By Mark Connelly
Newman looked forward to his monthly meeting with his parole officer. Samuel Felber was the closest person he had to a friend since his release. As Newman presented his pay stubs and recounted his AA meetings and volunteer hours, Sam’s approving nods and smiles calmed his nerves.
But this afternoon Sam was absent. His substitute, Ms. Ortega, sat behind the desk, file in hand.
“I remember your case, Newman. The accident on Howell.” She tapped the manila folder. “Two girls dead in the other car. You got a DUI and two vehicular manslaughters. Served eight years.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Newman admitted quietly.
She flipped open the file, perusing it with pressed lips. “Graduated Marquette law. On the law review. Worked at Corcoran and Cross. Top firm.”
“Yes, it is,” Newman agreed.
“Ex-attorney,” she sighed, shaking her head. “What do you do now?”
“I teach GED classes and volunteer at the food pantry.”
She muttered something under her breath that sounded like a chuckle.
Unlike Sam, who quickly and deftly accepted his paperwork without comment, Ms. Ortega examined each pay stub and food pantry sheet.
“This one is not signed.” She held up a green volunteer form.
“Oh, that was for last week. Mary was not in the office when I checked out. You can call if you need to verify. . .”
“I will,” she said tersely, interrupting Newman mid-sentence. “And the AA meetings? I have your word? I know they don’t take attendance.”
Her voice was smug and sarcastic. No doubt she had reasons to be suspect.
“Every meeting.”
She sighed, glanced at her watch and made notes. She closed the folder and waved Newman toward the door without looking up.
Newman left, his legs trembling. He had planned to buy a shirt he had seen on sale, a kind of discount celebration. But he was in no mood. He was shaken by the unexpected encounter, that chuckle. He headed back to the halfway house, then abruptly turned east and walked toward the lakefront.
Visiting the park, he normally stopped for coffee at the columned pavilion to savor the view. The strand of beach and distant sailboats reminded him of Antibes. But today he walked directly to the arched bridge braced by massive stone lions. Corcoran and Cross once posed beneath one of the lions for pictures. Newman had been given a prominent spot. Corcoran had placed his hand on his shoulder. The day after the accident the firm revised its website. Newman’s profile was deleted. The group photo was altered so Corcoran’s hand now blessed Jayne Kellerman’s padded shoulder. Like Trotsky, he was banished from history, his face and very name an embarrassment to be greeted with disdain or feigned amnesia. Newman who?
Leaning over the railing, Newman could see his former condo in the distance. Farther south was the yacht club. He wondered if his boat was still harbored on Lake Michigan. No doubt both would be unrecognizable to him now, having been redecorated, repainted, updated, and renovated by new owners. Any marks or embellishments he had made had been long erased.
He drummed his fingertips on the stone parapet, remembering his spacious law office with its rosewood bookcases, polished credenza, and paneled walls decorated with plaques, antique maps, photographs, and awards. A breeze ruffled his hair and a pair of fallen leaves skittered across the bridge. The October trees bristled yellow and red. Autumn was a time for reflection. Memories of lost loves and years past. Everyone dwelled on the past this time of year, but Newman immersed himself in it, like a condemned man denied any future.
The wind picked up, and Newman felt chilled. He gazed up at the stone lion, then retreated to the pavilion to drink coffee and mourn his losses.
* * *
Mark Connelly’s fiction has appeared in Indiana Review, Milwaukee Magazine, Cream City Review, The Ledge, The Great American Literary Magazine, Home Planet News, Smoky Blue Arts and Literary Magazine, Change Seven, Light and Dark, 34th Parallel, The Chamber Magazine, and Digital Papercut. He received an Editor’s Choice Award in Carve Magazine’s Raymond Carver Short Story Contest in 2014; in 2015, he received Third Place in Red Savina Review’s Albert Camus Prize for Short Fiction. In 2005, Texas Review Press published his novella Fifteen Minutes, which received the Clay Reynolds Prize.