Deep in the Heart of Me (30 page)

Dad is spending the night in Springfield, but I can't stay with him. I am in custody.

"He's my son," Dad says, but that doesn't fix it, and I don't expect it to.

The room I'm held in is not a cell, but another small room with a cot and a night table. The bathroom is down the hall. I go there to wash, and it has a flusher, and that's fine.

Dad brings my knapsack which has a few extras because we didn't know about the weather and it's best to be prepared.

But even the sight of my knapsack worried Maman though I'd been pretty much living out of it since staying at Aunt Christah's.

"Listen to me Tonio, I'm right here. I'm going along. You're not alone. Do you hear me?" Dad says as they make him say good night.

I just nod. I hear him, but he's already far away, in my mind, the other side of a fence, barbed wire. His eyes, looking at me. Not this way. Not like this.

When I am alone, it's so quiet in the room. They've given me a sandwich on a tray and two pickles that are so dead I don't know why they are called pickles and not dead green discs of hopelessness.

I am being prepared to be a useful member of society, happy, healthy and able to do something for a living that will keep me out of trouble. That's the gist I've gotten from the fella that came in and gave me a pamphlet that says, Illinois Industrial School for Boys.

It's not so far, like Wyoming or Florida. It's not that far. My dad, he crossed the ocean to fight the Great War. My dad, if I can be gotten out of this, he will do it.

I stare a long time, into the dark and strange sounds of automobiles going by, then quiet, then people in the hallway. I already know from Ned throwing me in jail that not being able to go where I want to is a thing to settle into. I think of Sobe, closing herself in my cell.

Then that last day already in the one across from me. He put her there. Well, he did that in life. He didn't want her to have anything or anyone. He held the key, that's what I mean. He wanted that key right in his pocket.

He wanted to die. That's what. Am I a killer? Would I have killed Belly?

Dad did. Would I have? That night I got the Luger, did I have it in me?

"You're like me," Dad said.

I hope I am.

"You can't just take my son away like this," Dad says next morning. "I am following in my truck."

They allow this. Of course, he can follow if he wants. So he does. We ride and ride and into the night, and my Dad has followed.

Chicago is a big place. Bigger than St. Louis even. I always wanted to see it, but not from the back of this car where the one riding passenger lets me know I'm lucky I didn't end up in state prison. Damn lucky. A year in reform school is a slap on the wrist, that's what. I should say thanks to the judge and my father needs to pipe down and let me pay my debt.

I don't answer. Maybe it will be like this now, some official spouting at me and me staying quiet. Like Jesus did.

I am eyes now. I don't feel the edges of myself or the middle. I'm just eyes now. I don't know who Tonio Clannan is. Not here where it's big and strange and hungry.

And Dad says this when we get to the school before they take me in, "Tonio. Tonio."

They tell him it's late, and he says, "Give me a minute with my son."

And he says, "I ever tell you, son, I tell you how it was the day they laid you…in my arms."

"Dad…I…."

"They laid you there, and you were…you were this…. The only thing I'd done…really pure…was love your mother. And she took it…that love…and made you. She made you, see?"

"Sir…," the guard says.

"C'mon," he says holding up his hand, but he won't look anywhere but at me. "Tonio…you were angry. You wanted to stay in there. With Mom. And…," he laughs but in the gray light, his eyes are shiny, "…you were angry and hungry strong. You wrapped your fingers around my…pointer."

"Dad…."

His hands are on my arms, "I never…felt anything like that. Like…you. You make me…proud," he chokes.

"Proud?" I say. I can't feature it.

He looks at the two then, "This is how I deliver him. Like this. Not a mark on him. He's healthy and perfect. I'll be watching, and I see anything…a mark I don't like even…anything. I'll kill the man that harms him," he says.

"Sir, step back," the guard says his hand moving back his jacket.

"Dad," I say. "Dad…go home."

"What? No son. No. I can't go home without you. Long as you're here, I'm right here. Every day I'm working on getting you out."

"Dad," I say. "Dad listen to me. You have to go home. For Mom. You have to. The only way she'll survive me…is if you're there. You have to go home."

His hands are so tight on my arms, and he's looking at me, into me.

"Dad…go home. You have to go home," I say. "I can do this if I know you're there. With Maman."

"Tonio…."

"Take…take her to the hospital this time. She shouldn't have this one at home."

"Son…."

"Dad…please. You have to go home."

But he doesn't.

