Shipwrecked

Published March 25, 2007 in the Sunday Reader

She had just finished putting the empty microwave meal box along with all the others in the refrigerator's vegetable drawer when Ronnie came into the kitchen.

"Hey Syl," he said, speaking to her through the refrigerator door. She stood there for a while, listening to the hum of the refrigerator, trying to figure out what they were going to do for food now that the microwave meals were gone.

She closed the door and asked, "What do you want?"

Ronnie shifted from foot to foot, and she could see he was wearing his pajamas from two weeks ago, the ones she thought she'd put down at the bottom of the hamper.

"You wanna watch TV with me?"

Sylvia sighed. "I'm busy, Ronnie."

"But you said you would watch," he protested, and made a face like he was about to start crying again.

"I don't care if I did," Sylvia said. "All we've got left is cereal."

Sure enough, in another few seconds the tears were running down Ronnie's cheeks. "I don't like the dry cereal," he whimpered. "Can't we have milk?"

Sylvia shook her head. "There's none left."

"It's not fair," said Ronnie. "I don't like it, Syl. I'm cold."

Sylvia was in no mood for more whining from Ronnie. He had been whining about being cold ever since the power went off in the middle of the night, even though that was three days ago and the heat came on again in the morning. Sylvia looked at Ronnie's toes, bare except for the worn down pajama feet.

"Well, where's your slippers?"

"Haven't we been good yet?" asked Ronnie. "I haven't disobeyed."

Sylvia ignored him. "Go watch TV," she said.

Ronnie shuffled out of the room, still making little sobbing noises. Sylvia didn't know why Ronnie couldn't stop crying. She was proud of herself for not having cried once, even when the milk had run out. Sylvia hated dry cereal, too.

She thought about what they must be doing in school by now. Even though she knew they didn't expect her back yet, she couldn't help wondering what would happen if she never went back. Christmas was over, and Mrs. Geragos in the third grade had told her they were starting on fractions after Christmas. Sylvia was really in the second grade, but usually finished her lessons early, so her teacher let her walk down the hall to the third grade. Sylvia liked it there better. They had a clubhouse right in the classroom, against one wall. It was up on stilts, and had different compartments you could climb into, so that’s where she’d go if Mrs. Geragos was in the middle of a lesson. Sylvia didn’t have many friends at school yet, they had only moved there this year. But she liked being around all the people. Besides for school, she wasn’t supposed to go out.

Later on, Sylvia came in to sit on the couch with Ronnie, who was playing on the floor with his race cars, and he started telling her a story about what TV she'd missed.

"There was a man, and he lived on an island with all his other friends, 'cuz they got shipwrecked, but they were smart, and figured out how to make stuff and drink coconut milk. It was just like us, Syl."

Sylvia wondered if it was time for Blue's Clues yet, that was sure to shut Ronnie up.



"I know we're not supposed to plug in the phone except for 'mergencies, but if there's no more food, that's a 'mergency, right?"

"It's only one more day, Ronnie. We made it this far, we can just eat the cereal."

Ronnie shook his head. "Are there any coconut trees around here?"

She didn't say anything, just changed channels.

"How far d'ya think it is to China?"

"What?" said Sylvia.

"China. Is it really ten days away?"

Sylvia remembered how the corn dogs had lasted for eight days, because they came six to a box, they had two boxes to start, and Ronnie usually only ate half of one at a time, so he'd start on the unfinished ones first. Now the boxes were torn in little pieces and bundled up with all the chewed-on corn dog sticks in a plastic bag from the Be-Lo, stuffed in the vegetable drawer behind the empty microwave meal boxes, where the bugs couldn't get to any of it.

"I saw one, Syl. I think I saw a coconut tree across the street."

Sylvia stared at the TV, feeling a little numb. "You did what?"

"Looked for coconut trees. Don't worry, I closed the curtains and stuck the tape back tight, just like it was."

She considered getting up from the couch and punching Ronnie, but didn't have the energy. He'd learn, she thought. She'd tell, and then she'd be the hero, the one who microwaved their dinners every night, made the cereal in the morning, stored the garbage away, picked up all Ronnie's other messes so the apartment would stay neat, and made sure Ronnie didn't cry so loud somebody might hear. That's what it was all about, couldn't he see that? Why else were they doing all this? That's when Sylvia heard the knock at their front door.

