by Adam Dark
I gathered up the nonperishable items and lined them in the pantry. The pantry and refrigerator still looked like we had nothing to eat. The few items from the store would barely last us through next week. On my way back, I had contemplated eating some of the bread but knew the short-lived gratification and sedation of my hunger would dim in comparison to the belayed torture that would ensue if Simon found out.
I finished putting the groceries away and climbed the stairs. It took me ten minutes to ascend those forty-five steps. The boys were huddled along the railing and banister with bulging eyes. I knew what they were all thinking. Where was Simon?
Number five intercepted me at the top of the stairs. He blocked my way with his body. I almost fell into his arms from exhaustion.
“Where’s Simon?” he asked.
I shrugged and pushed through his arm. He followed close behind.
“You don’t know?” number five asked.
“The last I saw he was leaning over a burning car,” I said.
Number five grabbed me by the arm and spun me around. I wobbled like a leaf blowing in the wind. The other boys circled around.
“What do you mean a burning car? What happened?” number five asked.
“Some lady at the store crashed her car into a street pole. He went to help her, I guess,” I said.
Was that relief or disappointment I saw in his eyes? Maybe a bit of both.
“Help?” came the response.
The shock was evident on their faces. Simon never helped anyone. While some looked confused, others were scared. Chances were they were wondering if Simon would come up in a bad mood.
He wasn’t fun to be around when he was mad. I shuffled to our room and fell into my bed. My entire body hurt. I doubted sleep would do much more than put a dent in the exhaustion and depletion my body was feeling at the moment.
I never wanted to walk more than across the distance of the room again. I marveled at how Simon walked it every week. I knew he was strong, but I couldn’t help but feel admiration for him. Anyone who walked ten miles, with groceries in their hands, no matter how light, was deserving of respect.
There was much I didn’t admire about Simon, but his physical endurance was not one of those things. I told myself that of course he was fit. Who wouldn’t be if they walked ten miles uphill each week? I had thought he was punishing us and had some unnatural desire to never have food in the house, but now I knew better.
He couldn’t bring back more food even if he wanted to, not without risking complete bodily shutdown. Perhaps that’s why he brought me with him. I hoped he didn’t get any ideas about making it a normal occurrence. I felt eyes on me.
I cracked my right eye open to see the boys huddled around my bed.
“What?” I asked.
The boys exchanged glances.
“Is Simon okay?” one of them asked.
I closed my eye and sank into the thin mattress. The downstairs door opened and closed with a slam. I didn’t need to get up to know it was Simon, but the other boys didn’t have my kind of faith. I heard someone else’s voice—a woman’s.
“There’s a woman downstairs,” someone said. It sounded like number seven.
“What’s she doing here?” another asked.
The boys whispered to each as the voices downstairs shifted to the kitchen. None of them were dumb enough to descend the stairs. Instead, they all remained along the banister with their heads poking between the poles.
The back door leading to the porch screeched. Their footfalls echoed along the side of the house. Their voices were low murmurs that crept through the thin walls. I had no idea who the woman was, but I figured it was the lady with the car. She must have driven Simon back with him once they fixed her car.
While the boys scattered from the banister to the sole window in our room, I submitted my body to sleep.
6
If I thought my body hurt before, the next day proved time did not heal all wounds. My legs refused to bend when I tried to stand. The other boys were still sleeping. The sun shined through the window. Where was Simon?
It was not like Simon to allow us to sleep in. Definitely not after the sun had come up. I pushed myself off the bed and gripped the side of the bunk to keep from falling. My legs were tight as if every muscle was flexed beyond its straining point. They hurt to touch. I rubbed my palms along my thighs. Sharp pain ripped through my legs causing black spots to dance in my vision. Tears streamed my cheeks.
The other boys stirred in their beds. The door to the room opened. Simon’s head peeked in. His eyes swept over the boys sleeping until they found me. There was something different about him. Something in his eyes that I couldn’t quite pinpoint.
“Get everyone up. We have a guest,” he said to me.
He closed the door, gently. I listened to his boots clang against the stairs as he went back down. I managed to shuffle to the bed next to mine. I all but tumbled into number five’s face. His hands flailed to life as he jumped out of bed.
“What is it?” he shouted.
He whipped his head from side-to-side as if he were fending off a cougar. It took him a moment before he calmed and realized it was just me. He raised his eyebrows.
“What’s wrong with you?” he asked.
“Legs,” I said. Speaking was the only thing that didn’t hurt.
Number five glanced to the door and the rest of the beds.
“Where’s Simon?” he asked.
“Downstairs. He wants us to come down. We have a guest,” I said.
“The woman,” number five said, as if he already knew.
I shrugged and collapsed into his bed. I ran my hands along my legs. It wasn’t helping.
“Help me get the others up,” I said. “I can barely walk.”
Number five followed my hands to my legs. The swelling made my brown pants protrude like full potato sacks. I stopped and looked at him.
“Do you want him to come back?” I asked.
Number five thought about it, rolled his eyes, then got up. He walked to each of the beds and yanked the sheets from the other boys. Each of them groaned and pulled their pillows over their eyes. I wondered how long they had all stayed up the night before.
