The little girl is standing alone in the park
beneath an oak tree in the rain. She looks about
thirteen. I'm eating my lunch in my car like I
always do. I work at the new Arby's that they just
built out on the edge of town beside the
interstate. I make sandwiches, just like the one
I'm eating right now.
The little girl sees me and comes over and knocks
on my window. I guess she wants to come in so I
say to myself, why not, and open up the door. My
mom told me never to talk to strangers but the
little girl doesn't look very strange. Just wet. The
blond curls on her head look like a bird's nest and
she has a pretty red mouth, but her smile is sad
like a doll that doesn't want to be a doll anymore.
She's shivering so I take off my shirt and give it
to her so she can dry her hair with it. She says "
thanks." She's very polite. She just sits in the seat
next to me in a blue dress with a white plastic
purse in her lap, minding her own business. I
guess she's waiting for me to finish my sandwich.
I decide not to say anything to her because I don't
want her to think I'm stupid. I never learned many
words in school on account of I never learned
how to add or subtract very good and I get my
numbers backwards and I have trouble
remembering anything and I have a paying
attention problem which has a name but I can't
remember what it is. That's why I got a job
making sandwiches.
I need to drive a car to work because there aren't
any buses that go from our house all the way out
to Arby's, so I had to go get a license in order to
drive my mom's car to work. I knew the answers
on the drivers' test backwards and forwards but
they made me write them all down on a piece of
paper and I wasn't paying attention and got them
all mixed up and they wouldn't give me a real
license.
My mom wasn't happy about that and she took me
right back down there to the motor vehicle
division the very next morning and made them
give me a learner's permit instead. They ask the
questions for that test right out loud and I got
almost all of them right. I'm not supposed to drive
by myself because it's a restricted license, but my
mom has a job dancing bare naked at a club
downtown at night and she takes in laundry during
the day so I have to drive my own self to work.
My mom takes the bus because one goes right by
where she works. I guess there must be more
people that like watching people dance naked
than there are that like going out by the
interstate to Arby's to eat sandwiches. I help her
load up the washer and dryer sometimes. I like
being with my mom like that. I think she enjoys
the company.
The rain is really pouring down now and there's
big cracks of lightning in the sky and the thunder
is so loud I can't hear what the little girl is trying
to say to me. So she slides across the seat right
next to me and she says, "I'm scared of thunder,
do you mind?" She's sitting practically on top of
me but I tell her I don't mind. I'm done with my
sandwich anyway. Then she takes my napkin and
wipes the mayonnaise off my face and says, "I
really appreciate you letting me get in your car."
And then she kisses me right on the mouth.
That's when I hear the policeman bang on my
window and shout at me through the window, "
roll that goddamned window down right now, or
else . . . and I'm not kidding!" I guess he's mad
because he's standing out in the rain getting wet
so I roll the window down and he says, "ok, let's
see a license, your registration and proof of
insurance." I can't remember all the things he's
asking me for so I just give him my permit. He
says, "I told you I need to see your registration
and insurance card too, aren't you paying
attention?"
"Not really," I say. Besides, I've never seen those
things he's asking me for before, how would I
know where they are? But the little girl says she
knows where they are and reaches into the glove
compartment and hands them over to the
policeman. I just hope she got the right ones. I
don抰 know how she knew they were in there. I
thought that's where my mom kept her gloves.
The policeman looks at my drivers' license real
funny and he says, "this is a restricted learner's
permit and that sure as hell don't look like your
mommy sitting over there. How the hell old are
you anyway?" I tell him, "seventeen." My mom told
me that when I go for a job I'm supposed to say
I'm eighteen, but if I get caught doing something
wrong then I'm supposed to say I'm seventeen so
they'll try me as a juvenile and let me off easy. "
It's ok to lie if it keeps you out of jail," she says.
Unfortunately, I'm never exactly sure when I'm
supposed to say I'm eighteen and when I'm
supposed to say I'm seventeen, and by the way
the policeman keeps looking at my learner's
permit I think I must have guessed wrong. "It says
here you're eighteen, not seventeen, which
makes you an adult," he says. "And, what do you
think you're doing kissing a little girl like that for
anyway? She looks like she can't be more than
twelve. How old is she anyway?"
