Do Not Pass Go, page 5
Deet fidgeted the whole time his mom was gone, giving the girls offhand, automatic answers, feeling more like a recording or a robot than a real person. He kept trying not to look nervous to the girls, and that seemed to make him act weirder than ever, his gestures all wrong, his voice up there in some phony-cheery range.
After they heard Mom’s car pull into the driveway, it seemed to take her forever to come up the front steps and open the door. Deet scanned Mom’s face to see what was there. Nothing. She seemed to have discovered in just one day how to mask her feelings, pretend.
She chattered brightly to the girls as she hung up her clothes on the hooks by the door. “Daddy is fine and sends you his love. He can call you on the phone pretty soon, when he gets his phone privileges.”
“But when can he come home,” asked Jam in a whiny kind of way.
“Well, we don’t know for sure, but it will be a while.”
“Will he be here for Easter?”
“I just don’t know yet.”
When the girls had wandered off to watch TV, Mom poured herself a cup of coffee. She made a face because the coffee was left over from breakfast, had been sitting there all day getting stronger and stronger. Deet wished he’d thought to make her a fresh pot. He seemed to be having a hard time thinking about other people today. He was concentrating too hard on keeping himself together. He seemed on the edge of tears all the time. Some scrap of music from the radio, something that reminded him of Dad, a magazine cover, a look on Mom’s face would set him off. Deet could see that she had lost some of that hard efficiency she’d started out with in the morning, and when she was alone with him, she looked as close to tears as he felt.
“It was horrible,” she said, staring into the murky coffee in the cup. An ugly place, full of guards, and there was this terrible woman at the desk who’d looked at her in a certain way when she signed in. She’d had to say Dad’s name out loud when the guard asked who she was visiting, and she couldn’t. She’d whispered it, ashamed for everyone to hear his name. And Dad, Dad had looked awful.
“He’s in a prison uniform, Deet. Just like everybody else there.”
Deet had a vision of Dad in a striped suit, like the comic books, but the picture was so impossible that it melted away as soon as it had come.
“I told him what the lawyer said, that he’d be in to visit him in a day or two to let him know what was going on. Dad’s worried about you.”
“Me?”
“He thinks you’ll have a hard time of it at school.”
Deet, of course, was worried about that too, so he couldn’t think of anything to say.
“And he thinks you’ll be ashamed of him,” Deet’s mom said.
The tears jumped into his eyes. He had felt ashamed. It was true. He stared at the table and bit his lip until the pain made him forget about crying. He still couldn’t look at her, but he said, “I’ll never be ashamed of him.”
EIGHT
On Monday, Dad’s arrest was in the police column.
Deet had imagined seeing it there so many times that he’d taken the edge off of it, but it still made him sick to actually see Dad’s name there, to read the cold details. Drugs. It sounded so sleazy, so sordid.
He could imagine everyone in the town reading it. Grandma and Grandpa. The guys at work. Parents, asking their kids, “Don’t you have a boy in your class named Aafedt?”
The day after that, Deet went back to school. He didn’t take the bus. He asked Mom to drive him because he didn’t think he could stand to feel the eyes on the back of his neck.
They’d once had a hermit crab that changed its shell for a bigger one when it grew out of the old one. Deet and the girls had carefully selected two new, bigger shells for the crab to choose from, and then they waited and waited for the crab to change houses. When the crab had finally crawled out of the old shell, it was shockingly naked, pink and soft. There was nothing to protect it. Deet felt like that crab without a shell, exposed and vulnerable.
Every car they passed, every person on the street, looked like an enemy, someone who would turn against Dad, against them. The respectable people, the thoughtless people, who wouldn’t ask questions, how and why and what sort of person Dad was. They’d just condemn him. A dark town they were living in, full of hard people. Deet wondered why he hadn’t seen it before. He wished they could all move away, somewhere else, and never see this town again.
