Icy Sparks (15 page)

I lowered my head. “I can't say I always do,” I said.

“Tell me about it,” Dr. Conroy said.

“Well, once I called someone a big fat liar when I knew that I was the one lying.”

“Why did you do that?” she asked.

“'Cause he was making fun of me.”

“How?” she asked.

“He said I had frog eyes, just like Peavy Lawson. He claimed he caught me behind Old Man Potter's barn, popping out my eyes and jerking. So I called him a polecat and a slimy ole pickle. Got so mad I lied like a tied dog. Then I turned the whole thing around and called him a liar when, all along, I knew I was the one lying.”

Dr. Conroy picked up the pencil again. “So you're saying you went behind a barn and popped out your eyes, just like he said you did.”

I cleared my throat. “Yes, ma'am,” I confessed, “and after that, I dumped my Coke all over his head.”

“Coke all over his head?”

“Uh-huh,” I mumbled.

Dr. Conroy leaned forward. “Icy,” she said, studying me, “why did you feel you had to lie? What's so horrible about popping out your eyes?” She was waving the pencil back and forth, her eyes fixed on mine.

I couldn't answer.

“Sometimes, when I get excited, I pop out my eyes,” she said. “Sometimes, when my bones ache, I crack my knuckles. Not very ladylike, is it?”

“But you don't do what I do.”

“And what do you do, Icy? I really don't understand what you do.” She took aim and pointed the pencil right between my eyes. “You can tell me the truth.”

“I…I…”

“Come on,” she urged. “Tell me.”

“I…I…I can act mean,” I blurted. “Sometimes I'm mean as a striped snake.”

“Explain!” she said, the pencil still pointed at me.

“One part of me is mean,” I spat out. “Another part is sweet. The trouble is, I don't know which part is biggest, the mean or the sweet.”

“How do you act when the mean part is biggest?” Dr. Conroy asked. “When that striped snake takes over?”

“I pop out my eyes, like Joel McRoy seen me do.” I looked right at the lead in that pencil of hers. “I jerk and twitch all over. My arms fly out. Ugly thoughts race through my brain. And sometimes I cuss a blue streak. I say words I didn't even know I knew.”

Dr. Conroy straightened up. “Icy, can you tell me why you get so upset?” she asked, calmly returning the pencil to her desktop.

“I don't know,” I said, nibbling at my lower lip. “I don't want to be bad. But if I don't let some of the badness out, I'll just explode. That's what I did with Mr. Wooten. I let some of the badness out. And when I did, I scared him. What I'm saying is I'm kinda like Matanni's teakettle. I gotta perk, a little bit at a time, or else I'll spew hot water all over the place.”

“That must frighten you?” she asked.

“What?”

“Waiting all the time for that big explosion,” she said. “Not knowing when it will come.”

“Yes, ma'am,” I answered. “I tried being neat and tidy 'cause that's how I wanted my mind to be. I cleaned up that supply room like it really belonged to me.”

“Supply room?” she said softly.

“Yes, ma'am,” I said. “After I acted up, Mrs. Stilton, my teacher, didn't want me in her room, so Mr. Wooten made the supply room mine. It had a chalkboard, books, and everything, and I could do with it as I pleased. So I got it in order. The oranges with the oranges. The reds with the reds. But I found out that my way of ordering wasn't a bit like his.”

“And that made you mad?”

“Mad as a hornet,” I said. “When he tried to change back my room, I took a big fit, jabbed him with my elbows, and cussed him like a sailor.” I lowered my voice. “I'm scared of the poison parts inside me. The roots and berries. They could get a person hurt.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, leaning slightly forward.

“Pokeweed,” I explained. “If you eat the leaves and stems, you'll be eating poor man's asparagus. But if you eat the roots and berries, you'll be eating poison. Me and the pokeweed are a lot alike. I got both parts in me, too. Excepting these days, I'm got more roots and berries than stems and leaves.”

“I don't see any poison parts,” she said in a gentle voice. “I've only seen good, healthy green parts.”

“What you see ain't always what you get,” I said. “If you was to see Mamie Tillman, you'd see a lonely young woman, but she's more than that.”

“Hold on, now.” Dr. Conroy took a deep breath. “Who's Mamie Tillman?”

“She's the neighbor I was telling Maizy about,” I explained. “I got to see way more of her than I wanted to.”

“Bad more or good more?” asked Dr. Conroy.

