Horse Camp (3 page)

Mom:
I can't, Allen! I don't believe the things you say. I don't like what you stand for. You're a poser, a faker, and I'm not going along with it anymore. You're taking money from people who've worked hard to earn it.

Dad:
The money is donated for the church.

Mom:
(Interrupting,
again
.) But you are the church!

The church's success is your success. The money is for you, for your ego. The bigger the church, the bigger the man.

Dad:
Well, you've not complained one bit about the life we've lived.

Mom:
Well, I'm complaining now. Consider this an official complaint.

And on and on it went. Mom told Dad that she questioned his very belief in his own religion. She called him a money-hungry poser about a hundred and four times. She said he just watches televangelists and then copies basically everything they do, particularly their faith-healing techniques. Then she started shaking and raising her arms and mocking him in a low, rumbly voice like Dad uses:
Do you believe? Do you believe you can be healed? If you believe in Him, you
will
be healed!
Dad got really mad and looked up to the ceiling, and I thought he was going to call down some punishment on Mom. But he didn't. He's a very forgiving kind of person. He's a servant of God, after all, and how can you argue with that? But then he said this:

Dad:
Well then, I guess you won't mind if I don't post bail for you. You can sit in jail while you wait for your trial. Come to think of it, I don't think it would be right to use the church's money to bail out a criminal like yourself.

Mom:
You'd leave the kids without their mother just to prove a point?

Dad:
They're better off without you, anyway. You're a bad influence.

Mom:
You wouldn't dare. Who's going to care for them?

Dad:
That's your problem. I've got to catch a flight out of here in the morning, to set up the next church. You figure it out.

Then he left. True to his word, Dad cancelled the check on Mom's bail.

Mom likes to argue about everything. She thinks she's above the law of God and everyone else. And that's why we're here at Horse Camp without Dad and Mom while they sort out their professional and personal lives. She's gotten herself into trouble for acquiring and distributing pharmaceuticals without a license. If you think it sounds bad, that's because it is. Even though Mom is a nurse in the United States, that doesn't mean she can go to any old country and be a nurse there. They have laws! But did that stop her from helping people? No. Did that stop her from bringing prescription medications to people in Africa and the Philippines? No. Did that stop her from buying cheap generic drugs from Canada? No. Did that stop her from holding meetings with the women of the villages to talk to them about diet, health, exercise, and immunizing their children? No. Did that stop her from warning those women about big drug companies coming into their countries and using them as guinea pigs to test out their new medicines? No. Did that stop her from writing extensive editorials to all the major newspapers about how the pharmaceutical companies are using human beings in poor countries to test out their new drugs? No.

What the trial's really about is money, Mom says. She says that the big, fat drug companies are just mad that she revealed their dirty little secret, and they're making an example of her. She says, shame on them. I see her point, but
she
is the one on trial and facing prison time.
She
is the one responsible for the disintegration of our nuclear family, and
nothing's
worse than that.

Since she was arrested and sued, Mom has been in the newspapers and on TV and the Internet, and
not
in a good way. Even CNN ran a story on her arrest. Someone put it on YouTube, and most of the comments below the video are very disparaging. Dad got really mad at her for embarrassing him and threatening his authority in the new church he's been working on. The week before we kids got sent here, he even gave a sermon about how good people sometimes have to cut the ties with bad influences and evil forces in their lives. Mom sat straight and calm in the front row like she always does, but her face turned from tan to white. Dad was pretty harsh, but she shouldn't have been doing things that were illegal, for goodness' sake. He does have to think about his flock and the way things look. I mean, that's just the nature of his calling. Anyway, a couple of days later, he filed for divorce. I was pretty surprised, but now I can see that he's just trying to teach her a lesson and doesn't really want to divorce her.

You might think I'd be really upset about all of this, but I'm not. Dad is only trying to scare Mom straight. Being here seems like a sort of joke, and I don't plan on having to stay for more than another week. Two weeks, tops.

