Release

By Susan Buttenwieser

On Friday, Roy arrives at Marty’s Food and Fuel for his 6 a.m. shift to find it’s been vandalized, yet again. For the second time this week, all the garbage bags in the dumpsters have been taken out and ripped open, the trash cans tipped over. But it’s the flyers taped along the entranceway and the gas pumps that are the real problem, the same ones plastered all over Raneham. Mug shots of Roy’s older brother, Lonnegan, with convict, beware in red lettering underneath the black and white grainy photographs warning of his imminent return, along with Aunt Pauline’s address, where he’ll live when he’s released from prison on Sunday. In two days’ time. The flyers make it clear that the garbage is not the random act of boneheaded kids. Marty’s Food and Fuel is being deliberately targeted because of Lonnegan’s connection to it.

It’s a bitter February morning and Roy cranks the heat before venturing outside. For the past month, he’s been getting to work almost an hour early, when the flyers first appeared around Raneham and the ransacking of the gas station began. His boss, Kenner, has told him taking care of the mess is Roy’s priority. Salting the ice, shoveling, everything else can wait. But the outside area needs to be presentable by the time the early morning customers start to arrive. And that means no flyers anywhere.

The car door moans open, and Roy takes slow, careful steps on the new ice that formed overnight. He uses a box cutter to remove the flyers duct-taped to the nozzles, tricky, delicate work requiring his bare hands and peels off the ones stuck to the windows and the front door. Once he’s taken them all down, he tackles the mounds of garbage by the dumpster and scatters salt by the entranceway.

It’s still dark when he’s finished, with ten minutes to spare before Marty’s Food and Fuel opens for the day, and he hurries inside the convenience store to get the coffee going.

“Hey Roy, come in here a sec,” Kenner calls to him from the supply room that doubles as the office.

Roy blows on his hands to warm them up and tries to think of what he’s done to piss off his boss. The two men barely speak to one another this early in the morning. Kenner points to a metal folding chair with his chin, indicating Roy should have a seat, and drinks his Dunkin Donuts coffee. He’s been growing a beard since the fall and his efforts are finally paying off, a large mound of thick, starting-to-gray reddish-brown hair surrounds his mouth, spreading out across his cheeks. He’s in his usual work attire, a Red Sox wool hat and a black vest over a flannel shirt.

Roy avoids making eye contact with his boss. Instead, he focuses on the photograph just behind him, of his uncle Marty, the original owner of the gas station, with his arms around his sons, Gus and Rocco. Before he got sick. Before he sold Marty’s Food and Fuel to Kenner.

Kenner blows out a deep breath with his lips. “Look man, I don’t know how to say this, but I changed my mind about Lonnegan. It’s not gonna work. Him, here. No can do, dude.” He takes off the Red Sox hat and runs his fingers through his hair, which points out in all directions as if it hasn’t been near shampoo and water in a long time.

The garbage and the flyers are bad enough, Kenner says. But what will happen when customers see Lonnegan behind the register? It might scare them away. “I can’t risk losing them over him.” Kenner pulls the hat back on. “We’re barely hanging on as it is. And having an ex-con in here? It could be the kiss of death. I’m an open-minded kind of guy, but don’t think most people around here are. Sorry dude. Wish it wasn’t like this, but it is.” Kenner nods, indicating the conversation is over and that Roy should get a move on.

Something ugly forms in Roy’s stomach as he makes the coffee. It was Aunt Pauline’s idea to ask Kenner about a job for Lonnegan at the gas station when he got out of prison. Anything would do, just so he could start making some money and hopefully wouldn’t end up living with her for too long. Roy’s apartment is tiny, his lease doesn’t allow roommates and the landlady lives in the building, so Lonnegan can’t stay with him for more than a couple of days. Finding work will be challenging for Lonnegan with a felony conviction, and not much of an employment history. Not a legal one that is, and maybe if he already had a job, Pauline thought it might convince other employers to take a chance on him. Roy spoke to Kenner about it, explaining that Lonnegan was different, prison had changed him, and he could definitely be trusted, even though there was nothing to indicate this was actually true. Kenner agreed to take Lonnegan on for a few months, but only during Roy’s shifts because he didn’t want to be alone with him.

