Or grooming any dogs, either. I was working full time at Golly’s. It turned out Ghost lived over towards Fleenortown and drove right past, so he could pick me up on his way in. I wasn’t crazy about the hours he kept, or being alone in a Chevy pickup with Ghost and the thoughts in my head. Christ. But I got to work most days, other than the weeks he’d disappear on some kind of bender. I had to stay longer in the evenings, due to Ghost doing a lot of his business in the after-dark hours. But I got used to it. Swap-Out had a reliable source of weed and a generous heart. Definitely it helped the time go faster. Or maybe slower actually, but you didn’t care. Once in a great while he’d show up with a Glock 19 that belonged to one of the guys he lived with, and we’d set up a row of bottles on the edge of the roll-off for target practice. It was years since Mr. Peg had showed me how to shoot, so I wasn’t that great, but my aim got better over time. Swap-Out’s aim was scary as hell, permanently, improvement being not a Swap-Out thing. We kept an eye out for the aerosols, which over and above the huffing potentials made excellent targets. Big bang, for real. But we could get ourselves just as thoroughly entertained over some childish shit like stomping the bubbles of bubble wrap. Also you wouldn’t believe the number of hot dogs two deeply baked boys could put away. Mr. Golly had to be making extras on purpose.
After Swap-Out went home of an evening, I’d be on my own to hang out in the store and help Mr. Golly. He liked talking about his childhood in India, where evidently a lot of people lived in the dump itself. In houses they built out of actual trash. If that sounds like some wack fairy tale, I’m just going to say he was not a guy to lie to you. He acted like this was no big deal really, getting born and raised in a dump. He had all these great stories about what boys did to mess with each other, like traps, stink bombs, etc. For their holidays (and we’re talking some whole other Christianity) they built giant statues of their goddesses and elephants and such, out of—wait for it—stuff they found in the dump! God made out of garbage, you can’t make that up. It seemed like the old man had been saving up these stories his whole life, waiting for somebody to listen. He’d had a wife in there somewhere, but at this point in time I’m pretty sure I was it for Mr. Golly. Technically it turned out that he was Mr. Ghali this whole time. I saw him write that on the thing you sign for deliveries. I was surprised, but he said I was not the lone ranger, everybody in the county thought it was Golly’s Market. According to him, “Golly” meant “Gee, that is really great,” so the name was okay by him. Part of his advertising scheme.
Hearing these tales of his dump boyhood, sometimes I’d think of telling Miss Barks, how she’d be interested in the whole situation of foreign orphans. Then I’d remember: nope. I was back to Baggy Eyes as my caseworker, a sadder sack of person than ever, plus seriously pissed off at Miss Barks for abandoning ship to go chase her dreams. That made two of us, and I guess we both decided out of bitterness to say as little as possible to each other. She would call the house once a month while I was at work, and Mrs. McCobb would tell some lie about me being outside playing. Baggy would be glad to hear it, no need to talk to me. Just to be clear: I’m eleven. She’s my legal guardian. And her idea of a perfect ward of the state is one that’s AWOL.
The McCobbs by this time were fighting like cats and dogs. I’d hear them going at it in the kitchen before I was even awake, and at night up in their room, voices raised to be heard above crying babies. And even still Mrs. McCobb sometimes would up and tell me for no reason, like while she’s putting in a load of laundry, that she would never divorce Mr. McCobb.
If true, that’s about all that could be ruled out in the department what the hell next. In July the landlord threatened to kick them out unless they paid their back rent. Which they did, by dipping into the cash I’d earned at Golly’s. No confusion now about me chipping in. Did they plan to tell me? No. I found out from Haillie that heard her parents discuss it, taking my cash out of the drawer where they kept it. I went postal. The poor kid pissing herself, to see the level of catfuck she’d let out of the bag. I stormed upstairs, yelling how I was going to turn them in to DSS. How would I do that, without going into various not-legal things I’d done to make this money they’d taken? No idea, I just went with my gut. Some items in their bedroom got busted, including a lamp. The babies went off like a car alarm. Not a good scene. I took what was left of my cash, put it in a peanut butter jar, and said if they wanted my help they could fucking well ask.
What else were they going to use, though? Honestly, once I got over my Hulk moment I was more worried than mad. Without any car they were in pitiful shape. Sending their grocery list for me to bring home from Golly’s, then freaking out over paying double for a can of beans, etc. But they couldn’t very well walk the five miles to Food Lion. Mr. McCobb was getting whittled down to size. He still talked down to the wife and kids, but me he started treating like one of his buds. He was drinking a good deal of beer in the afternoons now, so I’d get home of an evening to find him in the kitchen wanting to share his tales of woe. Rarely was I in the mood. But if I went in my dog room he’d just follow me in there, which was worse. No place for two guys to sit, for one thing, underpants lying around for another. That weren’t even mine.
He felt like a loser, not providing for his family. He said it almost killed him to take my money and then get yelled at in front of his kids. He’d go all sorry, and the dog would look up at him with the whites of her eyes showing, and I’d feel like it was me that should apologize. Shame was a shithole I knew. He’d get in these sloppy moods of giving me life advice, like I was his real son. Which, even if beggars can’t be choosers, would not have been my first choice. He always ended up saying the same thing: If you spend one penny less than you earn every month, you’ll be happy. But spend a penny more than you earn, you’re done for. He’d look at me with those dark, sad eyes and lay this on me. That the secret of happiness basically is two cents.
By late summer the dog-grooming side of the fight had gotten nowhere, signs pointing to Ohio. Mrs. McCobb’s parents would call and she’d get the kids on the extensions, both crying. Daddy’s so mean they can’t have the littlest thing, no Barbies, no Lisa Frank, waah. My Lord, to think of Mr. McCobb moving in with those in-laws. A hot mess. They decided on leaving town before school started. Baggy would have to find me a new placement. And at least I’d finally be done worrying about that household, where the man of the house was the one sleeping in the dog room.
Now I could worry about my own next stop on the road to hell, with a caseworker that was not on the case. I had to call her to ask, was I going back to Creaky Farm. She said Crickson, and no. The DSS had discovered he was committing infractions, so they removed his fostering privileges. They were looking for somebody else to take the hardship cases. “Our kids that resist permanent placement,” was how she put it, and of course I thought of Tommy. He would not resist but throw his arms around a permanent placement. Never to draw a skeleton again.
Around this time I made my plan. Dangerous possibly, crazy for sure. All I can say is, you try living in crazytown for a while and see what you cook up.
All I had to my name was the jar of money I kept stashed in my backpack day and night. Every dollar I got paid, I stuffed in there on top of whatever the McCobbs had left me after paying off their landlord. I’d had no chance to make an exact count. No privacy at work, nor in my room at night, with the baby-cam. Those two watching me count my money, they’d pop a vein. But I got paid for eight hours most days, and had worked eight weeks that summer more or less. Less, due to Ghost going on some bad jags. It would have to be enough.
Because now it’s August. Mrs. McCobb is packing anything as yet unpawned into cardboard boxes, Mr. McCobb probably is weighing the pros and cons of a bullet in his brain, and still nobody can tell me where I’m going to live. Baggy’s idea of working on it is asking the same questions again. Did I have friends that could take me in a pinch? She’d checked back with the Peggots, which was embarrassing. How many times did I have to hear it? No, they did not want me. They did say I could come visit for a few days before school started, to spend time with Matthew. Meaning probably Maggot was bored, wearing eye makeup around the house and driving everybody nuts, and it dawned on the grandparents that I might be a good influence. And I thought: Damn it, I told you this. What I said to Baggy was, “Tell them I’ll consider it.”