A woman with a black hair net and legs shaped like oversized marshmallows stood at the door. She clutched the top of her robe, and I closed both eyes when the mind doctor leaned towards me. They tried to shake me, gentle at first and then harder. When the inside car light came on, I kept my eyes sealed tight and tried to hold my breath. Maybe they would think I was dead. Tony, the driver, lifted me out of the car and carried me right into the house.
Cracking an eye, I made out a plastic-covered sofa with printed roses. Torn places on a lampshade fanned with the movement in the room. The sofa made a crinkling sound when Tony put me on it. Soon a pillow was tucked under my head, and a blanket fell over my legs. Mumbled words intertwined with the squeaking hinges of the front door.
“I’ll come back to check on him tomorrow,” the mind doctor said. “Here’s the information we discussed.”
Papers rattled, and a coo-coo clock chimed.
“Let’s see, his name is Bobby?” the woman with the hair net asked.
“Brandon,” Tony and the woman doctor said at the same time.
“Brandon,” the other woman repeated. “Well, he’ll be happy here. The children will make him feel right at home.”
The door closed and locks clicked. I kept my eyes closed until I heard the woman’s feet shuffle against a plastic runner down the hall. Light seeped in from the streetlight, illuminating a painting of a beach. The waves broke at the shore, and two seagulls hung in mid-flight. I stared at the painting, fighting hard against the temptation to blink. Never leaving the sofa, I finally tasted the salt of the air and heard the waves crashing. I wiggled my toes hoping to feel the grit of the sand between them. Soon the waves began moving, and the seagulls were dipping and soaring against the wind. The painting became a TV screen of wishful thinking. Suddenly Nana was at the end of the beach with the plastic bonnet on her head. She held the strings to the bonnet with one hand and waved with the other. Poppy walked up behind her and held up a piece of driftwood that had found its way back to shore. As I clutched the picture in my mind, the waves pulled away the emptiness that weighed down my chest. The sound of the tide rose and sank until sleep took me away from it all.
The sound of pots rattling from the kitchen woke me, but I kept my eyes closed hoping to avoid the people in my new home. Sweat from the night’s sleep made the plastic-covered sofa cold to the touch. Relieved that it was only sweat and not one of the old accidents, I knew then why the big-legged woman kept it covered.
In the car the mind doctor told me that the woman who ran the place was a Foster mother. But I was determined that the woman with big legs and the hair net could be Foster’s mother all she wanted, but she would never be mine.
She was in the kitchen humming a song. The sounds of butter sizzling in a frying pan and a refrigerator door opening drifted into the foyer. Try as I might to fight it, the smell of melting butter managed to make my mouth water. I was just about to give in when the sensation of eyes looking down at me ate up any hunger I had. I could feel the heat of their bodies as much as I felt their stares. Their eyes sizzled on me the same way I pictured the butter melting in the frying pan.
Trying to peek at them, I heard the one closest to me speak first. “We see your eyes a-fluttering. You’re awake.” At first only one giggled, and then two others joined in.
A girl with stringy brown hair and freckles on her nose pulled down at her shirt and laughed harder.
“If you knew I was awake, then how come you were leaning over me?”
Two boys with crew cuts and matching T-shirts looked under the sofa and around the side of the corner table. “Why don’t you have a suitcase? They always bring some clothes.”
“Because he’s jailbait.”
A bigger boy with a stomach so low that it made me think of men who walked the streets of Abbeville came into the room. His fiery red hair matched the heat of his words. “The police brought him in here last night. They carried him in like some retard all bundled up in that baby blanket.”
“What you been in jail for?” one of the twin boys asked.
They all moved forward and widened their eyes, scanning the length of my body as though I was a mannequin on display at Mama Rose’s stand.
“Nothing much.”
The big one rubbed the tip of his elbow. Flakes of dead skin fell to the sofa while he tried to flex a muscle. “Son, you better tell us or I’m fixing to nail you but good.”
“I said nothing much. Just this thing about cutting a boy’s tongue out.”