Over the next few hours a handful of people trickle in to fill their tanks, grab a coffee, use the bathroom. Kenner let go of the weekday cashier so although Roy is technically the manager, he’s the sole employee dealing with customers until his shift ends at three. Which isn’t exactly taxing. There’s a momentary flurry of activity around mid-morning when a carload of teenagers burst through the door, stoned out of their minds, giggling as they wander the aisles. They’re still considering the different snack options when a man comes in with a little boy, asking if he could borrow the store’s microwave to heat up his son’s mac and cheese. The boy clings to his father’s leg, eyeing the teenagers warily, while Roy explains how to work the temperamental machine, joking around with the kid, enough to coax out a grin. After they all leave, the place is still, with the quiet hush of a funeral home. It’s yawning into another slow day at Marty’s Food and Fuel.

Business has been particularly bad since a Cumberland Farms opened in the fall. It has twice as many pumps, a giant convenience store, and a better location, right off the thruway. But Aunt Pauline says the real problem is Kenner, who she’s never liked. He doesn’t have Uncle Marty’s charisma and charm, a crucial component in an independent business, and the only way to compete with the franchises. She never agreed with the decision to sell the gas station to Kenner. But Uncle Marty was diagnosed with metastatic cancer, and given less than a year to live. Kenner, a cousin of Marty’s, was already managing it, and he was the easiest and quickest option, when there weren’t a lot of other ones. But it was flourishing at the time, and look at it now, Pauline says.

Friday morning creeps along. Around noon, Kenner leaves for a meeting with a distributor. Roy leans his elbows on the counter, waiting for more customers to arrive. He knows every inch of the gas station, having worked here, on and off, since he was in middle school. While his classmates spent their Saturdays playing soccer, ice hockey, fishing the area lakes, Roy was cleaning the restroom, stocking shelves, sweeping the floor, making sure the coffee machines were filled. But Saturdays meant alone time with his uncle while they drove to the gas station before sunrise and joking around all day with Gus and Rocco, who were much older than him. Marty and his sons knew everyone in Raneham and on Saturdays, the gas station had the feel of an open house with people dropping by all day long, Roy fetching them coffee and pastries. But most of all, working at the gas station on Saturdays meant being trusted with responsibility, being part of the family business. That trust was never extended to Lonnegan; Uncle Marty never asked him to help out. And Roy wasn’t proud of this fact, but it felt good to be considered the more reliable brother, even though he was younger by almost three years. His brother had never been very nice him, and they were competitive and rivalrous with each other. At school, Lonnegan hung out with the tough kids, the bullies, intimidated everyone, even the teachers. Meanwhile, Roy was shy and just tried to stay away from the crosshairs of the mean kids like his brother. But unlike Lonnegan, he had Uncle Marty and his family on his side.

Finally, three o’clock rolls around and Ivan, his replacement, comes in to take over. Roy drives over to his aunt’s house to conduct his daily search so she doesn’t have to contend with flyers taped to her garage and the front door when she gets back from work, a frequent occurrence. One night, Pauline woke to the sound of breaking glass downstairs; someone threw a brick through her living room window. When Roy came over the next morning to fix it, the brick was still in the middle of the room with a flyer rubber-banded around it. Pauline knelt on the floor and cleared up the broken glass while Roy worked to replace the pane. Neither of them said anything until the job was finished.  

Roy gets out of his car and walks around the blue wood-framed house, where he spent much of his childhood. His father died when Roy was five and his mother drank heavily and was often hospitalized or in rehab for long stretches of time, so he and Lonnegan got sent here until she was better. When he was in middle school, it was decided that his mother could no longer take care of her sons so they came to live with their aunt and uncle permanently. Gus and Rocco had left home by then so there was plenty of room. They rarely saw their mother after that, and she passed away several years ago. Roy was more comfortable at his aunt and uncle’s than he’d been in his own home, which had been chaotic, and he thrived here. But for Lonnegan, the move was devastating.

Once Roy determines that everything is okay at his aunt’s house, he goes to the gym, followed by a quick shower at home and a dinner of two microwaved frozen burritos before heading over to West Steyning, the nearest town to Raneham with any semblance of a gay nightlife. Meaning two gay bars and a quasi-nightclub. The temperatures are below freezing with fierce winds, so hardly anyone is out. Roy is home and in bed by eleven.

It snows almost a foot overnight. Roy wakes before dawn like always, even though it’s Saturday and he’s not working. The window by his bed faces an air shaft so he doesn’t notice the snow until he’s making coffee and realizes there’s hardly any traffic noise. He dresses quickly, grabs a Hostess donut and fills his travel mug with the coffee. After digging out his car, he makes his way through the snowy streets to his aunt’s house. She strained her back right after the holidays and the doctor has given her a long list of things to avoid doing, including shoveling. Roy keeps offering to have his friend with a plowing business clear her driveway, but she only wants Roy to do it.

