Chinese Handcuffs

by Chris Crutcher

  Anyway, I was supposed to pick Jen up at her place (“Just honk, don’t come in.” Hell, Dad would be tempted to slap the back of my head till my nose bled if he saw me do that. “You walk right up to the door, son, don’t be disrespectful. Young ladies deserve respect.” Remember that?) and take her to the library for an hour and a half, then meet Stacy and Ryan over at Jackie’s Home Cookin’ for some pie and ice cream.

  When I picked Jen up, I saw her stepdad in the doorway. I can’t remember if I thought he looked ominous standing there, but I’m blessed with retroactive memory (whatever I remember at this moment is the way I’ve always remembered it), and after hearing Jen’s stories tonight, I’m sure he looked extremely ominous. And I’m going to get him. One way or another. I’ll honor the promise I made to Jen and not blow it all sky-high, but I’m going to get him. You can’t treat people like that and be allowed to grow old peacefully and die. You have to eat shit first.

  It’s too bad you didn’t stay around for the fireworks, Pres (though a lot of them might not have gone off in the first place if you had). This was one of the most incredible nights I’ve ever spent, and it all happened in my parked car and over pie and ice cream at Jackie’s. Compared with this, the night the Warlocks came after me was a cakewalk.

  We drove to the library, and Jen was real quiet. I thought she was lost in the upcoming district tournament, so I left her alone, and about the only conversation we had was to ask each other questions for the contemporary world problems test tomorrow. We cut the study time short and decided to go on over to the restaurant early because we really weren’t getting anywhere studying. Between us we knew enough answers for a strong B+, so we’ll probably sit close and cheat. Stacy might even be able to come up with enough extras for an A. It doesn’t really matter, though.

  Jen was real distracted on the ride over, and I asked her if she wanted to skip it and get together with Stacy some other time.

  She said, “No, I don’t want to go home yet. My sister’s not there tonight.”

  That didn’t make much sense to me, but I didn’t pay any attention because she seemed so out of it, so far away.

  I asked if there was anything I could help with.

  She was staring out her side window and just shook her head.

  God, Pres. It really makes me nuts when she gets like that, and I told her how I feel so helpless.

  She didn’t say anything, just kept staring out the window.

  Finally I said, “God damn it, Jen, tell me something. This is driving me crazy, I’m serious. I can handle that we aren’t lovers, and I can handle being your friend; but I can’t be a good friend if I don’t know what your pain is all about. You’re in so much pain sometimes. . . .”

  Without turning toward me, without moving a muscle, she said, “My stepdad messes with me.” She said that, Pres.

  “What?”

  “You wanted to know what all my pain is. My stepdad messes with me.”

  “What do you mean, messes with you? You mean, messes with you?”

  “I mean, he’s been having sex with me,” she said. “For a long time.”

  All the missing parts I’d been digging blindly for fell into place like tumblers in a fine combination lock, and the huge metal door of my consciousness swung open; but all I could say was “Je-sus Christ.”

  She said, “He hasn’t had much to do with it.”

  “I’ll bet. Why haven’t you told somebody?”

  Jen gave a little snort, and from the back I watched her head turn slowly from side to side. “Like who, Dillon?”

  “Well, I mean, they have child protective services. You could tell the cops.”

  Jen still hadn’t looked at me. “I did that. Back in Chicago.”

  “What happened?”

  She let out this sigh, Pres, and I swear she sounded eighty years old, and she said. “Child Protective Services isn’t for rich people, and it isn’t for smart people. My stepdad was one of the top family law practitioners in Chicago, and he’s one of the top family law practitioners here. He was way smarter than they were. They didn’t have a chance. I was eleven years old, and he made them look like fools and me look like a stupid liar.”

  I stopped the car in front of Jackie’s and turned off the engine, reached across the seat to touch her. Her body tightened like a steel cable, and she said, “Please . . .”

  “Okay,” I said. “What can I do?”

  “You can listen and promise not to do anything. And promise not to feel sorry for me.”

  You have no idea how hard a promise that was to make, but I knew Jen was in control here. Even so, I couldn’t imagine not doing anything.

