Saving Room for Dessert

by K. C. Constantine

  “Why should I let any man tell me that?” James E. would say in his soft voice. “I did not ask for my body, my height, my gender, the color of my skin, my hair, or my eyes. I am what I am because I am that. I have no need to advertise it falsely. My life advertises it truly. I have trained my mind to think its own thoughts, not the thoughts of others, no matter what group they would have me be part of or not be part of. I have trained my mind to respond to the world I inherited, no matter where it is or what it is. Because my body, no matter what its shape or color, is of no consequence without my mind and my mind accepts all shapes, all colors, all sounds, all smells, all tastes, all textures.

  “Remember, William. An emotion starts with a thought, no matter how fast that thought enters your mind-body. As fast as it enters your mind-body, you have to learn how to change that thought just as fast. And with that change of mind, you can change your body. We are all locked in our bodies, William, for however long we don’t know and we can’t predict, but only fools are locked in their minds. Are you a fool, William? Do you want to be locked in your mind? Do you want your body reacting to every little breeze that blows through your brain? If that’s what you want, then walk away now, I have nothing to teach you. Walk away from me and walk away from yourself and you’ll never learn what you’re capable of.”

  Rayford could hear James E. now as clearly as he had ever heard him in his studio in Montgomery, that voice so calm, so smooth, so soothing, so measured, so controlled. An emotion starts with a thought. A-men. I’m freezin’ here ’cause I hear about the Scavellis’ kids and a hurricane blows through my mind. William Junior blows through my mind. So motherfuckin’ cold I can’t even write. Frozen in time, that’s what I am. Drove around the corner and saw that ambulance and Charmane’s got-damn mother blubberin’ in the street how it wasn’t her fault, the boy wouldn’t listen, the boy was a disobedient child, a disrespectful child, a child who would not pay attention to his elders, beatin’ on her chest, throwin’ up her hands to the heavens, screamin’, wailin’, this ain’t my fault, this ain’t my fault, in everybody’s face with that bullshit. Worse than bullshit. Ain’t a word for what bullshit that was. He was a child, that’s all. A child with a child’s energy and a child’s curiosity. He was strong and inquisitive and agile and he had to be watched. You couldn’t watch TV and pretend you were watching him, you had to watch him. When he was awake and moving, he had to be watched because he wanted to go everywhere, see everything, touch everything, taste everything, you could not pretend you were watching him if what you were really watching was Jerry Springer or Ricki Lake or Jenny Jones or any of those motherfuckin’ freak shows.

  But you’re here now, William, my man. You are here! You’re the one sittin’ here freezin’. Right here, right now, you’re the one sittin’ in this MU with the motherfuckin’ heater on in the middle of a spring evening. So stop this shit right now! You are here, it is now, get warm! You have work to do and you can’t do it while you’re shaking with cold from a mind four and a half years old. William Junior is dead. You know he crawled up on that windowsill by himself, you know that, there’s no question about that. You know she wasn’t watching him, you know she was lookin’ at one of those got-damn freak shows, which one don’t make no difference, you know she wasn’t payin’ attention to that child no matter how many times she said otherwise. You know the boy fell. And you know the result. Ain’t no point in goin’ over the motherfuckin’ details in your mind once again. Get it out your mind, get your mind back on the Scavellis and fill out this got-damn UIR. Do it, man! Do it now!

  Do the fire breath. Inhale and pump your belly out ten times, c’mon, do it!

  He did. He filled his diaphragm, straining against his belts, then pumped his diaphragm in ten times, hard with each exhale. It changed the cold in his belly. Started to warm it. So he did it again, ten more times, and got warmer still. Then he inhaled deeply, filling his belly, thinking warmth, saying warmth, feeling warmth, and exhaled that warmth to his fingers, hands, arms, toes, feet, shins, knees, thighs, butt, belly, back, and chest, and repeated that inhalation and exhalation again nine more times until finally he was no longer cold. Finally he was warm enough he could turn off the heater. Warm enough that he could finish filling out the UIR. Warm enough, when he was done with that, that he could open his gear bag, get his Little Playmate cooler out, and take out the makings of a sandwich.

