by Tim Greaton
Uncle Ned left him with? That led him to thoughts of Krage, the person who had apparently been behind the bat attack, and the same person his father and now uncle had gone after. Where was Krage leading his father? And would his father be okay?
Zachary didn’t have answers to either of those questions, but he feared the worst.
Please be okay, Dad!
Bret not only helped him move everything into the room off from the dining room, he also insisted on helping Zachary clear enough space to store his things and to sleep. Zachary’s first act of rebellion was to open the window and let some fresh air mingle with the room’s overwhelming smell of rotten food and old sweat. He and Bret then removed a mountain of used donut pastry boxes from one corner; after stomping them flat, they stacked the entire pile in the dining room. Finally, they gathered a dozen armfuls of dirty clothes, making them both wonder if Madame Kloochie ever wore the same outfit twice, and carried them to the bathroom where the big woman indicated the washer and dryer were located. As might have been expected, that room was so filled with clothes they literally poured out into the kitchen when Zachary opened the door. Uncertain how he would survive these conditions, Zachary opted to pile all the dirty clothes from his room in the middle of the kitchen floor.
“You do plan on washing those, don’t you?” Madame Kloochie asked as the boys carried the last two armloads towards the kitchen.
Zachary paused in the rubbish-strewn dining room and stared through the archway at the huge woman sprawled across the mounds of clothing and trash that layered her couch. Looking like a circus clown, messy orange hair sitting like a huge scrubbing pad on her head and a face so coated in colorful makeup she no longer looked quite human, Madame Kloochie grinned, which told Zachary everything he needed to know. He wasn’t just a visitor to her; he was, instead, to be her personal cleaning slave. He glanced at the dining room table beside him, which was of course covered with dirty dishes, more empty pastry boxes, dozens of magazines and newspapers, and a myriad of food containers and indefinable garbage. There wouldn’t have been room to place a single soda bottle on the crowded surface, that is, not unless you removed one of the empty bottles he now noticed in and amongst the other refuse. His eyes moved to the two cabinets against the wall which were equally covered in clutter and garbage and then down to the floor that was knee-deep in clothing and trash except for the trail that he and Bret had cleared earlier by simply kicking things to either side.
“I’ll help you,” Bret whispered.
Wondering if Bret knew how close he was to telling Madame Kloochie to clean her own damn house, Zachary held his tongue and moved into the kitchen where they dropped their last loads of dirty clothes for the night.
“I have to go,” Bret said, pulling a cell phone from his pocket and checking the time.
Zachary had never owned a cell phone but he glanced at his watch and was shocked to see it was almost three in the morning. Suddenly, he also realized how tired he was. It felt like he had been moving things for days, and the way his arm ached only made things worse. He followed Bret to the door and watched him descend the path they had made down the stairs. He tried not to think about how long it would take to clean just the hallway as he closed the door and turned to Madame Kloochie.
“Do you have any—” He wanted to say ‘clean’ but settled for, “—spare sheets and blankets?”
“Maybe in the closet of your room,” she said. “Don’t worry, though, because I’ll have Porky Stanley bring us several bottles of laundry detergent tomorrow.”
Who was she to be calling anyone “porky,” Zachary thought, but he said nothing as he rubbed his eyes and went to his new room.
As should have been expected, the closet floor was filled with more dirty clothes. Like forgotten party decorations, two of Madame Kloochie’s bright outfits were the only things hanging in the closet, one pink and the other yellow. On the shelf above them, he found half a dozen full milk jugs, and given the disgusting blue and green colors he could see through the plastic, they had been there for quite some time, maybe years. Careful not to open or drop any to let the smell out, he moved the jugs out into the dining room beside the pastry boxes.
Retreating to his horrible new room, he grabbed one of the two pillows he had insisted on bringing from Boston and fell onto the bare, lumpy bed. His arm aching, he felt like just one more chunk of trash among the many piles that still surrounded him as he fell asleep.
His last thoughts were of his father and the danger he was in.
