Mr. McCobb asked me how I was liking it in the so-called annex. His wife had bought me one of those air-mattress beds and a little cardboard dresser for my stuff, so I told him it was fine. But that I couldn’t pay for my meals because I didn’t have any money. Sorry.
Mr. McCobb stopped stuffing envelopes and squinted his eyes, like he was working out the whole situation of me. He had those extra-dark brown eyes that were like looking down two holes. Intense. “That’s a deficit, buddy. You’ve got a problem. But it can be addressed.”
“Okay,” I said.
I licked some more stamps for his enterprise. This one had to do with blue-green algae pills that supposedly could cure anything but a broken heart. (Which is what Mr. Peg always said about duct tape.) Brayley and Haillie were upstairs in their rooms having a loudness war between Lion King and Spice Girls on their CD player, and Mrs. McCobb was in her bedroom trying to feed the twins. All told, a good deal of commotion coming from up there.
I didn’t feel that welcome upstairs, so I hadn’t been, other than the once where Mrs. McCobb gave us a tour and showed Miss Barks my so-called bedroom. Downstairs, the kitchen was the only place to hang out, the rest being dark, with the living-room blinds closed at all times due to there being no furniture. The McCobbs lived on a busy road, and I reckon they didn’t want everybody in the county knowing they didn’t have any living-room furniture. Miss Barks was pretty surprised over it. Mrs. McCobb said they did have some, until a few months before. The nicest imaginable, from Goodman’s Furniture, not Walmart, plus a bedroom suite in some certain style where all the pieces matched. At this point in time, though, Mr. and Mrs. McCobb’s bedroom only had the mattress that luckily they got to keep, because the repo guys don’t take mattresses back after they’ve been slept on.
The kitchen was an okay place, other than making me hungry. I was pretending the taste of stamps on Mr. McCobb’s envelopes was something better, like strawberry Gushers, but my stomach was growling, to the point of embarrassing. Their bulldog Missy was flopped on the floor, not even bothering herself over the half-full bowl of dog food by the door. Red, chunky dog chow that looked like meat. Probably this sounds sick, but even that was making me hungry.
Mr. McCobb said I should think about getting a job after school. I told him my problem was, I was eleven. I’d always heard they don’t hire you till sixteen. He said those rules only applied in certain cases, and that younger kids were allowed to work in family enterprises.
“Like I’m doing right now?” I perked up, thinking he might pay me. But no. He said this didn’t count because of something called nefrotism. He couldn’t pay me and be my foster father both, so I needed to look farther afield. He said he would put out his antennas.
Mr. McCobb was the straight shooter of the family, according to himself, but half the time I couldn’t make the wildest guess as to what he was saying. He’d always let you know he’s been around the block and you haven’t. He served in the military in Operation Bright Star and some other ones, which explained the haircut and how he dressed, not T-shirts but always button-ups like he’s the boss of something. After he got home from the Middle East he used the benefits to get his business degree at Mountain Empire, which is how he knew about starting enterprises. He had a list of everything he was an expert on. Mrs. McCobb said anybody would be a fool not to hire him, which they did, about every other week: medical supply store, gas station, lawn and tree service, flooring company, and other places he worked while I was living there, the years before that, and still to this day, if I had to guess. The pay at those places was lousy and he was too overqualified, plus knowing a lot more than his supervisors. A man can’t stay long in a situation like that.
What I remember most about that year is food. Not eating it, thinking about it. Meals at the McCobbs’ were never enough to tide me over. Dinner usually was burgers that Mr. McCobb picked up at a drive-through on his way home, two each for the adults and one for us kids. Maybe some fries to share. Or Mrs. McCobb would microwave some of the Lean Cuisines she had in the freezer, again one each for the kids and two for the grown-ups. She’d bought a slew of those little box-type meals on sale because of trying to lose her baby weight. After babies-times-four she was one of those ladies with the small, pretty face and everything else kind of pillowy.
She kept boxes of snacks on top of the fridge, and I mean the works: Pringles, Oreos, Dunkaroos, your basic snack festival going on up there. I kept waiting for somebody to give me my snack bowl like at Aunt June’s, but nobody ever said “Make yourself at home” in the McCobb house. Even though I didn’t have any other one. After school Mrs. McCobb would sometimes get down a box and dole out a snack to each of us, but not every day, and I knew not to ask.
