Hopelessly Sane
D.E. Fredd
_
His father was insane. He was eight when instinct told him something was wrong. He was kept home from school because the communists were plotting to kidnap him. His father had worked for the RCA Corporation in Research and Development. The Reds wanted his technical information and what better way to get it than to take an eight-year old hostage. The FBI was also watching the house and tapping the phones. The United States suspected that his father had already gone over to the other side and wanted proof to arrest him for espionage. That put his dad between a rock and a hard place. Both sides needed him for something, hence the constant surveillance and secret messages via TV, magazines and newspapers.
When his father fortified the windows with steel bars, stashed weapons in various rooms and began firing at low flying aircraft from the local airport, the boy’s mother and grandparents finally acted. They committed him for six months to New Hampshire State Hospital in Laconia.
The boy naively thought that a hospital cured people. His uncle had a heart attack and was home after ten days, ready to go back to work albeit on a reduced schedule. His father seemed normal for a few months after his release, but one evening, after a few Rolling Rocks, the conspiracy theories spewed out again. By day he pretended to be sane for his employers, but at night and on weekends, escape plans were devised, safe rooms established, secret messages ferreted out and decoded. Weapons were again stowed in handy places. The father taught his son how to decipher the communiqués. Every third word in an otherwise innocuous newspaper article could hold a clandestine directive from either the FBI or the Red Menace.
He lived in this cloak and dagger environment until he was thirteen. It bothered him that the immediate family, especially his mother, played along with the erratic behavior even when it stretched the limit of common sense. Then, one hot August night well past midnight, the boy was awaken by his mother’s cries—“Stop, Charlie, you’re hurting me.”
The boy lay still for several minutes. His father was loudly proclaiming that things were coming to a head in his twisted world, an Armageddon of sorts, and his wife evidently wasn’t fully convinced of the situation’s gravity. When the boy got downstairs his father had his mother in a loose hammer lock. There was a confrontation. His mother told him to go back to bed. She and Dad were just playing. His father pushed the mother aside. “So, they’ve finally gotten to you, have they? What did those commie pinko teachers promise you, all ‘A’s?’”
His father reached beneath the cushion of his TV chair and pulled out a revolver waving it wildly. “If you ever think of putting me away, I’ll take you both out and as many of the enemy as I can.”
He slid the barrel back, chambering a round, and pointed it at them. The boy backed off slowly, hands raised, and began leaving the living room. When he was in the dining room and out of his father’s sight his father yelled, “Don’t forget to tell them at school that I’m ready and waiting.”
There was a .22 pistol behind the storage chest in front of the dining room picture window. The boy had some training on it. He pulled the gun out and, as he re-entered the living room, he fired a wild shot that took out the top roman numerals on the cuckoo clock. For a moment his father was stunned. But then he recovered from his son’s audacity and raised his own weapon. The boy’s second shot hit his father in the left shoulder and spun him around. At first he thought he’d missed; his father had merely turned and ducked to one side to avoid the bullet. So he squeezed the trigger again this time hitting the lower right side which dropped his father into a crumpled heap. His mother screamed and ran to her husband. The blood had begun in earnest. He’d nicked an artery. The boy dropped the gun, turned and went back upstairs. He got dressed and wondered if he should pack a bag. From the TV shows he had seen jail usually provided most basic items. When he heard the ambulance and other sirens, he headed for the bathroom, washed his face and hands and used the toilet. He went downstairs and got into back of the nearest police car. That’s where they found him after fifteen minutes of searching high and low.
***
The next six weeks and months were a blur. He was interviewed and gave a brief outline of what happened. He was told that his mother’s account of the matter differed from his. His father was simply showing her how to use a weapon. The boy had misunderstood and overreacted. He shrugged. Truth was a moot point as was his family as far as he was concerned. Relationships were much more trouble than they were worth. It was a relief to be away from everyone related to him.
During the final legal proceedings he sat at a table with a court appointed lawyer. It was a small room with a judge who would decide his fate. There were state’s lawyers as well as mental health professionals. He was at the center of a whirlpool. Things spun around him but he remained at rest. It was a skill he had developed, like being able to sleep with ones eyes open. What happened was of little interest to him, merely background noise. He heard someone comment that he had never shown remorse or asked after his father’s condition since he’d been in custody. In a way he’d been afraid to inquire if he’d killed the man. In his mind it was a toss-up as to whether his father had survived the bullets or not, though he had heard rumors that he had, but it would be a long recovery. His advocate concocted a defense. He wanted the boy to speak up about the years of oppression, missing school for weeks on end, and the mental cruelty he and his mother endured whenever they questioned the latest crackpot theory his father was proclaiming. He said nothing.
His guidance counselor at school spoke on his behalf. She was the point person for all his teachers who said he was an outstanding student with a brilliant mind who never was in trouble. In the end, and since no defense was offered, he was sent to Kis-Lyn Detention Center for Boys. It was so ordered that he would remain there until his eighteenth birthday whereupon he would be re-evaluated and a decision made as to where in the penal system he might be placed, if at all. He allowed his mother a brief hug, but, in the end, it was a relief to go with the officer to the awaiting van; a new beginning without any entanglements or allegiances.
***
At Kis-Lyn In dormitory “C” he survived the initial intimidations. He made it a point to keep to himself. He was instantly on guard when anyone came up to him and wanted to be his friend. The one thing that gave him instant respect in the group was a slight lie. When asked why he was here, he told anyone who asked that he’d shot his father to death. The matter of fact tone he used to deliver the news was enough to put most on notice that he was no one to trifle with.
They placed him in the ninth grade. He liked school; it kept his mind occupied. He was easily the best student if only because he cared enough to listen and do the work. His teachers were usually volunteers or college students satisfying practice teaching requirements. Being a good student got him out of the dorm and into a room with three other boys. Their privileges were that lights could be left on after ten so they could study as well have an extra locker for book storage.
When Kis-Lyn school was dismissed for the summer he worked on the institution’s farm as did most of the other inmates. At night he went to the library to read and a retired math teacher volunteered to tutor him one night a week.
He was promoted to tenth the following year, but he worked independently, thinking up projects in concert with his teachers. Rather than sit in the dull classroom with the others close to his age, he was dispatched to the library to use the computers for research and write up his essays. If there was a downfall in his education it was science, especially anything requiring a lab. There were no resources. So, the following year, when it came time for him to enter the eleventh grade, a pilot program was worked out with the local high school where he could attend as a full time student. A State-issued van would drop him off at 7:00 AM each morning and pick him up no later than 3:00 in the afternoon.
He was of two minds about this change. On the plus side it would be a new experience, an escape from the Kis-Lyn routine, a chance to be around people who, to greater or lesser degrees, had fewer behavioral issues. But he preferred his own company to that of others. He enjoyed solitude when he could steal it. It nourished him. There was a chair in the far recesses of the library where he went and immediately felt the stress of the day melt from him like snow in summer.
There might not be any such sanctuaries in a close-knit public school. Fitting in and having friends was a big thing. And it was bound to happen that his Kis-Lyn environment and the reasons for his being incarcerated would get out. Then the stares and whispers behind his back would begin. Mrs. Heffernan, a psychologist at Kis-Lyn, was his advisor. Her first job was to secure halfway decent clothes to supplant the standard tee shirt and jeans that were institutional issue. “And every afternoon you must come to my office and tell me how the day went. No shoulder shrugs, mind you. If it’s not working out, there’s no harm in coming back here. Of course I’m praying you kick everyone’s academic butt in that high school. And when they ask about your personal life, tell them straight up as much about yourself as you feel comfortable with.”
