They Cage the Animals at Night

by Jennings Michael Burch

  We talked about the family. We talked about Larry running away. He agreed with Sal.

  “Running can become a habit,” he said.

  We talked about George wanting to be thanked for carrying the load by himself.

  “I don’t think he wants to be thanked as much as he wants to be recognized,” he said.

  “What?”

  “He wants Mom and Walter to see he’s doing good and appreciate him,” he said. “When all they see is his drinking, he drinks more.”

  “How do you know all this stuff?” I asked.

  He laughed. “I pay attention,” he said. “And I ask questions. Asking questions is how you learn, and learning is how you grow.”

  “Will I grow if I ask questions?”

  “Sure.”

  “Then will you tell me what it means to have a brother, and to be one? I’ve been thinking about this for a long time.”

  “Sure,” he said.

  “Well?”

  “Well, what?”

  “Aren’t you going to tell me?”

  “Sure I am.”

  “When?”

  “In time,” he said. “In time, Jennings, you’ll tell me.”

  “I was afraid of that,” I mumbled.

  “Now,” he said, “tell me what Walter thinks about all this stuff going on.”

  I told him Walter thought education was the only thing that was important. The only thing you could count on. I told him Walter thought George and Larry were nothing but bums.

  “That’s too bad,” he said. “Walter sees everything as black and white.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Walter only sees things from his point of view. He doesn’t see George and Larry have created a whole different set of problems for themselves. Walter can only spell ‘compassion.’”

  I scratched my head. Jerome laughed.

  “You see, it’s like this. Walter, with all his intelligence, doesn’t realize all of you have the same problem. You’re all trying to belong, you’re all trying to survive. He’s found one way, and it’s a good one. George and Larry found another, and it’s bad. Someday maybe Walter will see how lucky he is. He could have just as easily gone a different way. Their way.”

  “Someday I’m gonna learn how to talk to adults,” I said.

  He laughed. “It’s not all that difficult,” he said. “All you have to do is say what you feel and learn to listen. It’s called being open. There’s two sides to everything.”

  “I’m glad I asked. Want to play checkers?”

  He laughed.

  After school each day I was anxious to get home and be with Jerome. He was my only friend—outside of Doggie, of course.

  “Don’t you ever go out anywhere?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, I just take care of Mom and you. That’s all. I used to go to the park across Broadway when the nurse came,” I said. “She didn’t want me around when she bathed Mom.” I made a face.

  “Well, why don’t you go to the park now?”

  “Now? But I want to stay with you.”

  “I want you to go to the park! You can’t just keep staying indoors all the time. I stay in because I have to. But you don’t have to.”

  “But—”

  “No buts. Go!”

  I went to the park. I sat on the bench and waited. I figured I’d wait a little while and then go back. I watched the kids playing on the swings and the slide. My eye caught sight of a blond-headed girl on the far side of the park coming toward me. I watched her. She came closer and closer. Her eyes caught mine. She stopped in her tracks and stared. I looked behind me to see who she was staring at. There was no one there. I turned back. Suddenly she started running toward me. I got nervous.

  “Jennings!” she shouted.

  It wasn’t until she got very close to me that I realized who it was. It was Stacy.

  “Stacy,” I said. Chills ran over my arms and legs. “Stacy.”

  I started to stand as she reached me. She nearly tackled me back down onto the bench. She kissed me.

  “What are you doing here?” I said.

  “I live here. I’ve been away at school, but I’m back now. What are you doing here?”

  “I live here too.”

  “Where?”

  “Right there.” I pointed up Elmhurst Avenue. “So that’s where I heard the name.”

  “What?”

  “The name Elmhurst. When I first got here, I was sure I had heard of Elmhurst, but I couldn’t remember where I heard it. You told me Elmhurst, back at the home.”

  “Oh, wow!” she said. “I can’t believe I’m seeing you! So, tell me.” She grabbed hold of my arm and wrapped both her arms around it. “Where’ve you been?”

