Tweaked (12 page)

“Gordie,” she says, “I thought you were going to go through this stuff. Your exam is tomorrow. And have you read
Hamlet
yet?”

“I haven't had a chance.” Which isn't quite true. It's just been really hard to get into the Prince of Denmark and all his family troubles when mine are in the twenty-first century and staring me in the face.

She drops the book to her lap. “Okay, what's wrong? Something's really bugging you.”

I can't tell her. This latest thing involving my mother—I can't tell anyone until I can get my own mind around it. I guess it's partially a matter of pride, although I'm surprised that I have any left. Whatever, I just can't bring myself to tell Jade. “You know what's wrong,” I say. “I live in a nuthouse.”

Her eyes narrow. “No, there's something more than that.”

“No, there isn't. Okay, yes, there is. I'll tell you what's driving me crazy. I found my bass today.”

Jade smiles a little. “But that's a good thing, isn't it? Or is something wrong with it? Is it damaged?”

“No, it looks good. It's perfect. As far as I can tell there's not a scratch. It's just that it's in a pawnshop where it's selling for fifteen hundred dollars.”

Jade groans.

“Never mind. I'll just have to live with it like everything else. Now shoot—what's the next question?”

It's nearly midnight when I get home. Mom and Dad are in bed. I sit at the kitchen table, a glass of water in front of me, staring at the business card on the fridge in the light of the range hood.
Detective Jim Keppler
, it says.
Homicide
. He'd left it in case we heard from Chase. We were to let him know immediately—anytime, anything that would help bring in Chase.

Tomorrow—tomorrow I will speak to Dad. I pour the glass of water into the sink. Once in my bedroom, I throw the textbooks and review sheets off my bed, flop across it and turn out the light.

Crap. I have two exams the following day, and I'm not ready for either one. Summer school is a given.

There is no point putting myself through the humiliation of blowing both exams and then being called to the office to learn the pathetic results. The next morning I go straight to Ms. Larson's office.

“Gordie,” she says brightly. “Come in and sit down. Are you ready to write your exams today?”

I hate to say no and watch her warm smile splutter to a deflated frown. But I'm going to have to disappoint her at some point. I do as she asks and sit across from her. “No, I'm not. That's what I've come to talk to you about. I just haven't had time to study. I've come to sign up for summer school.”

Ms. Larson looks disappointed but not all that surprised. “Hmm,” she says, “that's not very good news.”

She is right about that, particularly for me. I look at my feet. The inner seam of my left shoe has split and is coming away from the sole. I cover it with my right foot.

Ms. Larson rises from her desk and quietly closes the door. She returns to her chair. “I've been meaning to ask you something. How are things at school? Are you being treated okay? I mean, since the news of your brother's circumstances was published, are the other students treating you all right?”

“I haven't had any problems.” Which, with the exception of Zimmerman and Dodds, is true.

Ms. Larson nods. “That's good. Well, I could talk to your teachers and we could set another date. There is still a week left of school.”

I'm already shaking my head. “It's not going to happen. I know I won't get to it. There's too much going on right now.”

“Like what?” Ms. Larson's voice is soft.

I finally look up. I had not come to her office to tell her, but somehow it's different this time. When I look across the desk, I don't notice how her clothes match or how precisely she shuffles the papers. I see someone just waiting for me to tell her about Chase's phone calls and the danger Mom's putting herself in. So I spill it. I tell her all that and then about how I know I have to tell Dad but I don't know how, and that my life is falling apart.

When I'm finished and I'm staring at my broken shoe again, Ms. Larson is quiet for a time. She then says, “Gordie, look at me.”

I try.

“You are right. You do have to tell your father. Your Mom has been put in a position she can't cope with and she needs your help.”

She goes on to say many other things too, about how well I'm handling the situation and that I shouldn't feel guilty or responsible for anything because what has happened is beyond my control. She finishes by asking, “Will you let me know how it goes once you've talked to your dad?”

