When Dad seemed to start grasping the purposes of a computer, Ryan said, “Hey, you’ll be surfing the Net in no time, Mr. Wroboski, and communicating with everyone in the world who shares your same interests! I mean, you’ll learn all sorts of new things ...”
“Yes, Professor!” Dad said, smiling. As the hours jumped along, Ryan explained about email messaging, how to send and receive, and together they explored the World Wide Web.
“I’ve always been excited about multimedia, Mr. Wroboski,” Ryan said. “We can package several modules for a single course that teaches multiple applications for a microcomputer.”
“Sure.”
“What would you like to learn, basically?”
“He wants to know how to do business stuff,” I said. “His uncle is thinking of making him a partner someday.”
“Fine, then. We’ll do multimedia tasking and then some hands-on exercises. You’ll learn by doing.”
After three hours, I could see Dad’s attention begin to flag. I didn’t blame him. He’d gone from labouring jobs to high-tech and into a world where nobody cared what you looked like, what grade you got to in school, or what secrets you had in your past life.
“See, Dad, it’s all in the way you work your mouse!” I said as Dad clicked his way through cyberspace.
Dad laughed. “Okay if this cat comes back tomorrow? I like the way he explains things.”
Ryan and I smiled at each other. Dad noticed our expressions and chuckled.
Sometime later I found out that Dad was a math whiz.
“Where did you learn?” I asked him after Ryan returned home following another lesson.
“Cards,” Dad replied. He grabbed a deck of playing cards from the table and began to shuffle them so quickly the cards blurred. “Poker patience. Watch. You lay all the cards in five rows, five cards each. See? Five up and down, five across. Get it?”
“Yeah.”
“The best poker hand, the one that gives you the best score, is a straight flush.”
“What’s that?”
“Try to get five cards in the same suit — hearts, diamonds, spades, or clubs, one number after another.” He spread out a six, seven, eight, nine, and ten of hearts. “But the very best is a royal straight flush, using ace, king, queen, jack, and ten.”
“Okay.” But I was quickly losing interest.
“Wanna have a game?”
“No, not really.”
“Aw.” He set the cards down, lit up a smoke, and flicked on the TV to watch cartoons.
At six o’clock Gemma arrived after her shift at the store. Little barrettes were tucked into her hair. She pulled off a pair of rhinestone-trimmed sunglasses and placed them on top of her head. Gemma was wearing lots of black mascara on both upper and lower lashes, tons of light pink lip gloss, and Barbie-pink polish on both fingers and toes. A slightly see-through white tank top, tight, low-waisted jeans, a big-buckled white leather belt, and opalescent white flip-flops completed her ensemble, along with a little pink purse. As usual she was chewing gum, snapping it for sentence punctuation.
“Hiya, sweetie!” she said. Snap. Snap. “Got a cold one for a tired but gorgeous auntie?” Snap.
I never thought of Gemma as my “auntie.” She was too young and wild. But I guess she was as normal as anyone in this family. And she had a job — fairly rare around here.
Dad grabbed the remote, flicked off the TV, and waved his hand toward the fridge. “Help yourself.”
Gemma grabbed a Coke and slumped into a chair, kicking off her flip-flops and spreading out her toes. The nails sparkled in the light.
“Purr-fectly Pink, it’s the new ‘shimmer’ line,” she said, seeing my look. “My lip gloss matches. Like it?” Gemma’s blond hair was styled all curly and pulled up on her head with little diamond barrettes. Her dark roots were growing in.
“Yeah. It looks good on you.”
Gemma turned to Dad. “How come Uncle Al doesn’t come around anymore? Jerry says this place has been declared off-limits.”
Dad looked away. “I haven’t had time to see people much.”
“Your probation officer tell you to stop?” she said, gesturing at me.
“Angela’s no probation officer! She’s helping me study. I’m learning to use the computer, right, Angela?”