Every house they passed with brightly lit windows made him more bitter. No one in these houses had any worries, they were all happy. They were all free, without a care in the world. And Dad was locked up, like a rabid dog, or something worse.
Deet told the girls not to talk about Dad in school. Deet wasn’t worried about Jam, but P. J. was likely to blab anything to anyone. He felt bad giving them that warning, because he knew that by doing so he’d given them the idea that there was something to be ashamed of.
It was very hard to get out of the car and walk into the school. It was like a grade-school nightmare, like when you were playing Red Rover or something and you were afraid no one would choose you. Or maybe they’d turn and say, Get out, we don’t want to play with you. What did he care about any of these kids, anyway? What did he care what they thought?
Mom threw him a look of understanding when he got out of the car, but she didn’t say anything. It occurred to him that one of the good things about her was that she never said anything stupid, never said anything like, You’ll feel better tomorrow, or It could be worse.
In the school hallway he felt so unprotected that he took all his books out of his locker, instead of just the one he needed for first period. It was as if the big stack of books could make a shield for him.
He walked to Mr. Hodges’s class to turn in his homework. He didn’t know if people were looking at him funny or not because he didn’t look at anyone, just looked straight ahead and tried not to notice anything. He felt angry at every kid in the hall, angry because nothing ever went wrong for any of them, angry because they had such golden lives, angry because they didn’t even know anything about life, angry because they had stupid laughs and screechy, horrible voices.
He’d imagined a hundred times what Mr. Hodges would say to him, or what kind of look he’d give him. Mr. Hodges knew Dad because he always took his car into Dan’s garage. Mr. Hodges’s dad and Dan had been mechanics together, long ago. Deet was proud that Mr. Hodges’s dad had been a mechanic too, for some reason, like it gave them something in common. And Dad thought Mr. Hodges was a great guy, especially because Mr. Hodges had bragged about Deet to him, had told Dad that Deet should plan on college when he graduated from high school.
But maybe Mr. Hodges would be embarrassed and wouldn’t say anything about Dad, or maybe he wouldn’t even have seen the paper.
Mr. Hodges looked up when Deet laid his homework in the basket on his desk. His eyes squinted in sympathy.
“I saw the paper,” he said. “Charley.”
Deet clenched his jaw tighter. A lump had leaped into this throat as soon as Mr. Hodges spoke.
“Hang in there,” said Mr. Hodges. “Hang in there. Charley’s not the only one ever got in this kind of trouble, for what that’s worth.” Mr. Hodges searched Deet’s face. He leaned forward on his desk. “I used to work there. In the jail. Teaching English. Before they cut all the education classes. It’s not as bad as you might think.”
Deet looked at the desk. He didn’t know what to say.
Mr. Hodges waved his hand in a helpless way.
“I don’t mean that the experience isn’t so bad. I just mean that jail isn’t anything like it is in the movies. It’s more like …”
Mr. Hodges looked at the ceiling and the windows, trying to find the right word.
“Boot camp,” he said suddenly. “Of course, you’ve never been in the army, so that wouldn’t mean much to you. It’s not really like boot camp,” he said, seeming to be in despair at trying to describe it, “but anyway, it’s not like those stupid jail movies you see. At least not in a little town like this. We haven’t got a big enough population to have a lot of bad guys in our jail. Mostly just penny-ante stuff, you know.”
He looked at Deet again to see if he’d made any sense. Deet swallowed, wanting not to talk because of the lump.
“Well, I’ll shut up about it,” said Mr. Hodges. “Just come and see me if you get down.”
Deet nodded sadly at Mr. Hodges and left the room. He felt ashamed. Mr. Hodges thought he was a nicer person than he really was. Mr. Hodges thought Deet was only worried about Dad in jail. He was glad Mr. Hodges hadn’t known how selfish Deet’s first thoughts were, how embarrassed he was for himself. And Mr. Hodges was as upset for Deet, and for Dad, as he could be. Mr. Hodges was hurting for them.
That was something.
