Saving Room for Dessert

by K. C. Constantine

  Reseta flashed back to the days when he was this tripper’s age, when he was the kid who got his books thrown all over the street, the one who got tripped, shoved from behind on the steps, the one whose homework got taken off him and who, after the smart-asses copied it, had to watch while they laughed and tore his up and threw it down a storm drain. It was smart-ass pricks like this tripper who made him want to be a cop when he grew up, made him dream about having his own mobile unit just like this one here, so he could put pricks like this one here in the backseat, take them for a ride to someplace where nobody was, maybe cuff them to a fence, maybe go to work on their hands and shins with his baton, ask them how they liked feeling helpless, friendless, small.

  Reseta put his craziest face on, his wildest eyes, and glared at the tripper until he blinked and swallowed. “Whattaya think? You ready to answer my questions now?”

  “Yes.” Tripper’s voice was suddenly quivery.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Joseph.”

  “Joseph what?”

  “Maguire.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Thirteen.”

  “Maguire, huh? Irish, right, huh?”

  “So what?”

  Reseta had to step back, take a breath, count to ten. Because all he had to do was hear the word Irish, and a wagon full of bad memories suddenly appeared behind him, full of Guinnan brothers taunting and tormenting him. Little dago boy, scrawny little wop, macaroni arms, spaghetti legs, guinea head, garlic head—those were just the names he could bring himself to tell his mother when she asked him why his shirt pockets were ripped or why he had to have another new tablet or why his nose was bloody or his elbow raw or his knees scraped and his pants torn. He couldn’t tell his mother what they said about her husband, that he didn’t have a dick and balls, he had a pepperoni and a couple heads of garlic and that she didn’t have tits, nah, what she had was fuckin’ eggplants, all saggy and purple, that’s what they used to say, laughing with their heads back, all three brothers, like they were the funniest people God put on this earth. But when he was in Nam, when the VC and the NVA Regulars were trying to kill him and he couldn’t figure out any other reason why he should be trying to kill them, he found his thoughts turning more and more to the Guinnan brothers and the more he thought of them the less doubt he had about why he should be shooting at people whose country he was in, people who had done nothing to him.

  And when he came home from Vietnam? Only Teddy Guinnan—the youngest one, the one who’d been in his class at St. Malachy’s Elementary and later at Rocksburg High—was still living at home with his parents. So Reseta bought an eggplant and let it get so squishy rotten he had to surround it with plastic wrap to hold it together. And when Teddy Guinnan came staggering up the street that night, drunk as usual, Reseta stepped out from beside his mother’s house, unwrapped the front of the foul purplish mess, tapped Teddy on the shoulder, kicked him in the nuts when he turned around, and then shoved that rotten eggplant in his face, as hard as he could up his nose and in his mouth, and then watched him squirm on the sidewalk clawing at his face and gasping for breath and groaning. And then Reseta leaned down and said, “There’s a little bit of my mother’s milk for you, you piece a Irish shit.…”

  Joseph Maguire had summoned up some reserve of defiance and was trying his best to lock on to Reseta’s gaze, but he started to tremble in spite of his best effort to brass it out, suddenly trembling violently as though he were wet and cold even though it was sunny and in the high 60s.

  “Where you live, Joseph? Wanna give me the address?”

  “No,” the boy said, his whole head shaking, but especially his lower jaw and lip.

  “Okay, I’m sure somebody in the school has it.”

  “One twenty-three Elm Street,” he blurted out. “In Maplewood.”

  “Ohhhh, Maplewood. That’s where a lotta doctors live, huh, right? Your father a doctor, Joseph?”

  “Yeah. And my mother’s a lawyer.”

  “Oh. Impressive. She Irish too?”

  “Yeah. So what? Why you keep askin’ me that?”

  “Doctor father, lawyer mother, wow. And both Irish. A winning combination. I have no doubt you’ll be in the U.S. Senate before you’re forty. Put your hands behind you.”

  “What for?”

