CHAPTER 8
DARLING, YOU'RE SO PRETTY, IT HURTS
"Oh, fuck," Eve said.
"Oh, fuck," Roxy echoed.
"We should get out of...", I began, before a bullhorn interrupted me.
"Stay where you are!", the bullhorn blared.
We all froze, the three of us in a line. The cruiser drove away and began to make a u-turn onto our side of the street.
"Should we run?", Roxy asked.
"They said not to," I said.
"What they said won't mean anything if they can't catch us," Roxy said.
"No way! If they have to chase you, they can call that resisting arrest," Eve said.
"Are you sure?", I asked.
"No, I'm not!", Eve answered. "Forget running. Roxy, where's the joint?"
"Hidden behind my back," said Roxy.
The cop car had completed its turn and was rolling back towards us. It stopped by a gap in the fence. Eve inched closer to Roxy, until they were shoulder to shoulder. "Pass it here, quick!" Eve said.
Eve took the joint, hiked up her hoodie in the back, and shoved the joint into her pants. She slid back over to me, hissing in pain.
"What's wrong?", I asked.
Eve answered in a harsh whisper barely audible above Roxy's music. "What's wrong is that I just stuck a burning megajoint into my panties!" She squirmed about frantically, slapping her rear end. "Not a good idea! Help me put it out!"
"How?!" I asked.
"Slap it!" she said. I did so.
Roxy giggled. "Yeah, Aaron, smack that naughty ass!"
Eve couldn't help giggling at that. I could help it just fine.
"Sober up, both of you!", I hissed. "We're in deep shit if they catch on to the fact that we're high!"
And they would definitely know, I realized. No matter how good an act we put on, between the bloodshot eyes and the smell of marijuana all over… yeah, we were definitely screwed. What's worse, Tyrone's stash was sitting right there in Eve's backpack. The backpack was half-concealed behind the bench, but if the cops found and searched it, we were double screwed. Hell, we were screwed to the power of screwed. My mind raced trying to think of a way out.
"You don't think they'll strip search us, will they?" Eve asked. "Because… I can't take that. I'd sooner hand over the joint than..."
I shushed her. "Keep calm. They don't strip-search in public. They'll probably just frisk us."
Two cops got out of the car- a middle-aged man with a mustache, and a younger woman with a ponytail. They approached us, each holding a flashlight in the cop position- beside the head, gripped like a club, beam pointed straight ahead into our faces.
Roxy gasped. "Oh my god, what if they grope us?"
"I'm pretty sure that's illegal," I said.
"Since when has that ever stopped a dirty cop?", Roxy said, working up to a panic. "They'll just say we're ly-"
The mustached cop interrupted her. "Shut that music off!", he ordered.
Roxy turned off the music, as commanded. Mustache stood before us with a severe look on his face. "So, what's going on here?", the cop asked, with the tired air of somebody who could recite both sides of the coming conversation verbatim.
"Uhh...", Eve said.
"Dance party!", Roxy interjected.
"Yeah!", Eve said, too quickly.
"Dance party," the officer deadpanned.
We all nodded.
"In the middle of the park."
Again, we nodded.
"Why?", he asked.
"They card us at the clubs," I offered. Hey, it was true.
"Uh-huh," the officer said, disinterested. "You kids high?"
"No," we all said at once, shaking our heads.
"Uh-huh," the officer said. He pointed at the bench. "Line up. Standing. Where we can see all three of you at once." I had a feeling all five of us knew where this road we were walking led, and yet we walked it because a deviation was as pointless as a shortcut. We lined up. The ponytailed cop went down the line, shining her light into each of our faces in turn. "Bloodshot," she said. "All three of them."
Mustache nodded tiredly. "All right, kids, we can see your eyes, we can smell the pot, and we saw you with a joint from across the street. Now, we can do this easy, or we can do it hard. Who's got the stuff?"
None of us answered.
"We're going to search all three of you regardless. Tell us the truth, and it'll..."
"She's got it!" I pointed at Roxy.
"What?!" Roxy exclaimed.
"It was hers! We were just here to dance, but..." I babbled.
"You lying little…," Roxy growled.
"Quiet!", the mustached cop yelled, silencing us all. He pointed at me. "What's your name, kid?"
I swallowed. "Aaron."
"Aaron, you're looking pretty nervous right now. Something you want to tell us?"
"It.. it was hers, I swear, we all just planned..."
"Shut up," the cop said. I did. He waved me over. Nervously, I stepped forward. "Hold your hands out to the side, legs apart," he said. I complied and his partner patted me down. "Turn out your pockets," she said. I did so, turning over the contents to her. She inspected them and went through my wallet, then handed everything back to me. Then she checked my inside jacket pockets, finding nothing. "Hey, watch it...", I said.
