The Free

by Lauren McLaughlin

  “Bang!” he says.

  Javier hits the orange rug like he’s been shot in the back of the leg.

  I rif le through the photocopy to check what Sandra’s written:

  Then D’nesh Patel shot Jared in the back of the knee.

  Javier drags Sandra down to the f loor with him, which sends his gun sliding across the f loor. Sandra pulls herself up to her knees, then very slowly stands up to face Riley.

  “Are you all right, young lady?” Riley asks in this bad Indian accent.

  Sandra just stands there, staring at him. She looks scared for real now, not like she’s acting.

  “Get the gun,” Javier says. He winces in pain and grabs his knee. “Do it, Sandra. Pick up the goddamn gun!”

  This doesn’t make any sense to me. But I check the photocopy, and, yes, that’s exactly how it went down. Jared used Sandra’s real name and told her to pick up the gun.

  “Young lady?” Riley says. “Are you all right?”

  Then Sandra does the dumbest thing ever. She actually bends down and picks up the gun. What amateurs. Didn’t they realize the gig was up at this point? Sandra looks at the gun in her hands, then points it at Riley.

  Riley, as the store clerk, looks totally shocked by this turn of events. Who can blame him. I’m shocked too. That store clerk went to the trouble of trying to save Sandra from an armed robber and now she’s turning a gun on him? What must he have been thinking? What were Sandra and Jared thinking?

  “Do it,” Javier hisses.

  But Sandra doesn’t move. She keeps that gun pointed at Riley’s chest.

  “I said do it!” Javier yells.

  Something’s wrong. I can tell from the way Wayne and Barbie are looking at each other.

  “Come on, Sandra,” Wayne says. “All you got to do is squeeze.”

  Next to him, Barbie watches the scene more coldly, her right ankle resting on her left knee, man-style. “Aw, come on, Sandra, you want Jared to punch you again? Like he did that time you were pregnant? Who cares about this guy anyway? Some stupid immigrant, probably don’t even speak English? Shoot the mother. You know you don’t have no choice. You know that pimp of yours gonna beat your ass you don’t do it.”

  But Sandra won’t pull the trigger. Instead she closes her eyes.

  “Stay with us,” Dr. Horton says. He scoots forward on his chair. “Stay with the scene. What happens next?”

  “I can’t do it.”

  “Oh, come on,” Barbie says. “You know you can do it. You already done it.”

  Javier, still lying on the f loor all twisted up, winces in pretend agony. “Just do it, Sandra, or you know I’ll beat your ass.”

  “No!” Sandra opens her eyes and looks at Dr. Horton. “No, he didn’t say that.”

  Javier slips out of character to apologize, then clenches his teeth and gets right back into it. “Do it,” he says. “Just do it.”

  Sandra looks down at Javier writhing on the f loor. He’s totally helpless, and still he has her under his spell. How do guys like that manage it? According to the photocopy, it was Jared who turned Sandra onto both hooking and robbery. She was “mostly clean” before that. Lonely and screwed up, but not a hooker and not a thief. Now, here she is, pointing a gun at some store clerk because Jared told her to, a store clerk she knew. This whole thing went down in her own neighborhood.

  Drop the gun and run, is what I’m thinking. No way in hell would Isaac West get drawn into shooting some guy because a scumbag like Jared told me to. But I am not Sandra.

  She looks dazed. Then the f ingers of her right hand squeeze the trigger of that water pistol. Riley, whose eyes have been locked on that gun for the last three minutes, hurls himself back into the wall.

  “Stay with us, Sandra,” Dr. Horton says.

  She’s staring up at the white ceiling tiles now.

  “Stay in the scene.”

  “Sandra?” Wayne says.

  After a pause, she whispers, “I wasn’t even there.”

  “What do you mean?” Dr. Horton asks.

  “I mean I wasn’t there.” Her eyes are glued to the ceiling tiles, like she’s watching that store clerk’s soul f ly away.

  Barbie’s chair tips forward onto all four legs. “You telling us you didn’t shoot that guy?”

