Icy Sparks

by Gwyn Hyman Rubio

  “Miss August,” Wilma jeered. “The Playmate of the Month gave birth to this.” Once more, she jabbed her finger into Ace’s shoulder. This time his face wrinkled; pain raced through his eyes.

  I leaped up. “At least he don’t have you for a mother,” I screamed, jutting out my chin. “You’re ugly as ten miles of bad road. Uglier than a mud fence. Ugly! Ugly! Ugly!” My arms jerked to the left. “Your poor husband flew over the pretty flowers and landed on a cow pile,” I yelled. Then I jumped up really high, stretched out my legs into an airborne split, and descended, straight-legged, with a thud—my feet planted squarely on the floor. “Cow pile! Cow pile!” I bellowed, then stood absolutely still for several seconds, rolled back my head, and croaked vociferously at the top of my lungs.

  “My Lord!” Wilma gasped, her skin the color of a rattler’s underbelly. “You’re a nutcase! A crazy person! A lunatic!” she screamed, whipping around and running from the room.

  Upset, I croaked some more until my anger dissipated and my voice grew weary and heavy. Looking down, I saw Ace’s shoulder, quivering violently. Remorseful, I leaned over and tenderly touched him there.

  When I returned to the safety of my room, apprehension and fear flooded through me. Now I’ve done it, I thought, sitting on the edge of my bed. I’ve let loose my secret, not to Maizy, not to Dr. Conroy, who are my friends, but to Wilma, the most spiteful person here. I crawled into my bed and pulled up the covers. Breathing rhythmically, I closed my eyes.

  In the darkness behind my eyelids, I saw Miss Emily. She was pouring me a cup of tea. “Would you like one or two lumps?” she asked, reaching for a sugar bowl, a spoon in her hand. Hadn’t she promised to be my friend forever? “I’ll always love you, Icy Gal,” she had said. “We’re just alike.” I once thought Miss Emily never lied. Yet when I had asked her to visit me, she hadn’t come. Had her devotion been an act? Perhaps her love had been made of words alone, and words—I realized—meant nothing. Like grains of sand, they flew away, never sticking.

  But my words were different. Like glue, all of my curses, croaks, and jerks had stuck, and I had arrived here—at Bluegrass State Hospital—with the label misfit tattooed on my forehead. I wondered now what kind of sticking power mean words, spoken to a mean woman, had. A lot, I thought and shuddered, imagining Wilma rocking on her front porch during summer nights, delighting in the crackle of insects flying too close to a kerosene lantern, lit simply because she enjoyed the sound of death. In my imagination, I saw Wilma as a child, smiling gleefully, pulling the legs off grasshoppers. I shuddered again, contemplating what she must have in store for me. I envisioned her holding her brother’s .410, shooting sparrows. I saw her drowning kittens, ducking their little heads into a tub of water. In that instant, I knew why she worked at Bluegrass State Hospital. She liked to feel the power of pure destruction; it made her feel like she would live forever.

  With these fears on my mind, I slid into a troubled sleep.

  Mamie Tillman—a yellow pacifier between her lips—was sinking beneath the surface of Little Turtle Pond. Frantically, I crawled along the pond’s edge, crying out to her, then I turned to face the water, inhaled deeply, and submerged my head. The cold water closed over me. In the darkness below, a golden light shimmered. Closer and closer it came, glowing brighter and brighter, until the murky water was diffused with light. “Mamie!” I cried. “Where are you? Please come back!” At once, I heard the sound of skin sizzling. “Mamie!” I screamed, swishing my head beneath the water, finally seeing the lantern, burning red-hot in the darkness. The flame—like a tongue—flicked out. Mamie wailed. The water began to burn. Huge waves of smoke obliterated the light. In the distance, like a second voice, came the sound of laughter. Through the haze, I saw the figures—a loud, sinister, obscene Wilma snickering in the undertow, and Mamie Tillman, yellow pacifier between her lips, being swept away.