“What?” the girl asked.
“Un-huh. You’re lying,” the bigger one said.
“That’s why they had me all wrapped up last night. I get these spells that make me jerk all over. If I don’t get to my medicine, they get real bad. Like that time this boy in school got to picking at me. I started jerking all over and reached for my pocketknife. It was like watching a movie, you know, but I was the one playing in it. I just walked right over while he was laughing and cut his tongue clean off.” I held up my index finger and showed the scar left by a wayward hook from a fishing trip with Poppy.
“This scar is from him near biting my finger off. When he did that I went real crazy then. My legs went to flopping around like a puppet or something. And before the teacher could get a hold of me, I put my knife right in the middle of his rib cage. Blood went flying all over the place. They had to call in extra janitors from other schools just to clean it up.” I stared straight ahead at the painting meant to bring peace and twisted my jaw. “Those pills usually keep me calmed down. That’s why they put me in here last night, in case I went crazy and killed one of y’all.”
The twins slid to the edge of the wall, but the redhead stood his ground. “You’re making that up.”
“You’ll see. All kinds of mind doctors are coming to see me. Ask one of them if you don’t believe me.”
“I’m gonna ask Miss Madelyn,” he said.
“Go on, but you think she knows? Last night I heard the doctors say they weren’t gonna tell her and get her all nervous. But right before they closed the door, they did tell her to keep that butcher knife locked up.” I sat staring at the scene of the ocean and jerked my shoulder up to my neck.
The twins darted out of the room first, followed by the girl. Just before he left, the older one lifted up his leg and farted. “That right there is what I think of you and your story.” But as he left, he walked out backwards. His eyes remained on me until he bumped into a shelf stacked with angel figurines.
“Quit your roughhousing, Pete,” the woman called out from the kitchen.
“Yes, Miss Madelyn.”
For good measure I jerked again before he skipped into the kitchen. My eyes never left the painted beach or the tiny seagulls that hung over the water.
The woman with the black hair net came and got me for breakfast. She tried to smile and told me her name was Miss Madelyn. I didn’t tell her that the others had already given it away.
We sat on dinette chairs covered with daisy-printed plastic. Miss Madelyn made the others say their names with mouths full of scrambled eggs and bacon. Charlie and Caleb were the twins, and Trudy was the little girl’s name. The fat boy mumbled his name in such a way that I would have never guessed it if I hadn’t already heard Miss Madelyn call him Pete. I glanced up as they chatted about a new cartoon that was coming on TV. Their eyes circled me like pestering houseflies that never land. I tried to ignore them right down to their names. The least I knew about them the better off I’d be. Besides, I had more to worry about than some new cartoon character. My grandparents sat in jail for a crime that I had caused them to commit. It was up to me to get them out.
A week after the mind doctor stopped by again to assure me everything would be fine and that I would be back with my mama in no time flat, the real help came. She stood at the door that was outlined with wrought iron.
“Can I help you?” Miss Madelyn was wiping her hands on the dishrag. Even while watching from the kitchen, I could ma
ke out the tall turban through the screen door. The purple stack of material rose up over Miss Madelyn like the point of a new crayon.
“Yes, my name is Nairobi Touchton, with the Child Advocacy Network. Brandon Willard is my client. Social Services said they were going to notify you…”
“Oh, yeah. Well…come on in, I guess.”
Even though I knew she was my only chance, my last chance, my legs froze. The shame of what we had done settled on me.
“Bran-don,” Miss Madelyn yelled.
The steady sound from the coo-coo clock was all I heard.
“Bran-don. Let me see where he is.” Miss Madelyn hadn’t made it ten steps when she found me standing by the refrigerator. “Didn’t you hear me calling you? There’s some woman in there to see you. Now go on and talk with her.”
With a slight shove by Miss Madelyn, I was in Nairobi’s presence again. She stayed seated on the edge of the sofa. Her back was as rigid as her smile was warm.
“Long time, no see,” she said.