When he gets there, the lights are off, so Roy doesn’t go inside, just starts right in on the driveway, lifting the snow, tossing it to the side, over and over again while the sky brightens. Next, he tackles the pathway between the kitchen door and the garage as well as the one leading to the front door, even though it’s never used. Then he shovels the sidewalk in front of the house. Hardly any cars drive by and the only sounds are kids playing in the snow, sledding and throwing snowballs, and the scraping of shovels, the whirring of blowers.

The whole endeavor takes several hours and once he’s finally finished, he’s starving. Aunt Pauline is up now, siting in the extension, a small sun porch just off the living room where they set up his uncle’s hospice bed just before he died, two and a half years ago.

Roy takes off his boots in the vestibule, and he can hear his aunt talking on the phone. After hanging up his coat and snow pants, he pads out to the extension and waves to her. She has a cigarette in her hand and indicates the phone, as if he can’t see for himself that she’s on it. “Deedee, Roy’s here, I better motor.” She takes a drag. “So what you’d say to him after that?”  Pauline cackles, listening to her daughter-in-law’s response. “Wow, you got balls, you know that? Wish I had your balls.” More cackling. “Listen, I really gotta go. You tell that Rocco I said hello, too. Later baby, love you.” She makes a loud smooching sound.

“Hey there you.” She comes into the living room where Roy is scrolling through his phone and he stands to hug her. “Thanks for doing all that.” She sweeps her arms, indicating the shoveling. “Can you believe this snow? Thought they said ‘a light dusting.’” She gestures air quotes. “You hungry?”

“Well…you know…” He toes the rug.

“Stupid question. Why am I even asking?”

Roy follows her into the kitchen which she just painted orange with blue trim around the windows. Since Marty died, she’s changed the colors several times. First, it was red, then bright yellow, followed by what she called washed-out, French farmhouse green, after seeing an article in some magazine.

Roy offers to help, but she tells him to sit while she cooks. The smell of the grilling bacon makes Roy so hungry, he almost drools. She puts on toast, wraps the bacon in a paper towel, cracks three eggs into the pan and fries them in the grease. Once everything is done, she dishes the food onto two plates, giving Roy the larger portion. They eat quickly.

“Snow makes me feel sleepy.” Pauline wipes her mouth with a napkin and crumples it up, tossing it onto her empty plate. “I don’t feel like doing anything today.”

“So don’t.”

“Ha. Fat chance of that. Gotta get all ready for my new roomie, don’t I? And everything I do Sundays, it’s gotta happen today.” She rattles off a list of chores. Laundry, grocery shopping, cleaning the bathroom. “And I still haven’t set up Lonnegan’s room, not really anyway. Hey, is he starting Monday? Or Tuesday, I can’t remember what you said.”

Roy’s breakfast rises up in his throat. “So, uhm,” he stammers. “Lonnegan doesn’t have a job. Kenner said it’s not going to work out.”

“What? Are you kidding me? What does he mean it’s not going to ‘work out.’ That’s my fucking gas station!” She pushes her chair back and picks up her plate. For a moment, Roy worries she’s going to hurl it at him. Instead she drops it into the sink. “That man has some nerve. What did he say, exactly?”

Roy repeats the conversation with Kenner. “And what did you say?” she asks.

“What can I say? I don’t have any say in anything there. I think my days might be numbered, I mean….”

“That piece of...if that place closes down. I mean after everything we did? And he doesn’t even have the decency to give Lonnegan a job?” She grabs her phone. “I’ve had it. I’ve fucking had. Gonna give that piece a shit a piece of my mind.”

“Aunt Pauline, I’m not sure that’s a….”

“Fuckin’ Kenner. That man doesn’t know his asshole from his elbow. Never has. He’s ruining Lonnegan’s chances, and it’s not fair.” She punches a number in her phone and Roy holds his breath, until he realizes she’s called Deedee instead. While his aunt tells her the whole thing, Roy starts in on the dishes.

“Okay, I’m calm now.” Pauline says after she’s hung up. “Or calmer. Or a little less…cuckoo. Deedee’s good like that, isn’t she? And she had a smart suggestion: we should ask around. We must know someone who needs an extra hand with something. Even if it’s Lonnegan’s hands.” She goes into the extension to make some calls and after Roy finishes clearing up, he does the same thing.

First, he tries his buddy with the plowing business, but their insurance won’t cover someone with a felony conviction, he claims. Roy has friends who work at landscaping companies, in restaurants, doing construction, installing and maintaining air-conditioning units, clearing drains. But after trying every single person he can think of, he doesn’t get one person to agree to take on Lonnegan, or ask their boss if they might have something for him. Not even a temporary position. Pauline and Deedee get the same answer. No one says maybe or they’ll think about it, or to check back in a couple of weeks. It’s just no, no, no, a solid hour of it. That, or people don’t even bother to respond.

