The reformatory, p.10
The Reformatory, page 10
Blue shrugged. “Oh, he means it.”
Redbone gave Blue a sharp look. “It’s called the Funhouse,” he said after a while. “That’s where they whup you. Mostly Warden Haddock and that other one, Mr. Ames. Boone sometimes. Twenty’s a lot.”
“Thirty’s worse,” Blue said, shrugging.
No one spoke for a while. Robert wanted to ask if any of them had been to the Funhouse, but he didn’t, since no one brought it up. He had changed everyone’s mood. His stomach was bloated, and he hoped he wouldn’t get sick. Without the laughter, all he remembered was the screaming in the field and the bloody knife in the boy’s back.
“Helps to holler and cry,” Redbone said. “Some fools try to act like it don’t hurt. Warden Haddock don’t like that. He’ll just whup you harder ’til you do.”
The other boys nodded as if they had all been beaten. Robert wanted to confess he’d never had a beating except one school paddling and a few smacks across his palm with Papa’s belt, but they might call him a sissy. Besides, he hadn’t made a sound when Cleo and those boys licked him, and crying might have made it worse. Being scared of Papa’s belt had been worse than the belt.
“Twenty’s nothin’,” Robert said. “I won’t holler.”
Redbone shrugged.
“I ain’t scared of the Funhouse,” the one called Troy said.
Blue made a sound like half a laugh, but he smothered it with his dinner roll. “He’s scared of his shadow,” he murmured toward Robert’s ear. “Always jumping.”
Robert checked the older boys again, saw no one looking in their direction. The guards were mostly in the back, with only Crutcher eating alone at a table out of hearing range. Robert’s heart pounded.
“Does anybody ever run away?” Robert said.
He said it more loudly than he’d intended, so everyone at his table seemed startled. The one called Eddie dropped his fork.
“Don’t talk about that,” Redbone said.
Robert whispered. “But do they?”
“Some try it,” Blue said. “Sneak out right before dark, break into the mill, try to hide in the peanuts. That’s only a couple miles down the road, so that’s where they go—”
“Hush,” Redbone said.
“—but it don’t work. All these cracker farmers round here, they get fifty dollars if they snitch. Fifty. This place is full of snitches too. Plus they catch you, you get fifty lashes. Or you end up at Boot Hill.”
“What’s Boot Hill?”
“The graveyard,” Blue said. “That’s where they bury you.”
The rest of the room had lost all of its sound; no laughter, talking, silverware clanking. Troy and Eddie, sensing trouble, rose to clear their plates back in the kitchen. Robert glanced over at Crutcher again; his head was bent over his food as he sopped gravy with his roll.
But Cleo was watching. Really watching. Had he heard all the way across the room? Redbone kicked Blue under the table. “Shut up,” he said from behind his teeth.
Blue shrugged. “Nobody else heard.”
But he was wrong. Robert knew it, and so did Redbone. Robert pushed his plate away. He didn’t know which was worse: that Cleo might have overheard them, or that boys from the Reformatory got buried in a graveyard with its own name. He’d rather be sitting at dinner with the ghost with a knife in his back. Robert felt dizzy again.
Blue rose from the table, making a loud clatter as he jostled Redbone’s plate and fork, as if to bring attention to them on purpose. He sneered at Redbone over his shoulder as he followed the other boys to the kitchen.
Cleo’s eyes, thankfully, had returned to his friends.
Robert wanted to stop asking questions, but he couldn’t. “You ever… know anybody who got buried at Boot Hill?”
“Sure did,” Redbone said. He shoved mashed potatoes into his mouth. “Fat kid named Garrick. What business a fat kid got trying to run? We all helped pitch dirt to bury him.”
* * *
Cleaning up after dinner was a race. No talking, just scrubbing and closing jars and putting away food wrapped in foil in the massive refrigerator in case the staff got hungry later. Curfew at the dorm was seven thirty, and no one wanted to be late. Robert noticed that Crutcher and the other guards were gone, and noticing it worried him—both because Cleo might come and jump him again and because he did not want to be tempted to run. So soon after hearing about Boot Hill, it scared him to be wondering how long he would be left without adults watching him in the kitchen each night.
