Good Kings Bad Kings

by Susan Nussbaum

  Teddy Dobbs

  Most nights I can’t get to sleep. Things keep going around and around in my head. I try waking up Bernard and asking him to go get us some pop or something but he don’t wake up for nothing. He sleeps real heavy. It don’t matter how loud you yell for a houseparent most of the time either. Even if all you want is some water. If Anthony’s working he’ll get me water and sometimes he brings food like once it was Ruffles potato chips with ridges. Beverly always gets me water ’cause she said she knows what it’s like to not go to sleep easy. Candy came a couple times but she said I was the boy crying wolf, and I don’t know who that even is. My dad says don’t bother any of them because he don’t want me to get in trouble. But sometimes they get mad and sometimes they don’t and I don’t know why. That’s how the turd plops around here.

  Tonight I’m lying in bed like I do in the middle of the night and I hear somebody in the hall outside my room making noises like they using the wall phone they got out there. I say, “Hey, who’s that out there?” Then it gets real quiet, so I say it more softer. “Hey, who’s out there?” Next thing I see is Yessie sitting in the door of my room.

  “That you, Yessie?”

  “No, it’s the Queen of Sheba.” She’s whispering. “Will you shut up before you wake up everybody in the damn place?”

  “C’mere.”

  “If I come over there will you be quiet?”

  “Yeah.”

  So she rolls over to my bed and asks me what I’m doing awake, so I says, “Well, what’re you doing awake and who’re you calling?” She says it ain’t none of my business and I says, “Okay, but you wanna stay in here and talk to me awhile? Because I ain’t tired.” She says, “Okay, but we have to think up a good reason for me to be on the boys’ side in case we get caught.”

  “Just say you heard me yelling and screaming, so you came in here to see was I okay ’cause none of them heard me. And how you was awake anyway ’cause you was going to the bathroom.”

  “I will beat your ass if you tell them I was on that phone.”

  “I ain’t gonna get you busted,” I says.

  “I know,” Yessie says. “If you must know, I was calling up this dude I met on Facebook. He gots a fire-breathing-dragon tattoo on the back of his neck with the fire coming around a little itty bit to the front. So he said to call him. And can you believe who answered tattoo boy’s phone? His mama. And she did not sound happy, so I just hung up.”

  Yessie looks at me. “This must be the first time I ever seen you not wearing one of your raggedy-ass suits. I’m glad you don’t wear ’em to bed too.”

  “You’re not suppose to wear suits to bed.”

  “Thanks for telling me. Hey, is it for real you’re getting your own apartment?”

  “Yup. I go to Access Now to learn how to do stuff on my own. Joanne took me to get a lawyer and the lawyer’s real cool and she’s gonna get me set up. And it’ll have a elevator so people can come see me.”

  “Is that Bernard? It’s a shame a child that age can snore that loud.”

  “You want I should introduce you to my lawyer?”

  “They won’t let me outta here till I’m eighteen years old and not no sooner than that. But I’m happy for you ’cause I didn’t like thinking about you in a nursing home for the rest of your life. You’re a badass but you ain’t no criminal.”

  “Yeah, I’m a badass. I’m a badass.”

  “Shhh! Never mind. I thought I heard something. You know who needs a lawyer? Cheri. They up and moved her to the nuthouse.”

  “Pierre too,” I says.

  “Pierre? I thought he was in a regular hospital. Ricky had a card for him and we all signed it when we was on the bus.”

  “Yeah, but they’re sending him to Riverwood after that.”

  “How do you know everything?”

  “I heard Mrs. Phoebe tell Joanne to send his file.”

  “Ain’t that a bitch? Pierre gets a beat-down from Louie, so they send Pierre off to el manicomio. Is that where they sent Cheri?”

  “Yeah,” I says. “They always send ’em to Riverwood. You wanna hear something cool? When I was at my lawyer’s, I saw all these pictures of people and they were pissed off and holding signs that said DOWN WITH NURSING HOMES.”

  “I got that same picture. With the succulent disabled brother? All chained to the door?”

  “I don’t think so. On the wall?”

  “Taped up by my bed.”

  “Yeah, but I’m talking about a whole big wall. Like all these people? It was like a drawing?”