I turned to Miss Madelyn for guidance, but she had already made it back to the kitchen and was pulling canned goods from the shelves. All I could do was nod and look down at her buckled shoes.
“You’ve been missed.”
Her words were soft and hurt worse than if she would have screamed them at me. I put my hands in my pants pockets and pressed the edge of my shoe into the carpet.
“Everyone has been asking about you.”
“Who?”
“Everyone at the Advocacy center for starters. And Senator Strickland. She asked about you just the other day. You remember her?”
“The woman with the bright yellow hair.”
She laughed right out loud. “Yes, hair the color of daisies.”
The coo-coo clock chimed three times. As soon as the bird had disappeared again, she spoke. “Brandon, we need to have a talk.”
When I looked up, her eyes were as inviting as blackberries warmed by the sun. For a second I wanted to run and hug her neck. To break free and cry real hard. Then the sound from the TV made me come to my senses. Pete and the others would be in the room in no time flat if they heard me break down. And long after Nairobi was back behind her desk, the moment would forever seal my fate at Miss Madelyn’s house.
“I’m sorry, okay. We should’ve stayed but…”
“You don’t have to explain anything. I’m your friend.”
The sound of dishes being stacked rang out from the kitchen. Moving closer, I could smell the sweetness of her skin. “What did they do with Nana and Poppy?”
“You know, I have a philosophy. Children are simply growing adults. So I won’t lie to you. They’re being held, and they’ll face a trial.”
“What about somebody buying them out like they do on TV?”
“That’s called a bond.”
“My Uncle Cecil can get them out. He can go down to the bank and…”
Nairobi put her finger to my lips. “I tried to contact your uncle.” She looked down at the tiny ceramic dogs that lined the coffee table. “Brandon…I don’t want you to worry when I tell you this, but your uncle was injured at work and now…”
“What happened?” I moved to the edge of the sofa, and the vision of us standing at the pay phone in Abbeville trying to reach Uncle Cecil swept over me.
“A bulldozer he was driving flipped and pinned…Look, it’s not good for you to dwell on this. The point is that I called and spoke with his wife.”
“I want to call him.” I jumped up from the sofa. “He can sell something. Write a check or something.”
“Brandon, please. Let’s just first talk about…”
“I want to call him. I’ll do it whether you let me or not. She’s got a phone right in that kitchen, and I can use it anytime I want to.”
Nairobi gazed down at the alphabetized blocks that one of the twins had left scattered on the floor. “Brandon, I truly want to help you.”
Her words were empty, and I pointed right at her chest. “Then make him help us. I know he can!”
Nairobi grabbed my arm. “Your uncle is paralyzed.”
The plastic was still warm when I leaned against it. The picture on the wall in Nana’s house was the only thing my mind would let me see. The one of Uncle Cecil dressed in a uniform, hunched above the ground with his fingertips touching the field and his football helmet at his feet. Ready to leap forward to protect and defend.
“Look, I did not intend to go into all of this. He is at home with your aunt. He’s resting. Simply resting in a deep sleep. Now, promise you will not take your uncle on as another worry.”
Worry. Nairobi’s words were just like all the others. A tag line that brushed against my skin, but never entered the pores of my soul. I stared once again at the beach painting, but all I saw were dabs of paint. “Did you tell Aunt Loraine about me being over here?”
Nairobi exhaled real loud and said the word “yes” at the same time.
“Can I go stay over there? Just until…”
“Well, you know she has a big commitment taking care of your uncle. A lawsuit has been filed. She said she doesn’t even have enough time for her own children right now.”
We sat in silence. I wondered if she was waiting for me to deliver the next line. But there was none to offer. While she kept her hands clutched on the lap of her purple dress, I used the tip of my shoe to knock over one of the alphabet blocks. The letter W stared back at me.
