The Ax

22

The phone rarely rings when we're asleep, maybe once or twice a year, and that's usually some drunk with a wrong number. But there's been a change in us, in Marjorie and me and our relationship to the late-night telephone call, and I never realized it before.

I come slowly awake, in the dark middle of the night, very beclouded by sleep. I can hear Marjorie murmuring into the telephone, and then she turns the light on, and I squint, not wanting to be awake, and the clock says 1:46. (We deliberately got a bedroom alarm-clock-radio without illuminated clock numbers, because we like to sleep in darkness. I'm always aware of those floating numbers at the level of my sleeping head whenever I spend a night in a motel.)

Slowly I focus on Marjorie and her conversation, and it's something troubling to her that's keeping her responses very down and quiet. "Yes, I understand," she says, and "We'll get there as soon as we can," and, "I appreciate that, thank you."

Sometime in through there, during the course of the conversation, failing to understand who she can possibly be talking to or what possible subject it could be about, I suddenly have my realization about us and late-night phone calls, and it is this: I didn't hear the phone ring.

We have phones on both sides of the bed, but it's only the phone on my side that rings, quietly. It used to be, whenever the phone rang at night, I would immediately wake up and deal with it — the drunk, the wrong number — and Marjorie would sleep right through the whole thing. I think in every marriage, that's one of the unconscious items that's worked out early on, who will wake up when the phone rings. In our marriage, it was always me, and now it isn't me any more.

Since I lost my job, Marjorie is the one who wakes up when the phone rings. She can't count on me any more; she has to be alert for herself.

I sit there, while Marjorie continues to talk into the phone and listen to the phone, and I turn this new understanding over and over in my head, to study it. I don't know if it makes me mostly angry or mostly sad or mostly ashamed. All three, I guess.

Marjorie hangs up, and looks at me. She's very solemn. "It's Billy," she says.

I think, an accident! At the same instant, I think, but he's in bed in this house, in his room, asleep. Stupid, still clearing cobwebs, I say, "Billy?"

"He was arrested," she says, astoundingly. "He and another boy."

"Arrested? Arrested?" I sit up, almost falling over. I'm the one who's supposed to be arrested! "Why would he—? Why would they—? For God's sake, what for?"

"They broke into a store," she says. "The police found them, and they tried to run away. They're at the state police barracks in Raskill."

I'm already struggling out from under the covers. The sheet and blanket cling to my legs, not wanting to release me into this terrible unknown. "Poor Billy," I say. A store? What store? "It's all my fault," I say, and go into the bathroom to brush my teeth.

The CID detective at the state police barracks, a sympathetic soft-voiced man in a rumpled brown suit, talks to us first, in a small square office painted pale yellow. Three walls are smooth shiny plastic, the fourth, an exterior wall, is bare rough concrete block. The floor is a different kind of smooth shiny plastic, black, and the ceiling is plastic soundproofing panels, off-white. Since the canary yellow paint on the concrete block was certainly put there as a very good sealer, it occurs to me that, if anything really horrible were to happen in this room, they could hose it clean in two or three minutes. From my position, in this green plastic chair facing the gray metal desk, I can't see a drain in the floor, but I wouldn't be surprised if there is one.

Did the architect plan the room this way? Do architects think in such terms, when they design police stations? Does it bother them? Or are they pleased at their professional skill?

Am I pleased, at my professional skill? My new skill, I mean. I've never thought about that before, and I don't want to think about it now.

It's very hard for me to concentrate on the detective, here in this deniable room. I can't even retain his name. I want to see Billy, that's all I know.

Marjorie is much better at dealing with this than I am. She asks questions. She takes notes. She's as quiet and calm and sympathetic as the detective himself. And, through their conversation, that I tune into and tune out of, over and over, I finally understand what happened.

It took place in the same mall where Marjorie works for Dr. Carney. There's a small computer store there, that sells business software and computer games and things like that. Apparently, Billy and this friend of his from school went there this afternoon — yesterday afternoon, I guess, by now — and found a moment to sneak unobserved into the back and rig the back door, the door that opens to the wide alley in back and that's used for deliveries and trash removal. They rigged that door so it would seem locked but wasn't. Then, tonight, long after we thought Billy was asleep in his bed, he snuck out of the house, was picked up by his friend — the friend has a car — and they drove to the mall, and slipped into the store from the back.

What they didn't know was, the store had already been robbed in exactly the same way three times before, and as a result they'd added a new burglar alarm, a silent alarm that alerted the state police barracks here, so that when Billy and his friend went in, the state police knew it at once, and four police cars converged on the place, two each from the state trooper barracks and the local town police.

The boys were leaving, with canvas tote bags full of software, when the police arrived. They abandoned the bags and ran, and were immediately, as the detective kept saying, apprehended.

The police have everything, or almost everything. They have an admission from the friend. They have absolute proof the robbery was planned and the door rigged, so they can demonstrate it was a planned crime and not a spur of the moment thing. They have police eyewitnesses who saw the boys carrying the stolen goods. They have the attempted flight.

