Little Chicago (2 page)

My ma works on the fourth floor, I say. She's a radiology technician.

We know that, Blacky. In fact at this very moment she's right next door to this room speaking to a woman from Children's Services. The sooner we get this done, the sooner you can see your mother, okay?

My ma's right next door? I ask.

Dr. Darius says, In the room just to our left, yes.

The nurse nods and makes a kind face.

Dr. Darius says, So if you'll take your pants down for me we'll get this over with real quick. There's nothing to worry about. I promise it won't hurt.

I nod and look down at my feet. The medicine is soaking through the bandages. It looks like spilled orange juice.

While I'm undoing my pants Dr. Darius puts white rubber gloves on. They make his hands look huge and fake.

I lower my underwear. I can see that these were taken out of the laundry pile, too. In fact, I notice from the size that they're actually my little brother's. Cheedle's a small and I'm a medium.

The room is cold and I feel myself shrinking.

Dr. Darius says, I'll need you to bend over for me so I can examine your rectum, okay?

The nurse won't look at my penis. She's looking at the 7-Up instead. She's looking at it so hard I think she might drink it.

Dr. Darius says, Bend down and touch your toes. Can you do that for me, Blacky?

Yes, I say.

We do toe touches in Gym. Toe touches and burpies. Coach Corcoran calls out eight counts. He always slows down at around six.

I reach down and touch my toes. Dr. Darius opens my butt. His hands are huge and warm.

Just relax, Blacky, he says. This will be over before you know it.

I feel like I have to urinate. A drop even falls on the floor.

Sorry, I say to the nurse.

But she just keeps looking at the 7-Up in her hand.

How old are you, Blacky? Dr. Darius asks from behind me.

Eleven, I say. I'm eleven but I'll be twelve soon.

When's your birthday?

November seventeenth, I say.

Sixth grade? he asks.

Yes, I say.

He's using something metal to open me up more now. It's cold on my butt. I imagine one of those tools you use in a garden.

He's gardening, I tell myself. It's okay cause he's just gardening …

What's your favorite subject in school? Dr. Darius asks.

I don't know, I say. Not dodgeball.

He laughs. His laugh is on my back like a cat.

Very good then, he says. You can pull your pants up.

I pull up my jeans and stand there for a moment. I don't turn around cause I feel stuck. Shay didn't use a belt and I have to keep my hands in my pockets so they won't fall back down.

I realize that there is no window in this room and it makes me feel trapped.

Are you okay, Blacky? the nurse asks.

I nod even though I'm still facing the other way.

I can feel Dr. Darius trying to communicate with the nurse behind my back. They're talking the way aliens talk. It's all about brainwaves and the eyes.

When I turn around he is gone.

Doctors are magicians in white coats and I think I'm forgetting how time works.

The nurse is still standing there with my 7-Up.

You can put your shoes back on, she says.

I watch my hands for a moment and then I put on my Sunday shoes.

Is Shay out there? I ask.

She left with her friend a few minutes ago, the nurse says.

I say, What about my ma?

She says, I'm not sure, Blacky. But Ms. Wolf from Children's Services would like to speak with you now. So if you'll follow me.

When we go into the hall, Ma is slumped in a chair and she is talking to two policemen.

Ma, I say. Ma.

She looks up at me.

Hi, honey, she says.

Her face is wet and puffy. She is holding several crumpled tissues. The hospital light makes her hair seem redder than it does at home.

She reaches out and squeezes my hand. It makes the scrapes sting but I don't care.

The policemen are huge and their faces look like concrete.

All the people in the hall seem sad and near death with boredom. There's a woman sitting on the floor and she's eating a McDonald's cheeseburger. She is so fat it looks like her body hurts.

And there's this nun walking around with no eyebrows. She's all in black and you can't see her feet. It's like she's floating around vampire style.

Where'd Shay go? I ask.

Ma says, She reeked of alcohol so I told her to go away. She left with Betty.

