Property of the State

by Bill Cameron

  Caliban follows me to the downstairs bathroom. The face looking out of the mirror sends a wave of nausea through me. Blood crusts my neck and shirt, and still oozes from a swollen gash near my right nostril. I soak a towel with cold water, hold it against my nose. After a minute—or an hour—the nausea subsides enough that I can rinse. When I finish, my face pulses in time with my heartbeat and my shirt is drenched, but the reflection in the mirror is slightly less harrowing. I hide the gash behind a Star Wars bandage from the cabinet over the sink.

  I wipe up and put the towels in to soak in the laundry room, then return to the kitchen to see if anyone has come home. The house is a tomb, the only sound the ticking of the grandfather clock in the front hall. The crackle of the Rite-Aid bag in my hand is louder.

  Anita swears by OxyContin, but she won’t turn up her nose at Vicodin. I’ve never had either. The dull, red ache in my head tells me there’s a first time for everything. I quickly dry-swallow a pill and return the bottle to the bag. Hopefully Philip won’t count.

  I close my eyes and lean against the counter. Caliban sits patiently as I await the bliss state which seems to define Anita’s existence. There’s a metallic taste in the back of my throat and a throbbing between my eyes.

  Anita is a moron. Or I am.

  I open my eyes. Through the window I can see all the way to the West Hills. Money.

  “This sucks, dog. Let’s go find some dry clothes.” He wags his tail.

  Philip’s room is a minefield of empty cereal bowls and paperback science-fiction novels. My cleaning duties don’t include personal areas, thank God. His Book is on top of the tangled wad of blankets and pillows at the head of the bed. That tells me all I need to know about how bad his nose is. He never goes anywhere without his Book, a three-ring binder filled with page after page of notation on every chess game he’s ever played.

  Rooting through his dresser for something to wear, I’m surprised by a folder under his socks. It’s filled with clippings from grocery store tabloids, all pictures of Bianca Santavenere. Weird. I would not have pegged Philip for an obsession with the used-to-be teen star now best known for stunting wardrobe malfunctions to get on TMZ. I remember her mostly because Maddie, my first foster mother, used to watch reruns of Bianca’s show while us kids cleaned house. It was one of those teen drama-fests—lots of expensive clothing, crying jags, and “we have to talk” moments. But Bianca is ancient now, like forty-something.

  Philip, dude…seriously?

  I snag a sweatshirt with the words Symphonica d’Italia on the front, whatever that means. A pair of gym shorts completes the ensemble. Back in the laundry room, I strip to my underwear. Clothes join the towels in the washing machine, heavy-duty cycle.

  As I pull on Philip’s sweatshirt, a wave of dizziness comes over me. I shake my head. Mistake. Woozy, I drag my backpack to the rec room. I’m thinking I should start cleaning—good way to explain my presence. But my arms and legs feel like mud. I need to sit down for a few minutes first. Catch my breath, maybe check messages. Mrs. Petty will have something to say even if I have no intention of calling her back.

  The oversized sectional couch is softer than I remember. My phone rests in my hand, ignored, as I melt into the upholstery and peer at the moose head hanging over the mantle. A quarter-inch layer of dust coats the broad antlers. I can’t believe I let it get so bad. I make a mental note for Thursday, rec room day. The other heads—bighorn sheep, a couple of pronghorns, a Thomson’s gazelle—will need dusting too.

  Caliban scootches up beside me and I scratch behind his ears. “You gonna back me up, dog?” His fur is a tangle of twigs and mud. “I could say I was coming over to take care of my Tuesday schedule and you knocked my ass down the hill.”

  Wag.

  “I agree. A Caliban-tackle face-plant is way more plausible than hooligans.”

  1.5: Lay Low

  A voice jerks me out of a slow-motion dream. I’m running from Wayne, running from Anita’s forklift, from Mrs. Petty’s Impala—all to a soundtrack of feverish violin music. Cooper is asking me why my laptop won’t boot up. I blink and suppress a groan. The light through the French doors is thin and watery.

  “Philip! How many times have I told you to wait until you have a full load before you do laundry?”

