Caged
Chapter 9
Rule on drugs and addiction: don't...because kicking drugs in prison is its own circle of hell.
The death of Diego affected Todd in a couple of ways. First off, he became obsessed about how to kill Jessie Horenda and that made him a very unpleasant person to deal with. He kept getting slammed by the guards, and getting in scuffles with fellow inmates. Secondly, his mild addiction to heroin that he'd been caught for several times over, went into overdrive. He was slinging information like the fucking peanut man at a baseball game and he was getting dope flung right back at him. Good, top...dope.
Every night he'd snort that shit up and knock right out, flying fast and furious to his beloveds. That's what got him his first experience with kicking heroin in solitary confinement. Third year end and he was hooked hard. Woke up with pinned eyes and an inability to answer questions, and the guards caught it right away.
Threw him into medical, and made him pee in a cup. Tested positive for the heron for the sixth time. He figured he'd get put into the usual group for addiction. They usually just tsk-tsk'ed him and sent him on his way because there wasn't any way to stop the drugs in prison.
This time, they threw him into solitary. Told him he wasn't coming out for a few days.
"How long? Why? Why you doing this, motherfucker?! WHY?!"
The door slammed shut. They didn't take away his clothes this time, and it struck him as a little odd. He stood there in the quiet room, saying to himself that he could take this...a couple of days...no sweat. Cakewalk. He wasn't hooked, yeah?
Twelve hours later he was puking his brains out, and crying himself a river of misery. The shaking, stomach cramps, muscle cramps took over. He screamed for help, screamed to let him out...but the guards did nothing. He knew it was pointless. They were punishing him, and punishing him good. They weren't going to let him out until he was done kicking, no less than seven days.
In the midst of the nightmare, he decided that he wasn't going to give them the pleasure of it, so he shut up. Tossing and turning on that hard cot, agonizing in complete and total quiet. He stripped his clothes, then put them on, then stripped them...his body's heat control on the total blink. He cried like a baby...in total silence. Swore up and down that he'd never use again.
When the guards checked on him, he'd just curl up in the corner like a rabbit, shaking, and watching them. They'd shake their heads, leaving or picking up trays of food. The fun didn't stop though.
Without fresh air, without the ability to at least walk around and work out the cramps, or even shower...he suffered in a way he never thought possible. The room became smaller and smaller and there was no escape. On the third straight day of hell, having had no sleep, no food, he'd made up his mind that he was going to kill himself. Tried to drown himself, bash himself, scratch out his arteries...in the end, there wasn't anything to kill himself with.
He ended day four completely done in. Tired, sick, dying. He lay on the cot in a frozen state of being that the guards could not shake. They threw a couple of buckets of water on him, cleaned him up, left him alone.
By the end of the seven days, he was detoxed all right. But he had no intentions of staying that way. Walked down the cell block, looking a lot beat up, and collapsed on his cot. He felt the little package still in his pillow and could not wait for night. An hour later, Ernesto of the Mambo Kings darkened the cell door with three MK soldiers blocking the view from the guards. The sheet went up and he knew he was in deep shit.
"Here's how it goes, Manning. You've been getting careless with your loyalties - I don't like you dealing so much with the Jamaicans. I'm not liking this bullshit drug abuse, and you got no sense with this Horenda bitch. Your...hate for him is getting real fuckin' obvious...and it's affecting what you're giving us."
"Get out of my room. You and I...we respect each other, but that's it. You don't like how I do business, you don't have to do business with me."
"You liked kicking in solitary?"
Todd eyed the man in front of him, realizing a sad, sad situation. Ernesto paid off the guards to do that to him. "Fuck you. You got some fuckin' nerve."
"You're out of control, Manning, and it's messing with our operations."
He got up and went face to face with the leader. "I don't owe you shit. I don't have to deal with you, I don't have to give you anything. You want to fight me...fuckin' fight me. You want to do business with me, then do the goddamn business. Either way...get outta my fuckin' ROOM."
Ernesto grinned..."You don't owe us? Really?"
Leaning forward, Ernesto whispered in Todd's ear, "What, you think Rolon is your friend? You think he kept that little secret of yours to himself? The fact that you get the fits every now and then?"
Todd pushed Ernesto hard, "Get out of my room."
The sheet came down and Ernesto turned to Todd. "Watch your fuckin' ass, Manning."
That night he didn't use...he was in too much trouble. The MKs had him on their radar and he had to figure a way out of it.
Sonofabitch.
