The Latent Powers of Dylan Fontaine

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  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 Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by April Lurie

  Copyright

  For my sons,

  Daniel and Jonny,

  with love

  One

  I CAN TELL YOU FROM EXPERIENCE that a jail cell is not a place you’d like to visit. Now, I’m no Papillon, and the police station serving the Sixty-eighth Precinct in Brooklyn, New York, is no Devil’s Island, but it sucks just the same. To give you a mental picture, for the past thirty minutes I’ve been sitting on a concrete bench staring at (1) a prehistoric toilet that is no doubt infested with E. coli and gonorrhea, (2) a very large, possibly mutated cockroach snacking on a green potato chip, and (3) an entire wall devoted to words and phrases that would put even Howard Stern under the table.

  I’m waiting for my father to show up and bail me out. However, the two police officers who slapped the handcuffs on me outside the Century 21 department store are having a difficult time tracking him down. My dad is a doctor—ob-gyn, to be precise—so at the moment he could be delivering a baby, performing a hysterectomy, or doing some other procedure on a woman’s body, which is something I’d rather not think about. Especially after reading Memoirs of a Pervert on the aforementioned wall.

  Outside my cell, the nice cop, Officer Burns, hangs up the phone. “Hey, Dylan, looks like your dad will be here in twenty minutes.”

  “Oh, okay,” I say. “Thanks, thanks a lot.”

  The not-so-nice cop, Burns’s partner, Officer Greenwood, arches an eyebrow like he’s never before met such a polite juvenile delinquent, then pours himself a cup of coffee. He dumps in a buttload of creamer and stirs. I can’t help myself. “Um, sir…” He looks up. “You might consider switching to milk or half-and-half. That stuff you just used, it’s got a lot of trans fat.”

  He takes a gulp of his coffee and winces like he just scorched his throat. “Oh, is that so?”

  I’m not being a wiseass. The truth is, for the past couple of months I’ve been doing our family’s weekly food shopping, and I’ve become a little obsessed about additives, preservatives, artificial colorings, things like that. “Yeah, I read an article about it in Newsweek. The FDA has linked trans fats to soaring cholesterol levels. Just thought you might want to know.”

  He picks up the container of creamer and squints at the label. “Well,” he says, “it’s amazing I’m still alive.” Then he rolls his eyes at Burns, who, because he’s a nice guy, only smiles.

  While the two of them fill out a pile of paperwork regarding yours truly, I go back to wondering what my father’s reaction will be when he finds out the particulars of my arrest. I’ve never been in real trouble before, and since it’s my seventeen-year-old brother, Randy, who’s been screwing up lately, I figure I stand a pretty good chance of a lecture and a few weeks’ grounding. And because my dad has other things on his mind, like the fact that my mother is now living in Greenwich Village with Philippe LeBlanc, her former art professor, he might consider the whole thing, well, trivial.

  Twenty minutes later my dad walks through the door in his labor and delivery scrubs. Paper booties adorn his Nikes, and a surgical mask hangs from his neck. He sees me in the cell and rushes over. “Dylan, are you all right?”

  “Yeah, Dad, I’m fine.”

  He looks frazzled. “I don’t believe this. I thought for sure they had the wrong kid. I mean, if they’d said it was Randy, I’d understand, but…Dylan, what’s going on?”

  I hold up one hand. “There is an explanation, Dad. It’s just, well—”

  “Dr…. Fontaine?” Officer Burns stands there gaping. “Is that you?”

  Suddenly I realize that this is my ace in the hole. My dad must have delivered Burns’s baby. Maybe even saved the kid’s life. My dad turns around, and when he sees Burns he shakes his head and smiles wryly. “Well, what do you know? Michael Burns. How are you? How’s Christina, how’s the baby?”

  Burns walks over and they shake hands while Greenwood watches from a distance, sipping his poisoned coffee. “Oh, they’re fine,” Burns says. “In fact, we just took Sarah in for her one-month checkup—she’s already ten pounds. Here, let me show you.” He reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a wallet, and when the two of them ogle baby Sarah, Officer Greenwood can’t take it anymore. He picks up my stack of paperwork, raps it a few times against the desk, and clears his throat.

