by Sharon Flake
Cousin hugs her and leaves. After he’s gone, I take off. At the corner store, I ask for paper and a pencil. I buy an envelope with a stamp on it.
To Everybody:
I’m all right. Stop looking for me.
Mann
On the way to the mailbox, it hits me. I’m gonna die on these streets. And if I go home, I’m gonna die there too: inside, where nobody will see. It takes me a while, hours really, to figure out what to do. To stop being scared and walking up and down this one street like I’m casing a joint. But then it comes to me. Something I shoulda remembered long ago. I do got a place to go—and I’m going there. Now.
Chapter 47
WHEN I GET to the horse farm, I stand at the gate and stare. CLOSED FOREVER, a sign reads.
The place don’t look it though, ’cause the fences always needed painting, the gate was always broken, and the grass always looked like it does now—hard and dry with clumps of overturned dirt everywhere like somebody was planning to pack it up and take it with ’em when they left.
Dream-a-Lot Stables is big enough to hold twenty houses on it—without none of them even touching.
There’s four small stables, a barn, a fenced-off patch of land for riding, an office building, and a patch of trees that leads down to a graveyard nobody uses anymore.
When I was little, the horses had saddles and they kept their heads up high when you rode ’em. But the older I got, the sadder they looked, holding their heads down low, looking like they was sorry you showed up. Hope you someplace nice, Journey, I think. “You too, Kee-lee,” I say, picking up grocery bags.
With the horses gone, it’s extra quiet here. But it’s pretty. Leaves on the trees are the color of red peppers and pumpkins. The air smells sweet and clean. And the green barn, at the end of the trail, looks freshly painted, not chipped and dusty like I know it is.
When I get to a building with the offices in it, I look inside. File cabinets are pulled open. Blue folders and papers are all over the desk and floor. Crooked, yellowed pictures of Journey with little kids on her back hang on the walls. I throw a rock through the window. Stick my hand inside and open the door.
The first room is as small as my bedroom. The bathroom at the end of the hall is dirty and there’s no water in the toilet, just a big brown ring. I take a leak anyhow. I cut on the light. “No electricity.” I turn on the water. “That works.” I head for the couch and lie down. It’s hard and itchy. I stretch out anyhow. Next thing I know, it’s almost dark. I’m opening drawers, digging in cabinets, trying to find a match. There’s melted citronella candles all over the place, so there must be matches.
When I find the matches, I light the candles, one by one, and sit in the window watching the sun go down. It don’t take me long to realize though that I don’t like being here all by myself. It’s like I’m the last person on earth.
Chapter 48
BREAKFAST IS dry cereal and raisins. When I’m done eating, I head for the couch again and go back to sleep. It’s like two in the afternoon when I wake up. I’m wondering: is this what I’m gonna do, sleep my life away? So I make myself get up, even though I’m still tired. I go to the side of the building and hose my hands and face. I gulp water that tastes like rust. Go to the bathroom. Lie on the floor, and before I know it, I’m sleeping again. It’s dinnertime when I wake back up.
This time I don’t give myself a chance to fall asleep. I start walking, heading for the barn. I figure I’ll find something there for protection—a knife or shovel. The night before, I wiped the gun clean and threw it down the sewer. I hate guns.
I never do get to the barn where the stables are. Two deer run toward the graveyard and I follow them to see if there are more. Then I head for the riding field, wondering how long I’m gonna be here before I lose my mind. I walk the fence, taking six steps and falling off, taking ten steps and jumping down. Then I’m back up until I’m halfway around and mad at myself for not being able to stay on the whole time. A stick on the ground is my sword. I use it to fence with. I duck and jab and roll in the dirt, running away from somebody who ain’t there.
I am so bored! There’s nothing here but dirt, trees, and me. The quiet makes my skin itch. And it makes me think too much about Kee-lee and Jason and Moo Moo.
You a baby, sissy girl, or a man? I hear my dad say, right when I’m staring over at the graveyard, listening to noises that make me hold my breath, and pick up a rock just in case it ain’t deer making those sounds.
