Chris Whitaker: We Begin at the End

“Vincent King,” Cuddy said with a smile. “You look after your own in Cape Haven, right? How is it over there, still a shade of heaven?”

“It is.”

“Got to say, I wish I had a hundred more like Vincent. Most days the boys say they forget he’s there.” Cuddy moved and Walk fell into step with him.

They passed a gate, then another, then into a low, squat building painted a shade of green that Cuddy said they brightened every season. “Most restful color for the human eye. Speaks of forgiveness and personal transformation.”

Walk watched a couple of guys with brushes, trailing the baseboard with care, mouths tight in concentration.

Cuddy placed a hand on Walk’s shoulder. “Listen. Vincent King has served his time, but getting him to realize that won’t be easy. You need anything, you call me.”

Walk stood in the waiting room and watched the wide views and the men that did circuits, heads high like Cuddy taught them the sin of shame. If it wasn’t for the wire that carved the landscape with such brutality it might have been a scene that stopped breath, Our Good Earth , men in jumpsuits nothing but the lost children they once were.

It had been five years since Vincent stopped receiving visitors, so, if not for the eyes, still blue enough, Walk might have had trouble recognizing him. Tall, thin, close to gaunt, sallow cheeks, a long way from the cocksure fifteen-year-old that had walked in.

But then Vincent saw him, and he smiled. It was a smile that had got him into and out of more trouble than Walk could remember. He was still in there, no matter the warnings, the way people said it changed you, his friend was still in there.

Walk took a step forward, thought of opening his arms but then extended his hand slowly.

Vincent looked at the hand like he’d forgotten it could hold a greeting and nothing more. He shook it lightly.

“I told you not to come.” He spoke in a flat, quiet tone. “But, thank you.” There was something reverential in the way he moved.

“It’s good to see you, Vin.”

Vincent filled out the paperwork, a guard close and watching; a man freed after thirty years was not a sight that drew comment. Another day in the state of California.

A half hour later and they were at the last gate, both turned when Cuddy came out.

“It’ll be tough out there, Vincent.” He hugged him, quick and tight, something passing between them, maybe thirty years of decorous routine finally broken.

“More than half.” Cuddy kept hold of Vincent for a moment. “That’s how many come back to me. Make sure you’re not one of them.”

Walk wondered how many times Cuddy had spoken that weighted line over the years.

They walked side by side, at the cruiser Vincent lay a hand on the hood and looked at Walk.

“I never saw you in your uniform. I got the photo, passing out, but here, in the flesh, you’re a cop.”

Walk smiled. “I am.”

“Not sure I can be friends with a cop, man.”

Walk laughed, the relief almost flooring him.

He drove slow at first, Vincent with an eye on just about everything, window low and the breeze on them. Walk wanted to talk but they crawled those first miles in something like a dream.

“I was thinking, that time we stowed on the Saint Rose ,” Walk said, trying to sound casual, like he hadn’t practiced conversation starters on the way up.

Vincent looked up, a half smile at the memory.

They’d met up early, ten years old and first day of summer. They’d pedaled down to the water, hid their bikes and crept onto the trawler, breathing heavy beneath the tarp as the sun rose and light passed through to them. Walk still remembered it, the throb of the engine as Skip Douglas and his men aimed her at the endless ocean. He hadn’t even been pissed when they crawled out, instead radioed back and said he’d keep them the day. Walk hadn’t ever worked harder hours, scrubbed the wood and boxes, the smell of fish blood no match for the feeling, a taste of life beyond the borders.

“You know Skip still works, guy named Andrew Wheeler runs a charter. Skip must be eighty now.”

“My mother tore me a new one that day.” Vincent cleared his throat. “Thanks. The funeral, doing all that.”

Walk dropped the visor to the sun.

“You gonna tell me about her then?” Vincent shifted in his seat, legs hunched, pants an inch long at the ankle.

Walk slowed at a railroad, a freight crossed them, boxes of steel, rust red and whining.

They rolled over the track and into the kind of town that had run when the mines had before Walk finally spoke. “She’s alright.”

“She’s got kids now.”

“Duchess and Robin. You remember that first time we saw Star?”

“Yeah.”

“You’ll head right back there when you see Duchess.”

Vincent, lost then, Walk knew where his mind was. That first day Star’s father rolled his Riviera into the Cape. Vincent and Walk rode up, saw a life packed into the trunk, clothes and cases and boxes pressed the glass. Side by side, hands on their Stelbers, sun hot on their necks. The man got out first, he was big and broad and he’d eyed them like he knew their kind. They were kids, though, that’s what Walk remembered, concerns limited to finding the Willie Mays Pro card because Vincent’s Magic 8-Ball told them they were due some luck. Then he scooped out a little girl, still sleeping, her head on his shoulder as he looked up and down his new street. Sissy Radley. They were about to turn, to head back to Walk’s yard and the treehouse they’d been working on when the rear door opened to the longest legs Walk ever saw. Vincent had cursed, mouth open, eyes fixed on the girl, their age and Julie Newmar beautiful. She got out, chewing gum as she glanced at them. Holy shit, Vincent said again. And then her father ushered her into the Kleinmans’ old place, but not before she turned and cocked her head at them, no smile, just a look that burned its way into Vincent’s soul.

“I missed you. I would’ve come, you know. If you’d let me. I would’ve come and visited every weekend.”

Vincent’s eyes never left the scenes, the interest of a man that had lived life through a television set.

On the Central Valley Highway they stopped at a diner by Hanford and ate burgers. Vincent finished half, his eyes fixed on the window as he watched a mother and her child, an old man that stooped like he was carrying each of his years on his back. Walk wondered what he saw. Cars he did not know the names of, stores he had only ever seen on screen. A lifetime missed, from 1975 through, turn of the millennium, 2005 had once looked like flying cars and robot maids, now here they were.

“The house—”

“I check on it. It needs work, the roof, the porch, half the boards are rotten.”

“Alright.”

“There’s a developer, Dickie Darke, he crawls over it each month before summer. If you did ever want to sell—”

“I don’t.”

“Alright.” Walk had said his piece, if Vincent wanted money he could sell the place, the last home on the front line, Sunset Road.

“You ready to go home?”

“I just left home, Walk.”

“No, Vin, you didn’t.”

There was no fanfare when they arrived back in Cape Haven, no friendly faces or party or fuss. Walk noticed the other man take a breath as they crested the Pacific, the endless water coming at them, the tops of pines and grand houses on the Cape and beyond.

“They’ve built,” Vincent said.

“They have.”

There’d been resistance at first, just not enough because the promise of money was more than kept, business owners like Milton held the floor and said they were tiring of the struggle. Ed Tallow said his construction company was struggling to keep the lights on.