The Timeless Wait
by Andrew Riggin

I skipped school.  I was going to visit Miles in prison.

“Please state your name for the record.”

“Hiram Greenhand.”

“Mr. Greenhand, do you solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”

So help me God.  “Yes.”  The prosecuting attorney hovered in front of me like a reaper in a three-piece suit.

Q. “Mr. Greenhand, how long have you known the defendant?”

A. “Miles?  I guess a year or two.”

Q: “So you know him pretty well.”

A. “Yeah.”

Q. “Would you say that you two are close?”

A. “We skate together sometimes.”

Q. “So that’s a yes?”

A. “I guess so.”

Q. “Can you describe Miles for me?”

A. “Really kind of quiet most of the time.”

Q. “Most of the time?”

A. “Yeah.”

Q. “What is he like the rest of the time?”

A. “Kinda fiery.”

Q. “In what way?”

A. “He broke his fist punching the wall.”

Q. “So the defendant has a temper.”

A. “He’s got a really long fuse.”

Q. “But a bad temper?”

A. “I guess about average.  I’ve never seen him madder than I’ve ever been.”

Q. “Did the defendant have a reason to be angry with the Jason Hollows?"

A. “Yes.”

Q. “What was this reason?”

Jason’s parents looked at me questioningly from across the room.  “I’d rather not  talk about it.”

Q. “Okay.  Moving on, did you visit the Walsh residence this past Saturday between  the hours of noon and two p.m.?”

So help me God.  “Yes.”

Q. “Will you describe your visit to me?”

A. “I walked in, and Miles was on the computer.  I’m pretty sure he was on  MySpace.  He took me into the garage and opened the freezer.”

Q. “What was in the freezer, Mr. Greenhand?”

So help me God.  “A bunch of little white packages.”

Q. “Containing the remains of Jason Hollows?”

So help me God.  “I-I don’t know.”  I felt like I was going to throw up.  God, the  smell.

Q. “Did Miles burn the packages?”

So help me.  “I don’t know.”

Q. “Trace amounts of cellophane were found with the burnt remains of Jason  Hollows.  Forensics indicated that the fire was started at about 1:45 p.m.  Were  you or were you not present at that time?”

A. “I was unconscious.”

Q. “Will you explain?”

A. “I passed out when he showed me the packages.”

Q. “Did you believe them to be the remains of Jason Hollows?”

Yes.  So help me God, yes.

(I awaken to the smell of burnt hair.  A warm blaze transforms Miles into a mere  silhouette.  Equal parts gasoline and orange juice concentrate, he tells me.  He’d  learned it watching Fight Club.  I roll over and puke on the soft grass.)

Q. “Mr. Greenhand?”

A. “Excuse me, I have to go throw up.”

I jumped from the witness stand and made a mad dash for the can.  No one stopped me.  No one ever does when they think you’re about to pitch your  breakfast.  God, what a lovely day.

December rains are the worst.  Raincoats don’t leave enough room underneath for much insulation, so I was freezing as I walked to the stop.  The bus ride was much better.  The heater was running pretty much full-blast, and I was alone to soak up the wonderful, glorious heat.

The next stop was four blocks from the penitentiary.  No matter.  Walking is good for you.  I rubbed my hands and tried to ignore my numb toes.

I showed my ID to the guard at the gate.  “My name is Hiram Greenhand.  I’m here to see Miles Walsh.  I called earlier…”

“Yes, Mr. Greenhand, go ahead inside.”

Miles was sitting at his computer, shaking, smoking a cigarette, a pile of ashes on one side of his keyboard, a stack of empty red-and-white cancer boxes on the other.  He wore nothing but a pair of blood-caked jeans.  There was dried blood cracking across his chest, dried blood matted in his hair, flecks of dried blood on his face created a cruel effigy of freckles.  In what seemed like one fluid motion, he removed the butt form his mouth, stumped it out, and lit another.

Nasty habit.

He stood, quivering like a newborn kitten, wordlessly stumbled into the kitchen.  I had a feeling he hadn’t slept.  I wouldn’t have been able to.  I hoped it was a sick joke.  I hoped it was one all the way until he led me to the big freezer in his garage and motioned to ten or twelve small white packages on one side, frostless.  One was slightly larger than an apple, stained red, a twelve-inch bowey knife run through it.  Oh, God.  Be still, my beating heart.

