Half-consciously then I avoided the area of the campus where I’d seen the dark-skinned man with the briefcase. In the sandstone building were the departments of economics, political science, statistics and I was taking none of these courses.

  A few days later I saw him again walking on campus, carrying his briefcase. Amid undergraduates wearing the most casual attire—T-shirts, shorts, jeans—he looked almost comically dignified in sport coat, white shirt, tie. I wished that someone would greet him so that his masklike face might break into a smile.

  That uncanny sensation of trying to recall a dream! Even as the dream fades.

  On the walkway I stood staring after him. Almost, I could remember him—but he’d been younger then. If only he would turn, and see me, and not always be running away as if he wished to avoid me, too.

  First Aid

  ON HIS SHORT LEGS BRINDLE WAS STRUGGLING TO BRING ME something gripped in his jaws. At first it seemed that he’d managed to kill a creature smaller than himself but no, turned out to be the denim bag I carried instead of a purse, and inside the denim bag a small first aid kit.

  No idea where I’d acquired this first aid kit whose contents I examined with mounting excitement: Band-Aids, a roll of gauze, small bottle of disinfectant, small scissors, also nail clippers, (white) adhesive tape. Box of cough drops, lozenges, tube of sunscreen, lip gloss. Asthma inhaler, red plastic. Small bottle of ibuprofen. Toothbrush, very small tube of toothpaste.

  How strange this was! Yet my reaction was curiosity rather than alarm. Discovering deeper in the bag a Swiss army knife, an eight-ounce aerosol container of pesticide (to be employed like Mace in the event of an emergency), a wad of blood-stiffened Kleenex and a single seashell earring which I did not recognize as my own.

  Had to laugh, this treasure trove was utterly baffling.

  Demanding of the little bulldog—Where’d you get these crazy things?

  Impudently Brindle stood on his hind legs and began licking my face. My hands, my arms were paralyzed at first, I could not push him away . . .

  And then I was wakened rudely, abruptly. Of course it was the little dog energetically licking my face with his soft slovenly tongue.

  Above me the mashed-in brown face loomed like a moon in shadow. Bug-eyes so wide-set they shone like the eyes of a lunatic. And the damned tongue, the panting slithery tongue, making me shiver, shudder, laugh—“Brindle, stop! No.”

  I was in bed. In this new, slightly uncomfortable bed in this new place in—was it Mohawk, New York? Where sheer chance had brought me in my panicked flight from Catamount Falls.

  Recalling now, as remnants of the dream lapped about me like a shallow stream, that the small red asthma inhaler had belonged to my high school classmate Tyrell Jones.

  Of course!—Tyrell Jones.

  Had I ever seen another asthma inhaler in the intervening years?—I was sure that I had not.

  And now it came to me: Tyrell Jones was the dark-skinned man with the briefcase whom I had seen on campus . . .

  It was not surprising that Tyrell Jones was a student here at the State University at Mohawk, as I was. Now I could recognize Tyrell’s odd, distinct manner of carrying himself, the self-conscious posture with which a naturally shy boy might carry himself in a school situation. Tyrell’s close-cropped hair had not changed much. Possibly Tyrell was stouter, less boyish. The wire-rimmed eyeglasses he’d worn in high school that had given him a prim schoolboy look had been replaced by chunky black plastic glasses that disguised half his face.

  It was a shock, to think that Tyrell had to be my age—twenty-six.

  Twenty-six! Not young. At least in my case, not young at all considering that my true life has yet to begin.

  PAINFUL TO RECALL HOW I’D LEFT A NOTE IN TYRELL JONES’S locker—I love you.

  What had I been thinking!—I could not imagine.

  So young at the time, naive and impulsive. Imagining a sort of kinship between Tyrell Jones and me, each of us tormented by the math teacher whose name I’d made an effort to obliterate in my memory.

  Now it seemed to me significant that Tyrell Jones was a student here at Mohawk. That we’d glimpsed each other—(for I had no doubt, Tyrell Jones had noticed me)—could not have been an accident. Though I’d come to Mohawk more or less by chance, as a branch of the state university that would honor my transfer credits without difficulty, I could not believe that it was purely chance that Tyrell Jones was also here.

