by Brian Hodge
"I hate to disturb you so early," Bill said, hooking a chair with his foot and pulling it over so he could sit down. He wanted to keep his distance from Woody. Glancing at his watch, Bill saw that it was past noon. He had already picked up Kip, who was waiting in the car. Bill wanted to be done with this as quickly as possible.
"You ain't disturbin' me none," Woody said. He lurched into a sitting position, letting his feet hit the floor with a heavy clomp. With an angry scowl, he said, "Anything to break the boredom of this fuckin' place."
Bill tried to restrain his smile. "Gee, I don't know, Woody. I thought you were getting to like jail. From what your father tells me, you've been in them often enough."
Woody was silent for a moment, the scowl never leaving his face. "I didn't do nothin'."
Bill refrained from pointing out that his use of a double negative could be construed as an admission of guilt, but what bothered him even more was the echo he heard of his own son, Marty, in Woody's defiance. Sure, maybe Marty wasn't as far down the road as Woody was, but Bill felt a stab of guilt thinking that, since Lori died, he hadn't carried the weight of the family as well as he might have.
"We can cut through the crap here, okay Woody?" Bill leaned his elbows onto his legs. "Your girlfriend—Suzie—is in Maine Med. with some fairly serious lacerations on her face and scalp. She's decided to press charges, and—"
"That lousy bitch!"
Bill shook his head. "This isn't going to get us anywhere. Look, my boy—"
"I'm not your boy!" Woody snarled, folding his arms across his chest and leaning back against the pitted cement wall. The institutional green wall paint gave his skin a sickly white cast. Underneath it all, he looked frightened and nervous, but Bill knew he'd never let it show.
Bill nodded. "No, you're not my boy, and for that, I thank God. I'm here because your father asked me to do him a favor and get you out of here, but before I can do that, before I even go see the district court judge, I want to have your word that this time you'll make it for your court appearance."
Woody stiffened and looked at Bill with a narrow squint.
"You've been charged with aggravated assault. This isn't something you should take too lightly, and unless you cooperate with me, you're going to see a lot more of these bars."
Woody covered his mouth with his hand. His eyes darted back and forth but never locked onto Bill's steady glare.
"Look," he finally said, "my old man's got enough money to get me outta here, so why don't you just spring me? Tell the judge and the piggies that I'll be a good little boy from now on. Tell you what. I'll even start going to church on Sunday. Will that satisfy 'em?"
Bill rubbed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. "Woody, how old are you now?"
"Twenty-two," Woody replied, frowning.
"Twenty-two. And do you have any idea what will happen to you if you're convicted on this charge?"
Woody glanced at the ceiling as if nothing mattered to him.
"I'll tell you what. You could end up doing some hard time in prison—and maybe not here, maybe in Warren. Do you want that?"
Woody shrugged like he could just about care.
"So if you don't get your head out of your ass, someone in Warren is gonna be putting something else up there, and you ain't gonna like it. Am I getting through to you?"
A hint of fear had crept into Woody's expression, but still he maintained his facade of not caring. "My dad'll put up whatever money he needs to get me out of this."
Bill sighed and shook his head, positive he wasn't getting through to him.
"You're right, Woody," he finally said. "Your dad has the bucks to get you out, but one of the reasons he asked me to help out is so I could tell you he isn't going to pay this time."
"What—? What the fuck are talking about?" Woody's face had suddenly drained of color.
Bill could see this slight stretching of the truth was helping, so he decided to push it a little further. "Your dad told me this morning that, if I can't get you out on your own personal recognizance, he'd just as soon let you spend a few days or weeks here. You can see what it's like in case you do end up in Warren."
"You're full of shit. My old man would never say that."
Bill shrugged, pushing the chair back as he stood.
"I'm just telling you what he told me. He lost the money he posted for your bail last time—five thousand dollars. Even for someone as rich as your dad, that's a healthy chunk of change—a lot more than he's paying me. So if you can't guarantee you'll show for the hearing and cooperate with me on every step of this, I'm not even going to try to get the judge to reduce your bail. Your father doesn't want me to do it."