  I felt the redness rise in my face and the back of my neck. “Everywhere,” I said.

  She asked me a million questions. She hadn’t changed at all. Well, at least not in how fast she could talk. She had changed in appearance a little. She was taller and prettier. She was wearing a light blue dress with white lace around her collar and sleeves. Her hair was still golden yellow and shone in the sunlight. She was becoming a real young lady. She smelled wonderful.

  “You know, I loved you when we were kids,” she said.

  I turned a bright red. The heat rushed into my face. “Oh, gosh,” I said.

  She laughed. “You still say ‘Oh, gosh.’” She leaned forward and kissed my cheek. “You know, I still love you,” she said.

  “Oh, gosh,” I mumbled.

  She started to laugh again. She tucked herself close into me. “I wasn’t glad when I first got home,” she said. “I wanted to stay at school for the summer. But now I’m glad.”

  “Oh, gosh.”

  Stacy and I walked to the edge of the park. She held my hand. Her hand was soft and warm. I hadn’t realized how soft someone’s hand could be.

  “Will I see you here tomorrow?” she asked.

  “Uh…yes,” I said. “I’ll be here tomorrow.”

  She leaned toward me and kissed me. She no longer kissed me on the cheek, but on the mouth. I was frozen where I stood. I watched her walk up the street. She turned back and smiled. I didn’t see Stacy as forward anymore, I saw her as open. She was what Jerome was talking about. You didn’t have to guess what Stacy was thinking or feeling, she told you.

  I walked up the hill toward home. I was rushed with new feelings. When I got into the bedroom, I sat on my bed.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Jerome asked. “Fresh air too much for you?”

  “Uh…I…uh…”

  “Well, that’s a good start. What else?” He laughed.

  “I…uh…”

  “You said that.” He laughed again. “Want to play cards?”

  “Yeah.” I got up and went over to him. I sat on the cards.

  “What’s the matter with you?” he asked. “Are you in love or something?”

  “What? No!” I said. “I’m not in love, I’m not in love.”

  He really started laughing. “I think you’re in love,” he said.

  “Really?”

  “Could be. I looked like that when I was eleven and in love,” he said. “Who is she?”

  “Uh…Stacy,” I mumbled.

  “Stacy. That’s a pretty name. Tell me about her.”

  I told him. I told him when I first met her, about the home, everything.

  “I think you’re in love.”

  “How do you know?” I asked.

  “You just know,” he said. “You get all these tingly feelings. It’s puppy love.”

  “Puppy love?”

  “Yeah.” He smiled. “Like two little puppies having a wonderful time playing together. Enjoy it.”

  “I’ve never been in love before. I’m a little afraid of it, I think.”

  “What?”

  “I think I’m afraid of love.”

  “How can you be afraid of love? Love is the nicest thing in the world
.”

  “Yeah, but…if it’s the nicest thing, how come nobody talks about it or says anything about it?”

  “We’re talking about it, aren’t we?”

  “That’s true.”

  “Well…”

  I started to tell Jerome what I thought and felt about love. How I wished I had told Mark what I felt about him. And about Sal.

  “Mark and I pretended we were brothers,” I said.

  “Is that why you asked me about brothers?”

  I nodded my head yes.

  “Well,” he sighed, “I still think you’ll work out what it means to have and to be a brother all by yourself. But as far as love is concerned, I think people are just afraid of the words. Take Mom, for instance.”

  “Mom?”

  “Yeah. Mom never says it, but she feels it.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Well, she could have put everyone in a home and not come back at all, but she didn’t. As hard a time as Mom was having, she kept trying. She kept trying to keep us all together. Sure, everything’s a mess, but she tried. That’s love.”

  “Why don’t you think she says it?”

  “It’s the words,” he said. “So many people think their love won’t be accepted or returned, so they don’t say it. They think by not saying it, they won’t be hurt. They’re wrong.”