The first night it's another room. I can't go into the boys' dormitory without a medical check-up. So it's a cot and a scratchy blanket and a hard pillow, and I think of Maman's quilts and the down she saves for the pillows that cradle our heads.

I think of Sobe. Her picture is in my jacket pocket. I left her tail of hair at Aunt Christah's. I don't want it here. Even her picture. I have to see what this place is.

I think of her beautiful face and the fringe of hair along the back of her cap. Her eyes big. She knew then. Sobe knew.

And I dream, and I cry in my dreams, and I scream, and I work so hard, and I wake up, and I can't remember. Will my life be like that if I'm lucky enough to awaken in heaven? Is it like they say? You wake up happy and none of what came before matters.

I am sitting on my cot when they open the door and say I can come out. My father is there, coming out of the office. He's making the speech once more about a mark, not a mark on me. This is my son, and there's not a mark on him.

"I am here, you understand boyo?" he says to me again, but they are waiting for him to leave. It's time. They want to examine me, make sure I won't carry sickness to the others.

I don't like doctors, but what I like is not so important now. I shake Dad's hand, and he can visit on Sunday. Next Sunday.

"I'm here. Not a mile away. I'm staying here."

I am shaking my head. "Dad," I say, "go home."

I barely get it out. Then they take me into a room, and I'm told to undress.

There's a window when I turn my back to remove my shirt, and I see Dad then, walking to his truck. He turns and looks back at the buildings, then all over he's looking. He's holding his hat in his hands, and he's standing there now, and he's looking.

"Go home," I whisper, an ache in my chest that makes me catch my breath.

"The pants too," the nurse says.

And I move then. And I think of him getting in the truck. And I don't know if I can live past this moment.

Back home the farm is not a quiet place like you'd think. Animals are noisy. And inside the house is its own type of barnyard with the gaggle and the herd.

Crying happens all hours of the night. Bad dreams sometimes or an earache, or 'I don't want to go to school tomorrow,' or 'so-and-so wet the bed,' and birds, you can hear birds, a great horned owl that nests near our house, and a mourning dove that likes to sing in the dark, and Maman's hens rousting one another, or a rooster crowing mistaking the moon for the sun. Hogs root all night long, and cows moo when their milk comes in. And the trains run through, wheels clacking on the tracks, a lonely whistle, and sometimes a shotgun blast far away from some night hunter trying to be lucky, his dogs wailing as they run critters, and a cat going into heat under the porch and the toms eager to get her first, and my mom and dad talking low, and Granma snoring, a rumble through the floorboards while a log breaks on the downstairs grate, or night bugs sing through our open windows come summer, and coyotes call. And sometimes, Maman plays the piano and that life she had before us. I can hear it if I listen to the back of my mind very hard, my Maman and those notes…and that life.

No, the farm is not quiet. It's home.

I don't know the sounds here in this place—footsteps crunching gravel outside the window. Or the smells. It's stale like something bad underlies this strong soap. It's not my home or my life, no Clannan came on this place before, and I pray God none after. If I pay here for all of us, all time, I hope it's enough.

Lord, I want to go home. I am Joseph, thrown in a hole to die then sold off to Egypt.

I try to think of it, that story. Things don't go right for him, and he's not done anything but be a good son. He was a snitch, and I've never been, but our fates are the same.

I think of Sobe Bell if that's even her name. My one true love. My heartbreak. Sobe's eyes and Sobe's lips I never kissed so well or often. I think of them trembling, and her cheeks are wet with tears. Her skin is soft, and her smell is sweet and…I don't know. I want to touch her. If I could…if I could just touch Sobe.

In the morning, a horn is blown. They must milk here. I saw the low barns when we came in. I smelled animals even if I couldn't make out everything.

They have left clothes, a gray uniform the boys wear here. My feet hit the floor, and I hear that mournful wail of a train, and the idea of some comfort comes. I don't know where that train came from or where it's going, but it's a strange thread that I pretend could lead me home if I could untangle the tracks. And one day…I will.

And home is everything. And home is all of them. And home is Sobe.

I must send my father back there and be a man about it. This is my Great War.

That first morning I am led to the bunkhouse. Boys are going to the mess hall, others splitting off to the long low buildings that must house the various industries. I am wearing the uniform, the scratchy gray shirt under my own coat, and the pants that are too short with my own shoes. They've given me two pairs of socks and underwear and some long johns. They've gone through my knapsack, and they'll be keeping it. In the lining of my jacket, I have hidden the picture of Sobe. I will have to figure a way to save it. It's like saving her, I tell myself that, a small Sobe crouched in my coat. "I'll be with you always," she told me.