  In the late afternoon, to keep my mind off my troubles, I decided to try one of the harder puzzles that were stacked on the bookshelf in the dayroom. It was a map of the state of Kentucky, consisting of 150 pieces, all of which were painted yellow. The fragments came together to form Kentucky’s 120 counties. A picture of the state bird, the Kentucky cardinal; the state flower, goldenrod; the state motto, “United we stand, divided we fall”; and the state nickname, Bluegrass State, were the only distinguishing markers. Naturally, I knew some of the counties that slapped up against the Ohio, Kentucky, and Cumberland Rivers and could locate the Big Sandy and Little Sandy Rivers. I could even find the Licking River because it was forever flooding and creating all kinds of problems. Of course, I knew where Ginseng and Poplar Holler were, but I didn’t know enough to piece together that puzzle in the two hours I had before supper. I had been working on it for over an hour and had finished only a third of it when I felt someone breathing down my neck.

  Alarmed, I twisted around.

  Head Butt-er, with a smirk on his lips and contempt in his eyes, was glaring straight ahead.

  I nervously picked up a piece.

  Head Butt-er tipped dangerously forward.

  Terrified, I slid off my chair and ducked under the table. But Head Butt-er didn’t see me. Instead, he was focused on the jigsaw puzzle. Every afternoon, he would piece several together. Starting at the top of each puzzle, he’d move mechanically straight across. Like a person writing on notebook paper, from the left to the right, he’d fit the pieces together. He always knew what piece to choose next. He never miscalculated; each fragment meshed snuggly into the other. Although I personally hadn’t seen him work on every one of them, Delbert insisted that Gordie could do them all, even the five-hundred-piece ones, although he needed twenty-five minutes to finish each of those. Suddenly he leaned over and with one huge sweep of his arm wiped the table clean. The pieces of the puzzle scattered across the floor. Then he bent down and carefully retrieved each section. There, beneath the table, I waited, imagining him putting the puzzle together, not in my haphazard fashion, but in his own methodical way. He’d snap a piece into place, then grunt loudly. For ten minutes, I listened to one satisfied grunt after another. Then, after a momentary silence, he thumped the last piece into place; and, growling fiercely, he stomped his black-booted feet against the floor. At that moment, I hated him with all of my heart, and as his footsteps faded, I realized that he hated me, too. We hated each other for exactly the same reason. Gordie was smarter than I was. My ineptness bothered him. And as I crawled out from beneath the table, I understood at last that my sloppy way of putting puzzles together infuriated me even more.

  I was dutifully heading down the hallway to my own room when—out of nowhere—I got this uneasy feeling. Stopping quickly, I listened for any unusual sounds, but heard nothing. Rather, an absolute, almost eerie silence filled the air. Again, I continued down the hallway, walking quietly and breathing shallowly, when all of a sudden a huge shadow shot out in front of me. Instantly, I stood still. Whipping around, I glanced in every direction, yet saw no one. “Calm down,” I told myself, stepping lightly. “Ain’t no booger man gonna get you.” No sooner had I spoken those words than a loud thud rumbled behind me, and a huge body whizzed by, almost knocking me over. “Merciful Lord!” I cried, sprinting down the hallway, flying by the various-colored doors—their reds, greens, oranges, blues, and yellows splashing against my face. “Hold me in Your hands!” I asked God, flinging my door open.

  Fading sunlight was seeping through the nursery rhyme curtains. My bed was rumpled the way I had left it, and my books remained stacked upon the floor. Everything was as it was before supper. Sighing deeply, I stepped inside and started to shut the door when a gigantic, square-edged shadow loomed over me. The words were already formed in my mouth before I turned and saw his shrunken eyes. Swaying firmly forward, his hands braced on either side of the doorway, he deliberately scraped each foot along the floor. Then he charged.

  Head Butt-er! my mind screamed.

  When I came to, Delbert was holding my hand, sitting beside my
bed. “Sugar child, how are you doing?” he asked as I blinked open my eyes.

  Groaning, I tried to inch upward, but couldn’t because an ice pack weighed heavily on my head. “It hurts,” I said.

  “Of course it does,” Delbert said, releasing my hand. “Gordie packs a wallop.”

  I groaned again.

  “But don’t you mind none. We’ll have you feeling better in no time.”

  I eased down, nestling deep into the covers.

  “When you first came to, you was speaking like a crazy person. We had to call Dr. Lambert in Hickory Hall ’cause Dr. Conroy was out. He bird-dogged it over here and checked you over. Said you was hysterical. I been sitting here all this time wondering how a little girl like you gets hysterical. But Dr. Lambert is the ringleader, a real big shot, so I reckon he knows.”

