Do Not Pass Go, page 12
After she left, and the girls were asleep, Deet added a few more sentences to his list of good things.
My grandma, who was this sort of nonperson, just my grandpa’s shadow, came out and kind of defied him. That was a really good thing. I never knew she had that in her before. I think I used to make a lot of mistakes about people before this happened.
The next time Deet went to the jail, Andy sat next to him on the cold metal stools in the visiting room. They were waiting for the guard to let the prisoners in, when the guard on duty picked up the phone opposite Andy and said something to him.
Andy looked shocked. “What?” he said. “Are you sure?”
The guard nodded, looking sympathetic.
Andy turned to Deet. “She’s refused to see me,” he said, wonderingly. “She told him to tell me she doesn’t want to see me anymore.”
Andy stared at the wall for a few seconds, then got up and left. “See you,” he said.
The guard let in a woman prisoner with a big belly. Pregnant. She sat down opposite her visitor, a guy with a Spanish accent who didn’t even say hello but began to argue furiously with her, as if he was continuing an argument from the day before. “You can’t give this baby away,” he said. The woman on the other side was angry, thrusting her chin out to make a point, her belly pushed against the metal counter. “I’ll take care of him,” the man said. “Listen to me!”
Deet felt sad listening to the man who wanted to take care of his baby, felt sad thinking about the look on Andy’s face when he left. The more he saw of people in this jail, the sadder he got about people altogether. And the luckier he felt.
EIGHTEEN
On the day before Dad’s trial, Mom gave Deet a bag of clean clothes to take to the jail, because Dad could wear street clothes when he went in front of the judge the next morning. She wouldn’t let Deet go to the trial with her. “Dad doesn’t want you to go, and I don’t either,” she said.
“Sheena went to her brother’s trial,” said Deet. “She said it was awful, hearing people talk about her brother like he was … a criminal.” He and Mom smiled at each other, it sounded so funny. Could you believe they were finding something like this funny?
“God, she’s brave,” said Mom. “I don’t think I could have done that at her age.”
“Is Dad nervous?”
“He’s a wreck,” said Mom.
“But remember what the lawyer told you. We know what’s going to happen. It’s not as if he was pleading not guilty and there was a jury and all. This is just cut and dried. That’s what the lawyer said.”
“Yes, I know,” said Mom, “but what if the judge has had a bad day? What if he’s feeling crabby?”
“It’s not the trial you have to worry about,” said Deet. “It’s the sentencing. That’s what everyone says. This guy, Andy, was telling me. If you plead guilty there’s nothing to the trial, really, but it’s the sentencing where things can get crazy.”
Deet bent down to straighten up the boots and shoes, which were jumbled together by the door. With his back turned to her, he said, “Mom?”
“What?”
“When Dad went to his hearing, I saw him when they were bringing him back to the jail. He had handcuffs on. And chains on his ankles. He was chained at the ankles to this other guy. That’s what they do when they’re out of the jail. It’s the worst thing I ever saw.” He turned to look at her. “You’ve got to get ready for that.”
Mom looked at Deet, horrified. “Oh, my god,” she murmured. Deet could see that she was trying to imagine it, but he knew that all the imagining in the world wouldn’t show her what men looked like hobbled together, humiliated, chained.
“I’m glad you told me that. I never realized.”
Deet was glad Dad wasn’t one of the big criminals, like Big Henry or someone like that. With guys like that, big news, there would be reporters and cameras and lots of people at the trial. Dad was just a run-of-the-mill prisoner, no news in him at all. That was good.
Deet called her at noon to see how the trial had gone.
“I had to wait through two trials before his, so I had calmed down a little by the time it was Dad’s turn. He looked so … I don’t know … young … sitting there by his lawyer. And they didn’t give him the clothes you took to him. He was wearing just the stuff he had on when he was arrested. His shirt looked like it had been stuffed into a little bag all this time, all wrinkled and shabby. I could have cried.” Mom sounded as if she would burst into tears, just thinking what Dad had looked like. Then she made her voice brighter. “But that’s over. Over. Now there’s just the sentencing to go through.”
