The Book of Joe

there’s really no choice but to hang out in the holding cell of the Sheriff ’s Department with Jared until Cindy shows up to take him home. She stands outside the cell in jeans and a navy polo shirt that would fit a five-year-old perfectly, glowering at me while Mouse unlocks the door. “I’m sorry about this, Cindy,” he says as he slides the cell door open. “They were interfering in front of a large crowd of students, so I couldn’t just let them go.” He looks at her obsequiously. “Would have sent a bad message to all those kids, you understand.” Mouse’s nervousness is palpable, and I realize that like many men his age in the Falls, he’s grown up worshipping Cindy, and apparently still does. Even now he can’t stop his gaze from repeatedly wandering from her face down to where her breasts are formidably outlined under her tiny shirt.
    “I understand,” Cindy says, still staring coldly at me. “It won’t happen again.”
    I follow Jared to the door, but Mouse blocks it the minute Jared has passed him. “Where do you think you’re going?” he says to me.
    “Home?”
    “I don’t think so. You haven’t been processed yet.”
    “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
    Mouse flashes me what is no doubt supposed to be a superior, predatory grin. “We’re letting the boy off the hook,” he says, closing the cell door again. “I haven’t decided what to do with you yet.”
    “This is bullshit,” Jared says.
    “Shut up, Jared!” Cindy snaps at him, her voice low and trembling.
    “We helped the guy down, Mom. We didn’t do anything wrong.”
    “You interfered with a police rescue,” Mouse says.
    Jared looks down at Mouse coolly and says, “No one’s talking to you, fuckface.”
    “Jared!” Cindy shrieks, grabbing him by the arm. “Not another word.”
    “Maybe you’d prefer it back in the cell,” Mouse says, his face turning crimson.
    “No!” Cindy says quickly. “We’ll be going now.” She yanks Jared down the hall toward the front offices, and Mouse follows behind, his eyes fixed intently on Cindy’s ass. A moment later she returns alone and faces me through the bars. “Why are you still here?” she demands.
    “Mouse isn’t through fucking with me.”
    She frowns at the evasion. “Why haven’t you gone back to New York?”
    “You know,” I say, stepping right up to the bars, “I’ve been asked that by just about everyone I know over the last few days. A less secure person might start to feel unwanted.”
    Cindy grins humorlessly, an ugly expression that thoroughly mars the flawless beauty of her face. One of the liabilities of such pristine beauty is the ease with which the slightest gracelessness shows, like muddy footprints on white carpeting. “You are unwanted,” she says. “You’ve never shown any interest in this family before, and now the best you can do is act like a juvenile delinquent. Jared gets into enough trouble on his own. He doesn’t need his big-shot, good-for-nothing uncle encouraging him.”
    “Wayne was up on the roof, and I went to help him,” I say hotly. “Jared showed up on his own, and I told him to get lost.”
    She waves away my words with disgust. “You stayed away for seventeen years,” she says, her voice lined with steel. “Do us all a favor and take your drugs and your condescending attitude and just go home already. You don’t belong here.”
    Let the record reflect that I do not watch her ass as she turns abruptly on her heel and storms out of the room. I’m too busy trying to figure out if what I’m feeling at that precise moment is righteous indignation or just self-pity with a vengeance.
    Carly shows up at around three and talks some sense into Mouse by threatening him with a series of editorials concerning the Sheriff ’s Department’s questionable practices and apparently numerous inadequacies. By this point I’m in a deep funk, feeling supremely alone and universally despised.
    “How’s Wayne?” I ask her as we walk down the steps of the Sheriff ’s Department. She’s still dressed as she was this morning, but somewhere in her travels the barrette has been discarded and her hair now hangs in loose disarray over her shoulders.
    “He’s resting at home,” she says, and then gives me a sideways look. “Did you two discuss his moving in with you?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Well, I hope you were serious about it, because he’s planning on doing it soon.”
    “Good,” I say absently as we come to the