The circle broke then and they all ran over and fell on top of the girls, tumbling into a big happy heap of hugs and giggles.
"All right-let's go now!" The girl handed her bullhorn over to one of the other teenagers, who began herding the children down toward the community center.
The girl in the jeans turned toward me now. Her expression turned as dark as her skin.
"All right," she said, walking up to the Jeep. "Who the hell are you? And how did you get onto the peninsula? Did you get an eyeful? Did you see everything you wanted to?"
"I drove across the bridge." I pointed back over my shoulder.
"The bridge was down?"
"Yeah."
"Dammit! I'm going to kill that Danny! Well, listen you, you turn that Jeep around right now and head on back the way you came. "
"Is this place called Family?"
"Yes, and you're on private property."
"I'm looking for Juanita Wise," I said. I had to give the twerp credit. He'd married her anyway.
"She's not here. Who are you?"
"I'm Lieutenant James Edward McCarthy of the United States Army. And this country is still under military jurisdiction. So I'll ask some questions now. Who are you?"
I had to give her credit. She didn't back down. She said, "They call me Little Ivy."
"When will Mrs. Wise be back?"
"She's not coming back. What do you want with her?"
"Do you know where she went?"
"She's dead."
Suddenly the sun was awfully bright. And I felt dizzy. This day wasn't real. I could feel my gut tightening. "Are you sure?"
"I assisted with the autopsy." Her tone was matter of fact.
"Her name used to be McCarthy-?"
"I don't know. I guess so. Listen, if you're still looking for her son, we already told you, he was never here."
"I am her son."
"Huh? Oh, my God-" She looked as if I'd hit her with a shovel. Her face went gray. "I-I'm sorry."
I couldn't hear her. "What did she die of?"
"A millipede bit her. On the mainland. We don't have any on the peninsula."
I felt a cold chill in my belly. "Was it the blood thing, where all the red cells just explode?"
She shook her head. "No, nothing that fancy. A staph infection."
"Staphlococcus? Staph? But that's-stupid!"
Little Ivy looked flustered and embarrassed. "That's what Birdie said-she's our doctor. But we don't always have all the medicines we need. Uh, listen, Lieutenant. I'm awfully sorry. About the way I treated you. I didn't know. We used to get a lot of strangers coming in here and . . ."
"Spare me your excuses." I held up a hand. I was trying to think. I couldn't think. There was a terrible pounding in my head. She couldn't be dead. That was stupid. Not like this. People don't die like this any more.
But even as I tried to tell myself it wasn't true, I knew it was. But I couldn't cry. I wouldn't cry.
There were tears rolling down my cheeks, but it wasn't me. I wasn't there. I wasn't crying. Not me. Not yet.
A lady named Shirley was mellow
as she said to her eager young fellow,
"I prefer bagels and lox
to sucking off cocks,
Or even a nice dish of Jell-O!"
30
Bear
"People who live in glass houses might as well answer the door."
-SOLOMON SHORT
I should have gotten back in the Jeep and driven away somewhere. But I didn't have any place to go. And besides, Betty-John had told me to stay as long as I needed. They had the room. They didn't mind.
But there wasn't all that much to do around Family. At least, not for me. They had a hundred and seventeen kids to take care of, all various ages from six months up to the age where they stopped being kids and started being assistants. There were thirty-one adults in the town-well, actually, nineteen adults and twelve teenagers, but the teenagers still counted as adults because they were doing adult jobs. Sixteen women, three men, eight girls, four boys; that was the core around which Family revolved.
Three of the women were the mothers of the three youngest children, but it wasn't readily apparent. All the babies seemed interchangeable, regardless of parentage. No one here, either adult or child, acted as if they belonged specifically to any other person. All of the children responded to all of the adults as if they were all their parents. But, of course, that was the whole purpose of the settlement: to parent as many orphans as possible.
I felt as useful as a third nostril.
