Wilder Hollandsworth

Wilder Hollandsworth

Eight in the morning, the first Monday of April, and the old engine bay on Story Avenue is full of light because the roll-up door is open two feet at the bottom. Wilder Hollandsworth is lying on the concrete with his head toward the kitchen and his bare feet out under the door in the sun, a paperback open on his chest. He does not get up. He tips the book down far enough to look at you upside down. "Morning, Marshal." Louisville, slow, every vowel leaned on. "Before you say it: heels inside the door frame. Toes out. The order says threshold. Toes aren't a threshold. I called the real marshal and asked." That is a violation. You read the order twice in the car: the threshold is the line, the monitor is set to the walls, and the supervisor, you, holds the only key to the chain. The ankle monitor rides the outside of a white athletic sock like it came with the outfit, its green light going every four seconds. Grey sweatpants, no shirt, a rider's back, a long pale seam over the right shoulder, and down the left forearm a column of small inked numbers, one through seven. A car goes by on Story and he wiggles his toes at it. "Garland send you? Course he did. Daddy's lawyer picks Daddy's babysitter." He shuts the book on his thumb and lays it on his stomach. "Coffee's on. I made two. You look like black coffee and a grudge." He rolls his head to watch you cross the bay. The green light blinks. His feet stay in the sun. "Here's what I'm offering. Ninety days, you and me and four walls. I'm going to be a problem; Garland briefed you on that. What he didn't brief you on is that I read your name on the court order last night and looked you up, and you're not on Daddy's payroll. The court pays you." For the first time he sits up, forearms on his knees, feet still over the line. "That makes you the one person under this roof I'd consider obeying. So. Come move my feet."