Good Kings Bad Kings

by Susan Nussbaum

  It was nice outside. Kinda warm and sunny and it felt like that feeling you get when it’s spring, but it is spring, so I guess that’s why. I rolled out to the middle of the grass right in front of ILLC, but I didn’t see no place good to attach myself to. I always thought there was a tree out here or something but all I see now is two skinny baby trees and a whole lotta bushes. How can you see a place every single day and not know what the hell it looks like? Damn. So I wrapped my belts around one of the baby trees and then I wrapped the rest around me and my chair, and I put my padlock around some spokes on my wheelchair wheel and held up my sign and waited for the fur to start flying.

  Nothing happened for a while.

  One thing I didn’t remember to think about is nothing never happens around here. ILLC’s in the middle of nowhere. Some cars drove by and the drivers looked at me? But they didn’t look at my sign. They just looked at my cleavage or my wheelchair. I hope it’s my cleavage. A truck from the meatpacker place come past and the driver waved and he read my sign but he didn’t give a shit. I started to feel stupid just sitting there holding a sign and belted to a little tree and people driving by and thinking I’m some crazy cripple person.

  If Cheri was here she’d be out here with me and then I’d have somebody to talk to. But if Cheri was here maybe I wouldn’t be out here in the first place.

  Then Ricky drove up with more people he picked up from the funeral. First he honked at me like he was saying hello. Then, the Lord strike me dead if I’m lying, he must have read my sign because the boy’s mouth just dropped open like someone smacked him in the face.

  THIS PLACE ABUSE AND KILL CHILDREN.

  That’s what my sign says.

  Ricky let down the ramp for the straggles from the funeral. Bernard and Fantasia and Mia and Michael Jackson was some of them. After they all got out they come over to where I was. Ricky and them and a couple other of the inmates came over to me by my tree and the first thing Ricky says is, “Did Joanne see this?” and I says, “She gonna be mad?” and Ricky says, “Hell no, she ain’t gonna be mad. But I’m surprised they ain’t had you arrested.”

  “That is not funny.”

  “Yeah, yeah, no—this is great. It’s great. Let me go get her though, okay?”

  I’m like, “Hey, the more the merrier.”

  Bernard says, “You gon’ get in trouble.”

  “Won’t be the first time,” I say.

  Michael say, “Dag.” He don’t talk much.

  Bernard says, “They gonna kick you outta here.”

  I say, “That’ll suit me fine.” Even though that was the first time it popped into my mind that I might get my ass into real trouble.

  Fantasia says, “I don’t wanna get in no trouble.”

  Bernard says, “I bet Teddy would’ve liked it though.”

  I say, “Why you think I’m sitting here for?”

  And Bernard wheels over right next to me and puts on his brakes. Fantasia can’t stand for Bernard to do nothing without her, so she wheeled over by him and stayed put. Bernard got Fantasia dickmatized. Then Mia says, “Yessie, what it say? The sign?” Not on account that she can’t read but because Mia’s blind as a bat.

  So I read it off for Mia and she asks Bernard to push her over to sit next to me. She took up my hand and held it real tight.

  A guy in a car stopped and asked were we selling lemonade. Can you believe that shit? They see a group of teenage people standing together anywhere else, they’d be arrested for being gangbangers. They see a bunch of disable people and think we’re selling lemonade. Where is the respect?

  I yelled, “Can’t you read?” and he drove away.

  Pretty soon more people from ILLC came back from the funeral and Dominique and Chris and José all said they was gonna stand there with us, but they had to first go to the bathroom. That was the last we seen of them.

  When Ricky came back from Joanne’s office he had Joanne and she almost fell out her chair when she saw my sign and she hugged everybody in our line and then she started calling all over the place on her cell phone. She called the place where Teddy’s lawyer is and she called some other places and Ricky went to pick up the kids getting out from school at Hoover and to get us some food. I told Joanne to call Jimmie and Joanne said Jimmie knows we’re out here but she can’t come because she might get fired. I says, “Ain’t you worried about you getting fired?” And she kinda shrugs and just shakes her head no. I says, “And after you done calling Jimmie, can you take my picture on your cell phone? I want a picture of me wearing this top all chained to my tree.”

