He opened his eyes, looked up at me.
Dunk blinked. “Have you been back to school yet?”
And I knew.
I didn’t want to, but I knew.
I shuffled backward, my knees hitting the other bed. I tried to say something, but I lost all words. I turned, started for the door.
“Jack?” Dunk said. “Jack, wait. Let me—”
I was halfway to the elevator before he finished the sentence.
I would like to say I was strong.
I would like to say I took what happened at Krendal’s and somehow rose from the pain, somehow captured all that was good about my Auntie Jo and Gerdy and all the others I lost that day.
After speaking to Dunk, I left the hospital and wandered the streets of Pittsburgh for nearly five hours.
I walked.
No destination in mind, I just walked.
Good neighborhoods, bad neighborhoods, I didn’t care. I think part of me purposely veered toward the bad neighborhoods, hoping to land in some kind of trouble.Itchingfor a fight. With each step, my anger boiled, fed upon itself, until there was nothing else. When a bus roared past me, a little too close to the sidewalk, I cursed myself for not jumping in front of it. As I passed the dealers on the street, I stared them down, wondering which ones worked for Crocket, which ones worked for Dunk, and which ones weren’t sure but kept on selling anyway, knowing someone would come along to replenish their stash and collect the proceeds. Somehow, they recognized me as some kind of threat. More than one pulled back a shirt or a coat to show me the butt of a gun or a knife. I found myself smiling at these guys, hoping they would pull their little weapon, hoping they would take a shot, wondering if it would even kill me if they did.
The sun was long gone by the time I found myself back on Brownsville Road. I didn’t go home, though, not right away. Instead, I pushed through the doors of Mike’s Package Liquor and Beer and bought a bottle of something called Jameson. Being underage, the clerk wouldn’t sell it to me at retail, but I quickly learned $100 in cash would buy just about any bottle in that particular store.
Back in my apartment, I didn’t turn on the lights, I didn’t take off my shoes. I dropped down into Auntie Jo’s favorite chair, twisted open the bottle, and drank. I kept drinking until I could no longer see the outline of Gerdy’s discarded dress lying on the floor, just outside my bedroom door.
I didn’t like the taste of Jameson at first, but it grows on you. It settles in like a warm blanket on the coldest winter night.
Representatives of Brentwood High School called a lot that week, but I didn’t answer. When they couldn’t reach anyone at my apartment, they tried Ms. Leech across the hall. She told them I left for school, she said she packed me a lunch—ham and cheese on whole wheat. She told them I was probably there somewhere and some teacher fumbled the attendance, bunch of idiots in that building. They called Dewitt Matteo next, and he told them I wouldn’t be returning for the final weeks of my junior year, but I would be back in the fall. He told them I would make up any necessary work at that time. The phone calls stopped after that.
Some time in July, there was a knock at my door.
It was Dunk.
I didn’t answer.
Matteo told me he hadn’t been charged, not with anything. Not a damn thing. Dunk had traded his hospital bed for a wheelchair, with hopes of trading the chair for crutches. He didn’t move back into his apartment, he didn’t go back to Brentwood High School, either. I’m not sure where he went, and I didn’t care.
The next knock at my door wouldn’t come until two months later, July 29. I probably shouldn’t have answered that one either.
Log 07/29/1993—
Subject “D” within expected parameters.
Audio/video recording.
“Why is the phone in there?”
Warren glanced up from his clipboard and shrugged. “Somebody must have figured it was easier to leave it in the room. He can’t dial from in there. The line is dead, unless we activate it.”
“Did they put him on a call today?”
“Two, just this morning.”
“Are there more scheduled?” Carl asked.
