In Jail

I never would have suspected anything if it wasn't for all the jail time I had to do.

"You're in for it now, you thieving polecat," the nine year old in Western duds told me as he slammed the makeshift gate of the "jail" closed. He turned around to give a man, probably his father, a high five.

I looked around the pokey. There were three dads there, all buried in their phones. Another man was grinning as he watched all the activity of the Western Fair outside the styrofoam bars wrapped in silver crepe paper.

"How long are we in for?" I asked, grinning myself. His smile was infectious.

"You'll be in here for twelve minutes," he sighed. "That's how long a ticket is good for."

"Why the big sigh?" I asked him.

"You'll be out soon," he said. "I'll probably be in here another hour or so."

"Why's that?"

"This booth is run by my fifth-grade class." he said. "They get a real kick out of locking me up in here. Who's yours?"

"I don't have one," I said. "I'm Dorsey's patient uncle."

"You really are," he said. "These kind of things are a long haul for the parents, let alone anybody else."

"Don't I know it," I said, leaning back on the bench and crossing my legs to wait.

~~~

Carla and I had been married for six years, and we were both twenty nine. It had been a rather rocky time, at least for me, but I think I was at least reasonably happy.

To sum it up, Carla ran hot and cold. We'd talk about it, she'd apologize, she'd change for a week - two at the most - and then it was back to life as usual. Of course I didn't like it, but the good times were really good, and I wasn't a guy who pushed things.

In six months and fourteen days I was going to be rich. Stinking rich. My father died seven years ago, and his will stipulated that I'd receive my inheritance when I was thirty. It was his way of making sure that I made something of myself. I, of course, never pushed it. It seemed reasonable, and nobody said he had to give me anything anyway. I had learned not to expect things in life.

The only help he gave me - and it was a big help, lets not minimize - was to line up some interviews with companies that wouldn't ordinarily have been willing to give me a look when I graduated from college. One of them, back in my home town, bit, and I was doing very well. I was young to have been promoted three times already, but Wally Macomb swore that my father had nothing to do with it, citing my near perfect performance evaluations and willingness to pitch in on shit jobs. I never said anything, just put my head down and got the job done.

In this corporate America, it usually takes much longer to get ahead that way. The flash always got noticed. That's not me, and it was more important to me that I did an excellent job. That way, if anything did perchance get back to my father, I could hold my head high.

After my third promotion, I asked again if my father had anything to do with my rapid rise.

"Not like you think," was the answer.

"Russ, what your dad did for you was get you noticed," Wally said in response to my raised eyebrow. "He recommended we take a look, and I've never stopped looking. What I've seen is you have a helluva work ethic, you make excellent decisions under pressure and you treat all the girls in the office with a lot of respect. They like that and I've paid attention."

"I guess that's what makes you such a great boss," I said, rising to leave.

"And you suck up just enough, but not too much," he said with a grin.

We both laughed as he showed me out, and his PA couldn't help but smile and join in.

~~~

"Ah HAH!" my nephew, Dorsey, screamed in triumph. I was just getting ready to exit when he came running up in his Indian headdress, ticket in hand. "Don't even think about it, Uncle Russ," he shouted, giving the ticket to his friend. "You're in jail. You're in jail forever."

"SUCKER!!" he yelled and peeled out.

"Looks like the start of a beautiful friendship," Pat, the teacher, said and gave me a another smile.

~~~

Dorsey was the only son of my sister-in-law. There was something off about him. I thought it was probably something on the autism scale, but the family refused to face it. It frustrated me no end, because they always treated him pretty shitty, like they were sick of him - Carla included - but wouldn't do anything to try to make it better. I loved that kid and always reached out whenever I could. Everyone knew I would do just about anything for him; so much so that I was often saddled with him whenever we all got together. That's unkind, but that is what it felt like. I, as always, went along with the flow.

To make my time in stir even more boring, I didn't have my phone. I couldn't check my email or at least play Device 6 or something. Carla had insisted I leave it in the car.

"Oh, no you don't, Russell Maine," she said as I was putting it in my jacket. "You are not bringing that thing. I don't care what crisis they're having at work. This is Saturday. You are spending the day with the family and that's it."

Or maybe some time alone.

In jail.

