The Child in Question

The Shelter



Alice tried to kill me and I’ve run away. Jake took off across the country and Pop is dying.



I’m at this shelter. I know the drill in places like this. It will only be a matter of time before the authorities will come for me. Then I’ll be taken to a foster home and then sent back to Alice. I’m not going to let that happen, not for anything. I promised myself and Jake, and I’m not breaking my promises.



Sure, the Nuns have been nice enough giving me warm soup and dry clothes.



One had even hugged me. But that didn’t mean anything.



I scanned the room full of faces. They’re all men, I thought, as I hugged my knees tighter to me; all men and a bunch of Nuns to protect me, great. What will the Nuns do if the men act up, I wonder; beat them with their crosses? I yell, “HELP,” and waited to see what will happen. A few of the men turn in the direction of my voice, but otherwise things go on as usual. Not one Nun appeared in the doorway brandishing a weapon. Just like always, nobody gives a shit. I thought I might comb my hair. There is a mirror in the bathroom, but I decided not to. I don’t like looking directly into my own eyes because I might see something I don’t like. I think survival means taking things as they come. I don’t indulge in fantasies about who I was, who I could be, or what might be lurking in the dark, or under the top sheet of this cot, or behind my own smile.



I am a light sleeper, like my real mother, and I can wake up in an instant if trouble starts. To remind myself of the truth of life, I practice a ritual before I rest. I make myself remember the day my mother went mad, so I close my eyes, and the show starts.



At first the images are blurry. I feel like I’m looking through the lens of an out of focus camera. I need to concentrate to bring the pictures alive, but I have to be careful not to surrender to them completely. If I do, I could lose touch with my surroundings and that could be fatal. If I put my senses to sleep I would stop hearing all of the other voices, and I might miss something important, like the sound of escalating anger, the smell of fire, or the touch of an alien hand.



Day Dream



The first images come as if carried on a breeze like dandelion fluff and the seed the little white puffs carry. White streaks of red and blue tie-dye weave color through the billowy visions and then seem to attach themselves to Astra’s imagination, stretching its skin like silly putty, but there is nothing pleasant in what she sees and hears.



The filmy tie-dye settles into an image of her mother’s dress, first twirling to music Astra can barely hear, something about incense and peppermints. The colors swirl inspired by visions Astra cannot see. Another image slides over the previous changing the scene. Now she is holding hands with her mother, spinning around and around, trying to catch the music's rhythm and then as if the sky runs out of breath, everything becomes still, but not quiet, no, not quiet at all. Astra is screaming, “Stop, stop Mommy, we’re going too fast.”



Astra felt weak and she began to tremble, as she lost her grip on her mother’s hands and mother fell to the ground, writhing and rhyming nonsense syllables as her father looked on laughing. He and Mommy had been drinking the blue lemonade that she had been warned not to touch.



She had been good, but what did it matter now that the dancing had stopped? Now that mother lay on the ground like the discarded blanket of a seventies love child, rumpled and ripped open at the seams. Her red lips were fixed in a smile, and her eyes were wide and staring like a hypnotized rube in a sideshow circus act. What did anything matter when the swirl of red encircling mother’s mouth began to ooze down her neck and onto the ground, until the curious who had stopped to watch realized it was blood?



The shows over, Astra thought. She let the images go. That was enough for now. It was all she could take.



She opened her eyes for a moment, feeling like a mouse caught in the sights of a hawk, alert and ready to run if the shadow grew too close. She closed her eyes again allowing herself to rest, but not to sleep. She would never sleep. The smell of tobacco, sweat, and resignation followed her into the gray.



I grew up in a two story tenement on Palmyra Street, in a Middle Class neighborhood. I’m not sure of the date or age of my first clear memory. My neighborhood had Oak lined paved roads that wound their way around in figure eights of blocks with short-cuts to here and there, through people’s back yards, easy for me to memorize. I loved outside.



