Ill fly away, p.3
I'll Fly Away, page 3
“Sorry for her?” I mumbled. “You should feel sorry for me.”
I walked out of the office and into the girls’ bathroom with its stale urine smell, its gray stalls that had no doors or toilet paper, no mirror above the one small sink. I leaned against the wall and started to cry. Damn that “Skanky Tasha” (as we called her). Thought she was better than everyone, but she was fresh—had been sleeping around since before her first period. When we’d fought in first grade, she had won. But I’d won all three of the next ones. I chuckled to myself thinking about our fight that day. Boy, had I ever put a hurting on her. Plus, I’d stripped her shirt off of her and all the fourth, fifth, and sixth graders had seen her topless—every kid in the cafeteria laughing as the teacher tried to shield her C-cup breasts. People thought they could bully me then, and I’d spent most of the school year fighting for the respect that the kids wearing Nikes and new clothes got automatically. Well, I’d beaten Tasha again and people were going to be talking about it for a while. A surge of pride welled up in me. I wiped my nose and my eyes on my shirt and left the bathroom.
As I walked down the hallway toward my class, I caught my reflection in the window. I smoothed my ponytails. The sun shining through the window caught my glasses and created a glare. I took them off and wiped my eyes again. I smiled to inspect my braces. I hated them. They’d brought me many fights. I put my glasses back on and went to class.
“You didn’t get sent home?” Miss Sanders, my red-headed, freckle-faced fourth-grade teacher asked, sounding half-angry and half-disappointed. “What do you have?”
“Two weeks’ suspension starting tomorrow. Detention tonight.”
“Well, you’ll spend the remainder of the day in the corner.”
“But—”
“No ‘buts,’ Robin. Get! Right now!” When she turned her back, I gave her the finger. She was always hard on me, yelling in my face with her stale coffee breath and pieces of rice cake flying out of her mouth.
I went to the corner and sat. When classes changed, the kids coming in all gave me “props” about what I’d done to Tasha until I got yelled at by Miss Sanders. Finally, I took out my book, Indian in the Cupboard, and started reading. I couldn’t really focus, though. It was getting closer to three o’clock and I was scared about what was going to happen then. During my last suspension, my aunt had beaten me every day I had to stay home. Strip and bend over the toilet. CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!
I shuddered. I got a beating most days anyway, but when I was good, I’d at least have the hope that I’d be spared. I knew I had a bad one coming, and that’s when I made up my mind: I wasn’t going home.
After detention, I left the school and sat on the broken-down fence in front of a house I passed every day. What could I do? What could I do? Not go home—that was for sure. I thought back to the first time I’d run away from my grandmother’s house. I’d just started living there and it was my first day of school. I was six years old. I’d walked to Kenny Park straight after school, and then at around midnight, I’d sat on the curb in front of the Thomas Cadillac car dealership, waiting for someone to notice me. Eventually, a woman had, and brought me home. My grams and aunt were so glad to see me. I lied and told them I’d gotten lost on the way home. Well, I couldn’t say I got lost again. I’d have to make up something else. I’d figure that out later. For now, I’d just head over to the park.
There were lots of kids there. I joined some girls jumping rope and played on the swings and the slide. I was there for hours. The other kids slowly dwindled off, until only me, a little girl, and her mother remained. The sky was orange and the wind was picking up. “Come on, baby,” the woman said to her daughter. To me she said, “Little girl, you should go home now. You shouldn’t be in this park at night.”
“Okay,” I said. She smiled and grabbed her daughter by the hand and I watched the two of them leave. I sat alone on the swings for a while. It was cold, dusk settling into nighttime, and I got up and started walking. I had heard lots of stories about dead bodies in Kenny Park, so I hurried past the trees that bordered it. As I was speeding through a wooded area, I tripped on a long stick reaching out of the ground. I picked it up and swung it a few times. This would be good in case someone came after me, I thought. But as I emerged from the trees, it wasn’t a rapist or a crazy person I spotted; it was a cop car. As it slowed, I saw the officer in the passenger seat staring at me. My heart stopped. I figured my grams had called the cops by now, and I was scared they’d pick me up and drive me home. Please, God, let them keep going, I said in my head. A few seconds later, the officer said something I couldn’t hear to the one behind the wheel and they sped away. I watched the cruiser reach the end of the block and turn onto the intersecting street. Close call, I thought, letting out a breath of relief, which was accompanied by a growl from my stomach. I’m hungry, I thought. Dummy-me had fought during lunch. I had no money to buy food now. Oh, well, I’d survive.
