Silas Dillon of Cary County

by Clifford Schrage

  “What does it a look like, a-Rosa? I’m-a dancing. I’m-a dancing in the chair, Rosa. I thought-a I do a dance in the chair, Rosa Rocco! Only I need-a the Lawrence Welk on. What-a you think I do in the chair? The chair a-broke on me and now I’m-a stuck.” He pulled and pried, and he couldn’t free himself from the chair. It seemed like his flesh just swallowed up the frame, concealing it, bulging shapelessly all around it.

  Mama walked behind him, and with a very serious, unamused expression she pulled the chair, yanking, twisting. Papa’s big body was yanked back, shoved forward, back, forward… in unison. They twirled around three times. Peter, Anthony, and I saw his rear and his head three times as Mama tried to free him, as they spun. We were mesmerized in alarming, silent, hysterical laughter in the pool.

  “What-a you do, Rosa! Stop! Stop!” he shouted. Suddenly, with one final yank from Mama behind him, Papa stumbled and fell, shouting as he fell to his side on the grass. Now he couldn’t get up, still stuck in this position. He began to laugh uproariously with a loud coughing and gasping. It wasn’t until he laughed that we felt free to laugh out loud as well.

  Peter their son came out now. “What is going on out here?”

  Mama said something in Italian, exasperated. Peter (Mr. Rocco) began to laugh too now. He dropped to his knees beside his gigantic father to see how he might be freed, looking, shaking his head in disbelief. “What if we just turn you up and let you stay in the chair until after you eat Pop. Then we’ll get you out,” he said jokingly.

  “I’ll be fat more, Peter. No!” He laughed loudly again.

  Well, after thinking awhile, scratching his head and looking down at his hairy father on the grass, Mr. Peter Rocco got an idea. He went into the house and returned with a bottle of olive oil. Once he and Mama got Papa to his feet again, he poured the oil all about Papa’s flesh and the immersed, hidden frame of the chair. All the while laughing together as they wriggled, writhed, tugged, and twisted this flimsy chair from Papa’s loose corpulence. After about ten minutes of this contest, the chair that was now bent and crooked, slid free, defeated; and everyone with laughter applauded. We talked about this all the next week, and all that joviality made me feel like I belonged here, in a lonesome sort of way.

  The next Saturday came and Molly arrived in the morning to pick me up for that adoption party. I had my best clothes on as she’d told me to, but I couldn’t get too excited about this; I guess because I was feeling so comfortable at the Roccos’. School had begun on Wednesday (I was in third grade again) and everything was going fine so far in the classroom. The work was coming easy, probably because it was the second time around for me.

  When we got to the orphanage I had this sad recollection from when I was two, that day with all the flies. It was bizarre the way some of it came back to me, and still sticks with me. Anyhow, tables were all set for a dinner; and there were toys and games in the adjoining room where all of us different aged kids could play and socialize while these possible parents would be observing us.

  This all took a couple of hours. I didn’t know what to expect, having this inner fear that as these adults spent time with all of us, they’d pick the kids they wanted and take them, immediately departing with them, leaving a small residue, of which I’d be a part of. I imagined I’d feel like the kid at the park or in gym class who was of the last to be picked by the choosing captains, left standing isolated and fatigued with that lonely sense of incompetence and rejection, leaning against the chain-link fence or the matted gymnasium wall, looking down at his sneakers, working hard to conceal any of the enormous pain he was feeling. I’ll have to admit that as some of those people observed me, I felt like a piece of merchandise or animal on display—like a car, stereo, clothes, puppy, appliance or something to be rated for value.

  When Molly drove me back home (to the Roccos’) we had another one of our talks.

  “Well I guess no one wanted any of us this year.”

  “What makes you say so Silas?”

  “Well I didn’t see no one pick no one.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Well no one left or nothin’.”

  “Oh well that’s not how it works Silas. It’s not like they’re getting a pair of shoes at the store. That’s not the way it works.”

  “It doesn’t?”

  “No. It doesn’t work that way, kiddo.”

  “How’s it work then?”

