She wanted to discuss my assaults on Stoner, the so-called biting incidents. I said there was no incidents, plural. If I’d gone for a repeat offense, I’d have no teeth left. She wrote that down. I could have gone on till her pen ran out of ink, but she blew out her air in this drawn-out way that reminded me of the night I spied on Aunt June. The slow leak of women that mop up after guys have torn each other’s soft parts out of their sockets. To this lady I was just one of those guys. I wanted to yell at her, It’s no fair fight. Stoner is a psycho, and I am a freaking ten-year-old.
Next step was some kind of checkup. I told her I wasn’t all that injured, but she said it pertained to the mental aspects, was I okay to be released. Or else what? I’m eyeing the clipboard where she’s got me confessing to wishful murder. If you hurt or kill somebody due to mental disturbance, other than just being mad at them, I knew where you went: Marion. A prison for the insane, with razor-wire fences and guard towers according to Maggot. Where his mom got sent at first. Then after a while they decided she was just the normal pissed-off type of lady, not the insane type, and sent her over to Goochland Women’s. He’d visited her both places.
I must have zoned out, because next thing I knew, a man had his hand on my shoulder. Shirt and tie, not the white doctor coat. The dreaded clipboard. I sat up and said “Yes sir,” and asked were they sending me to Marion. I could see he was trying not to smile. He asked me what I knew about Marion. He looked tired but not the same tired as Baggy Eyes, more like, Let’s not make things any harder than need be. I told him I didn’t know anything about Marion except for definitely not wanting to go there. He said not to worry, he’d get me sorted out. He sat down and asked the regular things, and then got on the subject of Stoner. Was I just real mad at him right now, or had I ever really thought I wanted him to die. He asked if we were the hunting type of family, if we had guns, were they kept locked up or could I get them out. He asked if I had ever been so sad I wished I could go to sleep and not wake up. I said not really, I just usually went to sleep wishing I’d wake up in a different house. He said that was understandable.
Baggy Eyes came back later and said all righty. I was not going to Marion, evidently. But Mom’s situation was such that we’d be looking at several weeks of me on my own with Stoner, which was not happening. We were going with a new plan they’d all signed off on. The plan where Demon doesn’t get to go home. Mom evidently being conscious enough now to sign away her only child.
What were my out-of-home options, she wanted to know: trusted adults, Mom’s coworkers, anybody at all I could stay with? I said the Peggots, over and over, period. Which was not happening. She said Stoner made a complaint on the Peggots that would have to be investigated before they could consider placing me there. Stupid. I wondered though if the Peggots had a couple of strikes against, what with Maggot’s jailbird mom and the unmentionable Humvee. Not their fault, but people like to think the worst. The nut doesn’t fall far from the tree, etc. Then I thought of Aunt June. What if I had a trusted adult in Knoxville, I asked, but she said I couldn’t go out of state due to the paperwork. Maybe Emmy living there was some type of violation. It would explain the secret-keeping, but Aunt June being an outlaw made no sense. I just wanted to go to sleep. She took me to another little room that had a bed with paper on it, where I could lie down.
At some point later on, a guy woke me up in the dark with a tray of food like a TV dinner. He was rolling a cart of them. I was starved. This man had on whitish scrubs, white cap on his head, white bags over his shoes, so you saw the clothes and not him. Like he was a ghost. I told him I couldn’t pay. He said it was paid for already, but that hospital food oftentimes made people sick. He offered to eat the food for me. I was scared, and said okay. He sat down with the tray on his lap and ate it. He looked like a hungry ghost eating a TV dinner, which meant I had to be dreaming.
My new life started off bright and early with my new caseworker Miss Barks. She raised up the blinds and said, “Good morning, Damon. Let’s take you home.” For a split second I thought I had one, and was going there. Sometimes a good day lasts all of about ten seconds.
