Do Not Pass Go by Kirkpatrick Hill Page A

the newspaper. Deet used to think he could read all day if he had a chance, but once he did, and it made him feel half-sick and woozy. He had a hard time getting back to realitywhen he finally came up for air. It was a very odd feeling.
    â€œSend me some books, will you? You have to mail them. Smuggling rules again.”
    Deet nodded okay. He was already thinking about what he’d send Dad. Steinbeck. Maybe the Hobbit books. No, not the Hobbit. You had to have a little experience reading before you read something like that. You didn’t have to imagine much to read Steinbeck.
    Dad counted off his cellmates on his fingers. “There’s a black guy, the bunk on top of me. He’s the oldest one there. Real quiet and gentle. He just plays solitaire all day on his bunk. Doesn’t say much.”
    Deet was imagining this jail cell like one of those old war movies, where there’s one soldier of every race and religion in the squadron, so at the end all the guys can be brothers.
    â€œAnd then there’s Ronny Joseph. He’s about as old as me, but he’s been in jail most of his life. Started when he was twelve and in juvenile detention. That sounds really bad, doesn’t it? But I think he’s the nicest guy I ever met.”
    Dad switched the phone to the other ear, and Deet did the same. His ear felt hot and red, as if he’d been pushing hard on the phone receiver.
    â€œThey let us go out for half an hour to walk around the gym at night. Just walk. We can’t play in there or anything because they’re so overcrowded they have prisoners sleeping in there, mattresses all around the walls. Ronny was walking around with me in the gym last night, telling me about his life. He’s part Alaskan Indian, but he wasn’t raised here. His mom took him to California when he was a baby. She left him and he was raised in foster homes there, one worse than the other. One jail sentence after another. He said this time was different, though. He has a little girl now, and he wants to make a good life from now on. No drugs, no alcohol. He wants her to have a good family like he never had. I know he’ll do it too. Ronny has this sympathy for everyone in here, no matter what they’ve done. Understanding.”
    Deet had never seen Dad look so intense, so concerned. “I know I had it pretty easy all my life. I mean Grandpa was tough to get along with and all, but youwouldn’t believe what kind of life these guys had when they were little. I can’t even tell you all of it. I’d be sick telling you the things they’ve had done to them. And sometimes when they’re telling this stuff they cry, just like they were still little kids.”
    Dad shook his head slowly. “I never knew stuff like that went on. I’ve really been sheltered, and that’s the truth. I see how easy I had it. Just having fresh air and being outdoors all my life, that’s more than most of these guys had. They treat me like I’m a kid, in a way, because I’ve never been in jail before, never did drugs before, and they say they know I’ll never come back over and over like they did. And they don’t feel jealous of me, like you’d think, they just wish me well. You wouldn’t think you’d meet people like that in jail, would you?”
    Dad had entered a whole new world, a world they never knew existed, and he was finding it very interesting. It was making him think new things, look at his life in a different way. That was not something any of them had expected to happen when Dad went to jail.
    Deet wished he could see Ronny Joseph. And the rest of the guys in Dad’s cell.
    When he was on the bus going home, Deet thought about all the things that Dad had told him, and it occurred to him: Dad had been talking like people in a book.

TWELVE

    On Deet’s next visit the woman at the desk was wearing tights with thick fluorescent green ankle socks and Nike