No One in the World by E. Lynn Harris, RM Johnson Page A

officer, a broad-shouldered, shaved-head man said, passing Eric his wallet into an opening in the mesh fencing that separated him from the inventory room. The wallet had been taken away from Eric when he was arrested three years ago.
    â€œOne wristwatch.”
    Eric picked up the watch and fastened it around his wrist. It had stopped working.
    â€œYou’re done,” the corrections officer said. “Go that way for fingerprinting.”
    In the clothes that he had been arrested in, Eric walked down a long corridor with dirty walls toward the fingerprinting room.
    A large woman wearing a white lab coat took Eric’s forefinger and pressed it into a pad saturated with ink, then rolled it over a piece of cardboard.
    â€œYa’ll fingerprinted me when I came in here three years ago,” Eric said. “Why we got to do this again?”
    The big woman performed the same action with another of Eric’s fingers, looked up at him through thick glasses, and said, “Because we need to make sure we’re releasing the same man we locked up.”
    â€œHow am I not gonna be the same man?”
    The woman opened her mouth to answer the question, when Eric said, “Just finish. I’ll do whatever to get out of here.”
    But as Eric wiped his fingers free of ink with the moist napkin she gave him, he wondered what good getting out of there would really do him.
    He knew it would never happen, but he could barely sleep last night for hoping that Jess would show up, or at least call to say that she had reconsidered that petition to take his parental rights away. He dreamt she would tell him she was happy he was getting out, and she and Maya would be there to receive him, or at home when he showed up. No call came.
    After fingerprinting, Eric was directed to continue down the same corridor. It was the one he was brought into three years ago, cuffed and shackled after he had been convicted.
    Back then, he knew exactly what his immediate future would hold. Now, walking down this same hallway in the opposite direction, he had no clue what the next hour would bring.
    The evening sun was brighter than Eric had expected when another muscle-bound corrections officer walked Eric outside and toward the front gate of Joliet State Prison.
    Eric walked in silence, his laundry bag over his shoulder, his empty wallet in his back pocket, his broken watch on his wrist.
    When he and the officer approached the front gate, it was as Eric expected—no one there on the other side to meet him. The street was quiet. Not a single car passing by.
    Eric turned to the CO, saw himself in the big man’s mirrored sunglasses. He looked for something to say, but all he could come up with was, “’Preciate it.”
    â€œNo problem,” the officer said. “We’ll be seeing you back here real soon, I’m sure.” He cracked a sarcastic smile, then raised an arm high in the air, triggering the locks on the gate.
    The mechanical gate lurched, then rolled slowly open to one side, and Eric stepped out.
    No money in his pocket, no destination planned, Eric turned right and started walking.
    After two minutes, he stopped. It made no sense to walk any further, not knowing where he was going. That moment it all hit him. Hewas alone. And even though he had always been that way, from the day his mother dropped him off at that adoption agency, at least there was someone, or some entity—the government, at the very least—who felt responsible for him. After that, there had been girlfriends, or friends he could rely on, but now there was no one.
    Eric felt his knees tremble. What would he do? What was he going to do? No answer came to mind. Just when he thought about lowering himself to the ground and simply giving up, Eric heard a car horn honk behind him.
    He turned, startled to see a large, black Mercedes idling at the corner.
    Eric couldn’t believe it. It was just like Blac said. There behind the