House Arrest (2 page)

WEEK 3

James says I should take that last part out.
You better be sorry
, he says
when he throws this journal into my chest
looking mad and disappointed.
A look they must give tests on
at Probation Officer University.
This is not a joke, Timothy.
They'll throw you in juvie so fast
your head will spin.
I mouth the words when he says them.
He doesn't like that.
But he needs new words.
He won't like it that I wrote that, either.
Oh, well.
Hey, James?
Suck it.

When Levi was born my dad was still here.
Nine months ago.
Feels like nine years.
Dad's heart was beating in the same room as mine.
His lungs filled with the same air as mine.
His stomach filled with the same pizza as mine.
We had pepperoni that night
when Levi was born.
We high-fived our root beers.
Dad told the waitress,
I have two boys now. How about that?
And she gave us ice cream
for free.
And it was the best night.
Until it wasn't anymore.
Then the phone rang in the pitch-dark night
and José's mom answered because I was at their house.
Dad was at the hospital with Mom and Levi.
José's mom came to wake me up
but I was already awake.
And she drove me to the hospital
and she told me Levi was sick
and the doctors didn't know what it was
and it was bad
real bad
and they wanted me there
in case he died
so I could say good-bye
and none of it made sense
because Levi was a brand-new baby
and nothing happens to brand-new babies
because they are new and haven't hurt anyone yet.
And Dad still had pizza in his stomach
and so did I
from earlier that night
when everything was OK.
P.S. Levi did not die.
Not any time they told us he would.
And there were a lot of times.

James.
Mrs. B.
I know you're reading, so listen up.
I'm thinking you guys don't know anything
about anything.
No offense.
But if you're going to understand what I'm
talking about
in this dumb journal
I'm going to need to explain some things
to your dumb faces.
No offense.
There are just so many things you have to understand
before you can really understand.
Understand?
So I can tell you about that day
that stealing day
but you're never going to know
what was going on in my head
because I don't know what was going on in my head
all I do know is what was going on in my life.

Lesson One: trach.
You say it like
trake
in case you didn't know.
It's a plastic tube
in Levi's neck.
Well, in a hole in Levi's neck,
a hole the doctor put there
so Levi can breathe.
The tube protects the hole
but it lets in a lot of germs
like a superhighway to his lungs,
so that's no good.
But breathing is good.
Kind of a lame trade-off, if you ask me.
I guess the trach is like a plastic nostril
in Levi's neck.
It has all the gross stuff that nostrils have:
slippery boogers
and slime
and gunk
and when he sneezes, these snot bullets shoot out.
So, yeah. It's a plastic nostril in your neck.
But it doesn't look like a nostril. Just a tube.
It saved Levi's life
and changed everyone else's.

Sometimes I wonder what it's like
to breathe through your neck
instead of your face.
How does food taste
if you can't smell it?
Do your sinuses still hurt
when you're sick?
Does it tickle when you cough
out of the tube?
Does it feel weird when you swallow?
It must.
Because Levi chokes a lot.
When he chokes we use the suction machine
and it is so loud
like a jackhammer drinking a Slurpee.
It sucks all of the gunk out of the tube in his neck
so Levi can breathe easy again.
He always looks so relieved.
I wonder how that feels?

José came over today.
He called me a felon
and laughed his head off.
He wanted me to come with him.
Cam's paintball party.
My answer:
What part of house arrest don't you understand,
dummy?
I told him I was getting a tracking device on my ankle
and if I leave the house
it will blow my whole leg off.
Even messier than paintball.
He believed me
so I laughed
my
head off.

WEEK 4

James says I need to talk more about that day.
Your journal
, he says,
in that eye-rolly way they must teach at
Probation Officer University,
is to prove you are reflecting on what you did,
to prove house arrest is working,
to prove you don't need juvie to set you straight.
It is court-ordered, Timothy.
You know what that means, right?
And that's when I shout,
I'm
doing
it, right?
I'm
writing
in it, OK?
He nods and looks kind of bored.
And I wonder, again, how this ever happened.

There are a lot of things I know
that I shouldn't know
about why things are the way they are.
About Dad driving away and never coming back.
About his job he never went back to.
About Mom working nights for extra money.
About food coming from the church on the corner.
About Levi's medicine costing as much
as a pet space shuttle.
I know.
But I don't say I know.
But Mom knows I know.
Because she knows everything.
Except whether or not Dad is ever coming back.
No one knows that.
Well, maybe Dad does.

A year is a long time
to write in a journal.
and never go to paintball parties.
That is not a haiku.

José came over.
It was a quick visit.
His mom made a casserole for him to bring
which he thought was embarrassing.
So did I.
Oh, we don't need a casserole!
Mom said it in her fake-smile voice.
But I put it in the fridge for later.
It smelled so good.
Way better smelling than José
who punched me in the shoulder
and called me “smooth criminal”
even though I'm not smooth at all.
At all.

That day.
Always in my head.
Won't go away.
Always in the mirror.
Written on my face.
That day.
When the guy's wallet was next to the credit card swiper thing
at the checkout
and the manager and the guy looked out the window
at the car crash outside of the grocery store.
My breath came fast.
My vision did this weird pinpoint thing.
My brain went white.
So I leaned over, grabbed the wallet, kept walking.
The sun was bright.
The day was cold.
The wallet was heavier than I thought it would be.
I paid
one thousand
four hundred
forty-
five
dollars
and
thirty-
two
cents
on one shiny blue card.
Levi's medicine for one month.
I made it one and a half days before they caught me.
One and a half days of feeling like I could breathe.
One and a half days of trying to figure out how to tell Mom.
Then the police came.
They took me away.
But even worse?
They took the medicine away, too.
Man. I was really stupid then.

White hair on his head
coming out his ears
creeping from his nose
BOBBY
his red name tag shouts it
as if your eyes are deaf.
When BOBBY took that credit card
he knew it wasn't right
the white hair in his nose
sucked in and out
like seaweed in the tide.
My uncle's card
.
The sweat rolled down my face
getting in my eyes.
Quite the generous uncle.
That's what BOBBY said
when he swiped the card
handed over the medicine
never taking his eyes off me
even when the pharmacy door ding-dinged
and I turned around
looking back through the glass.
BOBBY watched me go,
his mouth a tight line
his hand in his white hair
searching for answers.