  First thing every morning after breakfast, he put into separate plastic bags some variation of greens, cheeses, pickles, mustards or tofu spreads. This morning he’d packed Romaine lettuce, low-fat Swiss cheese, dill pickle slices, and a small jar of Nayonaise along with two small pita breads. He opened each bag and arranged them on top of his briefcase. He sawed the pita open with his tomato knife, then laid on the Romaine first, then the cheese, then two long slices of dill pickles, finally spreading the Nayonaise over the top half of the pita. He poured another coffee from his vacuum bottle, and settled back to eat, all the while repeating silently the word warmth until he opened his mouth to take the first bite.

  Then he thought about eating. That’s what James Eberly had tried to drum into him: do one thing at a time. Do it with full attention. Focus. Concentrate. Eliminate distractions. If you’re eating, eat. Sleeping, sleep. Going to war, go to war. Making love, make love. When your mind wanders, bring it back. If it won’t come back, ask whose mind it is that’s wandering. Is it yours? Or somebody else’s? If it isn’t yours, ask how it got inside your head. Who allowed it to be there if not you? Whose ever it was, if it’s in your head, it’s yours now. Meet it, greet it, take possession of it. Be here with it, be now with it. Pay attention.…

  Yeah, James, I hear you. I know all the words you said. Wish I could do it, man. But my sorry-ass brain just don’t work that way. Just keeps on keepin’ on with all the stale, stupid shit and debris pourin’ through there like a got-damn white-water river, ’cept it ain’t white, it’s brown. Color of shit and sorry desperation. Six years’ worth of Miss Paige. Miss Leontine Paige. Miss Paige and her got-damn itch to know the future. If it ain’t some voodoo bitch on the kitchen floor with chicken parts, it’s some got-damn psychic hot line, two dollars and ninety-nine cents a minute, and Charmane think I’m s’posed to pay that motherfuckin’ phone bill like it’s mine. Day I pay for nine-hundred-number calls is the day I turn into Denzel Washington, b’lieve that, James. I may not be able to control my mind, but I damn sure ain’t goin’ pay for no psychic bullshit come out a nine-hundred number.

  Rayford chewed his sandwich. Drank his coffee. Brought himself back as best he could to the here and now. Zipped closed the plastic bags, put them back in the cooler, put it in his gear bag, washed his hands and mouth with a Moist Towelette, balled it up and put it in an empty plastic grocery bag he used for garbage. He always carried a bunch of those as well as several large green garbage bags to spread out on the backseat in case he had to transport some pukey drunk or somebody who had little or no interest in personal hygiene. It was a lot easier to toss the bags than to get the funk out of the upholstery.

  There were a lot of things that smelled worse than puke: one was somebody who was still alive and had lost control of his bowels, another was a corpse that had a full bowel when its temperature started falling fast. Thank Jesus, Buddha, and Allah I don’t have to transport the dead. Ain’t nothin’ get that stink out of cloth. Might as well have a dog got wrong with a skunk jump up in the bed lickin’ your face, trying to get you up. Stick that skunked-up nose in your face? Lick you with that skunked-up tongue? Damn, that’s some nasty shit—now what am I thinkin’ this nonsense for? Call Stramsky and 10-8 yourself, man, this unit s’posed to be mobile, so make it move, man, git to gittin’, what the fuck.…

  WHEN RESETA led what’s-his-name into the Conemaugh County Juvenile Center on the rear of the grounds of the county’s home for the aged and infirm, he waited by the reception desk until the intake officer showed up. The intake officer came out of the john adjusting his belt j
ust as the phone on his desk started to ring. He answered it, identified himself, and then listened and nodded several times. Then he took the phone away from his ear and said, “You Officer Reseta? Rocksburg PD?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s for you. Your boss I think.”

  “Okay, soon as I lock this one down.” Reseta turned the boy around, unlocked the right cuff, steered him around in front of a heavy metal chair, pulled him down, then locked that cuff around the left arm of the chair. He moved around to the opposite side of the desk and took the phone.

