Sucking Up Yellow Jackets

by Jeanne Denault

  “We responded to an alarm at a construction site near the high school and found an empty car registered in your name up against a chain link fence. Someone had been trying to break into a shack where dynamite was stored.”

  Feeling like a pricked balloon, I reached for the arm of a chair and eased myself into it before I ended up on the floor. “No sign of the driver?”

  “No. That’s why we’re here. We’ve impounded the car. We need to know who was driving.”

  I took a deep breath and stood slowly. “Let me check.” I started back to the boys’ bedroom.

  “I’m afraid we’ll have to come with you, ma’am.”

  I led the way back to Max’s room. As he did every night, Max had left an opened wax paper package of Graham crackers out on the kitchen counter. When I flicked on the light one of the enormous roaches the natives euphemistically called palmetto bugs shot out of the wrapping around the crackers, across the table and dropped to the floor with a click. Forgetting I hadn’t taken time to put on shoes, I stomped it with my bare heel before it could get under the counter then shuddered. I left the smashed cockroach on the floor, picked up the crackers and dumped them into the waste basket and continued into the living room.

  The pool table we had hauled from Illinois was in the center of the room. Both men looked at it with obvious appreciation. The uniformed officer lightly ran his fingers across the green felt and muttered, “Wow.”

  The detective looked at me with raised eyebrows. Before either man could ask, I said, “We inherited the table and this is the only room large enough to accommodate it.”

  There was a subtle shift in their attitude toward me. A woman who allowed the living room to be used as a pool hall couldn’t be all bad.

  Max was sitting on his bed, fully dressed and holding the car keys. He tried to look belligerent but was doing a bad job of it. The detective looked at a paper he pulled out of his coat pocket, read off a license number then spelled out all the details of the site where the car was found and asked Max if he was driving a white Ford van with the plate number he read off and had abandoned it at this site.

  Max answered, “Yes, sir,” in an unsteady voice.

  By then Seth was awake. He looked interested but not surprised.

  The detective asked to see Max’s driver’s license.

  Max had to stand to get his wallet out of his pocket. His movements were awkward. I knew what he was doing but the policemen tensed. The detective stepped far enough away to be beyond the range of Max’s arms. The uniformed officer put his right hand on his still-holstered revolver in a reflexive gesture.

  They relaxed when Max finally fumbled his wallet out of his pocket, flapped it open and handed it to the detective.

  The detective pulled the license out of the plastic sleeve, read it and said,

  “You’re seventeen?”

  “Yes sir.” Max’s voice was steadier now. The bravado he had tried to project earlier was in place now. He had noticed Seth was awake and watching with interest. He couldn’t let his brother see him cower in front of officials he insisted on calling pigs. I fervently hoped he had the sense not to call a Florida cop by that label. This was definitely not Wilmette and we weren’t even in the high end of this town where we might have been approached with more caution. Both detectives jumped when a tall, barefoot man with too-long hair and an irritated expression on his bearded face suddenly appeared in the doorway behind them.

  The detective gave me a wary look. “Who’s this? You didn’t tell me there was someone else here.”

  Before I could say anything, Seth said, “He’s our father.”

  The detective frowned at me. “You have a husband?”

  I nodded. He looked at me with a quizzical expression on his face. “Why didn’t you get your husband before you opened the door?”

  I thought of a bunch of replies. But decided I would be better off not saying anything since, “Why would I do that? I usually deal with the police,” was the real reason and I didn’t think that would help Max. So I just kept my face politely blank.

  He ignored me after that until I had to sign papers admitting he had told me where my car was being held, how to reclaim it and how much I would be charged for each day it was in the pound.

  Pete had to sign everything else. This was the good side of being relegated to subservient wife status.

  Max was handcuffed, ushered into the backseat of the patrolman’s car and taken to the County jail. He would be arraigned and formally charged early the following morning.

