by Watt Key
I nodded.
“You could do anything you wanted,” he said.
“You don’t need anybody tellin’ you what to do,” I replied. “No government. Nothin’.”
“And just you and your father all the time.”
“That’s right.”
“I wish I had a father.”
I gazed out the window where Hal had been earlier. “I wish I was busted out of here,” I said.
“I’ve never had any friends like you.”
“I don’t know how long I can take this place.”
“You know, I wasn’t one of the ones making fun of you yesterday.”
I looked at Kit. “I know.”
“Most everybody wants to talk to me now because they know I’m your friend. They’re scared of you.”
“I’m not gonna whip up on anybody as long as they don’t try and make me do things I don’t wanna do.”
“That’s good.”
“You know,” I said, “Pap told me I could talk to him by writin’ letters and burnin’ ’em. He said you can talk to dead people that way.”
“You ever do it?”
“A couple of times. I wish I had some stuff to write with and a fire right now.”
“They won’t let us have fires here.”
“I know. I could start one up quick if we could. I like Mr. Carter, though, and he told me not to.”
I gazed out the window again.
“What are you looking at?” Kit asked after a while.
“Nothin’.”
“What’s it like in the forest right now?”
“It’s windy at the tops of the pines, but not enough for it to get down to the forest floor. There’s a few clouds overhead but not enough to cover up the moon. There’s a slice of moon out tonight.”
“What kinds of animals are out when it gets dark?”
“Not too long ago the coons came down out of the oak and hickory trees and started walkin’ around findin’ stuff to eat. They like bugs and frogs and bird eggs. There’s deer walkin’ around. Owls callin’. Turkeys sittin’ up in the treetops like big black nests . . . You can smell the dirt.”
“You can smell dirt?”
I nodded. “You can smell everything out there. Especially at night when the air gets still. Just about the only thing sleepin’ are small birds and people. Squirrels. Most things in the forest like the nighttime.”
Kit nodded. I was still staring out the window. “He’s gonna be cold,” I said. “He doesn’t have his blanket.”
“Who?”
“Hal.”
“He’s got his jacket on.”
I didn’t reply, but got up and went over and got Hal’s bedding and started for the door.
“Where are you going?”
“Take him his stuff.”
“No! He’ll kill you! There’s not anybody around to help you right now.”
“I’m not scared of him.”
“Don’t go out there, Moon!”
“I’ll be okay.”
I opened the door and stepped outside. A cold wind came across the play yard into my face, and I saw Hal huddled against one of the school trailers. I walked towards him and he took his hands from his pockets and crossed his arms tightly. “What the hell you doin’?” he said.
“Tradin’ with you.”
“Tradin’ what?”
“I’m gonna sleep out here tonight. You can pretend to be me and use my bed. This is your stuff.”
“Pretend to be you?”
“Yeah. Pull my covers up over you and pretend to be asleep when Mr. Carter comes in for lights-out.”
“You crazy?”
“No. I just don’t feel good.”
Hal took a step towards me and jammed his hands down in his pockets. “Why’re you doin’ this?”
“It’s nothin’ to me to sleep on the ground. I’d rather be outside than in there. I think it’ll make me feel better.”
Hal shrugged his shoulders. “If you say so. If Mr. Carter catches us, he’s gonna kick my ass. Maybe yours, too.”
“Scrunch up good under those covers.”
“Yeah. All right.”
Hal bowed his shoulders in and ran towards the door with his hands still in his pockets. I looked around the play yard until I saw a big oak tree. I walked over to it and set my bed up on the downwind side. Even covered up completely, I still heard the wind and the night rolling over me. I felt my worries ease, and I lay there in the darkness and imagined that I was someplace else.
I woke before daybreak when the first birds made scattered calls. I lay under the blanket for a few seconds remembering where I was. Eventually, it came to me, and worry flooded me again. I peered out and watched my breath stream before me in the chilled morning. The wind had settled and the ground was covered with frost. The windows of the boys’ home were dark and the only sound was the humming of streetlights.
