They Cage the Animals at Night

by Jennings Michael Burch

  “You never met him? You never met your own brother?” He was startled.

  “No. He’s in a hospital somewhere, dying.”

  “Dying? Dying of what?”

  “A heart condition. My mother said we had to pray for him ’cause he was going to die pretty soon.”

  “How soon?”

  “I don’t know. Pretty soon.”

  “How old is he?”

  “He’s…ah, let me think…. He’s about ten. He’s been in the hospital for as long as I can remember.”

  “He’s a lifer, then, like me.”

  “Yeah. I guess so. I hadn’t ever thought about it like that, but I guess so.”

  “Is Larry gonna die too?”

  “No.” I chuckled. “He thinks he is sometimes. He’s always being picked on to do this and do that. George and Walter take turns making him do things around the house like cleaning and doing the dishes and stuff like that. Mom works nights for the phone company and sleeps during the day. So George and Walter sort of run things.”

  “Butch would fit in real good there.” He laughed.

  “He sure would. Walter calls Larry the ‘dumb ox’ and George calls him ‘four-eyes.’” I shot a glance at Mark as he pushed his glasses back on his face. “I’m sorry. I don’t call him ‘four—’”

  “It’s okay. They call everybody with glasses ‘four-eyes.’”

  “Well, I don’t. I don’t call him ‘dumb ox,’ either. I like Larry. He’s my favorite brother.”

  “I think I would like Larry, too. I think I would like to have all your brothers.”

  “Oh, no you wouldn’t!”

  “Well, I don’t have any brothers. So I wouldn’t mind a pesty one, or even a mean one, just so long as I had one.”

  I hadn’t ever thought about it like that. I turned it over in my mind. “No, Mark. You wouldn’t like just any kind of brother. You’d like a good one, like Larry, but not just any kind.”

  We lifted our legs once again as the big purple tricycle zoomed past.

  “What does it take to get a ride on that bike?” I asked.

  “Guts!” He laughed.

  “I saw Butch and his friends throw a kid to the floor last night.”

  “That’s why it takes guts. And they’re not his friends!”

  “Oh! I thought they were his friends.”

  “No. There are no friends in here. They just hang around him and laugh when he laughs. They don’t want him to pick on them.”

  “What do you mean there are no friends in here? Aren’t we friends?”

  He didn’t answer me. He sat looking out across the floor at the kids playing and fighting.

  “Hey! I’m tired. Want to go to bed?” He stretched and shook as though he had a chill.

  “Sure. Okay.” I knew he didn’t want to answer me. And he knew I knew.

  We dashed across the speedway, laughing the whole route. There were only a few kids in the dormitory, and no nuns. We reached Mark’s bed first, and he veered off.

  “I’ll meet you in the bathroom,” he said. His arms were outstretched and he made the sound of a plane.

  I reached bed number twenty-seven and decided to look through the small cabinet alongside the bed to see what was in it. I found a bar of soap, some toothpaste, a towel and facecloth, and a laundry bag. I took everything but the laundry bag and rejoined Mark in the bathroom.

  I changed into the pajamas and hung my things on the hook. I washed and dried my face and put toothpaste on the paper-wrapped brush. I began brushing my teeth.

  “What are you doing?” Mark said with laughter in his voice.

  “I’m brushing my teeth,” I garbled out, the brush still sticking out of my mouth.

  “Don’t you take the paper off first?”

  “I tried to take it off last night, but I got hit for it.”

  “Really?”

  “Really! Sister Frances hit me. She gave me the brush, and when I tried to take the paper off with my teeth, she hit me! She said, ‘That’s not the way we do things around here!’”

  Mark went hysterical with laughter. I thought he liked the way I mimicked Sister Frances’ voice, but I was wrong.

  “She didn’t mean not to take the paper off.” He laughed. “She meant not to take it off with your teeth!”

  We laughed so hard I thought I was going to burst. My foaming mouth only made us laugh harder. I tried picking some of the soggy paper off my brush and out of my mouth.

