Kick

  “Which means . . . ?”

  “The lottery for the State Cup. That’s the most important soccer tournament in New Jersey. The brackets will be posted tomorrow, so we’ll know what team we’re playing first round.”

  “You’re in jail for a bunch of felonies and you’re thinking about soccer?”

  “I don’t know what to think about,” I said. “I don’t even know if I’m thinking straight.”

  That shut him up for a few minutes.

  “So, Kevin, what position do you play?” Sergeant Brown asked me.

  “Striker,” I said.

  “Is that defense or offense?” Sergeant Brown asked.

  “You don’t know anything about soccer, right?” I asked.

  “Not really,” he answered. “And you don’t know much about the law, so maybe we can both learn something. What do you think?”

  “Sounds okay, I guess.”

  Sergeant Brown stood up. “Now we’re going to talk it over with your mom,” he said. “Then we’re going to meet with Judge Kelly and see if he wants to keep you in here.”

  “Keep me in here!” Maybe I should have been a little nicer to this man. I wanted to throw up.

  The door to the room inched open, and my mom and grandma slowly came in. Mom’s face was stained with tears. Abuela, my grandma, seemed smaller as she walked behind Mom. They took seats across from Sergeant Brown and me.

  About four years ago my abuelo died. That’s when Abuela came from Colombia to live with us. I loved her almost as much as I loved Mom. Mom worked six days a week as an assistant in a doctor’s office. Abuela had been taking care of me since I was nine.

  “Ay, mi nieto.” Abuela sounded so sad. She put her hands on my cheeks.

  I could see that tears were welling up in the corners of her eyes. I felt like crying, too, but I didn’t want to cry in front of Sergeant Brown.

  “Mom, this is Sergeant Brown,” I said softly. “He wants to talk to you.”

  “Nice to meet you,” my mom said politely, her voice cracking.

  I hated to see my mom sad. She’d already been through so much.

  “Abuela, le presento al señor Brown,” I said, introducing Abuela to Sergeant Brown in Spanish.

  Sergeant Brown turned to my mom. “Ma’am, I’m a police officer and also a friend of Judge Kelly. He asked me if I would look into Kevin’s case. We’ll be talking to the judge in a few minutes, and I’m hoping that everything will turn out all right, but there are a lot of unknown aspects to this case. Most important is that Kevin needs to explain what happened.”

  “Kevin’s a good boy,” Mom said. “He really is. Believe me, he’s never been in any kind of serious trouble.”

  “I believe you, and I’m sure you want him home. If he gets to go home, I’ll be talking with him from time to time as the case develops. Is that okay with you? Now I’m going to be frank with you. Your son’s in trouble. He’s up against serious charges. I’m sure that if Kevin gets out and there’s the least bit of trouble, he’s coming back here.”

  “I really appreciate your taking an interest in my son, sir.” My mom sat back in her chair, her hands shaking with nervousness.

  “Well, we don’t want our young people in jails if we can help it, ma’am,” Sergeant Brown said.

  Sergeant Brown kept talking to Mom and Abuela. I thought about this television show where two cops were interviewing a guy. One was playing the “good cop” role and the other one was the “bad cop.” I wondered if Sergeant Brown was playing good cop or bad cop.

  Mom kept nodding to anything Sergeant Brown said. Abuela just looked at me and kept shaking her head. I was glad when a guard came into the room. Judge Kelly was ready to see us.

  The guards drove me in a van to the Highland Municipal Courthouse. It was an old brick building with white columns in the front that looked like something on the cover of my social studies textbook. Mrs. Fox, the lawyer who had handled the paperwork when my dad died, was waiting for us in the hallway. I walked in with the guard behind me. I was relieved to see a familiar face, even though I really didn’t know her that well.

  It was weird having someone watch my every move. I noticed the guard’s gun. When I was little, my dad used to show me his gun. He always warned me about how dangerous guns were, and I used to think it was so cool. But now that the guard who was watching me had one, guns didn’t seem so cool anymore. The guard saw me staring at his gun. I turned away.