The sound of her children's voices stirred Téa from a heavy sleep. When she blinked open her eyes, she saw the drapes had been opened and she was decently covered. Her nightgown had been righted, the sheets and blanket pushed up over her shoulders. The warmth was delicious. She smiled at the joyful noise coming from the bathroom...
Turning over in her bed, she saw Todd at the counter, shaving, wearing just his jeans. Lucia was on a seat, Téa's vanity chair, obviously having dragged it across the room so she could talk to her father. Reese was on the floor, scooting a toy in between and around Todd's bare feet, talking and making car sounds. Téa couldn't believe she'd slept through this. On her nightstand a coffee in an insulated cup sat waiting for her. Typical Saturday morning.
The conversation between Todd and Lucia was funny, a serious discussion regarding the politics of first grade with Todd offering sage advice. Lucia was different from Starr at the same age. Starr had been sweet, of course, loving, of course...but Lucia displayed this amazing patience for a child. She mothered easily, she had a strong sense of right and wrong, and she was very driven towards success. She didn't just learn to read, she read "chapter books," two years ahead of her grade. She didn't just learn a poem, she recited and performed, showing an understanding of emotions that were far beyond her age.
Sighing, Téa touched her throat, knowing there was a bruise there. She dreamed all night that she was fighting, swinging fists, screaming at something, somebody. Sometimes it was her mother, other times her father, still another time in the night, she was fighting an intruder.
"She brought twenty candies to the classroom, which wasn't good at all for all that sugar, but Papi, there are 24 of us in the class. Four kids didn't get candy! I told Jasmine it wasn't right that she did that, that she should have counted first but that was no good..."
"Yeah, I agree with you. That Jasmine really should have checked how many kids...but tell me, preciosa, what kind of candy was it? And did YOU get any?"
"Papi, does it matter?!"
"Well, kind of...'cause candy sounds sort of good right now...maybe a chocolate or something like jelly bellies...oooo...Sour Kids!"
"Papi! What did they teach over there?!"
"That sugar makes you smarter!"
"It doesn't! It gives you cavities!"
"Hmmm...did you get the candy?"
"Yes!"
"I knew it!" With that, he dropped the shaver and picked her up in his arms, getting shaving cream on his daughter's hair and face, swinging her around the bathroom. Lucia squealed like mad, giggling and happy. Of course, Reese got up and grabbed Todd's legs and Todd put Lucia down to pick up the boy and Reese just hugged Todd like a little monkey, so much so that Todd often called Reese, his little monkey.
The three played some more, got washed off, ending with Reese crawling under the covers and hooking himself to Téa's body, as if he could go back into her womb, as if...as if... Téa held him tightly to her, smelling his delicious scent, thinking he held Todd's worry of the world inside of him.
For all Lucia's grabbing of life, Reese always seemed to be putting it back. A soul who'd been here before and had seen all he needed to see, thank you very much. It didn't surprise her considering how he was conceived...when he was conceived...in the days Todd returned from Statesville. For weeks it seemed, Todd had been desperate in his love of Téa, desperate and afraid and mad with need. They made love constantly, hotly, violently. The world was a dark, miserable place and Reese seemed to carry that knowledge in his genes. Like Reese, Todd at times seemed that he simply wanted to disappear inside of Téa, that maybe he could live in her heart, in her soul...
Reese was the essence of Todd...when he'd returned from prison.
Lucia gave Téa a fast kiss on the cheek and scrambled out of the room, down the hall, yelling something about breakfast. Todd lay down on the bed, on top of the covers, touching Reese's head, smoothing the boy's shocked golden hair. Kissing his hot head. Keeping his cheek on Reese's head. The boy stuck his fingers in his mouth and closed his eyes, moved to relaxation by the touches of his father. Téa had to stop herself from reaching out to her husband.
Todd focused on Téa and she returned his gaze. There was much to say...too much. Todd reached out and touched her throat, whispering that he was sorry for that.
"Is it bad?"
"Bad enough. I just...needed you...needed to feel you...I'm sorry."
Téa sighed and shook her head, her voice soft, trying to keep emotion out. "When you were gone, Lucia thought you were in Iraq. When I told her that wasn't true, she said, 'I know he is at war, Mami. You say he is not, but I know he is.' I don't know what she picked up on, I never will. She was right, of course. Three years old when she said that. To this day, she worries you are going to disappear into that imagined war. For this reason, I do not throw you out. For this reason, you still sleep in my bed. I cannot bear for her to feel afraid or worried for you. I cannot BEAR it."
Todd lay back and rubbed his face, sighed, stared at the ceiling. For a long while the three lay in the bed that way, caught in limbo.