  Sister Frances passed the bathroom and stuck her head in. “Shut up in here!” she scolded.

  Mark and I finished our laughing in silence, or at least as silently as we could. We were just wiping the last of the water off the sinks when I asked, “Mark, what did you mean before when you said there ain’t no friends in here?”

  I’m sure he didn’t like the question, but I had to know the answer.

  “Well, it’s a rule. Not a home rule like when to sit or when to eat, or like that, but a kids’ rule…” He paused. “A kids’ rule, one you’re supposed to learn on your own ’cause nobody likes to talk about it. You know what I mean?”

  My face showed him I didn’t.

  “Oh, boy!” he said. “It’s like this. If you got a friend in here and they go away someplace, then you’re left by yourself, alone. And if you keep making friends and they keep going away, then over and over again you’re alone.” He paused. “It hurts.”

  Mark dashed from the room. He knew he’d said more than he wanted to.

  I left the bathroom. I didn’t agree with what Mark said. I thought having a friend would make things easier. But then, I wasn’t a lifer, and he was. I put my things in the cabinet beside the bed and started to climb up.

  “Where are you going?” Mark startled me out of my thoughts.

  “To bed. Shouldn’t I?”

  He shook his head no and waved his hand for me to follow him. We walked to Sister Frances’ desk. She was not there. A few kids were already lining up in front of the desk.

  “What are we waiting for?”

  “Shhhh,” came the response from every kid there. I shut up. I couldn’t imagine what we were waiting for. Just then a nun entered the dormitory. She was the same nun I saw earlier that morning buttoning the boy’s shirt and smiling. She was smiling again. Without knowing her, I liked her.

  “Good evening, children,” she said warmly.

  I was shocked. I didn’t think anyone big was ever going to talk nice to us kids.

  “Good evening, Sister Clair.” The children responded almost in song.

  She pulled out a key from a pocket and inserted it into the lock of a cabinet on the wall behind the desk. As she turned the key, all the kids turned it with her. It was the strangest thing. When she opened the cabinet door, I understood. The cabinet was filled with all sorts of stuffed animals. Bears and dogs and monkeys and rabbits and everything. I was so excited.

  She removed the animals one at a time. She placed each animal in the arms of the one who most wanted that particular animal. The others’ arms remained outstretched and wanting.

  “Don’t you want one?” she asked. She was looking directly at me.

  I nodded my head. I did. I hadn’t realized I had wrapped both my arms around my own body as though I were hugging all the animals. I guess because my arms were not outstretched and open, she thought I might not want one. I raised my arms. She smiled broadly and placed a fuzzy brown-and-white dog with black floppy ears in my arms. I cradled the dog to my chest and tucked his big nose under my chin. I walked back to the bed. I made a nice little place for the dog next to my pillow, placed him down gently, and climbed in after him.

  “What’s your name?” I asked. I paused as though I were giving him time to answer me. “Oh, Doggie. That’s a nice name. My name is Jennings.” He did not laugh.

  I slipped down beneath the covers and pulled Doggie down after me. I cuddled him close to me.

  “My mother brought me here. She said she’d be right back…. I guess she got
busy doing something else. ’cause she really loves me and wants me…. Yeah! That’s it! She got very busy. She’ll be here soon to take me home, and you can come with me. Would you like that?”

  He said he would, and I was happy.

  “I’m going to ask Mom to take Mark home, too. With all my brothers around, she won’t even notice an extra kid.”

  “Jennings.”

  I was startled by a voice. I poked my head from beneath the covers to see Sister Clair standing above me.

  “Hello,” I said, and grinned. “I was just saying hello to Doggie. I’m sorry if I made too much noise.”

  “No, no. You weren’t making any noise. I just came by to say hello. May I sit down?” She smiled.

  “Yes, Sister.” I pushed back on my elbows to lift myself up a little.

  “I’m as new here as you are,” she said. “I started here the day before you came.”

  “Do you know where my mother is?”

