Star Dawning: A Novel

Star Dawning

by David K. Dodd

Copyright 2012 David K. Dodd

Smashwords Edition

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the

author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events,

locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Cover by Julie Spoops Myrfors

Table of Contents

Dedication

Part I – Release

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Part II – Historia Repetitur

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Part III – Homing In

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

About David K. Dodd

Also by David K. Dodd

Dedicated to:

The Children and

Their Children

Part I

Release

Chapter One – Keep on Walkin’

"Keep on walkin’, Cousin. Just keep on walkin’ and don’t be lookin’ back. I don’t wanna never see nothin’ of you again ’cept that fat backside I be lookin’ at right now." These were the last words he heard as he walked away from what had been his home for the past twelve years. Even rough and misspoken, they were kind words. He considered Bob Sheldon his friend, although friendship technically wasn’t permitted. Sheldon could be clumsy and very inaccurate—always calling him Cousin instead of Cousins and acting like his prisoner was fat. In reality, Cousins stood over six feet and was lean and hard at one-hundred-sixty pounds.

Walking away from the outside gate, Cousins had turned and looked back at Sheldon, but the guard just waved him away with the back of his hand and headed back into the institution. Twelve years, dismissed with the flick of a hand and a thirty-dollar going-away gift. Good riddance.

Cousins had entered as a confused, scared boy of just seventeen. Now, twelve years later, he was leaving as a man, infamous, with a future completely unknown. Although no longer confused, he was just as scared now as before—maybe even more so. The world had changed on the outside, he knew, and prison, so brutally stagnant, had done nothing to prepare him for it.

Keep walkin’, Cousin. Cousins had been walking for only five minutes, but Sheldon’s parting words were already coming back to him. He had a long walk ahead of him—figuratively as well as literally. His destination for the night was some five or six miles up the road, but he didn’t mind. He thought back to his days of youth, riding his bike from place to place, miles apart. A bike would sure come in handy now, but he wasn’t complaining. He was ready to walk—a freedom he had not had for a dozen years.

His destination was a small room. Downtown, in a small city completely foreign to him. No one to look after him—no parents and no guards. On his own. Alone. Thirty dollars to his name. A room, rent-free for a few nights. He walked, unencumbered. The last time he’d walked freely, he’d been living with his mother and father. One day later, he found himself in a jail cell.

After twelve years, Cousins was again free. Free of incarceration, the deadly routine, the life sentence that he could never bear to accept. He should have felt optimistic, grateful for a new chance—a real future. But he felt very nervous.

He was also leaving behind the security of a decision-less life. And Sheldon—his friend, his father figure. Now, he was all alone. Except for his constant companion: Shame.

Chapter Two – Haven Above

Out of his end zone he ran, tentatively at first, just eluding one tackler, then another, until he made it to midfield. Then a remarkable thing happened. Someone cheered. Then another. Soon, there was a small crowd, all rooting for him. Finally, teammates ran alongside: Keep running, keep running! Don’t look back, and don’t stop! Approaching the goal line, he felt like a star. It no longer mattered whether he made it home, whether he scored a touchdown or not.

Mary, Mary, quite contrary. His new friend. They’d met in the prison education department, where he was getting information about obtaining his GED. Mary wasn’t an inmate and she wasn’t a guard. She wasn’t even a teacher. She was a nun! A Sister of Compassion. Her Order ran a college near the prison, and as part of their mission, they had, years earlier, established an education program and recruited volunteers to help educate the inmates. Sister Mary Mary was head of the volunteers.

Mary Mary hadn’t always been a nun, and she hadn’t always been Mary Mary. Her parents had named her Marilyn Lee, but called her Marilee as a child. Willful, even ornery as a child, the young girl grew into a rebellious young adolescent, and her unruliness knew no bounds. She routinely cussed out her parochial-school teachers and once threatened to knock a nun down the chapel stairs. Her friends—also unruly but far less aggressive—thought she was great, and given her last name of Contrera, it was only a matter of time until her pals began calling her Marilee, Marilee, quite Contrarily. About this time, her parents, like everyone else, gave up on Marilee, just hoping she would move away from home before she further disgraced the family, or killed someone.

