The Unwilling(16)

“Nothing,” he said. “Reflex.”

I looked from my brother to the bus, and understood, at least a little. Tall, black letters stretched across the back of the bus.

LANESWORTH PRISON

INMATE TRANSFER

I saw the windows next: the wire mesh in steel frames. I saw the prisoners, too.

“You good?” I asked.

“Yeah, man. No problem.”

It was the first time I’d known anything about prison to affect my brother. At trial, he’d been calm and cool, even as the verdict came down, guilty. He’d looked at me for a slow moment, then held out his hands for the bailiffs and their cuffs. I’d visited prison once, and he’d been sanguine then, too. You’re too young for this, he’d said. I’ll see you in a couple years. It was a rule of childhood that Jason was unlike the rest of us, and it was strange, now, to see him so human.

“What’s the problem, pretty boy? Let’s go.”

Tyra was impatient and drunk and speed-addicted. She moved to the music, half-dancing. Jason frowned, but accelerated until the gap closed and I could see the bus better. It was half-full, maybe fifteen inmates, their clothing as black and white as the bus. We hung on their tail for a full minute, and no one but me noticed that Jason was sweating. Tyra was lost in the music, and then suddenly not.

“Whoa, hey! Convicts!”

She sounded callous and cruel, the kind of voyeur that would watch a good friend fail, and smile on the inside. Maybe that was unfair, but it bothered me to see such ugliness in such a beautiful woman.

From the rear of the bus, two men stared at us through dirty glass. Tyra clapped and grinned, bouncing where she sat. “Pull up beside them! Pull up!” Jason moved on automatic, his right hand tight on the wheel. “Yeah, like that. Right alongside them.” He eased into the left lane, and Tyra turned in her seat to watch the bus slide up beside us. We were alone on the road—us, the bus, and a second lake of shimmer, far out in the flatness. “Not too fast,” Tyra said. “Right there.”

“This is not cool.”

Jason spoke quietly, and Tyra ignored him. Men were watching now, their fingers curled in the mesh. Tyra rose to her knees, her left hand on the top edge of the windshield as she waved and mocked them, pushing out her breasts and blowing kisses.

“Tyra…”

Jason spoke in that same lost tone. His eyes were locked on the road ahead, as if no part of him could bear to look right. He was paler now than when I’d seen him yesterday.

“Jason, just go around.” I leaned forward.

Tyra’s hand found his shoulder. “Don’t you fucking move.”

His hesitation lasted a few seconds, but that’s all it took. Tyra lifted her top, exposing herself and laughing. Her breasts were large and pale, but I watched the convicts instead. If she’d meant to give pleasure, she’d failed. The faces I saw were angry or bitter or sad. Only one man smiled, and it was the kind of smile I hoped to never see again.

“Tyra, that’s enough.” I turned to Sara for help, but she was looking away, her head shaking in small movements. In the bus, men began to stand, seven or eight crossing from the other side, their fingers, too, in the mesh.

Tyra said, “Watch this.”

She touched herself below the waist, grinding her hips, her breasts still exposed. A prisoner beat on the mesh; another did the same. Behind them, a guard was moving down the aisle, pushing, shouting. Men began to yell, most of them on their feet. The guard pulled a prisoner from the window, then another. A third prisoner pushed back, and the bus swerved across the dotted line, forcing Jason onto the road’s edge, tires in the gravel as the car shimmied, straightened. I said, “Jesus, Tyra!” But she was excited, oblivious. Another guard appeared, his baton rising and falling. It was a riot, a beatdown. Blood flecked the glass. “Jason, let’s go!”

My voice seemed to penetrate at last. Jason made no sudden move, but took his foot from the gas and let the car coast. The bus pulled away, and I saw movement in the back—a convict, the smiling one. He stared at Tyra, then licked the glass. She didn’t see it happen. She dropped into the seat, adjusting her top. “That was hilarious.” The car slowed further, wind noise dropping. No one responded to the comment, and she looked around, surprised. “What? Come on. Did you see those guys?”

Jason steered the car onto the verge and stopped. “That was stupid, Tyra.”

“Oh, stop it.”

“Stupid and fucked up and cruel.”

“Jesus. Why are you being such a baby?”

“I need a minute.”

Getting out, Jason walked along the road for thirty feet or so, then stood with his hands in his pockets, staring at the horizon and the last far, faint twinkle of sunlight on glass.

“You guys wait here.”

I said it with rare authority, and followed the dusty road to where it met my brother’s boots. He turned at the sound of my steps, then closed his eyes and tilted his face toward the sun. “Sorry about that,” he said.

“You okay?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

It was not the answer I expected—too honest and, again, too human. “That was bullshit, man. Tyra knows you did time.”

“Maybe she forgot,” he said.

“Maybe she doesn’t care.”