Now Is the Hour

by Tom Spanbauer

  The cop was a big guy, big belly, but the rest of him was as big as his belly. He was like you took a normal person and pumped him up with air. So much flesh on his hands, you wondered how he opened and closed his hands. Pink skin and red hair with freckles. Sergeant Roscoe.

  My pounding heart. The feeling in my forearms that means I’m helpless.

  Sergeant Roscoe pushed his hat up, put his hands on his hips. Sweat on pink skin. Belts and leather pouches and leather holster and boots and leather straps all over on this guy.

  Pig was the word that came to mind.

  Can I see your driver’s license and registration, please? Sergeant Roscoe said.

  I got my driver’s license out of my wallet, handed it to him, then pulled down the visor, slipped the registration out that was always clipped under the piece of plastic.

  Our fingers did not touch.

  Just wait here, Sergeant Roscoe said. I’ll be right back.

  The roll of his hips. When Sergeant Roscoe sat down in his police car, the car went down about a foot.

  Static on the police radio you could hear all through the bright afternoon.

  When Sergeant Roscoe got back, his big pink face and thin yellow-red eyebrows and blue eyes were filling up my whole window.

  Mr. Klusener, Sergeant Roscoe said, I’d like you to step out of your pickup.

  Leave the keys! Sergeant Roscoe said. Hands up!

  Then I was spread-legged, leaning against the front bumper of the pickup, and Sergeant Roscoe was rubbing his billy club up my legs and down.

  Put your hands behind your back, he said.

  The handcuffs around my wrists, I can’t tell you. There was no breath.

  Sergeant Roscoe grabbed me by the arm and led me to the back end of his car. He opened the back door of the station wagon, gave me a shove headfirst, and I fell into the caged-in back end. He slammed the door and locked it.

  As we drove away, I watched the brown Apache pickup get smaller and smaller and then it was gone.

  Just be there at Granny’s, George, I kept on thinking. Just be there at Granny’s.

  A long, dark corridor, lined with iron bars. Sergeant Roscoe escorted me by the arm. If he’d had a lariat he’d have hogtied me. A big ring of keys attached to his belt. The sound of the sliding iron gates bouncing off the hallway walls. Way inside down a hall, through rows and rows of iron bars, a black man in an iron-bar room, yelling and screaming. The smell of piss and ammonia.

  At the end of a hallway, Roscoe unlocked a gray steel door. Inside was a gray room with a cement floor and one of those windows where you can’t see them, but they can see you. I saw it once on TV.

  There was a table in the room and four chairs. Everything gray. A gray cement floor. One window up high with bars on the window.

  Sergeant Roscoe pushed me down into the chair, undid my handcuffs.

  What’s with the red tie? he said. Some kind of hippie shit?

  I didn’t have a chance to answer.

  Take your jacket off, Sergeant Roscoe said.

  I took my jacket off, handed it to him. Sergeant Roscoe went through all my pockets.

  Alleluia. Alleluia. Silently, I thanked the Lord, thanked Saint George, thanked Thunderbird, I’d thrown the joints into the fire.

  Take your shirt off, Sergeant Roscoe said. Then your shoes and socks. Then your pants and your undershorts.

  I took my shirt off, handed Sergeant Roscoe my shirt.

  Roscoe checked in the pocket, stuck his nose in the pocket. Shook the shirt out like when you shake out wrinkles.

  Then my shoes. One shoe, then the next.

  Sergeant Roscoe stuck his fleshy hands into my shoes, turned my shoes upside down. Tried to pull off the leather heels.

  Then my socks.

  Sergeant Roscoe turned my socks inside out, stuck his hands up inside my socks. Then my pants.

  Sergeant Roscoe checked all the pockets, turned my pants inside out.

  OK, he said. Let’s have the shorts.

  My crusty four-day-old shorts. I took them off, handed them to Roscoe.

  There I was standing naked in a gray room, my cold feet on the cement floor. In the window where only they could see me, I could see only a skinny boy.

  I couldn’t think of anything about me that wasn’t wrong.

