All Rise for the Honorable Perry T. Cook

Big Ed is about to tell it again. He greets all the new ones. He sits them down, tells them about the place, and gets to know them as quick as he can. Being a welcomer is part of his work at Blue River, which is the biggest thing you’ll find in the teeny-tiny town of Surprise, Nebraska. Big Ed asks, “Are you from around here?”
The new resident shakes his head no. He sets his dinner tray down. across from us. The answer is almost always no because Surprise is a long way from most places.
“You know why they call it Surprise?” Big Ed asks. “It’s because this little nowhere-Nebraska town gets an impressive amount of snow. But the snow is not the surprise. What you find after it melts-now that’s the surprise. Uh-huh. Things you never knew you lost. Of course, I’m talking mostly about folks on the outside. Here on the inside, well, most of us have nothing left to lose. Or it can feel that way.”
Big Ed laughs. He sounds like a harmonica. Then comes his coughing. He has to pull himself together before he can go on. “But spring comes and on the outside they find all sorts of things. Baseballs and dog bones. That favorite pair of garden gloves all flattened down into the mud and grass. Maybe even a set of keys. And don’t we all wish we had the keys around here. Huh, Perry?” Big Ed gives me such a nudge I almost spill my milk.
The new rez-that’s short for resident-listens nicely enough. I wonder how long he’s going to be here. Maybe not so long. Depends on what he did. Depends on what’s been decided. Sometimes I hear. Sometimes they tell me. I never ask.
Big Ed tells the new guy, “You’ll see so much snow outside these windows it’ll make you forget that grass is green.” He always pauses for several seconds right here. Then he says, “Unless, of course, you’re doing a catnap.” A catnap means a short stay.
Big Ed leaves a little airtime, waits to see if the new rez feels like talking. He might tell him about his sentencing. Sometimes they do. Sometimes they don’t.
This guy dips his head like he’s talking to that bowl of turkey chili on his dinner tray. “I got eight months,” he says. He doesn’t say what he’s in for. Meanwhile, he keeps eyeing me. Big Ed claps a hand on my shoulder and tells the guy, “This here is Perry. Perry T. Cook.”
I put my hand out. The guy waits. He looks to the right and left where the supervisors are standing. He knows he’s being watched, and he’s trying to figure out what is allowed. There are rules about contact.
“Handshaking is okay,” I tell him. “As long as it’s brief.”
Big Ed says, “You can listen to Perry. He knows it all.”
I push my hand closer to the new rez. Last try. Finally, we shake.
“Name’s Wendell,” he says, and I don’t know if he means that’s his first name, last name, or only name. Mom’s rule is, I can call the adults whatever they tell me to call them, but she wants me to add Mr., Mrs., or Miss to the front end. For Big Ed, well, I just added “Big,” and I guess nobody ever corrected me. It was such a long time ago. He’s the only rez at Blue River who’s been here longer than Mom and me.
“What’s a kid doing here outside of visiting hours?” The new guy wants to know.
“I call him my Morning Son,” says Big Ed. (It’s an old story.) “Perry makes sure we all wake up on time.”
“The kid will be here in the morning?” Mr. Wendell looks confused. New ones always do until it dawns on them that I live at the Blue River Co-ed Correctional Facility here in teeny-tiny Surprise, Nebraska.
From behind the serving counter in the kitchen, we hear Eggy-Mon dishing up the last trays of supper for the evening. He thinks all food deserves poetry. Tonight he calls, “Get your gobbling-good order from south of the border, with a hunk of corn bread, or white rice instead.”
Mom comes by with her tray in her hands. “Perry, down the hatch with that milk, pal.” She sounds impatient, and she has left more than half her supper. It’s strange because she doesn’t waste food, and the turkey chili is not that bad. I take my milk carton in both hands and gulp it back so fast my throat aches. Bad manners. But Mom needs me to move along tonight. Something’s up with her, and I don’t want to add to her trouble. Neither does Big Ed. He gives me a pat on the back and says, “Good man, Perry.” Earlier today, Warden Daugherty called Mom into her office for a conversation. Whatever that was about, it put Mom on a tilt. Now it’s one of those weird days when everybody knows something’s going on. Everybody but me.
“I want to have one more look at that map of the middle school with you before lockdown,” Mom says. She glances at the gray clock on the wall, and so do I. We have to pay attention to the time at Blue River. At nine p.m. I have to be in my bedroom next to the warden’s office off the Upper East Lounge.
Mom has to be in her room down at the end of the hall on Cell Block C.