The Things I Want Most

by Richard Miniter

  Sue said to me, “He doesn’t understand interaction—that people have to organize things.”

  A half hour later Mike came up to me as I was painting the foyer and said sweetly, “Rich, Greg’s father is on the phone. He wants to talk to you about Greg coming over to play with me.”

  “Oh, so now you want us to arrange things?”

  “You have to! You have to!”

  “Okay”

  My ears ached after Greg had spent the day with us. The child was bright, but unbelievably hyper. You had to watch him every last minute, or he’d be turning on the gas at the stove, poking one of the dogs until it snarled, running around upstairs where the guests were, and screaming at the top of his lungs.

  His father dropped him off with his medication and specific instructions on what worked best in getting it into him.

  Medication? If this was what he was like drugged, I didn’t want to be in the same county when he sobered up.

  The next day I asked Mike, in an offhand kind of way, “Do you have any other friends at your school?”

  “No. Greg is my best friend.”

  The siege had been ongoing—day in, day out, nonstop—for the past two weeks.

  “I don’t do work.”

  “Mike, it’s your turn to help with the dishes.”

  “I don’t do work.”

  “Mike: dishes—now.”

  “I’m a slave in this family. I’m going to call Joanne and tell her to take me away to a good family.”

  “There’s the phone.”

  “Why are you doing this to me?”

  “Because I love you”

  “Damn, I hate this family.”

  “Go to your room and think about your language. I’ll get you later to do the dishes,”

  Slam, slam, bang, bang.

  I asked mildly, “Why did you send him to his room?”

  “Because he said Tucking family.’”

  “No, he didn’t. This time he skipped the F word.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Ah,” and she grinned.

  Out of such little things one draws hope.

  But the next day when Sue called him, he went into his and Liam’s room and smashed everything that belonged to him—his clock radio, his lamp, his puzzle, his pictures. He broke nothing of Liam’s—only his own possessions.

  “Mike,” Sue asked him, appalled and almost in tears, “why did you do that?” It’s mine.

  “It’s not acceptable in this house to break things, even if they do belong to you.”

  Mike’s face was flushed and his eyebrows seemed to swell and hood his eyes. “What are you going to do about it?”

  “I’m going to get you started on your chores.”

  “Damn, I hate this fucking family.”

  “Follow me, and we’ll find the vacuum cleaner.”

  Mike stamped his foot and screamed, “I had a bad childhood.”

  Sue walked over to him, and he flinched back as if he felt he was going to be hit. “Don’t you ever, ever,” she hissed, “pull a poor-orphan act on me. That was then, this is now, and besides, people have been coddling you, standing up for you, feeding you, clothing you, worrying about you, ever since you were taken out of your home. Now it’s time to start walking forward on your own.”

  “I don’t do work.”

  “Oh, yes you do.”

  “I did have a bad childhood.”

  “I couldn’t care less.”

  Sue had started calling the children’s home once a week and speaking to Kathy. “It may just be,” Kathy had just told her, “that the honeymoon is over and you’re getting a new crop up out of those awful roots. So be careful. I know you guys are experienced parents, but you might be confronted with something totally beyond your experience. Still, despite everything, Mike might be open to some sort of responsibility. He’s never gained that sort of weight before, and he’s never been off meds. The one big thing to remember is that regardless of what he might say, his own image of himself is the most important possession he has. Somehow, not getting involved is tied up in that. Maybe that allows him to feel independent, more in control, less like a castaway, less like a foster child? I don’t know.”

  Later, Sue repeated Kathy’s remarks to me. “There’s something there,” she said, poking her forehead with her index finger. “Something I’m missing.”

  We were into Stevenson’s Kidnapped at night, just before bedtime. Mike would read one page, I the next, and so on. Mike was laughing over the old Scottish word lug, which meant “ear.”

  “I really like that,” he chuckled, pulling at his own ear.

  “Mike,” I said, putting the book down for a moment, “what else is it you like?”

