Good Kings Bad Kings

by Susan Nussbaum

  When Pierre came to ILLC they did another psych assessment that broadened the description of his disabilities. The cerebral palsy had already been changed to rickets on some form I didn’t have, he still has the ADHD diagnosis, and they added post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD, and oppositional defiant disorder, or ODD.

  I Googled ODD and it’s—well, it’s got a lot of behaviors listed. And the problem with looking any health condition up online is you get lots of words and scary acronyms that give you only a tiny sliver of true understanding about a particular human being. I looked up my own disability once and it scared the crap out of me. I could hardly recognize my own experience. Some of the technical descriptions were totally creepy and they had no relationship to my real life. I think doctors use the worst-case scenarios in order to be published. In my opinion.

  I Googled ODD anyway. It sometimes develops in kids with ADHD, like Pierre, and sometimes not. The articles don’t talk about the nature-versus-nurture aspect, at least the ones I read. It seems to me that if the nurturing is bad, a kid is more likely to develop some symptoms of ODD. The symptoms are basically the symptoms of an extremely angry kid. I can understand why Pierre might be angry. Even without being hit in the head with a wrench.

  I tilt back in my chair and look at the spiderweb in the ceiling corner in my office. It’s a big, fresh-looking web but the spider is AWOL. You see that a lot. Web minus spider. Where did it go? I have an irrational fear of spiders. Even seeing the word spider on a page scares me a little.

  At quarter of six I go into the bathroom and empty my leg bag, wash my hands, and brush my hair. I look in the mirror. I look good. I go back to my office and fold up some notes about Pierre’s file and put them in a file folder and stick the folder in my satchel, and put on my coat and scarf and earmuffs and mittens.

  In the hallway I see Demetria and Patricia, who want to give me a beauty makeover. Demetria says, “First we’ll give you a facial and then we’ll do your hair—”

  “You gave me a facial last month.” My whole face broke out into one megapimple.

  Patricia says, “Hey, Joanne! Hey, Joanne! Joanne—we, we could, we’ll do your hair. We’ll straighten it and we’ll dye it—”

  “But my hair’s already straight.”

  “No, we’ll make it real straight. Like flat.”

  “Okay. No hair dyeing.”

  “Not all of it, just streaks.”

  “And Joanne, Joanne—I’ll do your face, okay? I’ll make you beautiful.”

  “I can’t do it tonight though. I have to go. Can we do it some other time?”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “No, next week, okay? I gotta go.” I start heading toward the lobby. “No hair dyeing. Everything else would be great but no hair dyeing.”

  “We won’t.”

  “Joanne, Joanne—”

  “I gotta fly! See you tomorrow. Bye.”

  It’s dark outside. There are a few streetlights and one of those big blue light thingies that the city installs to scare the gangbangers. The night is clear and brittle and the air feels refreshing after the stifling confines of the center. You know what people say when I tell them I work a few blocks from the old stockyards? They ask me if it still stinks. I don’t get that. They closed it in the early seventies. But almost everyone asks.

  I take my earmuffs off. It feels a little bit like spring. All winter I feel two-dimensional and when the weather loosens up I get my third dimension back. When there’s no traffic I like to get on the smooth pavement, so I’m pretty much flooring my chair down the middle of the street. It feels wonderful.

  I pass the Meat Authority and turn the corner to meet Ricky at AutoMex.

  And there he is, waiting for me.

  “Hey,” he says.

  “Hi. You waiting for me?”

  “Uh, yes.” Except he says “yes” real long and drawn out, like some comedian, but I can’t remember who. We turn the corner and start walking toward the parking lot.

  “Hey,” I say, but just then there’s a big gust of wind and he doesn’t hear me. “Hey!” I yell this time, and I stop.

  He turns around. “What?”

  “Come here.”

  “Why?”

  “Come over here, okay?”

  He walks back and looks down at me. “What?”

  I reach out and grab his jacket with my gimpy hand. “Let’s go home and go to bed.”

  He bends down and smiles. “Really?” he says.

  “Yes.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, definitely.”

  Then we kiss and kiss again. Then we look at each other. “You have no idea . . . ,” he says, grinning now.