  When Mrs. Phoebe got back from the funeral and stepped outta her car is the first time she seen any of us and she came to stand in front of us. She’s with a old guy in a suit and he don’t look too happy.

  Mrs. Phoebe says, “I understand you’re all upset and disturbed about losing Teddy but this is not the way to show it. Teddy’s passing was tragic. It was a terrible accident. This is a time to grieve and remember what a treasured friend he was to all of us. I don’t believe he would want his friends to be turning this sad time into a circus.”

  Bernard says, “It ain’t a circus.”

  Mrs. Phoebe says, “Please, all of you, please come inside to my office or wherever you want and we can talk about this. No one will be punished. Nothing bad will happen to you. Believe it or not I do understand how you might feel angry about Teddy’s death. I’m angry too. But I must remind you that this is private property and what you are doing is illegal. I’m on your side, but there are those on ILLC’s board of directors who may not be.”

  I say, “But we live here, so why can’t I sit here and hold a sign?”

  Mrs. Phoebe says, “Yessenia, that’s a very hurtful sign. I don’t know what you’re trying to prove and I don’t know who you think is going to read it. I hope you know there are consequences to your actions.”

  So I says, “You said no one here’d be punished.”

  I can hear Fantasia out the corner of my ear saying, “I’m going in. I don’t wanna get in trouble.”

  Then Mrs. Phoebe looks at Joanne and says, “Are you coming back to work?”

  Joanne says, “No, I don’t think so.”

  Mrs. Phoebe turned around and walked back inside after that. We all just sat there. Bernard said, “Maybe we should go inside. There ain’t nothing happening here.” Fantasia said how she don’t care, she’s going inside, but I know she won’t make a move till Bernard does. Then here’s the part that surprised me. Mia says, “I staying. I staying. I stay here with you.”

  Then Joanne says, “Hey,” and pointed down the street. You could see there was some disable people walking down there, like there was two people was in chairs and a person with a dog because he was blind and another girl who rocked when she walked like she had cerebral palsy. When they got over by us they told us they was from Access Now. They heard what we was doing and they came to help. Somebody Joanne called told ’em.

  They said there was more people coming too. One of ’em in a wheelchair named Cal started in calling up people on his cell and asking them to come and telling everybody how we was a awesome group of young people—except he called us “youth,” like on the six o’clock news when they say, “The police are looking for a youth who got himself in a mess of trouble.”

  Right about then Ricky came back from Hoover with a bunch more “youth” and most of them went inside, but Tony, DeLeon, Krystal, and Dawn all four joined up with us. And Amber. I was happy and also not happy because Ree Ree was there and all I kept thinking was, “Please, please, please don’t make Ree Ree want to stay with us, please.” But the girl planted herself right near my tree and said, “I wanna stay! I wanna stay!” She didn’t realize we were involved in serious business but that’s Ree Ree. I felt better though because she attached herself to one of the females from the Access Now who didn’t know that with Ree Ree you gots to be a bitch or she’ll never let you alone for the rest of your sweet, succulent life.

&n
bsp; Ricky had to be with us on the down low. He was with us, but he couldn’ look like he was with us, so he had to leave and go inside the ILLC building and be a spy and see what all was going on in there. I don’t know what was happening with Joanne—was she fired or not? Either way she was busy talking to who knows who on her cell phone, telling them all about our protest, and she looked like she was having a good time and she didn’t give a rat’s ass about her job.

  And since Ricky was on the down low Joanne had called him and told him he better not bring us any food, so we still didn’t eat since before the funeral and it was three o’clock and we was hungry and my bladder was about to burst. I didn’t think ahead too much after the part about attaching myself up to the tree. We couldn’t go back in ILLC no more to use the toilet because they wasn’t letting any of the youths back out the building once they was in, which was why we never did see José and the others after they went to the bathroom. But it seemed like everything was going to be okay no matter what happened to get in our way. Even Fantasia stopped bitching. I wouldn’t never say this to Joanne but I think Teddy really was watching out for our asses because a van drove right up to us with a whole big bunch more disable people and they brought sandwiches and chips and any of us what had to go to the bathroom got a ride to a gas station. They was all from that same Access Now and they acted like friends and they treated us like we was friends too. One of them had a camera and he took my picture a bunch of times and said he’d make sure I got copies.

