Chinese Handcuffs

by Chris Crutcher

  “How’d you get my stuff?” she asked, finally.

  “I called Coach,” Dillon said, “to tell her I’d like to pick you up. She said your sister was there at her place, so I dropped by and picked up the key. Where the hell are your parents?”

  Jen shrugged. “Why?”

  “If I’d had a game as important as Wenatchee, my dad wouldn’t have missed it for anything.”

  Jen shrugged again. “They’re just not into it, that’s all. That’s okay with me. You know that.”

  Dillon nodded. He did know that. He just didn’t know why. After all the intimate conversations, each riding the freeway of that immediate magical connection running between them, he thought he knew her, and yet he knew almost nothing about her. “Could I ask you a personal question?”

  “You can ask.”

  “You don’t have to answer. . . .”

  “I know that.”

  “How come you wanted your sister to stay at Coach’s last night?”

  “I didn’t know where my parents were.”

  “But you didn’t want Coach to call.”

  “Like I said”—Jen stared out the window again—“you can ask. . . .”

  “It just seemed weird, that’s all.”

  “Almost everything about my parents is weird,” Jen said. “I really don’t like to talk about them, okay? I made a decision a long time ago that if I pretend they don’t exist, I don’t have to deal with them.”

  Dillon pulled into the huge circular driveway in front of Jen’s house and set the parking brake. “Want me to come in?” he asked.

  “What for?”

  “How cordial,” he said. “What happened to ‘Why, sure, Dillon. I’ll make you a nice cup of hot chocolate in gratitude for your braving the cold and snow to bring me home from the hospital when my parents are nowhere to be found’?”

  Jennifer snapped to and gave a short laugh. “I’m sorry. Actually I was thinking I’d like to be alone for a little while before my sister gets back and my parents come home. I didn’t mean that to be bitchy.”

  She leaned over and gave him a quick hug. “I’ll talk to you later—probably tomorrow at school, okay?”

  Dillon drove slowly back down Grande, cutting through the downtown area, then south on Post Street toward his home, wondering what was being left out of Jennifer’s story. He felt a lot for her, might even be in love if he could figure out what to do about Stacy Ryder, bouncing around in his brain like the monster within all of us, but something was missing. Part of it was that some of the time she didn’t even seem like a girl to him. She was tall and pretty and athletic and all that—all things he found extremely attractive in females—but as often as not there were no sexual considerations. He knew that couldn’t be coming from him because he had sexual considerations about everything. His sister, Christy, had stuffed animals he thought were sexy. So it had to be coming from Jen or not coming from Jen. And yet she never pushed him away from her in any kind of way that made him doubt his masculinity or think she was interested in someone else. Since their first meeting at school they had spent a lot of time together, got to know each other through one another’s pain, in a fashion—a deep, risky, trusting fashion—that Dillon almost never allowed, especially with Preston’s death so fresh in his experience. But there were areas, specifically those around Jen’s family, where she just zoned out on him. He knew everyone had secrets. Hell, he hadn’t told her everything about Preston, either, but the only reason not to tell was that it took him to a place within himself that he simply couldn’t allow anyone to see, the place where he believed that his very existence might have caused the death of his brother. If the same was true for Jen—if there was something that dark—something really crazy must be going on in her family.

  Deciding there was no sense worrying about what he couldn’t change, he forced his crazy thoughts into the back of his mind and drove on home.

  Jennifer watched out the window as her mother and stepfather pulled their new Chrysler New Yorker into the driveway, watched a second to see that her stepdad was sober, and considered going up to her room and pretending she was asleep. She decided against it and settled onto the couch with her lit book, declining to greet them when they came through the door, instead letting them find her.

  “Hi, baby,” her mom called from the kitchen as she removed her boots. “How was the game? We heard you won. The paper said you got hurt. Are you all right?”

  Jen fielded only the last question. “I’m fine,” she called back. “Just a bump on the head. They wanted to see if I had a concussion.”

  “A concussion!” Her mom came into the living room. “You got a concussion?”