He actually enjoyed the high school. There were things he needed to work on. Group work was difficult. He rarely contributed to any discussion, and he dreaded being called on. But he wrote well so he had little issue with typing up any reports for the team he was assigned to in Social Studies. He liked art. He was no good at it, but it was a new experience. And French. Yes, that was really hard and required much of his homework time back at Kis-Lyn.
He was put into an AP Physics class. The math part of the course was easy, but he labored in the labs. Everything had to be done in a step by step method even though common sense told him that he could easily skip parts and get right to the crux of the matter. For the first two weeks he had no partner. Then he was assigned a young lady, April Schneider. He did not know it at the time, but she was the class genius and its designated nerd. The pairing of the two may have been orchestrated by Mr. Seachrist, the teacher. It was an awkward situation. First, he was unused to working with anyone and, second, he had never been within three feet of a female close to his own age. April had a nice face, friendly. She was on the plump side and wore sizes too big to disguise her figure. He liked her smell; it wasn’t that overbearing perfume many girls used. On their first lab he sat and worked by himself thinking that, at period’s end, they would compare results. After fifteen minutes she tapped him on the shoulder.
“We’re supposed to do this together. Seachrist gives us a grade on how well we work as a team. If you don’t want to be with me, just say so. I usually get ‘A’s’ and don’t want poor lab reports to screw up my class rank.”
He apologized. He had no idea how to work up a lab. She asked what school he came from. He lied and told her he was home schooled so a public facility was new to him. After that she took the role of tutor and within two weeks they were a well-oiled machine cranking out experiments above and beyond the assigned work for extra credit.
They had AP Literature class together as well. After a short time April drifted to the back of the room to sit next to him. And, during lunch breaks, she, on nice days, brought her carrot sticks out to the quad looking to discuss poetry or a physics problem.
If he had one regret it was that he couldn’t join any after school activities. He would have loved to run cross country and participate in the academic decathlon which was a big part of April’s life. Transportation was the problem. The Kis-Lyn van, sedately labeled Department of Youth Services, was at the curb at two forty-five every afternoon and never waited more than ten minutes before taking off. Missing it meant demerits and possible suspension from the program.
As far as he was concerned there was no romance, no chemistry with April. She had a quick wit, and he enjoyed her self-mockery when she made a rare mistake. She had the habit of complimenting him at almost every turn. If he did say something in class, she never failed to mention it afterwards. “I was about to say the exact same thing about Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience; great minds think alike I guess.”
During physics she stood behind him, resting her elbow on his shoulder as they read the manual together. And she was forever recommending books and CDs to him. “This is the first novel of Dos Possos’ USA Trilogy. There’s a ton of characters to keep track of. I’ve already begun a list.”
He felt honor bound to read what she lent him. One week he didn’t, and he could tell she was upset. She invited him to her home many times. He explained that he had to catch the van, and she countered that her mom would drive him home, or she would as soon as she got her learner’s permit and passed the driver’s test. Each time he made a different excuse, she took it as a personal rejection. The next day, however, she was her friendly, chipper self.
The day before Christmas break she handed him a card. It was addressed “To My Best Friend” and signed “With All My Love, April.” He thanked her, commented on the pretty design and cute play on words “Wholly” and “Holy.” All the while he wondered how he could repay her seasonal greetings. He spent his art class working on some semblance of a card and gave it to her the next day. There were no words on it, just images, some drawn free-hand, others from clip art. She thanked him profusely, gave him a long hug and then a kiss on the cheek. As stunned as he was by this, she then handed him a gift-wrapped present and encouraged him to open it. It was a page-a-day calendar devoted to strange word origins. “You can use it to study for the SAT’s.” He tried to sound enthused, but in the game of gift giving she had just raised the stakes well beyond the scope of his meager resources.
He did not know what was happening in his relationship with April until, over the Christmas break, he had a session with Mrs. Heffernan. “It sounds like she really likes you. How do you feel about that?”
“It’s okay I guess.”
“Well, you can’t be in limbo here for much longer. You either have to tell her that you just want to be her friend or commit to becoming a boyfriend.”
“I think it would hurt her if I didn’t see her as a girlfriend. Besides, we could never date because I’m in here and, also, I don’t have any money. I couldn’t even get her a Christmas gift or repay any of the stuff she gives me.”
“If she really likes you, maybe she’ll understand your predicament once you explain it to her. If not, well, that solves your problem.”
“I feel like those death row inmates that women write letters and eventually want to marry.”
“You’re pushing seventeen now. Not too long from now you’ll turn eighteen and there’s a great chance you’ll leave here to make something of yourself. I know it must seem like an eternity but be patient.”
He nodded. Mrs. Heffernan reached into her middle desk drawer and pulled out a small Christmas package. “Don’t get upset, it’s not for you. One of the staff members here gave me this—it’s bath salts and some other female smell good products. Give it to her or, better yet, mail it with a nice note, something innocuous like ‘Can’t wait to see old Seachrist’s smiling face in January.’ Humor goes a long way in deflecting difficult situations.”
***
When school resumed after the holiday break, April was effusive in her thanks for the gift. He was the first boy to give her perfume, and she wore it every day, holding out the inside of her wrist for him to smell the fragrance. They had two classes together, Physics and Literature, but she took to waiting outside his other classes and walking with him. They had their exclusive corner table at lunch. Most of the time they talked about course work but towards the end of the period the dreaded personal stuff would rear its ugly head. Several times she would mention that he could tell her anything however private. She was not one of these gossip hounds. Besides she was a loner too and had no one to tell. They were kindred souls in her view, both spiritually and intellectually. He was often given poems or passages from Bronte novels which he suspected contained subliminal messages she wanted to convey. At times his playing dumb about their relationship would drive her to distraction whereupon she would gather up her books and leave the cafeteria without a word. Yet the next morning she would be at his locker chirping away.
In February she asked him to the Valentine’s dance. He could not attend. She badgered him as to why and he almost broke his silence and explained his curious circumstances. They didn’t speak for a few weeks afterwards. There was considerable tension during the lab, and she moved her literature class seat back to the front. He did not mind being alone but the tension reminded him of being home with his parents. One evening he sat down and wrote out his life story. He explained his father’s schizophrenia-paranoia and the imagined role of foreign and American governments, touched briefly on how his mother and other relatives around his father bowed down to his delusions, even catered to them. He mentioned the shooting, the attempted murder charge, and how he had not seen any relatives or visitors since his sentence began. He had barred them by refusing to put them on his visitor list.
Kis-Lyn wasn’t so bad. But there were rules. It was really a prison and, aside from school, he wasn’t allowed out. He should have told her much sooner, but he didn’t and he was sorry. When he was eighteen a determination would be made, and he would either be set free or placed in one of New Hampshire’s adult correction facilities. He apologized for not being straight with her. He considered her a friend, but he could understand if she never wanted to speak to him again, and it would be fine with him if she found a new physics partner to finish out the junior year.
He mailed it to her home address on a Thursday thinking she would get it by the weekend. He was relieved when, on Monday morning before homeroom, she was not at his locker. At the end of block three, however, she met him outside AP Literature, grabbed his arm and took him down the hall to a vacant classroom. Once inside she enveloped him in a fierce hug and began sobbing. After a few minutes he could feel the moisture of her tears through his shirt. Her shoulders shook. When he tried to move backwards she clasped him tighter almost to the degree that he toppled over carrying her with him. He had no idea how to handle the situation especially if someone entered the room and discovered them in such an embrace. Finally he took his hand and began stroking the top of her head. He had done this years ago when his dog Judd had been clipped by a car and it helped. Gradually she too, whether due to his efforts or plain exhaustion, began to recover her composure. She let go and stepped away from him. Her face was a continent of red and white blotches. Mucus covered her chin and makeup had turned her into a Halloween vampire look-a-like. She glanced at his shirt and began to cry again, “I got you all snotty!”