  When Mia and me got back from using the toilet at the Citgo station, there was another big van with a big TV camera on top of it and Marjorie Davies from channel 5 had her microphone right up in Bernard’s face! Oh my sweet Lord, Marjorie Davies! Joanne come racing over to me saying, “She wants to interview you,” and “Come on and get ready,” and I was so, so, so nervous plus I had to hurry up and get my ass belted back up to that tree so it’d look good for the camera.

  I cannot believe I am getting on TV with Marjorie Davies. She is so nice you wouldn’t believe it. Her makeup is perfect and her body is hot even though she’s old. My girl Marjorie gots some junk in her trunk, okay? But I mean, we hit it off right away. We just talked about this and that, and she went to high school right near my old neighborhood and I told her about Tía Nene and about my disability and then she starts asking me questions for real, like that camera was right on us and she wanted to know how I liked it living at ILLC and who was Teddy and why I come to be out here today chained to a tree and everything. Just everything. And I told her, “Marjorie, what I’m saying is us youth come to these places on account of we got no place else to go and the least they could do is to take care of us and make sure nobody gets beat up or gets raped or left in the shower by mistake and killed. And don’t send people off to the booby hatch just because they homesick and didn’t take their meds. We are teenage youth, and I mean, what do they expect?”

  Marjorie said that I did real good and I was gonna be on the news that night. She stayed to interview Teddy’s lawyer—the same lawyer that told Joanne she couldn’t get Cheri outta el manicomio, so she’s on my shit list—and she, the lawyer lady, Elaine, who is also gor-geous and I am not kidding, I mean she could be a ex–fashion model, like a old Tyra—anyway, Elaine was saying how nursing homes are a very bad place to live and they gonna be investigating ILLC to see about violations and abuse. She said some stuff I honestly didn’t get and Cal from Access Now tried to explain it to Mia and me. Cal is so, so nice and he’s gay. I’m just saying. Well, he said so first! And Elaine said how it signified stuff when a person in a nursing home attaches her ass to a tree. So she’s not on my shit list no more.

  I forgot to say how there was these two guys who was lawyers from ILLC that come after Marjorie got there and she talked to them too. Only part I heard is she asked them was these children, meaning us, going to be let back in tonight without needing to be afraid of getting a concussion. I mean a repercussion. She meant was Mrs. Phoebe gonna kick us out, I guess. And I am glad she asked because she had a point, you know? I sure didn’t want to get locked up in no time-out room tonight. Hell, I wanna see myself on TV.

  ’Course it turned out I didn’t have to worry because Joanne and Jimmie was on it. Jimmie already decided she was working a double shift just so she could be there tonight and watch over us and call the lawyers if there was repercussions against us youth. And Elaine said how they couldn’t fire Joanne so easy either, so she should just come to ILLC tomorrow like usual. I don’t see why people always saying such bad things about lawyers.

  It was almost dark when everybody was gone, so it was late ’cause it stays light longer now. Joanne and me was the last people to go in. I was so tired I almost couldn’t remember the combination to my padlock. Ricky unbelted the belts from around the little tree. I love the little tree. Joanne asked me how in the world I ever got the idea to hook myself up to that tree in the first place and I told her, “It was your fault. You gave me the picture.” She says, “What picture?” I say, “The one offa your wall. Of that fine-ass crippled black brother all chained up to a door. I fell in love.”