  “Reseta. What’s up?”

  “Somethin’s not right with your juvey. I called the county bar association, the medical association, all I got was one Maguire and he’s a lawyer and never been married. So then I checked the crisscross file, which by the way you shoulda done, you know? Why didn’t you do that?”

  “I thought I’d bring him down here, see if somebody knew him.”

  “Hey, James, after you booked him, your next call’s supposed to be to the parents, you know that.”

  “How’m I supposed to call somebody whose name I don’t know?”

  “Why didn’t you call the address—like I did?”

  “Hey, if the kid’s givin’ me a wrong name, he’s also gonna be givin’ me a wrong address, so I didn’t see the point.”

  “Okay, so if you’da called the address, you know? In Maple-wood? One twenty-three Elm? That was the address, right?”

  “That’s the one he gave me, yeah.”

  “Well when I called it, I got a woman with a maid service answered, said the name on her worksheet is Feeney, not Maguire. And there’s no Maguire in the white pages on that street at that number. So I’m waitin’ on a callback from one of the school guidance counselors, got him at home, says he has to go back in, check his files, ’cause that name doesn’t ring any bells. Meanwhile, James, I hate to say this over the phone—matter of fact I was gonna bring it up when you brought the kid into my office and I forgot—but lately, you know? You been walkin’ around in a little bit of a fog, you know that? You thinkin’ about retirement—is ’at what you’re doin’?”

  “No no, uh … I don’t know. A fog? I don’t think so.”

  “You don’t think so? That’s weak, James. Not like you at all. Drink some coffee and see what you can get outta the kid. Meantime I’ll see what the counselor comes up with—hey, James?”

  “What?”

  “I’m serious, James, drink some fuckin’ espresso or somethin’. Don’t go to sleep out there, you hear? You got something’ on your mind, bring it in here, I’ll listen. You hearin’ me?”

  “Yeah, I hear ya,” Reseta said. “Okay. I’ll see what I can get out of him. If you get anything, we didn’t get started yet, just got here.” Reseta hung up, staring hard at the boy but thinking about what Nowicki had just said about his being in a fog lately. Was that true? Am I thinking about retirement? I’m not thinking about that, that’s crap. So what am I doing?

  He continued to stare hard at the boy, who was trying hard to stare back. The intake officer’s eyes went from Reseta to the boy and back. “Is there a problem here? I mean aside from the usual?”

  “Kid’s a criminal mastermind apparently. Boy of at least two names. You wouldn’t happen to know him, would ya?”

  “No. Why?”

  “I know he’s been through here before, that’s all. I mean I knew it before we found out he was gamin’ us on his name and address. Now there’s no doubt. But I’m also feelin’ this vibe he wants to be in here. So you sure you don’t know him, huh?”

  “Positive. What’s the state registry say?”

  “Can’t say anything for at least eleven, twelve more hours. Got maintenance geeks in their computers. So okay, what’s the drill here now? Been so long since I collared a kid, last time I was down here, I had to fill out the petition with a pen. Please tell me you have forms in your computer, huh?”

  “Here. Lemme get you on, then type ‘Control P’ and it’ll come right up. Just fill in the blanks. So just so I’m clear about this, okay? Nobody’s talked to his parents, guardians, or custodians, right?”

  “Can’t talk to people you don’t know, my friend,” Reseta said, sitting down at the intake officer’s desk after the officer had opened the computer to the petition program.

  “Where’d you make the arrest?”

  “Outside his school. Rocksburg Middle School.”

  “And you didn’t take him inside to get a solid confirmation on his ID?”

  “Hey, look, okay? We all have our days. So, so far today hasn’t been one of my better ones, alright? But I’m tryin’ to make it so it’s not a total waste. Just let me type this up, and then you wanna do a performance evaluation on me, be my guest. My boss’s already done one, what the fuck, you might as well jump in while the water’s still the right temp—”

  “Hey, I didn’t mean anything, you know? I know I couldn’t do your job, so, uh, you know, forget I said anything.”

