PRL Serials

The cuffs are cold against his wrists and the man wonders if he has been struggling in them for some time because the skin of his wrists hurt. Sandra tries to soothe him.

“You gotta calm down. You can’t look like that when the detective get back.” She says softly, smoothing the short hair on his head. “Ain’t no way that story you told me is what happened, so when the detective get back you tell him the truth; you walked to the store, asked about my son and then you walked back. That’s all.”

Just as Sandra finishes, the detective comes back from the bathroom. He is a white man with an average build, probably middle-aged, and he looks relieved to the see the man awake.

“You been out for a while, good to see you back in the land of the living. I’m Detective Young,” the detective introduces himself and even though he is smiling, the man cannot calm his nerves.

This is it, the man thinks, I’m going to jail.

Young makes his way to the side of the bed and he removes the handcuffs. The man stares at Young in disbelief.

“Just a precaution.” Young explains. “Just in case you’re the man we’re looking for, I didn’t want you running off while I was in the can.”

“I already told you he didn’t do nothing, he ain’t got no reason to run.’ Sandra interjects passionately like the man’s real mother would have.

“Well, we don’t have to worry about that now do we?” Young was trying hard to avoid the obvious tensions that filled the room. He’d experienced a lot of hate from black members of his community over the years who always assumed that the police were out to frame an innocent black man and throw him in jail.

“I just want to ask some questions.” Young continues. “What happened at that store the other night was a freak accident and I don’t see how anybody could have made it happen on purpose, but it’s my job to ask. And to be frank, son, ain’t a lot of people around here as tall as you are and we got video of a tall man with a military grade weapon on camera.”

“A military grade weapon?” The man asks, finally able to talk, to move, free from the paralysis of fear. “That’s not easy to hide I imagine. You check my motel room yet?” The man asks.

“We did, and it was clear, nothing to worry about. But you mind telling me what brings you to Knoxville? I saw from your driver license that you from North Carolina.” Young asks.

“I came to see my mama.” Lying is much easier than the man had anticipated and he looks at Sandra while he talks. “I haven’t been out this way in a while, thought it was about time.”

Sandra grabs the man’s hand and looks at Detective Young. “He’s a good boy, and he’s been shot. Don’t you think he been through enough?”

At no point during the questioning does Young actually believe that the man was responsible for the explosion, and he has no reason to suspect that the man with the gun in the video is the man laid out on the hospital bed aside from the size of the two men, but there is something about the man’s story, the more details that he reveals about himself, that keeps Young asking questions.

“Why are you both staying in the motel if he came out to visit you here?” Young asks.

“‘Cause I was headed to Arkansas to visit some family and he was just passing through, so he just got a room next to mine.” Sandra says.

“And what about your other son, the one you reported missing?” Young asks and it reminds the man that Sandra’s son was never accounted for.

“I think if y’all police was out there looking for him instead of asking this sweet boy questions you would have found him by now.” Sandra responds with legitimate anger.

“Your husband said he went back home, that you and him was leaving the state to get away from your husband. Is that true?” Young asks.

“Yes it is. My husband is abusive, and he could have killed this poor boy.” Sandra almost cries and the man can’t tell if Sandra is acting or if the thought of him dead really pained her enough to bring tears to her eyes.

Young nods slowly, rubs the hairs on his chin, then scratches his head. “Well ma’am, I guess I just got one more question for you then. Why is it that your husband thought you were having sex with your son here? Ain’t that why he shot your door down?”

The man thinks that it is his turn to lie, that he should alleviate Sandra who has done more than enough for him, but Sandra doesn’t miss a beat.

“This is my son from a previous relationship. My stupid ass husband don’t care about him, don’t even know what he look like. So his jealous ass probably saw my son coming to my room and assumed that I was doing something a married woman ain’t got no business.”

Young has other questions for the man to ensure that the timing of events matched up correctly and finally Young is satisfied enough to leave.