  “Your mother went away to rest. She wasn’t feeling very well. You know, it’s hard for her to raise all you boys all by herself and hold down a job at the same time. And it’s hard for her to face Jerome being sick. Do you know about Jerome?”

  I nodded my head.

  “Well, you have to be a strong soldier until your mother is better. All right?”

  “All right,” I said as I started to cry.

  Sister Clair put both her arms around me and held me.

  I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I saw was the morning sun. I wanted to show Doggie.

  “Hey, Doggie,” I whispered. I lifted the cover to retrieve him but he wasn’t there.

  “Hey, Doggie. Where are you?” I felt around the tightly tucked edges of the bed, but still, no Doggie. I stretched my neck out as far over the side of the bed as possible without falling to the floor. No Doggie. I’d lost him.

  I pulled myself back up and slid deep beneath the covers. As quietly as I could, I cried.

  A sharp rap to my ankles and a shout, “Last one up’s a rotten egg!” brought my head from beneath the covers.

  “Come on, Jennings!” Mark shouted from the bathroom doorway, then disappeared inside.

  I climbed down from the bed, took my things from the cabinet, glanced once more under the bed, then followed Mark.

  He was at his hook when I reached mine.

  “Hi, sleepyhead,” he said.

  “Hi.”

  “What’s the matter with you?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing! When you look like that?”

  I looked around to see that nobody was within earshot of me. “I lost Doggie.” My lip quivered.

  “Oh, boy.” He chuckled.

  “It’s not funny. I lost him. I looked everywhere.”

  “You didn’t lose him. They took him.”

  “They took him? Who took him?”

  “The nuns did.” He turned and took his shirt from the hook.

  “Why?”

  “Why?” he said impatiently without looking at me. “They just do, that’s all. After we go to sleep.” He looked at me. A slight moistness covered his eyes, and he swallowed. “They come around and collect them.”

  “But why?”

  “It’s the rules!” he snapped. “They cage the animals at night! It’s the rules.”

  2

  After breakfast, Sister Frances told everyone who wanted to go out in the courtyard to get their coats.

  The sun was bright but not warm. I walked to the far side of the yard and sat down. I was very careful not to have stepped on any lines, and there were lots of them. The yard was made up of hundreds of squares. Great for box ball or hit the stick. Three sides of the yard were bordered by the high wire-mesh fence. Each section of the fence was separated by a pole. I sat between two of the poles. The fence gave way a little as I leaned back on it. I looked for Mark.

  He hadn’t come into the yard. I wondered why not. I watched the boys on one side of the yard and the girls on the other. The boys played ball or Johnny-ride-the-pony, while the girls skipped rope. I was amazed to see how many girls in this world had ropes. All of them.

  “Hi! What’s your name?”

  I looked up to see a little girl looking down at me. She had fluffy blond hair that was pulled into two bunches, then tied with blue ribbons. Her cheeks were freckled. Her eyes were blue and sparkly.

  “Hi.”

  “What’s your name?” she asked again.

  “Jennings,” I said weakly. I wasn’t at all used to talking to girls.

  “Jennings! What’s your first name?”

  “That is my first name.”

  “My name is Stacy. Stacy Ann Perry. Can I sit down?”

  Before I could even thing of an answer, she was sitting. “Uh…yeah. Sure.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Uh…eight and a half.”

  “Me too! Well, almost eight and a half. Are you a part-timer or a lifer?”

  “Uh…part-timer.”

  “Yeah, me too. My mother is having a baby. Probably a girl. I asked her to have a girl. I’d love to have a sister. Do you have any sisters?”

  I couldn’t believe how fast she could talk. “Uh…no. I got brothers.”

  “Brothers. That’s nice. How many brothers do you have?”

  “Five.”

  “Five. That’s nice. I don’t have…Five! That’s a lot of brothers. Are they all in here?”

  “Uh…no. They’re…I don’t know where they are.”

  “Oh. Do you like it here?”

  “No. No, I don’t.”

  “No. I don’t either. My mother says if I behave myself, she’ll buy me a doll when I get home.”

