III: Disorder in the House

NEWS-SENTINEL: Knoxville, Tennessee. April 19, 1976.
Written by Barry Dana.

The murder-suicide of a young couple living on Magnolia Avenue, near Pellissippi Tech, has been reported to our news bureau. Police are currently seeking any leads on the cause of the death; it is reported that an argument erupted between the husband and wife, leading to the murder of the wife and suicide of the husband. The couple's young son has been relocated to child services, pending the arrival of his extended family in the city. Anyone with tips is encouraged to call the Eastern Tennessee Department of the State Police, located here in Knoxville: (865) 555-4815.

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Social workers. Ladies with crocodile purses who cried crocodile tears. They hovered over him, getting him Kool-Aid and a Viewmaster, saying, "Don't worry, Jimmy, honey. They'll be here soon." They were lying. Ever since that night, everyone had lied to him.

He couldn't stand being called Jimmy, either. That was the name of that guy from Georgia, the one who was running for President – not his name. He couldn't get them to call him 'James' the right way, though. They'd always give him a patient look and say it like they were just doing it to make him feel better, not like they really meant it. Lord, if there wasn't anything that made him more upset than that, he didn't know what it was. He couldn't show them that, though. He didn't know these people. If he got upset, he didn't know what would happen.

So James-not-Jimmy sat there in the Knoxville Youth Cottages. He hated the name, too. It was fake. He knew what this was. It was an orphanage. He had spoken with his mother's family, over in North Carolina just to the east, but they couldn't say anything better than an I'm-so-sorry-and-don't-worry-it'll-be-sorted-out. No promises to come and get him. He knew better.

The Kool-Aid wasn't made the right way, either. His mother had made it the right way, but she wouldn't do that ever again. This was watered-down, a blood-red but weirdly weak fruit punch that looked just like the blood that had dripped down on his father's hand as it dropped over the edge of the –

"Jimmy? Jimmy, there's someone to see you."

He didn't answer at first, until he realized that the blond, terrifying woman in front of him was talking to him. He didn't mind not drinking any more of the Kool-Aid , though, and so he stood, rubbing at his eyes with his hand. His relatives were here, and he couldn't let them see him cry. From the way his granddad had spoken, it sounded like the last thing they wanted was a kid to take care of. He'd turn into an adult as soon as possible, then. That wouldn't make them like him, but at least they might be able to stand him that way.

His hand dropped to his side, the striped shirtsleeve annoyingly wet. He hadn't cried, though. He told himself that. He put on his polite voice, trying to remember his manners. "Who is it, ma'am?"

No answer. James-not-Jimmy felt a current strike, sending him reeling. He dug his toes into the wall-to-wall carpeting, trying to stay upright. His grandfather hadn't come yet.

Blond pageboy terror was replaced with black Afro terror. He knew they were entirely different people, but they may as well have been twins. The last few hours had taught him that all social workers looked the same, just like all librarians looked the same. Librarians were shy and somehow frightened, like they'd stepped right out of Bambi, but social workers were women who looked like the Michelin Man. Sometimes they even had beards.

So there was a large version of Cleopatra Jones bearing down on him, and he felt himself shrink away, grow glum, sink his chin down. "Whaddaya want?" His mother's voice: Remember your manners. "Ma'am?" came only after a moment, and rather sourly at that.

"I have some forms for you." She thrust a pencil at him like a sword on the attack. "I need you to sign them. You don't need to read the. They're too hard for you to understand." Her tone rattled him. He bit his lip, took the pencil cautiously, and gave her a confused look. "Your custody is being transferred to the state, Jimmy. Do you know what that means?"

He did know what that meant. His mouth dropped open, though, and he stared in shock, not even thinking to correct his name. So they're not coming. He felt like an idiot for thinking something better would happen.

She thought he didn't understand. "That means you're joining us here at the Youth Cottages, sugar." He couldn't decide whether that was worse than 'Jimmy.' Both were terrible. "We'll take you back home to Magnolia Street for a few hours. You'll be allowed to bring two boxes of your belongings back here, so start thinking about what you want to keep." She showed him a box, not much bigger than that in which he had gotten new shoes with his mother a week ago. Shoes over which his mother had tripped when she had been shot; he had seen them, soaked with blood from her gunshot wound, as he'd been taken out of the house after –

No.

Trying his best to pay attention to what she was saying, he thought it over for a moment. He wanted to protest. But what could he say? "I think I deserve more stuff"? No, he deserved this, and no more. He reached out for the Kool-Aid, taking a shaky sip, doing his best not to spill it, and his best to figure out the harder sentences in the papers he was supposed to be signing, without telling the social workers that he could.

They would have many forms. He would sign them all as James. Nobody would notice. They would keep calling him 'Jimmy,' and in time, he would stop being annoyed by it, at least outwardly. To spite the social workers, he would make it out of the house on Magnolia Street with only one box of his things – a loose-leaf notebook and some of his father's stamps atop the small array.