Invisible Lines

  My voice surprises him. It’s that simple. He didn’t expect it, and he lets go of her to look at me. Diamond takes off for the back door. I take off for the front. I’m running again. My mind is running fast, too. I’m hoping that for a second he didn’t know which way to run and that one second might give us what we need to get away. I run around the building and see Diamond running toward me. Mudman is behind her, yelling. We can’t go to my apartment or he’ll know where I live. I head toward the parking lot, and Diamond catches up. We’re running together now. Only one guy is out, waiting at the bus stop, and he doesn’t speak English. Mudman is coming. I pull Diamond across the street, and just as he steps off the curb to cross, a car comes. He steps back and curses.

  “This way!” I pull Diamond down a path that heads over to Clover Park, another apartment complex across from Deadly Gardens.

  We run in between the buildings without looking back and cross two more roads until we get to the stoplight on Branch Road. Neither of us have any breath left, and we’re both shaking.

  The me that was full of adrenaline is fading fast. I keep looking to see if Mudman is following.

  Diamond can’t talk. She’s bending over, holding on to her other arm.

  “You okay?” I ask.

  She stays like that for a long time. Her arm—the one I wasn’t holding—doesn’t look right at all, like it’s out of place in a funny way. When she finally straightens up, I see her face and I have to look away real fast.

  I always thought of Diamond’s face as hard, but it’s not. It’s soft, and the whole left side is bleeding.

  The light is green and the WALK sign is flashing. I don’t know what to do. My heart is pounding, and my lungs feel like a knife is stuck in them. Diamond is bent over again and she’s crying in a real funny way like I once heard a sick puppy cry and she’s holding her arm and isn’t talking at all.

  Cars are going by, and a woman sitting in the passenger’s side of one car sees that Diamond is hurt, but the car keeps going.

  We can’t go back to Deadly Gardens.

  I don’t know what to do. There’s an apartment building across the street. Should I go over there and get somebody to help us? Two blocks over is a playground. Maybe I should run over there and see if anybody is around.

  Diamond is still bent over, holding her arm, and she’s got her shoulder all scrunched up so I can’t see her face, but the sleeve of her white top is smeared with blood. I don’t have anything in my pocket to give her. Not a single tissue or anything.

  Another car drives by. Maybe I should flag it. I look back, expecting to see Mudman. Two more cars pass, but the people in them don’t look nice.

  Finally I see a police car. I hold up my arm like the guys in the movies do when they’re flagging down a taxi, which strikes me as funny, only it’s not.

  “No!” she says, scared.

  It’s too late. The cop pulls over.

  “Trevor, no!” Diamond says. She tries to straighten up and puts her good hand on her eye, but letting go of her arm must hurt because she moans and bends over again and holds it, her hand red with blood. I am glad she’s bent over because I can’t look at her face. She takes two steps back like she’s going to run away, but then she moans again and blood is coming out from underneath her hand.

  “She needs help!” I’m screaming at the cop.

  He is walking toward us, pulling out his two-way radio, calling for an ambulance.

  “No!” Diamond says, but she crumples onto the sidewalk.

  “What happened?” The policeman looks at me, and I say that a guy just beat her up and we were running away from him. He asks if we know the guy and does he have a weapon and where did it happen, and Diamond doesn’t want to say anything. She just cries. Right away the guy calls for backup and for a “female unit” to go to the hospital, and then he crouches down next to her.

  “Where does it hurt most?” he asks.

  She doesn’t answer. She just cries.

  He’s so calm, like a nice robot cop. “An ambulance is coming. Can you tell me exactly what happened?”

  I explain how I went looking for Diamond in Deadly Gardens and how Mudman came and the more I talk, the bigger the lump gets in my throat.… Finally I just say it.

  “It’s my fault.”

  The cop looks up. “Why is it your fault?”

  “I got her in trouble at school and that’s why the guy came after her.”