  “Yeah yeah, it’s forgotten. Well, this is gonna be quick. In the Court of Common Pleas of Conemaugh County, Pennsylvania, Juvenile Complaint, date April 16, 1999. Name John Doe. Address Rocksburg. Telephone unknown, Social Security Number unknown, Sex male, Race white—you are male and white, right? Date of birth unknown. Father’s name, address and phone number unknown. Mother’s name, address and phone number unknown. Act and Section Violated—finally somethin’ I know—18 Pa. CS Section 2701(a)(l) and Section 2702(a)(l). Date, Place, Time of Offense, 4-16-99 1510 hours approx., 300 block of Maple Avenue, Rocksburg.

  “Description of Incident: John Doe did attempt to cause or intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly caused bodily injury to another, namely Timothy Miscovitz, 13, of 709 O’Hara St., Rocksburg, in violation of 18 Pa. CS Section 2701 (a)(l) of the Pennsylvania Crimes Code, Act of Dec. 6, 1972, 18 Pa. CS, Section 2701(a)(l) as amended, and did attempt to cause serious bodily injury to another, namely the aforementioned Timothy Miscovitz, and did attempt to cause such injury intentionally, knowingly or recklessly under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life in violation of 18 Pa. CS Section 2702(a)(l) of the Pa. Crimes Code, Act of Dec. 6, 1972, 18 Pa. CS, Section 2702(a) (1) as amended. To Wit: During the midafternoon hours, John Doe pursued Timothy Miscovitz into traffic on Maple Avenue, pulled him to the ground by his clothing, removed a book bag from Miscovitz’s shoulder, threw it onto the porch at 305 Maple, and when Miscovitz attempted to retrieve his bag, John Doe willfully extended his foot tripping Miscovitz and causing him to fall face-first into concrete steps leading up to that porch, causing facial injuries that required Miscovitz to be hospitalized.

  “Complainant’s Name, Address and Phone No.

  “Ptlmn. James M. Reseta, Shield No. 356

  “Rocksburg Police Dept.

  “City Hall

  “115 S. Main St.

  “Rocksburg, PA 15889-1867

  “724-830-7799.”

  Reseta hit the print key and then looked at the intake officer. “I forget—how many copies I need to make here?”

  “At least six. Me, you, him, the DA, the judge, the parents—if they ever show up. I always make eight.”

  “Then eight it is,” Reseta said, hitting that number and standing and waiting for the printer to catch up. When it did, he kept one for himself, gave one to John Doe, and the rest to the intake officer.

  “Now what?”

  “Now I read this and play judge.” The intake officer sat down, read the petition, and after a minute said, “Well, John Doe, it looks like you’re gonna be here at least until tomorrow.”

  “Then I get my hearing, right?”

  “See,” Reseta said, “I knew this prick’s been here before.”

  “We don’t call names here,” the intake officer said softly. “Not on my watch.”

  “Okay. Your watch, your rules, doesn’t matter to me. You need my testimony, you got my name and number. I’m outta here. Just let me get my cuffs o
ff him and he’s all yours.”

  Reseta unlocked the cuffs and put them back in their pouch on his duty belt. “See ya, John Doe. Good luck. You’re gonna need it.”

  “You’re the one’s gonna need it, fuckhead.”

  “You threatenin’ me? Huh? Easy for me to type up another count of simple assault, kid. That what you want?”

  “That hardly qualifies,” the intake officer said.

  “Read your Title 18, pal, that qualifies, believe me.”

  “Excuse me, but I’m the one who decides that.”

  “That you are. I stand corrected.”

  “And the only reason he’s stayin’ is ’cause I don’t know how to reach his parents, otherwise he’d be gone.”

  “I know, I know,” Reseta said. “But before you get all gooshy on me here, maybe after you get off tonight or whenever, you could take a ride up the hospital and check out the other kid, okay?”

  “Officer, the next one that comes in that hasn’t been banged around will be the first one I’ve seen. They’ve all been banged around by somebody.”

  “Hey, I see ’em before you do. Anytime you wanna compare nightmares, gimme a call. Bye.”