“I don’t want one.”
“What are you talking about?”
She said something else, but I couldn’t hear her. My body was flooding with adrenaline. The sound in my head grew louder. I had to shout to be heard over it. “Why do all the dads in this family leave?”
“Keep your voice down!”
“What do you do to them?”
“We don’t need a dad,” she hissed. “We’re fine.”
“We’re fine?” A sharp, hysterical laugh escaped from my throat.
Her mouth fell open as if I had slapped her. “A baby will be good for Malcolm,” she said. “It’s good to have someone to take care of. It was good for you.”
“Good for me?” The obviousness of her lie enraged me. “I hate you!” I said it again, mesmerized by the power of the words. Her face crumbled as if it were made of dry clay. I dropped the curtain. I grabbed my pants and shoes from my room and went to the front door.
“Ares!” she called from behind her curtain. “Come back here. Right now!”
Malcolm stirred on his couch.
“You woke him up!” I yelled loudly enough to ensure my claim would be true. “And it’s your fault this time.”
It was still dark when I arrived at Mrs. Poole’s. A ring of lights around the perimeter of the house made it appear to be floating on a black sea. Mr. Poole’s truck was parked in the driveway next to her car. Whatever idea I’d had about coming here, whatever escape or solace I was looking for disintegrated when I saw the two cars side by side. Now that Kevin was home, the Pooles were a family that had closed ranks. I was about to remount my bike when I noticed a pile of plants and grasses lying by the edge of the vegetable garden. I knelt down. In among the weeds and rocks were green broom and buckwheat, the viruses Mrs. Poole wanted to eradicate. But a bean plant had been pulled out of the ground, too, its roots still intact. I sorted through the pile more carefully and found two more young shoots Kevin had mistaken for weeds. I separated them from the pile, lifting them carefully, making sure to support their delicate stems.
“What are you stealing?”
Kevin stood in a spill of light. He wore a T-shirt and wrinkled boxer shorts. His face was creased from sleep.
“I wasn’t taking anything.”
“What are you fucking doing?” His legs were muscular and hairy—a man’s legs.
“I was just…some of these are good. Like this.” I held up the bean plant. “You can replant it. She won’t know.”
“So, you’re the gardener or something?”
“No.”
“You just go to other people’s houses in the middle of the night and steal their shit?”
“It’s not like that,” I said weakly, but I couldn’t say what it was, either. I felt like I had woken out of a dream that was fleeing from my mind just as I was about to remember what the point of it was.
“Maybe I ought to get one of them out here,” he said, cocking his head toward the house.
“No. Please.”
A smile leaked across his face. “I’m not a snitch. I mean, if you get off doing other people’s work, I’m not gonna stop you. I hate this shit.”
“I can do it for you. I don’t mind.”
He considered the offer. “Maybe. Only she can’t find out. She’s all about chores. Taking responsibility. Pulling your weight. Weeding is supposed to be part of my re-ha-bil-i-tation.” He tore apart the word. In the spaces between syllables resided a whole history of Kevin I had no access to, but that I wanted to know. “What’s that one?” he said, pointing to the plant in my hand.
“Bean. This one’s burro brush,” I said, picking up another plant. “She doesn’t like it, but it will flower.”
He twisted his mouth in a not entirely generous appraisal. “So, you’re a plant freak?”
“I did the gardening when you were gone.” I was about to tell him that I got paid for the job but thought the better of the laughable two dollars. “She lent me a plant book.”
“Yeah. She’s all about books. ‘Look it up in a book,’” he said, imitating her. “Like she knows the answer but makes you look it up anyway.”
“Well, your mom’s a librarian.”
“Foster mom. It’s a temporary thing.”
“You’re going to leave?”
“They kicked me out before. Sent me to the center. You know they make money off me? Fostering’s, you know, a profit situation. That’s why they took me back after I served my time. They need the dough.”
“She said it wasn’t a prison.”
