Silas Dillon of Cary County

by Clifford Schrage

  For the first time since all the esteem-building jubilation of activity had come to me when school started in September, I seriously prayed, “God, I wanna live in a normal home! God, I wanna stay at this school! Please, God! Please, God! Please, God…” I screamed within myself with frantic, half demanding, half pleading cries, louder than I had in all my fourteen years. I gnashed my teeth with rabid anguish. “Please, God!”

  There was no reply.

  May was plagued with two more hairy, smelly, inebriated, late-night visitations from Simon Heller. I grew hateful. I felt trapped, owned, blackmailed. Somehow I mentally, physically, and emotionally seemed to endure this torture, to survive, to emerge seemingly unimpaired, “safe.” Like a primate’s stone, he held the persuasive threat of taking away my wonderful world of friends, popularity, Abby, and success quietly above me, and he did it with calm, demented muteness. I’m persuaded that his violence was at least half motivated by jealousy. He was jealous of me for some reason, and jealousy, when aimed from a position of control, always cages its mark, depriving it of liberty.

  On one rainy May Saturday morning, I believe some fear had gotten the best of him. “I got two Yankee tickets, Silas,” he said from the kitchen, the way he’d spoken to me months earlier.

  I was surprised that he spoke to me. There had been absolutely no conversation since that first monstrous violation. “No thanks,” was all I said, turning on the TV in the adjoining living room.

  He walked in, approaching, arms swinging from elbows. I hadn’t looked at his face in weeks, and still refused to. He held out a fifty-dollar bill. I looked at it, at his hairy hand, his filthy long finger-nails. “Here’s some spending money, kid. You must need some spending money these days,” he said.

  I didn’t know what to do. I clicked the remote control, stared at the television. Deafening volume exploded out as the weather reporter stood before a map of New York City, Cary Island, New Jersey, and Long Island, forecasting clearing skies. I clicked the volume down.

  “Take it. Go ahead. Take it.”

  I grabbed it, because I did need it. I wanted it. It was apportioned by the county as mine anyhow, but it was supposed to be through Mrs. Heller, the county-certified foster parent. The county “took care” of me. But Simon acted as if it were he who did me a favor. Somehow I sensed I had some power now, though. I wasn’t aware of it enough to define it at the time. For some time he’d had this psychological stronghold on me, but now I felt I escaped some. Now I suddenly and strangely felt strong. It was I who now had some inexplicable psychological lift. This fifty-dollar bill wasn’t payment for my abandoning to his three lewd intrusions, I felt, but was more of a bribe. Somehow some demon of fear began triumphing over him. I could smell fear, coupled maybe with guilt, in his voice. Of course, I still couldn’t report him because I’d be moved, and because of that repressive shame; but he didn’t know what I was about. He manifested this cowering obsequiousness. Something had him scared. I felt he was breaking open.

  “Why don’t ya stop acting so giving! I’m supposed to get some money anyhow!” I said.

  He just stood there, then stepped away. He didn’t know what to say to that.

  The freshman league’s baseball season ended, and on that first Saturday, late in the afternoon in early June, Molly paid me a visit. She’d called the night before. It was so nice to see her. I didn’t realize how much I’d missed her until I saw her face and hugged her. She was the only one who had actually stuck with me, who seemed to understand me, who didn’t recoil from me because of my outbursts, my repellent skin, my biracial-ness, or any of my other many flaws or quirks. I was entirely inoffensive to Molly, ever since I’d been two when we’d first met, when she’d first been assigned to me and picked me up at the Maddens’. She continued being a friend to me, and it was twelve years now.

  I stood with her on that little patch of grass in the front of the house. I hated the thought of her setting foot inside where Simon inhabited, where Simon was probably browsing into the dregs in his computer. It was like inviting an angel into hell, I thought. The whole day had been a gorgeous, dazzling, breezy one. Petals from towering blossoms of locust trees kept falling like snow with each delicate gust, their fragrance robust and luscious in the air. I noticed a few white petals settle into Molly’s lovely locks of brown hair.

  “Guess what, Silas.”

  “What?”

  “Bob and I put a deposit on a house here on Cary Island.”

  “Ya did?”

  “Yep!”

  “Ya buyin’ a house here?”

