Going Underground (21 page)

An hour later, my brain's turning to oatmeal and my words are coming out hoarse, but I keep answering every question, no matter how small or stupid or humiliating, until lemon face says, “Thank you, young man. That'll be all.”

“Thank you, ma'am.” I get up, step away from the table, and head for the aisle.

Branson makes a move, and I hear the clatter of the CD player as he picks it up and pulls it to him. As I draw even with him, he lifts the player almost like a salute, and he pushes play.

A quiet Cat Stevens song fills the chamber.

Trouble

They probably won't get it
, I think as I walk slowly down the aisle toward the exit, hearing the rustle of my parents moving behind me. A glance to my left tells me Cherie gets it. She gives me a giant, genuine smile and thumbs-up as the song plays:

I have paid my debt

Now won't you leave me in my misery

I'm sweating and shaking as I shove through the leather- (or vinyl-) covered doors into the hot-cold hallway. If I'd eaten anything in the last three hours, I'd puke it up.

I can't believe the questions they asked me. I really can't believe I answered them in front of God, everybody, and my parents. I can't believe Branson actually turned on that CD player in our state's legislature.

My notes are still sitting on the bench, so I gather them up without turning around. When I do finally manage to face two of my biggest supporters, Dad's got his arms folded.

I wait.

He stares at me.

Then he says, “I'm hungry. Want to hit the first burger joint we pass?”

My smile hits fast, because that's Dad for,
I'm fine with you
, and it's the most normal moment I've had in months.

Mom can't let it go at that. She has to wrap me up in both arms and say, “I'm proud of you. That had to be—I'm just—I'm proud.”

Great.

Now, instead of burgers, I have to think about not crying like a little kid, because I don't think I've heard her say that since I was fourteen years old and still playing baseball and kissing Cory Wentworth.

I hold it together. Barely. And she finally lets me go, but she touches my face like she's measuring me and noticing, all of a sudden, how much I've grown since I was five or six or eight years old. She has tears in her eyes, and I have zero idea what she's about to say. Please don't let it be something sappy and sob yanking. Please.

She opts for nothing, and nothing is fine.

Dad follows behind, and I swear I can still hear Branson playing my music somewhere in the depths of the statehouse hearing room.

Chapter One

If I'd known beating up a dead guy in a pine box, then talking to a bunch of even more dead-looking people from the government would earn me a good recommendation from my probation officer and get me discharged from psychotherapy, I might have tried all that sooner.

Okay, no. Not really. But it was still weird, saying good-bye to Dr. Mote and to Branson, too. I got my walking papers from probation two weeks after my birthday, about three months after graduation.

Who am I?

I'm Del Hartwick, high school graduate, graveyard owner, and guy still looking for a way to keep this little foothold I've managed to gain on planet Earth.

Why am I here?

Because this is my graveyard and I've got a grave to dig, already in progress. All right, all right, and because it's September thirtieth, and I'm … hoping. Stupid as it sounds, I'm hoping.

What's the point?

I'm starting to think I'll get the answer to this one when I'm eighty or one hundred. I'll let you know.

Fred gives me a fire-alarm screech from her cage on the tree branch just as somebody says, “You're still really good at that grave-digging thing.”

Deep voice. Not the voice I wanted to hear.

“Thanks,” I tell Branson as I put down my shovel. “I think.”

I'm about to ask him if he wants a piss sample just for old time's sake, but when I turn around, I realize he's got somebody with him. A woman. A woman holding a battered piece of paper. She looks familiar and sort of intense, with her dark eyes and the way her face has no expression at all.

Was she at the legislative hearings? Did I see her there—and was it before or after I had to talk about exactly how my penis looked in the photo I took?

Heat creeps up my neck, threatening to turn my cheeks an even deeper shade of red than the digging already accomplished. I get out of the grave I'm hollowing out in Harper's Dogwood Section, too far from the main drive to hear cars. Behind Branson and the woman he brought to Rock Hill, I see funeral home staff taking up chair drapes from the service this morning. I'll need to finish filling in Mrs. Ammonson's grave, making it perfectly even and flat, so I can lay the turf back down with no ripples. Some of the ferns and other stuff Mr. Ammonson left at the plot, I'll plant around the headstone after Mom tells me which ones will survive in our climate. The ones that won't survive, I'll send over to Duke's Ridge Nursing Home, because a lot of the patients there love having plants to tend in their rooms. The flowers I'll move on top of the grave and leave them until they die, then clean them up and mail Mr. Ammonson any angels or doves or permanent parts of the arrangements.

There's nobody else around. Nobody at all, even though it's September thirtieth. I can't help the sadness growing way down deep, but I can put it off a while to be polite. I hope.