From the looks on their faces and their drooping bodies, I’d say they had stayed up the entire night. Number five swatted the stragglers with a pillow until they all got out of bed and lined up. I was near the door when the last boy woke. My nostrils flared to life with the smell of bacon when I opened the door.
The boys seemed to enliven when they smelled it too and rushed to the stairwell. I glommed on to the side of the wall and inched my way, slowly. I could only manage to step a few inches at a time without my legs buckling under me. Going down the stairs was the hardest thing I had ever done, even worse than hauling back groceries for five miles in the cold snow, uphill.
The other boys swept down like a flash flood and all but ran to the kitchen. I hobbled in four minutes later. The kitchen was beaming with heat and different smells. The boys were sitting at the table with their shoulders back, hands folded neatly on their laps and eyes wide and staring at our visitor.
I followed their gaze to the lady in red. Her hair hung halfway down her back with a red ribbon tied around the center. Her dress came up mid-thigh. There was no sign of Simon at first. Just as I was entering the kitchen, he came bursting through the back door with a basket. He paused at the door. Our eyes met again, then he strolled to the woman in red.
He placed the basket on the counter.
“Thank you, sweetie,” she said.
She gave him a pat on the shoulder then reached into the basket. I counted twenty-four eggs. She cracked each one along the edge of the frying pan. She used a spatula to flip whatever was in the other pan. There was no mistaking the greasy pop coming from that metal rim. Bacon. My tongue dripped with hunger.
The woman in red spun around. She jumped backward and nearly flipped the pan she was holding when she saw me.
Her face spread into a smile.
“You must be Tripp,” she said.
How did she know who I was? Hearing my real name felt weird. No one called me that anymore. My legs were shaking. I tried not to fall and forced a smile.
Simon was watching me from the pantry.
“Nice to meet you,” I said.
Simon relaxed his glare.
“Are you hungry?” the woman asked.
“Famished,” I said before I had a chance to filter my response. She giggled and flipped a dangling piece of hair from her eyes behind her ear.
“Go find a seat. Breakfast will be ready soon,” she said.
I looked to Simon. He nodded with his eyes to sit. I slid my feet along the floor. It helped with the pain in my thighs to minimize the bending. My body plummeted into my designated spot on the wooden bench. Sitting did little to assuage the pain. It only seemed to make it worse with the legs bent.
“Alright boys. Who’s ready for breakfast?” the woman asked fifteen minutes later.
Had I not been in excruciating pain the entire time, I might have melted into a puddle of saliva at the intoxicating fumes emitting from the stovetop.
She carried over both of the frying pans and scraped the contents onto the centerpiece on the table. The acrylic plates looked alien. We had never used silverware to eat, other than the tools used to cook. And even they were off limits unless Simon asked you to cook.
I forgot about the pain in my legs when the first sizzling egg flopped on my plate, followed by twenty-three more glistening white flowers. That’s what fried eggs looked like to me. The yolk glowed golden orange. The woman went back to the kitchen three more times and brought back bacon, garlic potatoes, and toast.
I had never seen so much food in one place. Simon walked over, carrying more white plates in his hands. He looked awkward standing there as he laid them on the table.
“Simon says...hand these out,” Simon said to number three. He stopped himself mid-sentence. The woman didn't seem to notice his third person tendency.
We each passed the plates around every boy had one. I think I was the only one who already had one. This was followed by forks and knives. I held mine in my hands like foreign objects. I had used silverware at the foster family that had me before I came to Oakwood Valley but never at Simon's place.
My fingers bent awkwardly along the knuckles. The other boys seemed to be fairing worse. The woman came skipping over, still wearing the apron around her waist. She took the seat near the head of the table where Simon usually sat. Simon’s face contorted.
I could tell he was annoyed. The vein in his neck pulsated.
“Why don’t you sit so we can eat,” the woman said to Simon.
Simon went to the porch and came back with a spare chair. He squeezed it in at the other end of the table. The boys scooted closer together, but I didn’t move. I was directly next to Simon who hadn’t taken his eyes off of the woman since he sat down.
“Simon, can you say grace?” the woman asked.
Simon shuffled uncomfortably in his seat. His lips moved as he mumbled under his breath. The woman grabbed the hands of the boys next to her. We all did the same. I gave Simon my finger. He held it like a limp noodle. While the others bowed their heads and closed their eyes, I kept mine open.
The woman wasn’t the same as the one with the wrecked car. This woman was older and less flashy. She had this homey vibe about her, like she was someone’s mother. I wondered if she was a good mother. I was still staring when Simon said amen and all eyes came up. The woman caught me staring. She smiled, then directed her attention to the food.
“Great prayer. Thank you, Simon," she said.
She addressed the boy to her right.
“Can you pass me the eggs?” she asked.
The boy picked up the plate with shaking hands. She used her fork and knife to slide off an egg before passing it to her left. She repeated this with the bacon, toast, and the potatoes. As the food went around the table, each of us took a portion.
There were five eggs on the plate when I got it. My stomach growled as I looked upon the food. I could have eaten all five without making a dent in my hunger. I scraped one more onto my plate and handed it to Simon. He yanked it from my hands and dumped the four remaining eggs on his own.
