“Breath, Jail, or Institution” by Steve Webb

Elmira, New York, 2022 

I had to take my fifteen-year-old son to meet his probation officer today. A steady soaking rain obscured the windshield and the tires splashed through puddles as we looked for a place to park. Even though this part of Elmira is a ghost town there are No Parking signs all down the block in front of the building just to make sure there is nothing easy about the process. The appointment was at 8:30 so he got to miss some school, too, which is always helpful for a kid who thinks missing class is like missing a ghost sighting. If he didn’t see it, it doesn’t exist. There couldn’t possibly be homework or notes to make up. This is an easier way out for him than a dentist appointment. 

“Scooter said we need masks in there.” Scooter—his friend who he probably shouldn’t be hanging out with because they smoke weed and trash public bathrooms together—got to meet the probation officer late last week. I told my son that the masks are in the glove box. I saw him open the glove box and look at the stack of brand-new blue masks then I must’ve looked away, assuming that he would take it from there.

We race-walked through the rain at 8:26 for two deserted blocks to stand under a crowded awning. Inside, I could see masked officers shuffling around under fluorescent lights pretending we didn’t exist. Outside, a short girl in her early twenties, with thick glasses and a white polo shirt tucked into her khaki pants, waited with us closest to the doors. She looked like the type of kid who would remind a teacher that they forgot to assign homework for the weekend. Not, in any way, the probation type. In a condescending tone she told us that the doors will remain locked until exactly 8:30. As if we should all know this. As if we were all seasoned criminals like her. 

At exactly 8:30 a smooth-headed officer let us in the door and instructed, “Please get your temperature taken and empty your pockets into a tray and walk through the metal detector.” They had to take our temperature with a laser device mounted to the wall. The officer behind the machine asked Curtis if he had a mask. He said he did not. The officer gave him a mask. Curtis put on the mask and walked through the metal detector and set it off. He came back through and emptied his pockets; a phone, some earbuds, some change and a crumpled old mask. 

“So, you did have a mask?” 

“I guess.” 

took my temperature, emptied my pockets and beamed with pride as I walked through the detector. 

After asking the smooth-headed man for directions we proceeded down the hall, up an echoing stairwell and through an industrial fire door into another fluorescent-white, square

room. A middle-aged lady with dead eyes—most likely the result of seeing too much—asked us our names and slid a clipboard across her desk with a packet to fill out. 

It was twenty pages front and back. Income, extracurricular activities, household situation, drug history, employment history, etc. The room was completely quiet except for the sound of my pen losing confidence as it dragged across the pages. 

I handed in my work and we waited. Fifteen, maybe twenty minutes passed. By now we were deep into the second period. I was hoping I’d have gotten him back to school by then. Finally, the dead-eyed woman said that Mr. Camper was ready to see us and told us where to go. 

The little sign on his desk said Jim Camper. It was a name I recognized from high school. I wondered if that’s something you bring up in this situation. I had little flashes of a pudgy kid on a basketball court. Of him at a desk in front of me in class. He was shy but friendly as far as I could remember. With the mask and twenty-five years I couldn’t tell if that shy, smiley kid was still in there. His tone was so institutionalized, direct and cold, that I figured the answer was no. 

He gave us the worst-case scenario for this situation. It was really shitty. I know he was just trying to play up the scariness to get the kid on the right track but I was totally falling for it. I couldn’t really get a read on how Curtis was taking this in but there was a brief moment of deep eye contact where I thought I saw real fear. Maybe it was just a mirror. Maybe it was just hope. I went back and forth from being a back-up actor in the play to actually believing Jim.

Things aren’t as heavy when you’re fifteen years old. But fifteen is really close to eighteen, an “adult,” and the system doesn’t care if your dad loves you. I’d seen enough to know it was true but how could I tell him that? I’d assumed I’d share my story with him over a beer when he was in his late twenties. A fun anecdote not a cautionary tale. 

✶

Ontario, New York, County Jail, 1998 

“What y’all in for?” he asked. He was tall and expressionless. He’d walked over from the group, a committee of sorts, after I’d entered and sat down at one of the few empty tables. He had that limp-like sway that one might expect from a man with edge, the swagger that exuded both casual and badass all in the same projection. He pulled it off, too—I was scared and I could tell that he was not. 

