The Second Trial (30 page)

“About what?”

“Come down and ask him yourself.”

“I came to invite you and Buddy over tonight. Hockey Night in Canada. Thought maybe ya'd like to keep an old man company.”

Danny looked at his mom. He would be out past curfew.

“It's fine with me, if you want to go,” she said.

Her answer surprised him.
Of all the people to break the rules,
he thought,
his mother was the least likely.

At school, red and pink tissue paper hearts alternated with cupid cutouts up and down the hallways. The student council sold Valentine's candies and flowers. Danny seized the opportunity to get Nixxie's attention. Since his arrest and Chad's transfer out of the school, Nixxie had shunned Danny. She avoided eye contact and crossed the hall when she saw him coming.

First thing Friday morning, he bought a bag of cinnamon hearts and a pink rose. He slipped the rose stem through her combination lock and hung the candy bag from the locker handle. Then he fidgeted until art class.

She ignored him.

“I'm afraid your participation in these counseling sessions is no longer voluntary,” Mr. Ishii said. “Now I have a job to do. At the end of these sessions, I must write a confidential report so the judge can decide how best to deal with you.”

Danny angled sideways on the chair and stuck out his elbow.

“Would you like to tell me what happened?”

“What for? You've already got the police report.”

“Yes, I do. But I'd rather hear it from you.”

“Read it yourself.”

“Very well.” He sat back and read the two-page typewritten report. He took his time, leaving Danny to stare awkwardly around the room. Finally, the counselor looked up. “You may go.”

The second Saturday night at Papa Joe's was much like the one before. They discussed the players and their records. Papa Joe knew more than Danny did. The potato chips were his favorite kind, and Buddy wolfed down crunchy doggy treats. Danny was surprised how soon it was time to go.

“The police say you reacted very negatively when they arrested you. They describe you as an ‘angry young man more interested in being belligerent than in taking any responsibility for his crime.' Do you agree with that?”

Danny glared at the counselor. “They were jerks,” he said.

“So…they failed to treat you with courtesy and respect?”

He tossed his head. “
Yeah
.”

“Is it possible they were just doing their job?”

“I thought their job was to
help
people.”

“Even people who commit crimes?”

Danny said nothing.

“Is it possible they
were
helping you?”

“What is this, like, a cross-examination? Am I on trial?”

“Should you be?”

“Yeah, right. Why me?” He lifted up his palms. “Why me and not all the other criminals out there?”

“Do you mean you shouldn't be accountable for your actions?”

Danny licked his lips.

Mr. Ishii tilted his head. “It sounds like you've had some negative dealings with the police.”

“They've never done a thing for me.”

“I see. So, at some time in your past, the police failed you. Is that what you're saying?”

“They destroyed my life.”

“Ah, yes. And you're still angry about that?”

Danny bristled. “You would be, too.”

Mr. Ishii pursed his lips. He rose slowly. “Well, David,” he said mildly, “our jails are full of angry young men.” He paused. “You may go now.”

On Sunday night Danny talked himself into asking Nixxie out. On Monday morning his voice caught in his throat and his courage deserted him. On Tuesday, Danny missed art class for his counseling session.

Mr. Ishii wrote the date on his notes. April 1. Session 3. “Do you shoplift a lot, David?” he asked.

Danny's eyes widened, and then narrowed. “What makes you think I shoplift at all?”

“Your mother told me.”

“My
mother
told you?”

“Yes.”

Danny twirled his baseball cap around and around.

“Do you know why you do it?”

He thought back to the watch and to the easy money for cigarettes and beer and forgetting and belonging…

He snorted. “No money.”

Mr. Ishii nodded and put down his pen. “So you steal because you're poor?”

“Well I wouldn't
have
to steal if I had money, would I?”

“Ah, yes. Well, there are a lot of poor people who don't steal.…”

The counselor's words felt like weights.

“Do you think it's a way to get ahead?”

Danny spun his cap on his index finger. Parties and feeling good. Shortcuts to relaxation. “Sure, why not?” he replied.

“I understand your mother's working now.”

“She told you that, too?”

“Yes.” He paused. “She's very anxious to help you. She knows things haven't gone very well, and it's been hard on you.”

“At least she's got
that
right.”

Mr. Ishii pressed his fingertips together. “You're angry with your mother, too, aren't you?”

“
She
got me into this mess.”

“And how did she do that?”

“By making poor choices.”

“Just like you?”

Danny's face hardened. “She shouldn't have let it happen.”

“Well, whatever
‘it
' was, it sounds like she's trying to fix it.” He picked up his notes. “Before Christmas you were on social assistance, and now she has a good job.”

Danny didn't say anything.

“And your sister has taken the Red Cross babysitting course.”

“Nobody told
me
.”

The counselor paused. “Yes. Well. It sounds like your sister's making an effort, too.” He put down the papers and looked squarely at Danny. “So, David,” he finally said. “And what are
you
doing?”

Chapter 25

The thermometer plunged. It was bitterly cold with a relentless wind. Danny appeared at Nixxie's locker at lunch time, leaned his back against the wall, and slid to the floor. “Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” she replied. She popped the lock into its slot and sat beside him. Shy silence separated them until she said, “It's sure cold out.”

“Uh, yeah,” he replied. He busied himself with his lunch bag. “Want an apple?” he asked, holding one out.

“No thanks.” She opened her bag. “Want an orange?” she offered.

They both laughed, and it was as if the months between them had melted away.

“Are there more reasons you've been stealing other than being poor?” Mr. Ishi asked.

Danny cracked his knuckles.

“What kind of activities do you have outside of school?”

