Alan sighs. He looks at me as he walks over to Joey.
“Listen,” Alan says to him. “We’re in trouble here, I know that, but we’ll get out of it sooner or later—Zach is never going to get out of what’s happening to him. Man, I’d rather be us any day.”
21
Letter from Ms. Emily Wahhsted to Dr. Cal Curtis:
Thank you for your honesty about Zach. Once you’ve seen your only child with a rifle in his mouth, it can’t get a whole lot worse, except, of course, for the possibility that one day I might not get home in time....
The phone rings.
Alan picks it up. “Hello,” he says, then “Okay.” He presses the phone’s speaker button again.
I hear Dr. Curt’s voice. “Can you all hear me?” he asks.
Alan and Joey both say yes.
I nod my head again. I’m not supposed to talk ’cause the cops are listening.
Alan says, “Zach’s all right, we can all hear you.”
Dr. Curt explains that he has read the cops’ agreement and that it looks all right.
Alan asks Dr. Curt, “You sure?”
Dr. Curt answers, “Well, I’m not a lawyer, Alan, but even if they wanted to lie, we have everything in writing. They can’t go back on it.”
Alan takes a deep breath. He looks around the coffee shop. I follow his eyes. There’s the stack of tablecloths in a cupboard in the corner and some boxes of plastic and Styrofoam cups. I hear the hum of the freezer from the little closet room. Below where Alan is standing there’s a puddle of blood from his towel bandage, and there’s the other blood splattered in different-sized drops all across the floor.
Finally Alan turns to Joey and says. “That’s it, Joey, it’s over.”
Joey shrugs. “Okay.”
Alan turns and says to the speakerphone, “Okay, Dr. Curtis, tell the police we’re coming out; we give up. Also, tell them, please, that our guns aren’t loaded.” Alan pauses a second and looks down at his hand. “We’re coming out now, we give up, but I’m gonna need a doctor.”
22
Clinical note by Dr. Cal Curtis:
In the years that I have worked with Zach, he has progressed to the point where he usually copes pretty well with his illness. He still struggles to understand “reality,” and in ways this can make him seem “retarded.” Zach has an above-average I.Q., but the limitations of his illness make it difficult for him to understand when he is in danger....
My lip has stopped bleeding but is kind of puffy. It feels weird.
I’m walking in front as the three of us move across the coffee shop to the front door. The windows of the coffee shop are all sparkly with the big spotlights the police are shining in on us. When I reach the front door of the coffee shop, I pull it toward me and the little bell goes tingaling. We walk out.
Alan and Joey are crouching down right behind me. I guess they’re still not sure the police won’t shoot them. We move slowly. It’s dark out, but all the police cars are lined up next to each other, their lights flashing, and cops squat down behind the cars with shotguns and handguns pointed right at us.
Some people are standing way back, behind some yellow tape. I wonder if my mom is back there. I guess she’s worried for me, ’cause that’s what moms do.
“JUST STEP FORWARD SLOWLY, BOYS, AND NOBODY WILL GET HURT!” the big microphone voice booms out.
“Okay!” I yell back, and I notice several of the cops jerk at the sound of my voice. I’m used to having guns pointed at me by now, so I don’t care. But I wonder if the cops’ guns have bullets in them.
I yell, “Do you guys have any bullets?”
There’s a pause for a second, then the microphone guy yells, “DON’T WORRY ABOUT THAT—EVERYTHING IS FINE!”
I yell, “Good,” back to him, but the truth is, I can’t stop thinking about everything that’s happened in these last hours: Frosty and Stormy … I mean Alan and Joey … Laurel and Hardy … the old ladies … and that little girl’s mom touching my arm and how pretty she was …
“Wing-wong—happy dong—wing-wong—happy dong.”
“Up yours,” I say to the voice.
“NOW, SON, JUST STAY CALM, YOU’RE DOIN’ FINE.”
Alan, behind me, whispers, “Just be quiet, Zach, all right?”
I say, “Sure.”
“LAY YOUR WEAPONS DOWN AND SLIDE THEM AWAY FROM YOU, THEN LIE FACEDOWN ON THE GROUND.”
