The Home

by Scott Nicholson

  "How many know about this?" Bondurant asked.

  "Four. Swenson. You. Me." He pointed at the girl on the bed as if he'd almost forgotten her. "And her."

  Swenson. The knot in Bondurant's stomach loosened slightly. Paula Swenson was carrying on an affair with Kracowski. She'd certainly not want to mess up her chances at marrying into the doctor's millions by blabbing about a little mishap. The woman's marital odds were as poor as those of the several others who'd shared Kracowski's bed and research methods over the past few years. But Swenson didn't know these things, so she would keep her lips tight, if no other part of her vulgar body.

  Kracowski felt under the blanket for the girl's wrist and checked her pulse. "Fifty-five," he said. "She won't remember a thing."

  "You didn't drug her, did you?" Bondurant felt the edge in his voice, and knew his tone was bordering on insubordinance.

  "You know I'm not a believer in drugs, Francis. For many of these children, that's part of their problem."

  "I didn't think so. I'm just always afraid of things that will leave a… trace."

  "The only trace I want to leave is the mark of healing." Kracowski's eyes grew cold as he looked at the girl. She may as well have been a rare moth pinned to a cork board.

  Bondurant paused at the door and looked down the hall to make sure no one was coming. Few of the staff were allowed access to the counseling wing. But some were too inquisitive for their own good. Starlene Rogers, for one. Always asking why the kids were taken from group therapy for individual treatment.

  "I'm just being careful, Doctor," Bondurant said. "That's what you hired me for."

  Kracowski made a scissoring motion with two fingers. "And don't forget how easily the strings can be cut."

  Bondurant looked up at the younger man, hoping his hatred was concealed. Kracowski was a philanthropist, but his philanthropy ended with the giving of money. He rarely spoke of the spiritual work of Wendover Home, that of setting children on the path to God.

  Bondurant suspected that Kracowski was a Catholic, or, heaven forbid a Jew. But without Kracowski's backing, Wendover Home would have folded years ago, and the children would be scattered among various institutions, their chances for salvation further dimmed. And the doctor's newfound supporters had made the accounting ledgers a good bit healthier.

  The girl's eyelashes fluttered and she rolled her head back and forth. A small moan escaped her lips. She tried to sit up, and Kracowski nodded in approval. Her eyes snapped open. She looked scared and confused like a trapped animal.

  "It's okay, Cynthia," Kracowski said. "You're safe now. We won't let them hurt you."

  Bondurant wondered who they were.

  Cynthia stared at the bare, padded walls as if expecting them to close in on her. She shivered under the blanket, though the room was warm. Bondurant thought he heard footsteps, checked the hall, and saw it was empty.

  "Where did they go?" the girl asked her voice brittle.

  "Away," said Kracowski. "Far away."

  "Are they coming back?"

  "No," said the doctor. "Not anytime soon."

  Bondurant tried to remember more about the girl. Cynthia. Cynthia Sidebottom. Bondurant wasn't good with details, since that wasn't part of his mission. But this child was one of the most damned truly troubled an unrepentant sinner. Her case file said she suffered from depressive disorder, but her arrest for prostitution told Bondurant more about her than did the reams of psychiatric analyses. This child was clearly hellhound.

  Cynthia sat up and rubbed her head as if wiping away some half-remembered dream. She leaned forward, dangling her legs over the edge of the bed. "Where's the dyke?"

  "You mean Dr. Swenson?" Kracowski asked.

  "Whatever, yeah."

  "Dr. Swenson wants to help you. We all want to help you."

  Cynthia stared at the walls again. For a moment, nobody spoke, and Bondurant heard the bell in the opposite wing. The children would be returning to their dorms for a little community time before supper.

  "If you want to help me, give me a fifty-dollar job and let me catch a bus back to Charlotte." She licked her lips in an obscene gesture. Bondurant pretended to ignore her, knowing she was only trying to shock them.

  Kracowski's fists clenched then he smiled and put a hand on her shoulder. "Cynthia, you're resisting. You know that's not appropriate."

  "Neither is your father act," she said. "Why can't you just use big words like all the other doctors, talk around me a while, then let me go?"