~~~

I have been pretty lucky in my life in some ways. I'll admit it, why not? My father had married late. He wanted to make his mark before getting entangled, and what a mark he made. He took over a small, failing hardware store from his uncle when he was twenty-three, and by the time he was forty, he had expanded his business to include everything from real estate to trucking to garbage disposal. Everyone thinks the mob when they hear waste disposal, but, as far as I knew, it was all on the up and up. Now his business empire was worth about forty million.

Not that I held any of it yet. He had married a much younger woman, and I was born late in his life, when he was fifty-five. His plan had been to wait for marriage and children when he wouldn't be spending all his time obsessively empire building and have more time for the finer things. Apparently he'd never seen the second Godfather movie and didn't know how much harder you have to work to stay on top.

I didn't see much of him, but I never doubted he loved me. When I was eleven, he caught my mother in an affair, apparently one of many. She explained to me later that you had to expect something like that to happen. My father was so old, she could hardly stand to touch him.

He would have kicked her out without a dime, but I was there, so he treated us fairly. I never wanted for anything. I saw even less of him, and I should have had that typical teenage anger towards an absentee dad, but I remembered the look on his face when he told me he was leaving. My mother had broken him, a man who used to be a force of nature. He needed to be away, and even seeing me much would hurt him terribly. I understood.

I wasn't anything like either of my parents on the surface, but underneath, I was exactly like them. My father was a driven man, and, somewhere, I had inherited that singleness of purpose. My mother was a classic gold digger, devious and actress extraordinaire. This necessitated a shrewd intellect and insight.

Me, I had learned to go with the flow, and over the years had evolved into a laconic, laid-back kind of guy. I was quiet and unassuming, but that didn't mean I was a wimp. That "decision making under pressure" line from my boss implied that I could be a ruthless son of a bitch and had the balls to do things none of my colleagues would.

~~~

I looked up to see Dorsey's evil smirk. He was waving a ticket in my face.

"Ha ha! Ha HAH!" he chanted.

"Yer in fer the long haul, ya mangy varmint," his friend, the jailer, said.

"Life sentence, life sentence," sang Dorsey as he started to skip away.

"Dorsey! Hey, Dorse!" I yelled after him. "Where's your mom?"

He turned around, shrugged his shoulders and ran away. I was concerned. Was he wandering around the fair alone? Where was his mother, Darla? Where was my wife, for that matter?

~~~

Carla and Darla Hilst- yeah, I know, don't even say it - were sisters born a year apart and best friends. They always had been. No one had ever, or would ever, get between them. Darla had started dating her future husband, Randy, her freshman year of high school. Carla took up with his cousin, Keith, about the same time. Everyone assumed they would be together forever just like her sister and Randy, and it appeared they would be.

My dad died at what was, schedule-wise, a totally convenient time for me. I was back home for Spring Break my junior year of college, so my mother had the opportunity to alternately smother and ignore me when it happened. After the reading of the will, I had to get out of the house and away from my mother and all her questions. I ran into Carla behind the counter at the DQ, still working the same job she'd had since she was sixteen.

One thing's for sure; she wasn't eating too much of the ice cream. She looked good, the way her breasts pushed out that blue blue polo shirt.

"Seen enough, college boy?" she asked, not so friendly. "Slumming or something?"

"Slumming?" I asked. That kind of remark might have had me a little flustered when we were in high school, but I'd had my fair share of attention and knew where I stood in the world. "You wound me, madame. I've been coming here since I was three years old. I've gotten the same thing every time. So please just give me what I want, and I'll be out of your way."

"Chocolate dipped cone coming up," she said. "And sorry about your dad."

"Thanks," I said, taking the cone. "By the way, If I'd come back and gotten a Blizzard or something, you would have known I'd changed, but, nope, it's still me."

"Maybe a newer and improved you," she said, giving me my change. "Come by and say hi before you go back, okay?"

"Maybe," I said, knowing nothing would come of it, "but won't Keith mind?"

"So come a little earlier and he won't mind at all if he doesn't know," she said, twirling her hair. "Night now."