When Deet visited the jail after school that day, he was almost afraid to ask about the trial, afraid to upset his father. But finally he did. “Was this morning pretty bad?”
“Not so terrible,” Dad said. But Deet thought he looked strained and pale, paler than usual.
“The lawyer told me how it would go, and everyone in here tells you what it’ll be like, so there weren’t any surprises. It’s just that you feel so bad. One day you’re on the side of law and order, and the next thing you know you’re in handcuffs and everyone’s sort of not looking at you, you’re sort of a piece of business, and no one feels obliged to be courteous or polite to you. You’re one of the bad guys.” Dad tucked the phone under his chin and then ran his hands slowly down his thighs to the knees, as if his palms were wet.
“I can’t believe anyone who’s been through this would get in trouble again. I can’t believe anyone would do anything that would make them go on trial a second time,” he said, his face grim.
So Deet knew that “not so terrible” was not really what Dad thought.
Sheena rode to the jail with Deet on the bus the next afternoon, and she read the latest additions to Deet’s quotations notebook.
“This is the last week for the quotations assignment,” said Deet. “It was one of the best things I ever had to do in school. I’m sort of hooked on them. Every time something happens, I go look for a quotation. It’s like everything in the world has already happened to someone and someone has written about it. Now we’re going to do Shakespeare.”
Sheena made a face, but Deet said, “Mr. Hodges can make anything interesting.”
Rhonda was very fluffy that day, with a bright pink blouse and a full, white, swirly skirt with pink polka dots and high heels with laces that wrapped halfway up her legs. Deet wasn’t sure what the look was meant to be. Square dancing?
Andy signed in and came directly to them. He was looking very pleased with himself. He pulled a little velvet box out of his pocket and flipped it open. It held a ring made of some kind of silver metal with a jewel in the center.
“Is it a diamond?” Deet asked, interested. He’d never seen a diamond before.
“Yeah. An engagement ring. Maybe this will put her in a better mood.”
“Does she know about it?” Sheena asked.
“No. I’m just going to spring it on her.”
Deet frowned, thinking of all the ways this could backfire on Andy. What if Della wouldn’t see him again, or what if she didn’t like the ring? What if she didn’t say the right thing? He didn’t want to see Andy get hurt.
Crazy Michael was the only little kid there, and as usual, Michael’s mom was running back and forth in the waiting room, trying to keep Michael from banging on the lockers, swinging from the water fountain, trying to climb up the copy machine. Her red sweater was missing some buttons, and she looked pretty frazzled, but little Michael was dressed beautifully, like a little man, with sturdy little laceup boots and a little flannel shirt. You could tell from that how much his mom loved him, Deet thought.
Andy put Michael on his lap and began to play a noisy game with him, and Michael’s mom sat down next to Deet with a sigh of relief and said, “I told your mom I hoped Michael would grow up to be just like you. But she tells me you never ran around, you were quiet all your life. So I guess I’m gonna have me a wild teenager.” Sheena laughed.
Della was the first prisoner the guard let into the visiting room, and Sheena and Deet talked together, trying not to watch when Andy pulled the ring out of his pocket and showed it to her. On the other side of the glass, Della was covering her face with her hands, and then she got up and pressed her lips against the glass. She looked very, very happy with the ring, and Deet and Sheena looked at each other. Sheena had tears in her eyes. Michael’s mom and the other visitors were watching Andy and Della, trying not to look as if they were.
The tall, athletic guard was the one who was letting the prisoners into the room. Sheena bent to Deet and said, “He always reminds me of that guy who played Superman in the movie.” Deet looked at him again and laughed suddenly. Sheena was right. That’s just what he looked like. “He’s really nice, isn’t he?” said Deet.