Miss Barks had the wrong name. No dog. She stood there smiling while I woke up and remembered all kinds of shit, and noticed also that she was a total babe. I’d run through caseworkers galore, you don’t get attached nor would you want to. But this one, another story. Younger than Mom, in a dress, not the jacket-type outfit that makes them look like wardens. That blond type of hair that’s all curly in little waves falling down, like you’d normally see on TV actresses, mermaids, or angels. Maybe Miss Barks was my guarding angel. About damn time.
She saw the empty plastic food tray the ghost left on the chair (so, probably not a ghost) and commented on my good appetite. She said they’d found a temporary placement for me that was on a farm, so hopefully they’d feed me pretty well out there too. I could feel my stomach eating itself, I was that hungry. But didn’t want to say anything she’d take the wrong way.
Outside it wasn’t even full morning yet, just the gray time where lights were still on. She walked fast in her little boots, click-click. Her car was a Toyota with a DSS sign thing on the door, an older model with a lot of mileage from the looks of it. I got in the back and was surprised to see somebody in the driver’s seat: Baggy Eyes. Christ, I thought. This lady must never go home at all. Miss Barks got in on the passenger side and we drove out on the same roads I’d covered on my ambulance ride. Why they thought it would take two of them to handle me, no idea. We passed by houses of people that had gone to bed and gotten up again, situation normal. Eating cereal now. All the kids with moms that had their shit together and dads that were alive.
Finally Miss Barks turned around with her elbow on the back of the seat and said let’s talk about where we were going. I’d be staying with a gentleman named Mr. Crickson that took kids for short-term only. He had boys there now. The Cricksons had been regular fosters until his wife passed away, and now he just took in the odd hardship case. She had a nice way of talking, like I was not a child but a person. She was sorry I’d had to wait in the hospital all night. They had to cover too many bases and not enough facilities, basically a whole lot of kids in my boat.
Which was not news, at school you heard talk about what kid was homeless or sleeping on the couch of some relative none too pleased of it. What pretty or ugly girls in seventh or eighth grade were kicked out for being knocked up. So on and so forth. Never did I dream I’d wake up one day as one of those kids. Miss Barks seemed shocked by my sad turn of events. Her partner up there behind the wheel, Miss Night of the Living Dead, not so much.
This was turning into some drive. I asked if I would still be going to school, and Miss Barks said yes, same everything, just a longer bus route. The boys at Mr. Crickson’s would show me the ropes on that. And I said oh shit, and then, oops sorry. But I didn’t have my history book or homework or anything, which was all back at the house. I didn’t have a damn thing, actually. Not even socks, due to leaving the house in an ambulance. Miss Barks said she was really sorry, I would have to get by as best I could. She’d be checking on me next week, and would try to go by where I lived and pick up what all I needed. She said to make a list of important things, and she’d do her best. My hopes were not high. I pictured Stoner making a fire out back and burning my clothes and schoolbooks. Throwing in my comics and action heroes one by one.
Miss Barks and Baggy Eyes had a disagreement over which road to take, and had to turn the car around at one point. Baggy reminded her to discuss with me about Mom, and Miss Barks said, Oh, right, had I been brought up to speed on Mom? Nope. Well, it was good news, Mom was going to be released from the hospital directly into treatment, later that day. I hadn’t asked about Mom after the worst of it was over last night, which was probably bad of me, but to be honest I was kind of fed up. Bringing a psycho into our home, then checking herself out: Who does that?
Miss Barks said Mom was looking at several weeks in a residential situation, and after that some home supervision before I could go back with her. So this was not going to be the quickie five-day rehabs like she’d done a few times before, which are more or less a tune-up. At this time I guess it was decided Mom needed the full engine overhaul. Miss Barks asked if I understood Mom had made agreements with DSS for keeping me safe. That she needed some extra support now to help her hold up her end of the bargain.
I still didn’t get why I couldn’t stay with the Peggots. But given how I’d ratted out Stoner, being next door to him now would scare the nuts off me. I thought of him in our house, going in my room, finding the notebook where I’d spent many an hour drawing wicked-good The-Ends for “Stone Villain.” Beard, gauges, big shaved head, even Stoner would figure that out. There was one where I had an alligator bite off his dick. The man would be coming after me.
