by Weston Ochse
And all the while the staff of Camp Chicamauga was insanely happy with their brochure-empowered directives, the kids found themselves in varying states of zombiedom. Whether it was the cardboard food, overdoses of bug spray or the realization that their parents didn’t want them, Danny wasn’t sure. What he was sure of, however, was that he never wanted to return to Camp Chicamauga. That one visit had been enough and he was thrilled he’d been able to reason his parents out of sending him again.
Then, last but not least, was the most used threat in the history of parental misuse of threats—The Mythical All Summer Grounding. At the time, Danny had been terrified. His mother had been so angry he couldn’t help but believe her.
Would his mother really want him inside the house all summer, every day, every hour, every minute, under her feet, asking permission to breathe? He’d fallen victim to yet another meaningless threat.
Yes, he felt tricked, and picked upon. There was so much dirt under his nails he’d never be able to get it out. His knees ached from scrubbing floors that hadn’t seen the working side of a brush in a decade. The skin on his hands was a study in mummification, wrinkled and loose as an eighty-year-old’s. Somewhere along the way he’d developed a sneeze, probably from the mounds of dust he’d removed from the house of Maxom Phinxs.
And that was another thing.
The Maggot Man. Maxom Phinxs. The Stork, as Danny had come to think of him sometimes because of the way the man stalked towards everything, legs stiff and awkward. Last night, deep beneath the covers needed to stave off his mother’s air conditioning, Danny’d had nightmares of those legs. Where the knee ended, a cup caught and held a half-body’s weight. Below the cup was a length of metal shooting straight to a hinged rubber foot which sprang back with each step whether it was a walk or a run or a sprint or a stumble.
In his dream, it was Danny who was wearing the metal and rubber legs. His own were gone, replaced by the prosthetics. Except Danny had no idea how to use them—he’d stand and fall, stand and fall, his hands scrambling to support him, nails split and bloody. He kept turning. He kept trying to see what was behind him, what was chasing him. He’d awoken twisting in his sweat-soaked sheets, the inevitability of something large and invisible capturing his thrumming heart.
Danny had never known the man was a war hero. Or that he’d seen Martin Luther King in person. Or that he knew every Commodore song by heart. Or even that underneath the freakish exterior, he was a fairly decent person—if you discounted the man’s general and nearly total disdain for humanity.
But Danny thought he’d figured out that part. After all, why would Maxom Phinxs like normal people? People had given him nothing but difficulties since he’d returned from Vietnam. Danny counted himself as one of them.
The man was slowly coming out of his shell, however. The first day he’d been gruff, even mean. More than once Danny had felt the sting of tears because of his words. What the hell were you doing in the kitchen all that time? I thought you said you knew how to clean? Jesus, boy. You’re about as useful as tits on a bull. There were several times when Danny had asked where something belonged and the man had ignored him.
Now, the man was acting nicer, at times almost silly. It was like he hadn’t been around people for so long that he didn’t know how to act. There were times when Danny could swear Maxom was acting like a kid, almost giddy; then other times when he would sit in a dark corner and sulk, usually over something fairly small and simple. Then there were the times when the man would fade out and go into another place. Danny had seen him do that several times.
Lying on the couch, legs sometime on, sometimes off, dropped in a pile beneath the scarred and bony stumps, Maxom’s breathing would slow until his chest barely moved. It wasn’t long before a thin line of drool would form and like a slow motion waterfall, pour inexorably onto the hollow in the center of his neck. When Danny asked about those times, Maxom got a peculiar look upon his face and said it was a Vietnam thing.
During a particularly long and hot day, Danny was hacking away at the twisted coils of vegetation that had all but taken over the backyard of the small house. All he had was a swing blade. Although it was deadly to the occasional weed and the long kudzu vines, it was almost useless to the hundreds of sweet smelling, cantankerous sassafras treelets that had rooted throughout the small plot.
When he’d first started clearing the backyard, Danny had planned out squares of work. Long ago, he’d learned that attempting to conquer an entire yard could be overwhelming. Small attacks meant small victories over the forest enemy, and each victory furthered his success in the war. The squares were about five-by-five. He’d have made them larger, but each square took him the better part of an hour to hack down to ankle level.
So it was, panting and dripping sweat, that he entered the clean but serviceable kitchen to get a glass of iced tea. Before he poured, he let the coolness of the ice-encrusted freezer billow over his super-heated head. The first glass he drank right down. Partially satiated, he poured himself another. This one he sipped.
Danny walked into the living room to turn on the record player. He’d grown fond of the older music, though he’d never before paid much attention to it. His favorite songs of the old man’s collection were Aqualung, Brick House, and Live and Let Die.
Danny picked a record at random and placed it on the turntable. As the music started, he checked out the jacket cover and the many sequined black men gyrating upon it. Earth, Wind and Fire was printed across the top.
With the glass of iced tea in one hand and the record jacket in the other, Danny turned to sit. The couch, however, was occupied by an unconscious Maxom, who’d passed out again. Drool laced the side of the man’s face. The nubs of his legs twitched slightly as if he were a dog in the midst of a rabbit dream.