DEAR OKONKWO,

EVEN THOUGH I AM PERSONALLY EXPERIENCING MANY PERSONAL TRAGEDIES IN MY OWN LIFE, ONE OF WHICH IS THAT I NO LONGER HAVE ACCESS TO THE INTERNET, I AM HAPPY TO HELP YOU. BEFORE I LOST ALL ACCESS TO THE OUTSIDE WORLD, I SAW AN AD FOR CHRISTIANS SAVING HUNGRY CHILDREN AND DECIDED TO ADOPT YOU. WHILE I DON'T HAVE A LOT OF MONEY, I CAN SPARE SOME AND AM SENDING $5 WITH THIS LETTER. I'VE SEEN MANY, MANY COMMERCIALS ON TELEVISION FOR CHRISTIANS SAVING HUNGRY CHILDREN AND EVEN LIVED IN AFRICA FOR A WHILE, SO I KNOW YOUR NEED IS GREAT AND URGENT. I ALSO KNOW HOW THIS ADOPTION THING WORKS, AND I MUST SAY YOU ARE ONE LUCKY YOUNG MAN. I WILL BE SENDING YOU MONEY AND THE WORD OF GOD IN THE MAIL ONCE A MONTH FROM NOW ON, AND I MAY MAKE A USEFUL SUGGESTION OR TWO TO HELP YOU LIVE A BETTER LIFE.

REMEMBER THAT EVEN THOUGH YOU ARE POOR, YOU ARE A CHILD OF GOD, AND JESUS LOVES YOU.

YOURS TRULY IN CHRIST,

PENELOPE PRIBYL

I
'M IN BED, drawing by the light of my flashlight when I feel a
whump
—Pauly kicking the underside of my mattress through the metal bars from the bunk below. Another
whump
comes, and then another.

“Pauly, knock it off!” I whisper.

Whump, whump.

“Pauly!”

“Light off, P.P.,” says Pauly.

“Not yet,” I say to him. “I'm not finished, you jerk.”

Even though Pauly isn't my real brother, he annoys me like a real brother. Everybody thinks he's so cute. Penny always sides with him, and so do Mom and Dad, usually, but he's not as cute as he looks. Even though I'm over twice his age, he starts about every fight we have.

Whump, whump, whump.
The last
whump
is so hard that I go flying up like a horse bucked me, which would never actually happen around here because no kids can even ride the worthless horses.

“Pauly!” I hiss.

“Tohn yoh light off, Pohcy,” says Pauly, loudly.

Pauly has an
R
problem. I'd make more fun of him for it, except I had it, too, until second grade, even though we're not related. As a result of this, he usually avoids
R
words. Like, instead of calling something a
car
because it will sound like
cow
, he'll call it
you know, that thing with wheels
. It's also one reason he often calls me by my initials, P.P., instead of Percy. The other reason, of course, is that P.P. sounds like, you know, number one. Pauly talks as little as possible, maybe because of the
R
thing or because he's still getting used to the American English accent instead of his native accent or because he just doesn't feel like it. He's a man of action, as my dad says. Problem is, most of his actions annoy me.

Our door cracks open, and Penny sticks her head in. “Uncle Stretch said lights out!” she says. “You need to respect his word, Percy.”

Uncle Stretch did say we're supposed to have lights out, but I really want to finish this drawing I started two days ago. It's a freehand copy of a picture of Perseus, the Greek warrior guy I was named after, although I prefer to be called Percy. It's from a book of Greek mythology that I was given by some pastor friend of my parents. In the picture, Perseus defends himself from an attacking soldier.

I've barely had any time at all to draw since Uncle Stretch decided on working me to death here at Horse Camp. Instead of drawing, I have to feed pigs and cows and shovel junk around and power-wash things. It's exhausting. I will never be a farmer when I grow up.

