Chapter Nine
Five months into Quinn’s incarceration at the Douglas County Youth Rehabilitation and Treatment Center, his mother died. Murdered, actually. Bludgeoned with a hammer, apparently for the twenty dollars in her purse and pearl earrings.
They let Quinn attend her funeral. The warden made the arrangements, which was kind of him.
It was a devastating affair. A closed casket.
Nearly everyone from the factory paying their respects.
Uncle Pat, dressed in an ill-fitting sweater and wrinkled slacks, said the company covered the cost of the plain casket and trays of meat for the wake.
The most heartbreaking part was watching George in the front row, hugging his knees.
The officer who’d accompanied Quinn there like he was some hardened killer allowed Quinn only five minutes after the priest’s remarks to say goodbye to Mom, to visit with George and Pat.
To scowl at Mom’s boyfriend Randy, who’d given a melodramatic speech about how he’d hunt down the killer, oblivious that everyone there had suspected Randy as the murderer until the police cleared him.
When Quinn returned to juvie later that day, the warden paid him a visit in his small room, handed him a brochure that had ARMY: BE ALL YOU CAN BE emblazed on the front of it. The warden said his mother’s death was a sign from God that he needed to shape up. Be a man.
That’s how today—his eighteenth birthday—Quinn finds himself in an Army recruiter’s car, a garbage bag full of belongings at his feet.
The county released him the second he turned a legal adult; that’s probably when the funds for detaining him dried up.
Quinn thinks the recruiter and warden have some sort of arrangement.
The recruiter is nice enough, takes him to Bennigan’s for breakfast, waits until Quinn finishes his pancakes to bring out the papers for him to sign.
Quinn doesn’t read them, just scrawls his name next to the X with the Bic pen.
“What’re your plans before leaving for basic?” the recruiter asks. The timing of his release is perfect; boot camp starts in two days.
“I’m gonna visit my brother today,” he says. “Then I have to see the counselor one more time, kind of a checkout thing they require.”
“You have enough money to get you by?”
“I think so. My uncle sent me a couple hundred bucks.”
“That who you’re staying with?” The recruiter must know that the bank foreclosed on the house.
“Yeah,” he lies. Uncle Pat doesn’t have a home other than his semitruck, though he’s prone to short stays with the women he meets at bars on his delivery routes throughout the state. He’s on a long haul and won’t be back until after Quinn leaves for boot camp.
The recruiter’s buzz cut dips in a nod, he takes a last sip of coffee, then stands, shakes Quinn’s hand firmly. “This is a good decision, son.”
Quinn hopes that’s true. But it doesn’t matter: He has no other options.
By lunchtime, he’s found his way to the group home in Bellevue. Three different buses, but he doesn’t have much else to do, so it’s fine. He has Gatsby to keep him company. Who was it who said, “There is no friend as loyal as a book”?
He’s met at the door by a young woman who can’t be much older than Quinn. She has red hair and freckles and a sweet demeanor. This makes him feel better—that George has someone like this looking after him. Quinn explains who he is, why he’s there.
“We have special visiting days and hours,” the redhead says. “We don’t like to deviate from the schedule, the routine helps them…”
“I understand. I totally get it. But I head out to basic training on Monday for ten weeks.” He doesn’t explain that he’s just out of juvenile detention, which surely won’t help his case.
The redhead ponders this. “I suppose you can have a little time with him after lunch,” she says. “But you need to be out before my supervisor gets here at two o’clock.”
“Thank you,” he says.
The redhead then does something unexpected. She puts her hand on his shoulder, says, “I’m so sorry about your mom.”
The woman, Holly is her name, has him wait at a table in the kitchen, out of the way.
He watches as two other staff members, a middle-aged Black woman and a heavyset white guy with a ponytail, carry food trays to a dining area.
Holly explains that their residents are nonviolent, all with severe disabilities.
They try to make it a family environment, including family-style meals.
“How’s he doing?” Quinn asks in one of the moments when she takes a break.
“George?” She stops, like she’s finding the right words. “It’s like he’s somewhere else. He spends most of his time in his room.”
“He likes TV shows and picture books about bugs and wild animals,” Quinn says.
This generates a soft smile from Holly. She has perfectly symmetrical freckles across the bridge of her nose. “I noticed that. And he perks up on our field trips to the zoo,” she says.
“Once I get some money, get situated, I’m going to find him a specialist. Maybe get him to move in with me.”
“That would be wonderful,” she says. But the look on her face is something resembling pity.
George doesn’t acknowledge Quinn when he comes into the room.
His little brother sits at a desk staring at a kangaroo in a safari magazine.
Quinn sees a familiar book on the shelf, Where the Wild Things Are.
Their father used to read it to them both at bedtime.
Quinn sits on the bed, opens the book, and reads aloud to George.
About Max and his wolf suit and the forest that grew and grew in his bedroom.
Quinn finishes the story, stopping only at the spot where the Wild Rumpus starts. Displaying the illustration of the wild-thing monsters doing their wild rumpus dance, Quinn makes the funny sound Dad used to make: “Ooo-ca-chuck-a-waca, Ooo-ca-chuck-a-waca.”
He looks at his brother. No reaction.
He used to see a change in George when he read to him, a small but discernable shift in his posture, the look in his eyes not so far away. But not today.
At the end of the visit, Quinn says, “I’m sorry we can’t live together right now, buddy. But I promise I’ll do my best to get us a home someday.”
On his way out, trying to hold back tears, he says goodbye to Holly. Thanks her. She tells him if he sends letters while he’s away, she’ll read them to George. And then, to his surprise, she hugs him tight and doesn’t let go as his body shudders.