"You know," Téa said quietly, "I thought it was because of me that you spoke Spanish words."
"It is."
"No, it's not. It's because of these men, MK. How much Spanish do you speak?"
"A lot of Cuban swearing. Not much useful stuff. Téa..."
"You know what hurts...the lying. I've smelled those...scents off your skin before...you told me you were in a bar, or with George...or...my GOD, how easy I am. How easy I accepted where you were all the time...how easy I left you to yourself, because of my sympathies… my… stupidity..."
Todd reached over and touched Téa's face, placed his hand on her head, "Please...I never meant to hurt you, but to protect you. I'll tell you everything. I'll try to explain why...how... But I know whatever I say will be inadequate." He gazed at Reese, his expression one of deep sadness. "I am not the man I used to be...no...I'm just past ever becoming the man I wanted to be, the man you thought I could be. I think you're realizing that, and I feel it. I'm sorry...I knew this would happen." He smiled, "I knew you'd see that file eventually, I'm sure you're going to hunt down those kids...I'm sure Bo's going to talk to everyone who gave my alibi. You're going to realize...I wasn't the protector, not the way you described it."
Téa didn't look at him, her eyes down, her body wrapped around Reese just as much as he was around her. "I believe my client - he wouldn't lie to me. He had no reason to lie - he had no idea you were my husband. He truly appreciated what you did. And he said there was someone else too who said the same thing...appreciated it. They seemed to understand the whole thing."
"Téa, if you were in hell...and Satan gave you a little water, a little...salve for the pain of the burn, wouldn't you appreciate it?" His voice had changed. More serious, more disregarding of his sleeping son.
"Well, fine, here's something else I'm not confident about anymore," she said. "Todd, do you still use heroin?"
He sort of laughed, then didn't. He rubbed his hair back, his eyes surveying the room, before landing on his son. "No, I don't. I want to, though, I'll always want to." He looked at her with dead seriousness, "Heroin saved me in prison, saved me from suicide. You have no idea how often I thought about ending things, how close I came. But then I'd get high and suddenly things didn't seem so bad. I'd read your letters again and again and...think...okay, okay...another day, Manning, another day."
"How could you? Knowing you had Lucia at home, me, Jed...Starr..."
"Oh Téa ...suicide would have prevented THIS from happening and I knew it. I knew I was..." He whispered the curse word, "I knew I was fucked my first day in. And I knew every day after that, what was going to happen to me. God, I see you looking at me the way you're doing right now...and I think...maybe I shouldn't have come home. Let my daughter think I died a hero in a war. You cannot bear hurting Lucia...I cannot bear you looking at me the way you're doing. Like...I'm a monster."
He got off the bed, and grabbed a shirt and socks out of his drawer. He sat and dressed, yanking on his favorite hiking boots. He turned to her and sighed heavily, "Thing is, you're not wrong, Téa.I am a monster."
He looked at his hands, felt young Leya Moreno's delicate throat beneath them, little bones, so breakable. He touched the scars on his knuckles.
LOVE.
When he'd walked out of the restaurant into the cool air, after leaving Leya, he walked all the way around to the back, where it was dark and woodsy, and fell against the back wall, huddled with his head in his hands, sick that he'd hurt Leya in any way. Sick at how easy it had been, how natural. He'd treated her like those kids in prison… mistreating them to warn them. Hurting them to keep them scared and in check. So fucking easy...
In the back, in the shadows, he crumpled inside, agonizing at the complete overtake by the monster. The horror to him was his complete knee-jerk reaction. When she stood there looking up at him, wanting him, he didn't think twice. He just...did it.
When he came to himself, needing to go home, he made his way slowly to the front, the limp feeling worse, the scarred-over wound feeling weaker. Halfway there, he saw a bigger monster than himself: Leya's father. The guy took one look at Todd and punched him so hard on the side of his head, that Todd hit the ground, gasping for air, the wind knocked out of him. The old man didn't finish with that.
Pedro, who meant everything to Todd, stepped over to him, put his boot on Todd's chest and growled, "You touch my daughter like that again, Blanco, and I will fucking kill you."
Struggling for air still, Todd choked out, "God, Pedro, I'm sorry...I was thinking of my own daughters...the risk...if it hadn't been me..."
"You touch your teenage daughter's breasts? You pinch them? You like that kinda shit? You motherfucker...that's something I haven't heard from you."
"Jesus, no...I got carried away, a little drunk...and a lot scared for her..."
