by J. Thorn
“He isn’t delivered yet, Mr. Bondurant. You and your staff will have to take him the rest of the way to salvation.”
“Quite so.”
To Freeman, Marvin said, “So long, Freeman. Hope it works out.”
“Thanks for the lift.” Freeman almost reached out to shake Marvin’s hand, but didn’t want to mess it up by fumbling around halfway between a high-five and a soul shake. So he just nodded. He was supposed to be tough, anyway. He wasn’t going to be softened up with a few kind words and a fast-food meal. He’d been hit harder by better.
“See you around,” Marvin said to them both, then glided out the door. The shaft of sunlight that snuck in during his exit gave a hint of the wide green world beyond. Then the door swung closed, slamming with the finality of a coffin lid.
Freeman was home.
CHAPTER TWO
Francis Bondurant was already building a mental file on his latest charge. As Bondurant pretended to read the reports on his desk, he secretly studied Freeman Mills over the rims of his glasses. The boy lounged in the overstuffed leather chair in front of Bondurant’s desk, looking at the art on the walls, prints of Brueghel, Goya, and Raphael. The kind of epic religious art that inspired young minds, or at least invoked a little fear.
“So, you had some trouble down at Durham Academy,” Bondurant said, pressing his lips together in appropriate disapproval.
Freeman didn’t answer, just scuffed his feet on the carpet.
“Sullen” was the adjective that Bondurant slid into the mental file. He had two cabinets full of documentation, reports, GAF scores, criminal records, and Social Services data, but he preferred to build his own portfolio for each of Wendover’s clients. Through this method, he could work the healing powers of the Lord on these wayward children. He had to carry the children in his heart before he could lift them to higher glory. Even though Dr. Kracowski had requested and arranged Freeman Mills’s transfer, that didn’t mean the boy’s troubled soul should be entrusted entirely to science.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Bondurant said. “Sometimes a little distance helps us put things in perspective.”
“It’s all in those papers.” The boy shrugged, his face soft and feminine around his hard eyes. “Whatever they say, I must have done it. You know they’re never wrong about anything.”
“You versus them? Is that how you see things, Mr. Mills?” Bondurant put down his pen and folded his hands together under his chin.
“No. That’s how they see things.”
Bondurant smiled. This one was going to be a pleasure. The devil had reached into this child, whispered foul things in his ear, turned his heart to stone. But Bondurant wielded the shining sword and punishing scepter in the form of the paddle in his bottom drawer. “The Cheek Turner” was two feet of solid hickory and had adjusted the attitudes of larger boys than Freeman.
Bondurant read the psychiatric reports that the driver had given him. Bipolar disorder, periodic antisocial behavior, manic episodes of moderate severity, grandiose and persecutory delusions. One doctor had noted a suspected cyclothymic disorder, tossing in an asterisk and question mark beside the words “schizoaffective.”
Diagnostic voodoo. Those doctors, with their own God complexes, couldn’t see this boy’s most obvious disorder. Freeman Mills needed to get right with God, needed to mend his sinning ways, needed to let Jesus in to cure that troubled heart. Bondurant removed his glasses and pretended to clean them.
“Suicide attempt,” he noted. No need to skirt that. Let the boy learn that nothing would be glossed over at Wendover.
Freeman shrugged and absent-mindedly rubbed the scars on his left wrist. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
A broken home. So many broken homes these days. Mother murdered when Freeman was six, according to the case history. Father, an accomplished physicist and clinical psychologist, convicted of the crime and confined to a psychiatric hospital. That punishment was divine justice to Bondurant’s mind, but it still left an innocent victim. Except Bondurant was quite sure that none of these children were innocent, or else they wouldn’t be wards of the state.
“Does your father know you’re here?”
The boy shrank into the chair and his eyes shifted as if waiting for a shadow to loom over him. Bondurant recognized the mixture of anger, pain, and fear. Many of Wendover’s children wore that mask. Especially when you mentioned their fathers.
“Why do you have to drag that bastard into this?” Freeman said.
