Outburst

by Patrick Jones

  Mr. Aaron let out a long, slow breath. “You chose violence. Why?”

  Jada answered the question by leaving the room, grabbing her stuff, slamming her locker door loud enough for everyone to hear, and walking, head down, away from the school.

  8

  “You got a car?” Jada asked Alicia outside the church.

  Alicia exhaled. The pot smoke danced around Jada’s head. “Maybe. Why?”

  Jada wished she hadn’t asked, but she didn’t have any other options. The Markhams didn’t live close to any buses. There was no way they or her PO would drive her. Most of the girls at Rondo didn’t have cars of their own, and even if they did, they’d probably want something more in return than eyeliner. And she hadn’t figured out the guys yet, but she didn’t have the energy to risk making one think she was interested.

  “Where do you need to go?” Alicia asked. Jada took a step away.

  “I need to get to my mom’s place,” Jada answered.

  Alicia laughed. “That’s a mistake.”

  “I know I can’t see her yet,” Jada started. She filled Alicia in on being placed in foster care for at least three months after her last arrest, and how the judge ordered her to write an apology letter to her mom before going home.

  “Why you want to mess up your probation?” Alicia laughed again. “I mean, it’s not like I’d know anyone who’d do anything they weren’t supposed to be doing.” Alicia inhaled deeply.

  Jada told Alicia about the letter to the judge and how he’d rejected her request. “But I actually meant what I said.”

  “It’s easy to say you’ll change, until you get back in your old life,” Alicia said.

  Jada thought about that. She wasn’t skipping school, sleeping through class, or doing most of the things that got her in trouble in the past, maybe because she wasn’t around her mom or her girls. She had to admit it was easier to be “responsible” for just herself, no one else. But it wasn’t that simple. Nothing was. “I can’t mess up. I don’t know what they’ll do to me if I do.”

  Alicia laughed so loud Jada thought people inside might have heard it over the Jesus music. “There’s nothing they can do. They gotta house, feed, and clothe you. They can’t kill you.”

  Jada wasn’t laughing. “Might as well already be dead.”

  “Look, you ain’t dead, you just ain’t found the right way to live yet. Me neither.” She offered the joint again to Jada, who turned it down. “Why you want to get to your mom’s place?”

  “I need my phone, some clothes, something decent to wear.”

  “You’d think with how the county rains money on foster parents, they’d spend it on us.”

  “Money?”

  Alicia shook her head. “Trust me, ain’t nobody taking in hard cases like us unless they’re getting a check. Well, except maybe some of the people inside.” Alicia nodded toward the church.

  “I think the Markhams take in foster kids to save their souls.”

  Alicia nodded, inhaled, and exhaled.

  “How many houses you been in?” Jada asked. She’d known kids at Central who lived in fosters, and she guessed a few at Rondo did too, but it wasn’t something she wanted to talk about at school.

  “More than I got piercings. Less than I got fingers and toes.”

  When Alicia finished the joint, Jada moved closer. “Why?”

  “Why am I in a foster home?” Alicia snapped. “Why the hell do you think?”

  Jada felt stupid for asking, for not knowing, and for making Alicia angry at her. She needed a ride and a friend, in that order. “Sorry, just asking.”

  Alicia shrugged and waved her hand in front of her face. Alicia didn’t wear a lot of makeup, although she went heavy on the perfume, probably to mask the pot smell more than anything else. Alicia had this look like she could care less about interacting with most of the world. Something about how she spoke, dressed, and glared. Her eyes were off-limits signs.

  “I got no dad, and my mom, well. You know.” Alicia pointed with her right index finger inside of her elbow. “Heroin.”

  “Is she—”

  “She OD’d when I was ten.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be; I’m not,” Alicia said. “Now I have a chance at a life. What’s your mom’s drug of choice?”

  Jada was stunned by the assumption and how casually she’d asked. “She’s on a lot of meds. She’s sick. Lupus.” That was something she’d yet to reveal to her “teammates” at Rondo. Although she figured the adults already knew and were just waiting for her to spill it to them in a tearful, life-changing moment.

