Simple Things/ Lang Kenneth Haynes

Rip Van Williams: True fiction
    Rip had always been a little confused about his name. He was told that his father — who died when Rip was an infant according to some
accounts, may he rest in peace — was named James and there were no relatives named Rip as far as anyone knew — or would say. No Grandpa
Rip or Great-Grandpa Rip or even a Cousin Rip. When Rip asked his mother about his name, as well as other questions about his ancestry, she
usually changed the subject quickly and mumbled that there were some things it was better not to know. But there were rumors in the
neighborhood that Rip’s father was still alive. That he was homeless most of the time. That he was strung out on drugs and alcohol. But, most of all,
that he was brilliant. He had a mind like a razor and his head was filled with facts that went way beyond the type of knowledge that was required to
survive the streets. He knew about outer space and could run off the dates of each space launch and talk about how space exploration was
necessary for us to truly understand our place in the universe. He was said to be able to talk about the importance of algebra as a way to begin to
understand the critical importance of balance. He could talk about Malcolm X, Washington Irving, Julius Irving and Dusty Springfield in the same
sentence and tie them all together in a way that made sense. Rip’s father was said to surface in the neighborhood from time to time but these
sightings were rare and as unsubstantiated as claims that the Abominable Snowman and Loch Ness Monster truly existed. One result was that Rip
looked for his father in every face of every man who appeared to be about the age his father was or would be if he was really alive. Funny thing was
that Rip saw his father in the face of every man he passed in the street. There was something about the eyes, the mouth or maybe it was the
countenance – the way the facial features were juxtaposed. No. It was the eyes. Eyes that saw everything and nothing at the same time. Eyes like
the ones Rip saw in his mirror every morning.
    It was 1982. President Reagan, the cowboy actor, talked about ridding the United States of the scourge of drugs. And the way the country dealt
with symptoms that were mere manifestations of deeper disease was to have a war. So, predictably, a War on Drugs was waged. It was not the first
War on Drugs. There had been other wars on various drugs including the lost war on the drug of alcohol. Most called that particular war prohibition.
The net came down on Rip in 1982. Cops rolled through poor neighborhoods like hurricane waves, and waves do not determine who deserves to
be spared and who should drown. They washed thousands and thousands of Black men into the waiting jaws of police paddy wagons. Rip was one
of the unlucky ones who could not escape the torrent by retreating to the higher ground of the suburbs or the university or other places that were
protected from the wave by huge breaker walls.  
    The search incident to his arrest turned up several small baggies of heroin. He told his public defender that the drugs were for his personal use,
that they helped him to at least imagine what hope would feel like, and that he was not a drug dealer. The public defender listened politely and
intently, promised to do what he could and shrugged his shoulders. In the final analysis, the charge of intent to deliver a controlled substance was
not reduced. And to make matters worse, the charge was added to numerous other small offenses, that had stacked up over the years, along with
penalties for missed court dates and the subsequent warrants, and Rip was sentenced to 20 years in prison. He stared at the judge’s face as the
sentence was read with the hope that some awful mistake would be discovered. But the gavel went down and it wasn’t until the resulting echo
faded in the halls of justice — or “Just Us,” as Richard Pryor used to say — that the edges of the judge’s lips curled slightly in what might have been
a smile. Rip was hustled into a large state van along with several other soon-to-be prison inmates. They drove for hours before they arrived at the
penitentiary. There was razor wire everywhere. Miles of it spiraled on top of and in between rows of steel fences. Rip tried to imagine the level of
desperation that would make a man even think of trying to escape through a route with cold death screaming from each glistening blade and there
were thousands of blades.  
    The electronically-controlled entry gate slammed with irrevocable certainty behind him. Rip knew at that instant that the only way to do his 20-
year sentence — a span of time coincidentally equal to his age — was to escape the institution. No. Not by scaling the razor wire fences or
burrowing beneath them. Not by some miraculous and ingenious plan that would be fodder for made-for-TV movies, but by mentally leaving the
prison and to begin preparing for his trip immediately. Rip began to construct an inner world bit by bit, smell by smell, and scene by scene. He
replaced the constant din of slamming steel doors, screaming men and sound of the hard heels of the warden’s shoes clacking along the hard,
tiled corridors after the lights were out with the songs of birds and children’s laughter. He dulled all his outwardly visible emotions the way one
would blunt a sharp knife — by repeatedly rubbing the sharp edges of memories against the coarse stones of reality that surrounded him. He
became practiced at keeping his sphincter muscles constantly contracted to discourage physical invasion and to ward off demons that were adept
at entering bodies through available openings. And this is the way he spent 20 years. Suspended between inner worlds of his creation and steel
bars that were just far enough apart for his mind to slip through.
    It seemed like Rip had woken up from a very long and painful dream that was indescribably and simultaneously as ugly as it was beautiful and
peaceful as a country sky at dusk while the pale orange sun slipped behind gently rolling hills thick with a silent explosion of wildflowers of every
imaginable fragrance and color. And while Rip drifted between different worlds, inside his head, his external senses threatened to fill up and
overflow with dull gray colors, stripes of sunlight that shone through prison bars and failed to warm, men shuffling to and fro with no faces, other
faceless men with big rings of keys herding other men here and there, and recent memories of food that did not fill, tantalize or taste. Rip found
himself standing in a room that was empty except for a long table behind which three men sat with pads of paper and stacks of folders in front of
them. They addressed Rip as Prisoner Number 522107 and proceeded to tell him that he would be released that day. They also told him about the
restrictions on his conditional freedom, the rules he would have to follow in order to not be re-arrested, the name of his parole officer and a few
words of advice about new dangers and temptations that had emerged since Prisoner 522107 last lived in the world outside, and other mumblings
that Rip couldn’t hear because of ringing in his ears that was increasing in intensity. Rip was given a bag of crumpled civilian clothes and a few
dollars. After signing several papers he was escorted to the front prison gate and gently pushed out onto the sidewalk as the thick steel gate shut
behind him. It closed with a heavy, clunking, final kind of sound that generated as much fear on leaving the prison as it had when he crossed the
same threshold — walking in the opposite direction — 20 years before. But now he was free. He just had to figure out what he was free to do.