Skylights In The Attic - Judy Colella (new books to read .TXT) 📗

Skylight One

Sometimes being alone is wonderful. And sometimes it’s the worst thing in the world. It all depends. If you’re alone because you’ve managed somehow to get away from the noise and stress of life in a frantic society, and are blissfully surrounded by the quiet noises of nature, well. Yes. That’s wonderful. If you’re alone because you’ve lost things – friendships, loved ones, your compass, well. Yes. It’s the worst.

That was what he said when I asked him what he was doing in my dining room in the middle of the night. “He” was a complete stranger who had broken into the house. I was pointing a gun at his head when I asked him. All he did was shrug and give me his philosophy about being alone. It was rather weird.

That was on Saturday night. I have no idea where he is now. Before I could call the police, he turned and went back out through the French doors he’d obviously left ajar upon entering. He hadn’t threatened me or taken anything, so I had no reason to shoot him. Instead, I watched him leave, thinking he looked sad yet resigned. That, too, was rather weird.

I wonder if he’ll ever come back.

 

[ONE]

 

Laughing to one’s self out loud in public isn’t very smart. The young man in the dirty tee-shirt and torn blue jeans knew this, but was laughing anyway. He couldn’t seem to help it. He also couldn’t seem to remember why he was laughing in the first place. Something he’d thought of…but what? It had to have been pretty darned amusing for him to risk getting picked up by the police for it. After all, someone was bound to report him as either a crazy vagrant, or perhaps a homeless lunatic. As far as he was concerned, he was both, but he didn’t want everyone to know it.

Ah! That was it! He was nuts and thought he could hide it – that was what had made him start laughing! He stuffed the end of his shirt in his mouth, exposing his stomach and part of his chest.

A woman came through the glass doors of the store in front of which he stood. He had considered sitting on the sidewalk with his feet in the road, but didn’t want his legs torn off by a passing car. So he was simply standing there, his back to the store windows, laughing. The woman walked a little faster as she passed him and pulled a cell phone from her pocket. He figured she was calling the police and began walking off in the opposite direction.

He stopped laughing then. Something had to change. It was getting dark, and he had no place to stay. Again. Too bad. That house he’d broken into had seemed nice, but the young lady who lived there had had a large pistol of some kind, and had looked perfectly capable of using it. So he’d shared a thought or two with her because he was terrified and didn’t want to piss himself. Talking always seemed to help at such moments. But then, of course, he’d left. No point in tempting fate, or whatever that cliché was.

Footsteps. Loud footsteps. Moving faster than his and coming closer from behind. Police-like footsteps. He was about to get pulled over, he thought. He was right.

“Hold it, there, buddy.”

He held it, waiting as the officer came around to face him. He offered a smile – he had nothing else.

“What’s your name, please?”

He shook his head. “I have no idea.”

“Sure you don’t. Look, there are shelters you can stay in, places where you can get a hot meal. You really ought to go to one of them.”

“Probably. I am a bit hungry.”

The officer tilted his head to one side, frowning. “You don’t look very old – what are you doing out on the streets? Are you a runaway?”

Sounded to him like an interesting kind of occupation. “No.”

“How old are you?”

“I have no idea.”

The officer sighed. “You aren’t being very cooperative.”

“I’m being honest. Should I lie? Will that be better? Okay – my name is…er…Philip. Philip Morris. I’m, uh, thirty and I sell cigarettes. How’s that?”

“Don’t be a wise-ass.”

“What’s that?”

Now the officer thrust out his jaw. He did not look in even a small amount happy. “Your name isn’t Philip Morris, no way are you thirty, and if you sell cigarettes, where are they?”

“I smoked them all, maybe. Did I break any laws?”

“You were loitering.”

“Is that a crime?”

“Enough of one for me to arrest you.”

He nodded. “Okay. Is the jail warm inside?”

Suddenly the officer looked like he wanted to be nice. “Yeah, kid, it is. And they feed you there, too. Is that what you want?”

“It couldn’t hurt. But what I want is not to be alone any more. What I want is to know who the hell I am, what my name is, and how I got here. That’s what I really want.” He also wanted to know if he was, in fact, insane. He suspected he might be, but had no confirmation on that.

“Okay. Hang on.” The officer pulled a small device from where it was clipped to something over his left shirt pocket. He spoke into it and said, “I’m bringing someone in – he might need medical attention and a, er, a psychologist.”

Sharp crackling sounds preceded another voice which was so distorted, even the officer appeared to have trouble understanding it.

