Property of the State

by Bill Cameron

  Relieved, I slump into the familiar wooden chair. The woman detective sits in Cooper’s seat, Man-Mountain on the back edge of the desk. He has to twist around to face me.

  The woman starts. Detective Stein, she tells me. Man-Mountain is Davisson.

  “I spoke with your caseworker.”

  I wait for her to continue, but she doesn’t. She wants me to fill the silence, but I’ve been to this dance before. After a moment, the big guy makes a noise in the back of his throat and Detective Stein looks at him before going on. “She’s unable to attend, but she said we should go ahead and ask you a few questions.”

  More silence. I survey the room, see Cooper has added a framed movie poster from High Noon. The guy has all the subtlety of an anvil falling off a cliff.

  “You’ve been attending Katz since February. And before that, Central Catholic. Lots of schools, we hear.”

  In the front office, Mrs. An, the school secretary, is on the phone, but I can’t make out her words. Background noise. Always with the background noise. Mrs. Huntzel skipped her volunteer duties again today.

  “You’ve moved around a lot. It must be very hard.”

  What’s hard is not staring at them while they fidget. The room, dense with the desperate weight of Cooper’s collection, makes me tired. I lay a hard stare on the glass case. On my laptop.

  Detective Davisson takes a turn. “We understand you and Duncan are friends.”

  His breathing sounds like a lawn mower.

  “Joey.” The woman again. “If you answer our questions, we can get you out of here. I’m sure you have things to do.”

  I turn my eyes to her. “You haven’t asked any questions.”

  A look passes between them. Davisson leans forward, his knuckles going white on the desktop. “I get it. You’re an old hand at this, am I right?” His voice feigns friendliness, but I know better.

  “Is that your question?”

  “We’re just trying to find out what happened to your friend.”

  That one isn’t a question, either, but a deepening crease forms between his eyebrows. Cops are always looking for a reason to go nuclear. “I was in school.”

  More breathing, more jabber from the outer office. Finally, Detective Stein laughs uncomfortably. “What happened to your nose?” It’s clumsy as misdirection goes, but then I am an old hand at this.

  “Electric toothbrush mishap.”

  I want them to think I can do this all day. The sooner they get tired of me, the better. If I’m going to stay on Plan, I need to get to class sooner or later. Moylan’s Trig problems aren’t solving themselves. I’ve got Chem too, another class I have to actually show up for.

  Davisson’s throat rumbles. “You say you were in school.”

  “All day long.”

  “And at about one-thirty? Where were you exactly?”

  I pretend to think for a moment, and choose my words carefully. “That’s when I have Directed Inquiry.” I’m still looking at my laptop.

  “What’s that?” His chuckle sounds like water spilling into an oil drum. “Some kind of study hall?”

  Now he’s trying to be a dick, but he’s closer to the mark than he realizes. “It’s an independent study course. We write a big research paper.”

  “How does that work? Do you meet in a classroom with a teacher?”

  In other words, is an adult keeping track of us? “Something like that.” Harley May doesn’t take attendance, and doesn’t expect to see us every day. At the beginning of the term we spent a week or so coming up with our projects and setting milestones. So long as we hit our marks and turn in the final paper, she doesn’t care whether we show up or not. As she put it, “I’m available to help you work through research challenges, and to make sure your energies are directed in a constructive fashion.” The only time I’ve only been to class this week was yesterday, a fact that doesn’t help me one bit.

  “What do you know about why Duncan left school on Tuesday afternoon?”

  “I didn’t even know he had left until I got here yesterday morning.” A fudge, but I’m not dragging Trisha into this.

  “I understand you and Duncan had a fight last spring.”

  I’ve been waiting for them to bring up the fight. Cops always think they’re on to something.

  “Over—what was it?” Davisson’s lip curls into a smirk. “A game of chess?”

  “It wasn’t over a game of chess.”

  “I mean, boys fight over girls, or—”

  “It wasn’t over a game of chess.” Irritation sticks in the back of my throat like a wad of snot.

