Tell No Lies (3 page)

“Yes, Mom,” he says. “Great idea.”

*   *   *

The elevator heaved to a stomach-jolting stop in the lobby, and Daniel passed through the metal-detector checkpoint, dropping his keys into a plastic dish. He rode another elevator to the third floor and stepped out into the corridor. For three years he’d walked these halls, ridden that Clorox elevator. In a few months, he’d be moving on. As he braced himself and headed for the meeting room, it struck him just how much he’d miss all this.

He could already hear the group milling around beyond the corner. Rowdy laughter. A sharp curse. The threat of violence, coursing like the sound of a timpani beneath the murmurs.

His adrenaline flared, a distinct pulse in the blood. Deep breath. Gather yourself.

Here we go.

Chapter 4

“How the hell,” A-Dre said, giving Daniel a once-over, “could someone like
you
help me?”

Anton Andre Powell answered only to “A-Dre” when he answered at all. He’d been sullen in last week’s intake session, but his high IQ and quick emotions had convinced Daniel to take a gamble on him for group. Now A-Dre slouched in his chair before the others, wearing a stained wife-beater, arms crossed, his dark skin lit with tattoos. Flames up his forearms,
“LaRonda”
written in an Old English font on the side of his neck, prison-ink spiderweb clutching his elbow. A circular burn scar the diameter of a softball marred his left biceps, the skin shiny and bottle-cap-crimped at the edges.

“I’m not sure yet,” Daniel said. “Want to stay and find out?”

“What choice I got?” A-Dre sneered.

“There are always choices.”

A-Dre sucked his teeth, glaring at the five other group members. The three men, like A-Dre, were large and bulky and loose on their chairs, fingers laced behind necks, spread arms, sprawling legs, taking up as much space as possible. Power postures. Daniel always sat everyone in a circle with no table between them so he could observe each member’s body language and take note of these peacock displays. X was stretched out like the men, while Lil hugged her stomach, crossed her legs, and hunched forward, an “I’m not here” pose.

The spacious room felt almost industrial; even with the stacks of chairs and shoved-aside desks along the perimeter, there remained plenty of empty tile around their little circle. A set of large windows dominated the north wall, able to be cranked open barely a few inches. Very little fresh air to dilute the smell of damp concrete and floor wax.

A-Dre eyed the old-fashioned chalkboard and its three powdery words:
REASON AND REHABILITATION
. “What you gonna teach me ’bout choices?”

Daniel said, “Nothing you don’t want to learn.”

A-Dre weighed this, his face fixed and scornful, older than his twenty-four years. He’d kept apart from the others as they’d shuffled in, ignoring them as they joked about past members who’d completed the group and moved on. The Good Old Days routine always reemerged when someone new cycled in, a way for established members to band together in the face of disruption.

Daniel had sat A-Dre with his back to the door, the position a tough-guy shot caller would least want to take. Keep him off center, break up his usual approach, change his perspective. The guy had certainly earned his stripes in the system. A few years back, he’d been nabbed on possession with intent, and the arresting officer had found in his pockets an unregistered gun and hastily scribbled plans to break his older brother out of prison. He and big bro had been reunited after all.

Daniel turned to the circle. “Why don’t you go around, introduce yourselves to A-Dre, tell him why you’re here, what you hope to get out of group, maybe offer some advice.”

The predictable tape delay. Blinking. Someone coughed. Daniel let the silence govern.

“I’ll go,” Big Mac finally said, slinging a boot up to rest on the broad shelf of his knee. In one hand he clanked a grip strengthener, bringing swollen knuckles into view. “I got a wife and two kids to take care of, and I’ve had trouble with the economy, holding down a job—though right now I got a good gig as a waste collector.”

X mouthed,
Garbage man,
but Big Mac didn’t notice.

“Good gig except when I’m smashing my damn fingers between the barrels.” He gestured at the bruised back of his hand. “Anyway, I been in for some short stints, year here, four years there, but still. Four years when you have kids…” He shook his head. “That stretch … well, I’d been outta work a long time and things were … thin. So I tried to hit an armored truck.”

For the first time, A-Dre perked up. “Just you?”

