“I know,” I said. “Back home, He taught me a big lesson. He showed me something horrible at Little Turtle Pond. He wanted to see what I would do.”
“What did God show you?” Maizy asked.
I opened wide my eyes and shook my head. “I can’t tell you that,” I said. “But Mamie Tillman sure knows what it is.”
“Who’s Mamie Tillman?” said Maizy.
“The one God chose to teach me,” I said. “She’s a strange one, all right! Ain’t got nary a friend, living all by herself on that rough patch of land. All she ever done was wait on her daddy. Like a shadow, she was. Then he up and died and left her behind.”
“Did you do what God wanted?” Maizy asked, opening her eyes and turning toward me.
“I failed.” I shook my head. “No, I couldn’t do what He wanted.”
“We all fail sometimes.” Maizy patted me on the shoulder. “Not one of us is perfect.”
“I can’t find nothing wrong with you,” I said.
A sad smile passed over her face and she said, “That’s because you don’t really know me.”
“I’m beginning to.”
Suddenly Maizy laughed. “Then your standards must be real low,” she said, shaking her head.
“I know one thing for sure.” I boldly wagged my index finger in her face. “This here place is full of mistakes. A person could get dizzy sorting them out,” I said. “If I had a mind to, I’d lick a label and stick it on everyone’s forehead. One would say the Mouth. Another, the Drooler. Then there’d be Head Butt-er. Maybe even one saying Stupid Lump of Shit.”
Maizy caught my finger, jerked it down, and in a serious voice said, “I know where you heard all those names but the last one. It’s beyond awful. Now tell me! Where did you hear that?”
I coughed, snatching back my finger. “Which one?” I asked.
“Stupid Lump…Stupid Lump of, you know what!” she said sternly. “Who said it? I know you didn’t make it up. You don’t talk that way.”
“How do you know how I talk?” I sassed.
“I just do,” she snapped. “Come on. Out with it. Where did you hear those words?”
“I’ve got a foul mouth,” I protested. “Go ask Mr. Wooten. He’ll tell you the truth. Pincipals don’t lie. He’ll say I can cuss with the best of them.”
“You don’t fool me for one minute,” Maizy said. “I know exactly why you’re doing this.”
“Shit. Damn. Hellfire,” I spluttered.
“Stop it, Icy!” Maizy was trembling with fury. “I don’t want you lying, belittling yourself for that mean old hag. I don’t ever want that. Do you hear me?”
I clamped my lips together and barely nodded.
“Then tell me, this instant, who spoke those words?”
“I done told you,” I said, turning my head away. “Those bad words are mine, all mine.”
“Real, honest-to-goodness friends tell each other the truth,” Maizy said.
“I ain’t lying,” I said.
“Okay,” she said curtly, “have it your way. But, mark my words, the truth will out.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I muttered, and slumped away.
Back in my room, on my bed, surrounded by nursery rhyme characters, I thought about what Maizy had said and wondered what “truth would out.” Would it be that part of me who longed to be like everyone else, who put on a mask each morning, secured it tightly, and masqueraded for acceptance? Would my secrets eventually pour out of me like water spilling from a broken pitcher? Would I start croaking and jerking until every head at Bluegrass State Hospital turned in my direction? I wondered what truth of mine would out.
Did I, Icy Sparks, consist of two truths—one, the pretty, delicate, golden-haired child; the other, the frog child from Icy Creek? If so, did everyone in this world have two truths, two sides—one, in view; the other, hidden? I asked myself these questions and thought about Reid, the bird boy. Did he have another side, too? What part lay beneath the flapping and chirping? Did he have boy thoughts, or were all his thoughts shaped by images of birds? And if we all had two parts, who was Rose? Was she only a mangled, tangled jumble of parts like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle dumped upon the floor, or perhaps more? Could Wilma, seemingly so ugly, both inside and out, have another part? Did she have a hidden, sweet side? If so, where was it?
