chapter five
I hear the doctor and our father come clattering back. Both of them pound their heels down hard on the porch as they come in, as if they’re still angry. That gives Mister Boots and my sister plenty of warning to get out of Mother’s room.
Then our father comes into Mother’s room and changes his clothes practically right in front of me, except (again) I don’t see anything but feet. He gives the clothes back to the doctor. I hear the doctor crank his car, and then I hear him putt-putt-putt away.
Everybody sits down and has coffee and everybody wonders where I could be. Then our father notices the gun isn’t under the chair cushion. First he wonders where it got to. Then says, “For sure it’s that undisciplined child has it. I don’t trust him as far as I can spit.” He says it about a dozen times and half a dozen different ways.
The three of them keep on talking about me. Now our father’s trying to convince everybody I should go with him. Of course nothing of what he says makes any sense to my sister because she’s only thinking that one single thought about me. She doesn’t argue, she just says, “He can’t go.” But she keeps saying “he,” so everything is fine.
Finer than fine. I have the gun and I have a lot of money—four bundles of it—and my sister isn’t telling on me. I could walk right out to them and I’d be in charge of every single thing and nobody would know it but me.
I put the pistol up there with the money. I climb out Mother’s window so it’ll look as if I came from outside. I roll in the garden dirt—no special reason—I guess to make them think I come from some odd place out here. I come in by the front door. I walk like I’m in charge of everything, which I am.
I was hoping everybody could tell, but, first thing, our father grabs me by the ankles and flips me upside down, quick as could be, shakes me, and then feels me all over (not the important place).
Mister Boots is looking vicious again.
Our father says, “So! Where is it?”
Why should I stoop to answer? I’m the one who knows everything and has everything.
“I expect that pistol to be back on that table in five minutes, or else.”
“It’ll take . . . umm . . . three days.” I’d better be careful, or I’ll get the giggles again.
Even though I’m all dirty from rolling in the garden, my sister comes and hugs me. She’s changed in every single way there is. This is a real hug, too. Maybe she doesn’t want me to go with our father because she really likes me and wants to look after me just like I want to look after her. I always used to think of my sister not only as shy and scared and ignorant, but as younger than me. Now she seems about the same age.
She and Mister Boots both look kind of rumpled, and her blouse is buttoned up all wrong. That with the buttons doesn’t seem at all to be a horsey thing for Mister Boots to have done. That’s pure man.
My sister says, “It would be best, you know. We won’t watch you go get it.”
“The hell we won’t!”
My sister is still hugging me as if she wanted to keep me away from our father.
(If I do go get the gun, how come our father doesn’t think I’ll shoot him with it right away?)
Mister Boots says, “He is being who he is.”
Our father looks disgusted. “Straight from the horse’s mouth.” Why did he put it like that?
I twist away from my sister. It’s a lot easier than getting away from our father. Of course this was a hug, not a clutch. I don’t run, I just stand there.
Our father takes some metal rings out of his pocket. They’re handcuffs, except I don’t know this until he snaps them on me and laughs his crazy laugh. He goes on laughing much too long, as if he wants to show what a jolly person he is and how this is just a joke. Then he throws the key way up almost to the ceiling and catches it in his mouth and pretends to chew. “Yum,” he says. I don’t know where the key really went.
I hadn’t noticed until now how graceful his hands are—fat, but graceful even so. They make me think of birds’ wings. I’m upset, but I notice. Or maybe I notice because I’m upset.
He says, “Maybe it’s my turn to bite you. How’d you like that? Did you ever hear of ‘Do unto others’?”
“You already did bite me.”
“Bullshit.”
My sister flinches when he says that. She doesn’t know, even now, what people always say, but with our father around, she soon will.
I pull on the cuffs so hard I hurt my wrists. All of a sudden I realize I’m trapped. I want to reach out. I want to hold things. I can’t breathe. I can’t think. I hear myself yell, and I didn’t even mean to. I kick out at nothing. I’m going crazy. I know I am.
And then I do go crazy. I guess I do. For a minute it’s as if here’s Moonlight Blue, all hazy . . . right in front of me, the river horse . . . white in the moonlight . . . the sound of hooves, which is the sound of my heart.
Then I’m not just yelling out one big shriek like I like to do to scare people, I’m yelling and yelling and crying at the same time. I wonder if I’m doing it on purpose as a good idea to do. But I don’t know if I can stop or not. All of a sudden I’m on the floor, banging my head on Mother’s little hooked rug.
My sister goes down on the floor with me and holds me tight so I can’t kick or bang my head anymore.
And then I throw up. Right on Mother’s rug. That, for sure, I hadn’t planned on doing.
I see our father leaning over me. He’s taking up all my ceiling. He’s raising his hands as if to say, Oh, for heaven’s sake.
Then I pass out. Or maybe I just forgot everything right after. That happened to me once when I fell off a horse. All of a sudden I was on the ground, and now, all of a sudden, here’s me, on the couch instead of Boots, a damp cloth on my head and no handcuffs anymore. My sister is kneeling on the floor cleaning up Mother’s rug. And Boots is sitting beside me on the stool, wiping me off just as tender as could be. He’s saying, “Easy now. Sweet boy.” I like being called sweet.
Our father is saying, “But what about the pistol? What about that?”
My sister says, “I’ll see to it. Don’t worry.”
And I’m thinking: Well, that was one way to get things done I hadn’t ever thought about before, but I’m exhausted. I’m not sure I’d ever want to do that again.
I wish I had turned into a bird instead of all this, and flown away like my sister said I maybe did. I guess I was just about scared enough to have that happen, but it didn’t, which is not a good sign for me ever getting to be a bird. I guess it’s good I didn’t; I’d never have been able to fly with my wings cuffed together like that.
Afterward, when everything’s all calmed down, we have iced tea and my sister sits on the couch and holds me on her lap, which never happened before that I can remember. Of course I never wanted her to before. I wouldn’t have let her if she’d tried.
Our father says (mostly to my sister), “It’s criminal to leave a boy out here doing nothing. Look at him.” He reaches over and circles my wrist with his sweaty thumb and forefinger. “No decent food, no decent clothes, no exercise. ‘Mens sana in corpore sano,’ I always say. Now a girl would be different, but a boy has to get out of here. If you had any sense you’d see that. What can his future be, stuck way out here? And you, too, knitting your life away? Even Mister Boots here. Does he do anything at all?”
My sister must know that these are very good questions. She doesn’t say a word because there isn’t anything to say.
“I suppose you think this boy’ll go off someday and do something? Well, not unless you let him come along with me.” Then, “Women! Always trying to keep everybody safe. There is no safe!”
“Not me,” I say. “I don’t want to be safe.” But nobody is listening.