“And the rest of the town doesn’t think a bunch of homeless strangers is weird?”
“Mrs. Rose built this town. Her ancestors, anyway. She owns it. The entire town is one giant blackboard. She is the system, Will.”
From outside the hard clank of metal on metal breaks the conversation. Both strangers share a guilty smile.
“Finally got the game started,” Frank says and he turns towards the door.
“The pigeons,” William says just before Frank is too far away to hear. “You said you’d tell me about them.”
“She gives them to all the parents—” he says, but stops to correct himself considering present company. “—Most of the parents. Uses them to organize adoptions.” He takes a full drag and holds it tight in his chest.
“Why?”
“Says it’s safer than phone calls and easier to defend in court should anything ever happen. Messenger pigeons are actually pretty common in this part of the state.”
“Why hide an adoption?” William says, already sure of the answer.
Frank pulls the cigarette from his mouth and holds it tight between his thumb and index finger. “Because there is no adoption.” He says this like he’s only reminding him, like William has known all along but forgot. “They are dead before they are even born.”
The metal hits again outside and Mike yells, “ringer ” with a drawn out enthusiasm. His mouth is wide, his mind filled with nothing but the moment. Gone are the fits of remorse William has forced himself to swallow. Gone is any associating Mrs. Rose’s students with something outside the professional realm. Mike the Story Man is at a basal state. He is only a drunk man playing horseshoes with friends after a hard day of duping children out of their childhood.
William follows Frank, wondering what he believes in, wondering if he still believes in anything.
“Poly,” Mike yells with his hands raised above his head in tight fists. “What about you? You got anything going yet?”
Eugene and I played catch today. “No. Nothing,” he says, and clears a patch of grass, someplace he can sit, but never too comfortably.
Chapter Eighteen
A group of children join hands near the phenol-dusted oak tree. Flakes fall; breezes mask their landing sizzle into the ground’s delicate layer of mid-morning snow.
As the impending unfolds, William digs through his duffle bag; the loose gauze of his blackened hand lost among his collected legs and bones and dried leather faces. He simply shifts the load, searching not for a single item, but for a way to pull his attention from the coming scene. A breeze tickles the tree leaves, car brakes squeal blocks away, birds above squawk; all sounds foreshadow. William keeps his head away but stays invested by the corner of his eye.
These children form a half-circle around the base of Mike’s storied tree. Their heads turn to one another. Their mouths move. Although distance prevents William from hearing what they say, he guesses every word forms a defeated attempt to question Mrs. Rose. He assumes that group collaboration is rallying for an excuse not to step against this tree.
Other children stop playing and turn toward the circle. Some begin walking.
This half-circle breathes. From the bench William can see the subtle rises and falls beneath t-shirts fronted by cracked cartoon character silk screens and brand labels for products long since recalled. The children look homeless themselves. He sees foreheads glowing with sweat and hands gripping one another so tight the fingers give like stuffed bears.
More children stop kicking balls, stop laughing, start moving toward the tree. A wave flows throughout, heads turning and interest rising. And William finds Eugene tailing everyone. As the crowd moves, the boy follows.
“Eugene,” William yells from the bench. Not one head other than his turns. He waves to William and comes running.
“What are they doing?” Eugene is out of breath but smiling. William shrugs, his brow creased like he didn’t notice the migration.
The children move one step into the tree and squeeze. They pull together tight enough for tensed immature muscles to stretch their decorated sleeves. They grit teeth as the tree burns though layers of cloth to kiss skin. A slow wind finds its way to the children and shakes a snow of phenol from the leaves to their heads. The surrounding children stop to listen. Eugene turns away.
“What did you learn today?” William asks, bringing him back.
“We did some math,” he says. “I hate math.”
The children choke on their own attempted screams, tears near boiling in the phenol’s heat.
“Math is good for you,” William says.
“That’s what Mrs. Rose says. She says it’s good because it helps you figure things out.”
More children approach the circle.
“She’s right,” William says quickly to keep Eugene at his side. He can taste the filth on the words as they fall from his tongue.
“We learned the map, too.”
The other children start grabbing arms and legs. They pull, prying fingers from the bark as the burning children refuse to let go. They are grabbing shoulders and feet and ripping them from the tree and still the children deny help. William wonders how much the scars are worth in the classroom. He tries to accept the final product, the devotion to a goal, the full participation in effort for the end result. He entertains the possibility of learned teamwork and hates himself for it.
“What did you learn on the map?” William tries to focus on Eugene, but the wind changes and brings with it the smell of hot flesh.
“Where states are,” Eugene says. “There are a lot of them.”
The smell strengthens as the children continue to flock. When the circle finally breaks free, William sees smiles from both sides. Relief and pride. The massive crowd escorts the scorched kids into the school building. Aside from a few rebels, the playground now belongs to only William and Eugene.
“How many states,” William asks.
The rebels dig holes in the sandbox, jaded it seems by the displays. William and Eugene discuss maps and geographic division. Enlightened, he would call himself, but for the way Mrs. Rose seems to know of everything within this playground fence, he keeps the designation quiet.