“What’s he saying?”

The officer shook his head, waving the young man to silence. “Yes, sir. Right away. We’ll be there in a few minutes.” He clipped the device back onto his shirt. “Let’s go. My car is right over there.” He pointed at a police cruiser a short distance down the block.

“You’re taking me to jail, yes?”

“Yes.”

“Am I under arrest?”

“Not exactly.”

“But if ‘not exactly’ becomes ‘yes,’ what will it be for? Loitering?”

“Yup.”

“Ah.”

They’d reached the vehicle, and now he could see there was another officer in it. This one got out as they approached and stared at the young man. The young man stared back.

“What’s going on?” he asked his partner.

“Loitering. Nothing major.”

“Give him a ticket.”

“I can’t pay any tickets,” the young man said. “Which means I’ll have to go to jail. So your partner is saving me time and aggravation by skipping the ticket step and throwing me in jail right away.” He smiled.

“Don’t be a wise-ass.”

That one again. The police seemed to like saying it. “What’s that?” He’d been called this many times, and had always asked what it was, but no one had ever given him an answer – until now.

“It’s someone who’s trying to be clever by using sarcasm to avoid answering a question directly.”

“Thank you. That was helpful.” He smiled at the officer.

“What’s your name?”

“Like I told your partner, I have no idea.”

The officers exchanged a look that could have meant any number of things, making it meaningless to him. The young man waited, scratching his chin and wondering if he’d ever be able to grow a meaningful beard.

The officer who had stopped him opened the back door. “Get in, please. Don’t hit your head.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Just get in.”

“Sure.” He got in.

The drive to the police station wasn’t very long, but he dozed off before they got there.  The car was nice and warm, the seats shiny. He liked it for the few minutes he was awake.

“…up! Hey! Kid!”

Words tumbling through his ears and into the lovely dream he was having about talking hedgehogs. Dang. He wouldn’t even have time to say goodbye to his prickly friends. “I’m not a kid.” He opened his eyes.

“You aren’t very old, either.”

“I don’t know that.”

“But you said you aren’t a kid.”

He slid out of the car and stood. “I have hair in places kids don’t.”

The officer stared for a second, then chuckled. “Okay.”

So far, they hadn’t put any kind of restraints on him, so he decided to behave as well as he could to avoid that fact from changing. The officers walked on either side of him as they entered the station, and he stayed meekly between, not moving ahead of them like he honestly wanted to. He was a tad claustrophobic and didn’t like anything or anyone getting too close.

A policewoman stood up from behind the first desk they passed. She was quite tall and almost as muscular-looking as the men who had brought him in. He stared at her for a moment because she was somewhat scary, decided that without clothes she was probably scarier, and stopped staring.

“What’s this?” She nodded at the young man.

“Loitering.”

Is that my name? he asked himself, and recognized that the voice in his head had sounded sarcastic. Wise-ass.

“You charge him?”

“Not yet. We don’t know his age. Can’t charge him as an adult if he isn’t one.”

She narrowed her eyes and peered more closely at the young man’s face. “He might be. Hard to tell under all that dirt. Did you ask him?”

Did these officers forget that he could hear? he wondered. No sarcasm this time.

“Of course we did. He claims he doesn’t know. Says he doesn’t know his name, either, or what he’s doing here. Some crap like that.”

Dignity raised its head. “It’s not crap,” he said quietly. “I don’t know.”

“May we check your pockets?”

The look he gave the woman was filled with horror. “Not you.”

“Why? Afraid you’ll like it?”

He thought about that for less than a nano-second. “No. But you might.”

“Wise-ass.” She sat down again. “Process him and clean him up. We can keep him in holding until we figure out what to do.”

“That was the plan. Is Dr. Mains in yet?”

The woman made a sour face. “You kidding? It’s only eleven o’clock.”

“Out on the golf course, you figure?” This was the second officer, and he was smirking.

“Guys, let’s get this done.”The first officer raised his brows, looking impatient.

His partner nodded and gave the young man a slight nudge toward a door on the other side of the room. “When’s the last time you took a bath?”

“I don’t know.”

“What, exactly, do you know?”

“Not much.”

“Apparently.”

Wise-ass.

 

Skylight Two

When the new arrivals come in, they look vulnerable. Even the toughest. It might have something to do with the wet hair. As a long-term employee here, I know they’ve just been showered, de-liced, body-cavity-checked and shoved into an uncomfortable, poorly-fitting blue jumpsuit. The underwear is prison-issue, too, and never fits right.