Alone in the silence of my room, I didn’t know. I only knew that beneath the silence was the noise, the other part, veiled but as real as the scratching sounds of mice scurrying across the floor at night. Every living thing, I knew, had secrets—concealed and quiet—aching to be seen and heard. Crickets, covered in shadows, their legs contorting deep in the woods, chirped and gave their secrets away. Wildcats cried, mourning over something forbidden. Mamie Tillman had thrown her secret into Little Turtle Pond.
“Matanni always says each mama crow thinks her baby crow’s the blackest,” I said to Dr. Conroy after my afternoon rest. “What I mean is that she can never find fault with me. And Patanni’s even worse. He tells anyone he sees that I’m the prettiest, smartest, sweetest girl in the mountains of Kentucky. To hear him, ain’t no other child as good as me. When it comes to me, he ain’t nothing but a Blow George.”
“A Blow George?” Dr. Conroy asked.
“A boastful person,” I explained. “A liar.”
Dr. Conroy nodded.
“So it don’t matter what they say,” I resumed, “’cause what they say can’t be trusted.”
“Do you trust what I say?” Dr. Conroy asked, tapping a pencil against the ink blotter, from the chair behind her desk.
“The other day I did.”
“What did you believe?” she asked.
“You said that French braids were unique, just like me.”
“Yes.”
“And when I saw those braids in the mirror, I believed you.”
“Well, Icy.” Dr. Conroy put down her pencil. “I have no reason to lie to you.”
“You ain’t my grandparents, if that’s what you mean.”
“Regardless, I don’t lie,” she said firmly. “I try to see things clearly.”
“Never?” I said. “Not even a little white lie? Miss Emily says we all lie sometimes, especially when we don’t want to hurt another person’s feelings.”
“Maybe once,” she said, “maybe when I was a child, but I try not to. Not even little white lies. I always make an effort to tell the truth.”
I lowered my head. “I can’t say I always do,” I said.
“Tell me about it,” Dr. Conroy said.
“Well, once I called someone a big fat liar when I knew that I was the one lying.”
“Why did you do that?” she asked.
“’Cause he was making fun of me.”
“How?” she asked.
“He said I had frog eyes, just like Peavy Lawson. He claimed he caught me behind Old Man Potter’s barn, popping out my eyes and jerking. So I called him a polecat and a slimy ole pickle. Got so mad I lied like a tied dog. Then I turned the whole thing around and called him a liar when, all along, I knew I was the one lying.”
Dr. Conroy picked up the pencil again. “So you’re saying you went behind a barn and popped out your eyes, just like he said you did.”
I cleared my throat. “Yes, ma’am,” I confessed, “and after that, I dumped my Coke all over his head.”
“Coke all over his head?”
“Uh-huh,” I mumbled.
Dr. Conroy leaned forward. “Icy,” she said, studying me, “why did you feel you had to lie? What’s so horrible about popping out your eyes?” She was waving the pencil back and forth, her eyes fixed on mine.
I couldn’t answer.
“Sometimes, when I get excited, I pop out my eyes,” she said. “Sometimes, when my bones ache, I crack my knuckles. Not very ladylike, is it?”
“But you don’t do what I do.”
“And what do you do, Icy? I really don’t understand what you do.” She took aim and pointed the pencil right between m
y eyes. “You can tell me the truth.”
“I…I…”
“Come on,” she urged. “Tell me.”
“I…I…I can act mean,” I blurted. “Sometimes I’m mean as a striped snake.”
“Explain!” she said, the pencil still pointed at me.
“One part of me is mean,” I spat out. “Another part is sweet. The trouble is, I don’t know which part is biggest, the mean or the sweet.”
“How do you act when the mean part is biggest?” Dr. Conroy asked. “When that striped snake takes over?”
“I pop out my eyes, like Joel McRoy seen me do.” I looked right at the lead in that pencil of hers. “I jerk and twitch all over. My arms fly out. Ugly thoughts race through my brain. And sometimes I cuss a blue streak. I say words I didn’t even know I knew.”
Dr. Conroy straightened up. “Icy, can you tell me why you get so upset?” she asked, calmly returning the pencil to her desktop.
