Christopher Paul Curtis (15 page)

That's what getting back together with the other half of your soul is supposed to feel like. That's what I felt when I saw Shayla Patrick standing among the sand and toys.

All I could do was look at this divine little hunk of humanity and think, “Oh. Oh my.”

The sounds of all the other kindergartners in emotional agony faded away and this beautiful little girl was the only thing I could see, hear or feel. I don't know how long I sat in that sandbox pretending I was playing with the plastic steam shovel while I was really checking her out, but when I looked up the Sarge was gone; the little knee-knocker, who turned out to be my boy Sparky, had been taken out of his puddle and cleaned up; and the teacher was leading everyone who wasn't too traumatized in a song and dance called “Do Your Ears Hang Low?”

The only reason I noticed was because Shayla knew the words and, just like someone had cranked up a CD in
heaven, was singing them from where we were in the sandbox. I did all the motions to the song and moved my lips like I knew what I was singing, but my eyes never left her. Then she smiled at me during one of the funniest parts of the song. I quit the fake motions and the fake lip-syncing and found out the meaning of the word “dumbstruck.”

I couldn't decide what the most beautiful thing about her was, but I sure wished I had the chance to check her out over and over until I could.

Was it her smile? Even the raggedy little gum holes where her front teeth used to be were beautiful.

Was it her eyes? I hadn't seen eyes as brown and sparkly since I first set sight on my old dog Bone Thug.

Was it her hair? Her hair looked alive.

It was in a million thick dreadlocks and long and about six different shades of shiny, shiny black. It reminded me of waves or dancing, or what the electricity running from a fully juiced nuclear power plant would look like if you peeled away the insulation and rubber that coated the wires leading away from it.

Right after nap time, Shayla got up and was standing next to my mat sharpening a colored pencil. I can see it so clear that I still remember what color the pencil was, it was aquamarine. And I still get kind of tight in my throat whenever I see an aquamarine-colored pencil.

I couldn't help myself, I kissed my fingertips, then touched her knee. When I pulled my hand away I'd left three little wet fingerprints. I brought those three fingers to my lips again and I know the teacher thought I was napping but for real I was out cold! My brain had gone and decided
this was enough joy for one day and I don't remember anything after that.

The Sarge claims to remember lots more. She says that was the cause of my first visit to the principal's office. The school had a zero tolerance of sexual harassment or unwanted physical contact and I still own the record for being suspended quicker than any other student in the history of Stewart Elementary School: three hours into my first day of kindergarten.

Darnell Dixon remembers it in a different way too. He's always bringing it up and telling people about “the time this fool got busted trying to feel up the undertaker's daughter.”

But see what I mean? If it really did happen that way it seems like that's what would be burned in my memory. It seems like I'd've remembered being dragged down to the principal's office and publicly humiliated, but no, all I remember is how my lips tingled when I kissed my fingertips after touching Shayla Patrick's ashy little knee.

Maybe philosophers have it all wrong, maybe
that's
what life is all about. Maybe that's why your brain won't let go of moments like that, maybe what we're all looking for is to get back to that moment of perfect happiness. Maybe life's not so complicated after all, maybe it's just about trying to get back to that ashy brown kneecap one more time.

Now here it was nine years later and I was still gonna have a rough night over something as stupid as Shayla ignoring me today after I asked her to quiet down.

One of the best ways to get problems with your woman off your mind is to bury yourself in your work. I wasn't about to let Shayla's ignoring me get me down so after I put time in on my project I started early on my chores around the home.

Chester X was upstairs watching TV so after I made my bed I started on his.

I tucked in his bottom sheet, then pulled the bed away from the wall to get at the other side. A corner of something plastic caught my eye. At first I thought it was part of the wrapping that had covered the mattress when it was new. I tugged at the plastic and instead of coming off in my fingers it got bigger. I pulled the bed farther away from the wall to see what was going on.

Oooh! When the Sarge saw this, blood was gonna flow! Some fool had gone and cut a three-inch slit in the mattress
and stuffed something inside of it. I tugged at the plastic and finally out popped a Baggie full of pills, Demerol and Valium mostly, a good forty or fifty of them.

Why in the world would Darnell Dixon hide these down here? I'd always thought there was some kind of monkey business going on with him and Dr. Mark and the meds, but this just didn't make any sense. Why would he hide something way down here in the basement in Chester X's bed? This seemed too strange for even him to do.

Then I got it. These pills weren't Darnell's, they were Chester X's, and I knew what he was up to. He was saving his nightly meds to take all at once and bump himself off!

Aw, no! That ain't happening!

There was no way in the world he was going to kill himself while I was in charge.

I've watched the Coroner Channel enough to know how a medication overdose would look. Even though Chester X was in his eighties and that usually means you're carrying a sign on you that says “natural causes” when you die, I know some coroner might want to open him up exactly because he
was
eighty and looked like he was somewhere around fifty.

With my luck it'd be a slow day at the morgue and someone would say, “Quincy, let's see what kept this old fart ticking.” Then it'd be me and the cops and a rubber hose in a dark room talking about my medication procedures. Not to mention what the Sarge would do to me if her “special,” no-next-of-kin, five-A client committed suicide.

This was one of those things that not even Dr. Mark would be able to make go away. I know it's Sarge-think, but
Chester X Stockard was messing with my livelihood. Not to mention my life.

I finished making the bed to give myself a chance to cool down. I finally felt like I wasn't going to blow up and stuffed the Baggie of pills into my pocket and went to the dayroom to bust Mr. Goodbye Cruel World.

