by E. R. Frank
“He earned, like, a ton of privileges,” this red-haired kid is telling everybody. He’s got some cousin over there in J building he’s all worked up about. “And he got a visit, and then his urine tested dirty, so then he had to detox all over again.”
“Thirty days?” somebody asks.
“Twenty-eight,” red hair goes. “When he’s done, he’s got to start all over again over there.”
“Damn,” some other dude says.
Maybe that’s why I haven’t seen Brooklyn for a while. Maybe he lost all his privileges from a dirty urine he got somehow, and now he’s in that isolation over in detox, out there in J building.
* * *
I wake up, and my shoulder hurts real bad. I fix myself straight flat out, but I can’t sleep. My shoulder’s too goddamn sore. I throw my arm down there over the side of my bed and feel around until I find my stupid pillow. I put it up under my head and roll over on my front and put the pillow down under my neck some, and the next thing I know, it’s morning already.
* * *
“You always have the same questions, man. What’s it like this, what’s it like that, what’s it like the other thing.”
“Hmm.”
“You should let me ask a question once in a while.”
“I should?”
“Yeah. You live in a big house?”
“What’s big?”
“You’re shitting me, right?”
“Well, no. Big can mean different things to different people. I need to know what big is in your mind. And also, I’m wondering how you imagine my house to be.”
“You’ve got a problem, man,” I go. “You’ve got an asking questions problem.”
We stay quiet a minute. Then he goes, “You know how we’ve talked about how it’s difficult for you to begin?”
“Yup.”
“I guess what’s difficult for me is not to ask questions.”
“Well, all right. Let’s talk about that.”
“What interests you about that?”
“Damn, doc. You just can’t help yourself, can you?”
* * *
I count. It’s not any twenty-eight days. It’s not even thirty. It’s thirty-eight fucking days, and he’s still gone. No stupid gloves. No apron. No old-lady hair net. No Brooklyn. No goddamn nothing.
* * *
They come and go while we play War. They sign their stupid contracts, and they take their stupid meds, and they show up to their stupid sessions, and they talk their butts off in group, and then they get visitors, and then they go. Nobody stays here except me. Everybody else has a place. They have a mother or a grandfather or a foster family or long-term residential or some group home somewhere. There’s always somebody to take them, but not me. I’m here the longest because everywhere else is booked full like some kind of Hilton hotel, or I’m the wrong age or in the wrong district, and I don’t have any people. Mrs. Harper’s in some nursing home somewhere, if she hasn’t croaked, but they don’t take fifteen-year-old boys in nursing homes, and who says she’d want me, anyway? Old ladies have no use for boys. That’s what Browning always said. Boys just aggravate old ladies and tire them out. Especially me, because everybody knows I’m bad.
She never should have taken my ass back.
* * *
I don’t ask him again, but I float during War, and this is how I see it. When Dr. B. goes home, sometimes his brother is there, just visiting, sitting on this big front porch, drinking beers. B. lives with his mom, and she’s got dinner all waiting on the table already. She watches from the window and then opens the front door and walks out quick to the front porch to wait with his brother, right when B.’s pulling up in his Jeep out there in the driveway. It takes him a real long time to get over to them on that porch, because he’s got a house so damn big, it’s five whole minutes just to cross the yard.
Then
THERE’S STREAMERS ON the front door. There’s a ribbon sign with words I can’t read. There’s balloons. The lady who drove me all the way here tells me I can get out of the car now. I walk up to the cement-slab rectangle and set my high-top flat over that corner footprint, and Mrs. Harper’s door opens. Browning is there, holding Mrs. Harper’s arm. Browning’s bigger than he was two years ago, and Mrs. Harper is skinnier. Her neck is bent forward, and her face is still.
“America,” Mrs. Harper says.
“Careful,” Browning tells her. She leans down and pulls me in for a squeeze. Her bones feel little. I want her to get me tighter and tighter and tighter, and she does, but I’m real scared she’ll turn her back when she lets go because I’m bad.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her.
