Free All Through the Night by Davis Bunn

prison?”
    “No, man. Doing time now.”
    “Get out.”
    “This is for real, man.”
    “I don’t believe you.”
    Julio shrugged and went all quiet until he was licking the tomato sauce off his hands. “And my grandfather.”
    Wayne laughed out loud. “Now I know you’re pulling my chain.”
    “You think I care what you believe?”
    “Okay, where?”
    “My old man’s at Raiford, like I said. One aunt’s in Perry. That’s in Alabama. Brother and the other aunt are in county lockups, one on trial in Kansas City, the other in J-ville waiting for a space to open up. Granddad’s doing life in the big Q.”
    Whether or not Julio was telling the truth, the geography lesson in the national penal system was impressive. “How old are you?”
    “Thirteen.”
    “I figured you for older.”
    “Yeah, I get that a lot.”
    “So what are you doing at Eilene’s center?”
    Julio aged about fifty years. “Trying to stay clean, man. That’s all. Just looking for a way out.”
    The kid looked so sad Wayne felt stripped down himself. “You want another pizza?”
    “No, man. I’m good.”
    He slid from the booth. “Just stay here a second, okay? I need to go find my friend.”

    Wayne stood beneath the departures board, scoping the hordes. He was about to go have Foster paged when Wayne spotted him.
    The old man was seated in the first row of chairs facing one terminal’s wing and the light-rail station. The security line was a thousand strong. Older kids shouted off their sugar highs. Younger children wriggled and shrilled against being trapped in arms and this creeping line. Parents wore the weary expressions of having overdosed on fantasy. Foster did not appear to notice the surrounding bedlam at all.
    The arriving passengers formed a tidal wave out of the light-rail terminal. They streamed between the security station and Foster’s chair. He watched the reunions with a hunger Wayne could feel across the hall.
    A college-aged girl rushed forward and danced out of her backpack so she could properly hug a tanned man and woman. A pair of young parents stopped, forcing the crowd to stream around them; the mother lowered her baby and urged her to walk toward an older woman trying hard not to cry. Kids raced through the gates and froze at the sight of the Disney store flanked by a giant Mickey and Snow White, and next door loomed a Universal Studios monster whose mouth framed the shop entrance; the kids took a giant breath and screamed over seeing their dreams come true.
    Foster sat with his hands folded in his lap, just another elderly gentleman waiting for kin. Every now and then one unsteady hand rose and stroked the edges of his mouth.
    Wayne returned to the food hall and slipped into his chair. He said to Julio, “My friend needs a little more time.”

TEN
    T he neighborhood Julio directed them into was five miles and an entire dimension removed from tourist mania. Wayne drove down streets that looked recently imported from Kabul, right down to the graffiti he couldn’t read and the bullet holes.
    From Julio’s other side, Foster muttered, “Who invaded us?”
    “What, you think Orlando-town is all happy songs and marching bands?” Julio pointed at a trio of low-slung apartment buildings. “Here’s good, man.”
    Wayne’s tires scrunched over glass as he pulled to the curb. He faced an apartment building streaked with old smoke and graffiti. The ground floor windows were all boarded up. Two defunct bikes hung on rusting chains from a fence. “Who lives here?”
    “My grandmother and me.” He waited while Foster climbed down, then slid from the truck. He offered Foster a fist. “It was cool hanging with you guys.”
    Foster looked uncertainly at the fist. “Last time I checked, buddies were supposed to shake.”
    “Whatever. Later, man.” Julio walked away without a backward glance.
    Foster climbed back in the truck and waited until the kid had disappeared to ask, “What did your sister tell