  “They’re wrong?”

  “Sure they are. By not saying it, they build a little wall around themselves. They lock all that love up inside. That hurts more than rejection.”

  “I want to say it sometimes,” I said. “But it don’t come out. I want to tell Mom and Sal, but it just don’t come out.”

  “Well, when you want to say it, you should just say it. Let it come out.”

  “Gosh. I don’t know if I can,” I said. “I always thought nobody wanted to hear that stuff. Now I got to think about saying it.”

  “Say it!” he said. “If everyone went around thinking nobody wanted to hear it, ‘I love you’ wouldn’t exist.”

  I sat on the park bench and looked around. I didn’t see Stacy anywhere. I waited. I ran my fingernail along a crack in the bench and waited.

  Suddenly two hands were clasped over my eyes. Both my hands went up to hold hers.

  “Guess who?” Stacy said. Her voice was soft and sweet.

  I hadn’t realized how nice her voice was. My fingers ran over her hands and her fingers. She felt warm.

  “Stacy,” I said.

  “You win.” She leaned over the top of me and kissed my cheek. She slipped her arms around my shoulders and pulled me close to her. My head pressed against her chest. “You win me,” she said.

  We walked around the outside of the park. I held her hand. We talked about all sorts of things. I told her about Mark. She remembered him. She stopped walking and cried. I held her around her waist as she leaned into me. She put her head against my shoulder and her arms around my neck. I thought I should be bright red in the face, but I wasn’t. I liked being near her. She was wearing a pink sweater to match her pink slacks. Her blouse was white and lacy. Her hair was pinned back over each ear. The words were stuck in my throat. I kissed her above her ear.

  I walked Stacy home after the park. She lived in a small private house on the street just behind the building I lived in.

  “Can you believe how close we are to each other?” I asked.

  She had her hands around my waist. “I can believe it,” she said.

  “No, I mean that’s my house,” I said. I pointed to it.

  She looked up at the huge building.

  “The whole thing?” she said.

  “No,” I laughed, “just one little apartment.”

  “Want to go to the movies Saturday?” she asked.

  “All right,” I said.

  “All right,” she said. “I’ll see you Saturday.” She leaned forward and kissed me.

  I kissed her back.

  I left Stacy and sort of floated down the street toward Broadway. My head was filled with new thoughts, I was filled with new feelings. I laughed a little when I thought of how I acted toward Stacy three years ago at the home. As I walked along, I had the strangest feeling I could hear music. That’s really weird. I was sure only people in the movies heard music when they were in love. I was right. I passed a little wooden shack by a building under construction. I heard the music coming from inside. I stopped near the door. Someone was playing the harmonica. I listened.

  “Why don’tcha come in?” a voice said as the music stopped.

  I hesitated for a moment, but then pushed the door open.

  “Hi, young fella,” the man said.

  He was an elderly black man with white curly hair. He was sitting by a small potbelly stove. He was wearing a dark brown sweater pulled over a plaid shirt. He had a big hole at his elbow. He needed a shave.

  “Sit yourself down,” he said. “Takes da chill from ya bones.”

  “It’s not cold,” I said.

  “Well it’s cold fo me,” he laughed. “Whatcha calls yourself?”

  His laugh was raspy and deep.

  “I calls myself…I mean, my name is Jennings.”

  “It’s a pleasure ta meetchu,” he said. He put his hand out. “Dey calls me Clarence.”

  “How did you know I was outside the door, Clarence?” I asked as I shook his hand.

  He chuckled. “Instinct, me boy. Instinct.”

  I scratched my head. I didn’t think I smelled bad, but I guess if he could smell me through the door, I must. I’ll have to take shower, I thought.

  Clarence played his harmonica for me. He closed his eyes when he played. He swayed back and forth with the music. Clarence was drifting off somewhere. He played beautifully.

  “Does anybody live here with you?” I asked.