  “Yeah, we did, kiddo.”

  “Ya mean ya movin’ outa Manhattan? Ya movin’ back here again?”

  “We are. In fact, it’s only nine or ten blocks from here. Right on Providence Road.” She smiled, obviously happy about it all. “Isn’t that great!”

  “I’ll say it’s great!” I smiled. I suddenly felt inexplicably secure. Molly would be right by me, right in the more affluent section around this west end of the island, close enough for me to walk and see her. “Can I see it?”

  “Yeah, why not. We can’t go in now, but I’ll show you the outside.”

  “Awright!” I shouted.

  We moved toward her new car. “You better first go tell Mrs. Heller. Tell her you’ll be right back.”

  I ran up the stoop. “Mrs. Heller!” I shouted with only my head in the door. “I’m going with Molly to see her new house! Be right back!”

  I could hear from the muffled upstairs her faint “Okay.”

  I vaulted off the stoop, excited, dashing to Molly’s car. I opened, got seated, fastening my belt, glancing out the window at the Hellers’ house, up at Simon’s window. Sure enough, there was Simon’s balding, goateed face snooping, meddlesome, peering out sinisterly, like Dickens’ Uriah Heep peering out at David Copperfield, like Stowe’s Legree staring down Uncle Tom. I looked ahead, disgusted. Molly drove.

  The house was exquisite, charming, well groomed. It stood three stories tall, with a dormered garret, primly in white-painted brick on a corner lot. It stood so admirably and shaded. Two tremendous elm trees like angelic beings stretched their arms above it, their trunks planted like massive pillars, rooted immovably in the stony Cary Island ground. I could recall having noticed that house in the past, passing it from time to time in my back-seat travels, in my treks from foster home to foster home. I gazed in wonder. Its antique, high-glossed, forest-green door and old-fashioned, hinged shutters against the glossy white brick made the whole setting shine, enchanting. High, courtly stockade crowned with lattice enclosed the backyard. I tried to see. “Is there a pool back there?”

  “Yes, Mister Silas. In-ground, with more lawn to spare too.”

  I looked at her with excited eyes. We both grinned. I thought of the Roccos’ yard and their pool. “Man, this is so nice! You’re lucky!”

  Molly laughed. She seemed so happy, having been melancholy for so long because of her miscarriages.

  “Lawyers must make lots a money! This is a mansion!”

  Molly laughed again. “Not quite, Silas! Plenty of room though.” She kept laughing, looking at the place with me, at the fastidious landscaping, the property that lolled more spaciously than others in that refined neighborhood, onto the emerald-green turf that seemed to rouse as the shade kept shifting, as the bluster of air gently gusted through the elms. “Bob does do good, kiddo!”

  “He sure does!”

  “He pays a price for it though—a lot of hard work and hours. I never see him.”

  “I can come over sometimes?”

  “Of course, silly!”

  I was so happy for Molly, and for me. “I got a girlfriend, Molly! Abby! Can I bring her to meet you?”

  “A girlfriend, ha? How sweet! But I thought I was your girlfriend, kiddo?” She laughed.

  “No, you got Bob. When I was little you were my girlfriend, right?” I laughed. I felt momentarily happy, closing off my existence at the Hellers’.

  “
Yep, those were the days, Silas.”

  “Yeah, now we’re just regular friends, right? Now you’re my big sister.”

  “That sounds right, kiddo!”

  Silence lasted a few moments.

  “Aren’t you a little young for girlfriends, Silas?”

  “You’re too old for me anyway,” I smiled.

  “Hey!” she laughed, hitting my arm playfully with the back of her hand.

  I hit her back, and we both laughed.

  “I’m only thirty-four, mister! That’s not old!”

  “Well, I’m just fourteen!” I laughed. “Why you think I’m too young for a girlfriend?”

  She smiled. “Oh, you don’t want to rush these things, kiddo. I don’t wanna see you give your heart away and get hurt.”

  “Abby won’t hurt me,” I said, assured in my naiveté.

  “I don’t know. Girls can be heartbreakers you know.”

  “Sandra thinks Abby’s good for me for a girlfriend!”

  “Well, Abby must be an awfully nice girl. She certainly has good taste!” Molly pushed my Yankee cap down over my eyes the same way she used to when I was younger.