It would be dark outside soon. Could he find his way to the peanut mill like Blue had said? Could he get past the tall fences, or would he get lost in pockets of fires and screaming? His thoughts felt too loud, as if Blue and Redbone could hear.
“I’m going back,” Blue said, and the unwanted part of Robert’s mind took note that Blue would walk to the dorm on his own. No one guarding him. “I wanna hear the radio show.”
“He got a clock in his head,” Redbone whispered to Robert.
“Be late if you want,” Blue said, and left through a rear door only strides from where Robert had seen the ghost pass through the wall. The gleaming metallic vat winked.
“We’re gonna be late?” Robert said.
Redbone waved his hand. “Nah. We got time. Wanna see what nobody else sees?”
Troy lingered close, eager, wiping his hands on a tattered dishrag. “In the back?”
“Yeah, let’s just show ’im real quick,” Redbone said.
Robert hesitated. He liked Redbone fine, but he didn’t know anything about Troy. And he didn’t like the easy way Redbone had talked about burying a kid, like he hadn’t felt sorry. He’d have sounded sadder about burying a dog, probably. No one stays nice, Blue had said.
“You not gon’ b’lieve yo’ eyes,” Troy said. And Robert was following him, curious despite his better sense. Redbone and Troy jostled for the lead while they led Robert through stacks of boxes and swollen burlap bags in the long, wide pantry behind the kitchen. The temperature was cooler by at least ten degrees. In a few strides, they had walked from summer to fall. At the rear of the pantry, they came to a metallic door twice the width of a normal door, with a long iron arm barring it shut.
“What’s that?” Robert said. “The fridge?”
“Better,” Redbone said.
Redbone tugged at the bar on the door, lifting it high. Troy helped him pull the door open. The door fought as if someone were trying to keep it shut from the other side. Once it was open, fog flew out in a thick cloud. Cold air washed over Robert’s face and bare arms.
“What is it?” Robert said.
“The freezer,” Redbone said. “They put it in a year back. Zero degrees.”
Again Robert thought of a spaceship as he saw the foggy interior. He had never imagined a freezer so big, yawning open to nothing except slowly swirling fog.
“I’m not goin’ in there,” Robert said. His heart was awake again, thumping.
“We’ll go first,” Troy said. “Chicken.”
“Just don’t touch nothin’,” Redbone said. “Come on.”
After Redbone took a few steps inside the freezer, he was wrapped in fog. Troy was huskier, just past Redbone’s shoulder, both of them already less visible. Without wanting to, Robert wondered if he could beat either one of them in a fight, much less both together. He stood in the doorway wanting to turn around and run away. The fog shrouded the shelves inside from view, and Redbone and Troy had vanished within it.
“Keep the door open some,” Redbone called back, but Robert had thought of that: he’d left the freezer door wide open so he could back out fast. And so someone could hear him if he yelled. He watched and waited to see if the door would fall closed by itself on a hinge, but it was fixed in place. Firm to his touch.
The fog was clearing as it seeped out of the open doorway. He could make out crates on shelves now. Robert wasn’t as nervous once he could see more than five feet through the misty gray. He took tentative steps behind Redbone and Troy, then sped to catch up.
The freezer was crammed with packed shelves, but Robert looked up and saw a giant hook. A row of them.
“Come on—faster,” Redbone said.
Robert’s feet kept their pace against his will. His eyes were grabbing what they could see in the thinning fog. A row of hooks on either side, spaced apart. Robert noticed how cold he was: his earlobes stinging, the air too cold to breathe. Yes, it was like a trip on a spaceship, and they had landed in a frigid new world.
Redbone and Troy were laughing. Robert turned to know what they had seen.
A grown man, large and dark, was swinging back and forth between them on the hook in the fog as they took turns hurtling themselves against him with all their strength. The hook squealed under its burden with every swing, but the man was frozen solid. Robert thought of Papa’s stories about Claude Neal swinging from a tree.
Robert’s breath was trapped in his throat. He nearly vomited up his supper. “You see this?” Redbone said, grinning.
