Chapter Text
Jack’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He ignored it. He knew what it was going to say, and it was the same as what he’d just heard an hour earlier, and his stomach dropped some more. Shifting his position on the couch, he gazed over at Davey, who was stretched out on the other couch, reading To Kill a Mockingbird. Davey’s eyebrows knit in concentration as he focused on his book, and Jack watched the straight-A-by-a-shit-ton-of-hard-work mind absorbing the story. Jack’s English class, the one for dumb kids, asked him to read a news story this week and report on it to the class, and the article had to have at least one hundred words. Maybe he wasn’t the best at English, but even Jack wondered if they could set the bar a little higher than that. Two hundred words. He fingered the corner of his notebook as he watched Davey. His class would be thrilled to hear about the zoning changes by the water treatment plant, especially since Jack had no idea what zoning was. Assign a dumb assignment, get a dumb assignment. If he bored the class the death, maybe he wouldn’t have to do another report.
Davey bit his lip. “You gonna keep staring at me?”
Jack made himself grin and kicked his heels up onto the coffee table, knocking the newspaper Mayer had bought him onto the floor. “Nothing else to do.” Two weeks into Mayer’s three-month moratorium on anything fun, and with supervised wifi only, analog homework and games of Uno were about as exciting as things got. Still, Jack liked it that he was getting punished the same as Davey, like being Mayer’s own kid, and it wasn’t anything awful, even. “Is the bird dead yet?”
“What bird?” Davey asked absently, turning the page.
“The one you’re reading about, duh.”
Davey twisted his neck around at an awkward angle to look at Jack. “It’s a metaphorical bird.”
Jack raised his eyebrows and nodded. “Sounds serious. Is it dead yet?”
Davey paused. “It will be.” He put the book down and raised himself up on his elbows. “Don’t you have anything to do? Or do you want to talk about…you know...”
The pit in Jack’s stomach deepened. He did not want to talk about “you know.” The humiliation was much too fresh and Davey was being way too nice about it. “What does Mayer want us to make for dinner?”
Davey shrugged. “Spaghetti, I guess. He won’t care. He’ll probably go see Esther after work anyway.” He picked up his book again. “I gotta finish this,” he said, waving it at Jack, “and call…” Davey stopped short.
“Call who?”
“The, uh, office, you know, for my…” Davey stuttered.
Say it, Jack silently dared him.
“My schedule,” Davey ended lamely. “Sorry. I should have thought…”
“Okay, okay,” Jack muttered. “Don’t worry about it.” Davey didn’t need to rub it in, his new “paid internship” to pay Medda back, especially after what had just happened. Jack hauled himself off the couch and puttered down the hall to the bathroom and shut the door. He pulled his t-shirt sleeve up to his shoulder and tested out his bicep in the mirror, watching the new scar move and pull over his tattoo. The deep cut from Spot was healing, but it still tugged. He took out his phone now that he was alone. Sure enough, another job rejection. Most places hadn’t even bothered getting back to him at all. Mayer had been confident that Jack’s job at the distribution center would help paper over (ha) his record, despite the abrupt end to that arrangement, but Jack knew better. He’d be stuck at shit jobs the rest of his life thanks to the Refuge, if he could even get a shit job. Mayer had been patient so far, but Jack knew Mayer was deeply uncomfortable being in debt to Miss Medda, as generous as she was.
Jack hadn’t even known what an internship was until Davey had come home a few days ago glowing with the news that he’d be able to pay Miss Medda back in no time. He put his phone back in his pocket and glared at himself in the mirror. Useless piece of shit. Couldn’t even get hired to wash dishes or mop floors. Useless piece of shit. Shit. Shit. Shit, Carl whispered in his ear.
“But when I called a couple of weeks ago, you said all three could volunteer here,” Mayer objected, leaning slightly over the counter where the plastic window had been slid back. “You said you were desperate for volunteers.”
Not that desperate, Jack thought to himself. Not ‘we-want-ex-cons’ desperate.
“I’m sorry, sir, I don’t know who you talked to, but our Teen Leaders can’t have, um, disciplinary records of any kind,” said the weary lady seated on the other side of the counter, pausing her keyboard tapping for a moment. “You can review the requirements here if you like.” She handed a paper to Mayer and eked out a wince at Jack. “You can have a seat while Charles and David go through their orientation. Please don’t leave the waiting room.”
“You think I’m gonna go back there and beat up an old lady?” Jack snarled. “Kick a sick kid?” Jack felt Charlie stiffen next to him, and Davey put his hand on Jack’s shoulder.
“Jack…” Mayer murmured.
“I’m goin’, I’m goin’,” Jack snapped at Mayer and glared at the lady, whose eyes had widened. “Just gonna sit over here and break someone’s arm if they get too close.”
“Is he…?” the lady began to stand and watch Jack cross the room.
“He’s fine,” said Mayer, smiling at her before shooting Jack a look. “We’ll be fine.”
”If Jack can’t volunteer, I ain’t doin’ it either,” Charlie growled. He turned away from the desk and went to join Jack.
”Me neither,” said Davey, staring daggers at Mayer. “This is bullshit.”
Jack slouched silently in the plastic chair, arms crossed, as Charlie and Davey sat on either side of him, and watched Mayer ask to see the manager. Five minutes later, all of them were back in Mayer’s car.
