County Line Road

by Marie Etzler

  The guard from the store floundered upon them like a fish dumped out of a rushing stream. Double A was right behind him.

  “Jimmy!” Double A said, seeing him on the floor in a ball. “Are you okay?”

  “Back up!” the guard told him and held his arms out to clear the space. The elderly couple helped each other up, protesting.

  “Jimmy!” Double A said, still trying to get his attention. “What happened?”

  “You in on this too?” The guard eyed Double A up and down.

  “He’s my friend,” Double A said.

  “Leave him alone,” Jimmy said, getting up but still held by the guard. “He didn’t do anything.”

  “Keep a tight grip on that slippery one,” the guard from the store said. “He got a stolen piece of jewelry in his pocket, right there.” He pointed to Jimmy’s pocket.

  The guard fished in Jimmy’s pocket with one hand while clamping his shoulder with the other. Jimmy squirmed. He pulled out the bracelet and dangled it in the air.

  “What do we have here?” The guard smiled as though Jimmy had just made his day. He’d have something to brag about to everyone.

  The mall police officer arrived and took over. He shoved Jimmy up against a store front glass and hand cuffed him.

  “What are you doing?” Double A said.

  “Stay out of this,” Jimmy said to him. The cuffs were cold and hard on his wrist bones.

  “No, he was there too,” the guard from the store told the police officer. “They was both in on it.”

  Jimmy’s face was pressed against the cold glass, his fast breathing clouding it up and obscuring his face then evaporating in the cool air conditioning. He caught his reflection in the glass, and for a split second wondered if it was really him he was looking at. As the police officer fastened the cuffs on him, Jimmy hung his head.

  The officer walked him through the mall to the police sub-station, all the way on the other side of the mall. He felt like he was on parade, that everyone was looking at him, staring and gloating.

  The security guard followed, smugly escorting Double A behind them. At the station, the guard hung around, hitching his waistband and sucking on his front teeth with his tongue.

  Inside the station, the police officer directed Jimmy and Double A to sit on the bench against the wall.

  “Slide over here,” the officer said to Jimmy and pointed to a metal ring. Jimmy looked at it with fear as he realized he was going to be locked to it, like a dog on a chain. The officer held Jimmy’s arm until he’d clasped the cuffs to the ring, and then he turned to the security guard.

  “Thanks for all your help,” the police officer said to the guard. “We’ll need you to write up a report.”

  “Affirmative,” the guard said and sat at a table, looking like he was just asked to sign a presidential decree.

  The officer took Double A’s driver’s license from his shaky hand and pulled Jimmy’s wallet out of his back pocket.

  “No license?” the officer said. Jimmy shook his head no. “Then we’ll have to call home.” The officer looked like he enjoyed saying that to teenagers.

  Jimmy swallowed hard, trying hard to remember if his father was home. He gave the officer his phone number, praying Rich would pick up the phone and come get him.

  “There’s probably nobody home,” Jimmy said. Jimmy’s voice at first sounded nervous so he coughed and tried to sound tough, like he didn’t care. His tone of voice only brought out the officer’s ugly side.

  “Boy, show some respect when you talk to me,” the officer said. The officer glared at Jimmy long enough to get Jimmy to look down at the floor. The officer went into a small inner office with a glass window to wait to talk with another officer who was on the phone.

  Double A was sweating, and he switched the store bag back and forth from one hand to the other, wiping his free hand on his jeans. The bag from the jewelry store was so crumpled and worn it looked as if he’d been carrying it for days.

  Jimmy knew he’d made a mistake, a big one. Then the thought hit him he’d have to explain this to Allison. She’ll think I’m a loser! He felt sick, thinking he’d lost her. This summer already sucked. Now his father will find out and tell the coach. Shit, Jimmy imagined himself telling the policeman at the desk, Give me that gun, officer, and I’ll just end it here and now.

  After a while, Double A’s mother showed up. Gray-haired and petite, Mrs. Anderson looked worried and tense. She went straight to the officer and listened as he explained what happened. As he talked, the tension drained from her shoulders, obviously relieved that her son was not at fault. The officer dismissed them, and she turned to take him with her.

