A Question of Mercy (10 page)

That night she told Adam not to follow her.

“I don't,” he said.

“Just leave me alone! That's all I want.” Her voice sounded like cursing. “Just to be left a-lone.”

Edward told Adam that he could come to the downtown store with him. Edward owned two clothing stores—one in Goshen and one in Asheville. So, for almost a week, Adam rode with Edward, bringing coloring books and paper for drawing. But as his friendly manner began to disturb the customers, Edward brought him home.

Then one morning Adam snuck out of the house to follow the other kids to school. He crouched under the school's bleachers until he saw Jess disappear through the big dark doors; but as Adam stood to go back home, he stepped down hard on a nest of yellow jackets and ran in circles calling for Jess. The bees swarmed around him and landed, like a swath of cloth, on the side of his head.

Jess saw Adam from the school's window. He performed a wild dance—all elbows and arms—but he could not detach the swarm from his face. He
fell to his knees, swatting and crying. More yellow jackets clung to his neck and legs. He looked as if someone invisible was knocking him around.

Several teachers came outside, and Jess ran to where Adam was trying to swim in the grass. Yellow jackets flew around them both, stinging Jess as she lifted Adam's legs and dragged him toward the parking lot. His body bounced on the ground, and he kept telling Jess that he was on fire. A teacher told someone to call an ambulance.

“It's okay,” Jess said. “You'll be okay, Adam.”

Adam lay on the parking lot pavement, rolling around, not standing up. He moved his tongue dryly between his lips. “Fire in my face.” His face was beginning to swell. “I didn't mean to,” he said, but his voice already sounded weak. He continued to call for Jess, even though she was there.

“We're taking you to the doctor, Adam.” Yellow jackets stung her arms. She turned to the teacher. “Call my Dad at the store. He'll get hold of Adam's mother.” She helped Adam to stand as an ambulance pulled into the school parking lot. The siren was blaring. “Look, Adam. You're gonna ride in an ambulance.”

“I am?” He seemed barely conscious. One shoe was gone and he had dirt caked in his thick tangle of hair.

“I'm going with you.” She motioned to let others know her intention, but everything was like a movie running in her head. She thought there were two Jess Bookers and one was acting responsibly, the other stood back unable to know what to do next. A teacher insisted on coming along, saying they should have an adult with them.

“Maybe we can get them to turn on the siren.” Jess said the words without thinking. She wanted the whole scene to be a bad dream. “Would you like that, sweetie?” It was the first time she had ever called him sweetie.

Adam nodded.

“It's not your fault, Adam,” the teacher told him. “You're not in trouble.”

Jess stayed with Adam all day. Clementine and Edward arrived and, late in the afternoon, they brought him home. The bandages had to be changed every few hours. They applied a soothing ointment to his neck, arms, and legs to calm the burning and itching.

During the first days of Adam's recuperation, before Jess left for school, she placed a blueberry muffin on his bedside table, so he would find it when he woke—along with a fat balloon. He thought the appearance of such things was magical.

After school, she made the rounds of auto dealers, salvage shops, and garages to inquire about unusual hubcaps. She picked up three: a Plymouth Sailing Ship, a Starburst and a 1949 Desoto Center Cap. Adam recognized
the Starburst, and Center Cap, but had never seen the Sailing Ship. He whooped when he saw it. He told Jess to nail the new ones on the garage next to the Cross Bars and the Baby Moon. On sunny days, the side of their garage looked like a space ship.

The fear of more bee stings kept Adam from following Jess to school anymore, but he was still restless. Clementine and Edward talked about buying him a more appropriate-size bike for Christmas.

By Thanksgiving he had looked through catalogues, choosing a Schwinn Red Phantom B-17 bicycle with chrome fenders with a headlight, white wall tires, and a cantilevered frame with pinstripe. The name
Phantom
was written in cursive on the side. Christmas morning he found the bicycle in the living room by the tree. It was red and silver and he swelled with pride at the look of it.

During the next few months Clementine and Jess noticed that Adam suddenly had friends who came by the house and rode bikes with him. John Beaner was in the seventh grade and the other two were eighth graders. Clementine was worried as she watched Adam ride away, but Edward was glad he had friends.

“Where do they go?” Edward asked.

“Just riding, I guess. Adam said something about a clubhouse.”

“All boys should have a clubhouse,” Edward laughed. “It'll be good for him.”

“They give him candy and comic books.”

“Well, let's see how it goes,” Edward patted her shoulder. “He seems happy right now.”

A few days later, Adam rode home and parked his bike in the garage, but didn't come in. Clementine found him sitting in the back yard looking at a magazine with naked women.

“Where did you get that?” Adam threw the magazine down and Clementine took it. “It's not mine,” Adam said. “It's John Beaner's. At the clubhouse.”

Clementine gave the magazine to Edward and asked if he would handle it; so Edward told Adam to take it back to the clubhouse or else throw it out. He asked Adam if he had any questions. Adam said he wanted to keep it in his room. Edward thought a minute before he said no. Then Adam asked if the women in the pictures got cold, and if they were afraid of squirrels. Edward said he didn't think so.

Clementine didn't trust the boys anymore, but Edward urged her to let him keep his friends, until a week later a policeman brought Adam home
and said he had been stealing from the grocery store. He told Clementine that John Beaner was the culprit and that the boys had been sending Adam into the store to steal for them.

“What was he stealing?” Edward asked.

“Candy, mostly. Comic books. It was easy, since Adam worked there.”

That night Adam told Jess that a policeman had arrested him, and that John Beaner had said “Get lost, retard.” He asked about the word ‘retard.' He knew what ‘get lost' meant.

