A Time for All Things: The House

By Kaley Whitlock

Written in simplicity, A Time for All Things is about Bane, a color-blind ex-boxer who was just released from prison for assault. When he gets to his halfway house in El Paso, he is faced with problems he doesnt want to face. He lost so many things in his life that this time, it is a delicate issue of standing on principles or risking going back to prison. In his conflict at the halfway house, he meets the lovely Luna, a woman who has laughter like the wind. It is being with her that gives him the confidence he needs to make a final decision on how to handle the problems he is faced with.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Aug 3, 2018
• ISBN: 9781546253907

Kaley Whitlock

Kaley Whitlock graduated from Del City H.S. He started writing as a hobby as a teen. He moved to Minnesota to continue his writing education. A Time For All Things is one of his many stories he has written over the years.

Book preview

ONE

The green roof Texas cafe was less than sixty yards away yet it seemed like a third of a mile. It sat quietly alongside a country road under a bland dusty sky. With a single tree in a distance behind it there were only a couple of dusty cars and a pickup truck parked out front. The wind was flying high in slow motion speed: it picked up some Texas dirt and threw it high one way, curved around in a swirl and tossed it in an another direction and the dirt disappeared down a ways.

I wiped my eyes with my fingers with one hand when the sand blew into my face. I spit out the dirt in my mouth and it tasted just that, dirt. Then I watched the wind as it kept on playing playfully with the Texas sandy dirt: so smooth in its transition, so raw in its design, so glorious in a depressing way.

I envied how it can play so freely.

Hernandez yelled for me to hold up. He came running out from the cafe. So slowly too I thought he was running like in a molasses song. As he was running toward me, throwing one foot in front of the other, I saw the wind spun off into a small dirty devil and it came skirting up behind him and disappeared. It wasn’t there very long and I thought: some things looked so beautiful going slow.

I couldn’t understand why Hernandez left the cafe so soon. I thought the waitress liked him. When he caught up to me he had a smile on his face and was a little short winded. He said if he had a gun he could take that place: it would be so easy. I didn’t know what to make of that but I didn’t smile with him.

We walked back up the pothole concrete road to the bus station. The bus driver said he would be back in an hour and we still had a few minutes. Hernandez said he was probably still banging a retired waitress down street and smiled. I didn’t know what to make of that either. I really didn’t know Hernandez. I only met him for the first time the night before we were released. The old man was there, the old black man and the others: there were nine of us. We were let go late yesterday. They gave us each two hundred dollars in cash. Most of it was gone buying new jeans, shirts, shoes, liquor, cigarettes and sodas. I bought used clothes, gym shoes and cigarettes. I still had a hundred left. I treated Hernandez to a hamburger and fries, he had to save his money: he had a family to support. I only had fries and coffee.

I smoked for a while outside the bus terminal while waiting for the driver. I shared my smoke with Hernandez. When we boarded the bus I sat halfway up the aisle. Hernandez sat across the aisle from me. He took out a pint of American whiskey, drank a good long while then handed it to me half gone. I took a few sips and handed it back, didn’t really want that much. He handed me a cold can of soda. I looked at him, unbelievably: I didn’t see him buy any sodas. I opened it and drank half of that and handed it back. He smiled at me. My head hurt. Hernandez was making my head hurt, he was confusing me: where did he get that can of soda? My head was buzzing also because of the confusion. He was still smiling at me when I looked back at him as the bus moved on toward Dallas.

He looked so far away.

As the bus moved on, the moan of the engine settled in and I started to get sleepy. I had no jacket so I wrapped by arms about myself. I woke back up when the bus stopped at a small nameless town. The driver warned the people of his passengers on board. Some got on, some didn’t and the bus moved on, automatically shifting gears.

The grassy landscape outside my window passed by as well as time. A little girl sitting with her mother turned and watched me as interestingly as I had watched the cafe and the wind. Her mom wanted her to turn around and be still. She would for a while then she turned around again and watched me some more. I think she wanted to smile at me but she was too shy. Thinking it I smiled for the little girl then she suddenly smiled back. I held my extra large hand up and she waved back with her little hand. Her mom then made her turn around and sit down for good. Her mom gave me a disapprovingly glance from over her shoulder.
 I looked out the window then and saw the wind. The wind was racing the bus. It was throwing dirt in every direction, trying to keep up, trying to play like it belonged. It blew past a tree then two trees. It jumped over a house. It hit a farmhouse and slammed its shutters. It blew into an open door barn and scared all the chickens and livestock and it kept on moving along. The bus slowly moved off to the left with the road and the wind veered off to the right. It spun away into the high Johnson grass of a pasture and I was left to my own thoughts.

