A Rage for Revenge

32 Parents

Later, after we'd bathed them and tucked them away for naps, Betty-John, still damp from the creek, came up and leaned on my shoulder, momentarily exhausted, but exhilarated too.

She looked up at me. "Are you beginning to get it now, Jim? I mean, about working with their psychoses?"

"Yeah, I guess so. I don't know. Maybe."

"Come on," she said. "Bar's open in my office. I'll buy you a drink. You looked so silly trying to give that lump of teddy bear a bath without really getting him wet."

"Yeah, well, I had to. You saw how Alec trusted me." I followed her up the hill.

The drink turned out to be lemonade. I should have known. "I would have had iced tea," B-Jay said; with one foot she kicked shut the door of the tiny refrigerator she kept next to her desk, "but the prices are ridiculous." She sighed and ran one hand through her fading hair, then realized what she had done and patted it back into place. "Stupid, isn't it? I should care how I look." She went back to muttering about prices as she pushed some papers around on her desk. "On the black market we can get bread for only ninety-five cents a loaf-can you believe that? And even beef. I know we shouldn't, but we haven't had roast beef here for . . . you know, I can't remember how long it's been, but other things, like tea and coffee and sugar, we just can't afford them any more, white or black market."

"Is it that serious?"

"It is if you're accustomed to those kinds of things. The kids won't miss it. God knows what most of them have been surviving on. I mean, this is a step up. We've got milk and potatoes and bread and what vegetables we can grow ourselves, so we're okay. We were supposed to get a truckload of canned goods salvaged from Sacramento, but it never arrived. Probably hijacked; we'll be able to buy the stuff on the black market next week." She sighed and sank back in her chair. The chair sank back too. It creaked and squeaked and swung so far backward that for a moment, I thought she was falling, but she was only putting her feet up on the desk. Both shoes had holes in the bottoms.

"You need new shoes," I pointed out, sipping my lemonade.

"I know. I need a lot of things." She rubbed her forehead tiredly, and for just a moment, she looked old.

I didn't know what to say. I said, "Pretty good group of kids, aren't they?"

She grunted.

"I mean, they're not as bad as I thought they would be. I mean, you were telling me about their psychoses. I expected them to be pretty screwed up."

B-Jay shook her head. "No, not this bunch. Most of these kids have been under some kind of human guidance. They're still human, at least. But just barely."

"Oh." I finished the lemonade and put the glass down on her desk. "Where exactly did all of them come from? This little boy, Alec, for instance, the one with the bear."

"I don't know. Orphans, like everybody else, I guess. When you kill off three-quarters of the human race, all you have left are orphans. Who has relatives any more?" She sniffed and wiped her nose. "Their papers haven't come over the wire yet. God knows when they will. It would help. Supposedly a team of caseworkers have worked these kids; we're supposed to get their reports. Don't hold your breath. In the meantime, we'll just have to start figuring them out from scratch all over again." She looked over at me. "There's something going on with every single one of these kids, Jim, don't ever doubt it, no matter how good they look. They're just as badly damaged as the rest of us, probably more so, still reeling from the plagues and the aftereffects. We're all going to be living with it for the rest of our lives, and so will the next umpteen generations until the world gets back to normal-if ever. The wounds may not always show, and maybe not in ways we can easily recognize, but they're there; that's why we've all got to be super-careful. We might be rubbing salt in them without ever knowing it. That's why I didn't insist on washing hands and faces this morning before lunch; it was more important to get them to trust us by giving them food than to confuse them by giving them another set of rules to learn. They could have seen washing as a condition necessary to having lunch, and we had to show them that lunch-and our love-has no conditions attached. You'd better keep an eye on that Alec kid, by the way. I'm surprised they sent him up here."

"Well, Tommy and Holly have been pretty good at watchdogging him already."

"Mm, yeah, that's probably it. He's obviously one of the walking wounded, but they sent him up because they couldn't risk taking him away from Tommy and Holly, and hurting them. They weren't thinking of Alec, they were thinking of the other two. Damn! I wish we had those papers."

"Say, can we get that bear away from Alec long enough to clean it and stuff it with fresh foam? Maybe sew it up, put a new head on it for him?"

"I wouldn't try it," B-Jay said.

"Why not?"

