After breakfast the lifers went to class. The rest of us were marched into the playroom, where the screen doors were open. I walked across the grassless yard to a spot near a tree. I sat down. The yard was very wide and long. It was bounded on two sides by very tall trees and on the others by the building and a small creek. I sat by the tree watching the other kids run around. The boy with the rooster hair approached me.
“Hi, Jenix.”
“Hi. It’s Jennings,” I said.
“Oh. Jennings. My name’s Bobby, but everyone calls me Rooster.” He laughed. “I guess I look like a rooster. Do you wanna play tag?”
“Okay.”
I no sooner spoke than he hit me across the head.
“You’re it,” he shouted, and disappeared into a cloud of dust.
I sprang to my feet. I wasn’t too sure who was playing, but it wasn’t all that hard to figure out. Anyone who ran as I approached was playing. I chased after quite a few kids but couldn’t catch anyone. Then I remembered what I used to do when I played with my brothers and couldn’t catch any of them. I fell down. I didn’t move. The laughter that first erupted quieted. A few of the boys approached me. I stayed still.
“Are you all right?” one of them asked.
I didn’t answer. I lay motionless, my face toward the ground.
“Hey, kid, are you hurt?” another asked as he drew closer to me.
When he was within reach, I shot out my hand and struck his foot. “You’re it!” I shouted, and sprang to my feet.
The whole yard broke into laughter. All but the boy I tagged, of course.
We played tag for quite some time. I didn’t get tagged again, and I was glad. I knew the possum trick wouldn’t work twice. The game began to peter out. Some of the kids drifted off to do other things. I sat by the tree. Stevie sat next to me.
“As soon as we catch our breat,” he said, “we’ll go ‘n wash up. If we go into lunch like dis…” He raised his eyebrows. “Sister Barbara will kill us.”
Our faces, hands, and arms were filthy. We had dark rings around out necks. We reached the sinks.
“Whatever ya do in this bat’room—” he started to say.
“Don’t make a mess!” we said together, and then laughed.
“You been in many of dese homes?” he asked.
“Just one other. Home of the Angels in Brooklyn.”
“I never been to dat one. Dis is my fifth. It ain’t so bad as some others I been in.”
“Are the rules any different here?” I asked.
“Naa. Dey’re all the same. Keep ya mout’ shut and don’t pee in bed.”
“I ain’t done that in years.”
“What are ya in for?” he asked.
“My mother’s sick.”
“Is she gonna die?”
“Uh…I don’t think so. I hope not.”
“Well, my mudder’s dead. She died a long time ago, and my fadder, he’s a drunken bum. He’s da one who gived me dis.” He whirled around and revealed his back to me. “He gets real drunk and beats me up. Da neighbors call da cops and dey take him away. Dey bring me to dese places. It ain’t fair,” he mumbled. “I gets da worst of it. I hate him.”
“How long do you stay here?”
“Until they let him out. Den he comes ‘n gets me. He promises he ain’t gonna do it no more ‘n den, wham! I’m right back in one of dese places. It ain’t fair.”
We finished washing and were wiping down the sinks when Stevie started talking to himself.
“One of dese days, he ain’t gonna hit me no more. One of dese days, I’m gonna…” He didn’t finish his words, but he nearly rubbed the porcelain off the sink, he rubbed so hard. He threw his towel from where he was standing and it landed on his hook.
“Pretty good!” I said. I threw my towel. It landed on the floor in front of me.
“How old are ya?” he asked.
“I’m nine.”
“Well, I’m ten. I’m da toughest kid in here. If’n ya gots any trouble…see me!” He stuck his thumb in his chest to emphasize his last word.
Stevie was the Butch of St. Teresa’s, but it didn’t bother me. I liked him. He was angry and bitter about his father, but he was also sad and alone and hurt. I don’t mean because he’s in this place, we’re all sad and alone being here, I mean because it’s inside him. When we leave here, we won’t be sad and alone no more. But, I think Stevie will be. What bothered me the most was the thought that Mom might die. I hadn’t thought about it until Stevie said it. It scared me.