  Michelle Volkmann

  There’s an emergency board meeting at ILLC. Not for the whole board but the ones who are the most important, like the lawyer and the public relations person. The president of Whitney-Palm is there too. His name is Howard Anderson but he’s barely ever around. Everyone knows Tim is the one who runs the place. And Tim is there, of course, and me. Tim wants me here because he thinks I’m familiar with the staff and the children, but I told him I really wasn’t that familiar and if I know any of them it’s just a little. Then he said he needed me to take notes which is the real reason he wants me, I’m sure. I thought I might see that Joanne woman because she has been at every meeting so far, but she’s not here. Dr. Caviolini walked in like twenty minutes after everyone is in the middle of everything and he goes up to Mrs. Phoebe who’s the director here and says something in her ear and laughs and everybody’s looking at him, so he says, “Sorry I’m late, everyone. Patient emergency.” Then he sits down next to me and writes something on a piece of paper and slides it over to me. Guess what the note says? It says, “When ya getting married? The first or the second?” God. Shut up.

  It’s really hot in here. The only thing there is to drink is coffee which I expected so I stopped at a 7-Eleven and got an orange soda Big Gulp and there’s a fruit tray but one of the lawyers keeps coughing all over it. Of course Dr. Caviolini picks pieces of cantaloupe and orange wedges off the tray with his fat fingers.

  The reason we’re all here is for damage control. Believe it or not, another kid died here. It was this boy who got left in the shower by accident and the hot water pipes started—I think they must’ve been broken, but anyway, this boy got burned with third-degree and fourth-degree burns. And he died. Because he had his legs amputated and got pneumonia. None of this was that big a deal—well, it was a huge deal for the boy, of course, and his father who is suing but what I meant to say is it wasn’t picked up by the media at all until one of the girls here decides to sit in front of the building one day with a big sign that says THEY ABUSE AND KILL CHILDREN HERE. I recognized the girl in the picture as one of Cheri’s friends. All of a sudden it’s like all over the newspapers and the TV news and they say the boy was neglected because of dangerous understaffing and this never should be allowed to happen, and to be perfectly honest? A part of me is really happy that the media covered the protest.

  I still see why Tim is angry though. It’s not like the media really knows what happened or knows how hard it is to run a place like this. I’m not saying the boy wasn’t neglected. But I’d like to see one of those reporters try doing what Tim does.

  The main subject at the meeting tonight is how they’re going to get some better media coverage. The lawyer is talking about how we have to find a way to “frame it in terms of the fragility of the population we serve. Take the emphasis off the small number of children who die but the very la
rge number of children who live.”

  Since I’m taking notes, I write down, “Most children stay alive here.”

  The PR guy says, “What about a press conference?”

  The lawyer says how that’s “too fluid and there’s too much room for inadvertently saying something that could complicate our legal position.” So the PR guy says but what if Dr. Caviolini had a prepared statement and that was it? The lawyer says that Dr. Caviolini is “too vulnerable.” Then Dr. Caviolini says, “Please, call me Roman.”

  It was like at the moment I could hear Dr. Caviolini start to talk, something in my brain said, “I bet he’s going to say, ‘Please, call me Roman,’ ” and when he actually did say, “Please, call me Roman,” I guess I was really losing my self-control because I couldn’t help bursting out laughing, not a big loud laugh or anything—it wouldn’t have been very noticeable but I had a mouthful of orange soda at the moment and it spurted out of my mouth and there was some on my chin and a few small drops on Tim’s watch. And a little might have gone on the fruit. They all looked at me like an alien just burst out of my chest.

  When Tim comes back after wiping his Rolex, he says, “There is no way any of us can speak to the press and hope to get unbiased coverage. However, we do have natural, sympathetic allies in the parents. There are parents out there who are the final authorities on how difficult it is to raise these children at home. The last thing they want is the prospect of ILLC and other residential institutions being closed down.”

  Then Dr. Caviolini says, “Closed down? Why closed down?”

  Howard Anderson says, “No, no, Roman, don’t worry. ILLC will not close. We have marvelous staff, such as Michelle here, who do a brilliant job recruiting new residents, and the need for ILLC will always be there. We’re one of the few businesses for which there will always be a need. We’re like funeral directors.” And then I swear he laughs out loud, like “Ho, ho, ho,” like he was going to go ride off with his reindeer.