The Five Pearls (5 page)

After only two years of operation, the big house on north Nevada Street was already on secret probation with its neighbors. The three previous probations weren’t anything anyone could enforce, just due notice that the house and all the girls in it were being watched very carefully for improprieties. These might lead to enough evidence for the dissatisfied neighbors to have the house’s operating license revoked. After all, it was a commercial enterprise operating in a residential area.

According to the nosy woman with the skin rash that lived next door, it was nothing more than a brothel for little whores. She was the one on the lookout, the one with her finger on the button to get the police involved when the time was right. Last year, it was her voice on the 911 line reporting the fistfight in the backyard. Hers again when a boy in heat broke a second story bedroom window with a rock.

“Filthy children,” the neighbor snorted to the police when they arrived. “Why, when I was a girl we had morals…”
Inside the group home, several disinterested girls sat in tight-packed chairs in front of the television in the mismatched living room. A blathering reality show about a woman trying to find a rich husband was on.
Miss Feely, the live-in counselor for the group home came in.
“Tracy finished the dinner dishes. Who has the remote?”
One of the girls lazily raised the remote in the air. Miss Feely snatched it from her hand and turned off the boob tube. Her girls groaned.
“Homework time. Chop-chop.”
“Do we have to?” came the common complaint.
Miss Feely crossed to the television, set the remote down and picked up a wind-up oven timer.
“Two hours starting now,” she said.
“Why do you set the timer?” a girl asked. “After homework, it’s lights out anyway.”
“We all have to learn to be efficient,” Feely said. “Humans are connected by time. Time to eat, time to sleep and work…”
“Time for sex,” one of the girls said. “Have you ever had sex, Miss Feely?”
The other girls broke into a chorus of laughter.
“I don’t discuss my personal life,” the counselor said. “Now, let’s go. Chop-chop.”
Bodies moved in slow motion. Bags were opened, books and homework assignments revealed. Miss Feely ran through her mental checklist of who was
not
present as the girls left for their rooms.
“Where's Baby?” she asked.
“Who cares?” one girl said.
“Why does she get her own bedroom?” another complained.
“Wow! Do I feel the love here or what?”
Miss Feely shook her head and headed towards the back bedroom on the first floor off the kitchen. Even before she arrived, she knew Amber Beulah was in there doing what she wasn’t supposed to be doing.
Smoking.
Miss Feely crept to the bedroom door like a cat and slipped her thick firm hand around the brass door handle.
“Aha!” she yelled, springing the door open in triumph.
Amber was right where Miss Feely expected her to be. Smoking a cigarette by the open window. Amber took one last drag on it before tossing it outside.
“Too late, Amber. You’re busted. One week of laundry duty,” Miss Feely said as she closed the window. “What's the matter with you? You want to hurt the baby?”
“I’m training it to smoke when it grows up.” Amber crossed to her single bed and plopped down on it.
“Shouldn’t you wait until
you
grow up first, Baby?”
“Ha-ha. You're a hoot, Miss Feely.”
“Your school called today. They’re still looking for a volunteer teacher.”
Amber rolled over onto a pile of opened books and magazines. “Big deal. I can teach myself.”
“Right. You and Abe Lincoln by candlelight. Next time I catch you smoking, you get ‘in-house’ for two weeks, young lady.”
“Like I care.”
Miss Feely shook her head. “You’ll learn to care. Maybe someday. If someone doesn't murder you first.” Miss Feely started out.
“Dike,” Amber said loud enough for the stocky woman to hear.
“Self-absorbed little bitch,” Miss Feely said loud enough for the pregnant brat to hear.
Amber followed the counselor to the door and closed it behind her. She went to the window next and retrieved a concealed pack of cigarettes from a tissue box, begging aloud. “Will someone
please
rescue me from my youth!”
She was about to light up. She really was. But when she reached for a cigarette she saw her little belly. It was sticking out. She could see that now. Her tight little girl stomach was swelling. It wouldn’t be long before everyone else knew, too. She lifted her sweatshirt and faced the long mirror attached to the door.
“My belly button’s starting to stretch,” she moaned.
The girl turned in silhouette, took a deep breath and sucked in her stomach as far as it would let her. Amber watched herself in the mirror until she turned a deep red and exhaled. The belly pushed out again.
“I’m screwed,” she said. “This baby is screwed even worse.”

