Take Me There (6 page)

“Is there more?”

I took a deep breath and continued. “She doesn’t know the things I’ve done, the places that I’ve been. But if a girl like that could love me …”

Miss Lane kept writing, and then looked up. I felt naked all of a sudden. The kind of naked you feel when you’re showering in gym class and all the guys around you seem to have more equipment than you do. I wished I’d never bought the stupid notebook. Wished I didn’t have words dancing around in my head, banging on my skull, looking for a way out.

“That’s all,” I lied.

“No, it’s not. Don’t be afraid to say how you feel, Dylan. Holding things inside is what gets people into trouble.”

My mind flashed back to when I was a little kid and I wasn’t allowed to talk about my father. When the pressure built too much, I’d start tearing things up. Like the time I was eight and
stuck a firecracker inside the neck of my neighbor’s Baywatch Barbie just so I could watch its head blow off. I thought about how words were building up inside of me the same way. How badly I needed to see what was in my head on the page, even if I could barely read it.

Maybe Miss Lane was right. I took a deep breath and continued. “She doesn’t know the things I’ve done, the places that I’ve been. But if a girl like that could love me, I might be clean again.”

I looked at my hands, rough and grease-stained, and knew Jess would never see me as anyone but the guy who fixed her car. Even so, every time I thought of her it seemed like the black stain covering my soul was fading.

When I looked up, Miss Lane was staring at me.

She pulled a thin paperback book out of her briefcase and slid it across the table to me. “It’s called
Black Mesa Poems
,
and it’s by a poet from New Mexico named Jimmy Santiago Baca. He taught himself to read in prison.”

“How?” I couldn’t imagine anyone teaching himself to read, much less in prison.

“I don’t know. I guess his passion finally outweighed his fear,” she told me, and then she was gone, leaving me sitting alone with my journal and a book of poems I couldn’t read.

THE ROAD TO HUNTSVILLE
by D.J. Dawson

When you are locked alone in a cell twenty-three hours a day with no television or computer, there isn’t much to do to pass the time.

An inmate comes by with a cart full of books every Tuesday, and for the first year, I just watched him pass. The second year I started checking out books. The third year, I actually started reading them, mostly crime novels and adventure stories, even a few trashy romance novels. The fourth year they started making sense. The fifth year I got interested in nonfiction. The sixth year I tackled The Autobiography of Malcolm X. By the end of my seventh year I had read everything in the prison library and started making requests for books to be brought in from outside.

The eighth year I started writing.

One of the first things I wrote was a letter of apology to my old English teacher, Betsy Jones. I asked my lawyer to try to find out where she was so I could send it. As it turned out, she wasn’t hard to locate. She’d been appointed as the director of special programs for the Texas Education Agency.

She got my letter and surprised me by writing back. We started corresponding, and one day she asked if she could come to the prison for
a visit. I was more than a little nervous, since I figured I was the one responsible for her losing her job back in Quincy, but she seemed to have done okay for herself despite that setback, so I agreed and told the warden to have her name added to my visitation list.

At that time, the only person who ever visited me was my lawyer, Buster Cartwright. The prospect of getting out of my cell, even for an extra hour or two, thrilled me. I can have visitors Mondays through Fridays and after five on Saturdays, but I’m not allowed any physical contact. I am separated from those who come to see me by a window of glass, and we must speak over a telephone to be able to hear each other.

Betsy Jones-McGinnis (she was married with two children by then) arrived on a Tuesday morning, and we talked for nearly two hours. I told her everything that had happened to me after I left Quincy High School, including the spinal injury I got while playing for the Texas Longhorns that ended my football career. How I’d lost my scholarship and flunked out of school. I was surprised how easy it was to talk to her, and also amazed by how good it felt to tell my story to someone besides my lawyer.

Betsy returned the following Tuesday and the one after that. She came every Tuesday for a full year. Somewhere along the way she
encouraged me to start putting my story down on paper. She proofread my work and taught me the grammar rules I was just beginning to understand.