“I'm busy, Penny,” I say, “so why don't you go back to your own room and mind your own business, okay?”

“I rebuke that spirit of rebellion rearing its ugly, horned head in you, Percy,” says Penny. “I rebuke it in the name of Jesus.”

It frustrates me that Penny's always trying to talk like Dad. Ever since we got to Horse Camp, it seems she's trying to
be
Dad or Mom. “Go rebuke yourself,” I say back, loud. My voice gets loud when I'm excited.

There's a pounding on the walls downstairs followed by Uncle Stretch's voice yelling, “What's going on up there?”

Penny's eyes get big. “We have to obey Uncle Stretch,” she says.

“He can go to heck,” I say. “And you can go back to your room.”

Penny covers her mouth like she's shocked, but she's just a big faker. She turns to scamper out of the room, but first she says, “I'll pray for you, Percy.”

I try to get back to work on the drawing, doing some shading on the muscles of Perseus's arm, which holds a big sword. I wish I had a sword, sometimes. A guy we knew once in Zambia had one.

Just as I really begin to concentrate, Pauly kicks at my mattress again, making me scribble a jagged line across my picture.

“Dang you, Pauly!” I say, and I swing my pillow over the side, under the bed, and nail him. He kicks my mattress again, and I almost fly off.

“Pauly, stop it now!” I say. “You're going to hurt somebody.”

He
whump
s again, and I have to hang on to the rail to keep from falling out of the bed.

“You little idiot!” I say, and swing my pillow under again. The overhead light snaps on as my pillow catches Pauly, and he thumps backwards into the wall. Hard.

Before I know it, Pauly's crying, and Uncle Stretch is yanking me out of bed by my neck, throwing me to my feet, and kicking me in the butt. He wears an old-fashioned nightgown that looks like a woman's. I'm caught between howling in self-defense and laughing. A weird sound comes out of my mouth.

“You should pick on somebody your own size,” says Uncle Stretch.

“There
is
nobody else my size around here,” I say, rubbing my butt. “And thanks for breaking my tailbone.”

“You got a smart mouth, Son,” says Uncle Stretch. He goes over to Pauly and sits on the bottom bunk. “Stop crying now, kiddo,” he says to Pauly, who's rubbing his head. “You're fine now. Stop crying, I said. Be a man.”

Pauly stops crying instantly, like somebody turned off a faucet. He even smiles a little.

“Well, I'm not your son,” I say. I don't know exactly what makes me say it. Maybe Uncle Stretch kicking me. Maybe the fact that Pauly listens to Uncle Stretch like
he
is his son. Either way, I'm usually not such a smart mouth.

“What?” says Uncle Stretch.

“P.P. said he's not yoh son,” says Pauly.

“I heard him,” says Uncle Stretch, “I just can't believe my ears.”

“Believe 'em,” I say.

“That's it,” says Uncle Stretch. He grabs me by the back of the neck and marches me out of the room and into the hall. Penny's standing in the doorway of her room, and we march right past her.

“Ow,” I say. “You're crushing my spinal cord!”

Uncle Stretch doesn't say anything, and he doesn't let go. He just stomps us down the stairs and out the front door. It's dark out, but the air is warm.

“Where are you taking me?” I yelp.

A couple of Uncle Stretch's farm dogs run over to us and jump up at me as I walk fast, hunched over, with Uncle Stretch's eagle talon hand clamped on to my neck. I kick at one of the dogs, and Uncle Stretch stops us and jerks me straight up.

“Ow!” I say.

“You will respect all forms of life on this farm, and that includes your brother, your sister, me, yourself, and all the animals, including the dogs,” he says.

I don't get a chance to respond. Uncle Stretch is ramrodding me along, and I can barely even see where we're going. We go into a small wooden building that smells like cobwebs and dead bugs and old dust. It's dark in there, and he tugs me this way and that, and suddenly we're clomping up some wooden steps.

