Every Little Thing (38 page)

“Drunk driver,” Cohen filled him in. “I saw the man get his face punched in a few days ago.”Theman's daughter pointed at the bruises,
How come,Daddy?

Cohen lowered his voice, “The man seemed like he needed some company that day at lunch. I caught his story. He'd ploughed into two university kids at a
crosswalk
and only got a year in here. His second DUI. The fact he can even share the story, you know? If I was him, I'd just—I'd make up another story.”

His father nodded. “So. How are
you
doing? How are you getting along, all things considered? Are you getting roughed up, like that guy, or did he have it coming, or what?”

“It's not good. But it's really not that bad either, for me, anyway. Honestly. I spent the first three days curled up in a ball in my bed, livid, infuriated.”He looked up at his father, confessed, “I could have let Lee kill him, you know? One morning, I...actually thought about that.”

“Jesus, Cohen!”

“I know. But I was furious—”

“Not so you could be with Allie? Not
that
way.”

“No. Just, pure anger. This is low, even for him. Me in jail.

It's absurd.”He waited a second,worried it would sound pathetic. “She hasn't even come by. Sent a letter.”

“What d'you expect from her? She's engaged. And then all of this?”He swooped a hand across the room. “She can hardly pop by and say hello after that shit she pulled? I mean, her apology, that's not going to change a goddamn thing now, is it?”He shook his head, angry. “Or at least, I hope it wouldn't. I can't believe you're thinking on her, to be honest.”

Cohen put his hands up, smiled,
Okay, settle down.

“So listen, anything I can do for you?”

“What, on
the outside?
”He laughed.

“I dunno. In general? C'mon?”

“Take back half the money Mom transferred me from selling your boat.”

“I'm serious.”

Cohen had been leaning back in his chair; had it back on two legs. He brought it forward, back onto the ground. Laid two elbows on the table. “The kid. The one I got fired because of.” He watched his father's eyes pinch tight. “Can you get me an update. About his heart?”

An alarm sounded off: three long blares like transport truck horns. Visitation hour was over.

“Cohen, I'msorry but. Between Allie and the boy from work. You've got to cut your losses, don't you think?” His father picked his hat up off the table. Put it on. “You've tried enough, with those two, and we can agree it didn't end well.”

“There's a journal, in your breast pocket, right?”

His father tapped it. “Yeah.”He smirked.

“Take it out.”

His father leaned forward, laid his elbows on the table. “All due respect. To the boy and his troubles. But we've got our own, don't you think? You've poked your nose in far enough.”

“Zack Janes.”He nodded to his father's breast pocket. “
Janes
. Zack Janes. Dr. Jennings would know the boy, from the ARVC clinics. Just want an update. That's it. He'd been waiting on a goddamn heart,Dad. A
transplant
. I think about him sometimes. If you tell me's alright, I'll stop asking about him.”

His father rolled his eyes. Fetched his pen. Bit the cap off, leaving it clamped between teeth. “James?”

“
Janes.
N.
Janes.
”

A guard approached them both. “Sir. It's time to leave.”

His father stood, gave the guard a look,
Yes, I'm leaving
, and Cohen said, “Check on Zack. Remember.”

BUT HIS FATHER never did check in onZack.
Looking into it
, his father would say. Or two weeks later,
I can't just…roam around the hospital wings, calling out his name.
And finally,
I can't ask our doctor about some kid I don't know. There's probably rules against it.

Cohen was at his cell window, his breath fogging it up. It was too dark to see anything, between eleven at night and one in the morning. He tried picturing Zack in Florida. The kid had always been ecstatic when he spoke of his grandmother. Zack would show Cohen the things she'd mail him—books about owls and all the right kinds of toys—and Zack would act all,
What's mine is yours
in sharing the goods with Cohen.
You can borrow this book anytime, I'll share!

Cohen had been sitting at the desk in the daycare room one day. The kids drawing puffins and razorbills. He had his head down, reading a paper about bioremediation for a project he'd been assigned, and Zack's fist banged down on the surface of the desk. He took it away and a blue Tyrannosaurs figurine wobbled to a stop.
I've got two, so you can have that one! Keep it in your pocket.
We'll have fights all the time!