He looked down at his soiled shirt, then took it off to reveal his faded Red Sox tee. There was a verbal tug of war over who would wash anything she stained. Afraid that she would start up again, he let her have it.
They had been in the room for over fifteen minutes. “I made you late for class. They’ll give you a detention if you don’t have a pass.”
“That’s okay.”
“No, go to guidance. Tell them you had a personal problem, and they’ll give you a pass. Ask Mrs. Shapiro and mention my name.”
“What about you?”
“I need to go to the nurse and freshen up. They’ll sign me in for the period.”
She reached up, held his face in her hands and kissed him gently on the lips. “I’m so glad you wrote me. I prayed every night for a miracle.” She kissed him again, then left.
When the afternoon Physics double period lab began, she took his hand and led him out of the classroom. “I spoke to Mr. S. about needing some time with you. He’s such a dear. He gave me a list of supplies he needed, and we can take as long as we want in the supply room to get them.” They went down two flights past the furnace and boilers rooms to a small room labeled “Hazardous Material.” Inside were shelves of specimen jars and various chemicals. She pulled up a crate for herself and motioned towards one for him. “I have something to tell you that I’ve never told a soul.”
He held up his hand. “There really is no need. I didn’t write you expecting any quid pro quo.”
It was as if she never heard him. “My dad left my mom when I was three. I don’t remember him at all. I found a few pictures my mom didn’t destroy, but that’s about it. I’ve never heard from him since then. We went on welfare because mom didn’t want me in day care and she couldn’t find work anyway. Then she started her own business at home. She has a 900 number and what she does is talk dirty to guys. I suppose they jerk off while she’s doing it. Wanda Wanker is one of her nom de plumes. She also writes a porn blog and does articles for hard core adult magazines. When you meet her you’re going to think she’s not very sexy looking. You’d be correct. She never wears anything but sweat pants and old tee shirts. She’s a slob, really. She doesn’t think I know very much about what she does in her ‘office’ each day, but the walls are pretty thin, and it doesn’t take much imagination to figure out what’s going on. I think what shocked me the most was the language she uses; it’s pretty raunchy. In the past few years she’s branched out and runs some web cam sites. Half a dozen women work for her, and she gets a percentage for setting up and maintaining the web service. Technically, she’s probably close to being a pimp or whorehouse madam. So that’s my sordid, embarrassing life except that we are on food stamps, and I can’t bring myself to go to the supermarket with her. Any comments?”
“Do you like her?”
“I know that if I were to confront her she’d probably say she does what she does so I can have a decent life, which I appreciate. She’s buying me a car next month for my birthday. They named me April because I was born in April. Not very creative or maybe they felt I’d be so limited that I could never forget my birthday. Like your mom who chose not to do anything about your dad, my mom could have chosen a respectable career path. She once mentioned she might like to be a nurse. Anyway, she chose the path of least resistance. She could have been a prostitute I guess, so maybe I’m lucky in that respect. Once I graduate and go to college, I’ll be on my own so it won’t matter if I like her or not, if that makes any sense.”
“Shouldn’t we be checking the list and getting back?”
“Just one more thing since we are baring our souls. I’m in love with you. You don’t have to respond to that. I feel so close to you. When I’m in bed at night I think of you beside me. I replay some of my mom’s conversations in my mind, and you’d blush if you knew what you and I do to each other. I want to be with you day and night. When I’m watching a dumb TV program, I want to make a joke or rag on the actors with you. It kills me that I can’t call you or that we have to meet in a smelly store room, which is giving me a headache by the way. I was thinking that this summer maybe you could put me on your visitor’s list. I did some checking and my mom could drive me out and pretend to be your aunt and I’d be a cousin. That way I could bring you books and whatever. And when you become eighteen and are up for release, we could testify what a nice guy you are. Sound like a plan?”
He too had a headache as they carried the lab supplies back to the classroom. Part of it was due to figuring out what to say to her. It was like a chess game and she had made a daring move. How was he to counter it?
***
During that spring and early summer he received many notes each day from her. She scoured the school for what she termed “TS’s,” trysting spots, where she initiated intense kissing sessions. She declared that since they were one in mind and soul they should also become one in body. She encouraged him to feel her breasts and on a few occasions she informed him, as they snuck into the back issue magazine storage area of the library (an excellent private spot), that she wasn’t wearing a bra or panties. One weekend she called Kis-Lyn at night and described her risqué sleeping attire, encouraging him to follow her lead and touch himself in the same areas where she was pleasuring herself. He tried to play along but the phone was at the rear of the rec-room and in full view of those supposedly glued to the TV. The next day she handed him a CD she had made. “I used some of the techniques my mom does when she has a client. If this doesn’t get you off, nothing will. Play it on your Walk-Man tonight and let me know how things go.”
When he complimented her on how erotic it was to listen to her voice but that he felt guilty, she said “I don’t care what you do as long as you’re thinking of me while you’re doing it.”
She sent him snippets of poems. “I just read this by Gerard Manley Hopkins,
What is all this juice and joy?
. . . . –Have, get, before it cloy,
Before it cloud, and sour with sinning,
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,
Doesn’t that sound as if he wrote it just for us? Read some of his poems and see if you can relate to what he’s saying.”
And it wasn’t long before nude photos made their way into his locker. The first few were discreet, almost photo album in nature, but then each day a more revealing episode in the ongoing striptease ensued and, by the time he got to the twentieth picture, she was provocatively naked on her bed beckoning him unto her. There was a note scribbled on the photo. “If you want me shaved I can do that. Lots of girls are doing it; trust me I take gym class with them.”
By late May she finally had her car which she drove to school. Lunch hour found them in the backseat bringing each other to climax manually and in early June a cramped, groping intercourse which resulted in a broken overhead interior light and a minor cut on the back of his head.
He had to admit that sexual activity was something that occupied his mind many times during the day. She had taken a part-time job at Empire Drug and used her employee discount to buy condoms which were kept in the glove box. They became experts at performing the act in the small confines of the back seat. Fifteen minutes later they were back in the school cafeteria chatting about the upcoming AP Literature exam right before school let out.
She had plans for their senior year. They would take classes at the local community college. The only required high school course was gym which they could fulfill in many alternative ways. They’d have time for themselves. “I might be able to get a small apartment for us. I talked with my mom. I told her I know what she does and how it might be illegal. She might be afraid that I’ll rat her out or tell somebody at school, and they’ll blab it to their parents. I told her I have a boyfriend and what your situation is. She can’t say anything against it because I hold all the cards. If I asked her for a few bucks to help live away from home, she’d give it to me. Plus, I could increase my hours at Empire. You just have to talk to your guidance person at the prison and see if they’d let you take day classes at the community college. Then, when we graduate and you turn eighteen, we can be together all the time. Imagine being able to shag anytime we felt like it.”
Early on she decided they should use British terms for their intimacy. As such they “cuddled,” “snogged” and, for the past several weeks had “shagged” as much as they could.
School let out on June 18th and his life went back to institutional routine. At her instance he put her on his visitor’s list and the next weekend April and her mother came. Someone had told him that, if you wanted to know what your girlfriend looked like when she grew up, look no further than her mother. It was hard to picture Mrs. Schneider as one who made her living chatting up men to the point of climax. April was right about sweatpants and a tee shirt although she wore a clean, checkered flannel shirt over her tribute to John Fogerty and Creedance Clearwater Revival. She was April’s height, no more than five foot two and stocky. In fact she looked as if she were pregnant. She sat at the table for a few minutes; long enough to shake hands and introduce herself, then went off to look for a coffee machine and any possible smoking area.
