Until We Sort This Out

Chapter 2

Chapter 2Cato

Honk, hoooonk.

Roy threw open his door.

Where did Cato even get a tuba? Cato knew he was thinking.

“Cato! Can you please stop making so much noise?”

“But it’s Friday! In the middle of the day!” Cato set down the stolen, err, borrowed tuba so he could gesture emphatically with both hands.

“I’m not telling you to be silent, Cato. Just quieter. Live at a normal volume.”

“Normal? So biased. You’re oppressing my natural identity. That’s hurtful. I expected you, as my RA, to be more supportive.”

“What about respecting your fellow humans who are naturally more studious and less loud? Shouldn’t you support their mental health needs by either lowering your volume or being loud outside in the copious open space of the quad?”

“Why is that on me? Can’t they—”

“Cato! Don’t make me write you up again.”

Cato had gotten a notice last time, a warning that he might have to meet with the Residence Life Committee. Snore.

Cato saluted him. “Reducing volume by one decibel Herr Kommandant RA, sir!”

He turned on his heel and began to goose-step stiffly down the hall, toward nowhere particular.

“Cato! Take the tuba with you!” Roy called after him.

He did an about-face, spinning too hard and almost falling over, and marched back toward Roy.

His phone chimed and he raised it in two stiff, soldierly gestures.

“Cato! DuFour! Speaking!” he belted.

“Mr. DuFour, this is Ms. Monica Pelley from the Department of Child Welfare Services. Isabel DuFour listed you as her next of kin now that her mother is currently incarcerated due to a domestic incident—”

“Cato? Cato!”

Warm hands closed on his upper arms, and the dull roar in his ears subsided enough for him to hear Roy saying his name. Roy’s hazel eyes were wide with concern.

“I don’t—my mom—the lady said my sister—” Cato had dropped his phone on the ugly grayish-brown industrial carpet of the hallway. It was flashing at him.

Roy picked it up. He put an arm around Cato and firmly steered him into Roy’s room. He kicked the door shut behind them and sat them both on the bed.

“Put your head down and breathe slowly,” Roy ordered, placing a hand on the back of Cato’s neck.

Cato let his head be pushed down and tried to breathe. Roy was talking into Cato’s phone, but he didn’t try to listen. Instead he focused on Roy’s steady pulse and the warmth of his firm hand on Cato’s neck.

“Yes. I understand. Yes. Thank you, Ms. Pelley. Yes. Good-bye.” Roy hung up and gently squeezed Cato’s neck. “Hey, now, it’s not the end of the world. No one’s dead. Not even the guy your mother knocked out, although he sounds like no loss. Gerry Mesner? And the social worker said he didn’t have the chance to hurt your sister.”

“Bastard,” Cato wheezed, a little scared by his own voice and how alien it sounded. “What about my sister? Is she okay? Can I see her? What about my mom? What am I supposed to do?” Cato started shaking, and Roy’s arm tightened around his shoulders.

“We have a meeting with the case worker this afternoon.”

“We?” Cato murmured.

“Unless you’d rather go alone—”

“No! No, I just…Thanks.”

“I didn’t think you should be driving right now.”

“No.” Cato rubbed his face.

“Ms. Pelley did ask me—uh, you, but I said I was you because that seemed simpler—whether you planned to apply for temporary custody of your sister.”

“Of course! I wouldn’t just leave her—oh, s**t, where is she now?”

“A short-term foster placement. Cato, think about whether you’re prepared to be responsible for a child. You live in a dorm, remember?”

“I’ll move home! She’s almost seventeen! We’ll be fine until mom—until—oh, God, what if they send her to jail?”

Cato started to hyperventilate, and Roy pressed his face into his shoulder, so that Cato had to breathe through Roy’s flannel shirt. He slumped into him.

“What about your father?” Roy asked.

“He’s dead,” Cato mumbled.

“Sorry.” Roy patted Cato’s head apologetically.

“It was years ago.” Cato took one more careful breath and made himself stop leaning on Roy, whose job as RA was telling residents to keep the noise down, reminding them to use condoms, and letting them in when they forgot their keys, not handling family emergencies.

“Take a shower and put on grown-up clothes, then I’ll drive you downtown.”

Roy lifted Cato firmly but gently to his feet, as if he were an invalid, and escorted him to the door of the washroom. Then he walked away.

Cato quashed the temptation to call him back.

* * * *

Ten minutes later, Cato was standing with a towel around his waist, looking through a wrinkled heap of brightly colored tee shirts for one that didn’t say anything a social worker might find objectionable. Roy came in without knocking.

“I thought you might need these,” he said, holding up a button-down shirt and khakis. Ironed. On a hanger.

Usually Cato would have joked, “Are you an alien?” but now he just whispered, “Thanks,” and dropped the towel.

Roy hastily turned away.

Cato put on Roy’s clothes, which were a touch large, but not enough to be noticeable. He always thought of Roy as bigger, but he was only an inch taller than Cato. Plus another inch or two at the waist and shoulders.

They had been nice, solid shoulders for crying on.