"Supplemental Security Income S, S, I. In their eyes that's a recognized trade or profession. Like licensed barber or plumbing inspector. Or at least the Ottawas of our world think it should be.
It's the occupation of choice among the majority of folks who visit the lockup and the courthouse. They be disabled, and can't work, so the Commonwealth gives them one-hundred-and-twelve dollars a month and the federal government kicks in four-hundred-seventy more. Meaning you and I and everybody else who's working for a living, and has taxes withheld from it, is making it possible for our governments to give every single shiftless bum who asks for it six-thousand-nine-hundred-and-eighty-four American dollars each year. They don't have to do a fuckin' thing but cash their checks which is good 'cause they don't feel like doin' anything legal just now; what they want to do is hang out."
"Oh, Amby," Diane said, hopelessly.
He ignored her. '"Essesseye," I say to Ottawa, "now what inna world're you getting' that for? You look pretty healthy to me. Why is it that you can't work?" '"Well, 'cause I'm nervous." Ottawa says, and he grins. "I always been very nervous. So I never could hold a job down." '"Maybe it's always doin' things that get you arrested that's making you so nervous," I said. "Havin' cops after you most of the time.
"Cause you been arrested a lot." '"You know, that could be," Ottawa says to me. "I never did think of that."
"So," Merrion said, maneuvering around an old brown pick-up truck doing sixty-five, towing a wire-fenced trailer overloaded with power tools four lawn mowers a wheeled leaf-blower; a large rototiller and racks of untethered rakes and hoes and shovels banging around with each bump and curve, "Ottawa seemed pretty familiar with what can be done to him at a trial in a court of law, so that advice didn't take long. Of course he's never really had a trial yet; his cases all plea-bargained, but he knows the warnings by heart. Along with the rest of his several rights and responsibilities as an accused. I didn't see any reason to make Ottawa stay overnight make the taxpayers give him board and room, three hots anna cot, on top of everything else so us two old hands had him on his way in a New-York-minute or so."
"And now what'll happen to him, tomorrow?" Diane said. "Is it even possible that this time somebody might finally take a look at this kid, take an interest in him, maybe even try to find a way to help him?"
"Ottawa asked me something like that. I did not say to him, as I will to you now, that he oughta know that by now, all the experience he's had. In the past there've been complaints from some visitors that such comments suggest to them we're "prejudice"; because the cops've lugged 'em, we believe they're guilty. I said "the judge'll appoint Mass Defenders to represent you. Trial in a month unless you plead before that." '"M I gonna jail this time, you figure?" he says.
'"I'm not a lawyer, Ottawa," I tell him, as of course I'm not, "and if I were I couldn't give you any legal advice. You get that from your lawyer. You know all of this stuff."
"In other words," Diane said, 'the answer to the question I just asked you would be No. The answer's No." '"Yah," he says," Merrion said, disregarding her remark. "He agrees." '"Judge'll continue the same bail," I tell him. "You don't show up; you'll owe the court another hundred. Next time the cops run you, you'll stay in jail 'til you see the judge."
"Ottawa's already coughed up his twenty-five-buck bail fee, two tens and a five. Your seasoned old pros prepare for another night in the life of crime by setting their bail money aside. Fold it up and put it in their sock or in their shoe. So if they get to drinkin' or stoned on crack or something, they wont be tempted to invest their getting'-out dough in more happiness. Of course when they get well-wired, they pull off the shoe and spend the dough. But the principle is there. Anyway, Ottawa's money's still lying there on the desk. I haven't picked it up yet.
"That goes toward it," he says, meaning the hundred for bail if he scoots and then gets caught. His tone of voice gives me my choice. I can take it as a statement or a question. In all the times that Ottawa's made bail before, it happens that he's either never gotten grabbed in Canterbury or else he's come in on a night when someone else had the detail. So he doesn't know me. He's trying me out. "Nice try, pal," I say, and I pick up the cash. "This's my fee, not your bail." "Just asking'," he says, and he grins. Just a couple old hands, like I said.