“Yeah, yeah.” Gemma laughed and punched Dad on the shoulder. “What about Uncle Al? He help you find work yet?”
There seemed to be a veiled message in her question. Aunt Gemma knew more than she was letting on.
“Aw, you know Connie doesn’t like him. I’ll have to tell Uncle Al to find a new partner for Dial-a-Dream. He’ll be pretty burned.”
I pretended I was listening to my MP3 player I’d gotten last Christmas from my American grandmother. Ryan and Hannah had uploaded the music onto it from their computers for me before we had our own. I turned the music really low, so I could listen to their conversation.
“Con should be happy with you studying and going out every day looking for work,” Gemma said.
“Yeah. She is, I guess.”
“I saw you down at the bank on Tuesday. I waved, but you didn’t see me. You were over by the bank machines, drawing or writing something in a little book.”
Dad glanced up. “Yeah?”
“I was going past and I thought it was you, but I couldn’t stop — late for work.”
“Couldn’t have been me. I don’t have a bank account yet.” His voice suddenly took on a vibrant tone. “But I might have some money coming in soon.”
“Oh, where from?” Gemma asked.
“Government.”
“Government? You can’t collect employment insurance!”
“Maybe I can.”
I took one of the headphones out of my left ear and decided to butt in. “How, Dad? You can’t do a claim. The man at the employment office said —”
A cagey look came over Dad’s face, one I didn’t like very much. “I’ll have money coming in, you’ll see. My own bank account — maybe even a legit credit card.”
Gemma seemed satisfied. “Good. Then you can throw a party.”
Dad was happy then. “I’ll buy champagne, Gemma! Pink champagne!”
She laughed. “Yeah, pink champagne to match my Purr-fectly Pink lip gloss!”
Mom chose that moment to come through the door, carrying a bag of groceries. “Who’s talking about pink champagne?”
“We’re talking about when we’re rich,” Gemma said.
“Good!” Mom said. “First thing we’ll do is buy a car.”
“A new SUV — not an old Cadillac like Uncle Al’s!” I said excitedly.
Mom stared at me. “When did you see Uncle Al’s car?”
I felt my face get red. “When I was out at Grandma and Hank’s,” I said quickly, noting Dad’s relief.
“So how are we going to get rich?” Mom persisted.
“Everyone’s going to get good jobs, Mom, and then we’re going to save up.”
“Good plan,” Mom said.
“I can still pull a good job,” Dad said, sounding strangely confident.
“Sure, when Dad learns how to operate computer systems, he can learn CAD and do designs.”
“CAD?” Dad said.
“Computer-aided design,” I said. “They use it to draw plans of buildings and things like that, figure how rooms will look with furniture in them, or with the door over there instead of here.”
“Ryan was talking about it. He plans to teach you. In the fall you can take some courses in AutoCAD or go to art college.”
“Right! Now we’re talking. I’ll be a college grad.”
“Nick’s an excellent drawer,” Gemma said. “See?” She held out her hand, displaying the oriole, opening and closing her fingers to make the bird fly. “Hey, Nick, why don’t you try to get a job as a tattoo artist?”
“Sure, that’s a good idea!” I said, joining in the positive mood. “You can draw your designs, then scan them onto the computer and print them out on special paper to make stencils.”
“I’ll do my best for you all, Angel,” Dad said, smiling.
I let the talk swarm around me and pretended I was listening to music again. But I wasn’t. Even with his expertise in “poker patience,” I was wondering just how good a student my dad would be. And if there really was a place in cyberspace where an ex-con could get a break.
20
Bones
Mom and I were sitting across the table from Dad as he sketched our profiles using a charcoal pencil. A clip-on light hung from the cupboard door, shining down on us. It was hot, and I had to keep pulling my legs off the vinyl chairs before they became stuck forever.