  Double A hurried out behind her then paused at the door. “I’ll call you later,” he said to Jimmy.

  “No, you won’t,” Mrs. Anderson said defiantly. “You will not call him, and you,” she pointed to Jimmy, “will not come over to our house. That’s all I have to say to you right now, James Bodine.” She took Double A by the arm and led him away.

  The officer gave Jimmy a smirk and went back to his paperwork.

  In the silence of the station, Jimmy could hear the clacking sound of the keyboard as the officer worked on his computer, typing slowly for what seemed like an hour.

  From where he sat chained, Jimmy could see people pass by the glass windows of the mall police sub-station, staring in at him, wondering what happened. Then Jimmy saw someone he didn’t want to see.

  Linda swung open the glass door of the police sub-station and rushed right to Jimmy. Although it seemed impossible for Jimmy to slump any further down on the bench, he did when she reached him.

  “Oh, my God,” Linda said. “Officer, there must be some mistake. Jimmy would never – ”

  “We have it on the store tape, ma’am,” the officer said, rising to check her out and display himself when he saw she was an attractive woman. He smoothed his fitted uniform shirt and squared his shoulders a bit.

  “Oh, please don’t call me ma’am,” Linda said and smiled at him. She introduced herself. Jimmy looked the other way in an attempt to not listen.

  “Could we talk inside for a moment?” She said.

  He held the office door open for Linda and puffed out his chest. The door closed, and Jimmy could see Linda smiling and talking. She signed something, shook hands with the officer and came out, assuring the officer she would take care of it.

  The officer uncuffed Jimmy and said they could go.

  On the way home, Jimmy sank into the car seat and pressed himself against the door, trying to get as far away from Linda as possible.

  “Thank God your father wasn’t home,” she said. “Why did you do that? What were you thinking?”

  “It wasn’t my fault,” Jimmy said. “If Dad hadn’t taken my money — ”

  “Don’t blame him,” she said. “He wasn’t in that store. If you needed money, why didn’t you ask me, honey? You have to take responsibility for your actions and the consequences.”

  “You don’t get to talk to me about responsibility,” Jimmy said. “This is your fault! You stole the baseball and you stole my father from my mother!”

  “Is that what you think happened?” she said. “He found me.”

  “No way.”

  “Ask him yourself,” Linda said. “But right now you need to focus on what you are going to do about this problem. I don’t know what your father is going to say or do when I tell him about this,” she said. “I wish there was a way not to tell him … ” She let the thought linger. “I wonder how your mother will react. You know how sensitive she is. This might set her back. Lord knows it will be hard enough on her seeing you this summer, what with you reminding her of Earl, that way you look just like him when he was young. It might be better for her if you stay here.”

  “My mother is fine now. She wants to see me,” Jimmy said. “Just don’t tell him.”

  “I don’t know,” Linda said. “I’m not sure about keeping something like this from him.
I’d have to think about it, especially after what you said about seeing me at Johnny’s Bar. You’d have to convince me. Maybe we should talk about it over dinner tonight.”

  “I have plans with Allison,” Jimmy said.

  “Not anymore,” Linda said.

  They drove the rest of the way home in silence.

  Later that night Jimmy and Linda sat at a table in an Italian restaurant. Linda sipped her wine while Jimmy sulked across the table.

  “Come on, Jimmy, relax,” she said. “Don’t be mad at me. I’ll order you a beer, okay?”

  Jimmy looked at her but didn’t speak. Linda waved the waiter over and ordered. When the waiter brought the beer, Jimmy watched him pour it into a glass and waited until he left before drinking it. Then he sucked down half of it in one gulp.

  “Don’t inhale it,” Linda said, watching his mouth on the edge of the glass. “I’m only buying you one.”

  Jimmy set the glass down.

  “It’s nice to get out, isn’t it? Well, you go out all the time. But with Earl away so much, I almost never go anywhere, despite what you may think,” Linda said. “So, you must like this Allison a lot to get in trouble for her. People do crazy things some times, like when they’re lonely.”