I’ll bet Mr. and Mrs. Maynard can hear Alice screaming, the sound of glass breaking and the dog crying and more screaming, she’s always screaming. I know they hear it, but they choose to follow the adult rule, “What goes on in the house, stays in the house,” and they pretend not to notice. I’m useless to Mr. and Mrs. Maynard now because I spilled a gallon of milk trying to help them bring in their groceries and they got mad. I know I’m clumsy and I said I was sorry, but they told me to go home. I was hoping I could stay for awhile, just to sit at the table and listen to them talk. They talk fast about the news, books, the Synagogue, and they were quiet about it, even when they talked about problems, which they didn’t much in front of me.



I played doctor with Jason Maynard. He’s fifteen, so he’s allowed to take me places I’m not allowed to go alone, like on the trail through the woods to Nathan Bill Park. He seems to like me. He’s taken me ice-skating a bunch of times, and once we played doctor.



My friend Darren Farley, who lives two houses down, has a dent in the right side of his head and he said he didn’t know how it got there. After I played doctor with Jason, I asked Darren if we could play to see if any of his other parts were dented or crooked. He agreed and they weren’t. I think we played with his erector set after that. I liked Mrs. Farley because she didn’t mind noise or kids making a mess with toys. She didn’t yell, at least not when I was there, and I hated going home for supper, but she never invited me to stay.



I like quiet.



I went home by way of Maitland’s drug store and got a chocolate ice cream in a plain cone. I know Alice will say that I’ve ruined my appetite when I won’t eat supper but I hate beans. It’s Beans & Franks night, whether I like it or not. Later, after I refuse to eat the beans she chased me down the street again, waving that brown leather strap, I think it was her mother’s. But this time I didn’t get caught right away because I didn’t lose my shoe like before. My friends urged me on, standing on both sides of the sidewalk. They stopped hooting after she caught me.



She grabbed a hunk of my hair, looked me in the eye, and dragged me by my ponytail down the street, back inside the house. I could see that everyone else seemed to be going home, too.



I remember being unhappy that I was going to miss the after supper football game in Robbie’s yard. He was a couple of years older, twelve I think, and he didn’t mind my hanging around. There were no girls within three blocks in any direction, so I was happy when the boys let me play anything with them. And I loved football.



I took a couple for the team too; two line drives to my right eye playing baseball (no crying), being tackled and nearly smothered at the bottom of the pile (some gasping). Once I tripped on the train tracks and smacked my knee into the rail, and I didn’t cry. The guys were surprised by how much pain I could take. I think they respected me.



This kid Marky lost his leg trying to hop the train.



When I get out of the house, at first I don’t want to be bothered. I just want to go to the backyard and pick some huge purple grapes from the back neighbor’s arbor and check on a nest of bats up in the big Oak tree. A boy down the street, Joel, has a baby squirrel he caught and keeps in a cage. He trained it to run up and down his sleeves, and it doesn’t bite.



I brought in a baby bat, Alice screamed, and Pop put it in the washer and made it go through a whole cycle. It made some thumping noises until the spin. I went to my room before the rinse.



I don’t think everyone’s business should stay their own when a kid says they’re in trouble. That someone is hurting them. I think everyone with kids should have to keep their drapes open.



I hate Alice. That’s how I feel and that’s how it is. I can’t trust anyone. Not even my big brother Jake, because he told Alice that I got the ice cream before supper and I had to eat cold beans for breakfast this morning. They’re disgusting, like rabbit poop in gravy when they’re hot, and pasty like glue when they’re cold. After the yelling, Alice got quiet, stopped pacing, and took a long drag on her Raleigh. She said, “Get over here and apologize to your mother.”



I said, “No”.



She said, “Yes!”



I said no again and we stared at each other. She looked away first, so I went to my room and closed the door.



She hates me. I think about loving her sometimes, but I always decide not to.