  I smiled, resetting it on my head the way I liked it. “When ya gonna get to move in the house, Moll?”

  “Oh, I think maybe a month. Closing’s in a month. Everything seems to going along smoothly.”

  “That’s good.”

  We drove back to the Hellers’ and parked out front and talked some more in Molly’s car, and then we separated. I was so electrified about Molly moving close. This was the best news in a long time.

  When I stepped out of the car I glanced up again, and sure enough, Simon was peeking out at us. I don’t think he knew I noticed. Boy, he annoyed me. When I entered the house I turned on the television and surfed through the channels. Nothing much was on. Immediately Simon came down the stairs. It sounded like a gorilla coming down. I wouldn’t look at him.

  “Hey, who was that female you were talkin’ to and drove off with?”

  I hated his nosiness. “Molly.” I hated the way he referred to her as “that female,” like she was an animal.

  “Well who’s Molly?”

  I shrugged my shoulder, pretending to be completely detached from his inquiring and disinterested in informing him. “Molly’s Molly.” I kept standing there, surfing through the channels with the remote control, totally removed from my attention to what was on television that morning, yet pretending to be interested, and pretending to be removed from Simon, while actually I was absorbed with despising him, with wanting to snub him. I really hated him.

  “Molly’s Molly, ha? And Silas is Silas, right?”

  “And Simon is Simon.” I shrugged, making no eye contact with him. I felt so strongly secure since I knew Molly was moving nearby. He stood in front of me, between me and the television. I looked at his big animal hands as they hung from his wrists and elbows, their long claw-like nails. I sat, clicked off the television, and grabbed a magazine. Mrs. Heller came down the stairs carrying her handbag, wearing lipstick, jingling keys.

  “Where ya goin’?” Simon asked.

  “Shopping. To the mall, then the supermarket.” She spoke matter-of-factly, hurriedly, opening the front door, her loose and wrinkled skin bouncing.

  “I gotta go too—got an interview—a shop in Brooklyn.”

  “Well, that’s good,” she said. “Maybe you’ll get back to doing something with your time—make something of your life. Gotta do something!”

  “Gotta shut your mouth, that’s for sure.”

  The icy meanness between them was so usual that both of them rarely reacted with shock to these noxious comments. She withdrew, drove away. Moments later he found his keys, stepped out, and drove away. I assumed he was off to Brooklyn for that job interview. I was relieved. I went into the kitchen and helped myself to some cold cuts and olives and ice cream. Then I decided to take advantage of an empty house and take a shower. I went upstairs and did just that.

  When I finished I went into my room to dry. Unexpectedly I found Simon standing there in the open doorway. My heart dropped, startled. I yelled. “God, you scared me! Don’t do that! Why ya gotta creep around like that?” I said, with my towel wrapped around my waist, dripping.

  He kept gawking at me, not responding. Finally, he said, “I can creep around however I want, pal. You seem to forget it’s my house, right?” He shrugged his shoulders, bobbing his heavy head, wearing this taunting grin, and then he stepped in.

  “Don’t come in here,” I said.

  “I guess you didn’t hear me right, did ya, Silas ol’ boy! This is my place. It’s not your place!” He pointed at me with two extended, hairy, primate fingers, with an incensed, insulted look on his unshaven face.

  “No! I guess you didn’t hear me right! I said don’t come in here!” I shouted now.

  “Hey, take it easy!”

  “I’m getting’ dressed. Get outa my room!”

  Seconds passed. I looked into his depraved eyes. He said nothing.

  “Please!” I stepped back toward my window. Shower water continued dripping.

  He took another step, looking at my frame—up, down. “Hey, you’re gettin’ bigger up on your chest and shoulders, bud. Them weights a mine must be workin’!”

  “Get outa here, Simon, I mean it! I don’t want you in here! I’m getting’ dressed! Look, I said please!”

  “Hey, why are you gonna get all bent outa shape, bud?”

  “I don’t care if it’s your house. It’s your mother’s house anyway. Get outa here!” I was louder. I was desperate. My tone was tinged with rage, my heart was filled with rage.