It started off like any other knock, all the ones they'd heard before and hid from, silently, waiting, holding their breath, until the knocking went away. Sylvia stood up as quietly as she could and went over to Ronnie, then put her hand over his mouth real fast, before he had a chance to do anything dumb. His eyes got wide, but he didn't struggle.

This knock was different. It kept on going, got louder, and louder, until Sylvia could hear voices yelling, right outside the door, and their whole apartment seemed to shake from the pounding. Sylvia had never been so scared, and suddenly, she knew she had to run to the door and open it.

So she did. Outside, on the landing, stood a brown man Sylvia knew was the manager of their apartment complex. He was with a black lady and a large white man, who were both wearing uniforms. Sylvia thought they smelled like they'd just come from McDonald's.

The black lady smiled at Sylvia, and said, "Hi! Is Mommy home?"

Sylvia looked up into their faces, and then she started to cry.

The Anxiety

It was Fenton's last day in school, and he couldn't wait for it to end. Mrs. Jacobs had sent him out of class and to the principal's office again, and said he had to wait there, until his mother came to pick him up. Fenton felt a burning sensation in his head as he thought to himself, it ain't my fault she turned around when she did. If she cares so much about that stupid class, why didn't she look up when Todd Sommers was hitting me in the back? Or jabbing me through my hair with a pen?

She turned around when she wanted to, that's why, thought Fenton. Now he was walking down the corridor that went by the auditorium. This corridor always made him nervous, because sometimes kids would cut class, and hang out in the hallways behind the music department. If you weren't paying attention and walked by too close to the folding gates that locked those hallways off from the corridor, somebody might reach through the gates and grab you.



It hadn't happened to him, but a kid Fenton knew named Curtis got grabbed once. Curtis was even smaller than Fenton. They took off his belt, pulled his pants down to the floor, then tied his arms up over his head with the belt, through the gates. When the classes changed, that's how the kids passing by in the corridor found him, near tears. It took five minutes for the music teacher to notice the laughter and yelling and come untie Curtis. Nobody else cared enough to help him, that's just what kind of school it was.

So Fenton didn't mind getting expelled. That's what Mrs. Jacobs said was going to happen, and all because he pushed Todd Sommers in class once, after letting Todd do things to him every single damn day for the whole two months since school started. She called it the final straw. "Fenton, stand up," she said. Had him get up in front of the whole class. "Fenton, remember what we talked about with your mother? Well, Fenton, this was your last chance. And instead of settling down, you continue to distract your fellow students from their work."

When his mom had come in for the parent-teacher conference, Mrs. Jacobs told her he wasn't completing his assignments. How could he, when there was stuff going on at home for him to worry about? And when kids like Todd Sommers and his friends were always messing with him? He had tried telling Mrs. Jacobs when it first started happening, when Todd asked to see his homework one morning the first week of school, real innocent like, because he said he wanted to see if Fenton had gotten all the answers. Fenton hadn't really talked to many kids yet, this was a new school, and he was shy. The first therapist he ever saw told his mother that he had anxiety issues, and he was seeing a different one now, but Fenton knew he still had the anxiety. He gave Todd his homework that morning, and Todd smiled an evil smile as he crumpled it up into a ball and wouldn't give it back.

But when Fenton told her about the homework, before class even started, Mrs. Jacobs didn't do a thing. In fact, she accused him of making up stories on account of him being lazy! She said it while laughing, telling him it would be a long school year if he insisted on concocting tall tales instead of buckling down and doing his work.



Fenton walked past the auditorium on the far side of the corridor from where the folding gates were. He looked out the big plate glass windows at the grassy area in the middle of the school. It was outside the cafeteria, and there were rocks, and a little stream that emptied into a pond. The stream seemed more like a ditch to Fenton. Since school started, he had never seen any running water in it, just green algae. It covered the pond, too. The bigger kids sat on the rocks during lunch. Todd Sommers was always on those rocks, when he wasn't sneaking into the woods to smoke cigarettes. Fenton could tell every time after lunch when he'd had one, because Todd sat right behind him in Mrs. Jacob's class, and he'd come in smelling to high heaven.

