“Lone said so.”
“Lone.” She stood there on the stairs looking at her hands. Then she said, “Miriam, that will be all.” And you wouldn’t know it was the same woman, the way she said it.
The maid opened her mouth, but Miss Kew stuck out a finger that might as well of had a riflesight on the end of it. The maid beat it.
“Hey,” I said, “here’s your broom.” I was just going to throw it, but Miss Kew got to me and took it out of my hand.
“In there,” she said.
She made me go ahead of her into a room as big as our swimming hole. It had books all over and leather on top of the tables, with gold flowers drawn into the corners.
She pointed to a chair. “Sit there. No, wait a moment.” She went to the fireplace and got a newspaper out of a box and brought it over and unfolded it on the seat of the chair. “Now sit down.”
I sat on the paper and she dragged up another chair, but didn’t put no paper on it.
“What is it? Where is Lone?”
“He died,” I said.
She pulled in her breath and went white. She stared at me until her eyes started to water.
“You sick?” I asked her. “Go ahead, throw up. It’ll make you feel better.”
“Dead? Lone is dead?”
“Yeah. There was a flash flood last week and when he went out the next night in that big wind, he walked under a old oak tree that got gulled under by the flood. The tree come down on him.”
“Came down on him,” she whispered. “Oh, no … it’s not true.”
“It’s true all right. We planted him this morning. We couldn’t keep him around no more. He was beginning to st—”
“Stop!” She covered her face with her hands.
“What’s the matter?”
“I’ll be all right in a moment,” she said in a low voice. She went and stood in front of the fireplace with her back to me. I took off one of my shoes while I was waiting for her to come back. But instead she talked from where she was. “Are you Lone’s little boy?”
“Yeah. He told me to come to you.”
“Oh, my dear child!” She came running back and I thought for a second she was going to pick me up or something, but she stopped short and wrinkled up her nose a little bit. “Wh-what’s your name?”
“Gerry,” I told her.
“Well, Gerry, how would you like to live with me in this nice big house and—and have new clean clothes—and everything?”
“Well, that’s the whole idea. Lone told me to come to you. He said you got more dough than you know what to do with, and he said you owed him a favor.”
“A favor?” That seemed to bother her.
“Well,” I tried to tell her, “he said he done something for you once and you said some day you’d pay him back for it if you ever could. This is it.”
“What did he tell you about that?” She’d got her honk back by then.
“Not a damn thing.”
“Please don’t use that word,” she said, with her eyes closed. Then she opened them and nodded her head. “I promised and I’ll do it. You can live here from now on. If-if you want to.”
“That’s got nothin’ to do with it. Lone told me to.”
“You’ll be happy here,” she said. She gave me an up-and-down. “I’ll see to that.”
“Okay. Shall I go get the other kids?”
“Other kids—children?”
“Yeah. This ain’t for just me. For all of us—the whole gang.”
“Don’t say ‘ain’t.’ ” She leaned back in her chair, took out a silly little handkerchief and dabbed her lips with it, looking at me the whole time. “Now tell me about these—these other children.”
“Well, there’s Janie, she’s eleven like me. And Bonnie and Beanie are eight, they’re twins, and Baby. Baby is three.”
“Baby is three,” she said.
I screamed. Stern was kneeling beside the couch in a flash, holding his palms against my cheeks to hold my head still; I’d been whipping it back and forth.
“Good boy,” he said. “You found it. You haven’t found out what it is, but now you know where it is.”
“But for sure,” I said hoarsely. “Got water?”
He poured me some water out of a thermos flask. It was so cold it hurt. I lay back and rested, like I’d climbed a cliff. I said, “I can’t take anything like that again.”
“You want to call it quits for today?”
“What about you?”
“I’ll go on as long as you want me to.”
I thought about it. “I’d like to go on, but I don’t want no thumping around. Not for a while yet.”
