House Arrest (4 page)

WEEK 7

James says there are no rules for this journal.
That is more confusing than a wide receiver
throwing
a pass, James.
(If I talk in football language, Mrs. B,
maybe James will understand more of my words.)
For weeks it has been:
Talk more about that day, Timothy.
Tell us how you feel, Timothy.
Make sure we know you're not a nutjob, Timothy.
And now it's
There are no rules
?
Grown-ups are the worst.

I hear these little noises.
Sniffs and sad chirps.
A hiccup.
A blowing nose.
Mom is crying downstairs.

I made her cry, OK.
I made her cry
after I took the family photos off the mantel.
I made her cry
when I threw the pictures out the door and in the yard.
I made her cry
when I yelled,
He left us and he's never coming back EVER!
I said I was sorry after she stopped crying.
I picked the pictures up out of the yard.
I put them in the trunk of the car
with the rest of his stuff I'm hiding in there.
José came by on his bike,
asked me why I was talking to the car.
So I admitted it to him.
I made my mom cry.
It was me this time.
Not a bill.
Not Levi.
Not just from being so, so tired.
I admit it to you, too.
I made her cry, OK.
And then I apologized
to a bunch of photos and stuff in the trunk of our car.
Because I didn't want Dad to hate me.
Maybe I
am
a nutjob.
Oh, great, now I'm crying, too.
I hate this journal.

A crackle in the breeze.
I put down my math book,
look out the front door.
Two bags on the mat,
a mat that says
Fo shizzle welcome to our hizzle
,
a mat Dad bought because he thought it was funny,
a mat Mom hates but won't throw away.
Two bags on the mat.
Filled with milk and bread and cheese and meat
and even some Snickers bars.
I look down the sidewalk.
No one's around.
I bring the mystery bag inside.
Levi kicks his happy leg.

WEEK 8

I wasn't in juvie very long,
just there to be
processed
and
judged.
But it felt like ages
eons
eternities
stars imploded and were reborn
new planets formed
there was a supernova of shame
growing inside me
and I thought maybe rays of blinding light
would shoot from my fingers
as they were pressed onto the fancy inkless pad
and my fingerprints
joined the other galaxies of whorls and swirls
trapped in time.

You look cold.
Duh, Mrs. B. It's wintertime.
Where's your coat?
Duh, Mrs. B. My arms have grown
three sizes since last winter.
Do you need a coat?
Duh, Mrs. B. But you think I'm going to ask for one?
You should take care of yourself.
You don't want to get sick.
Duh, Mrs. B. Who
wants
to get sick?
Have you had a flu shot?
Duh, Mrs. B. Who's going to pay for it?
You should think about getting one.
Duh, Mrs. B. I think about a lot of things I can't do.
Timothy, are you listening to me?
Duh, Mrs. B. Are
you
listening to you?

My mom is late.
She'll be right here.
My standard lie for new night nurses.
Mom will be here when her shift ends.
In three hours.
This nurse plopped down a Big Gulp
right on Mom's coffee table.
The one that should have a sign:
USE A COASTER
OR YOU WILL BE MURDERED.
Wow. Lexi is adorable. She's a cutie.
I smelled cigarettes and onions
when she opened her mouth.
Actually, she's a he.
And his name is Levi.
Onion Mouth wrinkled her nose,
flipped through some pages,
sipped her Big Gulp.
Oh, right. The heart kid.
I shook my head.
Airway kid.
I pointed to the trach.
Onion Mouth smiled.
Where's your bathroom?
I pointed down the hall.
Then I called Mom.
Forget the overtime.
Please come home.
You have to fire the new night nurse.
I know.
I know.
But she's bad.
Real bad.
OK.
Sorry.
I know.
I KNOW.
Bye.

Marisol has these crazy fingers.
They're long,
like longer than normal.
And they wrap around things,
like maybe she has vines growing inside her.
This afternoon her fingers were twirling
crazy shapes
in front of Levi's face.
She's teaching him sign language.
She's giving him a voice.
milk milk milk
more more more
more milk more milk more milk
Marisol said it over and over
while her fingers curled,
vines squeezing air.
Levi stared at her
and smiled
and swatted at her hands.
Marisol took his hand,
took his tiny fingers
that are not like vines
and she tried to shape them into
milk milk milk
more more more
more milk more milk more milk.
But he just wanted the cell phone
in the pocket of her scrubs.
(He likes to push buttons.
Kind of like me.
Ha.)
I sat next to Marisol
and tried to turn my fingers into vines.
more more more
milk milk milk
more milk more milk more milk
Good
, said Marisol.
Good job, Timothy.
She handed me Levi's bottle.
Her long fingers touched mine
for just a second
and the weirdest thing happened.
I wanted to hug her
really tight
and feel her hands wrap around me
like vines never letting go.
And I wanted to sign
more more more
so she'd never stop hugging me back.
Please don't ever tell her.