“Yeah. My brother says if he catches somebody with cigarettes he just looks away and never turns them in. He’s not like some of the other guards.”
“No strong impulse to punish,” said Deet, and Sheena smiled because she remembered that quotation from Deet’s notebook.
A very old prisoner with a cane walked past the windows in the hallway outside the visiting room. He stopped and had a word with the Superman guard, who said something to make him laugh, and then the guard opened the door to let Michael’s dad in, and Sheena’s brother, and finally Dad. Dad sat down and took the phone and smiled at Sheena. Della twirled on her chair and leaned over to tell Dad about the ring, Deet knew, because she gestured to Andy to show it to Dad. Dad looked at the ring and smiled at Andy, and then he reached out and gave Della a one-armed hug.
Deet looked that night for quotations about marriage, but he couldn’t find one that seemed right for Andy’s case. He decided to write about it anyway.
There’s this guy who comes in to see his girlfriend in jail every day. He’s got a job at the parts counter at the Chevrolet dealer, and he takes his break to visit her. He’s been coming a long time, and he knows everybody who comes to visit, practically. He’s a calm, easygoing guy, short and stocky, and he’s got a lot of thick dark hair and dark eyes that look very kind. He gave his girlfriend a ring today.
I don’t think that girl is wife material. I can’t see her cooking or taking care of a baby. But maybe that’s not what it’s about anymore. I don’t know exactly what people get married for.
Anyway, Andy, the guy, looks like he could do all of the cooking and baby care, and everything else, too. Maybe some people really like taking care of other people.
The next day Mr. Hodges wrote at the bottom of his paper:
“I don’t know what marriage is about either, because I’m not married. Even if I was married, I might not know. We live in confusing times.”
NINETEEN
The night before Deet was to hand in his last quotations homework, he added to his good things list. Every time he thought he was finished with it, he thought of something else.
I learned I was wrong about a lot of things. I used to think people who had fancy houses, fancy cars, had these perfect lives. But they have to come visit people in jail too.
I used to think that some things were so bad you could never live through them, things that hurt so bad it’s like you’ve been stabbed. But now I think you can live through anything. It just slowly gets easier every day. After a while you can even joke about something that was so terrible at first that it made you want to throw up to think about it. That’s a good thing to learn.
After Deet had visited Dad on Wednesday, he stopped in the CD place to wait for the bus. The guys had a scruffy-looking orange cat sitting on the counter. The cat was not happy to have a big dog nosing around and batted at him if he got too close.
“Where’d you get the cat?” asked Deet.
“He was just hanging around for a few days, living under the front step. Look at his ears, tips frozen off. People should take care of their animals. We call him Homeless. Know anyone who wants a cat?”
Deet looked into the calm green eyes of the cat and smoothed his back fur. The cat arched and bumped his head against Deet’s jacket. People, thought Deet sadly. Don’t take care of their kids, don’t take care of their animals.
Sheena’s brother was sentenced and was waiting transfer to another jail. He was as sullen as ever and still didn’t talk much when Sheena went to see him.
Sheena was having a hard time with the idea of having her brother gone, in some other place where she couldn’t visit him. “It’s as if this has become my job. And all these people we know. How will we know how everything worked out for everybody?” Deet had never thought of what would happen when it was over. Maybe he’d miss visiting too. And he was sure Mom would. Hard to believe how your attitude could change.
Grandma came to visit the girls once a week now, and she always brought homemade pastries and cookies and huge bags of grapefruit and apples and bunches of bananas. If Dad called while she was there, she talked to him on the phone, and one Sunday she brought Grandpa over.
Grandpa acted as if nothing had ever happened, as if he’d been there just yesterday.
So Deet and Mom acted like that too.
On Friday morning Deet was skimming the newspaper, as he always did before he went to school. When he turned to the second page, the dark print of the headline on a short story sent a jolt of fear through him:
PAROLEE STABS DRINKING COMPANION
Somehow Deet knew before he read the story that it was about Ronny.