  Jennifer hated it when her mother feigned concern—especially after the fact. Linda Lawless had shown her colors time and time and time again when it came to choosing between her children and anything else she wanted to do, and as far as Jen could see, the kids had yet to come in first. She understood that, expected no more, but hated it when her mom came up with these feeble gestures which belied the truth and which made it all that much harder to protect her mother when the times came. And the times always came. “It wasn’t a concussion,” she lied. “They just wanted to be sure.”

  “So tell me about the game,” her mom said.

  Jen could hear her stepfather coming into the kitchen from outside. Handing her mother the sports section, she suddenly wished she’d gone to her room. “It’s all in there,” she said. “They tell it a lot better than I could.”

  “Are you mad that we didn’t go?”

  “No,” Jen lied again. “I’m not mad. I just don’t want to go over it all again, that’s all. Listen, I’m kind of tired. I think I’ll go up and take a nap.”

  Her mother hugged Jen’s tightening body. “Okay, why don’t you say hi to your dad first.”

  “He’s not my dad,” Jen said matter-of-factly, in exactly the same tone she used every time her mother called T.B. that.

  “T.B., then . . .”

  “I’ll see him later. I’m going to bed.”

  She closed the door behind her and locked the dead bolt. It didn’t do any good, she had to let him in when he wanted—that was the rule—but again, there was that illusion of safety. Jen was furious at her mother for suggesting she say anything to T.B., as if he acted like a real father, as if he weren’t given to drunken rages that sent the whole family out into the night desperate for sanctuary. She pictured herself and her sister standing knee-deep in snow in their galoshes and nightgowns, a packed suitcase apiece weighing them down as their mother directed them to keep to the woods, away from the road so he wouldn’t spot them. Her mother would exhibit cuts and swelling and usually some blood as she lugged her own suitcase. These were the only times Jennifer saw her mother as strong: when her mom was terrified and angry and physically hurt and immediately fearful that T.B. would indeed someday kill one of them. The first time Jen saw her mother like that, she really believed that they’d all finally get away, that her mother would finally protect them. The sixth or seventh time—she had lost count—she had seen her mother like that, she knew they all were stuck with it forever. T.B. was too smart and too strong, and her mother was far, far too weak. Jen would have escaped with her sister a long time ago, but she really believed—with good reason—that her mother would be killed or injured beyond repair.

  Jennifer lay down on her back and pulled the pillow over her eyes, trying to let the tension drain the way Coach had taught her. Starting at her head, she visualized it running the length of her body until it exited the soles of her feet, all the time breathing deeply, sucking the air clear down into her pelvis.

  T.B. seems different from the other men Mom has brought home since Dad left—or rather, since Mom kicked Dad out, sort of. J. Maddy told on Dad, a couple of years after Grampa died. Without Grampa, Dad’s nocturnal visits became unbearable for J. Maddy, and so she finally just told. There had been a filmstrip in her second-grade classroom called Good Touch, Bad T
ouch, and it was pretty clear to J. Maddy that what Dad was doing was definitely “bad touch.” In the film they said you weren’t supposed to keep that secret—the one about someone touching you bad—that when people told you to keep that secret, it was a trick and you should run and tell your mother, and if she won’t listen, tell some other grown-up you trust. J. Maddy doesn’t know exactly how it all happened; but she told Mom, and Mom got very angry and said it couldn’t be true and that she should never, never say anything like that again. So J. Maddy did just what the filmstrip said. She told her teacher. Then a man showed up at school and was nice to her and asked her some easy questions in the principal’s office, and when she got home, Dad was gone. Mom was in tears, and she screamed at J. Maddy (whom she refused to call that, even after J. Maddy had requested it at Grampa’s funeral) and told her now look what she had done, but the man threatened to take J. Maddy someplace safe if Mom couldn’t pull it together. Mom pulled it together, at least until the man left, and then they went to this woman called a therapist so they could talk without Mom yelling, and when that was finally over, Mom was able to tell J. Maddy that she was sorry she hadn’t protected her.

  That felt really good because it seemed like Mom meant it, and for what seemed like a long time, they got closer and closer, and J. Maddy started to love her mom and maybe even trust her for the first time.

  But that turned out to be a trick, too. Mom wasn’t really sorry. She couldn’t have been because she started bringing mean men home, men who would hit her and hit J. Maddy sometimes, too.

