They Cage the Animals at Night

by Jennings Michael Burch

  I waited up for Walter. I sat at the kitchen table and wrote the problem on a piece of paper for him. He was extra late, and I was getting tired.

  “What are you still doing up?” he asked as he came in through the kitchen door.

  “I was waiting for you. I got a problem.”

  “What kind of a problem?”

  “Fractions,” I said as I handed him the paper.

  “What do you want me to do with this?”

  “Well, I thought you might help me solve it.”

  “What about your teacher, why don’t you ask her to help you? That’s what she’s there for.”

  “I told her I never learned fractions, but she just called me stupid and made fun of me.”

  “So if I give you the answer to this problem and she gives you another one tomorrow, what then? Do you want me to go to school for you?”

  “Ah, never mind,” I said. “I just thought you’d help me.” I took the paper and left the kitchen.

  I lay back on the bed without taking my clothes off. A tear ran down the side of my face as I picked up Doggie and hugged him.

  “I sure wish you knew fractions. You’d help me.”

  I fell off to sleep.

  The next morning I didn’t bother to go to my seat and get my ears pulled. I went straight to the board and stood there.

  I ran my fingers along the edge of the chalk rail as I had done every day for the past two days. I was really getting bored.

  “What the hell is going on here!” a voice rang out.

  I turned and saw Walter standing in the doorway. Miss Keller, as well as everyone else in the class, was startled, including me.

  “Who the hell do you think you are, lady?” he screamed. “That’s my brother you got standing there!”

  Miss Keller sat at her desk with her mouth wide open. She was speechless.

  “Listen, you stupid bitch. If you can’t teach him anything, tell him. We’ll find someone who can.”

  I wanted to run from the board and hug him.

  “Where the hell did you get your teaching credentials from? I’ll tell you where you got them—you didn’t! Come on, Jennings.” He held out his hand for me to come to him.

  “I’ll put you into a real school,” he said. “One where the teachers teach and don’t take out their frustrations on the children.”

  He slammed the door as we left the room. I was never so happy to see Walter in all my life.

  “Thank you,” I said. I hugged his arm.

  “Don’t mention it,” he said. He was grinning from ear to ear. “I always wanted to do that.”

  “Uh-oh. What is Mom gonna say?”

  “Don’t worry about it. I told her last night I was coming here.”

  “Really?”

  “She wasn’t crazy about the idea, but I convinced her of the importance of a good school. I’m going to check out some schools for you myself. I’ll find the one you belong in.”

  He did. The following week Mom enrolled me in St. Michael’s in Flushing. It was a long way from the house, seven or eight miles, but Mom said I could get a bus pass.

  The neighborhood around the school reminded me of the Bronx. There were stores and things and it wasn’t all fancy. It looked ordinary. Mom and I went up the stairs of the school and into the building. We found the principal’s office.

  “I’m placing you in Sister Gerard’s class,” the principal said. “Grade Four-B.”

  “Isn’t that too high for me, Sister?” I asked.

  “Sister Gerard is a good teacher,” she said. “She’ll give you all the extra help you need until you can catch up to the others. You’ll like her.”

  “All right, Sister, I’ll try.”

  “Fine. I know you’ll do all right.”

  We said good-bye to Mom. The principal showed me which room to go to and I did. My heart was pounding as I entered my new class. Everyone stopped to look at me. I looked back. Their clothes looked ordinary. I felt better.

  “What’s your name?” Sister Gerard asked.

  “Jen…uh…Michael!” I said.

  “Children, this is Michael. Sit here, will you?” She pointed to a seat in the fourth row.

  I smiled at myself for my quick thinking. I didn’t want anyone making fun of my name anymore. I was sure they wouldn’t make fun of the name of their own school. Sister Gerard handed out some paper and pencils.

  “We’re going to have a spelling quiz. Please put your names on the tops of your papers.”