  “We’re talking about two different things.”

  “We should do that! You wanna?”

  “Wanna what?” Yessie says. “Chain myself to something? Where we gonna get chain at? Hey, when you get sent to the nuthouse, then what happens? Do they ever come back?”

  “Sometimes. Louie use to be a prison guard before,” I says.

  “You told me.”

  “I’m glad he’s gone.”

  “Louie isn’t fired,” Yessie says.

  “Is too,” I says.

  “Is not. He’s suspended till they decide what punishment he gets. He might get fired or he might not. Jimmie said if a houseparent beats down on one of us and gets suspended they might could come back. If they—Mrs. Phoebe or somebody—think it’s not their fault. You got a caseworker?”

  “Nah. I got my dad.”

  “Oh yeah. I forgot. Where your mama at?”

  “I ain’t her favorite person.”

  “Oh. My caseworker’s Tanya Epstein. She’s nice. I asked could I get moved to some other place with less stricter rules but she said there’s no such place. But I wouldn’t go nowhere now anyway on account of Jimmie.”

  “You and Jimmie are friends.”

  “Why you acting so stupid about Mia?”

  “I ain’t acting stupid,” I says.

  “She misses you.”

  I say, “She does?”

  “What do you care?”

  “C’mon, Yessie,” I says. “Do she?”

  “What you two doin’ up?”

  George ain’t exactly in but leaning up against the door. He took Jerry’s place when Jerry got fired. He’s okay, I guess. But George—one time I was sleeping, sleeping real good, and I wake up and the light is on and there’s George talking on his cell phone right in my room. I guess that’s better’n what Candy does which is she’s not never around.

  Yessie says, “What you doing, George? Lurking?”

  George says, “You’re not allowed in here. You better get back in bed, Yessie.”

  “Bye, Teddy,” Yessie says. “And Bernard with your pitiful snoring self. Move out the way, George, so I can get through the door.”

  George says, “I’m gonna have to tell on you for breaking the rules,” and Yessie says, “I was just going to get some water for him because you all ain’t doing your job.” Then George says, “I’m supposed to believe that?” and Yessie says, “I don’t care what you believe, I got my story and I’m sticking to it,” and George says, “Get to sleep, Teddy,” and then they left.

  I called out, “Night, Yessie,” but they was already gone.

  Ricky Hernandez

  They took Pierre to Children’s. I was surprised it wasn’t St. Theresa because that’s where Mrs. Phoebe always says to take the kids but it was an ambulance so the paramedics didn’t know that, lucky for Pierre, so they took him to Children’s. Poor little guy has his jaw wired shut. He has to sip everything through a straw. I stopped after work and got him a smoothie. Banana and strawberry. I got a extra shot of protein put in there too. I don’t want the little guy to go hungry. Knowing how he worries about food. And I know the kind of crap they serve up in hospitals, so I can just see them trying to give him pureed liver through a straw. Which is how he has to eat for a while.

  I had an appendix incident as a kid where I got sick as a dog. And in my family for you to go to a hospital, you had to be near death. My folks were immigran
ts and where they came from if a person got sick, they didn’t go to a doctor first, they went to a doctor last. Puerto Rico’s not just San Juan. It’s not just what the tourists see. It’s your basic poverty-struck island. My grandfather, you know what he did? He mixed cement. I don’t mean he pushed a button and the machine started going around. I mean he mixed cement. With his arms. Stood there for hours working it and working it. Guy had arms like tree trunks. My grandparents lived in a little cement house, no upstairs, just the one floor—I mean, they’re dead now, they died when I was about nineteen or twenty—but the house was, I’m gonna say . . . not real big. Me and some of my siblings went there, lived there a couple summers. They raised hens. There were always ten or twenty hens running around in the yard and we’d toss corn all around for them. Then there was nothing to do at night, right? No lights. The big excitement was the roosters shut up for a while. Of course the second the roosters quiet down you get the coquís. I got one on my key ring here, a little green frog. Clicks too, this noise it makes which ain’t really what they sound like but for a key ring it’s not bad. But what I was saying was what happened with my appendix is it burst and I ended up at a hospital. I ended up at Children’s Hospital, where Pierre is now. And I remember—I must’ve been eight or nine—my parents telling me I had to go to the hospital and I kept telling them, “No, no, I’m okay, I feel better,” but they weren’t hearing that, of course, so off we go. And it was a cool place. You know, for a hospital, but I mean it’s set up for kids, that’s all they do, and they do it really good. So I’m relieved that the paramedics brought Pierre here, like, automatically, instead of the usual thing with kids from ILLC which is St. Theresa. At least here I know they’re really giving him good care. You know, for a hospital.

