Property of the State

by Bill Cameron

  After a while, my legs start to bounce in my chair—too much caffeine, I tell myself. The café feels claustrophobic, so I gather my unfinished assignments. My first thought is to walk off the twitches, circle the block once or twice and return to my station to await the girl who will never come. But hours of forced marching end with me standing across the street from Trisha’s house. It’s become the kind of glorious fall day Portlanders rave about during fits of denial about the winter bearing down on us. Dappled sunlight through leaves just starting to turn, a warm breeze smells of grass.

  Oppressive.

  The Voglers live in Alameda, northeast Portland—five miles one way as the boy hikes. I’ve come so far it seems stupid not to take the last dozen steps to the front door. I can’t do it. After a minute or an hour, I hunch my shoulders and turn away.

  They’re probably at the coast anyway. I hope Mr. Vogler didn’t bring any Krugerrands.

  When I return to the house, I dig out the laptop, only to discover the Huntzels don’t have WiFi. A few spotty networks from the neighborhood come up, all password-protected. I don’t want to slog back to Uncommon Cup, find myself reading Trisha’s poem instead. It feels like a punishment, so I read it again. A few lines stand out.

  I gather the coins, the needless clothes

  Like shards of glass littered around me,

  The abomination caught in the wind…

  One day last summer, a few weeks before Mr. Vogler in the driveway, Trisha and I were sitting in the grass on the Mount Tabor summit watching a pair of crows dive-bomb a hovering hawk. It circled lower and lower, dodging its assailants, until at last we lost sight of it in the trees. After it was gone, the crows perched atop a couple of Doug firs and bragged to anyone listening.

  “Guess they wanted rid of him,” I said.

  “I know how he feels.”

  I looked at her, wondering if she was referring to the Voglers. She scratched one eye under her sunglasses.

  “Did I ever tell you about my grandmother—my biological grandmother?” I shook my head. “She used to call me the Abomination.” I could hear the capital letter in Trisha’s voice. In a moment of weakness, I asked her why.

  She put her out her hand next to mine and seemed to compare them, hers warm brown and mine the color of spackle. I waited, but she only shrugged. “Doesn’t matter.”

  A lot of fosters—the ones who come into the system when they’re old enough to remember—have little stories like that. At the time, I thought about Eva Getchie driving off in the pickup, but I kept that to myself. I never learned what Trisha’s grandmother meant.

  I wish I could ask her again.

  Feeling foolish and alone, I hide the laptop in the bottom dresser drawer under my clothes. That night, I sleep fully clothed.

  Sunday morning, I catch up on Thursday and Friday work. I’m afraid to face Mrs. Huntzel when it comes time to get paid, sure she’ll say something about the hospital. But she doesn’t blink when I finish and pays me with a terse thank you. After a loop around Mount Tabor through lingering fog, I slip back to the pink room to brood the day away. I should be working, or down the hill trolling the Internet using Trisha’s computer. I can barely bring myself to sneak out to snork pudding cups. At least Kristina doesn’t make an appearance.

  Small favors.

  Monday morning, the rain is back. Even so, the first person I come across through the doors at Katz—Denise Grover—is wearing sunglasses.

  “Good weekend, Dee?”

  “Fuck off.”

  “How long did the party last?”

  “Don’t make me repeat myself, asshole.”

  She must have talked to Trisha.

  In Day Prep, even Ferrell and Somers are subdued. Honey Nut Cheerios must a killer ale make. I find a chair, wave a hand when Harley May calls roll—something she never did before Duncan. I half-wish I’d brought Trisha’s laptop to do a little Googling, but it’s just as well. The moment I pulled it out, Cooper would probably materialize in front of me.

  After a minute, the PA system burps and the announcements start. I rarely listen anyway, but Krokos emits a long, low whistle from his desk, then starts laughing.

  “Dudes. You have got to see this.” He’s got his Katz laptop open. Ferrell and Somers scoot around in their chairs. Neither seems much interested at first, then Jeff’s eyes pop. Harley May frowns at me when I join them, but doesn’t say anything.

