Boys in Gilded Cages (5 page)

Silence.

“
We just moved. We both
work,” Jenny pushed her eyelashes down hard against each other. “It
won’t be like this for long.”

“
I see. I’m sorry for
bringing it up,” she said, relaxing her head to the back of the
chair.

Say something. Say something.

“
You look good, Mom,” Sam
chimed in frantically. “Lose any weight?”

“
A little,” she said. “No
man wants too much cushion. Am I right, Jenny?”

Silence.

“
I’m going to bed,” Jenny
said in her best impersonation of a tired person. She got up and
put her hand on my thigh. “Are you coming, Sam?” He looked at his
mother, who could’ve broken the Mississippi floodgates with her
glare.

“
Nah, I think I’ll stay
out here for a few.”

“
Suit yourself. ‘Night
all.” Off she went.

“
I don’t care for her,”
Wilma whispered.

Sam laughed. “I know. You can sleep in
Jake’s room if you want,” he said. “He’ll be here in the morning,
and then you can meet him.”

“
No, Hon, that’s okay.
I’ve got to get going. Five hours to Mississippi, and I’ve got to
work tomorrow.”

“
Okay,” Sam said. “Thanks
for coming by.”

“
Next time,” she said,
walking towards the front door, “Keep that baby here. I’d like to
see him.”

“
Sure,” Sam
said.

She blew a kiss, and made a quiet exit. Sam
closed his eyes and listened to the front door clasp, that clunky
van engine start, and sputter away.

HYPNOS

Jack woke up every morning in some sort of
fog. It is apparently a myth that “special” children are sharper
than your average dope. His observations moved about the room, his
mind too crowded to hold much of anything. As he slept a restless
sleep, thoughts projected on the back of his eyelids. He never
snored. He never fluttered his eyes, they way people do. He just
laid there, held captive to lucid dreams or racing thoughts that
clanked together and made endless noise.

He basically had his nights alone. His
mother worked nights at the Cue‘n Brew. Sometimes he imagined how
she was at work. Was she just a polite woman who poured drinks and
gently took tips, maneuvering around the drunk truck drivers’
come-ons? Did she dance on the table, get wild, drink with
customers?

Some nights, like tonight, she stumbled in,
giggling, being held up by a burly patron who kindly offered to
drive her home. Then he led her to bed.

The next morning was quiet and gloomy at the
breakfast table, tense for only the adults. Jack was
indifferent.

Jack’s mother was near the toaster with a
box of frozen waffles, two of them ready to go, her hand on the
trigger.

“
Do you want waffles,
Jack?”

“
I guess so.”

Jack’s mother yelled across their mobile
home.

“
Frank, you want
waffles?”

A thick, hairy mass of goofy grin wearing
briefs walked groggily to the kitchen table. He eyed Jack, perhaps
looking for some sort of approval. Jack made eye contact with him
blankly.

“
Uh, sure,” Frank said. He
sat down next to Jack, giving him a pleading smile. As if to say:
“Please don’t embarrass me in front of your mother.” Or he could
have been saying, “Please don’t think of me as a potential father
figure.” Jack acknowledged Frank, but paid no mind to his demeanor.
His eye was on the waffle maker.

To Frank, it seemed that hours had gone by
before anyone said anything. His eyes darted from the window to the
wall to the table, and she slouched back in his chair. In his
mind’s eye, he looked to the sealing and imagined being beamed up.

“Deer huntin’ season coming up, Jack,” Frank said as he tipped up
his coffee mug.
Jack blinked, arm crossed. “I don’t hunt.”
Frank
shuffled his feet. “Why’s that, bud?”

Thelma, Jack’s mother, interrupted. She
snapped her head back from the waffle maker to the uncomfortable
men at her kitchen table. “Jack, do you have Speech class today?”
Jack simply nodded yes.

Thelma’s voice pitch raises, as if
patronizing a child. “Okay. Can you give your teacher a note for
me?” Jack’s brow furrowed a bit.
“What note?” Jack asked.

Thelma smiled a tense, saccharine grin.
“Just a ‘Thank You’ note for all the extra time she’s spent with
you.”

Frank stared down at his plate during the
conversation. Finally, he looks up, as if he just thought of
something to say. “You know, Jack, I had an awful stutter when I
was a young boy. You talk real good compared to…”

Jack cut him off. “I don’t stutter.

