The Way Things Are (7 page)

“Okay. Tell me about how things are at home? Would you two say you have a good relationship?” Ken asked, as though he were just ticking off questions on a checklist.

“He’s my boy. There’s not much to tell. It’s just been the two of us since he was eleven, and aside from getting into trouble and swearing too much, he’s a good kid. We get along okay. He does good in school, when he can get his head out of his sketchbooks. He has a lot of trouble making friends, but he’s not that talkative except with me.”

Ken turned right toward the long line of shipping terminals and storage yards that covered Harbor Island. “What about you, Jay? How would you describe things with your dad?”

“He’s my dad,” said Jay, his voice venomous. “What is there to describe?”

“You two get along?”

“Yeah.”

Ken waited a moment, glancing back at Jay when he had the chance. Jay turned his whole body toward the window. “Okay. Pat, you sounded like you’ve been pretty frustrated by his behavior.”

Patrick waited to see where that question was going. He nervously brought his gaze up to Ken’s, then dropped his eyes again. He could deal with the man’s voice, but those dark eyes were going to be his undoing. “Uh, yeah. Frustrated. What parent wouldn’t be?”

“Have you found anything to be effective when dealing with him? Do you practice corporal punishment?”

“Effective?” Patrick chuckled. “His room looks like he lives in some kind of monastery because I’ve taken so much shit away from him. The TV, video games, his stereo. I’ve grounded him for months at a time, made him clean shit up, and made him do extra chores. Not much works with him.”

“Do you practice corporal punishment?” Ken asked again.

“What? No, I think fourteen is a bit old for a spanking.” And the last thing he ever wanted was for Jay to flinch away from him the way he’d flinched from absolutely everyone after the attack. Patrick thought about the stacks of sketchbooks next to Jay’s bed. “The only thing that works is taking away the things he cares about,” Patrick said, glancing back at his son. “I hate doing that. I hate even threatening to do it, because I know he’s going to get in trouble again, and then I’ve got to follow through.”

“So you give in?”

Patrick leaned forward, not sure how to reconcile wanting to be an effective disciplinarian with wanting to shelter and protect his son. He’d never been any good at balancing it, even before Jay ended up in the hospital. And there was no way a stranger could possibly understand how impossible parenting Jay felt. “I try not to.”

“Well, Jay what do you think would be effective in getting you to stop defacing buildings?”

“Defacing? I don’t think I’m
defacing
anything. There were tags on the wall I painted, and it looks better now. Or it would look better if I’d had time to finish it. And it’s not like it hurts anybody.”

“You’re avoiding the question. Whether you consider what you did to be right or wrong doesn’t matter. The state of Washington says it’s a crime. Would having some other place to paint help?”

There was silence from the backseat.

“There’s a teen art program at the YMCA, maybe something where you can express yourself without getting in trouble would help you resist the urge to paint every brick wall you see.”

“No. I don’t want to do that. I had to talk about the things I draw and paint before. I’m not doing that again.”

“Like a therapy thing?”

There was more silence.

“Well, this is just a class,” Ken went on. “You could learn some new painting techniques, get a chance to express yourself, and you wouldn’t have to talk about anything you’re uncomfortable with. I want you to think about it, okay?”

Ken launched into a series of questions about Jay’s school, Jay’s hobbies, and Jay’s friends. Since Jay hadn’t been in Seattle long enough to make friends, that part was simple. The questions eventually reached back farther into Jay’s childhood. Patrick tried to answer them all without actually mentioning his wife, but he knew there was no chance the man next to him would accept the giant, gaping hole in Jay’s life story. Whether Ken thought it was odd or not, he didn’t say anything, so Patrick plunged on. He eventually worked his way back to admitting he hadn’t had much of a hand in taking care of Jay as an infant or toddler, because at the time he hadn’t made enough to support his family without a second job. He caught himself angling his body toward the other man and crossed his legs in the other direction, trying to remind himself to keep his distance. He wasn’t chatting up a guy in a club.

Ken slowed down as they came to the narrow streets that bordered the port. “What do you do down here, anyway?”

“I’m a longshoreman. A crane operator.”