  After the day when Tyrell had almost collapsed in math class, unable to breathe, I’d done some research on asthma in the school library, fascinated and appalled. A sudden inflammation of the sinuses, the nasal cavity, a sensation of suffocating precipitated by pollen, exacerbated by emotion, particularly anxiety, fear. In a local drugstore I’d examined asthma inhalers, fascinated and appalled. For perhaps one day Tyrell would collapse and I would be the one, the only one, to know how to “save” him . . .

  These memories returned to me now, lying in my bed in Mohawk, New York. Had I actually been in love with this boy, with whom I’d never exchanged a sentence? No other boy of those years had meant anything to me emotionally. I had not even any memory of any other boy. Young men with whom I’d been involved, sexually, in recent years, and including now my older lover Orlando Metti, had not meant so much to me as Tyrell Jones had meant, though I was sure that Tyrell would be baffled if he ever learned.

  Or maybe, Tyrell wouldn’t be baffled. Maybe, seeing me, recalling when he’d seen Violet Kerrigan last, he’d have immediately understood.

  “C’MON, BRINDLE! YOU’RE A BULLDOG—A HUNTER.”

  Walking with Brindle a mile or so to the university campus though I had no classes that morning. At the sandstone building intending to visit the departments of economics, political science, statistics but encountering, in the first department, a mailbox belonging to JONES, TYRELL M.

  As it turned out, Tyrell Jones wasn’t a student here. Not even a graduate student. In fact, Tyrell Jones was an assistant professor, a faculty member at Mohawk.

  How stunned I was at this revelation. How stricken with embarrassment, shame! While I’d been taking university courses for years, dropping out, transferring, beginning again, wayward and uncertain as a rudderless oarless boat on a fast-moving stream, squandering my youth, Tyrell Jones had kept a steady course. He’d earned a Ph.D., or so I assumed. He’d joined the faculty of a respectable state university branch and was teaching a subject of which I knew virtually nothing—economics.

  I was proud of him. I was happy for him. Almost I felt that I might burst into tears.

  I had not seen Tyrell Jones since graduation at Port Oriskany High. Like me, he’d been awarded a four-year tuition scholarship to one of the state universities. Like me, he’d received other prizes at commencement among them a math prize.

  I recalled that, after Mr. Sandman’s abrupt departure, a substitute math teacher was hired to finish the semester. Despite his high grades in math Tyrell had not been selected by Mr. Sandman for membership in the Math Club but the substitute teacher, Ms. Frankl, made up for this injustice by selecting him; in our senior year Tyrell was elected president by the eight or ten members (including me). How wonderful it was, I thought. Tyrell Jones had not (evidently) been harmed by the racist Sandman. Perhaps, unlike me, Tyrell had been able to forget him.

  “What a darling little dog,” the departmental secretary cried, smiling at Brindle, as everyone did who encountered the feisty little bulldog. And lifting her eyes to me. “What breed is he?”

  I told her, as I told everyone who asked. Numerous people each day, strangers who smiled happily at the little dog, as at me, with a warmth they would not have thought to exude to me, otherwise.

  In such ways, sudden friends are made. Sudden alliances, linked by a naive and sentimental affection for a miniature bulldog with disconcertingly wide-set bulging eyes, who had come to adore this public role, and to beg me, tugging at his leash, for ever more attention.

  The newly befriended departmental secretary struck up a conversation with me. Told me, when I asked after Professor Jones, that he was “new since last year” at Mohawk and “a very nice—quiet—person.” She paused as if she had more to say and then thought better of it.

  “Is Professor Jones the first black professor in economics?”—innocently I asked.

  “Why, I—I think he is, yes.” The woman paused, frowning. She might have thought it was a kind of rudeness, to have even noticed that the new assistant professor was black. “He is a ‘new appointee’—the department has a special grant for ‘minority hires.’ Are you one of his students?”

  “No. An old friend from high school.”

  “Really! And where was that?”

  “Port Oriskany. We were in the same math class.”

  “You’re the same age? Really?”

  The woman’s eyes moved over me, doubtfully. In my casual clothes, bare legs and bare feet in sandals, I did not look like a contemporary of Professor Jones.