  I looked around the yard from time to time to see if any of the boys saw me with a girl. They hadn’t. I still didn’t see Mark anywhere. She talked so fast and about so many different things, it was hard to keep up with her. I smiled every so often and grunted a little; that seemed to satisfy her. Finally I spotted Mark.

  “I think my friend wants me,” I said. I got to my feet.

  “Oh. All right.” She seemed disappointed.

  “I’ll see you later.” I smiled weakly and backed away.

  “All right!” She brightened up. “I’ll see you later.”

  Mark was playing box ball with a milky-white skinny kid with sandy brown hair and two giant front teeth. He looked like a beaver.

  “Can I play the winner?” I asked.

  “Naa. I don’t want to play any more after this,” Mark said as he missed his point. He retrieved the ball and served. “Why not find someone else to play with?”

  His remark was sharp and it hurt.

  “Okay,” I said. I backed away. I thought he might say something else, but he didn’t. He just kept on playing his game. I wandered back over to the fence. Stacy wasn’t anywhere to be seen, so I sat down.

  I watched Mark and the kid playing. I didn’t know why Mark didn’t want to play with me. Maybe he was mad at me from this morning. When he explained to me about Doggie.

  I watched silently from my stone seat with the wire-mesh back. I thought back to Our Lady of Mercy’s schoolyard. There was something different going on here. The sound was different. The kids in the schoolyard were noisier. These kids weren’t noisy enough to be playing. They’re not playing! They’re waiting, they’re not playing at all. Every kid in this yard was waiting for something. I was waiting for Mom. Other kids were waiting to be lent out. Others, like Mark, were waiting for the next click. I hated this place.

  The click snapped the yard to attention. I laughed a little to myself, because he hadn’t had long to wait. The second click sent everyone scurrying about the yard forming lines. I hesitated for a moment, but only a moment. The memory of the pain to my shoulder and ears made me get to my feet. I located twenty-six’s funny ears and followed them.

  I ate some of the stew and drank some milk. I looked around the room, as I had done before. But this time I saw the kids. For the first ti
me, I really saw them. They were eating in silence; their faces were drawn and blank. They weren’t frowning, but neither were they smiling. They weren’t anything at all. I moved my glass into a spot where I could look at my own face in the reflection. I was one of them.

  I found Mark sitting by himself just outside the classroom door.

  “Want to play tic-tac-toe?” I asked.

  “Naaa.”

  “Want to play box ball?”

  “Naa.”

  “Want to—”

  “Look, Jennings. I ain’t mad at you or nothing. I just don’t wanna play with you today.”

  We sat in silence.

  “Don’t you see, if we keep playing with each other all the time…” He broke off to kick some make-believe object from one foot to the other. “We’re gonna become friends. And you know that’s—”

  “Yeah. Against the rules.” I finished his words and got to my feet. As I made my way across the yard to the fence, I looked back. Mark was still kicking his make-believe object. He was interrupted.

  “Hey, dumbo! What are you doing?” Butch snarled at him.

  I turned away and kept walking.

  I reached the fence and leaned into it. To my surprise it had a lot of give to it. I sprang off the fence. It was like a great vertical trampoline. I leaned into it and sprang off again. It was fun. I did it again.

  “What are you doing?” Stacy asked as she approached.

  “Bouncing.”

  “That looks like fun. Can I bounce too?”

  Of course, I didn’t have to answer her. In a flash she was standing alongside of me, bouncing.

  “You have beautiful red hair and freckles,” she said.

  “Oh, gosh!” The heat rose instantly into my face and neck. I was sure I was close to the color of my hair.

  I quickly shot a glance in the direction of the boys. The last thing I wanted was for any of them to overhear her or see us playing together. I was safe; they hadn’t noticed. We bounced a few more times before I heard the giggles from the girls’ side of the yard. I turned my head, and not ten feet from us were about a dozen girls. If at all possible, I got redder.

  One or two of the girls selected a spot in another section in the fence and began to bounce. It wasn’t long before all the girls began selecting spots and bouncing on and off the big fence.