“So, I finally get to see where you live. I saw a lot of cows and corn growing coming in. Is that what you take care of during the summer?”
“I used to work the dairy barn, but now that I can drive a tractor, they have me baling hay this week.”
“I don’t know how I’m going to get through this summer without you. I woke up this morning so horny. When school starts back up we’ll have to do something special, make it like a second honeymoon if we can find a spot. Anyway, I talked to mom about the apartment and it won’t work. I can’t find anything even close to my price range so I guess we have to live out of my car until next June. Did you talk to your counselor about taking college courses?”
“The big thing here is precedence; if someone has done it before, then there is no problem. But if they have to do something new, forget it.”
“If they won’t approve it then I’ll just stay and take high school courses. We can schedule our classes together. Wouldn’t it be great if we graduated numbers one and two of our class? Boy, our kids will be geniuses. I saw a commercial on TV where they have babies reading books.”
***
April visited every Saturday. Her mother came with her because, at seventeen, an adult was required. She was working full time at Empire and had gotten a prescription for birth control pills which she would start taking in September. She brought books and magazines with each visit and gave him ten dollars to put in his commissary account. Sequestered in the stack of reading material were more nude photos. She lamented that she had never seen him totally naked and wondered if he could have someone take a picture of him in the raw so she could have a visual aid to enhance her nightly experience. She also discussed the porn racket with him. “It’s easy money. Look at these photos I downloaded. Those are called ‘Upskirt’ or ‘Flashing’ shots. Women don’t wear underwear and then pose for pictures in public places. It’s really harmless and there is a big market for them, especially overseas. These people probably got five bucks for every one of these.” As if to emphasize the economic point she shifted position, raised her skirt and crossed her legs. “See, ‘commando style’ would get us a hundred a day for something that easy and fun.”
For the Fourth of July the facility had a barbeque to which she invited herself. She sat at a long table and made friends with the other families, even joining in and playing tag with some of the little kids. When the day was over she kissed him goodbye and there were tears in her eyes. “I’ve been so happy today; I never wanted it to end.” He muttered something along the same lines.
The summer was flying by. He had little time to himself. She was overwhelming him with reading material. He rather liked fantasy writers like R. A. Salvatore, but he had little time for that genre. He was expected to write her several times a day as well as express his weekly thoughts in a diary she bought him. Each Saturday they were supposed to exchange them.
In early August he found himself depressed. In a way he dreaded high school beginning again, something that had never happened before. When she came to visit she chattered on about plans that were afoot. She wanted to know about his week.
“Nothing much happens in here that’s worth repeating.”
She touched his knee. “In a little over three weeks we’ll be together again. I know it’s hard but if you can just hang on. Did you find out about the college courses?”
He looked around the visiting room. Most of the other tables had five or six people gathered around—parents, grandparents and even little kids squirming to run free. For many years he’d enjoyed visiting days. With everyone in the day room he could use the gym, shoot baskets by himself or head for his favorite library spot. But the greatest luxury was to have his dorm room to himself for entire Saturday and Sunday morning and afternoons. Come to think of it Kis-Lyn wasn’t bad at all. He enjoyed the routine. His life was his own. Relatives came with any number of issues and expectations. It was as if everyone he’d ever come into contact with was sick. It was a virtual plague and being around them transferred their maladies to him. He thought prison was a decent enough quarantine, but that was no longer the case. Now he was valiantly searching for antidotes or talismans, anything to escape the pestilence that was ravaging his land.
And adulthood was looming, casting a giant shadow on his heretofore tranquility. Sex was the first manifestation. Yes, he reveled in its pleasure, but each delicious crumb of an orgasm was leading him deeper into an infamous box canyon of western lore. April had their lives mapped out. She was now hatching a plan to open her own chat room. Blind people would be her target market. She would speak with the men and he could address the blind females. It was easy; she’d write the scripts. She’d even found out that two of the web cam sites her mother had developed were dissatisfied with her mother’s business model, and she was sure she could highjack them and subsequently get into an online enterprise of her very own. Aside from fleeting periods of admittedly enjoyable “snogging” and “shagging,” he found it quite difficult to be around April. She had the need for constant conversation. And when he didn’t feel like talking, it was her professed duty to get him to speak.
He heard his name. The present came back to him. April was holding his hand and caressing the back of his hand with her index finger. “Penny for your thoughts?”
***
April had been hounding him about taking courses at the local community college. On Monday August 2nd he made an appointment with Mrs. Heffernan. She saw him the next day.
“I’ll bet this is about your wanting to satisfy high school credits by taking courses at the community college.”
She wore a wrap-around denim skirt and was probably over fifty. He had never thought of her as anything other than his counselor. But since April had awakened his sex drive he viewed all women in a licentious manner. Her desk was filled with motherly pictures in tiny frames. Some, he surmised, were inmates from Kis-Lyn who had gone on to better things. He wondered if she would ever put up his photo.
“I was thinking about joining the military—the navy or air force would be best.”
“Well, when you get to college, there is the NROTC or you could go the National Guard route, but there is no need to think of that. You’ve got a busy year of high school ahead of you.”
“I wanted to join right now. I know that I can do that. I’m seventeen and Kis-Lyn has let others do it before their sentence is up.”
“The military won’t take you these days without a high school diploma.”
“I could pass the GED. I looked at some manuals in the library and took a practice test.”
“But why would you want to do that? You are on track to graduate second in your class. In fact, if you’d taken more classes, played in the band and gotten credits for community service, you’d be number one over your friend April. I wasn’t going to tell you this, but there’s a full boat scholarship just earmarked for you at any New Hampshire state university, even going to UNH at the main campus in Durham. I’ve also looked into Dartmouth. There is a chance they will look favorably on you. Imagine being the first person from this place to go to an Ivy League school. After that the sky’s the limit for you. So I ask you, why toss that away for a GED diploma and a chance to be blown up on some God forsaken piece of earth that most people couldn’t pick out on a map if their life depended on it?”
“If you could set up the test this week, I could meet with recruiters.”
“You’re not going to tell me why you want to do this, are you?”
He said nothing. He looked at her desk and thought that an array of photos to her right might be of a daughter. They both had the same nose and red hair.
“You are back in your shell, aren’t you? I know enough about your personal history to know that nothing I do or say will get you to change your mind. I also suspect that, if I didn’t begin work on this, you would do something stupid, go AWOL, or pull a stunt to get you placed in an adult facility. Am I right?”
He shrugged.
“Okay, at least you respect me enough to give me one of your famous shrugs. We’ll do the GED on Thursday in my office. I’ll call the navy for you because my husband served in it right after college. They’ll probably be over here by week’s end knowing they have a live one on the hook. Happy?”
He stood up. He held out his hand. She brushed it aside. “I deserve a hug from you. It’s something human beings do when words aren’t enough or don’t apply. I also think I deserve a letter from time to time.”
When they disengaged from the hug she held him at arms length. He avoided looking directly at her, scanning the desk. “I don’t want to go into how disappointed I am in you right now, but I think you know that. And, no, your picture won’t go on my desk, at least not yet. Maybe in a few years you can send me one and I’ll think about displaying it.”
He stood in the doorway. “Once I get away from here, you could notify my mother that I’m no longer an inmate. You don’t have to give her my address either. The same holds for anyone else who might ask about me—teachers, students from the high school, that type of thing.”
She nodded. “I never counsel people to run away from their problems, but if anyone has the stamina and will power to do it and keep it up for a lifetime, it’s you.”
He smiled and thanked her again for what he thought might have been a compliment.
