Paul Cleave - Joe Victim

“What time are you coming in tomorrow?”

“It’s my day off tomorrow,” he says. “It’s Sunday.”

“But we need to talk about the trial. It’s our last day,” I say, more desperate now since Melissa hasn’t set me free, so maybe the luck ball isn’t falling that much at all.

“Well, we’ll see what happens. If I can make it I’ll make it.”

“And I need you to spot me two hundred dollars,” I tell him.

“Good night, Joe,” he says, and hangs up.

The prison guard is still leaning against the wall. He’s playing a game on his cell phone. I make the second of my two calls listening to the theme music and then to the explosions coming from the guard’s direction. My mother answers after the first ring, as if she were expecting the call.

“Hello, Mom. It’s me.”

“Joe?” she asks, as if it could have been one of any amount of people ringing and calling her mom.

“It’s me,” I tell her.

“Why are you calling? It’s Saturday night. Date night. We’re about to head out for dinner.”

“I wanted to-”

“You can’t come along, Joe. It’s date night. Why would you try to ruin date night?” she asks, sounding annoyed, and I can picture her on the end of the phone frowning at the wall. “It’s our last one before the wedding.”

“I’m not calling about date night,” I tell her.

“Why? You’re too embarrassed to be seen with your mother on a Saturday night?”

“It’s not that.”

“Then what?” she asks, no doubt the frown now being joined by, rather than replaced by, a look of confusion.

“I’m calling about something else.”

“About the wedding?”

“No. Remember how I called you last night?”

“Yes. Of course. You called about your girlfriend,” she says. “I’m so glad you have a good woman in your life, Joe. Every man deserves a good woman,” she says, sounding happy again. “Do you think you’ll get married? Is that why you’re calling? Oh my, I’m so excited for you! Perhaps we can have weddings on the same day! Just think about it. It’s so fantastic isn’t it? Oh, oh, how about if Walt is your best man? By golly, that’s a great thought!”

“I’m not so sure that’s going to happen, Mom.”

“Because you’re embarrassed to be seen with me. You know, Joe, I didn’t raise you to be this way.”

We’re getting off track-but of course my mom has been off track for at least thirty years. “Mom, did you call her?”

“What?”

“Did you call my girlfriend? Did you tell her that I’d gotten the message?”

“What message?”

“Did you call her?”

“Yes, of course I called her. That’s what you asked me to do. She didn’t know what I was talking about.”

“The message,” I tell her, “the message in the books.”

“What books?”

“The books you brought in for me. The books she gave you to give me.”

“Oh, oh those books,” she says, and I hope the force of everything flooding back to her knocks her over. That way she’ll break a hip and the wedding will have to be postponed. “Did you enjoy them?” she asks. “I thought they were okay. Not as good as TV, but nothing ever is. I can’t count how many times I’ve read a book after seeing the movie on telly and been so disappointed. I just wish authors could get it right. Don’t you think so, Joe?”

I don’t answer her. I can’t spare the energy, because I’m using all of my strength to have an out-of-body experience. I’m trying to figure a way to reach my arm down the phone line and put my fingers around her throat.

“Joe? Are you still there?” she asks, and then she taps the phone against her hand-I can hear it banging once and twice, then a third time, and then it’s back and her lips are against it and I’m still trying to reach her with my hand. “Joe?”

“You read them?” I ask.

“Of course I did.”

“But you’re a slow reader.”

“So?”

I face the concrete wall. I wonder how far I could bury my forehead into it. “So when exactly did my girlfriend give them to you to give to me?”

“When?” she asks, then she goes quiet as she’s figuring it out. I can picture my mom standing in the kitchen on the phone, dishes behind her, cold meat loaf on the counter, using her fingers to count off the days. “Well, it wasn’t last month,” she says.

“So it was this month.”

“Oh Lord no. No, it was, now let me see. . it was before Christmas, no, no, wait-it was after. Yes, I think it was after. Probably around four months ago, I suppose.”

I tighten my grip on the receiver. The other hand curls into a ball. I can’t hear my mom choking. “Four months?”

“Maybe five.”

I close my eyes and lean my forehead against the wall. It’s painted-over cinder block, so it’s cold and smooth and easy to wipe blood off.

“Five months,” I say, and somehow my voice stays level.

“No more than six,” she says.

“No more,” I say. “Mom. Listen to me. Very carefully. Now, why the fuck didn’t you bring those books to me straightaway?”

“Joe! How dare you speak to me like that! After all I’ve done for you? After raising you, looking after you, after squeezing you out of my vagina!” she shouts.

And sixteen years later I was being squeezed into my auntie’s one. I figure between them both they owe me some Goddamn consideration.

“Six months!” I shout, and I don’t even make the decision to do it, it just starts happening, my hand starts crashing the receiver against the wall. “Six months!” I scream back into it, only it’s just shattered plastic holding a string of wires and components. I smash it against the wall again. All I have now is a disconnect signal and a blossoming headache. I don’t get to speak into it again because then I’m being tackled. I’m on the ground and my arms are being pulled behind me. I’m being shouted at to stay calm. I shout six months again, and then the guard puts his knee in my back and I’m punched really hard in the kidneys, so hard that I almost throw up.

He rolls me onto my back. He’s been joined by a second guard.

“Let’s go,” he says.

They drag me to my feet. It’s Saturday night. Date night. I’m not taken back to my cell. Instead I’m taken in a different direction, through two more sets of doors that are buzzed open from a control booth somewhere. We’re watched by cameras in the ceilings. I haven’t been in this direction before, but I’m pretty sure I know where it heads. It’s solitary confinement-and my first thought is it has to be better than what I’ve had so far, then my second thought is that this has actually worked out pretty well. Not the part where my mother fucked up, but the part where I fucked up and broke the phone. I’m going to be safe here. Caleb Cole can’t get me here.

The cells are wider apart. All the doors are closed and there’s no sound coming from within any of them. There is no communal area. Everything is darker. Even the cinder-block walls seem to be a different shade of gray. The two guards march me to the end of a corridor and then we wait as a cell door is buzzed open. None of us make conversation along the way. A piece of my soul is still back at the phone, trying to figure out a way to get to my mother. The second guard disappears.

“Sleep it off,” the original guard says, and he shoves me into the cell. He takes the cuffs off. “Don’t forget you owe me two hundred bucks,” he says. Then the door is slammed behind me. There is no light. I have to walk slowly to find the edge of the bed. I lie on my side. My stomach is starting to make noises again. The darkness of the cell is going to make it all very awkward if that rumbling continues.