“I don’t know,” I said, nibbling at my lower lip. “I don’t want to be bad. But if I don’t let some of the badness out, I’ll just explode. That’s what I did with Mr. Wooten. I let some of the badness out. And when I did, I scared him. What I’m saying is I’m kinda like Matanni’s teakettle. I gotta perk, a little bit at a time, or else I’ll spew hot water all over the place.”
“That must frighten you?” she asked.
“What?”
“Waiting all the time for that big explosion,” she said. “Not knowing when it will come.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I answered. “I tried being neat and tidy ’cause that’s how I wanted my mind to be. I cleaned up that supply room like it really belonged to me.”
“Supply room?” she said softly.
“Yes, ma’am,” I said. “After I acted up, Mrs. Stilton, my teacher, didn’t want me in her room, so Mr. Wooten made the supply room mine. It had a chalkboard, books, and everything, and I could do with it as I pleased. So I got it in order. The oranges with the oranges. The reds with the reds. But I found out that my way of ordering wasn’t a bit like his.”
“And that made you mad?”
“Mad as a hornet,” I said. “When he tried to change back my room, I took a big fit, jabbed him with my elbows, and cussed him like a sailor.” I lowered my voice. “I’m scared of the poison parts inside me. The roots and berries. They could get a person hurt.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, leaning slightly forward.
“Pokeweed,” I explained. “If you eat the leaves and stems, you’ll be eating poor man’s asparagus. But if you eat the roots and berries, you’ll be eating poison. Me and the pokeweed are a lot alike. I got both parts in me, too. Excepting these days, I’m got more roots and berries than stems and leaves.”
“I don’t see any poison parts,” she said in a gentle voice. “I’ve only seen good, healthy green parts.”
“What you see ain’t always what you get,” I said. “If you was to see Mamie Tillman, you’d see a lonely young woman, but she’s more than that.”
“Hold on, now.” Dr. Conroy took a deep breath. “Who’s Mamie Tillman?”
“She’s the neighbor I was telling Maizy about,” I explained. “I got to see way more of her than I wanted to.”
“Bad more or good more?” asked Dr. Conroy.
“Just more,” I answered. “You can’t see poison,” I said. “You gotta eat poison to know it.”
“Well,” she said, “we wouldn’t be talking about you again, now, would we?” Before I could answer her, she stared right at me and declared, “Icy, if you think I’m afraid of poison, you got something else coming. I never run from a challenge. The bigger, the better.”
“This time might be different,” I said.
Dr. Conroy slapped the desk with the flat of her hand. “Absolutely not!” she said. “Not if I have anything to do with it.” Then, placing both palms on her desktop, she stood up and said, “And remember, I don’t lie.”
Chapter 19
“Ace is a genius,” Maizy announced, joining us. On the floor in the dayroom in front of the coffee table sat a boy about my age, drawing. Standing beside him, I watched as he drew. “That’s a picture of downtown Spiveyville. He lived there when he was little. Every detail is right. I ought to know. Whenever I go back home, I pass right through it.”
Ace didn’t acknowledge us. He just drew.
I noticed how tightly he gripped the pencil and how he puckered his lips, sucking them in and out with each pencil stroke. When I finally sat down next to him, he didn’t seem to mind. He just kept on drawing, his lips working as hard as his hands.
“Look at it,” Maizy said. “Main Street with every store in place.”
My eyes took in the pencil drawing.
There was a Randall’s Department Store with a large SALE sign in the window. LINGERIE SALE, 20% OFF, the sign read. Mannequins, wearing frilly nightgowns and sexy underwear, were meticulouly reproduced. A grocery store, called Wilson’s, had a window filled with ads for food items—3 cans of Del Monte Cling Peaches for $.45; Stokley Green Beans @ $.15 a can; bananas, $.19 a lb., and so on. Zippy’s Shoe Store flaunted a rack beside its front door. Footwear for men and women—tennis shoes, dress shoes, loafers, and boots—lined the rack. All shoes had price tags attached. Cars were parked in front of meters. People, gathering on the sidewalk, peered into display windows with curious expressions on their faces.
“I’ve never heard him speak,” Maizy said, “but he can draw. If he’s hungry, he’ll draw what he wants to eat. He talks with his pictures.”
