The Deep End of the Ocean (30 page)

George ran his hands though his perfect hair—Was it whiter, in only weeks? thought Beth. Was this just a myth, or did it actually happen to people? George said, “I figured, of course, Cecilia and me, we’d have more; but she got so sick, so fast, and then I found out she really wasn’t so young. And Jesus, the shock treatments. Times I’d come there, they’d have her bound up in belts. She’d bite at the…And then, later, when she didn’t even know me anymore. Didn’t even know her mother or the boy. But I had Sam. My Spiro. I had my little all-star. See?”

Beth could feel the dampness at her neck; her shirt collar was soaking with unwiped tears. Her nose was running; she’d hadn’t even been aware she’d cried. “George,” she said. “You don’t have to tell us.”

Despite the ache of sympathy they felt, Pat and Beth agreed to stand firm. Whatever George would be to Sam, he was not going to be another father. And yet, they never turned him away—he was their only window into the cocoon from which Ben had emerged Sam.

Charges were issued. The state of Illinois had charged Cecilia Lockhart Karras with aggravated kidnapping and stood prepared, depending on what was learned about the conditions under which Ben had lived for nine years, to tack on everything except the abduction of Patty Hearst: false imprisonment, child abuse and endangerment, interference with custody, secreting a child, civil rights violations. Candy smiled when she read the complaint: “They left out forgery and possession with intent….”

But Candy knew, as everyone knew, as Beth knew, from the first moments of dawning comprehension in George’s living room, that the whole legal process would turn out to be mostly theater, an elaborate pantomime intended for no purpose but completion, like binding up the newspapers, corner to corner, with twine, and setting them at the curb. All the hearing would accomplish, Candy predicted, would be to make a public witnessing of tying that knot, securing it, snipping the cord.

Cecil would be led down the steps of the courthouse at Twenty-seventh and California just as she would come up, with lights she probably didn’t see panning her face, and words she didn’t hear burbling in her ears, go back to Silvercrest as free a woman as she had been when she was taken to Cook County Jail in the hospital van. She would go back to the room no one knew for sure whether she recognized, to be ministered to by rough or gentle hands no one could tell whether she felt; to stare at television if it was turned on in front of her; to sit with her fingers interlaced until someone took her hand and raised her to her feet; to soil herself raw without any apparent discomfort. Sending Cecil to prison would be redundant; no one had any lust for it, Beth, even Pat, least of all.

June 1994

All five of them in the social worker’s office felt like a crowd. Nobody knew where to go. Reese finally flopped on one end of the couch—one of those nubbly orange numbers that show up in places Reese had frequented, public-bucks places, like school social workers’ offices. Tom, now, Reese thought, Tom wouldn’t have put a couch like this one in his garage. He concentrated on watching a spider pick delicately in and out of the canyons of the acoustical tile. The murmur of his parents’ voices blended with the social worker’s drone, until, if he tried, Reese could pretend he could hear a fly buzzing, running from the spider through miles of tiles.

He swung his feet down and stood up.

The kid was staring out the window, with his back to Beth and Pat.

“…certain adjustments,” said the social worker, looking up, startled, at Reese. His parents were staring at him, Dad looking particularly annoyed, but the social worker was prepared to go right on, apparently even if Reese stood on his head and peed on the floor. “We have a list of agencies, here, and you can choose to access—”

“Can I go outside?” Reese asked then, and thought, Damn, I sound like Mommy’s little boy. “I’m going outside. It’s getting hot in here.”

“I can open a window,” the social worker suggested thinly.

“It’s all right,” said Pat. “There’s no real reason that…they…”

“Of course not,” said the social worker.

“Wanta go?” Reese asked the kid, who blinked as if he wasn’t sure he got the dialect. “Wanta go outside?”

The kid shrugged. Reese opened the door. There was a kind of playground outside, with a couple of basketball courts; some other disadvantaged deefs were swinging on the swings or kicking around an old tetherball, still on its string. Wonder what they’re in for, Reese thought, holding the door open for the kid, who passed through quickly, head down, fists jammed in his jeans pockets.

“Vincent,” said Beth, then. “You
will
keep an…” Reese saw the look his dad gave her then, as if even he couldn’t believe she could be that stupid. But it was already almost out; Reese knew what she was going to say. He shrugged and let the door bang shut behind them.

It was colder outside than it looked. Especially for late spring. The kid was wearing just a flannel; Reese was glad he had his leather. He shrugged it up onto his shoulders, as always feeling the momentary surge of joy it gave him. It moved like another, tougher skin. He took out a butt, examined the angle of the view from the window—he could see his dad, but his dad had his back to him. Not worth it.

“So,” he said to the kid, carefully replacing his cigarette and folding the pack. “Was the guy here this morning?”

“The guy?” said the kid, not tracking.

