I helped her get on to her belly and slide to the end of the porch roof. I clutched her wrist as she slowly inched over the edge. I could hear the back windows popping out as the fire raged inside. The smoke was getting heavier, even up where we were. She slid over the edge. I held her as long as I could and then released. She fell like a rag doll onto the lawn. She did not roll.
My descent was more controlled. I was able to grab onto the gutter, then the porch post: I hung for a few seconds, trying to calm my breathing and then let go. I let myself fall into a roll.
“I think I twisted my ankle.” Mom was lying on her back. She hadn’t twisted her ankle, she had broken it. I could see her ankle, bent out at a right angle. I helped my mother out onto the sidewalk and propped her up against the fence. The entire house was alive with flames. I could see in every window the orange and red eating up the curtains.
“I’m going to get help.”
I left my mother on the sidewalk and pounded on my neighbor’s door. It took a long time for Mr. Allen to answer.
“What the hell...” he started yelling, the chain on the door.
“Call the fire department,” I yelled over his voice, “and the ambulance!” I left him; I didn’t wait for a response.
When you are waiting, it seems like a long time for the fire trucks to get to your house. The windows all began to explode outwards because of the intense heat. Smoke and flame rose high about the trees. I stood transfixed, watching the fire. There is something both beautiful and terrifying about fire. I heard the back porch collapse. Then I watched the roof sink into itself. In the night air I knew something more than just the house was burning.
The paramedics made us both go to the hospital. I didn’t know that the space under my nostrils was black from having breathed the smoke. It looked like I was sporting a moustache. In the mirror above the sink in my cubicle in the emergency room, I thought I looked like a fire-breathing dragon. Even my hair was dusted black with soot.
The fire was labeled arson. The headlines read, “Sawyer Shooter’s House Fire Bombed”. But they never found out who did it. I’m not even sure they investigated.
Chapter Eight
My mother was still sitting on the hospital gurney. The hospital had called my aunt and uncle and they were sitting in green, plastic visitor chairs. Mom’s ankle had been set and she had a big, soft cast. She had been given a painkiller and her eyes were glassy. The nurse had gone to get crutches for her. She sat there not looking at anything. The disorder, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, hadn’t been coined yet. The ER only treated our bodies. I could tell something was wrong with Mom, more than just her ankle, but, like my brother Dan, it was something indefinable. I knew if I asked how she was doing she’d say “ok” even though she wasn’t “ok.” The nurse came in and told her she could get dressed but she just sat there as if she hadn’t heard her at all. Aunt May motioned for Uncle Elliot and me to step out into the hallway while she went in to help Mom dress.
I had been treated for smoke inhalation. They had given me an x-ray and some pills. I also had a little plastic breathing device they called a spirometer. It had three balls inside that looked like colored ping pong balls that I was supposed to breathe in every half hour. My goal was to get the ping pong balls to the top of the device and hold them there for as long as I could. My chest felt sore, but other than that, I was fine. I was dressed in a T-shirt and sweatpants Aunt May had brought for me. It was clear they were Uncle Elliot’s. He was shorter and stocker than I was; the T-shirt hung loose, the pants were too short. On my feet were cheap hospital slippers. I opened the paper bag the nurse had given me. The scent of smoke wafted up from my soot-stained T-shirt and pajama pants. This was the sum total of all my worldly possessions.
My mother hobbled out on her crutches. She wore a loose shift that belonged to Aunt May. On one foot she had a flip-flop sandal, the kind you wear to the beach, on the other, was her cast.
“You can’t stay with us,” Uncle Elliot said. He stated it hastily, like it was an obvious fact, not open for discussion.
“Where will we stay?” I asked because my mother just looked at Uncle Elliot’s face like she couldn’t remember who he was.
My aunt May looked away, smoothed her hair, and checked her watch.
“It’s just not safe, Helen.” Uncle Elliot spoke to my mother while at the same time ignoring me.
