Andrew Klavan - The Final Hour

I picked up the phone on my side. My mom held the phone on their side. Dad pulled up an extra chair and sat beside Mom with his arm around her shoulders. They peered through the window at me. I felt like one of the animals in the zoo.

Mom tried to be brave, but it was hard for her to get the words out, especially when she got a look at the bruises on my face, all purple and yellow now.

“Oh my God,” she said, the tears starting. “What happened to you?”

“I’m all right,” I told her. “Don’t worry about it.” I didn’t want to lie, but I knew she didn’t want to hear the truth either. And I only had to glance over at my father to see he understood what had happened.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Mom said. “Did they let you see a doctor at least?”

I almost laughed. Doctor Fist, I wanted to tell her. They let me see Doctor Fist. Instead, I changed the subject. “Listen, I have some good news. My lawyer says there’s a chance my case is going to be overturned on appeal. He says I could be out of here in a couple of months.” I tried to make it sound like a sure thing, even though I knew it wasn’t.

“That’s wonderful,” Mom said through her tears- but I could tell she didn’t believe me. She was just trying to sound hopeful for my sake.

“Mom,” I said. “Really. It’s all right. It’s going to be all right.”

“That’s great,” she said bravely, but she was just pretending still, I could tell.

When my mom couldn’t talk anymore, my dad lifted his hand up and pressed the palm flat on the divider. I put my hand up and pressed it to his. He looked at me through the Plexiglas. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t say he was proud of me or that I was like a part of him and he was suffering right along with me. He didn’t say that he threw a father’s heart on the altar of heaven every night in the hope God would protect me, or that he sent a father’s blessings into the bowels of this hell every day in the hope it would sustain me. He didn’t say any of that, but somehow he said all of it-the way he’d always said it, without speaking a word-just by being there.

After a while, he lowered his hand and I lowered mine. My dad helped my mom stand and they went out together, slowly.

A couple of moments passed. Then Beth came down the hall.

I read a poem in school once. I can’t remember the name of it, but the guy in the poem said that he was afraid he was going to die “like a sick eagle looking at the sky.” I remembered that poem now because that’s how I felt looking through the thick square of Plexiglas at Beth. Like a sick eagle looking at the sky. She looked good. Beth always looked good. Pretty, with her hair curling around her smooth cheeks, and her blue eyes bright. She was wearing a yellow blouse and new jeans and they looked good on her too. But the thing about Beth that was hard to describe was just how nice she was, how kind she was, and how it showed in her face and in her eyes.

In here, in Abingdon, you came to understand that kindness is like freedom-you don’t know how sweet it is until it’s gone.

When she sat down, when she looked through the window, when she saw how banged up I was, her mouth got all tight and her eyes got watery, but she didn’t cry. I could see her forcing herself not to cry. She didn’t ask what happened to me either. She knew.

It was a moment before she could speak. She just sat there, looking at me through the glass, holding the phone to her ear. Then she just said, “Are you all right, Charlie?”

“Yeah,” I said. “It’s fine, Beth. It’s nothing. I miss you. That’s the hard part. I miss everyone. That’s the only thing that really hurts.”

Her eyes lingered doubtfully on my purple bruises. But she said, “You’re going to get out of here soon. I know it.”

“Good,” I said. “Hold on to that. Don’t lose hope. Talk to my mom. Don’t let my mom lose hope. There’s an appeal in the works. It’s going to take a month or two, but it could get me out.”

“Do you really think so?” she said. Her voice cracked. When I heard it, my heart cracked too.

“We’ll see,” I said. “They’re working on it. We’ll see.”

Her eyes went over my face again. “A month or two. You’ll miss Christmas.”

“I know,” I said. “It’s gonna be all right, Beth. Don’t worry.”

“Okay.”

“That was really unconvincing.”

“I’m so scared for you, Charlie. Look at you. Why don’t they keep you safe?”

I tried to smile. “Think of it as a chance for me to practice my karate.”

It wasn’t much of a joke, but she tried to smile back all the same. “That reminds me,” she said. “Sensei Mike says hello. You weren’t allowed any more visitors this week so he said he’d wait till there was an opening, then he’d come see you. Josh, too, and Miler and Rick. They want to come too.” Her voice caught a little again and again I could feel it inside me. But she swallowed her tears. “Sorry,” she said. “It just seems kind of awful, you know. When I think about it. It seems kind of awful that they can keep you in here when you haven’t done anything. It seems awful they can tell you who you can see or who can visit you.”

“Yeah,” I said. “They can tell you just about everything. Where to go, what to do, when to eat…”

I had to stop talking then. I bit my lip. I just sat there, looking out at her through the window. Like a sick eagle looking at the sky.

When the guard came to tell us visiting hours were over, I felt something plummet inside me, going down, down, down very fast. It would be another week before I saw anyone I loved again. A week in here, surrounded by walls and guns and angry men.

I watched Beth go down the hall with the other visitors. Just before she went out the door, she turned back and waved. It’s hard to describe what it was like to see her go, to see my parents go. There was that plummeting feeling, but also-well, in some ways, I was almost glad they were gone. I hated to have them see me here. In this gray uniform with a number on it. With guards pushing me around and telling me what I could and couldn’t do. An animal in a cage.

I’ll get out, I told myself. Rose’ll get me out. Two months, maybe three. I just need courage. I just have to survive.

That’s what I told myself.

But I was way wrong.

Dinnertime.

The cafeteria was a big room with green cinder-block walls and a metal ceiling. There were long shiny metal tables with benches bolted to the floor on either side. The prisoners moved in a line past the service counter. A gray line of gray men. Staff servers scooped some kind of meat onto our plates. Some kind of vegetables and potatoes too. Guards stood against the wall and watched us, sharp-eyed.

I thought back to the cafeteria in my high school. I thought about clowning around there with Josh and Miler and Rick. I thought about the first time I talked to Beth, how she wrote her phone number on my arm. It was only a little more than a year ago. It might as well have been a lifetime.

I carried my tray to a spot near the wall and sat down. I had to eat and keep watch at the same time. If someone was going to try to kill me again, this would be a good place to do it, guards or no.

So I ate and I watched. It wasn’t exactly what you’d call a relaxing meal. There were no relaxing meals in Abingdon.

After a couple of minutes had gone by, I noticed something strange. No one else was sitting down at my table. The benches around me were empty, as if the other prisoners were avoiding me. That made my adrenaline start flowing. It wasn’t normal. It meant something was going on. Something was about to happen.