Only Fools Walk Free - Sandra R Neeley Page 0,19
one such day that she’d read for almost an hour, finally tiring and closing the book while clutching it to her chest. She sighed and said aloud, “I love coming here. I always feel so peaceful when I’m here.”
Samuel used the tricks he’d learned over the decades spent alone to gently tug at her hair, where it curled over the collar of the sweater she wore, poking through the gate she leaned against. She turned quickly, her eyes searching the area. Her eyes rounded, her mouth dropped open, and she looked right at him.
Samuel smiled softly for her, wondering if it was his imagination or if she could see him.
Slowly a smile curved her lips. “I can see you,” she whispered.
His smile grew, and he lifted his hand in a wave, then extended it just a bit.
Without pause, Claire reached out, putting her hand right through his. He grinned, then adjusted his hand, using both his hands to hold hers.
She watched — his hands and his face outlined by the mists floating in the air. It was late February, the temperature in New Orleans sporadic at best, cool, cold, warm and muggy all in the same day, causing misty, gray days and damp, cold nights. As he enveloped her hands in his own misty ones, she gasped. “I can feel you!”
He leaned forward and kissed her hand.
“Can I do anything for you?” she asked.
Samuel shook his head, then took a seat cross-legged on the ground and gestured toward her book. He wanted her to know he enjoyed her visits and loved to hear her voice reading to him. Her voice was Clarice’s. When she spoke, he knew it was her. When she was still long enough for him to look into her eyes, he knew it was her. And now that she’d seen him in the mists — their eyes locking, their hearts open, he could feel her. His Clarice had been given a second chance. His own mind swirled as Claire sat down to read him another story. Maybe this was the beginning of his second chance as well. He hadn’t thought of it in years, the phrase his mother had made him memorize. Something about a fool walking free. He’d have to try to remember it and see if he could figure it out.
Only several blocks away from the cemetery…
The crash inside the house was easily heard from the street.
“Stop it! What is wrong with you? They’ll put you out again!” the woman screamed at the young man tossing the cushions of the sofa around the room. “Do you want to be living on the streets again?”
“Like that matters,” he muttered, as he continued to search for any coins he could find beneath the cushions.
“What are you looking for?” the old lady screeched, while he made his way around the room tearing apart first one piece of furniture then another.
“Money, old woman.”
“How about you get a job? You’ve only got two weeks left here, then you’re on your own. This is juvie, it’s to give you a chance to redeem yourself. Next time, it won’t be a halfway house after juvie detention — it’ll be jail.”
“How ‘bout you get off my back!”
“I’m trying to help you!”
He stopped, his chest heaving, the words of teachers, policemen, judges even, ringing in his ears. ‘Soulless.’ That’s what they all called him. Said his eyes were soulless.
He’d stopped ripping through the furniture, so the house-mother saw it as an opportunity to try to speak to him again. He was good, down deep inside, she could sense it, but he was always wandering, always lost, always searching for… something. “Please tell me what I can do to help you. You always seem so lost. What is it you are always searching for?”
The beautiful young man turned to her. He was tall, strong, fierce in his stance, his bright blue eyes and blonde hair giving him an angelic appearance in spite of his intimidating presence, but so heartbreakingly alone and sad. He’d never done anything violent, just petty crimes, but they’d added up, landing him in a juvenile halfway house. And lately, it seemed he was near to bursting, like a fire long kindled, ready to explode and take out all in his path. He had so much potential, and she just couldn’t stop trying to save him.
He faced her, “You can’t help me. No one can. Everybody I’ve ever met has said that I’m cold, heartless.” He pinned her with a stare, “soulless.