  “What for? I’m gonna put my handcuffs on you, Joseph. ’Cause I’m arresting you. And then I’m gonna take you down the station and book your little Irish behind. Then I’m gonna take you down the juvey center and file a petition against you for assault and aggravated assault. In case your mommy hasn’t explained this to you, that second one’s a felony. And whenever I make an arrest I have to follow department procedure to restrain the arrestee, which means I have to put cuffs on you, so I can take you to the station in safety. And after I book you, then of course you’ll be allowed to call your lawyer, or in this case, your mommy.”

  The boy put his hands behind him but suddenly stiffened his legs, shoving his back against the seat. Reseta quickly grabbed the boy’s lower lip, twisted, and pulled. The boy instantly came away from the seat, his eyes filling with tears.

  “Last warnin’, kid. Don’t do anything like that again, you hear me? ’Cause if you think that hurt, that was nothin’. If you understand me, just nod your head, don’t say nothin’, okay?”

  The boy struggled to stop his tears. He nodded, his lower lip quivering.

  Reseta put the cuffs on, then shut the back door, went to the front seat and got a nylon leg restraint out of his gear bag. Then he went back, opened the rear door and said, “Alright, Joseph, do exactly what I say. Put your feet and knees together and swing your legs out.”

  “What’s that for?”

  “Gonna say it once more. Pay attention. Put your feet and knees together and swing your legs out.”

  “You gonna hit me with that? You can’t hit me, you ain’t allowed.”

  “Oh believe me, Joseph, nothin’ I would love more than to give you the beatin’ you deserve, but what I’m tryin’ to do is restrain your legs with this strap so, number one, you don’t hurt yourself or, number two, you don’t damage any part of this vehicle on the way to the station. Now we gonna do this easy or hard—which?”

  “Why you have to do that?”

  “Because, my little son of a lawyer, City Council got tired of havin’ their vehicles in the shop because fellas like you get to thinkin’ how much fun it is to kick the seats and the windows and the door handles, and things get broken and have to be repaired, which takes the vehicle out of service. So the Safety Committee of City Council issued a policy directive that says anytime a person’s in custody in police vehicles, officers shall, in addition to restraining their subjects hands, also restrain their legs with the appropriate device, which the city bought for this purpose, and that’s what this strap is here. You satisfied with that explanation, or would you like to read the policy directive yourself?”

  What Reseta wouldn’t allow himself to say was that if he had to get in his briefcase to get that policy directive, when they got back to the station he was also going to get his baton and whack his current arrestee across the shins so hard he wouldn’t need to use a telephone to call his lawyer, she’d be able to hear him even if she worked in Pittsburgh.

  “You know you ain’t allowed to hit me. My mother says you ain’t.”

  Little prick’s a mind reader, Reseta thought. More likely, he’s taken this ride before.

  Joseph Maguire continued to try to glare defiantly up at Reseta, but it wasn’t easy with tears on his cheeks and mucus bubbling at his nose. After a moment he tried to rub his nose on his shoulder, then put his knees together and swung his legs out. Reseta stood to the boy’s right, pushed against the boy’s right knee with his left hand and used his right hand to loop the nylon strap over the boy’s Nikes and work it up his legs to above his knees, where he cinched the loop tight and told the boy to swing his legs back in. Reseta then positioned the other end of t
he strap so the door could close on it, thus pinning the boy’s thighs to the seat. As far as Reseta was concerned, these leg restraints were worth a hundred times the eleven bucks apiece they cost the city.

  “We better be goin’ to the station, you better not be takin’ me anyplace else,” the boy said when Reseta returned to the car after checking with the EMTs and getting the victim’s name, age, address, home phone number, and his mother’s name.

  “Must be true what they say about the luck of the Irish, Joseph. No thanks to you, that boy’s able to move all his extremities and he’s not havin’ any trouble breathin’.”

  “Where you takin’ me? It better be the station.”

  Reseta got behind the wheel and started driving, easing slowly around the ambulance and making two left turns to head south on Main toward City Hall.

  “You know, Joseph, the more you talk the more you sound like you been in the backseat before, am I right?”

  “Juvenile records are private.”

  Juvenile records are private? Reseta looked in the mirror at the jailhouse lawyer, all of maybe a hundred twenty pounds. “You’re right, Joseph, juvey records are private. So are juvey proceedings. But who’d you think all those other people were the last time, huh?”

