Free Under Radar by Michael Tolkin Page B

We’ll remember your many kindnesses. The official story now is that you went crazy on your vacation and started to fight someone, and something terrible happened. Perhaps you had a fever. We all agree not to dwell on what you did or why. You were found guilty of murder in Jamaica, while in America you might have been convicted of manslaughter. The prison conditions were hard, you were delicate, and you died. Each of the girls has a therapist who is helping her to remember you with love. Sign here.”
    Tom signed. “Have you had any contact with Debra Seckler?”
    â€œYes. When you were sentenced.”
    â€œWill you tell her I’m dead?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œI could write to the girls. I could send them mail. I can tell them I’m alive.”
    â€œYou won’t.”
    â€œHow do you know?”
    â€œBecause you don’t want to hurt them any more than you have.”
    â€œI may get out someday.”
    â€œNo. You’re here forever, which won’t be long. You’ll get old in here fast, and you’ll get sick in here, and you will die in here. I’m sorry, I hope you believe that I’m sorry.”
    They shook hands. Then she kissed him on the cheek. “We were having such a lovely day. They were lovely people.”

Four
    One morning, Tom looked in the mirror and saw a man with a white beard that fell to his chest, and white hair below his shoulders. The man had eyes set deep in hollow sockets. The beard was thick, but what he could see of the man’s cheeks was furrowed. The white-haired man’s nose had a high bridge that twisted to the right and then flattened.
    Tom touched the nose.
    This is me, he thought.
    He knew this, years had gone by. The last thing I remember was a visit from my wife. I have been in a fight, or I have fallen, or been pushed. My memory dissolved, but I’m back into myself, and I remember who I was before I grew this beard. I am Tom Levy, and I killed a man.
    There were four iron cots in the cell. A black man, perhaps thirty, smoked a cigarette and looked up at him with little curiosity. Tom, careful not to make eye contact in the mirror, wanted to stay suspended in the peace of his recovered self without announcing his return to consciousness. He needed time to make sense of things.
    What if I’ve been a zombie for twenty years? What if this man and others feed me, dress me, wash me? Have I been silent for twenty years? Do I talk, but without consciousness of my speech? And if I speak, what do I speak? Have I learned the Jamaican patois?
    What if I have been a savage man, fighting and stabbing? What if I am cruel and a leader? What if this man protects me? What if this man is my prison lover?
    Tom lifted his shirt. He was well muscled, and his chest was covered in old scars. And were these hands his, so burned and calloused? How did this happen?
    Tom cleared his throat. The man on the cot said nothing. Well, a man clears his throat, no matter who he is or what.
    The smells of the prison rushed at Tom like a sound, like music. The heavy tropical air carried the rich brew of a harbor, and the close relish of cooking oil, wood smoke, and a sewer, like a bass, supporting all the vibrations of stink, and as each scent tickled Tom’s attention, it came with an emotion: the smoke was distant lust, the aroma of cooking was disgust, the feeling from the sewer was a paradox of repulsion and love.
    He studied the mirror. I would not know this was me except that I know my name.
    Those dark steady eyes are my eyes, which used to be even and dull, practiced in their steady focus. My face records the triumph of repentance over still visible and unmistakable traces of the depravity of that dullness. I am beautiful! My panic is gone!
    He touched his nose. Someone hit me.
    I was in a fight. I will not assume that the punch that might have knocked me into years of insensibility is proof of defeat. I may have won. And I have been, for