It was the middle of the afternoon, now, and nobody was on the rocks. Fenton suddenly thought about his dog. Beast the dog. He was a good dog, even if he was a mix of mutt and other things, like his mom said. Spaniel, definitely, because he was small. And Lab, and maybe Chow, Fenton had read in one of the books he took home from the library about how the Chow dogs had black tongues, like Beast's tongue was, a little. But not all Chow dogs were friendly, and Beast was. He even got along with Marzipan and Maybelle, they were two cats, and they belonged to his mother, technically, but Fenton took care of them too. It just ain't right, he thought to himself. We take care of them, and they don't give nobody no trouble. Why they gonna evict us over a couple of animals?

It had been two weeks since Fenton found the letter from their landlord on his mother's desk. It was only a few days since the landlord had sent them an official eviction notice, which his mother had broken down and cried about. Since the first letter showed up, she said her headaches had come back, and she was having trouble breathing, so she went to see her doctor to get her pills switched to a different kind. She told Fenton she was having trouble staying focused on the classes she was taking at night, and might have to drop out for that term. She was worried about how they got their rent, something called Section 8, which is what she told Fenton they qualified for, only a lot of people didn't want to rent to anybody in Section 8. I hope she's okay, thought Fenton. I hope she didn't go on a crying jag right in the middle of work, when the school called about me. Fenton remembered when she first heard from Mrs. Jacobs that he was on probation or whatever and might get expelled, how she had said she was counting on him to stay strong.

Now Fenton was walking down the last corridor leading to the front of the school, where the detention hall was, and the middle school nurse, who split an office with the school therapist, who was booked for appointments into next month before she was scheduled to see him, and the principal's office. The lockers were orange and blue and yellow, and they all looked the same. He wouldn't miss being around this place. Fenton didn't bother going into the principal's office, he sat down on one of the benches in the lobby, and stared outside at the parking lot.



Fenton supposed the eviction notice was like him getting kicked out of school. It wasn't fair, it wasn't right, and there was nothing he could do about it. He'd just have to hope things would be better at the next place they found. Mom said she was gonna home school me if this happened, thought Fenton. But how's she gonna have time if she's looking for another place for us? What if we can't find a place that takes animals? What's gonna happen then? What's gonna happen to Beast? Without noticing he was doing it, Fenton brought his sleeve up to his mouth and starting chewing on the cuff. Then he caught himself. I haven't done it since last year, he thought. The therapist said I was cured of doing it. But I don't care if I am. I don't care. By the time his mother's car pulled up outside, Fenton had chewed a hole right through the cloth.

Six Blocks

They had just gone through a light and were passing a bar on the corner of the street. The night was warm and the sidewalk was crowded with people trying to get in.

"Look at them all, standing out there," said the passenger. "Bunch of faggots." Then he laughed, a weird, drunken laugh that hung in the air for a moment. The corner of his mouth twitched a little, and he fell back into his seat.

"I thought it was only six blocks," said David, the boy behind the wheel.

The passenger didn't look at him, but nodded his head hard up and down. "Yes it is," he said. "Six blocks."

"C'mon, man, we've been like twelve since I picked you up."

The passenger ignored him. "Hey, can I smoke in your car?"

"No way," said David. "I'm taking you home, and you've giving me directions. That's it."

They came to another light that was just turning red. Their car stopped, and David waited.

"Turn here," said the passenger, almost as an afterthought. "Go up this hill, and follow the road around." So David did. They were passing some beautiful houses now, ornate and historic looking. The streets were dark and very quiet.

"You know, this is just between you and me," said the passenger, as he pulled down the mirror above his seat, but turned to stare at David. "I work for one of those gay and lesbian groups. I'm a lawyer."

David seemed unimpressed. "Which one?" he asked. "The Human Rights Campaign?"

"No, no," said the passenger. "It's another one. I handle lots of stuff for them."

They came to the end of the road, and the passenger pointed ahead. "Hey, up here there's a shortcut. Drive through the parking lot, and turn right at the yellow building with the red roof. It's a barbecue place. They've got the best barbecue in town. I should know, I used to work there, too."

David did as he was told, and the parking lot came out on a street lined with tall apartment buildings.

"Here we are," said the passenger. "Park anywhere."

David pulled up behind a lime green VW bug, one of the shiny new ones. The license plate read "2LEGO".

His passenger hopped out, and David got out too. Coming down the sidewalk towards them was a group of two boys and girl, walking a dog. They were laughing. The passenger got right up behind them, and started asking questions, loudly. "It is a girl dog? What's her name? I hope you have a bag with you, in case she has to go. I'm always stepping in dog shit around here, that happened to me the other day when I was walking to catch my bus."