  Chapter 51

  Pete and I sat on the hard bench in the Broward County court room without talking. After Max had been driven off in the police car, we had spent the rest of the night pacing restlessly. Pete asked if I wanted a cup of coffee, Pete code for, “Make me a cup of coffee,” but I just shook my head. He knew how to make coffee as well as I did. I didn’t have the energy for macho games.

  My brain was filled with terrifying images of Max being gang-raped. Or stabbed or beaten because he resisted. Would he be dumped into the general population?

  Or would the police put him with kids his age? He was still 17. Not that this would necessarily keep him safe. Florida was a year-round scum magnet. Some of the kids I saw lurking downtown at night were too young to shave but looked as threatening as the most vicious felons in Hollywood movies.

  When it was finally time to get ready for court, I grabbed the plainest dress I owned, shoved my sandals aside and opted for pantyhose and low-heeled pumps. This wasn’t the time for a fashion statement.

  I felt hollow inside but I couldn’t eat. We talked about lawyers on the drive to the court. We didn’t know what sort of lawyer we should get or what the actual charge would be. Was this a local, state, or federal crime? Did it make any difference that he was still underage? Pete said we might as well wait until after the arraignment so we knew what we needed before we called our lawyer friend in Philadelphia for a referral to someone we could trust. The lawyer had gone to law school at Duke University and knew attorneys all over the south.

  A scattering of people slumped on the uncomfortable courtroom seats with expressions of brooding resentment or hopeless resignation. The struggling air conditioning spewed out cold air tinged with an odor somewhere between moldy towels and used gym socks.

  Pete and I both stiffened and jerked our heads to face the open side door when the sound of chains clanking in a slow, rhythmic cadence accompanied by an odd shuffling noise came from the hall. A man with the muscle-thickened torso of a wrestler and short bandy legs burst through the open door and strutted into the courtroom. Patches of sweat already darkened the armpits of his starched brown uniform. A holstered gun rode his hip. His red face had fat, shiny cheeks and an improbably small nose. Aviator sunglasses hid his eyes. The clanking shuffle grew louder. The first prisoner appeared at the door. I gasped and my vision wavered as though someone had just given me a bareknuckled punch in the gut. The prisoner’s face was so bruised and swollen he was unrecognizable. But it wasn’t Max. His hair was too short and the wrong color. His raw-knuckled hands were cuffed in front of him. A leg-iron on his left ankle was chained to one on his right leg then linked to the man behind him and to the next man and the next. They all wore neon-orange jumpsuits that probably came in different sizes but made everyone look equally shapeless. The prisoners ended up in a wobbly line facing the raised dais at the front of the room. Clumped together by the leg irons, their faces were hard to see unless they turned and looked at the spectators. Black, white, Hispanic, fat, thin, burly. I couldn’t see Max. Had something happened to him? He wouldn’t have had the sense to be quiet if someone challenged him. What if he had been beaten and was in the hospital?

  I leaned forward and gripped the edge of the hard bench. Panic made it hard to see. I took a series of deep breaths and looked at each of the men’s backs one by one. He wasn’t there. One of the men straightened and pulled his shoulders back. I caught the movement out of the corner of m
y eyes. But he was too tall. I was about to look away when he turned his head as the man next to him said something. Tears filled my eyes. When had Max gotten so tall? His mouth was clamped in a hard line. I didn’t see any cuts or bruises. If he were frightened or intimidated, it didn’t show. I slumped back in relief.

  The tethered men were mostly a seedy lot. A few obvious drunks, a few with dirty, unshaven faces and grease-stiffened dreadlocks. One lost-looking soul hummed an atonal chant and would have collapsed in a heap if he hadn’t been chained between two other men. The vomit-tinged stench of unwashed bodies oozed across the courtroom and enfolded the watchers in the sordid spectacle. Three of the men looked surly and bored, as though they knew the drill and couldn’t get too worked up about it.

  Max didn’t look to see if we were there. He never said if that was because he was afraid we were there or afraid we weren’t. I didn’t ask.