Ponytail ignored me. "Clear," she said.
"Alright," mustache replied. He waved me back to the bench. I walked over and stood beside and slightly behind it, standing a little more relaxed.
"You next," mustache said, pointing at Roxy.
Roxy glared. "I don't have anything."
"You next," mustache repeated.
"If you want to find something, search her!" Roxy said, pointing at Eve. "Then you'll find someth..."
"She'll get her turn!", mustache said, raising his voice. "Get over here!"
Roxy walked over to the cops and assumed the position. The ponytailed cop started to pat her down. "Watch your hands!", Roxy yelled.
"Relax, girl," mustache said.
"I will not relax, your partner could be a secret molester for all I know!"
"We could do a strip search at the station, if you'd prefer," mustache said.
"That's a threat of sexual violence!", Roxy said. "What's your badge numb..."
"Tell it to the judge," mustache said.
Roxy stood still as the officer patted her down. She was silent until the search reached her hips. "Keep your hands off my ass!" She yelled.
"Ma'am," said ponytail, "I'm not touching your..."
"Fuck you! I know what a grope is! I'll have both your badges for this!", Roxy yelled.
"Tell it to the judge," mustache repeated sternly.
"I'm telling it to you, asshole!" And with that, Roxy slapped to mustached cop right across the face.
I saw the unspoken "Uh-oh" cross Roxy's face mere moments before she was tackled and wrestled to the ground. Ponytail held her down while mustache slapped handcuffs on her. Roxy struggled and protested, but was soon forced to submit. The cops lifted her to her feet, dragged her over to the bench, and sat her there with her hands cuffed behind her back.
She sat silent under the cops' stoic gaze. "Now," mustache said softly. "Sit down, shut up, and behave yourself, and we'll call that resisting arrest. Keep making a nuisance of yourself, and we'll call it assaulting an officer. Got it?"
Roxy said nothing. She just hung her head and stewed.
I glanced over at Eve to find her shifting nervously from foot to foot. From my position, I could see the joint sticking up from her pants. The jig was up as soon as she stepped forward to be searched. I wished that I could hold her hand, but she was too far away. With her back to me, I couldn't even catch her eye. Mustache pointed at her. "You next."
Eve hesitated. She was trembling. "Miss," mustache said. "Over here."
"Go on, Eve," Roxy said sneeringly. "Whatever are you afraid of?"
"No more out of you," mustache snapped, then waved Eve forward again. For a second I thought she was going to panic and make a run for it. But she took her appointed place. The ponytailed cop moved to frisk her, and immediately found the joint. "Marijuana cigarette, used," she said.
"And there we go," mustache said, unsurprised. The ponytailed cop stuffed the joint into an evidence bag and continued searching Eve. As she did, mustache lectured us. "You kids, you always think you're not going to get caught, don't you? Always think you can get out of it. Wave around a big fat reefer right in public and it ain't no big thing, is it?" He shook his head and pointed off to the car. "Get in, all of you. We're going for a ride."
"What?!", Roxy said. "The hell... she's the one with the joint! Why am I…?"
"Miss, your eyes are just as red as hers. Don't try and tell me you haven't all been sharing it. Move."
"Y-you don't know that!", Roxy sputtered. "This is…,"
Mustache sighed. "Tell it to the judge."
The ponytailed cop took Roxy by the arm and waved the rest of us forward, to the car. We walked. Mustache took a last look around the area. Roxy seethed as we went. "Fucking Eve! I'll get you back for this, bitch!"
Eve said nothing. She walked with her head down, ashamed of herself. I caught up and laid a hand on her shoulder. We said nothing, but she put her hand over mine and squeezed it.
"Wait," said Mustache. We turned to see him walk over to the bench, and pick up something from the stone pillar behind it. Eve's backpack. Eve went white as a sheet.
"That… that's not mine!", she called out, way too suddenly and way too fearful.
"Didn't say it was," Mustache said coolly. "Why, what's in it?"
"I… I don't know, it's not mine!", Eve said.
"Why so concerned, then?", Mustache asked.
"Oh, it's hers all right!", Roxy butted in. "Ask anybody at the high school, she carries it around every day."
"Roxy!", Eve screamed. Roxy didn't know about the stash in the backpack or the implications if it was found, but Eve certainly did. She saw the officer unzipping the pack and started to panic. "Y-you can't search that without a warrant! I know my rights!"
I took her hand. "Eve, settle down."
"B-but, they… they…", she looked back and forth from the cop to me, on the verge of tears.