After lunch, Rooster, Stevie, and I went down by the creek to catch some frogs.
“Are there any alligators in here?” Rooster asked.
“A few,” Stevie said. “But not too many. Mostly snakes.”
“Snakes!” I jumped back from the edge of the creek.
“Dey’re just little ones. Dey don’t eat much.”
“Oh, gosh,” I said. “This place is crawling with wild animals. Just last night I heard one.”
“Oh, yeah?” Rooster said. “What kind of animal?”
“I don’t know, but he was a big one.”
“What did he sound like?” Stevie asked.
“Well, let’s see…it was like a whistle, but it was all broken up. Sorta like this.” I made the sound as best I could.
Stevie started to laugh. So did Rooster.
“What’s so funny?”
“Dat wasn’t a wild animal,” Stevie laughed. “Dat was a cricket!”
“A cricket? Like Jiminy Cricket?”
“Yeah. But dese ones ain’t got no clothes on,” Stevie said.
“Oh.”
Stevie, Rooster, and I palled around together. Nobody spoke about friends, but that was okay with me. I remember how it felt when I left Mark. I didn’t want to feel that way anymore. It hurt. Stevie taught Rooster and me how to climb trees without scraping our knees, and how to make a frog jump.
At night I took Doggie from the cabinet to bed with me. For the first few minutes, we would talk about the day and about how I felt. I loved Doggie so much. I needed him. One morning Doggie wasn’t under my pillow, but in my arms. I quickly sat up and looked around. Sister Barbara wasn’t there. I was safe. I jumped down from the bed and stuck him in the cabinet. I was about to leave for the bathroom to get dressed when Sister Ann Catherine danced past me, singing. She always danced and sang in the mornings. I listened to her song.
“Well, if I had a Doggie cute as him, I wouldn’t sleep with him under my pillow. La dee da de da de dillo.” She laughed.
She knew I had Doggie and she wasn’t mad at me. That made me happy, but I had to be more careful. If Sister Barbara ever found him, she’d kill me. Worse than that, she might take him away from me.
I was in the yard sitting by the tree with Rooster after breakfast. We were waiting for Stevie.
“I’ll go and find him,” Rooster said.
“Okay.”
Rooster walked off. He dragged his feet every step of the way just to raise as much dust as he could. We all did that when we crossed the yard; it was fun. As the dust began to settle, I saw Stevie coming from the house.
“Did you see Rooster?” I shouted.
He didn’t answer me. He reached me and dropped down.
“Did you see Rooster? He went to look for you.”
Again he didn’t answer me.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nuttin,” he sighed. “Wanna run away?”
“Run away? Where?”
“I don’t know. Anywhere.”
“What’s the matter, Stevie?”
“Dey told me my fadda was comin’ for me today,” he mumbled. “I ain’t goin’ wit him no more.” He toyed with the ground between his feet. “I ain’t gonna get hit no more.” He got to his feet. “I’ll see ya,” he said as he started to walk away.
“Wait!” I scrambled to my feet. “Where you going?”
I caught up to him. There were tears on his cheeks.
“Stevie, wher
e you going?”
“I’m leavin’. I’m goin’ where no one will find me. Where no one can hurt me no more. I’ll see ya.”
“But…but…didn’t you ask me to go with you?”
“Ah. I was jist talkin’. I gotta go by myself.” He stopped in his tracks and I almost ran into him. “Hey, Jennings…” He paused to look at me. “I’ll see ya.” His eyes told me good-bye more than his words did. He turned and walked away alone.
I watched him walk into the trees. I stood watching the trees for a long time. The tops of them swayed gently in the morning breeze. Stevie was gone. I sat down where I was and stared at the trees.
It didn’t matter whether you said the word “friend” or not. If you felt “friend,” it was all the same. It hurt.
Rooster came back. He told me he couldn’t find Stevie. I didn’t tell him what had happened. I didn’t tell him Stevie was gone. I told him I didn’t feel very well and didn’t feel much like playing. He left to play with someone else.