  “But first, dinner,” I say.

  It feels so good, kissing his warm mouth in the cold air.

  Ricky Hernandez

  After I unload all the kids from Hoover, I run into Jimmie. She wants to talk to me. We walk over by the cafeteria, sit down. The place is empty but the food-service people are cooking something for dinner. Smells like cheese sandwiches.

  “Okay,” Jimmie says, “I know you keep an eye on Pierre and I wanted to give you a heads-up on something. You know he keeps food up in his room?”

  “I know he has a thing about food,” I say. “I know he worries over it, like if he feels he might not get enough, he might snatch some extra. What happened?” I’m starting to get a sick feeling in my gut, and I think I better brace myself ’cause I’m about to hear something I don’t wanna hear.

  “This is just what I heard,” Jimmie says, sighing. “Okay. Toya told me that Louie changed Pierre’s treatment plan because Pierre’s been acting out, like, you know, stupid stuff, like Pierre took off his shirt when he wasn’t supposed to and he wouldn’t go to his room or something—just the usual. So Louie’s been getting Pierre’s meals withheld. This afternoon Louie found some food under Pierre’s mattress—”

  “Where’s Louie?”

  “Ricky! Chill, chill, okay? You need to be cool or I can’t tell you this.”

  “Where’s Pierre? Time-out room?”

  “Well, yeah, but there’s more to it. Louie lost his cool. Like he went looking for Pierre and when he found him he dragged him up to his room and sorta—he was Louie, okay? He was a pig. Toya said it was not cool. Pierre just—he just shut down, you know?”

  In my head I’m sorting through what Jimmie’s saying, but at the same time I’m thinking of tearing Louie’s nose off.

  “So Toya goes in there while Louie’s going off on him,” she says. “Now Pierre’s on the floor, sitting on the floor, and Louie kept telling him to get up. But Pierre won’t do it. Louie starts shouting in Pierre’s ear, ‘Get up! Get up!’ but Pierre won’t budge. Toya said she tried to butt in but Louie was screaming, you know, like Pierre not getting up was this big thing and he had to get up. But the more he yells, the stiller Pierre gets. So he grabs Pierre up by the arm—”

  “That fuck! I’m okay. I’m okay.”

  “—and he’s walking real fast holding Pierre’s arm and Pierre’s just—he couldn’t keep up. Toya said she followed but she couldn’t take on Louie. Of course. I mean, of course. When they get to the time-out room Louie puts Pierre inside and leaves. Toya went over and looked in on Pierre but he didn’t want to come out.”

  “Did Louie hit Pierre?”

  “I really don’t know,” Jimmie says. “I don’t think so. Toya’s up in Pierre’s room cleaning up, so maybe you want to talk to her.”

  I take the stairs. I don’t wanna run into anyone. All I see on my way down the hall to his room is a few of the boys. Tony, Michael, DeLeon. In Pierre’s room, his roommate José is in there putting on shaving cologne. He probably has on half a bottle already. José is thirteen years old and looks like he’s about eight. He looks up at me when I walk in and says hi.

  “José, you seen Toya?”

  “No, she’s gone somewhere. I’m going to eat dinner. You wanna come with me?”

  “Not today, man.”r />
  José rolls outta the room. I walk over to Pierre’s bed. The mattress is gone. Toya’s probably off looking for a replacement. There is a frozen hamburger box under the bed that has a stink rising up off it like old diapers. How can it be stinking in here and no one noticing it till now? Three of those little minimilks under the bed. The room smells like a combination of ripe garbage and Brut. A bunch of Pierre’s stuff is scattered on the floor. These little cards he collects, size of baseball cards but they have pictures of old-time TV shows, one of Barney Fife tied to a tree and it says “Stumped” on it, and one of Aunt Bee and Andy, a Ted Baxter card from the Mary Tyler Moore Show—all sorta stuff like that. About thirty or forty cards. I gather them up. I look around in his closet and find a couple bags of Fritos and a dusty taffy apple. I grab the Fritos.

  When I get to the time-out room, I knock on the door. Not hard, just a tap. “Hey, Pierre? It’s me, man. It’s Ricky. Okay I open the door a little bit?”