  Mrs. Huntzel’s voice. Close, but not too close. The laundry room is at the far end of the basement, but sound echoes strangely against the old stone foundation. I can’t hear Philip’s response, but I can guess, based on Mrs. Huntzel’s next words. “Don’t tell me you didn’t do laundry. I’m putting it in the dryer as we speak.”

  Sorry, Philip.

  Gingerly, I explore my face with my fingers. It’s mushy and tender at the point where my nose struck the corner of the desk, but the Vicodin must have done its job—I feel okay. Not great, since I’m pretty sure a family of mice have taken up residence in my sinus cavity. But not terrible.

  I sit up, dig my cell phone from under my hip where it slipped while I dozed. No messages, which surprises me. Mrs. Petty should have been burning microwaves.

  Sooner or later I’ll have to try to walk back Wayne’s stream of bullshit about what happened, but if she’s in no hurry, neither am I. Between Wayne and my laptop, the system will reboot my life sooner or later, regardless of my busted-to-hell face. I could be looking at a lockdown farm.

  I can handle getting yanked from Wayne and Anita’s. I can even handle a group home. But if they pull me from Katz, I’ll probably have to kiss early graduation good-bye.

  One lousy school year. That’s all I need.

  But at the moment, I have a bigger problem. According to the clock on the cell phone display, it’s a little before seven.

  In the morning.

  “Shit.”

  Caliban, conked out beside me, lifts his head. His tail thumps the couch.

  “Shhh.” I put my hand out and get a lick.

  Sleeping over wasn’t the idea. Whatever Mrs. Huntzel might think of me coming to work late due to a Mrs. Petty after-school intervention, I can’t believe she’ll be happy to learn I camped out for the night.

  Behind me, through the rec room door I can see across the slate-floored landing to the doorway that leads into the utility part of basement. A long hallway runs past the vault—of course Huntzel Manor has a frickin’ vault—and storage rooms to the laundry room tucked under the south staircase.

  The main stairs lead to the front hall—risky. There’s a passage past the laundry room into the garage cellar, but the only door out that way faces the kitchen. A skinny spiral staircase in the corner of the rec room climbs through the living room and up to the library on the second floor, but that takes me back to the main parts of the house. The French doors leading to the lower veranda aren’t an option. They’ll set off a security system alert as soon as I open them. And I don’t have a key to the small door next to the fireplace. Not sure anyone does.

  My best bet is to lay low and wait for everyone to leave. First bell is in less than half an hour. Mrs. Huntzel never misses first bell. Twenty minutes, tops, and I can let myself out. No one has to know I was ever here.

  I hunker down on the couch.

  Caliban noses my hand. He wants to play.

  “Shoo, dog.”

  Disappointed, he jumps down and trots off. He leaves a patch of leaf fragments and dried mud on the couch cushion. Something else to clean on Thursday. His ticking footsteps fade as he heads out the door.

  I thumb through the menus on my phone, trying to decide whether to text Trisha, when Mrs. Huntzel passes on the other side of the French doors. Because of the slope, the lower veranda sits in a little bowl accessible only from the rec room or down narrow steps from the upper veranda. She’s dressed for school in one of her gray suits. Her hair, copper fading to steel, is brushed back from her face. As I watch, she pulls a pack of cigarettes from her jacket pocket, ligh
ts up with an expert flick of a Zippo. Through the door, I can hear the sharp, metallic clack as she closes the lighter.

  Her gaze uphill, she folds her arms across her chest, the cigarette between the first two fingers of her right hand. Smoke rises past her ear until she raises her hand to take a drag. When she turns, her expression is dark and troubled. As she exhales, her lips curve into a sharp frown.

  At that instant, my cell phone chirps in my hand, a text message:

  joey, so sorry about teh news. txt me. <3

  Trisha. Talk about timing.

  Mrs. Huntzel looks over her shoulder. Through the windows, her eyes seem to meet mine. I press back into the couch cushions, paralyzed, as her eyebrows narrow.

  Half the house is uninhabited, but I manage to hide in the one room with an unobstructed view from outside. Better options are accessible via the spiral staircase not ten feet away: the library, one of the guest rooms, hell, even Kristina’s room. Philip’s older sister, no one enters her forbidden chamber. When I ask Philip about her, he bristles. She’s horrible.…Nobody wants her here.…She left, isn’t coming back. I could hide in her room for a month if I had to.