"What would happen if you put a head on it he didn't recognize? It might not be his bear anymore. Better leave it alone for now-at least until we see how important it is to him. He's pretty badly damaged, Jim; we'd better be prepared to separate him if we have to."

"Separate?"

"Send him back."

"Back?"

"Jim," she said quietly, "there are kids who've gone catatonic, autistic, or worse, gone wild. You've seen them. Those are the ones we can't reach; we don't even have the time to try. I think your Alec might be one of them."

"We can reach him," I insisted. She didn't say anything. "Well, we've got to try."

"And ignore the other sixteen we can reach? Not to mention the other hundred and seventeen we've already accepted responsibility for?"

"Well, no, but . . . "

"We only have so many hours a day, Jim. There's only so much we can do. We can't afford to waste a single minute. These kids need to be fed, bathed, clothed, sheltered, doctored-and most of all, hugged a lot. They need to be reassured. We can't show favorites, we can't . . . "

"I've heard this sermon before, B-Jay," I interrupted her. "You're forgetting something. Alec is already a factor in the social equation. Holly and Tommy have adopted him. He responds to them. He responds to me too. You're going to have to fight Holly, Tommy, and me if you try to send him away."

"Okay," she said. She said it too easily.

"Huh?"

"I said, okay."

"Aren't you going to argue with me?"

"No."

"Aren't you going to list all the reasons why?"

"No. You said he had to stay. I recognize that we've got to live with these orphans' psychoses. That includes the big ugly orphan sitting in my office, drinking up my lemonade. I can work with your psychoses too. You want to take responsibility for him, it's all right with me."

"Yeah," I said. "I do."

"All right. I'll have the adoption papers ready next week. I don't think there'll be any problem getting Birdie to approve."

"Hey, wait a minute-I never said anything about adoption."

"Sure, you did-you said you'd be responsible."

"But that doesn't mean-"

"Yes, it does. We're both speaking English, aren't we?"

"Now, wait a minute, B-Jay! You're trying to railroad me into something I'm not ready for."

"Well, make up your mind, Jim-what do you want to do?"

"Uh . . . ," I stopped in mid-word. "I don't know."

"That's what I thought." She dropped her feet to the floor with a klunk. She refilled both our lemonade glasses, the ice clinking like chimes. She pursed her lips in an acid frown. "God, I wish we had sugar."

"Stir it, the honey's probably settled."

"It's not the same." She drank and frowned again, then came hack to the subject. "Listen, Jim-I'm not forcing you into anything. I just wanted you to understand what taking responsibility for the kid means."

"All right . . . "

"No, let me finish. I'm not sending Alec away. Not yet, anyway. I just don't want you getting too attached to any of these kids. Unless you mean it. And don't let them get too attached to you either. You may just want to play house for a while, but it'll be more than a game to them, and when you get tired of it, you'll be doing worse damage. A kid can survive the loss of one set of parents, I doubt if he can survive the loss of two and still have any reasonable chance of being healthy. So, don't come messing around my kids unless you mean it."

"I'm sorry, I didn't realize."

"Let me tell you something, Jim. Most of the time, you're in the way. You don't really do anything useful around here, and you eat a lot of food. And there are a lot of people around here who resent you. Sometimes I do too. That's when I have to remind myself that you're one of our children too, another lost soul that needs a family. Just another bloody orphan like the rest of us. So we put up with you. We pamper you. We try not to notice all that emotional baggage you're dragging around. We're doing it as a favor to the memory of your mother. We don't owe anything to you, Jim; this is just the only way we can pay back some of what we owe her. Okay, today you decided that you want to be a parent. Well, that's okay too. But not unless you mean it for keeps. I'd be delighted to have one less kid and one more parent, but it's a one-way trip. Once you accept responsibility for any of these kids, you can't abrogate it later on. Which means, Jim, nobody around here will watch out for you any more; we'll be too busy watching out for the real children, and you'll have to cope with life without our help."

"I've been doing okay."

"You think so. Around here it doesn't count unless I think so too." She paused, studied me thoughtfully. Her eyes were sharp. "Anyway, that's the way it is. Do I make up adoption papers or not?"

"I didn't think you allowed adoptions here."

"Why?"

"I don't know just the way the place seems organized. Like one big commune."