"I don't know how old she is," I tell him. "I just
met her. She was standing in the park under an
oak tree in the rain and knocked on my window
so I let her in."
The policeman is looking at me now like he thinks
I just went to the toilet on his shoes and he says,
"why don't you step out of the car so you and me
can have us a little talk, alone." I say, "ok, but I
don't know what we're going to talk about. We
don抰 really know each other and my mom says
I'm not supposed to talk to strangers."
The policeman is really angry now and he puts his
hand on top of his gun like John Wayne does in
the movies right before he takes it out and plugs
somebody and he says, "ok you lying little shit,
step out of the car, and I mean right now!"
I've never heard a policeman swear before so I
get right out and he says, "spread em, perv." I tell
him my name's Pete, not perv, and he's really
mad now and jams me up against my mom's Buick
and goes through my pockets and takes all my
stuff out. Then he puts hand cuffs around my
wrists and puts me in the back of his police car
and says, "don't you even think about going
anywhere." I don't know where he thinks I'm
going to go with these handcuffs on.
He makes a call to somebody on his phone and
pretty soon another policeman comes and takes
the little girl out of my mom's car and puts her in
his police car and we all drive through the park in
the rain to the police station.
When we get there the policeman tells me, "you
get one phone call, Mac, and make it quick." I
guess I'm not the only one who gets things mixed
up because he can't ever seem to get my name
right. But I don't say anything to him about it.
I know my mom won't be happy about me getting
arrested for not having her with me like it says
I'm supposed to on my restricted license, so I call
my boss instead and tell him that I won't be
coming back to work today. But I get the numbers
all forwards and backwards and don't know who
the guy who finally answers the phone is. He says
his name's Albert and I ask him, "do you know my
mother, Charlene?" And he says, "sure, doesn't
everybody?" I ask him if he'll call her for me and
tell her where I am and he says, "ok, I've got the
number." This town is so small I guess everybody
knows everybody.
After I get done talking to Albert, the policemen
comes over and he puts me in a jail cell with
metal bars on the door and the window just like
on Kojac. About twenty minutes later my mother
comes in and looks through the bars on the door
at me and she says, "what did you do, honey, rob
a bank?" She's smiling a lot more than usual. I
think she's trying to make a joke, but she doesn't
look very happy. I tell her everything that
happened and she starts crying and crying and she
says "poor baby, what have you done?" So I have
to tell her everything I did all over again and she
starts crying some more so I stop talking and she
stops crying.
The policeman comes back and takes me and my
mom down a long hall into a room where some
lady is writing in a notebook and she tells us to sit
down in front of a judge in a purple robe who抯
sitting behind a big desk. He looks like Moses but
he doesn't look very friendly and I keep going
over everything in my mind, trying to remember
what I did wrong in case he asks, but I can't think
of anything except for having the wrong kind of
license and for driving myself to Arby's without
my mom.
After awhile the judge asks me, "ok, young man,
what do you have to say for yourself?" I tell him
that I'm sorry that I don't have the right kind of
license but I couldn't pass the test for the regular
one on account of I get numbers mixed up and
don't remember anything for very long and can't
seem to pay attention long enough to write the
answers down right but I have to go to work so I
drive anyway. That's about it I guess.
He looks at me for a long time, and then he asks
me, "is that all you have to say in your defense?"
"Defense of what?" I say. And he says, "does
kidnapping, child molestation, and inappropriate
sexual contact with a minor mean anything to
you?" I just make myself as small as I can and don't
say anything. "Well?" the judge asks real loud. And
I say, "maybe you should ask my mom. I don't
know anything about sex." The judge looks at me
like I just farted and doesn't say anything. His face
is red and he tells the policeman to bring the
little girl and her mom in.
The little girl sits down and puts her purse in her
lap just like she did in my car in the park except
her hair's dry now. I don't know what she did
with my shirt. I don't see it anywhere. Her
mother keeps looking over at me like she's real
mad at me about something but I don't know
what. I wish somebody would tell me what's
going on.
The judge looks at the little girl and tells her that
he wants to know the truth. "Do you promise to
tell the truth?" he asks her. And the little girl says,
"Why would I lie? I don't have anything to lie
about." The judge is talking to her like she's about
four years old and he says, "Betty? That is your
name isn't it, Betty?"