  “But it was in Chess Club.”

  The fight was in the Chess Club room. I don’t want to get into it. “It was a long time ago.”

  That earns me the kind of world-weary smile the elderly reserve for those who clearly lack their innate grasp of deep time. “Any lingering hard feelings?”

  “Not from me.”

  “And you two are friends now.”

  “Yes.” My voice snaps. I suppress a wince. They can’t have missed my tone.

  Davisson turns to Stein. She’s studying me. Without dropping her gaze, she nods thoughtfully. “We’re done for now, I think. We’ll let you know if we have any other questions.”

  When I open the door to the outer office, Mrs. An’s voice breaks against my ears. She’s talking to a parent. “—trying to get an idea of the boy’s movements on Tuesday afternoon. Very informal. But if you’re concerned, please come down—” Some overprotective Katz mommy doesn’t want her poor, fragile baby genius subjected to a grueling police interrogation. Shock. Cooper hovers at her shoulder, one hand to his chin.

  The surprise is Trisha sitting on the bench next to Cooper’s door. I pull up short. “Oh, hey. Did you get my text?”

  “Yes. Finally.” She rolls her eyes. “Asshole.”

  “What’s going on?”

  She looks toward Cooper’s doorway. “The cops want to talk to me.”

  I’m not sure why a band tightens behind my belly button. Trisha and Duncan run in different circles. I don’t think they’ve exchanged a dozen words in all the time I’ve been at Katz. “Did they say why?”

  “I assume they’re fans of my poetry.”

  Ask a stupid question. I manage a sickly smile. Then I do something I’ve never done before. “Do you want to get a coffee later?”

  Her eyes get wide and she smiles. “Jo-o-o-oey Getchie. Are you actually asking me out?” Before my face can burst into flames, her grin drops and her eyes shoot past my shoulder. I turn.

  Of course. Mr. Vogler has arrived. When he sees me, his cottage cheese cheeks flood red and his lips pull back from his teeth as if he found me stuck to the bottom of his shoe.

  You know how it is, Joey.

  I head for the door before he has a chance to tell me to get lost.

  0.11: Chess Club

  In the weeks after I first got to Katz, I learned Duncan was number two in Chess Club in the only way that mattered: he was second board. I’d never heard the term before Katz, but it didn’t take long to figure out it was a chess-jargony way of saying he was never better than red ribbon. With the help of his Book, Philip held the first board in an iron grip of obsession. Duncan clawed at him, but from where I was sitting (under the board, apparently), it seemed he never got close to knocking him off. Duncan could be president—an elected position—and run the club. Set rules, issue high-handed edicts. But the only way to be first board was to defeat Philip. And that never happened.

  Duncan wanted first board like Wayne wanted creamed chipped beef, like Cooper wanted a pony. I admit I didn’t understand—top of the heap in Chess Club? To me, that was like wanting to be in charge of Moylan’s Electronic Math Tutor DVDs. When I said so to Reid, he stared me down for about an hour, then said, “Joey. What do you want?” Asshol
e. I didn’t answer, but fine—I got it. Still, no one beat Philip.

  Until I did.

  It was a fluke. Everyone knew it was a fluke. I didn’t even want to play him. He had two games going and offered to take on two others. Typical Philip. He’s twitchy at school, and the dead time while his opponents are thinking through their moves only adds to the twitch. He likes to fill up the empty space with more chess. You ask me, the dude needs an iPod.

  That particular day, no one was interested. I’d just lost my obligatory game to Colin Botha and was happily eating beans-’n-franks and reading A Game of Thrones when Duncan went Joffrey on us.

  “Getchie, you’re against Philip.”

  “I played my game.”

  “And you’ll play another, or move your dead ass out of here.”

  Lunches at Katz are long. Not like my other schools, where they ram you through in twenty minutes, barely enough time to inhale a gummy slice of pizza and spill your milk. At Katz, lunch is a full period. I live for the hour of peace. Lose a game of chess, then relax amid the tip-tap of pieces moving on boards and the occasional murmur. “Good move.” “You really want to do that?” “Check.” Even an ejaculation of chess-thusiasm was no more disruptive than wind scattering leaves. It was like living inside the Golf Channel.