“It’s okay, Angel,” Dad said. “You don’t need to sit so still. I know your shape. Shadowing’s the main thing.” He made bold strokes, outlining our necks, jawlines, noses, lips, the swirls of our long hair. “There, Con, under your chin there’s a bit of a shadow. You two have good bones, you know that?”
Mom shifted a bunch of daisies she was holding for the portrait.
“I notice bones,” Dad continued. “You can tell where a person is from by their bones. Indian bones, Slavic bones, European bones, they’re all different. I studied that in jail.”
“Shhh,” Mom said.
Mom didn’t like hearing Dad talk about jail. It didn’t bother me anymore. At least not at home.
“Is that why you like drawing skeletons?” I asked.
“Yeah, maybe. Skeletons are just people with the fat all gone. Clean. No shadows.”
Dad worked surely, adding texture and shading. I felt happy and relaxed. Dad’s low voice was as soothing as the strokes of his charcoal pencil.
“Nick, you have to get work.” Mom’s voice slashed our dreamy day.
“Aw, Connie, do you have to rag on about it? My young ‘professor’ comes here twice a week to —”
“Yes, to play games on a computer.”
“It’s not games, Mom. It’s —”
“Games! I heard you talking about these dragon things and medieval creatures. What are you getting into now? Dungeons and Dragons? Won’t that be an improvement. Maybe you’ll invent a new game. Let’s see, how about Isolation and Inmates?”
Mom then shifted into high gear. “I work eight hours a day, five days a week, at an office! You should see how hard everyone works there, showing up every day on time, taking courses to improve their education, working for promotions. Thankful they have a job at all. And here you are sleeping till noon, getting up to drink coffee and watch TV — and then playing games!”
Dad put down his drawing pad, went to his trunk, and brought out a pile of paper. The sheets were covered with computer printouts of home designs. “Look, this is what I’ve been learning. This is our house. This is that warden’s office. I did it on computer, that AutoCAD thing. Pretty good, eh?”
I was impressed, but Mom was on a roll. She shuffled through the drawings and then threw them onto the table. “Great! It must have been a fun exercise, but I don’t see any money coming from this. You won’t take an ordinary job that pays eight or ten bucks an hour. Oh, no! You won’t apply at the packing plant where there’s union wages. Oh, no! You’d rather play with this stuff!”
I chose that moment to leave the room. Nobody noticed.
Mom was right in a way. Dad could be applying for simple jobs, working at fast-food restaurants or doing cleaning jobs just to make a few dollars while preparing for college. He hadn’t even filled out his application for courses yet.
I went onto the computer and printed out information cards that said will babysit, then added my phone number.
“Bye,” I said. “I’m going over to Ryan’s.”
On the way I dropped the cards into people’s mailboxes on every street.
I had to talk to someone. I couldn’t keep all this to myself anymore. It wasn’t fair. I thought and I thought until my head ached and I finally made a hard decision. I would “sing.”
One Saturday afternoon when Mom had a day off I joined her downstairs in the laundry room. “Mom, I think something bad’s going to happen. I tried to get Dad interested in doing things that might lead to a real job, but I think ... well, Uncle Al ...” And I told her everything. Her face became so sad that I wished I hadn’t said anything, but it was out now.
“Maybe nothing will happen …” I finished, and started to leave the room.
“No, Angela, I’ve known him too long. I love him, but I don’t think I can put up with this much longer. This place is like a halfway house and a bad situation for you. Some people grow up, some never do.”
Mom said she’d talk to Dad. She wouldn’t say that I’d told her anything, but she’d find a way to let him know she was onto him. I felt relieved — but not for long.
When I got up in the morning, Dad was sitting at the kitchen table, drinking a coffee. He didn’t glance up when I said good morning.
“You double-crossed me,” he said. He was drawing a big yellow canary, using a felt marker to make bold feather strokes.
I felt badly but refused to back down. “Can’t you see who’s really double-crossing you?” I asked. “Can’t you see Uncle Al for how he really is?” I started to cry. I couldn’t help it. “Don’t leave us again, Dad! You’ll be caught and you’ll go to jail, maybe for years.”