Roy’s back is sore from shoveling. He wants to go the gym and stretch it out; there’s a drop-in yoga class starting in an hour, which might help too. But his aunt is staring out the window, her eyes filling with tears, so he stays a little longer. The sky is crystalline blue, the sun sparkling across the deep, heavy snow covering the yard, the trees, the next-door neighbor’s house where their small children are shrieking as they sled down the small incline of the driveway.

“I wish…” his aunt starts to say, then shakes her head and doesn’t finish the sentence. Roy knows the rest, what she always says when faced with a seemingly unsolvable problem. I wish Marty were here.

“It’s those fucking flyers, isn’t it? She’s been stirring everyone up with them, and now look where we are.” Pauline springs from her chair. “That’s it. I’m gonna talk to her. She’s got to stop with all this.”

She means Trish Vance, the woman she thinks is responsible for creating the flyers and putting them all over Raneham. Her daughter had been Lonnegan’s high school girlfriend and Trish tells everyone there are two Bettys. Betty before she knew Lonnegan, a straight A-student, captain of the girls’ varsity soccer team, on the Ivy League track. And the Betty afterwards, a heroin addict who never finished school.

His aunt shouldn’t drive when she’s this upset, especially with all the snow so Roy offers to take her. Even though he can practically hear Uncle Marty arguing with her, telling her that a confrontation with Trish Vance is a terrible idea. Roy can’t think how to put that into words and convince her not to go.

As they head up Raneham Hill, the wealthy part of town where the Vance’s live, they pass clusters of children playing in the snow and sledding down the big hill in Brewster Park. Pauline has her head turned all the way to the right, and although Roy can’t see her face, her shoulders are shaking and he knows she’s crying. Before Uncle Marty got sick, he rarely saw his aunt in tears. Now, however, it happens all the time and he still doesn’t know what to do, how to comfort her.

“Fuck you, Trish,” Pauline says when they see the flyers posted on all the windows at Auggie’s Package & Variety.

They continue up Raneham Hill, past large houses with giant front lawns. Some have driveways that are so long, the houses aren’t visible from the street. One even has its own tennis court.

Before they turn onto Cherry Lane, Pauline tells Roy to pull over. “That’s it, right there on the corner.” Pauline points to a massive yellow house with a circular drive. “I did a bad thing, Roy. A really bad thing.”

“Yeah? What’d you do?” Roy looks over at his aunt. The tears have started again.

“I almost threw a rock at their kitchen window.”

Roy nods his head, trying to think of something to say. “But you didn’t. There’s a difference between almost and did.”

“I came really close though. I drove up here and I got out of the car, holding this big rock and walked to the house with it. It’s still in my car, in the back seat.”

“Okay, but no harm no foul.”

“Roy, I’ve been driving over here almost every day after work and parking here and staring at the house. Just staring at it. And last week, I saw her. I saw Trish Vance come out of her house and it was all I could do to stop myself from throwing that rock at her, smashing her head in.” She lets out a small sob. “What’s happening to me? I’m losing my shit.”

Roy sucks on his teeth and starts to get out of the car. “I’ll do it. I’ll talk to her. You’re right, she needs to cut it out with these flyers.”

Pauline reaches over and grabs him. “No wait, don’t. Hold on a sec. I don’t want you mixed up with this.”

“What’s she doing is wrong.”

“It is. But Deedee told me she heard Betty almost died. Right before Christmas. Overdosed. And they’ve tried everything apparently to help her, and nothing’s working. And I gotta say at this point, how much longer before…And that’s her baby.” Her voice cracks. “And here I am stalking this poor woman.”

“She’s not exactly poor.” Roy sniffs.

“You know what I mean.” Pauline wipes at her face. Roy hands her some Dunkin Donuts napkins that he has stuffed in the compartment by the door. “Thanks.” She blows her nose. “I need to stop. You gotta help me. I can’t be driving up here with a rock in my car once Lonnegan is home, now can I?”

“Okay.” It’s so hard to picture his aunt hurling a rock through a window, let alone hitting someone with it. “How about we get rid of it, so you’re not tempted again.”

“Yes, please. Get that thing out of my car. And how ‘bout you text me every morning, remind me to behave. Just say, don’t do it. I haven’t told anyone about this, not even Deedee, so….”

“Your secret is safe with me.”

She squeezes his knee. “Let’s get out of here.”