She blows her nose and starts scratching her arms. She's got this thing called eczema. She uses creams that smell like vegetable soup and metal. Once I walked into the kitchen and her neck was so red it could have been hamburger meat. She was leaning against the refrigerator and clawing away.

Sometimes I imagine her with no skin, just all her veins and various tissues.

Ma's got a depression problem, too. She took medication for a while but she stopped cause she said the pills made her feel loopy.

I think she gets depressed cause she works around all these sad people. Maybe sadness is like chicken pox and other contagious diseases.

Ma, I wanna go home, I say.

My throat gets that ache in it again.

She squeezes my hand again and says, In a few minutes, Blacky. After you talk to Ms. Wolf, okay?

Okay, I say, but I feel stuck.

Ma says, Go talk to Ms. Wolf. She's a nice lady.

One of the policemen says, Follow the nurse now, son.

His face looks less like concrete when he talks but I still have this feeling that he'll arrest me if I don't obey his orders.

I look over my shoulder to see if Dr. Darius is back but he's not.

Then I turn and follow the nurse into the other room.

3

The woman standing behind the desk smells like ham.

I recognized this odor when I walked in the room. Ham smells guilty and I imagine her doing stuff. Stuff like shoplifting or spitting in a pan.

She's the one with the frizzy hair who was talking to Shay and Betty in the hall. She wears a long-sleeved yellow shirt with a collar and brown pants. Her clothes seem too big for her body.

It's like she's trying to hide in them.

The badge on her shirt says:

WENDY WOLF

CHILDREN'S SERVICES

It sounds like a name you would make up. Like Bob Bear or Sam Snake.

There's a desk and a window and a chair that is the color of lima beans. Other than this there are very few items in the room.

Hello, Gerald, she says, holding out her hand. I'm Ms. Wolf.

Hello, I say, and take another step into the room.

I shake her hand. Her fingers feel long and warm.

I'm glad to meet you, she says. Please take a seat.

I sit in the chair. My feet are starting to itch from all that orange stuff.

On the wall behind the Ham Lady there's a United Way poster of a kid with bruises. He's staring at me like he's hungry.

Are you comfortable? the Ham Lady asks. Is there anything I can get you?

No, thank you, I say.

I realize that I'm holding the 7-Up. It's cold and heavy in my hand. I don't even remember when the nurse gave it to me.

It must have been in the hall, I think. She gave it to me in the hall …

Outside I can hear my ma pleading with the policeman. Her voice sounds like a clarinet.

There's a clock on the wall. It's bigger than most clocks and I keep thinking it's staring at me like it has a brain. It says it's 8:25.

I'm supposed to be in school, I tell the Ham Lady.

I know, Gerald, she says.

I say, In Math Skills we're doing fractions and prime numbers. I'm gonna miss the bus.

The Ham Lady says, You don't need to worry about that right now.

I say, In Social Studies we're learning about capital punishment. The electric chair and stuff.

She says, You'll be free to go back to school tomorrow, okay?

Okay, I say.

She has this blue ball that she keeps fiddling with. She mostly just rolls it around on her desk but sometimes she squeezes it too.

The Ham Lady looks at me for a second and says, Your mother and I used to work together at Children's Services, did you know that?

No, I say.

It was before she came over here to St. Joe's. I remember when you were born. You and your sister, both …

Once Ma told me she stopped working at Children's Services cause too many kids died.

They just kept dyin, Blacky, she told me. The more they died the more I cried.

While she still worked there, one night she brought home a baby that nobody else wanted. He was African American and his name was Tayshawn Van and he had to crawl around with an air tank strapped to his leg cause of a severe breathing disorder. Sometimes he chirped like a squirrel. He lived with us for a week and then Ma took him somewhere else.

That's when Ma was strong. That was before she got depressed and had to start taking prescription medication.

I need to ask you some questions, the Ham Lady says. And it might be difficult for you to answer some of them but I want you to do your best to tell the truth, okay, Gerald?

Okay, I say.

