Deep in the Heart of Me (32 page)

I am let out a few hours later, three I mean so I can help milk. Beneath my clothes my long johns are damp. But I bundle up best I can, hatless and scarfless, and I follow the guard to the barn. I get to my stanchion
,
and I know what to do and pretty soon the warm milk hits the bucket, and I look around and shoot some into my hand, and I lick it up. It's so good I do that three, four more times.

The milk has helped dull the taste of soap. I think of the story of Jonathan weary from battle and coming upon a hive and tasting the honey. That's what it's like. Inside myself, I smile.

Today is Sunday. I haven't missed the time for family to come. I fill the cans then and move down the line. First boy I come to whispers, "You really bite off his finger?"

I don't answer. Not him and not the next.

Then it's line up for breakfast. I look up at the morning sky and the sun rising through pink and gray and breath showing and feet crunching through snow.

It's breakfast, and we enter the mess hall, and I swear heads turn and all the eyes. I run my hand through my hair. It's too short to worry over, but touching my own head always makes me feel like what I see happening is real.

So I shuffle through the line to get my food. The boys who serve hand plates one to another and the grits boy looks up at me and pulls something from under the table and puts it across my grub.

It's a carrot, I see that, but not until the plate is in my hand do I see it's whittled into a finger, and there is a bite out of it.

I have to laugh then, and I stick it in my mouth like a cigar, and there is some laughter as I walk to my table and sit. I eat that carrot first, I mean I eat it like it's chocolate and there is some more laughing, and I make a deal about wiping my mouth, and I see the happy looks I get, and some look at me like I'm about to die.

And I see him there, across the way, glaring at me, the big white bandage wrapping his finger, going up his arm and the sling around his neck.

I keep my head down then, as I shovel food into my smile.

I'm Tonio Clannan. Still.

I stand at the big mess hall windows looking out for someone. They've told me my dad has called in and said he's coming. There are eight boys waiting for visitors, eight out of two hundred. One boy says there are so many getting visits because it's the only chance before Christmas.

I think he's made a mistake. This is a crowd? Doesn't anyone here have a family?

The window keeps fogging up, and I wipe over it again and again with my sleeve. I might go crazy just waiting like this.

Then I think of how Dad always says crazy don't know it's crazy but since I think I am…I'm not.

It's about then two trucks pull along the road same time. One I don't know, and one of them belongs to Uncle John. Maybe those two came together then, Dad and Uncle John.

I run out of the hall and Boss yells, "Slow down," because they don't like us to run in case we keep on going.

It is Pat. Mike is driving. Mike pulls in, and Pat gets out and seeing him walking and fit except for the sling on his arm, maybe I can't imagine what would be more cause for joy. Well, seeing Sobe, but not here.

Least ways I don't have to worry about how my face looks with these two. I'm at the fence and Pat gets close, and I'm doing my best to reach through and touch him, and we're laughing.

"Oh boyo, you're fighting in here," Pat says. "Did you give good as this?"

"Better," I say. "Bit off his finger." Well, I embellish, but I'm just trying to be encouraging.

"Step back," Boss calls, and I think he means me, but I can barely let go of those couple of pinches of Pat I've got through the fence.

"What happened to you?" Pat says not realizing or not caring Boss is yelling for me.

I look over my shoulder at Boss. "They're my family," I shout.

Boss points to the main gate. They have to come in that way.

I mean to tell them but Pat pulls away and says, "God sakes we'll drive to the fooking gate then. I don't know how you got in here. I should have gone with you." They are already getting in the truck and going through that way.

He should be glad he only had to give a statement. That judge thought Pat was in it with me.

They are stopped at the gate, and they have to get out, and that's when I see the third one, smaller. He must have been hiding in the bed. It's Joseph.

I get to the gate, and Joseph breaks away from them and comes for me, even when they tell him to stop because he can't just come through the gate like that. But he doesn't listen he comes right for me and slams into me, arms around me. I can barely keep my feet, and I'm sore as heck, but he don't know.

And he brings me home. It's the tightest I've been hugged but for Sobe. He won't lighten it and won’t let go.

Boss is there telling him to back off. Joseph holds that much tighter. Pat calls to him, but he doesn't budge until I push on him some. "I'm all right," I say. I set him back and pull on his cap. He smiles, but he wants to come in for another hug, and I don't want him to get crap for it from Boss cause that's gonna get me so mad I might do something. I feel stronger with them here, but it's just too hard and confusing. It's just all wrong.