“Ha! Maybe she should spend three fucking months in there!”
“If you leave here where will you go?”
“Some other family that takes in strays. I age out when I’m eighteen. That will be freedom, man. Get me out of this system.”
“What will you do?”
“Everything. Anything. Go to Alaska. Yeah,” he said, as if he had just thought of the idea and liked the sound of it. “I’m going to go to Alaska. Meet some Eskimos.”
“How many places have you lived?”
“She’s my eighth placement.”
“Mrs. Poole?”
“It’s funny the way you call her that. Like you’re at school.”
“I heard you robbed a store.”
“I didn’t rob any stores,” he said, his lip curling at the insult. “If I’d have robbed a store, I wouldn’t have got caught.”
“That’s what some kids said.”
“They’re wrong.”
“Did you really hit her?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
He looked away, shifting uncomfortably.
“I don’t know. I just did.”
“So she sent you to that place?”
“He did.” He stared at me for a long moment.
The screen door at the back of the house whined as it opened.
“Shit,” Kevin said. He took the bean plant from me. “Get out of here.”
But it was too late. Mrs. Poole stepped around the side of the house. “Ares?” she said. She held her bathrobe closed at her neck. “What are you doing here? It’s the middle of the night.”
“I was just riding around,” I mumbled, lifting my bike off the ground.
“Kevin?” Mrs. Poole said accusingly.
“Hey,” Kevin said, “I just heard something. I thought it was a thief. Then I come out here and see this kid messing around in the garden. And then he pulls up this bean plant. And I’m, you know, hey, that’s a good plant.”
Mrs. Poole took the plant from him like it was an injured child he might harm further. She looked at me suspiciously. I wanted to tell her the truth, but a look from Kevin told me to say nothing.
“I’ll call your mother to come get you,” she said. “She’s probably worried sick.”
“No! Don’t call. Please. I can ride home.”
“It’s not safe. And if your mother gets angry, as she should, that’s your consequence.”
“She doesn’t feel well right now. She’s really sick. She’s having a baby.”
Mrs. Poole was taken aback. “Another baby?”
“In September.”
She took a moment to consider. “Alright. I’ll wake Jerry, and he will take you.” She turned to go inside. “Let’s go, Kevin,” she said.
“I’ll stay out here. Make sure he doesn’t pull up any more of our vegetables.”
“Kevin. Inside. Right now.”
Kevin flashed a grin I knew had nothing to do with happiness.
A few minutes later, Mr. Poole came out of the front door pulling a jacket over his shirt, followed by Kevin. Mrs. Poole stood in the doorway.
“He should stay here,” she said.
“It’ll just be a half hour,” Mr. Poole said.
“It’s a school night, Jerry. He needs his sleep. I’ll be fine.”
“You are not staying alone with him,” Mr. Poole said firmly, putting a hand on Kevin’s back and guiding him to the truck.
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I sat in the cab between Mr. Poole and Kevin. A laminated security pass dangled from the rearview mirror. “You’re a park ranger?” I said, recognizing the symbol on the badge.
“I work for the department. I’m a biologist.”
“Oh.”
“You sound disappointed.”
“I thought you were a cop.”
“Ha!” Kevin yelped.
“Why would you think that?” Mr. Poole said.
“I don’t know,” I said, not wanting to admit I’d been studying the photos in Mrs. Poole’s house, imagining their whole life.
“I’m not the police,” he said. “But I do keep those pelicans in line.”
“My brother likes pelicans,” I said. “He likes birds.”
“Then he and I have something in common.”
“He wishes he was a bird.”
“Yeah, well, don’t we all,” Mr. Poole said.
“I don’t want to be any kind of bird,” Kevin mumbled.
“You’re already a weird bird,” Mr. Poole said, smiling slyly.
Something eased between them.
“You’ve made that joke a hundred times,” Kevin said.
“And it’s always funny.”