She flips a page on her yellow notepad and says, I'd like you to start out by telling me what happened last night when you were with Mr. Johnson.

I don't say anything. Instead I watch the clock. The second hand goes from 3 to 6.

There's no rush, the Ham Lady says. You can take as much time as you need.

I try and take some time but all I can think about is how after I got through the creek I hid behind a tree for several minutes cause I thought I heard Al Johnson whispering again. There was a knot in the bark that looked like a face.

Blacky, I thought I heard Al Johnson say. You forgot your gym shoes, Blacky …

I was sleeping and then I woke up, I tell the Ham Lady. I was in his room.

What were you doing before that?

I say, We were drawing Indians with charcoal pencils. I fell asleep at the kitchen table.

The Ham Lady writes this down and says, Did you and Mr. Johnson draw together a lot?

Yes, I say. We drew stuff and we did copper etchings. He was gonna teach me wood burning, too.

Did you ever draw anything besides Indians?

I say, We drew cows, too. Cows and planes and pictures of presidents. I did one of Calvin Coolidge.

Had you spent the night at Mr. Johnson's before?

Yes, I say.

How many times?

A bunch, I say.

Do you know exactly how many?

No, I say. Maybe like six.

The Ham Lady flips a page and says, Was this the first time he took you into his room like that?

Yes, I say.

In the past when you spent the night where did you sleep?

I say, On the sofa in the living room. It pulls out into a bed.

Did he ever come and visit you while you were sleeping on the sofa?

I say, He gave me some wine once, but that wasn't on the sofa.

Oh, she says. Where was that?

I say, That was in his camper when we were at Seiko State Park.

The Ham Lady writes this information down on her yellow pad. Her voice has hardly changed. It's like they brought her in from the phone company.

Gerald, she says after she's finished writing, did anything ever happen in the camper home?

My name's Blacky, I say.

Oh dear, she says. I'm sorry, Blacky.

Even though her voice is dead she's got a sensitive face. For a second her mouth twitches so much I think it's going to fall off.

Then she says my name again and smiles.

Blacky.

She announces it like she won something.

I listen for Ma in the hall again. I imagine the policemen sitting on both sides of her. They're bored and fiddling with their walkie-talkies.

The Ham Lady says, Isn't Gerald your birth name?

Yes, I say.

Why don't you use it?

I say, Gerald's my dad's name.

I see, she says.

We stopped using it when I was little, I explain.

After he left? she asks.

I don't know, I say. I guess.

She rocks back in her chair and clasps her hands behind her head. Her underarms are sweating and I wonder if they smell more like ham or less like ham.

She says, Who's we?

I say, Who's we what?

You just said we stopped using it when I was little.

Oh, I say. We. Ma and Shay and Cheedle and me.

Shay's your sister and Cheedle's your brother, right?

Yes.

Is Cheedle his real name?

It's Linden but nobody calls him that.

The Ham Lady adjusts her glasses and says, Does Mr. Johnson call you Blacky, too?

Yes, I say.

Does he call you Gerald?

No.

Does he ever call you anything else besides Blacky?

I say, Sometimes.

What else does he call you?

I take a minute.

My hands are still connected to my arms. I make sure to check this, for some reason.

After I came out from behind that tree with the face in it I didn't hear Al Johnson's voice anymore. But I was cold from falling in the creek.

… Blacky? the Ham Lady says.

He calls me Girl, I say.

Girl? she says.

Yes, Girl, I say.

Like the name of a par
tic
ular girl? she asks.

No, I say. Just Girl.

And how often does Mr. Johnson call you this?

I don't answer.

Does he use this name a lot? she asks.

I say, Sometimes.

Did you call him anything? I mean besides Al or Mr. Johnson.

I never call him Mr. Johnson, I say.

She writes this down. I wait for her to catch up.

Then I add, He has a different name, too.

Oh, she says. What is it?

I think it's possible for your head to pop off at the neck. I can almost feel mine hitting the ceiling.