We turned up the dirt lane to a farm, almost there. I got up my nerve to ask how much trouble I was in from stuff I’d said. About Stoner, for instance. Miss Barks said nobody was mad at me, and I thought: Sure, lady. If kids say the wrong kind of shit, people will be notified and hell will be paid. That’s how it works. We pulled up in front of an old farmhouse with grass so high in the yard, you could cut it for hay. Baggy put the car in park. Miss Barks asked if I had any questions before I went to meet my new foster. What would I ask? Here’s this big old gray-looking house, like Amityville. I don’t think it had totally sunk in yet, I wasn’t going home.
Now we’re just sitting. Those two staring each other down in the front seat, both of them like, Nuh-uh, you. Baggy finally says, “You’re the legal on this one. You need to take him in.”
Miss Barks is scared. Whatever is in that house, she doesn’t want to be the one to take me in there and say, So long kid,
sucks to be you. Probably this is her first day on the shit job of removing kids out of their homes for the DSS, and she’s
just figured out she doesn’t even want to be on her end of the stick, let alone mine. So much for my guarding angel. I was her test drive.
9
Crickson was a big, meaty guy with a red face and a greasy comb-over like fingers palming a basketball. Little eyes set deep in his head, pointy nose, your basic dog type of face. But a meaner breed than the two old hounds lying on the floor under the cold wood stove in his kitchen. They looked like whenever frost came around, they’d be right there ready.
The old man’s voice came out in a Freddy Krueger whisper, like it hurt him to talk so you’d damn best listen. Yes I had seen that movie, at the drive-in, from the back seat with Mom and Stoner thinking I’m asleep. Education of many a Lee County kid. Scary guy says sit, we sit.
Miss Barks meanwhile was working down her checklist, nervous as heck. Would I sleep in the same bedroom as his other fosters, was it inspected, was he briefed on me by phone that morning. He was like, Get this over with, lady. The other boys had left for school and he needed to be out seeing to his cattle. Miss Barks wasn’t disagreeing on any of that. I sat tight, getting my gander at the inside of Amityville: nasty curled-up linoleum, yellow grease on the wall over the stove, open jars of peanut butter and crap all over the counter. A crust of scum on everything. I recalled her saying this man’s wife had passed away. I wondered if her body was still lying somewhere back in that house, because I’d say there’d been zero tidying up around here since she kicked off.
Miss Barks finished up and handed over a big yellow envelope. He asked was his check in there. She said he could look for it in the mail like always. I couldn’t believe she was going to leave me with Freddy Krueger, but she gave me those same eyes I’d seen on Mom a million times: Sorry. And off she went in her little boots, click-click. I wondered if DSS had anything like Step 9, where you eventually have to apologize to all the kids you’ve screwed over.
Once she was out the door, I thought the old man would run off to his everloving cattle, but he was in no big hurry, pouring coffee out of a dirty-looking pot into a dirty-looking cup. Under his flannel shirt he had on a long-sleeved waffle undershirt with the cuffs all frayed and grimy, like he lived in that one shirt day and night. Regardless Mom and her sloppy ways, she did not raise me to be unclean. I couldn’t stomach watching the old man slurp his coffee.
He looked over at me like, questioning, so I said no thanks, I didn’t drink coffee all that much. He said something in his creepy strangled voice, so quiet I couldn’t make it out.
I asked him, “Sir?”
“I said, the other boys ain’t liking a biter. I done told them. Ain’t nobody likes a biter.”
I looked at the dogs under the stove, trying to work out what he meant. They looked dead actually. Or so old, they would have trouble gumming down cat food out of a can. But this seemed like something I would need to know. I asked him, “Which one bites?”
He looked at me like I was an idiot. “You.”
He watched out the window while the DSS car drove away. I noticed his fly was undone, or maybe the pants were so old the zipper had given up the ghost. After a minute he whispered, “A wonder nobody’s yet filed off your teeth.”