I dust off my hands, expecting Branson to introduce me to his friend, but he opens with, “It passed, Del.”

Dust forms a thin brown cloud in the sunlight between us. I stop moving my hands. I think I heard him correctly, but I'm not letting myself believe it or even trying to understand what it means.

“Romeo and Juliet passed—and it's retroactive.” Branson's words come out fast and happy, and then he does something I've rarely seen him do.

He smiles.

And just like that, half the nightmare of Good-bye Night finally comes to an end. What happened between me and Cory—not illegal, since we were more or less the same age and both of us wanted to do what we did.

It's real but it doesn't feel real. Not yet.

“I'm not a rapist anymore?” I know the question sounds stupid, but I ask Branson, anyway, because my heart's speeding up and my breath's coming fast, and I just need to hear it directly, and from him.

His smile never fades as he reaches out and claps one big, strong hand on my shoulder. “You never were a rapist, Del. Now the law agrees with me.”

I look at the woman with him, the woman I don't even know, and I tell her, “I'm not a rapist.”

My head feels like a balloon, detaching from my neck and lifting toward the blue sky on a string.

“The sexting's still a problem,” Branson says, letting go of my shoulder. “There's another law pending to turn that into a misdemeanor instead of a felony, but right now it's on hold because it conflicts with federal child porn laws, and nobody knows how that's going to work out.”

I'm still Mr. Happy Balloon, way above the graveyard looking down. “So I still have to register as a sex offender for the pornography convictions.”

Should be a downer, but it's not because I'm high on
I am
not
a rapist.

“Yes. I'm sorry.” Branson's smile falters. “Until you're forty-five years old in this state, and some other states, forever—but give it a year, maybe two, and maybe that'll change.”

“You're an optimist.”
I'm not a rapist. I'm not a rapist!

“Somebody has to be.” Branson finally notices how I keep looking at his lady friend, and he does the gentleman thing with, “Del Hartwick, I'd like you to meet Danita Johnston. Ms. Johnston, Del Hartwick.”

Ms. Johnston grips her piece of paper in her left hand and shakes with her right. Firm grip. Very direct stare. “Congratulations on the law passing, Mr. Hartwick. That does make things easier.”

I'm giddy, but I'm with it enough to wonder,
Easier for who? How?
“I think I saw you at the hearings.” Remembering now. I thought she had a secret parrot smile. “You were there, weren't you?”

“I was.” And she does have a secret parrot smile. It's so small nobody but a parrot nut would even notice it on her otherwise hard, immobile face. “I'm with Community College, Mr. Hartwick. I'm director of Admissions, and I went to those hearings to see if this boy was for real.”

She holds up the battered piece of paper.

When I stare at it, not comprehending, she opens the paper along its worn creases and reads, “Dear Ms. Johnston.” At this, she gives me a look over the top of the paper. “That would be me.”

I'm turning red now, and losing my natural high over hearing about the law passing, and feeling like I can get in trouble with Branson even though I'm over eighteen and off probation.

His expression's not any lighter than Ms. Johnston's as she continues quoting the smart-ass letter I wrote what seems like a thousand years ago. “My name is Del Hartwick and I have a felony conviction. In the eyes of the law, I am a criminal. I can't tell you I didn't do it, because I did. I can't tell you it was right, but I'm not sure it was wrong.”

She looks at me again. “Yes, ma'am” I say, because,
Sorry I was kind of sarcastic
seems lame, and
oh, shit
might get me slapped. Man, it's hot in the graveyard (even though fall's here) as she reads through the next part, and goes on to the next.

“I'm not what those charges say about me. I'm not anything like that. I'm Del. I'm seventeen. I have a parrot and a best friend and a girlfriend and a job digging graves. I have good grades and I want to be an avian vet, and maybe help my folks with the Humane Society and all their animal rescue operations.

“My life got stolen from me, and I want it back. This application means a lot to me. I'm lost in space and I want to find a way home. Nobody else can get me back to the planet, so I have to do it myself.”

She pauses again.

I can't quite believe I wrote any of that. I could have been more respectful. Polite, maybe?

Ms. Johnston glances toward the tree holding Fred's cage. “This would be the parrot?”

“Yes, ma'am. Her name is Fred. Nobody knew she was a girl until she laid an egg, and it was too late to change her name.”

“Fred,” Fred says, tentatively, like she's testing the waters.

“I see,” Ms. Johnston says, then she goes straight back to the letter. “That's why I'm writing to you, to ask permission to apply, and to ask your help in getting a fair chance at going to college. My name is Cain Delano Hartwick, and I want a future. Let me apply, judge me on what I can do, and give me a chance. Please.”

Still looking at me, she finishes by saying my name emphatically, just like I wrote it.