  “Well, if someone thinks a child would be right in his home, he inquires. They investigate a little, you know—find out a little about the child and see if the child would be right with them or not. Then they spend a little more time with the child, maybe take him, if he’s available—you know—in between foster homes, without a foster home, into their home. You know it has to be right. It’s hard Silas. This is hard business—not that it’s business—but it’s hard. A lot of these kids are hoping to find parents that will love them and be committed to them, and I’m the first to admit that these sorts of people are the hard ones to find out there in the world.”

  “Why?” I asked, looking down at my chafed, red, eczema irritated arms, wondering, actually somewhat assured, about people not wanting a kid with nasty skin.

  “Why?”

  “Yeah, why? Why are no people worried about no kids Molly?”

  Molly thought hard as she drove late that cloudy September evening. She thought hard about my question, and about how she could answer me so I could go on with some strength.

  “Why don’t grown-ups help kids like me too much? They care about stuff that’s not so important all the time.” I intently stared at Molly’s face. It seemed to me that she strained, and then, as she watched the road that stretched with is starts and stops before her, I could perceive a glimmering, faint light of resolution cross her expressive, beautiful face. It was an expression of decisiveness, as though she decided to just tell me the truth plainly, even if it hurt me, understanding that its pain would at length—finally free me.

  “The reason is because people are selfish, Silas. People are concerned about their own pursuits and concerns.”

  “What’s pursuits?”

  “What they want. What makes them happy. Things they go after and want in life. A lot of people in our country here believe other things matter, when they really don’t. I don’t want you believing that you’re not going to get into a nice home Silas. God really has a plan for your life, even if people don’t. Someday things are going to turn for you. I just know it. But people really need to hear about boys like you. And for now, as far as you go you just have to trust. I know he cares about you. Hold on, kiddo, you hear me?” Molly reached her pretty hand and touched my encrusted face; then she patted my leg.

  “Yeah.”

  The Roccos had a certain tremendous ‘living room.’ It was the first room by the front entrance foyer at the landing of the exquisite, split staircase. This room had some beautiful Mediterranean furniture; and some other fine things like lamps, figurines incased in glass cabinets, and vases. We weren’t allowed in this museum-like room; in fact, it was roped off, and even the rope was plushy and velvety! Well one afternoon that first week when Papa was at the restaurant and Mama was in the basement doing laundry, I sneaked under the rope and went inside this room that no one, except for Mama when she dusted, ever entered; and I looked around at the neat sacred things, opened some empty forbidden drawers and cabinet doors, walked around on the soft pink carpeting, and sat on the silken sofa which was protectively enclosed in durable transparent plastic.

  During that brief exploration, Anthony came down the stairs; and before fully descending, noticing me, he stopped and watched in disbelief. As soon as I noticed him as he sat on a step gaping between two white rails with his hands over his head on the banister and his big face between his arms, and as soon as our eyes met, he continued descending and on his way. A few minutes later Mama came up. Seeing me exiting the room under the rope, she began to holler—in Italian—pointing at the room, at my face,
with her finger nearly touching my nose. I didn’t understand a single word she said, but I fully seized the message.

  I had been suspecting that Anthony, this chubby eleven-year-old foster child, was moderately jealous of me, especially since the Roccos had given me that little welcoming party; and now I was sure of it: he was a tattletale, a rat fink. To him, I was someone who’d crept in and perhaps stolen some attention and whatever else (in his mind) away from him in this household. He was a year older, about six inches taller, and thirty pounds heavier than I, and he could have been more of a bully, but he wasn’t; in fact he was sometimes peculiarly afraid of me, or if not afraid of me, just afraid—generally fearful. He was always squealing on me for little stupid things, like the way I’d leave the bathroom, or for not making my bed, or for not putting my bike away in the garage (the Roccos bought me a nice new bike to replace the one that got stolen in the park that evening) and leaving it on the driveway. Always after he squealed, he stayed far away from me, didn’t talk to me, avoided me; and I’m certain now that it was because of fear. Like all of us foster kids, he had his baggage that he carried around and didn’t know what to do with. His biological father was in the state prison for murdering someone, and his mother got remarried, discarding him.