The graveyard’s not big. But it looks like the kind in the movies, with hanging vines and weeping willows. There’s moldy gravestones turned over, and some so old the wind has eaten the words away so you can’t tell who’s buried there. I stand staring. Wondering how long it will take for my name to disappear, for people to forget about me for good.
I don’t think I can do this. Live by myself with nobody to talk to. Play by myself. Go forever with no TV, no PlayStation, no CD player, no basketball, baseball, or football, no telephone, no cell phone, no girls, no movies, no friends, no refrigerator full of food, no corner store, no nothing! Spending Thanksgiving and Christmas by myself—no turkey or cranberry sauce, or Ma Dear’s sweet potato pie. I’m getting outta here. That’s what I’m thinking. But I can’t go nowhere, ’cause anywhere I go, somebody’s gonna get in trouble for it. So I sleep. I found a blanket and a pillow—I think somebody used to sleep on the job. Luckily, it’s still not too cold out.
If I was home, my mother would never just let me sleep. She’d always find something for me to do, like setting the table for Thanksgiving. But here I sleep, and sleep some more; ’cause I can. ’Cause if I don’t sleep, I just might go back to being who I was.
Chapter 49
DAY TEN
That’s what I wrote on the wall. I’m putting down the days, just in case I starve to death and somebody finds my bones. I want them to know I hung in there as long as I could.
I’m doing like cave people—drawing my life in pictures. So the wall’s gonna tell ’em plenty about me. Day Three is funny. I got a picture of me holding my nose, dumping water in the toilet. Day Four shows me lighting fire to paper—because the citronella’s gone—and setting fire to the couch. On Day Eight I’m in the middle of the field with a hammer and nails, fixing the broken fence. By Day Nine I’m mad all over again so I draw me with a hatchet in my hand, chopping pieces of the office building away.
No matter how many pictures I draw, they all the same; me all by myself. If Moo Moo was alive, he would tell me what to do. But he’s gone. So I gotta figure this thing out for myself.
I’d been thinking though. I can’t stay here eating raisins and nuts all the time. So Day Seven I went to town. I begged for money and I bought me four cheeseburgers and some fries. Then I went to the grocery store and wolfed down three ice-cold bottles of Pepsi before I left the place. I wanted to take in a movie, but it was getting late. I went to the grocery store again. Food shopping was hard though, ’cause I was passing up watermelon and steaks, and picking up stuff that didn’t need no refrigeration, like nuts, applesauce, beans in a can, Vienna sausages, and mustard sardines.
You gonna be skin and bones, Ma Dear woulda told me. I look at my pants, falling off from not eating enough.
Day Eight I went out again. Hung out at the art store and begged for scraps of poster paper. The owner said if I swept up, he’d give me a few sheets. I talked him into giving me free paint too. The colors suck—Blacken Blue, Forest Green Berry, Moose Maple Brown, Gray, Winter White, China Yellow, and Red Sea Red. “Just gonna end up in the trash,” the guy said. “The last manager bought ’em and none of ’em sold.” I think he gave them to me mostly ’cause he felt sorry for me. So I packed them in a box and carried them, stopping every few minutes to rest.
Day Nine it rained for a long time. I opened the blinds and sat in the window and stared at the trees. Then I cleared old pictures off a wall. Took out my new paints and charcoal pencils and didn’t stop painting for eight hours stra
ight. I didn’t paint nothing my friends would like. I drew a forest first thing in the morning, with foggy yellow light shining through, and me walking by myself, dragging an empty rope. There was horses in the painting. They were drinking from the bottom of a waterfall. When I was done, I went to sleep right there on the floor.
Chapter 50
DAY TWENTY. I hate it here. I hate it here.
I write that on the wall in the bathroom—top to bottom. Then I pack up my brushes and leave. I think about my dad. So go to jail, I think. Shoot me. Lock me up. I don’t care. I think about my mother. I’m mad at her too. Then I stop walking. Stand still and think a minute. She’s probably crying all the time. Wondering where I’m at.