I stood and wrapped the blanket around my shoulders and studied the play yard. I looked at the tall utility fence with barbed wire on top and then inspected each of the trees. None of them were close enough to the fence to allow anyone to climb up and jump over. I knelt and dug at the bottom of the fence with my hands until my fingers scraped cement. There was no way under. I stood again and walked over to the school trailers. They were set almost ten feet away from the fence. There was no way to leap from the roof. But I had not studied them long before I knew they were the second piece of my escape plan.
I slipped into the bunk room just as people started to stir in their beds. Radiators hissed and warmed the room from each side, and everyone was wrapped tightly in their blankets. I went to my bunk and touched Hal’s shoulder. He opened his eyes and looked at me.
“Better get outside,” I said. “Mr. Gene’s gonna be here soon.”
Hal rubbed his eyes and didn’t seem to hear me. Suddenly, he sat up and threw off his blanket. “Crap!” he said, and hurried outside.
During breakfast Kit told me that some of the other boys had been talking about making me president.
“President of what?”
“Of Pinson.”
“What does the Pinson president do?”
“He just acts like the president.”
“What do presidents act like?”
“Like the boss of everybody.”
“Who’s president now?”
“Hal.”
“Does he know about me gettin’ his job?”
“No.”
I looked over at Hal. He stared at me, but it wasn’t a mean stare. He watched me curiously. “He’s lookin’ at me right now,” I said. “I think he might know somethin’ about this president stuff.”
“No way he knows. Everybody except you is scared of Hal.”
“Well, I don’t wanna be president. I’m not gonna be here long enough to be a president.”
“When are you leaving?”
“Tonight.”
“Tonight!”
“That’s right. I’m bustin’ out of here. I can’t take bein’ penned up much longer. I think it’s makin’ me sick.”
“Can I still come?”
“Yeah. I don’t think I can do it without you anyway.”
“Me?”
“Yeah. You’re the one that’s gonna let us out of here.”
16
During our lunch break, Kit followed me to the corner of the play yard where Hal stood with some other boys. I saw them stop what they were doing and watch us.
“Hey,” I said.
Hal looked around at the others and then back at me.
“Come over here with me and Kit,” I said. “I’ve got somethin’ to tell you.”
Hal rubbed his palms on his uniform nervously. “You know I ain’t mad at you anymore?” he said.
“I know. I forgot all about that. We’ve got other stuff to talk about.”
Hal glanced at his friends and nobody said anything. “All right,” he said.
I led the two of them to a spot in the play y
ard where no one would hear us talking. “You wanna help us bust out of here?”
“What?”
“I’m bustin’ out. I need your help.”
“How in hell you gonna bust out of here?”
“Kit’s gonna let us out. I’ve got it all figured.”
Hal pointed to Kit. “He’s goin’?”
“What’s wrong with Kit?”
“He’s got to have medicine, for one. He can’t do anything without gettin’ sick.”
“You worry about yourself, Hal!” Kit said. “You don’t know about me.”
“Whatever,” Hal said. “Nobody’s ever gotten out of Pinson, anyway. You can’t get out of here, Moon.”
“I can get out of most anywhere.”
Hal studied me for a second and then shrugged his shoulders. “Well, sure,” he said. “If you think you can do it, I’ll help you. I wanna come with you, though.”
“I told Kit, I don’t care who comes with me.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“You’re gonna drive.”
“Drive?”
“Yeah. You know how to drive?”
“I used to drive my daddy’s truck a little. Just around the clay pit.”
“Drivin’s drivin’, right?”
“I guess,” Hal said.
“As long as you can see over the steerin’ wheel, we can figure out the rest.”
“I think I can do it.”
“Good, because they’ll catch us for sure if we start runnin’ from right outside that fence.”