That made them all laugh harder, but they started walking a little faster down the sidewalk. When they had crossed the street, the passenger turned to David and said, "What'd you think of that?"

David tried to ignore him. "Which apartment's yours?"

"She was hot," said the passenger. "I'd do her. C'mon, it's right up here."

They got to the door and David paused. He immediately noticed the newspapers piled up, still in their plastic bags. And several empty glass bottles sitting next to a pile of phone books, plus a white garbage bag with two red handle ties pulled tight, but not tied. In the light from the outside lamp, David could see bugs flying around the top of the garbage bag. But he went inside anyway.

Inside the apartment, things were a much bigger mess. There were empty wine bottles everywhere. And beer cans stacked up in a wall behind a giant TV screen, which was on, a commercial playing, the volume muted. Books and magazines were piled on chairs and on the floor, and CD's and dirty clothes were strewn about haphazardly. Everywhere David looked he could see little pieces of paper, and other bits of actual junk, like empty wrappers, potato chip bags, even plates with dried-on food scraps, all mixed in with the rest of the clutter. The only things not in disarray were several reproductions of old movie posters stapled up to the walls, and David's eyes fell on one that read "La Dolce Vita," in bright red and purple colors, with a picture of a pretty woman in a sixties-looking dress.



His passenger was in the kitchen by now, rummaging through drawers. He came back out, smiled at David, and held out a glass container filled with nuts.

"Do you want some almonds?"

David shook his head. "I tell you what, man," said David. "Just show me where your computer is, and I'll look up the directions. You've got a printer, right?"

The passenger laughed. "God, I'm so fucking wasted right now. Good thing you came along and gave me a ride. Never would have made it back here by myself."

David just looked at him, and waited.

"Oh yeah," said the passenger. "My laptop’s right here," he said, and motioned towards a desk piled high with more junk.

There wasn’t a chair, so David had to bend over a little. Underneath a stack of papers and magazines, he spotted an expensive-looking laptop.

"You can sit on the bed if you want," said the passenger. It was a king-size bed, and it took up half of the room.

"No thanks," said David. "You got a chair?"

"No chair," said the passenger. This made him giggle.

"Whatever," said David. His legs already hurt from all the work he’d done earlier in the day, and now he was trapped in some rich, alcoholic slob’s apartment, trying to dig out a laptop that probably cost more than his own car from beneath a pile of the slob’s garbage, just so he could find some goddamned Mapquest directions back to his hotel. It was past two o’clock by now, for chrissakes.

"You can turn it on, but there’s no printer," said the passenger.

David paused for a second. "What?"

"My printer needs more ink," the passenger replied. "It’s totally out of ink. But I got a map around somewhere. We can look it up."

"No, I’ll write them down," said David. "The directions from Mapquest."

The passenger gave him a pen that said "Royal Crown Apartments" along one side, and David opened the laptop.

"Do you want to smoke?" asked the passenger, and sat down on his bed. "I’ve got some weed. I haven’t smoked any in over a year. It’s still good."

David shook his head.

"Look, I’ve even got a piece," said the passenger, and held out his hand. In his palm was a small, glass-blown pipe colored with swirls of dark blue and aquamarine.

David shook his head again. He pulled up the Mapquest site and typed in the address for his hotel, on I street, Southeast. The passenger had told him when he got in the car his address was 2527 Kensington Street, Northeast. David looked at the results and wrote everything down. The passenger sat on his bed the whole time.

"I never told you my name," said the passenger.

David ignored him.

"It’s Morgan," said the passenger. "Morgan Adams," he said, and fell back on his bed, giggling wildly.

"Nice to meet you," said David, and walked out of the bedroom, through the front room, and then out the apartment’s front door. Driving back to his hotel, he realized he’d left the handwritten directions lying next to the laptop. It was a lot further than six blocks before he noticed.

Fireworks

We always seem to end up in these situations. You know, the type where somebody's going to wind up unhappy, not because the other person was trying to be mean, or hurtful, but because of crossed signals. That's what I tell myself, at least. It was nobody's fault, and I shouldn't get mad about it. You'll see what I mean. The other night, we went to a party. There weren't a lot of people there, and it was hard to see them all, because it was on top of someone's roof, and dark.

