Alter Boys (46 page)

‘
City of Elmwood
,
Minnesota
and surrounding area.’  89 cents.  

Scott just wanted directions to his first stop, not buy a map.  Especially not an 89 cent map that he would only use once.  But the clerk had made his point and none too subtly.  ‘Buy a map or get your directions elsewhere.’

Scott relented.  He made his way back to his car where he unfolded the accordion. 

Elmwood was platted on a simple grid and he easily found the first of his stops.

3

“Yes, based upon the files you sent and your description of his sincerity, I think he would be a good fit for our program.”

Scott was talking with Frank Lister, director of Elmwood’s fledgling “Transitions” program.  “We can help him get his GED or return as a regular student if that’s his choice.  He’ll be able to
come and go, we have no locks or bars here.”  He spread his arms expansively.  “He can work if he so chooses, the local 3-M plant outsources a few of their more menial duties with us.  We just require that he attends group sessions, doesn’t use alcohol or drugs and has no run-ins with the law.”

“From what I see, I too believe it would be a good match.”  Scott replied.  “Understand though that my approaching you is conditional.  I first want to visit with the
boy’s
parents.  My preference would be to have him return home, however he has described his home life as dysfunctional.  That, and the fact that his parents have not visited, called or even written him a letter since his commitment, leads me to believe there may be at least some merit in his observations.”

“I would concur Mr. Thelen.  Are you off to see them next?” 

“That I am, they live on
Valley street
.  Are you familiar with it?”

The slightest shadow crossed Frank Lister’s face.  “Yes, from here you’ll head east.  You’ll cross the train tracks and be right on top of Valley.  Go another block further and your car will be in the
Minnesota river
.”

The levity signaled the end of the meeting. 

4

“Do you want some coffee!  The cups are clean!  I washed them!  And the wise men came calling!”

“Yes, coffee would be nice.”

“I’ll hurry!  Blessed are the meek for they shall turn on the stove.  I need to count the spoons!  Life everlasting!”

Scott really didn’t want any coffee, but it got the mother out of the living room.  Now he could have the father’s full attention. 
(If only he weren’t engrossed in Lawrence Welk)  Didn’t these people have the common sense to turn off the television while talking about their sons well being?

“I think your son is ready to come home.”

No response from the other man.

“But there’s one thing that seems to be holding him back.  He continues
to bring up an incident with a F
ather Milliken.”

The boys dad pivoted his head oh so slightly, appeared to be on the verge of saying something, then returned his attention to Bobbie and Sissy who were dancing the Flamenco.   

S
cott drove on.  “Do you know a F
ather Milliken?”

The closed ended question enabled a response.

“Priest.”

So he did exist. 

In the kitchen he could see and hear the mother flying across the room with no purpose other than to touch, return, and touch again.  The boy had described his mothers actions during their sessions but Scott had not fully bought into the severity of it until now.  On the OCD meter this woman was off the charts.  

He boldly continued.  “Are you aware of any encounter
that may have occurred between F
ather Milliken and your son?”

The other man lowered his eyes from the screen and worked his hands nervously.  He then looked at the strange visitor and formed the word.

“Baptism.”

Scott Thelen couldn’t help himself, he sat back in the cheap chair resignedly.  He gathered himself and then tried again, choosing his words very carefully.

“No” he said softly, “what I mean is, was there ever a
n incident
, harsh words, or anything else?”

Again silence from the parent.

“Here’s the coffee, I have no kolaches, I didn’t bake, forgive me Jesus, I should have baked.”  Scott reached for the cup, bracing himself for a finger scalding as it transferred from the woman’s manic hands.   He feigned a sip, then feigned a smile of approval.  He looked on both sides of his chair for an end table to park the cup.  There were none.  He was stuck holding it.

“If I left the burner on the house will catch fire!”  The mother dashed to the kitchen.  “And the people of
Sodom
and
Gomorrah
, fire rained down for their sins!  Is the back door locked, if I have to take out the garbage, dumping the grinds, ashes to ashes.”

“Your son shared that when he was little, he went with you to the church, you shoveled snow while your son was with
F
ather Milliken in his room.  Can you tell me if anything happened?”

Daddy held absolutely perfectly still.  Forty years had trained his mind that the simplest answer was the best answer.  The only answer.

“I –shoveled snow.” 

Any additional information would create more questions, questions he could not resolve, answers he was unequipped to provide.  

Scott waited for him to continue.  But there was nothing. 

He gave up on the Father Milliken line of questioning.  If there was something there, it was effectively hid or repressed.  More likely, there was
nothing
to it at all.

“There is just one more thing, if I’m not being too imposing.  I was wondering if I could see your son’s room.”

Daddy, now relieved that the line of questions has been redirected, answered nimbly.

“Yes.”

They sat for another 30 seconds, Myron Floren fingering his accordion, Scott Thelen fingering his coffee cup, waiting for a signal, any kind of signal from the father.  Inwardly he shook his head in disbelief.  ‘Yes?  That’s it yes?  So you want me to just get up and find it on my own.’ 