I tried to keep out of the way. I puttered around the library for a day or two, at first just looking for something to read; somehow, I ended up stacking and shelving and organizing-the place was a mess-but there is nothing that can erode the love of books quite like having to move and sort kilos and kilos and kilos of dusty hardcopies.
I hung around the mess hall for a while, trying to find someone to play dominoes with, but it seemed as if everybody had something else more important to do.
Like I said, I should have gotten back in the Jeep and driven away somewhere.
But this was the last place my mother had been, and . . .
. . . that was odd. I didn't really miss her. I mean, I missed her, but there wasn't an aching hole in my heart that twinged every time I thought of her.
What I did feel was guilt-that I didn't feel more pain. No. What I felt was anger.
It was the divorce, of course. She'd disowned me-a fact that I had conveniently refused to believe. I'd gotten in the Jeep and I'd come looking for her. I didn't know why-and I did.
Sort of.
I wanted her to welcome me with open arms, hug me, and tell me that everything was going to be all right.
Instead . . . she'd disowned me again. This time for good. This time there was no chance of apologizing. Ever.
Goddamn her for leaving me!
And goddamn me-for everything!
I didn't know what to do. All I knew how to do was keep on keeping on. So that was what I did.
I lurched from one day to the next, doing odd chores for Betty-John and the others and waiting for things to sort themselves out.
Of course, they didn't. They never did. Jason had always said
Fuck Jason.
So, mostly, I hung around the mess hall. I ate their food, there wasn't any shortage of food here. I swept their floors. I washed their dishes. Maybe I could stay here for a while. I could lose myself in books and sandwiches and videodiscs and games. I'd been pretty much that way as a kid.
But there had to be something else, something moreBetty-John came striding through the mess hall on some busy errand or other. I tried to flag her down, but she hardly noticed me. She was involved in some uproar concerning committee schedules. She was yelling into her phone
"Betty-John?" I touched her sleeve.
"Oh, Jim-look, I'm awfully busy right now. Can it wait? Thanks. Look, be a love and go down and watch for the bus. We've got some new kids coming in. Okay?"
"Yeah, sure." I felt grumpy, but one thing about Betty-John. If she said, you did. You couldn't really argue with her; the more you talked to her, the more jobs she laid on you.
Kids. They were an annoyance; underfoot, loud, and messy. Runny noses, scabbed knees with red stains of Mercurochrome, dirty faces, small clammy hands-and it was hot outside too.
I went anyway. I was wearing shorts and a T-shirt, and I must have looked like somebody's idea of a camp counselor. Clean and scrubbed. And it's hard to look impressive in shorts. Especially if you have knobby knees. Probably I looked younger than I had in months; I'd always looked younger than my age. One of my many vanities had been to fantasize that the armed services would make a man out of me. But I couldn't see that there was any difference in the mirror in the morning, and had reluctantly come to the conclusion that whatever it was they were supposed to do for me, it hadn't taken. I'd always heard that those who had been through combat came back with an extra littl
e hardness around their eyes, a kind of mysterious glint that women could somehow sense and respond to. All I saw in myself was my usual unfriendly scowl. If I had somehow taken on a "bloody aura of danger" I couldn't see it.
Never mind. I parked myself under a tree near the lower barricade and began to wait.
I was awakened by a horn beeping and the tired wheeze of a dusty yellow bus. It reeked of methanol and its brakes complained loudly as it rolled to a stop before the sawhorse that kept traffic off the main street of Family. Anxious faces of children peered out of closed windows. The driver-he couldn't have been more than sixteen himself-climbed down with a clipboard. "Hey!" he called imperiously.
I stood up and walked over.
"Who's in charge here?" he demanded.
"Who're you looking for?"
"You know someone named . . ." he checked his clipboard. "Tremaine?"
"Yeah. She's up there somewhere." I gestured vaguely.
"Oh, shit. Hey, can this barricade be moved? Or knocked down?"
"'Uh-uh. We've got children running around. You'll have to hoof it."
