In prison, Ben had been in charge of everything they did and even as he grew older, John had kept it that way because it was easy. The bad part was that all of John’s cultural knowledge was that of a man over thirty years his senior. He didn’t know many movies or television shows from the last two decades. No one on his wing visited the main hall on movie night because they weren’t stupid enough to mix with the general population. Doris Day, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin—these were the singers always playing on the small transistor radio Emily had brought John his first Christmas inside. Music had been so important to him as a kid, the sound track to his disaffected life. Now, he couldn’t have named a current popular song if someone had put a gun to his head.

John had already convinced himself that Robin wouldn’t be at the theater so he was surprised when he nearly bumped into her turning the corner.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, looking pleased, he thought, then nervous.

“The girls told me you were here,” he explained. He could see a line of young men snaking around the building. “Busy night?”

“Nah.” She waved it off. “Stupid fuckers want to see the movie first. I guess I’ll come back later.”

“How long’s the movie?”

“Jesus, I don’t know.” She started walking back toward the liquor store and he followed her. She turned around, demanding, “What are you doing?”

“I thought I’d walk you back.”

“Lookit,” she said. “This ain’t no Pretty Woman.” She added, “And you sure as shit ain’t Richard Gere.”

John had no idea what she was talking about. The only Richard Gere movie they’d watched in prison was Sommersby, and that was only because it had a kid in it.

She clarified, “We’re not going to fall in love and get married and have babies, okay?”

John hadn’t thought about it, but maybe that had been his plan.

He told her, “I just wanted to let you know that I’m not going to see you anymore.”

“You’ve only seen me once, you stupid fuck.”

“I know,” he said. When she started to walk away again, he followed her. “Please stop,” he said. “Listen to me.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “All right. Go.”

“I’ve just…” God, now that she was listening, he didn’t know what to say. “I’ve been thinking about you,” he said. “Not in a sexual way.” His face must have shown otherwise because she rolled her eyes. “Okay, maybe sex,” he admitted.

“Unless you’re here to pay me for your happy junior-jerk, I gotta get back to my drag.”

“It’s not like that,” he said. “Please.”

She started walking again and John got in front of her, walking backward because he knew she wouldn’t stop.

“I’m mixed up in something,” he said.

“Color me shocked.”

“I was in prison.”

“Am I supposed to be surprised?”

“Please,” John said. He stopped walking and she did, too. “I don’t want to be mixed up in this, but I am. I have to do something about it. I don’t want to go back to prison.”

“Somebody blackmailing you?”

He thought about it. “Maybe,” he said. “I don’t know.”

“Go to the cops.”

He knew she wasn’t being serious. “I just wanted to see you again, to let you know that I couldn’t see you anymore. After this, I mean.” He paused, trying to make sense. “I don’t want you mixed up in it, is what I’m saying. This guy, he’s bad. He’s really bad, and I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“You’re scaring me here,” she said, her bored tone belying the statement. “Who’s trying to hurt me?”

“Nobody,” John said. “He doesn’t even know you exist.” He rubbed his face with his hands, letting out something like a groan. “This doesn’t mean anything to you,” he said. “I’m sorry I bothered you with this. I just wanted to see you one last time.”

“Why?”

“Because of what you told me about your first kiss. I just…” He tried a smile. “I was a real loser in school. Girls didn’t really want to have anything to do with me.”

“I got a news flash, junior. They still don’t.” Her words were sharp but her tone told him she was teasing.

He said, “I went to jail real early. I was up for twenty years.”

“Am I supposed to feel sorry for you?”

He shook his head. He had stopped expecting people to feel sorry for him a long time ago. “I want to thank you for telling me that story about Stewie and all. I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and it’s a really nice story.”

She chewed her bottom lip, her eyes searching his. “All right. You told me.”

“And I…” His voice trailed off. He’d rehearsed this a hundred times at work, but now nothing was coming to him.

“You what?” she prompted. “You wanna fuck me?”

“Yeah.” He couldn’t lie. “Yeah, I really do.”

“Well, shit, you could’ve saved me some fucking time just saying that to begin with.” She started back up the road, saying, “It’s ten for the room, thirty for a half-and-half. No Greek, no hitting or I’ll rip your fucking cock off.”

She was about ten feet away before she realized he wasn’t following her. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“Thank you,” he repeated. Then, “Good-bye.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Look at me,” his mother had said, leaning over the table in the visitors’ room. It was her first time seeing him since he’d gotten to Coastal, and neither one of them said anything about Zebra, the hospital, the fact that John was having to sit on an inflatable cushion just to talk to her.

“You will not waste away in here,” she told him. “You will do something with your life.”

He sat there crying, big tears rolling down his cheeks, his chest shaking as he tried to keep in the sobs.

“You aren’t a boy anymore, John. You are a strong man. You will survive this. You will get out of here eventually.”

Emily still had hope for the appeals. She believed in the justice system, didn’t think the founding fathers had designed this sort of treatment for a sixteen-year-old boy.

“I got you these,” she said, indicating the textbooks she’d brought in with her. Math and science, his two favorite subjects back when he actually enjoyed school.

She told him, “You can still get your GED.”

John stared blankly. He was wearing a diaper to catch the pus coming out of his ass and his mother was worried about him graduating from high school.

She said, “You’ll need it to get into college when you get out.”

Education. Emily had always insisted that education was the only thing that truly enriched your life. As far back as he could remember, his mother had always had a book she was reading, some article she’d clipped from the paper or a magazine that she found interesting and wanted to remember.