A/N Philippa slinks in, looking around guiltily. So, my writing this summer didn't go at all the way I had envisioned it. Sigh. It's been a preposterously long time since I updated. I can say I have every intention of finishing this story. I have not lost interest in it, I do not have writer's block, I am not eloping to Maui with a Filipino surfer (more's the pity). I'm just being hit hard by the realities of graduate school. All that to say – the updates may be slow, but I promise they will keep coming, and I'll try hard to make them worth the wait!
Enormous thank yous to all reviewers! You guys are the reason I write!
Chapter 9
"We've got a job that needs done, Curtis, and you're the man for it," Rackley hissed.
Darry's warning was clear in my head. Don't you do anything to get into trouble, but I also remembered Rackley's threat. There are thirty fulltime teachers and staff, but there are three hundred of us. The only option that might get me out of this unhurt was to tell the truth.
"I can't!" I whispered frantically.
"Can't is not in your vocabulary, Curtis," Rackley seethed, grabbing me by the arm and hauling me out of bed.
"It's my brothers," I begged. "They called me this evening. They're working to get me out, but I can't do anything to get in trouble or I'll blow the deal."
"He's telling the truth," an unexpected whisper came out of the darkness. I'd thought that Rackley and I were the only ones awake, but Wilson swung himself down from his bunk. "He did get a phone call."
"How very nice for him," Rackley whispered sarcastically. "But it doesn't work that way in here. There's only two sides, Curtis, us and them. Are you telling me you want to defect?" He grabbed the front of my pajamas so that I was forced to stand on my toes while he breathed down into my face.
I looked up into his fierce eyes and remembered Pemberton, who would never walk again. I knew without a doubt that Rackley wouldn't hesitate to make sure I ended up in the same condition. "What do you want me to do?" I asked.
"You sure about this, Curtis?" he sneered. "Sure you wouldn't rather work for privileges?"
"Yeah," I muttered. "I'm sure."
"Get back in bed, Wilson," Rackley ordered, and the younger boy obeyed immediately. "Ok, Curtis. Here's what you're going to do." He pressed a key into my hand. "Trill's room is in the next dormitory."
"I know," I whispered. I'd seen it when I was scrubbing floors.
"He always sleeps with the door open so he can hear if anyone gets out of bed. There's a cupboard on the wall straight across from the door. The key will open it. On the top shelf on the right hand side there's a box with the razors in it. Take one out, lock the cupboard, and come back."
In other words, steal right under the nose of the enemy. "Anything else?" I asked, a little sarcastically.
"Yeah, be quiet. Trill's a light sleeper."
Great, I thought. Just peachy. I put the key in my mouth so that I wouldn't drop it on the way. Hopefully I wouldn't swallow it either. Wiping my sweaty palms on my pajamas, I took a deep breath.
"Get going," Rackley hissed. "The sooner you're back, the more sleep we get."
Resisting the urge to say something rude in return, I took one final breath and tiptoed out into the hall and to the doorway of the next room. It seemed like every board in the place had a distinctive creak that night. I moved slowly, silently sliding my feet instead of stepping, but it didn't help much. The squeaking and groaning seemed louder and louder until I thought it rivaled an orchestra tuning up for a big show, but none of the sleeping boys stirred. I wondered if they had been warned that I would be coming through.
The doorway to Trill's room stood wide open, just as Rackley had promised. I paused there and gripped the wood with my hands, trying to make them stop shaking. I could hear hoarse breathing from the direction of what must be the bed, although I couldn't see a thing. His room didn't have a window, so the only light was a little moonlight that came from the room behind. A terrifying thought hit me. What if Trill had booby trapped his floor? There was no way I would ever be able to avoid anything like that in the darkness. Panic flooded my mind and I had to force myself to breath deep and slow and push ideas about tripwires away. Rackley hadn't said anything about traps, and surely this wasn't the first time they'd snuck in here.
When I was as calm as I figured I was going to get, I forced myself to ease forward. My eyes kept straining through the darkness, but I didn't see the cupboard until my nose practically ran into it. I almost sighed in relief, but caught myself just in time as I pulled the key out of my mouth and wiped it on my pajamas, then felt along the edges of the door for the keyhole. Miraculously, I got the key in on the first try. It made a slight scraping sound as it entered the lock, but Trill's breathing didn't alter. Tightening my sweaty grip, I turned the key. The lock clicked. Across the room, the hoarse rasping hesitated.
