I couldn’t wait any longer. One afternoon, I unscrewed the caps on their bottles of wine and carefully poured in the aspirin I had ground into a fine powder. I did the same with their other booze. I couldn’t know which ones they would drink. Or even if what I heard about mixing aspirin and booze would work. But I couldn’t run, and there was no place to hide.
If it didn’t work, I told myself, no matter what happened, it would be over. What they were … doing to me, it would be over. I didn’t care about anything else.
When they fell out that night, the woman was on the couch. The man made it to their bedroom. The son slept in the basement—the same basement he used to make me go down into with him. Whenever he wanted.
I did him first, spraying him with a gentle mist of gasoline. Then I crept upstairs for the man. The woman was last. I think I hated her the worst. I don’t know why—I was already old enough to know that all that stuff about mothers was a lie.
Then I opened the door to the oven and turned on the gas, full-blast. I went around the house, making sure all the windows were shut. The smell was making me sick. I eased open the back door, used the last of my hoarded gasoline to soak a bundle of rags. I dropped a match on the bundle. As soon as it was blazing, I threw it as far inside the house as I could.
And I ran.
I was just a kid, but I’d been schooled. No matter how many times they asked me, I told them the same story. I was out when it happened. Prowling the streets, looking for something to steal. When I finally got back to that wood-frame foster home, it was real late. I was going to sneak in, like I had plenty of times before. That’s when I saw the flames and the fire trucks and all the rest.
One of the cops hit me on top of my head with the flat of his hand. He kept asking me questions, then hitting me every time I answered. It made me so dizzy that I threw up. On him. He picked me up and flung me into the wall, cursing. A couple of other cops pulled him off. They told me to get in the bathroom and clean myself off.
When I came out, there was a woman there. A pretty woman, I thought, with reddish-brown hair and a nice smile. She asked me the same questions as the cops. I gave her the same answers.
They put me in a cell.
In court, all I remember is the judge yelling at one of the men in suits. They used a lot of words I didn’t understand, but I remember hearing “evaluation” a lot.
That’s how I ended up in the crazy house.
I wasn’t afraid of the people who asked the questions. All their questions were stupid. Did I like to play with matches? Did I like to watch fires? One even asked me if I wanted to be a fireman when I grew up.
The big-cheese doctor there, he got mad when I asked him if I could have a cigarette. He thought I was fucking with him. Maybe that’s why he was the boss—he was smarter than the others.
One of them—a social worker, I think, but all I knew was that she was “staff”—asked me if the people in that foster home had … done anything to me. I told them they were mean. I said they hit me and made me work all the time and only gave me the crappiest food. And I told her they were drunk all the time, especially at night. She nodded when I said that, like I’d just confirmed something they already knew.
I knew if I said it had been a nice place they’d know I was lying. But I never told anyone what those people really did. Then they’d know a lot more. Not about those people. About me.
They had all kinds of kids in there. Just like the institution. They were all State kids, too. Or poor ones. If you had people, and if your people had money, they said there were “private facilities” you could go to.
Some of the kids cried all the time. One kid played with himself. Right in front of everyone. His cock was bloody from him constantly pulling at it. Some of them talked to themselves … or to somebody I couldn’t see. Some just stayed wherever staff put them. On the floor, in a chair, in bed—it didn’t matter to them.
I knew the kids to watch out for. The ones with all the best clothes. The ones with the best bunks. Stuff like that. I knew how they got those things. And I knew I didn’t have anything worth taking. Except for …
So the first thing I did was find something to make myself a shank with. Soon as I did, I let one of the kids with all the good stuff see it. Just like the institution. And, just like the institution, I had to stick one of them just so they’d know I wasn’t bluffing. Nobody called the cops. What could you do to a crazy kid, anyway? That’s how I found out about the padded rooms.
When Lune came in, I knew he was going to do his time bad. He was the prettiest boy I’d ever seen in my life. He looked like a little doll. And one of the kids with all the stuff wanted to play with him. Eugene Hunsaker was his name. I guess Lune never forgot it, either.
It was none of my business when Hunsaker’s crew grabbed Lune over in a corner of the ward. But when Lune broke free and ran, he headed straight to my bunk. Hunsaker and one of his boys were right behind him. Taking their time. Laughing, knowing nobody was going to come in and stop them. A few extra screams in that place wouldn’t raise an eyebrow, much less a guard.
I don’t know what happened. Maybe Hunsaker’s rape-partner looked a little like the son in that foster home. My circuits just snapped.
All I had was the thick end of the antenna I’d snapped off a portable radio, with the open part ragged and sharp. I stabbed Hunsaker’s partner in the arm with it. He shrieked like it had been an icepick to the balls, and that was it for him.
I yelled “Fight!” to Lune. He turned around like a robot following orders. He did his best, but you could see he’d never fought before. Hunsaker was pounding his beautiful face into a pulpy mess, giggling.
I nailed the scumbag in the back of his neck with my antenna, driving hard. But Hunsaker was a lot tougher than his partner. He just dropped to one knee, grabbed my arm, and flipped me over his shoulder.
Hunsaker was on top of me, trying for my throat. Lune dove down on him, flailing away—all he did was add to the weight. I kept trying for Hunsaker’s eyes, but he’d been there before and blocked me easily. It was all going hazy when I heard the whistle, and I knew the guys with the hypos were on the way.
Hunsaker and his partner wouldn’t tell what happened. They knew I wouldn’t talk, either—we’d all come up in the same places.
But Lune told them that it was his antenna, and that he stuck both of them because they were all part of “it.” He kept demanding to see his parents. One of the orderlies laughed when he said that. If he could have seen what was in Lune’s eyes then, he never would have.
Lune told me that his real parents had been stolen, and he had to find them. There was some kind of plot—I
