AT KNOTTY'S HOUSE, 12:23 PM, FEBRUARY 12, 2006
The boys had accumulated $2,237 over the previous two days at their yard sale. Root sold the rest of the magazines out and moved on to selling his mom's cleaned laboratory glassware and safety goggles. Stump sold a rare copy of the first edition of Let's Learn Basic German! priced at $800 because it was one of the first 2,059 copies printed with a quote about love from a failed artist from Austria. Later copies of the first edition were printed without it.
Their busy day went ugly when a police sedan pulled in front of the house. A male police officer with aviator glasses, a receding hairline, a scar on the left side of his jaw, and a five-o'clock shadow stepped out of his vehicle with a clasp envelope in his hairy right hand and approached the boys manning the sales. A startled Bark curled up into a ball on his chair and only stared at the officer with his peripheral vision.
"I need to talk to you boys about somethin'." The officer pulled a familiar object from the envelope and showed it to the boys, "Did you happen to sell this magazine to someone?"
While remaining calm, Root replied, "I am the one that sold it. What's the matter with that?"
"Kid, you sold this pornographic magazine to a 16-year-old; therefore, I am going to arrest you for distributing pornographic material to a minor"
Pips interrupted, "Hold on, officer! There must be a mistake! Root's been selling photographic magazines to people who want to take up photography—whether as a hobby or a career."
The officer enunciated, "It's 'porno-graphic,' not 'photo-graphic.'" He faced Root as he grabbed a pair of handcuffs out of his belt, "Sorry, kid. I'm gonna have to take you to the station for an interrogation."
Root defended, "Sir! I'll be willing to testify against the very person who urged me to sell those magazines. I mean, how else would I learn those magazines are labeled 'photographic?'"
AT ROOT'S HOUSE, 12:41 PM
Multiple officers of the FernGully Police Department arrived at Root's residence. His family lived at a secluded mobile home park five miles from the middle school. While the park was normal aside from having a small community playground, Root's place stuck out like a sore thumb with its distinguishable scents, piled-up trash, and dusty charms dangling off the awning hooks. A black officer knocked on the door two times while the three behind him stood next to the gray cluttered pickup with their eyes looking forward. A lady in her late 40s and light-purple nightgown shakingly responded in an Appalachian accent, "Can I help you?"
"Yes, can I get your name please?"
"Marjorie Greenburg," Marjorie reached into her purse to pull out an identification card that was five months away from the expiration date. She handed it to the officer to verify it.
He returned the card to Marjorie, "Ma'am, an officer found a pornographic magazine in some 16-year-old's car while doing a routine traffic stop and they told us they bought it from your son," the officer stated as another one handed him the magazine in a clasp envelope, "He claimed that you coerced him in distributing pornographic material to a minor. Is that right?"
Marjorie's tremors gradually intensified and she tilted her head, "Sir, I believe my son must've told you a lie. He gathered all the magazines from my other son Morgen's room. I told Morgen to get rid of that junk, but he refused. Root must've heard our exchange, so he decided to sell them for a quick buck."
"Okay, that is all well and good,...but your son had a box crudely labeled 'PHOTOGRAPHIC MAGAZINES' on one side," the officer disputed as a third officer held up the box.
Marjorie appealed, "Yeah,...my son must've gotten the idea of callin' those magazines 'photographic' from some of them smarter students. Also, he's still tryin' his best with his handwritin'."
The officer smelled an acidic aroma escaping the back of the home and continued with the original matter, "Funny you should say that, but your son provided us a notebook with his name in handwriting that contradicts the one on the box. It has his journal entries written inside—complete with timestamps and information that does not match with what you provided us." A fourth officer held up Root's composition notebook with his signature and "Journal Entries" on the front cover.
Marjorie awkwardly chuckled and sarcastically remarked, "Oh, wow! He sure has exceeded my expectations! His teachers should reward him straight As since he is doing so well in school!"
While the conversation was going on, one of the neighbors approached the by-standing officers from behind, "Sorry to interrupt, but I own a surveillance camera and caught a whiff of something horrible coming from that house. You all should have a look at the footage I took!" In order, the neighbor opened up a laptop, turned it on, waited for four minutes to boot up, signed themselves in, waited for another thirty seconds for the desktop to show up, clicked on the icon of the media player application, waited another three minutes for the program to boot up, ejected the DVD slot out of the laptop, slowly searched the disc binder for a blank disc labeled "February 5-11, 2006" in blue marker, slid the disc out, placed it inside the slot, pushed the slot back in, waited another five minutes for the footage to show up, and clicked the play button—all while a couple officers briefly talked about what has been going on around the city. The smoking gun of a piece of footage ran concurrently with both Marjorie's and Root's sister's testimonies: Root returned from school to find Marjorie coming out of the door with the same box in her hands. The audible speech made the situation more clear.