“Just more,” I answered. “You can't see poison,” I said. “You gotta eat poison to know it.”

“Well,” she said, “we wouldn't be talking about you again, now, would we?” Before I could answer her, she stared right at me and declared, “Icy, if you think I'm afraid of poison, you got something else coming. I never run from a challenge. The bigger, the better.”

“This time might be different,” I said.

Dr. Conroy slapped the desk with the flat of her hand. “Absolutely not!” she said. “Not if I have anything to do with it.” Then, placing both palms on her desktop, she stood up and said, “And remember, I don't lie.”

“A
ce is a genius,” Maizy announced, joining us. On the floor in the dayroom in front of the coffee table sat a boy about my age, drawing. Standing beside him, I watched as he drew. “That's a picture of downtown Spiveyville. He lived there when he was little. Every detail is right. I ought to know. Whenever I go back home, I pass right through it.”

Ace didn't acknowledge us. He just drew.

I noticed how tightly he gripped the pencil and how he puckered his lips, sucking them in and out with each pencil stroke. When I finally sat down next to him, he didn't seem to mind. He just kept on drawing, his lips working as hard as his hands.

“Look at it,” Maizy said. “Main Street with every store in place.”

My eyes took in the pencil drawing.

There was a Randall's Department Store with a large
SALE
sign in the window.
LINGERIE SALE
, 20%
OFF
, the sign read. Mannequins, wearing frilly nightgowns and sexy underwear, were meticulouly reproduced. A grocery store, called Wilson's, had a window filled with ads for food items—3 cans of Del Monte Cling Peaches for $.45; Stokley Green Beans @ $.15 a can; bananas, $.19 a lb., and so on. Zippy's Shoe Store flaunted a rack beside its front door. Footwear for men and women—tennis shoes, dress shoes, loafers, and boots—lined the rack. All shoes had price tags attached. Cars were parked in front of meters. People, gathering on the sidewalk, peered into display windows with curious expressions on their faces.

“I've never heard him speak,” Maizy said, “but he can draw. If he's hungry, he'll draw what he wants to eat. He talks with his pictures.”

“He writes, too,” I said, pointing at the lettering on the
SALE
sign in the window of Randall's Department Store.

“But he doesn't know what the letters mean,” Maizy said. “He draws them because he remembers how they looked. He can't read.”

“If he can't read, he's not a genius,” I said smugly.

“People are smart in different ways,” Maizy said. “Ace could pass by your bedroom door, stick his head inside for a minute, and be able to draw everything in it. He'd draw your books. They'd have titles and be stacked in the right order. He's got a photographic memory and a talent for drawing, so he's smart in his own way.”

“Really, you ain't ever heard him talk?” I asked.

“Not one word,” Maizy said.

“Has Reid ever talked?”

Maizy shook her head. “He chirps and makes little noises, but I've never heard him speak, either.”

“How about Head Butt-er?” I wanted to know.

“His name is Gordie,” Maizy said, a note of disapproval in her voice.

I nodded.

“He's never spoken to any of us,” Maizy said. “But Delbert swears that once he heard him cussing up a storm.”

“You don't say?” I said.

“He butted Ruthie. So Delbert made him go to his room and stay there. When Delbert checked in on him, Gordie was standing in front of his dresser mirror, cussing like a sailor. Naturally, he didn't know Delbert was standing there watching him. He spoke that time,” Maizy said, “only once, but it wasn't to us, just to himself in the mirror.”

“But he could, if he wanted to,” I said.

Maizy lifted her eyebrows. “And why do you say that?” she asked.

“'Cause he's dishonest,” I replied.

“How?” Maizy had crooked her head to the left and was staring at me sideways.

“He ain't what he appears to be,” I said.

Maizy laughed, jerking her head upright. “You just don't like him 'cause he butted Ruthie,” she teased.

“No,” I said, suddenly irritated. “That's not true. He's just like Mrs. Stilton, my mean ole teacher. His life ain't nothing but a lie.”

Maizy didn't respond. She just stood there—her head straight up and rigid—looking right through me. Then, after several minutes of silence, she glanced down and exclaimed, “The stoplight!” She was pointing at Ace's picture. “He's drawn the stoplight.” She grinned. “You see, he never misses a detail.”

A
fter lunch that day, I went to Ace's room. He was squatting on the floor, drawing a picture of a beautiful woman. I sat down beside him and watched as he drew the slow curve of her hips into her waist. The outline of her body exuded energy, rolling forward, like a wave breaking against the shore. Her lips, pursed and pouting, teased and licked; and, like an undertow, the curls of her waist-long hair drew me in.

