Living with Freedom

Brenda faced the old man in front of her. He was ancient, looking older than her own great grandfather would be. He grinned, an innocent, toothless smile, as he walked towards the dustbin and dropped something inside. His hair was stark white, and she could not see a single stray hair to estimate his original hair colour. He had a slightly curved nose with a pointy tip, and huge brown eyes surrounded by wrinkles. Brenda guessed he must have been a handsome man in his youth. And she also wondered what had happened back then, that he got a prison sentence for 60 years.

The old man was completely oblivious to the girl’s thoughts as he hummed an old tune and hobbled back to his room. Brenda walked back to her own, her mind drowning in a swirl of thoughts and questions. She really wanted to ask the old man, but she was scared he might not react too well. And she had been taught by her mother not to try to interfere in people’s private life, and don’t push for details unless they want to give them. Curiosity burned in her like an overwhelming inferno, almost like the little kids she taught at school.

“Are you busy, Brenda?” her mother emerged from a room, carrying some laundry in a basket. “Can you help me put this for drying?” She was a tall, thin woman, extremely fit for her age of fifty two. Cheekbones pulled up and eyebrows arched, she had a stern look to her face and had been a ravishing beauty in her youth, a formidable but lovely face. She wore a simple white dress with a green apron, and her hair was tied back in a loose bun.

“Sure, mama,” Brenda followed her out into the balcony. As mother and daughter started hanging up the laundry on the lines and racks, Brenda finally gathered the courage to spill her thoughts. “Mama, what did that old man do all those years ago?”

The woman smiled. She knew exactly who her daughter was talking about, the new tenant. “All I know was that he had a long prison sentence, and he was finally released, a little before his term ended. It seemed prison turned him into an honest man, and I decided to take him in. The government is paying me for his lodging, and with your father dead the extra money is helping a bit,” she explained.

Brenda nodded, but she was far from satisfied with the answer. The mystery still persisted. What horrible crime was involved with the old man, hidden in his past?

After dinner that night, Brenda said good night to her mother and another tenant, who was also an ex prisoner, and started going up the stairs to her bedroom. She heard the old man grunting behind her as he pulled himself up each step, so she went back and helped him up to the first landing.

“Thank you, child,” he smiled at her.

“Welcome,” she said as she supported him to his door. The man noticed her hesitation and raised an eyebrow, which made her ask, “May I ask you a personal question?”

“Sure,” he replied, and Brenda immediately warmed up.

“What did you do that they put you in prison?”

He smiled again, wider. “I would normally say nothing, just that my lawyer couldn’t fight my case well, but I’ll be honest with you. I pulled off a bank heist with a couple of my friends back in the 1960s, and we thought we were successful. Two days later, the cops came for me. I was put before the judge, who declared my prison sentence and I was shipped off to jail.”

“Oh,” was all Brenda could say as the old man went into his room and shut the door. As she went to bed that night, she couldn’t stop thinking about him and the bank heist. She wondered what happened to his accomplices, how much money they had stolen or how many people had been inside and trembling. he even came in her dream that night, hobbling away in black clothes with sacks filled with cash, running from the cops.

Her mother’s voice woke her up early the next morning. But when she opened her eyes and looked around, the woman seemed to be nowhere nearby. Brenda strained her ears, unable to make sure where the muffled words were coming from. It was still early morning, an hour before she would normally wake up, and the sun was just lingering over the horizon.

She got up and moved around, until she realised that the voice was coming from the neighbouring room. The old man’s room. “Don’t worry, you’ll be fine. You’ll soon learn to cope,” she heard in the mess of jumbled words. And she wanted to hear more. Despite her mothers warnings and her scruples, she dashed out of her room and put her ear on the closed door of the old man’s room.

“-but it’s hard. I have been living in there so long that I just forgot about life on the outside. There were bad memories in there, horrible, gruesome events. We were mistreated and tortured and hit, but I had come to accept it as home,” the old man spoke, almost with nostalgia and longing.

“I understand, sir. But you cannot go back there. You must not. Crime is a very dangerous thing to dabble in.”