It was the Fourth of July, and the reason for getting on the roof was to see the fireworks. Well, whoever lived there must have forgotten about the taller buildings that surrounded this four story place on two sides, which turned out to be the two directions where the fireworks were being shot off. So the show itself was actually pretty anti-climatic. But there were enough sparks flying in other directions to make up for it.



I knew there was going to be trouble once we got up there. I could feel things weren't going well already that night. We all had to climb up a long ladder from the fourth floor, and as we were standing around in the hallway, Amy told me not to try carrying the pizza box up the ladder. We'd stopped on the way to get pizza, and I had brought the box with us three blocks and up four flights of stairs. The pizza man was really nice, he was working in his store with one other guy, and it was twenty minutes before the fireworks were about to start. I told him if he didn't have customers, he should take a break and go outside to watch.

He said he would go up on the roof of his store, but maybe not, he had a lot of work to do. Then he told us about how much he liked the Fourth of July, said he'd gotten up early that morning with his kids to go watch a parade. All the while he was taking our pizza out of the oven, slicing it up, and making sure we had enough napkins and plastic forks. The friends we came with had gone across the street to buy beer, so it was just me and Amy getting the pizza. She wasn't saying much, and didn't seem mad, but I guessed she might be a little annoyed. She doesn't like it when I talk to strangers. I'm only trying to be friendly, but she gets embarrassed, or thinks it's obnoxious, or something.



Like a couple of days before that, we were on the subway, and having a silent argument about something silly, when I noticed the woman sitting right next to me was reading a book I've been wanting to read. In fact, it's a book really similar to another book I was reading the day before. I'm not even going to mention which books they were exactly, it doesn't matter. Just as long as you know both of them were similar. So when she started putting her book away to get up for her stop, I said, real fast, "Hey, if you like that book, you should read this other book, it's really good, too." That's all I said. And she looked at me, smiled, and got off the train.

Now, I admit I said that partially because I knew it would piss Amy off. But part of me was only trying to be helpful. I like that saying about how there are no strangers, just friends we haven't met. Amy thinks I'm obnoxious and no better than a crazy person when I pull this type of stunt. She says if someone said something like that to her in public, she'd be appalled. I think she's making a big deal out of nothing.

She didn't even admit right then that it had pissed her off, but got this vaguely upset attitude that lasted for a while. Finally she came clean, but it wasn't until later on that night, when we were fighting about the whole day's worth of arguments. That's when she threw the talking to strangers thing back in my face. I got really upset. I think I yelled at her, and said I was getting tired of her shit. Then later I apologized and told her I didn't mean to yell, and she apologized for being so annoyed, and we both agreed we weren't going to fight any more. That lasted the whole night, and part of the next day.

Amy gets annoyed a lot. Before we left the apartment where were staying to go to the party, she got annoyed with me about my pants. They were red, white and blue, for chrissakes! How could I not wear those pants on the Fourth of July? As best as I could tell, her problem with them was that they were too tight. And I was like, yeah they're tight, but have you noticed yet that they're very patriotic? Besides, why can't I wear whatever pants I want? You don't see me telling you to change your clothes just because we're going out in public. It's little things like that.

Or when we were walking around the city earlier that same day, trying to go some place and have a good time, she got annoyed with me being thirsty. I mean, the sun was blazing down on us, the sidewalks we were walking on, the buildings around us, and the cars and the pavement surrounding us on all sides. It felt like a hundred and five degrees. Every little kid in sight was lined up at the ice cream truck, chimes playing loud as hell. Old people we passed leaning out of their windows didn't even have the energy to fan themselves, it was all they could do to grab on tight to the windowsills and try to keep from falling out right there. Of course I was hot! What's so wrong about carrying around a water bottle? Same thing with getting hungry. And maybe I am hungry a lot. I've got a high metabolism. Sometimes I think it might be a tapeworm. I'm not saying the problem's all with her, none with me. I admit to being high maintenance. But people get hungry, people gotta eat. How can you get annoyed by basic human needs?



So we're on the stairwell, and now I'm the one being told not to carry up the pizza box, embarrassed in front of our friends, plus people we've never met before. And I don't really care, not like she does. I swear, you'd think she was running for class president the way she cares what people think about her. And what they think about me, which leads to more headaches. I wasn't planning to haul the pizza box up there to begin with, because that would be dumb, I might slip and drop it and have to watch helplessly as the slices flew down the stairwell, my stomach rumbling extra hard with every flight they fell. I just shrugged, and passed the pizza box up to the guy who was at the top of the ladder by now, the guy who lived on the fourth floor and was throwing this party, and he passed the box up onto the roof.