  “Sorry, is that why you’re—”

  “No.”

  “Then—”

  “Can I have that ride?”

  “Like I said, maybe,” Alicia said. “If your mom’s just sick, then why won’t they let you live at home or even visit? I mean, she’s not an unfit mother, or any of that social services crap?”

  Jada weighed her choices, all of them wrong. “Could we go tonight?”

  Alicia opened her purse and put on more perfume. “Give me your address, and I’ll pick you up. My fosters lock up the doors at eleven, so I wait until one to sneak out. You can tell me more then.”

  9

  “Hey, moo cow, wake up!” Jada felt her chair shake at the same time. Calvin’s voice was booming at her in a mocking tone. She’d heard him insult other people yesterday like some dog marking his ground. You push my buttons, fool, Jada thought, I’ll knock you out.

  “You wanna make sure you’re awake to eat lunch, moo cow.”

  Yesterday had been his first day at Rondo. He was an older, tall white twig with a face full of zits and whiskers. If you don’t shut up, Jada thought, today’s gonna be your last on Earth.

  Calvin started making mooing sounds. Jada rubbed her eyes and looked around the room. She’d been late for school, and the rule at Rondo was if you were late for school, you couldn’t just walk into a class and disrupt it. Instead, you went in this small unused classroom.

  “Where’s Mr. Aaron?” Jada mumbled to herself. She wasn’t going to say a word to Calvin, not give him the satisfaction of showing she cared about a nasty word he said.

  Calvin continued to moo, then stopped. “Wrong animal. You snore like a pig.”

  As Calvin started to oink, Jada yawned. She’d overslept, but that wasn’t her fault. She’d sat on the front porch of the Markhams’ until two waiting for Alicia, who never showed.

  “Eat like a cow, snore like a pig, but I wonder do you suck like—”

  Jada slapped the words out of Calvin’s mouth. When she raised her hand again, he laughed and smiled like a kid who got the present he wanted for Christmas. Instead, she grabbed her bag and ran toward the exit. The school secretary shouted at her, but Jada didn’t stop. Out of shape and out of breath, Jada got as far as the end of the parking lot before stopping. She slammed her book bag against the ground over and over. The force of it jarred her body, sending shock waves of pain from head to toe and tears bursting from her eyes.

  “Jada!” It was Mr. Aaron, a few feet away and growing closer. Jada turned her back to him. She dropped the bag and used the sleeve of her hoodie to wipe her eyes clean.

  “Jada.” Softer now, almost a whisper as he stood behind her. Jada kept her head down and let her arms drop to her side. Hug me, please just hug me, she thought.

  “What’s wrong?” Mr. Aaron asked. No hug, but a hand on her shoulder. Good enough.

  Jada paused. At Central, the worst thing was to snitch. Somebody did something do you, chances are you deserved it. You didn’t tell on ’em; you got back at ’em. That was code of the school, the streets, and her home. And that had landed her at Rondo with the other rejects and at the Markhams’ with the other unwanted kids. “I can’t say.”

  “Jada, whatever you tell me, I won’t tell anyone,” Mr. Aaron said. Jada hated when adults lied, even if they did it for good reasons. She’d been around enough to know there were l
ots of things kids told adults that adults were required to share because of the law.

  “Let me set the pick, Jada,” Mr. Aaron said, hand still on her shoulder.

  Jada turned away. She looked down the road left, in the general direction of the Markhams’ house, south of the school. Like she was on the court, she pivoted and stared north, toward her real home, her mom’s house. Finally, she looked at the school—not even really a school, but an old building attached to an ice rink—and started to speak. “Calvin.”

  “What about Calvin?”

  Jada picked up her bag. As she walked into school she told Mr. Aaron about Calvin’s words, her actions. When they reached the door, Jada said, “I thought about your question to me. Why I choose violence. But something about Calvin just gets at me. I want to learn from my mistakes.”

  Mr. Aaron held the door open. “Jada, if everybody learned from their mistakes the first time, then none of us here would have jobs. But you know what? That would be okay with me.”

