One of Us

by Craig DiLouie

  His youngest came out with a thermos of coffee. Pretty and blond just like her sisters. Just like his Judy, God rest her soul.

  She handed it to him with a kiss on his stubbled cheek. “Here you go, Daddy.”

  “Thank you, Buttercup. Have a good day at school.”

  “Morning, Miss Sally,” the teacher said with a grin, but she was already running back to the house on bare feet.

  “I’m being left shorthanded,” Albod said. “I pay good money to the Home for these kids.”

  “I brought Mary along.”

  “A little retard. Take me half a day teach her what to do.”

  “That’s my job,” said Gaines.

  “You got hundreds of creepers out there at the Home, and you send me this girl.”

  “I said I’ll teach her. You do what you need to do. You have a list for me?”

  Albod pulled a grimy notepad from the back pocket of his dungarees. He flipped it open, tore out a sheet, and handed it over. “Do you reckon you can handle all that today?”

  “Is all your cotton ready to harvest then?”

  Albod spat on the ground. “Yup.”

  The sun had been strong this year but not scorching. Heavier rains. Good for cotton. The crop was ready for picking. The market price not as high as he’d like but high enough. Next year, he’d switch the land over to peas to keep the soil rich.

  “No way to pick all of it in one day with these kids,” Gaines said. “It would take longer than that. Like way longer.”

  “Just that small patch yonder. I hired some coloreds to come around tomorrow morning and get a start on the big fields. Reckon you can handle it or not.”

  “Won’t know until we get to it.”

  “All right then, you do that. I got to make a run down to Ackley’s. Be back by end of day. Stay out the house while I’m gone, understand.”

  “I’ll be working the whole time.”

  Albod climbed into his truck and tossed the thermos on the front seat. The engine roared to life. He draped his arm out the window. “See you later, Dave.”

  He threw the truck into gear and stepped on the gas. Busy day ahead. Always too much to get done, but he liked it that way.

  Dog watched the farmer and his pickup rattle off the property. He hopped from the tailgate and helped Mary down. She stumbled on the grass, her big straw hat falling off. He picked it up and put it back on her head.

  Mr. Gaines called them together and showed them the list. He rubbed his forehead. “For land’s sake. Expecting all this done in a day. Small patch, my ass. We’ll be picking cotton the whole day, just that.”

  The kids didn’t say anything. They had no say.

  Mr. Gaines sighed. “Let’s get to it, I guess. Pokes are in the barn.”

  Dog didn’t mind picking cotton. With his long, spindly fingers, he was good at picking. It was simple enough, even Mary could do it.

  Wallee blinked. “Not pull-ing weeds to-day?”

  Shaped like a bowling pin, Wallee had no arms. He walked around on roots sprouting from his bottom half. He was good at pulling weeds, any kind of weeds. That and picking pecans and peaches from the trees on the property. His roots, once extended, could reach even to the highest branches.

  “Just cotton,” Mr. Gaines growled.

  “What about me?” Brain said.

  Brain did special work. Fixed machinery, delivered calves, and treated ailments among the animals. A mechanic and a veterinarian rolled into one.

  “You deaf, George? I said cotton. Get to it. Go on. Don’t rush on my account.”

  They trooped off to the barn as they were told.

  The teacher leaned against the truck. “Hey, you. Enoch.”

  “Yes, sir,” Dog said.

  “Tell Mary what to do. You’re in charge of her.”

  “All right, Mr. Gaines.”

  The cotton field sprawled and buzzed in the heat. Open bolls hung on the stems. The kids worked their rows. Dog plucked ripened tufts from the burrs and rammed them in his sack. Pick, pick, pick, step.

  He waved at Mary. “Wake up, girl. Do it like I showed you.”

  She held up a fistful of cotton. “Fluff.”

  “Put it in that poke you got on your shoulder. That’s right. Just like that. Now get some more. Like you’re feeding it. That poke is sure hungry.”

  Brain snarled as he stuffed his sack. “Most people don’t know we help grow the food they eat. Pick the cotton they wear around their precious normal private parts. They wouldn’t eat or wear it if they did.”