  I didn’t even want to imagine what my father would say if he were still alive. I had just been helping out a friend.

  After going through the metal detectors, Mom, Abuela, the guard, and I walked down the hall and up a long flight of stairs to the judge’s chambers with Sergeant Brown trailing behind.

  Judge Kelly was the tallest man I had ever seen. I wondered if he had ever played basketball. His wire-rimmed glasses made him look smart. I imagined him playing college ball. My mom, Abuela, and I took seats, and Mrs. Fox started speaking in low tones to the judge. I could tell that it was about me.

  “Mr. Johnson, I presume,” Judge Kelly said, his glasses lowering on his nose.

  “Yes. Nice to meet you, sir,” I answered, standing up and trying to be extra polite.

  “Jerry! How are you?” Judge Kelly said.

  I turned around to see Sergeant Brown sitting behind us.

  “Up for another game of Ping-Pong at the Ebony Club?” asked Sergeant Brown.

  “Not tonight—I’m swamped with work,” Judge Kelly said, looking right at me.

  Judge Kelly turned to me. “So, Kevin, you’re charged with kidnapping, grand larceny, destruction of property, and giving false answers.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  Mrs. Fox interrupted, “Judge Kelly, Kevin has never been in any sort of trouble before. The only reasonable solution would be to give him probation.”

  “We’re going to give him every break we can under the law,” Judge Kelly said. “There are a number of issues to be worked out first. This is not a victimless affair, and the victims’ rights have to be considered, too. Frankly, I don’t understand how the son of one of our town’s finest police officers could have gotten involved in something like this. Kevin, can you explain yourself?”

  “I just . . . just did it, I guess,” I said. “I’m so sorry.” There were things I couldn’t really explain.

  Judge Kelly frowned at me. He could frown at me all he wanted, but I still didn’t want to get a friend in trouble.

  “I’d like some time to look into the matter if the court will allow that.” Sergeant Brown spoke up. “Kevin has good family ties, and as his attorney points out, he has a clean record.”

  “It can’t take forever, Jerry,” Judge Kelly said. “Our calendars are crammed. I don’t have to tell you that.”

  “No, sir,” Sergeant Brown said, crossing one leg over the other.

  “I’ll either dispose of the case in three weeks or send it to another judge,” Judge Kelly said. “In the meantime, I’m going to release young Mr. Johnson to his mother.”

  As soon as I heard that, I wanted to thank Judge Kelly and Sergeant Brown over and over again.

  I had to pick up my clothes and Mom had to sign a bunch of forms at the detention center so I could leave. I couldn’t believe I was out so quick.

  In the car on the way home, I could feel the tension.

  My mom finally broke the silence. “Kevin, if you get yourself into any trouble at all, even if you’re just with someone who gets in trouble, you’re going to be sent back in there. You have to be careful who you hang around with. Do you understand that?” Mom was so upset, she didn’t even turn around to look at me as she was talking. “I can’t believe this is happening to our family.”

  That was about as close as my mom ever got to raising her voice. “I’m so sorry, Mom,” I answered. And I meant it. Even though I had only been locked up for one night, I never wanted to go back to that place again.

  Abuela always talked too much, but sh
e had nothing to say to me now. That was almost worse.

  We made one stop at a bakery to pick up some almojábanas—Colombian breads filled with cheese. This was my favorite food. Even though she was mad, Mom was being extra nice, but I wasn’t hungry.

  On our way home, we drove downtown. It wasn’t the weekend, but there were groups of kids from my school hanging around. I closed my eyes and slumped down in my seat. I knew they would have heard about me getting arrested and I’d have to answer a million questions from them.

  I thought about Christy. I wondered if she was as scared as I was. I remembered that when the cop had pulled us over, I had turned to her and she hadn’t said a word. The cop that had arrested me thought she was just too scared to talk, but I knew there were things that were just too hard to say. Sergeant Brown seemed all right; at least he got me out of juvie. And he didn’t feel sorry for me like my mom and grandma did. I liked that.