For the inquiry his shoulders were back, his feet were planted and he spoke down, over his nose, to me at the little metal table bolted to the floor. He had his hands in the elastic of the navy-blue pants like there were pockets just above his junk. There were no pockets though. I knew this because I had the same pants and shirt and laceless blue loafers that he and everyone else had. 

For my inauguration as a member of the system the men in charge took my clothes and my copy of One flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest—apparently the man disagreed with my sentiment that it would be a great read for this situation. I was given a bible, the stiff polyester blues, and a

three-by-five-foot piece of fabric that was a close cousin to a burlap bag; I was under the impression that the jailers were conservatives, but when they called this rash-waiting-to-happen a blanket I realized that they were, in some cases, a liberal breed after all. 

The spokesman lit up when I said “growin’ weed.” A big reminiscent smile magically appeared on his dark stoic face as he brought a pretend joint, pinched between his pointer finger and thumb, up to his lips and pulled a hit so big that I got high. He exhaled, and his eyes became a friendly, stony, red. “Man I love smokin’ weed!” he exclaimed. 

I exhaled too and smiled inside. His head was swaying. There was a song in his mind that I couldn’t hear but I was enjoying nonetheless. His cheeks were light from grinning. He took a moment to enjoy the buzz then turned to the committee down the block, who had already relaxed their menacing postures in reaction to the spokesman’s dance, and yelled, “Yo, this boy been growin’ the good shit!” 

With that most of my fears dissipated. The committee happily hummed with the chatter of camaraderie and the tension fell away, divided, and subtly returned to the individual minds of men locked in cages. 

Somebody was excited; he was a stout little fella with stains on his shirt where his belly stuck out, his light brown hair was somewhere between pillow head and mad scientist and it blew back off his forehead as he elbowed his way from the group like a Golden Retriever puppy. He could not hold it together when he heard I grew the good shit.

His name was Larry and he liked to talk and talk and talk. Larry said the cops found an ounce of coke in his car. Larry was the hyper kid in grade school who couldn’t sit still to do his work and constantly got up to march around the class despite the teacher’s escalating requests to go sit down! Larry loved good weed too. He said he had had some so sticky that it would stick to the wall; with so many crystals—oh man, he said as his eyes looked up to God and his hands balled over his heart like a fat lady in double chocolate ecstasy. 

When he got pulled over for speeding the cops noticed that he seemed to be on something and they searched his car. And even though he was high on cocaine the ounce of powder in the glove box was not his, nor was the car. Allegedly, he had borrowed it from a friend to go pick up his grandma and he had no idea about the stash. 

The committee, now dispersed around the cellblock, took turns making funny noises. The kind of noises that are high-pitched and are accompanied by eye rolling, as they tried not to listen to Larry repeat his flimsy story for the thousandth time. 

Larry was everyone’s annoying little brother. But even when one of his big brothers was pushed across the line of irritation by the constant stream of chatter and yelled, Shut the fuck up Larry! you could tell they still loved him. He had the innocence of a child and when he turned, with a wounded look on his face, and said, No you shut up there was just something endearing about it. Then he’d jump right back into his monologue with a glowing enthusiasm.

I guess Larry gave these grown, incarcerated, men—who were forced to dwell within the concrete and metal reminders of their own bad decisions every day all day—a brief respite back into childhood. And I could sense that Larry was exactly the same person whether he was on cocaine or not, whether he was in jail or walking the streets, or whether he was older or younger than me—that, I couldn’t tell, he seemed to be both—Larry was a master of himself, both a clown and a saint, and nobody would ever know if he himself was aware of it. 

The cellblock had twelve individual cells in a row that opened to a long hallway cage. The committee could congregate in the hallway cage when the cell doors were open. On the other side of the outer bars was where the guards walked up and down. During meals and at night the inmates had to go into their individual cells and the cages were closed—they called it lockdown. 

Being that Ontario County Jail was over capacity and they had nowhere else to put me I was inmate number thirteen. So I didn’t get a cell of my own and had to sleep on the floor of the hallway cage. One cell was to remain open so I could use the bathroom at night. Of course, being the sweet man that he was, Larry volunteered to leave his cell open. At the time I didn’t know how I felt about that. I don’t know whose cell I’d have preferred. I decided not to go into any cell to use the bathroom at night. 

