“Mama and Daddy put up a tree on everybody’s birthday, ever since I was a little girl,” she had explained to Russell the first time she hauled the tree out, for his father’s birthday last year. Russell had stared dumbfounded at Jeanie when she started putting the artificial tree together on the kitchen table. “This way,” Jeanie had said, “we’ll have Christmas three or four times a year—or at least a tree, anyway. Get me those little, white lights out of the Christmas box in the closet.”
Having a Christmas tree up in August or March or May was, in Russell’s opinion, stupid. Having Jeanie’s parents over made it worse. But at least this time the old folks were only going to be around for a few hours, not the entire day the way they had been on the real Christmas. If he could just keep remembering his dreams, he’d could get through it and not get in trouble.
He had thought when he opened up the old folks’ present for him at Christmas that maybe they had changed their mind about him. He had pulled bright, shiny fishing lures out of a box. The lures sparkled in the light from the tree lights and the sun coming through the picture window, as he held them up, turning them this way and that. Maybe Daddy will go with me this spring, Russell thought, if he asked the right way, at the right time, if his daddy wasn’t on a job, if he hadn’t had too many beers ... Then the old lady had noticed Russell’s Nativity under the tree. Russell winced, remembering. Why did he have to remember the bad things, too? He had made sure for this August Christmas tree his Nativity scene was in his room, safe and sound. The Nativity was the only thing he had left from Mama, the only person he was sure would listen to his dreams. If he told her, Russell knew what she would say: Silver-white trees, with golden leaves? I used to dream about them, too, honey. They reminded me a little of the church I went to when I was a little girl. Not the way the church looked so much as how it felt. You know, Russ-honey, quiet, peaceful, safe. There was a little corner of the church where candles burned all the time in little, blue glasses. She told him her dreams as bedtime stories, her voice soft and low, the window open to the hot, still Oklahoma night. Her eyes, he remembered now, had glowed green in the darkness, just like a cat’s. Just the way he had thought his own eyes had been glowing.
“Well, Jeanie, I’m glad you didn’t let the boy put out that Cathlick thing under your tree, the way he done at Christmas. Thou shalt not make graven images, that thy days may be long in the land of the Lord. And everybody knows there weren’t no fox at the manger,” Jeanie’s mother had said, interrupting Russell’s reverie. The white cake was cut and the presents were opened. Crumpled pieces of bright-colored wrapping paper lay on the floor like bits and pieces of a magpie’s nest.
Russell looked hard at her and, for the first time, he could see colors all around the old lady: angry dark reds, oranges, purples flickering and flashing. There were lights around the old man, his daddy, and Jeanie—she had little silvery stars, sparkling and twinkling around her. He blinked, rubbed his eyes, and the lights were gone. And the lady was still going on about Cathlicks being little better than idol-worshippers, it was right in the Bible—
“My Catholic thing isn’t under the tree because I don’t want you near it, you hear me, old lady? Don’t you ever touch any of my stuff and stop talking about Mama. You’re just a mean, old lady. Mean, mean, mean. All summer long I’ve been working in your damn garden and your damn yard and you’ve not said one nice word to me, not a damn one. Making me eat on the back porch. I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!” Russell yelled in the old lady’s face. He hadn’t meant to yell; the words had just come out. He hadn’t meant to say anything. Remember the dreams, smile, eat cake, nod at the right times. That had been his plan.
The plan hadn’t worked.
“Jeanie! Do you hear the way this boy is talking to me? Cursing me, in my own daughter’s house! You are one sorry good-for-nothing boy. Here we are trying to have a birthday party and you go and ruin it. I’m only trying to save you from that Cathlick idol worshipping. Your mama was a heathen, if not worse—to go off and leave her family like that. Of course I wouldn’t have you in my house. I told Jeanie to make your daddy ship you off to your mama when they got married, I could tell the minute I laid eyes on you that you were trouble, but nobody knows where that worthless mama of yours is—”
“Now, Lillian, the boy has worked hard all summer long and he’s not been any real trouble, you have to admit that now,” the old man interrupted.
“Shut up, you old fool, the boy is nothing but trouble, trouble, trouble.”