What they don't have yet, and what they want, is proof that these two boys committed the three previous burglaries.

I hear the detective, and I hear how sympathetic he sounds, and I hear him say they're just trying to wrap this all up, get all this paperwork out of their hair, get it all behind them, and I can see Marjorie nodding and being sympathetic in return, ready to help this honest unassuming civil servant, and finally I rouse myself to speak, and I say, "This is the first time."

The detective gives me his slow sad smile, happy I've joined the group, sorry we have to meet this way. "We can't be sure of that yet, I'm afraid, Mr. Devore," he says.

"We can be sure," I say. "This is the first time for Billy. I don't know about the other boy, or what he might say about Billy, but this is Billy's first time."

Marjorie says, "Burke, we're all just trying to—"

"I know what we're trying to do," I say. I look flat and level at the detective. I say, "If this is Billy's first time, the judge will give him probation. If this is Billy's fourth time, the judge will put him in jail, and my son doesn't belong in jail. This is Billy's first time."

He nods his head slightly, but says, "Mr. Devore, we can't be sure what a judge will do."

"We can guess," I say. "This is Billy's first time. I'd like to speak to him now."

"Mr. Devore," he says, "this has been a shock to you, I know, but please believe me, I've been around this sort of thing a lot, and nobody wants to persecute your son, or make life tougher than it already is for anybody. We just want to clear this all up, that's all."

"I'd like to speak to my son," I say.

"Very soon," he promises, and turns back to Marjorie, more fertile ground than I am, he thinks, and says, "I hope you'll urge Billy to come clean on this. Just get it off his chest, get it all behind him, and then the whole family can get back to normal life."

I watch him, and I listen to him, and I know him now. He's my enemy. Billy isn't a human being to him, none of us are human beings to his kind, we're all just paperwork, irritating paperwork, and they don't care a pin what happens to the people involved, so long as their paperwork is neat and tidy. He is my enemy, and he is Billy's enemy, and we know now what to do about enemies. We do not accommodate our enemies.

I always believed that I and my family and my home and my possessions and my neighborhood and my world were exactly what the police were here to safeguard. Everybody I know believes that, it's another part of living this life in the middle. But now I understand, they aren't here for us at all, they're here for themselves. That's their agenda. They're the same as the rest of us, they're here for themselves, and they are not to be trusted.

Marjorie has understood what I was saying, and she gives the detective less sympathy than before, and he quickly realizes he's lost her, so he brings out the forms. The inevitable forms. Before he gets to fill them out, though, Marjorie says, "Can we take Billy home with us?"

"Not tonight, I'm afraid," he says, and the son of a bitch does a wonderful imitation of sincerity. "In the morning," he says, "Billy will appear before the judge, and your lawyer can ask for his release in your custody, and I'm sure the judge will go along with it."

"But not tonight," Marjorie says.

Looking at his watch, the detective tries a smile, saying, "Mrs. Devore, tonight's almost gone, anyway."

"He's never been in jail before," Marjorie says.

Oh, please; what does this creature care? He's in jail all the time. I say, "You have some forms there? Before I get to see my son?"

"This won't take a minute," he says.

It's all the same questions, all the usual crap. Of course, it has the one zinger question in it: "And, Mr. Devore, where are you employed?"

"I'm unemployed," I say.

He lifts his eyes from the form. "For how long, Mr. Devore?"

"Approximately two years."

"And where did you work before that?"

"I was a product line manager at Halcyon Mills, up in Reed."

"Oh, is that the company that went bust?"

"They didn't go bust," I say. "They merged, two companies merged. Our operation was moved to the Canadian branch. They didn't take any U.S. employees with them."

"How long were you there?" Now his sympathy almost does seem real.

"With the firm, twenty years."

"You were downsized, eh?"

"That's right."

"A lot of that going around," he suggests.

I say, "Not in your business, I think."

He laughs, a little self-consciously. "Oh, well, crime," he says. "A growing industry."

"I wonder why," I say.

"I don't think I've ever seen them before," Marjorie whispers to me, as we follow the detective down a concrete block corridor toward whatever space now holds Billy.

I'm irritable, holding myself in. I give Marjorie an angry frown, not wanting confusion at this point, wanting clarity, and I say, "You never saw who before?"

"The parents," she says, and gives me her own surprised look. "Burke, they were sitting back there in the big room, when we came through. Didn't you see them? They have to be the other boy's parents."

"I didn't notice them," I say. I'm focused, Billy is my concern.

"They looked frightened," she says.

"They should," I say.

There's a uniformed trooper at a desk in the hall. He sees us coming, and stands to unlock a yellow metal door. Everything is yellow, pale yellow. It's supposed to be spring, I suppose.

The detective says, "If you could keep it to five, ten minutes, okay? He'll be home in the morning, you can do most of your talking then."

"Thank you," Marjorie says.

The trooper holds the door open. We go in, Marjorie first, and as I go by the trooper says, "Knock when you want to come out."

"All right," I say, thinking, it isn't that easy.