Walking, running past the front gate, I fly up the street, heading home. Thinking about Kee-lee.
Wondering where he’s buried. Thinking I’m gonna go to his grave and pour paint over his headstone and stick some brushes in the dirt and send him off right. But then when I’m almost on our block, almost home, my feet don’t wanna go no farther. They fixed to the ground tight as the bolts they use to hold the streetlights in place. For a whole half hour I’m stuck. Can’t go home. Can’t go back to Kee-lee’s place, or Cousin’s neither. It ain’t that somebody wouldn’t take me in. It’s just that, well sometimes it’s better to be all by yourself than in a house full of trouble, or around people who only remember how you used to be. So I turn around and go back to where I came from.
Chapter 51
DAY THIRTY
When I lived at home, my mother cleaned up our messes. We ate off the plates, and she washed them. We slept in the beds; she made them up. Now I do everything myself. I fix the food. I put the milk carton, packages of hot dogs and wings in a bucket full of water so they won’t spoil, and leave it out day and night. I gather wood to make the fire that heats the pot that cooks my food out on the front porch every night. I wash my clothes and hang them up to dry. It’s me in charge of me now.
I got me a routine too. I get up and wash myself and brush my teeth with my fingers and some soap.
I eat my breakfast and pick food from out my teeth with a stick. I carry a bucket and hammer over to the fence, pulling out crooked, rusty nails, banging ’em straight, then using the nails and the boards to cover the broken side and back windows of the office building.
I always take some extra wood, to paint or file down with rocks or broken glass, and make things; like a tray for eating, a step stool, or a toolbox to carry stuff in. When I’m done making things with my hands, I head for the graveyard.
I don’t go in there, but I go as near as I can. Right before you walk down the stone path that leads you there, there’s some half-dead trees and vines blocking your way. There’s bags of garbage, a filing cabinet, old furniture, and other stuff the owner probably dumped before he took off. Nobody goes to that graveyard, but if they came, they couldn’t get down there anyhow. I thought of my mom, not being able to get to Jason. I thought about Kee-lee, and no way to get to him. That’s why I started clearing a path: for them.
I got me a cat named Mac. She came up on the porch yesterday. I was glad because it was Christmas Eve, and that ain’t no time to be alone. I fed her raisins today. Cats don’t eat raisins. She did, so I figured she was really hungry. When she went to sleep on the railing, I played marbles with stones, and beat myself at Tonk—I made the cards out of paper and drew the faces on them myself. When it got dark, I heard noises. Saw lights down by the barn. Trucks too. I went back inside, blew out the lights, and hid. When I woke up, it was morning. There wasn’t nothing down there, so I figured it was the owner, taking away the rest of his stuff, or some crackhead trying to see what he could steal and sell. I didn’t go down there, but the next day I did put more boards over the windows to keep out the crooks and the cold, and I finished making a knife out of wood: a Christmas present from me to me.
Later that night, I heard moaning. Things moan a lot around here: stray cats and dogs, the trees even. So I just keep painting and watching the snow flurries. But the third time I heard it, I went to the door and stood there with it wide open. Mac watched with me. The fourth time I heard it, I went back inside and I put the desk in front of the door. I stared out the window and down the hill at the graves. Then I pushed the couch in front of the desk and put some chairs on top of all that stuff.
Half the night, I aimed the flashlight at the door like a gun. The wind blew. The tree branches shook. And the moaning got louder.
Chapter 52
MAC AIN’T NO kind of protection. She’s a cat that limps and rubs up on you too much. But she’s all I got, so I carry her over to the stables. Walking, slow as I can, stopping to pick icicles off trees or wipe dust off my pants, gets me to the stables forty-five minutes later. The noise stopped late last night. I’m checking things out anyhow, just in case.
