loud enough that I can hear them over the four lanes of traffic between us. They’ve hung backpacks from their elbows and attitudes on their faces that explain they can do anything they want, no permission needed. It’s like watching me and Nokey a year ago.
A few blocks past that stand City Hall and the Yonkers court-house buildings. The courthouse clock says I have five minutes to get into the Integrated Domestic Violence building.
My charges have been read. Probable cause and intent to steal and sell have all been established. The trial date is set for two months from now. But I’m being good. I have sought and maintained employment, enrolled in an educational program in pursuit of a GED, am complying with periodic check-ins with the authorities, refraining from possessing firearms, undergoing family psychological treatment, and failing to see where the justice is in all this relentless bullshit.
Family psychological treatment works like this: we all sit in a white, cinderblock-walled room and stare in opposite directions. We pick at the arms of our padded metal chairs as our appointed counselor asks us questions about how we feel and why. My mother cries in that quiet dab-your-nose kind of way and my dad says absolutely nothing.
Today is no different. Our counselor says, “What’s going on today?” She’s got this low, one-note tone that makes everything she says sound like it’s in parentheses.
After she asks what’s going on there’s a real long silence.
I say: I think I got punched last night.
COUNSELOR: You think you got punched?
ME: Yeah. Not sure.
MOM: (Looks at me, concern in her eyes.)
COUNSELOR: Why do you think you did? And why aren’t you sure?
ME: I’m not sure. And I don’t know.
COUNSELOR: Did you get into a fight?
ME: Probably not exactly.
COUNSELOR: Where were you?
ME: Hard to say exactly.
COUNSELOR: Were you out somewhere?
ME: Yeah. I think so.
COUNSELOR: Who were you with?
ME: Well if I did get hit, I guess the person who hit me was there. Other than that—
MOM: Jake, please stop.
COUNSELOR: No, it’s OK.
MOM: Why do you constantly badger this woman? ME: I’m not—
MOM: She’s trying to help.
ME: OK.
COUNSELOR: It’s OK, Mrs Savage.
MOM: Miss.
COUNSELOR: (Cringing.) I’m sorry.
DAD: (Inhaling deeply, letting it out as protest.)
MOM: Just call me Francine already. (Head falling into hands.)
COUNSELOR: Francine, you all get to talk about whatever you want to talk about. Anything that’s on your mind.
Silence.
COUNSELOR: Anything.
More silence.
Mom wipes nose.
Counselor looks from face to face, encouraging and waiting for the next word.
Dad picks at chair.
Silence.
ME: I’m OK.
Short silence.
COUNSELOR: What do you mean, Jake?
ME: If I was hit—
MOM: Jake …
ME: I’m saying that if I was hit, and I might have been, I’m O-K.
COUNSELOR: Well, Jake, according to your psychiatrist’s evaluation you’re not really OK.
ME: He’s not my psychiatrist. I don’t have a psychiatrist. I only went to one because they told me to.
COUNSELOR: He’s a medical doctor whose diagnosis for you was “severe depression”.
ME: I maintain my right to refuse medication, because I’m not depressed. How many times do I have to say this? If he wanted to give me something to knock me out at night, then fine. But apparently he didn’t think sleep was so worthy, so forget him. I’m OK. All right? I’m A-OK. Not that anyone was worried.
COUNSELOR: Is anyone worried about Jake?
Short silence.
DAD: (Staring at the floor, expression hidden.) I am.
EVERYONE: (Silence.)
She yells my name as I trot down the courthouse stairs, her voice a perpetual panic attack. I turn mid-step and with my eyes ask what she wants. She settles on the stair above me, a forced sliver of a smile poking through her puffy face.
“You gave our counselor a hard time in there.”
“We all get them.”
If I know my mom, she’s now using the obvious as a segue into what she really wants to say.
“Jake.” She preps herself with a deliberate inhalation. “I want you to know you can come home.”
Do I know my mom?
“Home?” I say like she’s joking.
“Yes.”
“Where’s that?”
“With me.”
“Not an option, Mom.”
She nods her head and purses her lips as if she was expecting a response like that. She reaches up to touch my peach-fuzz hair. “You don’t look very good.”
I duck away from her hand. “Me? Look at the eyes on you.”
“That all you’ve been doing?” Now she looks me back in the eye and I notice a familiar distant gaze, a clear film covering the emotions in her eyes. I recognise it from when she’s gotten one of her doctor friends to prescribe her sleeping pills. “Little Xanax too?”
She lets out a sigh so distinctly defeated that I’m sure I’ll be able to reproduce it on my deathbed. “How any other way can I sleep?”
“Lot of Xanax. You got any for me.”
“I’ll get fired.”
“Oh, please. I gotta
