Liz told me, “Once she’s released on probation I can ask the judge for supervised visitation if you want. It will come up in court.”
I looked out the window at the wet parking lot. The rain had turned to light snow, tiny flakes coming down sideways. A cluster of blackbirds scattered from a puddle and flew into the gray sky.
“I guess so,” I said.
“You have time to think about it,” she said. “It’s a month away. I just wanted to tell you today in case you have any questions for me.”
The waitress came over and took our plates and handed Liz the check. She stared at the burn marks on my face.
I’ve always preferred to be alone. Before my mother went to jail, I used to lock myself in my bedroom and sit by the window to avoid being around her boyfriend, Jimmy. He called me a girl whenever my mother wasn’t around. He smoked Marlboro Reds and drank Budweisers that he kept in our fridge. He’d yell at my mother and accuse her of cheating, though I never saw him hit her.
One night when my mother was at work, I told him I didn’t like him, and as punishment he made me go up into the attic and sit in the dark for two hours. My mother threatened to call the police, but she never did. She never did anything about it. Anytime he came over I stayed away from him. I closed the door to my room and sat at the window to watch birds outside. I always saw a line of blackbirds, grackles, along the telephone wire. They flew away into a haze of pale sky. Across the street, there was a wood-framed house where an elderly couple lived. I sometimes watched the old man mow his lawn or water the flower bed. On weekends, all day, the old woman would work in her flower bed while the husband walked around working on their house. He was always working on something it seemed, always on a ladder, repairing or painting. He carried tools around. He dragged a garden hose. That was all they ever seemed to do.
I was never completely antisocial, though I spent many days playing by myself in my room. When I was nine or ten, I had imaginary friends who weren’t other children; they were small, toad-like creatures that I pretended lived in a city under water. They were blackish, oily little things with bulging eyes. They didn’t so much hop as drag themselves. Some evenings they followed me home and entered my bedroom when I opened the window. When I spoke to them they listened, staring up at me with huge, watery eyes. I talked to them when I was afraid or angry or hurting. I watched them come in through the window.
Late one night in the winter I fell asleep next to the open window and ended up with a head cold. My mother brought me medicine and a wet rag for my head. I remember feeling horrible, but the cough syrup she gave me helped me sleep for hours and hours. In darkness I lost track of days and nights. At one point I woke up to see Jimmy’s son, Kyle, two years younger than me, dip a small brush into a red jar and paint a doll’s mouth. Later I woke to the sound of the wind knocking against my window.
“What’s going to happen to us?” Kyle asked me in the dark.
“I don’t know, I’m sick,” I told him.
We both went quiet. My mom worked nights at the bar and had already left.
Jimmy gave me beer or whiskey some nights, which also made me sick. There were nights I couldn’t open my eyes even, and there were some nights I forced myself to vomit. This night with Kyle I was really sick. I coughed until my side hurt.
“I’m sick, too,” Kyle said.
I slept on and off throughout the night. In the morning I woke to sunlight coming in through the window. My mother brought me soda and aspirin. We would be moving soon.
“We still have boxes full of things,” she said. “They’re in the attic. You’ll need to help Kyle get them down.”
I closed my eyes. I wanted to be far away. Sometime later Kyle came into the room wearing a pig mask.
“I’m planning our escape,” he said.
I managed to get out of bed and follow him upstairs to the attic. The room was warm and lit by a single light bulb hanging from the ceiling. He had moved things around since I’d been in there. There were only a few boxes, some tools, and an old wicker chair, where I’d once sat blindfolded.
At the diner, Liz and I were still a long way from the Troutt house. After we ate, she drove us out of the city and east along the highway. We drove past a lake, trees assembled behind it. On the radio we picked up a station that played classic country and western, Hank Williams, twangy guitars. Songs about whiskey and pain. I found it therapeutic in a strange way. We passed an oil rig and a deserted pickup truck along the side of the road. We passed billboards for churches. The churches along the highway were in old shopping centers. Church of the Covenant. Church of the Community. Church of Life. Charismatic, non-denominational churches with Bible verses on the signs out front. Billboards with Bible verses. In the distance I could see meadows and hills, fields stretching for miles.
We followed a winding road that led us past a pond and a few other houses whose owners, I imagined, were retired railroad workers and farmers living quiet, secluded lives. This was the type of life I always dreamed about living someday, being alone in a house deep in the woods somewhere. To be happy, safe. To live someplace where there was little traffic or noise or problems. To live alone, without a wife or kids.
I had to go to the bathroom, so Liz stopped at a gas station off the highway. “Ask the guy how far Little Crow is,” she said. “I haven’t seen any signs. We’re getting close, but I want to make sure. Tell him the house is near Black River.”
I went inside. The old man working at the counter was eating an egg sandwich and looking at some sort of catalogue. He wore overalls and a cap. When I asked how far Little Crow was, he made a barely perceptible sound, motioning with his head, looking past me to the highway. He stared outside as if he’d seen someone he recognized. He mumbled something in a language I’d never heard before. Maybe it was the language of rural farmers, oil field workers, charismatics. He mumbled maybe four words as he stared past me. He took another bite of his sandwich.