“Like I said from the start, I never thought you was the cause of that explosion. Unless you can make fog appear out of the sky, I don’t see how it’s anybody’s fault. It’s a sad tragedy though and I had to do my due diligence.” Young hands the man his card. “If you remember anything, if you remember seeing a man with a gun at the store, anything like that, just give me a holler. You going to be around much longer?”

“I was planning on heading out tonight, to Texas. Got some friends down there,” the man lies.  

“Well you might have to postpone that a day or two until they release you. But you have a safe trip.” Young has done his due diligence, but he is not satisfied. His intuition is telling him that something is not quite right, either with the man or the woman who claimed to be his mother. Before he leaves he confirms the spelling of the man’s name, “just in case I need to get a hold of you about anything once they release you.”

When Detective Young is finally gone, the man rushes to leave the hospital despite the objections of his nurse. The wound in his torso is stitched but still hurts and the nurse warns him that he could rip out the stitches if he moves too much. “I’m going to be driving ma’am, it’s no problem.” And maybe it’s because the man has grown so comfortable with lying that he adds, “I have an emergency in Texas and I have to get there as soon as possible.” The nurse gives him pain medication and releases him, and the man along with Sandra rush back to his motel room where he packs his bags.

“You really don’t have to rush off. The detective said himself that they don’t believe nobody was responsible.” Sandra pleads, afraid to be left alone after the man had proven himself to be more loyal and loving than her actual son. She doesn’t care if the man is crazy enough to believe that he had caused the explosion and she thinks that maybe she can help him leave it all in the past.

“But I really was responsible Sandra and I can’t hang around ‘cause eventually I’m going to have to confess.” The man says as he makes two trips from his room to his car, depositing the few belongings that he carried with him. When the man left his home in NC, he was sure to pack only essentials, which meant that he left his fishing pole behind. His father had given him his pole when he was nine or ten and the man loved lazy Sunday mornings on the lake with his father. He’d also left behind the blanket that his mother had made for him. His mother spent considerable time making many household items that could have been easily purchased had the man’s family been able to afford it, but the man’s mother is skillful enough with a needle and thread to outfit the family’s house with homemade curtains, bedsheets, pillows and even throw rugs. He realizes as he finishes packing his things into his car for the second time, that his life in NC really was over. He didn’t just fear that he could never return, he was sure that the man who enjoyed the quiet seclusion of his home had died in that explosion and if he ever managed to turn up at his parent’s house again in the future, he would be altogether unrecognizable. And Knoxville could not be his surrogate, Sandra could not be his surrogate, because he had come to town for only a few short days and drastically altered the lives of everyone that he had come into contact with. He is mad at himself that Sandra was forced to lie for him, that children lost their parents, parents their children, all because he had little idea how to handle himself around real people because he was too used to a tranquility that he had deliberately left behind him, and he has no idea how to function in the real world.

So it is settled, the man will leave Knoxville to continue his journey, only now, he is a new man who is ready to be more than the place that he had left and sobbed for in his dreams.

Sandra can see that the man is really leaving and nothing will keep him there. “Just keep yourself out of trouble. And don’t forget about me. You got me feeling like you really are my son.” They hug and the man kisses her the same way that he had his mother just a few days before.

“Give me your number. I’ll call you as often as I can. I hope you eventually make it to Arkansas.”

The man pulls away from the motel parking lot in the darkening Knoxville night and before long, he is on a dark interstate, shaking his head in disbelief that the events in Knoxville had actually occurred.

Detective Young has a late night in his office at the precinct. He had managed to close a homicide after leaving the hospital where he’d talked to the man; it was an accidental shooting that left a grandfather dead, killed by his own grandson who fled the scene but was apprehended late into the night. Young is tired, but he has reports to write and he sits alone in the precinct, his only company the sound of the keys he hits as he types.

He happens across the file of the gas station explosion and he opens it, looking at the still shots from the store surveillance camera. Something fishy, Young thinks, and he decides that maybe a background check on the man he had seen in the hospital will put his nagging thoughts to rest. But that could not be further from the truth.