I never went back. The Hilst sisters were notorious game players, and whatever she was up to, I wasn't up for any of it, especially right then. She was either fucking with me or fucking with Keith. Let it be him.

~~~

When time was up, I refused to stay in the jail. Dorsey gave his ticket to his friend, but I got up and left.

"You can't go, pard, that's a jailbreak."

"I'm sorry, Sheriff," I said, "but I really have to go."

"But you have to stay," Dorsey cried. "You HAVE to! YOU HAVE TO!"

He went into full tantrum mode, and I knew I had to find his mother. It was no fun pulling a screaming, obese ten year old around, and I couldn't find anybody anywhere. Finally, I decided to head for the car and retrieve my phone. I'd call his horrible parents or Carla and get him taken care of. I was a nice guy, the nicest, but this was asking too much, even of me.

The car was gone.

~~~

I ran into Carla a lot more than I should have the summer between my junior and senior years of college. She was all smiles whenever she laid her eyes on me, but she was always with Keith or the rest of the Chlorine Four, as they were known because of their many swim titles. He was always bent out of shape and glared daggers at me, but I couldn't give a shit. True, she was hot, but I never, ever pissed in another guy's pool, and he should have know that. To that end, I didn't give her, or them, the time of day beyond basic politeness.

It was easy for me. I'm always polite.

~~~

Well, whatever was going on, I was stuck with this neglected, whiny little boy. I hated to do it, because I knew it was the wrong thing, but I took him to the snack bar and bought him a couple of corn dogs to calm him down. He was still upset, but bravely scarfed down those two disgusting grease bombs in record time. I figured there was nothing else to do but wait it out. I did go check on the car after a half hour or so. Still gone.

The Chlorine Four showed up a forty-five minutes after my jailbreak, Keith tagging along as usual. He hadn't been there when we started the day. He and Carla were walking awfully close, sharing a private joke or something. I didn't like it, but he was always around, always had been, and I had gotten used to it.

"Mommmm!" Dorsey screamed, running into his mother's arms. "Mommmm!"

"What did you do?" Darla snapped at me.

Darla and I tolerated each other. It wasn't that bad, not really. What's the next step above that? That's where we were. She didn't particularly like me or hate me, but she put up with me because of Carla. I felt exactly the same way.

"I didn't do anything," I responded mildly. "He kept putting me in jail, and after a while I got out and started looking for you guys. Where were you, anyway?"

"We haven't been anywhere," said Randy, smugly. "We went to the jail and you two were gone. We figured you two were having your usual fun time. We were looking for ya, though, bud. Real hard." he cackled, delighted that he had, once again, foisted his compromised child on me.

Randy was a piece of shit. I never had liked him much, and Keith I liked even less, even thought I was stuck with him for some reason.

~~~

The day after I got hired, my mother and I were sitting out on the front porch, shooting the breeze and enjoying the night. I hated how she had pushed my father away with her slutty ways, ways she hadn't changed, by the way. It was embarrassing. I was only staying with her until my first paycheck, when I would be grateful to finally get away from her forever. My medium term strategy was to gradually reduce my time with her until I only had to see her on holidays and her birthday. That had been my plan since my father left. She sensed it somehow - she wasn't stupid - and there was always some distance between us that we neither could nor wanted to bridge.

"I've had lunch with Carla Hilst," she stated. "Twice."

"That's nice, mom." I said. "How's she doing?"

"You should ask her yourself," she replied. "That girl always was sweet on you."

"Oh, really," I said, amused. "And she's indicated that how, exactly, since she's been with Keith, like, forever?"

"You should talk to her," she said, waving her hand dismissively. " A mother knows these things."

I did go to the DQ later, but not to see Carla, I swear. How could I think that any self-respecting twenty-three year old would still be working at the shit job they took when they were a kid? Yet, there she was, scooping away like a pro when I got there.

"Hey stranger," she said, true to Mom's word, very friendly. "Anything I can dip for you?"

"Just a cone," I said. "What have you been doing these days?"

I couldn't believe she was still working at the DQ. Jesus, couldn't she at least have made manager by now?

"Nothing much," she said. "What's up with you? I keep asking you to come by and see me, and you never do."

"What would Keith think?" I asked.

" 'What would Keith think?' 'What would Keith think?' " she mocked. "How come nobody ever asks me what I think?"

"Okay, so what do you think?"

"I think..."she said, moving around the counter and tracing a fingertip on my chest, "that Keith is a really great guy. He's my best friend next to Darla, and I'll always want him in my life. But he'll only be a friend."