He went to sit in his usual seat in the back row of homeroom. He dreaded homeroom more than anything. He knew how it would be. Someone in the front would glance back at him, and they’d bend over to whisper in their neighbor’s ear.
Before he’d opened his book to read, Nelly sat down next to Deet, tilted back his chair against the wall, and folded his arms across his chest. A stern new look had settled on Nelly’s face as he watched their classmates. He was ready to protect Deet.
Deet felt a hot wave of affection for Nelly.
He looked at Nelly sideways. “Hi, Nell.” His voice sounded odd because it was almost the first time he’d spoken all morning.
Nelly nodded to him gravely. “Hi, Deet,” and returned to his surveillance.
And that was another something.
NINE
Everything got easier, just like people always told you. It got easier every day for Mom to walk up to those cold steel doors at the jail, and it took less courage, just a little less, for Deet to go to school, even when he was back riding the bus. The knot in his stomach eased up, and he began to eat again. It had seemed as if he’d never be hungry again, and his pants were all loose at the waist, but he got his appetite back.
After the first week in jail, Dad began to call them at night when he could get to use the phone. Somehow he managed to make the girls feel like he was all right, just disgusted with himself. “Daddy says he was an idiot!” Jam announced delightedly when he’d hung up after the first call.
Dad could use the phone for only five minutes, so he usually spent that time talking with the girls. He saw Mom every day, and he knew she’d pass on everything to Deet. Only once did he ask to speak to Deet.
“The kids at school ever say anything to you?” Dad asked in a tight voice.
“Never,” said Deet. “Never.”
It was true, and Dad could tell it was true by the way he said it.
“Good,” said Dad, and he sounded relieved. “That’s good. I was worried about that.”
No one had said a word to Deet about Dad. He didn’t know if it was kindness or ignorance. Maybe they didn’t read the police column, maybe they hadn’t heard. Maybe the cold, blank look on his face was scaring them, maybe he was so unimportant it wasn’t worthwhile making him miserable. Maybe Nelly really did keep them away, at least for homeroom and lunch, and the math and PE classes he had with Deet.
But some of them knew. Deet could tell.
His math teacher, Mr. Ellis, who was usually sort of distant, treated him differently somehow, seemed more aware of him, looked at him more often or something. Deet wondered if they’d been talking about Dad in the teachers’ lounge.
And once in science, Saul Hastings was goofing around before class and he broke a beaker. Mr. Zingle gave Saul a detention, and one of the other boys had said, in a dramatic voice, “You’re going to jail.” Immediately Sarah Smith, who sat next to Deet, slid her eyes toward Deet in alarm, obviously upset that someone had said “jail” in front of him. So Sarah knew.
Mom had to get a job. Everything was going to take a long time—the hearings, the trial, the sentencing—and they needed money. She could easily get a waitress job again, she thought. She’d had a lot of experience, and she was good and fast. Deet knew she’d been liked as a waitress because she was happy-go-lucky, chatted with all the customers, and laughed a lot. That’s why she’d made so much in tips.
Deet didn’t think she would be like that this time. She had become quiet, and he hadn’t heard her laugh for a long time.
One night she was late after she’d been to visit Dad, and when she got home she told them that she’d found a job. “I stopped at the Sourdough Café where I used to work when you were little. Al said he didn’t need anyone, but he said he knew they needed someone at Gina’s Diner, so he called the owner, Guy Davis, and told him about me, and Guy said to come right over, so I went there and he hired me right away. Al told him I had a lot of experience and I’m good. And fast. They like you to be fast.”
On her first day at work, Deet and the girls couldn’t help staring at her. She looked so different in her uniform. Trim, neat, efficient, her hair pulled back. Her face scrubbed. She looked older and younger at the same time. Deet was afraid that when she went to work she’d feel like she had at the jail, ashamed and embarrassed. Like he’d felt the first days at school. All the people who came into a diner looking at you. He wished he could get a job instead. He wished he could protect her from people’s eyes.
