Chapter 3 --- Trouble

Chapter 3
TROUBLE ON THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL

         Bringing Joey to school put Jesse among a crowd of parents, mostly mothers. He towered over the adults, a height to which he was only recently grown, and by no means comfortable with. He was concerned about being late to school and wondered what was the holdup about opening the door so he could bring Joey inside and get on with his own day. Joey was confident and eager and full of questions for the new adventure. Other children might be hanging back and even crying and clinging to their mothers. Not Joey! He was impatient for the doors to open and the exciting new thing to begin for him.

         When at last the doors opened Jess led him inside and started for the kindergarten room. At this point he heard someone call his name. Turning, he saw Miss Ridgeway, the principal, standing in the doorway of her office. This was an office to which Jesse had been sent many times for admonition, rebuke and correction. Miss Ridgeway knew him all too well. She said "I see you've brought Joel to school but there's a problem. Your mother didn't bring us his birth certificate."

         "I didn't know she was supposed to. Does he need it?"

         "Actually yes."

         "He can't start school without it?"

         "No, he can't."

         Jess shot a look at the clock. "That makes a problem. My mother's gone to work and I can't take him home and leave him by himself, and I’ve got to go to school today too."

         Miss Ridgeway considered. "All right, Jesse, you may take him to the kindergarten room but be sure you bring us his birth certificate tomorrow."

         Jess took him into the room at the end of the hall. Joey looked around his dark eyes shining. He looked up at Jess clearly excited by the prospects. Jess gave him a hug and told him to go on in, behave himself and have fun.

         Now he was outside running across the town square to the high school. He was thinking, ‘Birth certificate. Joey's birth certificate.’ He had never seen Joey's but he had seen his own and he knew that on Joey's there would be one significant blank. By now he was going to be late but it couldn't be helped. Being responsible for a small child always messes things up.


         Some one coming up behind him called out, "Hey MacIver!" He turned and saw Ernest Kagan, a boy his age, the one they called the Bull. The Bull was inches shorter than Jess but he weighed considerably more. Being late to school didn’t seem to trouble the Bull. Jess didn't like the Bull and he was not in a very good mood.

         Ernest caught up with him and said, "Hey MacIver what was you doing in the grammar school? Did you forget what school you go to?"

         Jess kept walking. He knew Ernest was slow in the head; people called him a Mongoloid and said he wasn’t all there. But he was irritating. Ernest said, "Was you putting your sister's kid in school? Did anybody ask you where's his pa?"

         That got an instant mindless response in the form of a fist in the face. The Bull hit him back once and then Jess flattened him with another punch. In all fairness there was not another man or boy in Carthage who could have dropped the Bull with two punches. Jess stood over him, rage boiling in him. He wasn't finished yet; that is he thought he wasn't.

         Someone grabbed him from behind. He turned and looked down at Paul Treacher, who was at the time Carthage's entire police force. "That'll do, that's enough," Treacher said. "Settle down." When Jess was angry he took leave of all reason and had no idea what he was doing. He was still full of fight and struggled to get free but Treacher held on and repeated, "I said, settle down. This is over. Now!"

         Jesse wasn't hearing him. He had lost his mind to the point of trying to hit Treacher. Treacher might not be as big and he was a lot older, but he was wiser. He knew how to defend himself which of course Jess did not. With Jess the defending had always been on the other side. Treacher caught the blow on his forearm and then hit him.

         Jesse was the one on the ground then, off his feet in a fight for the first time in his life. Sanity was returning as he looked up at Treacher standing over him. Treacher was asking him, "Want some more? Get up. Don't let the gray hair stop you! Come on, get up if you want some more."

         Jesse didn't want any more. The fight went out of him and he stayed down.

         Treacher said, "Good." He picked up Jesse’s glasses out of the dirt and handed them to him. "Somebody take Ernest over to the doctor's office. You, come with me."

         Jesse got to his feet. He was humiliated and shamed and when he looked at the bloody mess he had made of Ernest's face he was horrified. There were a lot of people on the town square that morning and they all knew who he was. If only cement could open up and swallow a guy out of sight! Treacher repeated "Come with me." It came to Jesse that he was getting arrested in front of everybody. He followed Treacher to his office and stood facing him, utterly miserable.

         Treacher took his chair at the desk and looked up at him. "Well, Jesse, you done it again."

         There was no way to deny it. He had done it again. Treacher said, "This has to stop. You're too big. You can do too much damage. You're vicious; do you know that? You go right for the face and head. You're going to kill somebody one of these days. What are you now, sixteen?"

Jess tried to speak and no sound came. He cleared his throat and said "Seventeen."

         "Seventeen. Well if you're planning to flush your life down the toilet that's the age to do it. What brought it on this time?"

         Jess pushed his glasses up and mumbled, "He made a crack about -- about Joey's father."

         "Oh. Well that was rough but you know Ernie doesn't have sense. Besides you can't go around hitting people even when they need it. What's that on your hands?"

         Jess took a quick look at his hands and then hid them behind him. Treacher repeated the question and Jess answered in a small voice, "Blood."

         "What was that? I didn't hear you. Speak up."

         Jess cleared his throat and repeated, "Blood."

         "Nice going, Jesse. The thing is this time you can wash it off and not too much harm done. But keep on like you are and you'll have blood on your hands you can't wash off. Are you hearing any of this?"

