Do Not Pass Go (12 page)

Jam had a Barbie lunch box and P. J. had an Elmo lunch box, and you didn't ever want to get them mixed up. It was not easy making lunches for them, because they complained about everything. Jam wanted honey with her peanut butter, and P. J. wanted jelly, but not grape jelly, just strawberry jelly. And Jam wanted her sandwiches cut in half, and P. J. liked quarters.

The person who cooks takes a lot of flak, Deet was learning.

When Dad called at night, the
girls would chatter on about school, complain about Deet's cooking, and tattle on each other. Dad managed to make the girls feel he was interested in them, not removed from their lives. In the old days, Deet thought, before there were phones, going to jail must have been like a death in the family.

Dad didn't talk about what was going on with him, he just asked the girls question after question, kept them chattering, and when they were finished they felt close to him. Where had he learned a thing like that? Not from Grandpa or Grandma. They never asked questions, at least not the kind that showed an interest, showed you were paying attention. Dad just knew how to make people feel good. It was like the way he knew that sidewise way of giving compliments. The
next time Deet had trouble thinking about what to talk about to anyone, he'd just ask questions.

“When can we come to see you, Dad?” P. J. asked every time.

“Not ever,” he'd say. “Never. You can't talk in here very well, because there are so many people around. It's better to talk on the telephone.” But Deet knew he didn't want the girls to see him in there. You think your dad is the king of the world, you think he can do anything. And then you see him led around by these guards, locked in, locked out, and then you know he isn't the king. Maybe what you don't see you can forget about easier. Maybe if the girls never saw him there, it wouldn't be real to them.

One night Dad told the girls, “Hold the phone up to the speakers and play me something on the CD player. Some Willie Nelson. Anything.”

So they played some of his favorite songs for him. “Louder,” he said. “Lots louder.” They had to turn it up so loud Deet and the girls could hardly stand it. It was noisy in the jail at night, iron gates clanging, people yelling, so Dad couldn't hear it unless it was cranked all the way up.

“Thanks,” said Dad. “I can't believe how much I miss my music. Can you find ‘The Gambler'? Ronny wants to hear that one. It's on that album with the stars on the front.”

P. J. found it right away. She was getting a kick out of playing deejay.

They all liked that one too. “You got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'era,” they sang along as loud as they could, feeling joyful.

When the song was finished, Dad said, “Ronny thanks you. He says that's his new theme song, the one he's going to live by.”

Know when to walk away and know when to run,
thought Deet.
That's what Ronny has to do, all right.

One day that week Mom had taken a few hours off to go to the dentist, so she said she'd see Dad that day, before her appointment. Deet would take the school bus home instead of the downtown bus and give Sally a day off from the girls.

When he got out of school, Deet was surprised to see that Nelly wasn't waiting for him at their bus
station. Usually Nelly was there first, because he had a study hall last period, but he wasn't first that day, and Deet was by himself. He felt his stomach clench a little when he saw Dennis Slater come up.

Dennis was a sort of smart-ass, an arrogant kind of guy, basketball star and all that. He lived on the ridge in one of the last houses on their bus run. Every time Nelly saw Dennis coming, or anyone like him, he'd start talking ninety miles a minute, sort of leaning toward Deet, so no one else could get a word in. So they could ignore everyone, being so absorbed in their conversation. Now here was Dennis, and no Nelly to run interference.

Dennis nodded at Deet, bent down to pick up an ice chunk, and threw it, free-throw style, into a garbage can.

“Slam dunk,” Dennis said when the ice thunked on the bottom of the can. Deet gave him a small smile.

Dennis came closer and put both of his hands in his pockets. He was one of those cool guys who didn't wear a hat or mittens, even when it was ninety below. He folded his mouth in a tight line and then he said, “My brother is in there.” Deet looked at him blankly. In
where?

Dennis pushed his hair out of his eyes. “He says your dad is a good guy. They play cards together sometimes.”

Jeez, Dennis Slater knew. That about tied it. Dennis wasn't exactly the kind of guy to keep things to himself. Then Deet wondered why Dad never mentioned anyone with a brother in school. Maybe he didn't know.

Well, he had to say something. Ask a question.

“Do you ever go to see him?”

“No,” said Dennis. “My mom won't let me.” He picked up a bigger piece of ice and made another basket. “I know you go to see your dad. My brother told me he saw you there when he was walking past the visiting room.”

“Yeah,” said Deet. “I go every school day. Not today, because my mom was off. She goes on the weekends because she's usually working the other days.”

“I told my mom you go, so why couldn't I. But she can't see it.” Deet felt uncomfortable thinking about this mom and her boy, people he didn't even know talking about things he thought were private.

“Just my other brother goes. He doesn't live at
home, so he can do what he wants to. I wish I could visit Jerry.”

Deet looked at Dennis for a long minute, trying to remember how wary he'd been of guys like Dennis, lippy guys, sure of themselves. Dennis just looked sad now.

“Is he going to be there long?” asked Deet. Not what he'd wanted to say. He wanted to say something to make Dennis feel better.

“Don't know,” said Dennis.

Deet nodded. At that moment Mindy pulled their bus into its space by the crossing sign, and at the same time a swarm of kids came from the school, Nelly as well. Nelly looked a dark look at Dennis and moved to Deet's side, ready to interfere. Deet smiled a
don't worry
smile at Nelly.

Dennis said, “How's it going, Nelly?” and then, “See ya,” to Deet.

Before Dennis turned away, Deet said to him, “It's not so bad, you know, that place.” Dennis looked at Deet for a moment in an I'll-take-vour-word-for-it sort of way and went to take his place in the bus line.