“I don’t know. A lot,” Eugene says. “Some are Democrats and some are something else.”
“Republicans,” William says.
Eugene pulls away and squints into the afternoon sun. “You’re smart,” he says.
“I’ve been smarter.”
“I can read, too.” Eugene pulls a yellow piece of paper from his pocket. He butchers words learned by his peers years ago, refusing help when William offers. Reading is a mission and how badly, William wonders, will this child fail?
William remembers Frank’s words that Eugene “isn’t right in the head”; isn’t right for Harold Straton Elementary is what he seemed to mean. The boy mispronounces simple words, skips them like he’s been trained to believe that his small steps don’t matter.
Chapter Nineteen
The next morning William eats a bowl of cereal with no greater belief than the present. Shelia, he, speak only nouns.
“Morning.” “Sleep?” “You?”
Two pigeons he knows about, and how many others might she have had? How many other babies? She sits across from William with a newspaper, slurping coffee. She has pulled back her hair, sleep-tangles and all, into a rough ponytail. Her forehead mole disrupts the breaking sunlight.
“Philip?” William asks, milk dripping from his chin to the floor.
“Work,” Shelia says.
Philip is considerate of William’s recent past—the fire, Julie’s hospitalization—and insists that William stay away from work for a while. William happily perpetuates his concern. The night William’s house burned, Philip received a two am call, a body found beaten against a white wall. Cue sadness. He woke William who cried hysterical at Philip’s softest “wake up,” pretends Philip saved him from a nightmare, the crash relived, Julie unconscious body, and �
�thank you” William said with glassy eyes. Philip let him sleep, saying that he could handle the stain alone and that all William needed to worry about was getting through the day.
As far as Philip is concerned, William is suicidal on the verge of dedication. Philip does what he can to keep him alive, and William has another day to himself.
“He said the job sounded pretty severe. A decomp,” Shelia says peeking over the newspaper. Her waking pigeon beats itself against the ornate, brass-plated cage, and William thinks of it beating just hard enough to—
“It does that when it’s cold,” she says watching the bird for a moment before bringing the conversation back to Philip. “He really wanted your help, but I told him that you needed rest. You’ve been through a lot lately. Your house, Julie, everything.”
William shovels dry cereal into his mouth, crunching loud enough to distort Shelia’s words into simple noise.
She sips her coffee louder. She adds sugar and stirs a metal spoon hard against the ceramic mug. What matters is not whether she is deliberately testing his patience—what matters is that he recognizes it is as a possibility.
She taps her foot, a rhythm at first, but it soon dissolves into unsystematic pounds. No art. No reason. She sneaks a few glances around the newspaper; William pretends not to notice.
She then invents a hum so against the rhythm of her feet that William stretches his cheeks with cereal to keep from yelling. She wants conversation. She wants to speak, but William knows that topic-one would be “birds and babies,” and he has nothing yet to say. He is afraid of how many things this woman might need to explain, how many things he does not know.
He distorts his face at every bite. He examines the reflective qualities of the spoon to prevent exchanging words. He fakes interest in branches controlled by breezes outside the window. She ups the volume of her hum.
Seven minutes pass, time that drips like hours and William’s teeth are so tight through cereal paste that blood vessels bulge from his forehead. At minute eight he stands and turns toward the kitchen.
“Coffee’s hot,” Shelia says. “Watch out.”
William parts his lips, steam yearning to escape. “Thanks.” Talking hurts his ears.
“You and me shouldn’t be like this,” she yells from the table. “We shouldn’t pretend to be so different.”
He returns with a steaming mug, bypasses the table, and goes straight for the front room couch. The TV displays an antiquated test pattern on channel thirteen, a quiet tone, so William turns the volume high until Shelia’s bird screams and spreads its feathers. “Different?” William yells over the noise.
“We really aren’t,” she yells back. “I know enough about you to know that we have more in common than just Philip.”
“I don’t burn houses down. We’re nothing alike.”
The bird still screams. William wonders about the possibility of frequencies; certain pitches aggravate certain nerves in the bird’s head, like how a police siren makes even the innocent question their position. William smiles and watches the bird stretch its beak.
“I want to know something,” she yells, ignoring his outburst. He continues to ignore her, the rationale slowly reducing to an exercise in endurance.
The bird throws its head against the cage. Screaming, then thump. Screaming, then thump.
Shelia finally stands. Her chair slides hard against the linoleum floor. Then sticky, bare feet footsteps and she is close enough William can smell her sweat. Like vanilla with teeth. Her face is angry, but tolerant. He looks up to her and waits.
“What do you have planned?” she asks. He waits longer for an explanation.
“Mike is going to be tough to beat.” She says hanging the newspaper in front of William’s face. The headline mentions Harold Straton Elementary. Mrs. Rose is quoted as saying something about too much hate in the world. She uses the words “travesty” and “unknown ruffians.”
“The clippings are like trophies to them,” she says and takes the paper back. “Some strangers have walls full.”
