Every Inferno Read online

So after JJ had sat with some strange guy wearing huge glasses and described the paintbrush tattoo down to every shadow that he could see in his head, and after he and Maggie had gone home and were eating greasy Chinese food for dinner, he asked.

  “I wanna call Penny.” Okay, maybe it was more of a statement than a question.

  Maggie took the last egg roll out of a carton. “Why? I told you what Darryl said, JJ.”

  JJ shrugged. “I know she said Penny couldn’t come over. But maybe I could just talk to her.”

  Maggie frowned, and lines creased across her forehead. Whenever she did that, she looked so much like his father that JJ almost had to look away.

  “Okay.”

  JJ stared. Had she said okay?

  “On one condition.”

  There was always a condition.

  “You have to have Darryl’s permission to talk to Penny.”

  JJ deflated a little. He’d definitely been hoping that Penny would just magically be the person to answer the phone when JJ called. Still, Maggie hadn’t said no. There was always a chance.

  Maggie retreated to the basement, calling out something about thanking him for asking, and JJ dialed the number on the house phone, since Maggie still had his cell phone in lockup.

  “Hello?” Crap. It was Patrick. Already things were going badly.

  “Could I please talk to Darryl?”

  “Who’s this?” Patrick sounded suspicious. JJ thought about lying, but Patrick probably knew the sound of his voice, and lying wouldn’t put him on very good footing if he finally got on the phone with Darryl.

  “It’s JJ. Listen, Patrick, I just need to talk to Darryl about Penny for a second, if you could—”

  “Screw you, dickwad.” The phone went dead.

  JJ paced his room, the spring so tight he almost pulled out the last of the whiskey under his bed and chugged it. Before he could do that, he dialed again.

  “Eff off, JJ. Mom doesn’t want to talk to you, and I sure as hell don’t.” Patrick hung up again, and JJ went for the whiskey bottle.

  WHEN MAGGIE woke him up the next morning for school, JJ felt like his head might pound itself open. He worried briefly that Maggie would take one whiff of his breath and go ape on him, but he’d been pretty careful with the toothpaste and mints last night. She didn’t seem to notice. When she asked him if he was all right, he muttered something about his hand and she left the room to get ibuprofen.

  He’d gotten really good at drinking alone in his room without Maggie noticing.

  He pulled on dirty jeans and his “Shakespeare Hates Your Emo Poetry” T-shirt, which Maggie had gotten him for his last birthday. Yeah, Shakespeare, you’ll sure hate any poetry I come up with today, he thought.

  Math passed in murmurs and formulas JJ didn’t understand. He had no idea how he was holding up a C- in that class.

  He was looking forward to spending Creative Writing with Detective Finch and the Alabastor Restaurant Fire, but Ms. Lyle had a surprise assignment for them.

  “Today we’ll do some simple journaling—suspend whatever prose or poetry you’ve been working on. I’d like you to do some introspective writing. Consider this topic: write something no one else knows about you. As always, these are your private journals, so the only way anyone else will see this entry is if you choose to workshop it with the class.”

  Ms. Lyle pulled out her own journal, which she sometimes wrote in as she walked around the class observing them, and everyone else started scribbling.

  JJ stared at the blank page. Something no one else knows? Wasn’t there usually a reason for that?

  “Everything all right, JJ?”

  Ms. Lyle stopped above him, and JJ wondered if any teacher actually wanted a legit answer to that question. Probably not, he thought, so he decided to give her one.

  “No.”

  Ms. Lyle didn’t even react, though. She just tapped his pencil with hers. “Sounds like you have lots to write about, then.”

  Fine. She wants what no one else knows? I could give her a list.

  THINGS NO ONE ELSE KNOWS

  By Jacob Jasper Jones

  I can’t look at my scars for more than two minutes without wanting to throw up all over them.

  My father may hate me up in heaven.

  There’s a good chance my mother does too.

  I’m ruining my Aunt Maggie’s life.

  I barely know my sister, Penny. I barely know her because I’m never allowed to see her. (A couple of people know that.)