"Eve!", I barked. Her eyes were instantly on me and me alone. "Just. Calm. Down," I said softly. "The officer is not going to hurt your drawings."
Her mouth opened and closed, making no sound. Confusion was written all over her face.
"Trust me," I added, looking her dead in the eyes with a firm look.
In her eyes I saw no understanding. But she squeezed my hand, clenched her mouth shut, and composed herself.
The officer rummaged through Eve's backpack, opening all the pockets, moving aside all the books, looking through her pencil case, and searching diligently for anything incriminating. But he wouldn't find anything. There was nothing to find.
I was not so high that I wasn't still thinking straight. The joint was always going to be found, that had been nearly certain. The stash was the problem. When I accused Roxy, I knew the cops would do one of two things- they would believe me and search Roxy, or they would think I was deflecting and search me. When they found nothing on me, they would probably search Roxy next, thinking I had been telling the truth after all. Either way, they would search Roxy before Eve. Because Roxy was Roxy, I knew she would give them a hard time. More so since she was freaking out about groping. I didn't expect her to actually take a swing, but even if not their attention would have to be focused on her. That left me standing by the bench, unobserved, with Eve's backpack sitting right beside me. I was only just able to reach Eve's backpack with one hand, allowing me to open the pocket, grab the stash, and toss it into the bushes behind me while Roxy was distracting the cops. Now, so long as Eve didn't blurt out anything incriminating and the cops didn't think to check the bushes, we would be okay.
Sure enough, the mustached cop found nothing in the bag. "All clear. Nothing but books and art supplies." He walked over and handed it to Eve. "See, kids, this is what pot does to you. Makes you all paranoid. People say, 'Oh, a little pot is harmless, you can't overdose, blah blah blah,' it is not harmless, it messes with your head. Why do you think addicts are always dumb as a pile of bricks. Get in the car, all three of you."
We were marched over to the car like a bunch of prisoners. Which I suppose we kinda were. Eve held her backpack close to her chest, and avoided meeting anybody's gaze. Roxy spent the entire car ride handcuffed, looking out the window, with a positively nasty sneer on her face.
Getting arrested was far from pleasant, but all told it could have been much worse. The state, in its wisdom, had decided that high schoolers with joints are not worth the trouble of putting through the legal system, at least not on a first offense. They let Eve and I off with citations. The cops called our parental substitutes to bring $200 each for the fines, and then spent ten or fifteen minutes lecturing us on the evils of marijuana while we nodded along in our best impressions of sincerity.
Roxy was not so lucky. Taking a swing cop was a much bigger deal. She was taken away for booking, and probably to spend the night in a cell. I felt bad for my part in it, but I consoled myself- or perhaps simply justified- that I had saved us all from getting caught with a pound of marijuana. Doubtful that Roxy would see it that way, though. Doubtful also that she would forget this anytime soon. So much for getting along.
After they tired of berating us, the cops sat Eve and I in chairs in an alcove to await our rides. They kept an eye on us, but otherwise left us alone to stew in guilt and worry. I slumped resignedly, mentally preparing myself for a boatload of trouble once Diane arrived. Eve sat scrunched in the chair, knees hugged to her chest, hood pulled up as far as it could go, face completely hidden. I nudged her gently. "You okay?"
Eve shook her head no.
I reached over and took her hand. She clasped mine tightly. "It'll be okay," I said.
It was a while before she replied. "Grace is going to kill me," she said.
I couldn't think of anything to say to that. "It'll be okay," I repeated, fully understanding what poor reassurance it was. I struggled to come up with something better. "It's not so bad. Grace has been busted before, right? Besides, this is really small in the big scheme of things. I mean..."
"Stop," Eve cut me off. She squeezed my hand a little harder. "Thanks, Aaron, but it's not helping."
So we just sat there in silence, holding hands.
Eventually, a cop called Eve's name. She looked up. "Your ride's here," the cop said.
Eve got up. I wanted to say something. "Good night"? "Good luck"? "Be safe"? Nothing seemed right, so I said nothing. Eve squeezed my hand one last time. Then my hand fell out of hers as she walked away.
I leaned back into the seat, tilting my head back to stare at the ceiling. I heard a familiar voice- Grace- yelling. The yelling got louder and louder. Finally, unable to ignore it, I rose and peeked around the corner. Grace was there in a riding jacket and pants, lambasting a cowering Eve in a red-faced fury.
"How could you be so stupid?!" Grace ranted. "Do you know how much trouble you've caused?!"
"I'm sorry!", Eve pleaded. "I didn't think..."
"Of course you didn't think! If you were thinking, you wouldn't have lit up in public in full view of everybody!"