William folds. His heart stops long enough to feel the blood pool.
“It was genius. You have to admit that.” She takes a long sip from her coffee and walks slowly around the couch. She sits opposite William in a soft brown recliner he used to love. “It’s not only me. Mrs. Rose wants to know, too.” “What do you know about Mike?” he asks.
“It fucking stinks in here,” Shelia says and grabs an aerosol deodorizer from the coffee table, canned TR-32 disinfectant, stolen from Philip’s car. She blankets the air. “I know he’s been working on the tree for a while. Mrs. Rose was skeptical at first, but she came around. She liked the idea that a child would scar. She loved that permanent display angle.” She moves to the couch, sitting close enough to impact William with her breath.
“Mrs. Rose is therapy to you,” William says, trying to convince himself of the idea. “You’re a head-case. A way to fulfill volunteer hours. A tax write-off. You have no idea what’s going on.”
“I never believed in my child either, William. Mrs. Rose got rid of it. I’m invested.”
“You’re not a part of anything,” he says. “I found you dead.” “And I thank you for not leaving me,” she says. “I mean that.” Taking a sip of coffee he whispers to his own face reflecting in the black, “I should have.”
Shelia, without an extraneous movement about her, stands and walks to her pigeon. She grabs it from its cage, walks back to the couch, grabs the remote control, and throws it against the TV. It cracks open, batteries bouncing along the floor. “That’s not nice,” she says, sitting next to William on the couch.
William slides away fast. “Could you go back to the chair?” “I could,” but she stays firmly in place.
“Why do you care what I have planned?” William asks. “If anything you should be on the phone, turning me in, telling the police all about what goes on down there, all about the clean memories we steal from those kids. The adoptions.”
“No memories are clean.” She moves closer to William. The bird’s caw has settled to a soft purr. “I’m interested is all. Humor me.”
“After what Mike did?” he says.
“They didn’t die, William.” She rubs the pigeon’s head. “That’s the attraction?”
She reaches over and pulls the mug from his face, drawing his eyes to hers. “It proves they aren’t supposed to be dead.” She releases the mug and walks to the kitchen. “So prove to me William that lives are meant to be lived.”
The coffee burns. He tastes vomit. “Nothing,” he says. “I haven’t thought about it.”
“Try harder,” she says coming back to the couch with a handful of spices. Paprika. Nutmeg. Garlic salt.
“What about you? You’re invested.”
“I work with retards,” she says. “Mrs. Rose got me on at the school as a paraprofessional.”
“That’s appropriate,” William says, the muscles used for smiles aching as he brings them to life. “But you can’t neglect the irony. Retards at that school?”
“There’s some slow ones,” she says. “Your friend Eugene, for instance. He’s got a build, good physical potential, but the kid’s saturated. He’s so full on walking and talking nothing else is getting in.”
“He’s a good kid,” William says.
“He won’t get any better.” She pulls out a small plastic shaker of cayenne pepper and frowns at the label.
William filters through possible rebuttals, reasons Eugene isn’t worth neglecting. The sun sits window high, stabbing his eyes through a thick veil of fat rain. He thinks of the child outside, waiting by the fence, letting the rain permeate his soft skin as children all around him find shelter and keep dry because of the problems Mrs. Rose says hypothermia can bring. “I’ve got to go.” William stands. “Work.”
“Don’t bother.” She nods toward the window. “No recess today.” Then she grabs William’s bandaged hand and rips the gauze free—he pulls for a breath or two but forfeit
s as her grip strengthens, as her knuckles whiten—and pours cayenne pepper into the wound. She shushes him as he continues to test her grip, says the pepper will help.
“Me on the other hand,” she says rewrapping the wound and placing her pigeon in his free hand. “I’ve got to be there. Eugene has a test today—colors.” She laughs as she walks to the bedroom at the back of the house. “Let the pepper set for a while. We’re cleaning you from the inside, William. We don’t want internal infection. That could bring the whole body down.”
The pepper burns as it works into the dog bite. Every twist is a flexed muscle making room for more pepper to dig deeper.
“Think about your project,” she yells from the bedroom. “I’m eager to see what you can do. Philip tells me you’ve got some shit in that head of yours.”
The pigeon snaps at William’s finger, jumps from his hand, and looks back with its head cocked. William grabs for it, but the bird flutters to the back of the recliner. He lights a cigarette and stares through the smoke.
“Maybe I can just keep talking,” William says. “I’m good with talking to the kids.”
“We’ve seen where that gets you.” A hair dryer muffles her voice enough to let William trick himself into thinking all she says comes from his own head. “You’re not there to make friends, William. You’re there to make flawlessness.” Before she gets the final ‘s’ out a loud pop echoes from the back room and the hair dryer winds down. All the lights in the house die. “Fuse,” she yells, and William pretends her conclusion isn’t obvious by offering his sincerest, “really?”
The dark clouds and the blankets of rain let only a mild glow flow throughout the house. The sharpest light glows at the tip of William’s cigarette, a beacon, and the bird follows wherever William waves it.
Stranger Will Page 14