VISITATION
HOUR

COHEN WAS A little late coming into the visitation room to see his father, and when he walked into the visitation room, it had been the first time he saw Truck in there with a visitor. It was his brother or something. Maybe a friend. Hulk Hogan-ish, but with brown hair. They were sitting two tables over from Cohen and his father, being loud and crass in a way that made Cohen's father sheepish.

His father covered his mouth, spoke through his hands. “An arm wrestle, really?” But they watched, entertained. “Five bucks on Blue Shirt,” his father joked, yet he didn't laugh from the gut. The way he normally would, at his own jokes. So Cohen dropped the good news he'd been holding back for almost an hour. “Clarence, he sent me a link. Claymore University is looking for first-year biology instructors. Per-course, but it's something to try for.”He'd served half his sentence now, and there was reason to think he'd not serve it all. “I've submitted an application, and Clarence knows a guy who knows a guy, or whatever. Hopefully they don't trace the IP address of my email back to a prison.”He laughed but his father didn't. “The job would start the spring semester.”

“That's good, son, that's good to hear. You'd like that, yeah?

Teaching?”

“Teaching ecology courses to people who give a shit? Yes.

Teaching first-year to kids who have to take it? No. But it'll pay the bills and beats a lot of jobs.”

“Yeah. Yeah, for sure.”His father was so obviously distracted and had been the full hour. It was like there was a TV screen behind Cohen, thieving his attention: a ballgame and his favourite team about to win. “And your sentence. Terrific news you'll be out—”

“Dad, what's up? You're a little...I don't know.”

“Your mother. She's. She, you know. She thinks it's enough that you're in here. I don't know. Never mind.” An awkward posture, an awkward shrugging of his shoulders. Truth had a way of wanting to bust out of his father. “She doesn't want you getting worked up about anything else until you're out of here, you know? And she's probably right, you know?”

The shrilling visitation-is-over bell rang.

His father got up to leave, and Cohen said it like,
Sit Down!
“What do you mean, Dad? I can see it on your face. Something's up.”

“Nothing, just, keep looking for a job. That's priority one.” His father stood up. “I hope you get the teaching position. That's your first priority. Focus on that, on getting a job, for now. That's the best use of your time, now. Your thoughts.”

“
What
is wrong with you, babbling like that?”

His father put his hat on, “See you...I'll come by the weekend.”He scurried off like the timid man he was. Secrets had a way of bouncing around in his body, and Cohen knew the signs, the junky posturing.

COHEN WAS ALLOWED three one-hour visits a week, and to prevent wasting one of those precious hours, he had the right to ask who it was and refuse the visit. But Cohen had yet to use all three in one week. So he'd get buzzed and he'd go. Expecting his father. The first few times he was told he had a visitor, he rounded the corner, and every time it wasn't Allie, he'd hit a wall that wasn't there: his father could read the disappointment on his face. The way Keith must've read the
shock
on Cohen's face the day he made a surprise visit. He'd been expecting his father, but he'd been expecting him at three o'clock. Cohen was reading in his cell, heard footsteps, heard humming, heard
Davies, your visitor is here
. He thought nothing of it, dog-eared a page in his novel, and laid it on his windowsill. Looked at the guard,
Lemme out, then
.

When Cohen saw Keith sitting at that table, he'd stopped walking so abruptly his sneaker squeaked off the floor. Two inmates behind him had bumped into him and pushed their way past him. Looks of disdain on their face because jail was no place to be bumping into people. Cohen wanted to turn and walk back to his cell, or he wanted to flip the table on Keith. Pin him under it and yell. But he was drawn to the look of anger on Keith's face. “Are you fucking
kidding
me?”

“Don't act shocked to see me, you son of a bitch.”

“Shocked?”

“Allie's gone missing, and you know it. You're crazy mother's probably behind it, harbouring her?”

“What do you mean,
gone
?”

“Piss off, Cohen. I just want to know she's okay. I want to know where she's been sleeping, and if she's coming back to work or what?”

