The School on Heart's Content Road (19 page)

Something tells me I can't report the Cherish part. So I whisper, “Everything they eat is weird. They
love
pepper and green spice. Especially Penny and Stuart and Jacquie. Everything burns hot red and disgusting because of Penny, Stuart, and Jacquie. And Claire. And her slaves. And Bonny Loo. Especially sausages. Mum, they
make
sausages. They use squashed meat in a metal thing. And they love love love fish. Fish with skinnnnnnnn.” I point at my pocket down here on my cute sundress. This is to show Mum there's my secret agent notebook and pictures of hot terrible food and fish with skinnnnn and everybody's
mouths eating like PIGS, especially Gordie, who is ALWAYS EATING. His pig mouth is the worst.

Mum is smiling at Gordie, smiling into his eyes. “Jane Miranda Meserve is a secret agent. This is Headquarters,” she TELLLLS him.

“What are you doing? Don't tell him!” My lips say this but without voice, just lips.

Gordie reaches over to me and runs his finger around inside my ear, inside and around all the curly parts of my ear. I let him.

With Gordie right there it's difficult to tell Mum about all the stuff I found out. Like about THE MOTHERS. And THE TOILETS WITH NO WATER, called COMPOST. And the old man who is dying in a bed. And the GUNS.

So I just kinda pull lint off my sundress and open and close the strap to one of my sandals.

Gordie and Mum talk about the people in Mum's “room.” Rooms here are locked. And then Gordie and Mum talk about fedral court and fedral prison and seizures and many many words of fedral kinds, and Mum
whispers
to Gordie something about the house.

I push my foot hard into the leg of Mum's chair. It makes me so mad when Mum and people do that! You know, when they talk outside of me.

Gordie is breaking the copguard rules and reaches for Mum's hand. But then stops. He is always feeling people, especially ears, and he also does a weird-willyish thing to your fingernails. Scratches them, which is just a plain thing to do, you would think, but you almost feel faint. Feels nice. I seen him kiss an old lady
on the lips
. And he blows breath on the man's head with no eyes. And he hugged and danced with Oh-RELL. It was funny.

Gordie is not really Mum's friend. He's Granpa Pete's friend. But I bet Gordie thinks Mum is pretty because she
is
. She is
so
pretty. Pretty hair. Pretty mouth. Pretty mole thing. Eyes very big—blue for a color—like wonderful jewels. Her hair she has fixed, called Light 'n' Streak. It is really blonde with brownish lines. But with these secret agent glasses, it looks to be quite a nice streaked pink.

Mum is not the brown color. That's my father, named Damon Gorely, in California. He is a star. He is famous in rap and has a perfect kitchen, Mum said, which is what he said after the concert. The Civic Center
was wicked packed but he picked Mum. When you love someone of the different colors, you get a girl like me, which Mum calls a golden gypsy queen. Queen for sure.

While the child, Jane, appears to be deep in thought, the talk goes on.

Lisa says, “Kane wants me to tell all that I know about Bob Ross and Jeff if—”

“He's trying to get you off,” says Gordon. “He's only playing it the way they set it up to be played. Drug laws are now conspiracy laws. You know . . . like you're a threat to the country.” He laughs.

“Sure. Rat and run.” Lisa frowns.

Gordon touches the child's ear.

Lisa says, “I'd like them to think I have an iron will. That all this about the house, my daughter, prison, and everything won't break me. Not even electric shocks to the bottoms of my feet could make me tell.” She smiles. “But I'm no iron will. I just don't know anything. I never even saw any of the stuff. But somehow they're saying there was stuff in the house.
That's made up!
Unless it was some microscopic flake left from that party before Christmas! And Bob Ross . . . I never even
saw
him before. I just knew Carla. I just introduced him to Jeff 'cause Jeff wanted to get some stuff. I'm starting to get the idea that they wouldn't mind a bit if I just made things up! The DA and the MDEA just want to hear stories about Bob Ross. They don't care if the stories are true or not. That's pretty low.”

Gordon groans. “So
you
are being framed for a million dollars' worth. It makes perfect sense.
Perfect
.”

Lisa closes her eyes.

Jane tells us.

I stare at her mouth. With these glasses, I can read her mind. I can see in her mind that she's really thinking how horridable them at Gordie's are to expect me to eat hot food and fish skin. And also in Mum's brains I see Cherish trapped inside the car watching the cops arresting Mum with
guns
and metal
handcuffs
and driving fast, and Mum can see out
the cop car, can see back at Cherish inside our car inside the hot windows, her tongue long and crying and getting very small, for cops go fast and probably had the blue lights and siren noise.

