Do Not Pass Go by Kirkpatrick Hill

back.
    â€œWhat did
she
do?” he asked.
    Dad shrugged an
I don’t know
. Then he leaned so close to the glass that the mouthpiece of the phone bonked against it. He made a sort of tent over the mouthpiece with his hand so he couldn’t be overheard on his side of the glass.
    â€œMost of the women in here are here for drugs or drunk driving, shoplifting, bad checks.” He stopped to think a minute. “Or domestic abuse.”
    Deet looked blank, so his Dad said, “For beating someone up, you know, like their husband or boyfriend.” Dad half-smiled at the look on Deet’s face.
    â€œI know, you don’t think of women doing things like that.” Dad shook his head. “But it’s just hard toimagine
anyone
getting so uptight that they want to hit the people they live with. Actually hurt them.”
    â€œA few of those women who walked by were old. With gray hair. They looked like
grandmas
,” said Deet.
    â€œI guess you never thought old people could get in trouble, huh?” said Dad. “I guess I never did either. There are lots of old people in here. Some of them have been in and out dozens of times. One old guy told me he’s spent most of his life in jail.”
    It reminded Deet of detention at school. There were always the same kids in there, week after week. It had seemed so odd to him that they never learned, never wanted to stay out of there in the worst way. And come to think of it, none of them seemed ashamed, the way Deet would have been if he got a detention. It was ordinary to them, as ordinary as it was to these guys to be in jail.
    Deet lowered his voice.
    â€œWhat’s it like in there?”
    Dad thought a minute.
    â€œCrowded,” he said. “I used to think
our
house wastoo small. Now it seems like more room than anyone could ever use up. There’s eight of us in this one cell, just a little space, about as big as the laundry room at home. Double bunks and a little space in the middle. So all you can do all day is sit in your bunk. If you need anything, you have to call out through this hole in the door. Like if you want a pencil sharpened or something, you stick it through the hole. There’s a toilet in there too, behind a little partition. That’s all. Couple of times a day you can leave, going to meals and to the gym, showers.”
    Dad turned his hands over and looked at the palms. “Look how clean my hands are. I don’t think they’ve been this clean since I was a little kid.”
    Deet had known there was something else strange about Dad, and that was it. He didn’t have grease under his fingernails or in the cracks of his palms.
    Dad looked back up at Deet. “You know, I used to think everyone in jail was a bad guy. But there are some nice guys in here, regular guys, like anyone. There’s me, and these seven others in our cell. They were really nice to me when I came in, explaining things, loaning me stuff.
    â€œThere are two Indian guys from different villages, came into town for the dog races, got drunked up, got in a fight. They won’t be in long, not that they seem to care how long it is. They’re so cheerful you’d think jail was a Sunday school picnic.”
    Dad always said that about a Sunday school picnic, as if that was the most mellow thing he could think of. But Deet had once been at a Sunday school picnic with Sally, and it had been a pretty crabby affair, especially after it had started to drizzle.
    â€œThen there’s Ben, the bunk under me. Young guy. But this is his zillionth time being in here. He’s been busted for everything there is—assault, drunk and disorderly, drugs, vandalism, you name it. He can’t seem to stay out of the place. I don’t know why. He gave me a couple of books to read, otherwise I would have gone crazy just lying on the bunk all day.”
    Deet tried to picture his dad reading. He’d never seen him read anything but