  I panicked. I didn’t know how to spell Michael. I knew the first thing to passing a spelling test was to be able to spell your own name. I looked around the room to try to find the name of the school written down somewhere. I spotted it on the front of a boy’s notebook. I squinted my eyes to read it.

  “Michael!” Sister Gerard scolded. “One waits for a question before trying to cheat.”

  “I wasn’t cheating, Sister. I was just, uh…looking at that book.”

  “Well, keep your eyes on your own paper.”

  “Yes, Sister,” I mumbled. I was lucky. I had gotten all the letters I needed before she yelled at me.

  Sister Gerard gave out ten words to spell. I did the best I could, but I was sure it wasn’t good enough. She collected the papers. She gave out a reading assignment while she corrected them. The boy next to me let me read on with him.

  “Michael!” Sister Gerard called out. I looked around to see who she wanted.

  The boy next to me poked me in the arm. She wanted me.

  “Michael!” she called again.

  “Oh, yes!” I stood up.

  “Come here, please.”

  I cautiously approached her. I was sure she was going to yell at me for getting all the words wrong.

  “What’s your name?” she asked.

  The redness rushed into my face and neck. “Uh…Michael,” I mumbled.

  “Well, Michael. Spell your name without the apostrophe s.” She smiled. She wrote my new name on a piece of paper for me. “Welcome to St. Michael’s.”

  The principal was right: Sister Gerard was a nice nun and I did like her. But I was right, too. I got all ten words wrong.

  Sister Gerard kept me after school every day at the convent for extra work. After the Christmas break, she changed my seat to the front row. I concentrated hard on the extra work and the regular work too. It didn’t leave me time to make any friends, but I didn’t mind. For the first time since the second grade at Our Lady of Mercy, I didn’t feel so stupid.

  One day after my lesson, I told Sister Gerard my real name.

  “I knew your real name, Jennings,” she said with a smile.

  “You did?”

  “Certainly. And if you felt it was important to change it to Michael, well, then, that was perfectly all right with me. Besides”—she smiled brightly—“you couldn’t have picked a finer name.”

  “It was the first one that came to my mind.”

  “Do you know about St. Michael?” she asked.

  “No, Sister, not too much.”

  “Well, he’s a very special angel. He’s the Prince of Heaven, God’s right hand. He slew Lucifer for the Almighty, when Lucifer wanted to take over heaven.”

  “Wow!” I said. “He must be strong.”

  “He is, he’s very strong. Did you visit his statue at our church yet?” she asked.

  “No, Sister, I haven’t.”

  “Well, you should. Especially now that you’ve borrowed his name. I think he’d like to meet you, too.”

  “He’s an archangel, isn’t he, Sister?”

  “Yes, he is.”

  “Uh…can archangels be guardian angels?”

  She smiled. “Of course they can. I think asking St. Michael to be your guardian angel is a wonderful idea.”

  After the lesson, I went up to the church. I pushed open the heavy front door and went in. The smell of burnt candle wax filled my nostrils. I walked up the long dark aisle to St. Michael’s altar. The church was completely
empty. The altar candles cast long and strange shadows all about St. Michael’s statue. I reached the altar rail and knelt. I strained my neck to look up at his face. He was soft and gentle-looking. He was all dressed in black armor. He had a drawn sword held high above his head. His hair was golden blond. He looked strong and powerful.

  “Hi, St. Michael,” I whispered. “Would you be my guardian angel?”

  He didn’t answer me.

  “I hope you don’t mind my borrowing your name,” I said. “It’s a nice name. Nobody makes fun of it. You know something, St. Michael? I feel awfully lonesome sometimes. I love Doggie and he keeps me company a lot…but I sure wish Jerome was home. I didn’t know him very long, just two months, but I really got to like him. Do you think you could let him come home soon? Please.”

  I searched through all my pockets for ten cents to light a candle. I could only find four cents. I put it in the box and lit the candle.

  “I owe you six cents,” I said.

  I left the church and headed down the hill to catch my bus. I climbed the steps of the bus and showed the driver my school pass. I sat down across from him and looked out through the front window.