I could tell that Hal was getting excited. His face twitched and his hands jittered against his sides. “When do we go?” he asked.
“Tonight. After Mr. Carter leaves and Mr. Gene’s asleep in his house, I’ll wake you up.”
I climbed out of my bunk a couple of hours after lights-out. I passed by Kit and Hal, and both their eyes were wide open and watching me. “I’ll be back,” I whispered. “Wait here.”
I slipped out of the bunk room and down the hall into the rec room. Then I crawled under the Ping-Pong table and used a penny I’d found in the play yard to unscrew a flat metal fastener that held the two halves of the table together.
I went back out into the hall with the fastener and crouched against the wall opposite the entrance to the rec room. From there I could hear the opening and closing of the front door. I sat still until I heard Mr. Carter leave at midnight.
When I returned to the bunk room, Hal and Kit were still watching me. “He’s gone,” I said. “Get dressed.”
The two of them got out of their beds quietly, then all three of us put on our uniforms and jackets.
“I still don’t see how you’re gonna do this,” Hal whispered.
“Come outside,” I said. “We can talk where nobody hears us.”
I pushed the door to the play yard open, and we stepped out into the night. I showed them the fastener. “You see this? Hal, you lift me and Kit up on the roof of one of those school trailers. I’m gonna unscrew a piece of that sheet tin with this Ping-Pong piece for a screwdriver. I figure that roof’s about twelve feet wide and that trailer’s about ten feet from that fence. Once I get that piece of tin off, we can lay it from the roof of the trailer to the top of the fence. Somebody light, like Kit, can slide right down it and out of Pinson.”
Hal thought about it. “What’s gonna happen when he falls off the other side of that slide? He’s gonna break his leg.”
I looked at Kit. “Kit, you know how to make a monkey-landin’?”
Kit shook his head.
“Like this,” I said. I jumped up and landed with most of my weight on my knees, bent them slowly, then rolled across the ground. “You’ve gotta take the fall like that. Just sink to the ground when you land and roll over.”
“I don’t know if I can do it.”
“You can do it. After you get over there, you’re gonna go around to the supply room door next to the kitchen where you get haircuts. When I was in there, I saw that you can get in from the outside without a key. They come in there to drop off food boxes. Once you get in, though, you gotta prop the door open so it won’t lock behind you. Then there’s gotta be somebody to open the kitchen door from the inside. We’ll be there waitin’ on you.”
“How you gonna get through the kitchen to that supply room door?” Hal asked. “Mrs. Broomstead locks it every night and takes the key home with her.”
“I got it all figured, Hal. Don’t you worry.”
“You better have. You got it figured what car we’re gonna drive out of here?”
“I don’t know yet. Whichever one has keys in it. Y’all ready?”
“I’m ready, Moon,” Kit said.
Hal frowned and shook his head. “I guess. Jesus.”
Kit and I stood on Hal’s shoulders to get onto the roof, where I started unscrewing a piece of sheet tin. I went slow so I wouldn’t make any noise and wake Mr. Gene. We could see every window of his kitchen from where we were, and the streetlight had us lit up like we were on a stage. I told Kit to keep a lookout for anything unusual going on in Mr. Gene’s house.
It seemed that I took out nearly fifty screws and passed thirty minutes before I could lift the sheet tin. When I looked down, Hal was sitting against the trailer sleeping. “Hal,” I said. He jerked awake and rubbed his eyes. “Get ready. Go stand under this slide I’m about to make in case Kit falls.”
“This better work. I’m tired.”
“Hurry up,” I said.
Hal stood and walked around the other side of the trailer near the fence. “You ready, Kit?”
“I think so.”
I lifted the tin and walked to the edge of the trailer. My plan was to stand it straight up in the air and let it down slowly to the top of the fence, but when I had it up, a breeze came and blew against it. I almost slid off the roof trying to hold it.
“Kit, come help me! I’m about to fall off here!”