"Here you go, Root! Sell these photographic magazines and bring me the money as soon as possible. Also, you are due for a urine sample this Sunday—Mama wants to know if you are gettin' better."
Root speculated, "How would they know I am getting better? Besides, I am fine."
Marjorie argued, "Oh, you may be fine…on the outside; on the inside, you are sick."
Root hypothesized, "If I happen to be sick on the inside, are they going to tell us that—"
Marjorie interrupted, "Everything will go accordin' to plan, hon'. Everything will be fine."
When the footage ended, the officers looked at each other with stunned expressions. They then marched to Marjorie's house to excuse the officer from questioning her.
A burly one informed her how the process would go, "Ma'am, here's what we are going to do: for now, we will detain you while we search your home."
"Detain me? What have I done wrong?" Marjorie was startled.
"Yes, you are being detained. You are not under arrest," the burly officer clarified as he reached for her right arm. He cuffed her on one wrist; as he was reaching for the other wrist, Marjorie locked her left arm in front of her. The man had no time for her games. "Ma'am, let me see your other arm! We will either detain you or this will get worse!" Marjorie continued resisting as she tackled the officer and landed on a small overgrown fountain, toppling it over. He kept his spine in one piece, but he was peeved off. More officers used enough strength to cuff Marjorie's left wrist and seated her in a police sedan.
Once the officers entered the house, they encountered conditions far worse than an early learning center in rural New Mexico. The gray carpeting was stained with beer, vomit, chocolate milk, feces, and marinara sauce. Garbage was piled up in both corners of the living room and the litter box had not been cleaned since the second Saturday of last November. The kitchen had seen better days as it was double-purposed as a meth lab littered with cracked glass, spilled containers, and cereal boxes. Because of Marjorie's kitchen routines, Root and his siblings had to sleep in camping tents and shower at their friends' homes. Their cat died from breathing in the toxic fumes and the three buried him into the ground.
As the decontamination team flew in to destroy the entirely inhabitable house, the two siblings were forced to gather their personal belongings and temporarily relocate themselves until the police department found them a better place for foster care. Root voluntarily handed a brown-haired officer the $600 he earned from selling the magazines, but the latter rejected it.
"I appreciate your effort in bringing this case to light; however, we really don't need that kind of money because it may be difficult to track the original owners and return the money they spent on such magazines and we already seized the thousands of dollars your mother made from selling meth," the officer said as he inserted a piece of chewing gum in his mouth, "Also, we have more than enough resources to keep this department running. If I were you, I would donate the money to help a better cause."
The five boys continued watching the crime scene progress as Crysta appeared behind them with a camera. She captured it and greeted the boys, "So, how's it hanging?"
Root replied, "My sister and I are going to find a place to stay until the cops get us processed for foster care."
"Wait—this is your house?" Crysta asked.
"It used to," Root corrected her, "It was much of a hellhole anyway, especially since my father left for a younger woman with dirty blonde hair in Florida."
"My statement on Root's mom being a dick remains," Knotty affirmed as he handed out bowls of hearty jambalaya to his friends.
"Is your brother going to find out about this, Root?" Pips asked.
"I bet Morgen will see it in the news later. I'd say kicking him out of the house was my Mom's smartest decision she has made in recent years," Root speculated as he ate his food.
AT THE MERLOT HOUSE, 5:35 PM
Crysta stared down at her dinner plate, wondering what it would be like to be in foster care. She imagined many possibilities, but most of them were not so heartwarming. Angelica noticed her daughter's posture and expression while sipping water. She asked, "Is something troubling you, dear?"
"Well,...one of the boys from a grade lower than me and his sister had to relocate to their aunt's house with the help of the cops," Crysta said as she ate a spoonful of her tomato soup, "...and I can't help but imagine what is it like to be under someone else's care."
"Now, darling. There is nothing for you to worry about," Quinton stated while he wiped his chin with a napkin, "We each have our own struggles to deal with in life. For one, your wife and I must take care of your grandma until the nursing home finds her a new place to live. You, on the other hand, have to go to school and get as much work done as you can."
Crysta then ate her dinner and stared outside the window. The snowfall was getting worse, so a snow day was possible. Once she finished her dinner, she went upstairs to read the required pages of Farewell to Manzanar. The book is a memoir about the Japanese-American author's life at a government-sanctioned internment camp during World War II. Crysta had been learning how marginalized groups were treated like second-class citizens by reading the same books the genuine faux Christian groups demanded the public schools and libraries remove. Those groups thought faux was considered a word that defines prestige because it is in French and the X does not need to be pronounced. One chapter later, Crysta booted up her PS2 to play some Shadow of the Colossus for a couple of hours while her grandmother stared at the television and her parents gossiped and drank wine with their neighbors around the fireplace.