On one Tuesday visit Betsy leaned toward me, and even though a thick sheet of glass separated us, I could feel the heat of her eyes burning a hole through me. “Did you know that seventy-five to eighty percent of juvenile offenders can’t read at grade level?”

“Really?” This was news to me.

“Your world becomes a much smaller place if you can’t read. You have far fewer options. It’s not the only factor, but it’s a big one. If they want to know how big to build a prison, all they have to do is look at the illiteracy statistics.”

It took a minute for her words to sink in, and once I understood, my entire body began to shake uncontrollably. “They knew I was coming.”

“You or someone like you.”

“You knew it too, all those years ago, back in Quincy. That’s why you tried to help me. Because you knew I was coming here.”

“Here or someplace like here.”

I had never asked for help because I felt ashamed and alone. Suddenly I realized there were thousands just like me. “Why don’t people know this? Why doesn’t someone tell them?”

“Why don’t you?”

It was then that I understood what I had to do. I had to find a way to warn you.

They have built you a house of steel, and they are waiting.

T
HE NEXT DAY
G
OMEZ WAS YELLING AT
W
ADE AGAIN
because the owner of a Tahoe had come in complaining that his oil drain plug hadn’t been put in right and oil had leaked all over the floor of his garage.

I was working on a diesel extended cab. I hate diesel engines. The grease works itself into your hands worse than anything and won’t come out, even if you scrub it and scrub it. I was in the back, trying to clean up, when Kip stuck his head into the bathroom.

“Looks like that Beemer’s back.”

I dropped the soap container and ran out to the lobby, where Mr. Gomez was writing up a ticket for Jess. She was wearing a cotton sundress. Her hair was pulled up in a ponytail, making her long neck and bare, bronzed shoulders look even more beautiful than the day before. Even the dark circles under her eyes couldn’t lessen her beauty. They worried me, though.

Jess was with two girls dripping in gold jewelry and wearing
miniskirts with tank tops that said
THE JAVA HUT
in glittery letters. They flashed their fake fingernails, trying to look classy, in contrast to Jess, who was classy without trying. They glanced around the shop in disgust, as if afraid something might jump out at them and soil their expensive shoes.

“We’ll try to get to it today, but we’re kind of backed up,” Gomez told Jess. “Give us a call around four and we’ll let you know where we’re at.”

Jess noticed me walking in behind Gomez. A huge grin spread across her face, and she waved. I smiled and waved back, feeling like a little kid, but then I remembered my grease-covered hands and shoved them into my pockets, staining my pants in the process.

“I’m sorry I didn’t bring it in earlier,” she said. “I had to wait for a ride.” She looked in the direction of a massive guy in a muscle shirt who was walking toward her with sodas from the drink machine. He had the build of someone who spent all his free time pumping iron. When he saw Jess smiling at me, he set the sodas on the counter and pulled her close, kissing her on the cheek.

My heart twisted in my chest. From the way he was smirking at me, I could tell he was full of himself. The sort who likes to check out his own butt in the mirrors at the gym. All the same, I figured he was probably better for Jess than I was.

“Dylan, this is my boyfriend Jason. Jason, this is Dylan. I told you about him. He and I were in school together at Downey High.”

Jason looked at my grease-covered pants and frowned at Jess. “Together?”

“No, not
together
,” Jess said, blushing and looking away.

“Jess told me you quit school to become a grease monkey,” Jason smirked.

“That’s not what I said!”

I felt the blood rush to my face. “I’d better get back to work,” I told her.

“I really didn’t say that.”

“I think he’s kinda cute,” said one of the girls standing next to Jess.

“Reminds me of James Dean in that
Rebel
movie,” said the other. “Better watch out, Jason. You might have a little competition.”

“Yeah, well, nobody asked your opinion, Katie,” Jason said with a coldness that warned he could be dangerous.

I walked back into the garage and started a radiator flush on an Escalade. I couldn’t help but wonder what Jess had really said to her boyfriend about me. Had she told him about the loser she’d found to work on her car for cheap?

I didn’t care. The idea of her talking about me at all meant she’d been thinking about me. That was enough.

More than I expected. At least that’s what I tried to tell myself.