This is the cell; my God. I'd thought it would be a visiting room or something, but I suppose a small state trooper barracks like this couldn't be expected to have very elaborate arrangements. Still, it's a shock. This is a cell, and we're in it with Billy.

He was sitting on the cot, but now he stands. There's only the cot, attached to the wall, and a chair, attached to the floor, and a toilet without a seat. That's all there is.

Billy is in his socks, and his belt is gone. From the puffiness of his face, I would say he's been crying, but he isn't crying now. He has a closed, bruised, defensive, sullen look to him. He's shut himself down inside himself, and I can't say I blame him.

I let Marjorie go first, asking him how he is, assuring him she loves him, assuring him everything will be all right. She doesn't talk about the burglary, thank God.

I let her go on a while, and then I say, "Billy."

He looks at me, ducking his head, pathetically abashed and defiant, almost standing up to me. Marjorie steps back, white-faced, watching me, not knowing what I mean to do.

I say, "Billy, we are not alone." I point to my ear, and then I point around at the walls. I keep my face deadpan.

He blinks, having expected almost anything else from me; recrimination, accusation, tears, perhaps self-pity. He looks around at the walls, and then I can see him trying to gather himself together, trying to be receptive and alert instead of closed-down and mulish, and he nods at me, and waits.

I say, "Billy, this is the first time you ever did anything like this. This is the first time you ever went along with anybody at all to break into that store."

I raise an eyebrow, and point at him, to let him know it's his turn to speak. "Yes," he says, looking at my finger.

"That's right," I say. "I don't know this friend of yours, I don't know what he's likely to say, how much he's likely to want to spread the blame, but whatever he says, Billy, don't you ever change from the truth, and the truth is, that is the first time you ever broke into that store, or any other store, or any place at all."

"Yes," he says. He's looking now like a drowner seeing the man with the rope.

"That's all you have to remember," I say, and then I spread my arms, and I say, "Billy, come here."

He comes over and I embrace him hard, feeling my heart well up into my throat. "We'll get through this, Billy," I murmur against his ear. He's as tall as I am, but not as husky. I say, "We'll get through it, and we'll come out the other side, and we'll be okay. We'll all be okay, my darling. It'll be okay, my love. It'll be okay, my sweetheart."

Then he cries. Well, we all do.

We're driving home, and it's not long after three in the morning, but I'm not finished yet tonight. Beside me, Marjorie says how good I was, how strong I was, and I say, "It isn't over. It's just starting. There's more to be done."

"In the morning, we have to call a lawyer."

"Before the morning," I say. "There's more to be done tonight. But there is that, too, in the morning. The lawyer. Who was the lawyer, when we bought the house? Do you remember his name?"

"Amgott," she says. "I'll call him, if you want."

"That might be better," I agree. "To hear from the mother."

I leave the car out, don't put it in the garage, because I'm not finished tonight. "What is it, Burke?" Marjorie asks.

"Some clean-up," I say.

She follows me through the house into Billy's room, the room that has been so much neater lately, and I thought it was because he couldn't afford to buy things any more. I open his closet door, and push the clothing to one side, and there it is. He's built a bookcase in there, or a software case, three shelves of the stuff. There must be thousands of dollars there, far more than they'd need to move the charge up from petty larceny to grand larceny.

"Oh, Billy," Marjorie says, as though she might faint.

"We have to get rid of it all," I say. "Right now, before they come around in the morning with a search warrant." I smile at her, trying to get her spirits up. "Finally," I say, "a use for all those plastic bags from the supermarket you keep saving."

We get her bag of bags from the kitchen, we load them up with the bright-colored little boxes, and we carry the full bags through the house to the side door. Neither of us is at all sleepy.

Billy should have these things, he should know about them and have experience of them, if he's going to make it in the new world coming. I should be providing them, I should be making it possible for him to keep up with what he has to learn. This is my failure. Billy wasn't wrong to do what he did, he was right. He was wrong to go to the well too often, though.

I'll never say anything like that to him, of course. A father has responsibilities. Get him out of this mess, but don't condone, and certainly don't encourage.

Six shopping bags; they fill up the backseat of the Voyager. I thought I'd drive alone, but Marjorie wants to come with me, and I'm happy for the companionship.

I drive nearly thirty miles through the dark and empty land. We meet only two other cars the whole way. Almost every house is black dark. Every business is shut down tight.

My goal is a different shopping mall, a bigger one, that I noticed once on my drive to Fall City, weeks ago, when I was after Herbert Everly. This place also is shut tight, dark, deserted. I drive around the back of it, then circle the whole complex, to be certain there are no police cars or private security cars tucked away in the shadows, waiting. There are none.

Along the way, I've observed the dumpsters, the big green truck-sized trash receivers, out behind the various stores, and I choose the supermarket's dumpster to stop next to. A faint unpleasant aroma rises from it, which is why I chose it. Boxes, bags, heads of ancient lettuce; so much stuff in there, not picked up on a Saturday night.

I throw the bags in, one after the other. They disappear, anonymous trash. No software shows.

When we drive back homeward, alone in the world, Marjorie holds my hand.