Larry was a teenage girl at a slumber party chatting away as the fluorescent lights clicked off. The excitement of having his cell door open all night was too much for him, he couldn’t sleep. But that alone wasn’t it, as he explained in depth. He never slept. Well, he did

sleep, but only after he’d been awake for three or four days. Then, he’d sleep for a whole day. 

Larry went on and on in the dark despite the mumbles of shut the fuck up Larry that croaked from different cells along the block like bullfrogs along the edge of a pond. “You Ok?” he’d ask me, concerned about how I was handling my first night in jail but oblivious to the fact that it would’ve been a lot better if he’d just taken the advice of those frogs and let me get some sleep. I was fading in and out—luckily, he didn’t require any responses. 

I caught snippets of the process of fermenting the little orange juice cups into alcohol and how his girlfriend stands out on the sidewalk every Wednesday so he can catch a glimpse of her through the metal-obscured window. I had a feeling that if any of the others had the energy, they’d contest the existence of said girlfriend. 

As Larry settled into the half-whisper voice, so as not to wake up our parents, the guard at the end of the hall cut through the darkness: “Inmate, enough!” With a humph Larry slouched into the thinker man, subtly highlighted in red by the exit sign at the end of the hallway, and I fell completely asleep. 

My plan going in was to attempt to sleep as much as possible but that plan was out like Ken Kesey. The lights clicked on at 6 a.m. sharp, the cell doors opened, and everyone had to stand up and be accounted for. After that I could’ve laid back down, and I did try, but the use of the “blanket” to cover up was prohibited during the daytime. Lying on a concrete floor with no pillow and no blanket, in the common area with inmates shuffling all around was uncomfortable

in every sense of the word. 

At mealtime all the inmates except one would return to their cells. I don’t know how they determined whose turn it was but the one “free man” would deliver the trays. The largest man on the block stood over six-and-a-half feet tall, which seemed more like eight feet, as he dropped my tray on the table and grumbled, “Fuckin’ Kids in the Hall here.” He was deeply unimpressed by the fact that I grew the good shit. 

I was a vegetarian at the time and I tried to keep that quiet because I thought it would get my sissy ass kicked. The man in the cell closest to my table was chiseled like a Russian boxer with a blond military flattop that you could’ve set a cup of coffee on. When he noticed I wasn’t eating the meat food he asked me if I was a vegetarian. The reluctance in my “yes” met with indifference. He was animated by his luck in proximity and offered to trade my ham food for his pineapple. He then, with deep, evangelical, sincerity credited God for putting a vegetarian in his vicinity. 

I figured God had bigger things to think about but I kept that to myself, not wanting to knock him off his cloud. Also, maybe the Christian Boxer, wanting to protect his new arrangement, wouldn’t let Kids in the Hall Guy crush me like he seemed to want to. 

My only concern with the arrangement was that it would result in me being the Christian Boxer’s bitch. I latched on to the idea that his devotion to God would protect me from any perversion but, having been raised Catholic, I couldn’t shake the fact that that idea had

been repeatedly proven to be more full of holes than holy. 

In the common area, the committee had rolled pieces of paper together into a long, thin cone and used gum to make it stick. There was a pencil, with the eraser out, at the tip of the three-foot pointer. The eraser was the perfect size and grippy texture to push the buttons on the television that hung on the opposite wall of the hallway outside the cage. 

The television was always humming in the background with two or three guys dully milling about but just before 7 p.m. the energy shifted. The committee gathered around excitedly. They were children jockeying for the best view. I wondered what it was that caused such animation and brought the kids out. 

One ex-heroin junky who entered jail at 130 pounds, as I was told, and restored himself to a muscled 180 was tactfully stretching his white, sunless arm and the pointer through the bars—as the guard pretended not to see—and was pressing the channel-down arrow until it landed on a familiar song. 

They dah dah dah’d together like drunks in an Irish pub. I never would’ve guessed that Jeopardy was the unanimous highlight of the day for muse-less junkies and thieves. The crew turned to a pudgy little man with loose, puffy curls as he walked out of his cell like a prizefighter entering the ring to the grand intro of Alex Trebek. 

Fresh from college and steeped in privilege I was excited to impress the committee with my knowledge—I was going to answer a bunch of the questions. It didn’t take long to realize that I had a lot to learn. 