  Nothing.

  So I tap again. I say, “I’m just gonna open it a little bit, okay?” Nada. I’m sweating now. I can feel my face bead up and a drop runs down my chest. I ain’t hot, I’m scared. I open the door real slow. He’s balled up in the corner. I crawl in and sit down next to him, reach over, and pull the door shut.

  “Jeez, it’s cold in here. You cold? You want I should put my coat over you a little bit?” He’s not talking but I put my coat across the front of him because I’m not kidding, it is fucking cold. For a while we just sit there not saying nothing. Then I take out his cards and we sit awhile looking at them. He has a few really cool Three Stooges ones. Real collector’s items. He could probably get some decent money for these on eBay. I guess we sit in there for an hour or so. I don’t know what to do. You can hear noise and kids talking a little bit—must’ve been coming from the cafeteria. I nudged Pierre awake—he had went to sleep—and we end up walking down to the cafeteria and eating dinner together. I didn’t want to leave him alone in case Louie showed up.

  I told Joanne about it later in bed.

  “Whole time we’re in that room, does anybody come looking for him? Do they wonder, ‘Oh, where’s Pierre?’ Hell no. And when we get to the cafeteria, guess who’s working the shift on the boys’ side that night?”

  She’s running her fingers through my hair and stroking my face and it feels good. It feels unbelievable.

  “Who?” she says.

  “Jerry,” I say. “And I know I can’t deal with Jerry. Because I wanted to tell whoever, ‘Look, keep an eye on Pierre tonight, okay? He’s a little sensitive tonight.’ You know, whatever whatever. But I don’t want Jerry around Pierre. Jerry’s not responsible. Guy leaves a trail of slime behind him when he walks.”

  “So what’d you do?”

  “So I get the idea to go by the infirmary, see if I can give the nurse a heads-up. There’s this—”

  “Good idea.”

  “Yeah. And there’s this nurse Lorraine who’s there nights—do you know her?”

  “No.”

  She’s rubbing her nose against my cheek a little. She has this real soft little nose.

  I say, “She’s gonna check up on the kid and make sure he gets a clean mattress.”

  “Mmm,” Joanne says.

  “Come here.”

  “I am here,” she says.

  “Come closer.”

  “Like in your nostril?”

  “You feel great,” I say. “Oh, man. You feel amazing.”

  “Ow. You’re on my boob.”

  “Can I kiss it and make it better?”

  “Uh-huh,” she says.

  And after that we don’t do much talking.

  Maybe I’ll call the nurse later. Check on the mattress situation.

  Jimmie Kendrick

  By the time I got home and parked, I think I walked to my apartment in my sleep. I took a shower—last shower I had to give that day—and lay down on my bed and closed my eyes. But sleep wouldn’t come.

  It was just me and Beverly on the girls’ side today. Toya, Anthony, and Louie on the boys’ side. But Toya called in sick and they didn’t even try to find a replacement. Normally, Toya would float between both sides, but when she’s not there, I don’t like asking a male aide to help out because the girls don’t like it and I don’t blame them. But Beverly’s cool. I like working with her, I really do. But seven, eight kids apiece is just—uh-uh. It’s ridiculous. Day like today, I had eight kids. Seven need help with pretty much everything. They have to use the toilet and get showered and ready for bed. But all of them need your time. I don’t care who the kid is, he or she is going to want to talk about their day, ask you questions about any- and everything. They might be upset about something or not feeling well. I mean, it’s more than just going through the motions. You have to be there, be present.

  Then you have to clean up. Wipe down their shower chairs with alcohol, pick up, collect the laundry, collect the garbage, all of that. There are not enough hours. No, that’s not true. There just aren’t enough aides.

  Right now my back aches, my feet, oh my God—just throbbing, in Technicolor and surround sound. It’s bad enough when you have two other people but—I don’t know, it’s like they’re trying to get us to quit. I don’t know what they’re doing but I swear to God, they are working . . . us . . . to death. I guess when they can’t work us any more they’ll hire new people. Work them to death.

