Ransom (9 page)

Though I had suffered handcuffs before, it always made me feel embarrassed at being paraded down the sidewalk like a common criminal. I was already beginning to regret hooking up with Charity.
 

The spinning red and blue lights of the police cruiser, made the already surreal moment become a lot weirder. The taller cop shoved me into the back seat of the car. A metal grill separated the cab from the back, making me feel like a caged animal.
 

During the drive to the station the officers seemed to have forgotten that I was even there, as they bantered about baseball games and sports. To them it was just another night on the beat, for me it was stacking up nicely with some of the more unsavory experiences of my life. After a fifteen-minute drive we arrived at the small station. Half a dozen police cruisers were parked in the lot, adjacent a the two story brick building that said Ternat County Jail, and the reality of my predicament settled in even more. I already knew who I would call when the police allowed me that privilege, Sanford.
 

Sanford would be able to smooth things over, maybe even get me sprung without having to spend the night. He could iron out all the wrinkles without even trying. In the past he had gotten quite a few people of the crew, including me, out of hot water.
 
It certainly helped that he’d taken a few years of Law school, before he had decided that he needed a lot more open space and freedom in his life. Despite not finishing school, he knew the laws like the back of his hand, and could rhyme off legal lingo like someone who had been litigating for years. If there was a loophole to find, Sanford found it.

 
I wanted to believe that he wouldn’t tell Pa about my little fiasco, but I knew he would. Sanford was transparently honest, it was something that I admired about him.

Inside, the building was as small as I had expected, with white walls, lines of filing cabinets, desktop computers and florescent lights buzzing overhead. A grey metal desk was positioned a few feet from the door. A uniformed police officer with shaggy blonde hair had his face buried in his arms and was sound asleep on his desk. A police issue hat sat abandoned at his elbow.

“We got one for you to process Thomas,” one of the officers piped up.

Thomas, who looked close to around twenty, popped his head up suddenly, his brown eyes bleary and red from slumber. A line of sleep crossed his left cheek. He didn’t answer and moved almost by route, digging in the side drawer for the papers he needed. He tapped a ballpoint pen on the stack of papers, motioning to one of the two chairs in front of the desk.

The cop behind me shoved me forward. I took the hint, maneuvering into one of the hard wooden chairs. Thomas’s weary gaze met mine.

“What’s the charge,” Thomas said in a gravelly voice.

“Carrying a concealed weapon and public disturbance,” the shorter cop said.

“How can you call that a concealed weapon. It’s more like a toy,” I said before I could rein in my rage. I knew the best thing to do was to shut my mouth until I had a chance to make my one call, but as always seemed the case, my temper took control.
 

“I can add a few more charges on, like drunk and disorderly, and relieving yourself in a public place,” the officer who had frisked me said.
 

He stepped to my side, glaring down with an expression that dared me to say something else. I felt my cheeks go hot with fury because it was all a crock of shit. Despite my heated reaction I managed to collect myself enough to remember that anything I said could work against me in a very dramatic way. I was powerless to fight the system.
 

I pressed my lips into a tight line.

“Sorry,” I said, in a tone that mostly hid my scorn.

“Much better.”
 

The cop moved out of my line of view. “You got this handled Thomas?”

Thomas, or Officer Thomas Ford as his name tag said, nodded then began the spiel that would eventually end with me locked behind bars. Everything moved fast. Soon the paperwork was completed and they had collected all my personal items, even my belt in case I decided to hang my self from the prison bars. Thomas led me to a room behind the entrance. I guessed that it was an interrogation area. There was a chestnut colored wooden table with metal u-shaped bars attached to the surface, four metal chairs and not much else. Officer Ford reached into his pocket and unlocked my cuffs. I rubbed the chaffed skin of my wrists, relieved to be free.
 

“You can make one call,” Officer Ford said, handing me a cell phone. “It’s only coded to make one call at a time, so make it good because it’s a one time deal.”

I took the phone from his pudgy hand.
 

“Thanks,” I said.
 

He shot me a bored look then left the room without comment.

