Shelter (10 page)

“You need to work on your left, man . . .”

“The drop step. Use that, see, and go baseline . . .”

“You gotta stick your butt out more on the box out. Like this . . .”

It was hard to rush through without being overtly rude, but now the man from Bat Lady’s house was almost to the street corner, moving unhurriedly but somehow fast.

I didn’t want to lose him.

“Wait!” I shouted.

He kept walking. I called out to him again. He stopped, turned, and for a second, I thought I saw the hint of a smile on his face. The heck with it. I pulled away from my wino fan base and dashed toward him. Heads turned from the suddenness of my movement. In the corner of my eye, I saw Tyrell’s father notice what was going on and follow me.

The man from Bat Lady’s house was across the street now, but I was closing the gap pretty quickly. I was maybe thirty, forty yards away from him when the black car with the tinted windows pulled up next to him.

“Stop!”

But I wasn’t going to make it. The man paused and gave me half a nod, as if to say,
Nice try
. Then he slid into the passenger seat and before I could do anything, the car sped out of sight.

I didn’t bother to take down the license plate. I already had it.

Tyrell’s father, Mr. Waters, caught up. He looked at me with concern. “You okay, Mickey?”

“I’m fine,” I said.

He wasn’t buying it. “Do you want to tell me what that was about, son?”

Tyrell was there too now, standing next to his father. The two of them looked at me, together, side by side, shoulder to shoulder, and I hated myself for feeling such envy. I was grateful to this man for worrying about me, but I couldn’t help but wish it were my own father standing here, concerned about my welfare.

“I just thought I recognized him, that’s all,” I said.

Tyrell’s father still wasn’t buying.

Tyrell said, “We still got one more game to play.”

I thought about my mother heading back home after therapy, making the spaghetti and meatballs. I could almost smell the garlic bread. “It’s getting late,” I said. “I have to catch the bus back.”

“I can drive you,” Tyrell’s father said.

“Thank you, Mr. Waters, but I can’t ask you to go out of your way like that.”

“It’s no trouble. I got a case in Kasselton anyway. It’ll be nice to have the company.”

We lost the last game, in part because I was so distracted. When it was over, we all high-fived or fist-bumped good game. Mr. Waters waited for us. I took the backseat, Tyrell sat up front. He dropped Tyrell off at the two-family house they shared with Mr. Waters’s sister and her two sons on Pomona Avenue, a tree-lined street in Newark’s Weequahic section.

“You going to come down tomorrow?” Tyrell asked me.

I had been blocking on it, but now I remembered that Mom, Myron, and I were flying out in the morning to visit my father’s grave in Los Angeles. It was a trip I didn’t want to make; it was a trip I really needed to make.

“Not tomorrow, no,” I said.

“Too bad,” Tyrell said. “Fun games today.”

“Yeah. Thanks for picking me.”

“I just pick to win,” he said with a smile.

Before he got out, Tyrell leaned over and kissed his father good-bye on the cheek. I felt another pang. Mr. Waters told his son to make sure he did his homework. Tyrell said, “Yes, Dad,” in an exasperated tone I remember using myself in better days. I moved up to the front passenger seat.

“So,” Mr. Waters said to me as we hit Interstate 80, “what was with that bald guy in the black car?”

I didn’t even know where to start. I didn’t want to lie, but didn’t know how to explain it. I couldn’t tell him I’d broken into a house or any of that.

Finally I said, “He may be following me.”

“Who is he?”

“I don’t know.”

“No idea at all?”

“None,” I said.

Mr. Waters mulled that over. “You know that I’m a county investigator, right, Mickey?”

“Yes, sir. Is that like a cop?”

“That’s exactly what it’s like,” he said. “And I was standing next to that guy the whole time you were playing. I’d never seen him down here before. He barely moved, you know? The whole time, he just stood there in that suit. Didn’t cheer. Didn’t call out. He never said a word. And he never took his eyes off you.”

I wondered how he could tell that, what with the sunglasses and all, but I knew what he meant. We fell into silence for a moment or two. Then he said something that surprised me. “So while you guys played that last game, I took the liberty of running the guy’s license plate.”

“You mean on that black car?”

“Yes.”

I sat perfectly still.

“It didn’t come up in the system,” he said.

“What does that mean?”

“It’s classified.”

“You mean like it’s diplomatic or something?”

“Or something,” he said.

I tried to put it together but nothing was coming to me. “So what does that mean exactly?”

We pulled up to Myron’s house. He coasted to a stop and then turned to me. “The truth? I don’t know, Mickey. But it doesn’t sound good. Just please be careful, okay?”

“Okay,” I said.

Mr. Waters reached into his wallet. “If you see that bald guy again, don’t go chasing him. You call me, understand?”

He handed me his card. It read JOSHUA WATERS, ESSEX COUNTY INVESTIGATOR. There was a phone number on the bottom. I thanked him and got out of the car. He pulled out and I waved good-bye. As I trudged up the walk, I thought maybe I smelled garlic but that could have been my imagination.

I used my key to get inside. “Mom?”

There was no reply.

“I’m home,” I called out, louder this time. “Mom?”

Still no reply.

I headed into the kitchen. There was nothing on the stove. There was no smell of garlic. I checked the time. Six P.M. Mom probably wasn’t home from therapy yet. That was it. I opened up the refrigerator to grab a drink, but when I did, I saw immediately that there was no new food in it.

Hadn’t Mom said she went food shopping?

My breathing got a little funny. I called her cell phone. No answer. I hung up after the fifth ring.

Okay, Mickey, stay calm.

