North Fork (10 page)

They haven't formally charged me. The public defender lawyer they've assigned me says it may happen soon. If it doesn't, they'll have to let me out. They don't know what to charge me with. They haven't found Kristen's body, so all they really know is that she's gone. The evidence they have against me is all circumstantial. They found her socks with some blood on them and her hair on a fleece at the river campsite, so they know she was there at some time, but that doesn't prove I raped her or killed her, even if they believe I did. My fingerprints and a lot of other people's were in her car, but I don't have the money that was taken from the cash machine by someone using her stepdad's debit card.

Mainly, they think I'm scum and they can connect me to her and they need someone to blame to make their world feel safe again. I don't have a good alibi, and I was seen walking alone on the road between the highway and town when she was supposed
to be headed home.

Because it's the truth, my story doesn't change, but they keep trying. And even though they do break the monotony of being here, I dread the sessions where they quiz me over and over to try to make me crack. They're so sure I did it. That's the hardest part. Everyone believes it. I bet even Smith believes it. How could he help it? I know Harold believes it. And my mom probably wishes it wasn't true, but feels like it's one more way her life has gone bad and blames my dad and his drinking. They've both been here to see me, my mom and dad, separately. For both visits they let us be in a room together, but with a guard just outside the door. There's a camera mounted from the ceiling, but at least we didn't have to talk on a phone through glass.

When my dad came it was in the morning, so he was still relatively sober, but I could smell alcohol over his Altoid breath. I know from staying at his house that he starts the day with a snort. He drinks vodka because he doesn't think anybody can smell it, and when either my sister or I am around, he keeps it in a cupboard in the kitchen. When he wakes up, he goes straight to it. He manages a daily routine and still has a job. He sells roofing at a wholesale warehouse and they keep him around, even though he drinks on the sly there too, because he knows a lot about roofing. He used to own a bigger company than the one he works at now, back when he and my mom were still married.

When he came, we made small talk and he asked if they were treating me all right. He's pretty nonjudgmental, like he didn't make me feel worse, the way my mom does, by dumping the grief and embarrassment being related to me causes him on top of the load of problems I already have. But his life is such a mess that his attempts at support don't mean much. He talked about my older sister who he said was doing okay, but I'm sure would be doing better without a big murder scandal involving her brother. I hardly listen to what he says anymore because he's
never been much help, so I just look at his eyes. They're always sad, and I wonder what happened in his life that made him quit trying. I wonder a lot whether trying is worth much.

His visit was pretty painless. At least it wasn't excruciating like when my mom came. She just looked at me and burst out crying. Like I needed that on top of what I'm already facing. She's done it before, a lot. I make her cry. My sister makes her cry. My dad makes her cry. So it wasn't a surprise, but it was different this time. It was like the grand finale, the overload, the you've-caused-me-more-grief-than-I-could-ever-bear-or-even-imagine-bearing cry.

There wasn't anything to say, but she felt obligated to stay around for a while. It had the effect of making me feel even worse. We sat across the table from each other. I couldn't do much but look at my hands lying on the tabletop. I didn't know where else to put them. Even though I wanted to scream that I didn't do it, I didn't say anything, but waited to see what she would say. But she just looked at me until a wave of tears and sobs overtook her. I'm sure my hands on the table didn't help. They probably looked like weapons, considering what she thinks I did. I must seem like a monster to her, one that came from her body like in a bad science fiction movie, and it's just all too much to handle.

She never did manage to say anything, nor did she touch me, not even a pat on the shoulder. Not that I expected it or, at the time, thought I wanted it. But later, after she left, I figured out that I really did want it, did want her to say something nice, like she believed in me, or touch me. If she had so much as patted my hand or shoulder, I would have lost it and cried too. But as it turned out, the image of me as a monster stayed, and her visit was a bad experience for both of us.

They're holding me here on technical stuff now that has nothing to do with Kristen. Drug charges, actually. The lawyer lady says they can't keep me here forever without filing formal
charges about Kristen, so they may have to let me out, at least for a while, which should make me happy, but instead it scares me.

After they picked me up that morning, they searched my room and found my stash. I really don't smoke that much, or at least I didn't before all this, but a lot of kids at school do. I don't have a regular job because I can't drive but, like everyone, I need money. Anyway, this business opportunity presented itself. I've had jobs before. I'm not lazy, and sometimes I do yard work that I get by answering ads that are posted on a board outside the attendance office at school, or there are some guys who graduated a few years ago who have a business doing yard work, and when they get too much work, they call me.

So I had some money saved. A few hundred dollars. I was thinking about a car, like maybe my dad would let me put it on his insurance or something, since working with Harold and my mom on that project is out of the question. Anyway, my dad got another DUI and now he has to prove he's sober by blowing into this breathalyzer tube that has been installed in his car. He's always having the kid next door or one of the kids who loads trucks at his job blow in the tube so he can start the car. He drinks and drives anyway, and I figure it would take a million bucks to get his insurance company to add his kid who has already had an MIP. So I gave up on the car idea and when I got an opportunity to buy some weed, well. . . I'm pretty disciplined about stuff like that and also pretty discreet. I figured I could triple my money over time by selling a few joints here and there, like when I needed money for a movie or beer, and it was working pretty well until this happened.

So they're holding me on a drug charge which wouldn't keep me here overnight if anyone wanted me out, but no one does. And maybe that's the truly sobering and sad part of all this. I mean I want out. I didn't hurt Kristen. I miss her and I hate it here. I'm in a cage. The food is crappy. The days are boring.
Having cancer would be easier. I want out of here so bad I get lightheaded thinking about it, but I've got no place to go.

