Pay It Forward by Catherine Ryan Hyde Page A

discovered that she and Trevor would not wait alone, as she had imagined, but in a room filled with dirty children, a snoring old man with his mouth open. Women with ankle bracelets, real or tattooed, teeth stained with tobacco and eyes stained bloodshot with disillusionment. And shy women who looked at the floor as if waiting to be hit, with fussy babies and runny-nosed toddlers.
    And no more chairs. But a promise is just that, so she stood with Trevor in a corner, clutching at his sleeve, and wondered if these people would think Jerry was her husband, and if so, why she minded so much that they would.
    Ten minutes ticked by, each feeling like a day, then they were allowed into a room with a long table, a long line of chairs, Plexiglas dividers, and telephones. Just like in the movies. Men in two-piece orange suits filed in on the other side, picked up theirphones, and women cried and held their hands to the glass just like in the movies.
    A few more long minutes.
    No new prisoners, no Jerry, just more waiting, more holding Trevor’s arm, maybe tightly enough to hurt.
    A guard shuffled by behind the divider, behind the row of men Arlene wished were not so familiar around the eyes. She leaned forward and tapped on the glass, and the uniformed man picked up the phone. “Problem?”
    “What happened to Jerry Busconi?”
    “He’s not coming out.”
    “What do you mean, he’s not coming out? My son and I came all the way down here to visit him.”
    “Can’t make him take a visitor. Said he wasn’t in the mood.”
    Wasn’t in the mood. Jerry Busconi wasn’t in the mood to see the boy who was always in the mood to give him all the proceeds of his own hard after-school work. Mood, it takes. That’s rich. Yeah, that’s a good one. “Can I leave a note?”
    “Front desk.”
    “Thanks.”
    Jerry,
    I cannot bring myself to say dear because right at the moment you are not dear to me at all. I can forgive you for getting busted because we all screw up and I am no exception. But this little boy who helped you and counted on you came down here to see how you were, and you were not in the mood. Which I think makes you eighteen different kinds of chicken shit.
    It’s always easy to get mad on his behalf, in fact it’s sort of a specialty of mine, but truth is I’m mad at what you did to me, too. Telling me all your hopes and dreams so I couldn’t not like you, because this would be a whole lot easier if I had never liked or trusted you, but you have taken even that small comfort away from me.
    I don’t trust many people, and then when I make an exception, seems it’s always the wrong one.
    Get your sorry butt out of this place as soon as you can and then do what you said you would do for my boy, and his school project, which is very important to him.
    But you won’t, I know, because you are a hop-head, which I could forgive, because people can change, even though it seems they never do, but if you can’t face us today, that says a lot about what you will do later.
    I don’t believe in shooting stars, and if I ever had, I would not believe in them no more, and that is what you have done to this family.
    Think about that while you’re doing prison laundry at the state pen, where they say you are going on the next bus out.
    My boy would like to write something on this note when I’m done, which I am.
    Arlene McKinney
    Hi Jerry,
    Hope you are okay and the food is not too terrible. Do you get to watch TV? Will you write me a letter from the state pen? Nobody ever did before.
    Well, gotta go. Mom’s pissed.
    Your friend,
    Trevor

From The Diary of Trevor
    I wonder where people go when they die. They have to go somewhere. Right?
    I mean, it would be just too weird to think about Mrs. Greenberg not being anywhere. That would just be too sad.
    So, I’ve decided that she’s still out there somewhere. Because I’ve decided I can think whatever I want about it. Because I’ve noticed that everybody thinks something