“He thinks that's his mama,” Wilma scoffed, shuffling into the room.

“Oh,” I murmured, keeping my eyes down, avoiding hers.

“Yes, ma'am, ole Ace here dreams about his mama every night. Don't you, Ace?”

Ace didn't look up; he continued to draw.

“She never visits him, though,” Wilma said. “His daddy don't come neither. He'll be in this place till he gets too old to stay. Then they'll put him somewhere else.”

Ace held up his drawing and stared at it. I could see his lips twisting nervously.

“He sits in here drawing make-believe pictures of his family,” Wilma said. “Once, at the bottom of one, he printed ‘Mama's Love.' I got so excited, thinking I was seeing a likeness of the woman who created this.” Wilma walked over to where Ace sat and thrust her finger straight down into his shoulder. Stone-faced, Ace didn't react. “But then I found the magazine beneath his mattress. His mama turned out to be Miss August. It was a girlie magazine. ‘Can you handle some of Big Mama's Love?' it said.” With these words, she threw back her head and guffawed so hard that her face rippled into a great big roll of fat. I pulled air between my lips, focused my eyes on her, and glared. Deep inside my throat, a croak twitched anxiously up my windpipe, ready to leap out.

“Yes, ma'am, his mother was Miss August.” Wilma snickered. I balled up my hands, squeezing them so tightly that my fingernails cut into my skin. “Miss August,” she repeated, and began laughing again.

Ferociously, I clutched my fists, slammed them against my thighs, and sucked in my lips. I vacuumed up oxygen, but the croak shoved against my teeth.

“Miss August,” Wilma jeered. “The Playmate of the Month gave birth to this.” Once more, she jabbed her finger into Ace's shoulder. This time his face wrinkled; pain raced through his eyes.

I leaped up. “At least he don't have you for a mother,” I screamed, jutting out my chin. “You're ugly as ten miles of bad road. Uglier than a mud fence. Ugly! Ugly! Ugly!” My arms jerked to the left. “Your poor husband flew over the pretty flowers and landed on a cow pile,” I yelled. Then I jumped up really high, stretched out my legs into an airborne split, and descended, straight-legged, with a thud—my feet planted squarely on the floor. “Cow pile! Cow pile!” I bellowed, then stood absolutely still for several seconds, rolled back my head, and croaked vociferously at the top of my lungs.

“My Lord!” Wilma gasped, her skin the color of a rattler's underbelly. “You're a nutcase! A crazy person! A lunatic!” she screamed, whipping around and running from the room.

Upset, I croaked some more until my anger dissipated and my voice grew weary and heavy. Looking down, I saw Ace's shoulder, quivering violently. Remorseful, I leaned over and tenderly touched him there.

When I returned to the safety of my room, apprehension and fear flooded through me. Now I've done it, I thought, sitting on the edge of my bed. I've let loose my secret, not to Maizy, not to Dr. Conroy, who are my friends, but to Wilma, the most spiteful person here. I crawled into my bed and pulled up the covers. Breathing rhythmically, I closed my eyes.

In the darkness behind my eyelids, I saw Miss Emily. She was pouring me a cup of tea. “Would you like one or two lumps?” she asked, reaching for a sugar bowl, a spoon in her hand. Hadn't she promised to be my friend forever? “I'll always love you, Icy Gal,” she had said. “We're just alike.” I once thought Miss Emily never lied. Yet when I had asked her to visit me, she hadn't come. Had her devotion been an act? Perhaps her love had been made of words alone, and words—I realized—meant nothing. Like grains of sand, they flew away, never sticking.

But my words were different. Like glue, all of my curses, croaks, and jerks had stuck, and I had arrived here—at Bluegrass State Hospital—with the label
misfit
tattooed on my forehead. I wondered now what kind of sticking power mean words, spoken to a mean woman, had. A lot, I thought and shuddered, imagining Wilma rocking on her front porch during summer nights, delighting in the crackle of insects flying too close to a kerosene lantern, lit simply because she enjoyed the sound of death. In my imagination, I saw Wilma as a child, smiling gleefully, pulling the legs off grasshoppers. I shuddered again, contemplating what she must have in store for me. I envisioned her holding her brother's .410, shooting sparrows. I saw her drowning kittens, ducking their little heads into a tub of water. In that instant, I knew why she worked at Bluegrass State Hospital. She liked to feel the power of pure destruction; it made her feel like she would live forever.