It’s beautiful how some things look that you have never paid any attention to before and how beautiful too going slow.

When the moan of the engine of the bus kicked in again into high gear I sunk down in my seat and fell to sleep and didn’t dream. Hernandez was shaking me. He woke me up. He said we were in Dallas and had to catch another coach. Through the window I looked outside. We pulled into the Bus Parking garage. Faceless people were coming and going from the terminal. A professional woman’s voice was announcing arrivals and departures.

I stretched and I yawned. The old man and the others got off at Dallas. Only the old black man, Hernandez and I were catching another bus. All of us headed toward the men’s restroom. When we came out Hernandez had someone’s jacket in his hand. I didn’t notice until we got to the gift shop.

I bought a soda for Hernandez and I. He said someone left the jacket in the john. We drank the sodas outside. I took a swallow of the soda and looked at the can: it seems to have no taste. I lighted up a cigarette and smoked for a while. Hernandez stood with me in the breeze and we both drank and shared the smoke. After a while a black guy came up and offered a nickel bag. I asked him for bourbon and he pulled out several airline bottles. I paid him for those. Hernandez bought the small bag and a white pill and licked his fingers of the small bag and put the rest in his jacket. I asked him what the pill was. He showed it to me, said it was an upper and popped it in his mouth and drank his soda. I thought he was saving his money for his family.

Only Hernandez and I were headed toward El Paso. The old black man was going somewhere else but didn’t know where or cared. The bus was more crowded this time and Hernandez sat with me and offered me a snort. I told him I didn’t do things like that and pulled out one of my airline bottles of bourbon and drank some and offered him some. I didn’t notice until then that he had a tattoo on his neck and one on the back on his hand. When the bus got going the moan kicked in again with a different tune and I got sleepy. I noticed Hernandez pulled a novel out from nowhere and began to read. He turned the overhead light on. I also noticed too it was a new paperback he was reading and knew he didn’t buy it. I ignored it and shut my eyes and thought about that green roof Texas cafe and the playful wind around it. Then I thought about that little girl and how she wanted me to smile.

At night it was cold. We stopped once in a small-town at a bus station that had no cafe open. I ate a tasteless sandwich from a machine and a cola. Everyone else had coffee and doughnuts. I gave Hernandez one of my bourbons when we got back on. I didn’t share my food with him since he had coke in his pocket. As the bus moved onward down the road I noticed he pulled out a sandwich and continued to read. He must have gotten it from one of the other passengers. I ignored it and looked out at the night until I fell asleep once more.

My bourbon was gone when we arrived in El Paso the next morning. A Spanish man was announcing arrivals and departures. Hernandez went in and called our house. He told me they would send someone to pick us up. We walked around outside the terminal and saw a cop nearby a line of parked cars. Hernandez turned his back and ate the rest of his candy from his bag and tossed the wrapper. The wind was there also. The wind grabbed the wrapper and floated it up and over everyone’s head outside. I watched the waxy paper suspended in air as loose trash floated around on the street. The wind tossed the wrapper upward and tossed it from hand to hand then threw it downward and down street where it bounced and turned and bounced and turned with the rest of the loose trash and traffic ran over it.

The driver who came to pick us up was Kevin. Hernandez rode shotgun. I sat in the back as Kevin drove. Kevin said he was an ex-con also. He could help us get a job. Hernandez asked him about the house rules and Kevin told him rule after rule. He also told him where the best bars were at and who had the best girls. I looked at all the houses go by through the van window, house after house. Kids were playing in a blur. Kevin asked who I was. I saw his piercing eyes in the rearview mirror and didn’t like him. I told him I was an inmate.

Hernandez laughed.

On the way to our house, Kevin pulled over at a car body shop called the Montana Garage. He said he would be right back. He went in and he and a shirtless Mexican man with a lot of tattoos on him talked in the open garage doorway and looked at us in the van. There was banging going on behind them inside the garage. Men with surgical masks were tapping wrecked cars back into shape and they were busy. Then Kevin went back inside the garage and after a while he came back out and handed us two envelopes. I didn’t take it. Kevin said it was a homecoming present. I still didn’t take it. Hernandez said he would take them both and Kevin gave them to him. Hernandez opened the two envelopes and pulled out sixty dollars from each and put them in his pocket. As Kevin drove onward he kept looking at me through the rearview mirror and I knew he didn’t like me either.