At lunch and dinner I stared at Stevie’s empty chair. I wondered where he was and if he was afraid. I would be afraid, very afraid. I went right to bed after dinner. I took Doggie under the covers with me and hugged him. I didn’t have to tell him Stevie was gone, he just sort of knew. I kissed him a few times and tucked him under my pillow. I fell asleep.
I was awakened in the middle of the night by someone lifting my pillow and removing Doggie. I opened my eyes, but it was too dark to see anything. Suddenly Doggie was placed into my arms and the hair on my forehead was brushed back. Somebody kissed me. I blinked my eyes into focus as the dark figure walked down the row of beds. It was Sister Ann Catherine.
In the days that followed, Rooster and I played together, but it wasn’t the same. We both missed Stevie, but neither of us said anything. It was better that way. Sister Ann Catherine continued to give me Doggie in the middle of the night, and the kiss.
One morning Sister Barbara brought a new boy over to chair number sixteen and slammed him into it. His eyes were red. The dried tears on his cheeks were smeared and streaky. I guess he’d tried wiping them away with his dirty hands but couldn’t. He sat perfectly still; he didn’t move. I knew how he felt and wanted to say something to him, but I couldn’t. Even if I could, what would I say? Everything is going to be all right? I didn’t know if everything was going to be all right. I didn’t know anything. Sister Barbara poured him hot cocoa. Before he realized it was in a metal cup, he lifted it to drink and burned his hand. He dropped the cup on the table, spilled the cocoa across the white tablecloth. I jumped to my feet.
“Sister! I spilled my cocoa!” I yelled. I moved my cup in front of the new boy.
Sister Barbara came at me like a wild animal. She slapped me hard across the ear and knocked me into the table. She grabbed my hair and pulled me over the chair. I fell to the floor. She grabbed the back of my shirt collar and dragged me toward the front of the room. As she dragged me across the uneven wooden floor, great and small splinters began ripping into all parts of my body. I screamed and cried, but the pain kept coming. She reached the front of the room and dropped me. She kicked me in the side, knocking my breath away. She opened a closet door and in one sweeping motion lifted me from the floor and dropped me in. She slammed the door.
In the dark black silence of the dining-room closet, I lay in one great heap of pain. I stayed as motionless as possible for what seemed forever. My face was pressed hard against the wooden floor. I felt moistness all over me. It could be sweat or blood, I wasn’t sure. I began to feel around at my hurt body. Each time I touched a jagged piece of floor sticking from my body, I winced in pain. My pants were soaking wet, but not from blood. I had wet my pants. The pee began to burn some of the cuts on my legs. I tried to find some comfortable position, but I couldn’t. No matter what I did, something else hurt. I closed my eyes and made believe I was hugging Doggie. His fur was soft and warm. He felt so good to be near. He was my friend and I loved him. I fell asleep.
I was awakened when someone tried to move me. The sharp pain shot across my side as a piece of wooden floor was pushed into me. I screamed.
“Shhhh, baby. Poor baby. You’ll be all right,” Sister Ann Catherine whispered.
She and a nurse lifted me onto a blanket or something. They carried me from the room.
I was taken to a room and placed down onto a soft bed, but it didn’t matter. The splinters still worked their way deeper into me, and I cried. The nurse gave me a needle while Sister Ann Catherine sat alongside me and gently held my hand. The nurse began to cut away my clothes with scissors. Sleep closed over me like the dark closet.
I awoke the next morning. I was alone. The sun peered in through the window. I turned a little in the bed to relieve a pain in my shoulder, and there alongside me was Doggie.
“Oh, Doggie,” I cried. I held him close against my face. “She hurt me, Doggie. She hurt me so much.”
“Good morning, Jennings, how do you feel?” Sister Ann Catherine asked as she pushed open the door.
“I don’t know, Sister.” I wiped my eyes.
She sat down. “Someone is here to say hello to you. Do you feel up to it?”
“Yes, Sister.”
“Peter,” she called out.
The door pushed open and in came the boy who had spilled the cocoa. He came over to the bed and just stood there. His lip quivered as he tried to speak. He started to cry. Sister Ann Catherine pulled him down toward her and hugged him.
