Court
The Friday morning after the failed dinner at Lorelai's, Luke left Caesar to open the diner and dragged Jess to the high school administration office to get him enrolled. However, the man who greeted them told Luke that he would either need to show proof of guardianship or bring a parent in to complete the process. Jess turned on his heel and walked out, leaving Luke behind to find out what was involved in becoming a guardian.
When Luke called Liz later that morning to tell her that she would have to go to Probate Court to appoint him as Jess's temporary guardian, she immediately began to complain about calling into work and the hassle it would be to get to Connecticut. Luke squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose.
"Either you come here, or Jess goes back to New York," he said angrily.
"Fine! Fine. Fine. I'll take a bus Monday."
"And bring the rest of his papers with you. You sent him here with nothing, Liz. Birth certificate, immunization records, I need all of that to get him in to school!"
"I don't…I'm not sure where they are."
Luke massaged his forehead roughly, wishing it were possible to reach through the phone. "Just…Find them. You have to, or Jess is back in New York. And while you're at it, bring a few of his books with you." He slammed the phone down and leaned against the desk, sighing heavily.
He explained the situation to Jess that evening, and the flash of anger and alarm that he saw on his nephew's face weighed on him heavily. He knew how Liz was, and clearly having a kid hadn't helped.
"Listen, Jess, you don't have to see her. I called the court earlier, and only she and I need to be there, so you can just, y'know, stay here if you want. Hopefully it won't take long."
Jess, gaining control of his face, gave Luke a small nod. Thinking about his mother coming into town made his stomach churn. To try to distract himself, he began to make a mental list, as he often did, of everything he wanted to do when he turned eighteen. Since the first time he'd read On the Road, Jess had longed to trace Kerouac's steps across the country. He imagined Big Sur and northern California. The pictures he'd seen in books flashed through his mind's eye: the rocky coast and the fog creeping in among twisted trees. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. The year ahead stretched out in front of him, interminable, mocking.
He spent the weekend doing everything in his power to stay busy. The sticky fingers he'd had to use occasionally in New York were put back into practice when he spotted some donation money for a bridge. He was of the opinion that that money would be put to better use if it were donated to his pocket and promptly used it to purchase a few things for the plan he had concocted to annoy Taylor. Mostly though, he kept himself to himself, reading and walking and exploring what there was to explore.
Monday, though, felt like an eternity. He'd always hated being locked inside, and despite the fact that he'd rather eat one of Luke's flannel shirts than run into his mother, by two o'clock that afternoon, he was going stir-crazy. He alternated between playing Solitaire and reading for a couple of hours. He practiced a couple card tricks. Then, he searched Luke's apartment for CDs and, although he didn't find much, he did make a mental note to make fun of Luke later about the Jimmy Buffett shirt he found in his closet. He ate and took a shower, mostly to have something to do. Eventually, he resorted to turning the TV on and flipping through the channels distractedly.
By the time Luke made it back to the diner, he was exhausted. He had left Caesar in charge again with the understanding that he would take over when he got back, but when he walked in, he realized he didn't have the energy, so he helped Caesar close up early. He paused on his way up the stairs, dreading the conversation with Jess. To his immense relief, however, Jess was nodding off on the air mattress with a book on his chest. Luke sighed. It had been a long time since he'd seen his sister, and it had not been a pleasant reunion. She'd looked haggard and angry and had resented all of his questions about Jess, some of which she hadn't even been able to answer. They'd ended up arguing outside of the courthouse after the petition to appoint Luke as Jess's temporary guardian had been approved. Liz had narrowly avoided a court-ordered investigation, but he suspected that if someone were to inspect her apartment in New York, the word "neglect" would get thrown around a lot. He had left in disgust and gone straight to the school with all of Jess's papers to sort out enrollment. The unpleasant man at the front desk had said they would contact Jess's previous schools for his records and that Jess could start classes in a day or so. Luke clenched his teeth together. Jess's education was one of the questions Liz had been unable to answer. She had no idea how his classes had gone the year before, and considering everything, Luke was apprehensive. He looked back at Jess, noticing how much smaller he looked when he was asleep, and decided to make dinner for the two of them.
Jess woke up as Luke started to move around the kitchen. He shuffled over to the kitchen table, watching as his uncle chopped vegetables, and, seeing how tired his uncle seemed, offered to help.