  Krokos has a video up on the screen. YouTube is supposed to be blocked on the school network, but these guys always figure out a way. At first I can’t make out what’s on the screen. The video is obviously shot with a cell phone. It looks like a view through fog, dark at the edges with an object, pale and shapeless in the middle. The camera shakes and for a second there’s a clear shot of a white brick ceiling, cobwebby and half-familiar. A bare yellow light bulb. Then the camera moves again, focuses and music starts up.

  It’s Philip.

  My breath catches in my throat.

  Philip in the vault.

  Philip playing his violin.

  “This is not happening.”

  The voice sounds shrill. With a start, I realize it’s my own. The video was posted by someone whose username is a random string of characters, with a very unrandom “clmz_zebretta_” at the beginning. A new user account, no other videos.

  I have no doubt who it is.

  Other people pull out their phones. The hangover energy transforms into something else, something feral.

  “Look at the views count.”

  It’s at nearly fifteen thousand for a video posted Friday at midnight. Three hundred Katz students can’t possibly be responsible for so many hits.

  Sometimes you don’t know what makes a video go viral. But this one is easy. Guy playing the violin—whatever. Sure, he’s good—clearly Philip is a virtuoso. But that’s not it. Not the venue either. Not even the fact he’s in his underwear. That kind of detail might generate a little buzz, but we’re still talking mostly local interest.

  The boner has a certain explanatory power. Even in the grainy video, Philip’s response to his own performance is unmistakable.

  But the money shot is, I’d say, the money shot. At 01:48, Philip’s face twists into a grimace and the front of his tented briefs darkens.

  Or, as Krokos puts it, “Dude made squirt for Mozart.”

  2.14: Worst Person Ever

  A long time ago, when I complained to Reid about the kid who beat off to his family photo album, he said, “The range of sexual need and expression is vast, Joey. Even among neurotypicals there is no normal. Who can say what this kid has been through, or what his personal challenges may be? Try to show a little understanding.”

  He may as well have been talking about Philip.

  Harley May tries to stop me, but I blow past her. My search runs from the library to Moylan’s room, but Philip’s not in the building. I find him out on the sidewalk, backpack at his feet, Book tucked under his arm. The rain has soaked his hair and jacket. He doesn’t seem to notice.

  “Hey, Philip. What’s going on?”

  He flinches at the sound of my voice. His mouth works for a moment, as if he’s trying to decide what to say. At last he settles on, “My mother is coming to pick me up.”

  His voice is calm, but his jaw is clenched and I can almost hear his teeth grinding. As I stand there trying to figure out how to explain without revealing my fortnight of trespass, he turns to face me. I don’t know if the fluid on his face is from the rain or something else.

  “I know what it looks like—”

  “You let her in my house.” He all but spits as he adds, “You’re the worst person I’ve ever met.” Considering his feelings about Kristina, that’s saying something.

  “Philip—”

  “Stop talking to me.”

  “Please. I didn’t…�
� He put his hands over his ears, squeezes his eyes shut. On anyone else it would look childish. On Philip it looks a little childish too, but mostly it looks angry. And justifiable.

  I didn’t know.

  I can’t tell if I spoke aloud or not. Doesn’t matter. Even if I shouted, first in one ear and then the other, he wouldn’t hear me. I leave him there, eyes still closed, ears still clamped. I can’t be around when Mrs. Huntzel arrives.

  Back inside, the nightmare compounds. I find Trisha sitting outside the door to the library, her MacBook in her lap. She’s not wearing braids—her hair hangs loose and frizzy on her shoulders, half-hiding her face. I stop beside her, but she doesn’t look up. I’m not used to being the first one to speak. Her name sounds garbled coming out of my mouth. “Trisha.” I repeat myself, louder. Clearer. “Trisha.”

  The hallway chatter—all about Philip—is loud enough to bleed eardrums. How it happened, I can only guess. Maybe she heard him from the bathroom off the basement landing, then slipped out to find him in the vault. And saw her chance for a little revenge for all his little digs and derision—zebretta, graham cracker. Less certain is whether she realized Philip would realize I was the one who gave her access in the first place. Maybe that was a bonus—for Kristina, for holding back. If so, I’m not sure I blame her.