His father was insane. He was eight when instinct told him something was wrong. He was kept home from school because the communists were plotting to kidnap him. His father had worked for the RCA Corporation in Research and Development. The Reds wanted his technical information and what better way to get it than to take an eight-year old hostage. The FBI was also watching the house and tapping the phones. The United States suspected that his father had already gone over to the other side and wanted proof to arrest him for espionage. That put his dad between a rock and a hard place. Both sides needed him for something, hence the constant surveillance and secret messages via TV, magazines and newspapers.
When his father fortified the windows with steel bars, stashed weapons in various rooms and began firing at low flying aircraft from the local airport, the boy’s mother and grandparents finally acted. They committed him for six months to New Hampshire State Hospital in Laconia.
The boy naively thought that a hospital cured people. His uncle had a heart attack and was home after ten days, ready to go back to work albeit on a reduced schedule. His father seemed normal for a few months after his release, but one evening, after a few Rolling Rocks, the conspiracy theories spewed out again. By day he pretended to be sane for his employers, but at night and on weekends, escape plans were devised, safe rooms established, secret messages ferreted out and decoded. Weapons were again stowed in handy places. The father taught his son how to decipher the communiqués. Every third word in an otherwise innocuous newspaper article could hold a clandestine directive from either the FBI or the Red Menace.
He lived in this cloak and dagger environment until he was thirteen. It bothered him that the immediate family, especially his mother, played along with the erratic behavior even when it stretched the limit of common sense. Then, one hot August night well past midnight, the boy was awaken by his mother’s cries—“Stop, Charlie, you’re hurting me.”
The boy lay still for several minutes. His father was loudly proclaiming that things were coming to a head in his twisted world, an Armageddon of sorts, and his wife evidently wasn’t fully convinced of the situation’s gravity. When the boy got downstairs his father had his mother in a loose hammer lock. There was a confrontation. His mother told him to go back to bed. She and Dad were just playing. His father pushed the mother aside. “So, they’ve finally gotten to you, have they? What did those commie pinko teachers promise you, all ‘A’s?’”
His father reached beneath the cushion of his TV chair and pulled out a revolver waving it wildly. “If you ever think of putting me away, I’ll take you both out and as many of the enemy as I can.”
He slid the barrel back, chambering a round, and pointed it at them. The boy backed off slowly, hands raised, and began leaving the living room. When he was in the dining room and out of his father’s sight his father yelled, “Don’t forget to tell them at school that I’m ready and waiting.”
There was a .22 pistol behind the storage chest in front of the dining room picture window. The boy had some training on it. He pulled the gun out and, as he re-entered the living room, he fired a wild shot that took out the top roman numerals on the cuckoo clock. For a moment his father was stunned. But then he recovered from his son’s audacity and raised his own weapon. The boy’s second shot hit his father in the left shoulder and spun him around. At first he thought he’d missed; his father had merely turned and ducked to one side to avoid the bullet. So he squeezed the trigger again this time hitting the lower right side which dropped his father into a crumpled heap. His mother screamed and ran to her husband. The blood had begun in earnest. He’d nicked an artery. The boy dropped the gun, turned and went back upstairs. He got dressed and wondered if he should pack a bag. From the TV shows he had seen jail usually provided most basic items. When he heard the ambulance and other sirens, he headed for the bathroom, washed his face and hands and used the toilet. He went downstairs and got into back of the nearest police car. That’s where they found him after fifteen minutes of searching high and low.
***
The next six weeks and months were a blur. He was interviewed and gave a brief outline of what happened. He was told that his mother’s account of the matter differed from his. His father was simply showing her how to use a weapon. The boy had misunderstood and overreacted. He shrugged. Truth was a moot point as was his family as far as he was concerned. Relationships were much more trouble than they were worth. It was a relief to be away from everyone related to him.
During the final legal proceedings he sat at a table with a court appointed lawyer. It was a small room with a judge who would decide his fate. There were state’s lawyers as well as mental health professionals. He was at the center of a whirlpool. Things spun around him but he remained at rest. It was a skill he had developed, like being able to sleep with ones eyes open. What happened was of little interest to him, merely background noise. He heard someone comment that he had never shown remorse or asked after his father’s condition since he’d been in custody. In a way he’d been afraid to inquire if he’d killed the man. In his mind it was a toss-up as to whether his father had survived the bullets or not, though he had heard rumors that he had, but it would be a long recovery. His advocate concocted a defense. He wanted the boy to speak up about the years of oppression, missing school for weeks on end, and the mental cruelty he and his mother endured whenever they questioned the latest crackpot theory his father was proclaiming. He said nothing.
His guidance counselor at school spoke on his behalf. She was the point person for all his teachers who said he was an outstanding student with a brilliant mind who never was in trouble. In the end, and since no defense was offered, he was sent to Kis-Lyn Detention Center for Boys. It was so ordered that he would remain there until his eighteenth birthday whereupon he would be re-evaluated and a decision made as to where in the penal system he might be placed, if at all. He allowed his mother a brief hug, but, in the end, it was a relief to go with the officer to the awaiting van; a new beginning without any entanglements or allegiances.
***
At Kis-Lyn In dormitory “C” he survived the initial intimidations. He made it a point to keep to himself. He was instantly on guard when anyone came up to him and wanted to be his friend. The one thing that gave him instant respect in the group was a slight lie. When asked why he was here, he told anyone who asked that he’d shot his father to death. The matter of fact tone he used to deliver the news was enough to put most on notice that he was no one to trifle with.
They placed him in the ninth grade. He liked school; it kept his mind occupied. He was easily the best student if only because he cared enough to listen and do the work. His teachers were usually volunteers or college students satisfying practice teaching requirements. Being a good student got him out of the dorm and into a room with three other boys. Their privileges were that lights could be left on after ten so they could study as well have an extra locker for book storage.
When Kis-Lyn school was dismissed for the summer he worked on the institution’s farm as did most of the other inmates. At night he went to the library to read and a retired math teacher volunteered to tutor him one night a week.
He was promoted to tenth the following year, but he worked independently, thinking up projects in concert with his teachers. Rather than sit in the dull classroom with the others close to his age, he was dispatched to the library to use the computers for research and write up his essays. If there was a downfall in his education it was science, especially anything requiring a lab. There were no resources. So, the following year, when it came time for him to enter the eleventh grade, a pilot program was worked out with the local high school where he could attend as a full time student. A State-issued van would drop him off at 7:00 AM each morning and pick him up no later than 3:00 in the afternoon.
He was of two minds about this change. On the plus side it would be a new experience, an escape from the Kis-Lyn routine, a chance to be around people who, to greater or lesser degrees, had fewer behavioral issues. But he preferred his own company to that of others. He enjoyed solitude when he could steal it. It nourished him. There was a chair in the far recesses of the library where he went and immediately felt the stress of the day melt from him like snow in summer.
There might not be any such sanctuaries in a close-knit public school. Fitting in and having friends was a big thing. And it was bound to happen that his Kis-Lyn environment and the reasons for his being incarcerated would get out. Then the stares and whispers behind his back would begin. Mrs. Heffernan, a psychologist at Kis-Lyn, was his advisor. Her first job was to secure halfway decent clothes to supplant the standard tee shirt and jeans that were institutional issue. “And every afternoon you must come to my office and tell me how the day went. No shoulder shrugs, mind you. If it’s not working out, there’s no harm in coming back here. Of course I’m praying you kick everyone’s academic butt in that high school. And when they ask about your personal life, tell them straight up as much about yourself as you feel comfortable with.”