It had grown dark by this time. I started walking but had no destination beyond going in the opposite direction of my house. On Blue Hills Avenue, there were people out on porches and cars whizzing by. Loud music came from both the cars and the apartment buildings I passed. The farther I walked, the quieter it got, and after a while there was just me and my thoughts. I thought about everything except the situation I was currently in. I thought of my mom, my dad, and my sister. I thought about what TV show was on and what dinner I might be eating if I wasn’t out here walking. My stomach growled again as I passed the “Welcome to Bloomfield” sign. “God, I could go for some KFC right now,” I said out loud. “I’m starving!”
A few steps later, I cried out in pain. Something had slipped under my foot and I’d twisted my ankle. I hit the ground hard. Whatever I’d fallen on was hard but had some give. It felt damp, too. I pulled the object from under my butt: a rotten little crab apple. I looked around—the ground was covered with them. Then I looked up at the branches hovering over me and saw that there were some apples still hanging on up there. Making sure not to step too heavily on my ankle, I struggled to my feet. I used my stick—the one that would help me fight off attackers—as a cane. I picked one of the tiny apples from a low branch. I’d heard these apples were poisonous. Maybe this is what they used in Snow White, I thought. Maybe I should eat it and lie down like her. A great tragedy…. Only, with my luck, nobody would see it as that. The paper would end up printing something like, “Runaway Kills Hunger and Self.” I dropped the apple and limped on.
It was pitch dark in the boondocks. The streetlights must have been a mile apart. I was starting to get scared and tired, and my ankle was hurting like crazy. Weren’t serial killers usually the ones with money and nice houses? Weren’t rich people the ones who committed the sickest crimes? How many Jeffrey Dahmers lived out here, I wondered. I could be kidnapped and sent to China to be a sex slave or a worker at a Nike factory. (I’d just seen a show on 48 Hours about sweatshops.) I’d twisted my ankle, but I could still fight off an attacker if I tried. Any sicko wanted to start something, he’d have a fight on his hand—just ask Skanky Tasha. But as I continued walking, different scenarios of my horrible fate at the hands of maniacs played in my head.
I walked past a church, then stopped and walked back to the front steps. “Church of the Divine Redeemer,” the sign said—a big name for a brick building as small as a house. “Well, Jesus,” I said aloud, “I’m putting myself in your hands. If a killer attacks me here, then I guess I’ll be going to heaven.” I threw down my stick, curled up on the steps, and started to drift into sleep. A few minutes later, a white lady appeared out of nowhere.
“Did you miss the van?” she said.
I raised my head from the concrete steps. “Huh?”
“Oh, you’re not a member of the church? Where did you come from?”
I blurted it out without thinking. “He kidnapped me!”
“Oh, my God! Come in, come in.” She wrapped her arm around me and led me to the side entrance of the building. “Sit down, sweetheart,” she said. “I’ll call the police. I’ll call your home, too. They must be worried sick. What’s your phone number?”
I couldn’t think of anything else to do, so I gave it to her.
The Bloomfield police came and picked me up. During the ride back to Hartford, they took my statement: “I was leaving school late and he tricked me to come up to the window. Then he opened the door and snatched me.”
“Did he touch you?” the officer asked.
“No!” I said, more loudly than I’d intended.
“Okay. Now tell me what else happened.”
“He drove me around telling me how he was gonna kill me, and when he stopped at the stop sign, I jumped out. He didn’t chase me.”
At the town line, I was transferred from a Bloomfield cop car to a Hartford cop car. When I arrived home, my grandmother threw the door open and snatched me in her arms. I started crying. The house was swarming with police.