How long had it been since I heard a sound? A minute? Five? Then Trill's breathing resumed, and I realized it had only been a second, two at most. My hands were shaking again, and I had to wait half a minute before I could pull open the cupboard door, praying that it wouldn't squeak. It didn't.
The razors were exactly where Rackley had said they would be. I found the box with my fingers, noiselessly lifted one off the top, and stuck it between my teeth. My hands heavy with dread, I shut and relocked the door, but the tiny click didn't seem to disturb Trill this time. Tucking the key back into my mouth, I moved as quickly as I dared, wanting only one thing in life – to get back to bed.
The return trip passed in a kind of blur. One moment I was holding my breath and sneaking through the strange room. The next, I was beside my own bed where Rackley was sitting, waiting for me. I dried off the key and razor and handed them over without a word, then crawled gratefully beneath my blanket.
I lay awake for a long time, shaking a little and trying to figure out why I was so scared. I'd done plenty of sneaking around in my life, but none of it had ever affected me like this. Part of it was because I was scared of messing up and being kept away from Darry and Soda forever, but I think most of it was because of that place. Somehow, when they locked us up so tight and took away everything that was beautiful or interesting or comforting, a little seed of fear could sprout and spread faster than crab grass during a rainy summer. As I finally drifted off to sleep, I wondered if Robert Frost had ever written a poem about anything like. I would have to ask Miss Meriwether when I got back. When, I told myself firmly. I refused to think if.
I felt on edge the whole next day, like maybe Trill had seen me in his room after all and was just waiting for the right moment to pounce on me, but nothing happened. At first I couldn't figure out why the theft hadn't been discovered as soon as we all got up and dressed for the day, but then I remembered what Wilson had said about only being allowed to shave every other day and figured that this must be an off day. But tomorrow Trill would discover what had happened, unless...
Unless Rackley planned to make me put the razor back tonight. I didn't know if that thought of having to repeat last night's performance was worse than Trill finding out a razor was gone or not.
"You seem a little jumpy, Curtis," Wilson commented. A storm had kicked up outside and every crack of thunder was making me jerk. Wilson had a knowing look on his face, though, and I bet that he knew it wasn't the storm that made me nervous.
"I'm fine," I muttered, bending over my math homework.
Wilson silently scribbled on his own paper for a while, and then he whispered, "Are your brothers really going to get you out?"
"They're trying," I whispered back. "They have a lawyer."
"Think they got a chance?"
"Yes," I insisted, a little too loudly. Heads turned in our direction, and I tried to appear absorbed in my work. When everyone had stopped paying attention, I whispered very softly, "My brothers ain't gonna let me go."
"That's cool," Wilson replied, a strange lack of emotion in his voice.
I suddenly wondered if Wilson had anyone on the outside working to bring him home, and whether Rackley or any of the other guys I'd met did. Maybe that was why they were so intent on breaking themselves out – because they were the only ones who could.
There was no chance of my sleeping that night. I lay tense and wide awake under my blanket, waiting for the invisible hand to touch my shoulder or clap over my mouth. Hours – I suppose it was only two or three but it felt like ten – dragged by, until at last, my eyes straining through the darkness, I saw what I had been waiting for as Rackley silently rose from his bed. Thinking it better to pretend that he found me asleep, I closed my eyes and waited. I waited until I felt as though the entire room had gotten up and surrounded me, and then my eyes flew open only to see that the space by my bed was empty.
I sat up a little and squinted around. I could just make out two forms, tall and short. After a moment, the short one glided to the door and disappeared. Rackley leaned against the post of the bed, waiting as he had for me the night before. Given his position, I guessed that Wilson had been elected for this mission, whatever it was.
Relief flooded through me, and I went limp against my mattress as my tension disappeared. I wouldn't have to go through the ordeal again after all. Apparently I had satisfied Rackley with my first performance, and maybe by the time my name came up on the rule breaking rotation again, I would be out of here. A crack of thunder rent the air outside, but it no longer made me jump. Instead, I thought gratefully that the noise would make it harder for Trill to hear Wilson sneaking into his room.
A leaden weariness accompanied the release, and my eyes closed almost before I told them to. I was just sinking into a dream where Sodapop and a hundred packs of cigarettes were waiting for me on a sunny beach, when I was suddenly jerked back out of it. Dazed by sleep, I lay still for a moment, trying to figure out what had woken me up, before it became obvious. Heavy footsteps, audible even over storm, were marching down the hallway. They came into our room, and a moment later the lights snapped on.
"Everybody up!" snapped Trill.