“America,” she says.
* * *
Browning moved in right after I got sent away. His room is the room that used to be mine. Now it’s ours. It smells sweet from the brown cigarettes he still smokes. He’s not allowed to light them anywhere in the house except our room because the smoke gets on Mrs. Harper’s nerves. He takes care of her because she got old when I was gone, and she’s sick a lot. Browning is fat, and he switched his drink from gin in root beer to regular beer and Jim Beam. His breath stinks all the time, and when we play Wiffle ball, he doesn’t pitch as good as he used to. But he talks to me a lot. He’s still the one who tells me everything. He tells me Mrs. Harper missed me more than anything, and so did he. He tells me Clark Poignant died a month after I left, and between losing me and him, Mrs. Harper got real ill and got better but was never the same. He explains it took too long for them to find me after I never came home that Saturday. I got lost in the system. My case manager got fired and her boss had to go to court, but I was still lost. A long time later, Mrs. Harper saw the story about the boy with the numbers in the paper, but she didn’t look close enough at the picture to see the numbers were her own. Browning tells me that when she got the call from Mike, she cried and cried and cried and cried. Browning says we’ll be a team now: me and him, taking care of Mrs. Harper.
He tells me he’s glad I’m back, because he’s been real lonely.
* * *
Mrs. Harper says I’ve learned a lot of vocabulary and a lot of it is bad, extra especially for a person just barely eight years old. She washes my mouth out with soap.
“Get off!” I yell, and Browning pokes his head into the bathroom to smack the side of my head. His hand is thick, and it hurts.
“Don’t you hit him,” Mrs. Harper tells Browning, and then she turns her back on me and walks out of the bathroom. The soap tastes like plastic-flavored throw up, and my ear burns.
* * *
“What does this say?” Mrs. Harper asks. She’s pointing to the new cardboard box full of angels waiting on the cement rectangle. She only gets one box a month these days because her arthritis doesn’t let her paint too much anymore.
“This end up,” I say, lifting the box for her. But I didn’t read it, I just knew.
“You’re guessing,” she says. She and the state decided she’s going to teach me to read before I start second grade.
Inside, I put the box down in her workroom.
She points to a paint bottle. “Don’t guess,” she says. “Sound it out.”
“Indian.”
“Indigo.” She sighs, like she thinks I’m stupid. I throw Indian on the floor and watch the paint splatter everywhere, like blue blood. “America!” Mrs. Harper scolds.
“What’d he do this time?” Browning calls from somewhere.
“Didn’t do shit!” I yell as loud as I know how.
Browning runs in and smacks my head twice, and Mrs. Harper looks at me hard, turns her back, and doesn’t speak to me for a whole day. When she needs me to pass the pepper or get washed for bed or to change the channel, she tells Browning to tell me. She makes me invisible even when I’m right in front of her.
I’m bad. I can’t help it. It’s just what I am. Bad.
* * *
I’m lying on my stomach in bed. I hear a dragging sound, mixed up with creaking,
and when it gets closer, I know it’s Mrs. Harper with her walker. It takes her forever to get to the side of my bed, and I stay still, pretending to be asleep. She hasn’t touched me since she washed out my mouth, and her little, light hand in the middle of my back is nice. I stay real still as her hand moves up and down. I’m trying to think of what to say, but it’s hard. I could say I’m not really asleep, or I could tell her about how, Brooklyn never had his nightmare again after I told him her trick, but then maybe she’ll stop. I don’t want her to stop. I want her to sit here, petting my back all night long. But right as I decide to whisper to her, Browning is at the bedroom door, going, “Come on, now.” Her hand stops on my back, but it stays flat, and Browning says, “Let’s get you ready for bed.”
Her hand pats me, and then it goes away.
* * *
Browning finds me out by the chain-link fence.
“Where’d you get that lighter?” he asks. I shrug. “Did you steal it?”