I had the day to get sick to my stomach, waiting to find out how much the other boys hated a biter. Stoner must have gone on the record. So I might as well have a sign on my back saying: Druggie Mom, Queer Best Friend, Hand Biter. Whatever Crickson told his fosters that morning, everybody at school was hearing now. I never wanted to go back there. Or be here. I was running on dead empty, but Crickson didn’t ask if I’d had breakfast. The kitchen had this rank cooking smell, a cross between feet and bacon, and even that was making me hungry. But he just downed his coffee and said, “Let’s go.” And outside we went, for a day’s work.
We started with haying the cattle. The barn smelled like cow shit, no surprise, but I mean this smell is a freaking storm front. Enough to make your eyes water. The cattle were muddy and black and pushy and of a size to kill you if you weren’t quick on your feet, and that’s about all I can tell you about haying cattle. A pitchfork was used, hay was thrown around. He said he had around two hundred head, most of them out on pastures. You don’t hay your cattle in August except the pregnant heifers, which these were. He asked what I knew about cattle, which was nothing, and could I drive a tractor, ditto. I could see he was pissed about how worthless I was. He asked if I’d ever put up hay, because that needed doing if the damn rain ever stopped. Had I topped or cut tobacco, that was also coming. He said he kept the boys home from school for tobacco cutting because it was God’s own goddamn piece of work to get it all in, so he hoped I wasn’t keen on school or anything. I said yes sir, no sir, trying to ride it out.
I followed him around, carrying whatever he handed me. It rained on us off and on. All I could think of was home: Mrs. Peggot that would be worried sick about where I was. Our creek and its excellent mud. On the bright side, this guy would not be making me scrub any floor with Clorox. But I might at some point decide on doing that anyway. We moved cattle through gates. We walked for hours checking a ratty old fence for barb wire that had come loose off the palings. He had a giant staple gun that looked and sounded like a weapon of war, and he used that to attach the barb wire. He said pay attention because tomorrow I’d do fence lines on my own. Seriously. Putting that weapon in the hands of me, a known menace.
I was too hungry to think straight. Finally it was time to go have lunch, which he called dinner but who cared. It was bacon-tomato sandwiches. He fried up the bacon and tomatoes both, in a pan looked like it had lived its life without a wash, no fresh grease needed. I could see bacon was the gas for the engine of this house of boys. Big packages in the fridge. Loaves of bread still in the wrappers, stacked up like bricks on the counter. So, some good news.
After lunch we walked more fences and changed the spark plugs in a tractor engine. It was long in the afternoon before I spotted two boys walking up the lane from where the bus must have dropped them out by the highway. They went in the house to dump their backpacks, then came running out to the barn where Mr. Crickson had left me with a hose and a scrub brush, spraying out a bunch of slimy grain buckets, ready at this point to puke from nervousness. Sure enough, the littler one bared his teeth at me, let out a wolfman howl, and laughed like a kook.
I said Hey, I’m Demon. Trying my best to look like just, whatever. Not a person that bites. The bigger one said he was Tommy and this here was Swap-Out, and he grabbed the buckets I’d cleaned and started stacking them. The smaller kid went in the tool room for a shovel and went to work shoveling shit in the far end of the barn. This kid Swap-Out, everybody knew. He’d been in second grade with me, not his first time at it, and probably was still stalled out in the lower grades due to something going on with him that affected his mind and his growth. He was small in a freakish way, weird face, the eyes and everything not quite where they should be. People said it was from his mom drinking too much while he was in the oven. I always thought, And mine didn’t? But Mom claimed she’d stayed on the wagon for the most part with me, at least in the early months, due to every single thing she looked at making her want to puke. My good luck.
“We knew you’d be coming,” Tommy said. Which I said was interesting because I sure didn’t. He said he didn’t mean me exactly. Some tax bill comes due on the farm in April and September that the old man needs the money for, so usually there’d be an extra boy coming then. I had no idea what to make of that. I asked Tommy how long he’d been living here and he said a couple of years, off and on. Sometimes he was the April and sometimes the September. He said Creaky’s wife had always liked him before she died, but Creaky hated him, so now Tommy came and went as needed. I just said, Huh, and left it at that.