When I got back into the car, Liz was looking at a map. “We’re getting close,” she said. “What did he say?”
“I couldn’t understand him.”
“He didn’t speak English?”
“I’m not sure.”
Liz studied the map and whispered to herself. She set it between us and pulled out of the lot, gripping the steering wheel with both hands. She was getting frustrated, I could tell. I wondered whether we’d made a wrong turn somewhere that she wasn’t telling me about.
We drove down a winding road, following the signs for Black River. Liz turned off the radio to help her think. This was something she did from time to time, I’d noticed—turning the radio off when she needed to concentrate on her driving. “Okay,” Liz said. “This is Comanche Road.”
The sun came out, if only briefly. Finally we saw the house up the road. “There it is,” she said. “So much for this map, right?”
A house in the country, gleaming in the light that slanted through the trees. I saw a tall oak tree in the front yard with a tire swing hanging from it. I saw wet leaves in the yard, bushes surrounding the house. There seemed to be a large clearing in the back before an assemblage of trees. As we pulled into the drive I noticed blackbirds gathered in a tiny patch of snow. They scattered and flew into the oak tree.
Liz cut the engine and retrieved a letter from her purse. “I should give this to you now,” she said. She handed me the envelope, and I recognized my mother’s handwriting in cursive, all loops and swirls. I tore open the envelope and read it:
Dear Sequoyah,
How are things going with you? I’m doing ok. I miss seeing your face and I wish you would come visit me. My court hearing is next month and my attorney thinks I’ll be released as long as I pass U.A.s regularly. I’m gonna stay clean. I hope to see you soon.
Love,
Mom
I decided I wouldn’t think about her for now. I wondered
how I was going to get this new foster family to like me. The usual thoughts raced through my mind: they knew my family history, so what did they think about my mother? My behavior? Running away from the shelter? While Liz gathered her paperwork from the back seat, I got out and heaved my suitcase from the trunk. She helped me close the trunk and smiled. “Are you ready?” she asked.
I looked at the house. Mr. Troutt, a tall man, was watching us from the front door. Standing on the porch, he was a towering presence. He was six feet tall, middle-aged, with thinning gray hair. He looked intimidating. He wore brown-framed glasses and pressed slacks. Up close, as he leaned in to shake my hand, I saw his eyes held an intense gaze.
“Harold Troutt,” he said. He tried to smile but I could tell it was forced and uncomfortable. His greeting somehow made me feel he wasn’t really trying to welcome me.
“We’re happy you’re here,” he said.
“I told him the same thing in the car,” Liz said. “He was worried.” She turned to me. “Weren’t you worried, Sequoyah?”
“A little,” I said.
“Come in and meet everyone,” he said, and we followed him into the living room, where he introduced us to his wife, Agnes Troutt. Agnes was a petite woman with short, light hair. She wore glasses and looked younger than Harold Troutt. I guessed she had aged better since she wasn’t fully gray like he was. Her skin was beautifully wrinkled and she spoke in a quiet voice, as if she were sick, but I soon discovered she spoke like that all the time. She appeared serious and very concerned that I was comfortable, to the point that she talked to me like I was a young child.
“Sequoyah,” she said, taking my hands in hers. “So nice to meet you. George is upstairs in his room and Rosemary is outside in the backyard. She spends all her time out there, sitting on the patio swing and reading books.”
“They’re both eccentric,” Harold said. He looked at his wife. “Why don’t you go find her and tell her they’re here.”
Mrs. Troutt was still holding my hands and looking at me, like I was her own child returning home or something. Her eyes were almost watery.
“Agnes,” Harold said.
She finally let go of my hands and excused herself. While she went to see about Rosemary, Liz and I sat on the couch across from Harold, who fumbled in his shirt pocket for a cigarette. He lit it and blew a long stream of blue smoke.
The living room had a sad plainness about it: pictures on the walls, an antique lamp, hardback books piled on the coffee table. It was a fine old house, the kind of place a grandmother might live alone. I looked at an old issue of Life magazine while Liz talked about getting my counseling history files to him. Soon Agnes returned and said Rosemary was sitting on the back porch but didn’t want to come inside yet.
“She’s moody,” Harold said, looking at me. “Don’t take it personally, she’ll warm up to you. It takes her a while.”
“She’s a free spirit,” Agnes added. “She isolates herself sometimes. She roams around and stays in her own world. She’s very independent.”
They talked about school enrollment, doctor visits, and insurance while I looked at a series of black-and-white photos in Life magazine of Barry Goldwater with Ronald Reagan. The Troutts prayed before meals. TV was limited to their discretion of what was appropriate. Liz assured them those rules wouldn’t be a problem.