“You shut up, you old hag, just shut up, shut up, shut up!”
“Russell!”
“Boy, when you are going to learn to keep your fool mouth shut? Jeanie, goddamit, I thought you quit smoking—the damn trashcan is on fire,” his daddy yelled and backhanded Russell so hard he jerked back against his chair. Dark smoke rolled out of the kitchen trashcan. His daddy seemed to almost be on fire as well, with dark red, black-edged lights—and so did everybody else, for that matter. In the midst of the blood, the fire, the smoke, and the yelling, Russell ran to his room, cursing himself for letting the old lady get to him, jerk his mouth open, and drag out those stupid, stupid words. God, he was stupid, just like they all said. He scooped up the little Nativity scene from his dresser and quickly hid it in the back of his closet. He heard his daddy cursing about the fire and now the whole damn kitchen was going to smell of smoke and it was a good thing he saw it before the trailer went up. Jeanie was cursing back—it wasn’t her fault, she had quit smoking, months ago. And the old lady yelling: they could have burned up, they could have just burned up.
When the Nativity was safe, Russell made himself sit on his bed. He knew what was coming next. When all the excitement about the fire was over, somebody would remember Russell and then his daddy would slam the door open and backhand him again or make him drop his pants and wallop him with a belt. And then drag him out to say he was sorry.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
After the whipping and the apology, his daddy made Russell spend the rest of the evening in the living room with Jeanie and her parents. Need to learn how to be civilized, boy. No birthday cake. And listening to the old lady, with her lights now more a dark yellow than red, tell Jeanie she ought to call the law on him: “I don’t know how you put up with this young ’un, Jeanie. I really don’t. He’s not even yours. When your babies come, you’ll see the difference; it’ll be like night and day. I know some folks at church called the law on one of theirs. Sheriff came and hauled him off. He wasn’t the same after a night in Stony Lonesome, I’ll tell you what. Couldn’t hurt. Cut me another piece of cake, honey; it’s pretty good for store-bought. I never bake cakes anymore myself. Why bother messing up all them bowls, you just have to wash when you can run down to the grocery store and pick up one. Larry, it sure is a good thing you saw that fire, I wonder how it started, since nobody smokes ...”
Russell had almost bit off his tongue then. He wanted to tell her he’d get all the cake he wanted after she left; he didn’t care if Jeanie had thrown his piece out the back door. He took a deep breath and made himself think of his dreams.
All that had been just a few hours ago. He could only imagine what Jeanie’s mama would say if he told her he was hearing voices in the middle of the night. Might as well go to the bathroom, he thought. Maybe somebody was in there, whispering his name. Of course the room was empty. Feeling foolish, he checked behind the shower curtain and inside the clothes hamper and the medicine cabinet. When he closed the cabinet door, he found himself staring into his own face: a thin, red-haired boy, with hazel eyes, tufts of hair sticking up like little red feathers. And Russell saw his own lights: a dark flickering red, edged with black, and was that a touch of green? He rubbed his eyes, flicked the overhead light on and off—and the colored lights were gone.
Russell went back to bed, shaking his head. Colored lights. Special dreams. Voices. What the hell was going on? Was he crazy—he didn’t feel crazy. But could someone who was reall
y crazy know they were? Never mind, he thought, tomorrow would be better. No more gardening for Jeanie’s folks.
“Need you at home, boy, packing and stuff,” his daddy said. The Whites were moving in a few weeks, before school started and before Jeanie’s babies were due. His daddy had said they would still be living on Poole Road, but closer to town. Russell would be in a new school for the fifth grade.
Maybe the new school next fall would be different. Ha. Maybe if he went back to sleep again, he would hear Miz McNeil and he would be able to hear more than his name. Maybe he would hear the voice tell him what it wanted him to do.