After high school, Marilee submitted an application that surprised them all. Her motivation was inexplicable, and it was unbelievable that she could survive the rigorous admissions process. But she did. Marilee joined a nunnery! Even more incredibly—to her family if not herself—she thrived. When she completed her novitiate, her first obligation—honor, really—was to select a new name for herself: her new name in Christ. Most of her fellow novitiates chose saints’ names such as Mary Agnes or Mary Thomas, and some even tacked Mary on to their actual names, like Mary Susanne. Ignoring the strong advice of several older nuns, Marilee picked Mary for her name, becoming Sister Mary Mary Contrera. Her young fellow sisters loved it!

Sister Mary Mary was a real hit among the prisoners in the education program. They quickly recognized—and admired—her rebellious nature. She had a good sense of humor and could really take a joke, and share one as well. When she told a small audience of prisoners, You’d better watch yourselves around me. I once pushed a nun down four flights of stairs, only a few actually believed her, but everyone thought the story was a real hoot. For a while, Sister Mary Mary told the inmates that they could call her M&M as a nickname. But when a smart aleck sniggered, "I’d like to lick that M&M," Mary fired off a look of disgust that stunned even the most hardened prisoners. That afternoon, two convicts, feeling protective of their Sister, severely beat the offender during yard time. After that, Sister Mary decided that she didn’t really need a nickname, so she dropped it.

* * *

Mary Mary had kindly arranged the simple shelter for Cousins. All he knew about his new home was that it was downtown, above a bowling alley, and that he could get the key from the alley employee at the service counter. Sister really had connections. The room was supposed to be a safe haven for battered wives who were seeking temporary refuge. It hadn’t really worked out that way, apparently. According to Mary, everybody in town knew all about the room—above the bowling alley, for Pete’s sakes! No one had stayed in the room for months. What refuge was it when most angry husbands—especially those who bowled regularly—knew exactly where the safe house was?

Mary understood all of this. The space could be made available to Cousins just for her asking. She knew practically everyone in town who was even remotely connected to social services, and most of them owed her a favor or two. Mary wasn’t permitted to earn cash for all of her good works, but she was rich with accumulated favors.

* * *

As Cousins walked on, he passed a country club, and he thought about how much life had already passed him by. He had never been to a country club—never even played a round of golf. But maybe the club was hiring caddies. Did you have to know how to play golf to be a caddy? He’d watched plenty of golf on television and noticed how tiny some of the caddies were. Surely, he was strong enough to carry a golf bag—to keep his mouth quiet and just caddy the clubs around. Maybe he would look into it, once he got his bearings.

Even though he was walking on a major thoroughfare, Cousins began to see more and more birds—individuals, pairs, even small flocks. They were everywhere! Tiny as they were, they must have known instinctively not to fly into the prison compound, a mere mile away. Pigeons—big bullies—owned that place. In twelve years, he had seen only pigeons. Tons of them, and their excrement. Generations of pigeon excrement coated every building, permeating the air.

Now, free birds were everywhere, surrounding him. He must have seen birds like this in his youth, but he couldn’t really remember. Couldn’t recall the name of a single bird except for sports teams, like the Cardinals or Blue Jays. If he, as a prisoner, had tried to classify all birds, there would have been three categories: pigeons, team birds, and all others. A stark, undiscriminating taxonomy.

How had Sheldon classified the inmates he faced every day? Maybe four categories: killers, rapists, armed robbers, drug dealers. Slice those groups another way: Crips, Bloods, Barrio Boys, and Indys. Was I anything more than a subcategory to Sheldon? What had he known about my case—my offense? Did he even care? Cousins couldn’t answer any of these questions. He felt that Sheldon had understood him—cared about him. But maybe it was all a delusion.

Birds—so fragile, yet resilient. Twelve years. What was that to a bird species? Nothing, according to his evolution class. Even twelve generations meant nothing to a species.

But to humans? Twelve years isolated from cultural change—in a tiny cell at the state penitentiary.