“Hi, Pumpkin,” my aunt said. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” I bawled.
“Robin, come with me, please,” an officer said, taking my hand. “I have to take your statement again.” He led me into the kitchen. After I’d retold my story, he said, “Robin, you know that I know you were suspended today, right?”
“Yeah? Well, so what. I could’ve been killed tonight. I could be halfway to China by now.” He gave me a puzzled look.
“Robin,” he said. “If you’re honest, you’ll be fine. But if you’re lying, you could get yourself in a whole lot of trouble.”
“I’m not lying!” I yelled. “I hate you! Grandma!”
When my grandmother rushed into the kitchen, I told her I was tired and hungry. “Can I go to my room now?”
“Are you finished with her?” Grams asked the officer.
“Yeah, I guess so. We’ll put out an APB based on the description she gave us. If we get anything, we’ll be in touch. Good-bye, Robin.”
I glared at him without returning his good-bye. The nerve of that man, calling me a liar! Everything I said could have happened for all he knew. Once the house cleared out, I took a bath, ate my dinner, and went to bed.
My “kidnapping” was never mentioned again. In fact, I was treated very well during my suspension: snacks, TV, no beatings. It kind of made me wish I could get kidnapped all over again.
Shhh, Don’t Tell
BY DEBORAH RANGER
My life was falling apart, my arrest was imminent, and I’d been on the road for days, driving everywhere but nowhere. As midnight approached, I headed north on I-95 through Florida with the radio on for company, the volume turned up high. The passing highway lights kept time to Dolly Parton’s twangy, upbeat vocal. No matter where in America you drove, no matter what your life had become, you could always depend on those love’em and leave ’em country songs rising up from the dashboard.
I’d grown up listening to Waylon Jennings, Patsy Cline, and Hank Williams; their music was embedded in my bones. My father, his brothers, and their parents had formed a band to pay homage to the country and western greats, and one of my earliest memories is of the time my brother Wayne and I, accompanied by our family band, made our debut singing “Rocky Top” on amateur night at the Grand Ole Opry. I was four years old at the time, still innocent of the ugliness in the world.
Dolly faded away and the car filled with the deep, ominous voice of Johnny Cash. I keep a close watch on this heart of mine…I reached over to change the station, as I did whenever I heard that voice, but when my fingers touched the knob, I pulled back as if it was white-hot. I keep my eyes wide open all the time…A bright flash crossed my field of vision. I took several deep breaths, hoping to stop the rising nausea. “For Christ’s sake, it’s only a damn song!” I shouted. But the voice was carrying me back. As if watching tiny clips from some disjointed movie, I was returning against my will to a memory I had buried for nearly thirty years.
LARGO, FLORIDA
Summer, 1973
Largo was a tiny town just off the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. We lived with our parents in a small two-bedroom house where my brothers, Wayne and Kenny, shared one room and my baby sister Christine and I shared the other. We had moved here from our old house the year I was six.
Because my father was a carpenter, our house in Largo was in a perpetual state of renovation. Mom often complained about how Dad never completed one project before he began a new one. Shortly after we’d moved in, Dad had begun turning our garage into a living room so that the original living room could become a bedroom for Mom and him. Now, a few months shy of my eighth birthday, Dad declared the project completed.
The following day, he drove up to the house with the Silver Bullet.
“Wow!”
“Holy cow!”
“Yessssss!” Kenny yelled, punching the air with his fist.
But our dreams were shot down like birds when I asked if we were going camping. Dad shook his head. “You kids stay away from the camper,” he said sternly.
“But Dad, why’d ya buy it for if we ain’t going camping?” Kenny inquired.
“Bought it for my trains.”
Dad had a fixation about electric trains. I wasn’t sure how many crates of miniature locomotives, towns, and track he had at our house, but I knew the shed at Grammy’s was filled to the top with them. The day the Silver Bullet arrived, we watched Dad park it under the big tree in the backyard. Then he cut down our tree swing. “I don’t want you kids playing on the swing and hitting the side of the camper,” he explained.