The yard is rutted and frozen hard now. I am carrying a stack of duds. I hope the other pair of pants they've issued me are longer.

Different faces as they pass, my hair shaved around my ears and in back like theirs. But I do not show what I feel. Fear. I don't show it. I'm new here. I don't know this barnyard at all. But my dad fears no man living. And he was in war. So I shall fear no man living. I'll work on it.

Far as I can see, there are a couple hundred of them maybe, a handful of those dark-skinned, the rest a mix of tall and short and skinny. Mostly all skinny. No fat kids here.

I follow to the bunkhouse, and before I go in, I catch a glimpse, corner of my eye, my father's truck outside the fence. My father standing outside it, watching.

"Hey," I say to the fella showing me around, "can I speak to my dad? He's right outside the fence."

This fella is called Falcon. That's his name. He's Pat's age, maybe, and he dresses different than the rest. He is in charge of me right now, and everyone got out of his way as we walked through the yard.

Falcon has just gone through the doorway, but he backtracks now and looks around and sees Dad. "Go on to your bunk and put your stuff away like I told you. Bunk forty-nine," he says to me, eyes on Dad.

"I'll just tell him," I say.

He turns sharp to me, "Boy what I tell you?"

"He'll listen to me…he's my dad," I say.

Falcon stares at me a minute. "Make him go," he says, "or I will."

Now a couple of things rise in me. I want to punch him for that. He thinks he can make Dad go? He's full of shit. But he's threatening my dad? Oh no. I want to punch him.

But I nod grateful, and there's no way I can hand off my stack so I take that with me and hurry to the fence and Dad gets close. "Dad," I say looking over my shoulder where Falcon waits on the stoop, "you got to get out of here now. You're getting me in a real fix."

"I can stay out here all I want," Dad says. Well, he looks like hell.

"No, you can't. They'll call the cops. You get arrested too? No. Go on home. You know where I am. First Sunday of the month they say family can come if they get permission first."

"They can't…."

"Dad, it's like the army. Remember? Mama's boys? Remember the stories you said. Well, I got the problem opposite that…you. You have to go home so I can make it here."

"I can't go home without you," he says.

I turn quick. Falcon is coming off the stoop. "Clannan!" he says.

"Dad…when I come out of that bunk," I say this walking backward so Falcon knows I'm coming, "you have to be gone. Hear me?"

"I won't abandon you."

"I know. It's not that. It's the army, Dad. It's like that. Let me go. Please. Let me go."

Dad is shaking his head.

"How can you help me if you stay here? Then they have both of us. Two Clannan men," I say. And I feel Falcon's hand on my shoulder. It clamps there, and I turn away from my dad and let him lead me back inside.

I am lying in the dark at lights out. It's worse than sharing a room with the gaggle. It's worse. Someone is crying, and others hiss, "Shut-up," and a couple yell out in dreams.

The day has been long. The longest day of my life. When I came out of the bunkhouse this morning Dad's truck was gone. I felt relief like I had some power at least to put up a wall and cut my family off from this. But now, in the dark, I am on the other side of that wall.

I think it's all in how I look at it. I'm serving my country, that's all. I'm here now, dumped off the ship, one of the troops. I'll go home when I've done my duty.

I'm mad I can't just get on with it inside. I could barely eat today. I was hungry. I didn't know that food. My dad always said be grateful for what God sets before you, and at home that was not hardship with Mom and Granma's cooking. It was not that.

But here, the boys do the cooking mostly. I got a stomach can't handle food right now. I never heard of it. I don't have sickness, but there's a tight fist in me.

I think of Sobe in my jacket. I want to look at her. I want it more than anything. But holding off is like…discipline. It's a treat I have they don't know about, and it's something to have that's…like Christmas. And that's when I'll look. Christmas.

Earlier they took me in one of the barns, and they said, get at it and I helped with the milking, and we led those cows out, and I helped with the mucking. The boys told me to slow down. They call me newbie and they said, "Slow down newbie," with the Lord's name in vain.

I curse myself, well sometimes I do, but not the Lord's name. That's the one I don't want to get started. It seems hopeless to do that. Ain't I in enough trouble?

I figure this, every night I lay here I can mark another day off those three-hundred-sixty-five.

