The Free (P.S.) (14 page)

“I started going down to the basement in the middle of the night and putting together a model train set,” Freddie said and laughed in embarrassment.

“You have to do something,” Darla said.

“I started building a train set that had a huge Civil War scene, the Battle of Gettysburg. I’d always read about the Civil War. Anyway, I’d pass half the night down there. It was the only thing I did that made my mind stop. It calmed me down. But I was spending money on it that we didn’t have . . . I bought these little Civil War soldiers and I’d paint them. I’d put fake blood on them and have them stabbing and shooting each other. I painted them dead and on stretchers in field hospitals or walking down a road, wounded, with one leg or one arm. All that violence I re-created, and it comforted me . . . I’m sorry to go on like this, Darla. You must think I’m pretty awful.”

“It’s fine, Freddie. I know what you’re saying. I understand. But please keep eating, I don’t want to ruin your dinner.”

“It’s alright. I’m not hungry anymore.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“So what happened?”

“Our money got so bad we mortgaged the house twice, and I got the second job at the group home. A couple years went by and my wife started having an affair.”

“That’s horrible.”

Freddie nodded. “I never would have thought of it happening, but it makes sense. All I ever did was work, and to be honest by then I never really thought about how she was doing or how she was holding up. I was so worried about money and Ginnie that she’d become invisible to me. She left with my daughters almost two years ago. She’d fallen in love with someone else and they moved out of state together. It happened four years after Ginnie was born. So, four years of falling apart. By the end I didn’t even have the energy to fight for them. To be honest I thought maybe they were better off without me. I thought maybe their new dad would be an improvement. At least he made more money. It was like waking up from one nightmare and falling into another.” He paused for a minute, staring at his dinner. “I liked being a dad, more than anything else maybe.”

“Not a lot of men say that,” Darla said.

“I’m not telling you this to complain. I’m just telling you ’cause I don’t want you to worry that something bad happened to Leroy ’cause of me.”

“Thank you for telling me, Freddie.”

“I owe you that . . . You know, when we first went into Afghanistan and then Iraq I was excited. I read about it like it was a sport, like an adventure story. All the different kinds of guns and helicopters and jets, and the strategies. And then Leroy came to the group home. I learned he was in the National Guard and got hurt in Iraq. I started realizing things. I started opening my eyes to things.”

“I’ve never understood people’s fascination with war,” Darla said. “You know my brother went to Vietnam. It felt like I hardly breathed the whole time he was there. And what did it mean him being there? Why was he there? He made it back alive but he wasn’t the same. He lost who he was, and for what?”

“Is he still alive now?”

“No.”

“What happened to him?”

“He killed himself, Freddie. He shot himself in the head. He lived in the back of my house in a trailer. Leroy went to see him after school one day as he always did, but my brother was dead. He found him in the trailer like that, his head destroyed and all that blood. My Leroy had to see that. Just a week before my brother had gotten so down he went to the VA for help. They put him on some kind of medication, set up an appointment with a counselor, and sent him home.”

“I’m sorry.”

Darla nodded.

“Why after all that would Leroy join?”

Tears welled in Darla’s eyes. “His boss was in the National Guard and that had a lot to do with it. This was before 9/11, before Afghanistan. There wasn’t a lot to worry about and it was the National Guard. At the time I didn’t know they sent the National Guard to foreign wars, and Leroy promised me he’d never have to go. Even so, I was sick about it. The only real fights we ever got in were over him joining. I begged him not to and his girlfriend begged him not to. I broke down crying and begged him because of my brother.”

“But he joined anyway?”

She nodded. “I can blame his boss but Leroy was always impressionable, especially to men. In the end I think he just wanted to see.”

“See what your uncle saw?”

“Maybe,” she said. “I hope that’s not the reason but I think it might be.”

18

Pauline walked down the sixth-floor hall and entered room 3, Mrs. Dawson. She helped her from bed and walked her up and down the hall, and when she was finished she clocked out for dinner break. She went to the cafeteria, ordered two egg sandwiches and two orders of chocolate cake, and took them back to the sixth floor, to Jo’s room.

