Pawned

by Laura Bickle

  “We figured that, son. What did they charge you with?”

  “Some bullshit about desecrating a corpse and unauthorized organ trafficking.”

  “That’s a lot of charges,” Pops says mildly.

  “This is my one phone call, so listen carefully...I want you to call my lawyer. He’s on the second page of my address book. Tell him to get his sorry ass down here ASAP. And I need you to get together money for bail.”

  “How much?”

  “I haven’t been arraigned yet, but it’s gonna be huge. Get down to the bail bondsman and get some collateral together. The building...whatever you have to do.”

  “Okay, son,” Pops says reassuringly. “You hang in there, all right?”

  There’s a pause. “I don’t think I have a choice.”

  Someone in the background yells, “Time’s up!” and the phone goes dead.

  Pops looks at the receiver, shrugs, and hangs up. He goes to the couch and sits down.

  Carl looks at him. “So...are you gonna bail him out?”

  Pops reaches into Bert’s cereal box for crumbs. “Nah. Not right now. He needs to cool his heels for a while.”

  “It’s probably the safest place for him,” Bert says.

  “Mmph,” Pops agrees.

  I start to say something. It tastes like an objection, and I stifle it. Maybe they’re right and it would do my dad some good to be in jail. “But he’s got the key,” I say.

  “He doesn’t have the key,” Bert points out. “It’s sitting in a paper bag in the property room at the jail.”

  “Umm...okay?”

  “Point being...he doesn’t have that key on him.” Bert knits his reptile hands together greedily.

  “So...isn’t it going to be harder to get away from the cops?”

  Bert rolls his eyes like I’m stupid. “No. Your dad can forbid me from taking the key from him by stealth or by force. Part of the whole ‘I know your name’ schtick. I have no such deal with the cops.”

  My brows knit together. “You’re gonna fight the cops?”

  “No. You’re going to walk in there and get it.”

  Riiiiiiight.

  Bert isn’t kidding. He tells me to get dressed in something appropriate for a jail visit. Unsure, I duck back into my room. I assume this means I should be wearing running shoes with my jeans. I pull a hoodie over my T-shirt. I feel like I should be really well covered, like I want to wear armor. But not enough shit to get caught by a metal detector.

  I pause before the door of my closet, tugging on my socks. I open the door and dig through the bottom of the closet for the alarm clock. On impulse, I open it. There’s the four thousand bucks. Maybe enough to bail my dad out of jail. If I felt like it.

  I stuff the money in my pocket. I have no intention of bailing him out. But I crave the feeling of power, of knowing I could if I wanted to. I want the feeling he had, standing over me as I curled up in a ball. I want to know that I have a choice, and I’m choosing to screw him over and leave him in jail.

  I need that sting of satisfaction.

  We use my computer to print off a property release form for the jail. Pops signs my dad’s name on the line that says “Prisoner” and I sign where it says, “Signature of Person Accepting Property.” Pops insists I have my driver’s license in my wallet and puts a suit of clothes for my dad in a plastic grocery bag.

  “You take this to the counter,” he says. “Tell them you’re picking up the clothes your dad came in wearing, and you’re dropping off his court clothes.”

  I don’t know how Pops and Bert know this, but I’m betting they’ve been around jail before. “Um. And they’ll just give me the key?”

  “Probably. You’ll have his name and address on your ID, and you’re dropping off other stuff for him. It’s not for sure, but maybe they’ll do it.”

  That wasn’t reassuring.

  “But there’s still this thing about being under house arrest.”

  “Yeah.” Bert peers at his reflection in the toaster. He’s wearing my mom’s face again and smoothing his hair. Creepy. “You need to wait until I create a distraction for the cop in the alley. Then shimmy down the fire escape.”

  My eyes narrow. “Distraction?”

  “Yep. Get yer butt out that window and let’s get this party started,” Bert says, sashaying toward the door. “And don’t forget to use the magic watch.”

  Awesome. I loop my arm through the plastic bag as I head down the hall. I open the window at the end of it as quietly as I can.

