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?