“He writes, too,” I said, pointing at the lettering on the SALE sign in the window of Randall’s Department Store.
“But he doesn’t know what the letters mean,” Maizy said. “He draws them because he remembers how they looked. He can’t read.”
“If he can’t read, he’s not a genius,” I said smugly.
“People are smart in different ways,” Maizy said. “Ace could pass by your bedroom door, stick his head inside for a minute, and be able to draw everything in it. He’d draw your books. They’d have titles and be stacked in the right order. He’s got a photographic memory and a talent for drawing, so he’s smart in his own way.”
“Really, you ain’t ever heard him talk?” I asked.
“Not one word,” Maizy said.
“Has Reid ever talked?”
Maizy shook her head. “He chirps and makes little noises, but I’ve never heard him speak, either.”
“How about Head Butt-er?” I wanted to know.
“His name is Gordie,” Maizy said, a note of disapproval in her voice.
I nodded.
“He’s never spoken to any of us,” Maizy said. “But Delbert swears that once he heard him cussing up a storm.”
“You don’t say?” I said.
“He butted Ruthie. So Delbert made him go to his room and stay there. When Delbert checked in on him, Gordie was standing in front of his dresser mirror, cussing like a sailor. Naturally, he didn’t know Delbert was standing there watching him. He spoke that time,” Maizy said, “only once, but it wasn’t to us, just to himself in the mirror.”
“But he could, if he wanted to,” I said.
Maizy lifted her eyebrows. “And why do you say that?” she asked.
“’Cause he’s dishonest,” I replied.
“How?” Maizy had crooked her head to the left and was staring at me sideways.
“He ain’t what he appears to be,” I said.
Maizy laughed, jerking her head upright. “You just don’t like him ’cause he butted Ruthie,” she teased.
“No,” I said, suddenly irritated. “That’s not true. He’s just like Mrs. Stilton, my mean ole teacher. His life ain’t nothing but a lie.”
Maizy didn’t respond. She just stood there—her head straight up and rigid—looking right through me. Then, after several minutes of silence, she glanced down and exclaimed, “The stoplight!” She was pointing at Ace’s picture. “He’s drawn the stoplight.” She
grinned. “You see, he never misses a detail.”
After lunch that day, I went to Ace’s room. He was squatting on the floor, drawing a picture of a beautiful woman. I sat down beside him and watched as he drew the slow curve of her hips into her waist. The outline of her body exuded energy, rolling forward, like a wave breaking against the shore. Her lips, pursed and pouting, teased and licked; and, like an undertow, the curls of her waist-long hair drew me in.
“He thinks that’s his mama,” Wilma scoffed, shuffling into the room.
“Oh,” I murmured, keeping my eyes down, avoiding hers.
“Yes, ma’am, ole Ace here dreams about his mama every night. Don’t you, Ace?”
Ace didn’t look up; he continued to draw.
“She never visits him, though,” Wilma said. “His daddy don’t come neither. He’ll be in this place till he gets too old to stay. Then they’ll put him somewhere else.”
Ace held up his drawing and stared at it. I could see his lips twisting nervously.
“He sits in here drawing make-believe pictures of his family,” Wilma said. “Once, at the bottom of one, he printed ‘Mama’s Love.’ I got so excited, thinking I was seeing a likeness of the woman who created this.” Wilma walked over to where Ace sat and thrust her finger straight down into his shoulder. Stone-faced, Ace didn’t react. “But then I found the magazine beneath his mattress. His mama turned out to be Miss August. It was a girlie magazine. ‘Can you handle some of Big Mama’s Love?’ it said.” With these words, she threw back her head and guffawed so hard that her face rippled into a great big roll of fat. I pulled air between my lips, focused my eyes on her, and glared. Deep inside my throat, a croak twitched anxiously up my windpipe, ready to leap out.
“Yes, ma’am, his mother was Miss August.” Wilma snickered. I balled up my hands, squeezing them so tightly that my fingernails cut into my skin. “Miss August,” she repeated, and began laughing again.
Ferociously, I clutched my fists, slammed them against my thighs, and sucked in my lips. I vacuumed up oxygen, but the croak shoved against my teeth.
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