Gordie feels down along both sides of his brown mustache with his fingers, the mustachey part way longer than his beard. One of his eyeballs grows, then it shrinks and blinks and then a way big mess all shivering around.

Mum looks over at the copguard. His outfit is brown and beige if you look at him without pink glasses. He is a huge guy like Gordie, only his middle is HUGE around like a HUGE giant inner tube for floating in the lake is under his shirt. His hair is shaved but for a small place like a little hat, and his mustache is HUGE but no beard thing. He must weigh wicked. He has set back in his chair now and has his arms crossed, and he is staring right at Mum. Mum looks fast back at Gordie, who has his eye very wild-looking.

Time ticks on at the jail.

Though visit time is ordered to the split second, there are moments when a visitor can feel lost in time, even as he or she feels boxed in by the sickly overhead schoolhouse-type lights and the eyes of the untrusting deputies. And you must
never
touch the prisoner.

Gordon St. Onge's fingers move again toward the prisoner's. Not a thrust. Just edging along. It is the fingers of both hands, a giant's hands, one nail purpled from Settlement work or play, that breathing, unbraiding world so far from this unbending place.

Lisa's eyes drop, as though in horror, to the next inching forward of his fingers.

The deputy doesn't see this.

Lisa raises her eyes (“wonderful jewels”) to the “madman” (said by so many talk show call-ins), the pale pale eyes of Gordon St. Onge. And here is the secret of his success at drawing so many of his fellow humans to his table, to his hearth, to his embrace. For he is no suave creature. But this, the eyes into eyes, his sorrow, his inability to separate his meaty heart from the wailing hearts of those such as this woman. Her need. There is a tremble to his chin, the widening eye, the narrowing other eye, the horsy twitch. For a moment, he is becoming the caged one.

And Lisa, like so many, is yearning toward that yawning hole of empathy and the face, handsome but for its extreme expressions, particular in its Black Irish and Italian and French and Indian light-dark thick-necked way. Lisa makes a sound in her throat, not a word but a creaking. Like pond lilies against the metal bottom of a small boat. A brushy sound. Her eyes close.

His fingers don't inch any closer, but they don't draw back. His face tightens. He says bitterly, “It isn't just your property they want.” His voice louder now. “Besides that.” Now louder. “And the kickbacks and a few feathers in their political caps!” He is getting too loud for this place. The walls scowl. “Besides the usual media shilling and all this being a prototype for the whole Fascist scene America is about to experience in more obvious ways just around the bend, besides
that,
what they really want is probably this Bob Ross or someone he knows. You're just a hostage!” He growls the word
hostage
. “Your innocence is neither here nor there. And truth is not the issue, Lisa! Fairness is not the issue! Justice is not the issue!” His voice rises even louder, quite hot.

Lisa looks toward the deputy.

The deputy crosses his arms, seemingly lost in thoughts of an unpleasant personal life.

Lisa says, “My friend Maggie here says that even if I did get off, even if the court says I'm innocent, they won't give me the house back. Everything I own is gone. They seize everything when you're arrested . . . so it's part of the arrest, not part of the conviction. What kind of crazy nuttiness is that?”

Gordon leans a little toward her. “That's why it's called the Drug War. The state of war makes pillaging and hostage-taking okay.
And
the idea that your so-called rights are even worth
less
. That's war. You know . . . like everything's fair in love and war.”

Lisa whimpers. “I can't believe this is happening.” She sucks her breath in, holds it painfully. Lets it out through her nose slowly like a pot smoker would do, only no smoke.

Gordon squinches his face in matching pain, swallows. “It's a prototype—”

“Yes, you said that. It probably is.”

“They're getting us ready for the future.”

She leans her right ear against her hand.

He goes on. “They want us Americans to get used to their fucking with our neighbors. One excuse or another. One American at a time!” He leans back and looks down into the shadows of Jane's eyes burning behind the two pink heart-shaped lenses in white plastic frames. He looks around the room, sees that the deputy is watching the hall through the open door. Now in a soft voice, “I wish you hadn't heard about the house. Not good for the spirit.”

Lisa laughs. “Fascist prototypes are good for the spirit?”

Gordon bows his head. Doggy expression, full of apology. “Forgive me.”

“Dad warned me.” She blushes. Her eyes show tears. Small smile. “He said—” She smiles quite crookedly, doesn't go on.

Secret Agent Jane's patience wears thin.