The Heart is Deceitful above All Things Read online

  ‘Stained clothes is how you can tell trash,’ she says while reaching into her bag for the small bottle of Clorox bleach. ‘My father is rich and educated, a preacher.’ She pours the bleach onto some McDonald’s napkins, then rubs it on the ketchup stain on my T-shirt. ‘Not trash,’ she says, then wipes my face and hers with more bleach until it stings. ‘You gotta look and smell clean.’

  Sometimes we go into the ladies’ room. I go into the stall with her. We pull down our pants and our underwear. I hold two clumps of toilet paper. She pours the bleach onto them, soaking them. I hand one to her. ‘Folks can smell sin on ya,’ she whispers. Our hands holding the bleach-soaked tissue disappear between our legs. She covers her mouth with her free hand and cries into it.

  ‘Are you paying attention?’ The woman holds the dolls on her lap. ‘This isn’t the little boy’s fault . . . see?’ She picks them up again, the thing going in and out of the hole in the little boy’s behind. ‘Ow ow ow,’ she says in a high-pitched voice. ‘Bad man, bad man,’ she says in a low, growly voice. ‘Repeat after me,’ she says, and scoots closer. The dolls slam together faster. ‘It’s not . . . c’mon, say it, you want cartoon privileges back?’

  I said nothing last time I visited with her and the dolls, so I hadn’t been allowed to watch TV or go to the game room in two days. I stayed in my room and reread the same books. I didn’t mind not seeing the other kids. Some are bald and bloated, their lips peeling like fingernail paint. Some are in wheelchairs or on crutches, with tubes that wheel around with them. One boy has to be hit on the back all the time. He coughs all night when he isn’t crying. I especially don’t mind not seeing their parents. They come with shopping bags filled with goodies. They don’t like to unpack them in front of me in the day room. ‘Let’s go to your room, honey,’ they say, glancing at me. They usually have to talk loud, because as soon as I see them coming I raise the sound on the TV until a nurse comes running in and takes the remote away from me.

  ‘It’s not . . .’ I whisper.

  ‘What? Yes, good, you spoke. See, it’s easy . . .’ She bounces the dolls on the rug. ‘It’s not the little boy’s fault,’ she repeats. I stare at them jumping up and down across the alphabet, held together by the man doll’s thing. ‘The little boy’s fault,’ I mumble.

  ‘Great. See, that was easy . . . now you can watch cartoons after dinner. You’re getting better.’ She leans over and pats my head. ‘Time to go.’ She gets up, wiping rug fuzz from her beige pants. She carries the dolls to the drum bin and drops them in. ‘Let’s go.’ She holds open the door that has a cartoon poster of laughing children on the outside. I walk past the box of dolls; it looks like a massacre grave pit, some naked, some dressed, and on top lie the boy and man. The man stares up at me with his arms around the boy. I can tell by the blond boy’s face that the man is still inside him. I reach down to pull them apart. ‘No, no,’ she shouts, ‘leave the toys.’ She walks toward me. ‘We’ve got to get you back upstairs for dinner. You can play more tomorrow.’ She pushes the lid down, and it seals with a slam.

  Some children disappear. They’re kept in their rooms, wrapped in tentaclelike tubes, and suddenly their rooms are empty, just the fluorescent light beaming down on the military-made bed, all cards stripped from the walls, all balloons that were tied to the bed gone. Some kids leave with their parents. They take their balloons and stuffed animals in big shopping bags, and the nurses hug them good-bye. But I tricked them all; they never discovered what I’d done to my fuckin’ fosters. I kept my mouth shut the way Sarah taught me so nothing could escape and I wouldn’t get arrested and sent to hell.

  I left without any hugs or waves or shopping bags of goodies, but I did have a stuffed bear a nurse gave me when I first came and only stared at the walls. ‘He’s yours,’ she told me. He looked almost like the one I’d had way before, the same yellowish fur. I didn’t say thank you. I left him on the floor of the day room. She put him in my bed. ‘He has no place else to go,’ she told me. Later that night when I woke up suddenly, my heart bursting inside me, my sheets wet with sweat and pee, I grabbed the bear and buried my face in his neck fur. That spot was wet for days.

  I leave with a woman the nurse says is my grandmother. ‘They have custody of you,’ she says. I nod, not understanding but excited to be leaving with someone. The woman signs papers while I stand quietly behind her, arms stiff at my sides. ‘You haven’t visited before,’ the nurse says.

