He said this with tremendous satisfaction, as if somehow—at the end of this absurdly long night—he was walking away with the last laugh.
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“I know you don’t,” he said. “You never will.”
I wanted to ask what he meant, but he was already leaving. Tack followed him out and closed the door. None of it made any sense. Mary was fooling me right back? Why was he singling out me? What about the guy who stole the lighters and cigarettes? Or the guy who smashed all the typewriters?
I didn’t have much time to ponder things. Tack returned to my room just a few minutes later, this time accompanied by my mother. She wore her white Food World uniform, and she was clutching a handful of Kleenex. Her face and neck were flushed with hives, like she was having an allergic reaction.
“How did you find me?” I asked.
“Officer Blaszkiewicz called me,” she said. It took me a moment to realize she meant Tackleberry. “He said you were too afraid to do it yourself.”
“Stand up,” Tack said. “Put out your wrists.”
I held out my arms, and he undid the cuffs.
Mom took a deep breath. “Mr. Zelinsky is dropping the charges. For all of you.” She whispered the words, like she was afraid of jinxing herself.
“Under two conditions,” Tack added. “Number one, you don’t go anywhere near the store. No General Tso’s, no train station, no movies. If I see you anywhere on Market Street, I will arrest you for harassment and bring you back here.”
“All right,” I said.
“I need you to say it,” Tack insisted. “Look me in the eye and say it out loud.”
I looked him in the eye and said it out loud: “I will stay away from Market Street.”
“Number two, you stay away from Mary. You don’t call her, you don’t talk to her. You see her at Wetbridge Mall, you turn the other way and run, understand?”
“I would like to apologize,” I said.
“Oh, that’s real sweet,” Tack said. “Suddenly you’re concerned about her feelings? Well, forget it. You don’t get to apologize. You’ve bothered her long enough. Move on and harass someone else.”
“He understands,” Mom said, placing a firm hand on my elbow. “Tell him, Billy.”
I looked down at her hand, at the red blotches that were spreading across her arm. I felt all of her weight bearing down on me, like she was about to fall over.
“I’ll stay away from Mary,” I agreed. “I’ll never talk to her ever again.”
We left the police station at dawn. Market Street was deserted. Off on the horizon, the sun was rising behind the train station, filling the sky with pink and orange. There were no signs of Alf or Clark or their parents. I wanted to ask about them but didn’t dare say a word. I kept my mouth shut and got in the car.
Mom cried all the way home. Halfway to Baltic Avenue, she got so upset she had to stop the car on the side of the road. I said I was sorry and she hit me in the arm with her purse.
We entered the house and Mom told me to sit on the couch. I said I wanted to go to bed. “We’re not finished,” she said. “You and I, our conversation hasn’t even started.”
I sat on the couch. She sat across from me with a box of Kleenex and took a deep breath. “When Officer Blaszkiewicz called me at the store, I refused to believe him. I thought he was talking about a different Billy Marvin. Another kid with the same name. And on the way to the police station, I actually stopped by our house. I was convinced I’d find you asleep in your bed. But I went up to your room and you weren’t there. Your bed was empty. And then I saw this.”
She unzipped her purse and removed a sheet of loose-leaf paper. I recognized it from earlier that morning, from a million years ago. I must have left it on my desk before running out to the mall. It was covered with the words fat bitch and fat fucking bitch over and over in a deranged scrawl. I didn’t even recognize it as my own handwriting.
“This is not the life I wanted for us,” Mom said. “I wish I had more money. I wish I had a better job. Heck, I wish your father hadn’t left us. But I don’t complain, Billy, you know why? Because plenty of people have it worse. We’re surviving. We’re healthy, we’re capable, we’re getting by. And the number one thing that keeps me going is you. Your grades drive me crazy and you’re squandering all your potential, but I always knew you were a good kid with a good heart, and that sustained me.” She looked at the loose-leaf again—the fat bitch, the fat fucking bitch. “But now I realize I don’t know you at all.” Her voice broke, and she covered her face with her hands, taking big, heaving breaths as tears ran down her cheeks. “I welcomed that girl into our home. You made me part of this horrible plan. How could you?”
There are plenty of things that a teenage boy doesn’t tell his mother. As we get older, there are more and more things we hold back, things too hard to say or too embarrassing to explain. We do this to protect our mothers as much as ourselves, because let’s face it—most of our thoughts are truly unthinkable.
That morning was the last time I was ever fully candid with my mother about anything. I talked for a good hour. I told her everything. It was hard to tell the truth, but every detail seemed to revive her, even the embarrassing ones. Especially the embarrassing ones. It killed me to admit some of this stuff, but the more I talked, the better she looked. She stopped crying and set down her Kleenex, and the red hives slowly faded from her neck. My explanation must have been pretty thorough because she didn’t interrupt me with questions. She just sat and listened and nodded until I was finished.
Then she abruptly stood up and went into the kitchen. She returned a moment later with a washcloth, a bowl of warm water, and a first aid kit. She sat beside me on the sofa, pressed the washcloth to my forehead, and fumbled open a bottle of hydrogen peroxide. “That is a nasty cut,” she said, and I realized I’d forgotten about the gash on my forehead. “Close your eyes for a second, all right? Sit back.”
My mother was an expert at fixing scrapes. She often reminded me that she’d been planning to go to nursing school, before I’d entered her life so unexpectedly. She dabbed a wet cotton ball to my forehead, and I braced myself for a sting that never came. Then she gently blew on the cut and unwrapped a fresh bandage. “I guess I only have one question,” she said. “There’s one thing I still don’t understand.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Why aren’t you in jail right now?” she said. “Why did Zelinsky let you go?”
And the truth was, I had no idea.
2610 REM *** CLEAR MEMORY ***
2620 PRINT "{CLR}{2 CSR DWN}"
2630 PRINT "JUST A MOMENT . . ."
2640 SYS 49608
2650 IF INT(S/43)=S/43 THEN POKE W3,20
2660 POKE H3,PEEK (SP+1)
2670 POKE W3,21
2680 IF NB(.)=. THEN 4000
2690 GOTO 4500