I cant write much. If they catch me at it Ill get a whipping for sure.
I found this notebook behind the nurses desk when I was sweeping up. It had fell between the desk and the wall and it look like it had been there a long time because there was spiderwebs and dead bugs on it. so I think she forgot about it a long time ago and will not miss it. there was a pencil stub in her trash can. and this Prince Albert tobacco can in the dump. I don’t know why somebody would throw away this can. It has a picture of Prince Albert in a fancy coat and hat, and the lid fits tight, just like on a paint can, but there’s a little metal key like a bottle opener that slides clear around the top of the can so you can pry the lid open whenever you want to. The can still smells good when I open it. Theres a few bits of tobacco down in the bottom. I thought about cleaning them out when I first found the can but I’m glad I didn’t because I like the way it smells.
Papaw use to smoke Prince Albert and his cloths and his car always smelled like this. One time when I was little I asked him could I take a puff on his pipe. He laughed at me and said lord no, boy, youd be sick as a dog. I didnt believe him so I kept asking and asking until finely he let me. The smoke made me cough and get dizzy and then I threw up. Papaw laughed when I was coughing but when I threw up he felt bad for me. then my ma heard me and came outside. she got mad at me for smoking and got mad at Papaw for him letting me smoke. A 7 year old child should not be smoking she said, and a old man with no teeth should know better than to let him. you both need a good thrashing to beat some sense into you. Papaw said go right ahead but she had better start with him first, and he reckoned even if he was a old man with no teeth, he bet he could still turn her over his knee like he used to when she was just a little shit-tail. she looked even madder when he told her that, but she never whipped me then. she waited till the next day, when he was gone, and then she whipped me twice as hard.
I can smoke without coughing now. Even cigarets, but I dont smoke much. For one thing its hard to get cigarets here, you have to steal them from one of the guards or staff, and if you get caught stealing it might be the last thing you ever do. Stealing or trying to run away, those are the surest ways to wind up in the bone yard. Thats what Jared Mcwhorter told me, and hes been here almost a year. So he should know. Besides I dont even like the taste of the smoke. its just something to do.
We got a new boy yesterday, Buck. He is from over at Perry, which is east of Tallahassee, he said. He got caught throwing rocks through some church windows, which is worse than what I done, which was only playing hookie. But it still dont seem worth sending him to this place for. so he mustve got in trouble before. or maybe hes a orphan and they didn’t want him at the orphanage no more. I will find out when I can. but I have to be careful about talking to him. You can get the shit beat out of you for talking. Talking dont get you in as much trouble as smoking, and for sure not as much as stealing or running. But talking is not worth a beating.
there is nigger boys here, but not in our building. they are in some other buildings just down the road. I wonder if they get treated as bad as what we do.
I have to stop now or Ill be in trouble for taking me so long to take the trash to the dump. Writing is not worth a beating. But I will write again when I can.
“Amazing,” I said. “Scary. What do you suppose he means by ‘bone yard’?”
“Whatever he means, I’m sure it’s not good.” Angie shook her head. “Poor kid.”
“Kids,” I said. “Plural. He’s just the one who’s writing it down.”
We turned off the highway for the blacktop county road, then turned down the dirt lane to Pettis’s cabin.
Jasper bayed and bounded out to greet us, rearing up and resting his paws on the sill of Angie’s open window. Winston Pettis shambled down the steps and leaned his elbows on my window. “Howdy, Doc; Miss Angie,” he drawled through the opening. “What brings you out this way today? Jasper call y’all to say he’d found anything new?”
“Not exactly,” Angie began as we got out and Jasper inspected her more thoroughly and personally, “but we’re hoping maybe he will soon. We sure would like to find where those skulls came from.”
“Well, I know Jasper’d be glad to tell you where he found it, if he could. I wish he could talk.”
“That’d make our job a lot easier,” she agreed. “But since he can’t tell us, we’re wondering if he might be able to show us.”