  Anyway, these “scandals” he snitched about were little transgressions that the Roccos didn’t bother me about, but they never dissuaded Anthony from being the informant. They probably had a history of my mischiefs, like my crossing the bridge into New Jersey, the floating adrift down the channel in the drum, the horrible slaying of that dog, the crashing of the bathroom wall tiles and towel rack (maybe not), and the array of things that happened in school. Maybe they were on the lookout for potential hazards; I don’t know, but I do know that Anthony was very insecure, probably as insecure as I was; but he unleashed his insecurities in mean, treacherous ways.

  My own anxious insecurity aroused me toward this perpetual quest for acceptance, almost at any cost. Because Anthony was a year older and had been established in the Rocco home longer, and even though he made his furtive opposition toward me seeable, his acceptance was something I recurrently trailed. I wanted to be his pal!

  Two months expired. Whatever leaves hadn’t fallen from the trees were no longer green, but were yellow and brown and fading. It was October 29, Saturday, and Mr. Rocco drove me to a very pleasing, high-ceilinged, varnished church where Robert McNeil was marrying Molly Fresh, where I was going to be a ringbearer. I was all dressed up, and I was excited. Because I was small for a ten-year-old, my bearing the rings to the altar appeared not that unusual. Molly’s dad, Mr. Fresh, showed me what to do. When he signaled, I simply walked, balancing these rings on this shiny rayon pillow, and I smiled at smiling strangers as I made my direct course toward Molly and Bob.

  After the church ceremony, I got to ride in one of the limousines to the catering hall. What a fancy car, and what an elegant place! I was seated at a table with two other foster kids (older girls) and some old school friends of Bob’s. There was nothing enthralling happening there, so except for when I ate, I spent all my time behind the long bride’s table beside Molly where the big cake stood. I kept trying to talk with her, and she seemed not to mind. I found it fascinating watching up close when after everyone clinked their glasses every once in a while, Molly and Bob kissed very seriously and passionately. After they kissed, they smiled, because people kept taking their picture. I got in a lot of pictures, even the professional photographer’s shots. Molly sent me a few of them too. There they were, smooching away with their eyes shut, with me behind them, staring.

  We looked great together, the three of us—me and Bob with our deluxe black tuxedos, and Molly in her angelic white. It sort of looked like I was their kid or something. To be perfectly honest, I imagined that I was their kid all that day. I imagined that they were my steady parents—that Bob was my dad, Molly was my mom, and we were a happy family. The thought of having a mother like Molly had always been a fine way for me to escape the pains of those foster care years. Mama Rocco got me a little frame to put one of the pictures in. I kept it right by my bedside and always looked at it—Bob, Molly, and me all smiling and centered and looking right at the camera.

  A few weeks later, on the day after Thanksgiving, Anthony, Peter, and I spent the afternoon playing football in the yard. It was a frigid windy day, the kind where the sun tries to pry through packed clouds, piercing through fissures now and then with blazing brightness. Layers of undulating clouds swept over the island, soaring out over the thin strip of the Atlantic’s distant horizon which spun its color from sapphire to charcoal as the sun fluttered in and out. The high autumnal suburb was full of hue and motion: Flocking clusters of starlings and red-winged black birds, seemingly aimless in their wandering and playful touring—like lost souls—kept gathering and forming their shifting shapes, lifting from trees to air, then falling to trees again. Big geese squawked and honked across the island like sent spirits brimming with mission. Tree limbs whipped one another, uttering, whispering.

  The tips of our ears and fingers grew cold; so we went inside the big shed beside the cedars in the corner of the deep yard. The things inside, especially where Papa’s work bench was, lured us boys. We plugged in his drill motors, inserting bits, and boring holes through wood scraps. We plugged in his circular saw and pulled its trigger, titillated by the power and the whining sound. We tried in vain to light the welding torch. We thoroughly perused a musty, fifteen year old pornographic magazine that Papa thought was well hidden, or forgot about. We opened and sampled cans of beer from his mini refrigerator.

  “Hey, let’s light the grill; that’ll get us warm,” Anthony said.

  Peter and I looked at it buried under garden hoses and leave rakes.

  “We don’t got no charcoal,” Peter said.

  “Yes we do. Right there.”

  “Where?”

  “Right under it, see? What’re ya, blind?”

  I leaned, looking, seeing.

  “Get it out,” Anthony commanded.