“Hey, you’re finally up,” she said as she walked in.

“Hello,” Jo said shyly.

“I’m glad you’re getting some sleep.”

The girl nodded.

“I’m on dinner break. I was thinking we could eat together.” She set the food on the bed tray. “I hope you like egg sandwiches. The cook makes them especially for me. It’s a scrambled egg and cheese on a toasted sesame-seed bagel. It’s my favorite. For dessert we have chocolate cake. What do you think? You want to eat with me?”

Jo nodded.

“Good,” Pauline replied and took one of the sandwiches and sat down in the chair across from her.

“I’m sorry about last night,” Jo said quietly. “I didn’t mean to be like that. I didn’t mean what I said. I know you’re not like that.”

“Good.”

“I’m sorry I said it.”

“I thought we did pretty good last night, considering. We’re just getting to know each other. It takes a while for people to trust each other. So don’t worry, okay?”

“You don’t hate me?”

“Of course not. You were pretty normal, if you ask me. Anyway, I can take it. So how was your day?”

“Nothing happened, really.” She moved the sandwich in front of her and took a bite. “Linda repacked the bandages and I went for two walks.”

“I’ll have to do them again in an hour or so, okay? But I’ll keep my mouth shut and go fast as I can, and then you’ll have the whole night to sleep. Pretty soon you’ll only have to change them once a day and then after that they’ll be healed.”

“Did you do anything before work?”

Pauline set her sandwich on the bedside table and bent down and took off her shoes and set her feet on top of them and moved her toes back and forth. “My dogs are tired again. Let me see. Today, well I went to the dentist. And after that I went grocery shopping, and then on the way home I stopped by my dad’s and made him lunch. I guess that’s about it.”

“Do you always make him lunch?”

“A few times a week.”

“Are you a good cook?”

“No, but my dad only eats a few things.”

“What does he like?”

“Right now all he likes is chicken noodle soup, crackers, iceberg lettuce, and frozen burritos.”

“That’s it?” Jo said and smiled.

“He used to only eat TV dinners, but his cholesterol got so bad that I made him stop. After that everything had to be Taco Bell. He’d throw fits if it wasn’t. But his cholesterol got even worse. So now it’s soup and frozen burritos and I try to keep him away from candy unless I’m bribing him. Candy is a sure way to get him to do something he doesn’t want to do. Anyway, more importantly, is there anything on TV?”

“I don’t really like TV.”

“You don’t like TV?”

“No.”

“I’ve never heard anyone your age say that.”

“We could never watch it at home. I guess I got used to it,” she said and took another bite of the sandwich.

“Home where you grew up?”

The girl nodded.

“Why’s that?”

“My mom thought it was a bad influence. We had to quit watching it for real when she found God.”

“She found God?”

“A born-again Christian.”

“No TV after that?”

“No, just sports. My dad watches sports.”

“Did your dad become a Christian, too?”

“Not at first,” Jo said and set the sandwich down. She pulled the sheet and blanket up over her chest and pursed her lips together, and then relaxed and closed her eyes. “He thought she was completely crazy for a while. All of a sudden the only thing she talked about was the Bible. It was the weirdest thing in the world. She works at a meat-packing plant. A lot of the people there are Christian. She started going to church with them. At first my parents got in fights about it. But my mom said it was just the devil and God fighting inside my dad . . .” Jo opened her eyes and looked at Pauline. “He left us for a few months. He moved in with a guy we called Uncle Brian, but his wife got tired of my dad being there. She kicked him out and he didn’t know what to do so he came back home. After a while he became sort of like my mom. Then we all had to go to church. But my brother was seventeen by then and he hated it.”

“I didn’t know you had a brother.”

Jo nodded.

“Did you like going to church?”

“I didn’t mind it, but my brother thought it was the worst. He ended up running away.”

“Where did he go?”

