K. Randis - Spilled Milk

“Vaguely.” I shut my locker.

“He drives a really old pickup truck. I’ll show you later after school, in the parking lot. He’s a real country boy. Just wait. He’ll be here.”

Jason never showed up. He didn’t show up anytime that week either. It turns out he wasn’t too interested in the random meet and greet our high school hallways had to offer either. I was on my way home from work when I noticed his 78’ Ford truck taking up two spaces at the Shop’N’Stop gas station. He waved slightly when he saw my cavalier at the stop light. Too embarrassed to just drive away after I had been spotted, I cruised into a parking spot beside him

“What’s this thing get, 10 miles to the gallon?” I said.

“Eight, actually.” He jumped down from the raised truck and brushed his hands on his Carhart’s. He leaned against a rusted fender and cocked his head to the side. The smell of oil blasted my nostrils when he moved closer and I cringed at the rips and holes in his clothes. When he smiled though, I saw right past those things.

“You’re Brooke, right? I’m heading to a buddy’s house. Wanna go?”

The rest, Cristin says, is history. The truth is we didn’t speak to each other for weeks after hanging out that night. I was with Sophia at the local auto shop getting new windshield wipers when she spotted Jason working behind the counter. “Hey, isn’t that the guy Cristin tried to hook you up with?”

I craned my neck. “Yea.”

He was in his work uniform, helping a guy with tired hands pull a part out of a box. He seemed enthusiastic about the conversation and flashed a handsome smile every time the guy said something.

“You like him.” Sophia pointed at me.

“I do not. I don’t even know him.”

“You should have seen your goofy face two seconds ago. You think he’s totally hot. Let’s go tell him.”

I grabbed her wrist. “No, don’t. Come on, let’s go.”

“You’re seventeen and have had one boyfriend. One. Prom is at the end of this year, you know, senior prom? So either you go tell him he’s hot or I’ll do it for you.”

I compromised. “I’ll leave my number on his truck. He’s busy. I don’t want to interrupt him at work.” He thanked the guy and made a goofy face at one of the guys he worked with. A face he would use over the next several months to get me to laugh until I couldn’t breathe.

“Fine.” Sophia rolled her eyes. “Chicken. I’m gonna watch you write the note.”

Jason texted me sometime after eleven that night. I felt like a creeper explaining to him who I was and why I left my number on his truck. He didn’t seem to mind, and we thought it would be a good idea to hang out again. He kissed me when he left after our date; he ran his hand over my cheek and through my hair as he pulled me closer. We were inseparable after that.

I found out that Jason’s parents had divorced and the day that I met him at the gas station he was sleeping at his buddy’s house. His mom lost their house and they were living out of a motel outside the school district’s boundaries. He slept at a friend’s house to avoid the fourty five minute commute and to try to pretend that his life was somewhat normal by being around friends. I respected and understood that.

Right around the time his mom found a small house in a beat up part of town is when Jason realized I was living out of my car. Two days later, and after meeting his mom only once, I was moved into one of the two bedrooms in the house.

His brother took the only other bedroom and his mom slept on the futon in the living room. I felt like I was putting her out and was uncomfortable with it, but she insisted that the futon was sturdier for her back. And besides, she had said, there was no way was she was going to let me live in my car.

Going to court became difficult when I had to explain to Jason where I was going. Paul’s reaction when he found out scared me into thinking that I should hold off on telling Jason what was going on.

I was Jason’s first real girlfriend, and I knew what kind of spell your first can have. I didn’t want to lose him too. I wanted to tread lightly, because I did love Jason, even though I wasn’t ready to admit that to myself yet because of Paul.

Earl was officially arrested, even though he made bail the next day. Eight months had passed since the time I filed the report with the police and they conducted their investigation. The judge ordered $40,000 bail but you only have to come up with 10%, or $4,000 in his case, so he was free to go until the preliminary hearing.

Heather called and explained about the preliminary hearing. “Now the purpose of this hearing is just to establish if a crime was committed, based on the facts, and if it was the defendant that probably committed the crime. A preliminary hearing doesn’t mean he’s guilty or not guilty, it’s just there to establish if we can move on to the next step. Understand?”

I nodded into the phone as I juggled my anatomy textbook in my lap on Jason’s bed. “Do I have to do anything?” I asked.

“We have the burden of proving a crime was committed. That means you’ll have to testify in front of a judge again and explain what happened. It won’t be at the courthouse though. Preliminary hearings happen at the magisterial district court, it’s a smaller court closer to where you live. We’ll also introduce the things we found in the home as evidence.”

“What did they find?” Mom didn’t tell me anything about evidence.

“You really want to know?”

“Yea. Please.”

“They found a Barbie in one of his toolboxes. One of your old Barbie dolls. It had a hair tie in its hair that belonged to you. The Barbie was naked.”

I closed my eyes.

“They also found a lot of pornographic material. Magazines, videos, that kind of thing.” Heather paused one second too long.

“What was wrong with having the porn?”

Heather sighed. “There was a picture of you between the pages. An older one. You were maybe eight or nine. It was taped to one of the faces of the women.”

Heather told me Earl would be there, but it would be unlikely that he wouldn’t take the stand since the burden of proving anything was on my lawyer. Bail could be modified if the judge thought he might become a flight risk. I hung up the phone and tried to concentrate on the anatomy terms in front of me. It was going to be a long week.

Since the preliminary hearing is held in the magisterial district court, Mom and I crammed into the eight by eight space waiting room. There was a tiny window on the front door and a dim overhead light. Heather hurried inside and pointed towards another door on the other end. “In there, quickly. David is here. We’ll wait in the courtroom.”

Heather ushered us into a cramped space and I started to look around. We were surrounded by boxes of files, mops and cleaning supplies. “Heather are we in a closet?”

“Might as well be.” She rolled her eyes. “These magisterial courts jump from place to place depending on the rent. This is definitely one of the smaller ones. We’ll wait in here until your lawyer gets here, and the judge. This way you don’t have to see him.”

It made me feel better that she tried to not use his name around me. She never would call him Dad . Adam and Thomas still did though, whenever they would ask for an update on what was going on. I heard Thomas in the kitchen the other day when I was over visiting. “Mom, is Dad ever coming back?”

“Let’s go.” Heather whisked us into the musty courtroom and I saw Earl watch me come out of the room in my peripheral vision. We stood only eight feet from the judge and less than five feet from Earl and his lawyer. I silently begged that I would not have to go up next to the judge to tell him what happened. I would be so close, too close, to Earl. I hated that him and his lawyer stood next to the only exit in the room. I was trapped.