  I tried and tried, but I couldn’t come up with anything good.

  I’d be a terrible American if communists tortured me.

  Just be there at Granny’s, George. Just be there at Granny’s.

  Roscoe took my shorts on the end of his billy club. Held my shorts up in the air between him and the window.

  Roscoe’s face got even pinker, if that was possible.

  Then: Bend over, he said. Grab your cheeks, spread ’em.

  Little holes in the cement floor where pieces of gravel had washed out.

  Sergeant Roscoe’s billy club back there between my cheeks.

  You don’t have any LSD stuck up in there, do you? he said.

  No, I said.

  No sir, he said.

  No sir, I said.

  Then: Put your clothes back on, he said. Sit down in that chair and stay in that chair and don’t move.

  Behind Sergeant Roscoe, the door slammed loud, and the slam bounced around up and down the hallways.

  The clock on the wall was the only other thing in the room. The clock was the black and white kind like in school.

  The red hand, snapping off the seconds.

  At 3:45 Detective Harold Richardson walked in the room.

  Alleluia. Alleluia. Harold Richardson was a Knight of Columbus at Saint Joseph’s Church. His wife, Mrs. Richardson, was in the Altar Society with my mother.

  Harold! I said.

  Detective Richardson, he said.

  Detective Richardson, I said.

  Detective Richardson was wearing a blue suit and a blue tie. Brown hair, buzz-cut up the sides, a wave in front like Van Johnson.

  He set a Coke down on the table and a bag of Clover Club potato chips.

  Rigby John, he said, I trust that Sergeant Roscoe made you feel at home.

  My chin was moving in a way it had never moved before. It wasn’t just rubber lips, it was a rubber lower face.

  My hands were shaking. Opening the sack of potato chips was so loud.

  What did you and Joe Scardino fight about Saturday night? Detective Richardson said.

  The Coke bottle was cool in my hands. It took a while for my chin to settle down. My heart was pounding, you know, my breath. Fuck. One of these days I’m going to just keel over. I took a drink of Coke, swallowed.

  Is he dead? I said.

  Detective Richardson took a deep breath, put both his hands on the table, leaned in. He looked down at me, and his eyes were brown, and they looked sad.

  He is, Detective Richardson said. Were you fighting over drugs?

  There was this one time when Patrolman Harold Richardson came to Saint Joe’s when we were in the second grade. He talked to us about safety rules, crossing the street and such. He told us to be careful of drunk drivers. Scardino asked him how you could tell a drunk driver. Harold Richardson said that a drunk driver always swerved to the middle line of the road.

  No, I said.

  Then what did you two fight about? he said.

  I never could lie worth a goddamn. So I didn’t say a word.

  Only silence and the snap snap of the red second hand.

  Detective Harold Richardson got up off the table, pulled out the chair across from me, sat down.

  He slid his chair in, folded his hands on the table in front of me.

  Rigby John, he said.

  His voice was low and his lips pronounced every word slow.

  I’m going to be straight with you, he said. Saturday night, a boy was killed, a Catholic boy from our parish, and another boy, Chuck diPietro, was put in harm’s way.

  I want you to tell me the truth, he said. And if you don’t tell me the truth, you’ll be in serious trouble.r />
  There were traces of marijuana in Joe Scardino’s blood, Detective Richardson said. Drug use and drug trafficking in Idaho is a felony offense. You could get thirty years to life, he said. And if you lie about it, even more.

  The red second hand, snap snap.

  Now, this is the important part, he said. Don’t lie to me now. Were you doing drugs with Joe Scardino at the Snac Out Drive-In?

  Detective Richardson’s face was so close, I could see how the lid on his left eye hung down while his other eyelid didn’t.

  That’s when out of nowhere, for some reason, what the fuck, as fate would have it, I made the sign of the cross.

  Harold Richardson blinked his eyes. Both eyelids blinked. No doubt about it, the sign of the cross had made an impression.

  I lowered my voice like I was in confession.

  No, I said.

  Then: Did you talk to Billie? I said.