The night before the Whites moved out of Neuse Woods, Russell had gone to bed early. He knew his father would have them up at dawn to load the truck and the car. Jim Beam, Old Crow, and Johnny Walker boxes were stacked around his bed. Russell’s closet and his chest of drawers were empty. Only the clothes he was going to wear tomorrow were out. He stood before a tall, white house in the country, surrounded by taller trees and a patchy rough yard. Behind the house were more and more trees, a forest, thick and dark and green. The house was calling to Russell, telling him to come in, to come home. He followed the voice up the front steps and eased open the front door and shouted hello. The word echoed and bounced, like a tossed ball, in and out of empty rooms, until the house’s silence caught it and gobbled it up.
Russell, come further up.
Russell stepped into what looked like a short hallway. To his left was what looked like a living room. On the far side of the living room he could see what had to be the dining room, as there was an empty table in the middle, surrounded by chairs. Beyond the dining room he could see what looked like a kitchen; the white tiles shone in the light.
This is a big, big house.
Russell.
He followed the voice upstairs, to another hallway, lined with doors. The first door was a bedroom, the second a closet, the third a bathroom. But the voice was calling from the last door, at the hall’s end. The door opened by itself, slowly opening and revealing an attic, long and narrow, with a slanting roof and cedar wood floors. The attic ran the front length of the house, and two windows punctuated its slanted roof Each window had wide sills, wide enough for someone to sit in and stretch out their legs.
This is my room. This place is meant for me.
Outside the window Russell didn’t see the tall trees and lawn and the woods he had seen outside the house. There were the trees, silver-white, with golden leaves, from his other dreams. Russell unlatched the window and crawled out on the roof The sky was black. The white trees swayed back and forth in a wind that was pulling at Russell, wrapping invisible hands around his legs. Russell let the wind slowly pull him to the roofs edge, and, then, as if it were something he had done all his life, Russell dove out into the wind and flew.
“Get up, boy. Time’s a-wasting.”
Russell looked up, dazed, from the floor at his daddy, who had just flipped over Russell’s bed. “Get yer clothes on and then put this bed in the truck. Get moving,” his daddy said and then clicked on the light. “Go on, now.”
Russell covered his face against the bare light bulb in the ceiling and stood. Outside it was still dark. He could still see a few stars in the sky and the fading moon. Why’d they have to get up so early? Sometimes his daddy did stuff just for meanness’ sake.
“Everything is already on the trucks,” Russell muttered. He could see his father’s pickup, his father’s best friend’s pickup, and his stepmother’s station wagon. There was just enough room in the back of the station wagon for Russell to squeeze in. Russell’s bed was to be tied to the top of one of the pickups.
Russell sighed and pulled a T-shirt over his head and then felt around on the floor for his pants. He had slept in his underwear. He could hear his father and stepmother yelling at each other about hurrying up and getting something to eat at Hardee’s. I bet the only reason we are moving like this is so we can be gone before the landlord comes to collect the late rent. This new house must be awfully cheap. As he was pulling his shoes on, Jeanie started yelling for Russell to hurry the hell up and had he stripped the bed yet? Rolled up the mattress? Got his own personal box, put it in the car? Was he asleep or what?
An hour later, after packing up the last few things and biscuits at Hardee’s, they were at the new house. Russell couldn’t see it until his father opened up the back of the station wagon and let him climb out, holding tight to his Old Crow box. The box was filled with Russell’s things: the Nativity scene, his mother’s picture, the red fox Miz McNeil had given him.
It was a white, two-story frame house, with two roof windows. It was the house in Russell’s dream. Beneath the slanting roof he knew he would find his attic bedroom. The woods he had seen behind the house were where they were supposed to be, even though the trees were ordinary oaks, sweetgums, pines, poplars, maples. No silver trees with golden leaves. The yard, to Russell’s surprise, was bigger than he had dreamed. Lush, thick greenness spread out around the house: tall, thick grass, Queen Anne’s lace, patches of red clay—red clay islands and continents in a wild sea. Russell imagined running and running over that green ocean and then falling to roll, over and over and over, until he would lie still, his head spinning, staring up at the sky. The house stood alone. Its nearest neighbors were about a half-mile down the road, Greenwood Estates. Russell had seen the sign when they had driven past it. He had caught just a glimpse of Greenwood: brick houses, mostly, trimmed yards, bicycles, shiny cars.