  ‘It’s a long trip,’ my grandmother says, her voice a soft, musical lilt, her hair a tight crisscross of blond braids on top of her head. Her face is a stern, drawn version of Sarah’s. I follow her to the elevator and look around, and cough loudly, hoping that everyone will see me leaving with somebody.

  ‘In God is my salvation and my glory,’ she says, staring straight ahead as the car winds through the cracked mountain roads laced with frost. ‘The rock of my strength and my refuge is in God. Trust in him at all times; God is a refuge for us.’ I hear her swallow. ‘Psalm 62:7–8’ She says nothing else until we get to the house.

  The trees open out onto a wide clearing. Horses run inside fences as our car drives past. A steeple is visible over a distant ridge. The road smoothes out to soft black tar. An older blond boy on horseback gallops next to us. He stares at me, then whips the horse twice and races away over the low green slopes.

  We drive past gray weathered wooden barns that look propped up by haystacks. Another five minutes and we turn into a wide pebbled driveway. Four white columns hold up a sloping overhang. Two oak and stained-glass doors sit in the center. It looks like a museum. ‘This is a house of the Lord,’ she says, and stops the car in front of the doors. We get out and she opens the unlocked door and light streams into the dark hall. I squint hard to see.

  ‘He shall redeem their soul from deceit and violence: and precious shall their blood be in their sight.’ She pats my shoulders. ‘Psalm 72:14.’ She walks away from me into the gloom of the hall. I stand still, waiting.

  FOOLISHNESS IS BOUND IN THE HEART OF A CHILD

  I HEAR THE footsteps long before I see anyone. The click click sounds like an eggshell being torn apart rhythmically and with anger. ‘The way of the wicked is an abomination unto the Lord: but he loveth him that followeth after righteousness.’ The voice echoes down the hallway, staccato and sharp.

  ‘Jeremiah, do you know where that is from?’

  My grandfather is suddenly standing in front of me. He says my name the way Sarah does; she’s only said it a few times, but when she does I feel reassured and remembered. ‘Jere-my.’ My, like you’re mine.

  ‘The only reason you’re here is the bastard wouldn’t let me give you a wire hanger for a head,’ she said between swallows of the Wild Turkey that she called ‘chicken’ when we went to the liquor shop. I got used to the bitter taste of ‘chicken’ in my Coke and how easily I fell asleep after I drank it. ‘Trip on the train’ is for Midnight Express. It’s the same sour burning as ‘chicken’, but I liked hearing Sarah ask for train more.

  ‘Once you got here,’ she said, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, ‘he wouldn’t give a dime to feed or keep ya.’

  But he had wanted me. He had protected me. He had saved me. I had made him look like my fucking fosters’ grandpa, but better, with a white Santa’s beard and rosy cheeks and chocolate coins in his pocket. I’d show him I wasn’t bad. It was her, Sarah. I smile up at him, we’re on the same side, you saved me, I’m Jere-my, I’m yours.

  ‘You know where that’s from, Jeremiah?’ The damp air from his words smells like peppermint.

  My, mine, yes.

  ‘For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteousness: But the way of the ungodly shall perish.’ His mouth is turned down. I tilt my head to the side, and now it looks like a smile. He doesn’t have a beard; his face is thin and tightly stretched across his wide cheek and jaw, which he’s working back and forth as if he were chewing leather. His eyes are the same distant clear blue as Sarah’s; they give his de
licate features an ominous look, like ragged ice glaciers overhanging a smooth cave entrance. Even though he’s not really smiling, his eyes are squinted as if he were. I smile wider. He nods once and steps back. I nod in return and wink the way Sarah does. He lifts up the thick black book that he has been holding behind him.

  ‘You will not mock the Lord, Jeremiah. You will learn not to mock me. Jeremiah, you will find these tracts.’ Each time he speaks my name I force a wave of warmth through me. All he says after my name sounds garbled, as if it were floating through water. ‘Jeremiah, you will know them. If you cannot read, you will learn quickly.’ He lowers the book and hands it to me. ‘Jeremiah, is that clear?’ I watch his other hand to see when the hidden chocolate will appear.

  ‘This is your pillow, Jeremiah. You sleep on it. You keep it with you always. Jeremiah, is that clear?’

  I open the book, but the tissue paper page is only words. I turn some more pages but can’t find the pictures yet. ‘Thank you,’ I mumble. I was going to call him Grandpa, but something chokes off the word.

