You know why I pulled you over?”
“No, sir.”
“Broken taillight.”
Jessup tries hard to keep his face from showing anything, but he knows he’s gripping the steering wheel tight. Corson must have smashed the taillight. Should have gotten out of the truck and kicked his ass. No. Can’t do that. Not in the school parking lot. Not in front of the cop. But he should have looked when he got to Kirby’s. Got to the restaurant, backed it in, didn’t think about it. Corson’s out there somewhere driving Mommy and Daddy’s luxury car, and now Jessup has a broken taillight to fix. He’ll have to stop by the auto-parts store tomorrow. He thinks about the forty dollars still crushed up in his pocket, money he thought he could hold on to. The bulb will only run him two bucks, but the lens will be closer to thirty-five. Cheaper to go to the junkyard for the lens, but he’ll have to get lucky and it will eat up time.
The cop leans in a bit, squinting, and Jessup, who always figures it’s best to look domesticated, keeps his head tilted down.
“I know you,” the cop says.
Jessup looks up now. He doesn’t recognize the cop, but he doesn’t not recognize him either. That’s the sort of thing that happens in a town the size of Cortaca.
“License, registration, insurance.”
Jessup pops the glove box and grabs the paperwork. He digs out his wallet—the two crumpled twenties coming out, too—and pulls out his license, hands the pile over to the cop. Name tag reads “Hawkins.” Hawkins. Hawkins.
The cop reads the information on Jessup’s driver’s license and then narrows his eyes, crosses his arms, and leans on the windowsill. “Collins?”
“Yes, sir,” Jessup says.
“Thought you were a Michaels.”
Jessup feels something shift in his stomach.
For the most part, the cops have left them alone since David John and Ricky went to jail. Every few weeks a cruiser from the sheriff’s office will do a drive-by on their trailer, but nothing that could be construed as outright harassment. Jessup’s mom keeps her head down, does her work, keeps quiet. Jessup has learned by example. Sticks to the speed limit, doesn’t push his luck.
“No relation, then? David John Michaels? He’s not your father?”
A pair of cars go wide around them. Jessup listens to the wet thrum of their tires on the road, a mix of asphalt and packed snow, more snow coming down slow and steady now.
Hawkins doesn’t pay any attention to the cars going by. He’s looking directly at Jessup, but Jessup can’t read him.
“Stepfather,” Jessup says. He says it reluctantly, and he’s ashamed that he’s ashamed to say it. Ashamed that he feels the need to correct the cop. Should be willing to own David John as his father. Might as well have been his father. But he knows something hangs in the balance here. The cops may not have bothered them since his brother and stepfather were sentenced, but in the time leading up to the plea deal, they were a constant presence in Jessup’s life, and not a good thing. Tossed the whole trailer. Did it twice. Warrant and all that. Got word that they were trying to get a warrant to search the compound, too, but that one was denied. Which was a good thing. Uncle Earl talked big, said he would have liked to see the cops try and serve a warrant. “Time for another Waco,” he said. Second Amendment.
The cop nods. He slides the registration and insurance card back into the little plastic pouch and holds the pouch and Jessup’s license between his thumb and forefinger. He holds them out, but not far enough that he’s giving them back yet. “If I run Jessup Collins through the computer, am I going to find anything problematic? What are you”—he looks at the license again, squints, does the math—“seventeen? Still a juvenile?”
“No problems, sir,” Jessup says. “This is the first time I’ve been pulled over. Never gotten a ticket. And I’m sorry about the taillight. Happened tonight. I’ll fix it first thing in the morning.”
“You hit something?”
“No, sir.”
What gears would be set in motion if he told Hawkins what happened? Make a complaint against Corson? No, too messy. How’s that going to look, Jessup complaining about a black kid kicking out his taillight? Small town. Family history. It would blow up. No way.
“What happened, then?”
“Don’t know what happened. I had a football game and when I came out afterward . . . Somebody must have broke it.”
Hawkins nods. The cop is late twenties, something like that. Buzz cut. Short, but has muscle packed on him, Jessup can tell even though he’s wearing a Kevlar vest. Every cop Jessup sees nowadays is wearing a Kevlar vest. Makes a small man look bigger. Maybe that’s the point, Jessup thinks, looking at Hawkins. He’s puffed up, inflated. Spends his free time lifting weights, but already starting the slow slide toward middle age. He looks like . . . a cop. Reminds Jessup of a kid who likes hazing, scaring freshmen, pretending it’s all a joke but you know it isn’t. Except there’s something off in the way Hawkins is talking to Jessup. No bullying there. Like he’s trying to be friends. He reaches out fully now, handing the license and paperwork back. “Been a long time since Cortaca made the playoffs, huh? I played, but not here. Safety. You?”
“Linebacker.”
“Good stuff. I miss it. Nothing like laying somebody out. You guys win tonight?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I like hearing that.” Hawkins straightens up. “You got any tattoos, Jessup?”
Jessup is shoving the insurance and registration into the glove box, and he tries not to let on that he’s confused by the question. “Sir? Uh, no, sir. No tattoos.”
“No Celtic cross? No eighty-eights? No fourteen or Sieg Heil? None of that white power bullshit?”