But that day, I ran toward the river, toward the Tar District, toward anything at all and all I could imagine was the parents’ diseased house burning down to the ground and Bucky Swarth’s asshole, impaled on my horn like a trophy.
Chapter Eleven
Attack of the Clean People
It didn’t feel like there was anything I could do but run. I slowed down once to look back over my shoulder. Black clouds gathered up over the Korl Brothers factory. The March weather was about ready to turn from pleasant and warm to downright violent and cold. I didn’t care. It didn’t matter. I wasn’t afraid of the stormsmoke of the dead, coming to take me with them.
I felt weightless!
I waited for the coming storm, longed for it to come and crackle electricity into my steps. I longed for its freezing rain to beat down and further numb my sore skin, to calm the raging red anger that made me go go go.
I didn’t know what waited for me at Uncle Skad’s house. Whatever it was it had to be better than the house I’d just left. I wasn’t even really sure if I could find Uncle Skad’s, exactly. I left it up to that inner feeling to guide me. There was no way Uncle Skad and his house could live up to the expectations I had already set for them. In my mind, Uncle Skad’s had become some sort of way station, a middle point, somewhere between here and there—but also a beginning. I thought maybe once I got to Uncle Skad’s, I could take some time to rest and cleanse my mind, so I could focus on what lay ahead. It was still in Milltown, true, but it was the Tar District, at the very fringes of not only the physical town but so-called “decent society,” also.
The horns were heavy on my head but I imagined them slicing out the direction I was going like the rudders of a boat. My lungs burned. My shoes were splitting, the Velcro barely holding, and I knew there was no turning back. I felt great.
Once the school and the factory were out of sight, I stopped to catch my breath. I felt like I could stop. When the wind blew real hard around the factories and all that fuckness, it had a way of dragging the pollution and the foul smells away and I smelled the air the way it was supposed to smell, the way some other town smelled it. It was nice, trotting along there on the side of the road. Beneath the wind, the air was almost balmy, hinting of the summer to come. Then the wind would kick up, reminding me of the winter left behind and bringing with it those deep black, ominous storm clouds. I knew there was no hope of making it to the Tar District before the storm hit. I doubted I’d even be there before dark. And I didn’t feel like rushing. In one fell swoop, I had rid myself of the restrictions of the parents and the school. Maybe it was just giddiness but it was a feeling I’d only felt once before when I was seven or eight.
It was a little while after the father lost his legs. We had had to move from our much nicer house in Farmertown to that dump on Walnut. Shortly after moving there, the mother said someone would be visiting and I’d have to be on my best behavior. It took me a while to realize the someone was a social worker. It was the mother’s theory that some do-good, wealthy housefrau had reported them. Later, there were investigations into that. The logic was that this rich family of mill owners wanted that land for another mill or, their newest endeavor, low income apartments, and they figured if they could get all of those houses condemned, they could buy the land good and cheap. And if they built low income apartments there, it was guaranteed the rent would be on the government’s tab. The social services were obligated to investigate every claim and they had called the parents to tell them they would like to arrange a meeting.
At the time, I didn’t know if the mother was being honest or if she was just trying to scare the hell out of me. She told me they might try and take me away from them. I’d never been more terrified in my life. Sure, I had my moments of wishing I lived with a different family, but what kid didn’t. More than anything, I was comfortable with the parents. As a child, there was no feeling better than love and comfort. I imagined myself living with another family. I would be like a pet, exciting and new for a few months, little more than a burden after a year. The thought of being taken away from my parents occupied my every thought. Every night, it felt like my insides were scoured by horrible nightmares that, upon waking, I could never remember.
I know from what I’ve told you so far, you probably think that house was a terrible place to live but it didn’t really get like that until after I started failing and the mother had her stroke. I didn’t just feel bad for myself, either. I felt bad for my parents. Now I get the impression that having the social services called on them was one of the things that really broke the parents down. Like after that they felt like nothing they ever did would be good enough. From my room, I heard the mother asking the father what they were going to do if the services took me. I heard the sobs from my bedroom. Those were the only times I could remember her crying when it wasn’t out of anger.