"I'm sorry...", Eve repeated.
"Sorry doesn't make up for a two hundred dollar fine! Do you know where that comes from?! Out of the mortgage payment! How are we going to make up for it?!"
Eve's voice was trembling. "I didn't do anything that you hav..."
"Shut up!" Grace yelled, eyes wide with rage. Eve flinched as if struck.
"Ma'am," the cop at the desk said softly, "I'm going to have to ask you to calm down."
Grace squeezed her eyes shut, grit her teeth, grabbed at her hair as if to pull it out. Then she said, in a measured tone: "Eve, let's go. We'll talk at home." Grace stormed out and Eve followed behind her, head down, not looking back.
I returned to my seat, defeated. I ran my fingers through my hair, which I imagined was looking fairly haggard right now. As soon as Diane showed, I'd be getting the same from her as Eve had just gotten from Grace. What a fiasco this had been.
I sat there trying to figure out what I could say when Diane arrived. Some time passed- maybe ten or twenty minutes, I wasn't keeping track. Then the desk sergeant called my name. "Your ride's here."
I rose from my seat, straightened my clothes, and tried to stand upright. Face death with dignity.
I walked out from the alcove and over to the desk. "Thanks for coming, Aunt Diane," I said, trying to take control of the situation. "Look, I don't know what you've heard, but..."
I stopped. Both my feet and my words. The woman at the desk was not Diane. She was slightly older, with tangled, messy hair that a hairbrush had been unable to tame. She seemed to have dressed hurriedly, in jeans and a collared ladies polo shirt, with sneakers and a suede jacket. I hardly recognized her, it had been so long since she'd been in anything but that frazzled pink bathrobe.
"Hi, Mom," I said, the rest of my speech promptly forgotten.
For a second we just stood there, looking at each other across the space of several feet. I didn't know what to expect from her. She didn't seem to know what to do herself.
In the end, she crossed the distance between us and hugged me tight. I hugged her back, and heard her sob loudly in my ear. Like it had been forever since we'd seen each other.
The ride home was silent. Deafeningly silent, as it were. And after about three blocks, when it became clear that Mom wasn't going to say anything, I couldn't take it.
"I'm sorry about this, Mom," I said.
No answer.
"I'll pay you back out of my summer job," I added.
No answer. Mom just stared at the road. Distracting her while driving was probably not a good idea anyway, so I resigned myself to enduring the silence. Then she spoke.
"Drugs, Aaron?", Mom asked. Her voice quivered, but not in anger. If I had to put a word to it, that word would be 'agony.'
"It was just pot. And I wasn't smoking, my friends were." No need to tell her I had gotten high off the secondhand smoke.
"You can't do that stuff, Aaron, it'll ruin your life," she said.
I resisted the impulse to roll my eyes. "Meth ruins your life. Heroin ruins your life. Marijuana will be sold in Walgreens in ten years."
"But why?", she asked, a note of desperation in her voice.
That was a good question. I hadn't actually done anything, I just stuck around while Eve did. But even if Mom bought that, there was no way I was going to make Eve the bad guy here. She had enough trouble already. "Somebody had some, and I wanted to try it, so I asked. Look, don't worry about it. Pot isn't anywhere near as big a deal as it used to be. If it was, I'd be sitting in jail right now instead of getting a fine and riding home."
"Your friend is sitting in jail!", Mom said.
"That's because she slapped a cop," I said. "And I don't think she's my friend. Not after this, anyway."
A long silence.
"I'm sorry, Aaron," Mom said. "I'm so sorry. This is my fault for not being there for you."
I sighed. "No, Mom, that has nothing to do with it. Much as I wish it did."
"W-what do you mean?", she said, confused.
I snapped at her. "What I mean is if believing that is what it takes to get you off the couch and out of that bathrobe, maybe it'd be worth it!"
Tears came to her eyes, and I immediately regretted my words.
"Oh jeez... Mom… I'm sorry, I shouldn't be..."
"No," she said softly. "No, you're right. Aaron, I'm so sorry. It's just… I don't know what to do. Your father would have known. He always did."
Did he, though? Dad had been a good provider. He made sure we had everything- a house, two cars, a big-screen TV. I had a chest full of toys when I was young, and the latest video games and computers as I grew older. Mom had nice clothes- not designer labels, but pretty-, to wear when they went to dinner for special occasions. We took a week's vacation every summer. We weren't rich, but we were comfortable. And we were happy. And Dad worked hard to keep it that way. By the usual measures, that made him a success. And yet, all of it vanished along with him. Nothing left but memories. And the emptiness of loss. Was that the sum total of a man's life? A pile of junk that all gets thrown away when he's gone? If Dad knew everything, how did he leave us with nothing?
