Slow Way Home (31 page)

T
he clicking of the typewriters filled the small room of the Raleigh police station. A policeman with hair that stood up like porcupine quills kept asking the same questions over and over. My lips were as tight as the springs to the trampoline back at Woolworth’s. I stared at the keys of the typewriter while the man next to me made them sing in a noise of controlled chaos.

When the woman with curly brown hair sat down in front of me, my mind began to change channels and a beach fog drifted over them.

“Today has not been such a good day, huh? Now, we all want to help you here. Why don’t you just tell us how old are you.”

The man sitting at the desk next to me glanced over and then rolled the typewriter platen to the next line on the form. The words

“No Response” ran across the paper. A trickle of sweat snaked down my armpit and landed at the top of my underwear. The chill of it all caused me to tuck my hands underneath the chair. Then I saw the final word scroll across the typed page. “Abandoned.”

Burned coffee and cigarettes clung to their breath. Black vinyl chairs, stacks of files, and a steel desk surrounded us.

I had no one. The words on the paper told me as much. While I rocked back and forth, various faces drifted through my mind as easy as a changing tide. Sister Delores would come. I could get her to take the bus and come up here and get me.

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When the policeman with the porcupine hair coughed, it sounded like a distant foghorn calling me back to shore. “Son, do you have some kin we could call?”

The vision of Uncle Cecil stretched out on a hospital bed with bandages wrapped around his body like a mummy made me shake my head. The policeman took it as a no and moved on to the next question. His words tangled with the clicking of the typewriters, and I wondered if this was what Sister Delores had meant when she preached about speaking in tongues.

Sister Delores’s words filled my mind as fast as the coffee that the policeman poured filled his mug. I could see her standing at the altar at God’s Hospital. Her hair hung in ringlets, but it was the smile that made me want to tell them I had family in Abbeville. Besides, she had told me that she was my sister in the Lord. Her voice wailed in my mind as loud as a ship horn.
“God will never leave you or forsake you.”
I turned to see if a miracle had taken place and if she had walked into the room. But my heart fell a little lower when all I saw were two policemen in the corner laughing. One had his leg propped up on a chair and was pulling at his trousers as if all he had to do was stand there and laugh. But laughter was not about to drown out Sister Delores’s voice.
“I’m telling you straight, Brandon. God will never leave
you. No sir, He sure won’t do it now.”

By the time the second policeman sat in front of me, I had drifted so far back to Abbeville that his words were nonexistent. I could see his mouth moving, but all around him were the people and scenes from another way of life. Just past his shoulder where a gray file cabinet sat I saw Beau and me crabbing in the marsh. Above the policeman’s head the round light fixture became the night-light that Nana kept plugged in at the camper. A light that led me to the bathroom and reminded me that darkness was only temporary. On the black-streaked floor were the grease stains from the kitchen counter at Nap’s Corner, and I watched as Nana scrubbed the counter until it began to sparkle. My mind played out a home movie of Nana setting out a plate of hush puppies on the counter. They were golden brown and
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steam began to rise where the butt of a cigarette rested on the floor. I reached down to pick it up and smelled it long and hard. The smell of used nicotine was replaced by the sweetness of the hush puppies, and just when I started to stick it in my mouth, the policeman snatched it away. The jerk jolted me away from Nap’s Corner, away from the marsh and the safety of our camper. Darkness was back again, and with it came the crashing wave of fear.

The twitching at my feet erupted up to my head. It was a soft moan at first, much like the sound of a sow before she gives birth, but then I began to get louder and louder. Soon they were all in front of me, the woman with the curly hair, the policeman with the crew cut, and the man who typed the report. They just stood there looking down at me while the tears ran and my mouth opened but no words came out. Nothing except the sound that caused the reaction I hated more than anything else—pity.

When we pulled up to the building with the white sign out front, I leaned up from the backseat of the police car. White buildings with iron bars on the windows were scattered across the landscape.