  “What last time?”

  “Hey, stonehead, all those adults who were in the room the last time you went through the system, who did you think they were?”

  No answer.

  “Suddenly can’t talk now, huh? You don’t remember those grownies standin’ around in Family Court? Or maybe you had your hearing in front of a master, huh? If there was no judge in a robe, there had to be an acting judge. You don’t remember somebody called a master?”

  No answer.

  “Don’t talk, that’s alright, I’ll talk. There had to be an assistant DA, a deputy sheriff probably, at least one cop testifyin’ about why he arrested you, a stenographer takin’ down every word everybody says—what, you think when it was your turn they all went deaf, dumb, and blind? You think when you walk in there this time none of them’s gonna be allowed to read what happened the last time? Or they won’t remember you? Mommy must not’ve explained that part, huh?”

  The boy said nothing and pretended to look out the window.

  “Still no answer? What am I gonna read, huh? Other assaults? Aggravated assaults? I get to read that stuff too, you know. And look at you. Those Nikes you got on I bet cost more than all the clothes that kid was wearin’. Bet your parents make more in one week than that kid’s parents make in a year. What’s his name? You even know his name?”

  “Who cares?” the boy said with a sneer. “Misco-somethin’. He’s stupid, he smells, he falls down all the time, he’s a poster boy for abortion.”

  Reseta pulled into the lot beside City Hall, shut the MU off, and hustled around to open the passenger back door. He reached down, grabbed the strap that had been held by the door and jerked up on it hard, sending Joseph Maguire sprawling onto his left shoulder.

  “Ow! Hey! That hurts!”

  “Excuse me, my foot slipped. There’s some oil here or somethin. Did that hurt? I’m awfully sorry, won’t happen again, I promise. Swing your legs out, so I can get this strap off, I know it’s uncomfortable. Then we can go inside, take care of the paperwork. Won’t take long.”

  After Reseta removed the nylon strap, the boy started to stand, and Reseta said, “Watch your head. Here, let me help you out,” and he reached behind the boy, grabbed the links between the cuffs and jerked upward hard, while faking another slip on the imaginary oil.

  “Ow! You’re doin’ that on purpose, you … you …”

  “On purpose? Me? Oh no, I swear,” Reseta said. “It’s this oil here, I slipped.”

  “There’s no oil there, you’re makin’ that up, I know what you guys do—”

  “You guys? Oh no, it’s a dangerous condition here, I’m gonna have to report it to my superiors. Somebody could get hurt. Accidents happen, you know? Like when we get inside I could slip again. My shoes, you know, they could just, with this oil on ’em, they could shoot straight out on me, and we could both fall. Me on top, you on the bottom. I read about accidents like that all the time, don’t you? Or maybe you think that only happens to other people, huh? Like Timothy Miscovitz, you know? Stupid people? People that smell? Clumsy people, people that trip and fall a lot, you know? Poster boys for abortion? But I’ll try to be real careful from now on, I promise. I’ll wipe my shoes real good on the mat by the door there. C’mon, Joseph, let’s take care of this paperwork, then you can call your mommy—I mean your lawyer.”

  “I’m gonna tell her everything you did and everything you said, all you fuckers’re gonna be workin’ for us—”

  “’Cause of what you’re gonna tell her? Oh no, Joseph, see, we already work for you—you didn’t know that? Yeah. We work for you, we work for your mommy, your daddy. We also work for Timmy Miscovitz’s family. We’re public servants—you didn’t learn that in civics class? C’mon, watch your step, I don’t want you goin’ face-first into these steps out here.”

  “Ow! You’re hurtin’ my arms pullin’ ’em up like that!”

  “Ooh, did that hurt? And here I was just tryin’ to make sure you didn’t fall. I think I’m gonna have to discuss this with my training officer, Joseph, we might have to come up with another way to assist people like you up steps, you know?”

  Inside the station, Reseta spotted Chief Nowicki going down the hall to his office. “Hey, Joseph, you’re in luck, c’mon, I’m gonna introduce you to the chief. I want you to tell him how all of us are gonna be workin’ for you and your family. I think that’s somethin’ he should know about, and I think he should hear that right from you, whattaya say?”