“If you want another of those inaccurate analogies,” Stern said, “psychiatry is like a road map. There are always a lot of different ways to get from one place to another place.”
“I’ll go around by the long way,” I told him. “The eight-lane highway. Not that track over the hill. My clutch is slipping. Where do I turn off?”
He chuckled. I liked the sound of it. “Just past that gravel driveway.”
“I been there. There’s a bridge washed out.”
“You’ve been on this whole road before,” he told me. “Start at the other side of the bridge.”
“I never thought of that. I figured I had to do the whole thing, every inch.”
“Maybe you won’t have to, maybe you will, but the bridge will be easy to cross when you’ve covered everything else. Maybe there’s nothing of value on the bridge and maybe there is, but you can’t get near it till you’ve looked everywhere else.”
“Let’s go.” I was real eager, somehow.
“Mind a suggestion?”
“No.”
“Just talk,” he said. “Don’t try to get too far into what you’re saying. That first stretch, when you were eight—you really lived it. The second one, all about the kids, you just talked about. Then, the visit when you were eleven, you felt that. Now just talk again.”
“All right.”
He waited, then said quietly, “In the library. You told her about the kids.”
I told her about … and then she said … and something happened, and I screamed. She comforted me and I cussed at her.
But we’re not thinking about that now. We’re going on.
In the library. The leather, the table, and whether I’m able to do with Miss Kew what Lone said.
What Lone said was, “There’s a woman lives up on the top of the hill in the Heights section, name of Kew. She’ll have to take care of you. You got to get her to do that. Do everything she tells you, only stay together. Don’t you ever let any one of you get away from the others, hear? Aside from that, just you keep Miss Kew happy and she’ll keep you happy. Now you do what I say.” That’s what Lone said. Between every word there was a link like steel cable, and the whole thing made something that couldn’t be broken. Not by me it couldn’t.
Miss Kew said, “Where are your sisters and the baby?”
“I’ll bring ’em.”
“Is it near here?”
“Near enough.” She didn’t say anything to that, so I got up. “I’ll be back soon.”
“Wait,” she said. “I—really, I haven’t had time to think. I mean—I’ve got to get things ready, you know.”
I said, “You don’t need to think and you are ready. So long.”
From the door I heard her saying, louder and louder as I walked away, “Young man, if you’re to live in this house, you’ll learn to be a good deal better mannered—” and a lot more of the same.
I yelled back at her, “Okay, okay!” and went out.
The sun was warm and the sky was good, and pretty soon I got back to Lone’s house. The fire was out and Baby stunk. Janie had knocked over her easel and was sitting on the floor by the door with her head in her hands. Bonnie and Beanie were on a stool with their arms around each other, pulled up together as close as they could get, as if was cold in there, although it wasn’t.
I hit Ja
nie in the arm to snap her out of it. She raised her head. She had gray eyes—or maybe it was more a kind of green—but now they had a funny look about them, like water in a glass that had some milk left in the bottom of it.
I said, “What’s the matter around here?”
“What’s the matter with what?” she wanted to know.
“All of yez,” I said.
She said, “We don’t give a damn, that’s all.”
“Well, all right,” I said, “but we got to do what Lone said. Come on.”
“No.” I looked at the twins. They turned their backs on me. Janie said, “They’re hungry.”
“Well, why not give ’em something?”
She just shrugged. I sat down. What did Lone have to go get himself squashed for?
“We can’t blesh no more,” said Janie. It seemed to explain everything.
“Look,” I said, “I’ve got to be Lone now.”
Janie thought about that, and Baby kicked his feet. Janie looked at him. “You can’t,” she said.
“I know where to get the heavy food and the turpentine,” I said. “I can find that springy moss to stuff in the logs, and cut wood, and all.”
But I couldn’t call Bonnie and Beanie from miles away to unlock doors. I couldn’t just say a word to Janie and make her get water and blow up the fire and fix the battery. I couldn’t make us blesh.