  I wait. The guard who’s supposed to be on duty down there is smoking a cigarette, leaning against the wall hard enough to hold it up. Bright movement catches my eye. It’s Bert. I can see, in the reflections of puddles, that he’s wearing my mother’s dress. He slides a bit on the gravel and cries out, holding his ankle.

  The cop crosses the alley to my ‘mother.’ “Ma’am, are you all right?”

  Bert cradles his ankle, whimpering. “Ow! I broke my heel! Those were expensive shoes...”

  The cop bends down to take a better look. Bert lifts his leg tantalizingly.

  Bert stares over the policeman’s shoulder at me, wide-eyed. He places one of his T-rex arms on the cop’s shoulder. “Oooohhh...I hope I didn’t break my ankle.”

  The cop’s hands are around Bert’s meaty reptilian ankle. “It’s all right, ma’am. I’m a trained first responder...”

  Urk. I do not want to watch this.

  I crank the watch stem three times and punch the button. Sound is wiped from the world, all of it: a garbage truck rumbling down the back alley, a cat yowling, and a siren in the distance. All perfectly silent.

  And Bert and the cop are frozen in a mind-searingly awful flirtation scene. I swear the cop is trying to look up Bert’s dress. I don’t know how far Bert’s glamour goes. I don’t want to know.

  I grasp the bottom rung of the fire escape, the rust flaking under my hands. I swing down, dropping the last six feet and landing in gravel. The impact drives the breath from my lungs.

  I run like hell, my legs pumping in time to the ticking of the watch.

  I sprint around the corner of the building, behind the burger joint. The watch stops ticking, and sound leaks back into the world with a whoosh. The garbage truck revs back up and continues churning along the alley. I run past the Dumpsters and keep moving, charging for two full blocks with the bag rattling around my shoulder before I slow. I pause, looking back.

  No one is following me.

  Tension twitches through my shoulders, and I relax a bit. I cross through the alley to the sidewalk. I put my hands in my pockets, the bag dangling from my wrist, and take my sweet time walking to the jail.

  Part of it is that I’m nervous about this little mission. The other part is that the jail scares me.

  It’s like there’s a miasma around this place. It’s a concrete building from the sixties, forever in the shade of the next-door courthouse and municipal buildings. There are tiny windows that don’t open, that don’t look wide enough for a man to fit through—or that they’ve ever been cleaned, for that matter. The building is surrounded entirely by concrete sidewalk and walkways. Not a single green thing will grow there, not even weeds.

  I follow the sidewalk down to the side of the building toward a sign that says “VISITORS” And stifle a shudder.

  I’m used to dealing with a good many seedy folks at the pawn shop. That part is nothing new to me. Everybody in the shop wants something—usually pretty desperately. Sometimes enough to lie, cheat, or steal for it.

  Like that one guy who came up to the night window and tried to sell us a whole fistful of dental gold. He was clearly jonesing for a hit of something, all twitchy and picking at the skin on his face. Sid told him we don’t buy dental gold. It always comes from dead people, and never in a savory way. Best case scenario, it gets pulled from corpses before they’re cremated. Worst case...you don’t like your in-laws much.

  People like that pop up once in a while. Fortu
nately, they come and then they get the hell out. What’s new for me is seeing so many at once.

  People trickle out. All men, from what I can see, holding paper grocery sacks. Some ask people in line for money. One of those men is immediately in my face. His breath stinks, and I instinctively flinch. He’s wearing sweatpants and plastic flip-flops that are too big for him. Jail issue, I guess.

  “Hey, you got any cash for bus fare? I just got sprung.”

  I shake my head, not making eye contact. I don’t want to flash the wad of cash I’ve got in my pockets. “Sorry, man. I got nothing.”

  “You got something. You’re in line to get in, not out.” He shoves at my shoulder. My back lands against the wall. The people in line around me look away.

  “I’m here to see my dad,” I say. “I have his court clothes.”

  The man regards me with narrowed eyes. He places his hand on my forehead, his fingers digging into my scalp. At first, I think he means to squish my head like a grape. But he says, “Good boy.” And he ambles away toward the street.