I nod. Ms. Larson says good luck, stands up and shakes my hand. “And if you're certain you won't have time to study, I'll register you for summer school.”

I'm not sure why I feel forty pounds lighter when I leave her office. It has just been confirmed that I've flunked two courses, and I'll be spending July in a hot sweaty classroom, dodging Zimmerman and Dodds' spitballs, but I feel good. Until I get home from school and spot the police car parked outside our house.

When I walk in the door, I discover two cops—one of them is Detective Keppler—sitting at the kitchen table across from Mom and Dad. As it turns out, I didn't have to break the news to Dad; the police have somehow found out that Chase was contacting Mom. She looks miserable. She is trying to explain why she'd done it, but the police do not appear all that sympathetic. I grab a banana from the bowl on the counter. Fresh fruit—something rare in
our house. Dad must have gone shopping. I am heading for my room when Detective Keppler calls me back.

“Gordie, you may as well stay. You all have to know how serious this is.”

Reluctantly I return to the kitchen, where I stand with my back against the counter. I peel the banana and take a bite.

“He kept saying he'd come with me to the police station,” Mom sobs, barely audible above the sound of the old coffeemaker. “I thought that I could eventually talk him into it. If I'd cut him off, I would have lost him completely.”

The younger cop shuffles his feet beneath the chair.

Detective Keppler ignores her excuses. “What time does he usually call in the morning?”

Mom rubs her forehead and sighs. “He's been calling not long after Gordie leaves for school. Around nine o'clock, I guess.”

“Okay, we know he has been calling from the phone booth outside the drug store at the mall. Tomorrow when he calls I want you to keep him on the line. We're going to be there.”

Mom begins to cry harder. Dad doesn't move to comfort her but says, “She will. I'll stay home to make sure it happens the way you want.”

Detective Keppler looks from Mom to Dad. “I'm sorry. But it's the only way. You must realize that we
have to bring him in. We don't want anyone else to get hurt, including him. Now, Mrs. Jessup, we are counting on you not to say anything that will alert Chase that we are there.”

Dad stands up. “I assure you that she won't.”

Once the police are gone, Dad chastises Mom again. “How could you not have told them? You knew you could have gone to jail for that!”

I duck into the basement, wanting to avoid another heated argument. Although I'm not sure why they still bother me. It seems to be the only way we communicate with each other anymore.

The phone rings just as I reach the bottom of the stairs. Closing the door to muffle the argument going on upstairs, I pick it up in the rec room.

“Hi, Gordie, dear.”

It's my grandmother in Ontario. “Hi, Nana. How are you?”

“I couldn't be better, although I can't say the same for your grandfather. He came in sixth in his golf tournament this morning, so he's in a bit of a slump. You know how competitive he is.”

I chuckle. Yes, I do know how competitive he is.

“Anyway, we are so proud of you. We hear you're playing in a band competition. How is that new guitar?”

Mom hasn't told her about the break-in. Oh well, there's no point in getting into it now. “It's perfect,”
I say, picturing it in the window of the secondhand store.

“Good, good. Maybe you can bring it when you come to visit this summer. We'd love to hear you play. Let me know as soon as you can when you're going to come out, we've got all kinds of things planned. I sent your Mom money last week, five hundred dollars for your flight and five hundred for Chase, just so he has some cash until he finds a job. How is he doing, anyway? Your Mom tells me he's been doing some fix-up jobs around the house since he got out on bail. Has there been any word about the man he hit? Is he recovering?”

I sink into a chair. She doesn't know. Mom hasn't told her that Richard Cross died or that Chase has taken off. I have also just discovered where Mom is getting the two hundred dollars a day she's been giving Chase.

“Nana,” I say, “I'm sorry, I'm just on my way to work. I've got to get going. I'm looking forward to seeing you. I'm going to let you talk to Mom.”

“Oh, I'm sorry to have kept you, dear. Yes, give me to your mother. You have a good evening at work.”