Luke stopped short and looked at his nephew, eyebrows raised, but decided to respond directly.
"You could go get some bread from the diner. It's in dry stock. I was going to make garlic bread."
"Okay. You need garlic?"
"There's plenty downstairs."
"Okay."
An hour later, they were eating quietly. Jess didn't know how to broach the subject. Just as he'd opened his mouth to ask what happened, Luke spoke.
"Your mom's back in New York."
"Okay," said Jess, staring at his fork.
"And the school says you'll start in a day or two."
"Okay."
"Your mom brought a few more of your books with her."
Jess looked up at him quickly, surprised and dubious.
"I…well, yeah, I asked her to. They're over there," Luke said, gesturing toward the desk under the far window.
Jess glanced over at them. "Thanks, Uncle Luke," he said quietly.
"Are you, uh…are you okay?"
Jess shifted uncomfortably in his chair.
"I'm—yeah, I'm fine."
Luke nodded, and they finished their dinner in silence.
By Thursday, Jess was successfully enrolled in the local high school. By the time the next week began, he started taking his own reading material to class with him. The familiar black and white pages were much preferable to his surroundings. His teachers, classes and classmates ranged from mind-numbingly boring to bizarre, but no one else seemed to notice, and the isolation exacerbated the anger and frustration that clouded his daily life.
On Wednesday, he was rejoicing that the week was halfway over and walked quickly out of the doors of Stars Hollow High. As he headed down the concrete steps, he heard Luke's voice behind him.
"Hey. How was school?"
"Great."
"You learn anything good?"
"Oh yeah, tons of things. I got gold stars plastered all over my forehead," Jess said, angry and sarcastic.
"I had an interesting call today. Wanna know who it was from?"
"Not really."
"From Taylor Doose. You know, he owns the market."
"If you say so."
"He said you came in last week."
"He did?"
"And he said you took some money out of a little donation cup to help repair the bridge. I told him he was crazy, you wouldn't do that, you weren't a thief, that he was just trying to stir up trouble, and then I hung up on him. Now, don't get me wrong, I enjoy hanging up on Taylor, and he is crazy, but I was just wondering if maybe any of the other things he said were true."
"What do you think?"
"I think that if you tell me that what he's saying is not true, then I'm gonna believe it's not true."
"Okay, it's not true."
"That doesn't sound very convincing."
The futile frustration that had been building all day crashed over him suddenly. He turned and faced his uncle angrily. "Look, what exactly do you want from me? You bring me here to this place, you put me in a school that says the pledge of allegiance in six different languages, two of which I've never heard of before. You take me away from my home, my friends, and now you want what from me?"
Jess was aware that this situation was not Luke's fault, and that Luke could have said no to Liz's sending Jess here and felt a twinge of guilt for yelling at the only person who'd ever stuck his neck out to defend him, but he wanted to get attention away from his recent penchant for petty crime.
"I'm trying to help you."
"Well, stop trying! Stop talking to me, stop following me, and stop asking me questions. Just stop!"
"That's what you want?"
"Yes!"
"That's really what you want?"
No, Jess thought before he could stop himself.
"Yes," he said instead.
"Fine, you got it," Luke snapped.
"Thank you."
"You're welcome."
They both turned and stomped off towards the bridge over the lake. Luke was clearly fuming, but Jess thought maybe he'd gotten him off his back for a while. Once they'd taken a few long strides across the bridge, though, Jess felt a hard shove and then the shock of cold water as he fell backwards into the lake. He surfaced quickly and pushed the water and hair out of his eyes. He stared after Luke for a few seconds. He slowly realized that he'd forgotten what it felt like to be stunned. He felt the corners of his mouth twitch into a crooked half-smile.
Well…that was fair.
He had taken the money, after all. That had been a little brazen, but then, he'd gotten away with the gnome thing before, and why didn't Taylor have chalk in his stupid store? Jess had had to find an arts and crafts store and those people are always just so…
He pulled his feet out of the mud and squelched back up to the bridge. He remembered he had shoved his copy of On the Road in his back pocket and knew it was ruined.
That'll give me something to do later. I wonder if Taylor allows the bookstore to carry anything other than Dan Brown and travel guides.