  Clarence laughed. “I don’t lives here. I works here. I’m da night watchman.”

  “What do you watch?”

  “I jist see dat nobody fools wit da building till mornin’. Dat’s all.”

  “Oh. So you just sit here all night and play your harmonica?”

  “Dat’s all.” He grinned. “Play me harp ‘n make me friends.”

  “Do you make a lot of friends?”

  “Millions of dem. Millions.” He smiled. He had as many teeth as he had friends.

  “Millions? How do you have room for millions of friends?”

  He laughed. “Dat’s easy,” he said. “I only needs enough room for da friend I’m wit. When dey go…I gots room for another.” He started to play another song. In the middle of his playing he stopped. “Don’t ever worry ’bouts havin’ too many friends, son,” he said. “Jist enjoy who yo is wit.”

  “There’s a girl I like to be with. Her name is Stacy.”

  “Stacy! Why, dat’s a beautiful name. I’ll bet she’s a lovely girl.”

  “She is.”

  “And is she yo foist love?” he asked.

  “I think so. It’s puppy love.”

  “Puppy love.” He laughed, showing all his teeth. “Well, ain’t dat somethin’. Why, I ’member when I was ’bout your age.” He closed his eyes and dreamed. “I was in love wit a little girl name o’ Milisa.” He made sort of a humming sound.

  “What happened to her?”

  “We grews up,” he said. “She wents her way ‘n I wents mine. I always thinks of her, dough. She was my foist love and dat’s very special.”

  He started to play his harp again. He stopped.

  “If’n yo and Stacy should ever drifts apart,” he said, “don’t ever forgets her. She will always be da one who started yo heart to beatin’. Dat’s important.” He smiled.

  He started to play. He winked at me as I made my way out the door. It was getting late and I had to get home.

  I got to see Stacy nearly every day. I had to take care of Mom and Jerome first, but after that I got to see her. We went for walks, and once in a while to the movies. It was nice just being with her.

  Stacy showed me things I hadn’t
seen before. Things I knew were always there, but just never saw them, like flowers. She loved flowers and trees and birds. If I were with her in the evening, she would name some of the stars for me. I never knew stars had names; I thought they were all just stars. For that matter, I never knew grass had a special smell, or leaves felt the way they did. I hadn’t realized a sunset could be so much prettier when you watched it with someone else. I never knew rain was sometimes warm. Stacy had a way of making everything seem wonderful. If I could say “I love you” to anyone, I thought, it would be to Stacy. So many times I came close to finding the words. And just as many times I swallowed them. Someday I’ll say it, I thought. I know I will.

  It was early in July when Stacy and I were out walking. We stopped to rest in a triangular-shaped park with benches and trees. It was a small park, so it didn’t have any swings or anything. We sat on one of the benches.

  “I have to go, Jennings,” she said.

  “Go? Go where?”

  “Away. I have to go away with my parents and my sister.”

  “Oh, gosh. I don’t want you to go away.”

  “I don’t either,” she said, “but I have to.”

  She leaned her head into my chest and started to cry. I brushed her hair back with my hand and kissed her forehead.

  “Don’t cry,” I said. “I’ll see you when you get back, won’t I?”

  “I won’t be back until September. Then I go away to school.”

  I flicked my thumbnail against my pointer finger. Love hurts, I thought. It’s like friendship; even if you don’t say it, you feel it.

  “Can I write to you?” she asked.

  “Sure,” I said. “I never wrote to nobody, but I’ll write to you.”

  “Then maybe we’ll see each other next summer,” she said.

  I looked out over the park toward my school. The building was empty now. But in a couple of months I’d be back there. I’ll be in the sixth grade. Next summer’s a long time from now.

  “Jennings,” she said quietly.

  “Yeah.”

  “I won’t see you next summer, will I?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “So many people I liked have come and gone in my life. I don’t hold out much hope for next summer. It’s too far away to plan.”

  “You still live by the rules of the home, don’t you?”