  “You sure look like you got a lot on your mind,” the driver said.

  I looked up and saw the bus driver who drove the bus in the mornings. I smiled.

  “You’ve been taking my bus every morning for the last few weeks,” he said. “This is the first time I’ve ever seen you here in the afternoon.”

  “Uh…well, I stayed after school later than usual.”

  “Oh!” He laughed. “You’ve been a bad boy.”

  “No.” I laughed too. “I always stay after school, but today I stayed even later.”

  “You always stay after school, and you’re not a bad boy?” He laughed again.

  He had such a nice laugh. He sort of boomed it out, with his mouth wide open. He had lots of spaces between all his teeth. He was heavyset and had big hands and a big face. Every so often he would lift his cap and brush back the few hairs he had left on top of his head; then he’d replace his cap. He had dark brown curly hair around the side of his head and in the back.

  “I don’t stay after school because I’m bad,” I said. “I stay because I need to catch up with all the other kids. I got behind.”

  “How’d you get behind?”

  “Oh, it’s a long story. I lived in some homes and missed a lot of school. And then when we moved from the Bronx, I was put in the wrong grades. It got all mixed up.” I made a face.

  “I know how that can be. Living in homes and missing lots of school.”

  “You do?”

  “Uh-hum. I grew up in orphanages.”

  “You did?”

  “Lots of them.”

  “In Brooklyn?”

  “No.” He laughed. “In Pennsylvania.”

  “Pennsylvania, ugh.”

  “You don’t like Pennsylvania?”

  “Oh, I like Pennsylvania, all right. It’s a word we had on a test and I got it wrong.”

  He laughed.

  “How many homes did you live in?” I asked.

  “Oh, I don’t remember, lots. I never lived anywhere but homes.”

  “You were a lifer!”

  He laughed. “Yeah. I guess so. What’s your name, son?”

  “Jen…uh…Michael.”

  “Well, Michael, I’m Sal. Put it there!” He stuck out his hand.

  I shook it. “Uh…my real name is Jennings,” I said, “but the kids always make fun of it.”

  “Jennings! Jennings is a nice name. Why do they make fun of it?”

  “I don’t know, they just do. They haven’t made fun of ‘Michael,’ so I’ll keep it.”

  Sal pulled the bus up to my stop. I got off.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow, Jennings.” He smiled.

  “All right, Sal. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  I sat behind or across from Sal every morning after that. I even started seeing him in the afternoons. I stopped in the church after my extra lesson to see St. Michael, and then I waited for Sal’s bus. I managed to pay Michael the six cents over a period of a few weeks.

  “How’s my son this afternoon?” Sal asked as I climbed aboard his bus.

  “I learned to spell three new words today,” I told him.

  “Three new words!” he shouted. He stopped the bus and turned his head around to me and the other passengers. “Did you hear that?” he boomed out with pride. “My son learned three new words today.”

  Everyone applauded. I was embarrassed, but I liked it.

  “How’s your mother and all your brothers?” he asked.

  “All right. Larry started going to school again. He hates it. And George…I don’t know about George.”

  “What’s the matter with him?”

  “He’s drinking a whole lot. More than I ever seen before. I don’t know what’s wrong with him.”

  “Did you ask him?”

  “Are you kidding? I can’t talk to him. Nobody can. When Mom tries, he gets real mad.”

  “How about Walter?”

  “He wouldn’t talk to him, they hate each other.”

  “I didn’t mean that, I just meant how is he?”

  “Oh! I don’t see him very much. He’s always in school.”

  “What’s he going to be?”

  “I don’t know. I never asked him.”

  “What do you want to be?”

  “Uh…” Nobody had ever asked me that before. “Uh…a man, I guess.”

  He laughed. “I know you want to be a man, but what kind of work do you want to do?”

  “I know you meant that,” I said. “I don’t know. Maybe a bus driver.”

  He laughed loudly.