  In Tyrell Jones’s mailbox I left a note—Hello, Tyrell! Do you remember Violet Kerrigan from high school? My number here is—

  Walking back across the campus with Brindle tugging at the leash I felt so suddenly happy, I was frightened for myself. I had placed a bet that could not fail to win. For if Tyrell Jones did not call me, that would probably be a good thing: I might seriously fall in love with him, or he with me, and one of us might be badly hurt, or both; or, if Tyrell did call me, and we saw each other, and began to be friends, or perhaps more than friends, this might in fact be the greatest good luck of both our lives, all the more precious for being shared.

  “Maxed-Out”

  THINK YOU SHOULD KNOW, VIOLET. LIONEL IS OUT.

  Never granted parole. Served the full sentence. What’s called maxed-out.

  News that should not have been surprising. News I’d been expecting.

  News to make me swallow, hard. Groping for a place to sit, my knees have gone weak . . .

  News that I am determined to interpret as good news.

  BECAUSE MY BROTHER HAS MAXED-OUT, HE HAS NO OBLIGATION to see a parole officer. He has no obligation to report to anyone in authority, even a counselor or therapist. He has no obligation to avoid the company of other ex-convicts or what are called known felons. He has no obligation to live within a designated area, he is free to live anywhere he wishes without the surveillance of any state corrections authorities for he is no longer their responsibility.

  If my brother is apprehended by police for drugs, carrying firearms, driving above the speed limit, causing a public disturbance—he will not be immediately shipped back to prison as he’d be if he were paroled for it’s crucial to understand, Lionel is not on parole. Lionel has maxed-out.

  In an upbeat voice Katie has informed me of these matters. She has informed me that our brother Lionel has moved back to South Niagara. Staying with Mom and Dad in their new house until he can get a job, maybe then he’ll move out to a place of his own.

  Thirteen years he’s been incarcerated! Thirteen years of life he has lost.

  Imprisoned May 1992. Released May 2005.

  Of course, it isn’t easy. Lionel is—well, Lionel is what you’d call withdrawn.

  Stays in his (attic) room. Up late watching TV (downstairs) or playing video games (upstairs). Sleeps late. Never uses the phone. Hasn’t contacted his old friends. Not even sure if they still live in South Niagara. Eats some of his meals in his room especially if Mom has invited guests to dinner—relatives who wants to see Lionel, or Katie herself.

  Give the poor kid time, everyone says. Traumatic to be released from a maximum security prison after thirteen years when you were only seventeen when you went in.

  Almost half of Lionel’s life inside.

  It is the general belief among family, relatives, friends, no longer examined, still less questioned, that Lionel and Jerome Jr. were “railroaded” into confessions. South Niagara PD, prosecutors. Tried and found guilty in the media, targeted for being white. A general belief that the youngest sister Violet had something to do with the convictions. In some quarters, the youngest sister Violet had much to do with Lionel being rejected for parole time after time after time over the thirteen very long years.

  You know that isn’t true, Katie. (Trying to speak calmly.)

  I know it isn’t true, Katie says. I try to explain if the subject comes up . . .

  Is that what Lionel thinks, too? (I have to ask.)

  Oh God!—Katie laughs. Who’d know what Lionel thinks about anything? It’s not exactly like we talk.

  Mom keeps marveling that Lionel has become so polite. Nothing like the rough loud kid he’d been . . .

  Good. How good, Lionel has become polite.

  Having summoned up the courage to call my sister as I do every few months. Check in with Katie. Just to inquire casually how she is. How Mom and Dad are. And Miriam, and Rick. And Les.

  These brothers, remote to me as boys with whom I’d gone to school but barely knew.

  Katie is my dear friend. Katie is my precious link, my only link to my lost life. Miriam has become distant, distracted; Miriam does not encourage me to call her, for she is very busy with her domestic life—young children, ambitious husband. Not once in my life have I spoken on the phone with Les or Rick. I’ve sent them cards as I’ve sent cards to others in the Kerrigan family but (no surprise) they have not ever responded.

  I would fear calling either of them, they’ve been turned against their rat-sister and have come to hate me as Jerr and Lionel had.

  Of course, Daddy is helping Lionel look for a job. Daddy has connections everywhere in the city, men who owe him favors. At Marcy, Lionel took courses in business math, accounting, English; he acquired experience in auto repair, welding, masonry, carpentry. Skills that are needed in the workplace. Decent-paying work. (No: not plumbing. Never the slightest interest in plumbing.)