The fog stopped its tricks against his eyes, and Robert saw that the two boys were playing with a frozen side of beef, that was all. Another identical one hung on the hook behind them. The carcass was long, probably a hundred pounds or more; it would be taller than him even set on the floor—stubby, gristled legs pinned together to the hook. The slab of meat spun lazily between Redbone and Troy, smooth and white with fat on one side, thick curved ribs red and raw on the other. A snake of exposed bones stretched from its severed neck to its flank.
“You said… you said… not to touch nothin’,” Robert said. Redbone had seemed so sensible before, at least compared to Blue, but the danger in the freezer pulsed like a snake that might strike. Robert didn’t like the door being out of his sight. The cold was terrible, chewing at his skin. And what if the meat fell from its hook? How could they lift it back up?
“Naw… you right,” Redbone said, hugging the beef closer to stop its swinging. “We just wanted to show you. You might never see all this meat again yo’ whole life.”
“Sometimes they got more,” Troy said. “Hangin’ all up and down here.”
The meat looked only dead to Robert, like it should be buried at Boot Hill. The cold was making his heart thump louder. Robert rubbed his arms, which prickled to his touch. “We got curfew, right?”
Redbone shrugged. “We got plenty of time ’til—”
Then, a WHUMP sound. The air felt sucked out of the room. Robert’s hurting ear ached with the pop. Redbone and Troy were yelling and running toward the door before Robert heard the lock click into place with a final scrape and snap.
“Quit playin’!” Redbone pounded against the metal. “Open this goddamn door!” Troy was crying, banging the door with his fist beside Redbone.
Robert watched them, unable to move, thinking maybe the day was only a bad dream. He’d had that feeling since Mama died, always expecting to wake up and discover she was still alive, and maybe this was a part of the same nightmare—starting with the courthouse, ending in this frozen death house.
“Is there another door?” Robert said, hoping. His voice was so soft that no one heard. His teeth were clicking together. “Is… th-there…”
The cold was another kind of fire. His skin was burning.
“You open this goddamn door or I’ll break your head open!” Redbone yelled.
Troy jumped up and down as he cried, “Who is it? Who locked it?”
But there was no window in the door, so they could only see their muddy reflections. “Blue, that better not be you!” Redbone said.
Robert finally went closer to the door to listen. “Blue?” All they heard was the freezer’s hum.
“What if it’s Cleo?” Robert said.
The bubble of hope—Robert’s growing certainty that it was Blue—burst. Redbone gave Robert a look that seemed to wish he’d never let him sit at his table or acted like his friend.
Robert’s breath puffed out of his mouth in panicked clouds. His lungs were bound tight by cold and a thought worse than Cleo: What if the ghost of the boy stabbed with the knife was on the other side of the door, unseen, ready to walk in and make himself known? Maybe a ghost could yank down the bar to lock the door. And maybe the ghost hadn’t liked what Blue had said: If you’re dead, stay dead. Maybe the ghost was still mad he’d gotten stabbed.
“It wasn’t me who stabbed you,” Robert whispered loudly enough for a haint to hear.
Redbone and Troy started pounding again, and this time Robert joined them, thumping against metal so cold that it snatched at his skin. But Robert didn’t feel it; his fists were as numb as the rest of him. He tasted the terror of the boys in the fire, their voices clear in his mind again. Is that smoke? Who locked the door?
“Leave me alone,” Robert whispered. “It wasn’t me.”
“We know it wasn’t y-you,” Redbone said. “The door l-locks from the outside.”
Robert pounded until perspiration sprang and froze on his brow. He was winded; his lungs hated the cold. He stopped, bent over, propping himself at his knees with his palms that were ringing and raw with pain. His heartbeat shook his body.
No one was answering. No one was coming. Would they survive an hour? Thirty minutes? He scanned the shelves for blankets or clothing, but of course there were none. Not even a burlap bag in sight, and there were plenty on the other side of the door.
“We gotta keep moving,” Robert said. “To warm up.”
Troy let out an animal wail of despair. “I don’t wanna die in here!”
Redbone ignored Robert. Tired of using his fist, he kicked the door with the sole of his shoe. “Open this damn door! I mean it!”