"You're so full of shit your eyes are brown, you know that?" Woody snapped, his upper lip curling into a sneer.
"Woody, my boy," Bill said. He could see he had him, and he knew this time Woody wouldn't say I'm not your boy. "It's a beautiful day out there. A gorgeous June afternoon. Of course, with no windows here, how are you going to tell what kind of day it is. But do you know what I'm going to do?"
Woody clenched his fist and pressed it against his mouth. He didn't say a word.
"I'm going to take the rest of the afternoon off. I'm going back home to Thornton and take my boy out canoeing on the river. I may even drop a fishing line over the side of the canoe; I may not. But one thing I'll try not to do is think about you while I'm sipping a cold beer and paddling down the Saco River. I won't even think of you until Monday morning, when I might make it over to the courthouse to ask the judge to reduce your bail."
"You're a prick, you know that?" Woody's voice was barely audible from behind his clenched fist.
"I'll just tell your father you needed the rest of the weekend to think things over."
"Hey! Wait a minute." Woody jumped to his feet and raced over to Bill, who was at the cell door, about to signal the policeman to let him out.
"I'm ready to go now," Bill called. The policeman came over, twirling the ring of keys in his hand.
"Yeah, so am I," Woody said. The smirk instantly returned to his face, but it looked somehow weaker, deflated.
"See you on Monday, Woody," Bill said. "In the meantime, you think about how sincere you can be when you tell me you won't jump bail this time, okay?"
Woody said nothing as Bill walked free, and the heavy, barred door swung shut with a clang. The tumblers fell into place as the policeman turned the key in the lock.
4
"Bitchin' shirt, man," Al LaBlanc said, standing back and admiring the red splash, under which was written in scrawling red letters: I EAT ROADKILL. "Where'd you get it?"
"I sent away for it," Marty Howard said.
Al shook his head and gave his friend a wide smile.
"I dare you to wear it the last day of school."
"Mr. Moody would shit himself."
They both broke out laughing; but after a moment, Marty's smile dropped, and he leaned close to his friend.
"So tell me, my man—what've you got that's so hot?"
Al stroked his faint wisp of a mustache he had been cultivating for nearly a year now, and patted the bulge in his tattered denim shirt pocket.
"I got some of the best weed you've ever smoked, that's what." If it was possible, Al's smile got even wider as he pulled out a rolled-up baggie and held it in front of Marty's face.
"Remember that Maui you scored last fall?"
Marty nodded and smiled at the memory.
"Well this makes that stuff taste like lawn clippings."
Holding the top of the baggie, he let it drop so the bag opened. Marty stuck his nose into it and inhaled deeply.
"Smells pretty good to me." He was trying to sound nonchalant when, in truth, the marijuana smelled like herbal dynamite. "What say we give it a taste?"
They walked into the living room, Al glancing left and right. "Your old man isn't home, is he?"
Marty shook his head. "Yeah. He's in the kitchen. Wait a second. Hey Dad
! Al's got some wicked pot. You wanna hit?"
Al quickly stuffed the baggie back into his shirt pocket until he realized Marty was screwing with him.
"Com'on, lighten up. My old man's at the office, 'n Kip the Dip is seeing his shrink." Marty pulled a packet of E-Z Wider rolling papers from his pants pocket and snapped out a sheet of gummed paper. "Allow me."
He took the baggie from Al and skillfully folded the paper, laid down a narrow line of pot, and rolled it between his thumbs and fingers. When the pot was tightly packed, he stuck each end of the joint into his mouth, wetting and twisting off the ends.
"Your weed—you spark it," Marty said, handing the joint and a book of matches to Al.
Al "toasted" the still wet joint under the flame of the match before lighting up, then took a hard hit. The tip of the joint glowed like an angry coal as a thin, almost liquid string of smoke rose above his head. He took a few small puffs and then leaned back, inhaling deeply with a sharp, hissing sound. He smiled as he held in his lungful of smoke and then handed the joint to Marty.
"You look like a frog that's been stepped on," Marty said before raising the joint to his mouth. Al snorted with laughter, almost losing his hit as Marty took a long, steady toke.
