Indigo by Richard Wiley Read Free Book Online

back, do you hear what I say?”
    Though someone was kicking at him, hard unopposed kicks to his arms and side, someone else, perhaps two or three someone elses, was soon pulling him from the ground and shoving him into the backseat of a just-arrived automobile. He tried to speak but his mouth contained blood and there was a piece of something that might have been a tooth, which fell into the hand that he used to support his chin.
    There was a roaring in Jerry’s ears, but he wasn’t clear about its source. He wasn’t alone in the back of the car, but he had been pressed against the far door, and it occurred to him that he might simply open it and run. When he looked up, however, he saw a thousand angry faces just on the other side of that fragile thickness of glass. The young ironing-board boy was there again, his eyes oddly hurt-looking, his mouth shouting with the voice of the crowd, his head bent toward the sky.
    As soon as the car began to move Jerry Neal spoke. And he surprised himself by hearing that his voice was normal and clear. “I’m not guilty of anything,” he said, and though the policemen around him had been as focused on the crowd as he was, they were shaken by the sound of his voice, by the breach of prisoner etiquette that it entailed. Had a Nigerian spoken thusly, during the dangerous ride from arrest to jail, he might have been beaten beyond words.
    Once Jerry spoke, though, some of his confusion left him and the pain began to set in. His mouth hurt more than his ribs or his arm, but he could not remember having been struck in the mouth. And now that his head was clear, he began to understand that someone had actually taken the toner with the idea of using it to start the fire. Miraculously, he still had the teachers’ files, and when he thought of the teachers he thought of the minister, and when he thought of the minister he thought of Nurudeen’s dad, and then he thought of Nurudeen and of his own little sandwich box, sitting up on top of the toner cans, complete with an imprint of his name. Good Christ, Nurudeen had taken the toner. Nurudeen, an eighth-grade boy, was involved in some kind of plot to bring him down.
    Jerry looked at the policemen sitting around him. These guys weren’t speaking, but he knew that Nigerians responded far more quickly to friendship than to threats, so when he spoke again his words were calculated and his face was calm. “This will all be cleared up shortly,” he said. “After that we can all go out for a beer.”
    He smiled and turned in the seat when he spoke, but the man next to him stared straight ahead. It was the officer in the front seat, the one next to the far door, who would tell the others what they should think, and this man did turn slowly around. He was not the police captain who had treated Jerry badly before, but was an older man with a kinder face.
    â€œIndeed,” the man finally said.
    â€œI am a guest here,” said Jerry. “But I understand how mistakes like this can happen, believe me.”
    The police officer gave him another look, seemed about to respond, but then turned silently forward again. Jerry had not been paying attention to what part of town they were in, but just as he was beginning to believe they had been on the road too long, the car pulled in somewhere and stopped.
    â€œWhere are we?” he asked. “What police station is this?”
    Again there was no response, but when the ranking officer came around and opened his door there was also no sign that he would again be treated roughly. The man held his arm, but gently, telling him with a slight pressure that he was to walk inside.
    â€œIf I could just call the school. We have our own solicitor who could begin to set things straight.” It was unlike Jerry to be so free with words and he was slightly ashamed of it. He knew that sooner or later he’d get home, and once this was over he understood that he