August and then some. David Prete
made his girlfriend grab his arm and yell at him to stop already. Which he finally did. I just wanted to gum up the works of their relationship, separate them for a second, see how they handle drunken scrutiny. Yeah, I’m guessing last night was a milder version of that.
Me and Stephanie didn’t say much beyond what’s up last night. We sat up there invisible to the rest of the neighborhood until my first six-pack ran out and I went to the deli for more. I asked her if she wanted one, but she said no. Sad girl.
After 125th Street the train crosses the East River, hugs the banks of the South Bronx, and shoots up the Hudson. I see signs fly by with the word Yonkers on them. My heart rate speeds up and my insides try to make a B-line out my ass. This stop always comes too soon. I think about staying on. Taking this train as far as it goes then hitching a one-way ride north, which is stupid because people don’t hitchhike anymore.
I step onto the platform and my t-shirt gets blown in the trail-wind of the train. I watch the train go up the tracks and get smaller until I can’t see or hear it.
The river is about a mile wide here and seems to separate nature from nurture. I stand on the nurture side with the new apartment buildings and cafés. Cliffs inhabited only by trees stand on the New Jersey side and look down perpetually forgiving the Yonkers side.
I pass a café lined with bay windows that has a new co-op building above it. Right now it’s past lunchtime and the place is practically empty. A few waitresses lean on the bar and pick at their fingernails while the television over their heads plays last night’s Yankees highlights. A few tables are taken by people sitting across from each other, talking to someone else on their cell phones. This café’s valet wears a white shirt and a bowtie, and sits on a stool in a chained-off parking lot that can hold maybe ten cars. He stares at the water and fingers the stack of unused parking stubs.
I walk three blocks away from the water on a street lined with tall brick housing projects. Cages cover the first floor windows, graffiti covers front doors, and smashed lights hang above entrances. The buildings resemble the hospital where my mom worked: flat, only the essentials. Summer-school kids walk by them, dip their hands into bags of Bugles and Doritos. They laugh and talk loud enough that I can hear them over the four lanes of traffic between us. They’ve hung backpacks from their elbows and attitudes on their faces that explain they can do anything they want, no permission needed. It’s like watching me and Nokey a year ago.
A few blocks past that stand City Hall and the Yonkers court-house buildings. The courthouse clock says I have five minutes to get into the Integrated Domestic Violence building.
My charges have been read. Probable cause and intent to steal and sell have all been established. The trial date is set for two months from now. But I’m being good. I have sought and maintained employment, enrolled in an educational program in pursuit of a GED, am complying with periodic check-ins with the authorities, refraining from possessing firearms, undergoing family psychological treatment, and failing to see where the justice is in all this relentless bullshit.
Family psychological treatment works like this: we all sit in a white, cinderblock-walled room and stare in opposite directions. We pick at the arms of our padded metal chairs as our appointed counselor asks us questions about how we feel and why. My mother cries in that quiet dab-your-nose kind of way and my dad says absolutely nothing.
Today is no different. Our counselor says, “What’s going on today?” She’s got this low, one-note tone that makes everything she says sound like it’s in parentheses.
After she asks what’s going on there’s a real long silence.
I say: I think I got punched last night.
COUNSELOR: You think you got punched?
ME: Yeah. Not sure.
MOM: (Looks at me, concern in her eyes.)
COUNSELOR: Why do you think you did? And why aren’t you sure?
ME: I’m not sure. And I don’t know.
COUNSELOR: Did you get into a fight?
ME: Probably not exactly.
COUNSELOR: Where were you?
ME: Hard to say exactly.
COUNSELOR: Were you out somewhere?
ME: Yeah. I think so.
COUNSELOR: Who were you with?
ME: Well if I did get hit, I guess the person who hit me was there. Other than that—
MOM: Jake, please stop.
COUNSELOR: No, it’s OK.
MOM: Why do you constantly badger this woman? ME: I’m not—
MOM: She’s trying to help.
ME: OK.
COUNSELOR: It’s OK, Mrs Savage.
MOM: Miss.
COUNSELOR: (Cringing.) I’m sorry.
DAD: (Inhaling deeply, letting it out as protest.)
MOM: Just call me Francine already. (Head falling into hands.)
COUNSELOR: Francine, you all get to talk about whatever you want to talk about. Anything that’s on your mind.
Silence.
COUNSELOR: Anything.
More silence.
Mom wipes nose.
Counselor looks from face to face, encouraging and waiting for the next word.
Dad picks at chair.
Silence.
ME: I’m OK.
Short silence.
COUNSELOR: What do you mean, Jake?
ME: If I was hit—
MOM: Jake …
ME: I’m saying that if I was hit, and I might have been, I’m O-K.
COUNSELOR: Well, Jake, according to your psychiatrist’s evaluation you’re not really OK.
ME: He’s not my psychiatrist. I don’t have a psychiatrist. I only went to one because they told me to.
COUNSELOR: He’s a medical doctor whose diagnosis for you was “severe depression”.
ME: I maintain my right to refuse medication, because I’m not depressed. How many times do I have to say this? If he wanted to give me something to knock me out at night, then fine. But apparently he didn’t think sleep was so worthy, so forget him. I’m OK. All right? I’m A-OK. Not that anyone was worried.
COUNSELOR: Is anyone worried about Jake?
Short silence.
DAD: (Staring at the floor, expression hidden.) I am.
EVERYONE: (Silence.)
She yells my name as I trot down the courthouse stairs, her voice a perpetual panic attack. I turn mid-step and with my eyes ask what she wants. She settles on the stair above me, a forced sliver of a smile poking through her puffy face.
“You gave our counselor a hard time in there.”
“We all get them.”
If I know my mom, she’s now using the obvious as a segue into what she really wants to say.
“Jake.” She preps herself with a deliberate inhalation. “I want you to know you can come home.”
Do I know my mom?
“Home?” I say like she’s joking.
“Yes.”
“Where’s that?”
“With me.”
“Not an option, Mom.”
She nods her