All around me, boys were scrambling out of bed and standing stiffly by the ends of their bunks, so I did the same. I was in position before I got a good look at Trill. He had Wilson by the ear, twisting it upward so that the guy had to stand on his toes to keep it from being ripped off his head. I snuck a glance down the row and saw Rackley standing calmly by his bunk, as though he'd never been away from it.
Trill marched Wilson into the center of the room and the whole time he spoke, he kept turning slowly around to face each of us in turn, dragging the boy with him. "One of you has been caught in a serious crime," Trill proclaimed, looking happier than I had ever seen him. "Can anyone guess what that crime might be?" He made an entire revolution, waiting for an answer although no one was dumb enough to open their mouths. "Theft. This rodent, this louse, this blot upon the country's economy, actually tried to steal something. I hope you all know that the punishment for stealing in this institution is always immediate and severe." His eyes seemed to linger on me as he finished, and my heart froze in my chest.
Trill suddenly thrust Wilson away, so that he staggered and nearly fell. His ear was bright red. "Now, Wilson," Trill almost purred. "You're choice is before you. Can we deal with this now? Or would you rather wait and bother Mr. Warden with it in the morning?"
Wilson's face went white, with fury I think, but he said what I knew he would. "I'd rather not bother Mr. Warden, thank you, sir."
"Then you know what we'll need. Go and get it please."
Wilson turned and walked out of the room. At first I couldn't believe my eyes. Wasn't it obvious that he would make a break for it? But Trill waited confidently, not even bothering to watch the door, and in under a minute Wilson was back, carrying a long, slender wooden rod. He handed it wordlessly to Trill, who took it and caressed its length as though it were something precious.
"Strip, Wilson," he commanded.
I thought I saw Wilson's jaw clench, but he obediently took off his pajamas and stood in front of us all, stark naked. I hadn't quite realized how skinny he was, but even from a distance I could have counted the ribs on his side and the knobs of his backbone.
"Fifteen strokes is the punishment for theft," Trill announced. "Who will count for me?"
"I will," Rackley said immediately, stepping forward.
I stared at him in disbelief. After all his grand speeches about privileges and punishment, and all his threats about what he would do to me if I ever defected to the other side, how could he have the gall to participate in his friend's punishment? The friend who had only been following his orders.
None of the others seemed surprised by his behavior, not even Wilson who just stared stoically at the far wall. Trill began to circle his victim, flexing the rod back and forth in his hands and leering. Suddenly, with no warning, the cane flashed out and cracked across Wilson's back. A red welt appeared straight along his shoulders.
"One," Rackley said clearly.
Trill nodded a little, like he was particularly pleased about something, and made another circle. The second hit came exactly like the first, with no warning, and another line appeared a little lower, exactly parallel with the first. During these and all the strokes that followed, Wilson gave no indication that he was aware of the pain. His stood straight, eyes open and focused, hands loose by his sides, absolutely silent.
I was ready to scream though, by the time the last blow fell, precisely on the back of his knees. Wilson staggered and nearly fell, but he made no sound and no expression of pain crossed his face.
"Fifteen," Rackley intoned.
Trill smiled as he stepped back and admired his handiwork. Wilson's body, from his shoulders to his knees, looked as though someone had taken a ruler and a red felt pen to it. "You may all return to bed," our tormentor announced. "And if anyone else puts so much as a toe out of this room, you will all be punished."
We immediately crawled back into our bunks. Wilson climbed up to his slowly, carrying his pajamas in his teeth, and fell face first across his pillow. I thought I saw him trembling, but the next second the lights snapped out and I couldn't be sure.
What I could be sure of was that I didn't sleep a wink the rest of that night. Wilson's horrible punishment was obviously what disturbed me the most, but Rackley's betrayal ran a close second. I passed an hour or so imagining the things I'd do to him if I ever caught him alone on my own territory, or if I ever caught him alone, period.
If felt good to replace my anxiety with anger for a while, but gradually I fell to worrying about Darry and Soda again. I hoped that they weren't too anxious about me, not that it wouldn't have been justified given what had just happened to Wilson, and that they weren't going to do anything stupid in their plan to get me out. I wondered how they were going to pay for that lawyer Darry mentioned, and then I was seized with the awful idea that Darry was going to mortgage the house. We owned it free and clear and it was one of the reasons we had been allowed to stay together, since we had a decent place to live. But I couldn't see any other way my brothers could come up with that kind of money, and my certainty brought on a whole new set of worries. How would we ever pay a mortgage? What would happen if we lost the house? Would being in debt act against Darry's custody rights?