“I know, Mrs. Olivia. And I have regretted my illegal actions every day of my life. But the nightmares never stop, Mrs. Olivia, they come every night. One of them is of the day I went there, when all the other prisoners met me. They ragged me bullied me, shoved me, and almost beat me to death for my inquisitiveness. The guards weren’t much better the next morning either. They showed no mercy to anyone, and when one of the boys tried playing a harmless prank on one, I saw him whip out his gun and shoot him on the spot. The first murder I had witnessed. And there were many more to come.”

Her mother sighed. “It must have been hard, sir. But you have to move on. The memories will linger for some time, haunt you in your sleep. But you can fight them, you can overpower them. Don’t let them pull you down. Your eyesight is still good, and you can continue doing your notary work here. Live a life on the outside, the free life.”

“That’s exactly what I can’t handle, Mrs. Olivia. The freedom. That’s where the other dream comes in. I dream that I am in the city, in the middle of the road. Buses, cars motorcycles come at me from both sides, not noticing an old man on the street. But I can’t move. I’m frozen as the automobiles move closer, threatening to crush me from both sides. I dream that life on the outside of the prison, on the outside of the walls that had become my home would move on without me, and I would be left in the dust. Puzzled and lost.”

“I know this is a very hard time for you, sir. Adjusting to a new life can be challenging. But you’ll get used to it, I promise. The new world may not treat you well, but we are all humans here, and some will always show some compassion. So try to forget the bad times, and try to live.”

Brenda heard the screeching of a chair. Her mother was getting up. She pulled back her ear from the door and barrelled towards her own room. Sh barely managed to slip in when Mrs. Olivia exited the old man’s room.

“Awake already?” her mother stood next to the door as she checked in on her daughter, who was busy correcting some notebooks on her desk. “Breakfast will be ready in an hour.”

“Hmm, hmm,” Brenda nodded, not looking up lest she give away the fact that she had done some eavesdropping. She breathed a sigh of relief as her mother left, and then fell into a new train of thoughts. What had happened? Why had her mother been talking to the old man like that so early in the morning? Why did it sound like she had done it many times before? Brenda was yet agin scared to pose her questions, but she was an adult and felt like she had the right to know.

After having a big breakfast of sandwiches with both the tenants, Brenda offered to help her mom clear up the dishes before departing to teach some seven year olds. As they stood together in the kitchen, putting dishes into the sink, Brenda finally spat out her question.

“Were you talking to the old man in the morning?”

“Yes,” Mrs. Olivia raised an eyebrow but didn’t jump to conclusions.

“What had happened?”

“He was having a bad dream and woke up screaming.”

“So you were talking to him? Helping him out?”

“I was dealing with the situation, yes. I tried helping him adjust to life here,” her mother said.

“Do you do that with all the tenants?” I asked we had had over fifteen ex prisoners as tenants over the past three years.

“Almost. Whichever ones needed help,” she scrubbed some plates.

“Did the government put you up to it?” I asked.

She finally looked up at me and smiled. “There are still things you don’t know about me, aren’t there? Before I married your father, I was a psychologist. I had taken it as a subject in high school, mastered it through college and graduation, and then even got a job in a reputed medical firm. I talked to people and helped them out with the struggles in their lives. After marriage I continued my work for almost two years, but after having children it was getting harder and I gave up my job altogether. But yes, at one point of time I was a shrink.”

“Is that why the government assigned you to take in ex prisoners? So you can deal with their lives? Help them out?”

“The main part is the stories. The stories are what I signed up for, and the stories are what keep me alive. That was why I opted for psychology in the first place, study of the human mind. I wanted to hear what they had done with their lives, what problems they dealt with, the events they lived through. The tales and stories of each patient intrigued me, made me delve deeper into the human mind to understand why someone does what he or she does. And the stories are always interesting. It is like listening to a never ending explanation of life, and how different people deal with it.”

“What about the ex prisoners? What stories do they tell you?”

