The Cadence of Grass Read Free

occasionally in touch with his two cell mates, who had named themselves Kahuna and Moondoggie after characters in
Gidget;
and while he had sometimes been afraid of the other prisoners, they themselves were chiefly afraid of freedom, though they experimented with it, between sentences, like a dangerous drug. He had served his time for a manslaughter conviction, years stolen from his life but economic opportunity of a kind he might not otherwise have enjoyed. Driving back from a Masons’ banquet with his father-in-law passed out on the front seat, Paul had rear-ended a motorcycle at ninety-five miles an hour, liquidating its driver. On the way home from the dilapidated county jail out from which Sunny Jim had bailed him, Paul devised a remarkable conversation.
    “Why were you going so fast?” Sunny Jim asked reasonably.
    “I wasn’t.”
    “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    “
You
were.”
    Sunny Jim slowed down to concentrate on the talk. “I’m not following you,” he said.
    “You were driving,” said Paul. “You killed the motorcyclist.”
    As Sunny Jim pulled over, the hiss of pavement changed to gravel popping under the tires. He was silent.
    “I dragged you over to the passenger’s side and sat at the wheel till the Highway Patrol arrived.”
    Sunny Jim studied every pore on Paul’s face.
    “Why would you do that?”
    “Why? Because you have more to lose than me and you’re too old to go to prison, which is where I’m undoubtedly headed.”
    Sunny Jim turned the engine off and let traffic flash past behind him. He seemed far away. Paul was thinking of an old country song, “Wreck on the Highway,” and its chorus, “I didn’t hear nobody pray.” This was a special moment, and Paul hoped that over the long haul it would pay like a slot machine.
    “I won’t forget this, Paul,” said Sunny Jim, a faint vibration stirring his accustomed baritone. “I’ll never forget what you’ve done.”
    Paul was now due for his weekly appointment with Geraldine, his parole officer. He was fascinated by the atmosphere of the office itself, which, with a stern receptionist in front and offices on either side, was somewhat like the waiting room of a dentist’s office. There were usually several parolees in attendance, including a few “short leashes” as Geraldine called them, who went to the farthest office on the right, which handled electronic monitoring and chemical castration.
    He did not want to suggest to her—at all!—that he was taking advantage of the intimacy that had grown between them. Paul was well dressed, straight from work, transformed from ex-con to CEO in a matter of a few short blocks. He was on top of the situation in terms of heading off any clever remarks he might make on impulse. But she was glad to see him and greeted him with real warmth, right in front of her secretary, whom Paul had already checked out and scratched for the bench knees she so unwisely revealed below her skirt. Geraldine even held the door for him! When they sat down, she behind her desk, he in a small, disadvantageous chair so deep he felt he was gazing out over his own pelvis, she moved to the corner of her desk to make him more comfortable. Geraldine was a big-boned, good-looking girl whose slightly out-of-date teased hair put her at risk in Paul’s eyes. When he’d pointed her out to Natalie late one night, she’d said, “Baby, let’s kiss those seventies good-bye!”
    “I think I can update these forms almost without talking to you.”
    “Well, I haven’t been anywhere, just working.”
    “But things
have
changed, Paul.”
    “Yeah, and like I’m rolling in it.”
    “You got a bit of training, I guess, under your former father-in-law . . . ?”
    “Uh-huh, he was sure grateful I did the time.”
    “Well, it looks to me that this is all a fairly happy outcome.”
    “You mean, I’m getting the time
back
?”
    “You’ll have to talk to God about that,” said Geraldine with an alarming