  Only one of them ever touched her bad, and she was able to scream and run away, and that scared him off; but the bond that started taking hold during the time right after the therapy started to unravel, and more and more often J. Maddy found herself trying to answer the impossible question “Why are you doing this to me?” every time something went wrong with her and one of these men.

  But now there’s T.B. He seems different. He plays with her and buys her things. He almost never gets mad, but you can tell when he does because his face gets really red and it looks like there’s a rope under the skin on his neck. He doesn’t explode, though; he just holds it in. J. Maddy thinks he’s rich because he wears fancy suits and brings presents, and Mom seems happier than she’s been in a long time—maybe ever—and for the first time in a long time J. Maddy doesn’t feel that she’s the reason her mom’s life is awful. That feels wonderful to J. Maddy. The only person she has to take care of is herself, and that makes her feel free. She treats T.B. really well and almost never misbehaves when he comes over because “we don’t want to scare him off now, do we?”

  J. Maddy agrees. We don’t want to scare him off.

  Jennifer pulled the pillow harder against her face. Tricks, she thought. Always tricks. The sweeter something looks, the uglier it really is. And then she slid into thinking something that had been bothering her quite a bit in the past few months. I’m a trick. Four-point-O average, “incomparable athlete,” common sense up the wazoo; all of it a lie. I can’t even keep my mother’s husband out of my bed. How crazy is that? She pulled the pillow even tighter against her face, recalling the number of times just this year that she had contemplated suicide. Not just thought about dying, but about how she’d do it.

  T.B. comes into the room that first night. An old, uneasy feeling creeps into J. Maddy, but she forces it down, pretending to be asleep. He sits on the side of her bed as she assesses whether there is danger, but T.B. doesn’t feel as “creepy” as Dad used to. And J. Maddy is nine now; she feels stronger.

  He sits on the side of the bed and puts his hands in the middle of her back as she lies pretending to sleep on her stomach, and he rubs gently. He says, “Jennifer,” softly.

  Nothing.

  “Jennifer.”

  J. Maddy gives a start, then stretches sleepily. “Huh?”

  “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

  She turns over, rubbing her eyes. “Sure. What?”

  “Your mother wants me to stay here tonight. Is that all right with you?”

  “Where is she?”

  “She went to the store to get some more beer. She’ll be back in a little while. I just want to make sure it’s okay with you, that you’re comfortable having me stay with her.”

  J. Maddy doesn’t know what to say, but she’s become quite expert at saying whatever will not hurt someone’s feelings. Actually she doesn’t know whether she cares or not. She knows she likes it better when her mother is happy, and she recognizes that she likes it a lot better when she’s not the one who has to make that happen. T.B.’s hand moves to her shoulder, and she freezes. He quickly takes it away.

  “It’s okay with me,” J. Maddy says. “If Mom wants you to.”

  “Don’t tell her I came in to ask, okay, Jen?” T.B. says. “I don’t want her to think I have to have your permission, but I know it’s tough when your family’s been through a divorce sometimes. You don’t want someone moving into your dad’s spot.”

  J. Maddy sits up. “My dad didn’t have a spot,” she says. “He’s been gone a long time. He didn’t leave a spot. Don’t worry about that.”

  T.B. leans over and kisses her quickly on the cheek. He says, “Remember, no need to tell your mom we had this little talk. It’d just worry her that I worry about your feelings. Okay?”

  J. Maddy says okay, not knowing why it doesn’t feel quite right, why it reminds her of her dad. It makes sense, though, because T.B. seems nice, and when he’s with her mom, she treats J. Maddy better.

  Over the next few months T.B. spends a lot more time at their house, and he comes into the room increasingly often, sometimes to read J. Maddy stories and sometimes just to talk, about her day in school or her friends or one of her little projects. She feels more and more comfortable with it, even though he comes in only when her mom has gone somewhere or is taking a bath or down in the basement working on her crafts. T.B. is always interested in what she’s doing and doesn’t push at all. And he plays ball with her. He sets up a backboard over the garage, buys a really good basketball, and plays H.O.R.S.E. and one-on-one tirelessly.