The little dude was getting everything. He knew literally every question. Some of the others tried to chime in, claiming they knew the answer, but they were never as quick as the unassuming champion who stayed in his cell most of the time. All the excitement that preceded the show was not actually for the show, or to see who could get the most answers; it was for the thrill of watching a genius at work. 

They laughed in disbelief as he’d drop Latin translations and casually break down the constructs of organic chemistry. He’d keep score too. That first night, and almost every night after, he doubled the winner’s score and nailed the final Jeopardy question. As he returned to his cell he glowed in the admiration of the committee’s approval. 

It was spaghetti night, the second most important event in the world of cellblock 118. The morale ramped up as the men chattered back to their cells and the warm smell of pasta sauce entered like home, from the far end of the block, and overtook the industrial bleach’s attempts at sterility. 

I could see the little champ on his bed, leaning on his elbow smiling. “Life is good!” he exclaimed, anticipating the delivery. “If I had a lighter and a stem, it’d be heaven!” 

I talked to him the next day like a fanboy. He said he had always liked to read. He read

everything he could get his hands on. He read until the library kicked him out at night. He had absorbed words in the bookstore and the magazine stand as far back as his memories would take him. The operators of such establishments liked him even though he never had any money to spend. They couldn’t help being impressed by his consumption of words and the discussions he would introduce as a break from his long periods of quiet page turning. 

He said his home was “shit” so he never went there. He said he started smoking crack when he was fourteen because crack was everywhere around him and there was nothing else to do after he read all the books. 

He said there was a little corner store in his neighborhood. The guy who owned it kept the drawer open a bit and did most of the transactions in his head so there was no record of his sales. With no records he could save himself some money by not having to pay sales taxes. Well, the guy who ran the place was getting pretty old. He was slowing down. 

Jeopardy noticed that he could slip in under the counter when the guy turned his back to grab somebody cigarettes or lottery tickets, scoop some cash out of the register, then sneak back out the next time the guy had to step away. He said he did that almost every day for a while and that the old man even caught him once and let him slide because he’d known him since he was a little kid. But the second time was too much; the old man called the police and that’s how Jeopardy landed in Ontario County Jail—that time, which was his third. 

He was suddenly very far away. With a lukewarm “fuck it” his gaze left the window and

his arms retracted from the bars where he was leaning and he slouched back to his cell and disappeared. 

Larry stepped up to the window spot at the bars, “Hey man, how’s it goin’? Have you seen her?” He shook me from the sad trance of Jeopardy’s story and it took me a second to realize what he was talking about. 

“Oh, your girlfriend? Haven’t seen her.” I looked around really quickly to see if anyone was picking up on my tone. Nothing, I thought, until I noticed a couple quick, cold glances, that told me I hadn’t earned the right to be sarcastic, even with Larry. 

Larry let it pass or didn’t notice. He was far away as he gazed out into the tiny piece of the world that the window offered. “Yeah, man,” he said, dreaming, “two more summers and I’ll be out of here.” 

“Death, jail, or institution,” said the old man across the table from me. That was the sign at the end of every path his monologue meandered down. “That’s what drugs’ll get ya; death, jail, or institution.” 

When he asked me if I wanted to play checkers, I got excited. This timeless fountain of wisdom wants to sit down and have a game with me? I was sure that the dude had some answers. 

He was thin with a dark, leathery face that shined a little but didn’t smile. His eyes were

slightly cloudy and matched the gray curls of his loosely squared hair. At one point during his lecture, he mentioned the year he was born, which made him seventy-seven years old—I’d have guessed a little younger but not much. 

He had a story a bit like Larry’s, which detracted from the old-wise-man vibe that I’d made up. He was borrowing his girlfriend’s car, he didn’t even know she smoked crack, until the police pulled the little baggie out from under the seat during a traffic stop. And, just like with Larry, the committee mumbled and grumbled in the background signifying that maybe they didn’t believe old Clarence. 

The other factor that dissolved what I thought Clarence was supposed to be was his breath. It wafted across that checkerboard in grotesque waves that broke on the shore of my naïve smile and weathered it down to a haggard stone frown. I kept missing his stories, trying to hurry the game along, wondering where the dead seal was. His mantra had transformed into breath, jail and institution and became more tangible and frightening than ever. And everyone knew, except Clarence himself, that it was torturous. I noticed they were all silently laughing at me while they cringed and waved their hands in front of their noses like a fan and again, like children. 