One night he asked her, “When you’re at work, do you feel like everyone’s looking at you funny?”
She sat down at the table with him and gave a big sigh. She looked pretty tired. “Well,” she said, “I know a lot of people who eat there and a lot know Dad from the shop. First thing I always think is, whoever comes in, I wonder if they know about it. But you wouldn’t believe how many people ask me about Dad right away, not even embarrassed, and start telling me about their boyfriend or brother or even themselves getting in trouble. Like I just joined some kind of club.”
“Like Sally,” said Deet.
“Right. Like Sally. I don’t know if I’d want to tell someone stuff like that.”
She shook her head, looking a little bewildered. “It’s begining to seem as if there are more people who’ve messed up than ones who haven’t. Anyway, when people say things like that to me, I don’t feel like we’re all alone.”
Deet thought about people telling you about their mistakes. They were giving you something very special, weren’t they? Like Bingo and Willy, at the shop. When Deet did something wrong, they’d laugh and tell him about something they’d done when they were just starting out.
Nothing could make you feel better than knowing that someone else had done something stupid too. He’d have to look to see if there was a quote about this.
Every night Mom put all her tips in a glass jar in the cupboard. She said that people who looked like they couldn’t afford it would tip the most, but the big-shot guys, especially if there were a lot of them at the table being loud and funny, left the least, sometimes nothing. Tips were the only thing that made a waitress job okay, because they just made minimum wage otherwise. He’d leave big tips when he grew up. Huge ones.
It was okay, having Mom working. Deet had to get the girls off to school, which was not a lot of fun, but Mom was home early enough to get supper and go see Dad at night.
But that didn’t last long. In a few weeks they changed Mom’s shift and things got a lot more complicated. She was working noon to nine, and that meant she couldn’t see Dad at all, except on Saturday or Sunday, and there was no help for it.
Deet couldn’t stand the idea of Dad being there alone, with no visitors except on weekends.
“Mom,” he said, “you’ve got to let me go visit Dad. He’ll go crazy if he doesn’t have visitors.” He expected a big argument, and part of him was hoping she’d win the argument. But she’d changed her attitude toward the jail, partly from going there every day, and partly from what people had said to her at work.
“I could get the school bus to drop me off in front of the theater, and walk to the jail from there. Then I could get the city bus home an hour and a half later and take care of supper and all, and get the girls to bed.”
“What about your homework?” Deet took hours and hours to do his homework. He read the textbooks, underlined them, and then outlined the chapters. He wrote questions for each chapter and then covered the answers with a paper and quizzed himself. He read extra material on whatever they were studying. Whatever the assignment he studied it twice as well as anyone had ever dreamed of. It was a matter of being thorough, and it was a matter of being afraid that he somehow wouldn’t remember what was necessary when it was time for the tests.
“I’ll have plenty of time to do my homework,” Deet said. He was pretty sure there wouldn’t be enough time at all.
“What about the girls? They’ll be home an hour before you get here.”
“Maybe Sally would let them come there for an hour.”
So Mom called Sally, who said she’d be glad to have the girls after school for an hour and to tell Deet that she’d teach him how to cook.
TEN
The next day after school Deet got off the school bus at the theater. His stomach had been tight all day, thinking about what he had to do. He had a copy of the visiting schedule in his pocket, which he had checked at least three times on the bus, he was so worried about being late.
Deet had never been on the street where the jail was. He crunched past house after respectable house, the old folks’ home, a soccer field. A beautiful dog stood on the sidewalk, gravely offering his head to be stroked. Deet bent and gently smoothed the fur on the top of his head. He felt a sudden sorrow for the dog. Being a dog was a lot like being a prisoner. You had to do what you were told, didn’t you?
It seemed he’d been walking forever, when he turned a corner and saw it. It was just getting dark, so Deet’s first view of the prison was in a gloomy half light that made it look ominous and chilling. Like a prison movie.
