The Free (P.S.) (17 page)

“It’s over there,” he said. “The old black one with the hood up.”

She started the truck and pulled up in front of the Comet. He opened her hood, placed the jumper cables on her battery, and then onto his and got in his car and started the engine. He got out again, took the jumper cables off, shut his hood and then the truck’s, and walked over to her.

“Thank you,” he said.

“You’re welcome.”

“Do you come every Sunday?” he asked.

“Every time we can, but I hate coming to this place.”

“Have you been coming a long time?”

“Seems like it,” she said and smiled. “And you?”

“It’s my friend who’s here. It’s my first time coming to a prison.”

“I wish it was mine,” she said. “Today I tried to bring in tamales to him ’cause it’s his birthday. He loves my tamales. They didn’t let me give them to him, but at least I tried.”

“Is he your husband?”

“Yes,” she said. “But he’s not much of a husband now.”

“Well, thanks again,” he said and began to walk back toward his car.

“Wait,” she said.

He turned around.

“Do you want the tamales?”

“Of course,” he said and smiled, and so again she smiled and her silver teeth seemed to shine. They looked at each other for a long while, both longing and desperate. He wanted to say something more to her. He didn’t want the moment to end. But her boy, who was staring at her and bouncing his legs on the bench seat, said something in Spanish. She took her eyes off Freddie, shook her head, and answered him. The baby was in the car seat asleep. She looked in the grocery bag and took out a tinfoil package and handed it to him.

“Will you be here next Sunday?” she asked.

“No,” he said. “I won’t be here again.”

“Then it was nice to meet you,” she said and rolled up her window and drove away.

21

It was late into the night and near the end of Pauline’s shift when she took her last break in the girl’s room. Jo lay on her side in the dark and stared out into the hallway watching the hospital traffic pass by.

“So you’re a volleyball player,” Pauline said and sat across from her.

“How would you know that?” said Jo and turned on the bedside light.

“The shoes in the closet.”

“How do you know what volleyball shoes look like?”

“I know a few things. I’m not as dumb as I look.”

“I won those at a tournament when I used to play.”

“You must have been pretty good.”

“I wasn’t really.”

“I bet your parents were proud of you.”

“It’s the only thing my dad likes about me.”

“I’m sure there are other things.”

“No.”

“I didn’t think you’d be an athlete,” Pauline said and sat back in the chair and stretched her arms.

“Why?”

“I don’t know, but I like that you are.”

“In a small town anyone can do sports. You don’t have to be good.”

“To win shoes you probably have to be pretty good.”

“That’s not true.”

“If you say so,” Pauline said. “Do you like chocolate?”

“Everybody likes chocolate,” said Jo.

Pauline reached into her shirt pocket and took out a handful of miniature Hershey chocolate bars. She placed them in her palm in front of the girl. Jo took two and Pauline set the rest on her bedside table and looked at her watch.

“So how did you get them?”

“The shoes?”

Pauline nodded.

Jo opened the first chocolate and put it in her mouth. “Well, one time my mom drove me and this friend from school to a volleyball tournament. She made us all pray before we got out. It took a long time. She just sat there and went on about God and how he was going to help us win. It was really embarrassing, but at the end of the tournament we were both on the team that won. We each got a voucher for a pair of new volleyball shoes from Nike, a medal, and a ball.”

“Maybe the praying worked.”

“Maybe,” Jo said.

“I’d like to watch you play volleyball sometime.”

“I won’t play anymore, but that’s alright. I didn’t like it that much and anyway I’m too short.”

“Maybe you’ll take it up again someday for fun.”

“Maybe.”

“I always liked playing,” Pauline said. “I was even on a team for a while, but in the end I was always scared of the ball.”

“The ball doesn’t hurt that much when it hits you. That’s what you have to remember.”

Pauline laughed. “I knew that. At least in my mind I did, but at the very last second I’d always turn away.”

“You’re not supposed to do that.”

“I know. That’s why I didn’t last.”

“Can I ask you a question?” said Jo.

“Sure,” Pauline replied.

“I was wondering why your mom doesn’t take care of your dad. Did she die?”

“No, she’s alive but she left town a long time ago.”

“Where did she go?”

“Phoenix, Arizona.”

“Why did she go there?”

“She met a man at work and had an affair with him. He wanted to go there.”

“How old were you?”

“Five,” Pauline said and looked at her watch.

“Do you have to go?”

“I have four minutes left.”

Jo opened another chocolate and put it in her mouth. “Were you upset when she left?”

“Sure, I used to hate her because of it.” Pauline reached over and took one of the chocolates, opened it, and put it in her mouth. “But really, my dad . . . well all I can say is that I can’t imagine being married to him. It must have been pretty awful.”