  “Uh-huh,” I muttered.

  “He told me to keep an eye on you and make sure you woke up feeling better. Are you still hysterical?” he asked, leaning over, examining me.

  “I don’t think so,” I said.

  “Not even a little?” he asked.

  “No, sir,” I said. “My head hurts, that’s all.”

  “Good,” he said, chuckling. “Not good your head hurts. Good, you’re not hysterical.”

  Using my elbows, I lifted myself up. “Where’s Head Butt-er?” I whispered.

  “In solitary,” he said.

  “What’s that?”

  “In a little room all by hisself,” Delbert said.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “He needs to do some thinking, some straightening out.”

  “Oh,” I said. “One time back in Ginseng, I was asked to do some thinking.”

  “And look what it got you,” Delbert said. “In bed, with a big ole headache.” He patted my pillow. “Dr. Lambert wanted Tiny to look in on you before he went home.” Delbert went to the door and made a very soft whistling sound.

  In an instant, Tiny appeared. “Is she ready for some aspirin?” he asked Delbert.

  “I reckon,” he said. “Feel her forehead. She’s hot.”

  “I can do you one better,” Tiny said, whipping out a thermometer. “Open up, young lady,” he demanded, as he thrust the cold stick between my lips. “Almost a hundred,” he announced after leaving it in for several minutes. “Dr. Lambert wants you to take these.” He bent over me with a packet of children’s aspirin in his hand.

  “You do what Tiny says,” Delbert insisted, pouring me a glass of water. “He’s a nurse.”

  “Swallow.” Tiny plucked two pills into my hand.

  “Try to rest,” Delbert said.

  Without hesitation, I swallowed the aspirin before moving back down in my bed, closing my eyes, drifting off.

  Looking like a humongous green crab apple, I popped out from between my mama’s legs.

  “Aye grannies!” the midwife hollered when she saw me. “You have birthed a great big crab apple.”

  “Oh, Lordy!” my mama screamed.

  “Acorns don’t fall far from the tree,” the midwife said, gripping my stem with both hands.

  “Does she have arms?” my mama asked.

  The midwife looked down. “No.”

  “Does she have legs?” my mama shrieked.

  “Nary a one.”

  “Oh, merciful heaven!” my mama cried. “How do we know it’s a she?”

  “We don’t,” the midwife said, swinging me by my stem, shaking her head.

  At that point, my head began to cry. A long, heart-wrenching sob seeped through my green skin. “What’s done is done,” my mama said, then took me in her arms and pressed me against her breasts.

  Relieved, the midwife threw up her hands. “Thank God you’ve recovered!” she said.

  Tenderly, my mama cradled my noggin. Rubbing my slick green head, she replied, “Hysterical ain’t what you’d call her. Sweet dumpling, you’re not hysterical.”

  “I ain’t hysterical. I ain’t hysterical,” I cried when I awoke in the middle of the night. “Hysterical ain’t what you’d call me.”

  “Calm down, sugar child,” Delbert said, grabbing the pitcher from the nightstand and pouring me another glass of water. “You’re just having a bad dream.”

  “What color am I?” I asked.

  “You got blond hair, yellow eyes, and white skin,” Delbert said.

  “I ain’t green?” I asked.

  “Nary a trace of green,” Delbert said, handing me the glass. “Now drink this!”

  I guzzled it down. “What are you still doing here?” I asked him.

  “That ole Smitty called in sick, so I’m pulling a double shift,” he said. “But it’s okay, since Dr. Lambert told me to keep an eye on you anyway.” He put his hand on my forehead. “Sugar darling, you’re still hot!”

  “It’s all them little green crab apples Mama ate when she was pregnant with me,” I said.

  “I don’t think so,” Delbert said, “but I promise I’ll wake you up if you start turning green on me. Now turn over and get some rest.”

  I pulled the blanket up over my head and immediately went to sleep.

  Delbert’s snoring woke me up. Like a car’s engine warming up, each snore sputtered and hiccuped before booming forth and reverberating through the room. I was staring at his plump face, watching his cheeks go in and out, studying the sweet submissiveness of his skin and the neutrality of his camomile-colored hair when suddenly he choked once, gasped for air, and jerked up.