“The guy, the guy—the guy who was your stepfather—George What’s-His-Name,” Reese said.

“He came to the foster-parent place real early,” said the kid. “He didn’t want to come here.”

“So how does it feel to be a celebrity, Ben?” Reese asked. “Mug on the front page. Major miracle on Menard Street…” The kid gave Reese another measuring look. He thinks I really want to know, Reese thought. What a deef.

“Actually, it’s kind of sickening,” said the kid. “I mean, all these days, the past two weeks, the psychologist is saying, ‘So, you must be having a lot of feelings about all this.’…How can you have feelings about something you didn’t even know was going on?”

“Is this, like, your permanent counselor now?”

“Permanent?” They walked over onto the concrete and Reese propped his foot on one of the baby swings.

“Take a clue here, Ben,” he said. “You have now entered the counseling zone. This is the champion mental-health consumer family you will be living with here. My mom and dad off and on go to marriage counseling, and she used to go to grief counseling, and Kerry goes to, like, drawing counseling, and I myself hold the world’s record in my age cohort for consecutive visits to a shrink….”

“Why? What’s wrong with you?”

Reese kicked the swing.

“Nothing. Nothing has to be wrong with you. It’s just…school shit. And so forth. It’s mainly my dad who thinks I’m this major fuckoff.”

“And what about your mom?”

“You’ve met my mom.”

“Well…” said the kid, turning away, which Reese didn’t want.

“No, my mom isn’t like this bad person or anything. She’s just like…‘Ground control to Beth Cappadora,’ you know? She doesn’t get stuff half the time, or you think she doesn’t.” Reese sighed. “Anyhoo, I wish we had a car.”

“You don’t have a car?” said the kid.

“No, but a car is a thing you can always have if you want.”

“What do you mean?” the kid asked him.

“I mean, a car is just there…for you….”

“You steal cars?”

“No, I don’t
steal cars
. But you can borrow a car, no harm, not much foul, you know what I mean.”

“That’s just a kind of stealing.”

“Well, I want to know that I flourished in my youth,” said Reese. The kid looked around him, like he was trying to find a cop or something. Shit, thought Reese, next topic.

“So what do you do?” he asked the kid.

“Do? I don’t do anything,” said the kid.

“I mean, like, what do you
do
?” The kid’s gray eyes widened then, and Reese, staring at him, almost lost his train of thought, the kid looked—

“I play ball.”

“B-ball?” The kid nodded, and walked over onto one of the scarred concrete courts where two black Bulls signature balls nodded together under a bush. The other deefs kept kicking the tetherball, shuffling away from Reese’s approach like herd animals.

“You any good?” Reese called, going after one of the balls.

“I play city league,” said the kid. “Traveling squad. First string.”

“Traveling squad?” cooed Reese. “Oh, my goodness.”

“Look, I’m in sixth grade. The other kids are in ninth, okay? It’s the height.”

“Though where you got that…”

“Whatever.”

“Wanta shoot some. Play Horse?” The kid shrugged. His hands were big; Reese watched him spin and fondle the ball, like it was a pet, before he dribbled—then, release, drop, release, drop. The kid had seriously big hands, and—Reese looked down—feet to match.

They took positions, pretty far back—After all, Reese thought, he’s first string
traveling squad.
He watched the kid shoot—looked like an old Olympic basketball video—squared up, with the follow-through down the wrists to a fingertip flip. Good little kiddie, thought Reese, plays by the book.

Size didn’t matter much here; the kid was as heavy as Reese was, and all but an inch as tall. Reese took a step back, one-armed it. “Nothing but net,” he said.

The kid stepped back, took the ball, and matched it, no problem.

“Free-throw line,” said Reese, and bricked one off the back of the iron. It went wide.

“My turn,” said the kid happily. He stood up in that old-fashioned way, and Reese saw his face change: he had one of those faces that told you he was only doing what he was doing—not revising the names of people on his permanent shit list or anything else. He was right there. Reese could tell before the ball left the kid’s fingertips that it was good.

And so Reese zipped his jacket to get rid of the flapping pockets, balanced the ball on one hand, and zeroed in. He missed again.

“That’s
h,
” yelled the kid, who stood beside Reese and drained one without seeming to even set it up.

Reese heard that fat bastard Teeter, the basketball coach at school, who also taught P.E., saying, “It’s a mental thing with you, Cappadora. You’re about one taco short of a combination plate about half the time. If you could just think about what you’re doing…” He tried to look through the shot, but he could feel it go wrong the minute it took flight.

“That’s
o,
” the kid said again, with pure joy.

“I let you,” said Reese, dribbling down the lane—he leapt and finger-rolled it in. “Net this, bozo.”

“We’re playing Horse.”

“You did okay standing still, huh, First String?”