  ‘We will begin tomorrow at seven A.M., Jeremiah.’ He places his hand on my shoulder. I tilt my head toward it. ‘Do not lean in my presence, Jeremiah.’ He pulls me forward with a short jerk. ‘Or in the presence of the Lord.’ He releases his hand and turns and walks back down the hall, still talking: ‘He maketh a way to his anger: He spared not their soul from death, but gave their life over to the pestilence.’

  I look down at the book, flip through some more pages. I still can’t find the cartoons.

  A boy a little taller than me comes down the hall. He’s whitish blond, like me, hair combed back. He’s in white pants and a blue blazer, and he has a tie on. I’ve never seen a kid in a tie. I feel jealous.

  ‘How old are you?’ he asks me, and pushes himself up on his tiptoes.

  ‘Seven . . . in ten days.’ I stand straighter and stretch my neck up.

  ‘Tell him you want a big birthday party.’ He smiles, his teeth biting into his bottom lip, his opalescent eyes guarded yet prowling.

  ‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you, huh?’

  ‘How old are you?’ I ask.

  He points at my book. ‘I know the Psalms One through Fifty. How many do you know?’

  ‘I know a lot of songs.’

  ‘What?! Damn,’ he whispers, ‘you’re an idiot.’

  ‘I’m not. I can read.’ I stare right back at him. He smiles wider, crinkling his small upturned nose, finely sprinkled with freckles like nutmeg.

  ‘Tell him you know songs . . . from there,’ he says, pointing at the book and laughing. I laugh because he is. ‘What songs do you know? Sing some.’

  I roll my eyes up to think. Sarah’s next to last boyfriend had a Mohawk. He’d given me one, but I didn’t like it; people pointed and kids laughed. ‘That’s the idea of being a punk, you gotta shock ’em,’ he told me. I wet it down, making it look like a raised yellow highway divider line across my otherwise bald head. In disgust he shaved it off. He dyed his pink until the sheriff threatened to arrest him for disturbing the peace. Then he shaved his off, too. He taught me to sing along with the Sex Pistols. I didn’t understand the words, but it made Sarah laugh when we sang them, sneering and spitting. Sometimes she joined in.

  ‘I am a annie-christ. I am a annie-kiss, dunno what I want, know how to get it, wanna this toy, the buzzer by.’ He stares at me wide-eyed, mouth hanging open. ‘I wanna be annie-key.’

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ he gasps.

  ‘Go piss this toy,’ I finish singing, and spit. It lands in a little bubbly pile on the wooden floor by his black, shined leather shoes. ‘Sex Pistols,’ I say, smiling at him.

  ‘You’re possessed,’ he says, not smiling anymore. ‘You gotta sing that for him.’ He nods and smiles slowly. ‘You gotta.’

  ‘I know more, too.’

  ‘Uh-huh, he’ll love it.’ He laughs.

  ‘I know Dead Kennedys.’

  ‘How’s that go?’

  ‘Too drunk to fuck,’ I sing, ‘I’m too drunk to fuck.’

  He slaps his leg. ‘Yeah, yeah, sing,’ he says, covering his mouth, but I can still hear him laughing. ‘Sing that one, too. Promise you will?’ I nod. ‘But don’t say I told you to. It’ll be a secret. I’m just helping you out.’

  ‘What’s your name?’ I ask.

  ‘Aaron,’ he says, wiping the tears from his eyes.

  ‘Do you know Sarah?’

  ‘Sarah, yeah, she’s one of my older sisters, yeah, she’s a sinner.’ He adjusts his tie.

  ‘She’s my momma.’

  ‘Yeah, I know, that’s why you gotta sing for him . . . got any more?’

  He takes my hand and leads me to our room.

  At five A.M. Aaron wakes me up. I reach around for my Bugs Bunny and then remember what Job, a different blond boy with rosebud lips and sleepy eyes, told me before bed.

  ‘It’s worshiping idolatry, you’ll burn in hell.’

  He took it from my bag, and I never saw it again. I slept with my thumb in my mouth, and I wake up to a girl that looks like a smaller version of Sarah yanking it out. ‘No, no, you can’t do that.’ She says nothing else and leaves the room.

  Aaron is dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt. He’s standing next to a carved wood-framed bed, same as mine, with the same thin mattress, except that he has a pillow. His bed is tightly made, with no blankets hanging over the edges.

  ‘Make yours and get dressed. We got chores to do before prayer.’ He points to a wooden dresser. ‘Clothes in there, they should fit ya. Fit me when I was your age.’

  I get dressed, staring at the stark, blank walls.

  ‘Let’s go!’ Aaron half shouts. ‘We got chores to do.’

  We sit on a worn grayish wood stool in a dirty brown brick room next to the kitchen, peeling potatoes. A huge sack of potatoes sits beside us.