The next day the woman from Social Services came by. It was the same woman who had first tried to get me reacquainted with Mama before we took off to Abbeville. She reviewed the questions for me with one hand on the edge of her cat-eye glasses and the other positioned on the clipboard. Miss Madelyn sat on the chair shaped like a queen’s throne, the one piece of furniture not covered in plastic and forbidden to be touched.
“Your mother is so very pleased to have you back in town,” the government woman said and then grinned the way she did after completing all of her sentences.
“We’re sure gonna miss him, but we know how much he is looking forward to having his own mama back,” Miss Madelyn said and crossed her ankles. Wads of skin bunched up over the tops of her shoes.
“Now, young man, do you have any questions for me before I send in this report?”
Turning to the woman, I looked at the tiny pearl chain that clamped on to her glasses. “When I can see Nana and Poppy?”
The smile slowly sank into pursed lips, and she flipped through the pages on the clipboard. “Now, that is not healthy. Just not healthy in the least.”
Miss Madelyn shook her head. “No, not a bit.”
The woman cut her eyes at the throne-shapped chair, and Miss Madelyn stopped moving her head. “Now do you even know how many young people I deal with on a daily basis? Well, it would just boggle the mind. But you’re a smart one. I can tell. And a smart boy would look at this as a second chance. You and your mother have had some rough spots along the way, but that’s in the past. The only thing missing in her life is you. And I know you feel the same way whether you know it right now or not.”
Miss Madelyn cleared her throat. “You’re blessed, Brandon. Not all of the boys and girls who come through my door get to go back with their mamas.”
Later that afternoon while Pete, Trudy, and the twins ran through the water sprinkler in the backyard, I sat on the iron chair on the flat piece of concrete that Miss Madelyn called a front porch. Clips from Miss Madelyn’s afternoon TV stories drifted from the open window.
The dog at the end of the street started barking just as the announcer on the TV inside declared that Guiding Light was coming on. He was a stumpy mix breed that the man kept chained to a tree, a sight that caused Miss Madelyn to shake her head and mumble “white trash” each time we drove by.
With his front paws raised in the air, the dog kept barking towards the end of the street. Barking and circling the water pipe that secured his chain. The wide cedar at the corner of Miss Madelyn’s yard kept me fr
om seeing what was causing him to act up worse than usual.
Walking past the cedar, I turned back to see Pete running wide open through a spray of water. Trudy and the twins lined up to follow him. I could see the back of Miss Madelyn’s head from the window. Against the glow of the TV, the orange curlers on her head seemed to come to life in a spray of fire. When I passed the cedar tree that separated Miss Madelyn’s house from her neighbor’s, I began to feel that I was breaking out of prison and that any minute a man with a rifle would come hunt me down.
The dog reared up as I passed by the car that his owner kept on blocks. His focus was fixed on the green taxi just the other side of an open lot. When I moved closer, the taxi driver turned to look towards the backseat, and then the passenger door opened. Standing dead center in the middle of the street, I stared at the person waving her hand. It wasn’t until she pulled her hat off that my heart skipped a beat.
A grease-stained grocery bag was clutched to Sister Delores’s chest. She waved bigger as I pinched myself just to make sure it was real.
“Come over here, baby, and give me a hug. How you doing?”
The fried smell of Nap’s Corner clung to her blouse, and I only pulled away when she grabbed my shoulders.
“Now, I told you, I’m gonna see after my flock. Didn’t I say so? It took me a few weeks to get the money together, but I’m here now. Sister Delores keeps her word, baby.”
My own words clung to the back of my throat, and I thought if I forced them to come out tears would follow.
“Baby, you look good. They been feeding you all right?”
I managed to only nod.
“We all been praying for you. Had a special prayer meeting the night y’all got hauled off. You feeling our prayers, baby?”
I choked on words and tasted the tears that slipped down to my lips.
She pulled me closer and rubbed my back. “Oh, I know it. Now don’t you forget that the Good Lord knows about all this here. He sure does. He knows right where you are. He ain’t forgot you, baby. That’s how come He sent me here. Sure did. Sent me right on that Greyhound.”
Slow Way Home Page 18