I got that feeling in my legs that everyone gets right before a fight, that intimidated, excited, confused, gooey wobbliness in the knees, like my torso jutted upward from a mound of jelly.

The aroma hit my nostrils and it dawned on me that the corpse was still warm.  I hurriedly stumbled across the garage on my grape-jelly legs to the outdoor trashcans and puked.  I realized Miles’ dad’s car was gone.  Mr. Walsh, I remembered, was out of town this week.  The butcher shop was closed, which meant Miles had access to… oh, God.  I felt like puking again.

Miles pulled out a package and held it out toward me.  He said something I didn’t hear.  My head, my body tingled as I fell.

“So how’s the big house?”  I asked into the telephone.  Miles looked glazedly at me from the other side of the inch-thick Plexiglas.

“It sucks, as always.”  He had grown his hair out, buffed up a little.  His voice was a bit gruffer than it was.  That’s what prison does to you.

“I still can’t believe you were tried as an adult.”

He scratched at the skin surrounding a new prison tattoo.  A clock with no hands.  “I can’t believe I got the death penalty.”

It was silent for a moment.  “Did the appeal go through?”

He rubbed at his baggy eyes.  “Nope.  I plead guilty all along.  The trial was because Dad had to have it.  He wouldn’t believe that I killed Jason unless a court found me guilty.”  He blinked.  “How is she?  Scarlet, I mean.”

Slutty, as always.  “Fine.  She misses you.”  Happy bullshit.

He nodded, scratched at his tattoo.  “Tell her I love her.”

“I will.”  Let him be happy.  He’s only got…

“One week left.”  Miles let out a heavy sigh.  “I can’t believe I’m gonna die at fourteen.”

I was silent.  I mean, what do you say at a time like this?  Hard luck?  Too bad, so sad?

You’ll get over it?

The phone rang.  I pounced to answer it.  “Hello?”

“Dude, I just gotta talk to someone.”  Miles.

I yawned.  It was 3 am.  “All right.  Shoot.”

“I don’t know what to do.  It happened again.”

I sighed.  I knew what “it” was.  “I don’t get how you put up with it.”

“I love her.”  What “it” meant was that Scarlet, love of Miles’ fourteen-year-old life, had had a sexual encounter with a guy that was not Miles.

“Isn’t it obvious by now that it’s not mutual?”

“I know she does.”  What a sucker.  “She’s trying to change.”

“It’s been two years, man.”  Silence.

He sighed.  “Man, I don’t know what to do.”

“Leave her?”

“Never.”  He sighed again.  “You know who it was this time?”

I didn’t care.  It was always someone else.  “Who?”

“Jason.  That dumb sonofabitch Jason.”  It would be Jason.  “She says he talked her into it.”

“You don’t say.”  I watched the scene play out in my mind.

Jason: “Wanna fuck?”

Scarlet: “Sure!”

Miles is a bright kid, but he’s completely blind to Scarlet’s promiscuity.  I think there were five guys in town that hadn’t done something sexual with Scarlet, and I was proud to be one of them.  “She’s not gonna change, Miles.”

“She wants to.”

“She hasn’t put out an effort that I can see.”

“Well, maybe if people like that bastard Jason would stay away from her… Goddammit, I’m so mad.”

“Don’t do anything stupid.  Keep your temper.”  Miles is known for seeing red.

“Goddammit.”

“Look, I’ma go to sleep.  Just think good and hard about whether she’ll actually change.”

“I’ll make it happen.”

Whatever.  “Good night, Miles.”

“Night.”  And he hung up.

I put the phone back on the nightstand and my head back on the pillow.

Ring.

Pounce.

“Hello?”

It was Jason.  “You’ll never guess what happened today.”

“I have no clue.”

His glee equaled Miles’ anger.

“Well, Scarlet and I were at the Hill and I was like, ‘wanna fuck’ and she was all like ‘sure…’”

“I’m sorry, but visitation time is over.”  The guard had snuck up on me.  “You’ll have to leave.”

I nodded at her.  “Goodbye, Miles.”  He hung up his phone, stood from his chair.  I did the same, and we both turned and left, I to my gray, timeless day to await its end, and he to his gray, timeless cell to await his own.

That was the last time I ever saw Miles Walsh alive.