He actually enjoyed the high school. There were things he needed to work on. Group work was difficult. He rarely contributed to any discussion, and he dreaded being called on. But he wrote well so he had little issue with typing up any reports for the team he was assigned to in Social Studies. He liked art. He was no good at it, but it was a new experience. And French. Yes, that was really hard and required much of his homework time back at Kis-Lyn.
He was put into an AP Physics class. The math part of the course was easy, but he labored in the labs. Everything had to be done in a step by step method even though common sense told him that he could easily skip parts and get right to the crux of the matter. For the first two weeks he had no partner. Then he was assigned a young lady, April Schneider. He did not know it at the time, but she was the class genius and its designated nerd. The pairing of the two may have been orchestrated by Mr. Seachrist, the teacher. It was an awkward situation. First, he was unused to working with anyone and, second, he had never been within three feet of a female close to his own age. April had a nice face, friendly. She was on the plump side and wore sizes too big to disguise her figure. He liked her smell; it wasn’t that overbearing perfume many girls used. On their first lab he sat and worked by himself thinking that, at period’s end, they would compare results. After fifteen minutes she tapped him on the shoulder.
“We’re supposed to do this together. Seachrist gives us a grade on how well we work as a team. If you don’t want to be with me, just say so. I usually get ‘A’s’ and don’t want poor lab reports to screw up my class rank.”
He apologized. He had no idea how to work up a lab. She asked what school he came from. He lied and told her he was home schooled so a public facility was new to him. After that she took the role of tutor and within two weeks they were a well-oiled machine cranking out experiments above and beyond the assigned work for extra credit.
They had AP Literature class together as well. After a short time April drifted to the back of the room to sit next to him. And, during lunch breaks, she, on nice days, brought her carrot sticks out to the quad looking to discuss poetry or a physics problem.
If he had one regret it was that he couldn’t join any after school activities. He would have loved to run cross country and participate in the academic decathlon which was a big part of April’s life. Transportation was the problem. The Kis-Lyn van, sedately labeled Department of Youth Services, was at the curb at two forty-five every afternoon and never waited more than ten minutes before taking off. Missing it meant demerits and possible suspension from the program.
As far as he was concerned there was no romance, no chemistry with April. She had a quick wit, and he enjoyed her self-mockery when she made a rare mistake. She had the habit of complimenting him at almost every turn. If he did say something in class, she never failed to mention it afterwards. “I was about to say the exact same thing about Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience; great minds think alike I guess.”
During physics she stood behind him, resting her elbow on his shoulder as they read the manual together. And she was forever recommending books and CDs to him. “This is the first novel of Dos Possos’ USA Trilogy. There’s a ton of characters to keep track of. I’ve already begun a list.”
He felt honor bound to read what she lent him. One week he didn’t, and he could tell she was upset. She invited him to her home many times. He explained that he had to catch the van, and she countered that her mom would drive him home, or she would as soon as she got her learner’s permit and passed the driver’s test. Each time he made a different excuse, she took it as a personal rejection. The next day, however, she was her friendly, chipper self.
The day before Christmas break she handed him a card. It was addressed “To My Best Friend” and signed “With All My Love, April.” He thanked her, commented on the pretty design and cute play on words “Wholly” and “Holy.” All the while he wondered how he could repay her seasonal greetings. He spent his art class working on some semblance of a card and gave it to her the next day. There were no words on it, just images, some drawn free-hand, others from clip art. She thanked him profusely, gave him a long hug and then a kiss on the cheek. As stunned as he was by this, she then handed him a gift-wrapped present and encouraged him to open it. It was a page-a-day calendar devoted to strange word origins. “You can use it to study for the SAT’s.” He tried to sound enthused, but in the game of gift giving she had just raised the stakes well beyond the scope of his meager resources.
He did not know what was happening in his relationship with April until, over the Christmas break, he had a session with Mrs. Heffernan. “It sounds like she really likes you. How do you feel about that?”
“It’s okay I guess.”
“Well, you can’t be in limbo here for much longer. You either have to tell her that you just want to be her friend or commit to becoming a boyfriend.”
“I think it would hurt her if I didn’t see her as a girlfriend. Besides, we could never date because I’m in here and, also, I don’t have any money. I couldn’t even get her a Christmas gift or repay any of the stuff she gives me.”
“If she really likes you, maybe she’ll understand your predicament once you explain it to her. If not, well, that solves your problem.”
“I feel like those death row inmates that women write letters and eventually want to marry.”
“You’re pushing seventeen now. Not too long from now you’ll turn eighteen and there’s a great chance you’ll leave here to make something of yourself. I know it must seem like an eternity but be patient.”
He nodded. Mrs. Heffernan reached into her middle desk drawer and pulled out a small Christmas package. “Don’t get upset, it’s not for you. One of the staff members here gave me this—it’s bath salts and some other female smell good products. Give it to her or, better yet, mail it with a nice note, something innocuous like ‘Can’t wait to see old Seachrist’s smiling face in January.’ Humor goes a long way in deflecting difficult situations.”
***
When school resumed after the holiday break, April was effusive in her thanks for the gift. He was the first boy to give her perfume, and she wore it every day, holding out the inside of her wrist for him to smell the fragrance. They had two classes together, Physics and Literature, but she took to waiting outside his other classes and walking with him. They had their exclusive corner table at lunch. Most of the time they talked about course work but towards the end of the period the dreaded personal stuff would rear its ugly head. Several times she would mention that he could tell her anything however private. She was not one of these gossip hounds. Besides she was a loner too and had no one to tell. They were kindred souls in her view, both spiritually and intellectually. He was often given poems or passages from Bronte novels which he suspected contained subliminal messages she wanted to convey. At times his playing dumb about their relationship would drive her to distraction whereupon she would gather up her books and leave the cafeteria without a word. Yet the next morning she would be at his locker chirping away.
In February she asked him to the Valentine’s dance. He could not attend. She badgered him as to why and he almost broke his silence and explained his curious circumstances. They didn’t speak for a few weeks afterwards. There was considerable tension during the lab, and she moved her literature class seat back to the front. He did not mind being alone but the tension reminded him of being home with his parents. One evening he sat down and wrote out his life story. He explained his father’s schizophrenia-paranoia and the imagined role of foreign and American governments, touched briefly on how his mother and other relatives around his father bowed down to his delusions, even catered to them. He mentioned the shooting, the attempted murder charge, and how he had not seen any relatives or visitors since his sentence began. He had barred them by refusing to put them on his visitor list.
Kis-Lyn wasn’t so bad. But there were rules. It was really a prison and, aside from school, he wasn’t allowed out. He should have told her much sooner, but he didn’t and he was sorry. When he was eighteen a determination would be made, and he would either be set free or placed in one of New Hampshire’s adult correction facilities. He apologized for not being straight with her. He considered her a friend, but he could understand if she never wanted to speak to him again, and it would be fine with him if she found a new physics partner to finish out the junior year.
He mailed it to her home address on a Thursday thinking she would get it by the weekend. He was relieved when, on Monday morning before homeroom, she was not at his locker. At the end of block three, however, she met him outside AP Literature, grabbed his arm and took him down the hall to a vacant classroom. Once inside she enveloped him in a fierce hug and began sobbing. After a few minutes he could feel the moisture of her tears through his shirt. Her shoulders shook. When he tried to move backwards she clasped him tighter almost to the degree that he toppled over carrying her with him. He had no idea how to handle the situation especially if someone entered the room and discovered them in such an embrace. Finally he took his hand and began stroking the top of her head. He had done this years ago when his dog Judd had been clipped by a car and it helped. Gradually she too, whether due to his efforts or plain exhaustion, began to recover her composure. She let go and stepped away from him. Her face was a continent of red and white blotches. Mucus covered her chin and makeup had turned her into a Halloween vampire look-a-like. She glanced at his shirt and began to cry again, “I got you all snotty!”