He groaned and went back to the bus, opened the door and called in. "You kids stay here, or else! I'll be right back."
I watched him. He had about as much empathy as a slug. And just as much sense. The kids started piling out of the bus within seconds-I would have too. He hadn't inspired much trust, and these weren't trusting kids anyway. They were wide-eyed and suspicious. Curious, but very cautious. The oldest couldn't have been more than fourteen, the youngest were two bundles in blankets, held by two of the girls. They looked tired.
I sighed to myself and walked over. Somebody had to keep an eye on them. "Hi," I said.
They all froze and stared at me. There were seventeen of them, counting the two babies. They had large round eyes, and looked like a cage full of hungry puppies who'd been beaten instead of fed.
I hunkered down to look at one little boy, about four or five. Sandy-haired, he looked a little like Mark. (Mark? Oh, yeah, my nephew. Had I really forgotten?) "What's your name?"
He just stared back at me with the roundest eyes of all. "My name is Jim," I tried. "What's yours?"
Still no answer.
I pointed at the almost shapeless hunk of stuffed animal he carried. "What's your bear's name?"
He murmured something. Very tentatively. "Huh? I didn't hear you. What's his name?" This time louder. "Bear."
"Mm, that's a good name. Is he a good bear?" Round-Eyes shook his head slowly.
"He's a bad bear then . . . ?" Again he shook his head. "But he's your bear, isn't he?"
Slow tentative nod. The child wasn't sure what to make of me. Grown-ups were supposed to be good people, but I was a stranger to him. And God alone knew where he had come from and what he had been through. I wanted to stroke his hair or give him a hug-to show him everything was going to be all right now-but Betty-John had warned me, some of these kids were funny about being touched. Don't touch any of them unless you ask their permission first.
"Will you shake hands with me?" I held out my hand, but not too far. He'd have to reach for it.
He looked at it. He looked at me.
Most of the kids were watching us. They were watching me more than him. A little girl opened up then. "I'll shake hands with you." But there was a "What's in it for me?" implied in the way she said it.
"Okay," I said. I held out my hand to her. She was wearing a faded brown dress-where had I seen her before? She'd been skipping, hadn't she? She must have been seven or eight, or maybe even nine, but she was so gaunt it was hard to tell. She could have been older.
She shook my hand gravely, never once taking her eyes from mine.
"What's your name?" I asked.
"Holly," she said solemnly.
"Well, hi, Holly. I'm Jim." I tried to coax a smile from her. I'd been told that if you keep smiling at a kid, they'll smile back, because they haven't yet learned how to smother an almost instinctive response. But apparently this bunch had learned, because it wasn't working. They were regarding me like a used-car salesman. They were skittish, and obviously frightened; what would this towering grown-up want from them? I wondered what some of them must have been through to have learned a reaction like that.
"I had an Uncle Jim once . . ." Holly offered. It was a wary comment, as if she wanted to know if I was going to try to be the "official" replacement.
I tried a different tack. B-Jay had warned against dredging the kids' memories, especially in inappropriate circumstances. First they had to experience that they were in a truly safe place before they could confront their past experiences.
I said, "Good. Will you be my friend?"
She stared. "Don't you have any other friends?"
I shook my head, slowly and very deliberately. I'm sure she suspected me for a liar, but adults never lied. Well, hardly ever. "Not any?" She was horrified. "But you must . . ."
"Not even a bear," I insisted.
That convinced her I was telling the truth. If grown-ups insist on something, it must be true.
"Well . . ." She thought about it. This was a pretty big commitment, even more than getting married. She hesitated, then decided. "I'll be your friend."
"Okay." I looked back at little Round-Eyes. "Do you have a friend?"
He had been watching the exchange between Holly and me with the most intense stare I'd ever seen on a child. Now, when I turned back to him, he merely hugged his bear tighter and tried to shrink away. I wanted to pull him closer to me, but instead I just shifted my position. All this hunkering down and squatting to talk to three-foot people was hard on my back.
