The Twelve-Fingered Boy (2 page)

(You think I'm gonna tell you where? Right. Think again—if it don't hurt you too much.)

At the Farm there's just fields and dirt and backbreaking labor moving rocks or crap like that, surrounded by hardened, violent juvenile offenders. I've seen the brochure. It ain't pretty.

I'm a city mouse. I just wouldn't fit in.

Kenny kneels to tie his shoe and waits. Hand in my pocket, I release the pack of oversized chewy Sweet Tarts. It slides down my leg, slows at the cuff, and peeks out on top of my Chuck T. I flip it with my foot. Kenny nabs it out of the air, easy-peasy, and strolls off.

I whistle.

Ox nods, saunters over to a domino game with some of the fellas from B Wing, laughing, slapping knees.

It takes Booth maybe two seconds to see me. His eyes get narrow.

I could ignore him, but why? This is the game we play. I walk over.

“Afternoon, Assistant Warden Booth. How's tricks?”

Booth glowers. “I've been looking for you, Shreve. You can get away with it for days, even weeks, but eventually, you'll make a mistake. And then…”

He chuckles. Not my favorite sound in the world.

“The Farm,” I say, just to steal some of his thunder. “Yeah, we've been over this before.”

Booth points to the sign over the locked double doors that lead to Admin.

“You know what that says, boy?”

“
Parens patriae
.”

“You know what it means?”

“Someone thought they were clever to put up a sign no one can read.”

I don't know, but he might purple a little bit at that one.

Booth withdraws a comb, one of the ones with a tight little black fist, from his back pocket and picks at his hair. Whatever is wrong with Booth, it's true he's got nice hair. Neat little pencil-thin mustache. He's a well-groomed man. Rings. Puffed out chest like a peacock. Still, he picks his nose in public. The fact he doesn't think it's picking his nose doesn't matter.

When he's done with his comb, he tucks it back in his pocket, looks at me, and says, “It means, while you're in here…” He jabs a pink-nailed, manicured finger at the old flagstones of the Pulaski County Juvenile Detention Center floor. “While you're in here, I'm your daddy.”

He's read my profile, so he's got me at a disadvantage. But I'll be damned if I let him see how much that smarts.

“Well, it's been nice talking to you, Assistant Warden, but I've got an appointment with the state shrink about the abuse that goes on in here…”

Booth puts his hand on my shoulder, gently, as I walk away.

“No, Shreve. You don't. Come with me.”

“Where we going? You can't search me without another warden and a state psychologist present. State law.

” He shakes his head, exasperated.

“Cripes, boy. I thought you were smarter than that. I know you wouldn't just walk over here, bold as brass, if you had contraband on you.” He gives me a look like he's a little disappointed in me. Weird, but it hurts some that I didn't live up to his expectations. There's a contract between enemies. To do your best.

“I've got a surprise for you.”

“What?”

“You'll see. Come on.”

He walks off toward B Wing, land of my assigned room. When you're incarcerado at Casimir Juvie, you're not put in a cell. Just a bare-ass room with shatterproof windows and an automatic lock on the magic door that opens and shuts by itself. Metal bunk beds. Two metal dressers. A desk fastened tight to the wall. Two backless chairs—stools, really. A doorless bathroom with a stainless-steel mirror like you see in the toilets at public parks: unbreakable, but dimpled with dents from the idiots who have to try. No ceramics in our bathroom. Nothing breakable at all. Nothing you could cut your wrists with, cut your roommate's throat with. Not quite prison. Not quite a Hilton.

Booth jangles as he walks, his key ring making bright sounds that ping off the tile walls, the windows, the green tile floors reeking of Pine-Sol, the fluorescent lights ticking and flickering above us.

He opens doors, I step through the metal detectors with no beeps, and we enter B Wing. B Wing is two floors with an atrium. It's pretty much what you'd expect of a penitentiary, but with doors instead of bars. They doors are open today, and sun streams down from the skylights. It's a nice day outside.