“I need to understand you if I’m going to help you.”
“Did I ask for help? How come all you shrinks make it your mission to fix me?”
Persecution complex. That’s what the “shrinks” would say. But Bondurant knew that persecution itself wasn’t a problem. The Sweet Lord Jesus Christ was the poster child of persecution, and the Lord had certainly overcome.
“Two arrests for shoplifting,” Bondurant read aloud. “Running away from group homes. Vandalism. Tipping over tombstones in a Presbyterian cemetery. What possessed you to do that?”
Freeman said nothing.
Bondurant leaned back in his leather chair. “We’ll not have that sort of foolish behavior here. Is that understood?”
Freeman nodded, looking as if he were near tears. The boy closed his eyes in an attempt to regain control.
Ah, a lesson in humility. Bondurant bit back his smile. “There’s one simple rule at Wendover, Mr. Mills. May I call you Freeman?”
The boy nodded again.
“That rule is: respect yourself and respect others.”
“Sounds like two rules to me.”
“That’s not a very respectful response, is it?”
“No, sir.” Freeman’s voice was barely audible, swallowed by the thick paneled walls of the office. The telephone rang, and Bondurant glared at it, annoyed at being interrupted in this important task.
He answered on the third ring. Kracowski was on the other end. “Francis.”
Not a question, not a greeting. Merely a fact. The length of line between them didn’t make Bondurant feel any more at ease, because Kracowski’s office was just down the hall. He found himself adjusting his tie.
“Yes, Dr. Kracowski.” Bondurant clenched his fist around the receiver. He couldn’t quite accept that the younger man insisted on being addressed as “Doctor,” while Bondurant himself could be called by his first name. Never mind that Kracowski was his meal ticket, the one whose successes kept Wendover visible in the eyes of those with clout and money. Even if the financial support had become a little too secretive in the last few months.
“There’s trouble.” Kracowski made the statement with no inflection. Was it good trouble or bad trouble?
“Of what sort, sir?” Bondurant nearly swallowed his tongue on that last salutation.
“Pillow case.”
“What’s that?”
“Womb therapy. Dr. Swenson told me it went badly.”
Some of Kracowski’s unorthodox methods, if discovered, would have the Department of Social Services conducting a full-scale investigation of Wendover. Never mind that Kracowski, and therefore Wendover as a whole, produced results, with several children already successfully integrated back into the home and society. Healing had to be done in a proper way, by the book. Kracowski must have read the book backwards, torn out a few pages, and scribbled in most of the margins. And all that new machinery in the basement . . .
Bondurant had to suffer in silence and ignorance. He looked at the cross on the wall, the symbol of He who knew suffering. Bondurant smiled at Freeman to maintain the illusion of calm superiority. “How badly?” he asked Kracowski.
“The child is unconscious.”
“I see,” he said aloud, though inwardly he was searching for the kind of perfect verbal blasphemy that only a sinner could summon.
“We have it under control. It was a necessary part of the treatment.”
“I’m sure there will be no problem.” The child wou
ld probably have no memory of the treatment. One good thing about Kracowski, he didn’t produce potential witnesses against himself.
“We won’t need to administer atropine this time,” Kracowski said. “A natural recovery should suffice.”
Freeman rose from his seat, paced back and forth a few times, then walked over to the bookcase and ran his fingers over the books. Bondurant cupped his hand over the mouthpiece and called, “Excuse me, Mr. Mills, but I don’t think anyone gave you permission to stand.”
Then, to Kracowski, “Hold on, sir.”
Bondurant pushed an extension button that buzzed a phone in an adjacent office. “Miss Walters, send in Miss Rogers. We have a new member of the Wendover family who needs to be shown to his room.”
A static-filled voice responded, “Yes, sir.”
Freeman ignored Bondurant and fidgeted before the bookcase. Just before the office door opened, Freeman looked Bondurant fully in the eyes for the first time and said, “She’ll be okay once she starts breathing again.”
