Silas Dillon of Cary County

by Clifford Schrage

  “We just floatin’ around.” Tyrone said.

  “Well you just better be floatin’ around in the swimming pool. This is treacherous waters.”

  We mostly kept quiet. The concerned, amazed scolding continued as one man clamped our drum tightly and rigidly against the dinghy—which seemed huge compared to our drum—and the other man lifted us in, one by one. They rowed us to the big police boat; we got a wonderfully exciting, fast ride back to Cary Island, and were taken back to the residence. All along our mothers and the house directors had been thinking we were fishing in the channel. The director of the residence, old Mrs. Blamel, was asked to resign because of that.

  A couple of days after this affair something awful happened to Mommy. My half-brother she’d been carrying was about to be born, early. She was hurried to the Cary County Hospital, where I’d been born. She went through labor in the same fashion she’d gone through with me and with my older half-brother whose name I’ve never come to know, who’d lived somewhere in Connecticut.

  It was a rainy April morning, in fact a deluge. I watched from our second story window—the one Mommy always smoked out of—as one of the workers helped her into the car, as another held an umbrella over her.

  My half-brother was born dead by noon. She gave birth to this still-born whom she named Nicholas. Jesse, one of the young black workers at the residence, took me to see Mommy that afternoon. That nice nurse who’d helped Mommy give birth to me nine years earlier was still there. She was the supervisor now.

  The county paid for Nicholas’s little interment. This made me cry a lot for a couple of days. I was sort of looking forward to having a baby brother.

  At once Mommy descended into a deep depression. She wouldn’t talk or eat, couldn’t sleep or carry out everyday duties. She didn’t even shower. A lot of people at the house gave her a lot of attention, and then after about ten days or so, she snapped out of it. In fact she seemed to become especially happy, almost ecstatic. She was crazy, way off balance. I didn’t feel right around her. Her overflowing elation was not honest, was scary.

  Later that spring—in May—Mommy was given some extra freedom. The new head program director Ms. Harris—an overweight, middle-aged black woman—rewarded her with this because Mommy seemed to have made some progress. It was largely because Mommy implored and argued for it a lot. This was a mistake. Mommy was not ready. Their giving her a few inches of freedom, sort of testing her with time on her own, induced her to take a few yards. She stayed out on two occasions for four or five hours, and on one occasion she stayed out all day. Because she’d returned apparently intact, unbroken, and equipped with distinctive alibis, her absence was overlooked and their too lenient trust in her continued. Their observance of her interaction with me was suspended for a while.

  The relapse came one Friday in early June. Mommy put me on the school bus like other mornings. The bus rolled down Channel Turnpike, making stops and detaining cars and clogging traffic like other mornings. I spent a normal day in school like a hundred and sixty other days, and I returned at two to discover that the residence administration was in dismay at Mommy’s not having returned. The afternoon moved into dusk, and then into darkness. I was sent to bed. I slept. I awoke. Morning. Mommy still hadn’t returned. It wasn’t until that afternoon after school that I was informed that Mommy was in the hospital recovering from an overdose of heroin. She’d been discovered by the police who’d received an anonymous call, and she’d been rescued in some apartment building hallway, unconscious, near death, covered in vomit and urine.

  That evening Molly tried to talk her supervisor out of assigning her to bring me to the hospital to visit Mommy, but there was no dissuasion from this because it was a law. I had to be taken to see my mother.

  This visit certainly didn’t do me any good. Fortunately Molly made sure it was a short one. We parked, walked, and stepped inside the busy lobby, then onto the waxed, gray tiled floors of the Cary County Hospital corridors. I was instantly reminded of my last visit back in November when I’d had my bad asthma attack. It had that distinctive, antibacterial smell. We stopped at the elevators. Molly pressed the up button, and we waited. I could hear it ascending, arriving. The door opened. We stepped after some strangers and moved swiftly upward.

  “I don’t want to be here.”

  “In the elevator?”

  “No.”

  “You mean the hospital, honey?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Me neither, Silas.” Molly grabbed my cheeks, scrunching my lips together. Then she rubbed her pretty white fingers through my crimped hair, smiling. I didn’t know what to expect with Mommy—what she’d look like, what all this meant. I had a presentiment that another change was coming my way again, but I wasn’t sure. I had a secret hope I’d go back to the Sparks’, but I also had a doubt that that would happen since they’d moved away to Ohio.