Toby Chambers faced the kitchen sink, rinsing eggs and grease off breakfast plates with a scrubbing sponge. His back was to his parents, which was fine with him. They were just grunting and groaning anyway, using their hands and big gestures to talk. They both started laughing, but it didn’t sound like laughter. They laughed like open-jawed gorillas, hands flapping and heads rolling. It didn’t make any sense.

His mother balled up a paper napkin and threw it at her son. It hit him in the ear and he turned towards her.
“
Honey, can we have more coffee?” she asked with her hands, still smiling from the joke her husband had told.
Toby found the pot on the counter and poured his parents their coffee at the kitchen table. They always drank coffee for breakfast.
“What are your plans today, Toby?” His dad asked, speaking with a thick tongue.
Toby understood what he said because he had been listening to him since forever. But it sounded like, “wha ear plane ooday, Oboy?”
“I thought I'd jump off a building,” Toby said as he turned his back towards the sink.
“What did you say? We can't see your lips,” his mother said spoke with a marbled mouth.”
Toby pretended not to hear her. For a moment he was deaf
- just like his parents.
It’s bad enough I’m black
, he thought.
He thought about school. Maybe it was time to move on, leave his friends behind. He heard about something called Job Corps over in Grand Junction, on the western slope. Or maybe he could walk on to a basketball team at one of the other schools in town. He heard that coaches let kids back in school all the time if they were proven athletes. They didn’t care about grades or attendance. They just wanted to win. At least, that’s what Toby heard somewhere once.

Wearing his tattered camouflage jacket to fight off the wind, Matt Golden sat in a mildewed recliner near the stoop of the trailer. He listened to his parents playfully arguing from inside. Using his booted foot, he rocked the baby in its carrier. The one-year-old was wrapped in a stiff wool blanket.

“They’re yer damn dumb kids! Do sumpin’ ‘bout it!” the old man yelled.
“They’re yer kids too!” his mom yelled back.
“Only one’s mine, the rest are yours! You do sumpin’ afore

The voices became faces as Alice and Pete came out of the trailer and headed towards a wreck of a sagging car with bald tires and peeled paint. Both parents were carved up with vicious Goth tattoos on their arms, shoulders and backs but neither seemed to mind. Alice made her modest living as a tattoo artist.

“When I married you, you promised to take care of all of us. But we get nothin’. Why don't you move away, Pete? Move far, far away.”

Pete held the car door open for her while she squeezed in. Alice was an extra large lady. Getting in or out of any vehicle was a chore.

“After I put you out of my misery, baby,” he said sarcastically with a half-toothed grin. “Remember what the preacher said, ‘bout stickin’ together through thick and thin? Just how thick you plan on gittin’?” Pete climbed behind the wheel.

Pete leaned across and kissed her. “You knows I love you,” he said.
“I knows,” she said. She closed her door and rolled down the window. “Matthew, honey? I’ll send the old man back after lunch so you can have a break.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
“Any news on the education?”
“Still on hold.”
“I didn’t need no pigskin to get where I’m at,” Pete yelled from the car. “By the by, there’s ants in the house. See if you can sweep ‘em out, boy.”
“Just dust ‘em with kitchen cleanser,” Alice advised.
“And dump the live ones in the neighbor’s yard.” Pete coughed.
“Okay.”
Alice and Pete twiddled their fingers at Matt. It was a family affectation for saying goodbye. After their jalopy smoked off down the street, two small children in dirty underwear and tee shirts came out from the trailer.
“We’re out of Sugar Pops,” the little boy said.
“And there’s ants in the sink,” said the girl.
Matt set the kids on the recliner. They were both redheaded and freckled like him, but without so many dots to connect. Matt took his jacket off and covered their skinny legs.
“Watch the baby,” he said to the little boy.
“Why?” the little boy asked. “He can’t even walk yet.”
“Just watch him,” Matt said, slightly irritated. “He just might get up and start runnin’ any minute now.
The children giggled.
Matt went inside the trailer. There was filth everywhere: piles of smelly clothes, stacks of grocery store magazines about celebrities and aliens, Sunday newspapers still in their wrappers, and enough junk mail to build a paper house.
Pete and Alice didn’t care, but Matthew did. He used to try cleaning the dirt box of a trailer, but between his parents and the three little ones, there just wasn’t any getting ahead. Only a month ago, he had packed a runaway bag and stashed it behind the Dumpster at the end of the trailer court. When night fell he intended to escape the pigpen forever.
But then Pete and Alice came home with hot store chicken. They let him play a card game called Texas Hold ‘Em and drink beer that they said was from Texas, too. He forgot about leaving just then.
But now the feeling to escape was back.
“Maybe, if they find a teacher real soon. Maybe I might stick around some more,” Matt decided. “Otherwise, I’m long gone. Texas mebbe. Alaska, too… someplace where no one will ever find me again… if I can figure out a way…”