  I liked Sal. I looked forward to seeing him every day and talking to him. I began to miss him on weekends when I didn’t take the bus. I knew I could talk to Sal about anything. He always listened to me, and he always answered my questions.

  One Saturday afternoon Larry, Gene, and I were coming home from the movies. We were playing follow the leader. Gene, of course, was having a hard time keeping up with us. Larry and I decided to stop and wait for him. While we were waiting, I saw a boy kick a shoe box into the street.

  “I think I’ll see what’s in the box,” I said.

  “Probably nothing. He wouldn’t kick it away if there was anything good inside,” Larry said.

  “Well, it looks like a good box. I might be able to use it for something.”

  I ran across the roadway to retrieve the box. I shook it and listened. I heard a “mew.” I quickly opened the box and found a kitten. He couldn’t have been more than two or three days old.

  “Hey, Larry! It’s a cat.”

  “Oh, yeah?” He ran over to me. “Let me see.”

  I showed him the cat.

  “Boy, he’s little,” he said.

  “He sure is. I’m gonna take him home to show Mom.”

  “What about Gene?”

  “Wait for him, will you?”

  I didn’t give Larry time to answer me. I just dashed off. I ran all the way home. I pushed open the kitchen door.

  “Maaa,” I hollered.

  “In here, dear,” she spoke softly from her bedroom.

  I poked my head in. Mom was in bed.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I don’t feel well, dear. Did you like the movie?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “Did Gene behave himself?”

  “He went to sleep. What’d ya think?”

  “Where is he?”

  “Oh, I almost forgot. I found a pussycat.” I opened the box and showed her the cat.

  “He looks terrible. Where did you find him?”

  “He looks okay.”

  “No, dear, he doesn’t. He needs his mother. Where did you get him?”

  “This kid was kicking the box around, he was inside.”

  “That’s terrible. Poor little thing.”

  Mom told me how to
feed him with an eyedropper, and told me to keep him warm. I was feeding him when Larry and Gene came in.

  “Can I feed him?” Gene asked.

  “No.”

  “Maaa. Jennings won’t let me feed the cat.” He cried as he ran into her bedroom.

  “What are you gonna call him?” Larry asked.

  “Well, he’s black…I’ll call him midnight.”

  Larry petted Midnight while I tried to feed him. He only needed one finger to pet him, he was so little. Midnight licked off the drop of milk from the end of the eyedropper with his tiny little tongue. I bundled him up in a facecloth and put him back in the box.

  “Mom’s gonna buy me my own cat. So there!” Gene said. He then stuck out his tongue and dashed from the kitchen again.

  “I liked him better when he slept all the time,” Larry said.

  “Me too.”

  Larry made soup for all of us, but Mom didn’t want any. She said it would just upset her stomach.

  “Should I give some to Midnight?” I asked.

  “Oh, no!” she said. “He’s a cat. Cats don’t eat soup, especially a tiny baby.”

  “Can I take him to school Monday to show Sal and Sister Gerard?”

  “I think you should see how he is by then.”

  “All right,” I said. I left her to help Larry with the dishes.

  We finished up in the kitchen and went into the bedroom. I took Midnight with me.

  “Can I sleep with him?” Gene asked.

  “No. He’s too little. You’ll crush him.”

  “No, I won’t. I’ll sleep light. Then if I fall on him, I won’t crush him.”

  “That’s not what light sleep means, dummy,” Larry said.

  I bundled Midnight up against Doggie. “You’ll have to keep him warm. All right, Doggie?” I kissed them both and got into bed.

  “Did he answer you?” Larry asked.

  “Sure. He said he would.”

  Larry shook his head. “This whole place is going nuts. Gene wants to sleep light so he won’t weigh anything, and you talk to stuffed animals and they answer you.”

  I awoke early Sunday morning. Rain was falling hard against the window. I laid my head back against the pillow, when I remembered Midnight. I jumped out of bed and went over to the chair where he and Doggie were sleeping. I pushed back the facecloth and lifted him up.