I don’t remember what we watched when Jeopardy wasn’t on but the television was always humming down there towards the end of the block. There were always a couple committee members milling around but the lack of a recliner or a couch really prevented me from slipping into the mindless zone that could zap hours from life.

There were bibles lying all over the place just in case anyone wanted to find God. In the long hours of the day I thumbed through some chapters but I didn’t see him. Plus, I didn’t like the way the Christian Boxer looked at me when he saw me reading the bible. There were a couple novels around too but I can’t remember what they were so they must’ve not been too exciting. There was pacing and sitting and staring. I’d say hi to my neighbors if they were looking outward and I’d just walk by if they were looking in. There were little gatherings at times when I’d hear some laughter and I’d want to walk down and see what was new. But there was nothing new. They were just moments when men were at their best, trying to make the most of this repeating pattern that was insufficient, in almost every way, for the endless human mind. 

One of the days I started talking with the ex-heroin junky, who’d been changing the channels earlier. If someone asked me what this guy did for a living, and where he was from, it would’ve taken me two seconds to say New York City cop from Queens. He had that look and sound in his voice; the high and tight haircut, the mustache, the build; he was the whole package. 

If we had planned an uprising by knocking out one of the guards and putting the uniform on Queens, he’d almost certainly lead a successful exodus. The only problem I could foresee is that he’d be so convincing that the inmates would immediately become wary of his credibility as an honest criminal. 

“So, buddy, I know they got you for growin’ dope but how’d they get you?”

“I don’t know exactly, man, it was kind of a confusing night,” I said, not sure if he actually wanted the story or he was just making small talk. But then he raised his eyebrows and his expression said, And? 

“Well, me and my dog were living out by the lake,” I told him. “It was April, though, so none of the neighbors were there yet. We had the whole shore to ourselves for at least a mile or two in each direction. Me and a couple friends were having a fire down by the water and my dog was sniffing around nearby like he always did. The sliding glass door on the house, twenty yards away, was opened so we could hear the music from the stereo inside. It wasn’t cranking or anything; it was super quiet acoustic music. There were only three of us there, and we were all pretty stoned, just staring at the fire. It was a really nice night though, one of the first warm nights of the year. Everything was thawing out. 

“You couldn’t see the road from where we were sitting, it was up on the other side of the house, but I thought I’d heard a few car doors slamming. They were just muffled enough, being pretty far away, that I shrugged them off and turned back to the fire. A couple minutes passed and my dog started freaking out and barking and running toward the house. I looked up and I was instantly in shock. Besides the fire, it was really dark, so the two sliding glass windows all lit up made the place look like a stage. And on stage, in the middle of our living room, four cops were milling around like they were waiting for someone. I started mumbling. They can’t be in there, they can’t be in there, and I just went toward the house like I was on a moving walkway or something. There was a little voice telling me to run away but I couldn’t—and that would’ve been stupid anyway because it was my house.

“The next thing I knew I was standing in the living room saying, You can’t be in here; you can’t be in here!” 

“One of them said ‘Well, we got a disturbance of the peace call, for a party out here, and upon our arrival Officer Dobson noticed the paraphernalia on the table and an open door. Illegal paraphernalia in full visibility gives us the right to enter a residence.’ 

“I watched myself telling them to leave but it was weak and pointless after an explanation like that. I watched one cop, he had a tone like a friend and talked to me about how he was going to have to write me up for possession of the pipe. I was a little high and drunk so I bought right into his friendly tone and I think I smiled a little—which was stupid. A ticket for possession would’ve been an easy out for how bad it was going to be if they knew what was in that back room. 

“While the officer was talking to me the other three were roaming all over the house, just poking around, but not tearing the place apart or anything. Then I heard one of them yell from the back of the house: ‘Hey, what’s in this room with the lock on the door?’ 

“I told them it was my roommate’s room. He was back in Buffalo visiting his parents—he always locked it when he left. It seemed like they were going to leave it alone. I wanted to encourage the kind officer to write my ticket and be on his way but after my stupid smile I decided to just shut up.

“Both my friends were sitting on the couch. Our eyes were scanning all over the place. We were so fucking scared. Then there was another voice from my bedroom. ‘We’ve got something going on back here.’ 

