Saving Room for Dessert (11 page)

“I didn’t say nothin’ to her. She just took it the wrong way.”

“Ohhh, she
took
it the wrong way. Oh, that’s always good when you
give
it the right way but they
take
it the wrong way. What’d she take the wrong way?”

“Hey, ask her, I don’t know. My attitude I guess. Body language. My body language was probably screamin’, hey, what the fuck’s
wrong with a Chevy, you can’t buy a Chevy? Chevys I can pop in thirty seconds—I don’t know, what the fuck, I’m 10-8. Out.”

“Roger that. And remember the vest, Robert, you been warned.”

“Yeah, yeah, warn this,” Canoza grumbled to himself, switching the radio back to the open channel.

“I heard that, Robert,” Stramsky said, laughing.

As loud as he could, to the melody of “Stars and Stripes Forever,” Canoza started singing,

“Oh the monkey wrapped his tail around the flagpole,

To see his asshole, yes he did.

And the monkey saw the people that were up there,

With their numb nuts, yes he did.

So the monkey took a dump beside the flagpole,

To clean his asshole, oh yes he di-i-id …”

He couldn’t think of the next line. He always had to stop when he came to this part. He was starting to wonder if he’d ever
known the next line. He’d been singing these goofy words since he was in grade school, and now he was beginning to wonder
if there had ever even been a next line.

“Maybe I am stupid,” he said aloud. Then he thought, maybe I am a bully, Maybe it’s time for me to quit singing this stupid
fucking song. I’m forty-six fucking years old, for Christ sake, and I’m still doin’ somethin’ the first time I thought it
was funny I was in the third grade. Or maybe the second. Shit. Why’d she have to cry like that? What’d I do so bad she had
to cry, Jesus Christ, I didn’t say anything that bad. Second one this month. Man, Nowicki’s gonna be pissed, sure as Japs
make fucking Toyotas, he’s gonna shit a hat and make me wear it. Man. Whyn’t Rayford or Reseta catch that call? Why me? I
gotta take this fuckin’ vest off, it’s drivin’ me nuts.…

R
AYFORD WAS
trying to get a grip on the information Stramsky had just given him about the Scavellis and their two children dying in a
fire. He was also trying to fill out the unusual incident report, trying to find the words that would justify drawing his
piece, but every time he had to write Nick Scavelli’s name he would hear children crying and coughing and see flames and smoke
pouring out of windows and out of that smoke would come William Junior falling, tumbling head over feet.…

The cold that had started out in the middle of Rayford’s gut was now spread over his whole body, so intense he had to turn
the heater on. This was crazy, he kept telling himself. This was emotion out of control. Crazy or not, he was getting colder.

Man, what was James E. always sayin’? Emotion starts with a thought, and if you can control what you’re thinking, you don’t
have to be a prisoner of your mind. And he didn’t care what any brain-strainer wrote or said.…

James E. My man. My martial arts man. “E” for Eberly. So white he had twice the shit to ride. Because he steady refused to
pass. Said in order to do that he would’ve had to move, and in the nineteen years and six months he served in the army, he’d
moved more than enough for any man. Korea, Okinawa, Japan, Vietnam. Said Montgomery, Alabama, was where he was born and raised,
that’s where his momma was buried, that’s where he took care of business, and that’s where he intended to live out his life
and damn all the black people said he was a fool for refusing to pass when in their minds he could have done so with no sweat.
Used to tell him, James, you white as the governor, man, with eyes as blue as the Gulf of Mexico on a sunny day. James E.
listened to it but wouldn’t allow himself to hear any of it. Walked the streets of Montgomery with his head up and his eyes
front and damn anybody tried to tell him what color they thought he was supposed to be.

“Why should I let any man tell me that?” James E. would say in his soft voice. “I did not ask for my body, my height, my gender,
the color of my skin, my hair, or my eyes. I am what I am because I am that. I have no need to advertise it falsely. My life
advertises it truly. I have trained my mind to think its own thoughts, not the thoughts of others, no matter what group they
would have me be part of or not be part of. I have trained my mind to respond to the world I inherited, no matter where it
is or what it is. Because my body, no matter what its shape or color, is of no consequence without my mind and my mind accepts
all shapes, all colors, all sounds, all smells, all tastes, all textures.