“
Oh,” Frank answered,
sounding defeated and bewildered.
“Jack!” Thelma
snapped.

Frank jumped at the opportunity to prove
himself to Jack. “No, it’s okay, Thelma! I know you don’t stutter,
Jack. I was just…

Jack rolled his eyes. “Going to school,” he
said, completely deadpan.

“
Have a good day, ‘hon,”
Thelma said.
“Take it easy, partner,” said Frank.

Jack ignores them, picks up his backpack,
and leaves.

At the bus stop, he finds his only friends,
whom he doesn’t actually care for. There’s Harris, a studios boy
with the glasses to match; Petor is an aspiring bodybuilder and
fitness model, aged 14. He is a diminutive pocket-sized young man.
The type of boy who likes to scrap, but always loses, except when
he recounts the story to his friends. The only friend of Jack’s
that wasn’t completely insufferable was Santos, Marcia Cruz’s
cousin. He was a quiet boy, seemingly disaffected, but nice enough
to get fucked over on a regular basis. 
Jack approached the boys.
Santos noticed right away, and waved. Jack vaguely heard from one
of the boys, “Who are you waving at, gaywad?” Petor arched his back
around Santos to see who was approaching. “Hey,” he said with
drawn-out vowels, in his trademark alpha male voice. “Look who it
is!” 
“Hey, Jack,” Harris and Santos said in unison.
“Hypnos!”
Petor yelped out. “Bright and early, as usual!”
“Yup,” Harris said
in a monotone voice.
“Stay up all night gettin’ in?” Petor
asked.
Jack looked straight ahead. “Shut up.”

“
You do look tired, bro,”
Santos said, sounding concerned. 
Santos was right. Jack spent the
night listening to his mother and Frank having sex. At one point,
Jack’s
Alice and Wonderland
poster – the Tim Burton version, of course – was
knocked off of his thin bedroom wall.
“What’s up with you?” Petor
demanded.

“
Nothing. Why?” Jack
perked up slightly.
Harris, not listening, looked at his watch.
“Fuckin’ bus is late again.”

The neighborhood bus stop was on a gravel
road, a County Highway. It was before a cornfield that was
harvested and burned away. As Jack’s friends goofed around, Jack
himself looked straight ahead. His eyes glazed over. Jack was
silent, eyes gazing across the cornfield, and he saw a figure
standing there. It was a boy about his age. Maybe younger. He was
wearing a T-shirt his dead brother used to wear. The boy waved.
Jack waved back.

Distracted by a playful punch to the arm
from one of his idiot friends, when Jack turned back to greet the
boy once again, he was of course vanished.

Speech therapy was always a peculiar mixed
experience. Ms. Luptas had the kind of body from the MILF porn Jack
sneakily watched on his iPhone after his shower. But there was also
the humiliation of the incessant stuttering in front of Ms.
Luptas.

She was sweet with an angelic voice and
breasts to match, and Jack often had fantasies of being twenty
years older, and stealing Ms. Luptas from her husband, the
philandering deputy Sherriff of Hawthorn, Missouri.

Sex and humiliation had always intertwined
in the drifting time-fluid consciousness of Jack. Whether he was
aware of it or not, Youth was not something he considered. As far
as Jack was concerned, he was the same age as Ms. Luptas, the Dalai
Llama and Marilyn Monroe. Truth be told, he often felt like he
transcended person-hood all together.

Ms. Luptas, who was always late, entered the
room with a lively energy, as if she had just been for a brisk job.
Jack liked to imagine that she was one of those busy types; the
kind of lady whose time was valuable, and she thought Jack worthy
of it. “Sorry I’m late!” Ms. Luptas cooed.

Jack froze. “That’s…that’s good.” His
stuttering seemed flip by a switch.

“
Ready to begin?” Ms.
Luptas asked. Sunshine pored through her eyes. All Jack could
manage was to nod his head. “How is your medication treating you?
Is Doctor Ewen helpful to you?” Jack nods.

Ms. Luptas switched gears. “Let’s start with
some word association. We’ll start with the easy ones, as a warm
up. Then we’ll get a little more challenging.”
“Okay,” Jack
said.
Great,” said Ms. Luptas. She then grabbed some index cards.
She read from them, and spoke slowly. “A pilot drive a…” She looked
up at Jack with a smile.
“Plane,” Jack said. His tone could have
been mistaken for a little boy’s.
“Good,” Ms. Luptas said. She
looked at Jack, whose gazed drifted off suddenly. “Are you okay,
Jack?” Jack nodded.