  “Should we, uh, get down to business, gentlemen?”

  Burns and my father look up. “Oh…yes, of course,” my father says. “Sorry about that, Officer. Sorry, Dylan.”

  No problem, I think. Anything to get on the good side of the law.

  Greenwood walks over, pulls a set of keys from his pocket, and unlocks my cell. The door makes a high-pitched squeak as it swings open. I shuffle out, and the four of us take seats in a nearby room. I’m not sure, but I think the place is soundproof, which makes me feel even more like a criminal.

  My father takes off his surgical cap, revealing a tuft of downy blond hair. He’s a pretty good-looking guy, except for the male-pattern baldness, which seems to have gotten worse with all the stress this past year. “Well, gentlemen, thankfully I’m not an expert in these matters, but shouldn’t we have a lawyer present?”

  Greenwood eyes Burns. Burns smiles apologetically. “Actually, Dr. Fontaine, I don’t think that will be necessary. I’m quite certain we can work this out ourselves. As you were told over the phone, Dylan was caught shoplifting in Century 21, and when we searched his pockets we also found him in possession of—”

  “Just a minute,” my father interrupts, holding up one hand. “Before we go any further, I’d like to know exactly what Dylan took from the store. I mean…” He looks at me with an expression so sad and disappointed, I want to slip under the table and crawl back to the jail cell. “You see, I give him plenty of money—actually, he earns it, mowing the lawn, cooking, cleaning. It just…well, doesn’t make sense.”

  My dad is making me sound like the poster boy for Better Homes and Gardens, which is a little embarrassing for a fifteen-year-old guy who’s six foot three and hoping to play varsity basketball this coming year. But to set things straight, he’s a little mixed up about the chore list. Cleaning the house is Randy’s job, which is a joke since all he does lately is lounge around the living room in the afternoons getting high with his friends. They have this rock band called the Dead Musicians Society, and cannabis, they claim, enhances their creativity. Anyway, I’m usually the one left holding the scrub brush and Ty-D-Bowl.

  “And on top of that,” my dad goes on, “Dylan has never really wanted anything before.”

  Now, this is most certainly true. I, Dylan Fontaine, am not a materialist. Even though I could be if I wanted to, since my dad is rich as hell.

  Burns looks at Greenwood. He’s too embarrassed, and also too nice of a guy, to say what I took from the store. The job goes to Greenwood. He clears his throat. “Underwear,” he says, coughing a little, trying to hide a smirk that is creeping across his face. “Your son stole underwear.”

  My dad blin
ks a few times. He doesn’t say anything for a while; then his eyes widen. “You don’t mean…?” He looks at me, and suddenly I realize what he’s thinking.

  “Men’s underwear, Dad,” I say, laughing. “Don’t worry, I’m not a cross-dresser.”

  Silence fills the room. No one thinks this is funny, and now the three of them are waiting for an explanation. I can’t blame them, really. I’d be curious to know why some rich doctor’s kid stole two packs of Fruit of the Loom. But right now my lips are sealed.

  Later I’ll tell my father the whole story—how Franz Warner, notorious drug dealer at McKinley High School, saw me shooting free throws at the schoolyard, thought I was my brother, Randy (okay, we do look alike, but obviously Franz was stoned out of his mind), and slipped me a bag of weed, which I took and stuffed into my pocket. Not that I was going to smoke it or anything, but I didn’t want Randy to either. After that I hopped the bus to Century 21, grabbed two packs of tighty whities (Coach Heffner’s term for briefs), got on a line with about five hundred people ahead of me, and when I was halfway to the register, thought I spotted my mother walking out the door.