“Why didn’t you go with her?”

“Maybe you should be a detective. You sure ask a lot of questions.”

“I don’t like guns,” Jo said. “Detectives have to carry guns. But I like trying to figure out things.”

“Maybe you could be a detective that doesn’t carry a gun. It could be your trademark.”

“Maybe,” she replied and looked at Pauline. “Why didn’t you go with her?”

“Because she didn’t want me to. I mean, I didn’t want to stay with my dad alone. I hated it there. My dad can be really crazy. And crazy is a tough one. ’Cause it always comes out different but then it’s always the same, too. She knew all that but left me with him anyway. That says it all, I think.”

“Did she ever tell you why she didn’t take you?”

“Not really. I don’t think about it anymore, but when I was your age I was obsessed with it. I used to get really depressed. But the truth is I never asked her why because I didn’t want to know the answer. ’Cause really I already knew the answer. So in the end I just decided I would never talk to her again.”

“Was it hard doing that?”

Pauline nodded. “And it wasn’t the smartest decision. Being mad like that takes a lot of energy. It wears you out in a bad way, I think. As I got older I started seeing things differently, maybe from her side. She wasn’t the most courageous woman. Maybe she thought she had to save her own skin, and maybe she thought that guy was her only shot. Or maybe she just didn’t like me enough to take me. I don’t know. It doesn’t really matter why, I guess. It took a long while but I learned to forgive her, ’cause I didn’t want to spend my whole life angry. That doesn’t mean I have to like her or that I have to keep in touch. It just means I’ve put her behind me more or less.”

“Did you ever go to Phoenix to visit?”

“No,” Pauline said and stood up. “I had to figure things out on my own. The first thing I learned is that you can be and do whatever you want. You just have to get up each morning and try to get there.”

“Getting up is hard,” Jo said.

“It’s hard but not that hard. I’ll help you.”

“Why would you say that?”

“ ’Cause it’s true.”

“But why would you help me?”

“ ’Cause I like you. But now I have to get back to work.”

“Do you have a lot of patients?”

“A few.”

“Any nice ones?”

“Not as nice as you,” Pauline said and began walking out of the room. She turned and looked at her watch. “You better be sleeping the next time I make the rounds or it’s NASCAR for you, alright?”

“Alright,” the girl said and smiled.

“Good-night.”

“Good-night.”

The next evening Pauline came on shift to find a dark-haired man in his twenties in Jo’s room. He had a handlebar moustache and was seated in the chair across from her, dressed in black jeans, a black leather coat, and motorcycle boots.

“I’m Randy,” he told the nurse. He stood up tall and lanky, and put out his hand and Pauline shook it. “I’m the youth pastor at Carol’s church.”

“Carol?”

“I think you might know her as Jo. Her real name is Carol Coller.”

Pauline said hello to the girl, checked her IV, and looked at the packings. “How are you feeling?” she asked.

“I’m okay,” she said quietly.

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

Pauline winked at her. “Then I’ll leave you two alone,” she said and charted on the computer in the corner of the room and left. When she came back an hour later the youth pastor was gone. The girl was alone and facing the wall and quietly crying to herself.

“Carol’s a nice name,” Pauline said. “Why didn’t you tell me your real name?”

“I don’t know,” she murmured.

“Well it’s a good name.”

“The guys called me Jo,” she said as she still faced the wall. “And when I got here I wasn’t going tell them my real name . . . Do you want to know why they called me Jo?”

“Why?”

She squeezed her eyes closed and covered her face with her hands. “They called me Jo ’cause there was a crazy girl they knew named JoAnne. They called her Jo-blow ’cause she’d have sex with everyone. She’d blow anyone. All you had to do was ask her.”

“But that’s not your name, is it?”

“No,” she said.

“You’re not her, are you?”

“No.”

“I like the name Carol,” Pauline said. “May I call you that?”

“Okay.”

“Was the pastor alright?”

Carol didn’t answer.

“He likes motorcycles, huh?”

She smiled and opened her eyes. She turned to Pauline. “He thinks he’s cool ’cause he rides a motorcycle around. But he’s seriously not cool.”

“How did he find you?”

“There was a child welfare lady that came by. She scared me so I told her my real name.”

“I’m glad you did.”

“I don’t know,” she said uncertainly.

“It was a good move,” Pauline said and looked at her watch. “But now we’re going to have to get to work ’cause I’m a little behind tonight. Are you up for me changing the packings?”

Carol nodded and Pauline left the room and came back with a cart of supplies. She set it next to the bed and pulled the curtain around. She washed her hands and put on a pair of sterile gloves.

