Chinese Handcuffs

by Chris Crutcher

  She hears the desk slide back to its original place, and she hears the door open and close and Dawn’s and T.B’s voices out in the other room, and that brings her back in a flash. She runs to the door and listens, waiting to hear if he’s going after her sister. If he does, she thinks, there’s a poker by the fireplace. I’ll get him. I will. I’ll get him.

  But the voices are normal. T.B. is saying he doesn’t know why Dawn couldn’t get the door open or why her sister didn’t hear her knocking. He’s sorry she was scared. No, she shouldn’t go into Jennifer’s room. He just checked and Jennifer’s asleep.

  I’ll tell, Jennifer thinks. Just like before. Wait till I tell Mom. She’ll believe me this time, because I proved it before.

  J. Maddy steals across the hall to the bathroom. Locking the door quickly behind her, she strips her pajamas off and steps into the shower. She makes the water as hot as she can stand and washes herself over and over and over again, and though her mind knows she’s clean, the icky feeling inside won’t go away. She stays until the water begins to turn cold, carefully touching her private parts with the washcloth. There is blood, and it hurts terribly. Just wait, she’ll tell.

  She lies in her bed with the light on, trying to read her book, waiting; but Mom doesn’t come, and it’s very late and J. Maddy finally tries to sleep. She can’t keep the thoughts out, it’s been so long, and she’s out of practice—she really thought she was safe with T.B.—and her body begins to convulse, and the convulsions finally give way to sobs, and she cries until she’s empty, until she approaches an uneasy sleep. But her dreams immediately wrench her awake, and she lies in the darkness of the room, feeling terrified and invaded and utterly powerless. She wishes she could just die.

  The door opens quietly, and J. Maddy hears soft footsteps. Closing her eyes and pulling the covers tight against her chin, she rolls over again into the crack between the bed and the wall. The lamp beside her bed is switched on, and she feels the pressure of someone sitting next to her.

  “Jennifer, I have something you need to see.” It’s T.B.

  J. Maddy doesn’t move.

  “Did you know Rolex almost got run over today?” he says.

  Rolex is J. Maddy’s and Dawn’s dog, a puppy actually. They’ve had him only three months. He’s a golden retriever, and J. Maddy named him Rolex because her mother said he might be a good watchdog. J. Maddy is a whiz at puns. Rolex is also the name of T.B.’s watch.

  J. Maddy turns over. She is defiant, eyes blazing, the covers still pulled tight.

  “It was close,” T.B. says. “Rolex is a very lucky dog. I saved him just in time.” He hands J. Maddy a Polaroid picture of her puppy, his head jammed under the back tire of the car, a boot against his neck. His leash is chained to the back bumper.

  The boot is T.B.’s.

  “I saved him just in time,” T.B. says again.

  J. Maddy’s eyes grow huge as she realizes what this means, and T.B. holds the picture just out of her reach. She looks at him in astonishment, then back at the picture.

  “If you tell anyone—anyone—what happened in here tonight, I won’t be able to get to Rolex in time next time. Do you understand?”

  J. Maddy nods quickly. “I won’t tell,” she says breathlessly. “I promise. I won’t tell.”

  “I believe you, Jennifer. I really do. But you should know that’s just the start. If you change your mind and decide to tell anyway, Rolex won’t be the only one. I’ll get Dawn, and then I’ll get your mom. And then I’ll get away.” He reaches over and places his hands tightly on her cheeks, forcing her to look into his eyes. “I’ve done it before,” he says softly, and J. Maddy is chilled to her marrow.

  That is the face Jennifer remembered as she clutched tight to the pillow in her room. He came again, of course. As often as twice a week sometimes. It had been less lately, probably in the past year or so, but Jennifer only feared that meant Dawn was next. There was no peace. She had perfected the art of “leaving” when he came in and had perfected the lie in the rest of her life so well that sometimes she forgot how she was trapped. Basketball helped with that. So did her studies. It wasn’t hard to be perfect, she thought, when it kept your mind away from such horror. Only during times like these, when she was weakened in some way, did she feel this horrible, empty hopelessness. She would wait it out. She always had.

  CHAPTER 6

  Dear Preston,

  That’s what it is, things get misnamed. Stacy said that. Today Mr. Caldwell told me I didn’t have any respect. What he meant was, I’m not afraid of him. Mr. Caldwell calls fear respect. That’s really not a bad trick if you can get the right people to buy it. See, respect is a good thing, at least the way most people see it. Fear is a bad thing, but it’s a lot easier to create. So if you’re lazy, or dumb, and don’t want to go through what you have to for respect, your next best option is to call something else by its name, like fear. It’s like fool’s gold. Fear is fool’s respect.