  “Huh?”

  “What sort of things do you like?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You like root beer, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, what else do you like?”

  “What do you like?”

  “Mmmm,” I thought, “well, I like red dump trucks, old barns, stone walls, a good book. I like baked macaroni with cheddar cheese. I like a lot of things. What do you like?”

  His features worked themselves up in a caricature of a thoughtful little woodchuck. “I really don’t like anything.”

  “You play your cards close to the chest, don’t you?”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means you don’t like to tell anybody what you’re feeling.”

  Silence.

  “Well, is that true, Mike?”

  “Yes.”

  “Mike, you have to do some vacuuming before dinner.”

  “Whatever.”

  “Mike.”

  “Damn. I’m a slave in this family.”

  “Mike.”

  “Whatever.”

  “Mike, get up.”

  “You’re not my boss.”

  “Get up, short stuff.”

  “Damn.”

  “Don’t you dare kick that vacuum cleaner.”

  The more Sue pushed Mike to lend a hand, the more Mike would retreat into the TV. At first we were ambivalent, and knowing how his TV time was restricted in the children’s home, we allowed him free access after dark, before bed. But now we were starting to screw down on it.

  “Mike,” I said, “you shouldn’t just run upstairs after dinner and turn the TV on. You have to help clean up. Now, go see Sue. She’s waiting for you.”

  Silence.

  “Mike.”

  “Damn, I can’t even watch my show.”

  “Mike. Come on, the boys will be home any day, and Sue is trying to get things ready.”

  “Damn, if those sons come in here, I am going to kill myself.” And he slammed down the remote control on the coffee table. Pieces of it flew across the room.

  For just a fraction of an instant Mike looked frightened. Then he recovered. “I don’t care. I don’t do work. I want to go to a good family. I’m going to hurt myself.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  i can help

  Phyllis had left. Lots of smiles and protestations about Mike not bothering her, but we knew.

  “Were down to having half the rooms empty,” Sue told me, shocked, “and Louis was only going to be here for a couple of months to begin with, so he’ll be out in a few weeks.”

  “Four rooms open,” I answered back slowly. “I don’t even feel like making coffee and tea any longer. There’s just one or two people showing up downstairs.”

  Sue flopped back on the couch, and for a moment her defenses were down and so was the chain mail armor. I could hear it in the quiet texture of her voice—a relaxed and oddly confused Sue, who seemed to be wondering how things could turn out this way. “We depend on that income.”

  I shrugged. “This is supposed to be a quiet place, but Mike’s screaming or fighting half the time.” I was thinking that I had meant it about dropping the coffee and tea in the morning. Up until a few
months ago, I had enjoyed the early routine— getting up at five or five-thirty, straightening up the barroom and kitchen, making a couple of pots of fresh coffee, putting hot water on, baking muffins. The guests would start trickling down around six, and within a half hour we’d all be chattering together around the big table in the barroom. A good gang who enjoyed each other—Rick, Phyllis, Ralph, Theresa, and others who came and went for short periods—getting ready for work or school, bantering, watching the news, going outside to warm up the car, and then dashing in for a cup of hot chocolate to go and a shouted good-bye. Sue would usually come downstairs, too, sleepy and tousle-headed, starting her day wanting to touch base, listen to a couple of stories, and joke. But this morning there was only Ralph, reading the paper and rolling his eyes at the ceiling, where somewhere above him Mike was yelling, and Sue had started having her coffee in her room.

  Sue shook her head. “How do normal people handle a child like Mike?”

  “ ‘Normal people’?”

  She laughed at our old joke. Normal people were people who stayed with the same job for thirty years. They didn’t build their own house on top of a mountain or then, in late middle age, buy a monster that had to be completely redone. Instead, they bought a raised ranch in a development and stayed with it until retirement. Normal people had two little pampered children instead of six self-willed little characters. Normal people didn’t cut wood; they burned fuel oil. In normal families men watched football on Sundays, while I wasn’t even sure how many men were on a football team and usually read or napped or took a walk in the woods after church on Sunday, or perhaps had to pack a bag and drive to the airport to catch a flight somewhere. You know—normal people. They were a strange race, and from our view—outside looking in—seemed to live extraordinarily orderly lives without much upset or angst. Normal people.

