As for Marley, he wore jeans and a button-down shirt. He had gained another pound or so from dinner last night and now announced he’d hit triple digits on the scale in Luna’s bathroom. He flexed a muscle as if he’d been doing push-ups before breakfast.
Marley ate another round of Denise’s huevos with green chile salsa, as if he wanted to beef up even more.
Why did this bother me? I grabbed his fork when it was on the way down. “Marley, I’m sure we can figure out a way that you don’t go to Caldera this semester,” I said. “Luna?”
I was asking a question to which I did not know the answer. Did Luna agree with me?
She didn’t hesitate when she nodded at Marley. “As I said, I’m leaving it up to you. You don’t have to go to that school today.”
“Isn’t it too late?” Marley asked.
“I just came up with a solution,” Luna said. “I’ll call the school and say that you’ve had a relapse. Cancer. They don’t want a sick kid at Caldera. Denise can home school you.”
Denise homeschooling Marley? That seemed like an excellent idea. Why hadn’t I thought of that?
Denise nodded. “I can do it,” she said in a soft voice. “It would be an honor. I already bought the academic program.” She produced a tablet computer and showed a college prep program. The online faculty was amazing. That former lawyer who became a novelist would be teaching an intro to fiction writing class.
Hell, I wanted to take that class, especially if it focused on grammar.
When Denise spoke, it had to be important. She was clearly worried about Marley at Caldera. More worried than Luna and myself, even. She wiped a bead of sweat off her forehead. “I would love to do it.”
Dew touched her brother’s arm. “You can hang out with us, we can be a family again.”
Without thinking, the four of us—Luna, Denise, Dew, and I—held hands to display a united front.
“Sounds like this could be the best compromise for now. You stay here and be home-schooled by Denise,” I said.
“We’re here for you whatever you choose,” Luna said.
“Please Marley,” Denise said.
Did we reach him?
Marley raised his hand, stopping us like a traffic cop. “Thank you. I love you all, but I’ve got to stop hiding from life. I’ve got to ‘buck up’ for reals. I can do this for a semester, maybe a year. If my grades are good, then maybe I transfer to a place like Albuquerque Academy. Then again, maybe I can even go to public school here in T or C. I’ve got this. And who knows? I might like Caldera. I really liked the creative arts teacher.”
“Are you sure?” The four of us asked at the same time.
We looked at him. He wasn’t just bucking up, he was manning up, perhaps even cowboying up. He stood up straight, looked each of us in the eye and nodded.
“I am sure. I can do this,” he said. Was his voice getting deeper? “This is like just another level in the Cratercross World game.”
I looked at him and touched his flexing muscle. He did have a single hair under his chin and would be a man someday. I shouldn’t try to shield him from life.
“He’s a big boy now,” Dew said.
“I’m proud of you, son,” I said.
“We will respect your wish,” Luna said. “I’m proud of you too.”
Denise said nothing.
“I need to earn this,” he said. “I have to prove myself. Not just to all of you, I have to prove me to myself.”
Denise looked at him again and wiped away a tear. She said nothing as she looked down. Did she know something we didn’t?
• • •
Outside, Friday morning it was a rare cool New Mexico day for this time of year, with a little rain, even. The five of us scrunched into Luna’s car, with Denise driving. Marley as the guest of honor was in the front. I picked up Marley’s trunk and placed it in the back. It was surprisingly heavy. I wondered what he had inside there. Luna, Dew, and I filled the back seat. Dew sat between Luna and me.
“Boy, are we a close family,” Dew said, an old family joke from when we were just three and descended into Carlsbad Caverns. We felt closer now, but it felt more like a family on the way to a funeral, than a high school.
The drive was uneventful, but took longer as Denise actually drove the speed limit. As we passed Exit 32, Marley began to sweat, even in the air conditioning. He already had stains under his armpits. Still, he didn’t ask Luna to turn the fan up.
The construction had magically been completed over night and there were no obstacles at the first Las Cruces exit when we headed uphill on US 70. Once we started on the road to Caldera, several hand-made signs pointed us to various dorms and campsites. Some of the upperclassmen were apparently finishing up a retreat near campus.
Denise lost her bearings for a moment and nearly turned into the road to the cemetery by mistake. The cemetery had a fresh hole in the ground and a scribbled sign over a gravestone: room for one more.
Dew piped in. “It’s just a senior prank, I don’t think they’re allowed to do actual hazing anymore.”
“Are you sure about that?” Luna and I asked Dew in unison.
“Are you sure about this?” Denise asked Marley, pointing to the Caldera gate in the distance.
Marley clenched his fist. “I can do it.”
After we got back on the right road, we looked behind us. A line of cars and buses carrying other students blocked any escape. One car honked. “It’s too late anyway,” he said.
Denise wiped away a final tear, took three deep breaths, and proceeded to the gate.
Pistol Pat stood guard at the front gate, his guns holstered. He recognized us instantly.
“Cruiser Arnold?” he asked.
I felt the same anxiety I felt at a border patrol inspection. For a moment, I hoped the boy would say he was Luke Skywalker and we wouldn’t have to go through with this.
“I’m Marley,” Marley replied.