Alice can confuse people, because she acts so vague, and they seem to think that means that she’s ‘nice’. I listen to her talk to Mrs. Snyder and the Maynard’s and she gives a murky mixture of information on the weather, how Jake and I are doing, and how Pop has to work such long hours as a chef. She seems to know as much about other people’s business as she needs to, to have a conversation. I think she sends out signals that bring out the pity in people. I think it’s true because no one ever believes me when I tell them what goes on in our house. The things she does to us.



I ran away and got caught stealing clothes out of K-Mart. They found out I was ‘wanted’ and I tried to explain why I ran away, but after talking to Alice, who came with a brand new outfit, from earrings to pocket book, to take me home in, and I can only imagine that they found her, at worst, boring and sad.



Outsiders see Alice as a poor thing that is unable to cope with a troubled child. She has a look that makes other people want to help her. Not me. I know she doesn’t need any help. She just feels wrong to me. She controls my Pop and my brother by yelling and crying. I don’t like her at all.



I live scared all the time. She throws things at me and I have to be constantly on alert so I can defend myself, Jake, Pop, and Snoopy, against her rages. Sometimes I get blindsided and knocked out of the game for awhile, but at least I try. I try to keep each insult in its place, keep each from gaining too much importance over another, to keep my balance. It’s hard to do.



I asked Alice once where electricity comes from and she told me ‘the wall’. There has to be more to it than that.



Stubborn Children



Children have never been worth much to people. I think it’s why some grown-ups don’t take good care of them. Take my family; even though crazy dangerous things happen in my house, we go to church every Sunday. I read in the bible that God made a law that if a kid disobeys his parents they can kill him. Maybe that’s why Alice isn’t afraid of the police. It’s partly why I ran away, the other part being that I couldn’t take living with drunkin’ Aunt Emmy and Uncle Tom. He’s a creep. I ran, and lived in a room over a laundry mat on Prospect Street for two weeks. I watched Alice and Pop walk the street calling for me. I felt bad for Pop, but the family was separated. He was only out calling out for me because Alice called him, not because he’s come to take me. So I watch and then the police figure out where I am and break the door down one morning and putt handcuffs on me. I explain why I ran away, about my nasty uncle, but it’s his town, he knows people, and the court says I’m a stubborn child. Just like in the Bible, they’re sending me to a kid’s jail and I wonder if I’m going there to be killed.



I rode in the car



with the locked doors



and cracked windows



quiet, hardly breathing



watching the road roll,



take a turn to



the left



and stop.



“You can cry, you know,” the female officer said.



The building was gray



with tall steel fences



picnic tables in twos



and a basketball court



behind the fence, empty.



The wind whispered wild



stories and hurled withering threats



that this would be my unenviable life



forever.



And I thought, No.



“Okay, let’s go, tough girl,” she said, as the car doors unlocked. I got out without help. She instructed me to walk in front of her so she could, “Keep an eye on you, tough girl,” and I do what she says



with my head



bowed



wrists cuffed



heart thumping



afraid,



yes.



And I still thought, No.



Her key opened the



door and I breathed in hostile air



and I saw the well oiled faces



check me out with old eyes.



“Take a shower in here and take these clothes. Leave your dirty clothes on the floor,” the blue tunic Matron said. “Use this soap for your body and this for your hair. Leave the towels on the floor. Call me when you’re done.”



“Follow the rules or you’ll be put in the room at the end of the hall with the queers. Do you understand? You don’t want to share a room with them.”



“No, I don’t understand,” I said, but she didn’t seem to care.



The shower was cool,



then cold, freezing fast



the fear,



how do I get dressed?



The sting of alone



swelled like an infected



boil and my fist hit,



struck back in a fit



against a cement wall



and then



the child is defiant,



a danger to herself,



put alone,



separate



like home,



with bars.



Still…



I know this place



of surprise and carnivorous



melancholy.



Like home only



not, just a grave



new plot to unravel.



There is no crying



in this place



where my eleven year old roommate



says she blows her uncle



and Idon’t know what



she means, but I



know enough about



her eyes



to stay



quiet.