I don’t have a weapon. My clothes will get all dirty if I lie down. I didn’t try to rob the coffee shop!
I yell to the microphone voice, “Why do I have to lie on the ground?”
I hear Alan’s voice behind me again. “Just do it, Zach.”
I look back at Alan. He and Joey are already lying down. They push their guns away from them. Little sparks fly off the black gun as it slides along the pavement. In another second Alan and Joey lie all flat out like pancakes on the cement. I can’t help but laugh.
The cops don’t laugh, though. They still have all their guns pointed right at us … at me, actually.
I think again about everything that’s happened: Alan’s face with the slivers in it and his hand bleeding onto the floor and Joey getting mad and hitting me and Dirtbag and Rat showing up and the little girl peeing her dress and … suddenly I remember!!
I spin around quickly to go back into the coffee shop. I have to slow down a little to make sure I don’t step on Joey or accidentally kick Alan’s hurt hand.
“HOLD YOUR FIRE!!” the microphone voice yells.
“STOP!”
“HOLD YOUR FIRE!”
I keep moving, push the coffee-shop door open, and race back inside.
When I come back out, just a minute later, the police are putting Joey in handcuffs and holding Alan by his arms. A policeman rushes up to grab me, too, but he stops when he sees the three maple bars I’m holding, one for Alan, one for Joey, and one for me.
“What’s wrong with you, boy—you almost got yourself killed!” he says. He sounds mad.
A moment later my mom pushes him out of the way. He spins around toward Mom, but Dr. Curt steps between them.
“Hold on,” Dr. Curt says.
The policeman says, “I have to take him. We need to interrogate him.”
Dr. Curt says, “No, you don’t, not unless you want every TV station in town showing you jerking around a sick kid.” Dr. Curt nods at some men with TV cameras racing toward us. “Really,” Dr. Curt says calmly to the policeman, “take it easy, officer. It’s okay. Relax. This kid needs his medication. You can have him in just a minute.”
I look at the policeman, and he takes a deep breath. I’ve seen Dr. Curt talk this same way to patients in the hospital about a million times. The cop shrugs his shoulders and turns away.
Mom gives me a big hug. I’m not too crazy about hugs, but if it makes her feel better, I guess it’s all right. I try not to get any maple bar on her.
Dr. Curt steps over to the police and Alan and Joey. They’re all talking, although Joey’s not saying much. More people from around the parking lot rush forward now, and the guys with TV cameras start to shove them in my face. Everybody stares at me. Mom puts her arm around me and says to the TV people, “My son is a minor, and you have no release or permission to show his image on the air.... I can’t wait to see you try it....”
In about two seconds, all the TV cameras turn away from us and start to follow Alan and Joey. Suddenly a skinny lady steps through the rest of the people and walks right up to Alan and Joey.
Joey looks up and bursts into tears. He says, “I’m sorry, Mom.”
The lady puts her arm around him, and he hides his face against her shoulder.
Alan is fighting back his tears, his lower lip shaking. “I’m sorry, too, Mama,” he says. “It’s all my fault.”
Their mom reaches out with her other arm, and Alan steps toward her. All the police stand back and let Alan and Joey’s mom hug her sons. She has tears in her eyes. Of course, I don’t know how she fe
els, but she doesn’t look mad. She whispers some things to Alan and Joey, and after a couple seconds Alan actually smiles a little bit and Joey takes a couple of real deep breaths, then stops crying. Joey lifts his head up. The three of them, surrounded by the cops, start to walk toward the police cars and an ambulance.
Dr. Curt walks back over to me and asks, “How you doin’, Zach?”
I answer, “I don’t know.” It’s the truth.
Dr. Curt says to me, “You did very well today.”
“I did?”
“Yes. You helped all those other hostages earlier, and you helped Alan and Joey. Everyone appreciates what you did.”
Without even thinking that I’m going to say it, suddenly the words just fly out of my mouth. “Can I have all three of these maple bars then?”
The reason I ask is that it doesn’t look like Alan and Joey can have theirs; they’re already leaving.
My mom smiles and hugs me again. “Yes, Zach,” she says.