  We have, he said.

  That’s when I did it. With everything I’d known so far, I looked straight into Detective Richardson’s brown eyes. Nothing in between. If I was going to get my ass out of this crack, it was going to take everything I had.

  Sometimes the world needs a vivid imagination to make it a more livable place.

  Then you must know, I said, Billie and I were dressed up silly. Billie had her mother’s wedding dress on that had red wax down the front, and we were both wearing hats. Billie’s pregnant, you see, and her father didn’t want her to go to the Senior Summer All Night Party, and we were afraid of her father catching us, or my mother, I said. So we switched cars and put on our hats. We were just goofing around.

  When Scardino saw us, I said, he thought we were doing acid. I told him we weren’t, but he got mean like he always does, and he came after me. I just defended myself, I said. And Billie, I said. Scardino’s temper has been something I’ve had to live with all my life.

  And to tell the truth, I said, I’m glad I knocked him down. I should have done it years ago. Then he and Chuck got in his car and he went flying out of the Snatch Out straight into the traffic on Pole Line Road.

  That’s when I heard the crash, I said.

  Snap snap of the red second hand.

  Snatch Out.

  Detective Richardson unfolded his hands. I took another drink of Coke. The potato chip in my mouth was all that I could hear.

  Were you smoking pot in that corncob pipe of yours? he said.

  No, I said. You smoke tobacco in that pipe.

  Then did you smoke a joint, he said, or ingest marijuana in any way?

  My almond-shaped hazel eyes didn’t flinch.

  No, I said.

  Then: So where have you been for the last four days? he said. Your mother and father are worried sick.

  Just be there at Granny’s, George. Just be there at Granny’s.

  A deep, deep, deep breath.

  My eyes, Detective Richardson’s eyes. Still nothing in between.

  After the accident, I said, I needed to be alone. This may sound weird, I said, but I’ve been hanging out in the cemetery, I said. I’ve been examining my conscience, I said. I’ve been praying.

  It’s weird. A kind of glow from deep down. I could feel the glow on my skin and on my face.

  Maybe this was what it was like to feel Thunderbird.

  And Billie’s child? Detective Richardson said. Are you going to do the right thing and marry the girl?

  My goddamn chin.

  The child, Detective Richardson, I said, is not my child. It’s Chuck diPietro’s child.

  Detective Richardson slammed his hand down hard onto the table.

  Aha! he said. You and Scardino weren’t fighting over drugs! You were fighting over a woman!

  Two or three hours more, Detective Richardson and I went on and on like that. Question after question. I kept on having the right answers, though.

  After all, they let me go.

  Now that I look back on my day in jail — you know, lying really wasn’t that hard.

  I was lucky, though.

  But mostly I was telling the truth. Scardino’s death was his own damn fault. No reason for anyone else to suffer.

  Around seven o’clock, Detective Richardson got up, walked to the door, opened it.

  By the way, he said. The corncob pipe was clean. No marijuana residue.

  I believe you, son, Detective Richardson said. You’ve always been a good boy. I’m sorry you had to go through this.

  I’ll call your father, he said.

  Then just before he closed the door, he said:

  DiPietro broke his leg and his collarbone, he said. And some bruises and scratches. He’s lucky he’s alive.

  I loved God so much right then.

  As things turned out, I ended up spending the night. Alone in a cell room with only bars for walls. Just a mattress.

  Just be there at Granny’s, George. Just be there at Granny’s.

  The guy in the cell next to me was old and fat. When the lights went off, he pulled down his pants and stuck his cock through the bars.

  Want to be my jail bitch? he said.

  As fate would have it.

  A night in jail, my father said, was just the thing for me.

  Nine o’clock, after he got the chores done, my father was waiting in the lobby of the police station.

  Same old thing, always too goddamn much work to do.

  Dad looked differnt.

  After a night in jail, people look only one of two ways.

  You either look like you are in jail or you look like you are out of jail.

  If you look out of jail, then you look like you are keeping people in jail.

  My father was keeping people in jail.