“What makes you think I give a shit where she'd be?”

Keith stopped talking and squinted his eyes at Cohen, like Cohen was out of focus. He tilted his head, curious, like maybe Cohen wasn't lying. “It's been...weeks. Maybe three, I don't know. Too long.”

Cohen sat back in his chair. “You're not exaggerating?” and his concern for Allie sidetracked his anger.

“Un-clench your fists, tough guy. I think your temper's gotten you in enough shit this year?” Cohen looked down at his hands, and Keith said, “If you really don't know where she is, I'll just go.”

“So, what, she hasn't called you, didn't leave a note?”

Keith slapped the table, pointed. People looked over at them, briefly, but got back to their own conversations just as fast. “
Don't
play dumb. She was here. She's a registered visitor for you! I saw her name when I signed in on your file as a visitor!”

“I'm not gonna argue about this,Keith. I'm gonna get up and go if this is all we're going to do!”

“You fucked her up. About the kid. How she lied.” Cohen stared, waiting for more words. “The last thing she said to me was she needed to come here and tell you it was a boy she gave away, not a girl. And I haven't seen her since.”

“A
boy
? It was a boy?” And his skin was crawling with invisible insects. He got up to leave again, and Keith muttered, “And what do you mean,
it was a boy
that me and Allie had? Your goddamn mother's been—”

“What do you mean,
that me and Allie had?
Why'd you tell me about her child that night, man, if it was yours.”

He raised his shoulders in a slow shrug and made a dumb face that Cohen wanted to punch. “Logically, it was mine. If you're smart enough to do the math. But you, you're not even smart enough to lie, you piece of shit. Your mother's been by my house a dozen times. She barges in whenever she wants, tearing into Allie for whatever details she needs. She acts like I'm not there, in my own goddamn house. The two of them. And now Allie's run off.”

Cohen put two hands on the table and stared at them.

“Your mother's acting like a vigilante cop—”

“Just, back up!The whole story, when did this start?”

“This is
bullshit!
I'm not going to sit here and guess if you're pulling my leg or if your mother's batshit crazy or what?” Keith stayed sitting in his chair, but started pulling his jacket on. “If you don't know what she's up to, you should! Because someone needs to reel her in. She's out there fucking up peoples' lives. Ping Ponging around from my house to Zack's house to the police to Adoption Services—”

“What do you mean,
Adoption Services
?”

Keith sat back in his chair like a man with an upper hand. “She wants them to administer a paternity test. Before Zack's sent back into foster care.”

“
Foster care?
”

“Fuck. You're way out of the loop, aren't you? I can see it in your eyes now.”Keith sat up in his chair, grinning, about to get up and leave. The table they were sitting in was constructed the way a picnic table is built. It meant Keith's legs were trapped under the table, and Cohen wanted to thrust the table up and pin Keith to the floor. He wanted to drive the edge of the table into Keith's ribs, and he wanted to hear the fucker wheeze, cry, apologize. Keith stood up, looked left to right like he couldn't remember the way he'd come in.

Cohen went back to his cell and sat on the edge of his bed, rocking his legs back and forth; his cheeks puffed out from an everlasting sigh. The four walls of his cell meant there were no outlets for the kinds of questions that could wreck a man. He didn't have ten minutes to himself before the burly counsellor from corrections staff was at his cell door to fetch him, for another seminar, as required by his
Offender Plan
. The man had an impossible thick moustache and, always, a coffee in one hand, a file and pen in the other. And he smelled like waking up in a wet tent.

“My father's coming in an hour and a half.”

“Well, this'll only take an hour,”and the man had said it like Cohen didn't have a choice anyway. It had been another VHS tape. There was dust in the grooves of the cassette; Cohen could see it as the man slid it into the VCR. It was a two-hour video, about respecting peoples'boundaries, narrated by women with bad perms and men in acid-washed jeans. The counsellor at his desk, in the rehabilitation centre, clipped his nails through the movie. The sound of it was worse than fingernails across a chalkboard or a fork missing food on a plate.