I read a lot in here, and have actually been doing some schoolwork. They have this school counselor who is maybe the only kind person here. She checked my school records. My school has one of the highest graduation requirements around, but she figured out that even though there's no chance I can graduate from my school with my class, if I work at it, I could meet the minimum requirements for a diploma from the state, which are lower, and actually graduate at the same time my class does. Even though I don't feel much hope about next year or next week or, especially, graduation, I don't want to hurt her feelings, so I do some schoolwork. It passes the time. Although I'm good at fantasizing and can lose myself in my imagination, you can't do it all day and night without weed or something to help, so I guess I'm using schoolwork like weed, as an escape. What a weird thought.

A person has to be realistic, and even with my good imagination, I know the difference between pretending and reality. The truth is that my future is at least as messed up as my present. When the lawyer first said something about them letting me out, I got excited. All I could think about was being away from here. I thought about the campsite by the river, about walking in the night, about getting stoned, hanging at the beach, walking in the woods, sunlight.

Then I really thought about it. No one wants me out. No one would trust me. There's no way in hell I could stay with my mom and Harold. So that leaves my dad. I could stay there; ironically, now they would let me. If I could go back in time to before Kristen disappeared, but keep what I've learned from being stuck in here, maybe I could make it work, but not now. I'm a friggin outcast. I know myself well enough to know that it won't take me long to blow and do something that will put me back in here. And I could
easily hurt someone.

So I'm just waiting for them to figure out that I'm telling the truth, and maybe the best place to wait is here. Sometimes I daydream about Kristen, have conversations with her. I imagine that she's safe somewhere, free. I imagine myself camping with her on a beach in Mexico. There was a feeling about her, like she understood isolation, and she's the only person I know who I think would get it, my situation, the aloneness of it, I mean. She would understand.

I also think a lot about getting stoned, which is probably more realistic than the chance of Kristen being alive or me being cleared. I know it's a cop-out. My dad is my dad. I have a cop-out for a role model. But I crave, and crave is the right word, that comfortable, numb feeling, even if it is fake and comes from chemicals. I just want freedom, freedom from knowing that my life has spun out of control and may be unfixable and that I'm responsible for some of it. I know I've done my share of fucking up, but I didn't hurt her. I didn't kill her. I might even be in love with her. And I don't think I want to die yet, but I go back and forth with it. Right now, I just want to escape from the way it feels to be me, and if I had the right drugs... Like the song says, “All the money in the world's spent on feeling good.”

Before Grant got scary, I liked it here. Even with the messiness, it feels so much more real than life with Bonnie and Sterling. In a way, this house is a lot like Natalie's, kind of ghetto, but I don't expect anything from it except a dry place to sleep, and no one is pretending it's anything else. The house is a dump and Sterling would call my roommates losers, but they don't steal my stuff or scare me, and we're becoming friends. I met them in a pub downtown a couple of blocks back from the harbor my first night. We kept bumping into each other around town after that, and now I live with them.

If I miss anything, it's talking to Natalie. She thought my life was pretty good. I think her life feels pretty bad too and our being friends allowed her to share the things I had which gave her a kind of hope, so I didn't talk to her about my escape fantasy. I had things she wants but can't get right now, like a car and a nice house. American dream kind of stuff that I've always had, but have abandoned now because when you do have it and all the valves are shut, it still feels like a drippy cement box. I envy her, which is ironic. She can talk to her Aunt Trish and you can feel actual warmth in their house, even though it's on the rez.

Today is one of those dark, wet spring days, and the raindrop splattering is jiggling the leaves on the few mangy shrubs in the yard. Sitting here is depressing anyway, but if I could push Grant out of my mind, it would be okay. The kitchen stinks of stale beer, no one has dumped the garbage, and the ashtrays are full. The house is just plain grimy. Sometimes I clean it, but I don't feel like
it today. Maybe it's the rain. Outside, water's dripping from the gutters that must have been plugged up all winter, because the trees have only recently leafed out again. I've been here a couple of months, and even though the kitchen is a mess, at least I'm comfortable with my roommates.

One of the good things here is the park, which isn't that far away and goes on forever. It's called Dallas Road. It's on the Strait of Juan de Fuca, which is not as wide as the English Channel, but is a serious gulf that separates me from that other life. I'm in a different country, yet on a clear day, I can see across to the Olympic Mountains. The park follows the water for miles and it's quite beautiful, with duck ponds, lawns, rhododendrons, madrona trees and a walkway on a high bluff with a great view. There are places where you can get to the beach, and sometimes I just sit for hours and watch the waves break, even when it's cold.

But the park is where I met Grant, so I don't go there anymore.

The other good thing is Trudy. She's this woman where I work. It's a crappy job, at least as bad as Natalie's toilet cleaning at the Cormorant. Trudy helped me get hired when, right after I got here, I was eating there a lot because the food is cheap and not that bad. Trudy reminds me a little of Natalie's Aunt Trish. Not that they look alike, but she has this warmth about her that makes me look forward to the times when we work together.

After I met Trudy and got the job and found this place to stay, I felt this huge easing of pressure. I could finally sleep at night. Now I lie awake. When a car goes by or parks on our street, I'm sure it's the white Escalade. When I don't hear anything, it's worse; I'm sure he's lurking outside my window.

It was the poetry, Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman, that gave me the push. You may be thinking that there's something bad about poetry that could make someone who'd been doing all the right things flip out and disappear. But I don't see anything bad about it at all. It was such a surprise to find it right there in
a school textbook where you wouldn't expect anything but more noise to help you pass the state test or get a good-paying job, even if the job's pointless.

As if money is all there is to life! It was such a relief to learn I'm not the only one who has ever had those kinds of thoughts. And it wasn't just some other crazy kid, but these famous old poets whose poems ended up in a book that kids everywhere have to read. Besides, it wasn't only the poems.