Dad listened in stony silence. I poured a glass of juice and tried to drink it, but my throat had closed. I slammed the glass down on the table, spilling some on his open-beak canary picture. Then I left him sitting there. He didn’t look up as I turned to close the door.
Dad, Mom, and I formed a silent truce over the next couple of weeks. None of us mentioned the showdown.
I got some babysitting jobs as a result of my cards, one where the family wanted me to come every day for a week. But when I showed up on Friday morning the lady said she had finished her course early. She paid me, and I came home. It was raining and cold, so I hurried down the sidewalk.
The house was empty, but I could tell at a glance what had gone on since I’d left at eight o’clock that morning. Dad had made coffee. There was the cup and spoon. A pack of cigarettes was missing from the top of the fridge. He hadn’t eaten. Someone else had also been here — all the kitchen chairs were pulled back and there were too many butts in the ashtray for just Dad. Uncle Al and the outlaws, Mike and Jerry, had been here!
I sat on my bed to consider the situation. What should I do? The stakes were extreme. I could never tell the police what I knew. It might save Dad, but there was an equal chance I’d lose him and my whole family — Grandma, Hank, Gemma — forever. Any more trouble and Mom would definitely kick him out, and likely divorce him, allowing Uncle Al to really get his hooks into him. Telling Grandma and Hank would cause terrible grief. Telling Gemma would be crazy. She’d tell Jerry I was a squealer, and who knew what they’d do? But I had to do something — and quickly. It was so hard being a jailbird’s kid. I had to be loyal to the bad people and lie to the good ones, and things got all mixed up.
After I cleaned out Patsy’s cage, I decided to hang it in the living room for a change. Then I got a glass of water from the jug in the fridge and went into my bedroom. I was just starting to read a fashion magazine that Gemma had given to me. I flopped down onto my bed with a bag of chips, planning to read and lounge all day and give my brain a rest. Sounded great!
I was learning how to get the Audrey Hepburn look, chic and sheer, that was coming in again, when I hear
d a key rattle in the back door lock. Instead of getting up to see who it was, I quietly pulled the duvet over my head.
I heard Dad’s quick nervous voice as he entered the house, and then another person’s, hushed. It was Uncle Al. A heavy object clunked onto the table. Chairs scraped back, then forward. Uncle Al said something in a low tone, and Dad replied, “No way!”
“You’re sure no one’s here?” Uncle Al asked.
“I told you! Con’s at work, Angela’s babysitting all day.”
“Okay.” A chair scraped. “You know, I can’t believe you botched this job! What route did you take to get back here?”
“I had to hoof it. Jerry was gone. I was on my own. Over to Fourteenth, back through the old brewery yards, circled around. No one saw me. I swear!”
Uncle Al’s voice rasped again, like a file against stone. “Listen here, Nick. You’ve bungled your last job with me. You and I are through! Leaving me to carry it out alone. And I’m firing that stupid Jerry, too. Taking off when he hears a siren — from a fire truck!”
“I couldn’t let down my wife, my kid,” Dad said. “And it was you who screwed up big time. Why’d you fire that gun? Where are your brains, man? Now it’s armed robbery! That’s federal time, man, and I’m not taking it, not this time, not ever again.”
Suddenly, Patsy started to sing.
“What’s that?” Uncle Al yelled.
“Angela’s bird.”
“A canary?”
“Yeah. Con bought it for her. Angela usually keeps it in her bedroom. Don’t know what it’s doing out here.”
“It’s singing!” Uncle Al’s voice carried a tone I’d never heard before. Fear. “The cops will be all over us!”
Patsy’s singing reached a high note, held, and then broke into a series of trills.
“You shot someone, didn’t you?” Dad said.
I went cold under my down-filled duvet.
“It was an accident,” Uncle Al said. “I don’t think I killed him.”