  Dog wondered at that. Even he knew the germ didn’t live outside the body. He looked across the field of white gold. Beyond, green trees spanned the horizon under the brightening sky.

  He said, “What do you think it’s like out yonder in their world?”

  “You mean our world,” Brain said. “We’re just locked out of it.”

  “I mean do you think it’s like it is in the movies.”

  “We’ll never know until we concern ourselves with what’s going on right here. Like giving our labor away to Albod and getting nothing in return.”

  “We’re getting an education,” Dog said. “I want to be a farmer.”

  “We’re working for free. And we have no choice.”

  “Just for a few more years. Then Pa Albod promised he’ll pay us by the pound for peanuts and cotton.”

  “You can barely live on those wages. It’s slavery by another name.”

  “If you say so.”

  “Look at our overseer over there,” Brain said. “The great Mr. Gaines. Hanging around the house hoping to catch sight of Albod’s daughters on their way to school. The only thing he ever taught us is the masters exploit us and there ain’t a damn thing we can do about it.”

  “Why don’t we sneak out tonight and go to our spot in the woods,” Dog said. “Talk this stuff out. You might feel better getting things off your chest.”

  Brain stopped picking. “Are you hearing a word I’m saying?”

  “Don’t mind me. Keep on, I’m listening.”

  Brain suffered doing manual labor. He’d been born with a particular sensitivity to physical pain. His back started aching, and his little hands cracked and bled. Made it hard to talk to him. Any other time, Dog liked hearing him go on about the violent system and the coming revolution. He didn’t follow half of it, but it was hard not to be impressed when Brain held forth on a subject. When Brain was suffering, though, he became bitter. His rants turned ugly.

  Dog picked his way down the row, leaving his friends behind. Brain could rant all he wanted out of earshot. He looked up and saw Mary almost caught up with him. She was turning out to be a good little cotton picker.

  Midmorning, they came out and headed straight to the water pump. Mr. Gaines snored in his truck. Cotton clouds in a bright blue sky. Dog cranked the pump handle, and they took turns leaning under the spigot to gulp water so cold and pure it made their teeth ache. Then back to the fields until Mr. Gaines called them in for dinner. More picking until late afternoon and quitting time.

  Hot and weary, the children tramped out of the field.

  “Hey, all y’all,” a voice called to them. “I got iced tea over here.”

  Sally Albod walked across the grass holding a big tray filled with sparkling glasses of brown tea. Her simple white dress showed off slim, suntanned arms. She set the tray down on the picnic table in the yard.

  “You didn’t need to do all that, Miss Sally,” Mr. Gaines said.

  “This will help them cool off. Them working so hard in this heat. Hotter than blue blazes today.”

  “They don’t mind it. They got water. They get tea, and next thing you know, they’ll want it every—”

  “I went through the trouble,” Sally said, her voice sharp.

  The teacher’s good eye glowered at the kids while the other drooped and didn’t seem to care about anything. “All right. Go on, kids. Have some iced tea, then. Don’t be thinking you’ll get some every time, thou
gh.”

  “Thanks, Miss Sally,” the kids mumbled as they gathered around the table.

  “You’re welcome,” she said.

  Dog held the sweating glass in his hands and placed it against the side of his snout. Cold, delicious cold. His fur was murder in the heat. Ice clinked in the glass, offering a glimpse of a sprig of mint. He poured the sweet tea down his throat in gulps, crushing the ice between his sharp teeth.

  Mr. Gaines returned his attention to Sally with a bright smile. “Mighty kind of you, Miss Sally. You look fine today, if you don’t mind me saying.”

  “I do mind it, sir. Them working so hard. You just standing there acting like a boss and giving a fourteen-year-old girl compliments.”

  “Mind yourself, now.”

  “You should mind yourself,” the girl said. “I could tell Daddy about the way you been eyeing me these past weeks. All these comments all the time about how I look.”

  “You tell him anything you want. I was just being friendly.”

  She tilted her head at the sound of Albod’s truck growling in the distance. “I can hear him coming.”

