Paying Attention
"Alexander Harris," the student messenger from the administrative offices repeated.
Xander pulled out of his slumped pose when he heard his name. It looked like Ms. Calendar was blinking at the note she´d been handed, trying to remember whether she had a student in class by that name. She scanned the classroom, finally settling her gaze on him.
It probably helped that Cordelia Chase´s friend Aura was jerking her thumb his way, saying "That´s Xander," in a voice of utter disdain.
"Vice Principal´s office, kiddo," Ms. Calendar said. As Xander stood she added, "Better take your stuff with you. It´s almost the end of fifth period."
He trudged off accompanied by a half–hearted chorus of "Ooooooh!"s, the universal expression of teenager satisfaction that some other student was the one in trouble. When he got to the hall, he fumbled his books into his bag and contemplated breaking open the re–sealed note, but decided against it. If he was in trouble for something, might as well not add to the situation.
With every step, he tried to remember if he´d done anything of Vice Principal level badness lately. Sure, he´d missed handing in homework for the last two weeks or more –– probably more –– but that kind of thing was almost standard for him. True, he used to make a little effort, but it didn´t seem worth it any longer, especially since none of his teachers had said boo about it or grilled him on what was wrong. And even though he had ducked out early a couple of times to head to the mall, to tuck himself into a corner of the mega bookstore with a stack of ninja manga on the floor at his side, he hadn´t gotten a detention or even a verbal tsk–tsk about it. So as far as he was concerned, no one had noticed.
Come to think of it, no one noticed him much these days, period. Instead of hanging out with Oz, he spent free periods by himself, thumbing through the library´s books for any pictures of the body showing variety. He tried not to think too hard about how ever since that one night with Angel, he tended to pause over uncovered guy parts way longer than he examined girl parts.
Lunchtimes, he mostly lurked around the edges, maybe easing into a chair at the end of the nerd table, where he got ignored instead of hassled. At least there he could eat his state funded hot lunch in peace, even if it had to be to the accompaniment of Jonathan and Warren arguing about the problems with the latest Justice League continuities.
"Yes," the secretary demanded.
He started in front of her desk, since he hadn´t quite realized gone all the way into the front offices yet, but then handed her the note.
She flipped through a file, glancing up at him with wary eyes, until something in the papers caught her attention. "Oh. Of course." The look she gave him after that was wide–eyed, full of something nearly like pity mixed with keen interest. "Alex, you can just go right ahead down that short hallway on the right and wait until they call you in."
He walked into what turned out to be a small waiting area and perched on one of the six black metal chairs lining the walls. Wherever his gaze happened to fall, he looked away quickly. He didn´t want anyone to arrive and catch him staring at pamphlets with titles like Your Changing Body or Standing Tall: Saying No To Drugs, or Why Different is COOL!. At least it seemed like he wasn´t in trouble, at least not in the usual way. The vice–principal´s office was in the other direction off the main office, so as near as he could figure, he was probably in the guidance area.
A door cracked open, and a woman with curly hair poked her head out. "Alex –– no, wait." She consulted the file, which had somehow made its way from the secretary to her. "You like to be called Xander, don´t you?"
He shrugged and followed her gesture ushering him inside.
"So, Xander," the woman murmured as she glanced once again at his file. "You´ve been a little distracted lately, I hear."
"Huh?" He had been trying to see what was on the sheets of paper without turning his entire body around. Too bad reading upside down wasn´t part of his skill set.
"Cutting class. Not turning in any of your homework." She raised her eyes. "And lately, spending all of your time by yourself."
He shifted in his chair at the last item. Maybe someone was paying a little bit of attention. Still, it didn´t seem like that would be enough for him to get called in to talk to a counselor.
She leaned forward, and Xander cleared his throat. The expression on her face, worried, sympathetic, like she was really trying to see him –– it didn´t look phony, and for some reason, that made him more nervous. He didn´t want to think that maybe she knew about something he didn´t.
"Are there any problems at home?"
"What? No." He kept his eyes down. "Same old stuff." He slid his sneaker back and forth across the office carpet slowly, willing his fast heartbeat to take the hint and keep that more measured pace.
"I see."
There was a rustling of papers. The silence between them stretched.
"What´s your dad like?"
"He´s not that bad," he said quickly. "He works a lot, forty or fifty hours a week at the plant. He pays all our bills on time. He does the best he can." The words sounded familiar as soon as they came from his mouth. He felt an odd buzz in the back of his head when he realized that he had heard his mom say them a bunch of times.
"He sounds busy," she remarked.
"Yeah, well, he´s not big time into tossing baseballs around or teaching me how to fish or use a table saw, if that´s what you mean." He laughed, but she didn´t join in.
"Do you ever wish you had a different dad?" she asked abruptly.