         Absolutely wretched, Jess replied, "Yes, sir."

         Treacher got to his feet unhooking the keys from his belt. "Well then come on," he said, and Jess realized he was about to be locked up. The cell door shut with a sound he never wanted to hear again. He was thinking how angry his mother was going to be about this, and on top of everything else he had a terrible feeling he was going to cry.

         Treacher said, "Make yourself at home. If nobody presses charges, your mom can come get you in the morning. I'm going to go over to the doctor's office and find out how much damage you did this time."

         He walked across the square to Doctor Bowman's office and sat in the waiting room. After a while Bowman appeared in the doorway, drying his hands. "This school year's off to a flying start," he commented.

         "Is the Kagan kid all right?"

         "That would depend on what you mean by all right. If you mean will he live, then yes, he’s all right. His nose is broken though.”

         Treacher said, "What am I going to do with that big hothead?"

         "Somebody better do something with him soon."

         "There's a lot of good stuff in him. It's the temper that's going to wreck him."

         "The Bull admitted to me what he said. There was provocation this time."

         "No, there wasn't. Jesse knows Ernest isn't all there. All Jesse had to do was walk away. He's big, fast and downright dangerous. When he goes off like that he don't know what he's doing. He's over there feeling real bad about it right now but he's felt bad before and it didn't do any good."

         "You locked him up?"

         "Under the circumstances I thought I had to. At least now I know where he is. He’s a minor and I have to handle it by the book. When he cools off I'm going to try talking to him some more."

         Treacher made his rounds and then went back to the office. He had intended to give Jesse plenty of time to compose himself and regain some degree of control.

         Jesse came to the bars, looking the very picture of remorse and shame, his face dirty with tears. He asked, "Is the Bull all right?"

         "No, he ain’t all right! What do you think?"

         Jesse said he was sorry and Treacher said, "Let's just be glad you’re not a whole lot sorrier."

         Looking at him then Treacher was seeing the image of a friend who had been Jesse's father. The boy had the same steady gray eyes the same high clear forehead. He was already a head taller than Treacher, going to be a big man. He was a good-looking kid, really smart, capable of a lot, right or wrong, either direction. It was lecture time but the boy was already so beaten he didn't know how to begin. Somewhere there had to be some leverage for getting through to him. Maybe the little boy would be the leverage. Treacher wheeled the chair from the desk over to the cell and sat on it facing the bars. He began, "You seem to be in charge of the little boy these days."

         "Yes, sir."

         "How old is he now? Five? That's a baby! What's a puppy like you doing with a baby?"

         "I don't know yet, sir."

         "I've seen you with him. You're good with him, you know, and he looks up to you like you're almost God. He worships you. Do you know that?"

         Jesse hadn't thought the word worship because it wasn't in his vocabulary but yes, he knew Joey loved him. Treacher said "Whatever you are, he's going to copy. Did you think of that?"

         Yes he had thought a lot about that.

         Treacher said, "I know Ernest was way out of line today but so were you, and you're the one who's supposedly got sense. You know he isn't bright. You don't defend Joey or your sister or your family honor by fighting anybody who makes a comment. Besides, it's no secret. The whole town knows about it. They've done their talking and got over it and nobody is holding anything against you or Joey now. Are you getting any of this, or am I just making a noise with my mouth?"

         "I'm getting it."

         "No I don't think you are. I know you think you're getting it but the next time somebody riles you you're going to turn around and do the same thing all over again!" Jesse could not, in all honesty, promise that he would not.

         Treacher went on: "You need help, Son, serious help. Somebody ought to have taken you in hand before this and it probably should have been me. Now I don't have any choice. You broke the law. What happens to you for it this time is pretty much up to me. Any more times and it's out of my hands but this one time is up to me. I'm keeping you here tonight. Get used to this place because unless you get yourself under control you're going to see a lot of jail cells!" Jesse didn't answer because there was no defense to that.

         "All right here's what we're going to do and I am not suggesting I am ordering. For one thing if you're going to be the one bringing up the little boy you’ve got to do it right. It doesn't seem to me I've seen you or Joey at the church any time recently." If he had ever seen him there, Jesse didn't know when it was.

         "So you have to go to church, Jesse. And you have to bring Joey. Those are my terms for your probation and release; you understand?"

         This was unexpected and sounded absurd, but Jesse knew who was in charge so he said "Yes, sir."

         "Starting Sunday. I will be there and I expect to see you and Joey right on time because I do not want to have to lock you up again."

         That was a hell of a choice Jess thought, church or jail. Well he had been to jail and knew he didn't like that but his mind was still open about church. He had not known Treacher was a religious guy. He knew he had been a close friend of his father's and he knew he was a good man, fair and honest and very serious about his job. He had lived in Carthage years ago and recently had come back to take the job of chief of police here, sort of a semi retirement after years of being a cop in Camden.
Jesse knew his parents had been church members a long time ago but his mother had not attended in years.

         His father had been a religious man. Jesse had found his Bible in the house, the Bible he had studied and annotated. Jessw had tried to read it and could not make sense out of it, but he kept it as a keepsake because his father had written his name in it. Jesse Andrew MacIver, in strong firm strokes. That was his name, too.

         Jesse had no choice in the matter so he promised. Jess was turned over to his mother in the morning.