  The people in line are no better. A man in a suit who I suspect is a lawyer talks on his cellphone. His suit is two sizes too small, and there are sweat stains in the armpits. A woman is self-consciously fiddling with the braids in her long blond hair, picking at the split ends. She’s ignoring a man who’s staring at her ass and asking, “how much?” There are women there with small children. I have no idea why anyone would want to bring their children to jail. I know from being around the bondsmen that most people are only in jail for a short time. It can’t be good for a kid to see his dad in a place like this.

  I gaze at a little boy holding his mother’s hand. The mom is arguing with someone on her cellphone. The kid looks like he’s maybe four. He has very old eyes. He’s got scars on his arms that look like cigarette burns. I don’t know if they’re from his mom, his dad, or his mom’s flavor of the week.

  Every so often, when I start feeling sorry for myself, I’m reminded that there are kids out there who have it a lot worse than I do.

  The line doesn’t move at all for a long time, and then it rushes forward in a flood. I move with it, inside the building, toward a small vestibule with a window marked “VISITATION.” Most of the people line up over there, including the mom with the little boy. I head for the window marked “PROPERTY.”

  Jesus Christ, it stinks in here. It smells like piss worse than the hospital. I wrinkle my nose. There are men and women in uniform walking behind the bulletproof glass of the window. I wonder if they can still smell that stink, so much like fear. It seems like something that would be impossible to get used to.

  The woman at the window is wearing a helluva lot of perfume. I can smell it wafting under the opening in the Plexiglass. Maybe she didn’t get used to it. She glances at me. “Are you here to see a prisoner, hon?”

  I shake my head, clear my throat. “I’m here to pick up my dad’s things and drop off his court clothes.” I hold up the plastic bag.

  “You got a form?”

  I slide the piece of paper Pops printed from the internet under the scarred Plexiglass.

  She writes some things on it. “Drivers’ license.”

  I dig mine out of my wallet, slide it under.

  She squints at it, passes it back. “Okay, hon. What’ve you got for your dad?”

  I smoosh the plastic sack as flat as I can get it and slide it under the window. She pulls it out, empties it on the counter. She shakes out each article and fills out a form. There’s a dress shirt and a tie. I’ve never seen my father in a tie. I think this must be one of Pops’s from the seventies or something. It’s loud and patterned.

  She slides the tie back under the window. “Sorry, hon. Ties are a suicide risk.”

  “Okay,” I say lamely, gathering the tie back up.

  The officer checks off the form for the pants that are folded up and a pair of socks, underwear, and shoes. She removes an item from the bottom of the bag, lifts it up to the light, and squints at it.

  I turn eight shades of red. Snickers and a wolf whistle erupt behind me.

  “I dunno what your dad’s proclivities are, but we can’t give him pantyhose. Not unless he has a health problem that requires him to have pressure hose.” She peers through the sheer black nylon at me.

  “It’s okay,” I say.

  She passes the hose back to me. I wad them up and stuff them in my pocket. I wonder if Pops or Bert was responsible for that.

  The officer sweeps the items into a paper bag and staples the list to it. “I’ll see that he gets these. I’ll go check to see if his property is ready.”

  My mouth is dry. “Thanks.”

  She leaves the window, and I stare at my reflection in the Plexiglass. I hope to hell this works. I rock back and forth on my toes, conscious that there’s a security camera pointed at me.

  She returns presently with a paper bag and a fistful of forms. “Okay, hon. Sign here and here.”

  I scribble on the pieces of paper. She slides the bag under the window to me.

  I clutch the bag to my chest. “Thank you.”

  She looks up at me, startled, as if people don’t say that to her. “You’re welcome, hon.”

  I open my mouth. I glance sidelong at the little boy in the next line. His mother is arguing with the person on the other side of the window. Two men in uniform come out from behind a steel door and announce to the woman that she’s under arrest. The boy starts to cry.

  The officer behind the counter shakes her head, straightens her papers. “That happens all the time. Outstanding warrants. These parents think that if they bring a child in, they won’t get arrested.”