It was midday now. Our house had burned to the ground, we had lost everything we owned and now even Uncle Elliot would not take us in. He was making us homeless. Part of me understood; he was afraid that someone would burn down his house. But part of me was really, really mad. Where were we supposed to go? He was our family. A faint smell of smoke entered my nostrils. I wasn’t sure if it was my mother or my sooty hair.
“The Red Cross will put you up,” Uncle Elliot said. “I checked.”
“The Red Cross...?” my mother said. Her voice was wan and distant.
“Oh, I hope you understand,” Aunt May said rapidly but Uncle Elliot hushed her with a glance.
So, we ended up in yet another crappy motel. The Lumberjack Motel really was a welfare motel. It was a mile outside of town. The New York State Thruway ran behind it. The rooms smelled faintly of a mix of urine, mold, food smells and cigarette smoke. The carpets were gray with grease and age. The shower leaked.
There were two women at the motel—Dottie and Georgie—and about eight kids. I didn’t really know how many because the kids never stayed in one place long enough to count. Dottie and Georgie always had a child on their respective hips. The babies were always naked, except for a diaper.
Dottie was slim, small boned and tiny. She had a heavy pock-marked face. Her teeth were brown. Her hair was dusky red and she wore it pulled back in a knotty ponytail. She was usually barefoot, her feet black from walking in the dirt. She wore faded jeans and a t-shirt with baby stains down the front. Her children looked pasty and vacant like their mother.
Georgie was Dottie’s antithesis. She was tall, corpulent, with enormous black curls, tight and unruly all over her head. Her face was fat and swollen. As a result, her eyes were dark slits. She appeared to have no neck; her skin flowed from her chin to her upper chest. Georgie wore spandex pants and a tank top, both too small for her. The most amazing thing was she had the smallest feet I had ever seen. She wore tiny black canvas shoes. She looked like those Chinese women who bind their feet. Georgie’s drugs of choice were pizza and a bottle of Coke.
They descended on our hotel room with their little horde in tow. They saw themselves as some sort of welcoming committee. They both eyed the room with intensity as they spoke to my mother. They filled us in about the “lay of the land” as Dottie put it. There was a sex offender in 6A, Lenny was the owner’s good-for-nothing son.
“Don’t you let Lenny in your room,” Dottie said to my mother then turned to me. “You hear? All he wants is a little hanky-panky. Don’t turn your back on him.”
“Either of you,” Georgie said in a poorly disguised whisper and the two women laughed heartily.
Billy Simons lived next to us. He was old, deaf and retarded.
“Billy won’t give you no trouble.” Dottie went on, “Every once in awhile the TV gets too loud, but just pound like hell on his door.”
When Dottie left, she pressed four pills into my mother’s hand.
“For the pain,” she said softly.
When Dottie and Georgie left with their little flock of children, my mother’s noticed her purse had been moved from the nightstand to the floor. When she opened it she found her prescription and twenty dollars were missing from the purse.
The next day, two ladies from the Methodist Church showed up in a station wagon with some canned goods and clothes. We weren’t Methodist; we were Catholic. I asked my mother why the Catholics didn’t show up. “Maybe they don’t know where we are,” she said idly and then added as an afterthought, “We really weren’t ever able to give a lot in the collection plate.”
&
nbsp; The Methodist Church ladies didn’t say much. I don’t think they realized who we were until they got to the motel. The Red Cross must not have told them exactly whose house had burned to the ground. By the time they realized who we were, we had opened the door for them and it was too late for them to leave. By then Dottie, Georgie and the little crowd had joined us outside the station wagon. Dottie and Georgie were reaching in and pulling out things they liked.
“I really don’t want to take charity,” Mom said. She was embarrassed. I thought that was a good sign. Up until now I didn’t think my mom felt anything.
“Oh, you don’t have to think it of it as charity,” one of the do-gooders said, eyeing all the children uncomfortably. “When you get back on your feet, pass it along to someone else who needs it.”
Dottie and Georgie each started to hand me things with their free hands, holding their babies on their hips. My mother stood on her crutches unable to look at me or the ladies as Georgie and Dottie continued to pull things out. They held up clothes for me.