  Mr. Gaines glared at the kids. They turned away, knowing to mind their own business. Mary alone didn’t. She stared back at him with a blank expression. The teacher glanced at the house, where Albod kept his shotgun.

  Sally said, “Tell you what, Mr. Gaines. From now on, I’ll give these folks a treat if I want. And you’ll let me do it without thinking I owe you something.”

  “You do what you like. I don’t care what you do.”

  “Good,” she said with a sweet smile and went back in the house.

  “All right, let’s go,” Mr. Gaines growled. “We’re done for the day.”

  Dog walked back to the truck energized by the tea and Sally’s small act of kindness. Along the way, he spied a scrawny hen. Most of her feathers were gone. Her sisters had been pecking her, killing her one nibble at a time. Soon, she’d die of it. Such was the way of the world, which Dog had learned was brutal and unforgiving. He had never known it to be any different.

  He was starting to think maybe it could be.

  Seven

  Amy checked her appearance one last time in front of the bathroom mirror before going downstairs. Mama snored on the living room couch. The TV flashed in the dark. The air was hot and smelled like stale tobacco smoke.

  “I’m going out to maybe have sex with a boy,” she said.

  Her mother growled out another snore. She would not wake until tomorrow.

  “Sleep tight, Mama.”

  Outside, the night settled warm and sticky on her skin. Dark and endless. Anything could happen on a night like this. Anything could be hidden, ideal for mischief. She walked to the corner where she and Jake last kissed. He stood waiting in the yellow jasmine with his hands in his pockets.

  He started at the sound of shoes crunching gravel. Then his face lit up as she came giggling into the moonlight.

  “Scared I was a monster?” she said.

  “It’s how pretty you are startles me. Runs me right over like a steamroller.”

  “Ha, ha. You know, you talk a good game.”

  “Oh.”

  “Don’t stop,” she said. “I like it. I’m just testing you.”

  Jake took her hand and led her across the ruins of a field. All the sweet corn had been cut down and harvested. His palm sweated against hers.

  “Sally is probably there already,” he said. “Troy, too.”

  “So are they together now? She hasn’t said anything to me about it, and I’d think she would.”

  “Yeah, they’re together.” He laughed. “Only Sally don’t know it.”

  “If Sally did know it, her daddy would go on a warpath.”

  “It ain’t up to him who she loves.”

  “You and Sally think alike about the monster kids,” Amy said. “Couple of bleeding hearts. I don’t know why you like me instead of her.”

  “I don’t have a choice in the matter. I already told you plain as day how I feel about you.”

  “What was that exactly? I don’t think I recollect.”

  “I said it last time. It’s your turn. Otherwise, I’m staying mum.”

  “You’ll break,” she said. “I can be pretty stubborn. I’m like my mama that way.”

  “Yeah.” He laughed again. “I probably will break.”

  If he didn’t, she would. She’d been aching to tell him all week.

  Maybe tonight. Anything was possible tonight.

  They entered the woods. Amy leaned against him as he slipped his arm around her waist. His hand found its way inside her jeans and held her hip. She’d read her health book cover to cover. She learned that if you had sex with a condom, it wasn’t a guarantee against the germ, which spread on skin contact. But you could touch each other down there. They could do that without spreading it if they used disposable gloves.

  His fingers moved to the soft curve between her ribs and hipbone. Amy shivered at his touch, pulling at her hair. Her skin broke out in gooseflesh.

  “Now who’s scared?” he said.

  She wasn’t scared, she was excited. She wanted to be a normal girl.

  “Don’t worry,” he added. “It ain’t much farther. Hear the music?”

  A manic bass line pounded in the trees. Light flickered past the branches. She and Jake left the trail and threaded the woods until they reached a glade surrounded by ancient oaks and hickories.

  Troy was there feeding a little fire in a rock pit. Sally and Michelle sat on one of several cut logs chunked around the pit as benches. A ghetto blaster shrieked some song she’d never heard before.

  “Hey, hey, hey,” Jake said, doing his best Fat Albert.

  Troy grinned. “Now we can get this party started. Check out what Michelle brought. A bottle of red wine.”

