As soon as the cops took Dean away, I pulled my jeans on under my nightie, then my sweatshirt, and my sneakers without socks, my leather coat—and I ran. I ran along Route 7, the icy rain falling like tiny glass splinters on my skin, washing away the snow, the cars passing by me spraying slush on my body. There were no sidewalks on Route 7, no one ever walked here. I could feel the cars slowing down beside me, keeping pace with me, the drivers leaning across their seats to peer out at me. They were not used to seeing a girl running like this on the highway in the middle of winter with her coat flying out, her nightie on over her jeans. But I ignored them, and I kept on running, oblivious.
Along Route 7. My chest began to hurt, the pain filled my lungs, my throat grew raw from the cold. I could feel the pain in my chest expand. But something carried me along, beyond hurt. O my sweetheart . . . ice water was seeping through the seams in my sneakers, the air slicing my lungs, but I didn’t care.
At the park I made a left, then a right down Washington, past the red brick buildings with their false fronts. A few solitary souls out in the morning cold passed me on the sidewalk, their heads down, their bodies sunk into their coats, they didn’t even see me. They wanted to get where they were going as fast as they could.
O my sweetheart . . . Down Washington, past the antique stores, left onto Court.
Before me, Courthouse Square, and the courthouse itself, the huge, gray building with columns, the park with the gazebo, the big houses lining the square, their windows dark. Across from the courthouse, the red brick police station with the American flag hanging down over the entrance.
I stormed in through the double doors of the police station. The air was thick, stale. Behind the desk a cop stood, a black man with shiny, blue-black skin like silk. Next to him, a police radio squawked.
“I’m looking for Dean Lily.” I was panting for breath. “Have you seen him? Is he here?”
A second’s hesitation. No expression on the cop’s face. “Has he been arrested?”
“An hour ago! At my house.”
“Well, if he’s been arrested, miss, you can’t see him till he’s been arraigned.” Slow as he could be, with finality.
“But is he here? Where is he?”
“Can’t help you, miss. Have to wait till the arraignment.”
Like a teacher. He was playing by the rules, he had all the power, he wouldn’t tell me, just because I was young.
I turned away, paced the room. There were rows of plastic chairs linked by metal bars, all vacant, and wanted posters on the walls, hollow-cheeked youths with stringy hair, beefy men with stubble on their cheeks and circles under their eyes. They looked like they hadn’t slept for days.
Then, I sprang loose again. I ran back out into the square, across the park, and behind the courthouse, to the jail. The jail was built of yellow brick, fronting on the parking lot. It was shiny and slick with rain now. The building was four stories high, each window two stories high and covered with thick bars so you couldn’t see in.
Sometimes, in the lot, you would see young women standing there yelling up at the windows. “T-y-r-o-ne!” they would yell. “I lo-o-ove y-o-o!” they would scream. Sometimes they had their babies with them and they’d hold them up in the air like little round balls so the men inside, the fathers, could see their offspring. But there was never any answer from those dark windows. The women, ever faithful, stood there yelling up anyway, they didn’t care about the noise they were making, shattering the calm of the square, and the people staring out at them from behind the curtains and the blinds of the grand houses.
Now I was standing there just like them and above me there was no sign of life, not a shadow moving behind the windows of the jail. But he was there, I knew it. And just seeing me standing down there would comfort him. O my sweetheart . . . And I yelled, “Dean! Dean—honey. Oh Dean, I love you, honey.” And I realized I didn’t dare call him “honey” in person, that I was afraid to tell him I loved him, but I could do it here, screaming at the top of my lungs, my voice echoing in the empty square. And there was nothing he could do because he was trapped up there, and now the truth was out. “I love you, Dean!” I cried.
I stood there, the rain falling harder now, slicking down my hair, running down my face, my sneakers soaked through, my feet numb, standing there eyes pinned on the windows where somewhere, he had to be. “Dean! . . . Deeeeean!”
* * *
After a while, my voice was gone and my throat was sore. Nothing could come out of it any more, and I turned and began to walk home, slower now because of the driving rain, because I was exhausted. I walked back up Washington through the town, then along Route 7, soaked to the skin.
