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Chapter 4

Auteur: Gigi Anne
Mr. Adams wiped his face with the back of his hand.

"How could I, Evan? Henry Grant came to me.

"You have to understand what that man was in this town back then. He walked into my school and told me that if a word of it ever left my mouth he'd have my certificate pulled and see to it my family couldn't stay here.

"And he told me that if I ever tried to reach you, he'd send men south to find you."

He stopped, and then made himself go on.

"It wasn't only me. Walter Davis carried that letter. He was the rural carrier on your road for thirty years. Henry got to him too. He made it plain that anybody who talked would never work again."

He took hold of my hand.

"But you came back. You came back and you got into that plant with nothing but your own two hands, and I'm proud of you, son.

"Take the score report. If you want me to testify, I'll testify. I've lived with this for four years and I'd rather not live with it any longer."

"Thank you, Mr. Adams."

I walked back toward the plant with that yellowed paper inside my coat, and there was only one thing in my head.

Find Walter Davis. Get the postal record. Without it, nothing I said could be pinned on them.

The next morning I'd barely gotten onto the floor when the PA crackled overhead.

"Workshop Two maintenance. Evan Cole, report to the plant manager's office."

Victor Hayes sat behind a heavy desk in a dark suit with a cup of coffee in his hand, and he took his time looking me over when I came in.

"Cole. I heard about the cafeteria. And I've heard what you've been stirring up on the floor."

His voice came down a notch.

"Lucas Cole is one of the men we're grooming to run this place. You've been going around making accusations about him, and it's doing real damage."

"I haven't made an accusation that isn't true."

His hand came down on the desk.

"You're still going to stand there and tell me that?

"You were brought in here as a specialist hire. This plant gave you an opportunity. I'd expect a man to know what that's worth."

He took a blank sheet out of the drawer and pushed it across to me.

"Write it out. A full written apology. You say that jealousy got the better of you and that you spread something you knew to be false.

"Tomorrow morning you read it over the PA, with the whole plant listening.

"You do that, and this is finished."

I looked at the paper a while. Then I felt the corner of my mouth pull.

"Mr. Hayes, I'm not going to write it.

"Because I didn't lie. Every word I've said in this building is true."

His face went flat.

"Do you know where the last man who talked to me that way is working today?"

"No."

"He's sitting in the shack at the front gate." There wasn't any warmth left in his voice at all. "Keep this up and you'll do worse than that."

I didn't look away from him.

Four years ago they'd already taken one life from me. Now I had the truth in my coat pocket, and I wasn't backing down for anybody again.

"Mr. Hayes. Let me ask you something."

Before I ever took the job I'd heard the man was fair. I decided to bet on it, and I wanted him to see what the Grants really were.

"Suppose somebody took your son's scholarship letter out of the mail. Suppose it cost him the whole thing, and he spent the next four years down south breaking his back on a line because another man's boy wanted his place.

"Would you sit your son down and tell him to write an apology for making trouble?"

Victor Hayes's cup stopped halfway to his mouth.

He looked at me, and something moved behind his eyes that I don't think he wanted me to see.

The office stayed quiet.

I didn't wait on him. I pulled the door open and walked out.

Outside the administration building I went to the pay phone by the gate and dialed Lucas's office.

"Yeah?"

He sounded bored.

"It's me. Evan.

"Tonight. Nine o'clock. The old warehouse behind the plant. We need to talk."

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  • The Friend I Sent to Prison   Chapter 9

    He came up off the ground, and in front of a few thousand men he started to shout, and everything he'd been sitting on for four years came out of him at once."If he hadn't been breaking things in my house every night of that summer, ashamed of himself, couldn't stand to be looked at."If he hadn't gone on and on about how he couldn't face his friends."If he hadn't had to have a degree, had to get down to that campus and chase city girls."You think I'd have put my name and my job on the line? For that? Over some farm boy?"You had nothing. You came from nothing. That score was wasted where it landed. My son had more use for it than you'd ever have had."Nobody at that gate made a sound.No sick parents. No family on the edge. No man with no other choice.It had been pride. A diploma to hold up. A way to be looked at. Girls on a campus.And because Henry Grant believed his son counted for more than I did, he'd taken my whole life and never thought twice about it.Then the an