  Kracowski knelt before her, his frame folded up like a sleeping stork's. "Because I'm the doctor who wants to fix you."

  "What if nothing's broke?"

  Kracowski leaned his face closer to hers and whispered something that Bondurant couldn't hear. The girl grew pale and glanced wildly at the walls.

  "Don't let them get me," she said. "Doc, you got to help me."

  Kracowski's mouth creased into a smile, a sick thing that seemed to throw the rest of his face into shadow. "That's why I'm here, Cynthia. To help."

  To Bondurant, the doctor said "I think it's time Cynthia returned to her room. We'll monitor her condition over the next several hours, but I believe she's fine."

  Bondurant waited nervously while Kracowski scribbled a few notes on a clipboard. Cynthia raised herself from the bed and Bondurant took her arm to help steady her. As the blanket fell away, Bondurant noted with satisfaction that the girl was fully dressed. Not that he suspected Kracowski would delve into such distasteful sins. But strange things happened in this room, some of which might eventually spread their blight onto Bondurant himself.

  Kracowski said, "Remember, Cynthia, your treatments won't be effective if you speak to others about them. It's just between you and me and Dr. Swenson. Understand?"

  The girl nodded the color slowly returning to her cheeks. "Yeah. Like a secret. I'm good at keeping secrets."

  "So I've discovered." Kracowski gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze. "You're coming along fine."

  "I'll get born one of these days," the girl said then gave another furtive glance at the corners of the room. "If they let me."

  Bondurant didn't understand the strange relationship that Kracowski had with the children. He wasn't sure what to make of the coded language used in the treatments, and he didn't want to know too much. But the doctor insisted that Bondurant bear witness, perhaps as a special punishment, though more likely to make sure that Bondurant was aware of the stakes.

  If any state officials came snooping around, Bondurant's job was to show the benevolent face of Wendover. As for what happened in the shadows of the old building, that was a matter for God to pass judgment upon. Bondurant was certainly in no position to judge, not with a six-figure salary and a respected place in the community at stake.

  He led Cynthia down the hallway toward the opposite wing. They passed Starlene near the intersected corridors of the main entrance.

  "Hello, Cynthia," Starlene said, throwing a quizzical look at Bondurant.

  "Hey," the girl said, sullen now, as if the treatment and near-death had left her too weak to make her usual biting remarks.

  "Cynthia has been receiving tutoring today," Bondurant said. "She's going to be one of our shining students."

  "By missing class?" Starlene said.

  Bondurant evaded the woman's gaze. She couldn't read minds. She was a worker bee, one of the counselors, nothing to worry about. She hadn't worked at Wendover long enough to learn not to ask questions. And if she got too curious, it was a simple matter to dig into her background records and find some excuse to fire her. If worse came to worse, accusations and allegations about her could surface.

  "Dr. Kracowski is an expert in several fields, Miss Rogers," Bondurant said. "Ph.D.'s in Physics, Education, and Psychology, with an emphasis in Child Development and Behavioral Science. Not only that, he finished the pre-med program at Johns Hopkins. I think he, of all people, is qualified to make decisions in the best interest of the child. Isn't that right, Cy
nthia?"

  Cynthia nodded, staring down the dark hall that led to the Green Room, the dormitory where the girls lived.

  Starlene said to the girl, "You look ill, honey. Are you feeling okay?"

  Bondurant fumed. The counselor was practically ignoring him, displaying open disregard for his authority.

  "I'm all right," Cynthia said. "They said they would leave me alone."

  Starlene cupped the girl's chin and looked into her eyes. "If you ever have any problems at all, you just come see me, okay?"

  A small speaker mounted in the hall clicked on, and after a few seconds of hiss, Miss Walters's voice said, "Starlene Rogers, you're wanted in the Lake Cottage."

  "Remember what I said." Starlene walked down the short flight of steps to the rear door, her shoes echoing off the lath walls. Bondurant couldn't resist watching in anger. Despite her charitable manner, she wasn't properly beholding to her superiors. Bondurant would have to talk to Kracowski about her.