  My sister Penny got adopted, but no one wanted me. (A couple of people know that, too.)

  Darryl adopted Penny but she wouldn’t take me because even then I was a troublemaker. (Let’s just make this a list of things not too many people know.)

  I beat up her son.

  The reason why is actually something no one knows except Patrick and me. So I’m not gonna write it here. Until he tells, I never will. Never.

  I was only six. I didn’t think it would be such a big deal.

  I was really mad. Even angrier than when I found out about Mom and Dad.

  After that, Darryl stopped the adoption process on me. Not Penny. Just me. She said her kids couldn’t live in fear of me.

  Dennis, the older one, didn’t have a problem with me. He knows Patrick is a douche bag. (Okay, everyone knows that.)

  Since Darryl and Mom were best friends, she said she still wanted to take care of Penny, for Mom. But she said she couldn’t trust me anymore.

  I think she really always wanted a girl anyway. I was just another boy. She already had two!

  Then Aunt Maggie had to come back from her big National Geographic assignment in Asia to take care of me. Grandma’s mind was already going by then. The Alzheimer’s was getting really bad. She couldn’t even remember Mom and Dad were dead.

  Aunt Maggie and I moved into Grandma’s old house. They sold my house, the one I lived in with my parents. I’m really glad they did. I could never have lived there again. Ever.

  Aunt Maggie was only twenty-two. She didn’t know what to do with me. We ate a lot of pizza that year and she got a job doing wedding photography.

  I think that was why Maggie didn’t adopt Penny and me right after the fire—she was too young. She liked being a photographer for National Geographic.

  Darryl still really wanted to be Penny’s mom. Maggie let her. Probably because she couldn’t handle having a baby. That still makes me really mad sometimes. I was supposed to be able to see Penny anytime I wanted to, but it hasn’t worked out that way. Darryl still doesn’t trust me with Penny.

  Darryl still owns the used clothing store she and my mother used to own together. Sometimes I walk by it on my way home from school, even though it’s not really on the way. Sometimes I just want to go in there and yell at her, remind her that I had only been out of the hospital for a few months when the fight happened, and I still had nightmares. Part of me wants to tell her what Patrick said that got me so angry. But I won’t. And it wouldn’t help anyway. I heard her husband make a bunch of those excuses for me the night before Darryl kicked me out. She didn’t care. She just kept saying they “couldn’t take the risk” and “Marilyn would have understood.”

  Marilyn was my mom. I know she wouldn’t have understood.

  Jacob was my dad. He probably is rolling over in his grave (and Mom too).

  I miss them. I miss my mom and dad, and most of the time I have to miss my sister too.

  People wonder why I don’t like to answer questions or talk very much. There just isn’t much good to say.

  JJ looked up from his notebook to find the classroom empty. Only Ms. Lyle was still there, grading papers at her desk.

  “Ms. Lyle?”

  She smiled. “Oh good! You’re done. You were so intent you didn’t even hear the bell ring. I always think writing that important must be too good to be stopped, and I had my planning period anyway….” She began scribbling something on a piece of paper. “What do you have next? I’m writing you a
pass.”

  “Umm… Biology.”

  “Okay.” She handed JJ a piece of paper as he was gathering up his books. “I truly look forward to the day when you share your writing with the class, JJ.”

  JJ didn’t. Of course, he also didn’t look forward to handing Mr. Butler (or Coach Butler, as all the football players referred to him) a flamingo-colored pass that said “Scribbling with the creative muse.”

  BY MONDAY, JJ’s mind was on the court hearing for his trespassing charge, which was already scheduled to take place that Wednesday morning. JJ didn’t ask how Maggie had magically made that happen so quickly after their conversation in the police station. Maggie knew a lot of people in their small town because of her photography business, and JJ didn’t doubt that she had pulled some strings for him.

  “Man, you ever gonna dress out for gym?” Tom Whitmore was standing next to him, lacing up his sneakers. “This will be, like, the third week in a row you haven’t dressed out. You know you’re gonna fail, right?”