“My stomach dropped another level but there was still hope. That something was my clone station. I had learned that if you cut the tips off the branches of a really nice plant, and put a rooting hormone on the end where you cut, the roots would grow and I’d get a bunch of plants exactly like the original one. The thing is, that the first week or so after you make the cuts the tiny little cuttings look like shit. They literally look like they’re going to die. So when the cops found that Tupperware Tote with thirty, tiny wilted plants and a pathetic little fluorescent light propped over it, they thought it was kinda cute. 

“They started harassing me about my ‘big operation.’ The mood started to lighten—although I didn’t show it that time with a dumbass smile. One cop was loading the evidence in his car, my ‘buddy’ was filling out a ticket, another was standing there with a just-another-day-at-the-office look on his face but the last one was nowhere that I could see. Then I heard it, the final blow, ‘Hey, I think I found the key to that back room.’ 

“Just like that I could hear the sound of the padlock popping off the latch and the door swinging open.” 

“Oh…shit buddy,” said the-guy-not-really-from-Queens.

“Yeah, they were beautiful, about a week away from harvest, all sticky and green and smelly. I couldn’t believe it was happening. I put a lot of work into that room. They were saying things like, Looks like he knows what he’s doin’ after all. as they congregated around the doorway, still kind of joking but in a different tone. They might’ve been mad or maybe embarrassed because they almost let me go for being a cute college kid—but the scene ended up not being all that cute. 

“At that point they all came out of the room and cuffed us and put us in our very own squad car. And then it just seemed like hours of waiting. The heat in the car was blasting and I felt like I was cooking. I could see my dog out the steamy window slinking around the car trying to figure out what the hell was happening. I could feel the car shake every once in a while, because they were putting stuff from my house in the trunk. It was a nightmare. My mind was racing, Who the hell calls to complain about a party of three dudes in the middle of nowhere? And, why did they bring four cars? I couldn’t help but to think that someone must’ve ratted me out; that the cops must’ve had an idea of what they were getting into before they got there. And I didn’t know it at the time but they were also searching my friend’s cars and found a quarter pound in one of their trunks—so he wasn’t gettin’ out easy either. 

“I think the heat in the cop car was knocking me out because after that I don’t remember much. I was taken to the jail and I sat there—here—while they did all the paperwork. I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to leave or if I’d have to come up with bail. I had no idea. But then they told me they’d be bringing an appearance ticket out to the house within the next week or two, and then

I’d have to go to court. They couldn’t charge me right then because they had to let the weed dry so they could get an accurate weight on what I had. I could see the sky getting lighter out through the window in the holding cell when they came to let me out to use the phone. I called a friend and she came to pick me up. I had no idea where the other two ended up. 

“When I got back to the house it was trashed. They must’ve pulled everything apart, threw it on the floor, and stomped all over it. My dog’s eye was swollen shut—he was getting a little edgy when they started cuffing us and the tone changed—they must’ve given him a whack after they put us in the cars. The house was ruined; I hated every day I had to stay there after that.” 

“I bet buddy; I hate those fuckin’ pigs,” said the guy who looked just like one. 

I was only sentenced to ten days. It could’ve been a lot worse but my lawyer was tough. I was a good kid, he insisted, with no previous record and a promising future. Why should a little mistake ruin my chances for a good job? I had spiraled into feeling pretty bad about myself but he had me convinced and I guess he convinced the judge too because I got off easy. 

Besides the first day and the last morning of my sentence the memories blend together in a wash of fluorescent lights, gray bars, and sad stories from clean men that, in general, were so kind and thoughtful that it was hard to picture them as the main characters. Men who missed their calling, or were never allowed to know they had one.

I was so relieved when the guard called my name early that morning before everyone else was awake—I don’t know what I would’ve said to any of those guys or even how to look at them. They’d be there forever. They were so much farther in that it was almost impossible for them to get out. Even if they left jail, the nightmare of what most of their lives seemed to be was just as bad, and much less stable, than the concrete and metal bars of that house. I was afraid someone would say you’ll be back and I was afraid they’d be right. 

✶

Elmira, 2022 

Mr. Camper then went into an alternative plan. Rather than going through the whole court/judge process Curtis might be able to take what they call the diversion plan. Or, probation light as I liked to think of it. For the next three months he’d have to behave in school, have really good attendance and probably do some community service at the park where the crime was committed. 