Like a robot, I followed in between the man with porcupine hair and the woman towards the building with white columns. I guess because they thought I was mute, neither of them said a word.

When the man pulled the door open for us, I saw the word “Ad-ministration” engraved on the inside wall. The smell of bleach and aged dust greeted us. Lining the wall was a bulletin board with different-colored letters spelling out “Summer Fun.” Photos of different children and two retarded people were scattered across the board. Some held up baskets in the photos while others were standing by a swimming pool. While I sat out in the hall in a wooden chair, the woman walked over to examine the photos and turned to offer a reassuring smile. Words from the office echoed out into the hallway. I heard the policeman with porcupine hair use that word again.

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“He must be abandoned. His mama was using him to shoplift for her. And she won’t tell us anything. Keeps screaming about suing.”

The sound of a woman clucking with her tongue followed his words.

“We had him downtown trying to figure out his name and so forth. And just like I told you about his mama, he won’t say a word.

He just sits there rocking back and forth. And, oh yeah, he had that fit that they called you about.”

The woman clucked with her tongue again. “We’ve got him scheduled for an examination.”

While I was looking at the photo of a retarded man holding up a straw basket, dread swept over me. I had heard Nana and Poppy talk about this place. The home for feeble-minded they called it. A place shared as a joke whenever Poppy would forget where he put his glasses.

That policeman was right. Everybody had abandoned me. Any person who cared a thing in the world for me was either in jail or in a state too far away. Sister Delores’s words were like a song you want to forget but just won’t go away.
“God will never leave you or forsake you, Brandon.”

Only then did the image of Jesus settle on my mind. The last time I had seen Him was outside of the duplex. When I looked over at the bulletin board, the bright words and sad pictures seemed to fade. Instead I saw a photo of Brother Bailey’s snake eyes looking down at me.

The sun on the bulletin board was now a ball of fire just like the hell I knew I was facing. I had sinned right there at Woolworth’s. I had helped my mama steal in front of everybody.

Abandoned. The word from the police report clung to me like mildew on the walls. “Jesus,” I moaned.

The woman turned away from the bulletin board. “What did you say?”

Sister Delores’s reassuring words kept clinging to me as if I had walked through a spider web. What if she was right? Maybe Jesus was out there somewhere waiting for me. The long hallway lined with big tall doors and topped with high ceilings seemed mazelike. A maze that hid the prize. Every sense of my being told me that the time at hand held my last hope.

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When I got up from the chair, the woman turned to me. “Dave, he’s talking. He’s talking and getting up.” Her fingers brushed the back of my shirt, and I moved faster towards the first door. The knob was sprinkled with rust and seemed weightless when I pulled it open. The smell of musky papers filled my senses, and I yelled louder than I had at Woolworth’s. “Jesus, I’m here. Help me.”

I fought the policeman’s pull and then felt the arms of another on my back. Kicking, I bent backwards and slammed my head into the chin of the person behind me. Sounds of metal chairs screeched across the floor behind me. The man with porcupine hair had me pinned down on a table that was cold to my face. A prick on my arm made me think his hair had struck me. Soon the room began to spin, and my legs fell limp.

There was nothing but white. White walls, white floors, and a single white toilet. Heaven, I first thought. Sitting up, I felt like I had been spinning around and around until I had gotten so light-headed I fell down. A door with a square piece of glass at the top was across from me. White nurse hats in different heights drifted past.

Only the specks of dead bugs on the ceiling broke up the starkness of the place. Then the reality of where I was and what had happened at Woolworth’s slapped me back down. Fighting hard not to let the emptiness overtake me again, I turned my head towards the toilet.

At first, the darkness of His feet made me jump. Scanning up, I saw the robe and then the outstretched arms. The familiarity of His face allowed me to breathe again. Jesus was standing right next to the toilet just as casually as He had the night outside of our duplex. When He smiled, I felt a vial of peace being poured into every part of my being.