  The man in front of Max was fat, white and could have been anywhere between 18 and 40. He had tattoos on all visible surfaces and the face of a nasty boy who enjoyed pulling wings off butterflies. The man behind Max had skin so black it had navy shadows. He was tall, wide without being fat, had a high cheek-boned face and looked like he should have been behind a desk. The white man looked aggrieved and sulky, the black man resigned and disgusted.

  A lawyer wearing a good suit stood behind him. The proceedings went smoothly. There were two men and one woman who looked as though they could have been court appointed-lawyers and a man who turned out to be a bail bondsman. We couldn’t hear much of what was being said. A few men were led to a room off the courtroom. They were handed labeled bags that must have held their own clothing and other belongings. They came back to the courtroom minus the orange jumpsuits. The black man and his lawyer walked out the front door. A white man in a vomit-flecked blue leisure suit shuffled out behind a hard-faced woman with brassy blond hair. She was haranguing him in a flat Bronx accent. The other men were processed one by one. Most left by a back door, still shackled, cuffed and wearing orange.

  The judge gathered his papers, stared at Max then conferred with the bandy legged man. Pete and I were the only spectators left in the courtroom. The judge looked at us, shrugged then stood up and walked through a door behind the bench. The court stenographer picked up her machine and left. Max was standing alone. Pete and I walked forward. Pete asked the man who had been presenting the cases why Max wasn’t called. The man riffled through his papers and said, “That’s weird, there’s no paperwork for him. That doesn’t happen often. Are you the parents?” When we nodded, he said, “What’s he charged with?” Pete told him.

  “Okay. That explains why there aren’t any papers for him yet. Anything to do with dynamite is a federal offense. Were the arresting officers local?”

  Pete and I both nodded.

  “His papers are probably still sitting in some guy’s in-box. We can’t hold him without the paperwork from them. The clerk will give you a temporary release. You can take him home for now. Just make sure he doesn’t leave the area.”

  Max listened to the man but looked too exhausted to react. The uniformed man unlocked the handcuffs and leg shackles and led Max through the door where the men who were released had been taken earlier.

  We found the clerk who was supposed to prepare the papers for Max’s temporary release. He was probably around 50. White with fine features almost lost in whisky-reddened cheeks, he reminded me of my grandmother’s third husband who spoke with the same distinctive twang and referred to himself as a Florida cracker. Many of the men working in the courthouse looked as though they came from the same background. No matter how many Northerners flocked to Florida, the apparatus that ran it was still southern at the core. The clerk shook his head and looked pensive.

  “Poor kid. He’s got rotten timing. Playing with dynamite’s federal now. Used to be covered by Florida statute. Back then, if your boy got caught playing with dynamite, he’d most likely get a lecture and maybe have to rake the grass in the park downtown for a month or so after school. Not now. I don’t think Feds were ever kids. They’re not good on paperwork but they don’t quit.”

  Pete said, “What if we take him to another state?”

  The man shook his head. “Won’t matter. No matter where he goes, the Feds’ll come after him.” He frowned, clutched his chin and mashed his mouth together. “Unless…”

  I was holding my breath. Pete was suddenly rigid, all his energy concentrated on the man’s words. We both stared at him.

  “The boy’s seventeen. How tall is he?”

  Pete said, “Not much below my height. Maybe five eleven.”

  “Think he’d consider going into the service? That’s the only place the Feds will leave him be.”

  Pete nodded. His expression lightened. “He’s been talking about that. Wants to be a paratrooper.”

  “Well, see if you can get him into the army before they find the paperwork. It’s Friday. I’d try to get him in the Army before Tuesday. You don’t want him to end up in any prison in Florida: state or federal. He’ll be thrown in with bad people with nothing to lose. They ruin young boys.”

  Pete and Max dropped me off and went to the recruiter’s office. The war in Vietnam was winding down but they still wanted warm bodies. They tested him, saw his IQ and tried to talk him into taking the GED and getting a college education at their expense.

  We were gnawing our nails and flinching every time a car stopped in front of our house. The enlistment process was going too slowly. Pete said he was afraid to tell the recruiter why it was important to get Max signed up and on a bus. They might not want someone who had been arrested. Friday slid by. Recruiters worked weekends but couldn’t do anything until they got his high school transcript. Monday was counted off second by second. We were all wrecks. Supper time came and Max was still a civilian.