  Bondurant's stomach clenched. Starlene was beyond the reach of his rage, at least for the moment. But the girl was available, and her short-term memory was scrambled, one of the aftereffects of Kracowski's treatments.

  "Come," he said, pulling her by the arm toward his office. "We've got some paperwork to look over."

  Bondurant's palms sweated in anticipation of gripping "The Cheek Turner" and delivering one more child unto salvation.

  FIVE

  "Shoo. Hey, Dipes, did you drop a load or something?"

  Freeman looked at the boy who had spoken. The teenager had a broad, beefy face and a crew cut. His eyes were small and piggish, gleaming with that cruel cunning that Freeman had seen in dozens of faces in group homes across the state. The porcine gaze was fixed on a thin, pale boy who looked to be about ten.

  "I didn't do nothing, Deke," the thin boy said, a reaction so quick and rehearsed that Freeman could tell he had been the target of Deke's bullying before.

  "Sure, Dipes. Better go change yourself, or we'll have to get the nurse to do it." At the word "nurse," Deke had launched into a mocking, effeminate tone. "Don't want her to see your stinky, do you?"

  Since the boys had come into the Blue Room, Freeman had said nothing. He'd been sitting on his cot, pretending that the other boys didn't matter. One of the guys gave him an appraising, new-kid look, and another started to wave, but Freeman turned his attention to the book he'd swiped from Bondurant's office. The book was boring, one of those inspirational and motivational hardbacks that told you how to prosper with the help of the Lord. But holding the book allowed him to watch the room out of the corners of his eyes while trying to size up the pecking order. Deke seemed to be the biggest pecker of them all.

  Deke began dancing around the thin boy, making a motion as if he were wiping himself with toilet paper. A few of the others were watching, and Deke grew bolder in front of his audience. "Come on, Dipes. Don't be a poopie pants."

  Laughter rippled across the room. The boy who had tried to wave to Freeman was biting his thumbnail, glancing nervously at the door. Freeman wondered where the house parents were. He'd been in enough group homes to know that the children were never supposed to be left unsupervised, though it happened way too often Dipes retreated from the teasing, passing Freeman's bunk. Deke pursued his quarry, giving Freeman a smirk that said, "Watch me have a little fun."

  Freeman quickly turned his attention back to the words on the page, searching for vapid inspiration. He felt sorry for Dipes, but his best bet was to stay on the sidelines for now. Maybe Deke had enemies among the kids, but the odds were just as good that Deke ruled the roost with no opposition. And survivors didn't survive by turning into Defenders of the Weak.

  A tall guy in an olive army jacket, who had enough of a hint of facial hair to be fifteen, followed Deke like a second lieutenant. Dipes reached the corner and cowered as the two older boys jabbed at him and sneered. "Dipey wipes, dipey wipes," said Deke, his taunts somehow made even more obscene by his singsong chanting.

  A couple of the other boys gathered behind Deke, making noises in imitation of passing gas. Three kids sat quietly on their bunks. From their expressions of relief, Freeman figured they were glad that Dipes was the victim this time instead of themselves. Then Freeman made the mistake of meeting Dipes's eyes.

  Help me, those small dark eyes implored.

  Deke was unbuttoning his trousers and crouching as if he were going to moon Dipes. The young boy's lips trembled as he gazed past his tormentors at Freeman. The room smelled of sweat and a caged-animal tension. Freeman gripped the book in his lap so tightly that the pages wrinkled. He would be a smart soldier and keep his head low. Play all sides against each other while sizing up the situation. Like Eastwood in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

  It wasn't fair that Dipes was small and weak. But whoever said life was supposed to be fair? If life was fair, places like this wouldn't exist. If life was fair, Freeman would have had a different father and Mom would still be alive. If life was fair, you wouldn't need second chances.

  "Psst. Hey, new kid," whispered the guy from two bunks over. He was one of the three who wasn't participating in the taunting. The boy's eyes were the strangest color of green that Freeman had ever seen, like sick moss.