It was now 1981, and the country seemed immersed in as much turmoil as when he had entered in 1969. The war that claimed his brother ended in 1973 without fanfare, a failure that the nation was still trying hard to forget. Three U.S. presidents had come and gone, and the new one, Ronald Reagan, had been shot in the chest just fifty-nine days after taking office. A rare form of pneumonia, eventually identified as AIDS, discovered in five homosexual men in Los Angeles. A young man from Atlanta arrested for the murder of two men and twenty-nine children. Pope John II barely survived an assassination attempt in Rome. Just four days before Cousins was released, there had been a gruesome discovery in a shallow canal in Florida: the decapitated head of a six-year-old boy, kidnapped from a department store.

Cousins thought now about the Pope—how the pontiff had later met with his would-be assassin, forgave him, even befriended his family. Cousins wished that he himself had been offered such compassion. That his victim’s family—his family—would forgive him. Not that he deserved it.

* * *

Now Cousins was walking past the college, he was sure, where Mary Mary worked and lived. An all-girls’ college, he thought she had said. Would he even be allowed on campus? Would the girls be terrified of him? Would Mary herself be afraid of what he might do? None of them had anything to worry about. It was the girls who would make him terrified! He hadn’t seen girls—young women, he supposed—in more than a dozen years.

After about an hour of walking, Cousins found a bench—a bus stop?—and rested for a few minutes. He was getting close to downtown, he knew, because there was more traffic. It felt good to rest, to breathe the outside air, to feel the sunlight, but it also made him nervous. Would people know he had just been released from prison, or would they mistake him for just a regular person, waiting for a bus? What to do if a bus did come? Just sit there, stupidly shaking his head no? Get up and walk away? Climb aboard and try to act normal? But what was normal? Pull yourself together. Normal is not worrying about everything, not fearing that everyone will recognize you as an ex-con. Before prison, he had always been so self-confident, mostly indifferent to the opinions of others. That was the place he needed to get back to.

He stood from the bench and continued his trek. Within five minutes, he arrived at what seemed to be the center of town. There were two- and three-story buildings, signs indicating lawyers and insurance agents, two banks on the same block. And new smells—a nearby diner, a garbage truck down the street. Everything looked brighter. The sun gleamed off everything, so unlike the abyss of prison, where the sun, obscured by walls, just peeked at the inmates.

The bowling alley couldn’t be far away. Plenty of people were milling about. Any one of them could tell him where the bowling alley was. But he was afraid to ask. Afraid of them? No, he reminded himself, don’t act afraid. They’ll just think I’m a tourist. How can they know I’m a convict? I don’t even have a tattoo.

He decided not to ask directions. He would guess his way to the bowling alley. Turning right at the next intersection, he headed east, he thought, toward the Missouri River. The Big Muddy, the inmates had called it. They talked about it constantly—what they would do if they could reach its banks. Fish for carp or catfish, wave a hand—or a finger—at the barges that floated by, do a girl right there on the riverbank in front of the boats and all. But it was just prison talk. Only a mile or two away, but most of them had never even seen the Big Muddy, probably.

Cousins thought back to his childhood, thinking that he himself actually had seen the Missouri once. He’d been only seven when he and his grandfather had driven to Kansas City to catch a train to Chicago. Now, he couldn’t actually recall seeing the river, but the train must have carried them right over it.

There it was—the bowling alley! Right in front of him. How should he enter? Through the sidewalk entrance, or through the door right off the parking lot? Would he see the counter? What would he say to the employee? I need the key? I’m the one Sister Mary Mary sent? How much is bowling?

He wanted Mary. He wanted her to be there, to take his hand and lead him to the counter, to negotiate the key, to help him find the room, to show him how to work the stove. To tell him everything would be all right. He was ashamed of his feelings. A hardened prisoner, needing a nanny. I’m sorry, I have to be in Kansas City all day, Mary had told him. You’ll be able to find the place fine.

Get a hold of yourself, Cousins scolded himself. You’re twenty-nine years old! But Mary was right not to come with him, to make him find the bowling alley himself, to make his own way.