“You’re listed on the roll of students, as Cruiser Arnold,” he said.
“Okay, I’m Cruiser Arnold.”
“Cruiser Arnold, what?” Pistol Pat asked. Marley didn’t reply. “I said, ‘Cruiser Arnold what?’”
Marley looked confused. I tapped him on the shoulder and whispered in his ear.
“Cruiser Arnold, sir!” Marley said.
“Cruiser Arnold, you’re in Frey Hall.”
We pulled around the back of campus to the dirt parking lot for Frey Hall, an adobe building that wouldn’t have looked out of place as a forward operating base during the Mexican War in the 1840s.
A staff member came out to greet us. Had it not been for the word COUNSELOR on his camouflage t-shirt, I would have thought he was a drill sergeant. This was more boot camp than summer camp. He even had the green drill sergeant hat. The man could have been the drill sergeant from Full Metal Jacket fame.
Full metal jacket? My son was going in with a quarter metal jacket at best. Marley’s manning up hadn’t lasted the whole way down. He now looked closer to twelve instead of fourteen. He must have sweated away the years on the ride down.
The bully from orientation was at the side of the dorm, in a purple Caldera t-shirt. He was using a hose to water some imaginary grass. “How much longer do I have to do this?” the bully whined to the dorm adviser.
“Till the grass grows,” the “counselor” said. “When I went here, if someone did such a lame-ass job of watering the grass he’d be on KP for a week.”
The “counselor” walked over to the bully, as if to demonstrate how you watered imaginary grass. He stopped when he saw us, and hurried over after grabbing a clipboard. He put a check by Marley’s name, “I’ll give you a moment to say good bye,” he said to us. He hurried back to the bully and harangued him some more.
Our last moment alone, I looked at Marley. “Last chance,” I
said. “We can go right now and take you with us.”
Luna touched him on the arm. “I will respect whatever you decide.” Luna touched me on the other arm. We really were a family.
Marley looked around as if contemplating climbing over the walls. Then he spotted the creative arts teacher in a brightly colored dress, escorting a female student to a dorm across the quad. They were too far away to see them clearly. Could it be Jaylah, his Instagram crush?
Perhaps my son was calculating the odds. He knew he wouldn’t meet any girls if he home schooled, and sure wouldn’t impress either the girl or her teacher by walking away. He took a deep breath.
“I can take it, Dad. But you’ve got to promise me one thing. Please come to the Freshman Showcase. I want to show you what I can do. I’m going to do a trick that will make everybody love me. It will make you all proud.”
Luna looked at him. “We have the launch, but that’s in the morning. I should be able to make it here by early evening.
“I’ll be here with bells on,” I said.
After giving the bully a tongue-lashing about his lame-ass watering skills, the staffer returned to us. He gave Marley a million-mile stare that the maggot better report to duty at whatever waited inside the barracks.
“Sir, yes sir,” Marley said, without prompting. He marched in and didn’t look back.
The bully kept watering the barren ground, not saying a word. Discipline might not be a bad thing. Maybe this would work out.
“How bad can it be?” Luna asked, as we walked back to the parking lot. “It’s not like they’re going to ship him off to Vietnam.”
“Vietnam would be an improvement,” Dew said. “At least they clean up their trees.”
She pointed to the single palm tree, which now had toilet paper all over the fronds. What kind of kids violated a palm tree?
Denise shook her head. “This might be the last time we see him alive.”
Chapter 19
Jiggity Jig
When I picked up my Lincoln MKZ at the Luna Landing, I was sad to leave my newfound family. Dew and Denise now felt like daughters again. Most of all, I missed my son more than I had imagined.
The next one hundred and fifty miles up Interstate 25 were the loneliest miles of my life. Many of the exits were closed for construction, so even the road was empty. I gassed up at Lemitar, just so I could talk to a gas pump.
Back in my own home, I didn’t sleep at all. I was so worried about Marley. He would tough it out, and the school would make him a man, right? I’d see him at the Freshman Showcase and he’d look like an officer and a gentleman. He’d make the three of clubs disappear, and then reappear. Everyone would ooh and ahh, and then applaud. He would be accepted.
The next morning, I received a text: things ok so far. can’t wait to see you at the showcase. So why was I worried that I would never see my son again?
Later that morning, I checked my mail at the “prison post office” downtown. NFM. I sat in my empty office for eight hours straight and went through the next files in the alphabet—Garcia, Hamilton, Inez, Jackson, Kennedy and Lopez. I had long since passed the Fs and didn’t look back to check Feliz. The judge wasn’t serious about those sanctions, was he?
By the time I got to the letter M and all the Martinez files, I realized I had to talk to Marley.
I tried to call his cell, but he didn’t pick up. Then I called the administration and learned from the receptionist that he was undergoing some type of boot camp and anyway, new students could not have contact with outsiders the first week.
Marley wasn’t playing by school rules. He texted me that night with a pic of his creative arts class project. It looked like a wooden cross. making cratercross for showcase. worried about hell day #1.