Look, I haven't even gotten to what happened at the party yet. And I could go on and tell the whole thing. It was dramatic enough, I mean, obnoxious and silly and crazy enough so that me and Amy broke up the next day, July 5th. But I think you'd agree, after all the other stuff so far, you probably don't really want to know. Who cares. It was like any other holiday party. Everybody was happy and having fun, except for the two of us, who were squabbling like cats and dogs over petty, trivial issues. But even before the fighting stopped, me and Amy were celebrating, too, in our own way. We were declaring our independence from each other.

Good Neighbors

Published April, 2007 in The Blotter Magazine

I've lived in Alamance County all my life. It's funny, but people have long memories around here. They'll remember stuff from a hundred years ago and talk like it was the latest outrage popped up just the other day. Not that you need a particularly long memory to get along in Alamance, lots of folks have moved in from someplace else, 'cuz they like the whole idea of living at least five miles down the road from the nearest Burger King, Winn Dixie, or Valv-O-Line oil change place. Throw in the cows, and little ponds under every second bridge, and you've got a suburbia waiting to happen for Greensboro yuppies and Chapel Hill city slickers.

Most everybody knows Alamance County 'cuz it was where the whole second half of Roots took place. No lie, that dude Chicken Legs? Kunte Kinte's friend, whatever his name was. Rednecks like to boast about how they've gone to spit or piss on his grave. It all happened right around Green Level, just 15 miles north of the Haw River. Alex Haley, even though he was from Indianapolis, he traced his family back right here, next thing you knew they had ended up in Alamance to try to start a farm or something. Some serious shit has gone down here, for real. And still does, on a lot of levels.



One thing that hasn't changed much is how you're not supposed to mess around with the local courts, or they'll fuck with you right back. That's how I ended up serving a two hour sentence the other week. I had gone to court for only one reason, because Mouse was about to go to jail, and he spent the whole weekend beforehand hanging out with me. He'd decided the previous Friday not to show up for a pre-sentencing hearing. He was tired of all the bullshit and figured he'd just do his time, get it over with. Probably end up with as little as eight months, but if the judge decided he didn't like him, he could face a year and a half. They had discretion like that. Which is why it didn't make too much sense for him to be skipping out on this hearing. His lawyer had to plead for a continuance.

It was part of the leftover mysterious ways of the local good ol' boys, whose kin were born and raised in Alamance since before the War Between the States. Maybe they couldn't completely control things any more, with a whole world of choices existing beyond Green Level and Graham, black folks being state troopers, and gay dudes owning antique shops in Burlington. But they could still make things tough for anybody unlucky enough to be poor and get in trouble with the law, whether you were black, white, Mexican, whatever.

So from Friday 'til Tuesday, I babysat Mouse while he slipped deep into a bender. He tried to make it extra special, knowing he'd be gone for awhile. Nobody was allowed to call him or know where he was, which was usually passed out on the floor at my place, high or drunk on some potent combination of stuff. Before getting caught for possession of mushrooms, Mouse had been on probation for a cocaine bust that happened to him almost three years ago. Three years probation over a traffic stop that yielded less than one measly eight ball of coke. But that's how the law around here keeps its pockets full. They'll put you on probation and keep you on for as long as they can, knowing you'll eventually fuck up. It costs a lot of money to get busted for drugs, besides! First they confiscate whatever stash you had, plus whatever money you were carrying, then calculate how much the drugs were worth, and charge you drug taxes on that amount, like you were a big time dealer who should have reported the illicit sales as income or something! What a crock of shit.

On Sunday afternoon, after we'd watched people say and do stupid things on this show Taxicab Confessions, beamed direct to my TV on one of the five new HBO's we get with our suburban cable package, Mouse let me know how he felt. He sat up from where he was slouched down against the living room couch, and looked straight at me.

"Jimmy, I don't wanna go in by myself," Mouse said, then right away again he passed back out asleep.