  Simon looked even madder now. Somehow he still held that insulted look, that phony ‘after all I did for you,’ look, cognizant that he didn’t own the place, and that his mother whom he hated owned it, and that he was his mother’s twenty-four-year-old boy who still lived home with her, unemployed, and that I was just some fourteen year old foster kid who countered him, challenging and defying him, one he wanted to have his degenerate animal way with. He concentrated about how to react. We both waited, suspended in his dazed indecision. After a long time he finally took two more steps toward me. I was not going to put up with this. I lunged back, nearly stumbling, clasping more tightly my towel at my waist in my closed fist. Looking, I noticed that my thirty-two-inch bat, my Louisville Slugger, stood in the corner, leaning upside-down against the wall, with all its marks and nicks from hits and fouls, with its fat end upright, with handsome, inanimate personality. Like my baseball glove, it had become a comrade. For days now, since baseball had ended, it just stood there somewhat providentially, that way, intact. I grabbed it, held it up, gripping the thick end.

  “You gotta be kiddin’ me, kid!”

  “I’ll hit ya with it! I will! I’ll slam ya!” My heart thumped, and I could feel every pounding throb. I could feel thick, blazing rage in my system, like an intoxicant stealing my reason.

  “Yeah, and that’ll be the end of you!”

  “I don’t think so!”

  “You don’t think so, ha?”

  “I don’t care. You’re not touchin’ me anymore, Simon!”

  “Yeah, but you like it! You know you like it!”

  There remained this dense straining tension in that room. I heard cars on the street. Molly and her new house crossed my mind. I felt bolder, somehow unchained to this animal’s cage now.

  He came at me swiftly, with his forearms up, guarding, uncertain. He tried, in his lewd desire, to wear his mien of authority, his domineering psychology, like I was just some kid who didn’t know any better, to persuade me that somehow he had this right, and I was under his control. I knew he was a liar.

  “I said I’ll swing it! I mean it!” My shouting carried.

  “Ya want the whole neighborhood to hear ya, ya twerp! Who do ya think ya are! You’re just some punk foster kid, and don’t you forget it!” His huge gorilla hand reached for my face, to cover my mouth. It wa
s then that I had enough. With my one hand still clutching my towel, concealing myself with insistence, and the other awkwardly holding the bat’s broad end, striding back another step, I swung across, hearing the varnished wood whip through the room’s agitated air. The hard, knobbed, thin end of the bat found its mark, stopping bluntly on his cheekbone. I could feel the humming vibration, then heard “Aaahhh!” as he shouted in agony. He looked at me, stunned, holding his face, looking at the bat.

  “I told ya I’d hit ya! Now leave me alone!” I screamed. “Or I’ll hit ya again! I’ll hit ya right in the eye this time! I will!” I was frightened at this point. I knew his strength. I knew the potential of his wrath. Quickly I turned the bat around, holding the thin end. Instinctually coupling my right fist above my left, at the bat’s base, as though I were stepping to the plate. And now my towel, unfastened, fell to the floor. I stood there, still somewhat wet, completely naked, disregardful of the absurdity, nearly cornered at this point, having stepped back repeatedly. The preposterousness of my holding the bat this way, naked, almost made me laugh in my emotional elevation. I watched him. He was obviously in fierce pain. A long half-minute passed, then the blood began to pour. It was all over his hand, flowing down his cheek, into his goatee, dripping onto his shirt, staining like red oil. I thought this might send him into a state of terror.

  “Ya bleedin,” I said, still enraged. I thought he’d give up now. He didn’t. He lunged at me again.

  I quickly jumped onto the bed, then off on the other side; but Simon, as quickly, stepped around, holding his bleeding face, heated with fierceness. He came at me. I ignored my nakedness. His massive forearms and hands extended to overtake me. I eyed them. At this point self-defense slyly blended with my own fury. Concentrating, as though at bat, I swung, keeping my eye on his hand, as though on a speeding pitch. Perfectly, as though connecting with an inside pitch, meeting two-thirds up the bat, my swing smacked his atrocious hand. The crack could be heard distinctly. He howled and then snarled, succumbing to his knees beside my bed. He kept howling, crying. I watched, horrified, still clutching my bat. He leaned his face onto my bed sheets, pressing, aiming to stop the bleeding, holding his hand with his other hand, cowering, groveling, howling in horrified agony.