  Then, from the twinkle in her eyes, I realized Sue had answered her own question. Normal people don’t take in a child like Mike.

  But she was still shaking her head.

  I never thought Mike would actually hurt himself. He had threatened to a number of times, and of course we were familiar with his history in the children’s home, but I viewed the possibility as a nonstarter in our home. I hadn’t even taken any of the precautions Harbour had suggested (but not required), like locking up the sharp instruments in the kitchen. There were two reasons for this. One was that a trite act like hiding the carving knife would never stop a determined suicide, and the other was that kitchen implements were among the least deadly appliances around the place. Our home was purposely designed for boys to grow up in, and while that meant plenty of books and weight-lifting equipment, camping gear, maps, and dogs, it also meant scores of firearms, bows and arrows, sharp carpentry tools, razors, and hunting knives, most of which by this point didn’t belong to me anyway—they belonged to my sons. What could I possibly do? Besides, I thought (perhaps too simply), since the place was an ideal boy’s place, why would he ever kill himself?

  I never considered the fact that people usually hurt themselves in order to hurt or get back at other people, or to get other people to back off.

  Sue had started Mike on vacuuming the downstairs and then left him, and I was upstairs when Liam called out.

  “Dad?”

  “What?”

  “Come downstairs fast.”

  I rumbled down the barroom stairs. “What?”

  “Look.” Liam was pointing into the kitchen.

  Mike was standing against the ceramic tile wall with his face flushed and his eyes wide open.

  I turned to Liam and asked again, “What? Why did you call me?”

  Thump.

  I looked back over at Mike, who had started rhythmically banging his head into the wall. “I don’t do work,” he was chanting, and every time he said work, he hit his head. It wasn’t a joke. I could feel the wall vibrate and the dishes in the cupboard rattle when he hit.

  I walked over to stop him, but when I got close he started to hit harder and faster—thump, thump, thump.

  My thoughts were shrieking, Do the right thing! Mike seemed possessed, the pupils in his eyes tiny black arrowheads, his tongue flicking in and out.

  Then, from somewhere, the thought came: Don’t give this conduct any respect. Don’t act afraid.

  So I laughed.

  And he stopped immediately.

  “You know the best thing about what you’re doing, Mike?”

  “What?”

  “It doesn’t hurt me at all.”

  Angrily he banged his head once more.

  I gestured to Liam. “Look at this. Did you ever see anything so ridiculous?”

  “I hate this family.”

  But since he wasn’t banging his head, I turned and walked back upstairs.

  A minute later I heard the vacuum start up and had to sit down. My legs were weak and rubbery.

  Wednesday night the week before Thanksgiving a tall, silent young man materialized in the doorway to our bedroom. Lean, short haircut, dressed in a long gray wool overcoat with a white turtleneck.

  Sue smiled. “Hello, Brendan. “Then hugs and talk about when the rest of the family was getting in.

  “Where’s Teddy?”

  Sue and I exchanged surprised looks. Teddy Bear was actually Brendan’s dog. He had raised him from a pup, and the dog had always slept in his room, sat by his chair while he read. Brendan was probably looking forward to seeing Teddy almost as much as anybody else in the family.

  How do you tell a boy that his dog has a new friend?

  “He’s in the library. Liam and Mike are sharing it.”

  “I’ll get him.”

  “Brendan.”

  “Yes?”

  “Uh, nothing … just make sure you leave Pupsy in there.”

  “Sure.”

  Pupsy? No! We hadn’t thought this out at all. Just as Teddy was Brendan’s buddy, Pupsy was Henry’s. In addition to being shoved out of the way over the next two weeks, Mike was about to lose his best friends for a little while.

