Reese steered his bike up Hollendale toward the school. It was getting dark already, summer ending, he thought. Thank Christ Dad hadn’t insisted on driving him today. Maybe he would just sit in the outside bleachers for a little while. Suck some air. See if anybody was around and play a little pickup if somebody was. His neck felt like it was shrinking, pulling his head back into his shoulders.
He spun into the parking lot, pedaling hard, and then he saw it. The big old white Thunderbird, a restored ’68. The vanity plates said BG COCH, which they all knew that fat bastard intended to mean “Big Coach,” but to most of the kids—except, of course, the loyal storm troopers of the varsity A squad—it was “Big Cock” or “Big Crotch,” depending on the mood they were in.
Teeter. That fat fuck. Probably in there right now planning ways to emasculate some ninth grader into peeing himself. An old fart, gone to fat, still trying to drive his Beach Boys car around town. Teeter, thought Reese, slowing down, carefully stowing his bike in the bushes, behind a stack of railroad pilings. He put his hands in his pockets. It was almost dark now.
Which suited Reese just fine.
CHAPTER 33
The guard pulled the metal-armed chair out for Reese and motioned for him to sit down.
And then he left, silently, as if vaporized. Reese wouldn’t even have known the guy was gone except for the eddy of deflected air from the closing door. He stared at the smeared Plexiglas partition, with its distinct prints of hands, snail trails of…he didn’t like to think what. Reflexively, he lifted his hands into his lap and held his arms tightly against his sides. He didn’t want the furniture, with its hosts of prior bacterium, to touch his body and inhabit his skin. The room was rank; it stank of hair rinsed in cigarette smoke, of dirty insoles. It was a little, little room, a narrow closet. Reese tried not to breathe, tried not to take the molecules of stink into his nose; whatever you breathed, dog fart or cinnamon bread baking, it became part of you. Oh God, I want to be clean, Reese thought. I want my bed. I want my toothbrush. He didn’t have his watch anymore, and the room had no windows; but he knew it was morning. The sky had been lightening already when they drove him over from the hospital. And then it took about twelve hours to do his fingerprints and take away his normal clothes; and then they told him to go to sleep—and he did fall asleep, in spite of all the noise and crying, but only slept for like a half-hour. Then they got him up and told him his parents were there. They had been at the hospital, but he’d been so high from the shot they’d given him he couldn’t remember what his mom or his dad had said, or even whether they had touched him.
Now, he wasn’t much improved. If anybody asked him, Reese could not have sworn whether four hours had passed or forty. But it had to be Saturday. Just later Saturday. When he saw his mom outside the door, he suddenly had a memory flash from the hospital emergency room. Red jeans. She still had on the same red jeans.
The no-contact visiting room was supposed to be soundproof. There was a vanilla-colored telephone on his side that he would use to speak to his mother when she came in. But he could watch her already, through the long rectangle of the window of the door opposite, standing in profile as if the window were a picture frame, her head hanging down, her fuzzy dark hair shadowing her face.
She was talking to someone, and when she shifted back to pick up her shoulder bag, that someone reached for her. Candy: the swan arms and frosted fingertips unmistakable, even in a blue blazer-type thing, the kind of thing he hardly ever saw Candy wear. Candy put her arms around Reese’s mom and stroked Beth’s hair. Reese would have given anything, at that moment, to hear…He laid his head down on the Formica laminate of the counter, forcing himself not to cringe at the contact. Soundproof—ah, yes. Another triumph of technology—not. He could hear his mother say, “…better off home?”
But Candy’s voice was louder, good ol’ Candy. Hers was a voice accustomed to giving orders to people with voices lower than hers.
