Window Boy (8 page)

Good old Miss Perkins.
At least she understands, Sam thinks as he readies himself to make his views known. He can feel the familiar stiffness in his legs. His back begins to arch.

“Of course, it’s not my place to tell you how to run your life,” Miss Perkins says. In a friendlier voice, she adds. “Do you want a bite of dinner before you go out, Mrs. Davis?”

“My friends are waiting for me. I don’t have time,” his mother says.

When Sam was younger he couldn’t control the next stage, but now, he opens his mouth on purpose. The scream pours out of him. “NNNNooo!”

He slumps and slouches until he is able to flop out of his chair. His back lands on the floor with a loud thud. His legs are akimbo from his body. He opens his mouth so the spit will pour out. He knows that he makes a disgusting sight. But he doesn’t care. He shifts his weight and orders his legs to stomp. They decide to obey.

Thump. Thump. It sounds as if he is kicking loose the pipes in the apartment walls.

He feels his mother and Miss Perkins rushing toward him.

A baby wails, and he hears a series of thuds coming from the apartment above. Probably, an upstairs neighbor is pounding on the floor with a broomstick.

He experiences a vague sense of unease when he realizes that, once again, he has bothered the other tenants. But nothing really matters except that his mother promised that she would stay home tonight. “NNoo!” he yells.

“Stop him,” Sam hears his mother cry. “I can’t stand it. He’s too old to act this way.”

“Shut up down there!” a muffled voice shouts from upstairs.

Miss Perkins kneels next to him. “Oh, Sam,” she whispers in his ear. “Please…please…be quiet. I understand why you’re upset, but we don’t want Mr. Crowe to get angry with us again.”

The mention of their landlord actually makes Sam pause. But it’s too late. The phone has already started ringing. Unfortunately, Mr. Crowe’s elderly mother lives next door.

“Mr. Crowe’s calling. We’re going to get kicked out of our apartment. We’re going to be beggars like Ronald predicted,” his mother cries.

“It’s all right, Mrs. Davis,” Miss Perkins says. She kneels and grabs his ankles. She presses his feet to the floor.

“Hush,” Miss Perkins whispers. “We’ve spoiled you…Hush… You’re going to get us in serious trouble.”

From the apartment above, the baby’s wail grows louder. The phone rings and rings. It sounds like someone is calling to report an emergency like a fire.

“Please, Miss Perkins, make him stop,” his mother begs. She is wringing her hands.

The phone stops ringing, and Sam hears his mother’s anxious voice.

“Yes, sir. Yes, sir. No, it won’t happen again. Yes, sir. But, sir, I promise….”

Lying on the ground, Sam’s hands and feet feel cold. He is moaning and rocking from side to side. Miss Perkins starts massaging his neck. Her fingers are warm and strong, and he feels the cold stiffness of his body start to melt.

With her hands on her hips, his mother stands over them. Sam tries not to care that a few months ago, he had overheard Mr. Crowe threaten his mother. “If you cause any more trouble,” he had warned, “you’ll have to move..”

“Is Mr. Crowe O.K.?” Miss Perkins asks his mother.

Sam doesn’t like hearing the anxiety in Miss Perkins’ voice. Or seeing the panic in his mother’s gray eyes. He stops squirming.

“I did my best,” his mother answers her. “If I wasn’t afraid that Sam would make another scene, I would tell him how angry I am…”

“He’s better, ma’am,” Miss Perkins says. “You can talk to him now.”

His mother leans over him. “Sam. Oh, Sam. Why do you make my life harder than it is?”

His mother’s hair falls down on his chest. She is so close to him that he can smell her breath. So sweet, like flowers. Her gray eyes are turned on him, giving him her full attention. “MMMom,” he cries affectionately.

His mother shakes her beautiful dark curls. “What am I going to do with you?”

Give me what I want. Stay home with me tonight
, he thinks. “HHome,” he says.

As she often does when Sam tries to start a conversation, his mother frowns.

“If you’ll take his right side, Mrs. Davis,” Miss Perkins says. “I’ll take his left.”