We all stayed like that for a long time. Then I heard the bassinet creak. I looked up. Janie was staring into it.
“All right,” she said. “Let’s go.”
“Who says so?”
“Baby.”
“Who’s running things now?” I said, mad. “Me or Baby?”
“Baby,” Janie said.
I got up and went over to bust her one in the mouth, and then I stopped. If Baby could make them do what Lone wanted, then it would get done. If I started pushing them all around, it wouldn’t. So I didn’t say anything. Janie got up and walked out the door. The twins watched her go. Then Bonnie disappeared. Beanie picked up Bonnie’s clothes and walked out. I got Baby out of the bassinet and draped him over my shoulders.
It was better when we were all outside. It was getting late in the day and the air was warm. The twins flitted in and out of the trees like a couple of flying squirrels, and Janie and I walked along like we were going swimming or something. Baby started to kick, and Janie looked at him a while and got him fed, and he was quiet again.
When we came close to town, I wanted to get everybody close together, but I was afraid to say anything. Baby must of said it instead. The twins came back to us and Janie gave them their clothes and they walked ahead of us, good as you please. I don’t know how Baby did it. They sure hated to travel that way.
We didn’t have no trouble except one guy we met on the street near Miss Kew’s place. He stopped in his tracks and gaped at us, and Janie looked at him and made his hat go so far down over his eyes that he like to pull his neck apart getting it back up again.
What do you know, when we got to the house somebody had washed off all the dirt I’d put on the door. I had one hand on Baby’s arm and one on his ankle and him draped over my neck, so I kicked the door and left some more dirt.
“There’s a woman here name of Miriam,” I told Janie. “She says anything, tell her to go to hell.”
The door opened and there was Miriam. She took one look and jumped back six feet. We all trailed inside. Miriam got her wind and screamed, “Miss Kew! Miss Kew!”
“Go to hell,” said Janie, and looked at me. I didn’t know what to do. It was the first time Janie ever did anything I told her to.
Miss Kew came down the stairs. She was wearing a different dress, but it was just as stupid and had just as much lace. She opened her mouth and nothing came out, so she just left it open until something happened. Finally she said, “Dear gentle Lord preserve us!”
The twins lined up and gawked at her. Miriam sidled over to the wall and sort of slid along it, keeping away from us, until she could get to the door and close it. She said, “Miss Kew, if those are the children you said were going to live here, I quit.”
Janie said, “Go to hell.”
Just then, Bonnie squatted down on the rug. Miriam squawked and jumped at her. She grabbed hold of Bonnie’s arm and went to snatch her up. Bonnie disappeared, leaving Miriam with one small dress and damnedest expression on her face. Beanie grinned enough to split her head in two and started to wave like mad. I looked where she was waving, and there was Bonnie, naked as a jaybird, up on the banister at the top of the stairs.
Miss Kew turned around and saw her and sat down plump on the steps. Miriam went down, too, like she’d been slugged. Beanie picked up Bonnie’s dress and walked up the steps past Miss Kew and handed it over. Bonnie put it on. Miss Kew sort of lolled around and looked up. Bonnie and Beanie came back down the stairs hand in hand to where I was. Then they lined up and gaped at Miss Kew.
“What’s the matter with her?” Janie asked me.
“She gets sick every once in a while.”
“Let’s go back home.”
“No,” I told her.
Miss Kew grabbed the banister and pulled herself up. She stood there hanging on to it for a while with her eyes closed. All of a sudden she stiffened herself. She looked about four inches taller. She came marching over to us.
“Gerard,” she honked.
I think she was going to say something different. But she sort of checked herself and pointed. “What in heaven’s name is that?” And she aimed her finger at me.
I didn’t get it right away, so I turned around to look behind me. “What?”
“That! That!”
“Oh!” I said. “That’s Baby.”