He looked down at his soiled shirt, then took it off to reveal his faded Red Sox tee. There was a verbal tug of war over who would wash anything she stained. Afraid that she would start up again, he let her have it.
They had been in the room for over fifteen minutes. “I made you late for class. They’ll give you a detention if you don’t have a pass.”
“That’s okay.”
“No, go to guidance. Tell them you had a personal problem, and they’ll give you a pass. Ask Mrs. Shapiro and mention my name.”
“What about you?”
“I need to go to the nurse and freshen up. They’ll sign me in for the period.”
She reached up, held his face in her hands and kissed him gently on the lips. “I’m so glad you wrote me. I prayed every night for a miracle.” She kissed him again, then left.
When the afternoon Physics double period lab began, she took his hand and led him out of the classroom. “I spoke to Mr. S. about needing some time with you. He’s such a dear. He gave me a list of supplies he needed, and we can take as long as we want in the supply room to get them.” They went down two flights past the furnace and boilers rooms to a small room labeled “Hazardous Material.” Inside were shelves of specimen jars and various chemicals. She pulled up a crate for herself and motioned towards one for him. “I have something to tell you that I’ve never told a soul.”
He held up his hand. “There really is no need. I didn’t write you expecting any quid pro quo.”
It was as if she never heard him. “My dad left my mom when I was three. I don’t remember him at all. I found a few pictures my mom didn’t destroy, but that’s about it. I’ve never heard from him since then. We went on welfare because mom didn’t want me in day care and she couldn’t find work anyway. Then she started her own business at home. She has a 900 number and what she does is talk dirty to guys. I suppose they jerk off while she’s doing it. Wanda Wanker is one of her nom de plumes. She also writes a porn blog and does articles for hard core adult magazines. When you meet her you’re going to think she’s not very sexy looking. You’d be correct. She never wears anything but sweat pants and old tee shirts. She’s a slob, really. She doesn’t think I know very much about what she does in her ‘office’ each day, but the walls are pretty thin, and it doesn’t take much imagination to figure out what’s going on. I think what shocked me the most was the language she uses; it’s pretty raunchy. In the past few years she’s branched out and runs some web cam sites. Half a dozen women work for her, and she gets a percentage for setting up and maintaining the web service. Technically, she’s probably close to being a pimp or whorehouse madam. So that’s my sordid, embarrassing life except that we are on food stamps, and I can’t bring myself to go to the supermarket with her. Any comments?”
“Do you like her?”
“I know that if I were to confront her she’d probably say she does what she does so I can have a decent life, which I appreciate. She’s buying me a car next month for my birthday. They named me April because I was born in April. Not very creative or maybe they felt I’d be so limited that I could never forget my birthday. Like your mom who chose not to do anything about your dad, my mom could have chosen a respectable career path. She once mentioned she might like to be a nurse. Anyway, she chose the path of least resistance. She could have been a prostitute I guess, so maybe I’m lucky in that respect. Once I graduate and go to college, I’ll be on my own so it won’t matter if I like her or not, if that makes any sense.”
“Shouldn’t we be checking the list and getting back?”
“Just one more thing since we are baring our souls. I’m in love with you. You don’t have to respond to that. I feel so close to you. When I’m in bed at night I think of you beside me. I replay some of my mom’s conversations in my mind, and you’d blush if you knew what you and I do to each other. I want to be with you day and night. When I’m watching a dumb TV program, I want to make a joke or rag on the actors with you. It kills me that I can’t call you or that we have to meet in a smelly store room, which is giving me a headache by the way. I was thinking that this summer maybe you could put me on your visitor’s list. I did some checking and my mom could drive me out and pretend to be your aunt and I’d be a cousin. That way I could bring you books and whatever. And when you become eighteen and are up for release, we could testify what a nice guy you are. Sound like a plan?”
He too had a headache as they carried the lab supplies back to the classroom. Part of it was due to figuring out what to say to her. It was like a chess game and she had made a daring move. How was he to counter it?
***
During that spring and early summer he received many notes each day from her. She scoured the school for what she termed “TS’s,” trysting spots, where she initiated intense kissing sessions. She declared that since they were one in mind and soul they should also become one in body. She encouraged him to feel her breasts and on a few occasions she informed him, as they snuck into the back issue magazine storage area of the library (an excellent private spot), that she wasn’t wearing a bra or panties. One weekend she called Kis-Lyn at night and described her risqué sleeping attire, encouraging him to follow her lead and touch himself in the same areas where she was pleasuring herself. He tried to play along but the phone was at the rear of the rec-room and in full view of those supposedly glued to the TV. The next day she handed him a CD she had made. “I used some of the techniques my mom does when she has a client. If this doesn’t get you off, nothing will. Play it on your Walk-Man tonight and let me know how things go.”
When he complimented her on how erotic it was to listen to her voice but that he felt guilty, she said “I don’t care what you do as long as you’re thinking of me while you’re doing it.”
She sent him snippets of poems. “I just read this by Gerard Manley Hopkins,
What is all this juice and joy?
. . . . –Have, get, before it cloy,
Before it cloud, and sour with sinning,
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,
Doesn’t that sound as if he wrote it just for us? Read some of his poems and see if you can relate to what he’s saying.”
And it wasn’t long before nude photos made their way into his locker. The first few were discreet, almost photo album in nature, but then each day a more revealing episode in the ongoing striptease ensued and, by the time he got to the twentieth picture, she was provocatively naked on her bed beckoning him unto her. There was a note scribbled on the photo. “If you want me shaved I can do that. Lots of girls are doing it; trust me I take gym class with them.”
By late May she finally had her car which she drove to school. Lunch hour found them in the backseat bringing each other to climax manually and in early June a cramped, groping intercourse which resulted in a broken overhead interior light and a minor cut on the back of his head.
He had to admit that sexual activity was something that occupied his mind many times during the day. She had taken a part-time job at Empire Drug and used her employee discount to buy condoms which were kept in the glove box. They became experts at performing the act in the small confines of the back seat. Fifteen minutes later they were back in the school cafeteria chatting about the upcoming AP Literature exam right before school let out.
She had plans for their senior year. They would take classes at the local community college. The only required high school course was gym which they could fulfill in many alternative ways. They’d have time for themselves. “I might be able to get a small apartment for us. I talked with my mom. I told her I know what she does and how it might be illegal. She might be afraid that I’ll rat her out or tell somebody at school, and they’ll blab it to their parents. I told her I have a boyfriend and what your situation is. She can’t say anything against it because I hold all the cards. If I asked her for a few bucks to help live away from home, she’d give it to me. Plus, I could increase my hours at Empire. You just have to talk to your guidance person at the prison and see if they’d let you take day classes at the community college. Then, when we graduate and you turn eighteen, we can be together all the time. Imagine being able to shag anytime we felt like it.”
Early on she decided they should use British terms for their intimacy. As such they “cuddled,” “snogged” and, for the past several weeks had “shagged” as much as they could.
School let out on June 18th and his life went back to institutional routine. At her instance he put her on his visitor’s list and the next weekend April and her mother came. Someone had told him that, if you wanted to know what your girlfriend looked like when she grew up, look no further than her mother. It was hard to picture Mrs. Schneider as one who made her living chatting up men to the point of climax. April was right about sweatpants and a tee shirt although she wore a clean, checkered flannel shirt over her tribute to John Fogerty and Creedance Clearwater Revival. She was April’s height, no more than five foot two and stocky. In fact she looked as if she were pregnant. She sat at the table for a few minutes; long enough to shake hands and introduce herself, then went off to look for a coffee machine and any possible smoking area.