Miss Perkins and his mother help him climb back into the wheel-chair. As soon as Sam is settled again next to the television, his mother hurries away. The screen of the television is blank, which is how Sam feels. Drained. Exhausted.

Miss Perkins bends down and begins whispering in his ear. “I wish you hadn’t made a scene. You’re too old for those, and Mr. Crowe is too cross. Promise me, my dear boy, that you won’t have another one.” She stares into Sam’s eyes.

Sam looks up. He doesn’t like to remember how many times he’s given her this same promise. By his count, twenty-two.

“That’s my good boy,” Miss Perkins smiles at him. “We’ll have lots of fun tonight. Just you and me. Tomorrow night, your mum will stay home. I’m sure of it.” She wheels him over to the kitchen and bends towards him until their noses are inches apart. Her blue eyes bore into his. “Are you thirsty? Do you want some water?”

“No,” Sam says.

“I’m going to finish dinner. Please, dear boy, remember your promise.”

Sam looks up.

A few minutes later, his mother comes out of her bedroom.

“Another new dress, Mrs. Davis,” Miss Perkins remarks.

Since Miss Perkins hasn’t asked a question, Sam’s eyes fly to his mother’s face. Often, she gets angry when Miss Perkins scolds her.

“Now, now, Miss Perkins,” his mother retorts. “A girl’s entitled to a new dress every once in a while.”

Sam’s relieved when he hears his mother’s joking tone.

In the small entranceway, his mother whirls around, causing her dress to glitter and sparkle. It’s the color and texture of moonlight with tiny black straps crossing her thin shoulders. She carries a gold purse in one hand. Her spiked high heel shoes are what make him feel sure that she’s going dancing. They are so high and glittering, that he can only imagine them floating across a dance floor.

“I’ll be back in a few hours, Miss Perkins,” his mother calls.

When the door slams, Miss Perkins hurries to his side. “Now that I have the pot pies in the oven, can I read to you about Winnie?” she asks.

Instead of answering, he clenches his teeth. He’s not going to say a single word tonight.
I’m never going to talk to you again
, he thinks.

“The silent treatment, huh?” Miss Perkins says. “That doesn’t work with me.” She leaves, returning with
My Early Life
. She sits down on the blue and green couch. “Anywhere?” she asks, as usual.

Sam looks down to signify ‘no.’

Miss Perkins ignores him.
I went for a row with another boy a little younger than myself
,
^7
†
she reads. “Oops.” She stops. “Let me find a cheerier chapter.”

“NNNo,” Sam says.

“But Winnie almost drowns. You don’t want to hear about that, do you?” Miss Perkins says.

Sam looks up.

“I’m trying to
improve
your mood,” Miss Perkins objects.

Sam doesn’t answer.

“O.K., then,” Miss Perkins says, giving in to his mood.
When we were more than a mile from the shore, we decided to have a swim, pulled off our clothes, jumped into the water and swam about in great delight
.
^8
†

Sam understands this story about drowning. When he was no older than two or three, his mother was giving him a bath. She turned to go answer the telephone. The water was pouring out of the faucet, and the tub was filling.

“Mmmom,” he called when the water was to his chin. But in speaking, he had accidentally inhaled some water and choked. He struggled to keep his head up, but he slipped. When he tried to breathe, he sucked in water instead. Everything had grown dark, and then he felt her hand in his hair, yanking him up.

“Sam, why did you do that?” his mother scolded him. She was drenched from head to toe. “Tell me you’re all right.”

Sam had vomited water. When he finally managed, “Mmmama,” she hugged him harder than she had in his life. Nearly drowning was almost worth it.

A few weeks later, his mother had hired Miss Perkins. His mother had never bathed him again.

The flow of Miss Perkins’ familiar voice begins working over Sam like a massage. After a while, he is able to listen to Winnie’s story.

When we had had enough, the boat was perhaps 100 yards away. A breeze had begun to stir the waters. As we swam towards the boat, it drifted farther off
.

Sam imagines Winnie and his friend playing and laughing as the boat floated away.