“No,” I lie. I stole it right under Mrs. Harper’s nose at the 7-Eleven.
“Put it out,” he says. I ignore him and watch the flame. Real meaning is in the smaller things.
Browning snatches the lighter from me.
“Give it back,” I say.
“I’m going to teach you how to read,” he says. He fixes a cigarette between his lips. “After you learn enough to start school, I’ll give you back the lighter.” I stare mad at him. He pulls a stack of homemade flash cards from his back pocket and huffs his way down to his butt on the grass. He sure did get fat. “Sit down,” he tells me.
“I don’t have to.”
I wait for him to smack me, but he doesn’t this time. He flicks my lighter on and touches the flame to his cigarette. He blows the smoke out the side of his mouth, away from my face, but I can still smell the sweetness.
“Listen,” Browning says. “Mrs. Harper doesn’t know I’m going to teach you. So don’t tell her.” He waits a second, inhaling, but I won’t look at him. “She wouldn’t like the way I’m going to teach you, so you and me are going to keep it to our own two selves. Just our secret. Okay?” When I don’t answer, he holds up the first card.
“That’s the same way Mrs. Harper does it,” I tell him.
“Nope,” Browning says. “You’ll see. Try it.”
“Ssss,” I go. “Sss huh.”
“Remember what sound s and h make,” he says. He licks his lips and taps out some ash while I think hard.
“Shh,” I say.
He nods.
“Sshhiiii.”
He nods again.
“Shit,” I go.
“That’s what I’m trying to say.”
“You can’t write that on a card!” I go.
“I can do whatever I want,” he says. He holds up another one.
“Fff,” I start. Then I stop.
“Keep going,” Browning says.
“I can’t,” I tell him. “That’s going to be the f-word.”
“What, all of a sudden you’re afraid to say the f-word?” he asks me.
“Are all the cards bad words?” I whisper.
Browning raises his eyebrows and nods toward the house. “Ssshhh,” he says.
* * *
He uses other words, too, mixed in with the bad ones. Like our names, and the different names of his drinks. Malt, vodka, gin, beer, wine. He uses the way we all talk. Don’t raise your voice. Clean it up. Don’t you dare. Can somebody get the phone?
Mrs. Harper doesn’t know what we’re up to, but she likes that I’m doing better with her own flash cards and with the TV Guide. I can read a few sentences from it now, and plus, I can read some of her mail.
“ ‘Dear Sylvia,’ ” I read. “Who’s that?”
“Who’s what?” Mrs. Harper says.
“Who’s Sylvia?” She starts to laugh.
“What?” I say.
“Who’s Sylvia!” she hoots.
“What?” I say. She’s laughing at me. She hates me and thinks I’m stupid.
“I’m Sylvia.” She’s got tears coming out the corners of her eyes. She wipes at them with the tail of the scarf she’s started wearing over her hair. I never thought of her as anything but Mrs. Harper. That’s all anybody ever calls her. I’m trying to stay mad, but it’s hard with her laughing like that, it’s hard with her suddenly being Sylvia. It’s making me want to laugh, too. “You always had such a nice smile,” Mrs. Harper tells me, and she pats at her cheeks and her neck with her scarf tails. “Real nice.” Then she starts laughing all over again, and I don’t mind so much anymore.
* * *
Mostly, Browning teaches me by the chain-link fence where Mrs. Harper thinks we’re just hanging out, or in our room after she’s asleep. Browning squeezes in next to me in my bed and dangles his arm around my shoulders while we practice, and sometimes that makes me forget feeling so bad and mean. Browning says not to care what everybody else thinks because the truth is, I’m plenty smart, and I’m a good listener, too. He says thank God I came home because he sure did need some fresh company.
When I tell him I think Mrs. Harper liked me better before I left, he doesn’t argue but just stays quiet and blows smoke rings, so then I know it must be true that she doesn’t love me anymore. I don’t let Browning hear me cry about it because only pussies cry, and besides, she’s old and I don’t care all that much, anyway. I have Browning, and he’s all I need.
