Disclaimer: Hey, yeah, I still own nothing of consequence. Here's the next chapter.
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Before Trey completely emerges from the shadow of the shed, he momentarily stops and regards the house in front of him. His home. There's nothing particularly distinctive about it. Nothing unique in its peeling paint, the noticeable gaps on the roof where the black tar shows through in place of the numerous damaged and missing shingles that are only slightly lighter in shade, the sizeable gashes in the concrete of the foundation where entire chunks have crumbled away. The house looks strikingly similar to all of the other small ranch homes on the quiet street with their tiny plots of mottled grass and the chain link fencing that surrounds them—the requisite lone tree standing sentry in the front yard.
If there's any distinction in the Atwood home, it's only in how neatly the lawn is maintained in contrast to their neighbors on either side. The Pawliczeks—whose toddlers' playthings blanket nearly every available inch of their plot and the Mahoneys—with the once mobile monstrosity of a lawn ornament—that unsightly green Buick, whose rusted hull has rested on cinderblocks for a seeming eternity. The mishmash of car parts that have been randomly salvaged and collected by Mr. Mahoney over the years lying scattered around the car's empty carcass as if only recently spewed from its very bowels.
Picking up the yard is Ryan's chore. Trey's is to cut the lawn. Which he does, every Saturday, pushing the manual mower carefully across the half-dead grass. They have other chores, as well—the boys do. They alternate making their bed every day before leaving their room. Toys and books have to be carefully replaced after each use. The dishes are washed, dried, stacked and put away following every meal. It's Ryan's job to vacuum the house twice a week. It's up to Trey to clean the bathroom. The house is rarely untidy. John won't allow it. John demands that his home be in order and he holds his children to his exacting standards in maintaining its upkeep.
That the home is neat is near the top of the list of John's many rules of the house. It sits alongside his rigid expectation that the children always show the proper respect to adults—himself foremost, their mother next and to all adults in general thereafter. If it's second to anything, it's only to his staunch insistence that what goes on in the home stays in the home. In that vein, he impressed upon the children at a very early age that it's part of their daily responsibility to protect the sanctity of the family—to maintain the privacy of the family's concerns—to keep the family intact.
There are certain occasions when John and Dawn's voices—angry and raised through open windows—result in unwanted attention. There are times when the cops are called upon to forcefully intrude upon their home. There are times when the boys silently watch—all the while willing themselves invisible—as their father is subdued, handcuffed and led from the house to the accompaniment of the hysterical and ineffectual pleas that their mother invariably hurls at the officers. Dawn's frenzied appeals to let her husband stay—her improbable insistence that he didn't do anything—even as the fresh contusions visibly blossom on her face, on her arms, or around her neck.
There are even times when one or the other of the boys sports a newly erupted bruise or a wound fresh enough that the blood hasn't entirely coagulated when the cops arrive. Those are the times when the family anticipates that the lady from social services may pay a visit to their home. But, it's always days or even weeks before she shows up. If she shows up at all—and it's with increasing regularity that she doesn't.
Because the Atwood family's case worker knows what to expect from these boys. She knows what to expect from their parents. She knows that even if the bruises haven't entirely faded and even if she can somewhat substantiate the suspected abuse with photographs of actual injury, if she checks off the "indicated" box on the reporting form, it will just be a waste of her time. Because these boys won't talk, except for to deny anything other than roughhousing gone a bit too far, a fall off a skateboard or a bike, or a headlong slide into third—told with gusto and accompanied by a long-winded and detailed recap of a vividly imagined match that always ends in dramatic fashion with a game winning RBI or a game ending diving catch by the tale's very own narrator.
The social worker responsible for the Atwoods is also responsible for 38 other active cases. Other cases that are so much more in need of her time, in need of her attention, in need of the county's resources and in need of court-ordered intervention. For it's these cases she has a chance of proving. The cases that that involve the hollowed, dull-eyed children with distended bellies full of undigested starches—the babies toddling around in t-shirts and day-old diapers—the kids wandering around oblivious to an environment that is only a match light away from explosion, in homes that double as laboratories for the production of methamphetamine and other chemically manufactured drugs—the foul-mouthed, lice-infected little hellions sitting amongst scattering cockroaches and dishes with a week's worth of encrusted food. Those are all children she can help. Not the quiet, respectful and articulate little brothers who live in this tidy home.
Because the social worker responsible for the Atwood family knows that if the boys won't cooperate, if the parents won't cooperate, if there's no x-ray of a spiral fracture to point to or a witness who's willing to testify that he or she actually observed one of the little boys getting hit—well then there's not much she can do. Because there just isn't enough evidence to bring a successful deprivation case to court. And to try is just a waste of time and resources. So, she's taken to marking the "unfounded" box on the home report in response to the calls regarding these boys—and with increasing frequency, she's taken to marking it from the desk in her cubicle at the county office without ever having gone out to verify the claim. Because she doesn't have the time to run around chasing her own tail in pursuit of a hopeless case.