Kit jumped up and grabbed one side of the tin. The breeze came again and blew against it. We held on the best we could, but we weren’t strong enough. The tin slipped from our fingers and slammed down against the top of the fence. A prickly feeling shot up my back as I heard the sound travel across the yard. I saw Hal dive to the ground and lie still. “Get down!” I told Kit. “Lay as flat as you can on the roof!”
Kit and I flattened ourselves against the roof and watched Mr. Gene’s house. Not a second later, his kitchen light came on and his face pressed against the glass. I knew that he couldn’t see the tin lying over the fence from where he was, but he could see us on the roof of the trailer if we weren’t low enough.
“What are we going to do?” Kit whispered.
“Shhh! Suck in your stomach.”
“Anybody comin’?” Hal asked.
“Shhh!”
We watched Mr. Gene’s face. It was staring directly at us. Kit was breathing loudly, and his feet were shaking. It seemed like ten minutes passed before Mr. Gene stepped away from the window and turned off his kitchen light. We lay there quietly for several minutes until Hal called to us from below. “Anybody see you?”
“No,” I said. “Mr. Gene looked out his window, but he didn’t see us.”
“Mr. Gene!”
“Shhh. He might not be asleep again.”
“I’m gettin’ out of here!”
“We need you, Hal. He’ll be back in bed by now. Kit, go ahead and start out there.”
Kit was still shaking from our close call. He nodded at me and began to crawl out onto the sheet tin. I knelt on the end so that it wouldn’t slip. Sliding forward on his knees, Kit made his way to where the metal hung over the outside of the Pinson fence. When he stared down at the ground at the other end, he looked back at me.
“That’s good,” I whispered. “Now, remember what I said about the monkey-landin’?”
Kit nodded and looked back at the ground. I thought he might hesitate, but he got up to the edge and jumped off. He hit the ground almost like I showed
him and rolled across the grass. I held my breath, hoping he wasn’t hurt, until he stood up and brushed off his pant legs. He turned around and smiled. “Like that?”
I looked down at Hal. “I told you we’d bust out of here.”
Hal smiled at me nervously. “Let’s just hope you’re right about the kitchen door. If you can’t get it open, we ain’t gonna be able to get him in here again.”
I jumped down from the roof, and we ran across the play yard and slipped back into the bunk room.
“What are y’all doin’?” we heard a kid named Eddie say from his bed.
“Go to sleep, Eddie,” Hal snapped.
“I’ve got to get somethin’,” I said. “Wait here.”
I hurried to the bathroom, stood on a chair, and carefully pulled a shower rod loose. After stripping it of the curtain, I tucked it under my arm and returned to Hal.
“Y’all are gonna get us in trouble,” Eddie said.
“Eddie, if you don’t want me to beat the crap out of you,” Hal said, “then shut your little baby mouth.”
We continued into the dining hall, where I stopped in front of the kitchen door. “Watch this,” I said.
I took the shower rod and stuck it through the slot in the wire mesh where the dishes were returned. By working it sideways I was able to press against the deadbolt latch, and in a second the cage door popped loose and swung open.
“I ain’t believin’ this,” Hal said. “All them nights I was hungry.”
“Come on,” I said.
By the time we made it to the back of the kitchen, we heard Kit tapping on the inside door of the supply room. I unlocked and opened it, and he stood there grinning. “I can’t believe it,” Hal said. “We’re just gonna walk out of here.”
I motioned through the open door with my hand. “Go find somethin’ you can drive.”
Hal went outside and disappeared into the parking lot around the corner. I turned to Kit. “You sure you wanna go?”
Kit nodded his head.
“Why are you so quiet?”
“I’m just a little scared is all.”
“About what?”
“About getting caught,” he said.
“Shoot, we’ll get out again if they catch us. What about your medicine?”
“I don’t need it.”
“You sure?”
Kit hesitated for a second, then said, “I’m sure. I don’t need it anymore.”