After they were on the bus, Nelly and Deet in their
usual front seat behind Mindy, Nelly looked a question at him and Deet said, “His brother's in jail. With Dad.”

“No
kidding
,” said Nelly.

“There are a lot of surprises in this world,” said Deet.

When Deet got his homework back on Thursday he flipped quickly through the pages to see what Mr. Hodges had to say about cooking and housework. He'd written:

Some people don't even like to eat, you know. That's because they were raised by the food nazis. Those are the ones who make kids eat everything on their plate, even if they're not hungry or don't like it. The ones who make them try everything. The ones who take it as a personal insult if you say you don't like artichokes or anchovies or almonds. The food nazis are everywhere, feeling righteous, making little kids' meals a battleground and a misery!

Deet wondered if Mr. Hodges was talking about himself, and if that was why he was so skinny.

And under that Mr. Hodges had written:

What does your dad say about the food in jail?

When I worked there it was awful.

Why hadn't he thought to ask Dad about the food? What
did
they eat in jail?

When Deet was waiting for the bus home, sometimes he went into a store that sold used CDs, mostly to stay warm, but also because he liked it there.

The guys who owned it were cool. Young guys, kind of far out, earrings and ponytails and T-shirts with social comments like “What if they gave a war and nobody came?” and “I feel like a fugitive from the law of averages.” There was a poster by the door that showed a sleek black leopard, and in the cartoon balloon coming out of its mouth were the words: “Animals are not fabric. Wear your own damn skin.”

One of guys had a great big yellow dog that greeted you when you came in. They treated that dog as if they felt the dog had dignity and rights and was a creature
with his own life and plans and needs. The dog was their equal, and there was nothing patronizing about their behavior toward him. Deet liked that.

The guys interested him because they were always putting out petitions and collecting money for causes—the environment, animal rights, equal pay for women, the food bank. Deet had never been around people who were thinking about stuff like that. He wished he could work up the courage to talk to them.

One night there was a blue clipboard on the counter with a list of people's signatures, and a ballpoint pen was tied to the clip. It was a petition to legalize marijuana. Deet stopped and stared at it.

The bus pulled up by the door, and Deet ran outside to catch it. He was thinking about the petition so hard that he barely remembered to give the driver his ticket to punch.

He'd always thought of laws as just being there, never changing. Not open to discussion, petitions. But what if there were no laws against drugs? What if drugs were like alcohol? Or cigarettes? Legal at a certain age. Who decides things like what's right and wrong?

Dad said that nearly everyone in jail was there for drugs. If drugs were legal, most of the people wouldn't be there. What was the use of going to jail, anyway? Did it do any good, even if you were a mugger or something? What if you had to work for the poor or the old, instead of going to jail? What if you just had to pay back the money you stole, or whatever you did?

Grandpa said Dad was going to hell for using drugs. Well, what if drugs weren't against the law? Would the rules for hell change? There used to be a law against alcohol. Grandpa drank sometimes, schnapps and brandy and beer. Would you go to hell back then, during Prohibition, for drinking, but not now when the law said it was okay? (Deet thought hell was just a silly idea anyway, like the bogeyman, supposed to make you scared to do things, but he thought that people who
did
believe in it should at least have logical rules for hell.)

The next day Deet was at the jail before anyone else, so he went to the bulletin board to study the monthly menu he'd seen there. Each meal was huge, and the total of calories per day was listed as four thousand. Wasn't that way too many calories? The menu was overloaded
with turkey. There was turkey bacon, turkey sausage, turkey hot dogs, turkey roll, turkey burgers, and turkey patties. What the heck was turkey bacon? And in the old days they used to give prisoners just bread and water.

Deet knew now that the woman at the registration desk was named Rhonda. She was wearing a sort of man's outfit today. A gray man's suit and a man's tie. It looked okay, but it was kind of weird that she had so many styles. What did her closet look like? It must look like a costume store. How did she decide every day who she was going to be?

It seemed to Deet as if a person's clothes should be sort of the same all the time, as if they were telling you with their clothes who they were. Like the kids at school. This one wore only the latest stuff:
I'm
in.
I'm on the cutting edge.
This teacher with the long hair and long skirts said,
I'm into whole wheat and women's rights and environmental issues.
The girls who wore really outrageous stuff to get attention were saying,
Look at me
. Deet's clothes said, Don't
look at me
.

Andy was there again, and so was the fat girl with
the baby. An old black man Deet had never seen before came in. A big, beefy man with a shirt and tie passed through the gate with a large Bible tucked under his arm. In his pudgy hand he had a pass Rhonda had given him, and he waved it at the guard on the other side of the door. Deet wondered what this man told the prisoners he visited about hell.

Deet sat on the bench and listened to Andy, who told Deet all about his job at the parts place. His car was giving him problems, and some days it was hard to get here to the jail to visit, but if he didn't come his Della thought right away that he was fooling around on her, had another girlfriend.

“People get really jealous in here, you know? If she tries to call me and the line is busy, I catch holy hell trying to explain who I was talking to.”

Deet wondered if Dad would get jealous. No. Couldn't happen. Neither of his folks were the jealous type.

Just a second before the automatic timer shut the entrance door, a girl rushed in, practically running.

Deet froze on the bench. Sheena Daily. She went
to his school, but he almost hadn't recognized her, because it was so wrong to see her in a place like this. One year they'd been in the same classroom, maybe when they were in the third grade. She'd had long braids and glasses so thick that her long eyelashes mashed up against the lenses. She didn't wear glasses anymore, and her hair was cut short like a boy's.