“A what?” Ken’s confused smirk and slightly cocked eyebrow eased some of the severity from Ken’s features, and Patrick couldn’t help but grin at the way the other man’s face softened.

“A longshoreman. It’s a steady job, and the money’s good. Really good. I work nights loading those connex containers over there”—he pointed to a stack of containers that looked like a multicolored building—“onto freighters and barges.”

“Huh. I don’t think I’ve ever met somebody who actually works at the docks before. You’re a crane operator? Like, one of those?” Ken nodded toward the towering support structure for two of the large gantry cranes.

“The one I operated last night is down a few blocks, but yes,” Patrick explained. “It’s a fun job if you’re not afraid of heights. The cabin moves with the boom, so you can be up to two hundred feet off the ground. That’s why there aren’t that many crane operators. Guys might go their entire life without thinking they’re afraid of heights, but they get up there, strap in to a harness, and spend twelve hours watching the world move beneath their feet. Suddenly they’re not so good with heights after all. It’s worth it, though. It’s a hell of a view.”

Ken shook his head and laughed. “I don’t think I could do that.”

“Well, for what it’s worth, I doubt I could handle your job. I mean, I put up with Jay because he’s
mine
and I love him
.
I don’t think I could put up with twenty or thirty kids just like him. You must have the patience of a fucking saint.”

Ken’s smirk softened into a real smile. “You can deal with your son because you know he’s a decent kid. At the end of the day, I’m not personally invested, so it’s pretty easy to convince myself that they’re all decent. Jay, do you do anything else? Any other hobbies or interests?”

“I play video games,” Jay muttered.

“Sports?”

Jay grumbled something unintelligible.

“Not really,” Patrick admitted. “We’re going to change that, though. That’s part of why I brought him back here to Seattle. I grew up here. I was just as scrawny as Jay is now, but when I was about sixteen, a friend of mine talked me into starting a golden gloves class down at the Eighth Street Gym. His dad runs the place, and every time I talk to his old man, he goes on and on about the kids his program has helped straighten out. It did wonders for me, I know that.”

“It sounds like a good idea. It sounds like the art thing is kind of an obsessive behavior. I imagine it’s hard to get him interested in something else, but it’d be good for him. Usually I recommend some kind of after school program for younger kids, or job training for kids who are around Jay’s age, but a sport would be just as helpful. Has he been evaluated by a psychologist?”

“Yeah, but that was before the drawing started.”

“When did he start drawing?”

“June eighth, three years ago,” said Patrick, answering before he thought better of it.

Ken slowed to a stop as they approached a line of police cars blocking the road ahead. “That’s pretty specific.”

Patrick said nothing.

“So, this isn’t an interest that developed slowly? Because this kind of obsession doesn’t usually start all at once.”

“It’s not an obsession, it’s just what I do,” said Jay.

“Do you do anything else?”

Jay was silent.

“I might be wrong about this, but I think that’s what qualifies it as an obsession.”

“It’s how he deals with… stuff,” Patrick tried to explain.

“A coping mechanism?”

“I guess, yeah.”

Ken adjusted the rearview mirror. “Jay, what do you use art to help you cope with?”

Patrick turned back and watched Jay bring his knees to his chest, curling in on himself again.

Patrick thought back to the end of those horrible weeks in the hospital when Jay finally woke up. He remembered the shattered expression on Jay’s face when his mother confronted him in the hospital, when she had insisted Jay deserved the almost deadly beating she’d orchestrated. To this day, Patrick feared Denise’s words afterward had caused more damage to Jay than her boyfriend’s fists ever had. “It doesn’t matter. You don’t have to talk about it, kiddo.”

“What happened, Jay?” Ken persisted.

Patrick dropped his gaze. “With all due respect, I think he’d rather not talk about it. It sucked, but we’ve gotten past it, and making him talk about it again doesn’t do anyone any good.”

“If it’s the reason he keeps breaking the law, it’s something I need to know about.”

“Well, I disagree.”

“Look at me, Mr. Connelly,” Ken said quietly. “You need to understand my position here is about more than just making sure your son finishes his community service. Every JPC in Seattle, along with every childcare worker in the state of Washington, is what’s called a mandatory reporter. That means that if we see any kind of abusive behavior or any evidence of abusive behavior while working with the children on our caseloads, we are obligated by law to report it. You said your son was too old for a spanking. Have you ever struck your child in anger, Mr. Connelly?”

