Easy Street Read online

  Copyright © Jeff Ross 2020

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Title: Easy street / Jeff Ross.

  Names: Ross, Jeff, 1973– author.

  Series: Orca soundings.

  Description: Series statement: Orca soundings

  Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20190168374 | Canadiana (ebook) 20190168587 | ISBN 9781459824010 (softcover) | ISBN 9781459824027 (PDF) | ISBN 9781459824034 (EPUB)

  Classification: LCC PS8635.O6928 E27 2020 | DDC jC813/.6—dc23

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2019944498

  Simultaneously published in Canada and the United States in 2020

  Summary: In this high-interest novel for teen readers, Rob has mixed feelings about his brother, Adam, being released from prison.

  Orca Book Publishers is committed to reducing the consumption of nonrenewable resources in the making of our books. We make every effort to use materials that support a sustainable future.

  Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada, the Canada Council for the Arts and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

  Edited by Tanya Trafford

  Cover images by Gettyimages.ca/Tanzim Mokammel/EyeEm (front) and Shutterstock.com/Krasovski Dmitri (back)

  ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS

  orcabook.com

  Printed and bound in Canada.

  23 22 21 20 • 4 3 2 1

  To Ros and Bill

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter One

  There was a delay in Adam’s release. We were told this is common. Not by the guards or officials at the prison, but by a woman there to collect her husband.

  “He’s been up in here before,” she said. “But this is the last time. As far as I’m concerned anyhow. He gets himself put up in here again, he’ll get out to find no one waiting.”

  My mom smiled at her and carried on a brief, stilted conversation before the woman recognized someone and changed seats.

  After that we sat in silence in the little waiting room. It wasn’t like the movies. Big doors did not slowly open. No one was slipping into a fast car and tearing off toward freedom. Mom and I had arrived in our red VW Golf, the same car we’d had since Adam and I were kids. We’d filled out a bunch of paperwork, then been told to wait. People came and went. At one point a van pulled up outside, and six men in orange jumpsuits, all cuffed together, were paraded through the waiting area and into the darkness of the prison.

  “This place…” Mom began, then lowered her voice as though someone might be offended. “This place is horrible.”

  When Adam finally arrived it was without any fanfare. He was led to the reception desk and uncuffed. A guard dropped a sheet of paper and a pen in front of him. Adam signed wherever the guard placed his finger.

  “Releasing prisoner!” the guard yelled, handing Adam a see-through bag of clothing.

  “Prisoner released!” a guard called back.

  And that was it. Adam walked past the desk and into the dim light of the waiting room.

  Mom looked like she wanted to hug him, but other men were being released at the same time. Big men whose eyes already seemed to be searching for the next hustle in this new world of freedom. Adam didn’t look like he wanted to be hugged anyway.

  “Hey,” Adam said. He was thinner but bigger at the same time. I guess leaner.

  “Oh, Adam,” Mom said. She looked like she might cry, so we turned her around, and the three of us walked out of there into the blue glow of early evening.

  “What took so long?” Mom asked when we were in the car. I’d slipped into the back seat, and before I knew what was happening, Adam had as well.

  “I don’t know. They don’t tell you much in there,” Adam replied.

  “Isn’t someone going to ride up here with me?” It was an hour-and-a-half drive from the prison to our house.

  “I’m good,” Adam said. He pulled his hoodie out of the clear bag and pushed it against the window. Then he rested his head on it.

  “I guess I will,” I said. I jumped out of the car and got into the front passenger seat.

  No one said anything for a while. Then we were on the highway, and evening was changing to night.

  “So what are your plans?” Mom asked.

  “I don’t know,” Adam replied.

  I glanced back. He was staring out the window. I remembered all the trips we’d taken before. Adam could always fall asleep in the car, but I never could. I was always too jumpy. I wanted to see everything and was freaked out that something was going to happen and I would miss it. Adam could sleep anywhere. Anytime.

  “You’re going to need some,” said Mom. “Plans, that is. You’re not just coming back home to do nothing.” I could see her hands tightening on the steering wheel. She’d talked a lot about how things were going to be different. How she needed to be around more to help steer her boys. She’d tried dating a little, but all the guys had seemed uninterested in us and were gone before they could plant any kind of roots. It had felt like it was just the two of us against the world over the past couple of years.

  Now we were three again.

  “Uh-huh,” Adam grunted.