"Yes," she answers, "You should know. It's written
down on that paper right there in front of you."
"Well yes, I can see that. Now, Betty, tell me
what happened to you in the park today, ok?"
"Well, I was standing under a tree in the park in
the rain thinking about what I was going to do
about getting back home, and that nice boy who's
sitting right over there in that chair let me in his
car so I wouldn't get wet. That's about it."
The judge doesn't seem to like the answer to his
question very much. He looks at the policeman
that brought us here like he was the one in
trouble. Then he turns back to the little girl and
asks her, "don't you know what this is all about?
Didn't the officer explain to you what you're
doing here?" And the little girl just says, "no. He
was more interested in knowing what kind of
things that boy over there stuck up my privates."
The judge's face is really getting red now. "Well?"
the judge asks. "Well what?" she says. "What did
he stick up there?" the judge asks. "Did he do
things to you? Sexual things?"
"For crying out loud," the little girls shouts. "What
do you take me for, a hooker? It's not like I
charged him for sex or anything. Jesus H. Christ,
it wasn't nothing but a kiss!"
The judge just stares at the little girl with his
mouth open and doesn't say anything. His face is
getting redder and redder, and finally he says, "
just how the hell old are you anyway, little Missy
."
"I'm sixteen," she says, "and my name's not Missy.
It's Betty. I thought you knew that."
I can tell the judge is really angry about
something because when he jumps up he steps on
his purple robe and knocks his chair over and
then he shouts something at the policeman that
brought us here and tells him and my mom and
the little girl's mom to follow him through a door
into another little room. "And I mean right now,"
he says.
I'm still sitting here in my chair and the little girl
is still sitting over there in her chair in her blue
dress with her white purse in her lap just like in
the car in the park in the rain. I still don't see my
shirt anywhere. After a while, my mom comes
out of the little room and takes my hand. "Let's
go," she says, "it's time to go home." I tell her, "
ok, but I better tell Betty goodbye." And my mom
says, "I don't think that's such a good idea, honey.
Let's just get in the car and go home, ok?" And I
say, "ok. I'll drive." My mom says, "well, dear,
maybe it's best if you don't."
beneath an oak tree in the rain. She looks about
thirteen. I'm eating my lunch in my car like I
always do. I work at the new Arby's that they just
built out on the edge of town beside the
interstate. I make sandwiches, just like the one
I'm eating right now.
The little girl sees me and comes over and knocks
on my window. I guess she wants to come in so I
say to myself, why not, and open up the door. My
mom told me never to talk to strangers but the
little girl doesn't look very strange. Just wet. The
blond curls on her head look like a bird's nest and
she has a pretty red mouth, but her smile is sad
like a doll that doesn't want to be a doll anymore.
She's shivering so I take off my shirt and give it
to her so she can dry her hair with it. She says "
thanks." She's very polite. She just sits in the seat
next to me in a blue dress with a white plastic
purse in her lap, minding her own business. I
guess she's waiting for me to finish my sandwich.
I decide not to say anything to her because I don't
want her to think I'm stupid. I never learned many
words in school on account of I never learned
how to add or subtract very good and I get my
numbers backwards and I have trouble
remembering anything and I have a paying
attention problem which has a name but I can't
remember what it is. That's why I got a job
making sandwiches.
I need to drive a car to work because there aren't
any buses that go from our house all the way out
to Arby's, so I had to go get a license in order to
drive my mom's car to work. I knew the answers
on the drivers' test backwards and forwards but
they made me write them all down on a piece of
paper and I wasn't paying attention and got them
all mixed up and they wouldn't give me a real
license.
My mom wasn't happy about that and she took me
right back down there to the motor vehicle
division the very next morning and made them
give me a learner's permit instead. They ask the
questions for that test right out loud and I got
almost all of them right. I'm not supposed to drive
by myself because it's a restricted license, but my
mom has a job dancing bare naked at a club
downtown at night and she takes in laundry during
the day so I have to drive my own self to work.
My mom takes the bus because one goes right by
where she works. I guess there must be more
people that like watching people dance naked
than there are that like going out by the
interstate to Arby's to eat sandwiches. I help her
load up the washer and dryer sometimes. I like
being with my mom like that. I think she enjoys
the company.