I slung him down off my back and held him up for her to look at. She made a sort of moaning noise and jumped over and took him away from me. She held him out in front of her and moaned again and called him a poor little thing, and ran and put him down on a long bench thing with cushions under the colored-glass window. She bent over him and put her knuckle in her mouth and bit on it and moaned some more. Then she turned to me.
“How long has he been like this?”
I looked at Jane and she looked at me. I said, “He’s always been like he is.”
She made a sort of cough and ran to where Miriam was lying flaked on the floor. She slapped Miriam’s face a couple of times back and forth. Miriam sat up and looked us over. She closed her eyes and shivered and sort of climbed up Miss Kew hand over hand until she was on her feet.
“Pull yourself together,” said Miss Kew between her teeth. “Get a basin with some hot water and soap. Washcloth. Towels. Hurry!” She gave Miriam a big push. Miriam staggered and grabbed at the wall, and then ran out.
Miss Kew went back to Baby and hung over him, titch-titching with her lips all tight.
“Don’t mess with him,” I said. “There’s nothin’ wrong with him. We’re hungry.”
She gave me a look like I’d punched her. “Don’t speak to me!”
“Look,” I said, “we don’t like this any more’n you do. If Lone hadn’t told us to, we wouldn’t never have come. We were doing all right where we were.”
“Don’t say ‘wouldn’t never,’ ” said Miss Kew. She looked at all of us, one by one. Then she took that silly little hunk of handkerchief and pushed it against her mouth.
“See?” I said to Janie. “All the time gettin’ sick.”
“Ho-ho,” said Bonnie.
Miss Kew gave her a long look. “Gerard,” she said in a choked sort of voice, “I understood you to say that these children were your sisters.”
“Well?”
She looked at me as if I was real stupid. “We don’t have little colored girls for sisters, Gerard.”
Janie said, “We do.”
Miss Kew walked up and back, real fast. “We have a great deal to do,” she said, talking to herself.
Miriam came in with a big oval pan and towels and stuff on her arm. She put it down
on the bench thing and Miss Kew stuck the back of her hand in the water, then picked up Baby and dunked him right in it. Baby started to kick.
I stepped forward and said, “Wait a minute. Hold on now. What do you think you’re doing?”
Janie said, “Shut up, Gerry. He says it’s all right.”
“All right? She’ll drown him.”
“No, she won’t. Just shut up.”
Working up a froth with the soap, Miss Kew smeared it on Baby and turned him over a couple of times and scrubbed at his head and like to smothered him in a big white towel. Miriam stood gawking while Miss Kew lashed up a dishcloth around him so it come out pants. When she was done, you wouldn’t of known it was the same baby. And by the time Miss Kew finished with the job, she seemed to have a better hold on herself. She was breathing hard and her mouth was even tighter. She held out the baby to Miriam.
“Take this poor thing,” she said, “and put him—”
But Miriam backed away. “I’m sorry, Miss Kew, but I am leaving here and I don’t care.”
Miss Kew got her honk out. “You can’t leave me in a predicament like this! These children need help. Can’t you see that for yourself?”
Miriam looked me and Janie over. She was trembling. “You ain’t safe, Miss Kew. They ain’t just dirty. They’re crazy!”
“They’re victims of neglect, and probably no worse than you or I would be if we’d been neglected. And don’t say ‘ain’t.’ Gerard!”
“What?”
“Don’t say—oh, dear, we have so much to do. Gerard, if you and your—these other children are going to live here, you shall have to make a great many changes. You cannot live under this roof and behave as you have so far. Do you understand that?”
“Oh, sure. Lone said we was to do whatever you say and keep you happy.”
“Will you do whatever I say?”
“That’s what I just said, isn’t it?”
“Gerard, you shall have to learn not to speak to me in that tone. Now, young man, if I told you to do what Miriam says, too, would you do it?”
I said to Jane, “What about that?”
“I’ll ask Baby.” Janie looked at Baby and Baby wobbled his hands and drooled some. She said, “It’s okay.”
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