* * *
They put me in special ed. There’s only seven other kids in my class, and all the other classes are a lot bigger and have regular people who aren’t supposed to be dumb and bad. There’s a girl who sits next to me who reminds me of Brooklyn, even though she’s a girl. Her name is Liza. When I tell her to eat shit, she goes, “Anyplace, anytime.”
They all read better than me, and this one kid, Billy, says he’ll help me, and when I tell him what he can do with his stupid help, he starts screaming, “I hate you! I hate you!” and the teacher puts me in a time-out. She’s always pushing her glasses back up her nose, and she doesn’t yell, but she talks soft, like she’s far away inside of herself.
“What an unusual name,” she tells me. I pretend not to hear her.
Liza says, “He looks like a America.”
Everyone laughs, and I try to hit her, but she dodges. She’s fast. “It’s good, dummy,” Liza says. “America’s supposed to be for everybody, and you look like everybody.”
“He’s not black,” some other kid says.
“Shut up,” I tell him.
Liza rolls her eyes. “It’s good,” she says. “You want to get married?”
* * *
Mrs. Harper goes to bed way early now, and I sit on a stool near to her feet and read. The teacher gave me some books, but Mrs. Harper likes magazines better. I always want to say d instead of divorce and s instead of sensational and c instead of celebrity because it takes so long to sound them out, but Mrs. Harper won’t let me. She makes me work out the whole word every time, and then finally, after a lot of magazines and a lot of days, I know what divorce and sensational and celebrity look like as soon as I see them. I know she’s real happy about that because she lets her teeth show a little, and she says, That’s right, America. Uh-huh. That’s just right. It’s real nice.
Browning doesn’t give me back the lighter I stole, because he lost it. He gives me another lighter instead that has a naked lady on it.
“Don’t tell Mrs. Harper,” he says, and then he winks.
Now
I GET SECONDS just to see if maybe he’s back there behind those swinging doors. He’s not, though. Some other dudes are serving. Brooklyn’s ass is good and gone.
* * *
Dr. B. tells me it’s probably real hard for me to trust anyone, especially maybe him for some reason, only he’s not sure, and do I think that might be true.
I’m way up high.
“America,” Dr. B. is going. “America.”
Way up high.
“America!”
> “What?” I go, falling back down right into my chair.
“What just happened there?”
“Nothing,” I tell him.
“You looked like you went away somewhere.”
“Nah,” I tell him. “You’re looking at me, aren’t you? I’m right here.”
“No,” Dr. B. goes. “You went away.” I try to get back up there, but I can’t. He’s looking at me, he’s seeing me, and I can’t go. “America,” Dr. B. says. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” I say. “Step off.”
It was cool and clean and icy and snow everywhere. It was way up high and real nice.
“I think we were getting to something important, and then you went somewhere.”
“Would you shut up with that?” I go. “I’m right here!”
“Not a minute ago,” he tells me. “You were somewhere else.”
“Don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, man.”
“I think you know.”
“You’re out of your tree, doc. I swear.”
“I think you’re afraid you’re out of your tree.”
“Is our time up yet? This is boring.”
“You know exactly when our time is up, America.”
“Ah, shit.”
“It’s called dissociation.” He’s getting on my nerves, bad. “A lot of people do it when something’s happening in the here and now that’s upsetting to them. A lot of people find a way to go outside of themselves. They use their minds to take themselves away because it feels safer that way.”
“Step off, man.”
“It doesn’t make anybody crazy, America.”
“Didn’t you hear me? I said, step off!”
“I heard you.”
“So shut up, then.”
* * *
Either way, you lose. You play War, and you get that floating and those flashes. You don’t play War, and you get to talking and then you shoot up high. I hate these damn sessions. I hate Dr. B.
* * *
“Who messed with our game?”