The rain is really pouring down now and there's
big cracks of lightning in the sky and the thunder
is so loud I can't hear what the little girl is trying
to say to me. So she slides across the seat right
next to me and she says, "I'm scared of thunder,
do you mind?" She's sitting practically on top of
me but I tell her I don't mind. I'm done with my
sandwich anyway. Then she takes my napkin and
wipes the mayonnaise off my face and says, "I
really appreciate you letting me get in your car."
And then she kisses me right on the mouth.
That's when I hear the policeman bang on my
window and shout at me through the window, "
roll that goddamned window down right now, or
else . . . and I'm not kidding!" I guess he's mad
because he's standing out in the rain getting wet
so I roll the window down and he says, "ok, let's
see a license, your registration and proof of
insurance." I can't remember all the things he's
asking me for so I just give him my permit. He
says, "I told you I need to see your registration
and insurance card too, aren't you paying
attention?"
"Not really," I say. Besides, I've never seen those
things he's asking me for before, how would I
know where they are? But the little girl says she
knows where they are and reaches into the glove
compartment and hands them over to the
policeman. I just hope she got the right ones. I
don抰 know how she knew they were in there. I
thought that's where my mom kept her gloves.
The policeman looks at my drivers' license real
funny and he says, "this is a restricted learner's
permit and that sure as hell don't look like your
mommy sitting over there. How the hell old are
you anyway?" I tell him, "seventeen." My mom told
me that when I go for a job I'm supposed to say
I'm eighteen, but if I get caught doing something
wrong then I'm supposed to say I'm seventeen so
they'll try me as a juvenile and let me off easy. "
It's ok to lie if it keeps you out of jail," she says.
Unfortunately, I'm never exactly sure when I'm
supposed to say I'm eighteen and when I'm
supposed to say I'm seventeen, and by the way
the policeman keeps looking at my learner's
permit I think I must have guessed wrong. "It says
here you're eighteen, not seventeen, which
makes you an adult," he says. "And, what do you
think you're doing kissing a little girl like that for
anyway? She looks like she can't be more than
twelve. How old is she anyway?"
"I don't know how old she is," I tell him. "I just
met her. She was standing in the park under an
oak tree in the rain and knocked on my window
so I let her in."
The policeman is looking at me now like he thinks
I just went to the toilet on his shoes and he says,
"why don't you step out of the car so you and me
can have us a little talk, alone." I say, "ok, but I
don't know what we're going to talk about. We
don抰 really know each other and my mom says
I'm not supposed to talk to strangers."
The policeman is really angry now and he puts his
hand on top of his gun like John Wayne does in
the movies right before he takes it out and plugs
somebody and he says, "ok you lying little shit,
step out of the car, and I mean right now!"
I've never heard a policeman swear before so I
get right out and he says, "spread em, perv." I tell
him my name's Pete, not perv, and he's really
mad now and jams me up against my mom's Buick
and goes through my pockets and takes all my
stuff out. Then he puts hand cuffs around my
wrists and puts me in the back of his police car
and says, "don't you even think about going
anywhere." I don't know where he thinks I'm
going to go with these handcuffs on.
He makes a call to somebody on his phone and
pretty soon another policeman comes and takes
the little girl out of my mom's car and puts her in
his police car and we all drive through the park in
the rain to the police station.
When we get there the policeman tells me, "you
get one phone call, Mac, and make it quick." I
guess I'm not the only one who gets things mixed
up because he can't ever seem to get my name
right. But I don't say anything to him about it.
I know my mom won't be happy about me getting
arrested for not having her with me like it says
I'm supposed to on my restricted license, so I call
my boss instead and tell him that I won't be
coming back to work today. But I get the numbers
all forwards and backwards and don't know who
the guy who finally answers the phone is. He says
his name's Albert and I ask him, "do you know my
mother, Charlene?" And he says, "sure, doesn't
everybody?" I ask him if he'll call her for me and
tell her where I am and he says, "ok, I've got the
number." This town is so small I guess everybody
knows everybody.