  Diamond shakes her head. “Derrick don’t need an excuse, Trevor.”

  “Has Derrick done this before?” the cop asks.

  Diamond shuts up.

  “Has he hit you before?”

  “He’s gonna be mad if he gets in trouble…,” Diamond says, and then her voice disappears. She starts to get up like she’s just going to walk away, but the cop gently makes her sit back down again and asks for a description of Derrick and her address.

  She closes her lips together.

  “Is there anybody else at home who might be in danger? A mother or a brother or sister?” the cop asks.

  Diamond won’t answer.

  The cop doesn’t say anything. He just shifts his weight, still crouched—his black shoes perfectly shined—and waits patiently for Diamond to answer.

  Real softly in the distance, a siren moans.

  Diamond gives him her address and tells him what Derrick looks like. The cop says she made the right decision and he’s going to make sure that they protect the rest of her family, and he calls in the address.

  How can he promise that? I don’t know what Diamond is thinking, but I’m thinking about how fast Mudman hurt Diamond, and I’m wondering how fast the cops can possibly get there.

  The ambulance turns down Branch Road and pulls up. How many times have I seen an ambulance and wondered what it was for. This time I know. The police officer steps aside, and two guys hop out and take over. They ask Diamond a few questions and help her on this stretcher thing, and the next thing I know I’m watching them close the doors. Another cop car pulls up with two cops in it and our cop talks to them, and then they take off toward Deadly Gardens. The cop asks for my phone number, but he doesn’t get through so he asks for my address. “Mom or dad at home?” he asks.

  “My mom,” I say.

  He says something to his radio I don’t understand, and then says they’ll need to get a statement from me at the station because I’m a witness and they’ll send a car over to my mom, too.

  I freak out because Mom is going to freak out and I try to explain about how my mom has to work and I have to babysit Tish and Michael, and the cop talks into the radio again and then he tells me that he can take me home and get the statement there. I get in the backseat, which smells like toilet bowl cleaner and is perfectly free of any litter. I mean there’s not a gum wrapper, not a rubber band, not a cigarette butt, not a speck of dust. Every night this police officer must wipe away all the traces of the bad guys who get put in this backseat. Mud and blood and beer and grease. Who knows what’s all been in this car. The dregs. And now there’s me in it. I get all outraged at Xander for blaming something on me that I didn’t do, and I turn around and do the same thing to Diamond.

  I wish I could have at least told Diamond I was sorry for jumping to conclusions about her stealing the phone.

  I’m hot and hungry and thirsty. I wish this car came with a mini fridge, but you can’t be giving cold drinks to criminals. That’s why it’s so clean. You don’t want to be giving a criminal anything, not even a stubby old pencil, because you never know how he might turn it against you. That’s the power of clean.

  I wish somebody would come every night and clean up Deadly Gardens so that it was clean like this car. If I had a car this clean I wouldn’t even bother sleeping in Deadly Gardens. I’d just live in this car. I’d take real good care of it. No trash. I’d keep four things in it at all times. Number one: a soccer ball, because you never know when you’re going to get a chance to play. Numbers two and three: a blank book, real
thick paper with no lines, and a set of fine-point permanent markers, because you never know when inspiration is going to strike. And number four: a mini fridge stocked with nice cold drinks.

  At a stoplight the cop types in something on this laptop that is attached to the dashboard and another call comes in on the radio and he talks cop lingo back. I wonder what kind of information is on that computer? I can’t see the screen, so I don’t know what he’s looking at. I gave him my name and address. Does it say stuff in there about my mom? Does it say that my dad is in jail?

  My dad must have been in the backseat of at least one police car. Probably more than one. Was he sick to his stomach, too? Was he sorry for what he did or just sorry he got caught?

  On the back of the seat right behind the cop, I notice a slice in the vinyl. It’s like somebody stuck a knife blade right in the backseat while Mr. Nice Robot Cop was driving. I hope it wasn’t my dad who did it, but maybe it was.