  “I got you an appointment with your career counselor tomorrow,” said Mom. Adam didn’t respond. “He sees a couple of options for you right now. One, you finish off high school, which is something that’s going to happen one way or another, and then find a job. He recommends considering the trades. Lots of demand for those. Or you could look into fast-tracking by joining an apprenticeship program. That way you’d be able to learn on the job and finish up your high school at night. The bonus is that you’d likely have a job waiting for you when you finish. Anyway, you see him tomorrow at ten. I can’t be there with you because I have to work. He seems pretty positive about your possibilities. It’s not going to be easy. Some people look at people like you who have been where you’ve been and they can’t get past it. They think, A leopard never changes his spots, right? But I don’t see it that way. I don’t see it that way at all. I think you did what you did, you paid for it, and now you’re back out. Clean slate. That’s the way I see it.” She paused and wiped at her cheek with the back of her hand. “How do you see it, Adam?”

  I looked back at my brother. The lights of oncoming cars rode across him. I wondered what he’d seen inside. I wondered if he regretted what he’d done. He had to regret it, right? He had to have learned something.

  But most of all I wondered if I could ever forgive him.

  “Adam?” Mom said again, rising up in her seat and tilting the rearview mirror to look into the back seat.

  “I think he’s asleep,” I said.

  “What?” She wiped at her cheek with the back of her hand again.

  “I think he’s asleep.” She returned the mirror to its original position and wrapped her hands around the steering wheel.

  “What are we going to do with him, Rob?” she said. I wanted to tell her
that it was going to be okay. That things would work out. That he had learned something in prison and wouldn’t go off the rails again. But I had no idea if that was true. I had no idea who my brother had become.

  Chapter Two

  Over the next few days Adam visited his career counselor, his employment counselor, his Narcotics Anonymous sponsor (because even though he never touched drugs himself, assumptions were made due to the nature of his crime) and, finally, his parole officer.

  I went with him to that meeting. His parole officer was a big man named Steve. He had a perfectly shaved head, and each of his giant fingers sported at least one flashy ring. Whenever he rotated his hands, the rings caught the sun streaming through the diner’s window. When we walked in Steve was at a table, twirling a spoon in a cup. As we sat down across from him, I noticed that there wasn’t any milk in his coffee. He kept twirling the spoon for almost a minute more.

  “Stirring oxygenates the coffee,” he said, looking up at us. He took a sip, smiled and then set the mug back down on the table. “You caught me at the right time, Adam.” He took another sip. “Half an hour earlier I would have been one grumpy man. You guys drink coffee?”

  I shook my head, even though coffee had become a morning necessity.

  “Sure,” Adam said.

  Steve put up an arm, and the server came over. “Cup of coffee for my friend,” Steve said.

  “Anything to eat?” she asked.

  “How about a plate of toast?”

  The server patted him on the shoulder and walked away.

  “I was just looking over your file, Adam,” Steve said. “First offense, I see. I always like to know, when someone is listed as a first offender, was it the first time they did anything wrong? Or just the first time they got caught?”

  I glanced over at Adam. My brother was giving Steve a hard stare. One I’d never seen before.

  “It was a misunderstanding,” Adam said.

  Steve raised an eyebrow and turned the page of the file in front of him. “A misunderstanding where a girl ended up dead.” He poked a finger on the page and then looked back up. “That’s one hell of a misunderstanding.”

  The server returned and set a plate of toast on the table, pulled a selection of jams from her apron pocket and sprinkled them around the plate. She had apparently forgotten Adam’s coffee, but he didn’t say anything.

  “Need to be somewhere?” Steve asked. Adam didn’t respond. “You seem a bit edgy.”

  “I’m good,” Adam said.

  Steve glanced at me, then back at the file. “So what’s your plan, Adam?” He took a piece of bread so well buttered that it was limp. He poked at the little packages of jam, selected one, tore it open and squeezed it onto the top of the bread.

  “I don’t know yet,” Adam replied.

  “That’s what I thought you’d say. Have you hooked up with your employment counselor?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What she got for you?”

  “Probably nothing,” Adam said.

  “We got all kinds of programs, you know. Did she explain that to you?”

  Adam sat back in the seat and crossed his arms. “She talked a lot about jobs with a whole bunch of other ex-cons.”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  “Like I said, what happened to me was a misunderstanding. I never should’ve been inside.”

  Steve nodded a few times, then took a couple of giant bites from his toast. He brushed crumbs from the file and turned another page. “It says here you showed remorse for your crime.” He looked up, his big eyes staring at Adam. “But now you’re sitting here telling me it was all a misunderstanding.” He leaned back in his seat. It creaked. “That doesn’t sound very remorseful. It sounds more resentful.”

  “I’m sorry she died,” Adam said. “I’m just saying it wasn’t my fault.”

  “Oh, not your fault?” Steve said. He took another bite of toast, nodding as he chewed. “Then why do you suppose you went to jail?”

  “Because I was stupid,” Adam said.

  “Explain.”

  “I never should have gotten involved. I never should have been in the middle. I never should have given her that pill.”

  Steve nodded a few times, then selected another jam, ripped it open and started smearing it on a new piece of toast.

  “Sounds like remorse to me.”