Later I walked with her to the car. She told me things would be fine as long as I respected their rules. I didn’t have a choice, really. She told me how safe it was out here in the country, and that I would do well at the school as long as I remembered to follow the rules. “You’ll do fine, Sequoyah. I’ll call you soon. Everything will be fine.”
When I went back into the house, Harold was alone in the room, still smoking. He seemed to be deep in thought. I stood there waiting for him to say something. A moment later he tapped his cigarette into the ashtray and snapped out of it. “You’ll be staying with George in his room,” he told me. “It’s upstairs, first room on the left.”
“So George is up there?” I asked.
“He is, and he knows you’re coming.”
I took my bag and headed upstairs, where it was warmer. I’d never stayed in a two-story house before, so I didn’t mind sharing a room. When I entered, I found George sitting on the edge of the bed, writing something in a notebook. He looked up when I entered.
“Hello,” I said.
He took a wadded tissue from his shirt pocket and wiped his nose. Then he came over and handed me a note before he went back and sat on his bed.
I sat on the other bed across from him and unfolded the note. It read: I’m George.
“I figured,” I said.
I looked around the room. The walls were painted deep blue. There were drawings of fighter jets and helicopters Scotch-taped to the walls. The curtains on the windows were striped. The window by my bed overlooked the front yard and road below.
“Do you talk or just write notes?” I asked.
“I’m better at writing than speaking,” he said.
“I’m Sequoyah.”
He looked at the tissue in his hands. He twisted it, played with it.
“Those your drawings on the wall?” I asked him. “They’re pretty good.”
He shook his head.
“Maybe you can write me a note, telling me all about it.”
“My friend from school gave them to me,” he said. He crossed his legs and glanced at me briefly before looking away.
“So you don’t talk much? That’s cool with me. I’d rather you be quiet than be one of those guys who never shuts up.”
He put the tissue back into his shirt pocket. I sat up and looked at him. He wouldn’t look me in the eye. He kept fidgeting, staring into the floor.
“Who’s better,” he asked, “Bon Scott or Brian Johnson?”
“I don’t know who they are.”
“The singers for AC/DC,” he said, “and the correct answer is Bon Scott. The albums with Bon Scott are supposedly better. It’s an ongoing argument at school.”
“Right,” I said.
He took a pen from the nightstand and began writing something on a pad of paper. A moment later he ripped it out and brought it to me. It read:
Concerning me, I actually don’t listen to much music. I just read song lyrics in the liner notes. I’m writing a novel on the typewriter downstairs. It’s about a scientist living in a decaying society. The country is on the brink of destruction from an organization known as RAM. It’s an acronym for “Rigid Artillery Masters.” They’re bombing everyone and the only survivor is a scientist who built an underground tunnel.
“Does the scientist die?” I asked.
He tapped his pen against his cheek. Then he started writing again on the pad. He ripped out the sheet and brought it to me. It read:
I don’t know if he dies yet. I’m on chapter 4. I’m hoping to figure it out. I’m supposed to talk to Dr. Melig at the junior college about it. I need to do more research. In a way it’s a philosophy novel.
We were silent for a while.
Finally, he spoke up:
“I keep thinking about death,” he said.
My mother used to tell me, “Don’t be quick to judge people or you’ll end up getting burned.” So I quickly learned to keep my mouth shut.
I gathered George was autistic or something. His whole purpose, he described in a note to me, was to stay in his room and think. To sit and think without distractions, to concentrate, to write and figure things out. When I asked what he meant, he avoided looking at me. Maybe he understood enough to know not to say anything to me. After all, I was the stranger in the house, his new roommate, a new face. I was an outsider from the street. A feral kid in black jeans. He wasn’t comfortable with me yet, so I dropped it.
I turned to the window, which overlooked the front yard. Outside it was still gray
and wet. There was an elm outside the window, its branches bare in the wet afternoon. A silence fell between us.
He was odd, no doubt, but there was also something delicate about him, something in the way he wrote notes, or maybe it was his long eyelashes. He was reading fairy tales mostly, he described in his note, rereading the classics, stories of wolves and children, and also science fiction stories, old copies of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine that he’d found at a garage sale for a dime apiece. He was working hard on his novel.
“How do you do it all?” I asked.
“You want me to talk?”
“I’m just asking.”
He sat with his head back, staring into the air, hands folded in his lap. “You like school?” he asked. “People staring at you?”
“No.”
“Does it make you happy to be the center of attention?”
“No.”
“Are you competitive?”
“No,” I said.
“You have to empty your mind,” he said. “I like to be by myself. I mean I like having something to work on all the time. My novel or reading or working on a project. What do you like to do?”
I lay back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. “Nothing.”
He whispered something to himself, and I turned to look at him. He closed his eyes and I watched him flutter his fingers in his lap. I waited for him to say something else, to ask me questions. I waited for him to dig deeper, to ask about my family, my past school, friends, anything, but he’d lost interest in the conversation. He moved his lips, whispering to himself, so I got the impression he wanted to be left alone.
Where the Dead Sit Talking Page 2