  The men in uniform handcuff the wailing woman, right in front of her son.

  “That seems...really dumb.”

  “It is.”

  “What happens to the kid?” A woman in uniform comes out to try to soothe the boy, who is sucking his thumb.

  “They’ll try to contact a relative. Or Social Services. Damn shame, every time.”

  I pause for a moment.

  “Was there something else?” the officer asks me.

  I’m on the verge of asking whether I can bail my dad out. But I don’t. “No, thank you.”

  I turn and nearly run away, clutching the paper sack to my chest. I don’t stop to check if the key is inside.

  CHAPTER 24

  I run for two blocks before skidding to a stop in the shadow of a building. Pressing my back up against the brick, chest heaving, I rip open the staples closing the sack.

  My dad’s slipper falls out onto the pavement. Just the one. The other’s still back at our place. I pull out his bathrobe, all pilled and stained with coffee. I throw it on the ground, stare into the bottom of the bag.

  Empty.

  No.

  I pick the robe up, dig into the lint-filled pockets. I shake it out. Nothing clatters onto the pavement. I tear the sack apart, shaking out the corners.

  Nothing.

  My throat burns. That son of a bitch.

  I don’t know what he did with the key. I mean, I can speculate. He might’ve done a lot of stuff to keep us from getting it. He could have stuffed it into the seat crevices in the back of the police car. He might’ve thrown it out when he got to jail. Maybe he swallowed the damn thing.

  There’s no way of knowing for sure. But he’s determined to keep that hourglass from us. Even if it means he can’t get to it.

  I shuffle back home, kicking every rock I can find on the sidewalk. I was so focused on getting out that it never occurred to me to think about getting back in. I pull my hoodie over my head and slip into Betty’s Burgers behind a group of construction workers. The cops don’t see me.

  I head back to the kitchen. It’s all stainless steel now and freshly-painted, with a red fire extinguisher on the wall as big as a scuba tank.

  “Raz!”

  Arms are flung around me, and Lily’s magnolia perfume overpowers the smell of hamburger grease. Her plas
tic-covered hands crinkle around the back of my neck. Callie launches herself at me, wrapping her arms around my waist.

  In this sandwich of girl, I smile in spite of myself.

  “What happened? How did you get out? I saw your father getting taken away...what’s going on?” Lily’s questions tumble all over themselves.

  “I, uh...it’s complicated.” I don’t want to say much in front of Callie, and I glance down pointedly at the top of her head.

  “Okay.” Lily calls for Rose.

  Rose zips into the kitchen. She’s got her hair in pigtails and is dancing to her iPod as she carries trays back. “Raz! Mom wants to see you, but she’s at the market.”

  “I’m not really supposed to be here.” I put my finger on my lips.

  “Gotcha.”

  Lily strips off her gloves and takes me by the hand to the back stair. I’m grateful for that. It’s only a matter of time before the cops wander over here for coffee, and I don’t want the girls to get into trouble.

  We climb up the freshly-carpeted white stairs to the renovated apartment. It still smells like fresh paint and new carpet. Also, as we pass the bathroom, of hairspray and nail polish remover. It’s beginning to smell more lived-in. Lily leads me to her room and closes the door.

  We sit down on the edge of her bed. Lilly clasps my hands. “What happened?”

  “Don’t tell your mom, but the Mob came over. It was bad. People got killed. Sid’s in the hospital.” I keep seeing Sid lying on the floor and the Gnome chewing livers, blood running down his chin.

  “Jesus.” Her eyes are full and dark like new moons. “Is Sid gonna be okay?”

  “He hasn’t woken up yet. I don’t know. Bert says so...”

  She embraces me. Her hair escapes her hairnet to tickle my cheek. “It’s gonna be okay.”

  “I’m not so sure. Dad got arrested for some bullshit about desecrating corpses. And we’re all in ‘protective custody.’”

  Lily leans back, leaving her hands on my shoulders. “How did you get out?”

  I grimace. “Bert’s over there, pretending to be my oversexed mother. It was a pretty good distraction.”