The Battle for Jericho (29 page)

I let myself in through the front door. There was no homey smell of dinner wafting through the house. Mom and Dad were both sitting on the sofa, waiting for me. They were not smiling.

The sight of them took the air out of my happy bubble. “Uh. Hey.” I closed the door behind me and stood there. From the looks in their eyes, it seemed wise for me to be near an exit.

“Come in here, Jericho,” Mom said. “Sit down.”

I slipped the backpack off my shoulder, put it on the floor, and took off my jacket, draping it over the backpack. I sat down across from them on the loveseat. “What’s up?”

Dad folded his arms across his chest. “That’s what we want you to tell us.”

Clearly, they’d gotten wind of some wrongdoing on my part, but for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what I’d done that would get Mom off the job and united with Dad to face me down. It couldn’t have anything to do with Hutch. They were already pissed with me about that. And it couldn’t have anything to do with Mr. Hutchison attacking me. Mr. Hutchison was gone, and Mac was the only other person who knew about the attack, and there was no way Mac would have said anything to Mom or Dad without talking it over with me first. “Uh. Well, as strange as it may sound, I got a ninety-five on my geometry test today. I’m not doing so hot in English, though. I’m having trouble getting into
Moby—
”

“This is not about your schoolwork, boy!” Dad snapped.

Mom raised her hand, cutting Dad off in that way only she could manage. “London, just tell him what you found out.”

Dad dug into his pocket. He came up with my cell phone. “I was holding on to this to teach you to be more responsible with your things. When you got into that fight with Barry and came home in that police car, I figured something was going on with you that you weren’t telling me, so I started checking the calls and messages that came to your phone. There was nothing out of the ordinary, so I stopped checking. With you coming off punishment, I decided to give the phone back to you tomorrow. I charged it while I was at the office today, and when I turned it on, I saw that you had a message from a law firm, Stabler and Benson. I called the firm to find out who placed the call, and the receptionist put me through to an attorney named Dylan Cussler. I asked him why the hell he called my underage son. That lawyer wouldn’t tell me a thing. He said I should talk to you.”

Dad paused, giving me a chance to confess. And my brain, as it usually does under such circumstances, tied itself into a tight knot. I just sat there, eyes goggling.

“Jericho,” Mom said. “Why did that attorney call you?”

At the moment, I couldn’t have told them my name. That’s how blank my head had become. “Uh….”

Dad shot angrily to his feet and crossed the room to stand over me, his hands on his hips. “I’ve had enough of this crap. I want you to tell us what this is about.”

I shot a terrified look at Mom, but she didn’t come to my rescue this time. She was worried and just as determined as Dad to have answers.

All of the guilt came back. I couldn’t lie to them. With no other choice, I told them about Mac and me breaking and entering Dylan’s house, vandalizing the place, and how I’d scuffled with the man, leaving him unconscious with a gash in his head. Their mouths dropped open, their eyes filling with horror and disbelief, and I quickly added that I went back to turn myself in, but Dylan refused to press charges.

Dad became livid. He grabbed me by the arm and pulled me to my feet. “Why the hell would you do something like that, boy?”

Mac and I had set out to teach a gay man the error of his ways, but that no longer made sense to me, now that I had come to understand myself better. “I don’t know. It was supposed to be, like, a joke—”

“Breaking into a man’s house is no joke!” Dad’s grip tightened painfully on my bicep. I yelped and tried to pull away.

“Don’t you move,” Dad said, yanking me back to him. I could see in his eyes there was more fear in him than anger. “How the hell could you do something like this? How? We didn’t bring you up this way. What’s happened to you?”

Mom, finally, was up and moving between us. “London,” she said firmly. “Let him go.” She pried his hand off my arm and I backed away from them, my head down. I suddenly couldn’t look them in the eye. “Jericho, wait for us in your room. Your father and I will be there in a few minutes.”

It was actually thirty-seven minutes. The longest thirty-seven minutes of my life.

T
HEY
walked into my room together. I got up from the bed at once and stood before them. The condemned, facing the executioners.

“I talked to Mr. Cussler again,” Dad said, his voice amazingly calm. “He confirmed everything you told us. I thanked him for not pressing charges against you. But you must understand, Jericho, that you committed a very serious crime. You broke into a man’s home. You hurt him.”

I still couldn’t look at them. “I know—” I began, my head down.

“Don’t talk, listen,” Mom said, cutting me off. “Our job is to protect you and do our best to bring you up into a responsible adult. You won’t have to go to court or to jail for what you did, but you
will
be punished. Your father and I wanted to turn you over to the sheriff, to make sure you understood how serious this is, but Mr. Cussler made it clear he would have nothing to do with that, and without his cooperation, there isn’t much the sheriff can really do. So this is what your father and I have decided. You are grounded indefinitely. There will be no extracurricular activities for you at school, which means you are off the basketball team. There will be no allowance, no movies, no bowling with your friends, no electronics in your room, no dates with your girlfriend….” Her mouth twisted with distaste. “Or with whomever you’re dating these days. Your Christmas trip to California with Maclin and his family is cancelled. And you’re on kitchen clean-up duty for all meals. You are grounded until your father and I are convinced that you understand how wrong you were to commit this crime.”

“You’re going to get a part-time job,” said Dad. “Mr. Cussler estimates that you cost him $700 in damages and out-of-pocket medical expenses. He told me you didn’t have to repay him, but I insisted. You will be allowed out of the house only for school, work, and church. We can’t be here to watch you every minute, so you’ll be expected to police yourself when we’re away. If you violate any conditions of your punishment, we’ll put you in the church’s juvenile boot camp where there’ll be good strong men to help you control yourself. Do you understand?”