“It’s not funny. That’s the thing you don’t get. It was never funny.” But Kevin couldn’t hide his smile.
“Ares here thought it was funny. Right, Ares?”
“Well,” I said, uncomfortably.
“Now you’re in a tight spot,” Mr. Poole said lightly. “Which one of us are you going to insult?”
“I thought it was sort of funny,” I said.
Kevin laughed loudly. “Chicken shit!”
“Okay Kevin. Settle down.”
“Bawk…bawk, bawk, bawk,” Kevin said.
“Kevin!” Mr. Poole said harshly. “That’s enough!”
Kevin stared at his hands, his jaw working.
We drove in silence. “Let’s have some tunes,” Mr. Poole said finally. “Find something good, Kevin.”
Kevin reached across me. The radio touched down lightly on a variety of stations and static as he searched.
“There,” Mr. Poole said. “That’s good.”
Kevin homed in on the station, and “Surfer Girl” emerged through the debris of static.
“We saw those guys once,” Mr. Poole said. “We were living in Vermont. Went all the way to Boston to see them.”
“You and Mrs. Poole?” I asked. I didn’t know what Vermont looked like but I thought it might be full of forests like the ones pictured in the paintings in their home. Maybe a place like that was her natural habitat.
Mr. Poole nodded. “Drove down and back in one day. We ended up pulling over and sleeping in the car. That’s when we were young and stupid.”
Mr. Poole glanced at Kevin. Kevin looked down at his lap, trying to suppress a smile. Mr. Poole grinned. “Go ahead,” he said. “Say it. I know you want to.”
“Now you’re old and stupid!” Kevin said.
“He’s been using that line ever since he came to us.”
We passed the gas station which was lit up even at that late hour. A man stood by one of the pumps. I recognized him—it was Ronald Epps, the brother of Calvin, one of the boys who had beaten me up. He was a drug dealer, and I imagined he was out this late doing business. As we drove past, he watched us, his eyes narrowing as if he were trying to draw a bead.
“Fuck,” Kevin mumbled as he slid down in his seat and covered his face with his hand.
“Is there a problem, Kevin?” Mr. Poole said.
“No.”
“Let’s clean up the language.”
“Sorry.”
We turned off the highway at the sign for Bombay Beach. Kevin looked quickly over his shoulder and seemed to relax. He stared out the window at the passing trailers, some lying in darkness, some lit by harsh floods. A few dogs barked, throwing themselves at fences or pulling against chains. Kevin’s hand found his chin, where he rubbed his finger over the growth there. “You live here?”
“It’s at the end of this street,” I said, pointing. Our trailer looked forlorn, with nothing to decorate it other than the randomly lit Christmas bulbs Laurel had not taken down. We didn’t have a yard or an outdoor furniture set. We had no garden. Kevin looked at me as if reconsidering an opinion he had formed. Mr. Poole got out of the truck.
“You have a purple front door,” Kevin said. I heard the bike scrape against the truck bed.
“My mom painted it. She kind of takes old things and fixes them up.”
“Is that her job?”
“She gives massages.”
“Yeah? Does she give you a hand job if you tip extra?”
“No!”
Kevin smiled at me. “Man, take a joke! I was just kidding.”
I slid across the seat toward the door. He grabbed my arm to stop me.
“Thanks for covering for me with the plants. That was cool.”
“Okay.”
“I didn’t mean that shit I said about you being chicken. I say a lot of shit I don’t mean. I don’t know why.”
Mr. Poole appeared at the open car door with my bike. He watched as I got out of the car, took the bike and leaned it against the trailer. I climbed the steps to our door. “I’m okay,” I said, turning back, wishing they would leave.
“I’ll wait to make sure someone’s home,” Mr. Poole said.
“She’s probably sleeping.”
“I’ll wait.”
I opened the door and gave Mr. Poole a thumbs up. He looked uncertain but finally climbed into his truck and drove away.