Daniel’s gaze slipped down to where the prosthetics were cast off on the worn shag carpeting. He’d always wanted to check them out, but his fear of Maxom had kept him away. He’d also felt kind of queasy every time he looked at them lying bodiless upon the floor. These were the man’s legs. Sure, they were made of metal and rubber and polymer, but they were legs. And legs shouldn’t be separable.
His overriding curiosity made him set the glass of tea on the coffee table alongside the record jacket. Danny crept forward, reached over and plucked the right leg from the pile. The first thing he noticed was the weight. The prosthetic was both heavier and lighter than he’d expected. The cavity where the nub rested was hard on the outside and cushioned on the inside. The foot, encased in a sock and shoe, seemed to weigh at least five pounds. So much weight for so small a space. Connecting the two was a sleek black rod. He couldn’t discern this man-made tibia’s actual weight because of the foot and the cup, but he knew it was extremely light and strong enough to hold up a large man.
Using his fist as a nub, and holding it with his other hand, Danny tested it upon the floor. The heel sprung back as he stepped as if to help propel the wearer along. Maybe that was why Maxom looked so much like a stork sometimes, thought Danny.
He checked to make sure the man was still asleep. The last thing he needed was for Maxom to wake and get mad. Danny was getting used to the man being in a better mood and didn’t want to spoil it. A squawk overrode the Motown rhythms coming from the speakers and filled the room.
Danny lurched backwards, the back of his thigh bumping the table. The glass of iced tea tipped and fell to the floor, the liquid creating an even darker blue in the already dark blue carpet. Jerking around, Danny saw an immense crow standing upon the windowsill of the open living room window.
The crow squawked again, menacing. Danny dropped the prosthetic leg on the carpet. The bird glared at him.
The crows in Tennessee seemed to be bigger than the eagles. The nearest species Danny could compare it to, hadn’t been seen in the skies since certain members of Sinbad’s crew had been carried away for midnight snacks.
The crow stretched its wings until they brushed the sides of the
window frame. Cocking its head, staring directly at Danny as if it knew exactly what he had been doing and how wrong it was, the crow let out another squawk. Then, as if the great black bird had had enough, it pulled its wings back in and hopped down out of view. Danny heard flapping then nothing else.
Ten seconds passed before Danny crept to the window ledge and peeked over. The ground outside was empty, likewise the sky. He quickly lowered and locked the window. He spun, ready for Maxom to be awake and angry, but he was still unconscious, oblivious to what had just taken place.
Quickly, Danny picked up the overturned glass and got a dish towel to clean up the tea. Then, treating it as if it were a piece of fine porcelain, he placed the prosthetic back in its exact position. He checked his work and after several small adjustments, was satisfied.
After turning off the music and placing the album back in the dust jacket, he gladly went back out into the heat. Taking up the swing blade, he couldn’t help but smile. It’s been a close call, but that’s all it was. Now, safe from discovery, he wondered why he’d been so nervous.
CHAPTER 12
Friday—June 22nd
Paradise Valley, Arizona
“Sometimes I think my mother knew about it,” said a young girl in her twenties.
The other girls sitting around the circle nodded their heads. John stared fondly and nodded as well.
“I was mad at her,” continued the girl.
“Did you blame her for not doing anything?” asked John.
“Yes,” she nodded. Tears slid down her freckled cheeks.
No one dared shatter the silence. The other girls alternately stared at her and at themselves as they remembered their own histories. John sat patiently. He’d heard all their stories in private. He knew what the girl was going to say. What she needed, though, was to talk about it in a more public setting—a place where others could relate.
“I got pregnant. I was so afraid, I didn’t tell anyone.”
“Didn’t your mom and dad notice?” asked one of the girls, her wide eyes evidence of Persian ancestry.
“Why would they? Both my parents worked. They barely had time for each other, much less me.” She laughed. “I’ve never been especially pretty, anyway. No reason to look at me.”
“That’s not true.”
“You’re very pretty.”
Others spoke up, complimenting the speaker until she blushed. She even managed to smile for a while, until her eyes turned inward and she remembered.
“I remember when it happened. It was a Saturday evening. My parents were watching television. I closed my door and turned up the music. It was Nirvana. I listened to them because Kurt Cobain had killed himself. I was hoping to find some of his courage.”
She paused to wipe away tears with the edge of her robe. She peered at John who smiled in return.
“You’re doing fine. You’re doing just fine.”
“Even with the music turned up, I stuffed a sock in my mouth. It hurt so bad. I tried not to scream, but I couldn’t help it. It hurt so bad.” She placed her hands over her stomach. “It was a boy. I left him at the hospital the next morning on my way out of town.” Her gaze rose. “Somewhere out there I have a son. He should be six years old by now.”
One of the newer girls filled the silence that followed. “I want to go home,” she said, voice cracking.
John stared at her from across the circle. She was very young. Her head was freshly shaved, smooth like the others. Her face was porcelain. He waited for a moment, but she refused to meet his gaze.
“This is your home,” he said. Vishiddi, he whispered, invoking the power.
“I made a mistake. I shouldn’t have run away. My mom…”
“What about your mom?” he asked.