Mutter, mutter, she said, and then, “…could kick him today even, though technically, you know, there has to be a custody proceeding for a juvenile, and we can’t do that until Monday afternoon at the earliest. But Bethie…” They were leaning against the door now, as if they didn’t realize he was sitting there at all, some three feet of air and an inch of plastic away, right there. Hello, Mom. Hello, Candy. They didn’t look at him. “…a bad idea to let him stay the weekend.” Reese could feel sweat snake down his breastbone. “There’s a kind of kid you know is going to snuggle up to those little friends in there and learn some tricks…” Reese lost her voice for a moment as she turned briefly away, but then, “…scare the hell out of him. I mean, the decisions going on in there are whether to cop to the rape charge in exchange for dropping the drug charge. They got the father shooters on one side and the mother shooters on the other. It’s a gamble, Bethie, but this is a kid who wrecked a stolen car, drunk, and scuffled with a cop…peanuts, Beth.”
It’s peanuts? Or not peanuts? Reese tried to slow down the thrum of his heart that interfered with his hearing. His heart rebelled, pummeling harder.
Outside, Reese’s mom made a noise, tossed her head back.
“I don’t mean to you,” Candy went on, “but for all Reese has done in the past, you know…a criminal kid. This isn’t a pattern. This is his first major antisocial…. Beth, you know what I’m saying…. In this case, reform school for this, especially with his history…”
Jesus God, thought Reese. Is that the best I can get, or the worst?
“…teach him the world doesn’t owe him a living no matter how he screws up?” Mom asked then, louder.
“I don’t think the world owes him a living, Beth,” Candy said. “But the world owes him an apology.”
“…to us all. And what about Sam?” True to form, Mom, Vincent thought. I’m in the can here, and we’re going to find a way to bring up the prodigal son. Who, like, wishes you were anywhere but here. Who literally jumped out a second-story window to get away from you. Who probably hates your guts. Yes, Mom, let’s discuss Ben, alias Sam.
“Ben, too,” said Candy. “That is, Sam, too. But Reese didn’t do this thing because he was trying to throw his weight around….”
Reese heard another voice, muffled. Dad. Oh, good Christ. And Candy replied, “Well, yeah, Pat. You know all this shit. What kids do if they’re hurting, kids like Reese. He’s not going to come up to you and say, ‘Well, Dad, I didn’t really mean for Sam to leave, though I’m not entirely sorry he did. This is bothering me.’ They can’t do that—Reese especially—so he has to do something crazy, something so big it draws all the attention off how he feels about this….”
“…his fault?” It was his mother.
“Oh, Beth,” said Candy, her voice tangy with irritation. “You know he thinks everything is his fault. And you know, Beth, I don’t want to scare you—you’ve been scared enough for ten people in one life—but you know how many car accidents are suicide attempts for kids? You know that? I’m not trying to lay blame on top of this, but let’s think about what he’s going through….”
Whose fault? Not yours, Mom, no way. Reese rubbed his neck. His skin felt coated with syrup; he was accreting every piece of grit in this place.
And then, all of a sudden, his Dad was yelling, “…pay some attention to him once in a while, he’d know you gave a shit whether he was up in his room or wrapped around a fucking tree!”
“Well, Pat, they ate last night at Wedding in the Old Neighborhood, while your son was hot-wiring a teacher’s car,” Beth said evenly, shrilly.
“Why not be a mother, Beth?” Reese could hear his dad’s voice, tiny, but he knew Pat was yelling. He could visualize him, throwing his chest out. He hated that little rooster posture, the one that sometimes ended with a fist through a hollow-core door. “Why not just try it?”
“Pat,” Candy said. “Shut up.”
The door behind him whispered again. The quiet guard. “They’ll be with you in a minute, Vincent. They’re ta
lking to the chief.”
The chief. A definite smile there. Reese still couldn’t help it. Chief Bliss. The babe cop who found Ben Cappadora. Even though she didn’t. Even though she couldn’t find him, for nine years, a mile from the police station. Well, okay, Candy. Affirmative action. Go for it. He put his hands over his face. Fuck the bacteria. And then the door in front of him opened inward, and there was his mother, not much more deranged-looking than on any ordinary day, taking in the dirty window and the scummy phone and him in his lank green jail jump suit, as if all of it were furnishings, sitting down. He was so sick to his stomach, tasting the peach brandy, that looking at the raccoony way Mom rubbed the backs of her little strong hands against her cheeks as she sat down, it was so muchsomething he could picture her doing in her robe in the kitchen or something, he almost started to cry, and then he thought he would puke. He looked away.