  Once inside, Mr. Aaron directed Jada to the small conference room where she’d first met her team, and where she talked with them once a week. Mr. Aaron gave her a magazine to read while he made phone calls. Before she could finish the first article—a story about “having it all” with Halle Berry—Mrs. Baker and Mrs. Howard-Hernandez were in the room.

  “Do they know?” Jada asked Mr. Aaron. He shook his head. He hadn’t lied, so Jada thought she shouldn’t either. Quickly, biting back emotion, she told the story. “I don’t want him getting in trouble because I snitched. That just makes it worse. I’ll handle it.”

  “By assaulting him again?” Mrs. Howard-Hernandez asked.

  “No.”

  “Then how?” Mrs. Howard-Hernandez pressed. “What are you learning in anger management class?”

  “The classes are full,” Jada said. Just like going to therapy with her mom, the classes were another probation condition, but the stupid social worker hadn’t come through, again.

  “About this situation,” Mr. Aaron said. “I doubt that Calvin would press charges.”

  Jada dropped the magazine. She’d heard that “won’t press charges” lie before.

  “That’s not what matters, Jada,” Mr. Aaron said. “What matters is how you responded. If you continue to respond to someone verbally assaulting you with violence, then you’re trapped in a cycle. You have to change your response, because you can’t change their behavior.”

  “You have to learn to walk away if someone calls you names,” Mrs. Baker added.

  “What if they hit me?” Jada asked. “I can’t defend myself?”

  The adults looked at each other like they didn’t know who should answer. Finally, Mr. Aaron spoke. “That’s why you’re here, Jada, to learn different strategies. The ones you’ve used in the past, well, where did they get you? JDC, foster care, here.”

  “But she started it!” Jada yelled and then shut her mouth, like she should’ve done all along. This wasn’t about Calvin, and they knew it; it was about what happened with her mom.

  10

  “I have a report here from your school,” Mrs. Terry said, once Jada had sat down for her PO meeting. “I’m pleased. Are you?”

  Jada didn’t know how to answer, but she knew she’d say thank you to Mr. Aaron. He had told her he’d let recent incidents slide, since her willingness to talk out issues with staff was more important than punishments. Mrs. Terry wouldn’t be pleased if the school had mentioned her slapping Calvin.

  “Your grades are up, you’re earning credits, and you’re staying out of trouble,” Mrs. Terry continued. Jada sat a little taller.

  “And a good report from the Markhams. They say you’re getting along well with other children and not acting disrespectfully, and they seem pleased by your eagerness to attend church.”

  Jada almost burst out laughing. “Church is great.” If they only knew, Jada thought.

  “But I’ve also spoken with your county social worker, and there are some issues with—”

  “The issues are with her,” Jada shot back. “She’s not doing nothing for me.”

  Mrs. Terry seemed amused by Jada. “Jada, let’s focus on you and your mom—”

  “She won’t show up for therapy,” Jada whispered. “My mom don’t want me back.”

  Mrs. Terry shook her head, all self-righteous. “I’ve spoken with your mother and—”

  Jada took a deep breath and then flinched when she asked the question, “How is she?”

  “She wants you back, Jada, if you’ve made real changes, and from these reports, it—”

  Jada leaned closer. “No, how is she? Her lupus.”

  Mrs. Terry glanced down. “We didn’t talk about that specifically, but she seemed to be doing all right.”

  Jada felt rage building, toward Mrs. Terry for not caring, not asking about Jada’s mom’s health. Toward her mom, for being sick, for missing out on so much of Jada’s life, and for one day, maybe soon, dying and leaving Jada alone. But mostly toward herself for acting out angrily and doing what she did to her mother.

  “Are you okay?” Mrs. Terry asked.

  Jada didn’t answer because she couldn’t figure out what to say. She was anything but okay. She missed her mom but didn’t miss the fights between them. As exhausted as Jada was with school at Rondo, it was nothing like she felt helping her mom when she was sickest. A disease like lupus sapped everybody’s strength, leaving nothing but fear and worry.