  Sue put her hands out, palms up. “About all we can do is hope for the best and go to bed. They could be in an hour from now; they could be in at dawn. Maybe Henry won’t look for Pupsy.”

  “This is not going to be good, Sue.”

  Sure enough, about two in the morning we heard Mike crying. When we went inside, he was sitting on his bed bawling, with the sheets over his head.

  It was the first time we had seen him cry when he was awake.

  Sue went downstairs and then came right back up. “Henry’s not downstairs. He must be up in his room with Pupsy. I can’t go there and start an argument. I’ll wake up the guests.”

  Sue bent over Mike and rubbed his back. “I tell you what. As a special treat, you can have Jerome. Do you want Jerome?”

  Mike nodded, and Sue went and got the cat. Mike clutched it to his chest and then lay back down. But his eyes were staring off somewhere.

  “I hate them.”

  “I know you do, Mike”

  Mike avoided the boys in the morning. Then when Brendan, Henry, and Frank had left for the mountain early, Mike got up, reclaimed the dogs, and went out to the stream without a jacket. He stomped up and down through the boggy pools of icy water and followed that up with a long squishy walk through the swamp.

  Later he walked back to the house and presented himself in Sue’s office, dripping puddles of muddy, filthy water.

  “I’m all dirty and I’m freezing. I’ll get sick.”

  Sue looked over. “So take a hot shower and change.” Then she turned back to her paperwork.

  He stamped his feet. “I’m all dirty.”

  Sue took her glasses off and peered back around at him. “Look, Mike, the fact that a boy was out with two dogs in the woods and came back wet and dirty isn’t the sort of news that ranks up there with the loss of the Titanic. Now, run off and let me finish. I’ll be free in a half hour or so, and we can get on your chores.”

  “I don’t d
o work.”

  “We’ll see,” Sue said tiredly.

  “I didn’t have a jacket on.”

  “Whose fault is that?”

  Mike tried once more. “My clothes are all dirty.”

  “So,” Sue said over her shoulder, letting her voice fade off as she got back into her numbers, “the water in the washing machine will be a little darker.”

  Disgusted with Sue’s reaction, Mike stamped inside to where I was working. “Rich, I’m all dirty and I’m cold.”

  “Yes,” I said, “it certainly looks that way.”

  “I hate this fucking family.”

  A little while later Sue smelled smoke.

  She ran down to the kitchen and found that Mike had lit a stack of wooden matches one by one and thrown them on top of the stove.

  “Mike,” she shouted furiously, “if you ever touch matches again, you’re going to be barred from the kitchen.”

  “I hate this fucking family”

  Sue gritted her teeth. “Okay, I just found some free time, so we can start your chores now We’re having a big dinner tonight, and you are going to field-day this kitchen.”

  Mike backed up. “I don’t do work.”

  Sue was about to make a savage retort when the look on Mike’s face stopped her. He was struggling to say something else.

  Fighting each word that was spilling out of his mouth, he stuttered, “I don’t do work, please. Please don’t do this to me, please.”

  Sue reached out to touch him, withdrew her hand, and covered her mouth. Then she braced her shoulders and said in a new, softer tone of voice, “Mike, I have a lot of work to do in the kitchen. When I’m doing it, can you help me? That way you and I can spend some time together. You know we have a lot of things to do, but you don’t have to do work, just help.”

  Mike seemed to wilt. “I can help. I’m good at helping.”

  Sue smiled. “I know you are. Now, go change into dry clothes.”

  When he ran out of the kitchen, Sue turned toward me and kicked a chair out of the way. “I’m so stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid …”

  That night Sue got our boys together—Henry, Frank, Brendan, and Liam—without Mike. The four of them—wide-shouldered, lean, defensive—were still in their hunting clothes, dirty, unshaven, knives in their belts, surrounded by the rifles, portable tree stands, and backpacks they had just dropped on the floor. Sue had made them all sit down while she stood up. That way she was taller.