"He's coming," Pat says sternly to Boss, who is giving them heck about Joseph. Pat tells Joseph to get back to the truck, and he does. The guard at the gate is saying they can't come in because they didn't call ahead for an appointment.

Pat is telling the guard they've brought stuff from home for Christmas.

The guard and Boss are looking through it.

That's when Joseph, standing with about twenty feet between us tells me Grandma, and Sobe and the girls were busy baking scones and cookies.

Pat is arguing with Boss. Boss says, "You think this is camp?"

Pat says, "I don't care what you call it, boy's got a right to some Christmas from his folks. What kind of outfit is this?"

So while he's arguing Joseph says, "She lost the baby."

I'm just staring at him. "Is she…?"

"She's in bed pretty much all the time. She cries a lot." I can see his worry. "Dad stayed back because he can't leave her," Joseph says.

"She gonna…."

"Dad says she'll be fine. But she isn't fine yet."

"When did it…."

"Before Dad got back from Springfield. She got cramps real bad, and Granma got her down. The doctor came."

"It's my fault," I say.

He's shaking his head. "Sobe said to tell you it isn't. Your fault." He's digging in his coat. "Here's a letter."

"We drove all this way. The kid is standing right there!" Pat says, meaning me. I'm 'the kid.'

"I can't believe we can't come in," Mike says.

"It's bullshit," Pat says.

I take a step forward. "Boss!" I say. He looks but he's arguing with Pat and Mike.

"Boss!" I say again. "Can I get my letter?"

"Stay there," Boss says.

"That kid didn't do a thing to get in here," Pat says.

"You and these other two get five minutes in front of the fence. Pull your truck in the lot and you can stand before the fence. Five minutes," Boss says.

They don't know how generous this is. I expected him to run them off. Boss shows me where to stand, five feet away from the fence. "What about my letter?" I say.

"Shut your mouth and stay put," he says.

So I get on the spot, and Mike moves the truck. Then they assemble before the fence. "They got your stuff the girls sent," Pat says.

Joseph is still holding the letter.

"Read it to me," I say. I don't want to lose it all together.

Joseph tears it open, and he reads, "Dear Tonio."

"Your granma and those girls sent about a hundred cookies, not that I expect you to get any," Pat says.

I hold my hand up to him. "Still now." Then to Joseph, I say, "Go on."

"I was waiting with Miss Rivers in the courthouse lobby. When you didn't come down, I ran up there, and they told me you were in cus-custody. I told the secretary I needed to see the judge. She wouldn't let me so I got around her and went in anyway. He was angry, sitting at his desk big as you please eating a sandwich. I told him he couldn't punish you for what happened. He threatened to put me in custody as well, but Miss Rivers came and dragged me off.

I was mad at her for days. When Elsie told me what happened with your mother, then I went to the farm. Your mother is doing fine now, Tonio, that's the most important thing. She has lost the baby and I know you will somehow blame yourself but you must not. The doctor said that the body passes the baby when something is not right. You have to listen. This didn't happen because of you, and your mother is fine.

She is getting stronger every day and will soon be on her feet again. She wants you to be very strong and brave now and stay safe and not fight."

I touch my cheek. I've got two bruises there the size of Easter eggs. And my jaw, well it takes something apparently to bite through human skin. It's more like rubber than butter.

"You're sure Maman is all right?" I ask again.

"You want the rest?" Joseph says.

"That's plenty," Boss says.

"He can't hear his letter?" Pat says. "Come out here and deal with someone your size
Fookers
. You think you're a big man bullying boys around?"

"Pat…," I say. No doubt he's been drinking all the way up here. "It's all right," I say. It isn't. I'd bite off my own finger to hear the rest of Sobe's words.

"Can I go to the fence and get the letter?" I ask Boss.

He nods so maybe Pat telling him off gave him the pluck to show Pat he's not just a pig's butthole.

I go to the fence, and Joseph puts the letter in the envelope and rolls it and sticks it through the fence.

"C'mon," Boss says to me. It's time to go back in.

I am looking at Joseph first.

"Tell…them…." I try to say something, but just feelings, that's all I've got. Big feelings.

"I'll tell them you're good," Joseph says. "They say to write."

"I will," I say. I haven't yet because I just haven't had the heart.

"Boyo, don't take shit," Mike says. I ignore him pretty much.

Pat says, "You were good with the mule."

I don't know why he says crap like that.

He nods toward Boss, and I grin then.