I wonder if the president of the United States of America gets all the maple bars he wants anytime he wants them. I wonder what the ocean would look like if they emptied out all the water and filled it up with the stuff they put on top of maple bars.
“Gong-wong, wong-gong.
“Gong-wong—wong-gong …”
“Zach,” Mom says, “here you go.” She holds out my medicine with a bottle of water. I hand Dr. Curt my maple bars, gulp down my pills real fast, and then grab the treats back.
I glance at my watch. It’s late. I want to go home.
I look over at Alan and Joey and their mom one last time. Alan looks back at me, too. They all stop walking, and now all three of them are looking at me. I wave good-bye. Joey turns away, but Alan nods his head. Their mom smiles at me and says, “Thank you.”
I say, “You’re welcome, thanks for coming.” Then I almost add, “Have a nice day,” but even I know that would be inappropriate.
I take a huge bite of maple bar … ummmmm … perfect!
Time to go home.
23
Three months later …
Mender Brothers Sentenced as Juveniles:
Coffee Siege Ends with a Deadly Twist
By Kelly Hillstead, Correspondent, Spokane Intelligencer
SPOKANE—After months of mental evaluations and a firestorm of public controversy, Alan and Joseph Mender, 17 and 14, were sentenced today to nine months in juvenile detention and two years’ probation after their attempted holdup of Sunshine Espresso on North Francis last October.
Defense attorneys insisted the brothers were driven to desperation by the burden of their mother’s cancer diagnosis and costly treatments. Opponents lambasted the light sentence, insisting it sent a misleading message to other teens.
In a tragic twist, Zachary Wahhsted, a teen hostage and apparent hero of the coffee-shop saga, committed suicide at his mother’s home just a week ago.
According to Dr. Calvin Curtis, who also testified on the Mender brothers’ behalf, 16-year-old Wahhsted had struggled for several years with schizophrenia. This disease is a chemical brain disorder that frequently leaves victims haunted by phantom voices and unable to define or deal with reality as we know it.
“It was a good day for the Mender boys,” Curtis said in a telephone interview, “but the death of Zach certainly casts a dark shadow over it. For Zach to have survived all the dangers of the holdup only to die by his own hand, a victim of the dangers inside himself, is tragic. Unfortunately, deaths like Zach’s are all too common in patients suffering from schizophrenia,” Curtis concluded. “Zachary Wahhsted was a good kid who had a terrible illness. He was much beloved; he’ll be missed.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First and foremost, thanks to Antonia Markiet, my brilliant, patient goddess of an editor! Toni helped me craft Stuck in Neutral, my first novel, and now we see the birth of a second. Without Toni’s help these books would, quite simply, not exist—so “thanks” is an inadequate word to cover the depth of my appreciation to her.
Thanks also to my family, especially Patti Nasburg, Jesse Trueman, Sheehan Trueman, Cindy and Garren Mayer, Bill and John Egger, and Wally and Kathy Egger. Thanks to Dr. Kent Berney; Stacie Wachholz, my manager; my agent, George Nicholson, at Sterling Lord Literistic Inc. and his assistants, past and present—particularly Paul Rodeen. Thanks to the students and staff of the Step-Star satellite schools program and especially to Peggy Yurik; to Tami, Chad, and Godson Ben Gardner; to Terry Davis, Chris Crutcher, Kelly Milner Hall, and Michael Gurian, great writing friends, and to my great friends and supporters at HarperCollins Publishers, notably Phoebe Yeh, Bill Morris, Catherine Balkin, and Josette Kurey.
A special thank-you to YALSA and ALA for the great boost they have given my writing career. In my acknowledgments to Stuck in Neutral I listed a lot of the people who helped me. There really are so many more on the list now that now I’m forced into this group thank-you to all of you. I hope you know who you are and how indebted I am.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Terry Trueman grew up in the northern suburbs of Seattle, Washington. He attended the University of Washington, where he received his BA in creative writing. He also has an MS in applied psychology and an MFA in creative writing, both from Eastern Washington University.