They’d say, “This’ll fit,” or “Jesus Christ, who donated this piece of shit? Throw it out.”
Between the three of us, we filled a box with canned goods, oatmeal, macaroni and a few changes of clothes. The ladies looked overwhelmed and slightly horrified. I saw Dottie and Georgie spiriting away things in their own pockets or handing stuff to the children with nods for them to take it inside.
We desperately needed clothes. We only had what Aunt May had given us and the sooty pajamas. As I selected some jeans and T-shirts, I wondered whose clothes they had been. I imagined my friends’ mothers cleaning out their closets donating the cast-offs to charity. None of the shoes fit. I ended up with a pair of sneakers a size too big. My mother said I could stuff toilet paper in the ends.
We stayed in our room. We were trapped like prisoners. We tried to avoid Dottie and Georgie but they insisted on stopping in to “check” on my mother. I hid our things so they couldn’t steal from us. The sad truth is they did distract my mother some. Their children and gossip kept my mother’s mind on other things. But most of the time I just told Dottie and Georgie Mom needed to rest.
Luckily no one asked us about our past. That seemed like a taboo subject at the motel. We all felt free to talk about the present, the stinky hotel, the strange residents, but no one talked about the past. And that was just fine with me. I had no desire to try to explain how I got here.
Chapter Nine
The day after I got my new clothes, I put on the shoes that were too big and jeans that were too short and walked the four miles to our house. I think my mother knew where I was going but she didn’t say anything. She was taking her painkillers and they made her look dazed and spacey. She propped herself up on the saggy bed and watched soap operas. I wished we could have sat down and talked but I didn’t know how to start the conversation and my mother didn’t seem to be able to do anything, let alone talk. And what would we say to each other? Neither of us knew how we had gotten to this miserable place and neither of us had any ideas about how to get out.
I did not walk down Broadway, even though it would have been quicker. I don’t know if anyone recognized me as I walked. I walked looking straight ahead. A few cars slowed down as they passed me, but I just kept walking.
The neighborhood still smelled of smoke. There was nothing but a cellar hole filled with what little was left of our house; charred and ashy remains, nothing I could recognize. I stood at the front gate a long time, not able to move into the yard. The police had put yellow caution tape all around. I suppose that was a flimsy attempt to prove that an investigation was going on. I finally scooted under it and went into the yard. Even the grass was gray and sooty. I found my bike, still in the shed. Also in the shed was our lawn mower and a few gardening tools. And that was it. That was the sum total of our lives at 35 Mill Street. Everything else was gone. I got on my bike and rode away.
On the way home, I rode directly down Broadway. That way was shorter and I’d have to do it sooner or later. Black crepe was on the door of Tillson’s Pharmacy. I rode past it quickly. There was black crepe on most of the doors in town. My stomach felt tight. I felt nauseous. It had been a mistake. I ducked my head and cruised down an alley. I rode over to the A&P. I slid two quarters in the newspaper dispenser. I tucked the paper under my arm and pedaled to the River Front Park. I found a quiet place under a tree. I sat down and opened the paper. “Sawyer Shooter Incompetent” the headline read. I nodded my head. So, Danny was crazy. I got on my bicycle and rode away, leaving the paper on the ground.
There were two stores that delivered in Sawyer: the pharmacy and the liquor store. Obviously, we could not get deliveries from the pharmacy. We didn’t even try. Mrs. Tillson had decided to keep the pharmacy open. She had hired a part-time pharmacist and some people to help out. It had been closed for a few weeks but now it was open and sported a big blue and white “For Sale” sign. Georgie and Dottie got deliveries from both the pharmacy and liquor store and shared liberally with my mother. I had the sneaky suspicion that they were using my mother’s name to buy things but I didn’t really care. We did need deliveries. Georgie and Dottie always seemed to have a cup of something in their hands and, before long, so did my mother. She had never been a big drinker prior to my brother’s crime. She’d have a beer or a drink before bedtime but now she was drinking all the time. She tried to hide it in coffee cups but I could smell it on her. I wanted to tell her that drinking didn’t help but since nothing else did either I decided to keep my mouth shut. What was she supposed to do anyway? Maybe drinking would dull all this pain.
