Townie_ A Memoir - Andre Dubus [77]
“So you’re getting married,” Mom said.
He nodded. “I’m coming in from the jungle. I’m tired of being out there in that jungle.” He sipped his wine, and I chewed my roast chicken and wondered what I’d missed; didn’t he live on a green, walled-in campus? What jungle?
Jeb and I were best men at his wedding. Jeb and Pop wore jeans or corduroys, but for some reason I rented myself a white tuxedo with tails, and we walked our father to the chapel across the small campus where he lived in faculty housing. Now he lived there with Lorraine and her daughter and son.
The phone was ringing. Standing shirtless in the Salisbury jail, my wrist and knuckles and temple sore, I knew why I was calling him; I felt proud.
“Hello?” It was Lorraine. She was a small-boned woman who smoked More cigarettes one after the other, but she always seemed to wear just the right amount of makeup, her hair short and stylish, her voice tobacco-deep, her southern Louisiana accent stronger than my mother’s and father’s. I asked to speak to Pop.
“Honey, he’s in bed.”
“Can you get him, please? It’s kind of important.”
I waited a minute or two. The cop was looking at me. He glanced at his watch.
“Andre?” My father’s voice sounded funny, as if he’d come to the phone from far away and wasn’t sure of anything.
“Pop, I got in a fight and need to get bailed out of jail. I’m at Salisbury Beach.”
The line was quiet. For a second I thought he might be mad, a possibility I hadn’t even considered.
“Dad?”
“I took a pill, son. To sleep. You need to call your mama. I can’t drive right now, man.”
“Okay.”
“’Kay. G’night.”
I hung up. I looked at the black receiver. I was about to turn to the cop to ask for one more dime, but he had my elbow and was walking me back to the cell.
“My father can’t come get me. I need to call my mother.”
“One call, that’s it.”
“But I didn’t call anyone.”
“That’s not my problem.” The cop unlocked the cell and pulled the steel door shut behind me. I should’ve asked Pop to call Mom. Maybe he would. Maybe he wasn’t so drugged he would. But as I leaned against the wall, I didn’t think so. He was already dreaming. In the morning he’d wake up thinking he’d dreamed his son had called from jail.
But when Jeb got his one call, he called Mom and she got dressed and drove right to the beach. She worked for the state now, and she came into the station house furious, requesting names and ranks and badge numbers. She didn’t have the money for bail, but she talked them into freeing us for twenty dollars apiece.
Early the next morning there was a first appearance before the judge. He began to lecture the three of us standing there before him, but Mom stood up in the back and introduced herself as our mother, said we hadn’t had time to call a lawyer, then requested a continuance. The judge looked at her as if he wasn’t used to this, punks with mothers who were articulate and knew the rules of the court. He granted us this, and then she must have called Sam’s father because as soon as he found out, he went down to the Salisbury station, introduced himself as the health inspector over in Haverhill, and pled our case, said we were good boys, that an arrest like this could harm our future prospects. The lieutenant agreed and weeks later, Sam’s father and Sam and Jeb and I stood in court as the judge continued the case without a finding.
Walking out of court that afternoon, Mr. Dolan in a suit jacket and tie, there was the feel of fraternity, that we’re all in this together and boys will be boys. This was still something new, that I was one of the boys and that what I’d done was normal. To be expected really, nothing to worry about.
SUZANNE’S RAPE had done something to our father. Almost immediately after it, he’d driven to the Haverhill police station and applied for a license to carry. Now he owned a silver snub-nose .38 he kept unloaded in one of the desk drawers. When he went out to dinner with his wife or friends, he carried it in a shadow holster on his belt, and he covered