On and on, three miles to the fast-food spot.
His work.
“I just got out of federal prison in Texarkana.”
I do not ask if it the Texas or Arkansas city.
“Seven plus years. Conspiracy charge.”
“Were you set up?”
“I don’t think so. I was guilty.”
I do not ask for specifics.
“What’s that building you came out of minutes ago?”
“Halfway house, six months for me there, then five on parole.”
“Wasn’t that house once in Brownsville?”
“Yes, it moved, not bad, dorms, meals.”
“Did you go to school in jail?”
“No, jail is jail, just that.”
He walks on, fast.
Grass green on the roadside, in fields, early spring.
“Do you walk back, too?”
“No, I call a friend.”
This conversation is going nowhere.
But maybe there is nothing more important than steps in the early spring,
far from and out of that prison up there in northeast Texas, or is it south Arkansas ….
Eugene “Gene” Novogrodsky, mid-January 2012