Patrick stiffened. He’d dealt with so many accusations and doubts during the custody battle. Being a single father tended to raise eyebrows at the best of times. Being a gay single father raised alarm bells and red flags, not just eyebrows. At six foot three, Patrick towered over his son and damn near everybody else, and far too often, people took one look at him and assumed he had to be an abusive asshole just because he was a big guy. Patrick had learned not to take it personally.

“Who the fuck do you think you are, asking something like that?” Jay shouted, stomping his feet onto the floorboards and sitting forward.

“Jay,” Patrick growled. “Language.”

Jay grabbed the front seats and leaned forward. “You know what? I don’t care who you think you are! You can’t accuse my pop of shit like that! He has never hurt me and he never would, which is more than I can say for everyone else in my life! You don’t know him! You don’t know me!”

“Okay, calm down for a second, Jay. It’s a question I’m required to ask. If you tell me he’s never struck you in anger, I’ll drop it, agreed?”

“He never has!”

“All right.” Ken nodded. “Who did?”

Jay curled back up on the seat as if Ken’s words stung. “My dad’s right. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Would you be willing to talk with a counselor? Somebody who’s trained to just listen and help you sort out what you’re feeling?”

“I said no!” Jay snapped.

“Okay, you don’t like the idea. I think an art class and the boxing program your dad mentioned would do you a lot of good. So we’ll make a deal. You do both of those for the full six weeks of the intensive supervision program, and I won’t require weekly therapy sessions. Agreed?”

“You can’t do that!”

“I can, actually. And if you fail to comply, I can report that failure to the court, and they will issue a warrant for contempt. If necessary, they can remand you to the juvenile detention center where they can, and will, escort you to each therapy session. What’s it going to be, Jay?”

“I do the classes and you’ll let the therapy bullshit go?”

“That’s right.”

“Deal.”

“Good. You’re parked in there?” Ken asked, nodding toward the employee parking lot beyond two sets of railroad tracks.

Beyond the fence, two crime scene vans and over twenty police personnel were hurrying about. Two news vans were parked outside the fence, cameramen taking constant video of the activity within. The white Chevy Silverado was the only civilian vehicle inside the fence.

“What the hell?” Patrick leaned forward, studying the scene. “Those lying motherfuckers! People already got hurt! Those assholes wasted four hours talking to me when they could have—”

“No,” Ken said quickly, then grimaced. He shut off the tape recorder and pulled to a stop in front of the gate. He shifted into park and sighed. “The victim led them to the others this morning, before the police even began talking to you. It was already too late for three of them. They’re just cleaning up the mess.”

“Three people died?”

“I shouldn’t even be saying anything, but it’s been plastered all over the news since nine o’clock this morning, so it’s not like you wouldn’t have heard about it anyway. Give me a minute, I’ll see if they’ll let you get your truck.”

Ken stepped out of the car for a moment and talked to the police officers standing guard by the gate. The police officer radioed to a man in a trench coat, who hurried over and greeted Ken with a quick hug. Definitely a hug, Patrick noted.

“Wow,” Jay whispered. “What happened? I thought you said you got into a fight.”

“Not your business, kiddo,” Patrick said simply, trying not to grind his teeth as he recognized the officer who had arrested him.

“Ken said three people died? Do you know what happened?”

“I stopped a fight, that’s all. Is that clear?”

He could almost hear Jay roll his eyes. “Sure, whatever. This just looks like a lot of guys to clean up after a fight.”

“All I did was stop a fight. I don’t know what’s going on.”

After listening to the detectives’ line of questioning for four hours, he could guess. Ken had said it was already too late for three of them. Three people had died trying to sneak into the country in the containers he’d unloaded last night. He wondered how the boy had gotten out, how many others had been stuck inside a sealed metal box with him, how long they’d been trapped. If they’d come from British Colombia, it might have only been a few days. If they’d come from a port in Asia, it could have been weeks. More than long enough for three people to die of dehydration.