Luckily Miss Barks kept up the forms for my free lunch at school, but I was off the list for Backpacks of Love, with the church ladies figuring out I was somebody else’s problem now. At school I cruised the lunchroom with some other guys, picking off extra fries or whatever we could score. Maggot wasn’t in on it anymore. He was getting fed at home on blackeye pea soup, ham biscuits, apple cobblers, and all the other best things ever known, and not all that thankful for it honestly. He and I were still best friends and blood brothers of course, but in January we got reassigned to new homerooms after too many homeroom make-out sessions between certain girl and boy parties, so I didn’t see much of Maggot unless our lunch periods crossed. If we did talk, he’d bring up that Mrs. Peggot was asking about me. What was I supposed to say to that? I told him not to worry, I was in a new foster with my own room and it was awesome. I told him they had a dog, to make him jealous. I said, “We have a dog,” even though their bitch Missy actually wanted nothing to do with me. Possibly due to getting kicked out of her room.
Our lunchroom visits never lasted long. I always downed my lunch fast and then hung out by the kitchen shelf thing where we put our trays. Some people and especially girls would bring back their lunch basically untouched, drop the tray, and waltz away like food grew on trees. Apples without one bite out of them, milk cartons not even opened. It killed me to think how this was happening at other lunch periods without me there to grab it. I mean, first graders, probably throwing away the best stuff. You want to cry for the waste.
In the day-to-day, I got by. Weekends were rough. I had dreams about food that went to the extreme. Like I’m eating a large pizza with pepperoni, smelling that peppery meat smell, the cheese with that great rubber feeling in my teeth, and then, bang! Awake. Back in the dog room, hungry. I’d go through the dirty clothes pile looking for edibles. Haillie sometimes would leave a box of Junior Mints or something in the pocket of her little shorts. I’d sniff it out like a dog.
I wanted to tell Mrs. McCobb how hungry I was, trust me. Maybe mention that being over five feet tall and wearing the biggest shoes of anybody in that house, I might be considered more of a two-burger person than a one-burger like their first and second graders. I had this conversation with her in my head, six ways to Sunday. It always ended like my last talk with Mrs. Peggot. I’d given up all hope of rescue by that point in time. I’d already complained to Miss Barks, and she discussed it, but the McCobbs acted all shocked, saying they fed me night and day, how could a boy still be hungry after eating as much as I did? Miss Barks bought their story. She said if I didn’t get enough, for goodness’ sake, ask for seconds. If it even crossed her pretty head that these people were lying, stealing cheats, she was short on options. She had to let it go.
She stuck with a different theory: I needed to be more pushy with them. Did she give up on her dreams? No, she worked hard for what she wanted. Did I expect anybody to look out for Damon if he wouldn’t look out for himself? Life is what you make it! Here’s where Miss Barks didn’t grow up: foster care. She had no clue how people can be living right on the edge of what’s doable. If you push too hard, you can barrel yourself over a damn cliff.
Mrs. McCobb was not that bad a person, just going nuts with those kids on her every minute of the day. And I mean on her. The babies did all their sleeping or not sleeping, eating, screaming, diaper changing, etc. upstairs in her and her husband’s bedroom, and most days she wouldn’t make it downstairs till noon or after, in her pj’s and robe. Or if dressed, it was the type outfit where you can’t tell a hundred percent if it’s clothes or pj’s. Her hair she wore in a half-assed ponytail that got washed on rare occasions. She and I did our talking in the car, where she’d tell me her worries that I was to keep to myself, which I did. I did not follow the Miss Barks plan of Speaking Up for Demon at these moments. The idea of people wanting at all times to hear your problems, that’s a child thing. I had eyes. I saw Mrs. McCobb was in no mood.
The reason of us being in the car was her taking me around to the pawnshops. You’d not think there would be a thing left in that house to pawn, but she’d come up with something. An entire string of pearls that had been her mom’s. Nice stuff, jewelry she was aiming to keep, but then couldn’t. Or one of the kids’ two Walkmans that they each got from their grandparents. She decided they could share just the one. Conniptions were had. Little Haillie screaming bloody murder, her mother pulling it out of her hands, Mr. McCobb saying whatever price she gets for that piece of Chinese-made crap, he hopes it’s worth the kid having her walleyed fit.