He shifted his coffee cup to the other hand and tried the question again, this time with a twist.     

“Could you
show me
your son’s room?”

The clarification did the trick.  Daddy rose as did Scott Thelen.  The movement was detected in the kitchen and mommy followed the two men down the hallway touching her therapeutic talismans.

The door stood open, had been open since the public service officer had retrieved his clothing and cigarettes earlier in the year.  The room had gone untouched.

Where there should have been a floor, Scott saw only filth:  Dirty laundry, fast food bags, packaging for 8 track tapes, candy wrappers, empty potato chip bags, and a mound of what may have one time been school papers and spiral notebooks unceremoniously dumped the middle and trodden with footprints.

He nosed a smell, a mixture of underarm, bowel and mold.  A cardboard tray that once held a Sonic Extra Long Cheese Coney Dog now sported a line of green fur where the chili slopping’s had once rested. 

In the corner, a jumbled heap of 8 track tapes.  And next to the bed, a battered 8 track tape player and a pair of headphones so filthy it would be more merciful to burn them than to try and clean them.

“The heathen!  Godless sloth!  Godless vanity!”  Scott wheeled toward the mother who had snuck up behind him.  The woman had a finger crammed into her nose all the way up to the knuckle.  She corkscrewed her hand back and forth like a mechanic wielding a socket wrench.  “The wicked Georgie
Porgie
girl shall burn in eternal damnation!  Do you want some more coffee?” 

It took him a moment to absorb what he had just heard and saw.  ‘Heathen?  Sloth?  Eternal damnation?’  And oh my god!  That most disgusting nose picking! 

He looked to the father, expecting either a counter argument or an agreement.  All he saw was silent resignation. 

“Oh, uhmm, no.”  He took an obligatory sip from the cup.  “Thank you, the coffee is fine.” 

“I may have left the burner; the faucet is dripping, lord save us from our sin.”  The mother raced off, leaving the two men to themselves.  Scott looked at the untouched room and couldn’t help but wonder if it would remain this way until the day this shanty was declared unfit for living.

The family unit was already unfit, the house would soon follow.

“I still have to do some thinking about what will be best for your son when he comes back to Elmwood.”  He lied to the father.  The kid was going straight to the Transitions program where he could have a fighting chance.  “We want to make sure we make
the right choices.”  A second lie.  There was no ‘we.’ These people were incapable of choices – except bad ones. 

He started walking back up the hallway.  “I want to thank you for visiting with me.  I know it’s been as difficult for you as it has been for your son.”  A third lie?  Bet the bank on it.

They reached the living room and Scott realized he had to rid himself of the damned coffee cup before he could get out of this nuthouse.  He sidestepped a few feet into the kitchen and placed the nearly full cup on the edge of the kitchen table.  “Nice visiting with you, thank you for the coffee.” The woman was turned away from him, worrying over the two buttons, one marked light, the other marked fan, above the stove.  At the words she whirled around.  “I made more you can take a thermos!  They entered the promised land!  Jesus wept.”

“No, thank you.  That’s fine.  Goodnight.”

He didn’t wait for an escort.  He crossed the living room and let himself out wordlessly.  On the front porch Scott paused to analyze his visit.

Analyze?  How could anyone analyze that!  He knew people back on the unit who were far more lucid than these two, and at the top of the list was their son!  Poor kid was just--  A scream from inside the house stopped his thoughts cold.  He turned back to the door. Grasped at the handle, and was ready to rush in when:

“The coffee!  He left the coffee!  Didn’t drink!  Such
wastefulness
!   Millions are dying!  The lord giveth, the lord taketh away! 
Evil man
!  He’ll burn in purgatory!”

Oh. My. God.

Scott bounded off the porch and had to deliberately slow his pace as he headed toward his car.  ‘Dysfunctional, with a capital ‘D.’ 
his mind cried.  He yanked the door handle and collapsed in the
driver’s
seat.

‘Un-fucking-believable!’  

He put both of his hands on top of the steering wheel and then rested his forehead upon them.  He watched the events of the night so far roll through his
mind’s
eye.  The ever-so-promising visit with Mr. Lister at the Transitions program.  Then the botched abortion of a visitation with the parents.  God!  And he had drank coffee served to him via the nose picking hands of that disgusting woman.

His head shot up and he involuntarily wiped his hands on his pants, as if the act alone could rid him of whatever filth he may have come in contact with. 

How vile.  How disgusting!

Scott gathered himself, then allowed the scope of his thoughts expand.  It was now full dark.  8:40 by his watch.  He was spent.  Originally he had considered three stops in Elmwood, the first two, (the official ones) were complete, the third, more for his own curiosity could be skipped.  He considered his options, finally deciding that if he didn’t go through with the third, he would forever be asking himself ‘what if.’