Bondurant frowned. This boy was a little too witty for his own good. Coming up with words out of thin air, sticking his chest out, squinting, a study in defiance. Maybe it was the mania, the “up” cycle of the boy’s manic depression, that brought on the misbehavior. Or his delusions of grandeur. But that would be granting him excuses, and Bondurant believed that evil was innate and that forgiveness had to be earned. Through pain if necessary.
The door opened. Bondurant deliberately kept his eyes fixed on Freeman’s back. To look at Starlene Rogers inspired jealousy. “Freeman, this is Miss Rogers,” he said.
Freeman turned, smiling at the woman. “Hello, Miss Rogers. It’s a wonderful day in the neighborhood.”
“Hello, Freeman,” she said. “Welcome to Wendover.”
“Take him to the Blue Room,” Bondurant said. “I’ll have his bag sent over later.”
Bondurant risked a glance at Starlene. She was tall and a little stocky, a country girl raised on garden produce, home-butchered livestock, and Sunday sermons. Even in a navy pants suit, her curves suggested a particularly enjoyable route to eternal damnation. But her wholesomeness was a threat, her innocence made others seem unclean. Bondurant couldn’t dwell on his resentment fully, knowing Kracowski was waiting on the line.
“Come along,” Starlene said, holding out a hand to Freeman. The boy looked at her, trying on a suspicious expression, but Bondurant could tell it was an act. Starlene always put the children at ease. She had a quiet, relaxed manner that added to her charm. Bondurant found the quality annoying, suspecting an ulterior motive for her pretending to be so pure of heart.
She left with Freeman, who clutched his belly as if he’d eaten too much candy, and as Bondurant waited for the door to swing closed, he gazed at the bookshelf.
“Francis?” came Kracowski’s impatient voice from the phone.
“Go on, sir.”
“Just keep everybody out of Thirteen until I give the clearance.”
“Yes, sir.” Bondurant was used to accepting the man’s orders without a thought. He found his attention wandering back to the bookcase. One of the leather-bound volumes was out of place. Right near where he’d placed the little bronze globe given to him by the Governor’s Childhood Initiative Commission.
The globe was gone.
The little brat had swiped it. No, there it was, a shelf below. Bondurant realized he’d missed what Kracowski had just said. “Excuse me, sir. You were saying something about Thirteen?”
“The patient we’re treating.”
Bondurant hoped the home didn’t become the subject of a scandal. Kracowski had managed to keep things tidy and under the rug so far, but the man’s experimental treatments had gotten stranger and stranger. “And how is she?” Bondurant asked.
Kracowski’s words sent a chill through him that was colder than the dead, damp air of Wendover’s basement:
“She’ll be okay once she starts breathing again.”
CHAPTER THREE
Wendover’s Blue Room turned out to be a large open dorm in the south wing of the building. Freeman supposed the name came from the sky-blue walls, a color probably chosen by some soft-skulled social scientist who’d decided that the sky promoted passivity. The room was lined with metal cots, a stained strip of gray industrial carpet running down the corridor between the two rows. The rest of floor was of the same drab tile that had soaked up light in the hallway. If the walls had been olive or khaki, the place could have been mistaken for a boot camp barracks.
“I’ve got a feeling I won’t have a private room,” Freeman said to Starlene. Most of the two dozen cots had wooden trunks tucked beneath, and stray socks and comic books lay scattered in the shadows.
“The others are in class right now.” She led him to a cot near the rear wall. “This one’s yours.”
Freeman pushed down on the cot. No give. Oh well, he wasn’t here to catch up on his beauty sleep. And dreams were out of the question. “What happened to the kid who was here before?”
“Excuse me?” Starlene still wore that patient, saintly smile. She smelled nice, too, like bubble gum.
“I’m superstitious, okay?” He waited for her to try to tell him that this was the Twenty-First Century, that he was too old for such things, that Wendover didn’t allow foolishness. She was a counselor, after all.
“He found a permanent placement,” she said. “Might be a lucky bed.”