DEL.

“Fred,” Fred says from her cage, with almost the same emphasis.

Ms. Johnston gives Fred a look, and I'm thinking I see the parrot smile, but I'm probably crazy.

“And all this time,” Branson says, “Dr. Mote and I were worried you didn't know who you were and what you wanted.”

I don't know if I'm supposed to apologize or run. Both seem like viable options, but I go for what comes to my mind instead. “I know what I want. I just don't know how I'm ever going to get it.”

Branson nods at this and looks back at Ms. Johnston.

“I've been following your progress since I got this letter,” she says. “First with Mr. Branson, then later on my own. I've checked your grades. I've talked to the teachers who wrote recommendations for you. A little while ago, I even spoke to your parents.”

Fred whistles, then drops a bomb, and I start hoping she doesn't start with the fart and burp noises. I fidget with my fingers, but make myself meet Ms. Johnston's gaze. “Why?”

Fred farts, and it's really, really, really loud.

Ms. Johnston shuts her eyes, but otherwise, she doesn't react to the fart noise. “Because I've gone out on a limb so far I can hear people sawing the branch behind me. I wanted to be sure I wasn't as crazy as everyone thinks I am.”

“That sounds like something I'd say,” I tell her as Fred follows the fart with a winning burp, an
excuse me,
and some witchy-sounding laughter.

Ms. Johnston's mouth twitches as she looks at the parrot. Fred goes quiet and poofs out her feathers, one dominant female recognizing another—and maybe surrendering. For now.

When Ms. Johnston turns back to me, she says, “We're too late for this semester, because I had some board members still fence-sitting and putting up objections. With the passage of the law, that'll end. A little arm-twisting—how does January sound?”

“January,” I repeat, beginning to understand, but like before when Branson told me about the law passing, not quite able to believe it's true.

“To start classes.” She nods. “We're solid in the sciences and I assure you, if you're aiming for premed or preveterinary, your scores from Community will get respect at any four-year that takes you.”

She waits, like I'm supposed to say something, but my brain is a total blank.

Ms. Johnston fills in the silence. “Mr. Branson tells me your future might ultimately lie in broadcasting or the music industry, and Community also has a good communications program to give you a start in those areas. Does that interest you?”

I turn to Branson because I know him better and I trust him more. “Is she serious?”

He gives it straight back to me just like he's always done. “Are you?”

That's when I know it's true.

My head buzzes so loud it's hard to hear Ms. Johnston when she's handing me the full application to Community, along with a letter giving me permission to apply, and explaining that I need to fill in every single blank. It's hard to hear Branson, too, when he says he'll help me if I run into any problems on the application questions.

I stand there holding the application, thinking I should make twenty copies of it in case Fred eats a few or I get dirty fingerprints on the pages or something. I don't have a computer in Harper's old house, where I'm living now. A computer would probably fry his decrepit fuse box and burn the place to the ground—plus, it just felt weird to even consider. I don't have a cell yet, either, but that's because I can't afford one on my own and I don't want my parents paying for it. I think I'll start small with the cell. It's less intimidating.

Ms. Johnston steps over to admire some of the flowers on Mrs. Ammonson's grave, obviously giving Branson a moment alone with me.

“How are you, really?” he asks me, the familiar worry lines returning to his forehead. “Holding your own?”

“I'm doing okay so far.” I gesture to the graveyard. “It's a lot of responsibility, but I like being busy. I just—I miss Harper. A lot.”

“Whatever happened with your girl, with Livia?” Branson glances down at his watch, and I know he's checking the date.

My wild excitement about the law and Community College fizzles down to a quiet sort of background joy, and what comes to the front is that sadness again. That deep-down ache that doesn't have an antidote even if I know its name.

Livia.

“Today's her birthday, but she's not here,” I tell Branson. “That's all I know, and I guess that kind of says it all.”

He grumbles agreement and looks unhappy on my behalf. Then he makes it a little worse. “How's Marvin?”

“Gone. But he did send me a postcard from a cookie shop near Notre Dame.” I point in the general direction of Indiana, or at least I think it's the right direction.

“What happened to Lee Ann?”

That makes me laugh. “He ended up with a harem those last few months. He was just waiting to turn eighteen, and all the girls he's dating have to prove they're eighteen. He said some of them think he's a dork for being so careful, but he doesn't care.”

“Good for him. I know that whole mess took a toll on all of you. I'm glad you're moving past it.” Branson's smile is back, and he glances toward Ms. Johnston, who's sniffing roses.

“His postcard said he'll pick me up for a visit, but I don't want him to.” I turn back to the grave I was working on so I'm not looking right at Branson. “I don't know how Notre Dame will feel about having me on campus.”