By the time the wake-up bell clanged, I felt like something the cat had dragged in. The nights of poor sleep were really catching up with me, and I was stiff all over from tension. But I knew that it was nothing compared to what Wilson must be feeling. My eyes darted to his bunk but it was empty, and he was nowhere in the room. Neither was Rackley.
Partly because I was tired and partly because I was so busy thinking I couldn't spare much attention to the things around me, I was the last one out of the dormitory. I was just tightening my shoelace when Rackley came in. Not paying me any attention, he walked briskly to his bunk and dropped to his knees to put something back in his drawer. I stared at him, all the anger inside suddenly twisting into an explosive knot.
Rackley stood and hurried back toward the door. Before I even knew I was going to do it, I leaped in front of him and socked him in the stomach. He gasped and staggered backward. I moved in to follow it up with a hard punch to his chin, but before I could connect, Rackley grabbed my arm and forcefully swung me around, then shoved me up against the wall, my arm pinned painfully behind me.
"What the hell are you doing?" he demanded, obviously furious but keeping his voice low so that we wouldn't attract attention.
I struggled, but it was no use – he was too big. The only reason I'd gotten in the first hit was because I'd taken him so off guard. "Traitor!" I hissed. "Filthy two-face! What happened to all your talk about taking punishment over privileges, huh? I can't believe everyone else in this place acts like you're some kind of big deal, when all you are is a damn phony!"
Rackley spun me around and rammed me back into the wall, pushing his forearm tight against my collar bone to keep me in place. "Curtis, you have five seconds to explain yourself."
"You counted for Trill!" I practically spat. "If that's not begging for privileges, I don't know what is!"
He let me go so suddenly that I fell forward and only just caught myself from landing on my knees. I clenched my fists and glared at him, but his face was suddenly, eerily, calm.
"Did you want to count for Trill?" he asked quietly.
I snarled back, "I'd rather get beat myself."
Rackley nodded, as though that was the answer he expected. "You and every other guy in this room. But somebody had to do it, you understand? Or he would have punished everyone." I know my shock must have shown on my face because he looked contemptuous and then he said, "You're just lucky it wasn't your back I was counting down, Curtis. You were slated to put back that razor. One guy runs the job all the way through, that's how we do it."
"Then why wasn't it me?" I asked, still feeling stunned.
"Wilson asked for it," Rackley said briefly, then turned his back on me and walked out.
I didn't get a chance to talk to Wilson until that evening in the study room. He glanced up as I slipped into the seat next to him but didn't say anything.
"Rackley told me you asked for the job last night," I whispered, glancing around to make sure no one was trying to listen in. "Why'd you do it?"
Wilson kept moving his pencil down his math problem, and for a minute I thought he wasn't going to answer. But then he said softly, "You got a real chance of getting out of here. Not like the rest of us. Why foul that up?" There was a strain of sadness in his tone that I'd never heard before.
I couldn't think of anything to say. Words just don't quite cover it when a guy you barely know takes a beating to give you something he can never have. I grabbed my pencil and scribbled our address across the corner of a page, then tore it off and pushed it toward him. "If you're ever in my area, look me up," I said. "We got a couple of spare beds."
For a minute I thought he wasn't going to take it, but then he folded the scrap up and slipped it into his pocket. "Thanks."
We worked in silence for awhile, and then I finally asked a question I'd been dying to know the answer to since the moment I arrived. "Hey Wilson," I muttered.
He looked at me cautiously. "What?"
"Is there any way a guy can get a cigarette in this place?"
I tried to keep the desperation out of my voice, but I don't think I did a very good job. Wilson suddenly looked amused, although I didn't see anything funny in my situation. "Weed fiend, huh?"
"Something like that," I muttered.
He nodded. "I'll see what I can do."
"Thank you," I whispered fervently, and turned back to my own work.
I was half ashamed of how desperate my craving had become, particularly when I had so many more severe problems than no cigarettes. But my addiction was firmly fixed, and with each day of deprivation, my cravings got worse until they were like a horrible itch. I could be distracted for a little while, but the moment my attention was free, the driving need for a smoke popped back up. I didn't know what, if anything, Wilson was actually going to do, but I was pathetically grateful even for the promise of relief.
The next day I was finally assigned my own work rotation. I scrubbed toilet in the morning, and then that afternoon I got kitchen duty. There were five cooks, all of them men. They seemed to be in some kind of pecking order, with the more senior cooks getting to choose their helpers first. In the end, there was only me left for the last cook, a dumpy little man with a fringe of gray hair and fat lips that pursed together like they were held by a drawstring.