  The elevator door opened; we stepped out onto the shiny gray again, and then walked, making turns at the ends of brief corridors. Molly found the room. We stepped into the yellow, semi-glossed, soapy smelling room where Mommy lay. I felt a heavy, gloomy disgust in my soul. It was nauseating. It was like I was fighting hatred—for my mother, for the whole world. I wanted to curse out loud. I cursed loudly in my head.

  She lay slightly propped up with a tube in her nose, an intravenous tube bandaged into her arm, the plastic bottle dripping cloudless drugs from the slender stand which erected itself plumb above her like a mortal watcher. Mommy turned her head from looking out the sunny window, strangely searching for us, for some focus, with vacant eyes.

  “Hello Maureen. How are you feeling?” I could hear a slant of disappointment and even disgust in Molly’s voice.

  “Silas,” was all Mommy said, delayed, looking at me, looking away again, then shaking her head. She raised her intravenous bound arm twice. She looked at her hand, clenched a fist, let her arm fall. Her legs lay inert.

  “Hi Mommy. You feel better?”

  Mommy didn’t answer me. She shut her eyes tightly. She gnashed her teeth, emitting a sort of growl. She shook her head back and forth, up and down, almost violently. She said some things that were totally senseless. She seemed lost, so far away, so completely mindless.

  I quickly walked to the big window and looked out. The sky was huge and blue, the island full and green as the crowns of the leaf bearing trees smothered lower roofs and colors of the streets, obscuring the darker blending evergreens which are always so embossed in winter. An uninterrupted horizon line of the Atlantic cut across this picture of the world like a deep blue slice. The underside beneath was a ragged, irregular ruffling; The ocean’s profundity of cerulean cut a trenchant sliver, separating land, earth, Cary Island life from vacant bare sky, somewhat like the way the channel did from New Jersey. It was as if the sharper shapes of structures denoting life on this island broke its formerly smooth, pristine, naturally-structured continuity. The world looked so creatively beautiful from up here.

  I turned and looked back at Mommy. The thought that I’d emerged from her womb here in this hospital nine and a half years earlier crossed my mind, baffling me. The skin on her face looked shiny, oily, almost transparent. Her hair was dirty, matted. From across this yellow room I could see the contour of her skull. It was as if I could see through her sweating skin and behold her skull. Her veins in her forehead were greenish, perceptible; her eyes sunken, dark. I had a bad, unhappy feeling. I wanted to cry, but not there, not then.

  Molly watched me.

  Mommy began to shake her head again. She was so ugly.

  “Silas I think it’s time we left. This is not good,” Molly said.

  I walked toward Molly, reaching out my half-grown, brown hand. Her pretty white hand covered mine, squeezing. I took one last glance at Mommy. She stared vacuously at me with her sunken organs of sight which at one time were lovely eyes of blue, like the Atlantic on that same blue June day. I didn’t know then that this here visit in my ninth year of life was to be th
e last time I’d see Mommy Maureen, my birth mother. It makes me oddly sad to think of it now, but I don’t think it would have then, if I’d known it was to be the last.

  TEN

  THE HOLLOW

  If I could have scaled ten feet of the craggy trunk, the first crotch of the big swamp maple would have furnished me with a limb that reached parallel with the ground—some footing I could stand on—and then, not far above, tributaries of limbs and smaller forks, occasions for climbing higher; or outward onto buoyant, thinner ends of limbs; uncertain springy regions, just for the thrill. This tree was a colossal shell of green, with still leaves full of vigor, no dead branches. It was a place where the cerulean-blue, gray, white, or starry sky of that June was hidden by shadows and green, totally.

  I kept trying to scale this trunk. I tried repeatedly, clutching the gnarly ridges; hugging; squeezing with my knees and thighs; pressing the insteps of my new, county provided, white sneakers against it; plastering all of me—even my cheek and temple—attempting to walk, mount, pull, shimmy my thin frame up like a caterpillar—upward—two, three, four feet up—upward. I then slid suddenly, repeatedly, down to the ground. Three steps up, three steps down—over and over. Opposing spirits of spite and failure seemed to toil against me. Frustration. I tried—typically boyishly—for an hour, never able to really get off the ground, never able to ascend.