  “Trisha?”

  She closes her laptop with a snap and stands.

  “Listen,” I say. I’m thinking about Philip. And I’m thinking about myself too. A little bit. Feeling sorry for both of us. But mostly I’m thinking about her. “Trisha, please. Listen.”

  She’s already moving down the corridor.

  “I’m sorry.” I don’t know if she hears me. “I fucked up.”

  Of course she hears me. She doesn’t turn around, though. If being a foster kid teaches you anything, it’s how to walk away without looking back.

  3.0

  They continue to unwind.

  3.1: Trespass

  Monday—dining room, conservatory, and foyer. Not that I’ll be waxing and buffing today. Or ever again. With the YouTube hitting the fan, it’s time for new digs.

  On the Joey Getchie Catastrophe Continuum, today falls somewhere between Mr. Tinkel on the toilet and the Rieskes slamming concrete on I-84. It’s two weeks ago all over again and my options are still crap. Maybe I could pitch a tent on Mount Tabor. If I owned a tent. I foresee a knife fight with a hobo in the near future.

  Unless I make one more trip into stately Huntzel Manor.

  I’ve circled through the park so I can observe the house from above without being seen. For most of the day, I’ve only watched. The windows are dark, no sign anyone is inside. Of course, it’s still daylight. I’m being paranoid maybe, but I gotta be sure. The rain has passed. Blue sky is visible through the branches of the Doug firs on the slope. I sit at the top of the hill, back to a tree on which someone has graffitied a huge heart with a peace symbol in its center. Knotted bark digs into my back, but I don’t care.

  For the hundredth time, I pull the magazine out of my backpack. Buying a dead tree tabloid to read about a fake celeb feels like something Anita would do, but it was four bucks well spent. Us Weekly stared at me from the checkout line at Fred Meyer when I stopped for conveyor belt sushi. The issue the girl on the MAX was reading, the one with the story about Bianca in the lower right-hand corner. The tagline below her picture reads Reality Bites For Bianca.

  Inside, there’s not much. Two photos, a big one of grim-faced Bianca clutching a shopping bag, and a smaller one, inset, of her oily husband. The story is one ’graph.

  “Reality television personality Bianca Santavenere finds herself getting the wrong kind of attention—if there is such a thing for the fame-starved ex-child star. For the second time in four years, her sugar daddy husband, Florida businessman Nick Malvado, finds himself in the federal crosshairs. This time, it’s a joint FBI/DEA task force probing Malvado’s alleged ties to the Mexican Los Zetas drug cartel. Seen here leaving Luca Luca at Bal Harbour, a dour Bianca actually seems upset by the attention of the paps for the first time in history. She probably wishes her first husband, celebrated lawyer Pip McEntire, were still alive. Word was, he ate federal investigations for brunch.”

  At least now I have a pretty good idea where the money came from. And why it smells so bad. It’s Nick Malvado’s drug money. How it got into the Huntzels’ vault, I don’t even want to know, but I do know I won’t feel bad about snatching some now. Even a single bundle of dirty twenties will buy me a lot of nights in one of those no-tell motels down on Powell.

  As I tuck the magazine away, Caliban charges out of the undergrowth and clonks into me. He wrassles me onto my side and scrubs me down with his sandpaper tongue before taking up a post at my side. Apparently he hasn’t seen YouTube. “Anyone home, dog?” I scratch his mane between the ears. He responds with a tail thump on the fir needles and a string of drool. After a while, he gets bored and hops up. “Where you going?” I watch him trot down the hill toward the laurel hedge, then jump into a hole. I’m abandoned, again.

  I take out my phone, try to compose a message. Nothing sounds right. Finally I settle on the one thing I know is true.

  Used to be all I wanted was to be invisible. Now I wish I’d let you see me.

  She doesn’t respond. I wonder if she ever will.

  The sun is just touching the West Hills when I climb to my feet and brush fir needles off my ass. Part of me thinks I should hold out until full dark, but the longer I wait the less chance I’ll have to find a secure spot to spend the night. If there is such a thing.