On the way back, they stop at Big Y so Pauline can get her week’s worth of groceries. When they get to her house, Roy carries the bags inside and they go over the logistics of the trip. Lonnegan is scheduled to be released at nine the next morning, and it’s a two-hour drive, so his aunt wants to leave by six, in case there’s traffic or something.

It’s starting to get dark and after he buries the rock in the snow, Roy sits for a minute in his car, letting the engine warm up. He decides to forgo the bars in West Steyning--it will be another quiet night because of the weather. And besides, Ty’s, his favorite place, is always fun on Sunday afternoons, and he’ll be back in plenty of time to get there. He’ll go out tomorrow instead.

The street lights are on and the snow in the front yard is bathed in an orange glow. Inside the house, he can see his aunt is settled back in the extension, a cigarette in her hand while she talks on the phone. Tomorrow, Lonnegan will be there, with her.

His brother was never the same after they left their mother and came to live here. While Roy flourished with having a routine, set times for meals, chores, and a regular bedtime, Lonnegan couldn’t make the adjustment. He never did his homework or helped around the house or any of the other things his aunt and uncle expected of him. He was in high school by then and although he’d never been the greatest student, his grades plummeted. On the weekends, he ignored his curfew, and there were constant arguments, especially between Lonnegan and Pauline. One night, after they’d been living with his aunt and uncle for several years, there’d been a terrible fight. Lonnegan called his aunt names, and even Uncle Marty, who was always calm and rarely raised his voice, lost his temper. Lonnegan packed a bag and ran out of the house. He was gone for several days. When Uncle Marty found him, he tried to persuade him to come back, but Lonnegan refused. After that, he stopped going to school altogether and they hardly ever saw him. Every once in a while, he’d make a sudden appearance, showing up at the house without any warning, usually with Betty in tow, to grab something from his bedroom.

Over the years, they’d get occasional reports of Lonnegan’s whereabouts. A friend of Rocco’s said he saw him come into a bar with a bunch of groceries that were obviously stolen. He went around from four-top to four-top, bar stool to bar stool, asking if anyone wanted to buy one of the large blocks of Kraft cheese or packages of Slim Jims he had stuffed inside his jacket. People started laughing at him and he got angry, threw cheese at a woman, before he was hustled out by the bartender.

Aside from those few glimpses here and there, Roy doesn’t know very much about his brother’s life between the time he left his aunt and uncle’s house and his arrest, a few months after Uncle Marty died. The only clue is the long list of people he’s not allowed to associate with anymore, according to his Home Release plan, and what he could glean from online news articles about the drug trafficking ring his brother had been part of. Lonnegan was arrested along with seventeen other people and sentenced to two years for possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute. He’d also done a few brief stints in jail, a night or two here and there, for more minor offenses, like getting into fights, according to the local papers, but those never went to trial.

On Sunday, the roads are clear and they make good time. When they get to the prison, they wait in the car because it’s too cold to stand outside. They’d seen a man released when they were visiting Lonnegan just before Christmas. A whole crowd was there to greet him, including his wife and two little daughters. One person held a giant cake, another a bouquet of balloons, and someone else had a sign that said, Welcome Home, Daddy, with small hand prints in red and blue all over it. When the man emerged, the two girls ran to him, their hair in tight braids, both wearing matching yellow dresses, squealing, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy.

Roy and Pauline don’t have balloons, a cake or even a homemade sign. An hour goes by before Lonnegan is walking out the security gates escorted by a guard wearing the clothes Roy and Pauline brought him for this occasion, blue jeans and a black puffy winter jacket. He’s carrying a white canvas bag, a folder and nothing else.

His brother, his big brother. They’ve barely spoken in years aside from gruff exchanges here and there, awkward conversations in the prison visiting room. But now as he walks towards him, Roy longs to tell Lonnegan everything, every single thing that’s happened to him over the last nine years since they lived together under the same roof.

Their eyes meet. Roy used to be scared of his brother, and whenever he showed up with Betty, he’d avoid him. Now, he holds his brother’s gaze as they walk towards each other and he tries to stifle that old feeling, and replace it with something else. Something verging on tenderness, something verging on love. A small smile crosses his brother’s face. Behind him, sunshine glistens across the fresh snow.

THE END

Author Bio: Susan Buttenwieser is the author of the novel, “Junction of Earth and Sky” (Manilla Press) and the short story collection, “We Were Lucky With the Rain” (Four Way Books). She has taught poetry and memoir writing for over twenty years in diverse settings including a women’s maximum-security prison, public middle schools in the Bronx and Queens, homeless shelters, libraries, services for older adults, and juvenile detention facilities.

Next Page