  “What about you?” Jake said. “Were you able to bring anything?”

  “Couple bottles of Yuengling. Hi, Amy.”

  “Good God almighty,” she said. “What happened to your face?”

  Somebody had disfigured him with markers, the thick lines murky on his dark skin. The firelight caught him just right, revealing a leering mask of jagged fangs and a big red tongue reaching up to lick his right cheek. Sally and Michelle giggled. Amy noticed in the firelight they were similarly disfigured.

  Mama had told her kids once dressed up like this for Halloween. Before the real monsters showed up. They went door-to-door in costumes and asked for candy.

  “We made monsta faces,” Troy said.

  “Why would you do that?”

  “Because it’s cool.”

  “It ain’t that cool. I hate to be the one to tell you.”

  “Monstas are cool,” Jake said. “The ultimate screw you.”

  “Why do you call them monstas?”

  “From the B-52s song, ‘Rock Monsta.’”

  “Is that the song that’s on now?”

  “This is Shame Addiction. Their Plague Generation album.”

  “I think I know them from one of your T-shirts,” Amy said. “The singer sounds really mad about something.”

  “This is rebel music,” he said.

  Troy said, “The monstas don’t have to write music or wear clothes to make a statement. They are the statement. One simple statement.”

  “Screw society,” Jake chimed back in.

  “That’s it. Life is a prison for kids our age. Everybody telling us how to live, whether we want to hear it or not. The whole school set up as a hierarchy of who’s cool and who ain’t. A reflection of society. The monstas get it because they live it. Our prison is invisible. Theirs is totally real.”

  Amy had never heard anything so dumb in her life. She’d spent years believing she was different. There was not one glamorous thing about it. Nothing enviable about being the underdog, the outcast hiding in plain sight.

  “My older sister goes to school in Atlanta,” Troy was saying. “She protests against apartheid. Meanwhile, just a couple miles
from here, we got kids locked up in a Home. We’re no better than South Africa. Hell, we ain’t that much better than the Nazis and their concentration camps.”

  There was no use arguing about it. Amy came here to have fun. She gave a dismissive wave. “All y’all do what you want, but I ain’t marking up my face so I can be ugly. I will have one of those beers, though, if anybody is offering.”

  She sat with the other girls on a cut log and accepted a bottle of Yuengling. She gave it a curious sniff and took a sip. The bitter taste made her wince. It was sharp on her tongue and a little warm.

  “As if anything could make you ugly,” Sally told her.

  “How much does it take to get you drunk?” Amy asked.

  “Depends,” Michelle said.

  “I don’t want to throw up. I heard that can happen.”

  “You’ll be all right. Drink lots of water when you get home. If you really want to party, have a snort of this mulberry wine. It’ll knock you on your behind.”

  “No, thanks. Next time, I’ll sneak a bottle out of Mama’s stash. She’s got so much bourbon lying around she won’t miss it.”

  “You bring bourbon, you’re in the gang,” Michelle said.

  Jake and Troy carried on about the alienation of youth. Parents, teachers, and President Reagan arrayed against them. Russia and America aiming nuclear bombs at each other. Whatever mistakes society makes, the kids will be the ones who have to pay for them. Kids with no future, no say in any of it.

  They were preaching at each other. It sounded rehearsed, like an old routine they shared. Stuff they’d read somewhere. Amy got the sense Jake was trying to impress her with a show. She suspected her boyfriend might be a little full of it, but she didn’t care. It was his passion that interested her. The way he stood out, not what he stood for.

  Michelle took a sip from the wine bottle and grimaced. “I’m with you, Amy. I just like to put on monsta face because it’s fun. We paint each other’s faces.”

  “It’s abstract to you,” Sally said. “Is that the word? Meaning it ain’t real?”

  Amy held back a burp. “Yup. That’s what it means.”

  “Abstract,” Sally repeated. “Even to Troy and Jake. I been around the plague kids. I never seen kids get crapped on so much. Day in and day out. Even Daddy treats them bad sometimes. Daddy don’t even think of it as bad.”