  What does Lionel look like now?—I don’t dare ask.

  One thing, Vi’let, Lionel has not asked about you. So maybe don’t worry, OK?

  He hasn’t?

  Has not. Not that he’d ask me anything but Mom has told me, Mom wants me to know so (maybe) I can pass it on to you.

  At this revelation, this tiny crumb proffered me, my heart leaps. Mom wants me to know so (maybe) I can pass it on to you.

  Mom knows that we talk on the phone, then?

  Well—hard to say what Mom knows, or doesn’t know. Like with Dad, they don’t talk about you, ever.

  OK. Thanks.

  Well, I mean—that isn’t news to you, Violet? Is it? After thirteen years?

  No. You are right.

  Look, I’m sorry to—whatever. But you asked. So I told you. But the thing is, Mom sort of knows that we are in communication, and she definitely told me that Lionel has never asked about you, so why’d she tell me that, unless she thought I’d (maybe) tell you?

  To this, I can’t think of a reply. Wiping tears from my face, as Brindle rears up on his hind legs, on the sofa beside me, to eagerly lick my face.

  Brindle, no! Stop that.

  Katie asks what’s going on there? Who’s—what’s—“Brindle”?

  Brindle is a dog who has come to live with me, I tell Katie.

  You have a dog? Really, Violet? How’d that happen?

  His owner didn’t want him. His life was endangered.

  What kind of dog? Katie is sounding surprised, a little envious. Though mostly relieved that the conversation has swerved onto a safer subject.

  He’s a little guy. Miniature bulldog.

  Bulldog! Aren’t they ugly?

  Brindle is nudging and pushing against me, skinny tail flailing. His big bug-eyes shine like black fluorescence. Is the little bulldog ugly, or—beautiful? Close up, Brindle panting in my face, licking my face, it’s impossible to judge.

  Katie fires more questions at me. Between us is the marvel that Violet has a dog, that Katie had no idea that Violet has a dog, the sisters know so little of each other now.

  Katie asks me about Mohawk University, what courses am I taking here. Why did I transfer from Catamount Falls. How do I like living in Mohawk, she’d looked it up online and was impressed, it’s in a kind of tourist area, Mohawk River Valley, New York State wineries, Finger Lakes. Of course, Mohawk is pretty small—exclusive of the university enrollment, population six thousand.

  Waiting for Katie to ask if I’ve made friends here. Any special friends here.

  But Katie doesn’t ask, out of discretion perhaps imagining that I am as lonely as people in South Niagara imagine I must be, and deserve to be, in my involuntary exile.

  Katie doesn’t ask, and I don’t tell her.

  I have a very close friend here. Someone I’d known in high school in Port Oriskany. What there is between us would be hard to explain for much is silence.

  It has been a good conversation, I think after Katie hangs up. I am trembling, but then I am always trembling when I call my sister, and this evening it’s worse than usual of course since the news has come at last, unavoidable, unsurprising, yet devastating as a poisonous gas hissing into the house—Our brother Lionel is free, “maxed-out.”

  The Misunderstanding

  HE WAS SURE: HE WAS BEING FOLLOWED.

  Left the Shamrock at about 11:00 P.M., headed for his car. The lot behind the tavern was filled so he’d had to park across the street in the Bank of Niagara lot deserted at this hour.

  Aware of them behind him. Murmuring together, about him. Muffled laughter like distant thunder.

  Thought he’d seen them earlier, on the street by the movie house. Black kids. Except these looked older, taller.

  That tight sensation in his brain. Hearing the faint beat beat beat of what sounded like somebody hammering at a distance but (the doctor had said) was the very beat of his blood, in his brain.

  Twenty-four hours Jerome had been monitored, wearing a blood-pressure cuff on his upper left arm beneath his clothes, that contracted to the point of pain every half hour during the day and every hour of an interminable night and the discovery was, he had a condition called hypertension. Sure, he knew what this was. Every old person they knew had hypertension. The old sod had had hypertension along with a dozen other ailments but he’d lived to be—eighty-seven? Going strong until the day he died. Stubborn old bastard, never gave up whiskey.