  I try to imagine that I’m a cop and I have to go to Diamond’s place and kick open the door and there’s Mudman waiting for me with a knife or a gun. I wonder if Mr. Nice Robot Cop feels lucky that he was assigned the easy job of taking me home and somebody else is stuck with the job of getting Mudman?

  The cop looks at me in the rearview mirror. “You did the right thing flagging me down.”

  The lump in my throat is back.

  “If this is a case of ongoing abuse, that girl’s right. The guy didn’t need an excuse. He’d find a reason. Believe me. Guys like that are just sick, so don’t take it on.”

  I hear what he’s saying, but I still feel rotten.

  33.

  MOM’S REACTION

  When we pull in to the Deadly Gardens parking lot, I slide down real low just in case Mudman is out and he wants to kill me. He could be hiding in the bushes or behind the Dumpster, watching. The cop doesn’t seem to be afraid. Maybe one of those radio calls told him that they got Mudman. The other cop car is already in the parking lot, so maybe those guys are up in Diamond’s apartment making an arrest.

  It’s Michael who opens the door, and when he sees Officer Robocop, he runs straight into the back bedroom.

  “Trevor?” Mom walks out of the bathroom with Tish on one hip and when she sees us, she almost faints. She’s got on her Fry Factory uniform, looking like her worst nightmare just came true.

  Nice Robocop gets right to the point. “Your son witnessed a domestic violence situation and flagged us for help.”

  “What? I thought he was in trouble at school.” She starts talking about Mr. Gonzalez and I interrupt her. Last thing I need is for the cops to find out I’m the chief suspect in a cell phone theft. Quickly I tell Mom the Diamond story. Then Mom has a billion questions for him, and he answers all the ones he can. Another guy comes who says he’s a detective and he asks me more questions and then he has questions for Mom, so I take Tish and sit at the kitchen table. Tish twists herself around so she can keep an eye on Mr. Nice Cop and all the gear attached to his belt—the cell phone, the radio, the big blunt gun—and on his perfectly unwrinkled uniform. How is it that cops run around all day fighting crime and they never have any wrinkles or stains on their clothes? Maybe they wash their stuff in a special stain-protective, wrinkle-protective soap.

  The cop gets a call and he steps into the hallway to take it. My mom just gives me this look like she doesn’t know what to think, but the detective is still asking questions. Then the cop comes back in and he looks glad and he tells us that they have made an arrest. Mom has a hundred more questions, and he gives her a phone number and explains how she can get more information, and the detective says that they might need to ask us more questions later.

  “Is Diamond okay?” I ask.

  “My guess is a broken arm,” Mr. Nice Cop says. “She’ll be okay. Listen, if you’re ever a witness to anything like this again, do me a big favor and get adult help first, okay? You could have gotten hurt trying to intervene.”

  They leave, and Mom just stands there facing the door. She’s turning herself into a statue so she won’t cry.

  “Mom—”

  She doesn’t move.

  “Mom, I’m sorry.”

  She says to the door, “I don’t even know what to be upset about. I’m glad you’re okay. But I’m just overwhelmed by everything, Trevor.”

  Tish climbs down from my lap and goes over and hugs her leg. “What time is it?” Mom looks at the clock on the stove. “I’m late.”

  “I know. I’m sorry—”

  She picks Tish up. “How can I go now?”

  “It’s okay. I’ll watch Michael and Tish.”

  She shakes her head. “I’ll be too worried—where’s Michael? Michael?” She runs into the bathroom. “Michael? Trevor, where’d he go?”

  I go into the bedroom. He’s hiding behind the door.

  Mom hands me Tish and picks him up. “Oh my Lord, you weigh a ton, baby.”

  He breaks into tears.

  “Shh, it’s okay. The cop wasn’t mad at Trevor. He was mad at the bad guy and they got him.”

  “I thought he was coming for me.”

