sir.”

“Yes. Your grandfather Pullman went there, and his father too.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do you admire the Pullmans, Johnny?”

“Not really, sir.” Not from what I'd heard about them! Polly said Johnny'd become so spoiled living there. He instructed the maids to remove all magazine inserts before putting them in his room. He only wore a terry-cloth robe once, then threw it out and grabbed a new one from the shelf in his bathroom. The entire Pullman family were wastrels, said Polly—greedy and ungiving.

Onondaga John said, “I was afraid you'd come under their influence, since you're their only grandchild. I'm glad you stuck with your mother!”

That was when he told me he was going to see that I received $240,000.

I swallowed hard. “But where would you get that much money, sir?”

“Let's say from a partner of mine, Johnny.”

I had never asked him about the last bank robbery, though I did know it was the first time he had worked with partners. Before that he always went solo, and only robbed banks in Onondaga County, upstate New York.

There were three robbers in the Salina Bank robbery. I did know that one turned state witness and claimed Onondaga John shot the cop. Polly swore he never had, he
wouldn't,
it wasn't in him to kill anyone. Steal, yes! Kill, uh-uh!

The third man had apparently taken off with the loot from the heist.

“Johnny? You look slightly reluctant. It's not dirty money, Johnny. It doesn't belong to people. I've never robbed
people.
I've robbed banks, and banks reimburse depositors. Insurance is a business like any other, with its risks and gains. They bet someone like me won't come along. I bet someone like them won't be prepared when I do.”

“I never thought of it that way.” I'd never thought of it at all.

“This is just another little mystery story, Johnny.” Sometimes at the end of a story he'd say that, then add, “Life is mysterious. You don't know that yet, but you'll see.”

“It's very hard for me to believe,” I told him.

“I plan to give you thirty thousand dollars a year for eight years,” said Onondaga John. “Your first payment will come to the Blue Moon, in cash, in six months.”

My mouth must have fallen open; my eyes must have been round with amazement.

“Don't say anything, Johnny, just listen. It will be yours to do with as you please. I like the way you've turned out. I trust you, Son. Unlike me, you have a noble heart you will
not
disgrace.”

I don't know about a noble heart. Do you know what I thought I'd do first with the money? I would hire a drama student from Redmond University, where theater was featured. He would be big and tough looking, able to handle himself in any circumstance. I would buy a Saab convertible for him to drive. We would get some Redmond University coeds to accompany us. We would appear at all the games together, at the dances, at Pizza Palace, all the places I never went, fearing the bullies would be there too.

I would no longer be Mousey Moore. Moose, maybe. The Moose.

“We can't take that money,” said my mother. “Brian, what could you be thinking of? Stolen money? It's bad luck, honey!”

“He didn't offer it to
us,
Mom. He offered it to me. I can take it.” I gave her Onondaga John's explanation about insurers being businessmen, about risks attached to business.

“Malarkey!” she said. “That's how Onondaga John got where he is!”

That night after the poker game Polly said she was going back the next afternoon.

“Then send us an E-mail that Johnny's been hit by a two-ton truck,” said my mother. “We are ready to end this charade.”

“Not me,” I said. “I'm not ready.”

“I can't say that I blame you, Brian,” Polly said. “Now I understand why John wanted to meet his son. He told me what he's planning. Better you than the real Johnny! And I'll expect to be a nonpaying lodger after you get your first installment.”

“If that money comes to this house, it'll go right back!” said my mother.

“Go right back where?” Polly said. “Apparently the third man is dying, and he's already put the cash somewhere in John's name.”

“We won't have any trouble getting someone to take it away,” said my mother. “Particularly someone in navy blue with a silver badge.”

“That's a lot of money,” said Polly.

“You keep it if you love having stolen money so much,” said my mother.

Polly gave me a wink. She said, “What boy couldn't use some new clothes and music and something like a little Saab to get around in?”