All day long, I waited by the phone for him to call. At 4 P.M., I heard the sound of the key turning in the front door. The door opened, and she entered. Right away I saw her eagle eyes scan the place. Mommy missed nothing, everything in her was attuned to me, to all dangers, real or imagined, and right away she sensed something was wrong. “Where’s Dean?” she asked.
“He had to go see his mom. She’s having an operation or something. . . .” She looked at me, doubt in her dark eyes. She knew I was lying, like she knew everything about me. She could see right through me. But she said nothing.
“His truck’s still here,” she said.
“His brother came and got him.”
“Is the mom okay?”
“Yeah. It’s like appendicitis or something.” She said nothing. But I knew she doubted me.
That evening, after we had dinner, we watched TV. She was lying on the couch when the phone rang. The sound pierced the air like a scream and I ran to get it before she could. On the other end of the line, there was a clanking sound, of coins dropping in the box, then a series of clicks. “Mellie?” It was his voice, it sounded hoarse, weary.
“O God!” I whispered into the phone. “You okay?” I glanced over at her. She didn’t seem to be listening.
“Listen. You gotta get me out of here,” he said. She was lying there on the couch, eyes fixed on the TV, like she wasn’t paying attention. “They put two hundred dollars bail on me,” he said. “They put me in with the women. You got to get me out of here, Mellie!”
“O Jesus . . . I don’t know how to get you out . . . What should I do?”
“Get some money,” he said.
“Where can I get two hundred dollars?”
“I’m gonna die here, Mellie. Please. . . .”
“I’ll try,” I said. “Oh Dean . . .”
“There’s a line here,” he said. “People behind me. I have to go. Please, hurry up. Do it now,” he said.
* * *
I waited until morning. At sunrise I got up and dressed. “Why’re you up?” she asked, when she saw me in the hall. I always slept late. She always got up early because she was so fastidious about getting ready for work.
“I wanted to get an early start,” I said.
While she was in the shower, I ran outside to the mailbox. I opened it, snatched the Ledger-Republican out before she could see it, and stuffed it under my sweatshirt.
Back in the house, she kissed me good-bye. I could smell her sweet perfume, her morning scents of soap and shampoo. She was so pretty going to work, like she was going to meet important people, not just work at the travel agency.
When she had gone, I took the paper out. The front page had a story about a big fire on River Street, two volunteer firemen killed. I didn’t stop to read it. I dug through the pages looking for the police blotter. I came to it and there was a headline, three columns wide. “Police Arrest West Taponac Woman Dressed as Man in Check-Cashing Scheme.” I read the story underneath it. “Eleven previous arrests,” it said. They had listed all his charges, “Criminal impersonation . . . bad checks . . . traffic violations.” They said he had been living two months in Sparta, impersonating a man.
It was a mistake. A terrible mistake. They were saying that just because Dean was so beautiful, because they couldn’t believe any boy could be that beautiful.
* * *
By 8:30 A.M., I was standing outside the check-cashing place on Washington Street, waiting. At 9 A.M., the man arrived and pulled up the metal gate. I was the first customer. I filled in the lines on the blank check Mommy had given me for the highlights, above her signature with the pretty feminine handwriting, handwriting that looked like it was drawing. In the space for the amount, I wrote $200.
There it was, those big figures above her signature. I slid the check under the plexiglass window, and the man counted the bills out, one by one onto the counter. She wouldn’t know about this, I thought, till she got her statement at the end of the month, or if she was overdrawn.
I tucked the money into my jeans pocket, and I ran with it to the police station. The black cop was on duty again, cold, silky-skinned. He must have seen so much that I was nothing to him. Every day there were hysterical women standing in front of him begging to see their men. I handed him the money.
“When will they let him out?” I asked.
“Takes time for the paperwork,” he said.
“That’s okay. I’ll wait. I don’t care.”