They try to spruce it up a little bit so we don't get all emo or psychotic in here, without family. Or fathers. They paint the walls different colors. Sometimes they let an artist come in to paint a mural, usually so hideous we have a ball making fun of it.

Up the stairs Booth leads, jangling. He stops at my door, 14, and I hear the soft sounds of Warden Kay Anderson chatting inside my room.

Booth opens the door, and there she is, sitting on the lower bunk next to a small, dark-haired boy. He's twelve, thirteen maybe, and looking around at the bare walls, bewildered, lost.

I nudge Booth with my elbow and say out of the side of my mouth, “Hey, shouldn't this fish be in a foster home? He's not quite Casimir material.”

Booth grunts, jangles. “He was in a foster home. Put five kids in the hospital.”

“Right,” I say. “When you're done yanking my chain, tell me why you're sticking me with the titty-baby.”

Booth ignores me and gives a little shove between my shoulder blades, pushing me into the room.

Warden Anderson looks up and smiles in that brittle way she has, like she wants to be nice and motherly, but she really doesn't have the time or inclination for it. So, instead, she's going to do her best to smile. And damned if she doesn't. She smiles wide, showing yellowed teeth smeared with lipstick, to show me I'm absolutely, positively, the most important ward of the state.

“Oh, Shreve, I'm glad you're here,” she says. “I want you to meet your new cellmate—”

Booth coughs. The Warden glances at Booth.

“I'm sorry. I meant to say roommate. Here. Him. Shreve Cannon, meet Jack Graves. I hope you two will enjoy your time together.” She stands, smooths her skirt. Then she runs her hand over her gigantic, bulky belt. It's not quite business casual, like the rest of her. First she touches the pepper spray. Then she moves to the coils of zip ties and touches the walkie-talkie. She lingers on each one in turn, stopping for a while on the handcuffs as if she's considering hitching me to the titty-baby. Then, finally, she comes to rest on the Taser at her hip. She's looking at me with the harried yet official stare of an administrator. The Administrator, the boss-lady. It's not that I don't exist to her. I exist. But I'm only one little gear in the great machine that is Casimir Pulaski Juvenile Detention Center for Boys. And by God, she's here to make sure that machine has oil applied to all the squeaky parts.

Booth blinks at the warden, glances at me, and shrugs. She looks around the room with an expression that says she's disappointed in me, maybe, or in her situation. But for the moment it'll have to do. We all make compromises, so let's just get to business.

“All right, then,” the Warden says. “You'll handle the rest?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Good. Let me know how it goes.”

She walks to the door, stops, and turns to me.

“Shreve, I almost forgot.” She turns, puts her heels together like she'd been in the Army or something. “Empty out your pockets. Now. And let me warn you, if you refuse, you'll spend the next eight hours in an examination room, waiting for the state psychologist to arrive. Without food, or water, or sleep. So that we can discover what you have secreted about your person.” She pauses and then runs her eyes up and down my frame. She shifts her grip on her Taser. “We'll search everywhere. Most likely your orifices, too. You never know. Booth tells me you sell a large amount of candy to the other wards … Lord knows how you get the candy. But we mean to find out. Don't we, Horace?” Booth grunts again. “We must be wary that you haven't moved on to harder stuff.”

Sometimes my mouth works without me controlling it.

“Like what? Pop Rocks?”

“Well…” She's heard all this before from a million kids with smart mouths and bad haircuts. She's not annoyed or angry. She's seen it all before. “Drugs,” she says, simply enough. “Weed. Meth. Oxy. X. We must be sure you don't have any hidden in your…” She blinks and looks a bit embarrassed that the situation has come to this. “Your bottom.”

She smiles. It's an apologetic one, the smile. It's an Oh-I'm-So-Sorry-We-Have-To-Search-What-You-Have-In-Your-Bottom kind of smile.