He raised an eyebrow. "You mean, like one with lots more money? Because yeah, that´d be okay. There´s a skateboard in the shop downtown that totally has my name all over it."
She smiled. "Whatever you want. It´s just pretend. You could wish for whatever you like. Do you ever do that? Wish you had a different life, a different family?"
He shrugged. "I guess. Probably everyone does sometimes."
"Xander." Her eyes were warm.
"I . . . sometimes . . ." He squirmed in his seat. "It´d be okay to have parents who check out if I´m around more."
She tilted her head to the side. "Hmmm."
"Like, it´s cool that I can come home whenever or stay at friends houses without having to call my parents, though I haven´t –– lately, there hasn´t been –– I´ve just been home more lately," he finished. "But my mom and dad leave me alone, pretty much."
"They leave you alone," she repeated.
He couldn´t stop his right leg from jittering up and down. "I just wish I had more . . . kind of like the dads who hang out with their kids or ask them what´s up. I wouldn´t mind getting punished more, even, if that was how it had to go, but it´s a little weird, all of us coming and going, not talking too much or doing much of anything together. Like, if something happens, I couldn´t tell them . . ."
He pushed himself back against his chair and pressed his lips together. He´d nearly blurted something out about Angel and Oz and how all the recent weirdness had started. But she wasn´t asking him about anything like that.
"Punished more?" she asked. Her voice seemed neutral.
He blinked, trying to remember what exactly he had said. "Oh, you know, you´ve got your basic . . ." Without giving it much thought, he mimed the motion of a belt hitting skin, but then laughed a little. "It´s no big deal. Hardly ever. And like I said, it´s better than . . . I just don´t like it when no one notices."
"But you wish it didn´t happen at all. Maybe you wish your dad could find some other way to deal with you when he´s upset or worried about you. Maybe he could show some other way that he´s paying attention?"
He looked down at his hands twisting together in his lap. "I wish I had someone who cared about what´s going on with me more. It doesn´t have to be a lot, or all the time, just . . . more."
"Thank you for sharing that with me," she said. Her voice was almost musical, he thought absently, as she spoke to him. "I hope we get to talk again soon. Would you like that?"
"That´d be all right," he said in a hoarse voice.
"Tell you what, how about I find an appointment for you next week during your study hall?"
"Sure."
She sat up in her chair, and he did too. "Now, it´s your last period, but if you want to head out for the day, I could write you a note. Sometimes it´s tough to transition back into schoolwork after having a talk like this."
"Okay." He stood, hands stuffed in his pockets, while she scribbled something on a sheet of paper for him to hand to the front office people.
She stood and stuck her arm out. After a beat, he realized that she wanted to shake hands, so he extended his hand to her. She didn´t say anything else, just pressed his right hand between both of hers briefly before releasing it.
"Thanks," he muttered as he left.
It was true, what he´d told the counselor about being home more lately. He didn´t mind too much. On the one hand he was saving cash, because he didn´t buy so many hot chocolates anymore to warm himself up while he kicked around outside with Oz. On the other hand, his nerves were a little more frayed, because being home nights meant hearing his folks get into screaming fights on a regular basis.
Like tonight, for instance. His dad had started, something about his mom making plans without telling him, and then his mom had gone off on his dad and how much he´d been drinking lately.
It had gotten bad only after they´d finished eating the fried chicken his mom had brought home, though, so after dinner Xander just scrambled upstairs, shut his door, and turned his music up with his headphones on. That way he only noticed any shouting if their voices went up high in pitch, the way his mom´s was right now, or if the song paused or stopped.
The tune he´d been hearing ended and he braced himself for the voices downstairs cranking up in the gap.
But instead, there was quiet. His parents couldn´t have gone to sleep that quick, though; they´d just been yelling in between the last two songs, with a wailing sound mixed in, like maybe his mom was crying. Plus he would have heard them come upstairs.
So he listened a little harder. Maybe if he heard his dad lumbering up the stairs he´d go down to the living room, see if his mom needed –– or maybe if there was a crash of something in the next moment, he´d lock his door, and not go down until just before he was supposed to leave for school in the morning.
But the noise that came next was totally unexpected. The doorbell rang.
". . . fourth complaint we´ve gotten tonight," he heard as he crept out into the hall. He started partway down the stairs in his socks, avoiding the panels that creaked.
"Listen, there´s no problem here," Xander´s dad replied. "That asshole next door, he´s a little too sensitive, you know what I´m saying? Besides, we´re just headed to bed, got work in the morning."
"Be that as it may, we need to ask you a few questions."
When Xander peeked around the top landing, he could see there were two cops on the front steps. For a moment his heart was in his throat. But these weren´t –– no, of course not. One of the cops was tall and white, but he was thin, not broad like Angel. The other was younger than the first, but when the door opened a bit more Xander could see that he was black, so definitely not Spike, who pretty much embodied pale even more than Oz did.