Sister Delores’s words once again sang in my mind.
“God will never leave
you or forsake you. The Lord will be your mama and daddy.”
Sitting on that bed in front of Jesus, I felt a sense of place that I thought had been lost the day I left Abbeville. The urge to beg for help was far away, and all I wanted to do was to touch the hand that reached out. To see for once and for all if I was deserving of the feeble-minded hospital.

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Easing off of the bed, I stepped closer while the voices from God’s Hospital sang louder.
“Come home. Come home. All who are weary come
home.”
The floor was cold to the touch, and the paper gown ballooned from my body. But it was His eyes that drew me closer, closer home. Eyes not colored the way they had been on the funeral fan back in Abbeville. They were colorless and filled with a love that drew me closer than my mama had ever been able to do. He was the one I wanted to grip and hold on to until He had taken me up in flight.

We’d soar above the hospital, past the duplex, and above the marshes of Abbeville the same way the eagle soared to its nest. Each step became steadier, and just when I had reached the edge of the toilet, a popping sound from the door caused me to look away.

“Oh, were you about to use the bathroom?” The woman began writing on a pad attached to a steel clipboard.

I turned to look at the corner, but He had slipped away again.

“Okay, Mr. Brandon Willard,” she said and rolled her eyes down at me. “Your mama broke down and told them your name.” She pulled a thermometer from her dress pocket and began fanning it back and forth. Her hair was pulled up in a bun, and a yellow pencil kept most of it in place.

As I got my temperature taken, “regulation” she called it, I heard all about my schedule for that day and the nice doctor who would be checking me out. “He’s just as sweet as he can be. Just a little thing not much bigger than you. He’s from Taiwan. Just a regular genius. Except everybody thinks he’s from Vietnam, so that’s why he can’t get on at the bigger hospitals.”

When I sat before the balding doctor with red-frame glasses, all he did was point at different cards. “What this?” he kept asking. All I saw were splats of black ink on cards that looked like they should have been used as flash cards for a spelling bee. My mind was still on Jesus.

As we sat in the room with steel tables and humming lightbulbs, I kept my focus by looking around the room for another divine sign that help was on the way.

• • •

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It was not until the third day that my prayers were answered. It happened right after lunch and just before my afternoon dose of medicine. Through the glass I saw the white nurse’s cap and the gold turban. Standing before me were Nairobi, a pretty woman with long black hair, and a nurse holding a plastic bag. I couldn’t help myself, and before I knew it, I had my arms wrapped around the stiff material of Nairobi’s waist.

“Well, now aren’t you a sight for sore eyes,” she said.

“I need you to get me outta . . .”

“The judge placed you into Foster Care, and that’s why we’re here. This is Millicent, your new social worker.” The young woman reached out to shake my hand, but all I could do was stand there frozen, wondering if they were only temporary visitors.

“I expect you want to take off that dress you’re wearing.” Nairobi handed over the plastic bag with my clothes in it.

While she waited outside, I changed clothes so fast that I almost tripped over my pants leg. Before I escaped, I made sure to look around the room one last time. Words that Sister Delores planted in my mind blasted louder than Mama’s stereo.
“God will never leave you or forsake you.”

Walking out to the car, I fought from asking about Mama, espe-cially with the social worker standing right there. No telling what she had already heard about Mama. Besides, I knew Nairobi didn’t like Mama and was probably glad she was locked up. But she did like Nana and Poppy.

“When will Nana and Poppy get outta jail?”

“Two lawyers who do nothing but take on cases such as theirs are looking into the situation. We’re working on an appeal and . . . regardless, let’s just . . .”

“Let’s just try to think about new beginnings,” Millicent added.

She looked down and smiled in a way that made me think of my teacher back in Abbeville.

“Where are y’all taking me?”

Nairobi stopped just shy of her car. Moisture glistened on her broad nose, and I shaded my eyes to get a better read of her expression.

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“You recall Senator Strickland. The woman we all met back when . . .”

Nairobi glanced away and I saved her from having to dig up the details of our past right in front of Millicent.