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Bo
Harding Victor Kreuiter When Bo Harding was a boy,
he didn’t know he’d spend most of his life behind bars. How could he know that,
him just a boy? His
mother’s boyfriend – the first one he remembered – he slapped Bo around
and Bo didn’t know why. His mother would drink, get mean, then start in on slapping
him, too, acting like she was teasing, starting soft then hit harder, using that language.
Why would she do that? That’s what he
thought. Her and her boyfriends, they’d call him names, punch him, laughing. When
it got like that he’d walk out. He was just a kid; he’d walk out the door into
the dark. She never came after him; not once. Didn’t she care, him sleeping on the
porch all night? Sleeping in the car? Harding got a little older and done some stuff and he
didn’t care what anybody thought about what he done. His mother, her boyfriends,
police. He didn’t explain or defend himself. He didn’t cry. I’ll say I did it. That’s how he thought. You think I’m afraid to say I did it? Reformatory wasn’t bad.
The first few days was scary, but he never said a word to nobody. “I got me a job,”
his mother told him the first time she came to visit. That first time was the only time.
“I’m sorry Bo, I just can’t get here all that often.” She didn’t
have no job. That’s what he found out after he got out. How you get money? Harding never asked
her that. He got older and figured it out and he didn’t want to say it out loud.
He didn’t want to think about it. The men around her weren’t friendly to him.
He mostly left when they came over. Hell, they came over any time, day or night. You think I don’t know what’s up here?
That’s what he thought. He wasn’t dumb. You
think I don’t know? Hell, he didn’t care. Didn’t matter to him. Didn’t
matter at all. She’d be drinking all day anyhow. Harding didn’t drink. Ever. His second time was real
jail, a longer stay. He didn’t care. After his first fight no one bothered him. He
slept when they told him to sleep and ate when they told him to eat and worked at whatever
they told him to work at. Hell, things can be worse than that. He knew worse. When he come out the second
time he didn’t like it. He found a job, then got fired, then found a job, then got
fired, then found a job, then got fired. I don’t
have to put up with this shit. That’s what he thought. He’d been inside
twice. He wasn’t scared. He asked his mother one time why she didn’t come visit
and she just laughed. She was drinking then and had a cigarette stuck in her mouth and
gave him that look. I hate you. That’s
what the look said to him. Why does she hate me?
That’s what he wondered. Then he thought: should
I hate her? She
told him to get out when her boyfriends came over. “I’d like a little privacy,”
she’d say. She’d have a cigarette stuck in her mouth and something to drink
in her hand. “This here is my place,” she’d say. “I pay the bills here
and I’d like some damn privacy.” When
he went to the penitentiary the final time he didn’t say nothing to nobody and he
was big enough nobody said much to him. She wasn’t coming for no visits, that’s
for sure. When some ignorant-ass convict would bring that up, Harding would give him the
eye. Bo Harding had that stare. One
guy in the yard, he stepped right behind Harding and said “Your mama don’t
visit?” Then he laughed, like he knew about something. Nobody else laughed. Harding
looked at him and remembered his face and when he got a chance a couple days later he put
his hands on that man’s neck and he held on. They run over and start beating him
with clubs, grabbing his hands, screaming and hitting him over and over and he kept squeezing
that neck. I can do this. That’s what
he was thinking. I can do this. Harding held on, squeezing that neck, thinking
about that time she looked at him like she hated him. What’d he do that she would
hate him like that? They
said he had to go on trial. Like a trial scares me. That’s what he thought. Hell,
I’ll say whatever they want me to say. And
he did. He said it like they told him to. That verdict came back guilty. You ask Bo Harding if he
was sorry for anything and he wouldn’t say a word. I don’t have to say nothing to nobody. That’s what he thought.
Ask him if a 6x8 foot cell was home and he wouldn’t say a word. Call it what you want. That’s what he’d think. Call it any damn thing you want. The rest of his life? He didn’t think about that
neither. Why the hell they want me to think about
the rest of my life? That’s how he thought. I
don’t have to think about nothing.. He was okay inside. He liked it. Inside he ate
when they told him and slept when they told him. He’d think: What’s so tough about this? No visitors? Like that would bother him?
What do I want a visitor for? That’s
what Bo Harding thought. What would I say
to a visitor?
Victor Kreuiter lives,
reads and writes in the Midwest. His stories have appeared in EQMM, Halfway
Down The Stairs, Bewildering Stories, Literally Stories, and
other online and print publications. His story, "Miller and Bell,"
originally published in the August, 2022, issue of Mystery, has been selected
to appear in The Mysterious Bookshop Presents the Best Mystery Stories of 2023.
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