Fish: A Memoir of a Boy in Man's Prison by T. Parsell (ready to read books TXT) 📕

take shit from nobody," her son Bobby would say. But even with all her might, she wasn't strong enough to take me home and out of this mess I'd gotten myself into.

As the sheriff deputies led me away, I heard Sharon attack the lawyer.

"What the hell was that all about? He was supposed to only get two and half years!"

The lawyer spoke in a hushed tone, so I couldn't hear what he said, but then Sharon screamed; "Now that's a crock of shit! I know what he said, God damn it. I was there!"

Later that day, Dad came back to visit me at the county jail. He was alone and looked as forlorn as he did earlier, yet he did his best to hide it behind a smile. His black hair was slicked back, like he'd worn it in the fifties, though his sideburns were shorter and starting to gray. He never was much for showing emotion, especially if he wasn't drinking.

"Where's Sharon?" I asked.

"She's at home."

We stared at each other uncomfortably, neither of us knowing what to say.

"Well, tell her I said thanks for going after that lawyer for me."

Dad nodded. "There wasn't much she could do. That lawyer said the judge could give you whatever he wanted, since armed robbery carries up to life."

I didn't want to think about it anymore.

"Still not drinking?" I asked.

"Nope." He shook his head with a half smile, but there was lack of pride in it. "Quit last year."

My brother Rick said he had stopped right after I got into trouble, though we doubted that had anything to do with it.

"Just got tired ofit," Dad said. "And anyway, Sharon's pretty happy about it."

"I'm sure she is," I said, dryly. Sharon had a long history of battling alcoholism, but not her own. Both her parents died from it, and her first husband had been a drunk. We she first started dating my dad, she worked in a hospital for alcoholics as a nurse's aide.

Dad knew how I felt about Sharon, almost from the beginning. Dad also had a stepmother who hated him. It was amazing to me that he'd allow the same situation to happen between his wife and his kids that Grandpa let happen to him.

But at least Sharon stuck up for me that day, and even if it hadn't done any good-she had tried. I wished she were there with Dad so I could thank her. It meant a lot to me.

Dad went on to tell me that Rick and my stepbrother Bobby were now getting into trouble together. Bobby was seventeen and Sharon's oldest boy.

"A detective came around wanting to talk to Bobby," he said.

"What about?"

"Well, he and the other one got mixed up in a robbery," Dad said.

We had to be careful about what we said because the sheriff deputies sometimes monitored the speaker boxes we were forced to yell through.

"Do they know about the `other one'?" I asked.

Dad shook his head. We were talking about my brother Rick.

"The police want Bobby to come down and do a line up."

From what Dad was saying, I was able to piece together that Rick and Bobby had robbed an old couple, in their trailer, who'd advertised the sale of a diamond ring in Trading Times magazine.

"So, whoever did this," Dad said. "Tied the couple up, using a bunch of duct tape and then took everything in sight that was valuable."

"How'd they find out about Bobby?"

"Some kid in the neighborhood got caught with a gun that came from the robbery," Dad said. He paused. "The other one told Bobby not to sell it to anyone, but he didn't listen. So when the kid got caught with it, he ratted on Bobby."

"Who was it?"

"I don't know," Dad said. "But the other one's taking care of it."

I nodded.

"You goddamn kids." He shook his head. "It's always something."

If he only knew this side of it, I thought.

"Your face looks good. Prison must be agreeing with you."

"Fuck you," I said.

We both smiled. Ricky probably put him up to saying that.

"Will they be able to identify Bobby?"

"I don't know," Dad said. "But the old man was a retired cop."

"Uh-oh."

"Exactly," Dad said. Whenever something happens to a cop, somebody goes to jail.

So did this mean Bobby was on his way to prison? And Rick was behind it, no doubt. He wasted no time in finding another fall guy. I thought about how I'd been following Rick my whole life. And now he was working with Bobby, who might be headed to jail. I wondered what it'd be like for Bobby if he came here. He was tougher than me, but he was also smaller. Though by penitentiary standards, he wasn't that pretty-it wouldn't make much difference if they decided to rape him. I wished I could talk to him, and help him avoid what happened to me.

"Sharon's pretty upset about it," Dad said.

"I'm sure she is. It must've come as quite a shock that her precious little angel would be involved in something like this."

Dad didn't say anything. He knew she thought her kids were special, and that Ricky and I were the bad ones. "She blames Rick for a lot of things," Dad said.

"It's not like I needed his help in getting here, I did that on my own." There were other things we'd done together that could've sent me there a lot sooner.

I thought about those times, when as a kid, I sat in the visiting rooms of juvenile detention centers and listened to Ricky's stories about what went on there. And how Dad jumped in, to tell us what it was like back when he and Uncle Ronnie were there. It seemed like those were the only times he and Rick ever really talked.

I looked up and saw that Dad had zoned out again. Physically, he was still there, on the other side of the glass, but his sad blue eyes told the real story. Through the small steel frame in the concrete wall, I