Jan Siebold - Doing Time Online

< DOING TIME ONLINE >

JAN SIEBOLD

Albert Whitman and Company

Morton Grove, Illinois

For my parents and grandparents, and for the Wooties of the world.

Contents

Tuesday, September 14

< < 3:40 P. M. > >

Officer MacDougal led me down the hallway of the Franklin Police Department and into a small room. He motioned to a chair which was placed in front of a computer terminal.

Have a seat, Mitchell, he said. The computer is all ready to go. Your ID code is Mitch. The nursing home ID is MapleG. Just type your message, and the folks at Maple Grove will know youre starting. Ill be back at four oclock to let you out. No rudeness or foul language, understand?

I nodded. A practical joke backfires, and suddenly youre treated like Jack the Ripper. I didnt mean it, I wanted to shout. If I could take back that night, Id do it in a second. It wasnt even my fault, but I took the fall. Now I was stuck coming here the police station two afternoons a week.

Officer MacDougal closed the door behind him. I stared at the blinking cursor on the screen. Whose idea was this, anyway?

Probably some social worker type of person had come up with this program called O.L.D. Friend for juvenile offenders. The O.L.D. stands for Online Discussion. I suppose you could also take it to mean old as in longtime, or old as in ancient. I wasnt interested in either one. Basically, I had to show up at the police station every Tuesday and Thursday for a month to have a computer chat with a resident of the Maple Grove Nursing Home somewhere across the state.

I guess the logic behind the whole plan was that old people have a lot of wisdom to share. Its not that I have anything against senior citizens. In fact, I hope to be one myself someday. I just wasnt sure that I could chat with one for an entire half-hour. I didnt have anything to say to this person, and I certainly didnt need to sit and read some lecture about the good old days when kids had to walk eight miles to school in all kinds of weather.

I looked around the tiny room. The walls were painted schoolroom green. A poster on the wall advertised a car wash to benefit the local Students Against Drunk Drivers chapter.

The computer sat on a wooden table. I could see a sticky ring about the size of a soda can on the tabletop. No one had offered me anything to drink. Near the ring, someone had carved the word Rats in jagged letters.

Glancing at my watch, I saw that it was almost three-forty-five. I had taken keyboarding in school the year before, and had gotten much better at it. I took a deep breath and began to type.

Mitch: Hi. My name is Mitchell Riley.

Whats your name?

A few seconds went by, and then words began to slowly appear below mine on the screen.

MapleG: Im Wootie Hayes. Youre late.

Mitch: Sorry. It took longer than I thought to walk here from school.

MapleG: Then I guess youll have to walk faster next time.

It was hard to tell whether or not this person was kidding. I typed:

Mitch: I guess so.

A minute or so went by. There was no answer, so I wrote:

Mitch: Are you a man or a woman? Ive never heard the name Wootie.

MapleG: I used to be a woman. Now Im a shriveled-up old lady. When I was born, my sister was only three years old. Apparently she couldnt pronounce my real name, Ruthie. It kept coming out Wootie. My parents started calling me that and it stuck. Meanwhile, my sister had a beautiful name Rose. It never seemed fair to me that she stuck me with such a horrible name and went through life with such a pretty one herself.

Mitch: I bet people dont have any trouble remembering the name Wootie.

MapleG: Thats for sure. My husband Lou always said that Im one of a kind, just like my name. Ive actually come to like it. Do you have any brothers or sisters?

Mitch: No. Its just me and my dad. My mom died when I was a little kid.

MapleG: How old are you?

Mitch: Twelve. How about you?

MapleG: Im NOT twelve.

I paused, and typed:

Mitch: How do you like it at Maple Grove?

MapleG: Ha! Thats a good one. Ill bet theres not a single maple tree, much less a whole grove of them, within a mile of this miserable place.

Mitch: Whats wrong with it?

MapleG: Theres no privacy. The food is bland. The head nurse on my floor is a pain. Her name is Mrs. Nagle, but I call her Nurse Nag-a-lot. Mostly, Im bored out of my skull. Im not used to just sitting around. My roommate is nice enough, but shes the BINGO queen of the world. Shes always trying to drag me to the rec room for the daily game. Last week she won a prize. Know what it was? Some of those little tissues that you carry in your purse. You would have thought it was a million dollars, the way she carried on.

I could tell that old Wootie was on a roll now.

Mitch: How long have you been there?

MapleG: Oh, about three months, I guess. Too long, thats for sure.

Mitch: Where did you live before?

MapleG: I STILL live in Colesville. My house is there. Lou laid the bricks for it himself. Thats what he did for a living. We moved in right after we got married. I did the bookkeeping for him. Lou worked right up until the day he died. It doesnt seem possible that hes been gone for almost three years. I cant wait to leave this place and go home. Theres a beautiful REAL maple tree there right outside my kitchen window.

Mitch: Why are you at Maple Grove?

MapleG: Back in June, I fell and broke my hip. It was a dumb accident. I was hanging out the wash and tripped over the clothes basket. I lay there for two hours until the paper boy came along and rescued me. I ended up having surgery on my hip, but its still giving me trouble. The physical therapy doesnt seem to be helping. Why are YOU there?

Mitch: You mean at the police station?

MapleG: Of course thats what I mean.

I had to stop for a moment.

Mitch: Mine was an accident, too. It was supposed to be a joke, but it backfired and someone got hurt.

Just then, Officer MacDougal opened the door and stuck his head into the room.

Five more minutes, Mitchell, he said.

I nodded and turned back to the keyboard. I couldnt believe that it was already almost four oclock. I guess typing a conversation takes a lot longer than talking face to face. I wrote:

Mitch: I have to go now.

MapleG: Thats okay. Wallace is here anyway.

Mitch: Whos Wallace?

MapleG: Hes the nice young man who delivers me from place to place around here. I guess you could call him my wheelchair chauffeur. Will you be back Thursday?

Mitch: Yes.

MapleG: Be on time.

Mitch: Ill try.

I stared at the screen, expecting a final message, but none came. Officer MacDougal led me back out, and we left.

< < 4:05 P. M. > >

The deal was that Officer MacDougal would give me a ride home. He dropped me off at the corner of my street.

As I walked the rest of the way, I thought about Wootie Hayes. Her messages had surprised me. I guess I had expected them to be sweet and sugary and packed with grandmotherly advice. Old Wootie was definitely a straight shooter.

As I started to walk up the driveway, a voice from behind interrupted my thoughts.

Hey. Its Really Riley.

I didnt have to turn around to know whose voice it was. Randall Trotter Trotman caught up with me and started to walk along.

When Trotter moved into the neighborhood last year, I went over to introduce myself. After hearing my last name, he asked, Really? Riley? Is it really Riley? Really?