We tried to play it cool but jumped on this idea pretty quickly. Then Camper left the room. I told Curtis to sit up straight. 

Camper came back and said, “We’re still not sure if we’re going to offer the diversion plan here…” Possibly more theatrics? Damn you, Jim! “…I have to discuss it with my colleagues.”

He sat back down at his desk and wrote something in his notebook. He looked up at both of us and sat back in his chair, “In the meantime, Curtis, I’m going to need you to stay out of trouble at school and you’re probably going to want to stay away from those kids you got into trouble with.” 

Curtis nodded and said okay. 

Jim leaned forward, picked up his card from a little pile in front of him and handed it to me. I looked at it as if I was noticing his name for the first time. I said, “Didn’t we go to high school together?” 

He said yes in a way that let me know he had determined this fact the first moment he received Curtis’s file. 

“Oh, well good to see you, not like this but you know what I mean.” I think I said it in a charming way but it might’ve just come off as awkward which was very possible because this was all very awkward. 

“Just give me a call if you have any questions.” 

“Will do. Thank you, Mr. Camper.” I said in an attempt to model respect.

He held the door for us on the way out. As I passed him, I like to think I saw a friendly light in his eyes. Not sure though. 

We got to the car and agreed on how that sucked. I drove Curtis towards school. I reiterated the importance of being good and respectful. I talked about posture and eye contact. I wanted to cry and I wanted to have hope. The combination makes you say things like, “You’re a good kid.” And, “You got in trouble, now you need to get out of it.” I could hear a little crack in my voice and it made me quiet. I turned up the music and the windshield wipers slid fast across the glass. 

I spent the next few hours drinking coffee and driving around taking pictures of houses in the rain—a side job I have for an insurance company. I hadn’t prepared for this job when I left the house earlier because my head was elsewhere. My feet were wet and I was cold and miserable. It was the best part of the day. 

I got home, took a hot shower and got dressed. I lay on the floor with my back flat. I had about thirty minutes before I had to go pick up Curtis from school and I planned to spend it just like that. 

My phone rang. It said spam call so I silenced it and dropped it down next to me. It rang again immediately with the same number so I answered. 

“Hi, this is Principal So and So from Horseheads High School.” A guy I would soon

know too well. “We have your son, Curtis in the office. He got into a fight with another student and I’m going to need you to come pick him up.” 

“That’s really bad news.” Came out of my mouth because I didn’t know what else to say. I was a little shocked. And it was true. Then I got really mad. 

I drove down the hill toward the school like a Tourettic Samuel Jackson—the Pulp Fiction version. “This motha fucker gets in a fight the first day he’s on probation…” and “This stupid motha fucker gonna go live on the streets…” and so on. 

I signed in at the attendance office and walked down the hall to the main office and told the nice lady why I was there. My Samuel Jackson voice was internal now but still going strong. I wondered if it’d be ok if I slapped the shit out of Curtis real quick before the meeting started. 

The principal said blah blah blah, suspended for five days, blah blah blah. His speech was completely canned like he was just trying to run us through, Another shitty kid, next! In the tradition of not listening to anything I said, Curtis sat there slouched back in his chair with his legs sprawled out and his eyes at the ground. I had to initial some bullshit and we left. 

I’ve realized, when he achieves this level of stupidity, that it’s best for me to just shut up and wait until I can think straight. Also, he thinks I’m the scariest—although I have my doubts that he ever actually thinks I’m scary—when I go totally quiet so he shuts up too. It’s a very clear silence. It’s infinitely more informative than a lecture.

✶

Love, like the sun, is at the center of it all. When it’s shining there is nothing greater than its warmth; the Joy, the connection, the all-encompassing light that makes you lose track of time and place. It’s the answer to nearly all the questions. So, it only makes sense that the fear of losing it can completely spin you around. Anger, resentment, depression, jealousy, and a million other afflictions all come from that fear. 

Love makes it hard to watch him hurt himself. It’s painful to think of him trying to keep his love alive within the boundaries of concrete and metal; lost, looking out a little window watching the rain. 

The wipers race across the windshield. I hope they can hold because it doesn’t seem like it’s going to let up for a while. 

✶✶

All names have been changed.