I tried to do my mother’s errands in town. The people in the bank and the post office were nice to me. Well, they weren’t exactly nice but they waited on me. I tried to buy groceries at Pinsky’s but Mrs. Pinsky ran me out. “You, you get out of here!” she yelled at me as soon as she saw me. She had a heavy Polish accent. I stood looking at her shocked. Stosh Pinsky was behind the counter. We had been friends—good friends—since kindergarten. I had eaten at the Pinsky home in the past and he had eaten at mine. We had gone to Boy Scout camp together. Stosh’s face darkened and he turned away as his mother continued to scream at me, “Go! Get out of here! We no have your kind in here! Go! Get out!” I tried to get a sandwich in Smitty’s Deli once but no one would wait on me. They just left me standing there while they helped other customers. We relied on Uncle Elliot to take us once a week to Hutton. Hutton was down river from us in Sawyer. It was a city, not a big one, but it was the county seat. In Hutton, we were anonymous.
The summer was long and dry and hot. I spent my days riding my bike farther and farther out into the country because I did not want to ride into town. I really wasn’t riding anywhere; I was wandering, lost, unable to do anything else. I did not want to sit in the motel and I couldn’t go anywhere else. I couldn’t go to the beach or the arcade. I couldn’t play baseball in the park or go to the movies. No one said I couldn’t do these things; I just understood that I couldn’t.
I found the narrow country roads with few cars. I would pedal down the gravel roads, some heavily wooded. When I got tired, I would drag my bicycle into the woods, find a mossy spot and nap since I could no longer sleep at night. I glided past dairy farms and beef farms watching the cows graze leisurely. I found a secluded spot way out past McSimmon’s farm where I could wade into a pool of cool stream water on the hottest days. When I was there, I felt the entire world had disappeared and I was the only human left alive. I never talked to anyone. I tried to be invisible. I found out that if I sat quietly in the woods long enough the birds forgot I was there. They would come closer and closer. I wanted to be a bird. I wanted to be able to fly somewhere. But the closest thing I had to wings at this point was my bike. Even though it could take me far out from town, it never really could take me far enough. I always had to go back to the Lumberjack Motel, my mother and the reality of my life.
My mother seemed unconcerned by my long absences. I’m no
t even sure if she noticed. It was as if she had lost the ability to know what was going on around her. She spent her afternoons in a lawn chair sitting out behind the motel with Dottie and Georgie and the little gang of kids. My mother who used to rarely smoke was now chain smoking. She was now drinking all the time, too, and sharing her drinks with Dottie and Georgie. By mid-afternoon my mother was glassy eyed. Dottie and Georgie’s demeanor never seemed to change. By eight o’clock my mother was passed out in front of the TV. I couldn’t really be mad at her. What exactly was she supposed to do?
A few times a week, I’d ride over and see Aunt May for lunch while Uncle Elliot was at work. She’d make me put the bike around back and say, “Don’t tell your uncle you were here.” She’d ask about my mother and shake her head. When I left, she’d press a few dollars in my hand. My Aunt May was a very nice lady. She even asked me my size and went to Hutton and bought me a new pair of sneakers, some jeans and some shirts. “Don’t tell your uncle,” she said again when she gave them to me.
Chapter Ten
Right before school started, Mr. Richards contacted Uncle Elliot with a message that we could go visit Daniel. I was filled with a sense of relief. Everything I had heard about Daniel had been second- or third-hand. Actually, almost all I’d heard about Danny had been from the newspapers with the exception of Mr. Richards’ singular visit. What did the papers know about my brother? Now we would actually be able to see Daniel. I knew seeing Daniel would clear this whole mess up. I was happy. Finally, we’d get to the bottom of all this. It seemed that now there was a turning point in this nightmare that had become my life.
But it did not go as I expected. I didn’t know anything about psychiatric hospitals. I thought they were like regular hospitals. After all, they are called hospitals. I couldn’t have been more wrong.
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