And baby equipment, my Lord. There wasn’t even room for it upstairs, they piled it in the empty living room. All in like-new condition. You would not believe the tackle that’s been invented for babies: swings, bouncy seats, so-called infant gym. Like an infant needs that. Somebody had spent a pile of money on those twins. Turns out it was Mrs. McCobb’s parents, that were well off and lived in the city someplace far away. Ohio. She grew up over there and it seemed like she couldn’t get settled in here, always wanting to buy the better kind of things, to impress who exactly, I couldn’t guess. She didn’t speak to her neighbors. She said her parents didn’t approve of Mr. McCobb but loved to spend on the kids, and if they ever found out she was pawning it all, they would disown her. Considering the Walkman shitstorm though, it was probably a smart move to sell off the baby crap now, before those babies got attached.
Our pawn trips happened on the weekends whenever Mr. McCobb didn’t need the car and could look after the two older kids. The plan eventually was to get a second car or ideally a minivan so she could take all the kids to fun places, but so far she was only getting as far as pawnshops. We’d go to different ones in Pennington Gap or drive all the way over to Jonesville or Rose Hill. Mrs. McCobb said she liked to spread the love around. The part I liked was on the way back stopping for a Sonic burger if the sales had gone okay. But those were some long drives, let me tell you. Rose Hill, with the twins in their two car seats caterwauling in stereo.
Even spreading the love that far, the shop owners mostly knew Mrs. McCobb, which is why she took me along. She would park up the street and send me into a shop with the jewelry or baby bouncer, and not go in herself. Seriously awkward, me trying to deal with these crusty old pawn guys. I offered to stay with the babies so she could go in, but no. She always told me what to say, genuine cubic zircomium, factory packaging, etc. I was supposed to say my mom was sick, aka some lady that was not Mrs. McCobb, but they still figured it out. I mean, it’s Lee County, you can run but you can’t hide. The guy at Here Today Loan and Pawn just shook his head and said he knew Eva McCobb was out sitting in her car, so I’d best go get her.
Which I did. A yelling match ensued, with him following her out to the sidewalk saying if she was too proud to come in his shop, she could send her husband instead of a boy to do a man’s errand. And her yelling back that he was a damn low-baller, thinking she was so hard up she’d take whatever lousy price he offered. And him yelling she could do her whining closer to home. Etc. This being a Saturday in downtown Jonesville, they drew a pretty good crowd.
She didn’t say a word the whole drive home, except to swear she would never divorce Mr. McCobb in a million years. This was something she would say, just out of the blue. With nobody asking her to divorce him, that I knew of.
I was hungry at all the hours, but nights were worst. I drew pictures of food, pages and pages. Roast chickens with their drumsticks. Pork chops, mashed potatoes. I spent hours getting the shading right. Putting highlights on the gravy. This one girl at school, Maisie Clinkenbeard, probably thought I liked her due to me sitting as close to her as I could. But it was to see what was in her lunch box. Actually, some few girls had their lunch contest going. Bettina Cook thought she owned it, with her personal pudding cups and sandwiches cut in triangles, Bettina that got dropped off at school by her daddy’s secretary, and supposedly had a maid at home cutting those sandwiches. I was like, they throw away the crusts? It was Maisie Clinkenbeard for me. I guarantee you a mom packed those lunches, and we’re talking something amazing every day, thick slices of ham, potato salad, homemade desserts. Peach cobbler cut in a little square. Right now, I could draw that cobbler.
Around the end of January I started sneaking into the kitchen at night to raid the snacks. I was careful never to take much out of any one box, and always rolled the package back exactly how it was. Then after a week or so, I came home from school to see the top of the fridge bare naked. Huh, I thought. I reckon Mrs. McCobb wants the whole family to lose their baby weight.
But no. The snacks weren’t gone, just moved. Mrs. McCobb leaned over me at the sink washing her baby bottles, and she had Oreos on her breath. The kids would come bouncing downstairs with little pieces of Pringles stuck all over their damn pajamas. They had their own stashes. I beat myself up wondering how they knew I’d stolen. I was so careful, lying in bed till everybody was asleep. Thanking God for the food I was fixing to take. Then I’d slip in and take my holy communion: exactly two Pringles, one Oreo, one handful of each cereal. Never whole packs of Dunkaroos or anything they might keep track of. How the hell did they know?