“Vincent,” she said.
“Hi, Mom.”
“How are you?”
“Okay.”
They sat there. His mother breathed in through her nose and let the air escape her mouth with a long hiss. Vincent concentrated on swallowing, swallowing. Maybe, he thought, she’ll give me hell. She’ll tear a strip off me. Any other parent in the hemisphere would. This was, after all, a big-time jerk-off. He guessed he deserved it. Mom? He looked at her and coiled in preparation. But she just sat there Momishly. Finally, she seemed to think of something.
“Well, do you need anything? I mean, anything at all from home? Because I think that you’re going to have to stay here a day or so more, because it’s the weekend….”
And learn my lesson like a good little boy, thought Reese, feeling better. Well, actually, Mom, yes, I need a couple of things. I need to get out of this shitty dump where the light’s in your face no matter which way you turn and the guy in the next bed keeps looking at me as if I was a Big Mac and the little thirteen-year-old kid one room over is crying nonstop for his grandma. A little kid who cut his mother’s boyfriend in the gut with a steak knife. Yeah, I need a couple of things, Mom.
“No, I’m fine,” he said.
“Are you sure? You look green. Are you sick to your stomach or anything?”
Reese had to look away. It was like she could see the brandy-and-acid pluming up and down the sides of his stomach like one of those musical light fountains. Where did his goofy buddy Schaffer get that shit anyway? Did adults actually drink it? And why did he pick Schaffer up anyway? Why hadn’t he just ditched the damn car and sat in a ditch to drink? No simple mistakes for you, Cappadora, he thought. He struggled again not to cry. Well, now I know. I know what peple talk about to their kids in jail. Nausea. But before he could stop himself, he said, “My head aches.”
“Candy says you should tell one of the officers if you feel bad in any way, and they can get you something.”
“Well, they can’t get me an aspirin. I already asked. They have to have, like, a nurse. They said not for a couple hours.”
“I have an aspirin,” said Beth, reaching for her purse. Reese smiled and reached up to pat the Plexiglas partition. “Oh, sure. I forgot. My God, Vincent. Is your head bleeding?”
“No.”
“Oh, honey. Uh…do you want to see Dad?”
Exit stage left, Mom, thought Vincent, that’s your bit. He was about to nod when he realized, abruptly, that he did not want to see his dad, maybe ever, especially not here, did not want to see the gray crescents under Pat’s eyes, and the way Pat would rake his hair and reach for the partition as if he wanted to melt through it and lift Vincent up. If he saw his dad, that would be it. He had to keep himself low and slow, low and slow. So he said, “Not now, Mom. I just want to sleep.”
She said, frightened-like, “Okay.” He thought she would get up to leave then, but instead she placed both her hands flat on the counter on her side and cradled the telephone on her shoulder. She reached up and touched the partition. “Vincent. There’s something I want to ask you.”
He was intrigued. From Mom, this much conversational initiative was the equivalent of a film festival. Panic, he thought. She knows this is the big time. She’s going to ask me why I did this—whether I was trying to kill myself or something. She’s going to ask me what the hell I’m trying to do to her….
“Yeah?”
“Ben is here.” She shook her head. “Sam is here.”
“Oh, shit.” Figures. “What did you bring him here for?” Turn him away from a life of crime? The existent proof?
“He asked to come.”
“How in the hell did he even find out?”
“Your dad told him.”
“Why?”
“He thought…You can imagine, Vincent. The accident was on television news. The late news. They weren’t supposed to use your name, you’re just a kid, but because of Ben, you know, they said it was Ben Cappadora’s brother. It was a piggy thing to do. And then, of course, they were all on the lawn fifteen minutes later. By this morning, Sam saw it. He called. Well, George called and put Sam on. He thought Sam would want to know if you were hurt….”