  I saw him sleeping in the bed and I almost turned around and left. Pierre’s face was pretty bad. It’s like I suddenly felt really tired just standing there. Here’s the thing. I don’t know if it’s such a great idea that I came. I don’t know if I wanna get involved like this. I don’t want him to start thinking I’m gonna be around for him, because he’s not my kid, you know? But I had the smoothie, so what the hell. He opened his eyes when I pulled the chair up to his bed. One of his eyes he couldn’t barely open at all.

  “Don’t worry, I ain’t here to throw you in solitary,” I say. “I just wanted to see how you were doing. I brought you a special drink. I got it right here and it’s all for you. Here, let me put the straw in there. Don’t worry, I washed my hands a couple days ago. No, I’m kidding. I just washed them. They’re pretty clean.”

  I shake up the smoothie and then I bring it up to his mouth. He takes a little sip and I swear, as banged up as he is, he opens his one eye up a little wider and looks at me as he drinks it, like he never had nothing so good. He looks like a baby bird. I wish he had somebody to be his parent and really take care of him. But that’s not the reality.

  All I ever do anymore is feel like crap. Like Jo tells me last night—and we’re in bed and we’re just beginning to relax a little bit, you know, and she seems like she’s not all that sleepy and I’m not all that sleepy and I’m hoping we’re gonna get it on because we’ve both been worn out, right? Just tired from the job. And I am never too tired to have sex, always ready to make some good love. No matter what job I’ve been doing. But ILLC fucks with your head.

  And she says, “Ricky, I have to tell you something,” and I say, “What?” and she says, “It’s not good,” and I’m like, “Oh, crap,” you know, like, “Please don’t let this get in the way of us making love because—just please,” but I didn’t say that out loud. She says, “They’re transferring Pierre to an institution for mental diseases.”

  I get like a sick feeling in my gut. Just want to—I don’t know. Cry? She says, “I’m sorry I’m telling you now but I just remembered I was going to tell you when we were making dinner but I got distracted and it flew out of my head.”

  We just laid there for a minute not saying anything.

  She says, “You know who we should talk to? Pierre’s guardian. I bet if you went over there—the public guardian’s office is in the same building as Juvie. His guardian is the one who can legally protest his placement.”

  “So maybe we can do something. You think?”

  She says, “It’s possible.”

  I say, “Thanks.”

  She says, “You look tired. Maybe you should try to compartmentalize it and we’ll talk about it in the morning?”

  Joanne loves this whole thing about “compartmentalizing.” It doesn’t matter what it is, she thinks if you can’t deal with it, you should put it in a—like a, you know, a compartment in your mind. Like a glove compartment and think about it when it’s a better time. The weird thing about this is I have no problem doing that. I do that automatically. Jo’s the one who can’t compartmentalize. Like when she told me how they were gonna put Pierre in the IMD, I freaked. I guess my first reaction was like shock, you know? But I still had my hard-on. I mean, are you kidding? That’s compartmentalizing. She’s says, “Are you okay? I know this is hard for you,” and I say, “Yeah, well, this is hard for you,” and I kinda rub up against her and get busy, and she says, “You are unbelievable,” but she says it kinda laughing, like, “You are unbelievable,” and I say, “You told me to compartmentalize.”

  Pierre keeps looking at me until he knows I got the system down. Here’s the system. He sips for a while and then he stops but he keeps the straw in his mouth so I know not to take it away. Then he sips a few more times. Then he rests. As long as I don’t take the smoothie out of his mouth, he’s good. He’s gonna drink the whole thing. Which may not be so great for him because he’s such a little guy. In the hospital bed he barely takes up any space at all. So we do the system for about fifteen minutes and he starts to nod off like that. I pull the straw out a little bit and his good eye snaps open and he starts sipping again. He’s really fighting the sleep monster. But pretty soon he nods off for real.