  Someone pounded on the front door at eight on Tuesday morning. I was afraid to go to the door — I knew beyond a doubt that I would see a Federal officer, holstered gun on his hip and handcuffs attached to his belt. When he knocked again, Andrea shrieked, “Mom, there’s someone at the door. Should I get it?”

  Feeling defeated, I walked to the door. I had to fight back tears of relief when I saw the mailman with a special delivery package for Pete. I couldn’t thank him. I was afraid to open my mouth for fear I would start blubbering.

  Pete finally told the recruiter why speed was so important. The recruiter shook his head. He said, “It isn’t as though your boy was arrested for trying to break into a jewelry store. Dynamite! Good Lord! Half the enlisted men and a good few of the officers my age or older wouldn’t be in the Army if that was illegal. Just means he’s normal.” They had Max signed up and in line for the bus to Fort Jackson at four o’clock Tuesday afternoon.

  Max loved basic training. He hadn’t jumped out of any airplanes or handled guns by the time he was free to call us. He was exhausted but so thrilled to be doing exactly what he had dreamed of doing, he could hardly talk in sentences.

  Ten days after he left for Fort Jackson, a hard-faced, uniformed federal official showed up at our front door to arrest Max. He was so furious when I told him Max was in the army I wondered if he had some sort of quota he had to reach. Fortunately, the court official had suggested we get a copy of Max’s enlistment papers to show the person who came to rearrest him. I gathered this wasn’t an unusual request because the recruiter was happy to make the copy without question.

  The Federal official wanted corroboration that Max had actually gone to Fort Jackson. He insisted on coming inside the house while I got Max’s first letter with the Army base postmark. He clearly felt I was a possible felon and planned to dart out the back door and disappear if he didn’t watch me. The officer looked at the pool table and the rack of pool cues on the wall . “Why do you have a regulation pool table in your living room?” His eyes were narrowed as though he had just caught me breaking some obscure law.

  I felt as though I were two people. One was a
fraid what I said could harm Max so I had to be careful; the other was furious some officious man could walk into my house and feel he had the right to question me. Thinking Max had a lot to answer for, irritation won out. “Why we have it isn’t your concern and no.”

  “No, what?”

  “Only our friends use the table and they don’t bet.”

  “I didn’t ask that.”

  “You didn’t ask but it would have been the next thing out of your mouth.”

  He wanted to take the only letter Max had mailed from camp but I said, “No.” My voice was abrupt. “It’s been through the U.S. mail so it’s my property. You can confirm he’s a soldier stationed at Fort Jackson with one phone call.”

  I held out my hand. His face got red but he slapped the letter into my palm. He slammed the front door muttering the threat that Max better be where I said he was or he’d be back and then I’d know what real trouble was.

  Lying to a federal officer was a felony.

  Chapter 52

  Pete was offered a contract with the agency in Philadelphia. Seth was the only one in the family who wanted to stay in Florida. He had finished his first year of high school and made friends. Andrea was thrilled to leave. The principal of her grade school was allowed to spank pupils and did so. She spent most of second grade trying to be so perfect she was invisible. It was a strain she said she didn’t need. We bought a house in Pennsylvania and decided to take a two-month camping trip to Alaska. We all knew the vacation was our way to celebrate the fact that Max was somewhere else and as happy to be free of us as we were to be free of him. Having finished her first year of college, Linda was embarrassed to tell her friends she was spending the summer camping with her family but thrilled at the idea of exploring what it would be like to be part of a normal family.

  Our first stop was Fort Jackson. We found a campsite near the Army facility and visited Max. Tanned and already putting on muscle, he was the happiest I had ever seen him. He had inherited my early rising genes, had no problem with being rousted out of bed before dawn and was looking forward to being paid to play with guns. Already scheduled for jump school, he was slated to end up in Germany. Max had finally found a home where his peers thought loving guns and explosives was normal.