  Reseta led the boy into the chief’s office and said, “Chief, I know you’re busy, but whatever you’re doin’, it’s gonna have to wait, ’cause I have some really important news for you.”

  “Oh yeah? What’s that?” Nowicki said. He’d been dialing the phone but dropped it back into its cradle and gave Joseph Maguire the once-over.

  “First, I want to introduce Joseph Maguire here. Joseph, this is Chief Nowicki. He’d be happy to shake hands, Chief, except he can’t right now ’cause he’s wearin’ my cuffs. And the reason he’s wearin’ them is because I arrested him for assault and aggravated assault against a fellow student in the Rocksburg Middle School, for which I have brought him to the station here to book him.”

  “I see,” Nowicki said.

  “But first, I wanted you to hear from his mouth how we’re all gonna be workin’ for the Maguire family—we bein’ you and me and everybody else in the department, right, Joseph? You did mean everybody, right?”

  The boy looked for a moment as though he was going to spit on Reseta. Apparently something made him think better of that.

  Nowicki folded his arms and rocked back in his chair. “But, Patrolman, we already work for his family, all of us, so what’s the lad tryin’ to say—that we have to assume other duties? Just for his family? Obviously, I’m missin’ somethin’ here, there must be unusual circumstances—which you’re gonna tell me about, right?”

  “Yes sir. Seems young Joseph here believes I was somewhat too strenuous in my arrest and detention and restraint of his person. Did I mention his mother’s a lawyer?”

  “No, Patrolman, you were remiss in that. Interesting. Your mommy’s a lawyer, huh, Joseph?”

  “And his daddy’s a doctor.”

  “Oh really? Say, that is impressive. But I have to tell ya, Joseph, not that I know all the lawyers in town here, or all the doctors either—but, uh, I don’t believe I’ve had occasion to do any legal or medical business with your parents, but maybe, just to be on the safe side, maybe the patrolman and I should, I don’t know, say tomorrow maybe? Whattaya think, Patrolman, tomorrow, we go to the young lad’s house—where would that be, Joseph?”

  “Lives in Maplewood. One twenty-three Elm.”

  “Ohhhh, Maplewood. Very
nifty part of town, very classy. I’m familiar with that street, very spiffy houses there. Well, Joseph, I’m sure your father and mother have at least two cars, probably more, and they probably need to be washed, maybe need the tires rotated, the oil changed—whattaya say, Patrolman? Tomorrow we go out there, we wash the cars, cut the grass maybe, trim the hedges, clean the gutters—’bout that time of year, right, spring cleanup? You up for that?”

  “Yes sir, I am. Be only too happy, I mean since we already work for the family.”

  “Absolutely.” Nowicki leaned back in his chair and gave the boy a large smile. “But first, I think you probably need to book the lad, and then maybe you should take him down the juvey center, file the proper petition—what was that you said he did again? Violate the statutes prohibiting assaults against other persons, is that what you said?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Well then by all means we need to follow the rules of criminal procedure exactly. I mean the last thing we want, we wouldn’t want his mommy to think we’d been lax in our duties—in our normal duties as their employees, certainly not in a matter as serious as the arrest and detention of her charming son. And now if you’ll excuse me, Joseph, I have some calls to make. But while I’m at it, I’ll be happy to call your mommy the lawyer, or your daddy the doctor, just give me their numbers. I’m required to do that, you know, but, hey, it’d be my pleasure, I’d be happy to do it.”

  The boy dropped his chin toward his chest and said under his breath, “Kiss my ass.” It was loud enough so that both Nowicki and Reseta heard him.

  “Ah, the lad’s got a great future,” Nowicki said.

  “I told him he’d be in the U.S. Senate before he was forty.”

  “Absolutely. Couldn’t agree more. But maybe you should interrupt his career long enough to book him, huh?”

  “Be my pleasure, sir. Come along, Joseph, we need to get your fingerprints, take a couple pictures, make sure you’re properly logged in to our humble facility here. If you want, you could think of it as just a sort of an orderly room for the servants on your, uh, on your parents’ plantation.”