And so I waited. In the stale warmth of the police station, I fell asleep. All afternoon, I drifted in and out of consciousness, in the background the radio squawking, and then another radio somewhere, playing tinny music, and voices around me.
* * *
I woke up with a start. He was standing above me, his face pale, like a ghost. He was still as a statue, as if he’d been standing there for hours, watching me.
“Mellie.”
“Oh my God . . .” I jumped up and threw my arms around him. But he just stood stiffly, arms at his side. He didn’t like it when I touched him, I realized, when I got too close to him and my breasts were touching his chest. But now I had permission to hold him. It was okay now because of what happened I could welcome him. And he stood there, arms down at his side, defeated and exhausted. The cop behind the counter was staring at us. I didn’t care.
“Oh Jesus, you okay?” I took his arm, and I lead him like he was sick or something outside and away from the police station.
“I’m hungry,” he said. Uncle Dom’s was on Washington, a block away. “We’ll go to Uncle Dom’s,” I said.
We walked up the silent street, me holding on tight to his arm. “O sweetheart, what did they do to you?” And again, I realized I was calling him sweetheart and that I’d never dared to do that before, that somehow I had been scared of him, scared because though I knew he loved me, he didn’t want me to get too close.
“I can’t talk about it now,” he said. So noble, I thought. “It was real bad.” He shook his head. Then looked at me. “Thank you, baby. Where did you get the money?”
“From the blank check Mommy gave me for the hairdresser.”
He stopped. “She’s gonna go batshit!” he said.
“She won’t know about it for weeks. Then, we’ll deal with it. I’ll get a job. I’ll pay her back.”
“Is my truck okay?” he asked. His truck was his only real possession, it was everything to him.
“It’s fine. Still parked right in the driveway.”
“Oh Mellie,” he sighed. He looked relieved. “I love you. I love you so much.”
* * *
We walked home together through the town, and then along Route 7, holding hands, him carrying his backpack. When we got to the house, she was there, home from work and waiting. As we entered, she was sitting at the dining table, the newspaper spread out in front of her. When she saw us come in, her eyes widened, but for a moment, she said nothing. Then, “Dean,” she said, carefully.
“Mrs. Saluggio, I’m sorry. I really am. I didn’t do anything. This woman—she was just jealous, jealous ’cause of Mellie. She wants me to get in trouble.”
She watched him with her eyes like shining coals. Planning her reply, I knew.
“What about what’s in the paper?” she asked. “What they said about you. . . . They said—this stuff about you pretending to be a boy.”
He sat down on the couch, buried his head in his hands. We watched him. There was silence in the house.
Finally, he raised his head, digging his fingers into the side of his cheeks. “It’s a mistake,” he said. “It’s all a crazy mistake.”
“It was, Mommy,” I cried. “They hate him!”
“I’m sorry, Dean,” she said. “I can’t let you stay here anymore. I’m sorry,” she said. Their eyes were fixed on each other. “But I’ve got to think about Mellie.”
“But I love him, Mommy!” I said.
She kept her eyes on him, ignoring me. “I have to think about AIDS,” she said.
He looked up, as if he didn’t understand. “AIDS?”
“Yes,” she said.
“But I don’t have AIDS! What do you mean, AIDS?”
She stood up, removed the dirty glasses and cups from the dining table where they’d been sitting all day because I hadn’t cleaned up that morning. “I’m sorry, Dean, but gay people carry AIDS.” She stood up, began carrying the dirty breakfast dishes into the kitchen.
I saw Dean’s shoulders slump, like she had punched him in the gut.
Then, he took a deep breath. He stood up. He moved slowly around the couch, reached down, and hoisted his backpack on his shoulder. For a moment, he stood there without moving, as if hoping she would change her mind.
“He’s got nowhere to go!” I cried.
“I’m sorry, Mellie,” she said. “I have to think of you.”
He stood on the threshold of the front door, his shoulder slumped and defeated. Then he opened the door, stood there a moment, the cold air rushing in. He turned, and he looked across the room with hurt eyes. “I don’t have AIDS,” he said. “And I’m not gay.”