  “What’s his name?” Dr. Horton says. “We use our victims’ names in here.”

  “Sorry,” Barbie says. Then respectfully, “D’nesh Patel. Sandra, are you saying you did not shoot D’nesh Patel?”

  The sound of her victim’s name sends a shockwave through her. She wraps her arms around her stomach, then drops to her knees.

  Barbie rushes to the f loor and takes Sandra’s hand. “Talk it out,” she says.

  Javier, who’s been lying at Sandra’s feet, contorted, pissed off, and so convincing as Jared I was starting to hate him for real, sits up suddenly. “We’re right here,” he says. “Whatever it is, you ain’t alone with it.”

  Wayne joins them on the f loor too. Then Riley, who’s been sliding slowly down the wall, pretending to die from that bullet wound, shuff les over and sits with them. Together, they form a protective shell around her.

  I have no idea what’s going on. Thankfully, Dr. Horton waves at me to stay put.

  “What are you thinking, Sandra?” he asks. “What are you feeling?”

  “Scared,” Sandra says. “Wicked scared.”

  “That’s good,” Barbie tells her. “Feelings are good. Isn’t that right, Dr. Horton?”

  “Feelings are very good. Can you tell us what you’re scared of?”

  Sandra squeezes herself and rocks back and forth.

  “Is it Jared?” Javier asks. “Are you afraid he’ll get out and hurt you?”

  “No.”

  “Is it D’nesh Patel?” Riley asks.

  Sandra looks up at his freckled face.

  “Speak to him,” Dr. Horton says. “Go ahead. Tell him what you’re thinking.”

  “I’m sorry,” Sandra whispers. “I’m so sorry, D’nesh Patel.”

  Riley’s nostrils f lare as he f ights off whatever he’s feeling. No way is he offering Sandra forgiveness.

  “I’m so sorry,” Sandra says. “I wasn’t even there.”

  “What do you mean by that?” Dr. Horton asks. “Are you telling D’nesh Patel it wasn’t your fault?”

  Sandra’s eyes stay locked on Riley’s. She wants his forgiveness, but he isn’t giving it to her, either as himself or as that store clerk.

  “I wasn’t really there,” she says. “It wasn’t really me.”

  Dr. Horton stands up and starts pacing, running his hands over his short hair.

  “Come on, Sandra,” Barbie says. “You don’t mean that, right? You’re not saying—”

  “You don’t understand,” Sandra says.

  “So explain it to us,” Wayne says.

  Dr. Horton turns to watch them but hangs back, like he wants them to work this out on their own.

  Sandra looks up to him. “It was my fault. I did do it. But . . .”

  “But what?” Wayne asks.

  “It’s like when I’m on a date. After the money and whatever I have to do to get the guy started, once he gets going, I just kind of drift off.”

  “To where?” Javier asks.

  “Nowhere. It’s like I’m not even there. That’s what I’m trying to say. That way I can do anything, or let them do anything to me. It’s like I’m not even alive when I get that way. Whatever Jared asks me to do, I can do it. Like when he told me to bring my little neighbor along on a date. She was only nine. I knew it was wrong. I was supposed to be babysitting her. It didn’t matter though. Jared asked me. I said no at f irst, like I always do. But then he asked me again and I just went to that place. I told Meg we were going to a movie. I even made her put on th
is yellow dress she got for her birthday. Thank God all the guy wanted was for her to watch us. Because I don’t think I would have stopped him. It was like I’d already made up my mind.”

  “Yeah,” Barbie says. “’Coz you ain’t in control your own mind. Your pimp is.”

  “Maybe she’s too in control of it,” Javier says.

  Barbie’s eyes f lash. “You saying a girl should be less in control her own mind?”

  “You got to listen to your heart. That’s what I’m saying. The heart don’t lie. You listen to your mind, it’s all practical and shit. It tells you everything’s justif ied when it ain’t.”

  “Them’s defenses,” Wayne agrees.

  “You can’t be doing that though,” Javier continues. “Because you harden yourself too much, then you don’t be seeing other people as human beings. You be seeing them as objects.”