“Oh, lots of things. Their families before getting arrested, their antics and shenanigans in childhood. How they saw their child take a first sep, or watched a brother come home with a wife. But those are the good parts, the lives before prison. The prison stories also sometimes have good stuff, whether their friends stood up for them, joked along with each other. Their playful fights in the bathrooms, and their criticising the food together. But that is not what I am there for. I listen too the gruesome stories too. the ones with horror and blood and death. The ones that stir up the ghosts of their pasts, the ones that bring nightmares. And I help them try to forget those memories. Or if they are stuck in their brain, then maybe just lock them away. And eventually move on.”

“Wow, mama. I never knew. That must be why you were always asking me about my problems when I was a teenager. I really appreciate what you do,” Brenda said.

Mrs. Olivia gave her a warm smile and a hug. “Thank you. Go now, you’re getting late.”

Brenda left with a smile on her face, and then went and taught little seven year olds about English grammar in good mood. Her mother had been a psychologist, and helped people cope with their problems. She helped prison inmates adjust to life outside, and not lose complete hope or revert to crime. If she could do so much, what were a bunch of seven year olds to her?

When she came home that evening, and entered the kitchen, she realised that her mother wasn’t there. Then voices emerged from another room on the same floor. The other tenant’s room, a forty year old man. He sported a long beard and liked wearing thin sporty clothes, even in the middle of winter. He had come out after 15 years of imprisonment, and had been trying to get back in touch with his parents.

“No need to stress yourself. It is normal for parents to be a bit scared, and maybe even ashamed. But they’ll realise how much you matter to them, and how much they love you. Old people can always give away love. Give it some time, and the coldness will thaw.”

“But what if they never forgive me?” he said. His voice was full of emotion, and Brenda sensed he was crying as she stood with her ear on the door. “They were never happy with me, always comparing me to my sister. I was furious, and I retreated. Even tried to run away, made fake documents. I will always remember that night. They didn’t even come looking for me, and I went home alone when I was caught. But I continued trying to fake documents, trying to con the government, attempting to cheat people. It was the only way I saw out of it.”

“I understand. Back then that must have been the only thing in your mind, and you didn’t understand that there were other ways with which you could make honest money. Other ways to rise up in your parent’s eyes.”

“Yes, but I never thought of them. I fell into a trap. I made fake documents for people who paid me, and cheated people with my own fake documents. The government had been sensing my conning activities for two years while I snuck around to try cheating them again. But they caught me in the act, handing a fake passport to a client, and I was taken to jail.”

“You must have been devastated and furious. It is completely fine. It is a challenging experience. How did your parents react?” Mrs. Olivia asked.

“They looked down at me like they had expected it out of me. It broke my heart more than anything else had ever before. I cried all the way to the prison, and all the others in my truck tormented me about it. It was even worse when I got there. I cried the first few nights, and a sissy has no place among hardened prisoners. They cornered me almost every day, mocked me, and beat me. I still have a few scars. And when I asked for some extra food the next day, a guard shot at me. My left forearm still hurts sometimes, especially when the nightmares come.”

“Nightmares can be really scary. They will haunt you with your memories, but you just need to understand they are not real. When you learn how to cope with them, how to ignore them, you will be able to emerge out of your pit with success and joy. You will be able to live with your problems, maybe forget about them and enjoy life.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Olivia. You have been a great help. I am going to meet up with my parents today, and I’ll let you know how it goes,” he said.

“I wish you the best of luck. If they don’t accept you yet, try not to worry too much. It will bother you initially, but there are other things in the world to move on with. And soon, they will come around. Don’t stress yourself,” Mrs. Olivia got up and started exiting.

Yet again, Brenda dashed to the table and grabbed an apple and started eating it. “Hi mama. How was your day?” she tried acting nonchalant as she leaned against a chair.

“It was alright, you know. A little irritating to know that my daughter is eavesdropping on my talks and conversations.”

Brenda blushed deeply. “How do you know?”

“I am a mother, Brenda. The skill comes in-built.”

“So are they coping.”

“They’ll make it through. Life in prison is different, it is brutal, and it becomes their normal. It is difficult to adjust to normal life. But time helps. They learn to cope, and with help, they live a free life again.”