  I pulled the bag out, shaking it, opening, looking in.

  “Get those hoses off,” Anthony said.

  Peter removed the rakes, standing them up in a corner as I shoved the entangled, heavy hoses back behind the barbecue. Anthony lifted the grill cover with one hand, then the grid with the other.

  “Pour ’em in! Go ahead Silas! Pour ’em in! Pour the bag in!” Anthony said this with his typically demanding, impatient manner, looking at me with his depressed brown eyes, with his nose running, with the cover and grid aloft in his fleshy hands like they were cymbals and he were ready to play and march right there in his thick new coat in the shed.

  As he said this, something like a governor in my conscience urged me, telling me not to; but the dense pressure of Anthony was just too much. I poured, emptying the pillow shaped chunks of dark, dusty charcoal, its dusty scent filling the chilly air of the shed with a smell of summer.

  “Don’t worry Silas. It’s just a barbecue. People do it all the time. Here’s the fluid.”

  I took the bottle, looked at it, saw the word flammable in red, looked at Anthony’s face which demanded, “Do it!” without using words. His impatient, unquiet glare made me hesitate.

  Peter had climbed onto the bench, kneeling and poking around on a shelf where he found a box of matches. He kept shaking them like they were candies or something. “Here. Here,” he said, reaching, handing them to me.

  “I put the box on the bench.”

  There was silence.

  “Come on, my hands ’re cold, Silas. Pour that stuff on the coals! Just flip up that top there. Come on!” Anthony stood there in his width, rubbing his pudgy hands and fingers together. He was so lazy, and so pushy.

  I flipped the top up and turned the container over, squeezing, squirting, dousing. They both had grins in their excitement while I began to feel both recklessness and fear in the pit of my gut. I kept squirting until half the contents were emptied. �
��That’s good. That’s enough! That’s good, Silas!” Anthony instructed. The smell was as fixed as turpentine. The coals were saturated. I looked at both Anthony and Peter, and I was quiet. Peter again handed me the box of matches. Whatever made us think we wouldn’t be smoked out of there with such a low ceiling and without vents is beyond my comprehension now. I had this thrilled, terrified grin on my face. I struck a match, threw it onto the little black pillows of coal. The fire spread, slowly.

  “Put more on. More fluid!” Anthony said.

  I raised the container and squirted again. Suddenly an inferno blazed. Instinct sent the three of us backward. The inside of the shed remained luminous as the igniting, consuming sound of fire swarmed our ears. Heat gusted onto our faces like wind. We all hollered “Whoa!” At once flames singed and scorched the low plywood ceiling and the wall. We looked for water. There was none. The hose that in season is connected to the outdoor faucet was now out of reach, abreast of the blaze. Small flares sprang on the wall, the mower, shovel and rake handles, stains where I carelessly splashed fluid as I doused the coals. We all coughed in our panic as inky smoke fumes charred our throats and lungs. Within moments flames attached themselves like tentacles onto the dry adjacent wall. Before long we could hear the distinct, familiar sound of crackling wood as we exited, choking.

  For a minute we didn’t know what to do as we just stood hacking, watching the window panes glowing orange-yellow and puffs of smoke venting from the open door and slender gaps. We backed away.

  Anthony ran to the house, and Peter and I watched as his big slow bulk pushed forward. I began to get nervous. Soon Mama came out, running, screaming in Italian, pulling Peter and me farther from the shed, commanding us to move up to the house. She assaulted her way back inside for the phone.

  From behind the sliding glass doors we all watched. Within ten or fifteen minutes, flames and blasts of smoke bathed the whole shed. The sure sound of the fire department’s sirens and the creeping advance of fire trucks screamed. This was all so fabulously beyond belief to me. It was like television. The fire kept burning, wasting Papa’s tools, devices, lusts, everything. We could hear what sounded like small explosions from within the consuming shed—the sounds of igniting cans of paints and solvents. A sudden sunburst brought dark color to the leaning, wind-chopped column of smoke which, at this windy hillcrest, I presumed could be seen from all of Cary Island, even Bay Ridge, Brooklyn; South Street in Manhattan; and Jersey. All the while the brown football hunkered alone on the autumn lawn like a witness.