The only way I found out anything in that house was from Haillie. For instance about the enterprise of registered English bulldogs that actually were a cross between their mutt and something that ended up not fooling anybody. He tried three or four litters with different dad dogs before giving it up. After that, Missy refused to go back in the dog room, so it wasn’t me. Bad memories, more like. Haillie said the puppies were so, so adorable, and every time her dad took them away due to not getting sold, she’d cried to keep all of them. Every time. That was Haillie, thinking she could have anything and everything if she cried enough. That’s what I had, this babyfied kid being the only actual straight shooter in the family. I was shooting in the dark.
Nevertheless I worked it, getting Haillie on my side. Oftentimes she would float into my room while I was sitting on my blow-up bed that was the only thing to sit on in there, other than piles of laundry. It was the size bed for a small kid, which maybe explained the not feeding me, so I wouldn’t outgrow it. I’d be drawing my pictures, look up, and there she’d be watching me from the doorway, this tiny girl with a troll doll in one hand, dangling by its blue hair. I’d wonder how long she’d been standing there. Was this a girl thing, to sneak up on a guy while he’s in his bed without his defenses? But this was different from Emmy obviously, Haillie being a child. She had the same brown eyes as her dad, like dark holes in her head. I would let her come sit and watch me draw. She made me draw puppies over and over, which was how the dog story came up, plus other stories that were just pitiful. The parents having bad fights, one time the mom throwing an entire blender at him with a diet shake in it. I let her use my colored markers to write her name in my notebook. Being new at it, she dotted all the letters in Haillie including the l’s, which is how I know how to spell it. “Brayley,” hell, that’s anybody’s guess.
Finally I asked her point-blank what was the deal with the snacks. She said her mom was letting her and Brayley keep food in their rooms now. She went on about this, that, and the other, how she liked picking the chocolate chips out of the Chips Ahoys, etc., till I thought I might pass out. Then a little light bulb went on in the tiny head. She leaned over and whispered, “Do you want me to bring you some?” I said yeah, if she didn’t care. And she said what did I want?
I said maybe a sleeve of Oreos, and she was like, “SSHHH!” Putting her hand over my mouth. She got up on her knees and with her lips touching my ear, whispered in the tiniest voice, “I’ll bring you a whole package, but don’t tell. Don’t eat them in here. Take them outside.”
I asked why not. She pretended to zip her little mouth shut, and pointed up at the shelf over the washer. There was junk up
there, all the usual stuff you’d not look at twice. Detergent bottles, a plastic bucket. Dryer sheets. And a baby monitor.
The kind with the camera.
21
Mr. McCobb found me a job at Golly’s Market, which is the little gas-and-go out on Route 58. The sign says “Mary’s Mini Mart” left over from ages ago, before Mary McClary got her divorce and lit out to Nashville to try to make it as a singer. Another story.
My first day, Mr. McCobb drove me over and introduced me to the owner, Mr. Golly that was from overseas, with an accent. I was to ride the school bus out there every day after school, and Mrs. McCobb would pick me up. The place had snacks and food so I could eat my dinner there free as part of my pay, which turned out to be the one good thing about working at Golly’s Market. Mr. Golly said it was a shame how much he always had to throw out in the way of hot dogs and such that he’d put under the heat lamp for the day. So I got to be his trash can, yes!
Other than food and gas, Golly’s sold the usual things you’d want to pick up on your way home: Hostess cakes, beer, Tylenol, Nicorette gum, etc. The more expensive items like medicine and cigarettes he kept on a shelf behind the checkout. Mr. McCobb chatted with Mr. Golly, and I got nervous. Having no idea how to work a cash register, plus was I going to sell cigarettes and beer? Would I go to prison? Reaching the cigarette cartons was not the problem, I was some taller than Mr. Golly, that looked like a little brown tree somebody forgot to water. People were always mistaking me for older. Probably he didn’t know I was eleven, and maybe Mr. McCobb was banking on that. But I was pretty sure they had laws about who could sell what in America.
It turned out I would not be selling anything. I would be working for a different business on the premises run by a person that was referenced to Mr. McCobb by Murrell Stone. I started backing out the door, saying, Nuh-uh, no way am I dealing with Stoner, and they said, No, not him. Some friend of his. I had no idea Mr. McCobb even knew Stoner, but again, it’s Lee County.
He wished me luck and took off. I waited while Mr. Golly did something to lock the cash register, wiped off his hands, and took me outside, doing those things slower than you would believe. We finally got around to the back, and here was shock number one of my new career: the highest mountain of trash I’d ever seen, outside of the actual dump. My new situation of employment, and, I was soon to find out, hell on earth.