I turn out my pockets.

There's lint and the money Kenny gave me for the Sweet Tarts. Nothing else.

The Warden looks it over, blinks, and then turns and marches out of the cell, her heels clicking. She leaves behind a faint scent of dead flowers and vinegar.

Booth shakes his head.

“I thought you were gonna make an ass of yourself there, boy.”

I look at the new kid. He's slight, pale, and still. More still than most people. You see folks, adults, kids— whether they're wearing a uniform or an orange jumpsuit, they're busy, never still. People jitter. They tap their feet or twiddle their thumbs. Or pick their noses, even though they don't think it's nose-picking.

But not this kid. This Jack. He just stands, hands at his sides, his big brown eyes taking it all in. His eyes are the only things that move, going between Booth, me, the door, his bunk. He's not wary, but yet not calm either. He's waiting.

I can't take much more of it, so I stick out my hand to shake.

“Name's Shreve. I got the top bunk.”

He stuffs his hands into his pockets.

“I'm Jack. Nice to meet you.”

Booth laughs, pats me on the shoulder. “Have fun, boys,” he says. I hear him jangle himself away in the Warden's wake.

Jack turns in a still, almost formal way, like he was a butler or something, and lies down on the bottom bunk.

Weird kid.

On the inside, everyone's got a story.

Take Ox, for instance. His daddy gave him boxing gloves for Christmas. So Ox set up a fight club in his backyard. Beat ten, maybe fifteen, kids senseless. That wouldn't have been a problem if he hadn't taken their money and sneakers as forfeit while he was at it. He figured he deserved something for whipping them.

One kid, that one kid, Ox broke his face pretty good. Blood stopped flowing in places it needed to flow, and the brain went a little wonky. Now the kid gets soup fed to him three times a day through a straw and craps in a bag. The rest of the time he drools and moans. Not exactly what he expected when he pulled on the boxing gloves.

I doubt he knew Ox's name was Ox.

I wonder what Jack's story is. He doesn't talk much. He just holds his body still and remains polite, lying on his bunk.

“Yo. Jack. Where you from?”

Booth calls for headcount, so I don't wait for Jack's answer. I hop down off the top bunk, motion to Jack to get up, and we move outside the door. I stand beside the door and point to Jack's spot on the other side. Boys, both across the empty space of the atrium and along our wall, step out and take position like sentries.

Booth strolls down the walkway.

“Where's Miller?” he hollers to the general pop.

“Infirmary.” That's Berman. He's a good customer. A fiend for the gooey stuff, with a taste for Gummi Bears.

“Right. I'll have to speak with the day guard.”

Booth jangles down the line, marking our presence on a clipboard as he goes. Once he makes the line and all are accounted for, he jangles back toward us and heads down the stairs. At the bottom he bellows, “Fifteen till lights out! Fifteen! Brush your damned teeth, boys, before Shreve rots them out!”

There's a smattering of laughter. I smile, showing it doesn't bother me. But he'll get his, that Booth.

We go back in the room, and Jack lies down again and rolls over, facing the wall, hugging himself.

I hop back up to my bunk. I adjust the air conditioning vent so it points right at me. I like it cold.

“So, Jack.” The vent squeaks a little with the adjustment. “Where you from?”

“Little Rock.”

“That's where I'm from, too. Where'd you go?”

Silence. Maybe he's slow. Didn't understand the question.

“School, you know? I went to Pulaski Heights. The Panthers. Rah rah. You?”

“Home.”

“Home? Whatdya mean?”

“Home schooling. I never went to school.”

“You mean you just stayed at home? Didn't go to school?”

After that he stops talking, even when I prod. When I peek over the edge at the bottom bunk, he's facing the wall, curled up. Maybe he's asleep.

Whatever.

I read comics until I hear Booth's voice calling lights-out and the door, my cell door, swings shut as though pushed by an invisible hand. There's the click that indicates we're locked down for the night.