That summer
Esther watched him blindly set down, holding the book open, staring at the dandelion. “You saved my life and I gave you a dandelion.” He snubbed, “I really am a cheap ass bastard.”
She took the book laying it on the coffee table. “O, you could have given me a gold bar and I wouldn’t have treasured it more.”
He fell into her, crying on her chest.
That really was the best summer of his life. After that, things changed.
All his weekends or days off from school were consumed with work.
The school bus stopped running all the way to his house. If his parents had a job lined up, they would pick him up at his aunt and uncles but if not. He had to walk home. Once it was snowing, Karen felt sorry for him and took him home. His mom; to Karen’s face, thanked her – bluh, bluh, bluh. But when they got in the house; she jerked Oscar’s pants down, had the belt raised over her head. Oscar remembered screaming; “I didn’t ask her to. She just told me to get in the car! You told me to always respect my elders!” That was the only time he remembered ‘escapin’ a scarin’.
The bus had to go about a mile past his aunt and uncles house to turn around. His mom told the bus driver to drop him off there. Sometimes they were waiting on him. Sometimes not. If he had to walk home and missed dinner, oh well. ‘You should have ran instead of walked’, his mother scoffed.
He remembered the number of times that walk scared him. Creepy darkness. Strange animal sounds. Dead silence. But no matter how scared he was. Or how hungry he was, he would not run. There was a hill before you got to his house. If the weather was nice, his parents would stop (if he had made it to the hill) and pick him up. But it the hill was slick in any way, they would pass him by. It was too hard to stop and start on a mud, snow, or ice covered hill.
One instance, it was raining. He was soaked from head to toe. Mud was caked on his shoes. He heard the roar of the truck as his dad floored it to get a ‘run and go’ up the hill. As they passed him, mud flew all over him. It was even in his hair. When he finally made it home; his mom looked at him with her hands on her hips, ‘I guess next time you’ll get out of the way.’ He wasn’t allowed to go in the house to change. He had to strip, outside in the rain, set his clothes on the porch to drain before he could come inside.
His uncle gave is dad a walking stick. One he had carved himself. It had snowed. His dad walked with him to the hill. Oscar could only guess to get away from his mom for a minute. His dad dropped the stick and it slid down the hill. ‘Bring that back to me.’ His dad smacked him on the back of the head. It was so unexpected that Oscar lost his footing and slid down the hill. The act of taking the stick back to his dad caused him to miss the bus. What was he going to do? If he didn’t go to school, they would whoop him. If he asked his aunt and uncle to take him, they’d whoop him. If he walked to school, they would be getting out about the time he made it. At least he would be riding the bus home. He just stood in that wide spot unable to move. A voice brought him around, “hey son, you okay?” It was the mailman.
“I missed the bus.”
“Didn’t you hear? They called school off today.” His vehicle was full of mail. But he let Oscar ride in the back. He had an old blanket that he let Oscar use to cover up. “I know this isn’t idea. I’ll turn the heat on full. Make sure it gets back here. I stop at your parent’s house last. That okay?”
Oscar wanted to cry. He couldn’t speak. All he could do was shake his head – yes. The mailman gently shut the hatch. In no time, Oscar was warm and asleep. When he was delivered. As it were. His mom just laughed, ‘guess I’d better start listenin’ to the radio’. When he was inside the house, she knocked him to the floor. “How could you embarrass me this way? Keep up with your own shit.”
His brother never had to walk that road. His brother got taken to school everyday. And picked up every evening.
He read his aunts diary long after she passed. She had tried to get him taken away from his parents much like he had tried to get Alex taken away and got the same answer, ‘can’t substantiate abuse’. When he turned 16, his aunt and uncle paid his parents to let him be dropped off after school to help around the house. They were getting sicker. But on weekends, he belonged to his dad.
He remembered one time that his dad didn’t make him work. They had stopped at a little diner for breakfast and he wouldn’t eat. His dad took him home. Oscar was so afraid that he would get in trouble. But when they got home, his dad told him to go to bed and nothing more was said.
He got to work 2 nights as a waiter at that little diner. On the second night; as Oscar climbed in the truck his dad said, “this shit ain’t worth it. It’s past my bed time.” And that was the end of that.
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