We enter a room, and finally Uncle Stretch releases me from his death grip. I go stumbling across the floor and almost trip over something I can barely see. A big saddle. Uncle Stretch stands close to the stairs we came up, just a square hole in the floor. The moonlight through the window lights him up like a gigantic, mean, crazy, tough lumberjack. A lumberjack in a nightshirt.

I just look back at him.

We stand there for a minute or two.

“Where is this supposed to be?” I say.

Uncle Stretch says nothing. He just stands there with his arms crossed.

“I said, ‘Where is this supposed to be?' ”

“You will ask any and all questions with respect, or you won't ask them at all.”

“Why should I respect you?” I say. “You don't care about me. You hate me.”

“You don't know anything about what I think, young man.”

“Well, can you just tell me where we are?”

“This is the granary.”

“What?”

“The granary. We used to keep corn here years ago, and then later on, Roland and his friends fixed it up into a clubhouse. Roland used to sleep out here sometimes in the summer.”

“Who's Roland?”

“My son.”

“I never heard about him.”

Uncle Stretch just stands there. The moon shines off his eyes.

“Where's he live now?”

“He's dead,” says Uncle Stretch.

I don't know what to say to that, so I just stand there. I kick at the saddle.

“Bed's still there,” says Uncle Stretch. “There's some horse blankets over in that corner.” He points.

“I'm supposed to sleep out here or something?” I get a worried feeling in my gut.

“You're not sleeping in my house until you can learn respect.”

“I've got respect!” I say. “I've got all kinds of respect!”

Uncle Stretch takes a step at me like he's going to go for my neck again. I flinch and back up.

“No, you don't,” he says. He turns and disappears down the hole in the floor, and it's me, a saddle, an old bed, some horse blankets, and the moon.

I look around the place, but everything's mostly dark. I have to get right up to something to see it. There are a couple of posters on one wall, a couple of football guys I've never heard of, Joe Montana and Tommy Kramer. There are also some smaller pictures. I have to get really close to see, but when I do, I nearly jump back. Women in swimsuits! In one, this lady wears a swimsuit that looks as if it is made of black rubber instead of normal swimsuit material. The rubber swimsuit also looks like it was made for a one-armed person. Half of it is missing, although the lady is covering up her bare breast with her arm. She also has a diving mask up on her forehead and is sucking her finger. Looking at the way she is sucking on that finger sends a surge of blood through my body. It's too dark to see it really good, though. I'll have to remember to look at it better during the daytime.

There's an old exercise bike in one corner, and some barbell weights on the floor and other junk I can't see. Some bottles and jars sit up higher on a shelf, but I don't even want to know what's in them. Probably booze or pee or pig pee.

I go over to the bed. When I lift the blanket, a big cloud of dust scatters up and gets in my eyes and mouth. I cough for a while until the dust settles. I go over to the pile of horse blankets in the corner and lift one up, and another dust cloud rises. I hack and cough, and chuck the thing against the wall. More dust spreads out, and I have to hang out on the other side of the room for a while.

I sit on the exercise bike and put my feet on the pedals. I push them a few times before the gear gets stuck and the pedals won't go. I start hearing little creaks and clicks. I wonder how many mice or rabid raccoons or skunks live here. There are probably all sorts of wild animals waiting to take a chomp out of my leg. We'll see who the sorry one is when I wake up dead tomorrow. I hope someone sues Uncle Stretch for putting me in this situation. He'll get arrested. He can spend some time in jail then, which isn't much better than this.

I stare at the moon. I have never been so bored, mad, tired, lonely, scared, trapped. I think about crying or sneaking back into the house, where I'm sure Penny and Pauly are happily snoring away. I don't dare.

“Where am I?” I say to myself about a hundred times. I think for a while and then say, “Why am I here?” about a hundred more.

Nobody speaks up to answer my question, not Joe Montana or Tommy Kramer, not the finger-sucking lady in the rubber swimsuit, not even me.