  As we drove along, I saw the green turf of Highland Field shining under the lights. The facility had been built recently after a long, heated argument between the town council members and the taxpayers. My mom used to joke that I’d better enjoy the new soccer fields because the money for them came straight out of her pocket.

  Now I wondered whether I’d ever get to play soccer again.

  Chapter 03

  The Johnson boy’s family seemed like good people. They did what I had seen a lot of families do, look closely at the person in trouble to see if there was suddenly something different about them, something they hadn’t seen before. The mother was holding her hands to her chest while the grandmother, a small woman who carried herself with her head high, kept touching the boy. I got the feeling they both would have liked to take a break and just hold him for a while.

  I wanted to know what and who I was dealing with and how serious the case was going to be. If McNamara was definitely going to press charges, then the criminal aspect of the case was going to be the most important.

  His home number was listed on the complaint sheet and I called it, introduced myself, and asked if he would be free to talk sometime the next day.

  He worked at Harmon Brothers Delivery Service and suggested a place we could meet for lunch.

  “I only get an hour,” he said.

  “Hey, that’s fine,” I answered. “Meet you there at twelve thirty.”

  The Celebrity Diner was one of those old-fashioned red-leather-and-chrome places that seemed inviting even on the dreariest days. I got there at twelve twenty, sat in a booth, and ordered coffee. At exactly twelve thirty a thin, angular man came in and looked around. He looked to be about five ten, maybe a hundred and seventy pounds. When he checked his watch, I figured it was McNamara and went over to him.

  “Sergeant Brown,” I said, offering my hand.

  “Oh, I thought you might be in uniform,” he said.

  The handshake was tentative, almost timid.

  We sat in the booth and I asked him how the corned beef was at the Celebrity.

  “It’s okay,” he said, nodding as he spoke. “Most of the sandwiches here are okay.”

  I looked at the menu again, and when the waitress came over, I ordered the corned beef, a side of fries, and tea. McNamara ordered ham on rye and black coffee.

  “So, you think the Giants are going to get it together this year?” I asked.

  “Giants?” He looked toward the open window and then back at me.

  “The football Giants,” I added.

  “Oh, yeah, I guess,” he said. “They’re okay. I think they’re okay.”

  “You work near here?”

  “About ten minutes away,” he said. “Delivery company. We do pickups and deliveries throughout the year for the stores at three malls in the area. But the real money comes at Christmas, when we handle the overflow for the really big guys. Sometimes I’m sending out trucks so fast, I can hardly keep up with them.”

  “This whole area is turning into a shopping hub,” I said. “That’s a good sign.”

  “Yeah, yeah, it’s changing big-time. I used to drive—now I just do dispatch. When I drove, I had to go all the way into New York to pick up cargo,” McNamara said. “Today guys can get a full load in Jersey. It’s better that way.”

  “If the money’s right,” I said.

  “Well, the money’s better when you’re on the road, but it’s hard being away from home all the time.” He paused as the waitress brought the tea and coffee. “You gotta balance it out. I didn’t mind driving, but . . .”

  “I never could handle one of those big rigs,” I said.

  “You gotta have training,” McNamara said. “You don’t want to be learning to drive no twenty-four footer at seventy miles per hour.”

  The waitress brought the sandwiches and two little paper cups of what looked like coleslaw.

  “I just wanted to get your take on what happened the other night,” I said. “You want some fries?”

  “No. I’ve got a nervous stomach,” he said.

  “You’ve got a nervous stomach?” I held up a French fry. “If my wife caught me eating these, she’d have a fit.”

  Half smile. Half a head shake.

  “The officer at the scene was surprised to find a kid at the wheel,” I said.

