Rudy came for the next six years.
... where I learned to read and write. A man named Rudy Sparkman came to help me. I was very lucky to have him. In 1984 the orphanage went broke. They placed as many kids that they could, but I was not one of them. They said I would get in with a family after a while and the state would pay them for keeping me. I wanted to go with Rudy but Rudy was in Africa working for the Peace Corps.
So I ran away. Being sixteen, I don't think they looked for me too hard. I figured if I could stay out of trouble I would be all right, and so far so good. I have been taking the high school correspondence courses one at a time, because Rudy always said education is the most important. When I settle down for a while I'm going to take that high-school equivalency test. I will be able to pass it soon. I like school. Maybe I will go to college someday. I know that sounds crazy, a deaf-mute bum like me, but I don't think it's impossible. Anyway, that's my story.
Yesterday morning Baker had come in around seven-thirty while Nick was emptying wastebaskets. The sheriff looked better.
"How you feeling?" Nick wrote.
"Pretty good. I was burnin up until midnight. Worst fever I've had since I was a kid. Aspirin didn't seem to help it. Janey wanted to call the doc, but around twelve-thirty the fever just broke. I slep like a log after that. How are you doing?"
Nick made a thumb-and-forefinger circle.
"How's our guests?"
Nick opened and closed his mouth several times in a mime jabbering. Looked furious. Made banging gestures on invisible bars.
Baker threw back his head and laughed, then sneezed several times.
"You ought to be on TV," he said. "Did you write your life story down like you said you was gonna try to do?"
Nick nodded and handed the two sheets of longhand over. The sheriff sat down and read them carefully. When he was done he looked at Nick so long and so piercingly that Nick stared down at his feet for a moment, embarrassed and confused.
When he looked up again Baker said: "You've been on your own since you were sixteen? For six years?"
Nick nodded.
"And you've really taken all these high school courses?"
Nick wrote for some time on one of the memo sheets. "I was way behind because I started to read & write so late. When the orphanage closed I was just starting to catch up. I got six h.s. credits from there and another six since then from La Salle in Chicago. I learned about them from a matchbook cover. I need four more credits."
"What courses do you still need?" Baker asked, then turned his head and shouted: "Shut up in there! You'll get your hotcakes and coffee when I'm damned good and ready and not before!"
Nick wrote: "Geometry. Advanced math. Two years of a language. Those are the college requirements."
"A language. You mean like French? German? Spanish?"
Nick nodded.
Baker laughed and shook his head. "Don't that beat all. A deaf-mute learning to talk a foreign language. Nothing against you, boy. You understand that."
Nick smiled and nodded.
"So why you been driftin around so much?"
"While I was still a minor I didn't dare stay in one place for too long," Nick wrote. "Afraid they'd try to stick me in another orphanage or something. When I got old enough to look for a steady job, times got worse. They said the stock-market crashed, or something, but since I'm deaf I didn't hear it (ha-ha)."
"Most places would have just let you ramble on," Baker said. "In hard times the milk of human kindness don't flow so free, Nick. As for a steady job, I might be able to put you onto something around here, unless those boys soured you on Shoyo and Arkansas for good. But... we ain't all like that."
Nick nodded to show he understood.
"How's your teeth? That was quite a shot in the mouth you took."
Nick shrugged.
"Take any of those pain pills?"
Nick held up two fingers.
"Well, look, I got some paperwork to do on those boys. You go on with what you were doing. We'll talk more later."
Dr. Soames, the man who had almost hit Nick with his car, came by around 9:30 A.M. the same morning. He was a man of about sixty with shaggy white hair, a scrawny chicken neck, and very sharp blue eyes.
"Big John tells me you read lips," he said. "He also says he wants to see you gainfully employed, so I guess I better make sure you're not going to die on his hands. Take off your shirt."
Nick unbuttoned his blue workshirt and took it off.
"Holy Jesus, lookitim," Baker said.