  “You objectifying,” Wayne agrees.

  “No.” Sandra shakes her head vigorously. “That’s not it. I did not see D’nesh Patel as an object. I never did that. This is different.”

  “Yeah,” Barbie says. “It’s different for girls.”

  “Um, Barbie,” Riley says, “are you saying you did not objectify Enrique Cabron when you knifed him?”

  “No, I did not. Because I did not have to. I wanted that motherfucker dead. But we in Sandra’s world now. And in Sandra’s world she disappearing because she doesn’t have any power, see?” Barbie throws her arms around Sandra, tumbling the much smaller girl into an affectionate headlock. “She got that pimp up in her head telling her what to do, telling her who to be. She been programmed, see? That scumbag broke her down so he could build her up again, the way he wants.”

  “That sounds like guilt avoidance to me,” Riley says.

  “You think this cracker living without guilt?” Barbie releases Sandra’s head from the crook of her elbow. “You guilty, Sandra?”

  Sandra nods.

  “Then you know what you got to do,” Javier says. “You got to stop disappearing. You got to stay here.” He drives his pointer f inger into the orange rug. “You got to stay present.”

  “Yeah, Sandra,” Riley says. “You have to stop going to that place.”

  “That place a trap,” Wayne agrees.

  But Sandra is unconvinced. Her head f lops forward in exactly the same way that Riley’s did when he slid down that wall. Barbie inches forward on her kneecaps, then runs her f ingers through the girl’s dust-colored hair. “You need that place, don’t you?”

  Sandra nods but won’t look up. “I don’t know how to live without it.”

  “You ain’t living now,” Barbie tells her.

  “No, she’s living,” Wayne says. “It’s D’nesh Patel ain’t living no more.”

  Chapter 5

  Wednesday and Saturday are visitors’ days, but I’m not expecting anyone. I know Mr. Flannery can’t risk being seen here and I don’t have any friends to speak of. That’s what happens when you move around a lot. So when a guard meets me after English class the next day to take me to the visitors’ room, I’m expecting trouble: the cops coming to question me about my story or, worse, my lawyer with bad news about my sentencing. I still don’t understand it. Something about a “defendant capped plea,” whatever that means.

  The visitors’ room is freezing. I spot one dusty radiator in the whole place, but even it looks cold. The guard sits me at the corner of a table and tells me to wait. A white guy from my math class sits at the opposite corner. About f ifteen other male inmates sit at the other tables. Nobody speaks to anyone. A few guys rub their arms because of the cold while trying not to look like pussies about it.

  A buzzer sounds, a gate somewhere opens, and the visitors start streaming in—mothers mostly, but some girlfriends and children too. My knee bounces under the table. I wonder who it’ll be. Then I see her.

  “I know I wasn’t supposed to come,” she says. “But you haven’t called.”

  It’s my kid sister, Janelle, her face bursting with those big square teeth.

  “Mom’s phone number’s dead,” I tell her. “Come here.”

  Janelle throws her arms around me. She’s wearing my old blue parka. I outgrew it last year. Her dark hair is pulled back neatly in a twist of some kind, straightened, clean-looking. Janelle’s three years younger than me, but everyone says we look like twins.

  She pulls away and looks up at me. “I guess Mom forgot to pay the phone bill,” she says. “Again.”

  “When has she ever paid the phone bill?”

  Best I can tell, our mother has never paid any bill.

  “Is it okay in here?” She looks around. “Is it safe?”

  “Don’t worry about me. I got this. I’m learning the ropes.”

  “And you’re still getting out in twenty-f ive days?”

  “Twenty-f ive days and I’m back in the free. Can you hold on till then?”

  Janelle sighs, then sits me down with her at the corner of the bench.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  “I’ve been sneaking out.”

  “Janelle!”

  “She made me quit volleyball. She won’t even let me go to the library. I have to come straight home after school and just sit there. All day. She says it’s because she doesn’t want me walking home alone after dark, but you know that’s not it.”