Once I've called Mom to the phone, I avoid her until I go to work. She gave money meant for me to Chase. It's bad enough I have a brother that I can't trust, but my mother?

I go through the motions at work. Jade is not scheduled to work, so it's just me and Ralph. While I work
the cash register and help customers find what they are looking for, my mind is really focused on trying to decide where I should stand to watch Chase's arrest. Where will I have the best vantage point, but he won't be able to see me? I decide that the bus shelter across the parking lot from the drug store will allow me to see him but still be an inconspicuous place.

The following morning Dad sits at the kitchen table, turning the pages of the newspaper. Mom paces the floor, glancing at the clock every moment or two. After drinking half a cup of coffee, I throw my backpack over my shoulder like I do every other school day. It's earlier than usual when I leave the house. I need time to get to the bus shelter at the shopping center before Chase calls.

Most of the parking lot is still empty, but outside the drug store and convenience store, which open early, shoppers swing in and out. I scan the parking lot and sidewalks for Chase. Ten minutes after I arrive, I realize that a few of the shoppers have returned to the drug store more than once. Undercover police officers. There are more. Not far from where I sit a couple of men watch the shoppers from inside an unmarked police car. I am sure of it.

Three girls, skipping school, hang around outside the drug store, smoking and chatting. Aside from them,
there are no other young people around—only the odd one running for the bus shelter, late for school.

I think of my parents waiting impatiently by the phone as time grinds by. I am glad I am not in the kitchen with them. My mother would be a whimpering wreck. I wonder again how long a person can withstand unrelenting stress? There has to be a point where the nervous system shorts out and everything fizzles to a halt.

It's almost nine thirty when I finally spot him. He comes from behind the department store at the end of the mall. My brother, who has been the focus of an intense police search, just appears like he's been set down around the corner and is now walking toward the phone booth.

In the two weeks since Chase has taken off, he's regained that anorexic wasted look. He wears the same clothes—ripped and filthy now—that he'd had on the night he took off. He flicks his head repeatedly, and every now and again he rubs his nose with the back of his hand.

As he crosses the parking lot, he reminds me of a withered old lion trying to hunt: back slung low, belly to the ground, head swiveling to sniff the air. If I didn't know how destructive he was I might even feel a tinge of pity for him.

Chase is perhaps a hundred feet from the phone booth when I notice one of the undercover cops trying
to herd the three girls inside the entrance to the drug store. They are angry at having to butt out their cigarettes. The cop cannot get the girls to cooperate, and another police officer joins her. They have to take the girls by the arms and steer them inside. Chase turns at the scuffle, stops a moment, but moves forward again.

The cops in the car are listening to their radios. I see others speaking to shoppers. The shoppers glance around curiously before heading quickly for the nearest entrance. Fifty feet short of the phone booth, Chase stops walking again. This time, his eyes sweep slowly across the parking lot. They fix on Detective Keppler and another police officer. The two men lean against a car on the other side of the phone booth, as if in conversation. Something has clued him in. Maybe he recognizes them as police officers; whatever it is, paranoia strikes. Suddenly, Chase turns and tears off, back in the direction from which he came.

The cops break into action. The unmarked car in front of me squeals away, and the officers on foot take off after Chase. There are far more of them than I had realized. Chase pushes aside a little girl who is walking next to her mother, throwing her to the sidewalk. The girl screams. A police car parked close to the mall entrance also roars off.

I move from behind the shelter, and I can see Chase dart between cars. He disappears behind an
armored truck parked outside a bank; then he reappears, bounding like a jackrabbit. I would never have thought he possessed that kind of physical endurance, but adrenaline can do amazing things. Chase turns the corner behind the department store.

The mall is close to opening, and the police are hindered by shoppers and cars pulling into the parking lot. Radio commands crackle and directions are given. There is confusion. I don't think they ever expected Chase would clue in and run.

As soon as I see him disappear behind the store, I start after him myself. I tear across the parking lot. Car tires squeal as I dart between parking stalls.