“Get a move on, Russell. Grab some boxes and take them inside. I don’t want you running off until everything is in the house. Your daddy tells me there’s a creek back in the woods. I don’t want you going near it until I get the clothesline up and the washer hooked up. I do hope Larry remembered to call CP&L; I don’t want to sit in the dark and sweat,” Jeanie said.
A creek? I wonder if it’s deep enough to swim in and has fish. Nobody mentioned a creek.
Russell went to bed early that night, in the attic bedroom. He lay motionless on his bed in the darkness, listening. The night-sounds were different from the trailer. A floor fan pushed air over him and outside, through the two open attic windows, Russell could hear, faintly, wilder noises than he had ever heard.
Learning the night-sounds was something Russell had done in every place he had ever lived in: the trailer, and the string of houses in Oklahoma and Kansas. For the first three or four nights Russell focused on knowing all the night-sounds before falling asleep. He had to learn the new words of the wind and the trees and if the house said anything in reply. Though muted, he could hear, right under his bed, the dull sound of a chair being dragged across some floor downstairs, probably the living room. The phone trilled like some distant bird.
Russell picked up a flashlight from the floor and clicked it on to read again the names he had found scrawled in magic marker and blue and black ink and pencil on the attic roof beams. Robert, 7-17-75; Donnie was here, 8-13-89; Sam, April 4, 1987. Tomorrow Russell would write his own name, below Donnie’s. Russell wrote the letters of his name in the air with his flashlight. Then he turned it off and wrote his name again, using his fingers.
He was able to see, very faintly, the letters in what looked like blue skywriting, above his head.
Jeff
The day before the beginning of the new school year, Mrs. Clark took Jeff into Nottingham Heights Elementary. To meet Mrs. Bondurant, the guidance counselor there, she said. His social worker had requested it. What for, he had wondered. What could he possibly tell this woman that he hadn’t told somebody else, that wasn’t already written down in some folder somewhere.
“I’m going to talk with your teacher and then look around the library,” Mrs. Clark said when she came out of Mrs. Bondurant’s office. She had gone in first and Jeff had poked around the computer lab. The counselor’s office was at the back of the lab. “This is Mrs. Bondurant.”
Jeff eyed the woman warily as she got up from her desk to shake his hand.
Mrs. Bondurant looked too young, with long, dark brown hair pulled back with a bright blue scarf. Dark brown eyes, a turtleneck, jeans.
“Thanks for coming in, Mrs. Clark. Jeff and I won’t be long, maybe half-an-hour, forty-five minutes? Come in, Jeff, sit down for a minute, while I make some notes in this file, then we’ll visit some.”
She smiled a lot, Jeff thought, as he sat down stiffly in a chair by her desk, watching her as she wrote. Ever since he had come to live with the Clarks, everybody seemed to be writing something down all the time in little folders or notebooks and they wouldn’t let him see any of it. They—the social workers, the police, the doctors, now this guidance counselor—were writing about what had happened and what he had said and hadn’t said and what his saying or not saying meant. It means I don’t want to talk about it all the time.
They all wanted him to talk, to express himself, tell them how he felt, what he was dreaming. This young Mrs. Bondurant with her long hair and smiles was going to want the same thing, he thought. Maybe.
Jeff looked around the room as Mrs. Bondurant wrote—boy, she was writing a lot. No, now she was reading something. Now she was frowning. Mrs. Clark must have told her everything.
Camille Bondurant was starting her fourth year as a school guidance counselor, a year that was to be split between Nottingham Heights Elementary and Marlborough Road Elementary. Mondays and Tuesdays and every other Friday at Nottingham; Wednesdays and Thursdays and the other Friday at Marlborough. But even with two schools and a heavy caseload, Camille had never been not ready to talk with a new student. Until today. The principal at Marlborough, a singularly boring man, with sandy blond hair cropped close to his head, had gone on and on and on. She had just started skimming the Gates boy’s file, her blue-green mug steeping a bag of Constant Comment, when his foster mother had knocked on the door. She knew a little about Jeff from a phone conversation with his DSS social worker—dinosaurs—but she needed to put him in context. Why he was seeing her, when, how, and what did he know about what had happened to him.
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