  So I had no interest in Duncan’s decrees. But when I hesitated, he added the coup de grace. “Your choice, Getchie. Play Philip, or go eat with the plebs.”

  Classy.

  I put my book down and sat at one of the empty seats Duncan indicated next to the window. It was an April afternoon, two months after my arrival at Katz. Outside, drizzle fell with its usual resolve. Inside, Philip paced in the cross-shaped space between four tables, chewing carrots and spitting vegetable matter as he studied the boards before him. I hid a pawn in each hand, black and white, and held them out for Philip to choose, but he brushed me off. “Shut up. Just play white.”

  Everyone was being an asshole that day.

  Courtney, Mrs. An’s daughter, got drafted as well, but unlike me, she actually gave a damn. I pushed a pawn at random, then another the instant Philip responded. Each time he moved I moved. With four games going, it would take him a minute to get back to me, but I moved again before he could turn away.

  I could tell he was getting annoyed, but too bad. Him and me both. Fucking Duncan. I threw pieces around the board, barely aware if the moves were even legal. Philip wasn’t used to opponents who cared so little about the outcome. His breath whistled past his teeth every time I moved. Across from me, Colin Botha—club noob but with a strong U.S. Chess Federation rating and my bet for first to knock Philip off his throne—was putting up a serious fight. Courtney and Duncan were holding their own and keeping Philip from giving me his full attention.

  Which could explain what happened.

  I might not have noticed if I wasn’t in particular need of quiet at that moment. Every sound rattled in my ears, from the tap of the felt-footed pieces to the muted chatter trickling in from the Commons. Annoyed, I tossed a knight into Philip’s back row, which made no sense even to me. Philip responded with the irritation of a man who’d discovered a pubic hair in his hamburger. He killed the knight with his queen. In the second after he lifted his hand, even as I was reaching for another piece to push, he sucked in a quick breath, barely audible. But I heard it. And I paused.

  He’d made a mistake.

  Philip didn’t make mistakes. Not on the chessboard. I looked up at him but he was already turning away, munching carrots and trying to cover. Maybe he thought it didn’t matter, that I would never see what he’d given me. Whatever he thought, I felt something new and different: a tickle behind my eyes, a sudden need. I gazed at Duncan, intent on his own board. Light reflected off the sheen of sweat on his upper lip—so desperate to have what Philip had given me. A chance. I sat back and, for the first time since Mad Maddie, tried to win a game of chess.

  I studied the board for fifteen minutes to be absolutely sure. Long enough for Philip to knock off the other three, first Duncan, then Botha. When Courtney resigned, Philip turned to me. “Well?” His attitude was impatient, but I sensed concern behind it. He knew I knew—the long delay since my last move was proof of that. What he didn’t know was if I would figure out how to exploit his mistake.

  Except I already had.

  I smiled, casual and a little saucy. Then, when I had his attention, I moved a bishop one space. Check. I didn’t have to say it out loud. Everyone saw it. Philip’s king was trapped, no way to move out of check. My reckless play had left us with a chaotic board, and Philip had no way to block. If he’d ignored my idiot knight in the back row he could have cleared the current problem right up with his queen, but she was out of position now.

  “Mate.” I did have to say that out loud. Duncan needed to hear.

  It didn’t mean anything. By club rule, you could only jump two boards, and then only after winning four out of seven. One loss by any ranked member to me was no more than a fart in the wind.

  Rain whispered against the window. A foot tapped against a table leg. Then Philip shrugged. Losing a meaningless game to me turned out to be a big yawner. He grabbed his Book—in those days, a spiral notebook, not the vinyl behemoth he would soon switch to—in order to log the three games that mattered. I knew he would remember every move, even from my game, but no point in logging that one. Random nitwittery and one unforced error, never to be repeated. But the other three games would give him something to analyze. He’d already forgotten me.