Up to this point no idea of danger had crossed my mind. The sun played upon the sparkling blue waters; …the gay hotels and villas still smiled
.

Before Miss Perkins reads the next words, a chill tickles Sam’s back.

“
But I now saw Death as near as I believe I have ever seen Him
.”
^9
†

Just like Sam had felt when he almost drowned, grayness expands to fill every corner of his mind.

“Death was swimming in the water at our side, whispering from time to time in the rising wind which continued to carry the boat away from us at about the same speed we could swim
.”

“
No help was near. I was not only an easy, but a fast swimmer, having represented my House at Harrow, when our team defeated all comers. I now swam for life
.”

Sam believes that the Allies won World War II because of Winnie’s leadership. That’s why every time that Miss Perkins reads this part of Winnie’s story, Sam thinks about how much history would have been different if the breeze had been just a little stronger. Or if Winnie hadn’t been on a swim team.

The hundreds of speeches that Winnie wouldn’t have written. Without Winnie, England would have probably surrendered to the Nazis. The Nazis would have killed every decent person on the whole island. Or so Sam believes. Sooner or later, the United States would have ended up fighting Hitler and Japan without its major ally.

“
Twice I reached within a yard of the boat and each time a gust carried it just beyond my reach; but by a supreme effort I caught hold of its side in the nick of time..
.”

“
I scrambled in, and rowed back for my companion who… had not apparently realized the dull yellow glare of mortal peril that had so suddenly played around us
.”

As a teenager, Winnie had already felt the dull yellow glare of mortal peril. Sam’s twelve, and he’s never felt it. Slipping in the tub doesn’t count. That’s one of the things that he hates most about life in a wheelchair. Winnie took risks. Sam will never face strong currents, land mines or enemy soldiers. Not even a rival basketball team.

I understand, Sam
, Winnie interrupts.
You just want the right to be brave
.

*
*
*

On the bus home, Miss Perkins is hunting through her purse for a Kleenex when she spies a crumpled piece of paper. Her hands close on it, and she pulls it out. Imagine that. Her purse is so messy that she hasn’t seen this precious piece of paper for many months. It’s one of the first essays that Sam wrote. She was afraid that she had lost it. Unlike his later ones, it is unsigned and untitled, but she has named it. She calls it the
Sam, I Am
essay.

She opens it and begins reading the hurried letters that she copied down that day as Sam pointed to them.

MISS PERKINS SAYS THAT I AM A BOY OF MANY GIFTS AND THAT IT IS A GOOD THING THAT I HAVE CP OR OTHERWISE I’D BE VAIN AND PROUD.

SHE SAYS THAT I WAS MEANT TO HAVE CP. WHICH IS GOOD BECAUSE SAM IS ALL I AM.

Miss Perkins kisses the paper, coffee-stained and dirty at the edges. She hunts up her old brown wallet, unzips the slot for change and carefully folds it inside.

___
†
Reprinted with permission of Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group, from MY EARLY LIFE: A ROVING COMMISSION by Winston Churchill. Copyright © 1930 by Charles Scribner’s Sons; copyright renewed© 1958 by Winston Churchill. All rights reserved.

___
†
Reprinted with permission of Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group, from MY EARLY LIFE: A ROVING COMMISSION by Winston Churchill. Copyright © 1930 by Charles Scribner’s Sons; copyright renewed© 1958 by Winston Churchill. All rights reserved.

___
†
Reprinted with permission of Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group, from MY EARLY LIFE: A ROVING COMMISSION by Winston Churchill. Copyright © 1930 by Charles Scribner’s Sons; copyright renewed© 1958 by Winston Churchill. All rights reserved.

Chapter Twelve

This second week, school has slipped into a routine. Sam and Miss Perkins arrive on time each day. With Miss Perkins in a chair at his side, Sam sits in his spot next to the Science table.

Before turning her attention to the other kids, Mrs. Martin greets Sam pleasantly. Although Miss Perkins has tried to tell Mrs. Martin about Sam’s skills, they’ve always been interrupted. Mrs. Martin has promised that she will find a time to meet with them one afternoon after school.