“You’re just going to have to come with me,” she said as she put the final touches on her eyelashes.  She brushed the top ones up and the bottom ones down.  “There.”

We left.  I sat in the back seat.   “I should leave him there to stew.”  She always said this and we always got Ray out of jail.  Mom would pick up the phone and talk for a while and then we’d get him out.

Ray stood outside the police station smoking a cigarette.  He leaned against the brick wall, tall and alone.  Mom said, “What the hell?”  Ray opened the door and got in.  His face was cut.  He smelled like cigarettes and something else.  

“Fine example for your brother.”  

Ray turned halfway and winked at me.  

“You stop that right now, Raymond!  I have half a mind to march you right back in there.”  Ray changed his face and sounded contrite.  “You look nice today.”  She reached across the seat to hold his hand.  I saw his jaw muscles set.  

“I’m going in there.  Make sure they clear up this nonsense.”  She shut the car off and looked at her face in the rear-view mirror.  “Back in a sec.”  We watched a policeman hold the door for her and keep looking.  She walked in with her purse under her arm.  Ray turned around to me.

“How’d you get that?”

“Got into a rumble, SmallFry.”  He asked if I wanted to go to the pool.  We talked about the high diving board.  After a while Mom got back in.  She checked herself in the mirror and started the car.

“What do you want for dinner, Raymond?”

Ray raised his eyebrows.  Mom hummed a song.  I sat in the back and hoped for macaroni and cheese.

*