  “Dillon,” she said into my silence, “don’t even think you can do something. He’s untouchable. And he’s mean beyond anything you can imagine.”

  “I’m not afraid of him, Jen.”

  She whirled, and I thought she was going to take my head right off my shoulders. “I’m afraid of him,” she whispered. “He’s a killer. I have a mother and a sister that he’d do away with in a heartbeat. Now I’m asking you to listen to me and promise you won’t try to do anything. I need somebody to listen to me. You’re the only one there is.” And then she took the sides of my face in her hands and said, “If you try to do anything you’ll cease to exist in my universe. I swear it.”

  “Okay,” I said, “I can do that. I can listen.” I knew it would be hard, but I thought I could do it.

  Her shoulders slumped, and she let out a little air; relaxed a bit, I think. “I tried CPS in Chicago,” she said again. “It took me two years to get up the guts. After the first time he . . . well, after the first time, he came into my room with a Polaroid picture of my dog’s head under his boot, wedged next to the car tire, and told me if I ever told anyone, the dog would have an accident. The day I reported it he tied the dog to the back bumper and ran over her and left her on the porch. You couldn’t even recognize her face. He ran right over her head.” I can’t tell you how I felt, Pres. I just wanted to go over to her place and kill him. I swear, if she’d said the word, I would have.

  She started to tremble, and I reached for her again; but she pulled away.

  “He’d already told me he’d do something to Mom and my sister, but I believed what the people at school said about how sex abusers sometimes make scary threats. I believed if I told, someone would do something.”

  “What happened?”

  “To make a long, ugly story short, he had no trouble convincing my mom I was lying because she would have done anything to keep him, even though he beat her up all the time. I hate her, Dillon. And I hate that I love her. I can’t stand to stay away because of what he does to her. I don’t know why he doesn’t hit her as much when I’m there, but he doesn’t. If I didn’t care about her, I’d take my sister and leave. But I can’t. I don’t know why, but I just can’t. I think he’d kill her. I mean, really beat her to death. I saw him kick her so hard in the stomach one night I thought she was going to explode. You know what I remember most about living in Chicago?” Jen laughed and shook her head. “I remember standing in the snow with my sister and my mother in the woods. We lived on the outskirts. Dawn and I were the fastest packers in the world. We could have worked for Bekins. That bastard would get drunk and beat Mom almost unconscious, then storm out. Every time she promised we were leaving and never coming back. ‘Get your things together, girls, we’re getting out.’” Jen mimicked her mother with such astonishing contempt that my guts reeled, Pres. I’ve never seen such hate. And she stays.

  It was scary. She kept talking like she was back there. “We’d be packed in fifteen minutes and out the door. We had to stay away from the roads because T.B. would always come back quick and look for us. I know he was terrified we’d blow his cover and he’d be ruined. Mom and Dawn and I would stay away from the roads and cut through the woods.” Tears started to roll down Jen’s cheeks. I wanted to do something to help. I’d have done anything. But there was nothing. She kept r
ight on talking. “I remember Dawn up to her waist in snow, dragging her suitcase, just crying and dragging it. She was the toughest little shit you’d ever want to meet; but pretty soon she’d collapse, and I’d carry her suitcase, too.”

  I couldn’t believe it. I said, “But your mom didn’t tell?”

  Jen just shook her head. “We’d always go to a motel or someplace where no one knew us. We never went to any of her friends or to a battered woman’s shelter or anything like that. By morning Mom would already be getting us ready to go home, telling us things would be better, that the fight was her fault and if she’d quit nagging all the time, T.B. would stop. The time right before I told, I remember standing in the middle of the motel screaming at her. I was eleven years old, and I was screaming that my mother was a stupid bitch.”

  “What’d she do?”

  “She slapped me and told me to be quiet.”

  “So what happened when you told?”

  Jen looked down at her hands. Her fingers were knotted, and even in the darkness of your van I could see her knuckles were almost white. “They did an investigation. Took me out of the house and put me in foster care for a little while. I actually thought I’d done the right thing, that finally this nightmare would be over, but it was killing me that Dawn was still there. They didn’t take Dawn. I don’t know why unless they didn’t believe me from the start. Anyway, both Mom and T.B. told CPS and the cops that I’d been sexually abused by my real dad, which was true, and that I’d always resented T.B. and the only reason they could think that I’d say such a thing about him was that I knew it would get him in trouble and that I was using it to get him out.”