I’m sure she was overwhelmed. The house was truly a shambles but it was the only thing they could afford and it had come that way. The shambles wasn’t something they created. Since the father was pretty much completely incapable of doing anything physical they had planned to put back a little bit of money and have it fixed piece by piece. Once they knew they had to get it fixed quickly, they sold everything worth anything. It wasn’t long before we were living in a house devoid of records, stereo, or television. The mother also sold the few pieces of jewelry she had. “Well,” she said, “we’ll just tell them we’re religious.” The mother ended up buying the cheapest supplies and doing the labor by herself.
The whole house was in a state of extreme tension. The father was essentially resigned. First he’d lost his legs and now he was threatened with losing his child and he didn’t really have any control over either event. The mother spent her days smoking furiously, running around the house and painting, stuffing the holes in the drywall, and cleaning years’ worth of grime off the windows. I mostly stayed in my room, too anxious to do much of anything but scurry around and make sure my bed was made and all of my toys were in the exact correct location.
It was around that time, in the scared loneliness of night, that I started thinking of the social services as the Clean People. They were the first Clean People, the enforcers amidst the superblobs. I imagined them pulling up in a white, windowless van, a cage separating the cargo area from the cab so the feral children they dragged from these filthy homes couldn’t attack the driver. They would get out of the van, a whole herd of them dressed in sparkling white jumpsuits, white gloves on their hands. They would undoubtedly hook me up to some form of lie detector.
I wasn’t exactly right but I was on the right track. Two of them showed up, both women. They drove a clean, new white car and they were outrageously overdressed. I guess that was so they could feel slightly better than the people they were investigating. Laughing, they knocked on the door.
When the mother opened the door, their smiles were gone completely. The Clean People exchanged a volley of pleasantries with the mother and she invited them in. When it was just us, home alone, the mother was a very powerful woman, never failing to speak her mind. It was horrible to see her like this, wringing her hands and stumbling to get out of those other women’s way.
“Well, I guess you’re here to have a look around,” she said.
“We received a complaint,” the younger woman said. “We have to follow up on every complaint made.” The older woman was letting the younger woman do the talking.
“I’m Mrs. Jones,” the older woman said, holding out her hand. The mother wiped her hands off on her dress and shook hands with the woman. “And this is Mrs. Johnson. I’m training her, so she’ll be conducting the session.”
“Of course,” the mother said. “I’m Sadie, that’s my husband Carl over there in the wheelchair and this is Wallace.”
“Hello, Wallace,” the women said simultaneously and I was certain those smiles they flashed were nearly predatory. “Hello, Clean People. Goodbye, Mom and Dad,” I thought.
I sat
there on the couch while the Clean People searched the house. Every muscle was drawn tight. It took a lot of effort to breathe and I felt like I was going to throw up. I yearned for a drink of water.
It seemed like they looked around for hours. I imagined them turning over every object in the house, looking for traces of drugs or blood or, hell, I didn’t know, whatever it was that made people bad. But my parents weren’t bad. Not yet, anyway. I wanted to tell the Clean People this. I felt like my tight little nerves could snap at any moment and I would have to run up to the Clean People, letting their shampoo and perfume smell they dragged with them envelop me, and tell them the parents weren’t bad people and even if they were a little bit bad that was okay because I liked it there and didn’t want to go anywhere in that little white car.
I had been digging my nails into my thighs so hard both my fingers and my legs were hurting. I looked over at the father, when he was just a gimp and not so angry. He stared straight ahead, his strong arms digging into the armrests of his wheelchair. I smelled the nervous sweat shooting out of his skin.