After I get done talking to Albert, the policemen
comes over and he puts me in a jail cell with
metal bars on the door and the window just like
on Kojac. About twenty minutes later my mother
comes in and looks through the bars on the door
at me and she says, "what did you do, honey, rob
a bank?" She's smiling a lot more than usual. I
think she's trying to make a joke, but she doesn't
look very happy. I tell her everything that
happened and she starts crying and crying and she
says "poor baby, what have you done?" So I have
to tell her everything I did all over again and she
starts crying some more so I stop talking and she
stops crying.
The policeman comes back and takes me and my
mom down a long hall into a room where some
lady is writing in a notebook and she tells us to sit
down in front of a judge in a purple robe who抯
sitting behind a big desk. He looks like Moses but
he doesn't look very friendly and I keep going
over everything in my mind, trying to remember
what I did wrong in case he asks, but I can't think
of anything except for having the wrong kind of
license and for driving myself to Arby's without
my mom.
After awhile the judge asks me, "ok, young man,
what do you have to say for yourself?" I tell him
that I'm sorry that I don't have the right kind of
license but I couldn't pass the test for the regular
one on account of I get numbers mixed up and
don't remember anything for very long and can't
seem to pay attention long enough to write the
answers down right but I have to go to work so I
drive anyway. That's about it I guess.
He looks at me for a long time, and then he asks
me, "is that all you have to say in your defense?"
"Defense of what?" I say. And he says, "does
kidnapping, child molestation, and inappropriate
sexual contact with a minor mean anything to
you?" I just make myself as small as I can and don't
say anything. "Well?" the judge asks real loud. And
I say, "maybe you should ask my mom. I don't
know anything about sex." The judge looks at me
like I just farted and doesn't say anything. His face
is red and he tells the policeman to bring the
little girl and her mom in.
The little girl sits down and puts her purse in her
lap just like she did in my car in the park except
her hair's dry now. I don't know what she did
with my shirt. I don't see it anywhere. Her
mother keeps looking over at me like she's real
mad at me about something but I don't know
what. I wish somebody would tell me what's
going on.
The judge looks at the little girl and tells her that
he wants to know the truth. "Do you promise to
tell the truth?" he asks her. And the little girl says,
"Why would I lie? I don't have anything to lie
about." The judge is talking to her like she's about
four years old and he says, "Betty? That is your
name isn't it, Betty?"
"Yes," she answers, "You should know. It's written
down on that paper right there in front of you."
"Well yes, I can see that. Now, Betty, tell me
what happened to you in the park today, ok?"
"Well, I was standing under a tree in the park in
the rain thinking about what I was going to do
about getting back home, and that nice boy who's
sitting right over there in that chair let me in his
car so I wouldn't get wet. That's about it."
The judge doesn't seem to like the answer to his
question very much. He looks at the policeman
that brought us here like he was the one in
trouble. Then he turns back to the little girl and
asks her, "don't you know what this is all about?
Didn't the officer explain to you what you're
doing here?" And the little girl just says, "no. He
was more interested in knowing what kind of
things that boy over there stuck up my privates."
The judge's face is really getting red now. "Well?"
the judge asks. "Well what?" she says. "What did
he stick up there?" the judge asks. "Did he do
things to you? Sexual things?"
"For crying out loud," the little girls shouts. "What
do you take me for, a hooker? It's not like I
charged him for sex or anything. Jesus H. Christ,
it wasn't nothing but a kiss!"
The judge just stares at the little girl with his
mouth open and doesn't say anything. His face is
getting redder and redder, and finally he says, "
just how the hell old are you anyway, little Missy
."
"I'm sixteen," she says, "and my name's not Missy.
It's Betty. I thought you knew that."
I can tell the judge is really angry about
something because when he jumps up he steps on
his purple robe and knocks his chair over and
then he shouts something at the policeman that
brought us here and tells him and my mom and
the little girl's mom to follow him through a door
into another little room. "And I mean right now,"
he says.
I'm still sitting here in my chair and the little girl
is still sitting over there in her chair in her blue
dress with her white purse in her lap just like in
the car in the park in the rain. I still don't see my
shirt anywhere. After a while, my mom comes
out of the little room and takes my hand. "Let's
go," she says, "it's time to go home." I tell her, "
ok, but I better tell Betty goodbye." And my mom
says, "I don't think that's such a good idea, honey.
Let's just get in the car and go home, ok?" And I
say, "ok. I'll drive." My mom says, "well, dear,
maybe it's best if you don't."