  I don’t have much of a plan. Get my stuff from Kristina’s room, stop by the vault, then jam before anyone knows I was there. If I get caught, I’ll pretend I’ve come to clean. Worst case is they kick me out for being a trespassing dickhead.

  But when I open the bedroom door, I realize I should have gone to the vault first. Mr. Huntzel is sitting on Kristina’s unicorns. As I turn to flee he freezes me with his voice.

  “No need to rush off, is there, Joey?”

  Yes.

  In the last six months, I’ve fought for Philip, eaten with Mrs. Huntzel, but exchanged fewer than a dozen words with this man. There’s a smell to him, a strange cologne. Something exotic—from Italy maybe.

  “I have known for some time, in case you were wondering.”

  “I needed a place to stay.”

  “So Kristina insisted. She felt we owed you something. But circumstances have changed, have they not?”

  I wish there was some way to make everyone understand I didn’t know about the video. “Not in the way you think.”

  “Does that really matter?”

  My fight-or-flight response is pinned at RUN, but somehow his gaze locks me in place. No spit will form in my mouth. When I speak again I feel like my tongue is ripping open. “Now what?”

  He shrugs, his eyes at once regretful and unfriendly.

  “You’re going to turn me in.”

  Now he smiles. It’s like looking into the face of a reptile. “I have already turned you in.”

  I practically fall down the staircase. He doesn’t follow, but then I guess he doesn’t have to. The animal heads gaze in judgment as I fumble with the key to Kristina’s door—I’m a dumbass for locking up after myself. Finally the deadbolt clicks and I yank the door open, stumble out to the dead leaves.

  And into the arms of a waiting cop.

  3.2: In the Boobie Hatch

  They bind my wrists with a zip tie and shove me in the back of a patrol car parked on Yamhill. I can see the house, can see when Mrs. Huntzel and Philip pull into the driveway in the Toyota. The cops are on the front porch with Mr. Huntzel. From time to time, they glance my way, making sure I haven’t slipped the zip, broken through the steel mesh barrier between me and the front seat and started hot-wiring the car. I’m too busy trying to figure out how to
sit on the hard vinyl without cutting off circulation to my hands.

  When Philip gets out of the Toyota, he stares down at me. Bug in a jar. At this distance, his expression is unreadable, but I can guess. Mrs. Huntzel doesn’t even look. She stalks into the house past her husband and the cops. Philip continues watching me until Mrs. Petty pulls up behind the cop car and parks. Then he turns and follows his mother. The cops move out of his way. Mr. Huntzel ignores him.

  Mrs. Petty raps on the window as she walks past the cop car. The vinyl almost melts under the heat of her glare. She then marches straight up to the cops. Mr. Huntzel offers her his hand, which she shakes without enthusiasm. They talk for a while, turning to stare at me every now and then. At one point, Mrs. Petty gets out her cell phone and makes a call. Then more talking.

  Finally Mr. Huntzel goes back inside. Mrs. Petty marches back down the driveway toward me, the two cops hot-stepping it to keep up. Their legs come up to her shoulders, but no one out-trots Mrs. Petty. She heads straight up to the car and yanks the door open.

  “Out.”

  I have no feeling in my hands, but somehow I manage to twist around and push my way out of the backseat.

  What’s going on? is the question on my mind, but the fury in her eyes keeps my lips zipped.

  “I’m releasing his hands.”

  The cops had plenty to say when they grabbed me outside Kristina’s door, but now they’re fumble-tongued as she whips out her Leatherman and walks around behind me. I hear a pop, then my hands are free.

  “Thank you, gentlemen.” Mrs. Petty puts a hand on my shoulder and guides me to her car. She waits at the passenger side door until I’m belted in—no shoulder strap in the old Impala, then goes around and gets behind the wheel. Tosses my backpack onto the seat behind her. The cops look at us, bug-eyed, as she peels out from the curb and tears down the hill. I assume the reason they aren’t in hot pursuit is they got their fill on the Huntzel driveway. All I can do is embed my fingertips into the door handle and hope for the best.