Our house was four stories high with a fence around it. Outside on the balconies were shirtless ex-cons. Some were black and tall, some white but mostly there were tattooed Mexicans doing nothing. Inside there were more ex-cons playing pool and watching TV and playing cards and board games. The house smelled like coffee. Some said hi, some didn’t. Hernandez threw his jacket over his shoulder and shook their hands and introduced himself and said this is Bane. Then we were led into the office of the house director.

The house director was Miguel. He sat us down and told us the rules from behind his desk. I was thinking if I remembered what paperback Hernandez was reading. I smelled freshly made coffee somewhere and wanted a cup. I wanted to smoke. Miguel kept asking, Bane, Bane? I looked at him. He asked if I understood the rules.

Hernandez and I were led upstairs to the second floor and assigned a room. There were three men to a room with three beds, three lockers and a writing desk. Our roommate was Poncho. He and Hernandez started talking Spanish while sitting on a bed from each other. The rhythm of their speech was so relaxing. I didn’t understand a word as they kept on talking but the Spanish language got me sleepy hearing them. So I lay down on my bunk and thought about Sandy.

I met Sandy in junior high school. We did everything together. We dated. We held hands. We kissed when we could. Bowling was our favorite thing to do. Her friends were so full of smiles. They didn’t like me. Sandy kept saying he was all right. We went to the movies when we could and snuggled. We did homework together from seventh grade onward. Always I walked her home and carried her books.

One day Sandy came to me and was very sad. Her favorite uncle had died. She wanted me to go with her to the funeral. I told her I didn’t know.

I wanted to do something with friends like she does with her friends. Sandy said she needed me to go with her. But funerals were family things. She asked me if I remember what she told me that day when we went to the amusement park.

I did remember.

I went with her to the funeral. As I feared her mother was there. Her sisters, brothers and all her friends were there. Her father was always trouble for me. He took me aside and told me to leave Sandy alone and he was standing firm this time. He told me he wanted someone else for his daughter, someone he approved of. As he talked down to me I remembered a poem Sandy and I read together for school. She wrote a paper about what it meant. Sandy said if you chose one road over another it would make all the difference in your life. How I wished I knew what that meant. I wished I could have learned to stand up for me. I couldn’t stand up to her old man. I wanted to. Instead I had to make Sandy cry.

TWO

I woke up the next day and asked why. I didn’t want to wake up. I just wanted to sleep. Hernandez came back from the shower. He smiled at me and told me to go get washed up. I didn’t have any shower things. He tossed me a towel and soap. I asked where he got them. Poncho gave them to him, he said. I noticed while he was shirtless he had more tattoos on him: two on his chest and one large one on his back. I showered and needed new underwear. I slipped in my new old clothes I bought outside of prison before we boarded the bus.

We went downstairs to the mess hall at the far back room and got breakfast. The few tables and chairs in the mess hall were all taken so I went where everyone else were and sat around the TV and game room eating SOS and scrambled eggs. The news was on TV. I sat my plate on my leg and ate and drank coffee. I didn’t want my milk. Hernandez took my milk. He went back for more food but he couldn’t have but one plate. He got out his novel and read, drinking coffee, waiting for me.

The house director wasn’t in yet. The house supers were outside talking to the other supers. More Mexicans walked in. More black and white guys came downstairs and stood around eating their food. One of them who came downstairs was noticeable: he was as baldheaded as I was. He had big muscular arms. My arms were bigger. He leaned up against the pool table picking his teeth. He said: Bane?

I gave the rest of my breakfast to Hernandez, it didn’t taste right. He ate it. I looked at the novel Hernandez had but couldn’t see the title.

The baldheaded guy said: Bane?

Everyone was looking at me. Hernandez leaned over to me and said low voiced the baldheaded guy was Leader. Poncho told him everyone did as he said in the house or he would make life difficult for you.

I got up to go outside. Suddenly the others who were standing around stepped in my way so I couldn’t leave. The supers were still outside.

Leader said: Are you Bane?

I turned to him and said: Bane’s in prison. Then I pushed my way through the others and went outside.

I stood under the only tree in the grassy yard near the fence and smoked. It was early morning and the sun was slowly coming up. Hernandez came out with me and stood around a while, sharing my smoke. Hernandez finally told me that Leader sent Poncho out on a job last night with Kevin. I gave the rest of my cigarette to him and lighted another.

Our parole officers came in later that day. They took Hernandez and I in the director’s office. They were the only ones who had side arms in the place. They sat us down and told us the rules for an hour. They told us we could have counseling if we wanted. Hernandez asked about his family. They said he couldn’t move out of the house without their permission. Hernandez asked if he could visit them. They looked at his record. They pointed out the rules. They went over the house rules again while Miguel watched from behind his desk. Hernandez kept