Eventually, the threesome emerged from the back of the house. I tried to gain some clue as to how things were going by looking at the mother’s eyes, but she was playing it off pretty good. They were talking rather loudly, laughing it up, but I really couldn’t make out anything they were saying. The whumming sound in my head was huge. Then I noticed their voices were lowered.
My heart pounded. This had to be it, I thought. Maybe they had just tried to make the mother feel comfortable before dropping the bomb. Now was the time they’d lean in and say, “Oh yeah, by the way, we gotta take the kid.”
They broke up their little huddle and the mother walked over to where the father sat. I think she must have told him to act retarded or mute or something, the way he just sat there like that. The mother dropped her head to the floor, focusing very intently on moving the father into the kitchen. She refused to look at me.
Then the Clean People came over. Mrs. Johnson, the Clean Person-in-Training, sat closest to me, her knees nearly touching mine. Mrs. Jones sat behind her, leaning back on the couch and crossing her arms over her girth.
The mother came back into the living room. She lifted me up off the couch and sat down, pulling me back onto her lap. I wanted to thrash. I wanted to throw myself off the mother and run outside, run away from those first horrifying glimpses of fuckness. At least that way I’d get to decide where it was I went. Knowing my instincts, I guess, the mother put her arms around me.
I don’t remember all of the questions they asked. Mrs. Johnson read them off a piece of typing paper, jotting down comments while me or the mother talked. I remember the first question though and, now that I think about it, Mrs. Johnson must have been nervous too.
Her face was very composed as she looked at the mother. Then she asked, “Do you, uh, shit on the floor?”
Mrs. Johnson’s face cracked like something whooshed out of her. Mrs. Jones immediately stepped up. “I’m sorry. What she meant to say was, ‘Do you and your family ever, uh, defecate on the floor... rather than in the toilet?”
“Well, no,” the mother said, slightly confused. “I mean, there has been a couple of times when Carl, if he was sick or something... You know he used to not be able to do that by himself. Wallace went through a phase a few years ago, but I always cleaned it up.”
“I see,” Mrs. Johnson said. She’d gained a little of her composure back.
All the questions they asked me were “yes”- or “no”-type things. My mouth was completely dry. I think if I’d actually tried to talk I would have vomited so I just shook or nodded my head. They were all stupid questions like: Does your mother cook dinner? Have you ever went to bed hungry? When you get in trouble, are you spanked? Have you ever been spanked so hard it’s left a bruise? Do you go to school?
The more questions they asked, the more nervous I became. I still thought the hammer was going to fall, this was just some sick and twisted way to make all of this my fault. I was wiggling so much by the time Mrs. Johnson finally asked the last question that I had almost flopped off the mother entirely.
“It was nice meeting you, Wallace,” Mrs. Johnson said, holding out her hand, again with that predatory stare. It made me think I’d be seeing her again, in the soft moonglow of my room, waiting to snatch me away.
At this point my mother followed them outside. I flopped down on the couch, grabbing a pillow and wrapping my arms tightly around it. I stared up at the light yellow water stains on the ceiling, wondering if the mother had successfully scrubbed out the poor. It was another eternity they were outside.
“You okay in there?” the father called, on his way into the living room.
I gave a response that the dry mouth and nausea turned into something like, “Yeeung.”
“Hang in there.”
“Tell me what they’re doing out there.”
He wheeled himself over to the window, pulling back the clean white curtains the mother had bought at the Dollar General.
“The cunts are leaving,” he said.
I sat up.
“Really?”
“S’what it looks like.”
“They gone yet?”
“Getting in the car.”
The mother came in and shut the door. She leaned against it, throwing her weight against the world that could so easily penetrate it. A huge smile spread across her face.
“They’re closing the case,” she said.
The father hung his head. He was crying, his muscled arms trembling as he clutched the wheels of his chair.
“Does that mean I won’t be going anywhere?”
“You’re staying right here, baby.”