The trailer was dark, but as I walked past Malcolm’s couch I saw that Laurel was lying next to him. Her eyes glittered in the dark.
“Where were you?” she said softly.
“Nowhere.”
“Who was that outside?”
“Nobody.”
“I was about to call the police.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re twelve years old.”
“So?”
“So you don’t walk out of here in the middle of the night.”
“I can do whatever I want.”
“No, you can’t.”
“Are you going to ground me?”
“What’s happened to you?”
“What do you mean?”
“You used to be so…nice.”
“I thought you didn’t like nice people. I thought you said nice people were stupid. Like your parents.”
“I need you to be okay with this baby. I can’t do it without you.” She waited for my response but I said nothing. She put a protective arm across Malcolm’s chest. “Shhh,” she whispered, more to herself than him, as though she were quieting voices in her own head.
“I’M GONNA BLOW,” KEVIN SAID, pacing his room from one end to the other. Three weeks had passed, and I had begun to spend my time during Malcolm’s sessions in Kevin’s room. I could tell Mrs. Poole didn’t like this. She kept reminding me about my homework, but she never stopped me. She was careful around Kevin, and whenever she told him to do things for her—take out the garbage, or make his bed—she seemed hesitant and she chose her words as though she thought the wrong ones might trigger something dangerous. Kevin ruled the house with his dismissive grunts and withering expressions.
“At least at the center, I had people to talk to,” he continued. “I had things to do. Fuck. I am so fucking bored. I don’t know why she brought me back here. It’s like a fucking prison. My other placements were ten times better than this.”
“Where were you before?” I said. I could hear Malcolm’s inside-out laughter coming from the kitchen.
“When they brought me here the first time, I was twelve,” he said, ignoring my question. “I had to play catch with Jerry for, like, five hours. I mean, it was torture, man. And all the time she’s asking me these questions. What do I like to do? What do I like to eat? What’s my favorite book? I thought if I missed the ball, they wouldn’t take me,
but it was hard to concentrate because she wouldn’t shut up. And, you know, I didn’t want to go back to that group home I was in before. They had staff that went around at night because some of those kids were so messed up they’d fuck with you in your sleep. It never happened to me, but I’ve seen it, man. With my own eyes. Eight-year-old rapists. When I got placed out I was, you know, I don’t care who you are. Just take me out of this hellhole. The first night I came here, we went to a ball game.”
“That’s cool.”
“No, because, you know, the whole time, I’m thinking about what my case worker said, that I better be on my best behavior, because, you know, I’m too old to be cute, and maybe this is my last chance. People don’t want big kids ’cause they’re too fucked up and there’s nothing you can do about it. So I can’t even dig the game, you know, yell and stuff, because I’m thinking, maybe I’ll swear by mistake, or maybe they don’t want a kid who yells at sports. You know, like, in all the places I’ve been, everybody just wants you to shut up and not cause any problems and act normal even if they are freaks. I’ve been with some freaky people, man. People with no business taking kids like me. Like I got problems? They’re the ones with problems.”
“Why doesn’t Mrs. Poole have her own kids?”
“Her equipment must be broken. Maybe someone was trying to tell her something.” He cackled.
“Is your real mother dead?”
“No!” he said, as if offended by the suggestion.
“Why don’t you live with her?”
He shrugged but his expression was strange. It wandered around his face, searching out someplace safe to settle. “You got to get me out of here,” he said urgently. He grabbed me by the shoulders so our faces were inches apart. I could smell his breath. “I’ve got people I need to see.”
“Who?”
“You gotta help me.”
“I can’t.”
He let me go. “All I need is a fucking car,” he said to himself. “A fucking bicycle even.”
“I have a bike.”
“You do?”
“The one I ride out here.”
“Oh, right. That one.” He said it as though he’d never noticed how Malcolm and I arrived at his house, week after week. “Yeah, but that’s your bike. What good does that do me?”
The God of War Page 13