  Mrs. Huntzel moves closer to the window. She takes another drag, shoots smoke through her nose. One hand goes to her temple to adjust a strand of hair. I’m half a second from diving over the back of the couch when I realize she’s looking at her own reflection. She closes her eyes and shakes her head, then lets out a long, smoky breath. She’s just turning away when Caliban appears, wiggling his bony ass. His appearance seems to startle her. The cigarette falls from her hand and rolls off the edge of the veranda.

  My spark of anxiety about the fallen butt doesn’t have time to flash as Mrs. Huntzel bends over to greet the homely mutt. “How on earth do you get in here?” She sounds exasperated even as she runs her hand through the dog’s mane. No one knows how Caliban comes or goes. One of my first jobs for the Huntzels was checking the laurel hedge for dog-sized openings. Nuthin’. After that, they gave in to the inevitable and semi-adopted him, even allowing food and water dishes in the mudroom. “Come on. I have to get Philip to school.”

  A moment later, she’s gone.

  1.6: Worse Than I Thought

  I have no idea how Katz Learning Annex came to exist. It’s a Portland Public Schools magnet, like some hippies staged a sit-in back in the dark ages and no one noticed they never left. For one thing, Katz doesn’t give out normal grades. You either Meet Course Criteria, Exceed Course Criteria, or Underperform—MEU, the Katz Meow, they call it. Vomit. If you underperform, you can appeal to a committee and half the time, talk your way into at least an M. According to legend, Yancy Krokos once pushed three Us to Es with the help of a PowerPoint presentation and a scorching guitar solo.

  Katz is the kind of place where you’re as likely to hear Russian, Mandarin, or Japanese as English. A lot of classes are open attendance, which means you only have to show up for tests. Friday afternoons are early release. Half your day you might work on your own, which can mean almost anything—Sketch Echols spent a month photographing “texture” around the building for some kind of art project. Denise Grover wrote a thriller about Rosalind Franklin and the discovery of DNA for her life-science requirement. The system is so loose some people skate all trimester, then blast through twelve weeks of coursework in a long weekend fueled by cupcakes and Monster drinks.

  But show up late for Day Prep—what normal schools call homeroom—and Cooper ropes you into the corral for a stern lecture about responsibility. Six minutes or sixty makes no difference. I’m already late, so I stop for coffee.

  Uncommon Cup is medium busy, the tail-end of rush hour, but Marcy has my order ready when I get to the front of the line.

  “Double shot with two lumps, J-dawg.”

  She hands me a miniature cup on a saucer, the raw sugar nuggets on the side along with a tiny spoon. “Thanks, Marcy. Can I get a couple of chocolate donuts?”

  “Sure. What happened to your face?”

  “Narwhal attack.”

  “Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water.”

  When I turn around, I nearly collide with Trisha. “Jo-o-o-oey.” She draws the word out, like she’s pronouncing it for the first time. “Did you get my text?”

  “Yeah. I figured I’d see you at school.”

  “I didn’t think you’d show.”

  Why wouldn’t I? I never miss. Whatever Mrs. Petty’s plans, I’m not going to make things easy by skipping. More to the point, how would Trisha know anything was up? Cooper can be a pain in the ass, but at least he gets confidentiality. “I’m just running late.”

  “Your clothes are wet.”

  “The dryer cycle wasn’t finished.”

  “You want to sit down?”

  “Um…” I don’t…I do. I don’t know what I want to do. I’m not surprised Trisha is here. She’s got the Katz Meow dialed in, knows exactly when to show up for class and when to dance the Monster Shuffle. A café offsite is the perfect setting to compose sestinas or read the latest Jacqueline Woodson novel. “For a minute, maybe.”

  She leads me to a table next to a big fish tank built into the wall. Trisha’s round eyes are shimmering amber. Her mouth is shaped like a heart. When she talks to you she stands with her heels together and her hands clasped beneath her breasts. It’s hard not to stare.

  But that isn’t why I like her. I like her because she doesn’t treat me like I’m a bug in a jar even though I only own three changes of clothing and live with strangers. A foster herself, she made me on my first day at Katz. The difference is she’s been in her placement for years. Her foster parents, the Voglers, seem to like her.