“It’s time for you to close your eyes, okay?”

“Okay,” Carol said, and Pauline began removing the bandages and packings from her leg.

“Have your parents come yet?”

“Pastor Randy said my mom’s so heartbroken she missed two days of work. They don’t want to see me until I get better.”

“She’ll change her mind. She’s probably just scared.”

“They want me to go away.”

“Go away where?”

“A Christian rehabilitation camp.”

“They have those?”

“Yeah, and they cost a lot of money. They want me to go there until I’m eighteen.” Carol suddenly cried out in pain.

“Are you alright?”

“I just started thinking about what you’re doing, and I opened my eyes. I know I should never do that, but I can’t help it sometimes.”

“It’s gonna get easier and easier,” Pauline said. “They’re healing so fast now that pretty soon we won’t have to do it at all. So where is this rehabilitation place?”

“In Idaho somewhere.”

“Maybe it won’t be so bad.”

“They’ll all hate me there. I know they will.”

“You’re a good kid. You’re not any worse than anyone else. Maybe you’ll meet nice people there.”

“You don’t understand anything.”

“Maybe not, but the place could be alright. You never know.”

“You hate me, too. I can tell. I can tell by your voice. You think I’m a freak and you want me to go to some camp for freaks so you’ll never have think of me again.”

“You know that’s not true,” Pauline said. “So lay off saying stuff like that, alright? Nothing’s changed. I’m just trying to understand what’s going on . . . Okay, we’re half done.” Pauline stood up, took off her gloves, and threw them in the basket along with the used packings and bandages. She washed her hands again, put on new gloves, and began repacking the abscesses.

“How’s the pain? You holding up alright?” she asked, but this time Carol wouldn’t answer. The girl kept her eyes squeezed shut, and turned her face to the wall and didn’t speak again. Pauline finished her work and left the room. When she came by again for the last time during the night she knew Carol was faking sleep.

The next shift, Pauline came on to find that the girl had disappeared in the middle of the night. The graveyard shift nurses had seen a boy in her room. They’d told him to leave and he had. They hadn’t seen him again and didn’t see anything out of the ordinary after that. She was just there one moment and then the next she wasn’t.

The hospital called her parents and the youth pastor but no one had seen her. They called the police and filed a missing persons report, but her whereabouts were unknown.

Pauline worked the rest of her shift that night but when she got home she couldn’t eat or sleep. The next morning she walked across her apartment complex and climbed the stairs to the second floor. She knocked on a front door until a naked man answered.

“Are you trying to scare me to death, Gary?”

The man was heavyset and in his late fifties and bald. His body was covered in black hair, and his penis was nearly hidden under his sagging belly.

“It’s six o’clock in the morning,” he grumbled.

“I called you three times last night.”

“My phone doesn’t work.”

“Your phone works. I called from outside the door once and heard it ringing. Can you put some clothes on? I have to talk to you, and I can’t do it this way.”

Gary turned around and waddled down the hallway toward his bedroom. Pauline went inside, turned the heat up on the thermostat, and stood in the kitchen and waited.

“I thought nurses were used to seeing naked men,” he yelled from the bedroom.

“I get paid to see people naked. That’s the only thing that makes it bearable.”

“Thanks a lot.”

“I’m taking you out to breakfast.”

“Why, what do you want?” He came from the bedroom in threadbare white Jockey shorts and sat down on his couch.

“I told you to get dressed.”

“I have underwear on. What do you want?”

“I checked the janitor’s schedule last night and you have today off. I need your help.”

“I don’t want to help.”

“You don’t even know what it is.”

“It can’t be good if you’re here this early.”

“How’s the job I got you?”

Gary coughed for a long time and shook his head. He got up and spit in the kitchen sink and then sat back down on the couch again. “You’re going to hold that over me forever and that’s bullshit.”

“I was just asking. You don’t need to get ugly. Seriously, how is it going?”

“Alright I guess,” he said. He put his feet up on a plywood coffee table.

She pointed to an ashtray full of butts and half-finished cigarettes on the table next to his feet. “You know you’re supposed to quit smoking.”

“I have quit,” he cried. He rubbed his face with his hands and sighed.

“There’s more than twenty butts in there.”

“They’ve been there a long time.”

Pauline took the ashtray and emptied it in a trash basket in the kitchen. “If I see more than five in here the next time I’m over, I’m going to show up every morning at six and take you running.”

“I’d like to see you go running,” he said and laughed.

“Well if you make me, I’ll start. Anyway, come on. Get dressed.”

“First tell me why.”

“ ’Cause I’m taking you to breakfast.”