  “So?” JJ shrugged and pulled his journal out from the pile of books next to him on the gym bleachers. “I failed it last year too.”

  Tom laughed. “Dude, you’re crazy.”

  Tom was one to talk. The last time he and Tom had partied together, Tom had ended up jumping off a roof into a lake just to prove that he could. That was a hell of a lot crazier than failing gym.

  The gym teacher ran over to the bleachers. “Class is starting in a minute or so. You ever going to join us, Jones, or shall I just jot the F into my gradebook now?”

  JJ scowled. Coach Dallows wasn’t the same teacher who had failed him last year, but he might as well have been. JJ wasn’t sure why he still bothered to show up to the class and sit on the bleachers; by this time last year he’d started skipping the period altogether and spending it in the bookstore down the street.

  “Fine,” JJ mumbled into his shoes.

  “That’s not really an answer. You know, I talked to the counselor about you. I understand your aunt tried to get you out of the course and everything. You know by now that isn’t going to happen. You have no medical conditions to prevent you from taking this course, and every student who is physically able to do so takes PE at Watkins High. You won’t graduate without this course, Jones, so you may as well start dressing out for it.”

  JJ stared at the wall until the teacher walked away to blow on his whistle a few times and call for stretches. Maggie had tried, she really had, to get the counselors to remove the PE requirement from his schedule. It hadn’t worked. They just insisted JJ could wear sweatpants, and claimed JJ was wrong when he said that would make even more people ask questions, because no one wore sweatpants in PE. Like Coach Dallows had said, JJ was physically able to participate, and so he would take the course until he passed it.

  He was never going to pass it, though. He would fail out of Watkins before he would put on shorts and show off his scar-covered calves to a gym class of thirty students.

  “JJ, WHAT are you wearing?”

  “What?” JJ scanned his outfit. Jeans, a Shins T-shirt. He liked it.

  “We’re going to court, JJ. While I’m sure it’s not formal, you look like you’re headed off to some kind of indie music festival. Try to remember that appearances do matter at these sorts of things, okay?”

  Sometimes JJ forgot that Maggie actually knew what an indie music festival was. “I don’t own anything else,” he mumbled.

  “Sure you do.” She marched over to his closet and came back with a blue polo shirt and khakis. “Lest your legs actually become denim.”

  JJ stared at the shirt, wondering where it had come from.

  “I bought it for you before school started,” Maggie said, as if she could read his mind “Heaven knows why. C’mon, get changed. We’re going to be late.”

  JJ’s lawyer had arranged for them to meet directly with the judge—it was something called court diversion—and from what JJ understood, all it meant was he wouldn’t have to have an actual trial. He should have been relieved, but he was actually pretty disappointed. He’d wanted to see if trials looked the way they did on TV. It might have saved him some research for future Morris Finch stories.

  The conference room in the courthouse was cinder block, with a long metal table and uncomfortable metal chairs surrounding it. JJ sank into one. His lawyer and Maggie were speaking in whispers beside him. All JJ could make out was words like “service” and “no prior record.”

  He tried to keep his breathing even so his heart wouldn’t pound quite so much.

  A large, overweight man in a blue suit and red tie came in through the door, along with a uniformed black police officer JJ thought looked familiar. The man in the suit seated himself at the head of the table, placing a large briefcase down and popping it open with great authority. JJ realized he must be the judge.

  “Good morning. I’m Judge Henry Elson; this is Donald Favor, the arresting officer. Do you remember him?” JJ thought the judge must be talking to him, and he nodded, even though his memory of the guy was sketchy at best.

  The judge pulled a thin manila folder from his briefcase and flipped through it. “Let’s get right to it. We’re here and not in the courtroom because this boy has no prior record and was involved in no particularly malicious behavior on the night in question?”

  “That’s correct, Your Honor.” JJ was surprised to hear his lawyer answer for him. “Mr. Jones admits he was trespassing on the property, but he meant no harm whatsoever. He was merely sitting on the roof when Officer Favor found him.”

  The judge looked at the officer, who nodded.