  “Not like what you did,” Jimmy said.

  “Now you listen to me,” Linda said, getting serious and leaning forward. “You tell your father you just made that up. That you were just mad at me. I was not at that bar.”

  “No way.”

  “If you do that, I’ll make sure he lets you go to Clemson.”

  She stared at him, waiting for his reply. “Well?”

  “I’ll think about it,” he said.

  “Think hard,” she said.

  The waiter appeared, and Linda changed her tone back to being nice and sweet. After they ordered, she turned to Jimmy.

  “Are you going to tell Allison about the police?”

  “No,” Jimmy said. “And I don’t want you saying anything to her. Got it?”

  The food arrived and they stopped talking while the waiter set down the plates.

  Jimmy waited for Linda to respond, but she just wound her angel hair pasta around her fork and smiled.

  CHAPTER 19

  In the morning, Jimmy jogged to the high school track. No one was around. He liked it when the track was empty. It gave him the room to imagine himself as anything he wanted, like the winner in the Olympics.

  He jogged a few laps and then the music in his head started and he picked up speed. He rounded the far turn with perfect stride and form, his arms and legs moving in rhythm to music only he could hear. He was no longer thinking about how his father had treated him or how Linda had set him up. He wasn’t thinking at all, only feeling how it felt to run. It was the first time he’d felt good in days.

  He passed the bleachers and scoreboard, but he didn’t see them. Sprinklers watered the infield, the water spray catching the slanted rays of early morning sun. Behind the bleachers, vague shapes of tennis and basketball courts, a baseball dugout, and a line of hedges blurred behind Jimmy.

  He looked at his stopwatch and realized he hadn’t set it. This brought him back to Earth, to all the problems he’d left behind, if only for a few moments. The good feeling from the run eroded fast like acid eating metal, leaving him feeling bitter. He wanted to escape but couldn’t. He had to fix this mess. He just didn’t know how.

  He walked up the driveway to his house and heard his father and Linda arguing inside. He didn’t want to walk in the middle of it, but they came outside. Linda had her purse and ran for her car, crying. Earl had the cell phone bill in his hand, yelling.

  “I’m going to find out who these numbers belong to!” Earl yelled.

  “Go ahead!” she yelled back. “I need someone to talk to. You’re never home. And if we had our own kids, they would listen to me!”

  Linda slammed her car door, backed out of the driveway so fast and turned so hard, she would have knocked Jimmy sideways if he didn’t jump out of the way.

  Jimmy turned to walk away, but his father called him.

  “Jimmy,” he said. “Come in here.”

  Jimmy just stood there. He didn’t want to go in. It didn’t seem like a good idea. Maybe Linda had told him about the jewelry store.

  “Let me re-phrase that,” Earl said. He exhaled and his tone of voice changed. “Jimmy, please come in here. I’d like to talk to you.”

  They sat down at the kitchen table in a face-off like two gamblers holding cards they had no intention of revealing.

  “The coach at Clemson called,” Earl said. “I told him you’d be there.”

  “What strings are attached?” Jimmy said. He surprised himself when he said that. Previously he would have jumped for joy, but now he was just skeptical. Is this what it feels like to be grown up, he wondered, not trusting anyone?

  “None. Just succeed.”

  “Did you tell Mom?”

  “I called her,” Earl said.

  “And I’m going to live with her?” Hope crept back into Jimmy’s voice.

  “I know you want to live with her, but it’s no magic place or some problem-free zone. There’s no such thing.”

  “Why is that plaster cast here?” Jimmy said.

  “What?”

  “Here, in a box in your closet,” Jimmy said. “I was looking for the baseball after Linda took it. Anyway, I found a plaster cast I made of my handprint when I was in first grade. I gave it to Mom, but it’s here, and it’s broken in half. Why? Why doesn’t she have it?”

  “Do you remember when you were a kid in school and you ran home on Wednesdays to talk to your mother on the phone?” Earl said.