I understood, and I knew I deserved every bit of it. I nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“Good,” said Mom. “You have any questions?”

“No, ma’am.”

Mom sighed. “Now, is there anything you want to say to us?”

“I’m sorry, Mom, Dad. It was stupid of me to break into that man’s house, and I know how much I disappointed you. I am so sorry.”

“And we’re sure as hell going to make certain of that,” Dad said.

They went through and stripped my room. The television, Xbox, DVD player, MP3 player, and telephone all came out. Mom even found my stash of nudie lady magazines and took those.

By the time they were done, the great cosmic scales of justice were definitely sliding into balance.

M
OM
had to work Saturday after swapping off her night shift with another nurse. She left before I woke up. The smell of turkey sausage and toast and coffee drew me out of bed at nine. Dad was in sitting at the table in the kitchen, reading the newspaper over an empty plate smeared with the remnants of a fine breakfast.

“Good morning, Dad.”

“Good morning, son,” he replied cheerfully.

I turned to the stove, which was covered with pots and pans, all of which were dirty but empty. “Uh. You didn’t leave me any breakfast?”

“You weren’t up, so I cooked just enough for myself. You’re welcome to fix whatever you like.” Dad folded the paper, stood up, and took a final gulp of coffee from his mug. “Just make sure you clean up the kitchen when you’re done.”

He took his paper and went to the den, and I wondered just how long my parents were going to stay mad at me.

I cleaned up the kitchen and ate a bowl of Cheerios for breakfast. After I showered and got dressed, Dad ordered me out into the backyard to rake leaves. It was a beautiful, cold morning, and I wanted to be out somewhere hanging with my friends. But I didn’t feel I had any grounds to complain about anything.

As I worked, I heard a familiar scuffling. When I turned, I saw that Mac had climbed over the fence.

Of course, Dad had called Mr. Travis after he found out what Mac and I had done. To say that Mac was mad about that is the same as saying a nuclear blast is noisy.

He came across the yard so fast I didn’t have time to even think about protecting myself. He punched me in the gut twice, one swift, solid blow after the other, and I went down, curling in a heap once I was on the ground. Then he scrambled back over the fence, leaving me with a mound of partially digested Cheerios to rake up along with the leaves.

And that was how I lost my best friend.

I
T
’
S
a small world. And when you live in a small town, the world is even smaller than you think.

My dad told his brother Vic about my criminal acts against Dylan Cussler. It turns out that the lawyer Hutch kept mentioning was the one and only Dylan, who just happened to be Hutch’s mentor at the MLGBT Teen Society. And Vic naturally passed the word on to Hutch to explain why he couldn’t drop Hutch off at my place on Saturday for a visit.

To say that Hutch was hurt to learn that the guy he was falling for had gay-bashed his mentor is the same as saying Katrina was a tropical wind.

He called me on the phone Saturday afternoon. He was so upset that Dad let me talk to him even though I was grounded. “Did you do it? Did you really do it, Jerry?” He was in tears. He was actually in tears.

And that was how I lost the guy I was on the verge of making my boyfriend.

Chapter 25

T
HANKSGIVING
came and went, and the Christmas shopping season began in earnest. Mr. Randall, one of the deacons at our church, is a manager at the Giant Foods Supermarket, and he set me up with a job there as a favor to Dad. I’d work six hours on Saturday, four hours on Sunday, and three hours after school on Tuesday and Thursday, stocking shelves, bagging groceries, and helping customers get their purchases loaded in their cars. In about eight weeks, I would earn enough to pay Dylan off. I wasn’t so stupid as to think I could quit after that. Knowing Dad, I’d be working until I graduated high school and headed off to college.

Mac got a job too. His dad wasn’t any happier about what happened at Dylan’s house than my dad was. As part of his punishment, Mr. Travis wanted Mac to pay restitution too. Dylan told Mr. Travis that he’d already reluctantly agreed to take restitution from me, and he refused to have Mac pay him as well. Mr. Travis then insisted that Dylan have Mac make a donation to Dylan’s favorite charity. Mac was therefore committed to donate the first $700 of his earnings bussing tables, sweeping floors, and cleaning toilets at the Fisher King Seafood Restaurant to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis.

Hutch started his job at Burger King the Monday before Thanksgiving. By that Friday, he had rented a room at Dylan’s house and moved out of my Uncle Vic’s apartment. Dylan filed paperwork with the court to start the emancipation process for Hutch. Through the realtor who’d listed the Hutchison home for sale, Dylan learned that Mr. and Mrs. Hutchison were now living in Greensboro, North Carolina. He had them served with notice of Hutch’s application for emancipation and the date for the court hearing. They would have the opportunity to appear and either agree to the emancipation or explain why they were against it. Like Dylan and Hutch, I prayed that they wouldn’t bother to show.

Hutch was upset with Mac for his part in the attack on Dylan too, but since Hutch was still in the closet for the most part, Mac thought Hutch was angry with him for punching me out. Things were strange at school, naturally, with three formerly good friends not speaking to each other. Thankfully, that lasted only about a week and a half.

The second Saturday in December, just after breakfast, I was sitting on the floor of my room, moping. I’d finished my homework the night before, I couldn’t go out to hang with my friends (the ones who were still speaking to me, that is), I couldn’t watch television or call anyone on the phone, and I was tired of reading, the one form of entertainment my parents hadn’t taken from me. Don’t quote me on this, but it’s better to do chores than to have nothing at all to do.

Dad stuck his head in the door. Between him and Mom, I now had a total of one half of a parent who’d talk to me. Dad was at least making an effort to get back to normal in the way he treated me. “Why the hell are you looking so down in the dumps?”

“I’m bored, Dad,” I whined.