  Adam shrugged. “So how often do we meet?”

  “They say once a week. But I like to go with the flow. How often do you think we should meet?”

  “Depends on why we’re meeting,” Adam said.

  “You know, shoot the shit, hang out, eat some toast.”

  “That all?”

  “I also have to make certain you’re still living in your mother’s house. That you’re not part of some criminal organization. That you’re keeping yourself clean both in body and in mind. That kind of stuff. So the question is, how long can I have you out there running around before I need to check in and make sure everything’s cool?” Steve stared at Adam as he chewed.

  Adam cracked his little half smile, the first time I’d seen it since he returned. He liked these kinds of games. This verbal sparring.

  “Twice a year sounds good,” Adam said.

  “That would get me fired and you tossed back in jail. Why don’t we start off with every two weeks and see how that goes?”

  Adam shrugged. “We good?” He slid out of the booth and stood up.

  Steve nodded. “We’re good, Adam. For now. But you need to stay good.”

  “Two weeks,” Adam said.

  “Anything changes, you need to call or text me.” He handed Adam a card. Adam put it into his pocket, then headed for the door without another word.

  I slipped out of the booth and followed him, feeling Steve’s eyes on me as I went. I stepped in beside Adam as he made his way down the sidewalk. It was an impossibly blue sky. No clouds. Just clear and light blue, like the ocean turned upside down.

  “That was weird,” I said.

  Adam was wearing his leather jacket even though it was warm out. “It’s not weird, Rob,” he said. “That’s my life now. It’s like I’ve got a hundred mothers. Everyone telling me what I can and can’t do. What I should or shouldn’t do. Where I can or can’t be.”

  I hadn’t spent any time with Adam during that first week. He’d just gone to appointments, come home and disappeared into his room. Mom had said the night before that it was like living with a stranger. I had to agree.

  “So what are you going to do?” I asked.

  Adam froze. He looked off across the street. “Don’t you have things to do? Friends to go hang with or something?”

  “Sure,” I said. Although I didn’t. I could see my question really bugged him.

  “Maybe you should then. I need some time to think. So that the next time someone asks me what I’m going to do, maybe I’ll have an answer.”

  “Okay,” I said. “See you at home?”

  “Yeah,” Adam said as he stepped into the street. “See you at home.”

  Chapter Three

  Mom and I were on the front porch when Adam came home the next day. He’d been home the previous night but had left before either of us was out of bed. Mom and I were catching the end-of-the-day sunshine that hits our porch. It had been a long winter. Now that summer was around the corner, I was finally feeling alive again.

  Adam had a big smile on his face. He was in his leather jacket again, his jeans slightly too big for his frame. We were reflected in his sunglasses.

  “I’m going back to college,” he said.

  I felt Mom tense beside me.

  “That’s great,” she said. Before Adam was released, she and I had been given some training on how to behave. What to expect. One of the suggestions was that we be encouraging as long as whatever Adam was interested in was healthy. “What are you thinking of taking?”

  Adam spun around and sat beside Mom. I felt something flow through me then. Except for the gap
when Adam was in prison, it had been like this since Dad left. The three of us against the world. But when Adam went to prison, everything changed. It had been just Mom and I bumping into each other in the house. It wasn’t as though we didn’t talk or anything. We hung out, had a lot of meals together. But I wasn’t a problem. I did what I had to do at school. I was planning for the future. I was getting good grades, and after graduation the world would be mine for the taking.

  Adam had always been a problem. Like Dad. The two of them couldn’t have been more alike. Mom and I had worried about Adam being in prison. We had no idea what kinds of things happened in there. We constantly wondered if he was all right, although there was nothing we could do about it. Eventually we got used to the feeling.

  “I’m not sure yet. I’m interested in Humber, I think.”

  “In Toronto.”

  “Yeah. I mean, I don’t know. I looked at their website today, and there’s all kinds of stuff I’d like to try. I just don’t know what I’d be best at.”

  “What kind of programs are you thinking of?”

  “Some of the arts ones seem cool. There’s a fitness one as well. I got into weights and training in...well, in the past year or so.”

  “Okay,” Mom said. I could tell she was already wondering where the money would come from.

  “If you’re worried about money, there are some grants I can get. And loans. All that.”

  “I’m more concerned with the fact that you haven’t graduated from high school yet.”

  “Well, they have this program there where I can finish high school first, take a couple of courses to get an idea of what it’s all like, and then apply for the next year.”

  “You’re thinking of going this September?” Mom asked. I wouldn’t say she sounded that encouraging.

  Adam stood again. He seemed really hyper.

  “I’ve wasted enough time,” he said. “I want to do something.”

  I could understand this. He’d spent the past two and a half years sitting around. Waiting.

  “Well, let’s look online and see—”

  “I want to go down there and actually see the campus.”