For a second he thought about sneaking back to his room, calling Oz to say, "Dude, there are cops at my door –– how much noise do you bet my folks were making to get the neighbors to actually call the police?"
But Oz probably didn´t want to talk to Xander on the phone, not if he already didn´t want to talk to him in person.
" . . . don´t know what else you need to know," Xander´s father was finishing. It sounded like they were probably done asking questions, and his dad was trying to get them gone as soon as possible.
"Sir, is your son at home?" one of the cops asked. It was the taller thin one who had spoken, and Xander almost choked at the sound of his voice. What the hell? Was there some kind of British invasion of the Sunnydale police force? Xander didn´t even know that British guys could be cops in the U.S. But obviously Spike was one, and this guy was too, though he sounded less cocky and harsh with his accent than Spike had, more like he went to good schools and had some fancy house in the country.
When he snuck another peek, his mom was waving the cops inside even as his dad grumbled about his rights, his taxes, and the late hour.
They came in as far as the foyer, and the other cop, the American one, took off his hat, showing his bald head.
"Of course he´s home," Xander´s mother said in a trembling voice. Her hand fluttered in a nonsensical gesture. "He has school tomorrow."
"We´d like to speak to your son, ma´am," the British cop said.
"What´s he done now?" his dad demanded.
The two policemen exchanged a look. "Is your son home?" the younger one asked pointedly.
"You heard what she said," his father reminded them. "He´s home. He´s asleep, or he should be if he knows what´s good for him."
"May we go upstairs to speak to your son?" Xander made a thumping sound as he backed up without turning, but though the younger cop looked up in his direction, no one else shifted their gaze away.
"You want to talk to my boy, you talk to him right here, where we can hear you," his father shot back.
"I´m afraid that we would need to speak to your son alone." As soon as he finished talking, the white cop looked at his partner in what seemed like a planned signal. His partner took a step forward.
Xander´s father put up his arm to block his path forward, and began to yell, "Hell, no –– he´s a minor, and you can´t just go ––"
This time Xander made a much louder thump as he began to scramble up the stairs, but no one noticed since his mom was shouting, his dad was being restrained on the floor, and the cops were getting out their handcuffs.
He was breathing hard when he got back to his room, frantic as he looked back and forth from door to window to the Mickey Mouse phone that he´d had since he was five years old. Should he climb out the window? Was he supposed to announce himself to the cops downstairs? Should he call . . . somebody? What the hell kind of trouble was he in now?
It was like bad karma from this afternoon, he told himself as he slid onto his bed and stuffed himself towards the corner, bracing his back against the headboard. He´d thought someone might have caught him messing up with classes or homework, but no, that had only been the counselor with the touchy feely wish game, asking questions he shouldn´t have answered even with the half truths he gave her.
With no clear idea about what he should do next, he put his headphones back on with shaky hands, reached to take the phone off the hook and moved back into the corner of his bed against the wall facing the door.
There was noise downstairs for a while, indeterminate shouting and a thump or two. At some point another car pulled up. He didn´t much feel like looking to see if it was a second cop car, but at this point he assumed so.
Funny, how he´d been keeping an eye out for police cars for weeks, and now they were all coming right to him. He stifled a hysterical laugh against the back of his hand, and went back to listening.
Broken voices with static interplayed between replies drifted up from downstairs. Then there came a knock at his bedroom door.
"Xander?" It was a new voice, not either of the cops, not the counselor, not Angel, not Oz.
"Come in," he called out. His voice cracked on the "in".
"Hey there, pal," the man who opened the door said. He leaned against the door jamb and smiled encouragingly.
"Um. Hi." Xander swallowed.
"Mind if I ––" the stranger gestured towards his desk.
"No problem."
"Thanks." The man crossed the room, leaned back on the desk with his arms propping him up, and smiled again. He sure didn´t seem like a cop; for one thing, he was dressed in a kind of vintage suit that almost made Xander think of photos he´d seen of the Roaring Twenties.
"Kind of a crazy night," the man announced. "You okay there?"
"Me? Yeah, I´m ––" Xander blinked. "Who are you?"
The man laughed. "No beating around the bush. I like that in a kid. Me, I´m all about the straight talk myself. You can call me Lorne. There you have it, a nice straightforward answer."
"Uh huh." Xander pulled his comforter up to his legs. "What´s going on with my dad?"
"See, I´m a social worker," Lorne continued, as though Xander hadn´t asked a question. "And my specialty is kids like you, kids who need some help. When things got a little emotional downstairs, Officers Gunn and Pryce gave me a call so I could come over and have a talk with you."
"They were looking for me," Xander said aloud as he remembered.
"That´s right."
"What´d I do?" Xander asked.
"Oh, kiddo, you didn´t do anything wrong. See, it´s not just tonight that made us all a little worried about you. Some of your neighbors and family members, well, they´re starting to think that you might need some options."