  The Nobel Prize for that little theory was a three-day vacation, do not pass Go, do not collect your lunch ticket. The rebellious part of you would love me these days, Pres. I spend more time out of school than in, and my grades are still the same. ’Course, part of the reason he booted me might be traced to my delivery. I wasn’t exactly scholarly in my presentation. I just needed to get that turdburger out of my face. God, he always catches me in the hall or the lunchroom or someplace where I’ve just fallen in lust with some girl to hold me over until I can figure out what I’m supposed to do with Jen and Stacy. Then he just pushes until I fight back, which is usually within the first fifteen seconds. The way I normally fight back is to say something about either his bald head or his mother. Neither of us likes to lose face, though he has more to lose—his goes all the way to the back of his head—so we get locked in and end up in a tug-of-war that he always wins because he has been granted the divine gift of suspension.

  Yesterday we were in second lunch, with a considerable audience. Pretty soon, nothing short of one of us falling to his knees to beg forgiveness would stop us once we got right down to pretty unpleasant pleasantries. Actually I think I may have wanted the vacation because I had several chances to walk away and didn’t.

  You were right, Pres. Caldwell got to be an administrator the only way you can if your IQ is roughly equal to the daily average mean temperature from late October through early March—above the forty-fifth parallel. He was a coach. As far as I’m concerned, coaches fall into two categories: those I like and those I don’t. Caldwell is president and lifelong board chair of those I don’t, and in fact, he’s one of the main reasons I never went out for anything. He and his followers—and they are legion—have somehow confused athletic commitment with patriotism and human spiritual values, among other things. They believe that the way to keep your body and soul free of the Communist plague is to exercise both daily in the athletic arena—the American athletic arena—and they also believe Jesus Christ was the best darned quarterback/power forward/third baseman (pick one, depending on your sport of preference) who ever lived, and to tell you the truth, I get tired of them using such a heroic dude as Jesus must have been for such cheap purposes. And when I get really tired of it, I usually get time off for bad behavior. I never give him enough to expel me because I know I need an honorable discharge from this place, but I like to think of myself as a chigger in his undershorts. I don’t want to make his life a living hell, but I sure want to make it uncomfortable. Yesterday, though, things went a little far.

  It started innocently enough. He hollered my last name as I was carrying my tray toward a table.

  I said, “Yeah?”

  “You given any consideration about what we talked about?”

  I love to string him out. “Which thing?” I asked.

  “About your turning out for track this spring.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said, “I did,” and I continued on toward the table.

  “Well?”

  “Well, what?”

&nb
sp; “What did you decide?”

  I said, “I decided not to,” and went on to set the tray down beside Jen’s.

  His standard exasperation with me was about at his chest, working its way quickly toward his throat, at which time I expected his speech to get a little constricted. He took a deep breath. Our wars are famous by now, so the two tables around us grew quiet. “Did you talk with Coach?” he asked.

  “No, sir, I didn’t.”

  “I thought we’d agreed you’d talk with Coach before you made your decision.”

  “No, sir, actually we didn’t agree. You said I should, and I said I’d think about it. I thought about it and decided I didn’t want to.”

  A knot about half the size of a seedless grape appeared at his tightening jaw. I wonder how he does that. “You know, Hemingway, you could use a little lesson in respect.”

  I looked at the floor.

  “When are you gonna quit taking from this school, Hemingway? When are you gonna give something back?” By now the quiet had spread to most of the tables in that section of the cafeteria and kids were moving in from outlying areas. “You have athletic talents some of these kids would kill for,” he said. “But you don’t have enough respect for your school, or your peers, or me to use them for some good.”

  Now there’s a time in these discussions Caldwell and I have semiregularly when I try to reason with him—you know, tell him why really I choose to do what I do. That usually comes right before I start talking about his ancestry.

  “I do use them for some good, sir. I do triathlons.” That really gets up his nose, and I knew it because triathlons are done completely away from school and he’s seen my times—broken down into the swimming, running, and cycling components—enough to know that if I’d turn out for the distances in track, I could do some serious ass kicking in the name of Chief Joseph High School. He hates that I choose to do it in the name of Dillon Hemingway.

  “That’s pretty selfish, don’t you think?” he said, loosening his tie a little.

  I nodded. “Pretty selfish,” I said.

  “So you think it’s okay to just take what you want from this place without giving it anything back in return, is that right?”

  I felt myself drop a level. I can act pretty cool up to a point, but I don’t really like that much of an audience, and since you said some of the things you said about me the day you killed yourself, I do think there are times when I consider myself pretty selfish, and even though I may not do anything about it, I’m not proud of it. So I was quiet.

  And Caldwell can smell a cornered animal.

  “You know, Hemingway, I don’t think it’s just this school you don’t have any respect for. I don’t think you have much respect for anything. Your dad must feel pretty hopeless, what with all he’s been through these last couple of years.”

  Inside me, I knew he was walking on thin ice because he was into my family now, and if his next move was to bring you into it, he was looking for some serious escalation.