“He went to Portland and lived there with some guys he knew. Then he got arrested for shoplifting. The police called my parents and they drove down to pick him up. They brought him home and made him go back to school. But he hated being home. They used to get in huge fights. One time he and my dad even got into a fistfight. After that he just quit saying anything. It was like he became a ghost. He never talked in front of them, not ever. Not even at dinner. It used to make my mom really mad. It used to drive her crazy. He only talked to me once in a while. One time, right before he left, he came into my room late at night and told me that if you quit talking, people forget you’re there. They forget about you, and they leave you alone . . . He got a job for a logging company and quit school and moved into a trailer with one of the guys he worked with. He was there for a while but I don’t know where he lives now. I think he works in Alaska somewhere, or at least he did last year.”

“Do you like him?”

“I don’t know him that well. He’s four years older.”

“Maybe you could find him. Maybe he could help.”

“I don’t know,” Jo said. “To be honest, he never liked me.”

“I’m sure that’s not true.”

“It is.”

“What happened to you after he left the house?”

“I stayed for almost two years but I hated it there, so then I ran away.”

“Where did you go?”

“Seattle,” she said and reached for the lip balm.

“You must have been scared.”

Jo nodded. “I’d never been anywhere by myself. Not anywhere at all. I took the bus. I wouldn’t have stayed but I had a fake ID that my friend gave me. It said I was nineteen. And I had enough money. My parents kept their savings in cash in my dad’s closet. There’s a row of books on a shelf and one of them is fake. You open it and it’s just a box inside and they put their money there. Over a thousand dollars and I took it. That’s pretty bad, huh?”

“It’s not the best thing,” Pauline said. “But you had your reasons.”

“I guess,” she said.

“What did you do in Seattle?”

“The first day there I just walked around. I didn’t like it. There’s so many people and it’s so big. And then night came and I didn’t know what to do. I almost called home right then, but I would have gotten in so much trouble that I didn’t. So I got a hotel room. It was called the Inn at Queen Anne. I’d never gotten a hotel room before that, but it was easy. It was just expensive, over sixty dollars a night. Once I was there I stayed. I shouldn’t have, but I did. I was just too scared to find another place.”

“What did you do during the day?”

Jo scratched the skin around her IV needle and looked out the window. “I tried to get a job. I knew I had to, but every time I filled out an application I’d lose my nerve. I’ve never had a real job before. I’d hand in an application but I’d never go back. I lost all my nerve. I stayed in the room for almost two weeks. I didn’t do anything but walk around and eat and look in shops. I even bought clothes. I bought two pairs of shorts and a pair of sandals ’cause it was winter and they were on the clearance rack.”

“You’re a smart shopper.”

“Maybe, if you call buying sandals in the middle of winter smart.” Jo giggled and covered her mouth.

“You have a cute laugh,” Pauline said.

“I hate the way I laugh.”

“You shouldn’t. Believe me I’ve heard a lot of weird laughs and yours isn’t . . . Anyway, when did you meet those guys?”

“There was a group of them sitting down by the water. Kind of by Pike Place. I’d seen them before. Bob started talking with me . . . It’s weird when you don’t talk to anybody for a long time and then you do. Anyone being nice to you feels so good. It doesn’t matter who they are, or what kind of person they are. I started hanging out with them during the day, and then they stayed in my room until my money ran out.”

“How long was that?”

“Maybe five days more.”

“All the same guys that were in the house?”

“There was another guy there, too.”

“Four guys and you?”

Jo’s face suddenly fell. “I know what you’re thinking.”

“I’m not thinking anything,” Pauline said.

“I know you are,” she said.

“I’m not,” Pauline said. “I just wanted to know the situation. What happened after you ran out of money?”

“I started staying with them,” she said faintly.

“Where?”

“Most nights on the street. It wasn’t that bad, really. They stole a sleeping bag and a coat and rain gear for me . . . But I got tired of it.”

“Which part, having no money or sleeping outside?”

“I guess I got tired of them. Then I got pregnant.” She stopped and covered her face with her hands and turned her head away and began crying. “You must think I’m disgusting.”

“I don’t think that at all. So what did you do when you got pregnant?”

“Nothing for a while.”

“Did you know who the father was?”

“No.” She began sobbing harder.