  And then it shifts. Not gradually—though maybe she could have seen it coming if she hadn’t wanted to like him so much—but instantaneously.

  Tricks, Jennifer thought. The better it looks, the uglier it really is. She brought the pillow down to her chest. When she got into this space, nothing but time could bring her out. She was barely aware of the game the night before, of her athletic heroics or the accolades she received in the morning newspaper. She was only aware that her life was a lie—and that the hopeless road before her stretched out forever. She tried to force thoughts of that first time out of her head, but the reel ran on. . . .

  J. Maddy sits at her desk, reading a book about a boy named Chip Hilton, by Clair Bee. It is a book for boys, her mother has told her. Girls aren’t supposed to be interested in sports. But T.B. chides her mom gently about old-fashioned thinking and tells J. Maddy about several more books in the Chip Hilton series, all about the same boy, first in high school and then in college, who is a superathlete with a wise father who has died and with a lot of good friends. The books cover his adventures in football, basketball, and baseball, but J. Maddy is interested only in the ones about basketball and has scoured the city library in search of them all. She doesn’t care that they are old with faded covers and pages ready to fall out between her fingers like over-boiled chicken off the bone. She loves them for their action and for their endings. The good guys always win, and they win so well that the bad guys realize it and turn good. J. Maddy can completely lose herself in a Chip Hilton story.

  She hears his voice behind her and starts a little, though only from surprise. T.B. has J. Maddy’s trust now. She is not afraid to let him come into her room.

  “Whatcha reading?” he asks, leaning over her shoulder to peek.

  She shows him the cover. Hoop Crazy.

  T.B. nods. “I remember that. It’s a good one. How
far are you?”

  J. Maddy pinches the pages of the first three chapters together between her thumb and forefinger, indicating her progress. If she starts talking, she knows he will stay and she’ll have to put the book down.

  T.B. says no more, and J. Maddy returns to the book, semi-consciously noting that he hasn’t left but is sitting on the bed. She turns uncomfortably, but before she can speak, he motions her to continue reading. “Don’t worry about me,” he says, “I’m just relaxing. Your mom went to a meeting. She’ll be late.”

  She is suddenly uncomfortable with him sitting there but forces herself to read another page before turning from her desk. Finally she can’t stand the silence. “You want to play a game?” she asks. “Monopoly or something?”

  T.B. shakes his head and says no. “Go ahead with your book,” he says.

  J. Maddy goes on, forcing her thoughts away from these strange feelings, familiar feelings. Then his hand is on her shoulder again; only this time it feels different, maybe a little forceful. He massages her neck and runs his hands down her shoulders. J. Maddy shrugs and pulls away. “That tickles,” she says, and giggles, though she doesn’t really feel like laughing, and he pulls her back, still running his hands over her back, and suddenly all she wants is to get away. “No,” she says, and starts to stand, but T.B. pushes her down on the chair, hard.

  “Just do what I tell you,” he says, “and it won’t hurt.” His breath smells of alcohol, hot and sweet. His hands slide under her arms and around to her chest, and she pulls violently away; but his fingers are like vises, and he pinches her, hard. J. Maddy shrieks and starts to cry. She calls for her mother, but of course, there’s no answer.

  J. Maddy’s mind races as T.B. carries her to the bed, trying to think what she’s learned at school in the Good Touch, Bad Touch classes; but the wheels only spin in panic, and she can’t concentrate, can’t remember. He’s undressing her now. Feelings she hasn’t felt for years, since her father left, roar into her throat and choke her with terror. T.B. releases her for a second to undo his pants, and she instinctively rolls off the bottom of the bed, hitting the floor on the run, but he is much too quick and kicks his foot against the door as she tries to jerk it open. He slaps her hard across the face, and she drops to the floor in tears as he quickly drags the desk in front of the door. There are no more words; there is no more resistance. J. Maddy does what she learned to do when her father came into her room years ago: She leaves her body there, but she takes her head away. In the distance she hears her sister knocking on the door, but then J. Maddy’s gone, picturing clouds and kites and her grandfather. It’s harder to stay gone, because T.B. is rough, but she manages out of sheer will, and when he is finished, she lies with her face pressed into the crack between the bed and the wall, no tears, no sound, no feelings.