As he inhaled, Marty thought for a second he could see colored lights flashing in the back of his skull. Never had he felt so intense, so immediate a rush. He closed his eyes, held his breath as long as he could, and then exhaled slowly, pleased to see, when he opened his eyes, that very little smoke came out.
"Holy shit," he murmured, handing the joint back to Al, who eagerly took another pull of smoke. "Where the fuck'd you get this?"
Holding his breath, Al merely smiled and nodded. He, too, was surprised by how intense and immediate the high was. After exhaling slowly, he squinted at Marty and said, "I've got some damned good connections. I'm not sure I want to tell you who."
"How much you got?" Marty asked, but before Al could reply, he was busy taking his second hit from the joint.
"Two pounds," Al said. He wanted to sound casual, but his eyes gleamed as he waited for Marty's reaction.
Unable to hold the smoke in, Marty exhaled with a gasping cough. "Two pounds? No way. You're fuckin' with me."
Al snapped the joint from Marty's hand, but he was too astounded to notice or care. "Don't believe me if you don't want to," Al said, taking one last quick hit. "Two fucking pounds."
Marty's grin, augmented by the pot, was wide and sleepy. It felt like the insides of his eyelids were made of sandpaper, and he was convinced someone was probing at the back of his skull with a claw hammer.
"Two pounds," he said dreamily, "of this stuff?"
Again, Al nodded.
"And, of course, you're going to share it with your best buddy, right?"
Al regarded Marty for a moment, then took another toke and held it. When he let it drift out slowly, he said, "Of course I am. What do you think I am, some kinda dirt-bag? I was thinking we could stash it out by the Indian Caves. Maybe tell a couple of the other guys. Maybe not. But I think we owe it to ourselves to have one bitchin' end-of-school party out there."
"I know," Marty said, slapping his thigh with the flat of his hand. "We'll tell Flash and Dufus, maybe Davie. We'll get some girls and have a party out there. How 'bout tomorrow?"
Al's eyes were narrowed to slits, but he nodded knowingly, as if the secrets of the universe had just been revealed to him. "I suppose you'll ask Cassie, too," he said.
Marty pondered for a moment, then nodded. "Why wouldn't I? I've been trying to get into her pants for too long now."
"Here. Have another hit and dream on," Al said, holding the joint out to Marty. He was just about to take it when they heard the sound of a car, pulling into the driveway.
"Shit!" Marty said. "My old man's home."
Al snubbed the joint out in the ashtray on the coffee table, and then slid it into his pants pocket. Then he stuffed the rolled up baggie into his pants. Marty ran into the bathroom and came back with a spray can of Lysol air spray, which he was spraying all around the living room. The antiseptic smell nearly gagged them, but their frantic efforts suddenly struck them as comical. They were both giggling when the door opened, and Bill walked in from the kitchen entry.
"Hey, Marty. Oh, hi, Albert," Bill said as he dropped his briefcase onto the coffee table. The telltale ashes from the joint were still in the ashtray, but Bill didn't seem to notice them. Suddenly, though, he straightened up and sniffed the air. "What's that smell?"
Marty and Al exchanged wide-eyed glances, then shrugged in unison.
"I dunno," Marty said tightly. "When I got home from school today, I noticed a kinda funny smell in the house, so I was just spraying some Lysol around. Maybe it's Kip's dirty underwear," he added as an after-thought.
Bill frowned, then glanced over his shoulder as Kip wandered into the living room from the kitchen with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in one hand, a glass of milk in the other.
"Hey, how yah doin', Dippy?" Marty said. "You know, if you keep eating that stuff, you'll have zits out to here." He held his hands a foot or two from his face. Al snorted with laughter, grateful for an excuse to laugh aloud and happy to see someone else take the kind of grief he was always getting from Suzie, his older sister.
"Stop teasing him, will you?" Bill said as he walked to the front door and picked up the mail that had fallen through the slot and onto the rug. He idly flipped through the pile of circulars and bills, then tossed it all on top of his briefcase on the coffee table. As he did, his eye caught the E-Z Wider packet where Marty had left it, forgotten.