“So, I finally get to see where you live. I saw a lot of cows and corn growing coming in. Is that what you take care of during the summer?”
“I used to work the dairy barn, but now that I can drive a tractor, they have me baling hay this week.”
“I don’t know how I’m going to get through this summer without you. I woke up this morning so horny. When school starts back up we’ll have to do something special, make it like a second honeymoon if we can find a spot. Anyway, I talked to mom about the apartment and it won’t work. I can’t find anything even close to my price range so I guess we have to live out of my car until next June. Did you talk to your counselor about taking college courses?”
“The big thing here is precedence; if someone has done it before, then there is no problem. But if they have to do something new, forget it.”
“If they won’t approve it then I’ll just stay and take high school courses. We can schedule our classes together. Wouldn’t it be great if we graduated numbers one and two of our class? Boy, our kids will be geniuses. I saw a commercial on TV where they have babies reading books.”
***
April visited every Saturday. Her mother came with her because, at seventeen, an adult was required. She was working full time at Empire and had gotten a prescription for birth control pills which she would start taking in September. She brought books and magazines with each visit and gave him ten dollars to put in his commissary account. Sequestered in the stack of reading material were more nude photos. She lamented that she had never seen him totally naked and wondered if he could have someone take a picture of him in the raw so she could have a visual aid to enhance her nightly experience. She also discussed the porn racket with him. “It’s easy money. Look at these photos I downloaded. Those are called ‘Upskirt’ or ‘Flashing’ shots. Women don’t wear underwear and then pose for pictures in public places. It’s really harmless and there is a big market for them, especially overseas. These people probably got five bucks for every one of these.” As if to emphasize the economic point she shifted position, raised her skirt and crossed her legs. “See, ‘commando style’ would get us a hundred a day for something that easy and fun.”
For the Fourth of July the facility had a barbeque to which she invited herself. She sat at a long table and made friends with the other families, even joining in and playing tag with some of the little kids. When the day was over she kissed him goodbye and there were tears in her eyes. “I’ve been so happy today; I never wanted it to end.” He muttered something along the same lines.
The summer was flying by. He had little time to himself. She was overwhelming him with reading material. He rather liked fantasy writers like R. A. Salvatore, but he had little time for that genre. He was expected to write her several times a day as well as express his weekly thoughts in a diary she bought him. Each Saturday they were supposed to exchange them.
In early August he found himself depressed. In a way he dreaded high school beginning again, something that had never happened before. When she came to visit she chattered on about plans that were afoot. She wanted to know about his week.
“Nothing much happens in here that’s worth repeating.”
She touched his knee. “In a little over three weeks we’ll be together again. I know it’s hard but if you can just hang on. Did you find out about the college courses?”
He looked around the visiting room. Most of the other tables had five or six people gathered around—parents, grandparents and even little kids squirming to run free. For many years he’d enjoyed visiting days. With everyone in the day room he could use the gym, shoot baskets by himself or head for his favorite library spot. But the greatest luxury was to have his dorm room to himself for entire Saturday and Sunday morning and afternoons. Come to think of it Kis-Lyn wasn’t bad at all. He enjoyed the routine. His life was his own. Relatives came with any number of issues and expectations. It was as if everyone he’d ever come into contact with was sick. It was a virtual plague and being around them transferred their maladies to him. He thought prison was a decent enough quarantine, but that was no longer the case. Now he was valiantly searching for antidotes or talismans, anything to escape the pestilence that was ravaging his land.
And adulthood was looming, casting a giant shadow on his heretofore tranquility. Sex was the first manifestation. Yes, he reveled in its pleasure, but each delicious crumb of an orgasm was leading him deeper into an infamous box canyon of western lore. April had their lives mapped out. She was now hatching a plan to open her own chat room. Blind people would be her target market. She would speak with the men and he could address the blind females. It was easy; she’d write the scripts. She’d even found out that two of the web cam sites her mother had developed were dissatisfied with her mother’s business model, and she was sure she could highjack them and subsequently get into an online enterprise of her very own. Aside from fleeting periods of admittedly enjoyable “snogging” and “shagging,” he found it quite difficult to be around April. She had the need for constant conversation. And when he didn’t feel like talking, it was her professed duty to get him to speak.
He heard his name. The present came back to him. April was holding his hand and caressing the back of his hand with her index finger. “Penny for your thoughts?”
***
April had been hounding him about taking courses at the local community college. On Monday August 2nd he made an appointment with Mrs. Heffernan. She saw him the next day.
“I’ll bet this is about your wanting to satisfy high school credits by taking courses at the community college.”
She wore a wrap-around denim skirt and was probably over fifty. He had never thought of her as anything other than his counselor. But since April had awakened his sex drive he viewed all women in a licentious manner. Her desk was filled with motherly pictures in tiny frames. Some, he surmised, were inmates from Kis-Lyn who had gone on to better things. He wondered if she would ever put up his photo.
“I was thinking about joining the military—the navy or air force would be best.”
“Well, when you get to college, there is the NROTC or you could go the National Guard route, but there is no need to think of that. You’ve got a busy year of high school ahead of you.”
“I wanted to join right now. I know that I can do that. I’m seventeen and Kis-Lyn has let others do it before their sentence is up.”
“The military won’t take you these days without a high school diploma.”
“I could pass the GED. I looked at some manuals in the library and took a practice test.”
“But why would you want to do that? You are on track to graduate second in your class. In fact, if you’d taken more classes, played in the band and gotten credits for community service, you’d be number one over your friend April. I wasn’t going to tell you this, but there’s a full boat scholarship just earmarked for you at any New Hampshire state university, even going to UNH at the main campus in Durham. I’ve also looked into Dartmouth. There is a chance they will look favorably on you. Imagine being the first person from this place to go to an Ivy League school. After that the sky’s the limit for you. So I ask you, why toss that away for a GED diploma and a chance to be blown up on some God forsaken piece of earth that most people couldn’t pick out on a map if their life depended on it?”
“If you could set up the test this week, I could meet with recruiters.”
“You’re not going to tell me why you want to do this, are you?”
He said nothing. He looked at her desk and thought that an array of photos to her right might be of a daughter. They both had the same nose and red hair.
“You are back in your shell, aren’t you? I know enough about your personal history to know that nothing I do or say will get you to change your mind. I also suspect that, if I didn’t begin work on this, you would do something stupid, go AWOL, or pull a stunt to get you placed in an adult facility. Am I right?”
He shrugged.
“Okay, at least you respect me enough to give me one of your famous shrugs. We’ll do the GED on Thursday in my office. I’ll call the navy for you because my husband served in it right after college. They’ll probably be over here by week’s end knowing they have a live one on the hook. Happy?”
He stood up. He held out his hand. She brushed it aside. “I deserve a hug from you. It’s something human beings do when words aren’t enough or don’t apply. I also think I deserve a letter from time to time.”
When they disengaged from the hug she held him at arms length. He avoided looking directly at her, scanning the desk. “I don’t want to go into how disappointed I am in you right now, but I think you know that. And, no, your picture won’t go on my desk, at least not yet. Maybe in a few years you can send me one and I’ll think about displaying it.”
He stood in the doorway. “Once I get away from here, you could notify my mother that I’m no longer an inmate. You don’t have to give her my address either. The same holds for anyone else who might ask about me—teachers, students from the high school, that type of thing.”
She nodded. “I never counsel people to run away from their problems, but if anyone has the stamina and will power to do it and keep it up for a lifetime, it’s you.”
He smiled and thanked her again for what he thought might have been a compliment.