  This scene metaphorically sketched my nine years of life. “I’ll try this again tomorrow,” I said to myself, backing away from the trunk, looking up into its wonderful green canopy.

  I thought about what Mr. Kemp my gym teacher had said to me on the last day of school, his hand on my shoulder: “Sometimes we get flat tires in life Silas. We just have to fix em!”

  “Okay Mr. Kemp.”

  He’d heard that I would have to repeat third grade because of my poor progress. He’d come to me, thinking maybe this had bothered me. It hadn’t. I’d understood what he meant.

  I wonder now if he perceived the general attitude among some teachers toward types like me, the attitude that I was a “case,” a lost cause, one whom a teacher with so many other students with potential shouldn’t go too far out of the way for, since I didn’t hold as much hope. I’m sure he’d noticed that some other teachers often redirected attention to kids who had more potentiality.

  “It’s just a reality of living,” he’d said, his lips lifting and spreading with eye-catching elasticity—all over his open face—with his serious yet friendly stare. He’d always been profoundly philosophical in such an uncomplicated way, I remember. “Expect flat tires in life son!”

  “Okay Mr. Kemp.” I did expect them, but felt that I had too many, and I had them in the rain and snow, and I rode with worn treads, and I grew suspicious that worse and longer breakdowns were coming.

  “You have a lot of talent kid. You’re a good athlete. Stay involved Silas. I’m sure we’ll be readin about you in the city papers in seven or eight years.”

  “Okay Mr. Kemp. Thanks Mr. Kemp.”

  Looking up into this tree I thought of Mr. Kemp. The thought alone somehow brought me a sentiment of security. His recent influence was something I could lean on, even knowing I wouldn’t be going back to Channel Elementary anymore. As I struggled to climb this tree, I imagined Mr. Kemp watched, impressed.

  This new place dipped a couple of miles away from the Atlantic, enclosed in the island’s interior; yet no sector on this island lay far enough away that smells of tides or cries of gulls couldn’t perforate. This was Horse Hollow, near Cary Island’s center, slightly below sea level, a place where horses had traipsed, slept, and been tended on farms only seventy years earlier, before these suburbs had chased them away. Old black and white photos within glass preserving frames in the public library galloped residents into the past. Of course, the hollow had once been rural, picturesque; but now it was common and clangorous like most of the island. This shallow hollow provided for tarns and ponds, made ground more sodden, a haven for tupelos, swamp cedars, and these swamp maples. Rainy days made streets streams, basements flood, and pumps pump. This condition had never kept the builders from building; however, and never dissuaded the gaping urban sprawl from swallowing the fields, digesting the stables, and settling in the low mud.

  I stepped away from the tree, exhausted, and I sat on the bottom step of the stoop. This was where I lived now, on Mare Trail, a people-noisy lane, with a small tarn across the street where peepers choired all night, where cattails hid the view of water, where litter, old tires, rusted shopping carts, and other junk were strewn. I lived behind this big swamp maple in a slender seventy-year-old townhouse which looked too much like all the others on the street and neighboring streets. I lived with the O’Neils, Kevin and Martha, who were in their fifties; and their twenty-eight-year-old unmarried daughter Karen; with her two children, five-year-old Edwin and his four-year-old half-sister Rosie. Neither of these kids knew his or her father.

  “What are you doing Silas?” Mrs. O’Neil said from behind the screen door, behind me.

  “Just climbin.”

  “Don’t get hurt.”

  “I won’t.” I looked back quickly. Her thin little frame, heavy eyes, and short gray hair all seemed smudged by the blurring screen. This is how her personality always seemed to me—indistinct, blurry. She kept her distance, avoiding nearness and knowing me.

  I slept downstairs in the bottom bunk beneath Edwin, and I kept my clothes in the bottom three drawers of his big bureau. This was my settlement for now. I felt like a bottom dwelling flounder now, especially this blue June day, having strived to ascend this trunk.

  This arrangement was understood to be temporary, until the agency found a “permanent” place for me—maybe even a family who’d adopt me. Sometime in the summer they were going to have an adoption party, an affair where a bunch of us older kids got dressed up and had a dinner while potential parents came to observe, sort of shop for a child, and then pick one they liked.