"I always get the new ones," he grumbled as he beckoned me back to a storeroom filled with bins of vegetables, but once we were out of sight of the other cooks, his grumpy expression disappeared. "You a friend of Wilson's?" he asked.
"Sort of," I answered carefully.
He nodded and pointed at a bin of potatoes, next to which was a ten gallon bucket and the biggest bowl I had ever seen with a knife resting in the bottom. "Peel those," he ordered, sinking into a chair and propping his feet up on another bin full of onions.
"How many?" I asked.
"Until the bowl is full," he directed, tilting back the chair on two legs and folding his arms over his chest as his eyes drifted closed.
He sleeps while I work? I thought in disgust. I was so busy mentally cussing his lazy behind that I almost missed his next sentence:
"When you're done, we'll go outside and have a smoke."
As the words sank in, my jaw dropped a little, and then I sat down hard on the little stool intended for me and grabbed for the knife. I have never peeled potatoes so fast in my life, but it seemed that the more I threw in the bowl, the bigger it got. At last, when the mound was just starting to curve above the rim, and when I was sure that my fingers didn't have the strength left to grip one more potato, the cook opened his eyes. He looked at my bowl, nodded once, and said, "They never understand how I get so much done with just one guy. I tell 'em I stand over you with a belt." Laughing to himself, he got up from the chair and walked to the far end of the storeroom with me hot on his heels.
There was a door there that you couldn't see from the entrance to the kitchen. The cook pulled a key out of his pocket and opened the door, and we both stepped outside. It was windy, and the wind smelled of rain and grass and all kinds of growing things – the perfect weather for just smoking and dreaming. (I admit, any weather would have seemed perfect at that moment.) There was a stack of old crates with a little space between them and the wall. The cook motioned me in, and I sidled in and perched on the edge of a box. My hands shook as he passed me one cigarette and one match, then stood at the entrance to my little hidey hole, lighting up himself.
At first I couldn't even bring myself to strike the match, but lifted the perfect white cylinder to my nose and took a long, glorious sniff. When I was sure my hands were steady enough, I lit up. The first deep drag was heaven, and so was the second and the third and the fourth. I made it last as long as possible, smoking right down to the very tip of the butt until I singed my fingers and dropped it with the pain. The cook had already finished, and when he saw that I was done, beckoned me out so that we could return to the storeroom.
He shrugged. "What's it matter? What matters is, I got cigarettes and you got hands that peel potatoes. See you in two days."
"Couldn't I come back tomorrow?" I pleaded.
"You wanna get caught? Nobody messes with Mr. Warden's duty roster."
I saw the sense in that and didn't argue further, but I was pretty sure eternity would have come and gone by the time two days passed.
I don't know whether smoking with Hank helped or not. The relief only lasted an hour or two, and then the old itch was back until my next kitchen duty. But they did give me something to look forward to and created a break in the routine. I ruefully remembered my failed intention to cut back on smoking for track, and fervently wished that I'd had the determination to do it then. If I'd gotten down to one, instead of my usual two, packs a day, then maybe I'd only be half as miserable now.
It was five days and two cigarettes later that a messenger from Mr. Warden's office pulled me out of English class. Ever since Wilson's beating, I could hardly stand to look at Trill, so at first I was so happy to be escaping thirty minutes of his presence that I forgot to wonder why I had been summoned. We were halfway there before I thought to ask, "Do I have a phone call?"
"No," the messenger said curtly.
And that was when I panicked. Except for phone calls, there were no good reasons for going to the Warden's office. Smoking behind the kitchen was the first thing I thought of, followed immediately by the escapade with the razor. Or perhaps I had broken one of the Home's many rules and not even known it. But it didn't really matter. Wilson had told me that the Warden had only one punishment for all crimes great or small – solitary.
My palms went sweaty as my heart began to race. I considered making a run for it – the only thing that stopped me was the thought that perhaps double crimes meant double time in the closet. Oddly, the true explanation for what was going on never occurred to me, even though it had been in my thoughts almost constantly from the moment I was dragged by the cop onto the bus.
I slunk into the office expecting damnation or the next thing to it. What I saw was Darry, my brother, waiting for me with open arms and smile that said that, somehow, he'd won.
To Be Continued
A/N Aw, no traumatic cliffhanger. My evil genius must be slipping!