Ronald Joseph, recently released from the correctional center, was arrested Saturday night after a fight in which Gilbert Aniak, 43, was stabbed with a four-inch hunting knife. The pair had apparently been drinking together in Aniak’s apartment when the incident occurred. Aniak was taken to intensive care, and Joseph is in custody.
Deet put his head in his hands. He felt sick, the way he’d felt when Dad was arrested. Ronny. You got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em, know when to walk away and know when to run. His little girl.
When Deet went to visit Dad that afternoon, he saw Ronny being led past the back window, handcuffed. He was wearing red.
TWENTY
After he visited Dad on Friday, Deet stopped by the used CD place as usual. As soon as he walked in, he knew what he was going to do.
“You still got that cat?”
The young guy with the earring gestured to the top shelf, where the cat was curled up, paws tucked under his chest, eyes closed.
“How about if I take him home?” asked Deet.
“Cool,” said the guy. “He needs a good home in the worst way.” He looked at Deet carefully. “Sure your mom won’t mind?”
Deet hadn’t even thought about Mom, but he knew she wouldn’t mind. He shook his head. The guy reached up to the shelf, took the cat down, and put him in Deet’s arms. “Congratulations, Homeless. You got a home.”
“I’m going to call him Ronny,” said Deet.
“How come Ronny?”
“Just after a guy I know,” said Deet.
When Deet got him home, Ronny sniffed every corner of the house carefully, let himself be petted by the girls, and found a warm corner on the shelf over the washing machine, in a pile of extra towels. Deet put down a bowl of tuna and some milk. Ronny didn’t like the milk, but he went mad for the tuna and purred crazily the whole time he was eating. When Mom got home and saw Ronny, she got the same look on her face that she got when someone gave her a baby to hold. Deet could see that Mom really liked cats. She rubbed the cat’s chin while Deet told her about the CD guys and all.
“He’s been fighting,” she said. “See the scar on the back of his neck? And here on his muzzle. He’ll have to be fixed, or he’ll keep fighting.” Deet raised his eyebrows at her. He hadn’t known she knew anything about cats, and here she was sounding like some kind of expert.
“We had cats on our farm,” she said. “One day my dad got mad and shot them all because he said there were too many.” There was a tight line around Mom’s mouth when she said that. It was the first time Deet had ever heard her talk about her dad. He had a pretty good idea now why she hadn’t wanted to talk about him before.
“Oh, I’m glad to have a cat around again,” she said, when the cat closed his eyes and rubbed his jaw against her finger. “What’re you going to call him?”
“Ronny,” Deet told her. Mom looked at him searchingly, and then she nodded sadly. “Ronny,” she said.
Dad was sentenced in early May and was released for the rest of his time not already served to a halfway house. He went back to work, though he had to come back to the halfway house after work. He would be out on parole in another two months.
A lot of the people who had disappeared from the jail over the months were at the halfway house with Dad. The first time Deet visited, he saw the black girl and her dad, and the fat girl with the baby, who could walk now. The sleek-haired Eskimo boy was there too, though someone besides his grandparents, or whoever those old people were, was visiting him. Everyone looked so different out of their prison uniforms.
Visiting was as loose as could be—no searches, and everyone sat in a big room with beat-up couches, a pool table, and Coke machines. It felt like a party to Deet, everybody so relaxed. You didn’t notice how tense people were in jail until you saw them in the halfway house.
Deet saw Andy in the supermarket, and he said Della was out of jail and they were getting married at the end of the summer.
Deet had news for Andy: Michael’s mom was now working as a cook in the diner where Mom worked. Mom said she was a really good cook, and lots of people came in now for her specialties, like barbecued ribs and what she called her down-home meat loaf.
Deet brought Dad a book every week. You had to give it to the staff member who signed you in, so they could check it for contraband, but at least he didn’t have to mail everything he wanted Dad to have. He’d read another of Deet’s favorites, All Quiet on the Western Front.