  • The Friend I Sent to Prison   Chapter 8

    I had the one thing that could finish that family, and I had it in my hand.All that was left was to wait.Five days after I mailed the complaint, the plant looked like any other morning from the outside. Underneath it, everybody could feel something coming.At ten o'clock three state sedans came through the front gate with their lights turning and pulled up under the administration building.Men in suits got out, and the credentials came out with them.A joint team. The Attorney General's office and the State Department of Education.It went through that plant like fire through a hayloft."The state's here.""They're here for Grant.""I heard the son went to school under somebody else's name.""That can't be true. Can it?"Work slowed everywhere and then stopped. Men came out of every building and stood around the administration steps, up on their toes to see.Tyler was at the back of the crowd, white as paper, and I could see his hands shaking from twenty feet off.Lucas

  • The Friend I Sent to Prison   Chapter 7

    A name in looping fountain-pen script sat across the signature line, clear as a verdict.Henry Grant. Signed as agent for the addressee.Beside it, the post office date stamp, four years old and still red.My fingers weren't steady when I took it from him.Four years. Almost to the day.And there it was in my hand, the one thing nobody could talk their way around.It was evening by the time I got back to the boarding house.I laid it all out across the desk. My score report from the school's file. The return receipt. Written statements from Raymond Adams and Walter Davis, each one signed and dated.Then I got out a pad of paper and wrote the complaint.Across the top I put: To the Office of the State Attorney General and the State Department of Education.I didn't spend one line on how I felt about it. I didn't claim anything I couldn't put a document behind.Facts. Evidence. Dates.The letter taken out of the mail. The name used in my place. The threats that came after it.

  • The Friend I Sent to Prison   Chapter 6

    I closed my hand around the note, and for the first time the thing had a shape I could see.That morning I took a half day from Boyd and borrowed Nathan's old bicycle.The late-autumn wind came straight down the road at me, and the gravel banged under the tires the whole way out. I rode close to two hours before I found the township.A farmer pointed me down a side road to a small place with black shingles and walls that hadn't seen paint in twenty years. There were rose bushes along the front of the porch, and an old man in a straw hat was down on his heels working at them with a pair of shears.He looked up when he heard me."Who are you after, son?"I leaned the bicycle against the fence, walked over, and took my cap off.That was for four years. For every day I'd spent on a line that should have been spent in a classroom. For the truth this whole town had been made to swallow."Mr. Davis. My name is Evan Cole."I looked him in the eye."Four years ago you carried a letter

  • The Friend I Sent to Prison   Chapter 5

    At nine that night I came into the old warehouse behind the plant.Lucas was already there, in a dark wool overcoat with his shoes shined, a cigarette going between two fingers. He took one hard pull off it when he saw me, dropped it, and ground it out under his toe."You fixed one machine, and now you think you're somebody around here."He laughed at me."Hayes told you to write an apology, and you turned him down. You honestly think you can take this place on?"I stopped five paces short of him."You sent Tyler into that cafeteria because you're scared.""Scared?" Lucas laughed out loud, like I'd said the funniest thing he'd heard all year. "Of some laborer who washed out down south?"Then it dropped off his face all at once."Let me explain something to you. This plant belongs to my family. Half the men with an office in that building owe my father something."You think you're fighting me? You're fighting him. You're fighting every favor he's handed out in this county for

  • The Friend I Sent to Prison   Chapter 4

    Mr. Adams wiped his face with the back of his hand."How could I, Evan? Henry Grant came to me."You have to understand what that man was in this town back then. He walked into my school and told me that if a word of it ever left my mouth he'd have my certificate pulled and see to it my family couldn't stay here."And he told me that if I ever tried to reach you, he'd send men south to find you."He stopped, and then made himself go on."It wasn't only me. Walter Davis carried that letter. He was the rural carrier on your road for thirty years. Henry got to him too. He made it plain that anybody who talked would never work again."He took hold of my hand."But you came back. You came back and you got into that plant with nothing but your own two hands, and I'm proud of you, son."Take the score report. If you want me to testify, I'll testify. I've lived with this for four years and I'd rather not live with it any longer.""Thank you, Mr. Adams."I walked back toward the plant

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