That day in the kitchen, after that lady had given me the brochure, I was standing there looking through the window over the sink, knowing the boys would be barging in any minute. The window glass was held together with duct tape but it was clean. A dog I’d never seen before was chained outside. I only noticed that because my dishpan was beside it for a water dish. Jeffrey always kept a dog out there in the filth, but never for more than a few weeks at a time. I always heard him say he was training those dogs and selling them. I started to go outside and get my dishpan back when I heard the Coons stomp into the house.
Clyman and his friends were a sort of gang, and they called themselves the Coons, because they thought that was funny and because they were so hot for killing those scared little animals. But I thought it meant that someday, somebody was going to tree them all and maybe blow their heads off. Serafima said I shouldn’t talk that way. She said it was very similar to a prayer to say things like that. I told her I really thought it was something that would be a blessing for everybody, including the boys themselves.
Clyman clomped into the kitchen that day and called out in his loud voice, “Who’s that?” He must have seen the lady’s truck pull away. Things often turned out better if I didn’t answer Clyman at all. I waited and he said, “What’s that?” and grabbed the brochure out of my hands. I knew he could hardly read, and he ended like I thought he would. “Shit,” he said, “probably some religion thing.”
Lately Clyman had started acting like he was the oldest, so none of this surprised me, but then he said something unusual for him. “Was he white or black?” I just looked at him and didn’t say a thing. He hadn’t even thought of red. He put the brochure in his dirty jeans pocket and left the room, and that was the end of that.
I didn’t care that Clyman had taken my ticket to opportunity. I knew I wouldn’t do anything with it anyway. I didn’t believe in magic, but Clyman did. Later I saw him and Ada using rolled-up pieces of that brochure to snort coke.
The rest is pretty easy to tell. Maybe Serafima was right and I never will see her again because I am surely not going back, and I know she understands. At least I want her to know she was the one who gave me the ticket out of there.
Clyman left the house with Ada, and Jeffrey hadn’t been seen in days. Duane later came in, ate something in the living room, which was also his bedroom, and left. Duane always did things sneaky so I never really heard him leave. That night the dog began to bark when it was late so I let it go. Nothing was new.
The next day nobody came home, which was a holiday for me because it meant they would probably be gone for days, so after my gardening I went over to Serafima’s. We had her usual weak tea, and I told her about the lady who had come by, and about her saying I should get all dressed up, that this was an opportunity. Serafima got serious for a minute, as we both knew I didn’t have any decent clothes. Then she told me, “You look in your mama’s stuff.” I didn’t answer. I had looked through those old things before, of course. My mother’s special smell was long gone, and I didn’t look anymore. Her clothes were in some moldy boxes in the garage, although that was just a beat-up shed full of junk and spiders. Laverle had thought those boxes were full of outgrown things of her boys, but I always knew they were Mama’s, and I didn’t say anything.
Sometimes I had gotten those clothes out, but they were too big for me. I thought they were old-fashioned, but I had liked the colors and the way they moved. Mama had been a thrift-store shopper and so her clothes were even older than they might have been, but I went home and tried them on again. They fit good enough now, and I knew those old clothes were considered cool, and I knew they looked pretty good. I took a pair of pants, some shirts, and I put my own stuff into her old shoulder bag.
The clothes were wrinkled and I didn’t have any iron, but I knew how to steam things in the shower to straighten them out, so I did that. One thing we had was plenty of hot water for Duane’s boiling hot showers. I’d had to steam clothes in the shower when I went to my little brother’s funeral, so I knew how that worked. I had figured it out. Later I hung my mother’s clothes on the bar that was directly over the bed in my room.
That night, sitting on my bed, looking up at those particular clothes, it seems like I knew I had to have them ready, and I thought about that. I also cried that night but I don’t know why.
A few nights later, I guess, all the boys came in around sunrise, loud and drunk, and it woke me up. Something made me get dressed fast and see what was up. They were all giggling, like they had done something bad. But they hadn’t done something bad — they were getting ready to do it. I didn’t like how everything felt. There were two derelicts with them I had seen before, and all of them were mighty drunk. I stood in the doorway of my room and heard Jeffrey outside yelling that somebody stole his dog. Clyman stumbled into the kitchen but he wouldn’t look at me. That worried me. He didn’t seem as drunk as the others, and I knew he wasn’t as mean as the rest of them could be. They all sort of rolled and punched their way through the kitchen, and it filled up with the smell of mud, and beer, and pee, and noise. I saw then that the two homeless men were struggling to hold onto something alive. I heard a high-pitched whine and my stomach lurched. I felt like I needed to run, but I also didn’t want to leave. I wanted to help what made that noise but I couldn’t move. They had a live raccoon, a young one, and that poor, bloody creature looked right into my eyes.
They dropped the little animal on the table, its feet all tied up, knocking its backbone against the edge. I thought I was dying then because I felt everything in my body come to a stop. I heard myself saying, Oh, no, oh no, over and over. “No, Clyman, oh no.” Somebody had grabbed my wrists and he was taller than I was. I looked and it turned out to be Jeffrey who was so tall. I hadn’t even known that about him, he was such a stranger to me. He’s the one who said to Clyman, “Let’s take it outside.” He didn’t even look at me when he dropped my arms. I’m big, as I said, but I don’t fight. Serafima had taught me how to work out life so that it wasn’t necessary to do things that way, and I had seen she was right.
I saw right then that Clyman had made his choice to join in on the meanness, and in my mind I said goodbye to him, but I hope he stops that someday.
I won’t tell you what happened out in the yard that night. I don’t really know. I filled the dishpan full of hot water and took it into my room and bolted the door. My hands weren’t shaking at all. I took off my clothes and washed up, trying not to listen to what was going on outside. They were making plenty of noise. I brushed my hair careful, back and away from my face in a way I’d never done before. I put on my mother’s clothes and put some of my favorite books in her shoulder bag. I did all that, quick and smooth. I put on the most decent pair of shoes I had, opened the door and walked through the house. I felt like I didn’t have any feet at all. The house smelled bad to me, my own food smells, and I remember thinking I would never cook another lentil again, and I think that’s going to be true.
I stood there in that ugly front door of Duane’s bedroom, and I could smell the early morning there. I realized this was the day, the day hanging out in my memory, the day I had to be somewhere before noon, like the lady had said. I heard a police siren not too far off and I knew it had to be on its way to the house. I pulled at a box of matches that were stuck in the wax of a dusty melted candle and ran back to my bedroom. I got that box of matches blazing and threw it on my bed. I figured the clothes and books would catch fire easy, and all of Serafima’s flowers. I grabbed up the little pumpkin she had grown and dried for me, and put it in my bag.