The laughing sounded so soft, so far away, that Robert thought he’d imagined it. Was it the ghost taunting them? Redbone stopped kicking; he’d heard it too.
“Blue?” Redbone said. He said his friend’s name like a prayer. The laughter again, more loudly.
“ ‘I don’t wanna die in here!’ ” Blue teased, muffled on the other side of the door. He laughed again. Robert’s body sagged with relief.
Troy was senseless, talking in a circle, still crying. “Please, please, please, please.”
“Just open it, Blue.” Redbone’s voice was calm as a sunny sky. He stroked the door.
“You promise you won’t lick me?” Blue said.
Redbone smacked the door with his palm. “I promise I won’t do nothin’—just open it ’fore we all miss curfew! I oughta choke you.”
“You ain’t right doin’ that!” Troy screamed. “You ain’t s’posed to be here!”
“And Troy won’t lick me either?” Blue said.
“Troy won’t touch you,” Redbone promised. But Troy’s fists were clenched. Blue was satisfied. He fumbled with the latch, struggling.
“Ain’t so easy the other way, huh, shrimp?” Redbone said. “Hurry up!”
Just when Robert started to think maybe Blue wouldn’t get the latch open without help from an adult—and whatever new heartache that might bring—the bar scraped against the metal like a fingernail on a chalkboard. With all of them pushing, the door opened right away.
Robert ran far from the freezer to the pantry doorway leading back to the kitchen. He would have gone farther into the kitchen, but he didn’t like how the kitchen was so dark now, full of shadows. Troy’s arms pinwheeled as he tried to lunge at Blue, but he was off-balance and missed by a mile. Blue darted behind Redbone, giggling. Redbone pinned Troy to hold him still. Troy was shaking with rage.
Blue was so small that Robert probably could whup him on his own, but he didn’t have a taste for it. He was just grateful to be out of the terrible cold so he wouldn’t learn what it felt like to freeze to death. He still couldn’t feel his ears. He wriggled his fingers and swatted at his earlobes to try to bring back the stinging.
The pantry clock said it was only seven twenty-one, not seven thirty yet. They hadn’t missed curfew. Mama and God must be looking out for him for sure.
“None of y’all can take a joke?” Blue said. “I would’ve let you out!”
“Do it again and see what happens,” Redbone said.
“Yeah, see what happens!” Troy was still trapped by Redbone’s grip. He swung so wild, his fists were nowhere near Blue. “We’re not scared of you! You don’t scare me none!”
Troy finally settled down, so they rushed through hanging up their hats and aprons and turning off the pantry lights. Robert felt lucky when he remembered the tie he’d left hanging on the peg; he’d been promised a beating if he lost it. Why had he let himself get distracted? He’d known better than to go into the freezer—he’d known it. He would never ignore his own good sense again. And now they might be late! And even if they weren’t late, how could he sleep wondering if Warden Haddock might come?
Robert wished he were nowhere and no one. His hands were trembling, and not from the cold. As Robert left the kitchen through the rear door with the other boys and met the humid air outside, he looked over his shoulder to make sure the ghost from the kitchen wasn’t standing behind him.
10
Miz Lottie kept every piece of her life she’d ever touched. Miz Lottie’s house had three bedrooms and was twice as big as Gloria’s, but every inch was filled with clutter, with pathways carved through the mess. Yellowing Pittsburgh Courier newspapers about Jackie Robinson, Jesse Owens, Lena Horne, and Joe Louis lined the hall. Even her bathroom was a home to old Ebony magazines and junk, filling the bathtub: such a waste of indoor plumbing! Miz Lottie bathed standing at her sink. The clutter was another reason Gloria had moved out with Robbie, since he was forever knocking things over. To Gloria, the mess looked like trash, but Miz Lottie had a fit when anyone moved her things. Uncle June and Waymon were almost too big to walk through the maze. Miz Lottie’s house smelled like dust and time.
Only the kitchen looked the way a kitchen should, except for a stack of papers on one corner of the kitchen table, and a collection of milk bottles behind the rear door. Miz Lottie moved less now, spending more and more of her days sitting at the table.