"Keep your chin up," he says. "Your dad…soon as your mom is on her feet…he'll get you out."

Boss's hand is on my arm.

"Careful of that boyo, you," Pat says then. "Watch where you put those hands. He won't be in here forever, and we never go away if you piss us off."

"Get away from the fence. Get on," Boss yells back at them. I can see the guards from the gate approaching them, but they are already moving to the truck. I'm squeezing that letter in my hand.

"Make sure he gets his treats," Pat yells before he gets in. "I'm gonna check on it, and he better be fatter next time I see him."

I almost grin, but Maman lost the baby, and Sobe is at the farm. I don't know if I'll see that grub. And I want it badly, I do.

But not as badly as the letter in my hand.

I am going to the barn soon as my family pulls away. I'm not going to mope, that's the thing. It's time to milk, and I can get alone there. I am holding that letter, her writing.

Boss tells me to come into the small building where the offices are. And the jail.

I've got those pages so tight in my hand I don't think about it, ruining them, then I do think of it, and I make my fingers ease.

I follow him in there. He lets me go in his office first then he comes in and closes the door. He tells me to sit down in the chair across from the desk, and I sit there, and he sits on the desk.

"I'll take that letter," he says.

My heart about drops. "It's my letter," I say, and I go tight again.

He stands quick and grabs one of my ears and twists.

I pull away and say, "What…." As in what did you do that for, but I don't get to finish. He slaps me across the face, and my face is already sore. He grabs my letter and tosses it on the desk.

I got the back of my hand against my mouth. It's all I can do not to light into him.

"I see in your eyes you want a go," he says. "Think I don't know when I see that? Think you can do it, come on. Make sure you can finish what you start."

"I'm not starting it," I say.

He plows into me and moves me back, and I stumble onto my feet, and the chair goes over, and he gets me against the wall, and he's got his arm across my neck. "Listen good, boy. They ain't coming here again. Not them. You ain't nothing special. Every day you're here I'm gonna remind you of that.

"It would be easy to move you so deep into a low country school they'd never find you. They don't mean shit here. You belong to us now, and maybe you got confusion in that thick head," and here he thunks my head, "but that don't change things."

He backs off then, and my neck and shoulders are already sore.

"You can have some time to think what a little piece of shit you really are." He goes to the door and calls for a couple of the others, and I can't believe my luck when I see Sobe's letter leave the desk and float to the floor right by my shoe, like it's my faithful dog or something, and I don't think twice about snatching it up while he's at the door.

I get that letter, and it's in my shirt.

He don't see. His jaws move and I can't even hear. I have her words, Sobe's word against my ribs.

He has the two goons take me downstairs, and they push me in that cell and slam the door.

I'm standing there, and I got one thing I care about, and that's the sound of their boots leaving so I can finally read.

They stop and say something to the kid in the next cell. He says something and, 'no sir.' It sounds like one of the darkies.

They open his door, and I hear them hitting on him then.

They go on then, giving him some kind of warning.

I realize I haven't moved since they closed the door to my cell. They go back upstairs and soon as the big door at the top of the stairs closes I'm listening hard for some movement from that kid.

"Hey," I say near the bottom of my door. "Hey over there. You okay?"

He doesn't answer, and I can't hear a thing.

"Hey, kid. You okay knock on the wall."

Nothing.

"Shit," I say, sounding like Pat.

Well, if he can't even answer….

"Hey, kid," I say again, but hopefully not loud enough to bring them down the stairs.

Nothing then. And I have a letter to read.

It's just light enough I can barely see, but I reread that first part, looking at each word even, knowing Sobe formed those letters, knowing she touched this paper.

Maman. I let it hit me some. I try to forget about that kid next door and concentrate. She lost the baby. I think about Pee-Wee then. I've seen them all come through as babies. All of them sweet, even if I was saying, shit we got another.

So I get to the new part about how sick Sobe has felt knowing I'm locked up.

Well, I'm not usually locked up. She needs to eat. If she gets sick, there won't be an extra pound on her. Last I saw her she had blue smudges under her eyes.

My hands are shaking, and I move my sore jaw some. That slap in the face didn't help any. I don't know how Jesus turned the other cheek when he could have called down an army. I'd of been calling them all right if I could, an army of devils with pitchforks to stab Boss until there wasn't anything left in him.

Pat should of seen it, that son of a bitch hitting me like that. Pat said Boss should come out the fence. I'd like to see him try and keep them away from visiting me.