“Remember, William. An emotion starts with a thought, no matter how fast that thought enters your mind-body. As fast as it
enters your mind-body, you have to learn how to change that thought just as fast. And with that change of mind, you can change
your body. We are all locked in our bodies, William, for however long we don’t know and we can’t predict, but only fools are
locked in their minds. Are you a fool, William? Do you want to be locked in your mind? Do you want your body reacting to every
little breeze that blows through your brain? If that’s what you want, then walk away now, I have nothing to teach you. Walk
away from me and walk away from yourself and you’ll never learn what you’re capable of.”

Rayford could hear James E. now as clearly as he had ever heard him in his studio in Montgomery, that voice so calm, so smooth,
so soothing, so measured, so controlled. An emotion starts with a thought. A-men. I’m freezin’ here ’cause I hear about the
Scavellis’ kids and a hurricane blows through my mind. William Junior blows through my mind. So motherfuckin’ cold I can’t
even write. Frozen in time, that’s what I am. Drove around the corner and saw that ambulance and Charmane’s got-damn mother
blubberin’ in the street how it wasn’t her fault, the boy wouldn’t listen, the boy was a disobedient child, a disrespectful
child, a child who would not pay attention to his elders, beatin’ on her chest, throwin’ up her hands to the heavens, screamin’,
wailin’, this ain’t my fault, this ain’t my fault, in everybody’s face with that bullshit. Worse than bullshit. Ain’t a word
for what bullshit that was. He was a child, that’s all. A child with a child’s energy and a child’s curiosity. He was strong
and inquisitive and agile and he had to be watched. You couldn’t watch TV and pretend you were watching him, you had to watch
him. When he was awake and moving, he had to be watched because he wanted to go everywhere, see everything, touch everything,
taste everything, you could not pretend you were watching him if what you were really watching was Jerry Springer or Ricki
Lake or Jenny Jones or any of those motherfuckin’ freak shows.

But you’re here now, William, my man. You are here! You’re the one sittin’ here freezin’. Right here, right now, you’re the
one sittin’ in this MU with the motherfuckin’ heater on in the middle of a spring evening. So stop this shit right now! You
are here, it is now, get warm! You have work to do and you can’t do it while you’re shaking with cold from a mind four and
a half years old. William Junior is dead. You know he crawled up on that windowsill by himself, you know that, there’s no
question about that. You know she wasn’t watching him, you know she was lookin’ at one of those got-damn freak shows, which
one don’t make no difference, you know she wasn’t payin’ attention to that child no matter how many times she said otherwise.
You know the boy fell. And you know the result. Ain’t no point in goin’ over the motherfuckin’ details in your mind once again.
Get it out your mind, get your mind back on the Scavellis and fill out this got-damn UIR. Do it, man! Do it now!

Do the fire breath. Inhale and pump your belly out ten times, c’mon, do it!

He did. He filled his diaphragm, straining against his belts, then pumped his diaphragm in ten times, hard with each exhale.
It changed the cold in his belly. Started to warm it. So he did it again, ten more times, and got warmer still. Then he inhaled
deeply, filling his belly, thinking warmth, saying warmth, feeling warmth, and exhaled that warmth to his fingers, hands,
arms, toes, feet, shins, knees, thighs, butt, belly, back, and chest, and repeated that inhalation and exhalation again nine
more times until finally he was no longer cold. Finally he was warm enough he could turn off the heater. Warm enough that
he could finish filling out the UIR. Warm enough, when he was done with that, that he could open his gear bag, get his Little
Playmate cooler out, and take out the makings of a sandwich.

First thing every morning after breakfast, he put into separate plastic bags some variation of greens, cheeses, pickles, mustards
or tofu spreads. This morning he’d packed Romaine lettuce, low-fat Swiss cheese, dill pickle slices, and a small jar of Nayonaise
along with two small pita breads. He opened each bag and arranged them on top of his briefcase. He sawed the pita open with
his tomato knife, then laid on the Romaine first, then the cheese, then two long slices of dill pickles, finally spreading
the Nayonaise over the top half of the pita. He poured another coffee from his vacuum bottle, and settled back to eat, all
the while repeating silently the word
warmth
until he opened his mouth to take the first bite.