  Yessie lied to me today. One of the younger kids here, Heaven, has like six dollar bills folded up into an empty box of Raisinets. And she told a couple of friends which was a mistake and word got out. Now, I was up on the third floor at one point looking for some tape and nonstick gauze, and who do I happen to see coming out of Heaven’s room? I say, “Hey, you, what brings you up here?” Yessie says, “I was just looking to see if Heaven was here ’cause I wanna give her one of my teddy bears. From my collection? ’Cause I said I might and she’s not here, so I’m going now.”

  I can already tell from, you know, everything . . . that she’s telling me a story. And it’s fiction.

  I say, “Why you want to give one of your teddies to Heaven? I didn’t know you and Heaven were friends.”

  She says, “I just wanted to because I was thinking I didn’t like my teddy bears anymore, so I was gonna give one of ’em to one of the kids. I probably won’t ’cause she’s not here, so I’m just gonna go see can I find Cheri.”

  I say, “You can give it to her at dinner.”

  Yessie says, “Okay, that’s a good idea. Bye, Jimmie.”

  Like Yessie’s planning on giving her prized possession to a kid she never said a word to in her life. This is not the first time either. Just a few little incidents, but coincidences add up. This time I decide to do something about it.

  Half hour later I track down Heaven and bring her to Yessie’s room. I mean, Heaven is young. She’s eight years old. Real good kid and no pushover. She keeps that Raisinets box tucked into her undies. Yessie’s laying on her bed reading the Enquirer.

  I say, “Look who I found.”

  Yessie looks at me like, blank faced. I bet she’s already forgotten the whole thing. She looks at Heaven like she’s never seen her before. Then you can see the lemons on the slot machine sorta line up in her mind.

  And I’m waiting to see, is she gonna come clean or is she gonna keep up the lie? She says, “Oh, hi, Heaven. I’m so glad to see you.”

  She’s keeping up the lie.

  Heaven says, “What you wanna see me about?”

  Yessie says, “Nothing. I mean, I thought I might give you something but I changed my mind. Sorry.”

  Heaven says, “What do you wanna give me?”

  Yessie says, “Nothing. I told you. Thanks for coming over though. It was so nice of you. Thanks, Jimmie.”

  But I keep standing there with Heaven who can’t go anywhere because she’s in a manual chair.

  Heaven says, “You want me to come back and see you?”

  Yessie—who is already
back to reading her Enquirer—says, “No. That’s okay. Bye.”

  So me and Heaven start to leave. But before we do I say to Yessie, “I’m onto you.” Yessie says, “Huh?” and I say, “Never kid a kidder.” Then Heaven says good-bye to Yessie and we start on our way to the cafeteria. I hear Yessie call after me, “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” and I call back, “Oh yes, you do.”

  My mother could see right through me. All us kids, and there were eight of us. Knew we were lying before we did. And oh my God, I used to tell some ridiculous lies. One time she told me to be home before dark and I got home late. I said, “But it’s still light out. See?” and she looked at me and said, “You’re grounded,” and I said, “But—” She was already walking away by then.

  I’m not Yessie’s mom. But I couldn’t let her get away with it. I can’t ground her, I mean, it’s not my place, and anyway, around here the way they punish you is . . . not my style.

  I want her to know though. Don’t lie to me. I won’t tolerate it because I am on your side.

  A kid, a teenager like Yessie, ward of the state, I mean, I don’t know from personal experience but she must wonder sometimes, like, “Who is on my side?”

  Yessenia Lopez

  Me and Cheri was on our way to get some Pepsi out the pop machine and when we passed Joanne’s office we stopped in to say hi. I like her office. She decorated it with little pretty bowls and she got some pictures up on her wall. She had some new pictures up since last time I was here. One of ’em is of the hottest, most handsomest male I think I have ever seen. Oh my God. Who is the boy and what is he doing up on the wall in Joanne’s office? I wanted to ask but Cheri was telling Joanne about how all she wound up at ILLC.

  Cheri says, “I wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for that Michelle girl.”

  Joanne says, “What Michelle girl?”

  Cheri says, “The girl who talked to me at the shelter that time. I just thought she was being my friend.”