I try to go on reading, but that kid next door hasn't made a peep. I go over and hit the wall. "Hey," I say, "you in there? Buddy? You in there?"

Nothing. Well, heck with him then.

I hear that upstairs door open. I start to read fast as I can. "I've got a hole in my heart and the blood slogs through like down at the creek where the water is sluggish and lazy. That's how I feel Tonio, but every day you finish in that school it beats stronger. Tonio I just stay busy. I am helping. No one has really needed me before. Not like this. It's good. I have so much to do. I will stay here, Tonio, and work so hard. I will go to school with the girls and come home and live like you've lived. See, I will try to hold your place so we won't all be so sad. I can't replace you, I can just try to fill some of the loneliness…for us all.

There's more, but they are pulling the door, and I stick the pages in my shirt, and he comes in, two behind him, and he comes for me and grabs the front of my shirt and pulls and rips, and he's got it, my letter, and he hits me and maybe a couple of them do. I'm on the floor when they go back out, and they leave me alone for a minute, then next I know someone is falling over me, and Boss is saying, let's see how special you are locked up with a darkie.

Then they are out, and the door is slammed, and they go up, and I get up on my elbow and shit, I hurt everywhere, and I didn't even get a lick in, and they took my letter. There is a boot propped on my shoulder, and I sit up rest of the way and the boot, attached to a leg, a long skinny one, slides off and that boy scoots up against the wall some, and his face is swollen from a beating. He might look worse than me.

We're staring at each other, we're trying to anyway.

"They took my letter," I say, and I got those sore lips that don't even get a chance to heal.

He stares a little more, then he moves slow and gets on his hands and knees and slowly crawls to my cot and gets on and rolls on his side, back to me.

"Hey," I say, "don't think you're taking my bed."

He don't move.

"You can lay there for a minute, but comes bedtime it's mine," I say.

He still don't move.

"What's your name?" I say.

He doesn't answer.

"Well, heck with you then," I say. It's like Pat again.

I lie on my back and stare. I got a lot to think about, but first, I have to go over that letter. I only glanced at the part I didn't get to read, but I always could look at something and recall it if I concentrated real hard. First, I try to say over what I did read. I got the beginning pretty clear in my mind because I read that twice, then I go over the new part, and I think I've got that too.

But that part I didn't really read, just glanced at, I've got to pull that out of my mind.

She said she thinks about me being at school. I'm just at school.

Then she says, "Is that how it is?"

She tells me to look at the moon, every night, and we'll share it. The moon. She says that every time that moon gets sliced in pieces and grows whole again I'm that much closer to home.

She says they baked for me, even the boys helped and it's all love.

And she says if I'm not home by Christmas she will save my present until she sees me.

And Joseph picked all my pecans and took them to market. He put the money aside for me.

And then she finally says it. She says, "I love you."

Just like that. And it fills me like medicine.

Then she says the most amazing thing. She says, "Don't ever forget how special you are to all of us. To me."

Well, I might laugh if I didn't fear for my ribs. Sobe doesn't want me to forget the very thing Boss says I have to forget.

Now I'm tempted to ignore this whole thing seeing as it's either great coincidence or I made it up. She didn't say I was special at all, she said, "Don't forget to wash behind your ears." I mean, I'm pulling this whole thing out of my head so I have to keep thinking I might be crazy so…I'm not.

But the next one I can't ignore.

I'm lying on this disgusting floor, and I pretty well feel like terrible shit.

Hard times are squeezing me as hard times will.

"Hey," I say to the boy on my bed, "what's your name anyway?"

Finally, that kid rolls over some and says, "Ulysses."

It's a minute before I can ask. I'm afraid he'll say no, and I'll have to admit I'm imaging that my luck is changing. But I take a breath and say, "You wouldn't know that story, would you?"

The boy moves painfully-like onto his back. "What part?" he says.

"Might as well start at the beginning," I say.

"That means I get the bed," he says.

It's a lot to ask. The floor is cold. And damn hard. "How's it gonna look if Boss sees I gave my bed to the poor beat up Negro," I say. I'm supposed to be suffering his company, not giving him my bed.

"It's gonna look like this poor Negro is pretty damn smart," he says.

I can't believe how full of himself he is. If he wasn't beat to a pulp, I imagine he'd be unbearable.

"I get the blanket," I say about desperate to hear that story.

He thinks it over.

"You strong enough to take it?" he says. Yep, unbearable.

"Strong enough to try," I lie.

He's disgusted, but he pulls it free and throws it at me.