But I couldn’t. My hand started shaking. When my phone buzzed, I felt a sense of relief. It had to be Mom. I looked at the caller ID. It was Spoon. I started freaking out. I hit Ignore and dialed the Coddington Rehab Center. I asked for Christine Shippee. When she got on the line, I asked, “Is my mother still there?”

“What are you talking about? Why would your mother be here?”

My heart sank. “She didn’t have outpatient therapy today?”

“No.” Then: “Oh no. What happened, Mickey? Where is she?”

Here is how stupid I am: I actually went outside and expected to see my mother pull up. So many emotions ricocheted through my brain. I just wanted them to stop. I just wanted to be numb. I longed for that, for feeling absolutely nothing, and then I realized that was what my mom craved too. Look where that led her.

I called Mom’s cell phone again. This time, I waited until the voice mail picked up.

“Hi, it’s Kitty. Leave me a message at the beep.”

I swallowed hard and tried unsuccessfully to keep the pleading from my voice. “Mom? Please call me, okay? Please?”

I didn’t cry. But I came close. When I hung up, I wondered what to do. For a little while I just stared at the phone, willing it to ring. But I was done willing and hoping. I had to start getting real.

I thought about how my mom’s face had beamed this morning. I thought about how the poison had been out of her system for the past six weeks and how much hope we both had. I didn’t want to do this, but I had no choice.

The phone was in my hand. I dialed the number for the first time.

Uncle Myron answered immediately. “Mickey?”

“I can’t find Mom.”

“Okay,” he said. It was almost as though he’d been expecting my call. “I’ll handle it.”

“What do you mean, you’ll handle it? Do you know where she is?”

“I can find out in a few minutes.”

I was going to ask how, but there was no time to waste. “I want to go with you,” I said.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea. Let me handle—”

“Myron?” I cut him off. “Please don’t play those patronizing games with me. Not now. Not with my mother.”

There was a brief silence. Then he said, “I’ll pick you up on the way.”

chapter 9

THE SATURN RINGS ROUNDABOUT MOTEL
was located beneath an overpass on Route 22. The neon sign advertised hourly rates, free Wi-Fi, and color television, as if some rivals might only be using black-and-white ones. The motel was, as the name suggested, round, but that wasn’t the first thing you noticed. The first thing you noticed was the filth. The Saturn Rings was the kind of seedy and dirty place that made you want to dunk your whole body in a giant bottle of hand sanitizer.

Myron’s Ford Taurus—the one Mom had used to drop me off at school just ten hours earlier, the one she sang along with the radio in and wrote me a tardy excuse—was parked in the motel lot. Myron had put a GPS in his car. I don’t know why. Maybe he suspected something like this would happen.

For a moment we just stared at the Taurus in silence. Provocatively dressed women tottered around in too-high heels. They had hollow eyes and sunken cheeks, as if death had already halfway claimed them.

I could hear my breath coming in shallow gasps.

“Any chance I can persuade you to stay in the car?” Myron asked.

I didn’t bother answering. We both got out. I wondered how Myron would figure out what room she’d be in, but it didn’t take much. We headed into a lobby with barely enough room for the sole vending machine. The man behind the desk wore an undershirt that covered about half his enormous belly. Myron slipped him a hundred-dollar bill. He made it disappear, burped, and said, “Room two-twelve in the C Ring.”

We walked to the room in silence. I want to say that I still had hope, but if some was there, I pushed it away. Why? I wondered. Less than a year ago we were a happy, healthy family taking that simple bliss for granted. I pushed that thought away too. Enough with the self-pity.

When we reached her door, Myron and I exchanged a glance. He hesitated, so now I took the lead. I pounded on the door. We waited for someone to open it. No one did. I pounded again. I put my ear against it. Still no answer.

Myron found the floor maid. It cost him twenty dollars this time. She swiped the lock and the door opened. The light was off when we entered. Myron pulled back the curtain. My mom was sprawled out alone on the bed. I wanted so very much to run out of the room or squeeze my eyes shut.

Nothing about a junkie is pretty.

I moved over to the bed and gently shook her shoulder. “Mom?”

“I’m so sorry, Mickey.” She started to cry. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s going to be okay.”

“Please don’t hate me.”

“Never,” I said. “I could never hate you.”

We drove her back to rehab. Christine Shippee met us in the lobby, took my mother by the hand, and led her past the security door. I heard Mom’s pathetic sniffles cease as the door slammed closed behind her. I glanced at Myron. There may have been pity in his eyes, but what I mostly saw was disgust.

A few minutes later Christine Shippee came back out. Her stroll had her customary no-nonsense bearing. That used to give me confidence. Not anymore.

“Kitty can’t have any visitors for at least the next three weeks,” she announced.

I didn’t like that. “Not even me?”

“No visitors, Mickey.” She turned her gaze on me. “Not even you.”

“Three weeks?”

“At the very least.”

“That’s crazy.”

“We know what we’re doing,” Christine Shippee said.

I made a scoffing sound. “Right, sure. I can see that.”

Myron said, “Mickey . . .”

But I wasn’t done. “I mean, you did such a great job last time.”

“It’s not uncommon for an addict to have a relapse,” she said. “I warned you about this, remember?”

I thought about how my mom had smiled at me, how she told me that she was home preparing spaghetti and meatballs, how she even supplemented her original bogus meal with garlic bread. Lies. All lies.

I stormed out. The sky was a black canvas, not a star in it. I searched for the moon but couldn’t find that either. I wanted to scream or hit something. Myron came out a few minutes later and unlocked the car.

“I’m really sorry,” Uncle Myron said.

I said nothing. He hated my mother and knew this would happen. He must enjoy being right. We drove a few minutes in silence before Myron broke it.