Danny thought about the basketball team he'd quit after Christmas. He remembered the coach's invitation to try out for the volleyball team. He remembered the library card his mom had propped up against his clock radio and that he'd abandoned under a pile of unwashed clothes. He couldn't remember the number of hours he'd spent in front of the TV.

“Everything's boring,” he replied. “My life's boring.”

“Do you mean there are obstacles to getting out and doing new things?”

“I can't even buy any stuff.”

Mr. Ishii paused. “Have you considered volunteer work, to help people less fortunate than you?”

Danny started spinning his cap.

“You can work toward your future without first solving every obstacle in your path.”

Silence.

“There is a minimum amount of time you are required to spend in our counseling sessions. However, there is no maximum. You have a lot of work to do.”

Danny and Nixxie agreed to a matinee that weekend. He let her pick the movie. He asked his mom for an extra two dollars for bus fare.

She handed him a five. “What're you going to see?”

“It's a western. Nixxie likes westerns.”

Her eyebrows raised. “Nixxie?”

“A girl from school,” he replied, as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world.

The movie wasn't going to win any awards but as far as Danny was concerned it could have been a blank screen. The important thing was to be with Nixxie. After the movie they wandered into McDonald's for some fries.

“What're you doing for Easter?” Nixxie asked.

“Just hanging around.” He shook the ice in his cup. “What about you?”

“Going out to the lake. We have a cabin on Lake Winnipeg.”

“Go there often?”

“Most holidays.”

“Is that where you were last Christmas?”

“Part of it.”

“Where else did you go?”

“Same as always. Mom and Dad take me to the reservation to see my mom for my birthday. Then we go to the lake for the rest of the holiday. The lake's the good part of the holiday.”

“Did you see her?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “Not this year.” She held up a french fry and picked off the salt grains.

“When were you adopted?” he asked.

“When I was two.” She idly swirled the fry in some ketchup. “Denise raised me for the first year and a half. Then she started dropping me off with my grandparents. At first it was just weekends, but then it was more and more often. One day she never came back, and my grandparents adopted me too.”

“Why did your grandparents adopt your mom?”

She sat very still and her eyes unfocussed. “It's a long story. Ever since Canada became a country, the government thought First Nations people were a ‘problem' and needed ‘fixing.' So they forced kids from their homes into boarding schools run by churches. The white teachers were supposed to teach them to be ashamed of their culture. The government wanted to ‘kill the Indian in the child.' It was child abuse.”

Danny felt a noose tighten around his chest.

She picked up a napkin and started twisting it through her fingers. Her hair fell forward along the sides of her face. “They didn't have families to protect them and couldn't protect themselves. For some, it was a death sentence.”

He crushed the empty chip box between his fingers.

She started shredding the napkin. “My mom, my mom's mom…for them it was a life sentence – of killing the pain with alcohol and drugs.”

He swallowed.

“My grandparents are always trying to help others. They adopted her because she had nowhere else to go. When my mother got pregnant with me at sixteen, they already knew they'd end up raising me, too. But they never complain. They never give up hope Denise will change. So, every year we trek out to the reserve. Every year she disappoints me.”

Her words sent his mind racing. He had to change the subject. “You said your painting was your name. And the initials you put on it were
P.S.
I don't get it. What does the
P
stand for?”

“Phoenixx,” she replied.

“Phoenix, like the city?”

“No, Phoenixx like the bird, but with an extra
x
.”

“Bird?”

“A mythical bird, the only one of its kind. A bird that lives for five hundred years, then burns to death and rises again from its own ashes. A bird so beautiful that astronomers put it in the night sky.”

He frowned. He didn't remember a constellation named Phoenix in the stars stuck to his ceiling. “Where is it?” he asked.

“In the southern hemisphere. My mom said a person didn't have to see it to know it was there.”

“What's it like, knowing you're adopted?”

“Sometimes I feel sad, like a piece of me is missing – like I've lost something, and I don't know where to find it. Sometimes I feel lucky I have my grandparents and they're always there for me. And sometimes I want to scream and scream, or crawl into myself and never come out. It's all so unfair. I wish I had a normal family like yours.”

“Your mother says you spend a lot of time locked in your room,” Mr. Ishii said.

“So?”

“Is it true?”

“Maybe.”

“And when you lock the door, what are you trying to do?”

“What do you mean?”

“Are you locking yourself in, or locking the world out?”

“I need my privacy.”

“Of course. Everyone does. But is privacy the only thing you need?”

Danny's eyes shifted around the room.

“If you're like most teenagers, you want to have friends, you want to have the freedom to make choices, and you want to be loved.”

Danny's knee jiggled. He thought about the friends he'd made. He'd gotten along with the boys on the basketball team, for a few days. He'd probably been in Chad's group too long. Papa Joe was a friend, but not the same kind of friend. Even Buddy, who never judged or complained and was always happy to see him, was sometimes more excited to see Papa Joe than him. Except for Nixxie, it had been a year and a half – no, longer – since he'd had a true friend.

“Do you think you can make friends from behind a locked door?”

No answer.

“Perhaps it's time to stop locking and start unlocking. Perhaps it's time to let go.”

“Let go of what?”

“I think you already know.”

“How well are you and your mother getting on, David?”

Danny shrugged his shoulders.

“Your long silences worry her. She's afraid for you.”

“So. And just
what
have you been telling my mother about me?”

“I haven't told her anything. She tells me things and I listen.”

Danny crossed his arms.

“The judge and the police will keep the report confidential.

It won't be read in open court, and the court file will be sealed at the end of the case.”

“So now I'm supposed to trust the judge and the police?”

“It wasn't the failing of any one judge or any one police officer that resulted in your being here. And it was not just your mother's failing, either.”