  Dad in his cowboy hat, his Levi’s shirt and his Levi’s, his cowboy boots, his leather belt with the silver buckle. His dark Roosky Gypsy eyes that went a little wild when he saw my shaved head.

  Sergeant Roscoe slid open the sliding gate, closed the gate, locked it.

  My father shook Sergeant Roscoe’s big pink hand. I was standing right there, and my father didn’t look at me, and Sergeant Roscoe didn’t look at me, and then they started right in talking about the weather.

  Idaho.

  After a while, when I was getting my wallet and my hat and my thin red tie and my corncob pipe from the secretary with the beehive, Detective Harold Richardson came out a door, and then Richardson, Roscoe, and my dad were talking about the Pocatello Frontier Rodeo.

  The insides of my porkpie hat were all torn out.

  The corncob pipe was in two pieces. The stem part and the corncob part. I stuck them back together.

  Just be there at Granny’s, George.

  Outside, it is one of those bright mornings, fresh in a way that you can still smell the night.

  Down the slope of lawn, the Buick is parked at an angle to the curb. Mom is in the car. Her face is on. Hair done up. She’s wearing her old horn-rimmed glasses.

  Mom does not look at me.

  I tie the red tie around my head, put on my hat.

  Dad is still inside shooting the shit with Sergeant Roscoe and Detective Richardson.

  Mom hates to sit in the car and wait for Dad.

  So do I.

  Mom and I wait.

  Mom is in jail.

  Some cop drives the pickup around and parks it in a parking space at an angle to the curb.

  I go up to the police station door, open the door, stick my head in.

  Dad, I say, Mom’s waiting.

  Mom drives the Buick home. Dad drives the pickup.

  When the pickup doors are closed and Dad and I are alone in the pickup, before we roll the windows down, the way Dad smells is a lot like George.

  Something so deep and important I understand in that moment when I smell my dad.

  And that quick. As soon as I understand that George is in my father’s smell, I forget.

  It will take years to know again what I know in that brief moment.

  As soon as we turn off the
highway onto Philbin Road, Dad starts in.

  Rigby John, he says.

  I can’t remember if my father has ever called me Rigby John.

  You have broken your poor mother’s heart, Dad says. She lives and breathes for her children. She works hard and has devoted her life to you kids, and this is the way you treat her.

  You should have seen her face when she read your name in the newspaper, Dad says. On the front page of the Idaho State Journal! Wanted for questioning, Rigby John Klusener! How dare you drag our family name through the mud!

  The only thing I hear of what Dad is saying is the part about the newspaper. That part is new. The rest of it is just more of Dad’s same old shit. I don’t pay attention to a single word. There is only one thought in my mind, and that is George.

  Dad can tell I could give a shit. I guess that’s why he reaches over, pulls my hat off, then pulls the red tie off my head.

  Look at you, he says. Some sort of circus freak. What the hell did you shave your head for? What are you, some kind of spectacle? A goddamn hippie?

  That’s when I reach down, turn off the ignition, pull the keys out, then throw the keys out his window.

  Jeez, I’ve never heard my old man cuss like that — I mean I’ve heard him say it all, but never a string of goddamn-fuck-you-little-cocksucker-asshole-piece-of-shit like that before.

  But like I said, I could give a shit.

  George is waiting for me and George and I are in love and I’m out of here.

  The pickup engine hums down. I grab my hat and my red tie.

  Solitary warriors of love.

  I jump out of my door, hit the ground running.

  Fuck you as a way to address the world.

  Dad runs after me for a while. But there was no way he can catch me.

  I have my red tie tied back on, I have my hat on, I am under the cottonwoods on Philbin, almost at exactly the same spot where God had spun the Buick around the first time I saw George.

  That’s when Mom pulls up alongside.

  Same Buick, same Mom, differnt me.

  You best get in, son, Mom says. You’re only seventeen. We could make things real hard for you.

  Son.

  What, are you going to take a broom after me? I say.

  Silence from inside the car.

  I walk some more, but not for long. Inside the car, Mom’s new perfume smell.