“Yeah. I didn’t take on the truck. I’m stupid, but not
that
stupid. I caught the transport guard in an elevator, pulled on him. But there were more waiting at the ground floor, and it was gonna go bad, so…” A shrug. “No one got hurt.” He wiped his mouth. “I’m here ’cuz I’m forty-five years old and I don’t want to go back to prison no more.” A couple nervous clasps of the hand strengthener—
clank-clank.
“Group don’t guarantee that life won’t suck or that you’ll get everything you want when you want it. It’s fucking hard in here. You will have setbacks. Like the counselor says, change don’t come overnight. Sometimes it don’t come at all. But you show up. That’s what you do. You show up.”

All eyes shifted to Walter Fang, who realized with evident discomfort that he was next. His gym-strong body was slouched in his chair, the ragged cuffs of his sweater pushed up past muscular forearms. He sat with his coat in his lap, ready to split, eyeing the door when he wasn’t eyeing his watch; he generally entered the room slow and left fast. Bright yellow Pumas matched the piping on his tracksuit pants. His hair, gelled and impeccably spiked, gleamed wetly under the sterile, blue-tinged lighting.

“I got busted for assault with … ah, ah, intent to kill. The dude shot my cousin. I got him in Portsmouth Square and broke his jaw. And his cheek. And his arm. And his knee. And then I got caught. I was drunk so I didn’t run away when the cops came. I do bad when I drink. I try not to go to the strip club because I spend money and I … ah, ah, drink there. And if I drink, I miss group, and if I miss group, I go back inside, so … ah, ah, no strip clubs. It’s been three months, and at the end of every month I don’t go to the strip club, I buy myself … ah, ah, ah—”

He was stuck, so Daniel helped finish the thought. “He buys himself a new pair of sneakers.”

Fang nodded and slumped back down in his chair. A-Dre crossed his arms and looked bored.

“’Kay. My name is Xochitl.” She drew it out:
So-Chee.
“But everyone calls me X. This is my seat. Don’t take my fucking seat. Let’s see. Advice. Use the stairs. They don’t break down twice a week.” She laughed, showing gleaming white teeth. With long, loose waves of dark hair drawn back by two thin front braids, she would have been beautiful if she weren’t so busy looking tough. “I’m workin’ on my GED—Counselor here got me into a program.” She knocked the binder in her lap, overflowing with her intricate sketches of bejeweled female warriors and elf queens. “I’m only nineteen, so I’m not that far behind if you think about it. I’m gonna be a comic artist and have my own reality TV show and shit,
Droppin’ with X,
with hot tubs and—”

“X,” Daniel said.

“Okay, okay. I got all the boo-hoo childhood shit, too. Runnin’ drugs in my underwear by the time I was five. Had a sick mom I had to support, so I was dealing by the time I was ten. She died, and then I ran away, joined a gang.”

“Where you did…?” Daniel prompted.

She flashed that youthful smile again. “Gang shit.”

Big Mac gestured at A-Dre. “Tell the man what you got charged for.”

X glowered at the room. “Rape. We jumped new girls into the gang, you know. With a stick. Five of us. One to hold down each limb and one to, ya know? It’s what was done. Like I said, there were five of us, but I took the fall.”

Across the circle, Lil shook her head faintly in disgust.

A-Dre had barely bothered to make eye contact with anyone. He cast an irritated glance over his shoulder, checking the door.

“Okay, Martin?” Daniel said.

Martin shifted in his chair, his broad shoulders rolling like the flanks of a bear. He wore black J. J. Abrams glasses that in another zip code would be hipster cool and was prone to flannel—today was an olive-and-black plaid. Tucked behind his left ear was a single bent cigarette.

“My lady was dying,” Martin said. “Skin cancer. It just drilled down and …
ate
her. By the end her skin, it was”—his hand hovered around his face and neck, trembling—“patches. The treatments were serious dollar, wiped us out. But the cancer, it didn’t care when we ran outta jack. So I knocked off a coupla grocery stores. Bunch of tills, in and out.” With a trace of pride, he added, “Took ’em a month to catch me.” His faint accent was generic urban, indistinct enough to resist any clear ethnic association. “I only got six years, ’cuz I didn’t hurt no one, got knocked to three for good behavior. I was almost forty when I got out with nothing to get out
for.
My lady, she died when I was inside. She was the purest thing I ever knew.” He bent his head, brown scalp shining through the throwback buzz cut. His worn shoes showed Magic Marker where he’d touched them up. “Best thing about group is you can’t con a con man. We know when we’re fulla shit. And we can learn from each other’s mistakes.”