  “You spying on me? he asked, his eyes springing open.

  “Delbert, you snore,” I declared.

  He stretched his arms over his head and yawned. “So what?”

  “So, maybe nobody ever told you,” I said. “Maybe you been snoring all your life and nobody had the nerve to tell you.”

  “What’s to tell?” he said, rubbing his cheeks with his hands.

  “What’s to tell is that snoring ends more marriages than fooling around.”

  “Oh, does it?” He dipped his fingers in the pitcher on my nightstand, then flicked the water on his face. “Who says?”

  “My granny,” I said with authority.

  “Well, my snoring don’t bother me,” he said, wiping his face with his shirttail.

  “If you don’t stop it,” I warned, pointing my finger at him, “you’ll never find a woman.”

  “I don’t reckon I care,” he said.

  “You’ll be lonely and unhappy,” I said.

  “I don’t need a woman friend,” he said. “I have a man one, and my snoring don’t bother him a bit.”

  “You sleep with a man?” An incredulous tone was in my voice.

  “Goodness no!” Delbert said. “He sleeps in the next room, but he can hear me through the walls.”

  “And sawing logs don’t bother him?”

  “Just the opposite,” he said. “If I don’t snore, he can’t sleep.”

  “How come?” I asked.

  “’Cause when he was little, he lived near the railroad tracks. My snoring reminds him of the Old Ten-forty. The rumble of that train always put him to sleep.”

  “Well, your snoring does the opposite to me.” I touched my forehead and grimaced.

  “You got a goose egg,” he said, shaking his head, smiling, “but don’t worry, sugar darling, it’ll get better.”

  At that moment, the sweetness of his words let me know that I could trust him. Slightly more masculine and all grown up, he was simply another Lane Carlson. “Will you…” I hesitated. “Will you keep him away from me?”

  “Honey child, I promise I’ll try.” He reached out and took my hand. “Nobody should hurt a sweet thing like you.”

  Chapter 20

  On the day of my grandparents’ arrival, I could taste my joy. Like peppermint, it tingled inside me. Delight square-danced over every inch of my body. From my closet, I—cheerily—selected an evergreen wool jumper, and from my pink dresser, a white cotton blouse. I pulled up dark brown socks and slipped on my brown loafers. In front of my dre
sser mirror, I brushed my hair. Matanni said that a hundred strokes every day would make it shine. So I brushed and brushed till the strands, electrified, shot up. Then, feeling foolish and silly, I raced to the bathroom and splashed water over my head; my hair flattened like a wet dog’s fur. Next I combed out each tangle, twisting each lock around my index finger until it coiled up like a snake, drying in a loose ringlet down my back.

  I ate a light breakfast, cornflakes with bananas, and returned to my room. For four hours, I waited; but my grandparents didn’t come.

  Kneeling on the floor in front of my books, I leafed through Little Women; I examined the pen and ink illustrations but was unable to concentrate on the words. When I glanced up, I saw the gray morning through the parted curtains. I rose, and crossed over to the window. The last traces of the fall leaves had long since disappeared; the landscape was dull and cheerless. No patients lingered outside; no cars passed by the iron spiked fence; every so often, a wail pierced through the monotonous daily noise; but then it trailed off, as though it had never been.

  I ran into the hallway and stared at the clock on the opposite wall.

  I’ve missed lunch, I thought. It’s one-thirty, and they aren’t here.

  I looked at the patchwork pillows on my bed. Rose, yellow, lilac, tan, green, white, blue, they were so colorful. White ruffles served as borders for both. Matanni had spent hours sewing them.

  They promised to take me out to eat, and I’ve missed lunch, I thought.

  I ran back out into the hallway. It was one-forty. Ten more minutes had passed. “Why aren’t they here?” I asked myself.

  I returned to my room and sat on the edge of my bed.

  Closing my eyes, I stretched out both legs, scissor-kicked and fluttered them, and pretended to be swimming in Sweetwater Lake. When I was seven years old, Patanni had taught me how to swim. Cradling me in his arms, he had carried me into the water. “Close your eyes,” he had said. “Don’t be scared. In a minute, I’m gonna let you go. But remember, my arms are right below you, ready to catch you, if need be.” Then he turned me loose.