I wake up, drenched in sweat, in my cell.
Scenes follow, in some order or other.
I don’t really know what’s going on.
Someone comes and hands me some sheets of paper, an old-ish woman who looks like a librarian. I have to fill in the problems while she watches, and times with a stopwatch. It’s like an IQ test. All the time, I have a feeling like I’m on a train that just stopped.
What I mean: my (mom) took me on a train once. I don’t know when it was. I guess maybe when we moved from Albuquerque to Phoenix. And there’s this thing that happens, when the train stops—because it’s so heavy, because its momentum is so great, the body of it keeps moving forward, just slightly, before settling back onto the wheels; you feel it in your stomach.
That’s what I feel, as I fill in the test, as I do anything right now—like I’ve stopped, in my tracks, but there’s a part of me that’s still moving, still lurching forward, not yet settled.
When I’m done, and she’s looking through it, she frowns.
What’s wrong? I say, with my mouth, because the interpreter has not arrived yet.
The woman doesn’t understand—I can’t hear myself, of course, but I guess it’s not too clear when I speak.
What did I do wrong? I say slowly.
The woman’s eyebrows unknit a little, but she is still looking at me curiously. Nothing, she says. You didn’t get any wrong. That’s not … It means you’re very, very smart.
I want to say, I’m deaf, I’m not a fricking moron. But I don’t, so instead I just glare at her. I want a TV, I say.
A TV? I’m not sure—
I’m not under arrest, am I? I say. So I want a TV. Or some books. Whatever.
She leaves, and a little while later, they bring me a little TV—an old one, three-dimensional instead of flat. Things that are old take up more space than things that are new. Things that are new are flat and thin. Like my life.
A couple of janitor-y type guys set it up and hand me the remote. I flick through the channels for a while. I’m on, like, channel 4,000 when I see Luke standing outside a building, which is all metal and glass and about four stories. The building I’m in, I realize.
Luke is wearing a bandage on his hand, and I feel a pang of guilt. He doesn’t look happy to be talking to these people—there’s someone standing next to him, someone official looking, and I figure he’s been made to give an interview, to at least keep the press happy for a bit.
Because of course, I think. This is big news.
I am big news.
I look at the remote, and work out how to put the closed captions on. There’s a delay, then they come up on the screen, blue against the picture.
And what about your time with this woman and her daughter, did they—
Luke’s face goes still. He leans in close to the mike. The woman interviewing him, she has platinum blond hair and very full red lips, smiles, a predator’s smile, because he’s about to say something serious, something personal, some kind of media gold crap.
I will say this only once, Luke says in blue closed captions. I will not speak about them. That girl deserves her piracy—privacy.
I laugh. My … I stop myself. Shaylene. The woman who … The woman. She would have liked that one. I am a pirate now.
Then I glance back at Luke. He is holding his arm up now.
No comment, he says. No comment.
Then he walks away. The woman, the reporter, is a pro, but even so she can’t stop herself from scowling slightly; she’d been expecting some kind of scoop.
I switch off the TV, feeling kind of surprised. I mean, I thought Luke would love talking about it. The time he got mixed up with a baby stealer and her freaky deaf daughter, and got his hand shish-kebabbed.
Oh well. You never know with people. It’s not like Luke is at the forefront of my mind, anyway.
After that, some guy in a green uniform comes in—he’s got a tray of food: a Coke, a banana, and … mac and cheese.
Mac and fricking cheese.
Worst. Day. Ever.