Then he thought about eating. That’s what James Eberly had tried to drum into him: do one thing at a time. Do it with full
attention. Focus. Concentrate. Eliminate distractions. If you’re eating, eat. Sleeping, sleep. Going to war, go to war. Making
love, make love. When your mind wanders, bring it back. If it won’t come back, ask whose mind it is that’s wandering. Is it
yours? Or somebody else’s? If it isn’t yours, ask how it got inside your head. Who allowed it to be there if not you? Whose
ever it was, if it’s in your head, it’s yours now. Meet it, greet it, take possession of it. Be here with it, be now with
it. Pay attention.…

Yeah, James, I hear you. I know all the words you said. Wish I could do it, man. But my sorry-ass brain just don’t work that
way. Just keeps on keepin’ on with all the stale, stupid shit and debris pourin’ through there like a got-damn white-water
river, ’cept it ain’t white, it’s brown. Color of shit and sorry desperation. Six years’ worth of Miss Paige. Miss Leontine
Paige. Miss Paige and her got-damn itch to know the future. If it ain’t some voodoo bitch on the kitchen floor with chicken
parts, it’s some got-damn psychic hot line, two dollars and ninety-nine cents a minute, and Charmane think I’m s’posed to
pay that motherfuckin’ phone bill like it’s mine. Day I pay for nine-hundred-number calls is the day I turn into Denzel Washington,
b’lieve that, James. I may not be able to control my mind, but I damn sure ain’t goin’ pay for no psychic bullshit come out
a nine-hundred number.

Rayford chewed his sandwich. Drank his coffee. Brought himself back as best he could to the here and now. Zipped closed the
plastic bags, put them back in the cooler, put it in his gear bag, washed his hands and mouth with a Moist Towelette, balled
it up and put it in an empty plastic grocery bag he used for garbage. He always carried a bunch of those as well as several
large green garbage bags to spread out on the backseat in case he had to transport some pukey drunk or somebody who had little
or no interest in personal hygiene. It was a lot easier to toss the bags than to get the funk out of the upholstery.

There were a lot of things that smelled worse than puke: one was somebody who was still alive and had lost control of his
bowels, another was a corpse that had a full bowel when its temperature started falling fast. Thank Jesus, Buddha, and Allah
I don’t have to transport the dead. Ain’t nothin’ get that stink out of cloth. Might as well have a dog got wrong with a skunk
jump up in the bed lickin’ your face, trying to get you up. Stick that skunked-up nose in your face? Lick you with that skunked-up
tongue? Damn, that’s some nasty shit—now what am I thinkin’ this nonsense for? Call Stramsky and 10-8 yourself, man, this
unit s’posed to be mobile, so make it move, man, git to gittin’, what the fuck.…

W
HEN RESETA
led what’s-his-name into the Conemaugh County Juvenile Center on the rear of the grounds of the county’s home for the aged
and infirm, he waited by the reception desk until the intake officer showed up. The intake officer came out of the john adjusting
his belt just as the phone on his desk started to ring. He answered it, identified himself, and then listened and nodded several
times. Then he took the phone away from his ear and said, “You Officer Reseta? Rocksburg PD?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s for you. Your boss I think.”

“Okay, soon as I lock this one down.” Reseta turned the boy around, unlocked the right cuff, steered him around in front of
a heavy metal chair, pulled him down, then locked that cuff around the left arm of the chair. He moved around to the opposite
side of the desk and took the phone.

“Reseta. What’s up?”

“Somethin’s not right with your juvey. I called the county bar association, the medical association, all I got was one Maguire
and he’s a lawyer and never been married. So then I checked the crisscross file, which by the way you shoulda done, you know?
Why didn’t you do that?”

“I thought I’d bring him down here, see if somebody knew him.”

“Hey, James, after you booked him, your next call’s supposed to be to the parents, you know that.”

“How’m I supposed to call somebody whose name I don’t know?”

“Why didn’t you call the address—like I did?”

“Hey, if the kid’s givin’ me a wrong name, he’s also gonna be givin’ me a wrong address, so I didn’t see the point.”

“Okay, so if you’da called the address, you know? In Maple-wood? One twenty-three Elm? That was the address, right?”

“That’s the one he gave me, yeah.”

“Well when I called it, I got a woman with a maid service answered, said the name on her worksheet is Feeney, not Maguire.
And there’s no Maguire in the white pages on that street at that number. So I’m waitin’ on a callback from one of the school
guidance counselors, got him at home, says he has to go back in, check his files, ’cause that name doesn’t ring any bells.
Meanwhile, James, I hate to say this over the phone—matter of fact I was gonna bring it up when you brought the kid into my
office and I forgot—but lately, you know? You been walkin’ around in a little bit of a fog, you know that? You thinkin’ about
retirement—is ’at what you’re doin’?”