But I was convinced. So on Tuesday morning, we both walked into the courthouse, and I thought Mouse looked more at peace than I'd ever seen him. Ready to face down the judge, get his time, and be done with it. I wasn't so calm. Actually, I was already pissed off, about some other shit that happened to us down the road from my place, at the ExpressWay, where we stopped on our way into town.

Now, this was some typical Alamance County bullshit. I go in there, all set to pay for the gas, and there's this guy in line right ahead of me, trying to buy something. Not even a beer, or whatever, it was only eight o'clock in the morning. I think it was a box of crackers and a cheese sandwich. They're running his card when I step up behind him with my coffee, and almost immediately, his card won't go through. I hate when that happens. The clerk always looks at you like you don't belong in the store, and it's expected you'll come out with some lame story while you're fishing out another card, or scraping up the cash you need to pay. Only this guy didn't have a choice, beyond that card, it was pretty clear he was plain flat broke. And what do you think happened next?

Even though it's eight in the morning, okay, eight-thirty, there's still three of four other people in that store, just hanging out. No particular place to go. What the fuck, are they stopping by on their way to work or something? Do they wake up from dreaming, take a shower, and then hang out there all damn day long? So when this guy's card conks out, somebody starts snickering. Then another of them makes a comment. I could almost see the guy start sweating. He's going through his jacket, putting all the little shit he's carrying in his pockets out on the counter, looking for the money he obviously doesn't have. He tells the girl on duty he left his wallet at home, and walked there. Now they're all trading smiles, and everybody's up in his business, real casual, sneering, and mean.

I could feel myself getting red. I pulled out a five and laid it down, that was enough to pay for my stuff and his. You should have seen his face light up like a Christmas tree, embarrassed, but grateful. Everybody else shot me the evilest looks, like I'd blown their little game all to hell. I didn't give a fuck. I turned and left, and it got me thinking about how some people around here really don't know any better to begin with.

So you'd think I would have been prepared for what happened at the courthouse, but guess again. Just when you reckon you've seen the worst of human nature, somebody steps up to the plate and does something else to prove you wrong. That may be harsh, but it's a hard world filled with backwards folks sometimes, people. Deal with it.



We got seated, and the place was near full of bodies. Everybody with a reason to be there, bored, restless faces, and most people looking like they knew what to expect, having been through the motions before. Mouse's last name is Nash. His real name is Charlie, except he's short, and has red, beady eyes, you get the picture. They go alphabetical, so we figured it'd be awhile before his case got called. I could hardly believe he was looking at eight to eighteen months, variable, and still showed up, hung over, dazed and confused, but ready to face the music. Then again, what else could he do? The judge came in, we all stood up, and then sat down again. I didn't know this judge by name, but he was old and white, and one of the county's regular judges. Business as usual.

Soon enough, I was almost asleep faced with the steady drone of names and faces and stories being told before the court, most involving petty drug offenses, with the occasional assault and battery or domestic violence case thrown in. When Mouse poked me, we'd been there for nearly two hours already.

"Hey, man, check this guy out." Mouse pointed to the front of the courtroom, where a couple of the balliffs were helping somebody get up onto the witness stand. "He's not looking so good."

This guy was maybe in his mid-forties, and he needed help just finding his way across the room. We later learned his name was Gary, and he was half deaf and legally blind. When I first opened my eyes, I couldn't believe what I was seeing. One of the balliffs, this big dude with rolls of fat just spilling over his belly, he was actually snickering while he helped this guy Gary get onto the stand! Next Gary started feeling around for the bible, like he couldn't find it, and for a second it almost looked like the other balliff was waving it around a little bit in front of him! Then the fat one grabbed Gary's hand, real fast, and smacked it down on top of the bible, still grinning like a sick little kid.

Before I'd even had time to process all that shit, they sat him down and we began to hear the details of his case. First off, Gary was sort of mentally disabled, and had at least one life threatening disease, I think diabetes, so he was on disability. For a couple years, he'd been assigned to this one social worker, Miss Barnes, in another town the next county over. Then, she claimed she started feeling threatened by him, and took out a restraining order. A little while later, he supposedly violated it, and that's why he was in court that morning. Oh yeah, he lives in Alamance now, so they were trying him here.

Later, when they put Miss Barnes up on the stand, we found out he'd been sending her money along with little presents and cards for two whole years, a few dollars here and there, five or ten bucks sometimes. And that whole time she'd never said a word about it, or explained to him it wasn't necessary to do that for her. Like maybe just sat him down and said, hey, I don't need any presents or money, you don't have to thank me for helping you, it's my job. This is a man who has a family, he mentioned a wife and a little girl, for chrissakes, and that damn check is supposed to be feeding them.