“You weren't arrested, Adam. That policeman just brought you home.” Jess did not explain the word ‘retard.' “Good riddance!” she said. “Those boys are jerks.”

Adam laughed. He knew the word ‘jerk.'

But after those days huddled inside the clubhouse looking at dirty magazines, Adam's desires were reawakened. He had always played with children when they came to the playground after school, but now, he rode his bike there alone and when he pushed a little girl on the swing, he pulled up her dress to see her panties. He thought no one noticed this, but mothers took their little girls away from him and told him to go home. A knock at the door one night brought everything to the surface.

Eric and Elaine Brown had drawn up a petition stating that Adam should be banned from playing with children at the playground, and the park. The petition, signed by other parents, stated that Adam was a threat to the younger girls.

“We had to do something,” Eric Brown told Edward. “This was getting out of hand.”

Edward apologized and reminded them that Adam had the mind of an eight-year-old.

“But the sexuality of a man,” Elaine insisted. “We've got to do something about this, before something happens. I'm sorry, Clementine. We've watched Adam grow up. But now … this is different. I hope you understand.” She took out a poster that had been drawn with a likeness of Adam. The poster was being passed around town and given to new families moving into Goshen.

“There's nothing else to do,” Eric said, his voice apologetic, but firm.

When they left, Clementine looked at the poster. “Like a criminal,” she said. “They have known Adam all these years. They
know
him. What are they
think
ing?”

Edward held the petition at his side as though it weighed too much to lift. “They're thinking about their little girls,” he said.

“Are you on
their
side now?” Clementine had a terrible look of accusation, as if Edward did not trust Adam either.

“Clementine, don't!”

“Well,
are
you?”

“If you mean do I worry about Adam with Jess? No, I don't, but there have been times over the summer when I
did
have some concern.”

Clementine did not sleep, but sat all night with the petition and poster. She kept waking Edward. “He'll have no one to play with. It breaks my heart. He'll be more and more isolated. He looked forward to playing with the children every day.” But Clementine knew how strange it was to see Adam, a big strapping boy, in a sandbox or riding a merry-go-round. Over the last year he had gained some independence: riding his bike, walking to the park, playing in a neighbor's yard. Now, she had to change the part of his life that he loved the most.

The next day when Jess mentioned going to the library, Clementine asked if Adam could go with her.

“Do I have to?” she said. “I need to study.”

“Just let him look at books about hubcaps. Anything to keep him away from the children.”

“Hey, Adam,” she called, but her voice could not hide the resentment she felt. “Want to go to the library with me?” She knew he needed to be reined in. She felt more than a little blame for his sexual urges, because of what happened with Betty and Marie.

“The library?” Adam said. “I can't read.”

“You can read a few words.” He could recognize Exit, Restrooms (Ladies and Men), the names of a few stores, and his favorite flavor of ice cream. Jess had taught him how to write his name. He could print A, but the D sometimes had two bumps instead of one and the M was always upside down: ABAW.

“We'll go to the drugstore afterwards,” she promised. “Get ice cream. Anyway, the library has books with pictures of hubcaps. And how about the ocean? Want to see a book about the ocean?”

As they entered the library's big doors, Adam could smell the odor of books. “Smells funny,” he said. Jess put her finger to her lips to indicate they had to be quiet. Jess was aware of his shuffling footsteps across the floor, how different he was from those sitting at the long tables with the green lamps. In the quiet of the large room, she saw how he lived in the familiar sting of his loneliness.

They went into the stacks to find books about the ocean, and others with photos of hubcaps. Adam whistled quietly whenever he found a hubcap he
had never seen. When he finished studying his books, Jess showed him the stereopticon—a machine that could make a photo come alive in 3-D. Adam laughed loudly when he looked through the eyepiece. The librarian seemed willing to look the other way. He slipped double photos under the lens for almost thirty minutes before deciding he'd seen enough.

They walked in a drizzling rain to the drugstore. A week of steady spring storms had made the river rise. Some houses in the next town had flooded and Clementine recalled a man, four years ago, who had drowned when the swift current carried him downstream. They entered the drugstore and shook raindrops from their heads.

Billy, the boy behind the counter, called to Jess when they came in, and she walked toward him. He took Jess out most Saturday nights, but now he scooped a double dip of strawberry ice cream into a dish for Adam. Adam always chose the same flavor. He used his fingers, lifting out each strawberry to eat first, then stirred the ice cream into a soup until he could drink the last bit.

Jess ate a chocolate cone and smiled at Billy. He could not take his eyes off her. Billy made Jess laugh and talked about things Adam did not understand. He held Jess's hand on top of the counter, and when Adam saw Jess lean forward, maybe to give Billy a kiss, Adam said he wanted to go home. He wanted to go right now. He wanted to run from the small crate of his mind, and all the things he did not understand. Even before he had finished his ice cream, he bolted for the door. Jess hurried to catch him. They raced home in a downpour.

Rain pelted their faces and arms, but Adam lifted his head into it and opened his mouth. Cars honked when he rushed across the street against the light. Jess was running behind him. Grackles and crows landed and screamed from the small park in the middle of town.

Adam

His mama sometimes fussed at him for touching himself at night—if she caught him; but she did not always catch him when he dreamed of girls in pajamas and underpants, or riding a merry-go-round, their dresses flying upward above the knees. At night Adam touched himself to feel good, but the next day his mother always knew and she said loud,
ADAM
, like that. And he knew she knew
.

He hid in his closet while she grumbled and changed the sheets on the bed. Sometimes she took his shoulders and shook him when he came out of the closet to go downstairs. She told him that he could go blind from doing that, and Adam said, What? Thinking she meant his hiding in the closet. When he remembered the sheets, he said, Oh
.