Ms. Lupus saw an opportunity to probe a
little more. “Are you a little nervous?” She asked,
ever-so-gently.

Jack nodded again. “It’s…a…it’s a little…”
Unable to get the words out, he fans his face to show what he
means.

“
A little warm,” Ms.
Luptas finished Jack’s sentence.

“
Um, no. Just… like,
stuffy.”

Ms. Luptas reached behond her. She placed a
red, palm-sized aluminum fan on the desk. She turned it on. “Here’s
a fan for you. Do you want to take a break?” She asked.

“
No, I’m fine.” Jack
said.

“
Okay, let’s continue,”
Ms. Luptas said.

Jack doesn’t speak very often, but over the
past week, his few words were regarding his younger brother
Nathan’s visit. The boys were somewhat surprised, as they had known
Jack since kindergarten and had never heard of him speak of a
brother, except for brother who died last year. As Harris and Jack
walked home from the bus stop, Harris reached for a topic of
conversation.

“
So, is your brother
coming to stay with you?” He asked, in a tense tone.

Jack flinched internally. “Um…I don’t know
if he’s staying with us. His dad is with him.”

“
Where’s he staying?”
Harris asked.

“
I’m not sure. I might not
even see him,” Jack said. “I think they’re staying in Springfield,
or Lampe.”

“
Man, I haven’t seen that
motherfucker in years, dude. Wonder with he looks like now? He look
like you?”

Jack looked down. “Wrong brother.”

Harris was mortified. “Oh…no, I’m sorry.
It’s just that you never talk about them, I forgot…”

Jack intercepted the rambling. “Nathan. He
looks like me a little. I haven’t seen him either, really. Just for
a few minutes, here and there.” Harris looks at him, confused. Jack
continued: “All I’ve seen are, Just, um…pictures of him on, the
um…uh, computer. And sometimes I see him out, but he doesn’t really
talk to me.” Their walk became dead silent for a few minutes. As
soon as Harris sees Jack’s mobile home – the light at the end of
this confining conversational tunnel – he tries once more.

“
How’s your mom doing?”
Harris asked.

Jack barely blinked. “She’s all right, I
guess.”

“
She found a man yet?”
Harris smirked.

Jack looked grim. “No.”

“
Still on the prowl, huh?”
Harris chuckled nervously. Jack stared daggers. Harris has stopped
walking. “We’re here, Hypno!” Jack looked around. “Oh,” he
muttered. Awkward pauses were always dips into the abyss with Jack.
“Well,” Harris said, “take care man.”

Jack walked away. “Bye,” he mumbled. Harris
watched him walk inside, himself in a sort of trance.

Most teenagers avoid jobs like the plague.
Not Jack. His mother was never one to put her money to good use,
and Jack decided at age 16 to take a job at the local 7-11, which
because of its poor location, never seemed to do much business.

Jack sat behind the
counter reading a book called
The Herodian
Messiah
, which was written by a local
researcher who was featured on a Discovery Channel special about
the true ancestry of Jesus Christ. He took a piece of gum from a
pack he stole from the store after closing it the night
before.

Beep.
The gas station pump.

Jack cleared his through and gave himself of
a moment of concentration, as if he were about to sing opera. In a
voice perfect for radio, he said, “Pump one, you’re ready.”

Jack looked over his shoulder, sensing that
someone was in the store. But there was no one. He sat back
down.

Jack stretched, yawned, and sat back down. A
shadow in the back of the store caught his eye. Jack walked around
the store. He catches the fast-moving shadow float behind the
potato chip shelf. Just a grey-black mass, wisking itself away: No
sound, and almost transparent, but emanating an energy that
required attention. Jack let out a shaky, “Can I help you?” Into
the ether, hoping that whoever – or whatever – was in the store
would reveal itself. Suddenly he heard an alto voice. “Hypno?” The
voice said, an ethereal but human-esque sound. Jack turned around
swiftly. It was Nathan. His skin was grey, he was glazy-eyed, and
it looked like he needed a bath. “Hey, big brother,” Nathan
said.