For whatever reason, she was happy to get the money, and the candy, and whatever other presents he gave her. I mean, maybe he got a bit sweet on her. Who knows. I'm not even sure he knew the difference between gratitude and affection, from what he said on the stand. Bottom line was, after Miss Barnes filed the restraining order, he got switched to a different social worker. But right before it happened Gary's check was due to arrive. He'd been calling her about it, and she'd been stalling him for a couple of weeks. By the time he found out he got switched to the new social worker, it was the middle of the month, and he really needed to pick up his check. So he called over to the place, probably still not understanding exactly what was going on, and some dumbass told him sure, come on by to get it.

His brother drove him over there, and for some reason just dropped him off, then left. So he didn't even have a ride back. In fact, he was actually standing across the street from the Social Services building, not even on the property, when Miss Barnes just happened to be looking out the frigging window and saw him. That's when she called the police. Told them she was afraid he was stalking her, when anybody with an ounce of common sense could see the man was just trying to come pick up his check!

It went on in the courtroom like that for awhile. Gary had a court appointed lawyer, but he wasn't worth shit, and wasn't doing a thing for him. After what happened to me at the ExpressWay that morning, I was really starting to get hot. It wasn't only the good ol' boys in charge of the court who were coughing and grinning. I could hear people in the courtroom start chuckling too whenever he'd say anything on the stand that sounded a little strange. And the judge didn't give a fuck. He wasn't making fun of Gary like the others, but you could clearly see he had no sympathy for the guy.

It just wasn't right. Here's a man who deserves to have his case thrown clear out of court, and instead, when it came time to sentence him, the judge ignored everything Gary said in his own defense, all the holes in Miss Barnes' story, and gave him six months. Then they stood him up and started taking him away.

That's when I stood up, too. Mouse did a doubletake and looked at me in horror, suddenly more nervous for me than he was for himself. But I had to say something. I started off with "WHAT ABOUT HIS DIGNITY? LET THE MAN HAVE HIS DIGNITY, FOR CHRISSAKES! DIDN'T YOU HEAR WHAT HE SAID? THIS JUST AIN'T RIGHT! IT'S A TRAVESTY! IT'S AN OUTRAGE!" That's about as far as I got before the balliffs reached my side and pulled me out to the end of the aisle. The judge was banging his gavel, but I kept on shouting. So the judge cited me for contempt on the spot, and they straight yanked me out of the room, my heels dragging on the carpet.

I was locked up downstairs for two hours, and had to pay a $50 fine plus court costs. When they let me out, I had to leave the building for the day. Later I found out the judge gave Mouse eighteen months. No surprise there. Hopefully it wasn't any worse because of what I did. I wondered if he might see Gary while he was in. Crazy when you reach a point feeling more in common with the people locked up than you do with the ones who put them there.

You know, I don't want to say there's no good people in Alamance County. I'm from here, and I know there's lots of 'em. But I didn't run into too many that morning, except for the ones getting the short end of the stick. I guess when you stop and think about it, at the end of the day the answer's not very profound. It's really just a question of how you treat your neighbors.

Jane Jones is Fabulous

Published March, 2007 on MySpace

When I first saw Jane Jones, I said to myself, this is the coolest person I’ve ever met. Everything about her defined cool. And she showed up at exactly the right moment, because I needed help. I mean, I used to be a nerd. Even more of one than I am now. This wasn’t even when I was going through my raver phase and wearing big baggy pants and this huge orange terrycloth shirt that I wore for like, eight months straight. At this point, pre-Jane Jones, I was a major, full-on, clueless and shoeless walking fashion nightmare type cultural wasteland dweller from Cleveland, Ohio named Zack.

Well, five years later, I’m still Zack, and me and Jane are both still Virgos with Leo risings, but a lot of other stuff's happened. We’ve gone through thirteen boyfriends and girlfriends between us, gotten jobs together in more restaurants than I can count, left Athens, Georgia behind us forever, and moved to New York City to follow our dreams and reach for the stars. And being around Jane, some days when I wake up, I almost feel like some of her being fabulous has rubbed off on me too.

(Cont'd...)