  At that moment I was faced with a dilemma. I really needed the underwear because our first game of the summer AAU basketball finals was taking place the following morning, and Coach said he wouldn’t tolerate flimsy boxers. But I also needed to talk to my mother—apologize for acting like such a jerk on the phone the other night when she told me she was flying to Paris with Philippe for this major art show. Anyway, I quickly stuffed the packages under my shirt and ran for the door. That’s when the alarm went off and a security guard grabbed me. Up until then, I’d completely forgotten about the weed in my pocket. Worst of all, the lady wasn’t even my mother—just someone who looked like her.

  I glance at my father, sigh deeply, and shake my head. “I’m really sorry, Dad. I needed the underwear for the big game tomorrow, and, well, the line was long and I didn’t feel like waiting.” At least this was partly true. I don’t like to lie.

  He looks at me, incredulous. “You didn’t feel like waiting?”

  I shrug. “Yeah. Sorry.”

  He nods slowly, pursing his lips. Meanwhile, Greenwood is getting impatient. “Dr. Fontaine, as I was saying before, we found a small bag of marijuana in your son’s pocket. It’s a class B misdemeanor, and I’m afraid we’ll have to press charges.”

  My dad’s eyes bore into mine. I’m not about to say anything regarding Franz Warner or Randy, not in front of Greenwood and Burns, but my dad knows I don’t smoke weed and he seems to sense that there’s been some kind of mix-up. “Yes, of course, I understand,” my dad says. He looks at Burns. “Michael, can I, uh, have a word with you for a moment? In private?”

  Greenwood is pissed about being left out. You can see the muscles in his jaw flexing. My dad and Burns leave the room, and now it’s just the two of us. After a few minutes of uncomfortable silence, I say, “So…how long have you been in the police force?”

  He gives me a hard, cold stare. “Too long, kid.”

  “Sounds like you don’t enjoy your job very much.”

  He shrugs. “Does anybody?”

  “Well…” I think about my father, who absolutely loves his job. Before my mother left us and moved in with Philippe LeBlanc, he worked sixty hours a week. Now he practically lives at the hospital. “Maybe some people do.”

  He offers a grunt. Needless to say, small talk is not Greenwood’s forte, and soon my eyes begin to roam around the room. On the opposite wall is a bunch of framed certificates, and as I search for names and dates I discover that good old Burns was recently promoted to lieutenant. In other words, he’s the Man.

  Before long, Burns and my father return. Burns hands me a clear plastic bottle with a black screw-on cap. “We need a urine sample, Dylan. If it’s clear, in other words if no illegal substances show up, we’re going to dismiss the drug charges.” He glances at Greenwood, who’s still clenching his jaw and is going to have a serious case of TMJ in the morning if he doesn’t stop. “Considering it’s your first offense and all,” Burns continues, “with no intent to distribute.”

  I stare at the bottle. According to Randy’s friend Arthur Wellington III, aka Headbone, drinking two quarts of water per hour will flush weed from your system, consuming poppy seeds will cause a false positive for opiates, and (what most people don’t know) acid cannot be detected in a piss test.

  I breathe a sigh of relief. As of two weeks ago I stopped buying lemon poppy-seed muffins. They contain not only large amounts of trans fat, but also yellow #5, which supposedly lowers your sperm count.

  I take the bottle and head for the bathroom. This will be easy since I’ve been holding it in for a while, refusing to go near the STD-infested toilet in the jail cell. When I return, I hand the bottle to Greenwood, whose job it is to perform the test. Lucky guy.

  He disappears into another room, and Burns proceeds with the details. “Dylan, I’m assuming everything will go well with the sample, but you will still have to appear in court regarding the theft. There will be fines to pay, along with several hours of community service.”

  “Yes, sir, I understand.” Personally, I think it would be less embarrassing to go to court on drug charges than for underwear theft, but I guess Burns is doing me a big favor as far as my juvenile record is concerned. “Thank you.”

  He holds up one hand and gives my dad and me a reassuring nod.

  “So, Michael,” my dad says, seemingly eager to change the subject, “tell me a little more about the baby. Is she sleeping through the night yet?”