“He wanted to thank you for taking the blame, but he’s upset right now.”
“It’s okay,” I said. I reached over and took his dangling hand. “Hi, Peter.”
“Hi,” he said as he straightened up and wiped away his tears. “Thank you.”
“Do you play checkers?” I asked.
He nodded his head yes.
“Good. Maybe we can play sometime.”
“Well, not now. Jennings has to rest,” Sister said. She took Peter to the door and let him out.
“‘Bye,” he said as he left.
“‘Bye.”
Sister Ann Catherine put medicine on some of the cuts and rebandaged some of the others. She brought me some oatmeal and fed it to me. She gave Doggie a taste, and I laughed.
She came every day to fix the bandages and to read to me. Peter and Rooster came to play checkers and cards with me. No one at all mentioned Sister Barbara’s name to me. I hated her.
I stayed in the little hospital for six days. On the morning of the seventh day the nurse laid some clothes on the bed and told me to put them on. I did. The pants and shirt were both light brown. They were kind of nice. A lot better than my old stuff. I sat at the edge of the bed.
“You can go now, Jennings,” she said.
“Go? Go where?”
“Back. Back to the dining room to have breakfast. You’re all right now, you know.”
I was frightened. I didn’t want to go back. I didn’t ever want to see Sister Barbara again.
“Can’t I stay here?”
“No, dear. This room is for sick people. Go and have a nice breakfast. All right?”
“All right,” I said.
I gathered up Doggie under my arm and left. I went down the hall to the playroom. I pushed open the screen door and stepped out into the bright morning sunshine. I thought about Stevie. I knew what he felt the day he was supposed to go back to his father. The fear that grew inside of him, the one that reminded him of pain. I knew if he were afraid of running away, the fear of staying was greater. I headed for the same trees he headed for the day he decided not to go back.
Doggie and I walked for hours. We had no idea where we were, but we kept walking. We wanted to get away from there.
“Are you hungry, Doggie?”
He said he was.
“Yeah, me, too. Maybe we should’ve stayed for breakfast?”
He didn’t think so.
We passed a park with some swings and a slide.
“Hey, Doggie! Wanna go on t
he slide?”
He did.
We played in the park for quite some time. The sun began to dip down below a row of buildings that bordered the park. We were tired and hungry. We decided to stay in the park, to find some nice spot in the bushes where we could rest.
“There’s a good bunch of bushes. What do you think?” I asked.
Doggie thought they were fine. So we slipped into the bushes. I lay down with Doggie and closed my eyes. I thought if we slept, we might not be so hungry.
I was awakened by beeping horns. I stuck my head out of the bushes and saw a whole lot of cars and some buses. It was morning. I dusted off Doggie’s fur and tucked him under my arm. We left the bushes and made our way toward the exit of the park.
“We gotta get a plan, Doggie. We gotta find out where we are, and most of all, we gotta get some food.”
He agreed.
We passed a row of stores and some people. I saw a lady standing by the curb waiting for a bus or something. I decided to ask her where I was.
“Excuse me.” I smiled. “Can you tell me where I am? Please.”
“Are you lost, little boy?”
“Uh…you could say that.”
“Where’s your mother?”
“Uh…she’s resting someplace.”
“Resting! Resting where?”
“I’m not exactly sure. That’s why I was asking you where I am. You see?”
“Not exactly. But you’re in Yonkers.”
“Yonkers!” I tapped my upper lip while I thought of what next to ask the nice lady. “Uh…is Yonkers in Brooklyn?”
“No,” she laughed. “You’re a long way from Brooklyn. Do you live in Brooklyn?”
“No, not exactly. I live in the Bronx.”
“Oh, well, you’re not that far from the Bronx. Where in the Bronx do you live?”
“188th Street.”
“188th Street! How did you get all the way up here?”
“Well, it’s a long story. Could you tell me which way is 188th Street?”
She pointed down the street in the direction of 188th Street.
“Thank you, ma’am,” I said.
“But, sonny! Can I help you get there? Shouldn’t I call your mother or somebody?”
They Cage the Animals at Night Page 9