The next day, after Dad drove off to work, Wayne, Kenny, and I sat outside and stared at the Silver Bullet, each of us dreaming about what fun we would have had camping in it. “It won’t be so bad,” Wayne said. “We can help Dad build his train town.”
“Someday I’m gonna be a conducterer,” Kenny stated.
“It’s conductor, stupid.” Wayne had just turned ten and, being the oldest, thought he knew everything. Although Kenny was only eighteen months younger than me, I often acted as his protector.
“Kenny’s not stupid,” I said. “You are. At least he knows what he wants to be when he grows up. You’re gonna die before you grow up, ’cause you smoke cigarettes.” That comment earned me a good, hard shove to the ground.
That summer, before Dad could start construction on the camper, his younger brother Lonny arrived, carting his new family with him.
It had been a few years since Lonny’s last visit to Florida. As they climbed out of the beat-up station wagon, I struggled to recall that summer when I was five. We’d been living at our other house then, and I’d been playing outside with my brother, hiding under the old oil tank, when Uncle Lonny found me and hurt me. Mom had brought me to the hospital, and after we’d gotten home, I’d heard Mom yelling at Dad that she would kill Uncle Lonny if he ever showed his face again.
I looked at Mom now, wondering if she would keep her promise and kill Dad’s brother or at least make him go away, but all she did was turn to my father and say, “Look, Larry. Lonny brought his trailer trash with him.” She walked back into the house, slamming the door behind her, and when I followed her inside, she warned me not to go anywhere near my uncle unless she was around.
Dad was the older brother, but Uncle Lonny was taller by several inches. His hair was brown, longer than Dad’s, and dirty. Grammy said he was made of “nothin’ but skin and bones,” and his teeth were yellow from too much smoking.
Aunt Dora Lee, I was sure, weighed at least a thousand pounds. Her long blond hair had been pulled back into a tangled ponytail that hung down her back. Her hair needed a good washing, too. The only good thing about their visit was the babies.
Linda was eighteen months, and she had a full head of blond hair. Her big eyes were as blue as the sky, and when she smiled, her tiny baby teeth gleamed. LeAnne was just two months old. She had a small tuft of fine hair that was soft to the touch. Her eyes were blue, too, but Mom said that could change since she was still very young. She was a quiet baby—nothing at all like my squawking sister Christine when she was that size.
After dinner that night, Dad and Uncle Lonny sat outside, playing their guitars while Uncle Lonny sang Johnny Cash songs: “Hey Porter,” “Folsom Prison Blues,” “I Walk the Line.” Listening through the kitchen window as I did the dishes, I began to feel sick to my stomach. I turned my attention to Mom and Dora Lee’s conversation.
“When my pa found me knocked up, he said Lonny and I was getting hitched. Now I got me these here two youngins to haul aroun’,” Dora Lee said. A cloud of smoke floated around her while she bounced the older baby on her hip. They’d been sitting at the kitchen table, smoking and talking since dinner ended. In fact, Dora Lee had smoked nonstop since they arrived, even while we ate dinner. I wasn’t sure which she did more, smoke or talk, and I wondered if Mom was going to wash her mouth out with soap because of all the bad words she used.
During dinner, Dad had offered to let them stay in the Silver Bullet until they got on their feet, and Aunt Dora Lee told me I could come and help her with the babies any time I wanted. Since Uncle Lonny would be driving away to work with Dad, I would wait until they left and then go over to the camper.
About a month later, in the middle of the night, Uncle Lonny and his family moved on. When we woke the next morning, Dad told us they were gone. “I don’t want you kids playing anywhere near that camper,” he reminded us. “I’m going to start working on it this weekend.”
Nearly a week had passed since Uncle Lonny left. The August day was already hot and muggy by early morning. The Silver Bullet’s back half was shaded by the tree and the sun beat down on its front half, causing a glare that made me squint. Wayne, Kenny, and I were playing circus. We were going to join the Big Top one day, we figured, so we were practicing our balancing tricks, me standing atop Wayne’s shoulders with my arms outstretched while he walked a circle around the backyard and Kenny did somersaults alongside us. We were just about to circle the yard a second time when we heard the funny noise.