On his way back to his bedroom's open window, Trey makes a quick detour to reconnoiter his parents' whereabouts, to verify that his absence hasn't been noticed, that he won't be ambushed upon reentry. He notes with satisfaction that the parental units are still firmly planted in front of the television. His mother is now the couch's sole occupant and his father has moved to his more customary position on the barcalounger. Their drinks are full—undoubtedly their second round—or maybe even some higher count. Which isn't an entirely bad thing to Trey's way of thinking. Because the smell of bourbon and the smoke that will be on his mother's breath when she comes in to say goodnight will mask the smoke on Trey and Ryan's own breath. Their clandestine foray into the night and the smuggled cigarettes will undoubtedly remain their secret.
Trey notices that Ryan must have had trouble climbing back into the bedroom without a boost up, since the tire off the pickup that his dad hasn't yet gotten around to hauling away is resting just under the window. A tire that will either become a permanent fixture in the Atwood yard, as dumping it legally requires a fee—or, more likely, a tire that will be loaded onto the back of the pickup under the cover of night, which Trey will be instructed to surreptitiously throw over the side on some desolate stretch of highway miles away after his father has conspiratorially blinked his headlights in a signal that alerts the all clear.
Trey rolls the tire carefully back to its temporarily established position against the house several feet away before he heaves himself up and onto the window's ledge. As he hoists himself onto the sill, he glances inside and notes the obvious relief sweep over Ryan. He sees it in the way his brother's furrowed brows unknit, the way his brother's forehead smoothes and his eyes widen from the tiny slivers that were keeping watch on the open window. Ryan's sitting on the bed, his back propped against both pillows, shoes off and his legs extended. He's got some school papers scattered in front of him. He's holding his math book in his lap, but he's not looking at it. He's staring intently at the window and furiously chewing on the soft wood of the pencil that's in his mouth—adding to the collection of tooth marks that already pepper the once yellow, but increasingly brown-dappled surface.
"Relax, Ry, I told you I was right behind you." Trey reassures his brother, as he softly drops to the floor and closes the window behind him.
"I know—it's just—this day has been so—I can't help it—I keep thinking it's not over, yet—that something else's going to happen—it's stupid, I know." Ryan's lips offer a weak smile that his eyes don't quite sell.
"Speaking of the other shoe—" Trey awkwardly grasps at Ryan's unwittingly offered segue.
"Speaking of the what?" Ryan asks when his brother's thought remains unfinished.
"Shoe—I mean, shoes—your shoes—Tommy Browning's kicks—I need you to give 'em to me."
"Why?" Ryan stares glumly down at the sneakers he's so carefully parked at the side of the bed. But, he makes no effort to reach for them. He doesn't want to touch them. He hates them. Just a few hours earlier he would not have thought it possible to garner such a passionate loathing for inanimate objects such as these. But he does. He abhors Tommy Browning's shoes with a vehemence unequaled in his short life.
"C'mon, Ryan, just do it."
"Why? What're you gonna do?"
"Shut up already and bring 'em over here." Trey grumbles and sits at the desk, pulling the bottles he'd secreted from the bathroom towards him. "Bring that t-shirt, too. The one you blubbered all over."
"I didn't blubber." Ryan half-heartedly defends himself, even though he doesn't entirely mind the ribbing. Not after the night's events—the accusations, the confusion, the anger, the apologies, the tears, the pain, the guilt—all adding up to the oppressive solemnity that's depressed the Atwood house since the boys came home to their mother holding up the cigarettes. After all of it, after everything they've just been through, it actually feels pretty okay that Trey is attempting to infuse just the slightest bit of normalcy into their conversation.
"Yeah, right. Then how come it's still soaking?" Trey exaggerates, taking the shirt that's offered, making a big production of squeezing the non-existent moisture out and swatting his little brother across the head with it. He then picks up the smaller of the two bottles.
"Nail polish remover?" Ryan stands behind Trey. He reads the bottle over his brother's left shoulder and ignores the good-natured teasing.
"Yeah."
"What're you gonna do with it?"
"Quit talking and start watching." Trey says, as he twists the cap off the bottle, and dabs some of the liquid onto the shirt. He starts rubbing the dampened cloth across the penned-in middle stripe on the inside of Tommy Browning's left shoe. Ryan's amazed when the ink immediately begins to disappear.