Well, after milking and mucking we had lessons. I'm in a room with forty others, and they don't know much. The teacher spent the whole time reading to us like babies, but it was Ulysses so that was good. Some fell asleep, and it was allowed, so I put my head on my arms and next I know they are ringing a bell, and someone bumps me hard, and it's time for dinner.

Dinner was disgusting. Chicken soup with gray potatoes and hard carrots. Same biscuits we had this morning. More like hardtack. Boys crumbled them in the soup to give it something. You get seconds if you're quick enough, and most of them are, eating like it's their first meal. Or last.

We line in the yard after and they are in work groups. I go with the ones for the farm but some are pulled out of groups and put into others, and I'm surprised to hear my name. I am put in a group with boys more my age.

"Newbie," big Flat-face sneers. Reminds me of Utz. My cousin. That makes me laugh some inside. I wonder if you just keep meeting the same folks over and over. I can look around and find Utz, and there's Jim. We have two of the darkies in our group. I look at one, and he stares at me longer than I expect him to. I look away first. Guess he's good as me here. In his mind.

The group moves off. We are working in the shirt factory. Seems we replace the morning group who now move to the school to get the same part of Ulysses or maybe the teacher just keeps going, maybe he didn't even notice we left.

Anyway, there are rows of sewing machines in here, and I've never messed with a sewing machine before. So the guard, this one called Boss, tells Flat-face to show me how to work the machine.

Flat-face gets close and leans like he's going to teach me and he says right next to me, "I'm gonna beat the shit out of you if you don't catch this real quick and I might do it anyway."

I look over at Boss, and he's chewing a toothpick and looking out the window.

Flat-face shows me how to run the thread, and I can smell that soup on his breath. "You get this here and that there," he's saying, purposely not telling me much.

Then Boss tells him to show me how to do it. "Show him Ass-brain," Boss says when Ass-brain looks put-upon.

So he shows me with his short, thick fingers how to run the side seams on a shirt and finish them off, and I think he does a poor job of it, not just the telling me how, but his work as seamer, it's just poor.

"Now you try," he says, his eyes darting to Boss. I look at Boss too, and he's watching, and I put the side piece against the back piece and make sure they are even and Ass-brain says, "Hurry up," and I put it under the lever like he showed me and push the pedal and the needle goes, and I stop it quick cause it caught me off-guard going so fast, but now I can see how it goes so, I give it some power and that needle chugs through.

"My granma can sew faster than that," Ass-brain says.

"Sit down," Boss tells him.

Then Boss looks over my shoulder and flicks me on the back of my head, just for fun I guess, but he walks away, and I'm about as ticked off as I've ever been. He had no right at all to do me that way. I'm pretty outraged.

Then I tell myself, he's like my sergeant, and I've got to do what he says. I'm in the army. Even if I am doing a woman's job.

So that was the second part of the day, then supper, which was sandwiches with ham and butter. Same thing. I tried to eat and couldn't get it down, and the kid next to me asked for it, and I gave it.

"Where you from?" he says, affable now that he's got my dinner.

I look around for Falcon or Boss, but they're at the front tables, the round ones for the people who work here. They're eating different food from us.

"Not far," I say. I've no wish to answer questions.

"What position you play?"

"Huh?"

"Ball," he says. He's a funny looking kid. Red-haired, but two big teeth that cross each other as they gnaw on my sandwich.

"About anything," I say. It's true.

His brows shoot up. "Bullshit," he says. "Play any worthwhile?"

I shrug. "Do all right."

"You got a girl? You bone her?"

I laugh some. "What?"

I think of Sobe's picture. I'm never showing it around here.

"You bone a girl before?" he says serious.

"Shut your mouth," I say. I wonder how much longer I've got to sit here. They blow a whistle when it's over.

"I boned me one. Well, she showed me how. She was grown…had titties too."

I look at this kid. He can't be older than Joseph.

"That your dad carrying on before?"

"So what?" I say.

He mimics Dad a little.

"Best shut up right now," I say.

He shoves the last of the sandwich in his mouth. "He can't help you in here. They do what they want to you. Don't tell them I said it," he says.

I don't know if I should ask for more. He might be the biggest liar I ever met. "What are you in here for?" I say.

"Stealing a car," he says around that full mouth. "I was gonna bring it back. Then I tried to run off. Second time they shot at me. Tried to hit me, too. I ain't ever getting out. That's what they do. They want to keep you here like a slave," he says.

I just stare at him.

I'm staring now, into the dark, and I'm wondering what I've got myself into.