  “Yeah. Well. I knew the car was gone,” McNamara said, “I mean, I looked out the window and saw it was gone. You know, I thought for a minute maybe I had parked it around the corner. Sometimes a guy across the street has his pickup in front of my house. He leaves his car in his driveway, and when he’s only going to pop in and out—”

  “He leaves his car in front of your place?”

  “Yeah. No big deal. But then I remembered that it had been in the driveway, so . . . ”

  “So you called the police?”

  “No, not right away. My wife was kind of . . . kind of under the weather. If . . . You want to find out if I’m going to press charges?” he asked.

  “Just trying to get your reaction to what happened that night,” I said.

  “If it goes to trial, will Christy have to testify?”

  “It’s possible,” I said. “We can usually work things out for kids so it’s not too hard on them.”

  “You know, you can’t just take the car into a shop these days.” McNamara was pushing his sandwich around his plate with his forefinger. “You walk into any shop in this area and you have a dent the size of a . . . the size of a coffee cup . . . and they want to charge you an arm and a leg.”

  “You can say that again,” I said. “My car was losing its charge too fast, and I took it in and had to shell out six hundred bucks.”

  “Alternator!”

  “The report said the boy was driving was only thirteen,” I said, looking for a reaction.

  “What did he think?” McNamara was suddenly agitated. “That he could just hop into somebody’s car and go joyriding?”

  “Was that what he was doing?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said, half under his breath.

  “He goes to the same school as your daughter does?”

  “Yeah, I seen him around,” McNamara said. “Comes to the house sometimes. I think he speaks Spanish to Dolores.”

  “That your wife?”

  “Dolores? No. She kind of helps out around the house sometimes. Christy knows this guy, but I’m the only one who can give him permission to drive my car. And I didn’t give him permission. He could have been in a serious freaking accident. Sometimes big rigs take the service road if they want to cut off some time. They’re not supposed to, but you do what you got to do to make it in this world.”

  “That’s for sure,” I said. “Hey, did you know Kevin’s father was a cop? Killed in the line of duty.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean? That supposed to mean I’m not supposed to press charges?”

  “I didn’t say that,” I answered. “I was just surprised that a cop’s kid would be in this kind of trouble.”

  “I guess the cops will be looking at me,
seeing who I am so they can spring this kid,” McNamara said.

  “Think you have it wrong,” I said. “Nobody’s trying to influence you in any way. At least I’m not.”

  “So what’s going to happen next?”

  “An assistant district attorney will probably call you and maybe get a statement,” I said. “Then there’ll be a meeting to see what the charges will be and how the state will handle them.”

  “Will Christy have to testify?” he asked. Second time.

  “She won’t have to do anything she doesn’t want to do,” I said.

  “You know, I treat everybody the same,” McNamara said. “Half my drivers are either black or Latino. I could be having lunch with any of them the same as I’m having lunch with you. It doesn’t matter to me.”

  “And the sandwiches here are good,” I said.

  I paid for the lunch and shook McNamara’s hand. He had his uneaten sandwich wrapped and took it with him. I didn’t see him go to a car in the parking lot. I wondered just how badly his car had been damaged.

  My next stop was at Kevin’s school. It was an easy drive, and I parked across the street from the ugly, red-brick building next to a playing field teeming with young bodies in a hurry. I sat in the car trying to figure out exactly who McNamara was. On the one hand, he seemed more nervous than I thought he should be, but on the other hand, he was also concerned about the money he thought he might have to put into car repairs. It was possible that he would push the charges just to make sure that they were on record for the insurance company.

  It was clear to me, too, that he didn’t want to have his daughter testify. I could see that. Testifying at a trial isn’t that big a deal, but some people get really uptight about it. I didn’t think McNamara was hiding anything, but he was jumpy. I remembered him saying that Kevin had spoken Spanish to the woman who helped around the house at times. I didn’t care for the way McNamara had brought it up. People who volunteered how they “treat everybody the same” usually bothered me.

  “You’re going to have to move this vehicle, sir.” A voice from next to the car startled me.

  “Excuse me?”