I had already dialed Sanford’s number by the time the door clicked shut. Now alone in the room with the last bits of my inebriation rapidly becoming a bad memory, the enormity of the situation converged on me. To say I was fucked was a huge understatement. Sudden and unrelenting fear ran like ice in my veins. Being locked up for the night was by no means the worse thing that could happen. Facing Pa’s wrath was what I really dreaded. There was no telling what he would do to me. I was tough, I had taken my fair share of shit over the years from him, and it had hardened me like the thick coating of a jaw breaker.
 

There had been times I had fought back, but mostly I just took it because every time I had stood my ground he had always pulled the one string that he knew would shut me down. And that one string was Gab, saying that if I didn’t toe the line that I would be kicked out of the shows, out of it all. If that happened Gabriel would be all alone with Pa, a concept that left me feeling physically sick.

I knew that Gabriel was Pa’s meal ticket and that he had always treated him like a golden child, but if I wasn’t there to bear the brunt of Pa’s venom, I wasn’t sure if Gabriel would be safe anymore. It was enough that Gabriel dealt with excruciating pain on a daily basis, I couldn’t allow him to deal with anything else. That meant I couldn’t abandon him. The idea that we could run away together had entered my mind more than a few times, but I knew that scenario wasn’t possible either.
 

Financially I was a joke, since Pa never paid me much of anything, only tossing me pocket change, really only enough to have a few good nights out in the bars. I had managed to tuck a little away, but it was not near enough to cover the cost of Gab’s medicines, or the steady stream of doctor bills that only seemed to increase with time. The bottom line was that I was powerless to leave. Pa was well aware of that gem of information and used it to his advantage every chance he got. So when his temper hit and his fists fell, I went to another place. The one part I was thankful for was that since I had shown him a few times that I could fight back if I needed to, the abuse had grown more sporadic. But since Pa needed to maintain an upper hand, his threats to toss me had increased.
 

 
Worse than the pain of the blows, always in inconspicuous places, were the words he used to degrade me. Pa had named me aptly, because as far as I was concerned he held me ransom every day of my life.
 

As I waited for the call to connect, I glanced up at the metal-framed wall clock and realized it was already 1:30 a.m; I had missed my drive home. I didn’t expect Dave and Paula to really worry because they were used to me hooking up with girls. They knew that I always made it home for breakfast. I hoped that would hold true this time too.
 

Sanford’s sleepy voice brought me out of my thoughts.

“Yeah,” he said, then cleared his throat.
 

“Sanford it’s me, Ransom…” I sucked in a huge mouthful of air. “I screwed up and I’m in the local jail…”

“What?” Sanford barked into the phone.
 

All signs that he had recently been in dreamland were gone, and he was all business. He sighed into the phone.
 

“Give me the address, I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
 

I appreciated that he didn’t need to know all the details before he came to rescue me. In my opinion Sanford would have made one hell of a father.
 

“Wait Sanford,” I said after I had given him the address. “Can you hold off on telling Pa about this. I’ll come clean in the morning and…”

“Sure Ransom,” he said.
 

His response made all the muscles that were bunched in my shoulders, release. Morning would come soon enough, but for a few hours I would have a reprieve. Time to prepare and spin the story to my advantage, even though I was one hundred percent innocent. If Pa had been anyone else, the truth might have been enough. Even now I had no idea what I would eventually tell him, only that it had to somehow convince him that the Sanders name wouldn’t be affected.

For the next hour I sat alone, staring at the white walls and black metal bars surrounding me. I checked the clock at least two dozen times. Never before had an hour passed so painfully slow. I paced until I was sure I had burned a hole in the speckled beige rubberized floor. Being there in the room, with nothing to do but think and imagine all the horrible things that would be waiting for me when I got back to camp, was enough to drive me mad.

When I heard someone unlock the door, I lurched forward then thought better of it. The last thing I needed was to have the police think I was trying to make a run for it.
 

Thomas was first through the door, Sanford, with a skim of grey stubble on his face and his ball cap pulled low over his eyes, was next.
 