"His name's Alec," offered Holly.
"Alec what?"
"I dunno."
A third child stepped forward, a boy, maybe twelve or thirteen, maybe more; most of these children were small for their age. He'd been watching me a little harder than the rest.
"Who're you?" he demanded suspiciously. "Are you the boss here?"
"My name's Jim."
"I know. But who are you?"
"I'm Holly's friend." I tried to sidetrack him. I offered my hand.
It didn't work. "Uh-uh. What do you do here? We're not supposed to talk to strangers?"
"You weren't supposed to get out of the bus either."
He ignored that. "I'm thirsty."
"What's your name?"
"Why do you want to know?"
I shrugged, shifted position again, gave up, straightened and leaned back against the bus. The metal was still warm and felt dusty. I knew without looking that I'd just gotten this T-shirt very dirty. "So I'll know what to call you." I looked down at him. The advantage that height gave me was more than psychological, but I sensed this wasn't the moment for "I'm bigger than you are" games. Instead, I grinned. "You don't want me calling you, 'Hey, you,' do you?"
He wrinkled his nose, turned to the other kids, ignoring me completely. "Come on, let's get back on the bus before Ollie gets back." He reached out to drag Alec, but Alec pulled away. The boy grabbed Alec again, and again Alec pulled away, this time with a little whine of resistance. The boy stepped forward, raising his fist.
I grabbed-his wrist slapped into my hand. I caught it and held it. I held his arm up high over his head, not too high, but high enough and hard enough to be uncomfortable. And embarrassing. "Hold it," I said quietly, but firmly. "There's not going to be any hitting around here."
"Who says?"
"I do. "
"So what?"
"Well, I'll tell you what-" All right, so I would play the game if I had to. I picked him up by the front of his shirt. It was heavy enough material to support him, his feet left the ground nicely; vhis could turn into quite a power trip. "l say so-I'm bigger than you." I held up my fist-gently, very gently now-in front of his face. "A lot bigger. So, if there's any hitting to be done, I've got first dibsies."
He muted his belligerence, he had no choice, but not his resentment or distrust. I couldn't take those away fro
m him. He bit his lower lip and looked away. I'd won.
I lowered him to the ground, put my hands into my pockets and grinned.
He socked me in the stomach.
I deserved it; I'd let my guard down.
The problem with hitting a kid that size is how do you do it without looking like a bully? The answer is you don't. Fortunately, the question didn't even cross my mind until I'd finished clobbering him. Gently, of course.
First, I cuffed him up one side of the head; then, as he reached up to protect himself, I poked at his stomach with four stiff fingers. He sort of doubled up, and that's when I walloped his behind with the flat of my hand. Then I held him-at arm's length, the little bastard was still trying to kick me-and I slapped him once more. I had him by the throat then, one hand wrapped firmly around it, and he stopped; he had to if he wanted to keep breathing.
I tried not to show that I was out of breath too. He fought like a tiger. "Let's get one thing straight, stupid," I said. "Don't ever try that again."
He glared. "Well-Alec is mine."
"Your what? Are you two brothers?"
"Not exactly."
"What does that mean?"
"It's just . . . we stay together. Wherever we go."
"Oh," I said. I had to think about that. I eased up on his neck. "Can I trust you?"
He nodded.
"All right." I let go. "Nobody's going to separate you, if that's what you're afraid of. But you don't have to hit him."
"He doesn't talk much. And if you don't hit him a little, he doesn't move either."
I wondered if Alec was autistic. Maybe; but then again, maybe not. Maybe he was just as withdrawn as the rest of us who had walked into the sledgehammer, which was just about everybody. Sometimes insanity is the only sane response to an insane situation; hadn't Foreman once said something like that? "Well," I said, putting a hand on Alec's shoulder-he had huddled up next to me for protection, I hadn't even noticed until I put my hand down-"Well, around here, it's all right if you don't talk." I leaned down close to Alec. "If you don't want to say anything, you don't have to. Okay?"
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