Unpub 5

***
“Why?” he yelled, “why, why, why do you fucking do this? You hoping I’ll die of embarrassment?”
This was more or less the standard opening to a conversation with my father, though the setting today was different. My eyes wandered around the room, but in a small, featureless room in the police station, with only a table and two chairs, there was nothing to focus on but the barrel-chested, red-faced parent in front of me.
“Jeez, I’m sorry, okay! How many times do you need me to say it?”
His nostrils flared. “At least once with sincerity, Julianna.”
I sighed. He only used the full version of my name when he was furious. “It’s not like it’s the first time I’ve been arrested.”
“But is this the last time?” He leaned forward, steepling his fingers and looking over them at me, scowling. “Or do you need to spend some time in a jail cell before you wake up?”
“Is it too much to ask you to speak to me like a dad and not like a police captain, for once?”
His frown levelled out, the anger in his brown eyes fading to something closer to compassion. “I want to. I do. But you don’t listen to your dad, only the police captain. And my boss wants to press charges. Make an example of you.”
“For what? I burned some trash! I didn’t hurt anybody!”
He rubbed his graying temples. “Setting fire to property with the intent to cause damage is arson.”
“But I didn’t intend to cause damage!” I had just wanted to see what it would look like: those faceless wooden mannequins had blackened and deformed alongside the plastic bags and cardboard boxes there, their features becoming more human as I saw black tears and wails of distress appear on their smoldering faces. My stomach had roiled – I puked half my lunch on the ground, but I wiped my mouth and kept watching, my heart thudding with relief as the flaming men and women became burned faceless dolls once more.
“It’s still third-degree arson,” he said. “And that’s not even the real issue, here.”
“What?”
“Don’t ‘what’ me, young lady. Where is my gun? I know you took it.”
“Lent it to Ryan.”
“Ryan? That young punk you’ve shacked up with? Have you forgotten about those times he’s been arrested for drunk and disorderly? For assault and battery? Remember that time he punched a handicapped old man in a bar?”
“We all make mistakes,” I said, shrugging. “And it makes him more entertaining. I don’t like lackluster people in my life. Mom didn’t, either. That’s why she left you.”
He slapped me. The open-palmed strike caught me right on the jaw, knocking me off the chair and onto the floor.
“Police… brutality,” I said, tasting blood in my mouth. “So this, this is how things go in here.”
“I'm not an officer hitting a suspect; I’m a father disciplining his disobedient daughter. Give me my gun back, Julianna, or I swear to God, you’ll wish you had.” I closed my eyes and rubbed my stinging cheek, jumping as I heard the door slam shut.
Seconds later, the door re-opened, and a young man in a patrolman’s uniform was hovering over me. I felt him pull me up and help me back in the chair.
“You okay, sis?”
“Do I fucking look okay, Ty?” I spat a gob of blood on the carpeted floor.
“I heard everything… I’m sorry.”
“What is this, the good-cop bad-cop routine? Go away, Ty.”
“No… this is the big brother trying to look out for his sister routine.” He pressed a cool can of soda into my hands. “I figured you’d be thirsty.”
“Did you figure he would hit me, too?” I pressed the drink to my cheek.
“I figured you would push his buttons, like you always do.” He spoke with a weary, tiredness, which didn’t match my brother’s baby-face at all. “Did you really take his gun?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“Would you believe me if I said I’m not sure?”
“I would believe anything you told me, sis,” he said, looking at me with our mother’s gray eyes. He sighed. “But he needs it back. His rank and years of service are the only reasons he’s been able to keep it under wraps for so long. I know I’d lose my job in a second if they found out I lost my gun and didn’t report it straightaway.”
“You know, in fiction, there’s a rule that if you’ve described a gun on the mantelpiece, it has to go off. Am I selfish for wanting to know what happens with this gun?”
“Yes, very,” Ty said, his eyebrows raised in alarm. “I think I can talk him into pressing the charges as criminal mischief. You shouldn’t get more than a suspended sentence and community service. But you have to return the gun, Julie. You have to.”
“It’s good to see you, Ty,” I said, not looking at him.
He sighed. He knew what I was doing. “Likewise,” he muttered, perfunctorily. “Is your writing going well?”
“The plot is a work-in-progress. It will arise naturally as I continue writing.” Once I started writing. If I started writing.
“Don’t you ever worry that life is passing you by?” he said, running his fingers through his short black hair. “You could be out there, you know, doing something. Why won’t you let me find you a job at the station? Just try it.”
I tried to imagine myself at a secretary’s desk in a bland white blouse that covered my tattoos, with my hair and personality bleached till I was just another tidy uniform. “Pass.” But I couldn’t imagine myself as a writer, either. All I had were ideas and memories, not the words to capture and imprison them.
He drew in a deep breath and let it go. “That’s your choice. But returning the gun is a matter of law. Dad can only put it off for another day, maybe two. If it’s not returned by then, he’ll arrest you. And that guy you’re hooking up with.”
“I’m not–”
“Stop, Julie, just… just stop.” When he frowned, he looked so like our father. “I’ve got to get back to work. Someone will come take you back to your cell as we sort out the paperwork.” He left.
Stroking my throbbing cheek, I looked into the mirror in the interrogation room and wondered if it was one of those two-way ones. I mimed shooting it with my finger, my black nail polish looking like the barrel of a revolver.
Ryan, oh Ryan, what have you done with my gun?