  Most of the other boys had crowded around Deke, so Freeman couldn't see what sort of new insult Deke had dreamed up. From the sound of the laughter, it must have been a good one. Freeman decided he could risk replying without attracting attention.

  "What?" he said to the boy out of the corner of his mouth, Eastwood-style, as if he were annoyed at being distracted from his book.

  "You going to help him?"

  The other two kids watched from their bunks, awaiting Freeman's response. Freeman closed the book. "Are you?"

  At the end of the dorm, Dipes started crying, and Deke imitated the boy's sobs. The fuzz-faced teen in the army jacket joined in as well. A few others added their wet grunts to the chorus.

  The boy who had spoken to Freeman lay back on his bunk and stared at the ceiling.

  To hell with it. Freeman stood and dropped the heavy book to the floor. It fell flat against the tiles, the noise like a gunshot. The crowd around Dipes fell silent, waiting for Deke's reaction.

  Oh, crap. Freeman could feel the eyes on him, sizing him up. Freeman had been on the other side many times, checking out a recent arrival, wondering how the new kid's presence would affect the group dynamics. He'd already blown his chance to blend into the background. The next best thing was to channel old Clint, circa the Sergio Leone spaghetti fests, and grow a rawhide exterior.

  "Who's this dickweed?" Deke asked the room. Freeman wondered if Deke knew what the phrase "rhetorical question" meant.

  Dipes, forgotten now, wore a grateful expression as he slunk to his cot. Freeman yawned, then slowly bent over and picked the book off the floor. "Sorry. Dropped my book."

  Deke crossed the room in a hurry, the teen in the army jacket clinging to him like a shadow. The crowd that had gathered around Dipes was now behind Deke, encircling Freeman's bunk.

  Freeman held the book out so that Deke could see it. Deke snatched it away, his brow furrowed and his nose twitching as he tried to read the title. Finally he gave up and tossed it down, then kicked it and sent it skating across the floor like a rectangular hockey puck.

  "Sucky book," Deke said.

  "I agree," Freeman said. "A literal travesty."

  They stared at each other, silence replacing the taunts that had filled the room a minute earlier.

  "Where you from?" Deke said.

  "Durham."

  "Juvie court sent you?"

  Being a juvenile court referral carried a little extra cache among junior thugs, but Freeman had taken a different road into the system. Not that he minded lying to Deke, he just didn't want to be recruited into Deke's army. Unless it was necessary for survival.

  "Nope, never been caught," Freeman said, as coolly as he could, though the perspiration gathered under his armpits an
d his heart pounded like a monkey's drum.

  Somebody kicked the book back to Deke, who picked it up. "What's your name?"

  "Theodore Roosevelt."

  The teen in the army jacket snickered. Deke's expression didn't change. "What kind of pussy name is that?"

  "It's long for Teddy," said Army Jacket.

  "Teddy bear," Deke said, his plump lips parting in a smile. "A pussy name for a pussy boy who reads pussy books."

  "No, doofus, that was a president," said one of the crowd.

  Deke rubbed his crew cut, doubtful. "So, Teddy, you mighta noticed, this fucking place ain't Durham."

  "YOU Can say that again," Freeman said.

  "This fucking place ain't Durham," said Army Jacket. A few of the boys laughed. Deke elbowed Army Jacket in the ribs, punishment for hogging his spotlight. Silence fell over the room.

  Deke held up the book. "How come you're reading this stupid book and you ain't even been to classes yet?"

  "Stole it. From Bondurant's office."

  "Bullshit."

  Freeman shrugged, as if he could care less whether Deke believed him or not. He hoped his indifference would be taken for toughness and not arrogance. Deke was heavy-set and outweighed Freeman by forty pounds. Freeman might have the edge in speed, but he didn't want a battle on his first day.

  "Why don't you read some of it?" Freeman said. "See if it's Bondurant's kind of stuff."

  Deke opened the book, his brow wriggling as he struggled with the words. Freeman sneaked a glance at the boy with the strange green eyes. The boy flashed him a secretive wink. Dipes sat on a bunk in the front of the room, near the door, watching like the others.

  Army Jacket shoved Deke's arm, making the boy drop the book.