  Now, as the fish flit around in the tank beside us, she inspects my face. “You look like Philip.”

  “It’s nothing. I fell.”

  “On what? A claw hammer?”

  “My desk.”

  “Didn’t you go to the hospital?”

  “Of course I went to the hospital.”

  She looks unconvinced. Not that I blame her. “What?”

  “It’s just…They gave Philip a fancy protective mask. You got a poorly applied Yoda Band-Aid.”

  “Awesome, my Band-Aid is.”

  “Okay. Whatever.” She shakes her head. “I guess we know what living in the big house on the hill buys you at the emergency room.” The scorn in her voice is impossible to miss—Trisha doesn’t like Philip. She watches the fish for a moment. “I’m still in shock about what’s happening.”

  It takes me a second to realize she’s shifted gears. Not even Trisha would be shocked by Mrs. Petty pulling me out of Katz. Especially if she knew what was inside the battery compartment of my laptop.

  “Did I miss something?”

  “Where on earth have you been?”

  Hiding out at Philip’s is not a response that will score me any points. “Nowhere.”

  “You don’t know about Duncan?”

  “What about him?”

  She studies me for a long time. I can’t read her expression. “He’s in a coma. They don’t know if he’s going to make it.”

  “Wait.”

  “That’s why I texted you, dipshit.” Her lips purse. “You know, Joey, every once in a while you’re allowed to communicate with other human beings.”

  I break one of my donuts into pieces on a napkin. “What happened?”

  “No one knows. After he blew up Philip’s nose yesterday, he left school. They found him on Forty-ninth. Some woman walked out her front door around one-thirty and saw him in the middle of the street in a puddle of blood.”

  In the fish tank, bubbles emerge from a plastic treasure chest.

  “I don’t understand what kind of person runs over someone and then drives away.”

  I pulverize the second donut.

  “Everyone’s gone cr
azy at school. No one’s getting anything done. When I left, so many people were jammed in the office asking questions, I think Mrs. An was going to lose it.”

  “Wasn’t Mrs. Huntzel helping?” She may be a volunteer, but Mrs. Huntzel has better attendance than Cooper.

  “I didn’t see her.” Trisha makes a face, and I regret the question.

  One day near the end of last school year, Trisha stopped to chat while I waited next to the BMW for Philip and Mrs. Huntzel. Trisha bent down to peer through the windshield at the leather seats. “Must be nice,” she said.

  “What?” I said.

  “Fancy car, mansion, houseboy. And all this free time to shadow her precious princeling around school too? What’s that about?” She smirked at me, then raised up suddenly.

  “I won’t be judged by the likes of you.” Mrs. Huntzel had materialized behind us, Philip on her heels. “Step away from the car.”

  Trisha’s expression went dark but she didn’t move until Philip pushed past. He barely touched her, but Trisha wasn’t having it. “Hey, watch it!”

  “You heard my mother, graham cracker.”

  Leave it to Philip to come up with a goofball burn that made no sense. Trisha seemed to get it, though. She threw him a glare hot enough to melt steel. He ignored her and got in the car. Mrs. Huntzel looked at me. “Are you coming, Joey?” All I could do was look at Trisha apologetically and climb into the backseat.

  My employment situation is a topic Trisha and I don’t discuss.

  In the tank, the fish suddenly scatter, a cue. “I gotta get going.”

  “You could come over.”

  I shake my head. “I can’t.” It’s bad enough I’m late.

  “It’s okay, Joey. Mom and Dad are both at work.”

  Trisha and I spent some time together over the summer: coffee, movies, even a couple of poetry readings. But the only time I was at her house was in August, the day I built her hidey-hole. Ever since, Trisha has been trying to get me to come back. She doesn’t understand why I won’t. Thinks it’s the house, which smells like dying flowers and bug spray. I’ve never told her about how Mr. Vogler fronted me in his driveway as I left and said if I returned, he’d speak with Mrs. Petty about my interference. “We’re trying to help Trisha move past all this. You know how it is, Joey.” I didn’t, not really. All this? Interference? His voice was friendly, but I caught the undertone of threat. Mr. Vogler has been around the foster system for eons. If he wanted to, he would know exactly how to wreck my Plan. Get me kicked out of Katz, or worse.