”I’m sorry, fellas,” Mayer sighed as he slammed his door shut. “That wasn’t what they said the other week. Jack, I’m sorry. I didn’t even think to ask about… well, I’m just sorry.” He scrubbed at his face and sighed again.
Jack stared out the window and tried not to think about Carl. Or the Refuge. Or solitary. Or or or or
”It’s okay, Dad,” Davey offered. “We get the point. We should’ve taken better care of Jack.”
Mayer nodded. “Yes. You should have. I have to get back to work, okay? I’ll drop you off at home. I’ll be home late.” An uncomfortable silence fell over them as Mayer left the situation unspoken. Santa Fe had been too expensive thanks to them, even with Medda’s help.
Jack looked at himself in the bathroom mirror again and scratched at his ear, willing Carl back into the flames of hell. He wanted to do what Mayer had said to do: volunteer at the clinic, and get a job. It had sounded so easy, so reasonable, so parent-like, and Jack knew he was all flavors of lucky not to have been kicked out after the trip to Santa Fe. But then, Mayer had had plenty of reasons to kick him out before that, and he hadn’t. And now Jack couldn’t do the simplest of things that Mayer had asked.
The doorknob to the bathroom rattled. “You done?” Charlie called. “I gotta pee.”
“Keep your shirt on,” Jack shouted back. “I’m comin’.” He opened the door and traded places with Charlie. Charlie didn’t wait for Jack to shut the door, and Jack leaned on the door jamb. Privacy was not something they’d ever worried much about.
Charlie finished and glanced at Jack as he washed his hands. “What’s for dinner?”
“Spaghetti.”
“Again?” Charlie motioned for Jack to get out of the way, and Jack followed him back to their room.
“What’s wrong with spaghetti? That ain’t exciting?” Jack flopped on Charlie’s bed and pulled the fleece blanket over himself. Mayer had promised to take a look at the leaky window, but hadn’t gotten to it yet. The January draft wasn’t terrible, but Jack was glad Mayer had given them each an extra blanket in the meantime.
“It’s boring.” Charlie laid his crutch in Jack’s lap, and Jack tugged it. “Think of it this way: if you don’t have to volunteer, you’ll make more money working.”
It took Jack a second to catch up to the change of subject. “I guess.”
“Won’t you?”
“I said I guess, didn’t I?” Jack sat up and leaned back on his hands. “Maybe Morris can set up some fights for me.”
Charlie poked him hard with his crutch. “Don’t even joke.”
Jack hadn’t been entirely joking. If no one hired him, what was he supposed to do? “How come Medda has all that money to throw around anyway?”
“She won all her fights,” Charlie smirked. Jack threw the fleece blanket over Charlie’s head and wrapped his arms around him, pinning him to the mattress. “Grrgh! Get off!” He pushed at Jack and Jack wrestled him back down, grinning. For several minutes the only sound was a mix of thuds, grunts, and the bunk bed scraping paint off the wall. They thumped to the floor, where Jack trapped Charlie against the dresser.
Jack’s face broke out into a huge smile as he watched Charlie’s face turn red in his effort to push Jack off. Finally, Charlie collapsed and gave up. “You win.”
“Every time, little brother,” said Jack, rolling off of him. He made the mistake of believing Charlie, and as he rested his sweaty head on the floor, Charlie launched himself at Jack, leveraging his crutch hard under the short bottom legs of the dresser. The dresser creaked, then tilted, and finally surrendered to gravity and began to topple on top of them.
Stuck under Charlie, Jack could do nothing but twist his head away and shout, “Watch out!” A top drawer opened as it came down and caught him on the side of the head before the rest of the dresser followed, landing on Charlie’s back.
He saw stars. It took a moment for them to clear from his vision, and for him to start pushing at Charlie and the dresser. Charlie was yelling too, and laughing. And suddenly Davey was there, straining to move the dresser off of them, laughing and shouting instructions. Finally, finally they were all lying on the floor, panting, with the dresser on its side and clothes strewn everywhere.
“What is wrong with you guys??” Davey finally said. “Are you okay?”
“Fine,” Charlie gasped. “Ain’t nothin’, right, Jack?”
“Right,” said Jack, blinking hard and wiping at his temple. His head throbbed, but there didn’t seem to be any blood. He remembered Esther, coming to visit when he’d gotten out of the hospital, sitting by his bed, well, Charlie’s bunk that had temporarily been Jack’s, paying attention to him, smiling at him. He tested out his arms and legs. There would be no special visit from Esther for a few little bumps, unfortunately.
Davey threw a pair of socks up into the air that hit the ceiling before landing on Charlie’s legs. “Dad’s gonna lose his shit. Look at the wall. No wonder he’s not in a hurry to marry Esther. She’d divorce him after a week with us.”
“Yeah,” said Charlie. Jack could hear a tinge of something odd in his voice, but wasn’t able to form the right question.
“Maybe if we move your posters around Dad won’t notice the scrapes,” Davey mused. “We’ve got time. Jack, help me get the dresser back up.”
Jack wondered if Charlie had meant to say more.
“Jack?” Charlie asked. “You gonna get up? You need some help? Should I go get some more tape for the posters? I’ll get the clothes sorted for the dresser.” He nudged Jack in the ribs. “Jacky? Everything okay?”
“Yeah,” Jack murmured. “I’m good, Chuck. Everything’s gonna be okay. Just hold on.”