The barn door is almost wide open. The wind is blowing leaves inside. I’m hoping I’m wrong about what I’m thinking. So I’m walking slow. Looking at a rusty feeder in the corner of the barn, pitchforks hanging from the walls, and straw covering the cold ground. I get to the first stall and stare. I walk over to the next stall, shake my head and run out the barn. My eyes follow the tire tracks leading off the property. My feet take me back inside. Journey’s brown eyes are almost swollen shut. Her blond coat is bald in spots, and you can see her ribs. Her eyes roll open when I call her name. She neighs. No, cries.
“They left you, huh, girl?” I rub her belly. “They do that . . . leave when they get tired of you.”
I’m pushing her, trying to get her to stand. I’m thinking, too. Wondering. When did she get here? What were they doing here last week? Trying to move her, or bringing her here? I can’t figure it out. Maiden Lucy, the horse in the next stall, is in bad shape too. She used to be black. But her coat’s almost gray now. And there’s white stuff around her mouth, like maybe she was foaming or trying to eat the paint off the stall wall. She’s lying there too. Staring at me like I’m the one who did this to her.
I saw Jason die. I saw Kee-lee die. And I ain’t watching nobody, or nothing else die ever again. So I leave—just walk off and don’t look back.
Chapter 53
THERE AIN’T NO calendars here, no clocks neither. So I’m always guessing days and times. Two days, maybe three go by before I go back to the barn. In the meantime, I stay inside drawing pictures on the wall by the front door. It’s a picture of my house. Me, Jason, and Kee-lee are riding bikes up the street. There are peach trees hanging low, and a dirt road under our wheels. My mom’s on the porch with my dad, shelling beans. Ma Dear’s drinking sweet tea with Cousin. Journey’s tied up to a tree in the back. She’s got three colts. They’re running in the grass. Nobody is sad. Nobody is scared.
When I’m done, I stand on the toilet tank and draw on the bathroom wall. I don’t think about being cold when I draw. I’m just about out of paint, so I figure it’s time to get some more; to steal ’em, if I have to. That’s when Jason speaks up. Mann.
“Shut up, Jason.”
Journey’s . . .
“Be quiet.”
She’s gonna die . . .
My hands go to my ears. His words are still in my head though.
. . . just like Kee-lee.
The bathroom mirror breaks and almost cuts my foot when I punch myself in the face.
Mann . . .
“Shut up!”
Jason’s whispering. Just go.
When Jason got shot, wasn’t nothing I could do about it. It was the same thing when Moo Moo and Kee-lee died. But Journey . . .
Go!
Journey ain’t gotta die, I’m figuring. She can live, if I just do things right this time.
Journey’s muscles jump when the cold water hits them. And she cries. I try to tell her that it’s gotta be done. But she don’t understand. She moves her head side to side and neighs. I finish hosing her down, cleaning out her stall, and I give her a drink. Then I clip a lead rope on her halter, lean back on my hee
ls, and pull with all my strength. She’s dead weight, just lying here. I rub the whiskers on her nose and put my fingers in her mouth and rub her gums for a while. She chews my fingers, like a baby chews a pacifier. “Come on, girl. Try.”
Journey rocks a little. Her feet kick. I pull. Her head raises up; her neck twists. I jerk the rope. She stands. Takes one step. Shakes her head side to side. Takes another step. Then a few more. She’s walking like she’s gonna fall down any minute, wobbling over to the feed can and sticking her head in. Chewing on pieces of hay, she circles her stall two times, walks over to the corner, and goes down again.
I’m patting her. Praising her. “Good. Good Journey. Here.” I run around picking up pieces of hay and feeding her. “We gotta get you better. Otherwise, they’ll shoot you. And it don’t feel good getting shot.” I make her look at me. “Ask Jason. Ask Kee-lee and Moo Moo.”
She’s working her lips, like my grandmother used to when her false teeth didn’t fit right. She closes and opens her eyes, like she’s napping. I take my finger and rub green slime from her eyes. “You need medicine and food. A lot of food.”
Journey was born on this farm. Back then it was a riding farm where people paid good money to get lessons. But the neighborhood changed. Owners came and went. They got worse and worse, till the horses looked like poor trash, same as the rest of us. That’s what my dad said anyhow. That’s what his father told him.