Each of the boys waited to eat until we all had food. I glazed over my plate of breakfast. It was the most I had ever eaten in one sitting. More even than a day’s worth. Simon’s fork scraped along his plate without hesitance. The rest of us followed suit. I gripped my fork in my right hand and cupped it.
I started with the eggs. The puffy white all but melted in my mouth. I took my time with the first bite but I quickly lost all control and consumed the rest of the food in a matter of seconds. My lips were still moving as I looked for more.
Simon swatted my hand as I reached for another piece of bacon. I stuffed my hands on my lap the remainder of breakfast. Half of us were tasked with doing the dishes. The others were sent outside to “play” in the yard. That was code for “clean it up before I get out there.”
I was grateful for the fresh air. The house was getting claustrophobic with the extra bodies inside and all of us trying not to upset Simon. The dish crew joined us an hour later. Simon and the woman remained inside the rest of the morning and into the early afternoon. It was nearing four o’clock when the back screen door swung open.
Simon had a skinning knife in his hand. I didn’t notice it at first until one of the boys gasped.
“Simon wants this yard spotless by supper,” Simon said as he charged through the yard.
There was no sign of the woman. I figured she had left. Simon headed for the thicket of trees behind the orphanage. I knew there were chicken coops on the property, just had never seen them. It was nightfall by the time Simon returned. The front of his shirt was stained red, as were his hands.
The knife was in his left hand and a hen in his right. Its head had been removed. Simon kicked the screen door open and disappeared inside. He called for us an hour later. The woman was sitting in the living room. She hadn’t left as I had thought.
Simon was busy in the kitchen ripping the feathers from the hen. He gutted it on the counter and left the entrails on the chop block. He shuffled past us to the yard.
“Come with Simon,” he said to me.
The other boys gave me a look but filtered upstairs to wash for supper. I followed Simon to the edge of the fence line where the trees encroached on the yard.
“Gather Simon some wood,” Simon said.
I had no idea what the wood was for but went into the trees anyway. As I went deeper and the trees grew thicker, the thought of running away crossed my mind. Now would be my chance if there ever was one. Simon was back in the yard, the boys were inside, and I was all alone.
I quickly ditched the thought. Even if I did want to escape, I wouldn’t get far. Not with my legs all swollen with lactic acid. I’d probably collapse a hundred meters in. Simon would find me balled in the fetal position under a tree, probably on the verge of freezing to death.
No, I didn’t try to run this time. I gathered all the loose twigs and branches I could handle and walked back. I dumped them at Simon’s feet. He gave my measly pile a quick glance.
“More,” he said.
Simon was never much for talk, but ever since the grocery store, he had spoken more than he ever had before. It took me three more trips before Simon was satisfied with my pile.
“Stack it here,” Simon said.
He pointed to a burn pit he had dug in the yard. He had secured two metal pipes together with copper wire. I piled the twigs into a bird’s nest then began stacking the larger pieces along the outer perimeter in the shape of a teepee. My father had shown me how when I was younger when he had taken me camping in the Smoky Mountains.
I was never able to make fire until the fourth camping trip. It was also the last. My f
ather never came back that night when he went out looking for wood. The park ranger who found him the next morning said he had slipped and hit his head on a rock. They never let me see the body. Police detectives and emergency crew had carried his body out of the national park, wrapped in a black bag.
The funeral was closed casket. There were only four of us at the wake. Me, the priest, my father’s body, and Simon. Some lady from Child Protective Services and a lawyer had talked with me about staying with my uncle. I had never met Simon before that day.
He didn’t seem thrilled about the prospect, but my father had left a small inheritance for my uncle if he became my guardian. Needless to say, Simon signed the papers and the rest was history. I’ve been at Oakwood Valley Home for Boys ever since.
Living with Simon wasn’t the worst thing that could have happened to me. I’d heard of many children who had no family to turn to. They all were lost in the system now. The lucky few might find an adopted family, but most would spend their entire youth moving from home to home until they were old enough to live on their own or their foster families got tired of dealing with them.
Some might say I was the lucky one. I’d like to agree, but life at Oakwood Valley wasn’t all rainbows and butterflies. I finished forming the kindling and the outer wall for the flame and stepped back. Simon dumped gasoline from a rusted red tub. He shook the remaining droplets before tossing the canister into the night.
I was no pyro expert, but gasoline didn't seem like the best flame starter.
I took a step back when he lit the match and tossed it onto the wood. The kindling and teepee took to flame with a burst of light. The smell of singed hair and flesh filled the air. Simon patted his arms and backed away. He had been standing right next to the pit when he dropped the match.
He was lucky he wasn’t burned alive. I watched Simon stare into those hot flames. Maybe he had hoped the flames would gobble him up and end his suffering. I was young but I knew the look of someone hurting. I had seen it on my father’s face many nights when he’d stay by my mother’s side.
I don’t remember much about her other than the oxygen tanks and tubes running into her nose—and the blood. A nurse would rush in whenever my mother had a coughing spell. I might have been young, but I wasn’t blind. Something was wrong with my mother. I just never knew how bad until she died.