  “For you?” She carries him over and sits down in the kitchen. “Trevor, get him some toilet paper so he can blow his nose.” She takes out her cell phone.

  Michael sniffs. “Who you calling?”

  She calls the Fry Factory and tells them she can’t come in and I can tell by her conversation that whoever she’s talking to doesn’t like it, and after she hangs up her lips close real tight.

  “What’s wrong?” Michael asks.

  She keeps her lips tight and just shakes her head.

  Michael and Tish are both scared. It’s easier when she yells and screams. When she’s real quiet, it gets us all upset because it’s like somebody has replaced our real mom with this statue mom.

  Her voice finally comes out in a thin line: “You know me, Trevor. I don’t like to talk about things when I’m upset. I have to think some things through. Either we’ll talk about it when certain people are asleep, or first thing in the morning.”

  She cooks macaroni and cheese and nobody eats, and she doesn’t talk at all, and then she just gets up and takes all the clothes and starts washing them in the bathtub like if she can just get them clean everything will turn out all right.

  34.

  THE REAL CRIMINAL

  I’m thinking about Diamond and Mudman, and I’m thinking about the cell phone, too. If Diamond didn’t put it in my backpack, who did? I can only think of one person.

  There’s a knock on the door and I freeze.

  From the bathroom, Mom says, “What was that?”

  The knock comes again, and Mom runs in with wet socks in her hands. “Don’t open it,” she whispers.

  Juan calls my name from behind the door.

  “It’s Juan,” I say.

  He asks if he can talk to me, and Mom says he has to come in and then locks the door.

  “Markus saw you in a cop car,” he whispers after Mom goes back to her washing. “What happened, man?”

  I retell the whole story.

  He takes it all in. “Is Diamond okay?”

  “I think so.”

  “If she didn’t put the phone in your backpack, who did?”

  I’m not sure how to answer. Accusing Diamond without proof was my last big mistake.

  “You think somebody did it on purpose?”

  “I think whoever did it wanted to make me look bad in front of Coach Stevins.”

  My mom is listening, even though she’s pretending to put wet socks on the windowsill.

  Juan’s eyes light up. “Xander. He has it in for you, man.”

  “I don’t have proof, but he’s got the motive and he had the chance. Remember between scrimmages, he went over and got his water bottle?”

  Juan shakes his head. “Man, that’s going way too far. If he did and everybody finds out he stooped that low, he’s gonna look bad for life. What are you going to do?”

  “I alre
ady told Gonzalez I didn’t do it. If I accuse Xander and he didn’t do it, he’ll make my life even more miserable.”

  “Yeah.” Juan shakes his head again. “I bet Gonzalez wouldn’t believe you even if it is true. Nobody would suspect Xander. He’s like Straight A, Perfect Boy.” He gives me a sympathetic shrug.

  “Hey, Juan, don’t tell anybody about Xander. Let me figure this out first.”

  He nods.

  After he’s gone, Mom walks in.

  “Who is this Xander?”

  “I’ve been trying to tell you. He’s this guy who has it in for me.”

  “Why does he have it in for you?”

  “I don’t know. ’Cause I beat him at juggling. ’Cause I’m friends with Langley. ’Cause he just hates me. I don’t know.”

  “Momma, Tish needs you!” Michael yells from the bathroom.

  “You didn’t steal the cell phone?”

  “I didn’t steal the cell phone.”

  She looks at me.

  “I’m telling the truth.”

  She nods.

  “Momma …”

  “I’m coming, Michael! Trevor, you have to explain all this at that meeting tomorrow morning.”

  “I’m going to say I didn’t do it, and they probably won’t believe me.”

  She sighs. “I’m no good at meetings, Trev. You know that. It’s like I’m afraid that every word that comes out of my mouth sounds stupid … I’ll be there, but I don’t know how much good I’m gonna do. I’m not one of those parents who can walk in and snap her fingers and make everything go the way she wants.” Her voice catches on itself.