Luckily Miss Barks kept up the forms for my free lunch at school, but I was off the list for Backpacks of Love, with the church ladies figuring out I was somebody else’s problem now. At school I cruised the lunchroom with some other guys, picking off extra fries or whatever we could score. Maggot wasn’t in on it anymore. He was getting fed at home on black eye pea soup, ham biscuits, apple cobblers, and all the other best things ever known, and not all that thankful for it honestly. He and I were still best friends and blood brothers of course, but in January we got reassigned to new homerooms after too many homeroom make-out sessions between certain girl and boy parties, so I didn’t see much of Maggot unless our lunch periods crossed. If we did talk, he’d bring up that Mrs. Peggot was asking about me. What was I supposed to say to that? I told him not to worry, I was in a new foster with my own room and it was awesome. I told him they had a dog, to make him jealous. I said, “We have a dog,” even though their bitch Missy actually wanted nothing to do with me. Possibly due to getting kicked out of her room.
Our lunchroom visits never lasted long. I always downed my lunch fast and then hung out by the kitchen shelf thing where we put our trays. Some people and especially girls would bring back their lunch basically untouched, drop the tray, and waltz away like food grew on trees. Apples without one bite out of them, milk cartons not even opened. It killed me to think how this was happening at other lunch periods without me there to grab it. I mean, first graders, probably throwing away the best stuff. You want to cry for the waste.
In the day-to-day, I got by. Weekends were rough. I had dreams about food that went to the extreme. Like I’m eating a large pizza with pepperoni, smelling that peppery meat smell, the cheese with that great rubber feeling in my teeth, and then, bang! Awake. Back in the dog room, hungry. I’d go through the dirty clothes pile looking for edibles. Haillie sometimes would leave a box of Junior Mints or something in the pocket of her little shorts. I’d sniff it out like a dog.
I wanted to tell Mrs. McCobb how hungry I was, trust me. Maybe mention that being over five feet tall and wearing the biggest shoes of anybody in that house, I might be considered more of a two-burger person than a one-burger like their first and second graders. I had this conversation with her in my head, six ways to Sunday. It always ended like my last talk with Mrs. Peggot. I’d given up all hope of rescue by that point in time. I’d already complained to Miss Barks, and she discussed it, but the McCobbs acted all shocked, saying they fed me night and day, how could a boy still be hungry after eating as much as I did? Miss Barks bought their story. She said if I didn’t get enough, for goodness’ sake, ask for seconds. If it even crossed her pretty head that these people were lying, stealing cheats, she was short on options. She had to let it go.
She stuck with a different theory: I needed to be more pushy with them. Did she give up on her dreams? No, she worked hard for what she wanted. Did I expect anybody to look out for Damon if he wouldn’t look out for himself? Life is what you make it! Here’s where Miss Barks didn’t grow up: foster care. She had no clue how people can be living right on the edge of what’s doable. If you push too hard, you can barrel yourself over a damn cliff.
Mrs. McCobb was not that bad a person, just going nuts with those kids on her every minute of the day. And I mean on her. The babies did all their sleeping or not sleeping, eating, screaming, diaper changing, etc. upstairs in her and her husband’s bedroom, and most days she wouldn’t make it downstairs till noon or after, in her pj’s and robe. Or if dressed, it was the type outfit where you can’t tell a hundred percent if it’s clothes or pj’s. Her hair she wore in a half-assed ponytail that got washed on rare occasions. She and I did our talking in the car, where she’d tell me her worries that I was to keep to myself, which I did. I did not follow the Miss Barks plan of Speaking Up for Demon at these moments. The idea of people wanting at all times to hear your problems, that’s a child thing. I had eyes. I saw Mrs. McCobb was in no mood.
The reason of us being in the car was her taking me around to the pawnshops. You’d not think there would be a thing left in that house to pawn, but she’d come up with something. An entire string of pearls that had been her mom’s. Nice stuff, jewelry she was aiming to keep, but then couldn’t. Or one of the kids’ two Walkmans that they each got from their grandparents. She decided they could share just the one. Conniptions were had. Little Haillie screaming bloody murder, her mother pulling it out of her hands, Mr. McCobb saying whatever price she gets for that piece of Chinese-made crap, he hopes it’s worth the kid having her walleyed fit.
And baby equipment, my Lord. There wasn’t even room for it upstairs, they piled it in the empty living room. All in like-new condition. You would not believe the tackle that’s been invented for babies: swings, bouncy seats, so-called infant gym. Like an infant needs that. Somebody had spent a pile of money on those twins. Turns out it was Mrs. McCobb’s parents, that were well off and lived in the city someplace far away. Ohio. She grew up over there and it seemed like she couldn’t get settled in here, always wanting to buy the better kind of things, to impress who exactly, I couldn’t guess. She didn’t speak to her neighbors. She said her parents didn’t approve of Mr. McCobb but loved to spend on the kids, and if they ever found out she was pawning it all, they would disown her. Considering the Walkman shitstorm though, it was probably a smart move to sell off the baby crap now, before those babies got attached.
Our pawn trips happened on the weekends whenever Mr. McCobb didn’t need the car and could look after the two older kids. The plan eventually was to get a second car or ideally a minivan so she could take all the kids to fun places, but so far she was only getting as far as pawnshops. We’d go to different ones in Pennington Gap or drive all the way over to Jonesville or Rose Hill. Mrs. McCobb said she liked to spread the love around. The part I liked was on the way back stopping for a Sonic burger if the sales had gone okay. But those were some long drives, let me tell you. Rose Hill, with the twins in their two car seats caterwauling in stereo.
Even spreading the love that far, the shop owners mostly knew Mrs. McCobb, which is why she took me along. She would park up the street and send me into a shop with the jewelry or baby bouncer, and not go in herself. Seriously awkward, me trying to deal with these crusty old pawn guys. I offered to stay with the babies so she could go in, but no. She always told me what to say, genuine cubic zircomium, factory packaging, etc. I was supposed to say my mom was sick, aka some lady that was not Mrs. McCobb, but they still figured it out. I mean, it’s Lee County, you can run but you can’t hide. The guy at Here Today Loan and Pawn just shook his head and said he knew Eva McCobb was out sitting in her car, so I’d best go get her.
Which I did. A yelling match ensued, with him following her out to the sidewalk saying if she was too proud to come in his shop, she could send her husband instead of a boy to do a man’s errand. And her yelling back that he was a damn low-baller, thinking she was so hard up she’d take whatever lousy price he offered. And him yelling she could do her whining closer to home. Etc. This being a Saturday in downtown Jonesville, they drew a pretty good crowd.
She didn’t say a word the whole drive home, except to swear she would never divorce Mr. McCobb in a million years. This was something she would say, just out of the blue. With nobody asking her to divorce him, that I knew of.