Permanent. Freeman had noticed the word was easy for people to say who had families, homes, futures. “I could use a little luck.”
“It’s a new start, Freeman. I don’t know what happened before, but you can put it all behind you. That’s why we’re here. That’s why I’m here.”
Freeman sat on the cot, wondering where his gym bag was. Probably that lizard-breathed Bondurant was rifling through his possessions, hoping to find some dope or booze or girlie magazines. “How many others are here?”
“Wendover houses forty-seven at the moment, counting you. We’re licensed for sixty, but with this new state emphasis on reuniting children with their families—”
“Out of the frying pan and into the fire. Makes the numbers look good on paper, but does anyone ever go into the family home later to see what’s happening? I mean, I’ve heard stories.”
“A social critic, huh?” Starlene knelt beside him, not letting him look away. She had strong, straight teeth. Almost perfect. “Do you have a family?”
“Yeah. A virgin mother and a father who farts brimstone.”
“Why are you angry, Freeman?”
Freeman realized his fists were clenched. She was trying to drag something out of him. They loved it when they thought they were getting inside your head and scrambling the circuitry. Life was easier when you played along, so they could feel good about themselves for “helping.”
“It’s not anger, it’s more of an indefinite pain,” he said.
“Your heart probably aches.”
Actually, the pain was lower down, in the part he was sitting on.
But he saw no reason to be mean to her. She couldn’t have much of life if she spent all day with screwed-up kids. He should be the one feeling sorry for her, for having people dump their personal crap on her head. All she could do was smile and take it and cash the checks. But he couldn’t show any pity. He’d probably have her for group or solo therapy, so he’d need to keep her at a safe distance. His edge was wearing off, anyway. The up cycle always came on like a rocket but left like a fizzled firecracker.
“I think it’s my feet,” he said. “May as well take off my shoes and stay awhile.”
He put his feet on the cot and removed his tennis shoes. His big toe stuck through a hole in one sock. For some reason, a stranger’s seeing his naked toe embarrassed him. He tucked his feet under his legs to hide the threadbare socks.
A bell rang, the noise reverberating off the concrete walls. As the echo faded, other bells rang throughout the building in a relay.
“
Class is over,” Starlene said. “You’ll get to meet your Wendover brothers and sisters soon.”
“One big happy family, I’m sure.”
“We’re all part of God’s family.”
First Bondurant and now this woman, coming on strong with the God job. Wendover must have taken a rain check on separation of church and state. At least Starlene wasn’t being a Nazi about it. Her gaze was steady, her eyes bright. They were deep blue, or maybe it was the reflection of the walls. Her eyes were the kind that he imagined Joan of Arc had, martyr’s eyes, ones doomed to see too much.
Eyes like his Mom’s, back before death had shut them forever.
But Starlene wasn’t his mother. None of them were, not the counselor with the whiskey breath at Durham, the frantic Spanish house mother in Tryon Estate, or the Charlotte foster mother who’d made Freeman paint clay figurines to “pay his keep” even though she’d received a regular stipend from the state for that purpose.
Voices came from down the hall, the shouts of excited and bickering children.
“I’d better go,” Starlene said. “Your House Supervisors are Phillip and Randy. They’re good people.”
Starlene went back between the rows of cots, no longer intimidating now that she was leaving. The threat of continued kindness faded with her.
Freeman cased the possible escape routes. His cot was beneath the only window, a smudged pane of glass some fifteen feet up. A steel door was set off in the corner, a severe-looking lock attached to the handle. A red light blinked on an adjacent panel above the lock, as if the lock required some sort of electronic password.
Freeman looked at the door that Starlene had exited. It had the same sort of electronic lock. With fire codes, they couldn’t just lock the kids in and swallow the key, could they? He hurried across the room in his stockinged feet.
The door wasn’t locked, and it opened with a groan of hinges. He made a mental note to swipe some oil in case he needed to do any sneaking out. The hall was empty, Starlene’s shoes making a flat echo around the corner. He was about to close the door when he saw a man coming from the opposite direction.