* * *

The sleeping room had no stove, just a hot plate and a small pan—what did people call it—a saucer pan? A can opener and plenty of food, five cans of soup, one of beef stew, and a can of salad called German Potato. And he had his very own refrigerator, a tiny little cube, empty except for a blue plastic tray of ice. For a second, he considered asking Sheldon over to have supper with him, but he knew that was preposterous. Sheldon probably lived in a regular house with a wife and a lot of food and, of course, there were rules against prisoners asking guards over. Plus, he didn’t have Sheldon’s phone number. Or a phone.

But he did have a gigantic extra room. What to call it? His lounge? His sleeping room was situated right above the bowling pins, he knew, because he could hear them—feel them—crash every twenty or thirty seconds. That meant his lounge was probably as long as the entire bowling lane! It was badly junked up with old, dusty bowling pins, dozens of bowling balls, and old kitchen equipment. He would’ve traded it all for a chair or two. He’d just have to make do. At least there were plenty of boxes to sit on. But everything, especially the box chairs, would need to be dusted.

Maybe he could get a job at the bowling alley. He remembered bowling as a kid and really liking it. He’d copied his stance and ball release after some pro named Carter whom he’d watched on TV. Perhaps he could work at the snack bar or even the kitchen, if they showed him where to find the food and how to cook. Or maybe he could check out bowling shoes and break up fights. Kind of like a guard. They probably wouldn’t hire him, but it was worth a try. He couldn’t start today, though. He’d need a little time to get settled, to unpack his things, straighten up.

All those nights in prison, lights out at 10:00, inmates yelling at each other. Shut the fuck up or I’ll beat the shit out of ya. Go ahead and try, asshole. Prisoners moaning and sometimes crying, and toilets flushing from above, all night long. Reading became his sleeping pill. He’d taught himself to read right through the noise until sleep came to the rescue. At first, it took hours but eventually just a few minutes. And when he slept, he slept great. The best part of his day. When morning bell clanged in the new day, his nightmare began.

* * *

His first night, Cousins found it impossible to sleep. Every sound was strange, distorted. Lights out for bowlers wasn’t until 12:30, according to the counter girl. By 9:00, Ronnie’s bedtime in prison, things were just starting to roll below. There was laughter and drunken merriment whenever a strike was bowled. It was nice to hear people celebrating, but it got old fast. For a while, he lay watching the second hand of his bedside clock, timing the gaps between strikes.

His small window was both fascinating and unnerving. It had been many years since he’d slept in a room with a window, a view to the outside world. And he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so close to glass without a guard at his side. He liked his new window, but he thought back to several inmates who would have impulsively punched out the glass.

It was August and the night was stifling, no air flow whatsoever in his room. But it didn’t matter. He got out of bed and stood in front of his window, exhilarated by the view of the parking lot below. It wasn’t scenic, but it was exciting. The crowd that gathered in the parking lot seemed much younger than the bowlers inside, and much tougher. Everyone was smoking and leaning against cars, mood subdued. No merriment. Brown paper sacks were passed around, with necks of bottles protruding. Then he heard bickering that escalated into threats: Shut the fuck up, or I’ll beat the crap out of ya. Go ahead and try, assface.

A young couple, the guy about sixteen or seventeen, the girl a year or two younger, pulled into the parking lot at 10:50. She sat close to him, and they kissed long and hard before they both slid out the driver’s side. Walking close, his arm around her, her hand in his hip pocket, they entered the bowling alley. Good clean fun. At 11:25, she stormed out, the guy following closely behind. He caught her at the car, grabbing her upper arm. She jerked away from his clutch and added a shove. He grabbed again and raised a fist. No longer struggling, she looked directly into his face. Was she fearful or defiant? From his angle, Cousins can’t tell. Finally, the guy released her. She strode off angrily, out of the parking lot and down the street. He got in his car, started it, roaring his engine. Before leaving the parking lot, he stopped and looked left, the direction taken by his angry girl. Then he turned right and peeled off.

They don’t know how good they have it.

