My Father, the Prison Guard
by Gary Fincke
My father, the prison guard, says his cells have been opened now, the men he watches going home the same way he does. He says the Governor has freed them, not the virus. He has all the proof he needs—the prison is near the state capital and not one of the inmates is sick.
My father’s friends are guards, too. Three of them visited last week. They brought their wives, but not their children. My father said their names and ours. He said we’re not afraid in this house. We’re not distancing, not my wife, not my son and daughter. Masks are for thieves.
The guests stayed for hours. My mother and the wives, after dinner, sat outside. They drank wine and looked at their phones. They texted their babysitters and told my mother, “Don’t tell our husbands.”
The men drank beer and played poker. They bragged about how they’ve memorized the odds, how they can read each other’s tells. I watched from behind my father. He took a sip of beer when his cards were good. He picked at the label when he bluffed.
My brother and I stayed up past midnight. We watched a show where the host was at home and the audience was as far away as we were. He made fun of men who refused to wear masks, but nobody was there to laugh.
When they were ready to leave, my father hugged his friends. Each one touched his face and laughed. My father repeated, “Trust is love.” He sounded like our priest.
After the house was empty, my father said, “You kids see what strong is? Did you?” He hugged our mother and said, “Say thank you. Say it now before you see how right I am.”
This week, every morning, my mother took my temperature. She took my brother’s and hers, too, but only after my father left for work. “You keep this a secret,” she said. “You tell me if you hear your father cough.”
Today, while we ate breakfast, my father cleared his throat and said, “This thing will pass.” He pulled the thermometer from his pocket and laid it on the table between our cereal boxes. He told us to take a good long look while he cleared his throat again.
“Ok,” he said. He picked it up and pointed it at our mother. “Your mother wants to take my temperature,” he said. My mother bowed her head, but she didn’t fold her hands or move her lips. He pointed the thermometer at my brother. “I told her to go ahead and try.” He pointed it at me. “How’s that sound?” he said. “Like I mean it?”
When my mother whimpered his name, he snapped the thermometer. “How’s that sound?’ he said, his voice hoarse. “Like the end of something?”
None of us moved while he stood up. “I have work to do,” he said. “That’s what they’re paying me for. Being there. Somebody they can count on.”
Gary Fincke’s latest collection is The Sorrows (Stephen F. Austin, 2020). Earlier collections were awarded the Flannery O’Connor Prize for Short Fiction and the Elixir Press Fiction Prize. A new flash story, “The Corridors of Longing,” will appear in Best Small Fictions 2020. He is co-editor of the annual anthology Best Microfiction.
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What surprising, fascinating stuff can you tell us about the origin, drafting, and/or final version of “My Father, the Prison Guard”? A short while ago, on a Saturday night, I watched eight cars park along the street in front of our new neighbor’s house. A party was beginning despite the lockdown. He has a young daughter and son. Bringing all those families into his house seemed way more than risky. The scene would have been left as anecdote to pass along, perhaps, to friends, but I asked my wife if she happened to know what that new neighbor did for a living. “He’s a prison guard,” she said. “In the city. In Harrisburg.” Now it was a story that nearly demanded to be written. All I needed was the point of view.
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