“I don’t blame her. It’s just I felt ashamed.”
“You felt unclean.”
“Yes,” she said finally looking up. “I felt dirty. Like it was something I had done.”
“And you think she would have understood?”
“Understood?”
“When you tell her about what he did, about the sex,” he allowed his energies to build, “do you think she would have thought it was your fault?”
“No.”
“I think you did. Didn’t you?”
“Yes,” she said, her voice very small.
“We’d never think that. We know what you’ve been through. We’re your new family.”
“But—”
“You ran away.”
“Yes. I ran away,” she repeated.
He could feel the magic in his words. He could see how her face was softening, mind succumbing.
“You ran away from them because they would have condemned you. People don’t run away from acceptance.” She shook her head slowly—the negative motion, an acceptance of his words. “We accept you here. Whatever you’ve done, we accept you. That’s what a real family does.”
“Yes,” she said, entranced. “A real family.”
All the girls had fallen under his spell. They nodded in unison to his logic. As they should. He knew of their circumstances, all versions of each other. All runaways.
There was one particular thing that the rest of society couldn’t seem to grasp: happy girls don’t run away from home. When a flower is neglected, it wilts and dies.
Girls are a lot like flowers.
* * *
Ooltewah, Tennessee
The first thing Maxom said to Danny after his mother dropped him off was, “These are not toys, son. You play with my legs again, you’re gonna find yourself needing some of your own. Understand?”
The glare creasing the old man’s face was more than enough to make Danny cringe. He knew immediately what Maxom was talking about. What he didn’t understand was how the man had found out. So, Danny had stood on the porch, his lunch sack gripped tightly in his right hand, staring up at the tall black man, utterly dumbfounded.
Maxom finally broke the silence. “Now, if you’re done staring at me like I grew another head, get your scrawny butt inside. You got the breakfast dishes to clean and I was especially hungry this morning.”
Elbow deep in the soapy water, all Danny could think about was How did he know? He’d replayed the events of yesterday afternoon over and over in his mind, and there was no way in a million years the old man could have discovered him, unless he had a video camera set up somewhere in the room, or maybe if the crow had told him. Danny knew from cleaning every nook and cranny of that disaster zone called a living room there were no video cameras, and it was doubly doubtful that the crow would be that cooperative. After all, it spoke crow and old Maxom Phinxs spoke bastard.
Danny attacked the frying pan with open frustration, using the working end of the metal spatula as a jackhammer in an attempt to pry off the burnt-on egg. If water hadn’t been involved in the cleaning process, the sink would’ve certainly caught fire. Scraping and chiseling, Danny found himself both grimacing and mumbling under his breath.
Suddenly, he stopped. Dropping the pan and spatula into the greasy water, he stepped slowly away from the sink. He wiped his hands on his pants, the water staining his pants. He was acting just like his mom acted when she was mad and in the kitchen. Danny cursed softly, then smiled at the irony.
Standing in the kitchen of the house of the man he had committed a hate crime against, Danny felt closer to his mother than he’d ever felt before. For the first time, he understood her—and it was scary. He understood her constant frustration and consternation. He understood why she hit him when he talked back to her and could almost feel the pain she felt, his words a slap that could be never equaled. He understood the nagging and the constant concern she showed for everything he was involved in and everyone he was involved with.
For one brief moment, Danny understood what it meant to be an adult. What it took to be a parent. Then the tenuous thread was broken, leaving him only with a ghostly remembrance.
“You gonna stand there all day or are you gonna f
inish cleaning. Looks like it might rain this afternoon, so if you’re gonna work on the back yard some more, you better get to it.”
Sighing, Danny snatched up the frying pan and a rag, then began to scrub with renewed vigor. Somewhere kids were having fun. Maybe playing Marco Polo. Maybe jumping off the end of a dock. Maybe even swinging high arcs upon rope swings over the water, releasing themselves into the air at the apex of their upward journey. Somewhere his friends were having the times of their lives. Danny descended into the murkiness of self-pity, wishing desperately that he were with them.
CHAPTER 13
Saturday—June 23rd
Cherokee National Forest
His father woke him at four, the smell of coffee already coating his words as he whispered, “Up and at ‘em, son.”
“Even roosters get to sleep until dawn,” Danny mumbled into his pillow. He could feel the drool of deep sleep on his cheek, but didn’t dare wipe it away. Any sign of movement would cause his father to redouble his attack. The best thing to do at times like this, when sleep was fleeting and his dreams were desperate, was to play possum.
“Come on, son. We got fish waiting to be caught.”
Danny felt his father sit heavily on the side of his small bed. Julie Newmarr and Boris Karloff beckoned to him from behind the gossamer curtain of his dreams. He didn’t remember what he’d been doing, but his blood was still racing and a phantom smile still graced his face. A slender female hand slid through the veil and grasped his wrist. He felt the heat from the touch and parts of his body stirred that made him feel both uncomfortable and thrilled.
“Daniel! Come on. Get your ass in gear.”
He shot to a sitting position, the blanket falling to his lap. He glimpsed his father’s retreating back as he ascended the stairs. “He’s awake, now. I’ll give him five minutes,” he heard is father say to his mom.