  Jimmy nodded.

  “Well, did you ever wonder why you could only talk to her one day a week instead of whenever you wanted to? She wasn’t sick in the physical sense like cancer or something.” Earl paused. “She was mentally ill, and she was living in a facility.”

  “No way,” Jimmy said.

  “I didn’t tell you before because you were little,” Earl said. “You didn’t need to know and probably wouldn’t have understood the difference anyway. She’s bi-polar. She attempted suicide.” He paused. “It was called manic-depression back then. But no one knew because she didn’t go to the doctor. She ‘self-medicated’ as they say, with alcohol and yes, drugs. Things got bad. The fights were bad. I’m sure you remember, unfortunately.”

  Jimmy nodded, taking it all in, dazed but he did remember the fights.

  “Well, during one fight, she broke the plaster cast,” he said. “That’s when she went to live with her parents in South Carolina. That didn’t work. Then she finally checked herself in. I paid for it. It was expensive, and God knows, getting laid off when the airline went out of business didn’t help matters much, but I did the best I could do for your mother. I loved her very much.”

  Jimmy suddenly knew why they never had any money, why his father was always mad about the bills. He wondered how his mother felt, living there. Did they lock her up? He asked his father.

  “No,” he said. “She was free to leave whenever she wanted, but she liked it there. It gave her a chance to learn how to live.”

  “Do I have it?” Jimmy said. “That disorder you said.”

  “Bi-polar,” Earl said. “No, but I worry about Ritchie sometimes. But medication is better these days, and she is doing better, so there is hope for him, if that’s the case.”

  “Would you get back together with Mom? I mean, since she’s better now.” Jimmy knew the answer was No, but he asked anyway.

  “No,” Earl said. “That’s long past. That’s why I agreed to a divorce five years ago. It was hard.” He paused. “So when I met Linda, she was a breath of fresh air for me, a new life for me too.”

  “But Dad, I saw her, that day, at the bar,” Jimmy said. He just realized he’d made up his mind to tell the truth, no matter what it cost him. “What I said was true. She tried to get me to take it back, to say that I made
it up, but it’s true.”

  “That’s our problem to deal with,” Earl said. “You want me to stick my nose into every date you have?”

  “No,” Jimmy said.

  “Let me worry about that,” Earl said. “I know you didn’t take the baseball. Here.” He pulled out his wallet and handed Jimmy his ATM card back. “I put some extra cash in there. Go buy yourself a new pair of running shoes.”

  “What?” Jimmy took the card carefully as if it were rigged.

  “And I got you something else,” Earl said and went to his briefcase. He took out a plastic package that held a brand new stop watch in it. “You’re going to need this at Clemson.”

  “Holy shit,” Jimmy said. “Sorry.” He apologized for cursing. He took that package and pried the plastic cover off. He wrestled with it, and his father laughed.

  “Here,” Earl said and handed him a pair of scissors from a drawer.

  Jimmy cut into the package and freed the watch.

  “This is a nice one,” Jimmy said. He turned it over in his hand.

  “And a battery,” Earl said.

  “Thanks, Dad,” Jimmy said. For a moment he felt like a little kid on Christmas, a good Christmas morning, before things went sour in their lives.

  He pressed the buttons and it beeped repeatedly. “How do you turn it off?” It kept beeping. He picked up the instruction booklet and started leafing through it.

  “Don’t look at me,” Earl said and raised his hands. He smiled. “It says it synchronizes with a microchip in some brand of sneakers, whatever that means.”

  “Awesome! Dion is going to fall on the ground when he sees this. Ha!”

  Jimmy gathered up the packaging, instructions, and his ATM card and headed for his room. He paused and the door and looked back at his father who stood there smiling.

  “Thanks, Dad,” Jimmy said.

  “You’re welcome.”

  CHAPTER 20

  Later that day, Jimmy hustled through his shift at work, only passing Double A once as he stocked shelves. Double A wouldn’t talk to Jimmy, so Jimmy had to wait for a chance to talk to him.