He was on the couch in front of the TV, looking like he was half watching cartoons and half nodding off. But I knew the real deal, I knew there was a whole lot more cartoon watching than nodding off going on. From the number of pills I had in the Baggie in my pocket I knew he hadn't taken any kind of a downer for a good two or three weeks. Chester X was fronting this whole confused, doped-up old man bit.

I had to smile. He'd fooled me and the Sarge, something that wasn't easy to do. You had to give the man his props, he was good. But I guess you don't get to be over eighty years old with five “A”s after your name unless you got some pretty good game.

“Chester X Stockard,” I said, plopping down on the couch next to him, “how's everything going today?”

The sly dog let a little trail of drool come out of his mouth while he mumbled something. Most times I would've wiped the slob away, but since this was probably all part of an act, I let his lip leak.

I asked him, “What's Johnny Bravo up to today?”

He grunted, gave a weak smile and pointed one of his shaking, twisted fingers at the television. Stupid me, all of a sudden I started feeling guilty. This didn't feel right. I was acting just like the Sarge. I hate it when she knows I've
done something wrong and also knows I don't know she knows. She plays this same little cat-and-mouse game with me, and now I could see that being on either end of it made me feel terrible.

I had to give the man more respect than this. I took a piece of paper towel and wiped his chin and said, “Look what I found in your mattress, Mr. Stockard.”

Chester X Stockard looked at the Baggie I was holding, then raised his gray-ringed eyeballs to my face. He let out a low sigh, like he'd been holding his breath for a long, long time. He sagged into the couch and for the first time since he'd come here it was easy to believe he was a tired little old man.

“What's this all about? When and why were you planning on checking out?”

It was scary. He unsagged and his eyes all of a sudden got sharp. He looked around the room and whispered, “Where's the Sarge?”

Wait a minute. “How'd you know I call her …” Then I remembered, I'd done a lot of talking to him and in front of him when I thought he was doped up. I answered, “She's over at city hall with Darnell.”

“Let's go down to our room and talk.”

“Our
room?”

“Your room. Quit fussing and help me up. I been hoping to have a heart-to-heart talk with you and now seems to be the time.”

I pulled him up and we headed downstairs. As I walked behind him I started thinking about what was going on. This new look of spark and spunk in Chester X Stockard's
eyes was starting to make me very nervous. Then I knew why.

It's one thing to share your room with someone who's just hanging around waiting to croak. The worst that can come of that is waking up and finding out your roommate is suddenly a lot chillier and less talkative than he was when he went to sleep. After that happens with three or four roommates it's pretty easy to handle. What's harder to deal with is trying to remember everything you said in front of someone that you were pretty sure was unconscious.

You say a lot of things you wouldn't ordinarily say if you knew someone was listening—not only listening, but understanding. And I have this bad habit of talking to the Crew no matter how out of it or unconscious they are. I mean why not? An unconscious person is always a real good listener and never gives you any kind of backtalk. Besides, even though some of the Crew might seem like they don't understand everything that's going on around them, you never know, maybe they like being talked to like human beings instead of just clients.

Then, like I could hear a roof tile from Taco Bell whistling through the air, somersaulting end over end in slow motion, BLAM! it hit me and nearly knocked me down!

Aw, no, this couldn't be happening!

Not only would you
say
a lot of things out loud to yourself that you wouldn't ordinarily say if you knew you had conscious company, late at night in the dark you also might
do
a lot of things to yourself you wouldn't ordinarily do!

Especially if you're the owner of the world's oldest condom.

Especially if you've got a very active imagination.

Especially if your English teacher is as fly as Ms. Warren!

Aw, no! That couldn't've happened!

Suddenly, having a heart-to-heart talk with Chester X Stockard didn't seem like such a smart thing to do.

I mean I know what all the books and psychologists and therapists say, they say there isn't anything wrong with doing that. I'd found it real reassuring to read that it's perfectly normal for a young man to rough up the suspect every once and a while. The only thing I wonder about is what crosses over from being “every once in a while” into “way too much.”

I calmed myself by thinking that Chester X was probably sound asleep those very, very, very few times that
that
had happened. And besides, as old as he was, he probably couldn't hear anything anyway, and with my bed on the other side of the room he couldn't be seeing too much, right? I told myself these things, but I only halfway believed them.

He took over the conversation as soon as we were in the room. He pointed at my bed and said, “Sit there, son.”

He sat on his bed and asked me, “OK, what are you going to do?”

I looked at him. Before I had a chance to answer he said, “Appears to me that you've got two choices; one, you take my pills from me, tell your mother about this and she'll
force me to take injections. Or, two, you throw those pills out and we both escape from here and head on down to Port Saint Lucie before she ends up killing me”—he dropped his voice—“and killing you, too.”

He was throwing too much at me at once. Somewhere in my mind I knew I had a whole lot more choices than the two he'd brought up, but I started concentrating on him saying that the Sarge had plans on bumping me off too. I wondered if during all his fake dopiness he'd heard the Sarge say something. You had to see the old bird had some credibility, he'd sure figured out what her plans for him were.

I said, “What do you mean, killing me, too?”

“That got your attention, didn't it? I've seen what's going on here, how you're her handyman and housekeeper and chauffeur and nurse and whipping boy all rolled into one tall, skinny, unhappy, unpaid lump. I've seen how much you hate it, too.”

“So what? What's any of that got to do with her trying to kill me? Seems like as much as I do around here I'd be the last one she'd want dead.”