My Little Brother Walked Out of Prison After 18 Years. I Was the Only One Waiting. He Had $40, a Paper Bag and 30 Days to Find a Job or Go Back

The address was easy. He’d live with me. In Mama’s old room, with her quilts still on the bed.

The job was not.

Dez applied at the cotton gin in Hayti. At the grain elevator in Caruthersville. At the tire shop, the Dollar General, the chicken plant, the John Deere dealer and two farms.

Every application asked the same question. *Have you ever been convicted of a felony?*

He checked yes. Every time. His parole officer said if he lied, it was a violation.

Nobody called him back.

One man was honest enough to say it out loud. A manager at the grain elevator who’d gone to high school with me.

“Malachi, I’m sorry. Our insurance company won’t let us hire violent felons. It’s in the liability policy.”

“He drove a car.”

“I know,” the man said. “The policy doesn’t know.”

By day twelve, Dez stopped filling out applications.

I found him at two in the morning, sitting on the back porch in the dark with Judge’s head in his lap.

“I’m going back,” he said. “I might as well get it over with.”

“You’re not going back.”

“Mal. Nobody’s going to hire me. Not in this town. Not in this state. I’m the Boyd boy who shot the gas station guy.”

“You didn’t shoot anybody.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

I sat down next to him on the steps. The frogs were loud in the ditch. The cotton was knee-high out there in the dark, all the way to the tree line.

“Dez,” I said. “I’ll hire you.”

He laughed, without any joy in it.

“You can’t hire your own brother. The parole officer won’t approve it.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s not a real job. Because you’re family.”

I thought about that.

“Then I’ll make it a real job,” I said.