“Sam,” said Reese, angry now, “Sam wouldn’t want to know if I was on fire, Ma. What is this shit?” Reese had an inspiration. “I don’t even think you can bring little kids in here. That is, the little kids who aren’t already in here.”
“Candy said it’s okay.”
“Is there, like, some big therapeutic reason ‘Sam’ has to come in and see me? Is it, like, healing?”
“I don’t care if he does or not, Vincent.” His mother’s eyes were gone all black, no green. She laser-looked him. “I don’t care if you see him or you don’t. He wants to see you. I said I would tell you. He asked us to drive him over. We drove him over.”
Reese thought, She knows when they say you can do whatever you want and that they couldn’t care less, you always do what they want you to. There’s no way out. He waved his hand at her.
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll go get him. He’s downstairs.”
“Whatever.”
“Okay.”
“Mom?”
“Yes?”
“Can I see Tom?”
“Tom…”
“Tom Kilgore Tom…you know, Mom?”
“Ummmm…I don’t know, Vincent. They said only immediate family.”
“But I can see Sam.”
The way she looked at him then, Reese thought, She really does hate me. I knew she hated me, but she really fucking hates me. He started to apologize, to say something, but then his mother said softly, “Sam is immediate family.”
“Right. I wasn’t thinking.”
“Well, look. I’ll ask Candy if I can call Tom.”
“Forget it.”
“No, I will…. And a lawyer, maybe, though I don’t know if—”
“’Cause I don’t even know if he knows.”
She looked blank, so Reese reminded her: “I mean Tom.”
Beth sighed. “Oh, Vincent, he knows. I think everyone in four states knows.” Reese thought, I’d like to paste her, just once.
Reese stood up and tapped on the door that led back to the detention. The guard was standing right there, but he did this elaborate yawning thing, like, Oh, is that a fly I hear? Reese closed his fist and banged harder.
“Problems?” asked the guard.
“I just want a drink of water, okay?”
“No water.”
“No water?”
“We got no water. You want coffee?”
“I didn’t mean like bottled water….”
“I can’t get water from here. Want coffee?”
“I’m sixteen, man. I don’t even drink coffee,” Reese pleaded, and then added, “Much.”
“I’ll see if I can find you some pop.”
When the guard let the door shut, Reese felt the room suck at him. It was so very small, so small. And the patterns of dirt on the walls and floor were the only variation in all the blond-and-cream-wood-and-plaster, the only decoration. He was not
claustrophobic; he remembered the box on the landing of the stairs, where all of them would hide, and snow forts…
Reese didn’t even notice the kid. But Sam was already holding his telephone. Reese picked up. “How long have you been here?” he asked.
“A minute.” The kid looked scared to death, and he looked…little. Shrunken. He had on a Cubs shirt.
“Are you okay?” the kid asked.
Reese suddenly had this picture of one of the old Pat O’Brien movies his dad made him watch with him in the middle of the night, where Jimmy Cagney was this arch-criminal who was going to the chair, and Pat O’Brien was his old friend from when they were kids, a priest, and he came to the jail to beg Jimmy Cagney to act like a coward when he was going to the chair so all the little kids in the neighborhood wouldn’t think this wrong guy was a hero or something. Reese started to laugh. He couldn’t stop laughing.
“What’s the matter?” Sam said. “What’s so funny?”
“Nothing…I’m…nothing. Well, Sam man, fancy meeting you here.”
“Are you okay?”
Reese automatically reached up to touch the bandage on the back of his head, where they’d stitched…it stung. He still couldn’t figure out how the hell he’d banged the back of his head running into a light pole with the front of Teeter’s car.
“I’m okay. It doesn’t hurt.”
“Are you going to be in here for a long time?”
“Well, five to ten years,” said Vincent, and then he looked at the kid and thought, That was a shitty thing to do. “No, I don’t know, Sam. I guess…I know guys who did stuff, and they had to go to one of these schools….”
“Reform school. Beth said it’s not for sure.”
“Yeah, well, it’s like a farm, I guess. For JDs. I don’t know.”
“What did you do?”