  Burns sighs, shakes his head, and while he and my dad discuss the erratic sleeping habits of baby Sarah, I begin to wonder if two weeks is long enough to flush poppy seeds from your system. But before I know it, Greenwood pokes his head out the door. “The kid’s clean,” he says, sounding pretty disappointed for a guy who supposedly upholds the law.

  We all get up, and Burns retrieves my basketball from behind his desk. He tosses it to me and gives the paperwork to my dad. “Well, Dr. Fontaine, hopefully next time we’ll meet under more pleasant circumstances.”

  “Oh, yes,” my dad says, “you can be sure of that.”

  As we head for the door I see that Greenwood has poured himself another cup of coffee. This time he’s drinking it black. I give him a thumbs-up sign as my dad puts one hand on my shoulder and ushers me back into the free world.

  Two

  ON THE DRIVE HOME I explain to my dad how Franz Warner mistook me for Randy, and how, like an idiot, I forgot to toss out the bag of weed before entering Century 21. My dad doesn’t say much, but I can tell he’s pretty upset. Part of me wishes he would blow up, pound the steering wheel, scream profanities, anything. Instead, he sits there like a ticking time bomb.

  It’s close to five o’clock when we arrive home. I haven’t even set down my basketball, but I can already tell from the air quality that Randy’s friend Moser is here. Moser doesn’t believe in bathing—something to do with his rare form of eczema—and he smells like the dead squirrel we had to fish out of our gutter last summer.

  “Dyl, is that you?” Randy calls from the living room.

  “Yeah, it’s me.” I glance at my father, who is wincing at the sound of Randy’s voice. I can almost picture the acid in Dad’s stomach burning a deep, festering hole.

  The two of us walk in together. As usual, the whole crew is here—Randy, Nick, Moser, and Headbone. Last year, the four of them got kicked out of a high school for gifted and talented kids who supposedly think outside the box. Which is what they claimed to have been doing when they showed up for English one morning tripping on magic mushrooms. It was the beginning of Randy’s demise. The guys had recently formed their band and begun dabbling in mind-altering substances.

  “Dad?” Randy says, startled. “What are you doing home?” The rest of them sit up. Moser takes his feet off the table, and Headbone slips an empty beer bottle between two sofa cushions. It’s a Heineken—my father�
��s brand.

  “Well, Randy, I do live here.”

  Randy shrugs. “Really? Could have fooled me.”

  My dad doesn’t respond, which is probably a good thing. I wouldn’t want to see him convicted on four counts of homicide carried out in his own living room. In the past, he definitely would have gone ballistic. My mother, too. After the mushroom incident my parents searched Randy’s room, found his stash of weed along with a bong and some rolling papers, and after a lot of crying, tried everything to reform him—grounding, home drug tests at fifty dollars a pop, family counseling. Headbone’s and Moser’s parents, who had high hopes for their sons getting into Harvard, freaked out too, but Nick’s folks, professors at Brooklyn College and former Woodstock attendees, chalked it up to teenage experimentation.

  Anyway, all parental intervention failed, and after a while I think my mom got tired of all the strife and screaming in our house. She figured it was a stage Randy was going through and it would pass. Besides, it was only marijuana. Randy swore off mushrooms due to the nasty taste and never did anything harder. My dad wasn’t so keen on giving up, but when my mom left us for Philippe LeBlanc earlier this summer, that’s exactly what he did.

  My dad glares at Randy for a moment, then walks straight past and heads for the stairs. Except for Headbone’s slight beer buzz, the rest of Randy’s friends appear straight—no inappropriate giggling, no dark circles under the eyes. And then I realize—of course they’re straight; the weed they were supposed to be smoking is now in the hands of my good buddy Lieutenant Burns.

  Upstairs, the door of my father’s bedroom slams shut. “Hey, Dyl,” Randy says, “what’s the deal, man, what are you doing home with the Vagina Head at five o’clock in the afternoon?” Believe it or not, Randy is not poking fun at our father. As far back as I can remember, Vagina Head has been Dad’s nickname due to his occupation.

  I pluck the empty beer bottle from the sofa cushions and toss it into the trash. “I got arrested,” I say. “He had to bail me out.”