We rode in silence until we got back home. Mom parked the car in the driveway and we got out. It had gotten very late- almost midnight, in fact. Mom came around the car and walked up the walk, with me trailing behind her. She fumbled with her keys at the front door. As soon as it was open, Diane would be in front of us, wanting to know what was up. I tilted my head back and looked up at the sky. I remembered one day when I was five, there was a blackout in the evening. Since the TV wouldn't work, Mom and Dad and I had spent the evening sitting on these steps, looking at the stars. The stars shined this night just as they had then. Just as they did every night, twinkling faithfully, indifferent to the thousand turmoils that raged every day across all the earth. At least something could be calm and steady in all this mess.
"Mom, wait." I said.
Mom stopped fussing with the door and turned to me. I took a minute to gather my thoughts, then looked her straight in the eyes. "Dad's dead, Mom. He's not coming back no matter how long you wait on the couch. I don't like it, you don't like it, but that's how it is. You have to bury the past and go on with your life, we both do."
"Aaron… it's so difficult," she said. "He always took care of everything, and I don't..."
"Yes, that's right, he took care of everything, and why? Because he wanted us to be happy. That was his life's work, and he worked hard on it everyday. How do you think he feels when he looks in on us from the great beyond and sees you lying around miserable like everything he did was for nothing? We have to find our own happiness now, without him. You can't just lie around the rest of your life and be a burden to Aunt Diane."
"I don't..." she clenched her eyes tight to hold back the sobs. "You say it like it's easy, Aaron..."
"It's not easy, I know that as well as you, but it's necessary. We can't let Dad's life be for nothing. We have to use what he gave us to..." To what? I barely even understood what I was saying. "Mom, you don't owe me anything. You haven't wrecked my life in any way. But seeing you on that couch being miserable all the time makes me miserable as well. And Diane too. I wish that we could get you off that couch and make you happy again, but we can't. All we can offer you is our shoulders to cry on. So get that crying done, and then get up, fix your hair, and get on with living again. Because the world's not going to wait for you."
Mom leaned her head forward against the door frame. She heaved a heavy sigh. "Aaron..."
Before she could finish, the door swung open and we both turned to see Diane standing in the doorway. One look at us and she knew she had interrupted something serious. But, what could you do in that situation? Leave them standing awkwardly on the step?
"Everything okay?" Diane asked.
Mom didn't answer, so I did. "Ah… yeah. About as much as it could be under the circumstances."
"Well, come in," Diane said. "Dinner's in the fridge, make yourself a plate and we'll talk while you're eating."
We walked inside and Diane shut the door behind us. "I'm not hungry, thanks. I'm just gonna crash." I was actually very hungry- munchies, I suspected- but I was also exhausted.
Diane grabbed me by the arm as I tried to make for the stairs. "Oh, I insist. We have a whole lot to talk about tonight, wouldn't you say?" She had an angry look in her eyes that told me I was going to get bitched out like you wouldn't believe.
"Let him go, Diane," Mom said. "It's been a long night for everyone, we can talk in the morning."
Diane looked from me to Mom and back again. Screwed her face into a thoughtful look, and finally let me go. "Well, alright, I guess it has been a long night. But we will be talking in the morning."
"Got it," I said. "Good night Mom, Good night Diane."
I tromped up the stairs, stopping at the upstairs bathroom before heading to my room. By the time I was out of the bathroom, I already heard Mom and Diane talking downstairs. I couldn't hear what was being said, but Mom was sobbing. In fact, she was bawling her eyes out. I left them to it and went to my room, shutting the door behind me.
In my room, I unloaded my pockets on the desk and started preparing for bed. What a night it had been. I had to wonder if I could have done something different. Maybe if I had followed my instincts and not shown up at the fountain tonight, Eve wouldn't have gone ahead with her plan. Maybe she wouldn't have gotten in so much shit. I'd been trying to help her out, but was I really just enabling her bad ideas? Or maybe it was better that I was there after all. Maybe if I hadn't been, Eve would have been caught with Tyrone's stash.
I took my phone and sent her a text. "Are you home?" A second later, I sent another. "Are you okay?" No reply. Probably she was already in bed. Or maybe her network was crapping out again. I hoped she was okay. Hoping was all I could do. I couldn't protect Eve from her mistakes any more than I could talk Mom out of her depression. I felt so useless. Was there really any point to it? What good was it to love someone if you couldn't do anything to help them?
I didn't know, I couldn't know, and anyway it was too late for this shit. Tossing my phone onto the desk, I crashed face-first into my bed. Within moments I was asleep.