  “Mr. Caldwell,” I said, and by now we had the full cafeteria hanging on our every word, “I don’t mind you harassing me in the name of respect and school spirit and all that. But you want to think twice before you start in on my family.” I walked a couple of steps toward him. “You keep saying I don’t give anything back to this school. I haven’t gotten a grade lower than a B plus since I set foot in this place, and there have been damn few of those. I work my ass off in classes, and I do a pretty good job as trainer for Coach Sherman. Now, my dad pays taxes just like everyone else’s folks, so I figure my educational debt is covered. The trouble is, you think a full-service educational system consists of state championships in every sport and if somebody happens to learn something along the way, well, that’s cool.”

  “Hemingway,” he said, “you’re about to get yourself into a lot of trouble. I won’t be talked to that way.”

  I put up my hands. “Fine. I’ll go eat my lunch, and you go do whatever it is you do, and we’ll forget all about this little chat.”

  He shook his head. “What’re we going to do with you?” he said. “You’re going to turn out just like your brother.”

  He had to do it, Pres. I can be as mad at you as I want, but that is not a consideration I extend to others. I whirled and walked toward him, not really knowing whether I’d take a shot at laying him out or what. “My brother’s dead, you flaming asshole. We’re all gonna turn out like my brother. You keep it up, though, and you’re gonna turn up there sooner.”

  Caldwell had never seen me go quite that far, and I could see real fear in his eyes. You know how big he is, and he’s still in pretty good shape—really good shape, if you want to know—so I don’t think he was afraid for his physical self, but he was sure afraid of how far he might have to go to stop me. He was caught, though, just like I was, and he had to play it out.

  “Are you threatening me?” he said, holding his ground.

  I stopped right in front of him and nodded. “Yup,” I said. “I sure am.”

  “You’re out of here, Hemingway. Three days. You’re lucky it’s not longer.”

  “And you’re lucky I need the time to finish a term paper,” I said. “Because I’m going to take the vacation and cut everyone’s losses. I’m not going to register a formal complaint with the school board, and I’m not going to see my old man’s lawyer.” I turned to walk out, then turned back and pointed a shaky finger at him. “But I will next time.”

  He stood quietly and watched me leave. My temper leaves almost as fast as it comes up, so by the time I got to the door I felt under control, and I wanted a parting shot. “Must have had you worried a minute there, sir,” I said with a grin, and patted the top of my head. “It’s raining all over your crystal ball.”

  And speaking of things misnamed, well, strange things abound at Stacy’s, some of them things you know about. I didn’t have anything to do today—someday Caldwell’s got to figure out Dad doesn’t ground me or give me eight million menial jobs to do so I won’t learn the wrong lesson from being laid off from my job at the Learning Factory—so I went over to Stacy’s house to pass some time. It seems she and I have had a real unpredictable relationship ever since you left. Sometimes we’re closer than Siamese twins joined at the heart, and sometimes we’re so distant from one another we seem to live in different times; and I never know how it’s going to be from day to day. She left for about six months shortly after your funeral, to stay with some relatives in South Dakota; her parents said she needed to heal. I was really hurt because she was gone a week before I even knew she left, and I never did hear it from her. I heard it from her parents. It took Stace and me a little while to clear that up when she got back because I was pretty pissy, but we finally did okay, I think.

  Then, about four months later, her parents adopted a baby. She said one of her cousins in South Dakota got pregnant and no one there felt like they could keep it, so Mr. and Mrs. Ryder came to the rescue even though they’re fairly old and felt like they’d put in their time raising their family. I heard them say that a million times when they were crying the Winnebago Blues, which is what I call the sad song they sing about having to send Stacy to college rather than throwing everything into a brand-new Winnebago and heading out to see the continent. Neither of them has retired yet, though Mr. Ryder only works part-time now and plans to quit altogether at the end of this year and Mrs. Ryder says she can quit her law practice anytime they decide to take off. Anyway, since Stacy’s been back, she’s spent a fair amount of time absent from school, taking care of her new brother. I knew she’d be there today because she always misses Fridays.

  When I showed up at the door, she said, “Hi. Got another vacation, huh? What’d you say this time?”

  “I don’t think it was what I said. I think it was how I said it.”

  She nodded. “My best guess is that it was both. How long you out for?”

  I said, “Three days.”

  “That’s not bad. Wanna do something? I�
�m bored. Taking care of a kid ain’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I do wanna do something. But what about the kid? You gonna leave him here to take care of himself?”

  “No,” she said. “I’m going to take him with us. We can just put him in the car seat and pack his duds and go wherever we want. He needs to learn to travel. He may be a Winnebago baby by this time next year, to hear my parents talk.” She packed what looked to me to be a week’s supply of those paper diapers, stuffed several bottles into a large cloth bag, dragged the car seat out of the back room, and handed it to me as she opened the kitchen door leading out to your van. There had to be three feet of snow on the ground, and the temperature had been stuck down below zero somewhere for the past three days, but old Ryan—that’s this Ryder’s name—was bundled up like a miniature Michelin tire baby and no cold got on his brand-new powdered butt.