We were slammed with work that Tuesday, so it was four o’clock before I even started on the Beemer. By six o’clock all the other guys were cleaning up. I’d finished everything but the oil change and had just put Jess’s car up on the lift when I heard Baby Face whimper and saw her wag her tail. I looked out front to see Jess getting out of the backseat of a Camry driven by Katie. Jess slammed the car door and ran into the lobby.

“Watch out or you’re gonna pull a Wade,” Kip said as he
pointed to the Beemer. In my distraction I’d forgotten to put the oil drain container under her car, and a slick pool of motor oil was forming on the floor. I was cleaning up the mess just as Gomez walked into the back of the garage, followed by Jess.

“She asked if she could wait back here,” Gomez informed me with a smile. “I told her that was okay.”

“Are you crazy?” I whispered to him. Gomez never let customers hang out in the back. He said it was a liability. “I can’t work with her watching me.”

“Talk to her. Can’t you see she’s upset?”

Jess was pacing back and forth in front of the Beemer. Her entire body was trembling, and the dark circles under her eyes seemed to have grown darker.

Wade came out of the restroom, saw Jess, and smiled. “Looks like you’re gonna be awhile. I’ll catch a ride home with Nathan.”

“Whatever,” I told him, wanting to slap the grin off his face before Jess saw it.

“I’ll be up front if you need anything,” said Gomez.

Jess and I were suddenly alone. The sort of moment a guy like me would try to take advantage of if he didn’t smell like a men’s locker room. “Want a soda?” I asked, looking for an excuse to send her back to the lobby.

“What jerks!” she said, continuing to pace.

I dusted off a folding chair and set it down beside her car, but she didn’t seem to notice it. “Fight with your boyfriend?” I asked.

“No, my alleged
friends
Katie and Alice. They’ve been riding me ever since they found out my father gave me a credit card. I’m only supposed to use it for emergencies, which I define as
my car breaking down and they define as a shoe sale at Dillard’s. When I refused to take them shopping on my father’s plastic, Katie told me I was selfish. I can’t believe my parents made me go to a new school halfway through my junior year. You know how hard it is when your parents are moving all the time?”

“I got a pretty good idea.”

“I tried to stay in touch with the old crowd from Downey High, but they started acting weird when we bought our new house. They say money changes you. It isn’t true. It changes everybody around you.” She got quiet. “I don’t have any real friends,” she said.

I wanted to ask, What about your boyfriend? But I didn’t.

The oil had finished draining and I figured I should get back to work, but Jess sat down in the chair and started crying.

I had no idea what to do, so I got a clean cloth out of the rag bin and handed it to her. She wiped her eyes and blew her nose in the rag. “I don’t know why I’m telling you all this.”

Because I’m a nobody,
I thought. I crouched down in front of her, so my eyes were level with hers. Then I took her beautiful silk hand in my rough-stained crude one and said, “I could be your friend.” Probably the five lamest words that had ever come out of my mouth. Jess looked at me in surprise. “If you’re really desperate, that is,” I added, trying to pass it off as a joke. Then I let go of her hand and went back to work on her car, before I could embarrass myself any further.

I felt her warm breath and turned to see that Jess had come to stand right next to me. “I know this sounds crazy, because we haven’t really seen each other much in the last four years and we’ve both gone in different directions, but I have a feeling I could tell you anything.”

“That’s because what I think doesn’t matter.” I wasn’t trying to feel sorry for myself. Just stating what seemed obvious.

“Oh, yes it does. It matters a lot. What
everyone
thinks matters. That’s the problem,” she said. “And mostly what they think is that you should stay in your place. Be small and insignificant so you don’t outshine them. But you’re not like that, are you?”

“No.”

“I didn’t think so.” She smiled for the first time that afternoon. Then she walked back out to the lobby, leaving me standing there, pouring oil on my boots, wondering what made her sound so lost and desperate, wishing I could wrap my arms around her and let her cry on my shoulder forever.

W
ADE AND I HIT RUSH HOUR IN
A
LBUQUERQUE
, N
EW
M
EXICO
.