  Duncan hadn’t. “Such…bullshit.”

  He ranged around the cluster of tables into the empty space where Philip had paced during recent combat operations. Behind him, Philip hunched over and scrawled notation, oblivious to the looming menace at his back. Duncan thrust a trembling finger at me and then Philip in turn.

  “You can’t beat him. You’re nobody.”

  Blah blah blah. There was only five minutes left in the period. All I wanted was a little quiet before I had to return to the general population.

  “You don’t know jackshit about chess.”

  No fucking kidding. I reached for A Game of Thrones, thinking if I ignored him he’d wind down.

  Instead, he spun on Philip. “You’re just gonna let this happen? He beat you.”

  Philip looked up from the Book, his face bland, as if he only just noticed the ruckus. “So what?”

  The wrong thing to say. The lunchroom—not big to begin with—seemed to contract as Duncan’s face went red. My ears popped, and the windows seemed to vibrate. Tendons sprang out on his neck. Maybe that would have been it—an entitled asshat pitching a tantrum—until his bulging eyes fixed on the Book. Philip’s talisman, his magic tome, his obsession. Duncan grabbed the notebook and ripped it down the middle, tossed the halves in opposite directions. Then he cocked his arm about a mile over his head as anguish rose in Philip’s upturned face. Sheets of chess notation fluttered around us like leaves.

  Fosters tend to fall into one of two camps: those who fight everyone and those who fight no one. Up ’til that moment, I would have put myself in the second category. I’d been in some pitched battles over the years, but they were always a matter of self-defense—usually against some sociopath who knocked my dick in the dirt for laughs or to take what little I had. Defending the weak and nerdtrodden was never on my To Do list. But Philip was the one who gave me the chance, however limited, for a measure of quiet each day. I owed him…something.

  Not that I took the time to formulate the thought. I was out of my chair before his lips could part.

  I have no recollection of balling a fist, even less of the right cross which, according to subsequent reports, connected with Duncan’s jaw below his cheekbone. My first awareness was Duncan’s hands dropping as my punch snapped his head around. I followed through with my body until our chests collided. He staggered, caught himself against
a table. I glared down at him, suddenly aware of how much taller I was. His head rolled back, loose and wobbly.

  “Joey, dude…”

  “…that was…”

  “…didja see that…?”

  “…fucking master, dude…”

  My heart pounded in my chest, and air whistled through my nose. Duncan gazed up at me, eyes wayward. One pupil expanded and contracted. He blinked, tried to smile.

  “Heh heh.” He actually said the words. Heh heh. Then, “Maybe we should kiss and make up before someone gets hurt.” There was blood on his teeth.

  All I wanted was to lose my game of chess and sit in peace. No student blather, no teachers lecturing, no cable news, no laughing, no crying, no screaming. Just fifty-five minutes of quiet, once a day, five days a week. Too much to ask?

  Apparently.

  Before I had the chance to tell him to kiss my ass, the door opened. Moylan. I didn’t see him, but there was no mistaking his voice. “Joseph. Duncan. What is the meaning of this?”

  Duncan and I didn’t break eye contact, though in his case I’m not sure it was a matter of choice.

  “Joey gave Duncan a beatdown.”

  To this day, I don’t know who spoke. Didn’t matter. My days of losing a chess game in exchange for a little peace were over.

  1.12: Home Away From Hell

  If I’m going to take a chance on entering the Bobbitts’ one last time, Thursday afternoon is it. That’s when Wayne has his weekly meet-up with his boss. Afterward they continue on to some shenanigan for insurance dorks. He never gets home before nine. The rest of the week, he might go out at any time to meet one of his customers—but mostly he’s in his office.

  Thursdays are also Anita’s physical therapy, an event she never misses since it’s when she gets to assign a number to her pain. That number is ten. They won’t prescribe any more pills, but at least she can complain and that’s important. Plus she gets a massage, paid for by insurance. It’s a win even without the Oxy.

  What all this means is I can get my tools.