"If you had known that we encouraged adoptions, would you have volunteered?"

"Uh, probably not. It isn't really necessary, is it?"

"You tell me," she said.

"Look," I said slowly. "What I thought was that I could sort of watch out for those three kids, Holly and Tommy and Alec, for a while, and take some of the load off the rest of you. I didn't realize you wanted it to be such a deep commitment. I was thinking more in terms of being a big brother than a daddy."

"But they're not looking for a big brother, and they don't need one as much as they need a daddy." She sniffled and wiped her nose again. "Shit. I hope I'm not coming down with something. Look, Jim-the extended family isn't enough. God, how many times I've wished it were, but it's been obvious from the start that it isn't enough and never could be. Every child needs his own parent; just one special person he can rely on. We have them here-don't look surprised-we don't confuse parenthood with ownership, so it may not be obvious; but look around. There's Jack and Dove, Nurse Ivy and Little Ivy and Katy-boggin, and Birdie and Tina and Mouse. And there .are others. The kids need all of us. And most of us give our all, and a little more besides."

"I don't think I'm ready for that," I said slowly.

"Neither do I, but I wouldn't stop you if you insisted. I might be wrong."

"Okay, you tell me. What should I do?"

"How many rooms in your apartment?"

"Three bedrooms, a den, a living room-"

"That's perfect. All right, do this. We're short on beds in the dorms. You take Alec and Holly and Tommy over to your place. Run them on the same clock we use down here. Don't try to be a big brother or a father for a few days, just see what it means being responsible. Tell the kids it's only temporary, until we can work out a more permanent arrangement. That'll give you a taste of it, and an out. These kids know about temporaries, they won't get attached to you until you tell them it's all right. At least, not permanently attached. Within a week-two at the most-you'll know whether you can parent or not. I don't think it'll hurt the kids, and I'm pretty sure it won't hurt you."

"I'm not committing myself to anything, am I?"

"No, you're not. But if you decide to stay, you will be committing yourself. Then you'll be expected to adopt them."

"If I decide to stay?"

"Jim, if you decide you can't parent, or don't want to, then there's no reason for you to stay on at Family, is there? I mean, that's what we're here for. We've been waiting for you to shape up. Here's your chance. Otherwise, ship out and make room for someone else, okay? I like you, but this job is more important."

That last one hurt. I looked at my shoes for a while. They needed polishing. Ouch. "Okay," I said.

"Want some more lemonade?"

"Uh-uh, the honey's too cloying."

"Don't stir it."

"Hey, B-Jay?"

"Yeah?"

"If Alec had to be sent back, where would they send him?"

She sucked her teeth thoughtfully. "They have a place for the kids who can't be reached. The feral ones."

"Feral?"

"The ones who've gone wild. Tarzan was a feral child, so was Mowgli--only they were lucky: Tarzan was raised by apes, Mowgli by wolves-but then it's always prettier in fiction, it's glamorized. In real life, of the feral ones don't get that much guidance-nothing-so there's not a lot left of their humanity. They're animals in human bodies. They've never learned to speak and never will; that learning window is permanently closed. They can't walk erect, their bodies have lost that potential. Their ability to reason is permanently impaired; they won't trust human beings; often they're suffering from serious bone deficiencies, malnutrition, and so on. They don't usually live very long." She sucked her teeth again. "Then, of course, there are the catatonic ones, the autistic, the deranged, the permanently damaged, the shocked, and all the other impairments and dsyfunctions."

"They don't keep them in a Bedlam, do they?"

"No, Jim, they don't." Her voice went very strange. "They take care of them."

"Oh, that's good. . . ." And then the strangeness of her tone sank in. "Wait a minute. How do they take care of them? If we're short of manpower here . . . ?"

"They take care of them, Jim." She paused, went softer. "Remember when they closed the San Diego and Los Angeles zoos, and the wild animal preserves too?"

"Yeah, that was a shortage of manpower, but . . . "

"What did they do with the lions?"

"They put them to sleep, they had to-"

"Right. Because there was no one to take care of them, and they couldn't be left to fend for themselves." She put down her glass on the desk, stood up and put the lemonade back in the small refrigerator. "It was the kindest thing they could do," she murmured. "The bastards."