  There’s a picture on the wall by his bed. A crayon picture he drew. It looks like a picture of him, of Pierre, sitting in a cave. Or a—there’s a doorway and a big lock or bolt on it. Then he drew stuff that looks like food, like a box of Oreos and there’s a big pizza and candy canes and all that kinda thing. It’s a good picture, good artwork, you know? Pierre alone in a cave with his food. I seen the picture before or versions of the picture. There’s one like it on the wall in one of the classrooms.

  Idiot that I am, I told him I’d come back tomorrow with another smoothie.

  Mia Oviedo

  The bird won’ go away. He’s gone, Jerry. He not aroun’ no more. The police arrest him. Yessie tol’ me. But the bird don’ go away. He still show me his claws.

  Teddy an’ me was at the class with Mrs. Schmidt. She teaching about going to the bank, how the bank give you money, how you fill in the book an’ they give you money. Teddy tell the class about his apar’ment, an’ he gonna be having his bank account an’ eberything.

  Teddy look at me sometime. He don’ say nothing, but he smile at me.

  Yessie tell me, “Don’ worry, don’ worry, eberything gonna be okay,” but I can’t help it. Yessie say I alla time espec’ bad things to happen. But I hoping for good things too.

  Mrs. Schmidt always talks. I don’ listen to her. I don’ know what she’s talking about mos’ of the time. Like she jus’ say something to me an’ I din’ hear it. She say, “Stop daydreaming,” an’ I say, “Okay,” but I thinking about Teddy. Maybe he smile at me again.

  I seeing the therapist they got here. She’s nice. I’m all finish with the pills. She asks me about the bad guy but I don’ wanna talk about that. She keep saying his name but I don’ like to say it. His name scare me.

  The therapist wanna know about all kinda things. She say, “You tell me about the scars on you arms?” an’ I tell her I don’ know what she mean. She say, “The scars on you arms,” an’ I say I don’ know, I was little, I don’ remember, I don’ know what she
talking about. She say, “You don’ remember who do that to you?” I don’ mind going to see her but I don’ like talking too much to her.

  In the class, Mrs. Schmidt put a picture on the wall. It has pictures of all differen’ kinds of food on it. Apples, bread, meat. I can’t see too good from where I sit. The picture is call “Eating Right.” Like you should eat bread an’ milk an’ eggs an’ vegetables an’ eberything. Mrs. Schmidt say, “What kind of bread is good to eat? Like healthy to eat? Who gonna give a example?” An’ Teddy say, “Pop-Tarts.” The whole class laugh so much. Mrs. Schmidt laughing too. Everybody laughing an’ cracking up. Mrs. Schmidt get more serious an’ say that Pop-Tarts not good for you. Pop-Tarts not so good for you body. An’ she say, “What else is good, is healthy to eat?” an’ Teddy, he say, “Pizza,” an’ alla the kids jus’ cracking up an’ I cracking up an’ Mrs. Schmidt cracking up also. But she say how pizza not so bad. It not too bad because pizza is jus’ bread an’ cheese an’ they got those things in the picture. An’ then she say if eberybody do very good in the quiz, she bringing pizza for eberybody, and eberybody clap. An’ Teddy look at me an’ he’s smiling.

  After class I have to wait for Jimmie to push me to the bathroom an’ then we go to the cafeteria. Teddy is talking to DeLeon. He’s not wearing his jacket today. He only wear his blue shirt tuck in his pants. I love his blue shirt. The blue shirt is his mos’ favorite shirt an’ my mos’ favorite. Then alla sudden he come to me where I am sitting.

  He say, “Hi.”

  I say, “Hi.”

  He say, “You going to the cafeteria?”

  I say, “Yeah. I going to it.”

  He say, “You wanna ride?”

  I say, “Okay.”

  Then he tie my chair to his chair jus’ like always, an’ he take me real slow to the hallway an’ I remember—Teddy is my friend. An’ he say, “You not heavy. You don’ weigh nothing.” An’ he smile at me an’ I am so happy. I din’ know what to do, I jus’—happy. I say, “Oh, Teddy, I missing you very much.” He say I miss you too.