He walked towards the diner to shower. To his relief, only Caesar was there when he walked in, who didn't acknowledge the fact that Jess was dripping wet.
After a long shower and getting changed, Jess lit a cigarette. He knew it would annoy Luke and, after being shoved into a lake, he wanted to annoy Luke. He found a pencil and pulled Howl out from under the pile of clothes at the end of his bed. He'd seen so many different genres of books on Rory's shelf that he wondered how much she knew about the Beats in particular. He had just started annotating the introduction when he heard Luke's footsteps coming up the stairs faster and louder than usual. He stared as he saw Luke turn the corner.
"Okay, we got the patch, the gum, the hypnosis tapes, Chinese herbs, self-help books, and several pictures of diseased lungs to hang on the fridge. Pretty, huh?"
He snatched the cigarette out of Jess's mouth.
"This is done."
"Hey!"
"You will get up, you will go to school, you will come home, you will work in the diner until closing, you will do your homework, and then you will go to bed. Where's the gnome?"
"The what?"
"Weekends are for chores and selected, pre-approved outings, i.e. kabbalah studies, freeway beautification projects, Color Me Mine pottery painting–all discussable options."
Jess saw him about to open the closet door where he had stashed the garden gnome and shut his eyes in frustration. Luke continued his rant as he pulled the gnome out of one of Jess's duffle bags.
"You will not steal. You will pay back Taylor Doose, you will graduate from high school, and you will return Pierpon to his yard," he finished, shoving the gnome toward Jess.
"You can't just–"
"I can just. I am not letting you just fall off the face of the earth. You will not drift. I won't let it happen. Now, I don't know if this is the right way to handle this, but this is the way it's being handled, and that, my friend, is the end of this discussion."
They stared at each other for a moment. Jess decided not to push it. He wasn't going to stick around to be yelled at anymore though, either. He grabbed his jacket and got up to leave.
"Where are you going?" Luke asked quickly.
"Out," snapped Jess.
He headed out towards the bookstore. Now was as good a time as any to see if he could replace his ruined book. He glanced up and his train of angry thoughts slowed, as did his momentum, when he caught sight of Rory coming out of the bookstore. He could replace his book later.
"Hey," said Jess, walking up to her.
"Hey yourself."
"What are you doing out here?"
"I needed something for school. What about you?"
"Oh, yeah. Same thing," Jess said.
"Uh-huh. So…that was quite a disappearing act you pulled the other night."
"Potlucks and Tupperware parties aren't really my thing."
"Too cool for school, huh?"
"Yes, that is me," he said, playing with a coin he'd found in his pocket.
"What are you doing?"
"Oh, this? Nothing. Just another little disappearing act," he said, making the coin disappear.
"Little tip?"
"Yeah?"
"If you ever want to speak to me again, don't pull that out of my ear."
"So I assume the nose is off-limits, too."
"Any place you wouldn't naturally find a coin, let's leave it that way."
Huh. Tough crowd. She almost smiled, though.
"So what are you doing now?"
"I have some homework to finish."
"Okay. Then I'll leave you with this last little trick." He pulled her copy of Howl out of his back pocket.
"You bought a copy? I told you I'd lend you mine."
"It isyours."
"You stole my book!"
"Nope, borrowed it."
"Okay, that's not called a trick. That's called a felony."
"I just wanted to put some notes in the margins for you."
"What?"
She grabbed the book from him and opened it. He watched, satisfied, as realization dawned on her.
"… You've read this before."
"About forty times."
"I thought you said you didn't read much."
"Well, what is 'much'?"
He saw her eyes brighten with interest at the same time that her mouth started to form questions.
Not what your mom told you, huh?
He thought about hanging around, but…better to let it burn a little longer.
"Goodnight, Rory," he said as he turned to walk away.
"Goodnight, Dodger," she said accusingly.
He paused and turned, thinking. He knew he knew that name.
"Dodger?" he asked.
She smiled.
"Figure it out."
He racked his brain for a moment before it clicked.
"...Oliver Twist."
She turned to smile at him and nodded. Jess noticed that she still had her book open, reading his notes. He stared after her for a few seconds, his small, crooked smile betraying his thoughts. He ducked his head and turned back towards the diner.