With these fears on my mind, I slid into a troubled sleep.

Mamie Tillman—a yellow pacifier between her lips—was sinking beneath the surface of Little Turtle Pond. Frantically, I crawled along the pond's edge, crying out to her, then I turned to face the water, inhaled deeply, and submerged my head. The cold water closed over me. In the darkness below, a golden light shimmered. Closer and closer it came, glowing brighter and brighter, until the murky water was diffused with light. “Mamie!” I cried. “Where are you? Please come back!” At once, I heard the sound of skin sizzling. “Mamie!” I screamed, swishing my head beneath the water, finally seeing the lantern, burning red-hot in the darkness. The flame—like a tongue—flicked out. Mamie wailed. The water began to burn. Huge waves of smoke obliterated the light. In the distance, like a second voice, came the sound of laughter. Through the haze, I saw the figures—a loud, sinister, obscene Wilma snickering in the undertow, and Mamie Tillman, yellow pacifier between her lips, being swept away.

I
n the late afternoon, to keep my mind off my troubles, I decided to try one of the harder puzzles that were stacked on the bookshelf in the dayroom. It was a map of the state of Kentucky, consisting of 150 pieces, all of which were painted yellow. The fragments came together to form Kentucky's 120 counties. A picture of the state bird, the Kentucky cardinal; the state flower, goldenrod; the state motto, “United we stand, divided we fall”; and the state nickname, Bluegrass State, were the only distinguishing markers. Naturally, I knew some of the counties that slapped up against the Ohio, Kentucky, and Cumberland Rivers and could locate the Big Sandy and Little Sandy Rivers. I could even find the Licking River because it was forever flooding and creating all kinds of problems. Of course, I knew where Ginseng and Poplar Holler were, but I didn't know enough to piece together that puzzle in the two hours I had before supper. I had been working on it for over an hour and had finished only a third of it when I felt someone breathing down my neck.

Alarmed, I twisted around.

Head Butt-er, with a smirk on his lips and contempt in his eyes, was glaring straight ahead.

I nervously picked up a piece.

Head Butt-er tipped dangerously forward.

Terrified, I slid off my chair and ducked under the table. But Head Butt-er didn't see me. Instead, he was focused on the jigsaw puzzle. Every afternoon, he would piece several together. Starting at the top of each puzzle, he'd move mechanically straight across. Like a person writing on notebook paper, from the left to the right, he'd fit the pieces together. He always knew what piece to choose next. He never miscalculated; each fragment meshed snuggly into the other. Although I personally hadn't seen him work on every one of them, Delbert insisted that Gordie could do them all, even the five-hundred-piece ones, although he needed twenty-five minutes to finish each of those. Suddenly he leaned over and with one huge sweep of his arm wiped the table clean. The pieces of the puzzle scattered across the floor. Then he bent down and carefully retrieved each section. There, beneath the table, I waited, imagining him putting the puzzle together, not in my haphazard fashion, but in his own methodical way. He'd snap a piece into place, then grunt loudly. For ten minutes, I listened to one satisfied grunt after another. Then, after a momentary silence, he thumped the last piece into place; and, growling fiercely, he stomped his black-booted feet against the floor. At that moment, I hated him with all of my heart, and as his footsteps faded, I realized that he hated me, too. We hated each other for exactly the same reason. Gordie was smarter than I was. My ineptness bothered him. And as I crawled out from beneath the table, I understood at last that my sloppy way of putting puzzles together infuriated me even more.

I was dutifully heading down the hallway to my own room when—out of nowhere—I got this uneasy feeling. Stopping quickly, I listened for any unusual sounds, but heard nothing. Rather, an absolute, almost eerie silence filled the air. Again, I continued down the hallway, walking quietly and breathing shallowly, when all of a sudden a huge shadow shot out in front of me. Instantly, I stood still. Whipping around, I glanced in every direction, yet saw no one. “Calm down,” I told myself, stepping lightly. “Ain't no booger man gonna get you.” No sooner had I spoken those words than a loud thud rumbled behind me, and a huge body whizzed by, almost knocking me over. “Merciful Lord!” I cried, sprinting down the hallway, flying by the various-colored doors—their reds, greens, oranges, blues, and yellows splashing against my face. “Hold me in Your hands!” I asked God, flinging my door open.