Take This Man by Brando Skyhorse Read Free Book Online Page B

father and that this might be the last time he ever saw me. One of his hands grips my mother’s arm as if he’s trying to keep her from leaving. His other hand braces him up so that he doesn’t fold over like a pocketknife. Frank stares at the ground, visibly mourning our loss and already fatigued from the long journeys that he seems to understand lay ahead for us all.
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    I remember that two-day train trip in filmstrip bursts: a desert at sunset; creaking through mountainous passes; filling out the phonics workbooks my mother bought by the stack; my first kiss, with an older African-American girl (she must have been seven or eight) who told me if we kissed under a blanket, nobody would see us. In full view of everyone in the coach car, she threw a blanket over our heads and brushed her dry lips against mine.
    We changed trains in Kansas City, Missouri, and then connected to Saint Louis. There we met Paul’s friend Nakome, who’d let us stay at his trailer and then drive us to Paul’s prison, the Vienna Correctional Center in southern Illinois. His affectionate behemoth German shepherd nuzzled my hand.
    â€œThat’s Botchi,” he said. “Trained him to attack FBI agents.” Botchi, the World’s Friendliest Dog, jumped up and licked my face.
    Nakome, I was told, was an Indian medicine man. The night before we visited Paul, Nakome sat us in a circle on an upholstered bench in his trailer and passed around a peace pipe filled with peyote. I sucked long puffs and told Nakome what I saw: the trailer disappeared around my body while I flew into the clouds. A large bird circled over my head three times.
    â€œYou’re having a vision,” Nakome said. “That bird must have been an eagle. Only the son of a chief like your father would see an eagle.”
    My father, a chief? And me, the son of a chief? Why hadn’t my mother told me? I looked at her, dragging on the pipe, with wide, expectant eyes. She looked back at me, giggled uncontrollably, and then passed out.
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    The morning we drove to Vienna was cloudless, the way all mornings on eventful days are in memory. That name, “Vienna,” had an exotic, magical lilt to it, something that made me think we were visiting some kind of castle. In the back of a pickup truck, I was spread out on top of the vicious FBI-hunting Botchi, who patiently cushioned the rocky ride.
    Paul was brought into a large fluorescent-lit waiting area with long metallic benches and tables. He jangled like loose change, wearing wrist and ankle cuffs, and his hair, which drooped to his waist, reached the top of my head when we stood side by side. Vienna was a level-six minimum-security prison, meaning we were allowed one greeting hug and kiss. There was no divider between Paul and us.
    â€œMy little big chief,” he said, and picked me off the ground.
    I felt I was soaring at the top of a flagpole. His voice was a low rumble from the mountaintop of his head. I could see him in our now tiny seeming Echo Park house, bending down like an ancient oak while he rustled between rooms, and, with his massive arm span, wrapping our entire family in a protective turtle shell embrace.
    I had found my father.
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    Frank, waving us off in Union Station less than a week ago, wasn’t even a memory while we packed for our trip home. I couldn’t think about anything except Paul. When would I see him again? How long before he got out of jail? Would he come home to Los Angeles to live with us? On this trip, my mother had already gotten in the habit of giving me responsibility for safekeeping important documents, checks, and tickets, which became routine as I got older. “You’re already five years old,” she said. “You’re not a child anymore.”
    Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes had a special promotion that allowed kids to travel free on Amtrak if they had a pair