  “And the letter. How is that coming?” Mrs. Terry asked.

  “I haven’t started it,” Jada mumbled.

  “Why not?”

  Jada looked at the photos on Mrs. Terry’s desk. None of kids. Just her, some dork, and skis. How could any of these people with their desks and degrees understand anything? They didn’t have a mother who was dying. They didn’t have people all around them without money or hope. “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “Jada, that’s a condition of going home.”

  “It’s just a letter.”

  “No, Jada, it is an apology,” Mrs. Terry said slowly. “You need to apologize for what you did to your mother. You need to admit your behavior was wrong and—”

  “I already told the judge all that,” Jada said. “And you said I’m doing better.”

  Mrs. Terry leaned over her desk. “You need to write the words down so your mom can get it straight from you. You need to write the words, ‘Mother, I’m sorry for assaulting you.’”

  Jada put her hands over her eyes, as if they could be dams against the tears.

  Mrs. Terry continued. “You need to let her know how you’re going to handle challenges differently going forward. Then it’s up to her to accept the apology and trust that you’ve changed, or not.”

  11

  “She started it!” Heather shouted. Jada stood between Heather and Feather so they wouldn’t hit each other. They’d been double Dutching in the Markhams’ driveway, in the sweet bit of free time after dinner but before Wednesday night church.

  “It’s her fault!” Feather shouted back.

  “Keep your voices down.” Jada pointed at the foster house.

  Heather tried to push past Jada. “But—”

  “You get into a fight, and they’ll keep you two here forever. Is that what you want?”

  Neither of the girls spoke. “That’s what I thought,” Jada said. She didn’t know why the girls had been sent to the Markhams’ and never asked. People’s troubles were nobody else’s business.

  “Why don’t we play dunk basketball instead?” Jada asked. Heather and Feather both bolted for the garage to get the basketball, leaving Jada alone with her thoughts. Her mom had never lived anyplace with a big driveway, complete with a basketball hoop, and her half-brothers never invited Jada to the park to play. Jada wondered what growing up would’ve been like if life had been less hectic, without all the moves, without her half-brothers always in trouble, and without her mom’s lupus. Life didn’t need to be easy—just not so hard all the
time.

  “Me first!” Heather shouted when she returned with the ball. Feather said nothing.

  “You should let your sister go first for once,” Jada said softly. “How about it?”

  Heather clutched the big basketball to her chest and stared at Jada. “No.”

  Jada crouched down, got eye to eye with Heather. “Heather, do this for me.”

  Heather bounced the ball once, twice, but then passed it to her sister. Feather grabbed the ball, climbed on Jada shoulders, and dunked it. Everybody cheered. If I can get them not to be angry at each other, Jada thought, maybe I can do the same for myself.

  “Is her car in the driveway?” Alicia asked as they drove down the badly lit street in east St. Paul. Alicia had spent the drive apologizing for no-showing before, when she got caught sneaking out. Jada accepted the apology and the ride.

  “My mom doesn’t have a car,” Jada answered.

  “How will we know if she’s home?” Alicia asked. She parked the car near the driveway. Jada thought Alicia seemed pretty calm, but that could just be the weed.

  “Watch the light.” Jada pointed at the corner front window, where a bright line shone. “When she turns it off, she’s done reading and ready to fall asleep. We wait ’til after that.”

  “How do you know she won’t wake up?” Alicia asked.

  “She’s on painkillers for her lupus,” Jada answered. “They knock her out good.”

  “What’s lupus?” Alicia asked. She had more questions than a court-appointed lawyer. Most of the time, Jada didn’t like to tell people about her mom’s sickness or her other troubles. Talking with Mrs. Terry and other adults never helped. But Jada wondered if Alicia might actually understand.

  “She’s in pain all the time,” Jada started. “Her joints hurt, but she’d only take her pain pills if she had to, because she doesn’t want to end up a junkie like my Aunt Trina … ” She talked until her mom’s light went off, and she didn’t stop until Alicia told her that she needed to get home, so they had to make their move.

  “Is there a key or something?” Alicia asked.