WEEK 9

I will never do it again.
You must know that, James.
I will never do it again.
Even though sometimes I wonder
just a tiny wonder
a little piece of dust-sized wonder
miniature wonder
you can only see under a wonderscope.
What if . . .
What if . . .
What if I had one more magic wallet . . .
What if all the bills got paid . . .
I will never do it again, James.
The wonder is very tiny.
The what if is too dangerous.
So I will never do it again.
But I do wonder.
I do.

Hey Dad,
I'm writing this because I have to.
Mrs. Bainbridge is making me write it
in her office
with the plants.
Well, I'm not writing this
with
the plants.
You know what I mean.
Well, no, you don't.
You don't even know Mrs. Bainbridge.
You don't even know why I'm here.
You don't know anything.
Did you ever know anything?
Did you ever think about me?
About Mom?
About Levi?
How
we
feel?
What
we
want?
I guess you only thought about your car
and how fast you would drive it
away, away, away.
I wish
I
could drive
away, away, away.
But even if I could, I wouldn't.
Because there are people to take care of.
People you left behind.
I don't want to write this anymore.
Mrs. Bainbridge, there isn't even a place to send it.

You can't hear an angry burrito cry
when that angry burrito
is a baby with a trach
wrapped in a blanket
so that his arms and legs can't move
so that you can bend his neck over a towel
so that you can pull the tube from his neck
and put in a new, clean one.
The angry burrito does not like you
when you help do this,
even when you burrito-ize him
in his favorite spaceship blanket.
Even when you whisper a story about
dragons and a knight
who talks with his hands.
The angry burrito turns weird colors
while your mom and his nurse
work with superfast ninja moves
to get that breathing tube switched out
1-2-3 FAST.
The angry burrito stops crying
when you give him a bottle
pat his fuzzy head
say,
Good job, Levi, good job, little burrito.
The angry burrito drinks too fast.
The angry burrito barfs and
the ties around his neck
the brand-new ties
get covered in barf
so you have to help switch them out again
and the whole scene starts over
an endless loop
because you have nothing better to do on a Saturday
than make up stories about dragons
to soothe an angry burrito.

Confession:
I ran to José's house today,
just for three minutes
to borrow his math book.
Mom knew where I was going.
She watched from the doorway.
But now I can't think about math.
I can only think about other dimensions
like maybe right now our world exists somewhere else,
but everyone has bunny ears
or their butts on the fronts of their bodies.
When I go to José's house it's like another dimension.
The house is exactly the same as mine,
same rooms in the same places
except it is also exactly different.
They have seven people,
we have three.
They have noise and chaos,
we do too.
But it's just all so different,
so different.
It's hard for me to figure out
who has the best chaos—
Beeping alarms, or screeching sisters?
Backpacks everywhere, or medical supplies?
Fuzzy baby head, or guinea pig running loose?
And all of it,
all of it
is hidden behind the same-looking front door,
the same-looking windows,
the same-looking garage.
A whole different dimension.
It's just three houses down.
And the only real thing we share
between the two places
is this one lousy math book
that I can't even concentrate on.

José's dad bought a car.
It's a car he says used to be cool.
Now it looks like a giant rusted turtle
with no guts inside.

T-man, you can't keep doing this.
The box drops at my feet.
Don't call me T-man.
A bobblehead falls next to my foot.
I don't crush it.
I need the trunk for groceries.
Her hands on her hips.
Her jaw clenching.
Put this stuff away.
The toe of my shoe pushes at the box.
Football. Shaving cream. Random Dad stuff.
I imagine it on fire.
I imagine it on fire in an ocean of lava.
I imagine it on fire in an ocean of lava
with fireproof sharks circling it.
I imagine it on fire in an ocean of lava
with fireproof sharks circling it
and shooting it with their laser eyes.
There are never any groceries to go in the trunk.
I say it quietly. To the box.
Levi starts coughing.
Mom goes to him.
When I kick the box, more stuff falls out.
The suction machine is louder than my kicks.
I kick and kick and kick
until Mom stops suctioning
until Levi stops coughing.
Now I'm in my room.
The box is not on fire.
And it's not in the trunk.
And the bobblehead is not in my hand.
And I'm not thinking about Dad.
And how he sucks even more than the suction machine.

You know those super sunny days?
The ones that come out of nowhere,
where every slant of sunshine
bursts through the window blinds
warming up whatever they touch
not too hot
but just right
and you can feel the sun burning on your face
burning in a good way
like if you could stand inside fireworks and not
get burned?
This fresh-squeezed orange juice
left on the porch
with a box of chocolate doughnuts
and a bag of breakfast tacos
with fiery red salsa
is making the inside of my mouth feel
just like those fireworks
just like that slant of sunshine.