Of course, seeing the rolling papers—and now noticing the spent match and flecks of ash in the ashtray—didn't tell Bill anything he didn't already know. He was aware that Marty had been smoking pot for at least two years, probably more. Bill had smoked a little when he was younger, but that had been in college. Even though he thought pot was less harmful than alcohol, it bothered him that high school—hell, even junior high school and grammar school kids were using even harder drugs. The only real surprise would have been if these were Kip's rolling papers.
Bill picked up the mail again, flipped through it, and then dropped it on top of the rolling papers. Marty didn't miss the move, and Al suddenly straightened up. Not wanting to raise the issue with Kip and Marty's friend here, Bill just said, "We'll be having supper soon, so why don't you wash up. We'll talk later." He looked at Marty with an I mean business stare.
Marty crossed his arms over his chest and shifted from one foot to the other. He knew his father could nail him on the spot and was nervous, but he also didn't want to lose face in front of Al.
"I was just gonna go out with the guys for a while," he said, hoping his voice had the right blend of request and defiance. He was so stoned he wasn't sure how it sounded.
Bill stiffened, knowing exactly why Marty wanted to go out: they had a new stash they were trying.
"Look, Mart—I've had a pretty tough day," Bill said. "You've got the whole weekend ahead of you. Just stay home with us for supper tonight, okay? Besides, it's your turn to do the supper dishes."
Marty sawed his teeth over his lower lip as he glanced quickly at Al. "I did 'em last night. It's Kip's turn."
From the kitchen door, behind his father's back, Kip stuck his tongue out at his brother and made an assortment of faces.
"Look—uh, Marty. I—uh, I've gotta get goin' now," Al stammered as he started back-pedaling toward the front door. He stopped short when he backed into the edge of the couch and almost fell. It was a struggle not to break out in a gale of laughter, but he clenched his jaw tightly shut.
Marty gaped at Al, knowing his friend was as stoned as he was. "Okay. Yeah... sure. I'll meet you down at the Big Apple in about an hour, 'kay?"
Al nodded and then darted out the door, letting it swing shut behind him.
"Don't you have homework to do?" Bill asked sternly. "I think it'd be a good idea, considering your last rank card,
if you got that done before you did anything else."
Marty glared at his father. His high was tinged with anger, and the worst of it was, that little jerk Kip was standing in the doorway and mocking him from behind the safety of his father.
Marty squared himself and looked his father straight in the eye. "No, I ain't got no homework to do," he said, his voice edged with sarcasm.
Bill tensed, hearing an echo of Woody's defiant I didn't do nothin' and almost said something, but he just didn't have anything lefty in him after his visit with Woody in jail.
"I could use a little help," Bill said as he turned and walked into the kitchen. "Marty, if Kip's got the dishes, it's your turn to fix the salad." His voice was muffled from behind the closed kitchen door.
Marty stood, glaring at the kitchen door. Kip had turned and was about to open the kitchen door when a sudden pain slammed between the shoulder blades. For a split second, he didn't know what had hit him, but when he was jerked around, he saw Marty's clenched fist coming toward his face.
Ducking to the side saved him, but Marty pulled his punch anyway. Kip tried to twist out of his grip, but Marty held on. He pushed Kip's shoulders back as he did a swiping kick at Kip's feet. Kip made a slight woofing sound when he hit the carpet.
"You creep," Kip whispered heatedly. "Leave me alone."
"No, you leave me alone," Marty snarled as he bent down and rolled Kip onto his back, then dropped his full weight onto Kip's chest. Using his knees, he pinned Kip flat to the floor and leered over him.
Kip looked up at his brother's bloodshot eyes. Marty's heated breath washed over his face, smelling like burning leaves. He wanted to cry out for help because he didn't want to get beaten up, but he didn't want his father to have to save him, either, like he was still a little kid.
"Get... your... halitosis... outta... my... face..." Kip said. Marty's weight pinned his chest down so tightly he could barely breathe. The sudden fear of suffocating, of being crushed to death, infused him with strength, but even his violent thrashing was useless against Marty's strength.