"Options?"
"Like maybe you need people to pay more attention to you, make sure things are going okay in your life," Lorne said gently.
Xander gaped at him. "That counselor at school –– that´s what I said to her, about people paying attention ––"
"Hallie? Listen, my friend, I´ve known Hallie for forever and a day, and you´ve got to trust me when I say that she didn´t reveal anything about what you said to her –– all that is confidential, you got that? But she did answer my call about you this evening, and told me she thought it would be good if we . . . stepped things up a little."
"This evening?" Xander stood suddenly, then sat back down on the mattress, dizzy. "But you said the police officers, they only called you now. You knew about me before that? How did you –– what´s going on?"
"Hey, hey, take a deep breath, okay?" Lorne advised.
Xander jumped to his feet and walked towards the door –– he was there before he even realized what he was doing.
"Xander," Lorne said quietly.
He half–turned, his hand still on the doorknob. "I feel weird about all of this."
"You and me both," Lorne said with a sigh.
Xander inched back and sat on the edge of his bed, waiting.
"Xander, I don´t want to lie to you. Remember what I said before, how I´m someone who´s all about the straight talk?"
He gave Lorne a dull nod.
"Ideal world, I would have had a chance to meet with you in school later this week, let you know how I´ve been following your case, talk to you about what you want. But since everything got stepped up tonight, let me tell you the most important parts." Lorne smoothed his hands along his trouser legs. "So this whole drama amounts to this: there are a bunch of police reports filed about your dad, about times when they came out here and found him belligerent and threatening."
Xander´s throat went dry. "They –– the police have only come here this one time. Tonight. How could all those reports ––"
Lorne shook his head slowly. "Not according to the records I´ve seen, buddy. I´m sorry. Maybe you missed out on a couple of police visits –– maybe you were asleep? But we have those, the reports and complaints about how he treats your mom, about how he treats you. Then your teachers started to notice how little you pay attention, how you seemed so distracted. And lately your dad has had some problems at work ––"
"He never has before," Xander interrupted.
Something flitted across Lorne´s face. "Sometimes the people we know don´t always tell us the whole truth about themselves."
"Lorne?" Someone spoke quietly just outside the door, and Lorne pushed off from the desk.
"´Scuse me just a sec, okay, Xander?"
A moment later he returned, closing the door after him. "I wish we had more time," he said. "I wanted to explain to you about CPS, about my job, and about what we´re trying to do for you –– but the judge has ordered a special night court session, about where you´re going to be placed."
"Placed? Like, in a foster home?" Xander blurted.
"Placed for tonight, and maybe through the end of this week," Lorne corrected him. "This is a kind of halfway step, not the end of the road."
"To putting me in a foster home," Xander answered. It wasn´t a question.
Lorne hesitated. "It´s possible that you´ll be back here before you know it. But between you and me, I´m thinking that another option is going to be better for you than this. And I´ll do whatever I can to make sure of that, that you have something better."
He held his arm out to usher Xander out of the room, and guided him through the door.
"The interim guardian is already here?" Xander heard a woman with a clipboard ask one of the officers.
"In the judge´s chambers," the cop confirmed before hustling down the hall.
"You want a soda?" Lorne asked. "Candy bar? You wouldn´t think court room candy would be anything to write home about, but I tell you, these vending machines give out little slices of heaven."
"I´m okay," Xander answered.
They had been waiting for four hours, probably more by now. Xander had stopped checking his Cap´n Crunch watch after shaking it to make sure it still worked. But no, it was the timing on this end, not his battery dying.
Lorne took a few calls on his cell phone, but never walked far away enough so that Xander was completely alone.
Finally, after what must have been at least another hour later:
"We have a preliminary judgment." A man with an I.D. clipped to his shirt pocket stepped up with some forms for Lorne to look at and sign.
"Great. I don´t know about you, kiddo, but I´m beat. What we both need is a long night´s sleep. And I can promise you, things like this? Always look better in the morning."
"But where am I going tonight?" From his position on the hall bench Xander tried, once again unsuccessfully, to read upside down.
"To the home of a special court–appointed guardian," Lorne told him. "We talked about the option of family members, but there are some issues there too, and when it came down to it, this was what the judge wanted."
"He´s here now," the court official said in a brisk voice, pointing down the length of the hall.
Lorne turned first, and Xander had to pitch forward where he sat to see around him.
When he saw Angel walking towards them, Xander held his breath. It couldn´t be –– Angel was here for some other reason, for his cop stuff, not because ––
"Hey. They tell me your name is Xander," Angel said in a soft voice, going down on one knee so that he was eye to eye with Xander.
He shut his eyes, but when he opened them again, Angel was still there. "Yeah," he said in a strained voice. "Hi."
Angel put his hand on Xander´s knee. "Hi."
The End
