Mean Woman Blues

was like a hub: opening off it were other rooms— cells. One, way at the back, was a holding tank for women.
    “Where are we?” she asked.
    “Central Lockup.” He took her handcuffs off and left her. When he came back, he said, “You know what you did, Terri? You committed a felony. This isn’t about parking tickets. This is forgery. Why didn’t you tell me about it?”
    “Forgery? That’s ridiculous! Whose name would I sign?”
    “There you go again. With that question thing.”
    * * *
    Before he opened his door to find it smeared with chocolate, Isaac James had been enjoying the last moments of a near perfect weekend, a weekend spent with his niece, Lovelace, who, because Isaac had a much older brother, was only a few years younger than he.
    On seeing blue hair and a trim behind flying down the walk, he had taken in the hopelessness of the situation as quickly as a breath and laughed outright, there being little else to do. Lovelace, apparently simultaneously horrified at the chocolate, the hair, the retreat, and the laugh, looked as shocked as if someone had just opened fire. “What’s happening?” she said, and, knowing she had plenty to fear, he wanted to reassure her immediately. But he couldn’t. He thought later that it must have been the phenomenon called hysterical laughter.
    “That’s Terri. It’s Terri,” he sputtered finally, knowing Lovelace would know who he meant. He’d talked about his girlfriend all weekend.
    “Why is that funny?”
    “I can’t say you’re my niece— who’d believe
that
?”
    She looked so completely unbelieving that it sobered him up. He cared deeply what Lovelace thought about him; except for his mother, who was some kind of missionary and was never in the country, his niece was all he had— by no means his only relative but all he had nonetheless. And since she was almost a contemporary, she was more like a cousin or a sister than a niece.
    She was born when he was seven and just entering second grade. At the time, the thought of having a niece— or, more accurately, of being an uncle— was far and away the most important thing that ever happened to him. His short life up till that point hadn’t been a bowl of cherries. He was the sort of child adults describe as sickly, and there was a reason for that. He hadn’t yet decided whether to live. He had bronchitis when Jacqueline gave birth, and it happened they were in the same hospital, so his mother, Irene, took him down to the nursery to look at the baby. There was a window in the wall like a television screen and through it he could see a nurse wearing a mask and holding a human being smaller than a cat. He’d seen plenty of babies, of course, but he had no idea they could come this small. He started to cry.
    His mother said, “What’s wrong, honey?” and he could tell by her voice his response was what was wrong.
    “Will the baby be all right?” he asked.
    His mother looked confused for a second, and then comprehending. “Oh, yes. The baby isn’t sick. She just came here to be born.”
    But that wasn’t what he meant at all. He knew perfectly well babies were born in the hospital. He couldn’t have said what he meant but seeing the baby terrified him. He was hugely, horribly afraid that she wouldn’t be all right, that something bad would happen to her. He couldn’t have said what; he didn’t even think he knew. He just knew she wouldn’t be safe.
    At the time, he hadn’t eaten in three days, but he went back to his room and asked for a milkshake. He thought that he might as well put off dying for awhile and go on ahead and grow up. He made that decision without really knowing why, but he remembered it all his life, realizing much later that it was somehow connected to the baby.
    Exactly how, he didn’t know to this day. But he had always taken an extraordinary interest in Lovelace. Always. People had remarked on it, said how sweet it was for a boy to be so interested, how unusual. Some people had thought it too sweet and called him a faggot, though mostly behind his back (his father being the exception to that).
    Maybe she was lucky for him, maybe they were connected karmically. Whatever it was, he had a soft spot for Lovelace, and it had continued through the macho years of adolescence and the awkward, searching ones of his twenties. He always sent her birthday and Christmas cards, no matter if he had no connection at the time to another human being and no desire for one, and