  “Fine, fine. Jacob?”

  Maggie nudged JJ hard in the side, and he realized the judge was talking to him again. “Sorry. Everyone calls me JJ. Yeah?” Then Maggie nudged him again. “Yes?” JJ corrected.

  “Can you explain your activities of that evening, Jaco—JJ?”

  JJ forced himself to make eye contact with the judge. Holding his hands in his lap so no one would see them shaking, he cleared his throat. “I just wanted… a place to be alone. The theater is kind of important to me. Someone told me you could use their fire—” His voice caught around the word fire. “—escape to get to the roof from the outside. I was just going to hang out there for a while and go home, but I guess someone saw me.”

  “Officer Favor?”

  “He certainly didn’t appear to be involved in anything else.” Officer Favor’s voice was deep, almost intimidating. “He was just sitting there. Didn’t move much when I pulled out the cuffs, either.”

  JJ remembered being a little too buzzed to do anything else.

  The judge glanced down at the file again. “Would you mind explaining why the theater is so important to you?”

  JJ opened his mouth to speak—and no sound came out.

  His lawyer spoke for him. “It’s my understanding, Your Honor, that JJ’s parents were both killed in the Bijou Street Movie Theater fire ten years ago.”

  The room grew quiet. JJ thought Officer Favor shot him a sympathetic look, but it was hard to tell under the man’s hard expression.

  “I see.” The judge closed the file. “JJ, do you understand the seriousness of being arrested for trespassing?”

  JJ cleared his throat. “I sure do now, sir,” he said quietly. The judge and Officer Favor laughed, and Maggie squeezed his hand nervously.

  The judge began writing something in a file. “Mr. Dawes.” He looked at JJ’s lawyer. “Would you and your client be amenable to six months’ probation and fifty hours of community service? I hope for this young man to remember the seriousness of his crime and feel less inclined to repeat the error in judgment.”

  JJ’s lawyer looked at Maggie, and she nodded eagerly. JJ sighed to himself. Fifty hours of community service. Oh well. He had a feeling from Maggie’s slight smile that it could have been much worse.

  On the drive home, Maggie squeezed JJ’s shoulder protectively and babbled on about his community service senten
ce.

  “This could actually be really good for you, Jaje. I’m always saying you should participate in more after-school activities, and maybe you’ll end up working someplace you like. I was thinking about Parks and Recreation, or one of the elementary schools, or the court has a list of options….”

  She went on, but JJ was really only interested in one thing. “Maggie, do you think Darryl will let me see Penny now? Since they let me off with community service?”

  Maggie turned the car into their short driveway. “I’m having lunch with her tomorrow, JJ. I promise I’ll do everything I can to convince her. Everything I can.”

  IT WASN’T enough.

  JJ knew it the second he came through the door Tuesday afternoon. Maggie was sitting at the kitchen table drinking tea, the defeated expression on her face making her look a lot older than she was.

  JJ sank into the chair next to her. “So no, huh?”

  Maggie smiled sadly. “She’s worried, JJ. She’s convinced this arrest thing will continue to be a pattern.”

  That wasn’t promising. “So, how long until Penny can come over again?”

  “Until you finish your community service. Darryl says if you can do that, you’ll prove to her you’re taking your transgression seriously.”

  JJ jumped up from the table. “But fifty hours is going to take forever! Penny will forget who I am by the time I’m allowed to see her again!” JJ could feel the spring tensing and pulling within him. Didn’t Darryl understand? Didn’t she get that Penny felt like the only thing JJ had left of his old life, the life before the fire?

  Maggie pulled him back into his seat. “Don’t be so dramatic. Penny won’t forget you. I do agree that it’s far too long. I suggested we compromise at twenty or so hours. She wouldn’t hear it. She said when you’ve finished all your hours, she’ll know she can trust you with Penny.”

  JJ crossed his arms and concentrated on keeping his breathing even. “This is such bullshit! What does she think I’m going to do anyway? Lead Penny into a life of crime? Teach her to rob banks? We’re not even alone when I see her!”