Leaving: A Novel Read Free Page A

court. In cases like Love’s, they were released from Langley Porter Psychiatric Hospital after a 5150, a forty-eight-hour hold for being a danger to self or others, then placed in the group home with the agreement of their legal guardians. For Love, this was his grandmother, Ruby.
    “Take your time-out in the quiet-room to refocus, Love.” The attendant pointed out the back door to a small carpeted room, a padded cell with a rope attached to the outside door handle. Each upper-block classroom had a quiet-room outside to contain the children when they blew up.
    “Fuck you, dog! You better stand back!” Love walked into the courtyard and the attendant followed closely. At thirteen, Love was tall enough to reach up and smack the top of the door frame. He kicked the plastic chair in front of the guinea-pig cage, stopped, and turned back.
    “Take your time-out in the quiet-room, Love.” They stood facing each other, the boy rigid, his jaw clenched and bulging below his high, sculptured cheekbones. The attendant continued to look away; he pointed to the corner of the darkened cell where he expected Love to walk.
    Love swung, twisting his body from his hips. His fist struck the left lens of the man’s glasses, cutting his cheek in a semicircle and breaking the bridge of his nose. The glasses skidded across the courtyard, and the attendant covered his face with both hands.
    Love ran back into the classroom. Tom, a tall Irish man with a shaved head, grabbed him in the doorway. Love hit him in the forehead, but Tom looked straight at Love and caught the boy’s flailing arms. He held his wrist and reeled him in, turned him around, and bear-hugged him from behind. He wrapped Love’s arms across his chest, locking one elbow under the other like a straitjacket, then turned to his side and pushed the boy into the quiet-room with his hip and held him face forward in the corner.
    When Tom was sure that Love was completely immobilized, his arms trapped between his own body and the wall, he let go of the boy’s wrists and pushed with one hand on the center of his back. With the other hand, Tom reached down and picked up the tail end of the rope to the door, then ran out of the room, pulling the door behind him. Love had only enough time to turn and yell before the door shut flush with the inside wall.
    “White-Ass Nigger Mother Fucker!” He kicked the handleless door. “Bitch, Mother Fucker, Faggot-Ass Bitch. I’ll cap your fucking punk ass.” He kicked the door again. He couldn’t do damage from inside the quiet-room, yet he struck out even more recklessly, hitting all the walls in a helicopter-like torrent. “Fuck your mother, dog! I’ll bust her face and stuff her in a garbage can.” He punched the small, square, reinforced-plastic window in the upper center of the door. “Your mama sucks dick for a baggy. Your mama’s a crack-ho fiend!”
    He walked to the back wall and kicked it with his red Air Jordan sneakers, a Christmas present from the residential house manager. He hit the wall again, listlessly this time, his fingers in a loose fist, half grazing the carpet. He then walked to the far corner where he had been instructed to stand.
    “I’m taking my t-i-m-e-o-u-t.” He spelled “time-out,” as if he couldn’t bring himself to say the word. He stood unmoving, arms at his sides, his face five inches from the wall. There was no response from Tom, and he didn’t expect any. Love stayed that way, frozen, for three minutes.
    As he waited, he watched a line of ants crawl up to the ceiling. He chose one black ant and blew on it with a quick, solid burst. The ant changed direction and ran back toward the bottom of the wall, antennae flapping in panic. He blew at it again and let it run for a while. With each blow, the ant changed direction, frantically running from the invisible force attacking him.
    There was no real time inside the quiet-room, only one long extended series of moments. A minute never ended or began