“Take a deep breath. It’s okay,” Pauline said.

“You don’t understand what it was like. I was around them day and night and that’s all they ever talked about. First they wanted to see my breasts. They’d go on for hours just begging me. Day after day after day. So finally I showed them, but after I did it wasn’t enough. It didn’t stop. It got even worse. They wanted to see more . . . So one night it happened with Bob, and Bob told them all. So they all thought they could if they kept trying . . . They were always trying, always. They would get me drunk and stoned. They’d get me to pass out and then . . . I got so tired of it . . . Even when I was sleeping they’d try . . . It wasn’t like they were my friends, really . . . When I told them I was pregnant they totally freaked out. They got really mad at me. It was scary how mad they were. They pushed me against a wall and yelled at me. Captain even pulled a knife on me. So I told them I wanted to get an abortion, but I didn’t have any money . . . They were nicer after that. After that they left me alone. Then somehow a week later they got money and knew where to go. I think one of the guys, Monty, had money.”

“I don’t remember Monty at the house. Was he there?” Pauline asked.

“No, he left before that,” she said and wiped her eyes with her hands. Pauline took Kleenex from the box on the bedside table, and handed some to Jo.

She wiped her eyes again and blew her nose. She looked out the window. “You don’t know him,” she said. “But he had a credit card. I saw him use it a couple times to get cash. I think he’s from Arizona or somewhere like that. Once when we were alone he told me his family lived on a golf course and were rich. But I’m not sure if that’s true. Sometimes he’d just disappear. When he’d come back you could tell he’d taken a shower and washed his clothes. He didn’t ever use needles. Only Bob and Cal, the kid you met who had the abscess, and Captain did. Captain’s the fat kid you saw. They all liked heroin. Monty was alright, really. He didn’t even want to do it with me. Anyway he gave me the money so I got an abortion. But after that I never felt very good. I started feeling really sick a week later. One night I asked Monty for some more money, and he gave it to me. The next morning I got on a bus and went to Yakima and then hitchhiked home.”

“Back to your parents?”

“Yeah,” she said.

“How was that?”

“It was alright at first. They still had my room the same way, and my mom said she prayed for me to come back. But I kept feeling bad so she took me to a doctor. I wanted to be alone with him, you know? But she wanted to be in there with me, and there’s no arguing with her. So she found out that I’d had an abortion. She found out that I had chlamydia, too, and that I had a really bad bladder infection. The doctor asked me if I did drugs. At that point I’d only smoked weed and drank, but I told him I didn’t do anything. But it didn’t matter to my mom. She hated me after that day. She really did . . . My dad would hardly speak to me when he found out. They were both really ashamed.” Jo reached to the Kleenex box and took a few more and wiped her eyes. She turned her head away from the nurse. “They made me start seeing the youth pastor from our church. He held meetings at night in his house. My mom made me tell everyone at the group that I’d had an abortion. She wanted me to talk about the pain it had caused my family and myself and God. She said it would help other people . . . I didn’t mind doing it, though. I don’t know why I didn’t, but I didn’t. And I didn’t mind school either. I just hated when I was home alone with them . . . When I was, everything bad about me seemed ten times worse. Then one night my mom said she couldn’t believe that she’d given birth to a girl who could kill a baby. She said the pain it caused her was almost unbearable. That only God gave her the strength to get up and go to work each morning. She told me that God would never forgive me because I killed a baby. The way she said all that, it’s hard to explain but it was the worst thing that ever happened to me. ’Cause I believe in God.”

“So then what happened?”

“I wanted to kill myself,” she said in a near whisper. She closed her eyes and then opened them, still staring out the window. “But I just couldn’t do it . . . I was going to cut my wrists but I don’t like blood at all. My dad has a gun locker and I know the combination. He has a loaded pistol inside it. The locker is in the garage and I sat out there for a long time but I couldn’t do that either. Once I almost pulled the trigger but then all I could see was blood everywhere. It just seemed so violent and awful . . . So a few days later I just left. This time I didn’t have any money, but my best friend from school, she gave me enough to get back to Seattle.”