* * *

He was always excited to get her letters. When he got that first one, years ago, he had already been in prison for six years. He could barely read it—the handwriting looked like that of a fourth-grader. You wouldn’t know it by my handwriting, the letter began, but I turned eighteen today. Writing you is my birthday gift to myself. It’s something I’ve been waiting to do for a long time. Cousins was touched, but he didn’t know how to respond. So he didn’t.

In her second letter, she asked, almost accusingly, if he remembered her, if he even knew who she was. "I remember the first time I ever saw you. I remember what you wore, what you said, and even the way you walked. But I bet you don’t remember me at all—you probably didn’t even know I existed. I looked up to you—of course, I have to look up to about everybody. But I really looked up to you. And I remember the last time I saw you, too. You were sitting down, at my level, and you looked very sad. But even then, I looked up to you, and I still do."

At first, her letters were short, and they were mostly questions. Eventually, though, she began talking more about herself, telling stories about her days in school, asking him if he remembered this teacher or that secretary, and if high school was just as boring back when he was a student.

Finally—he couldn’t remember after how many letters—he wrote her back. He hadn’t written anyone in years. There was nothing to say, nothing worth writing about. But how could he not write her? She’d reached out to him, over and over, without any response, maybe without any expectation of a response. He owed her a letter. More than obligation, though, he felt an odd need to respond to her, to tell her that he really did remember her when they’d been in grade school together—and when she’d been at his trial.

He was surprised to find writing Sandy to be liberating. Writing the word courtroom. Writing of school days, long before he ruined his life. Writing to someone who knew everything about it—what he had done. And she still liked him. A lot, he thought.

* * *

They wrote each other for six years. He never tired of reading her letters, and, judging by the frequency of her letters, she never tired of writing him.

Tues., July 14, 1981

Dear Ron,

I know you want to be called Ron, but every time I write it, I can’t help but think of you as Ronnie. I know you have changed a lot since you last lived in Humble. (I guess I should just cut the euphemisms and say since you’ve been in prison.) But I still imagine you just the way you were in fifth grade, when you were so happy-go-lucky. Of course, I can picture you at your trial—you were seventeen, I know—and it is just so painful for me, remembering how sad you were.

And you probably envision me as a grade-schooler, just sitting helplessly in my wheelchair. But, you know, I’m twenty-four now, and you’d really be surprised how I look. Of course, you have the pictures I sent, but my chair is just a small part of who I am.

Do you know what day exactly you might get out? Surely it’s the only date you can think about, and it’s my dream date for you, too. Knowing Corrections, though, I bet they won’t even tell you. Just keep you (and me) guessing. Please write me the second you find out, okay?

Remember I told you Dad got Milt his own car—a ’70 Nova? It’s pretty old, definitely a junker, but he’s damn lucky to have it. And they set him up in his own apartment, just out of high school. But he still comes over and takes my van! He asks, just to be polite: Let me take the van for a while. I gotta drive my friends, and they don’t all fit in the Nova too good. He knows it’s hard for me to say no, and when I do, he just takes the van anyway. Then, if I want to go anywhere, Dad has to wrestle my chair into the trunk and drive me. All of that makes me feel just like a child again. I’ve really got to work on my assertiveness.

I’m talking way too much about myself. Please write me right back and tell me if you’re having a good day or a bad day. I don’t care how boring you probably think your life is, it’s interesting to me. I’m always so excited to hear from you.

What I really want to know (besides your release date) is what exactly you are going to do. Are you going to come back to Humble? To live? For a visit? I know you said Sister Mary Mary might help set you up, and it might be best not to come back to town for a while. If you end up in Leavenworth, I really hope you’ll let me come visit you.

For some reason, it’s really hard for me to end a letter to you. I hope you don’t mind my long letters, and I especially hope you don’t roll your eyes when you get a really thick envelope. So, I’m keeping this letter real short. I just hope you understand how really important it is to me to know when you get released and where you will be.

As always (still can’t decide how to close),

Sandy

Chapter Three – Car Wash

A clean car, that’s a worldly pleasure, he thought. The grit and grime, accumulated, crammed