One down, three to go. Arlene?
“Who... who is it?”
Will the mystery guests please sign in:
“Your parents,” the guard said.
I moaned.
“What d’you say?” the guard asked.
“I moaned,” I said.
“You know where the windows are? I’ll bring ’em over to the one on the right.”
I knew where the windows were. Visitation windows. There were several of them, which opened up so you could talk to your loved ones without bars between you. Personally, I wouldn’t have minded the bars.
Through the bars I watched my parents come into the catwalk.
“Awk,” Wheaty said, from over at the metal table. “It’s your folks!”
“Shush!” Peabody, the accountant, said. “Keep it down!” He was watching one of his soap operas.
Meanwhile, I was entering my own.
I looked out the window at my parents.
My father was wearing a black suit and a black tie. He looked like he was in mourning. My mother was wearing a summery, cheery bright-color dress. She did not look like she was in mourning: she was in mourning. She was crying, sniffling, dabbing at her eyes with a hanky.
I looked through the window and said, “Er, hi, Dad. Mom.”
“Is that all you have to say?” he said.
My father is on the tall side, a lean-faced, kindly eyed man with dark brown widow’s-peaked hair. He didn’t look particularly kindly right now, however. I told you he’s a minister, didn’t I? Well, I was glad I wasn’t on Death Row and this was the minister brought around to set me at peace with the world.
“Dad, I don’t really know what to say.”
“Why in God’s name did you take your clothes off and run through the DeKalb Holiday Inn?”
“Dad, if I had it to do over again, I...”
My mother made a whimpering sound in her throat.
“You don’t have it to do over again, Fred,” he said, somberly. “It’s done. Over and done. It’s something you’ll have to put behind you.”
That seemed to me a bad choice of words, but I didn’t say so.
I said instead, “I’m glad you feel that way, Dad.”
“Of course I feel that way. What other way could I feel? It’s the Christian thing to do. I believe in forgiveness. I believe in learning from mistakes and going forward. All I want to know is one thing.”
“Yes, Dad?”
“Why in God’s name did you take your clothes off and run through the DeKalb Holiday Inn?”
“Dad.”
“Yes?”
I have never been particularly close to my father. He’s always been kind to me. He has never struck me. He has always been there with fatherly words of advice whenever fatherly words of advice seemed called for. But he’s always been sort of remote, and his love has always been, well, Christian enough, but not particularly warm. My mother I have always been closer to. Related to better as a human being. Unfortunately, she is a crier. Did you see Love Story? Maybe you cried at the ending, I don’t know; a lot of people did; I thought it was a crock, but a lot of people cried when they saw that ending. My mother was one of them. She cried for a week and a half.
She was crying now.
Right now when I needed her to referee between my father and me, she was busy crying and I had to deal with my good but distant father as best I could.
I asked, “How did you find out, Dad?”
“The Lord is everywhere. You can’t hide from Him, son.”
“Dad... now don’t take this wrong... but you aren’t the Lord. You aren’t everywhere. How did you find out?”
My mother reached in her purse. She was still crying, so I figured she was getting a fresh hanky. She wasn’t. She was getting a newspaper.
She held it up.
It was the front page of the St. Louis paper the folks subscribed to.
Wheat and I were on it.
Remember that photographer at the wedding? Well, he sold his picture of Wheat and me crashing through the bride’s family. He sold it to a wire service for a thousand dollars. You could see both of our faces very clearly. And most of the rest of us, too, though certain more delicate parts had had to be airbrushed out somewhat.
There was a very humorous caption beneath the picture, having to do with two zany college kids streaking the police chief’s daughter’s wedding reception. You’ll excuse me if I don’t reprint that caption here, as I’m afraid I find it less amusing than most people.
My mother tried to hand the paper to me, and I told her, “They won’t allow us to have newspapers.” She folded it back up, put it back in her purse, resumed crying.
“Don’t ask me to explain,” I said. “It was stupid, and I got caught, and that’s all there is to it. I didn’t know it was the police chief’s daughter, I swear, Dad. It was all a terrible mistake.”
“A terrible mistake,” he said. “What about summer school?”
“They said we could have school books in here, so Wheat and I sent requests to the college asking if we could continue our courses by correspondence, but... but the profs turned us down.”
“So you’ll have to go back in the fall.”
“I guess we will.”
“And did you think of that when you took your clothes off and ran through the DeKalb Holiday Inn?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“What were you thinking of?”
“I was thinking I wished I still had my clothes on.”
“Being flip doesn’t answer my question.”
“Well...”
“It had something to do with gambling, didn’t it?”
Dad knew my hobby was playing cards, and disapproved. I played for such low stakes that he rarely got angry about it, but he disapproved.
“Yes,” I said.
“Someone bet you you could do it,” he said.
“Not exactly. That’s pretty close, though.”
“Have you learned anything from this?”
“I learned to keep my clothes on in public.”
“Do you find this situation funny?”
“No. I don’t like jail. Wheaty seems to like it, but I don’t.”
“Then I hope you’ve learned something. I hope you’ve learned not to break the law. I hope you’ve learned not to gamble. If I could feel you had learned not to gamble, I would feel better about this.”
“I’m through with gambling, Dad.”
“Good, good. You’ll be glad to know we paid your lawyer friend, Mr. Nizer, paid him back for covering your $100 fine.”
“That’s... that’s very kind of you Dad. And Mom. Do you know if Wheaty’s parents know about this?”
“They get the newspapers.”
“Oh. Yeah.”
“They sent money with us to pay his fine. You can tell him. They’ll be here next Tuesday to visit him. You can tell him that too.”
“I will.”
“Your sister is fine.”
My sister Angela is twenty-six and lives in Portland, Oregon, with her insurance salesman husband and their kid, and my parents see her once a year, if they’re lucky. How they knew she was fine was beyond me, unless they had talked to her on the phone about my taking my clothes off and running through the DeKalb Holiday Inn. After all, they get the papers in Portland.
“Do you want us to visit you again?”
“It was great seeing you, Dad. And Mom. But it’s a long drive for you. Why not just write. I’d love to get some letters.”
Mom smiled through her tears and said, “Ghhghallnfll.”
She meant she’d write.
“Good, Mom,” I said.
Then my father asked me some questions about life in jail, and I answered them, and things loosened up a little. Mom finally stopped crying, partially, and asked a few questions herself. It wasn’t so bad, then.