Terry is also the author of CRUISE CONTROL, a companion novel to STUCK IN NEUTRAL and the sequel LIFE HAPPENS NEXT; HURRICANE; 7 DAYS AT THE HOT CORNER; NO RIGHT TURN; and INSIDE OUT. You can visit Terry online at www.terrytrueman.com, on Twitter, and on the Terry Trueman Fan Page on Facebook.
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Q&A with Terry Trueman
Cruise Control is a companion to Stuck in Neutral, telling Paul’s story. Why did you feel it was important to give readers more insight into Paul’s perspective?
Well truthfully, I always wanted to write more about Shawn but, for a while, I worried about ruining that annoying ending of Stuck in Neutral, where the reader doesn’t know what happens to Shawn next. Antonia Markiet, my editor for Stuck in Neutral, suggested I write a companion novel, one told in the same time frame but from a different character’s point of view; I knew instantly I wanted to tell Paul’s story. When my son Sheehan was born I felt a lot of emotions and a major one was anger. Paul’s character is based on that anger, and I kind of needed to get it out, so I wrote Cruise Control. All my life I’ve had a terrible temper that’s only gotten a little better with age.
Inside Out brings us inside the head of a boy with schizophrenia. Why did you write a novel about a character with this mental illness?
Both Inside Out and No Right Turn are about devastating illnesses. I have a Master’s Degree in Applied Psychology and had worked in mental health and counseling facilities for a number of years. Then I lost a much-beloved stepson to schizophrenia: he killed himself at our home in October 1997. So both professionally and personally I have a big interest in stories about mental illness. Anybody can wake up one day and realize that they are not normal anymore—anyone! So I wrote these books to help readers understand how mental illness is a tragedy and a challenge, not a curse or some kind of punishment for anything.
No Right Turn is about a boy who is struggling in the wake of his father’s suicide. Is it hard for you to write about such heavy subjects? Oftentimes you hear that actors really take on the weight of their characters. Do you feel this way when you write yours?
My stories are based on things that have happened to me in real life. Living through the losses and heartbreak associated with difficult and challenging moments is way harder than later using the material of those experiences to try and create understanding and compassion in readers. Usually by the time I’m writing a novel about something painful and hard, I’ve gained enough distance and perspective to approach the material with honesty and, hopefully, a certain level of fearlessness. You can’t write realistic fiction if you’re a chicken-butt. You have to take risks.
7 Days at the Hot Corner is a book about baseball and friendship, as well as the discovery of homosexuality and all of the emotions that come with being different as a teen. Why did you put these themes together in the same novel?
The truth is that when I saw how much crap gay teens were taking from their peers and classmates back at the time I wrote the book, it bugged me. I’m not gay myself but I know a lot of gay people, so I wrote this book to try and increase tolerance and understanding of homosexuality. Also, I’m a wannabe jock and if I could be great at any sport, I’d want it to be baseball! Why did I blend the two thoughts together? I have no idea. Even though 7 Days at the Hot Corner is my fifth novel, I actually started writing it the very same day I started writing Stuck in Neutral. But Stuck in Neutral bumped 7 Days out of the way on the second day of writing, and it took me all those years to get back to telling that story.
Tell us about your inspiration for Hurricane, which is set in Honduras. Is it true that you once lived there?
Yes, I lived in Honduras in the city of San Pedro Sula during the early 80s and loved the people and the lifestyle there. My Spanish is rough at best so the language barrier always got in my way. After returning to the United States, I lost contact with most of my Honduran friends so when Hurricane Mitch struck Honduras and Central America in October 1998, I decided to write a story that would show American teen readers how much more similar Honduran kids of the same age are to them, than they are different from them. It’s kind of an odd twist of fate or something like it that Hurricane Katrina hit the U.S. gulf coast about the same year that this novel first came out, and the plight of people in New Orleans was very similar to that of the Honduran people during Hurricane Mitch.
Shawn McDaniel’s body may not work the way most people’s do—he can’t walk, talk, or even wave hello. But his brain works perfectly, even though his family and friends don’t know it. Check out how he copes with his cerebral palsy in this excerpt from the sequel to Stuck in Neutral.
Inside Out Page 7