  “Jesus, it worked?”

  “Dillon, this guy is good. He never loses. He represents some of the real slime of the universe in divorce cases, and he never loses. You see the house we live in? We’re rich. And we’re rich because he’s good. I was back home in less than a week. I could see it coming. When she picked me up, the caseworker was right there telling me she’d take care of me and make sure I was protected and I could call her anytime, and within two days she was grilling me like a convict. I just gave up. I said, ‘Send me back. You’re going to do it anyway. Just hurry up.’”

  “What about Dawn? Why didn’t she tell?” I asked.

  “Mom and T.B. got to her. There was a lot she didn’t see. She didn’t know anything about the sexual stuff. She might have even thought I was making that up to get rid of him. I was real mad at her for a while, but she was young. And really confused.”

  “So that was it? I mean, they just decided you were lying?”

  “That was it. He handled those people like school kids. They never even saw his temper. He was ‘just as concerned’ as they were and just as worried about my traumatic past with my real dad, and he could even see why I’d say what I said; but boy, it really gave him a scare there for a while, ’cause he knew what society thinks about sex abuse. He even went down to their office one day to get the name of some good therapists he might be able to send me to to help me work things out. Money was no object. He cared only about my well-being . . . shit.” She took a deep breath and nodded toward the entrance of the restaurant. “Let’s go in.”

  I sat against the car door, soaked in sweat from hearing her story. I thought I had the worst story in the world to tell, but this just bowled me over. “Wait for just a minute,” I said. I just couldn’t let it ride. “We have to do something.”

  She flared again. “No, Dillon. You promised. You’re either going to be a person I trust or not. If not, get out of here.”

  I raised my hands. “Okay, okay,” I said, but I could barely get my teeth ungritted. “I promised. You can trust me. But I don’t know what to do. I can’t stand leaving you there. I can’t stand the thought that he’s—”

  Jen laughed and said, “Don’t worry. I’m not there. My body’s there, but I perfected the art of mental evacuation long, long ago. Clear back with my dad . . .”

  Stacy’s car pulled into the parking lot by the side of the restaurant then, and she stepped out, waved, and opened the back door to remove Ryan from the car seat. I said, “Listen, if you don’t want to go in, I can take you home and come back.”

  She said, “No, I’m okay. All this news isn’t blowing me away. I’ve known it for years. I’d like to get to know Stacy.”

  Boy, I haven’t been that agitated for a long time, maybe since you died. All the ideas I had about this get-together turning into an informational clearinghouse were intensified by about seven thousand. I couldn’t tell Stacy what I’d learned from Jen; but Stace is a reader of ambience, and she knew the mood before we’d all sat down. She also seemed to have some of that same kind of immediate connection with Jen that I’d had, so by the time the pie was on the table we were about three days into some serious talk, except for Ryan, of course, who was deeply into his pie art.

  I felt this incredible need to purge, and the natural place to start was with my complicity in your death. It was the only thing powerful enough to get the conversation where I wanted it, and I thought it might establish trust. Once again, little big brother, I used you. I told them how I knew something was wrong but I let it go. And that once I got over the shock, a part of me was almost glad you did it. I’ve never said that before to anyone. I’ve thought it, and I’ve written it to you; but I’ve never actually heard those words. They threw me, but it was still true. I wouldn’t have wanted your life for anything in the world, and if I’d had it, I’m not a bit sure I wouldn’t have taken the same road.

  Then I looked at Stacy and reached into my backpack. I pulled out the picture of me in the restaurant when I was a year old and handed it to her. I said, “The beat goes on.”

  Stacy just smiled and sort of nodded. “That Preston?”

  “Actually,” I said, “it’s me.”

  “No difference, really. The only reason I haven’t told everyone is my parents,” she said. “I’m surprised anyone bought that story for fifteen seconds. I’m embarrassed to have to tell it.”

  Jen looked confused.