He notices that the fissures in the leather—the tiny spider-webs of wear—remain slightly purplish in hue, but the stripe itself is decidedly white again—or not exactly white—but most definitely not the deep royal blue that it had been only seconds before. Ryan watches as Trey continues rubbing at the stripe, then switches from nail polish remover to the bigger bottle—rubbing alcohol. Trey finds a different part of the shirt, one that isn't already stained blue, dampens it with the new substance and continues wiping. A little more of the pen's ink is transferred from Tommy Browning shoe to the shirt. Trey then goes to work on the shoe's other middle stripe. When he's finally satisfied, he holds up his work for his brother's inspection.
"It's not perfect—the cracks are still a little blue—oh, and the threads where it's stitched—but, it's better than it was, huh?"
Ryan's eyes are as wide as saucers as he nods. He reaches for the shoe with a whispered, "Thanks." Looks it over. Turns the corners of his mouth down as he nods his approval. It is by no means perfect, but it's a heck of a lot better than it had been. Ryan's confident that he can now wear the shoes without the whole school knowing at a glance that they're Tommy's old hand-me-downs.
"How'd you know how to do that?" There's a tinge of awe in Ryan's hushed voice.
"Don't you remember when I drew an 'X' on Mom's white cowboy boots?"
Ryan thinks, then slowly nods. He remembers. It had been on a Saturday a few years earlier. A day in which Ryan had spent the majority of the afternoon at a birthday party he'd wanted no part of—attendance at which he'd vigorously protested against the minute the invitation arrived in their mail slot. But his parents had insisted. Because his mother thought it would be good for her younger son to socialize and play with other kids that weren't—well weren't Trey—and because his father thought it was abnormal that his younger son seemed to have no interest in having friends among his classmates.
Ryan had spent an uncomfortable afternoon in the company of children with whom he rarely interacted and had nothing in common and Trey had been supremely bored on a rainy summer day without his little brother around. So, Trey did what Trey normally did when bored. He sought out trouble and he found it. He'd come across his mother's white leather boots in the back of her closet and he'd carefully penned a big blue "X" on their toes, enjoying the feel of the pen as it repeatedly bit into the soft fleshy leather. He'd picked an "X" because he put an "X" on everything back then. The "X" was on the high school team's baseball caps—or it had been at the time. St. Pius X. The team with the fields only blocks away. The team that Trey followed so closely. The team the little boy was convinced that he'd play for some day. The same one that employed Fr. Kevin as it's coach. It was a natural insignia for St. Pius—or, at least it had been, until hats with an "X" became popular for completely unrelated reasons.
Dawn had displayed her uncanny ability to instantly detect Trey's transgressions when she discovered the boots a mere hour after Trey drew on them. She was understandably upset and incensed and had attempted to wipe out the distinct marks with nail polish remover and then with rubbing alcohol. Trey had been amazed at how quickly the marks faded—even though they didn't completely disappear—they didn't quite vanish entirely. A greenish ghost of an "X" remained readily visible on the toes. The shoes were still completely ruined despite Dawn's best efforts. Trey had been sure he was going to get the whipping of a lifetime when his dad got home. An idea that was reinforced by his mother, through her tears and her anger at the destruction of her favorite boots.
So, both mother and son had been caught off-guard with John's laughter at seeing the defaced shoes. John had laughed because he detested the tacky white boots and had been not-so-secretly pleased that they were no longer wearable. He'd even clasped Trey affectionately on the shoulder in appreciation of the demise of the despised shoes. There had been no beating that night, even though Trey hadn't gotten off scot-free. Trey'd been sent to bed without dinner for vandalizing his mother's footwear. A punishment Trey'd been only too eager to accept.
"Mom tried to get the ink out with nail polish remover and rubbing alcohol." Trey explains. "It didn't work—well, not completely—but it took most of it out."
"Malcolm Tex." Ryan whispers, remembering the nickname his father had called their mother for weeks afterwards.
"Exactly." Trey grins.
"Here." Trey hands Ryan a blue ballpoint pen. "You've got to color them in." Ryan takes the pen, his face a mask of confusion.
"Okay, I don't get it—color what in?"
"You can tell that the stripe isn't white—but only because it's next to other two. If we color in the other ones, then take the ink off, all three of them will look the same and it won't be so noticeable. Plus, if you rub dirt on it tomorrow on the way to school, I bet it'll look even better."
Ryan nods, he takes the shoe over to the bed, his face contorted with the concentration of penning in the outside stripes to Tommy Browning's shoes. Trey stays at the desk and completes his task of removing the ink on the right shoe.
It's as they're finishing their respective tasks that Dawn stumbles into the room, a little unsteady on her feet.
"Hey, you're not dressed for bed, yet?" She's surprised for an instant before noting what her younger son is doing—before seeing that Ryan is mutilating the shoes that they picked up at the church tonight—before yelling for her husband to come see what the boy has done.