That was the feeling. It flooded me. Over the past few weeks everything had seemed dark and depressing. Everywhere I looked, something else was flawed. My behavior wasn’t right, despite the straight ‘A’s. But, in that moment, everything became bright. Everything became right. Energy rushed through my body. I couldn’t help smiling. If I smiled like that now, I’d think I was an idiot, but then it was just the smile of a child. The smile of a creature who didn’t have a care in the world, a creature who shouldn’t have a care in the world.
The next few days I had walked around suppressing my laughter. I wanted to laugh at everyone and everything. I felt giddy.
Someone, if not those Clean People that came to the house, then the Clean People who called them, had figured the parents weren’t doing a good enough job of turning me into a blob and they wanted to take me away from the parents, reckoning they could do it right. I wanted them to see me after they left, not the idiot sad child who refused to speak but the smiling, confident, fully-hydrated child who was willing to ramble endlessly about the talents of any major league baseball team or the Top 40 charts.
That’s the way I felt as I left that school. I wanted to laugh at everything, even my own condition, trudging down the road with those ridiculous horns on top of my head. I wanted them to see me, all those faceless blobs that had made the last few years of my life a living hell. No, I didn’t want them to see me at all. I wanted them to go away and that’s what I imagined. I imagined all those shapeless, colorless masses melting into the ground, into the rotten soot and shit-covered earth that created them.
Feeling a second wind, I picked my speed up again and started back into a slow trot. Fuck it, fuck it, fuck them all—the thought meshed with my footsteps as I struggled not to fall down.
Chapter Twelve
Elf
I continued to trudge along by the side of the road, careful not to twist my ankle where the asphalt disintegrated into the grass. The landscape of Ohio is as erratic and temperamental as the weather. One mile, I was back there near all the factories and fuckness, miles of dingy brick and rusted iron, all coughing up into the sky. Now I was in relative countryside. The only houses were way back off the road. Soon I would be in relative filth again, in the Tar District. The Tar District’s factories were much smal
ler and older than the ones in Milltown proper. They made things like paper and rubber and didn’t have contracts with places like General Motors. Milltown kind of slouches down toward the Saints River, the Tar District, and I could see all that smoke against the deepening blue of the spring sky.
Behind me, the dark clouds were still rumbling and rolling, threatening to consume me. I slowed down and started thinking about a place to hide from the inevitable driving rains. There’s a popular saying in Ohio that goes: “If you don’t like the weather, stick around for about ten minutes and it’ll change.” If this storm had come a day earlier, it would have been snow. Today, it was nearly sixty before the clouds rolled over and the rain and wind would drop it to nearly freezing.
There weren’t a lot of places to hide out there. I was kind of looking for a barn or something, but there weren’t any in sight. I didn’t think it would be such a good idea to run into the woods if there was going to be lightning. I still had that weightless feeling and I wasn’t quite ready for God to strike me down just yet.
Fuck it, I thought. I didn’t care about the storm a half an hour ago, so why the hell should I care now.
The fuckness was going to come. No matter how I combated it, the fuckness would come. The harder I fought, the worse it would be. Hadn’t I battled fuckness enough for the day? Why not just let it land right on top of me?
I went over to the yellow grass beside the road and threw myself on the ground. I rolled over on my back and looked up at the sky. I liked the way the sky looked before a storm as much as I did at dawn or sunset. The colors were just as vibrant but they were darker—blue, gray, black. It was the type of thing I imagined bumpkins doing, lying there musing up at the sky except, in the classical image of this, it was usually a clear blue day, possibly sparkling, huge fluffy white clouds floating slowly across the sky. How many times was that said in the country, I wondered? “Look at the fluffy white clouds. Look at heaven floating by in the sky.” I wondered what life would have been like if we’d never left Farmertown. We didn’t have a farm or any fuckness like that but our house was a lot nicer and the school seemed a lot less violent and everything else didn’t seem so threatening either.
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