  Stacy touched her knee and told it all. “Dillon’s brother was Ryan’s dad.” She pushed her pie around the plate absently with her fork for a second, and Ryan took that as an indication that she wanted him to put a full handprint into it, which he did. The temperature of the ice cream surprised him a bit, but his shocked look turned quickly to glee as he stuck his hand into his mouth. Little bugger didn’t have an idea what was being said would probably change his life forever. He just wanted more of that pie. And Stace went right on. “The crazy part is I did it on purpose. I lied and left my diaphragm home. Preston was so far gone and so far away from me that I was sure I was losing him forever. I don’t even know what I was in love with, probably just memories, because there sure wasn’t anything left coming from him.” She nodded toward Ryan. “Sometimes I think I had him to give myself a little Preston.” She closed her eyes. “That’s sick.” That’s what she said, Pres. I know it won’t exactly make you the happiest corpse in the world, but we’re telling all here.

  I sat in the booth and looked at Ryan, who leaned against Stacy, reaching for more of her pie, still untouched by all of this, and I said, “For a little shit, Preston made a lot of noise on the way out, huh?”

  Stacy’s eyes remained closed. “You know, Dillon, you said part of it might be your fault, knowing how crazy he looked that day and all.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, you get only half the blame because he killed himself the day after I told him I was pregnant.” Tears started down her face, and Ryan tried to put his finger to one of them, leaving a perfect strawberry-rhubarb and ice cream fingerprint. “You might have provided the murder weapon, but I supplied the motive.” She opened her eyes again and looked at Ryan. “I love this little snotmaker,” she said, “but it might have been a mistake. I don’t know what he needs half the time, and sometimes when I look at him and start thinking about Preston, I want to strangle him. But
another part of me says I’d do it all again.”

  So you see, Pres, you left things in a mess. I wish to hell I could make you come back and own your part of it all; but you made the great escape, and there’s no turning that back. It’s four o’clock in the morning now, and you’re probably glad you’re dead, so you really don’t have to read this. My ghost of a nephew is home licking the rest of Stacy’s pie off his fingers, dreaming of new ways to foul his Jockey shorts; Jennifer, who I just love so much after tonight, I can barely stand it, is in her bed thanking God her house was dark when she got home and more than likely her asshole of a stepdad was asleep. Stacy and I both think we killed you, and I’m sitting here wondering what appropriate responses to all this would be, and I can’t ask the one person in the world—Coach—who might be able to help me with that because before the night was over, I’d promised everyone I wouldn’t tell anything I heard tonight.

  When I let Jen off, she was warmer to me, actually brushed the side of my face with hers, and told me she was sorry she had to be so cold. It came to me that the reason I’ve never felt much for her physically before is she hasn’t offered any kind of target for that.

  So at least I’m not crazy there.

  The place I may be really crazy is that from the instant I knew her stepdad was messing with her, I felt this tremendous desire for her. I can’t ever tell anyone alive that, and I don’t have a clue what to do with it. Responses are one thing; impulses are another. I’m gonna have to watch myself like a hawk.

  Hell, I’m going to bed.

  Dillon

  CHAPTER 10

  Dillon fell onto his bed, exhausted. Earlier in the evening he had spent several hours with Jennifer and Stacy and Stacy’s son, Ryan, clearing the decks, and had come home so conflicted and confused that he couldn’t concentrate on TV or hold a conversation with his dad or read without vivid images of Jennifer and her stepdad or of Preston blowing his head off. Finally he pulled on his winter running gear—long johns under sweatpants, two sweatshirts (one crew-necked and one hooded) over a long-sleeved running shirt, and gloves—and hit the dark, snowy streets in an attempt to run some of it off. Approximately an inch of newly fallen snow covered the streets, and the dark skies still spit flurries as he ran, so his relatively new Nike Airs gripped the road well, giving him a feeling of power as he ran. Available light glowed dimly off the new snow, and he had no trouble seeing his trail in the night, even on the four-mile loop through Three Forks Regional Park, where a high ridge blocked the lights of the city. He found his pace quickly, permitting his mind to run to the gentle rhythm of his waffle treads pushing into the snowy cushion.