  My mother’s rights were being terminated at this point. Imagine, it took nine and a half years, and now finally the system began to get things going. Besides this, Mommy and Daddy Sparks were communicating with the agency at this time, trying to adopt me. I’d received a letter from Mommy Lucinda which I always kept with me in my pocket, and often took out, unfolded, read, folded again. In just a week it had softened like a tissue and become gray and soiled from crumpling.

  Dear Silas,

  We all miss you so much, and we pray for you every day! We’re still working on getting you here with us. We don’t know what will happen, but we have to trust Jesus, Silas. He knows best. The court in New York there is not permitting this adoption because things are still technically unsettled with Mommy Maureen, and besides that, you are the property of New York State, not Ohio. That makes things tricky. They say laws are laws, and they are to be complied with. Let’s just keep praying. He has a wonderful plan, no matter what. Right? We are so busy with the new church. Justin has made a couple of new friends, and they are very nice boys. He will write to you soon. We love you, Silas.

  Love, Mommy Lucinda

  It was quite ironic. I loved to read this, even though I didn’t know what a couple of the words meant, and even though it made my heart ache every time.

  These O’Neils did a lot of this temporary housing for foster kids. It seemed like they were running a sort of hotel rather than a home. The bed, the bath, the meals, the drawers, and the rules were the extent of bonding. No hugs, no kisses, no pats on the back, no yells, and no lessons. All temporary dealings, no tent stakes hammered.

  I felt so contiguously alone, unloved, and angry in those days that summer. I was partly afraid and partly tired of making new friends in a new neighborhood. At night time I had a hard time falling asleep, especially since it was hot down there in the hollow. It was like the nice ocean breezes blew above, and I was down in this valley-like hole where the air was stagnant and summer-thick. I’d move around into varied positions on the bed, tryin
g to find cool spots on the sheets, listening to peepers and crickets. My asthma was acting up, and so was my eczema. I wheezed and chafed. I regressed back to thumb sucking, and it became more of a compulsion the more I felt lonely and scared. Boy, was I a case. There I lay, nine and a half years old, in a strange place where the people barely talked to me, sucking my thumb; scratching my chapped, crusty skin; trying to breathe, night after night.

  I made some halfhearted attempts at befriending five-year-old Edwin, but he was just a little kid, often out with his mother, and he really was sort of too young for me. In fact, I found that he was sort of babyish, even for a five-year-old. He was an annoying little kid, the kind who’d make me repeat myself two or three times whenever I said something to him.

  “Wanna go to the tarn Edwin?”

  “What?”

  “Wanna go play at the tarn?”

  “Ha?”

  “Wanna go to the tarn? Wanna go to the tarn?” I got loud.

  “No!” He got loud.

  This sort of thing was exasperating. Sometimes he’d mumble for minutes and I didn’t even realize he was talking to me. I thought he was talking to himself. I didn’t really like being around him. He was dull, and a bit of a brat. It wasn’t his fault, but he was just that way. He loved television, science fiction stuff, and toys. What really bothered me was that he always helped himself to my things, looking around in my drawers and stuff. But if I ever touched his stuff, he’d have a fit, crying; and I’d get spoken to about it by Mrs. O’Neil who, by the way, didn’t want me to call her Mom or Mommy. I didn’t care much about that. Whenever Edwin was out with his mother Karen (That’s what I called her), Mrs. O’Neil would watch me.

  I spent a lot of time just hanging around the front yard under that tree, venting my anger by trying to climb the stupid thing, sometimes for hours. I was an enraged little person, and I was a lonesome little person too. I spent a lot of time talking to imaginary friends, imaginary brothers, sisters, an imaginary dad, an imaginary mom. As I look back I can realize that I really started to go a little crazy that summer. I’d talk to my hands, talk to the tree, and once I talked to a baloon, as though it had a personality. I never gave these friends names though. I remember sitting on the front porch one very oppressive day, feeling the heavy, cranky grief of confusion and loneliness in my chest. I smothered my crusty, itchy, eczema blotched face into my hands and cried, and cried, and cried; and that must have gone on for fifteen minutes. No one noticed. But rather than talking to these imaginary beings, I talked to God; and I talked without an iota of resentment. I simply cried for help. I referred to Him as the God that Mommy and Daddy Sparks believed. That was quite a desperate cry I spilled out that hazy afternoon, with a very simple monologue. It really did help me get through that day.