“I can take you,” the kid said evenly.

Reese drove for the basket again, skipping onto the paint, looking for the sweet spot of his driveway nights—boom. “Okay, buddy, ready to go downtown?”

The kid was confused. “What are the rules?”

“I don’t play in city rec, my man.” Reese drove again, missed his lay-up, and spun as the ball flirted off the far side of the hoop.

“Is this Make It—Take It or what?”

“Your ball, rookie,” said Reese. He didn’t have to name the game, though clearly the game would have been Make It—Take It if he’d nailed the last shot.

“To what? To what?” said the kid, dribbling absently. “To eleven?”

“Just play,” Reese told him. And the kid checked the ball, then made as if to dribble left, but instead dropped right three steps and set up for a shot off the board. “Count it!” he cried, and tossed the ball to Reese, murmuring, “Check.”

Reese ignored him and lined up at the top of the key. The kid seemed to be measuring him, wondering how to slide, avoiding Reese’s eyes. Then Reese cut right, leading with his dominant hand and bouncing the ball slightly too high. Reese thought he could anticipate the kid, so he kept on coming. He knocked the ball off the kid’s thigh, recovered it at the top of the key, shot, and missed, with the ball bouncing off the rim. But Reese slipped for the board, got his balance, and tipped it in easily over the kid’s extended arm.

“Who are you?” Reese asked him then, dribbling, panting.

“I’m Grant Hill.”

“I’m Pippen.”

“Okay.” They played in earnest then, with Reese holding on to the lead, the kid repeating the score after each basket. Then Reese aired one and the kid boxed out, grabbed the rebound, took it back, and drove for the lay up. “That’s evens up,” said the kid. Reese lined up. When the kid came in, he turned, feinted, and raised an elbow. The kid stumbled.

“Sor-ree,” Reese said, grabbing the ball.

“You fouled,” said the kid.

“This ain’t the YWCA, Ben,” Reese said.

“It’s not Ben.”

“Okay…Ben,” Reese mumbled, driving past the kid toward the baseline. But the kid shifted his position—he had a way of sliding more than running, it was hard to follow—stepping in to take the charge. Reese struggled for concentration; he was chasing the ball, not moving with it, damn it, so he drove hard right at the kid, leading with his left arm and whacking the kid across the bridge of his nose. The kid kept his head, but Reese could see his eyes water, and then, as Reese went up for the shot, his eyes still on the kid’s face, this look, this look of fear…he looked like Ben, who would not even slide down the plastic slide into the six-inch-deep wading pool unless he, his brother, stood there with open arms. That same wide-open look, right across the bones of his cheeks. Scared. Game. Coming. Ben, Reese thought…and in the instant of lost concentration, the kid batted the ball away; and both of them ran for the corner where the ball bounced. If he went for it, Reese saw the kid would fall out of bounds. The kid had no options. He had to just dive. The ball hit Reese’s leg hard and out of bounds.

“Christ!” Reese winced. It hadn’t nicked him where it mattered, but groin was groin; it was close enough. “You dumb shit.”

“You did it,” said the kid. “And it’s my ball.”

He took it, went left, and laid it in with a reverse lay-up that put his body between Reese’s arms and the ball. Two. “I’m up now,” said the kid to Reese, who was bent over, sucking air, while the kid was breathing like he was asleep. “What’s it to? Twenty-one now?” The kid was excited. He almost laughed.

“Just play,” said Reese.

“Go to twenty-one…Vinnie?” said the kid. He said it way soft, but Reese heard it and drew back, gathering, the way he had in the moments before a dozen fights, a hundred. He took the ball and dribbled around the back court, giving himself some time, raising up for a long jump shot. Sweetness.

“You see that in rec league, Ben?”

“Yep,” said the kid. “In girls’.” And the kid took the ball, driving right, but Reese knew his moves now, and simply spun on his heel left and stiffed him with both arms. The kid was caught under the chin and went down, off the court and into the trampled dirt, his leg doubled under him, his lip bloody.

“Shit,” Reese said. “I didn’t mean—” But at that moment his father barreled into him like a snowplow, knocking Reese flat on his can on the concrete, with a pain that shot up his tailbone and would have made him scream if he hadn’t bit down.

“You little shit!” said Pat. He reached up and yanked off his tie. “You bully!”

“Jesus Christ, Dad!” Reese said, struggling to stand.

“I’m all right,” said the kid.

“Are you hurt…Sam?” Pat asked him, pulling out his handkerchief. The kid waved him away, staring over Pat’s shoulder at Reese.

“I’m okay, I’m okay.”

“Can you go a day—this one day—without trying to hurt something?” Reese saw his dad’s eyes crinkle in pain. Oh, shit. Was that sad pain or heart pain? Oh, shit, Reese thought.