"Does he know that part?" I asked, pushing her hand away. "Or is he a friend with benefits?"

"Not anymore," she said. "It's not like that. We still hang around, the four of us, but it's not like that anymore."

"Why not?" I asked.

"I've set my sights a lot higher," she said, looking up into my eyes. "And you're pretty tall."

~~~

"Well, thanks a lot," I said, almost grumpily. "I'd appreciate it if you guys would give me the heads up when you draft me for babysitting duty."

"Aww, baby," Carla said, FINALLY disengaging from Keith and coming over to put her arm around my waist. "Was it really all that bad?"

"Well, no," I admitted. "You know I love the guy, but he did put me in jail three times."

"Three?" she asked, and for just an instant her pupils got wide. "That must've sucked."

At that moment, Dorsey went into tantrum mode again.

"It was supposed to be five!" he wailed. "Now I'm not going to get it!"

"Shh, honey," said Darla. The whole Chlorine Four eyed me nervously.

"But I'm not going to get it! Five! Five, that's what Keith said! Now I'm not getting my twenty!"

"What's he talking about?" I asked Carla.

"I have no idea," she said, steering me away. "C'mon, let's get out of here while the getting's good."

"Where were you before?" I asked as we headed for the car. "It's not like it's a big fair. Why couldn't I find you?"

"I don't know, honey," she laughed. "I guess we were two ships in the night. Keith and Randy made us stop at a few booths. I guess we just missed each other."

"And you were here, at the fair, this whole time?" I asked as we neared the car.

"Um hmmm," she said, distracted for some reason as she walked around to her door on the other side. "Where else would I be?"

"Interesting," I murmured, running my hand along the hood as I approached my door.

It was still warm.

~~~

As the weeks went by, Carla made it even more apparent that she wanted me to take her out, but I was not interested. There was no friction between her and Keith. It just didn't look like they'd broken up, and the Chlorine Four seemed just as tight as ever when I saw them around town. I kept my distance and started to date Sierra Nguyen, a pretty little thing in the secretarial pool at work. Nothing serious yet, it'd only been two weeks, but I thought she was pretty cool.

I heard a knock on the door one Friday night at about seven-thirty and opened it to find Carla and Keith.

"Well," I said, "this is a surprise. What can I do for you two?"

"Can we come in?" Keith asked.

"Yeah, we'd really appreciate it," said Carla. "Please, Russ."

"Okay," I said, politely. I was always polite. "but I'm on a schedule here, and I have to leave pretty soon. I hope that's okay with you two."

"That's fine," said Carla. There was a palpable silence in the air.

"Oh, hey," I said, trying to break the ice. "Can I get you two anything to drink? Water, a beer maybe? White wine?"

"No thanks, we don't need anything," Carla said at the same time Keith said, "Yeah, I could really go for a beer."

I smiled and got up to go to the kitchen. As I left the room I heard furious whispering, mostly from Carla, I think.

"Tell him," she demanded, after everyone was settled. I had also brought her a glass of white wine. "He won't believe it from me."

"Umm, well..." Keith stammered. "We just came to tell you that it's okay if you want to date Carla."

I just looked at them in disbelief.

"It's true," he insisted. "We're not together anymore, not like that, so it's all right if you..."

"I'm sorry, Keith," I said. "but you don't look like you two have broken up. Look at you. Right now you're totally sitting in each others' personal space."

They immediately sprang apart; she was glaring at him.

"We have broken up," Carla said.

"Who broke up with who?" I asked. "I don't think it was you, Keith."

"No," he admitted. "It was her idea. But she's right," he said quickly, seeing the look on her face. "We'll be much better as friends. I see that now."

"Friendliest breakup in history," I said. "You two amaze me."

"We have a lot of history together," she said. "Keith will always be one of my dearest friends, but we grew apart."

"Yeah," Keith said. "She's right. We grew apart. So she's all yours."

"Well, that's nice," I said. "Thanks for coming all the way over here to tell me, you guys."

"Oh, yeah," he said, and there was once again an uncomfortable silence as we all just sat there.

"Well, I have to go," Keith said after she nudged him.

"Yeah," Carla said. "Thanks for dropping me off here, Keith."