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Chapter 37
A week later, we found ourselves sitting at a table at the Cedar Junction Massachusetts Correctional Institution, waiting for inmates to be called in for visiting hours. It was a dank, cement block of a room, with scattered tables and chairs that had been anchored to the floor. Anything in prison could be used as a weapon.
A few minutes later, the inmates who had visitors were led in. Most of them recognized their visitors and headed to their tables, where they were allowed to sit opposite each other without touching while the prison guards stood at the periphery of the room, heavily armed.
An older man hovered at the entrance, looking around with some confusion. But when his eyes locked on Brandon, sudden recognition flooded his leathery features, and he moved with sudden speed.
"That's him," Brandon said.
We both stood up as the man approached the table.
Even if I hadn't been told as much, I still would have known that John Sterling was Brandon's father. Somewhere close to seventy, with wrinkled skin from too many years of alcohol and drug abuse, his tall, lean form was still built like an ox. He had broad shoulders, muscular forearms, and a strong jaw line that persisted in a way most men's don't after a certain age––basically a carbon copy of his son's distinguishing physical traits, but even bigger. I could easily see how he would have scared the living daylights out of most people when he was in his prime. His gray hair was cropped short, but only thinned slightly at the crown, and he had a pair of bright blue eyes that might have pierced if they weren't so dulled from living such a hard life.
But that was where the similarities stopped.
"Well, well, well," he croaked, and then proceeded to hack for at least thirty seconds all over the table. He had a scratchy voice that spoke of years of tobacco usage. When he smiled, I had to fight not to recoil. The man's teeth were a wreck, stained and decayed visibly in several places, likely from years of extreme drug and alcohol abuse.
"Never thought I'd see the day," he said, as he looked Brandon over. "The boys in here don't believe me when I tell 'em you're my son. But here you are, lookin' like a million fuckin' dollars of dirty money. Or is it a billion? Eh, who the fuck cares? You're here, and it only took you twenty fuckin' years."
Twenty years of imprisonment had not done good things for John Sterling. But his voice was rolled thick with the same tones of Dorchester I had heard in Brandon's speech from time to time––flattened a's and open r's.
Brandon was a statue beside me, staring at the man who was responsible for half his genes. I had never seen a clearer argument for nurture over nature in my entire life. In just a few sentences, John Sterling had demonstrated that he was everything his son wasn't: petty, nasty, and above all, weak.
"How you been, Pop?" Brandon said in a voice so quiet I almost couldn't hear it above the din.
Sterling looked his son over with one eye squinted, as if testing to see if the benign question carried some kind of bomb detonator.
"How've I been? I been locked up for two fuckin' decades, and now them pigs just gave me another twenty on Monday."
"Yeah, I heard about that," Brandon said more calmly than I was sure he felt. "I'm sorry."
No one actually said out loud that Sterling had just been convicted for a brutal stabbing of one of his cellmates. There had been no trial, only a plea deal, since the man couldn't afford a lawyer. Brandon had informed me of it a few days ago, telling me I didn't have to come if I didn't want to.
"The man's a murderer, Red," he had said as we sat on the couch at home. "He's rotten, right down to it."
But there wasn't a chance in hell I was going to let Brandon face his worst demon without me there with him. Not when he'd stood by me as I'd faced so many of my own.
"It was self-defense," Sterling said. "You got no idea what kind of crazies are in here with me. He attacked me first. What was I supposed to do?" Then, as if the interrogation was over, Sterling turned his blazing blue eyes on me. The way they echoed his son's was more than a little unnerving. "And who's this foxy little thing you brought home to meet Daddy?"
In my peripheral vision, I saw Brandon's jaw tighten, but I didn't dare break eye contact with Sterling.
"I'm Skylar," I said.
"My fiancée," Brandon said tightly. "So you can show some goddamn respect."
"There he is, there's my boy," Sterling crowed, leaning back in his seat. "I knew there was some asshole in there somewhere." He winked at me, and I immediately felt dirty. "I bet you like that part, don't ya, sweetheart?" Before I could answer, he looked back at Brandon. "You gonna be a man? Make her take our name?"
Brandon didn't even bother to conceal his disdain. "She's a grown woman. Pretty sure I can't 'make' her do anything."
Sterling just snorted, sounding like a ball of phlegm was lodged in the back of his throat. "Seems to me a real man wouldn't let his woman chop off his balls like that. You gonna become Mr. Skylar, Teapot?"
I frowned. Teapot?
Brandon just gritted his teeth, though I saw his hand clench under the table. "Not that it's any of your business, but we'll both keep our own goddamn names, thanks."
"I'm surprised you're still Sterling anyway," Sterling said, without a trace of irony. "After forsakin' your ma the way you did for them kikes up in Somerville."
Brandon's knuckles turned white. Twenty-five years since he'd last seen him or not––John Sterling still knew exactly how to punch his son in the gut.