Big Bill Hogan read the job posting from Battle. “You’re not serious?”
“I’m serious,” John said.
“You want to spend your end of days as a substitute teacher in an after-school program for those five deadbeat kids?”
“Yes.”
“You’re a crazy man. Out of meds already?”
“I can do this job, Hogan. Or at least fake my way through it.”
“You’re supposed to be dead any day now. What about that?”
“Look. I’m fate’s hand now. Besides, I worked fifteen years in a prison library. I helped at least a hundred guys get their high school diploma or GED.”
“You can do that in jail?”
“Some jails. I touched every book, encyclopedia, dictionary, catalogue and magazine that ever came in and out the library door. And at least twice.”
Hogan drew up his pants around his belly. “Okay, wise guy. What’s the state flower of Colorado?”
“Columbine. In Texas, it’s the bluebonnet.”
“Feet in a fathom?”
“Six.”
“Ever use a cell phone?”
“Not yet.”
“Know how to use a fax machine?”
“Not yet.”
“What about the Internet?”
“We had one in the library. Limited access. I used it for research. Legal pleadings to help other prisoners, mostly.”
“Own any CD’s?”
“I’m still a vinyl man,” Battle smiled.
Hogan frowned. “The universe has changed drastically, John. These kids? They’ll expect things you don’t know anything about.”
“I know.”
“This isn’t like lawyering,” Hogan said. “It’s nothin’ but cry-babies and brats now!”
Battle held up the job posting. “In a nutshell, how do we pull this off?”
Big Bill Hogan growled and took up occupancy at the edge of his desk.
“One of my old employees left behind her notary stamp. I have a good copier. Faking letterheads is one of my fortes. I’ll have to work your real college education into a fake one, change your MBA from Law to Education and manufacture some teaching credentials at defunct institutions to eliminate the paper trail.”
“You left out the part about breaking and entering into offices to plant dead paperwork, hacking databases and accessing cold files in warehouses,” Battle smiled.
“Minor details,” Hogan said, point blank.
Battle pulled a wad of money from his coat and tossed it at Hogan. “Will that cover your new expenses?”
Hogan took half the stack and tossed the rest back at Battle. “This isn’t brain surgery but it will take me a couple of days. Now, what kind of teacher do you want to be?”
“Just like the flyer says. ‘Special Education.’ Just what is a Special Education teacher responsible for, anyway?”
“Beats me, but I’ll find out.” Hogan wrote down a list of things to do, opened the filing cabinet with his foot, reached in and pulled out a whiskey bottle and two glasses.
“Care to imbibe?”
“No,” John said bluntly.
“Let me ask you,” Big Bill said, pouring himself a stiff drink. “Aren’t you scared about tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow? I never think about it. Only today.”
“Good answer, John.” Hogan leaned in towards him. “But you’re full of it.”
“No, I’m not.”
“You can honestly sit there and say straight-faced that you’re not afraid to die?”
“I’m not
afraid
to die. I’m
disappointed
that I’m going to die. There’s a difference.”
“Once a lawyer, always a lawyer,” Hogan chugged down his glass and grumbled. “You said you wanted to come back here and fix your little problem. Instead, you’re taking on five problems. I don’t get it.”
“Neither do I,” John said. “Neither do I.”

John Battle leaned against the SUV at the Garden of the Gods overlook. Down below, sandstone formations rose like jagged pinnacles from the valley floor. He felt like he was standing on the division of a topographical map. The high mountains supporting Pikes Peak hung from the sky to the west while rolling prairies to the east seemed to devour the windblown remains of half-dead riverbeds.

A Winnebago camper pulled up to the overlook. An elderly couple from Ohio climbed out. The happy wife carried a plate of sandwiches to a large flat rock nearby while her husband restrained a panting old dog on a leash with one hand, careful not to spill a metal water bowl in the other. The dog was in exploration mode, its nose intent on parking lot gravel, dirt, rocks and lunchmeat. The couple noticed John and smiled brightly.