“It’s all taken care of Ransom,” Sanford said, with a wave of his hand as if to tell me to keep my mouth shut. His usual jovial attitude was gone, he wore a strained expression. I kept my mouth shut, vowing to never speak again if it meant I didn’t have to spend a night in jail. Hope pushed its way into my heart when I imagined getting back before breakfast and Pa never finding out.
 

I felt all the blood drain from my face when I saw Pa step in behind Sanford.

“There’s my boy,” Pa said in the most endearing voice I had ever heard. His smile was kindly, but his eyes were shards of ice. I couldn’t stop the shudder that ran down my spine.
 

“Come on Ransom, Officer Ford has been kind enough to let you out.”

“Let me out,” I repeated, in a flat tone.
 

The moment of elation that had me believing that everything was going to turn out just fine, fizzled like a spent match.

Pa was beside me, his thick arm draped over my shoulder in a way that appeared protective. It made all the hairs on the back of my neck stand at attention.

“Boys will be boys,” he said.
 

Sanford and Officer Ford nodded agreement, as if I wasn’t even in the room anymore. Pa gave me a hard tug on the shoulder in a way that nobody but me would notice. I staggered forward a little off balance from the force of it. Pa kept his fingers clamped, vise-like on my shoulder, the pain was quick and unrelenting. No one knew the pressure points to hit like Pa did. Sanford and Officer Ford turned, leading the way out.

“You’re in deep shit here boy,” Pa hissed, as soon as the other two men were out of earshot. The knots that had formed in my stomach when I had spotted Pa, looped a little more.

Sanford and Officer Ford were already in the main foyer by the time we joined them.
 

“You just have to sign this paper to say we released all your personal effects,” Officer Ford said, pushing a paper across the desk. He shoved a black ballpoint pen my way. The tray that held my belt, watch, phone and pocket knife, sat next to the itemized list of my belongings. I rapidly signed the paper, scared to utter a word, as if speaking would somehow hinder my release.

“So we’ll see you and your family at the show this afternoon?” Pa said, grinning like he really cared if Officer Ford came or not.

The policeman shot us a wide smile, a first since I had met him.
 

“My wife is going to be so thrilled to meet Gabriel Sanders,” he said. “She was over the moon that you guys were even coming to town, but this will…”
 

He shook his head. A reverent expression swept across his face. “It’s going to put me in her good books for a long while.”

“It’s the least we could do after all you’ve done for our family,” Pa said in a saccharine sweet voice. It was a tone reserved for strangers and fans of Gabriel’s. Pa wore his charm like a custom made suit, but under it was the real him, the spiteful man who took great pleasure in crushing people who pissed him off, like bugs beneath his fist.

And just like that we were out the front door of the station. I wanted to be relieved that I was out of jail, but it was tough with Pa so close, his anger thick and sticky like black tar. Sanford was noticeably silent. He knew as well as I did that Pa was a time bomb just waiting to go off. And how that would look was anyones guess. Sanford opened the door of the truck and slipped in behind the wheel. Pa gave me another hard shove, showing me where I was supposed to go. I quickened my pace, ensuring I stayed out of his reach. I was in the passenger side, pushed in close to Sanford, before Pa had a second chance to show me how furious he was. He heaved in next to me, his bulky frame took up every bit of space possible, and reminded me that he was still in charge. As if I ever needed to be reminded of that.

“It was lucky that his wife was a fan of Gab’s,” Sanford said.
 

I knew he was trying to ease the tension that was seeping like green poison from Pa. I appreciated the gesture but also knew that it would do little to settle Pa’s rancor. Nothing but me suffering in a very huge way would come close to repairing his mood.

Pa let out a menacing laugh that served to tighten my already taut muscles. I would have preferred that he had hollered a string of obscenities at me rather than listen to that horrific sound. The evil that powered Pa was never more evident than when he laughed like that, because he sounded as if he was cast from the demons of hell. I shook the thought from my head; I was thinking stupid shit. Pa was as human as I was. But that didn’t mean he didn’t have a cruel streak, or in his case it was more like he was ninety-nine percent hateful and one percent sweet, when it was called for.