  “Is she—”

  “Yeah, she’s drinking. She’s drinking like crazy. She was drinking before you left. You know that.”

  Our mother cycles through a range of drinking phases—from buzzed every night to drunk most of the day to falling-down drunk and belligerent to passed out most of the time. She’s in the drunk and belligerent phase now, which is her most dangerous.

  “So I’ve been doing what she says. I come home. I go straight to my room. But there’s no way I can just sit there all day, Isaac. You know I can’t do that.”

  My sister and I have a strict policy of staying away from home as much as possible, wherever “home” happens to be. I know that sounds like two kids looking for trouble, but actually it’s the opposite. Home is where the trouble is. Janelle always signs up for some after-school activity, like volleyball or drama. And I can usually get a job someplace where they’ll skip the references thing in exchange for paying me under the table less than the minimum wage. Usually our mother is so wasted she doesn’t even know what we’re up to, but every once in a while she’ll go nuts and make us quit everything so we can be with her all day. She hates being alone.

  “Okay, and please don’t be mad, but I had to steal some milk crates from Richdales.”

  “Janelle!”

  “My bedroom window’s on the second f loor. What do you want me to do? Break my leg? It’s not really stealing anyway. They’re not worth anything.”

  “Did anyone see you take them?”

  “No. They were out back by the dumpsters. They probably don’t even realize they’re gone.”

  “No, they realize it. Believe me.”

  I worked at that Richdales once. They know where everything is. Stealing from them is next to impossible.

  But not impossible.

  “Mom hasn’t seen you?”

  “She doesn’t see anything. I sneak out. I sneak back in. I’m out for school in the morning before she wakes up. I could be dead for all she knows.”

  “Where do you go?”

  “Mostly I just hang out with Daniela. You’d like her. I think her brother might be in a gang though.”

  “Janelle, please tell me—”

  “Don’t worry, I don’t have anything to do with him. He’s, like, seventeen. Hey, by the way, that priest came over. You know the one from St. Joan’s? Luckily Mom was passed out. I told him we had to wait. I didn’t tell him why though.”

  “You don’t have to wait for me.”

  “Um, yeah
I do. Because if I get baptized and you don’t, that means I go to heaven without you.”

  “It’s not about going to heaven, Janelle.”

  “I know.” She looks down and studies her sparkly purple nail polish. It’s girlish but still a bit dark for my taste. She’s at that crossover age, still a kid in a lot of ways, but boys will be noticing her now. She has to be careful.

  “Janelle.”

  “Oh come on, Isaac, you know I don’t want to go to Catholic boarding school. Not without you. We can’t afford that anyway.”

  “You never know.”

  She looks up from her f ingers and studies me.

  Janelle knows I’m a thief. I steal things for her sometimes. Clothes mostly. I can’t stand seeing her in those charity rags our Mom drags home. And I can get in and out of anyplace with a full backpack in under three minutes as long as the manager’s not on the f loor. Janelle always tells me, “Isaac, you shouldn’t do this.” But she wears the clothes. Some things you just have to let slide. No matter how wrong they are, you don’t go exploring them.

  But Janelle doesn’t know about my deal with Mr. Flannery. As far as she knows, I’m in juvie for “being in the wrong place at the wrong time.” That’s what I told her and she sort of believes it. Wants to, anyway. She has no idea I’m going straight back to GTA once I’m out of Haverland. She wouldn’t like that at all.

  And there’s one other thing Janelle doesn’t know: I’ve already gotten her accepted at Holy Name Girls Academy.

  I sent in the application myself. I had to forge her signature, but I used her own essay. It was one she wrote for school about dreaming. She won an award for it. The Holy Name people liked it so much they even offered her a scholarship. It won’t cover the whole cost, but it’ll cover a lot. And I f igure between what I have saved up in that doll under her bed and what Flannery tells me I’ll be earning between now and next September, I can cover the difference. I’ll miss Janelle like crazy when she moves out. But, man, does it put a smile on my face knowing that next September she’ll be living in those redbrick dormitories at Holy Name Girls Academy rather than in that rat hole with me and our mom.