  ‘So, you’ll tell him about your songs.’ He points at me with the peeler. I nod and yawn. He smiles down at the potatoes.

  At six-thirty A.M. Aaron and I stand upstairs in another long, wood-floored hallway. The walls are bare, reflective white. Four other blond boys stand behind us. They’re wearing the same long, scratchy robes that Aaron and I are wearing. They keep leaning over and staring at me. Someone hits the back of my head. When I turn around, Aaron smiles. ‘It wasn’t me! And I’ll swear on Christ’s nails!’ They muffle their laughs. A wooden door opens next to me, and the escaping steam makes my lungs hurt. A tall, sinewy, but fleshy blond boy motions me in.

  ‘Get in.’ He points at the huge porcelain tub, steam rolling off it like fog. I stare up at him. His catlike face scrunches up. He sighs, rolls his eyes up, and says like he’s bored, ‘If any man’s seed of copulation go out from him, then he shall wash all his flesh in water and be unclean until the even.’ He licks at the beads of sweat above his lip. ‘Leviticus.’ He shakes his head. ‘Come on.’ He reaches out his hand. All he has on is white boxers. His chest is bare and covered with a light film of sweat. I take his hand, and he leads me to the tub. Its edges are covered with small black cracks that look like bloodshot eyes. His hand is warm and moist. ‘Let’s go,’ he says softly. He leans over and slides off my robe and underwear, his hand brushing against me as he does. He smells like salt and chlorine. ‘Here, I’ll help you in.’

  He clasps his arms around my waist. I feel his breath against my neck, and it tickles and I laugh. ‘You’re a light one.’ He lifts me up and holds me over the tub. I lean my head back against his chest. ‘OK, here we go . . .’ He lowers me down fast. It takes me a few seconds to feel the heat of the water. I yell and grab for the edges. ‘No, you don’t!’ He grabs my hands with one of his and covers my mouth with the other. ‘I ain’t gettin whipped ’cause of you. Now, come on, shut up,’ he says in a low voice into my ear.

  My vision is blurred with tears. I scream into the hand across my mouth. ‘You’ll get used to it,’ he says. He reaches past me to a thick bristled scrub brush resting on an edge of the tub. ‘But
ye are washed . . .’ He reaches into the water and rests the brush against the skin of my lower stomach. ‘But ye are sanctified . . .’ He presses the brush into my flesh. I smash my lips against his palm, trying to escape it. ‘But ye are justified in the name . . .’ He begins to move the scrub brush slowly across my stomach. ‘Of the Lord Jesus . . .’ His eyes close. The brush moves down lower. ‘And by the spirit . . .’ His eyes open and roll around in their sockets. He moves the brush in deliberate strokes between my legs. My teeth press against his palm. ‘Of our God . . .’ I bang my head in small stiff bounces against his chest. He leans his mouth against my neck. ‘Amen,’ he whispers.

  He lets go of the brush, wraps his arm around my hips, and, while still covering my mouth, lifts me out of the tub. He stands me next to him. ‘If you scream or cry, you’ll go back in.’ I nod. ‘So be quiet.’ I nod again. He removes his hand, and I gasp. He stands over me. ‘That wasn’t so bad, was it?’ My body feels numb. I look down at myself, a bright pinkish red with blood pinpricks and scratches marking my skin where he scrubbed. I feel the burn between my legs. A towel is dropped around my shoulder. He begins patting me dry.

  At seven A.M. I stand in a hall downstairs, outside my grandfather’s thick oak door. Aaron lines up behind me, other boys behind him. They all look unnervingly familiar, like seeing a mirror cut up of parts of my face stuck on different people. They’re all dressed like I’m dressed, like Aaron, in a blazer, tie, and soft black pants. Aaron whispers in my ear, reminding me, again, to sing my songs and to complain about the tub being too hot. My skin still aches, and I’ve left off my underwear because of it. ‘Tell him you’re not wearing them, tell him!’ Aaron said when he saw me getting dressed. His skin was red, too. He didn’t seem to care.

  The door opens and an older blond boy dressed like I am walks out slowly, wobbly. His face is turned down. He doesn’t look at me. I watch him walking carefully down the hall like he’s on a tightrope. He puts his fingers out against the wall to balance himself now and again. ‘Jeremiah,’ my grandfather calls from inside his study. I jump and then press myself against the wall and quiet my breath. ‘I will not call you again, Jeremiah.’ His voice is flat, commanding. My body involuntarily moves to the doorway.