Lil giggled nervously. “I guess it’s just me. My turn.” She averted her eyes, biting her lips, adjusting her clothes—always a flurry of movement and discomfort. “I was kind of a lookout or driver sorta for my husband, who robbed banks, and he’s … um, he’s in jail. The robberies, they were always his plan, not mine.”

“You’ll learn quick,” X told A-Dre. “Nothing’s ever her fucking fault.”

Daniel looked at Lil to see if she’d stick up for herself, but she just offered A-Dre a weak smile, then shoved at her stringy brown hair, inadvertently showing a flash of bruised cheek. If history was a guide, that bruised cheek would not be discussed.

“I, um, was never on my own, really, until now, and so he was all I knew, and so if he said jump, I said how high, and if he said park here and wear a mask, I’d say Zorro or Batman?” Another nervous titter. “And Daniel’s been helping me sort of figure out why I might need to look at all that, I guess. I have to remember I’m shooting for progress, not perfection, because sometimes progress is, um … slow.”

An awkward silence, broken of course by X. “Come on, Counselor,” she said. “Give him the speech now.”

In group therapy the rules were essential. In
criminal
group therapy, the rules could be life and death.

Daniel turned to A-Dre. “No violence or threats of violence. We meet every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for two hours. You need to show up on time and sober. You’re here for six months, and you cannot miss a single session without a doctor’s note. If you’re late, it counts as a missed session. If you get asked to or choose to leave two times, it counts as a missed session.”

“Can’t miss one suck-ass session?” A-Dre said.

“Not one suck-ass session. The routine matters as much as what we talk about in here. Learning to show up, be responsible, accountable. And under no circumstances can you share the IDs of the other members of this group. Nothing leaves this room. We have full confidentiality here.”

A-Dre smirked. “’Cept you. Like you ain’t gonna tell my PO every last
word
I say.”

“My job’s not to trap you or get you in trouble with your parole officer. If you’re not a threat to yourself or others, nothing leaves this room. If you mention past crimes that you haven’t been convicted for, don’t tell us who, when, where, or how.” Daniel turned to the group. “Want to tell him the other rules?”

“No standing”—
clank-clank
—“when you’re pissed off.”

“We don’t like, um, jabbing your finger at people.”

“No meeting outside group. Or … ah, ah, sex with anyone from group.”

“No taking my fucking chair.”

A-Dre sat like a snake, cold and still, expressionless eyes boring through the far wall, his torso perfectly rigid. Daniel removed one of his business cards, crossed out the listed cell phone, and jotted his new number on the back. He’d already handed out a round of marked-up cards to the others—no sense getting new ones printed, given his impending departure.

He offered the card to A-Dre. “This is my cell. For emergencies only. I’d suggest you keep my card on you at all times.”

A-Dre stared at the proffered card for an aggressively long time before taking it.

“What we ask for is honesty and accountability,” Daniel said. “If you’re honest in here, you’ll make progress. If you’re not, you won’t. It’s that simple.”

“Honesty, huh?” A-Dre’s mouth twisted to the left. Contempt: the only facial expression that occurs on just one side of the face. “Well, lemme drop a little truth on
you.
I don’t want to be here. If there weren’t no court
man
date, I
wouldn’t
be here. Fuck this place.”

Right on schedule.

“Okay,” Daniel said. “I get it. You feel forced to be here. You hate it. But you’re here anyway. So maybe think about what you want to do while you’re here.”

The notion, dismissed with a flick of the head. “And if I leave?”

“You know the answer to that. Back to court with noncompliance, you’ll be revoked to prison. Or. You show up every session, your sheet gets initialed, and everyone’s happy. Or at least not incarcerated.”

“So like I said, I got no choice.”

Martin said, “First week I was scared, too.”

“I ain’t scared, spic. I don’t got no fears.”

“That’s another rule,” Daniel said. “No slurs. Swear all you want, but racial slurs won’t be tolerated. Understand?”

A-Dre gave the faintest of nods. “I’m not like you fools. I don’t need to be here.”

X twisted a strand of hair around her finger.
“Fail.”

“Got it all figured out, huh?” Big Mac said.