Hell day? What was Hell Day #1? How many hell days were there? I didn’t sleep the next night either, despite nearly overdosing on an improvised remedy of generic Benadryl and Sleepy Time herbal tea. I hoped that Hell Day #1 wasn’t like the code red in A Few Good Men. In that film, the marines beat a weak soldier to death when they hazed him. The truth about my son is that he couldn’t handle Caldera, much less a code red. He shouldn’t be there.
Still, this was state chartered college preparatory high school in Las Cruces, and not the marine corps. Caldera might be surrounded by walls to keep out the coyotes, but it was not the tip of the spear in Guantanamo, or even a military base at the edge of the desert at nearby Fort Bliss. How bad could it be?
I received another text the next morning: hell day #1 not supposed to be so bad. don’t worry.
I was back in the office for another empty eight hours, but received another text that afternoon, a pic. The wooden cross had now become a cratercross with three movable wooden platforms. He would be fine, right?
The next morning, I checked the mailbox. NFM at first glance. That was fine by me. I started to walk away when something compelled me to check again. I bent over and peered through the box, and found a note the size of an index card. The note indicated that my mail was at the front counter, as it was certified.
It was early, so I had to wait until 8:09 until they opened the bulletproof glass doors so I could enter the lobby. I could be getting a certified check, right? Maybe some stranger wanted to retain me on a big case. Or maybe the state would finally pay me for last month. It could happen.
I hurried to a counter in front of another heavily reinforced glass window. This post office could survive a direct attack by someone going, well, going postal. I didn’t know whether to fear the patrons or the workers. This clerk could be wearing a flak jacket under her bulky uniform.
I showed her the index card, which was already wet with sweat.
“Dan Shepard?” she asked, avoiding eye contact and using a gloved hand to touch the damp card. “I need to see some ID.”
ID? Who else would want to be me? After I finally found my ID in my wallet, she handed me five items, all of which I had to sign for on a small screen. She checked my ID again, just to make sure my signature matched the one they had on file.
I opened the first two letters in front of the clerk.
The first letter came from the Spaceport Authority. It was an invitation to the launch written on parchment stationary in the weird Papyrus script. Odd. Why did it have to be sent certified? And, what did one wear to a rocket launch—a tuxedo or a spacesuit?
The second letter was on khaki stationary and contained a formal invitation to the Freshman Showcase at Caldera Academy. The invitation came from the entire freshman class of fifty, and Marley’s name was listed, but out of order, penciled in for the final slot on the bottom of the page. Hopefully that was because he enrolled late and this was not a deliberate slight.
Could I do both? They were both at eight. My heart skipped a beat until I verified that the launch was at eight in the morning and the Freshman Showcase was at eight that evening. Luna would be able to come to both as well. Maybe I should wear a tuxedo after all.
There was something on the bottom, a parking pass for my Lincoln for the theater parking lot.
I laughed. “I can take my Lincoln to the theater.”
“That’s a sick joke,” the clerk said.
“Too soon?”
I examined the next three certified envelopes. All the letters had the same return address—the New Mexico Supreme Court’s Disciplinary Board and featured that horrible Olde English script. The D-Board? The return address could have been from the Lord High Executioner inviting me to my own hanging.
Years of practice without even a hint of impropriety, and I had three in one day. What was the old joke—malpractice makes perfect?
I hurried out to the car, but the clerk smiled. She knew. Who else had she told?
I sucked my finger before opening the first letter, which was a copy of a handwritten complaint signed by Anna Maria. I had misadvised her son Chuy, wh
ich resulted in his getting eighteen years in prison after I had promised that he would get out on probation that day.
How do you plead, I asked myself?
Guilty as charged.
The next handwritten complaint was from Innosense Schwartzbaum in Tucumcari. She alleged I had deliberately and/or negligently screwed up her judgement and sentence when she was supposed to be on unsupervised, rather than supervised, probation. She didn’t care that I had rectified the situation. She had spent several days in jail, lost her job, her apartment, and custody of her child—in that order. She was even asking for damages.
How do you plead I asked myself again?
Guilty as charged.
The final envelope contained a one paragraph scribbled note from Felix Feliz that it was all my fault that he missed court and was now being deported to Guatemala. I wasn’t guilty of that one at least, and laughed the absurdity of that accusation, until I saw the typed letter from the disciplinary board. Due to the D-Board receiving three letters on the same day, and a formal referral from Judge Most, there would be a “status hearing” to determine my continued licensing as an attorney at the New Mexico Supreme Court in Santa Fe on October 31, Halloween. Trick or treat.
I hid the letters in my car trunk. I wasn’t sure whether to reply, or just wait until the hearing on Halloween. Would I be suspended? If so, what would I do for money? I didn’t love being the Rattlesnake Lawyer, and I sure didn’t want to be the rattlesnake welfare recipient.
Back at the office I drafted three half-assed responses, saved them in my computer, but didn’t send them. I knew I needed a big-time lawyer to work this out. The only person I trusted with my career was Luna, but she was dealing with rockets, rather than rattlesnakes.
The next day, I found new tenants in the three empty offices. One was named Abe Ogado who was famous for advertising on all the television stations. To say he was a bottom feeder was an insult to catfish. Everything was fake about the man, including his name—a play on the Spanish name for lawyer, abogado.
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