Warm Milk

"Are you crying, Bobby? You're trembling." Nurse Smith had just
marched in.

I told her about my dream--a sad woman in a coffin in white shoes and
white nylons, with her severed head propped on her stomach.

She flinched. "Be a good boy. You're almost eight years old. Think
about Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny." Then she rubbed something cold
onto my arm and inserted a needle. "Sleep, now."

The next morning, Dr. Stanley shined a light into my eyes. "How are you
this morning, Bobby?"

"Hungry," I answered.

"Good. I hear the breakfast is delicious this morning." He straightened
his back and scribbled on a chart. "I heard you saw a dead person last
night, Bobby. Care to talk about it?"

"No," I said, softly. "I'm hungry. I don't want to talk about
it."

He lowered his chart and gazed down at me. In a voice just above a
whisper, he said: "Look, Bobby, if you want to get out of this
institution someday you can't ever mention seeing her. Okay? They'll
keep you here forever and throw away the key." He coughed. "Do I make
myself clear?"

"Yes," I said. It was just like Nurse Smith had said. I'll think of
good things. Seeing her in the coffin would be our secret. No one else
would ever hear me breathe another word about it. "Doctor?"

"Yes, Bobby?"

"Can I eat now?"

Except for my father visiting four or five times, the only other
visitor was Grammy Fenton and she died shortly after my tenth birthday.
Wearing a blue coat and white hat, she'd sat on the wooden chair beside
my bed. In her veined fingers she held rosary beads. To break the
silence she spoke of my father's cows, and how his new bull had almost
broken out of his strong steel pen. Then she sniffed softly, and said:
"I love you, Bobby. Someone has to love you." She'd slipped me a small
bag of jelly beans and kissed me on the cheek.

I was sixteen when I was released. I followed my father, now
practically a stranger to me, out the front doors of the institution.
There was a woman sitting in the passenger side of the front seat of a
brown car. A boy of about twelve sat in the back.

Obviously it was Charlie, my brother.

Driving along, I stared out the window while Charlie read a Superman
comic. My father said that my bedroom was ready, the same one I used to
have, but that I'd probably not remember. The woman laughed nervously.
"I'll never take the place of your mother, Robert, but ...."

"For crying out loud, Judy," my father broke in. "What a fucking stupid
thing to say!"

We stopped at a diner in Lower Sackville. The parking lot was covered
with a thin blanket of snow. The aroma of fried onions and freshly
brewed coffee hit us at the door. I had forgotten what real food
smelled like. We all had the $3.99 fish and chips special with a glass
of water. After the meal, Judy ordered a cup of tea while my father
smoked. "Look at the size of it," Judy said as the waitress placed a
large green teapot on the table. "We'll be here all afternoon!"

The waitress said, "You have six hours to drink it, dear. We close at
ten tonight."

The two women laughed; my father frowned. When the waitress was out of
earshot, Judy said, "David, you have absolutely no sense of
humor."

"It's just that you find such stupid things funny," he said. My father
stood, and stubbed out his cigarette. "Ready everyone? Let's go." We
all followed.

As the car crawled up the snowy lane, I observed our house, the sheds,
and the barn. When the car stopped, Charlie and I jumped out and ran
toward the house. Charlie tucked his comic under his coat so snow
wouldn't damage it.

The odor of wood smoke filled the chilled air. Turning my head to
shield my face from the powerful wind, I got a whiff of the barn: the
distinct stench of manure (but how wonderful), the warm hay, the sweaty
cattle. Home at last, I thought. A German shepherd jumped up on
me.

Judy yelled, "King! Get down! He won't hurt you, Robert." She moved to
the rear of the car, lifted the trunk, and removed a box of
groceries.

I remember the porch had been used to hang tools such as saws, hammers,
and rakes. Now it was used for coats; Charlie hung his on a nail. I
removed my boots and stepped on the kitchen floor--black and white
tiles glared. I stood in the middle of the floor, remembering. I'll
never forget Momma.

"Your mother was a great nurse, Bobby. A good person," Grammy Fenton
had said proudly that day she visited the institution.

Before I was put in the institution, I had asked Momma not to leave me
one day. I told her I was scared.

"Of what, darling?" she asked.

"The beast," I answered.

She had taken me into her arms and hugged me. "There's no beast, dear.
Mommy has to go to work after I scrub the floors, Bobby." She kissed
me. "Please try to understand. Now I have to get the kitchen floor
cleaned."

Her bright red hair was tied up in a ponytail with a white ribbon. I
was angry that she was going to leave me. She was on her knees on the
kitchen floor. She didn't hear me creeping up behind her. I whacked her
so hard on the back of her head with that piece of two-by-four that I
heard her head crack and the board snap. Then I ran to the porch. I
grabbed the handsaw daddy had used to cut up a deer the year before.
Its shiny jagged teeth glistened.

When daddy entered the house, he froze, dropping his bucket. Warm milk
ran along the floor, mixing with the blood.

I had just time to mumble, "Momma?" before Judy tramped in, snapping me
back into the present. She shivered. "God, that wind sure is
cold!"

Several times weekly, my father drove into Windsor to the tavern, shot
pool, played darts, and arrived home drunk. Charlie fluctuated between
Batman and Superman comics. We had nothing in common, even our hair was
different colors: his was reddish, mine was blond. We argued about TV.
Judy stood for hours against the kitchen sink, staring through the
window at the white birches that stood deep in snow. I spent
considerable time in my room, the door locked, enjoying the cigarettes
I had stolen from my father.

Two months later on a cold morning, I bolted down the dirt lane with a
backpack toward the paved highway. Both Charlie and Judy were sick in
bed and my father was out in the barn. The cows were bawling, in pain,
encouraging him to get on with the job. I could distinctively hear the
bull Grammy Fenton had mentioned. He was bellowing, pissed-off at the
world. Anne Murray's voice seeped through the bleached shingles from a
radio as steam rose from the nearby manure pile.

Within moments a car squealed to a stop; the driver said to jump in. By
the time we arrived in Halifax, he had told me how I could make "decent
money" washing dishes for his friend, and that I might be able to sleep
in his friend's storeroom.

One moonless evening after being away for almost a month, a friend
drove me out to the farm. He parked on the highway several telephone
poles away. I crept through the darkness and peeped through a window.
My father, Charlie, and Judy were watching television. I watched for a
good twenty minutes until King began growling at the window. Judy
glanced over, and for an eerie moment I thought she saw me. But she
said, "There's nothing out there, King. Come over here and sit."

As I crept past the barn, the cows bawled. Cows are temperamental and
very aware when evil is present. The beast in my head, yelling and
swearing, told me that Momma wanted Charlie to join her. Could I help
Momma? the beast asked.

The next night while I was shaking and sweating under the blankets, the
beast's red eyes and fangs entered my mind's eye. Momma begged for
help.

"I'll help you, Momma!" I screamed. "I'll help you, Momma!"

Under my bed was a brand new handsaw with shiny jagged teeth. Momma
knew I'd use it on Charlie, and for the first time, she smiled.