When Zachary woke the next morning, he found a broom leaning against his bed, a rusty dustpan on the floor and box of large trash bags on the mattress beside his feet. Not exactly a subtle hint regarding what Madame Kloochie had in store for him. Just like Uncle Ned, she seemed unconcerned about making him work with a cast. So, miserable but feeling as though he had no choice, Zachary got out of bed and began clearing garbage from his room. He had only been working for a couple of minutes, however, when urgency gripped him. He hurried out into the dining room and asked to use the phone.
“It’s important,” he said.
“On the wall in the kitchen,” Madame Kloochie instructed. “But don’t think you’re spending the whole day talking. There’s a lot of work to be done around here.”
Yeah, Zachary thought, all the work you haven’t done in the last ten years.
Zachary dialed his Boston number and was surprised when a woman answered the phone. “This is the Pill residence,” she said. “May I ask whose calling?”
“Who are you?” Zachary blurted out.
“My name is detective Angela Warren of the Boston Police Department. Again, could I ask who this is?”
“Can’t you see it on the caller I.D.?” he asked, starting to feel that he had made a big mistake.
“Young Man,” she said, “please tell me who you are and from where you are calling.”
Zachary hung up and tried to quell the fear that rose in his chest. Could the police have been there because they found his father? Had something horrible happened? Zachary forced himself to breathe and tried to think clearly.
His uncle! He needed to call his uncle.
Reaching into his pocket to find the number he’d taken from his father’s office, he pulled out the picture of the pretty red haired girl. At another time, he might have stopped to admire her smile and the sheen of her hair but he had more important things to think about. Slipping the picture back where it had been, he fished his uncle’s number out of his other pocket and dialed.
It rang and rang.
To be sure, Zachary tried again but the phone just kept ringing.
Praying the police were there only in response to the noise or his report of Ebola virus and not because something had happened to his father, Zachary returned to his room. For the briefest moment, he imagined Charlie trying to explain to the police about Ebola, and that thought made him smile. The smile was short-lived, however.
Be okay, Dad. Please be okay!
In the furthest corner of his room, Zachary found a mound of discarded toilet paper tubes and used wrapping paper that went almost to the ceiling. Having no idea why anyone would save such things, he grabbed a trash bag and in a few moments had stuffed it full. It wasn’t long before he had five similar bags, all bulging at the seams with the useless tubes and gift paper. He had just started filling his sixth bag when, underneath all the mess, he discovered a bureau for his clothes and a small stand he could use for plants. Inside the bureau drawers, he found hundreds of plastic spoons, forks, and cups—and all of them looked to have been used! The entire box of ten trash bags were crammed full by the time he got the bureau and the rest of the corner cleaned out.
He glanced at his watch. It was already eleven o’clock. Though his stomach growled with hunger, the nauseating smells around him made it hard to imagine eating. Besides, he couldn’t get the image of rotting jugs of milk out of his mind.
“I’m out of trash bags,” he announced, stacking the last two full ones
in the dining room.
Madame Kloochie seemed to spend most of her time on her couch. Her orange hair was particularly matted on one side, and her matching orange lipstick was smeared making her lips look twice as large. She had a half-eaten donut in her hand and a familiar pastry box sitting beside her. Turning away from what sounded like a morning cartoon, she sized up Zachary and the ten bags of trash stacked like huge green pompoms in her dining room.
“Porky Stanley should be here with more trash bags pretty soon,” she said then nodded toward the kitchen. “You can take the full ones out to the street through the back.”
“Is it trash day?” Zachary asked. In Boston, the trash only got picked up once per week, except for the large buildings where it was either incinerated or specially trucked off.
“Porky Ben picks up the trash whenever I call,” Madame Kloochie said.
Wishing she would stop making fun of fat people, Zachary nodded and dragged one of his overstuffed bags through the kitchen to the back door. For most of his school life, Zachary had been teased about his green hair, and he knew overweight people and even skinny people often got teased for similar reasons. Though he was no saint, he wished everyone would just leave everyone else alone.
Missing a second healthy arm that would have allowed him to carry a second bag, he easily carried the light but