The boot made its way to Todd's throat and Pedro pressed down it, "How does that feel...Blanco, eh? How does that feel?"
Todd tried to push him off, and he could have. He could have put his whole body into it, he could have taken that boot and knocked the hell out of Pedro...but he didn't. He stopped fighting, completely unable to breathe. Hands on Pedro's leg, the way Leya had her hands on his arm. As if. The night sky above him winked and blinked its lights...and he hoped Téa would be okay without him, no, in those seconds, he knew she would be. He looked at Pedro's face, the anger there, the sorrow...slowly, slowly, he was dying...the edges of light began to close in...he mouthed, please...
Later, he wondered what he said please for...for the killing to stop...or please, finish him off.
When Pedro moved seconds later, Todd rolled over, coughing and gasping for air. Crawling away from him. Ashamed and on the verge of tears. The only words running through his head were how sorry he was, so sorry. And suddenly, in that moment, he was transported to a much earlier time. For the first time, Todd realized Pedro...the name, Pedro...in Spanish...meant, Peter. As in Peter Manning.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry...I'm so sorry...I won't again, I won't do that anymore...please forgive me, perdóneme...perdóneme, por favor..."
Like a dog, like a pathetic dog, he found himself begging for forgiveness. Making his way on the ground to Pedro's boots...the one that had been on his throat.
"It's all RIGHT," Pedro said. "You made your point with her. I just wanted to make sure that you and I understood one another. Do we? Are we clear?"
"Yes, yes...I will never touch her again. No matter what."
"Good. Then get up."
Todd had gotten up, slowly, first to his knees, then to his feet, his head down, barely able to look at Pedro. He felt the man's hand on his head, heard his words, "I forgive you. It's okay, mi hijo bastardo...I know you meant well. I know you did."
He was sick, and drifting in his mind in a way he hadn't drifted in a very long time. He felt a distance from what was happening, like he was looking down at himself. From...very far away, safe, and protected. He could hear the fan above him, and he looked up as if it was there.
"So now, Blanco, I thank you for teaching Leya something I wasn't able to convey. She's been acting...inappropriately, with the wrong people. She knows now, the reality, the truth...of men like you and me. Leya knows now. She KNOWS."
He couldn't remember the rest of the conversation, if there was any. Couldn't remember Pedro leaving him, or getting into the cab, or even the drive home. One moment he was with Pedro and the next he was on his porch. The rest was...gone. Black. He'd blacked out and it scared him. He had sat on the porch a long time. Feeling differently, strangely about things. He cried again, like a child. Feeling he lost his father's approval, that he'd been caught doing something bad, and it all hurt so much. But then it faded. and he just wanted Téa. He wanted to feel her, get inside of her...get something that felt like love. By the time he'd hit their bedroom, the night was gone, and he just needed to get to his wife.
Looking now at Tea, beautiful with their baby in her arms, because Reese was still such a baby, he tried to forget that he simply couldn't STOP being a monster anymore. That it would just come, easy, easy. Easy as pie, natural as snow. Without his being able to say or do anything.
He asked for her truth. "Do you want me gone, Téa? Without thinking of Lucia. I want to know what's inside of you, what's in your heart. Do you want me to go?"
Téa hugged Reese closer to her, pinching her eyes closed. "Todd, I'm trying to absorb everything I've learned in these past days. I'm focusing on your actions at home, at the paper, with your family. I don't see a monster, I see YOU. Your description of Diego broke my heart - I cannot imagine what you went through. For you to give that child...what you did...to walk away, get yourself thrown into solitary so you couldn't interrupt him...Todd, any normal man would be crazy now. But you...you being...a monster, saved your life. You came home to us. To me. I'm trying to...process this. I'm trying."
He nodded, "Okay, okay." The world remained unresolved. His head hurt.
His cell phone lit up on the nightstand, and he breathed hard at that. Reached for it, tiredly, ran his fingers across the screen to see the caller. He looked serious, then he laughed, laughed kind of hard. Looked at Téa again, started to say something...shook his head.
"A text from George...nice...my former cellmate, Brayden Armstrong, just blew my alibi."
Téa gasped a little.
He raised his cool, hazel eyes to her, "Téa, this is...um...one guy...who did not appreciate my protection. Not one bit."
Lucia came running into the room, all smiles, and innocence, "Papi, Mami, come and eat breakfast! You will love it!"
Todd and Téa looked at her, then at each other...Téa could only hold her baby to her, holding that misery deep inside of him.
"Yeah, girl, let's eat. Come on, show me what you got..."
To be continued...
