I'll Let You Go

CHAPTER 17. When a Child Dies in the Home

Which is more onerous, politics or sentimentality? It is difficult to choose. To suggest that the perils of Amaryllis Kornfeld might have been relieved by courageous legislation is naïve; likewise, the easy fetish of emotion makes for cheap martyrdom. Let neither road be taken — pray that makes all the difference.

On Friday, they went to court, as required by law; the details of their visit will later be aired. For now, we are ready to tour the communal home of Earlymae Woolery. Dawn light is conducive to exploration, and the children are asleep. The white Sedan DeVille of the matron of the house won’t pull into the driveway until ten (and then, only because of the new immigrant). Usually, each morning from seven till noon, Jilbo alone is entrusted with the brood.

Mrs. Woolery lives with her spouse under a different roof on a cul-de-sac of ranch houses in La Cañada Flintridge. Her neighborhood is lush and quiet, fluffed and fine-tuned by a discreet cadre of private gardeners and city workers. Her own children are grown; her affable hobbyist husband is nearly deaf; that is probably enough personal history, for this woman will not stay long in our lives. A realtor and professional foster parent, she has over the years acquired four other homes, including the one on Chimney Smoke Road, each with six beds. The government pays a monthly stipend per child, in Mrs. Woolery’s case higher than the norm because of her willingness to process children in extremis, at all hours. She feeds, clothes and enrolls her charges in school, and if needed (it is always needed) arranges for a Special Education Plan, the child’s right by law. Sometimes, if necessary (it is always necessary), Mrs. Woolery has psychotropics prescribed by phone; she has a warm and lucrative relationship with a retired psychiatrist, who will even make a house call for a personal interview with the newcomer if indicated (it is never indicated). If, in short order, it is determined that the child is too disruptive for the public school environment (it is always determined), Mrs. Woolery is thereby so ordered to tutor the ward at home, a task for which she is, conveniently, licensed. When such is the case (such is always the case for the wards of Mrs. Woolery), the government grudgingly pays a multiple of its original fee; for Mrs. Woolery, this translates to around $30K per residence. It is harder than it might seem to maintain four foster homes on $120,000 a month, but it’s doable.

The house on Chimney Smoke Road wears a sweeping, pleasant façade upon a smile of manicured grass. The living room is furnished by the stodgily inviting Ethan Allen; many a social worker — many a clients’-rights manager — has been plied with cookies and coffee on its deep-dish couches and frill-fringed chairs. There is even a small magazine rack such as found in Christian Science Reading Rooms, stocked with parenting magazines and carefully folded schedules from a two-year-old Doubletree Hotel (formerly Red Lion Inn) WE ARE LIFE CHANGERS training conference featuring such topical seminars as Microwave Cooking — Quick and Easy Meals Kids Like, Hair and Skin Care for Multi-Ethnic Children, and the modern classic When a Child Dies in the Home (“A panel of three persons who have each experienced the death of a child in their home will talk about the worst of this situation. They will discuss what to expect from the bureaucracy, coroner, licensing and investigation, and of course answer any questions.”)^†

Gone are the days when officious CSWs diligently took stock of fridge and pantry or ventured into children’s rooms to note the presence of stuffed animals and other surefire indicators of loving care. To the DCFS, Mrs. Woolery is a veteran, well known to have a child’s welfare at heart. Still, when last glanced, even she felt the kitchen’s dishevelment had gone too far; if the plastering could wait, the drawers should at least be retrieved from the trailer and shoved into their sockets— she’d get Jilbo to “hup” it. Only baking soda and mold graced the inside of that ungodly, humming icebox; per Mrs. Woolery’s orders, Jilbo hijacked the groceries so showily brought in last night, rerouting them to another house. Though, to be fair, he did leave relish, frankfurter buns and a jumbo bag of M&M’s blues.

But we are running out of time: let us take the meds from the locker that sits above the Kenmore and line them up.

In a half-dozen shoe boxes sprawls a town of tubular buildings with dates long expired, some missing their roofs, vacant interiors powdered from a crowd of old tenants now dispossessed — and newer ones too: refills with hard white childproof porkpie hats. What makes up this sad orange forest frontier? Meds: for depression and anxiety, OCD and ADD/ADHD, seizure and mania, insomnia, psychosis … a child’s secret garden and cabinet of wonders. Mint-flavored, liquid, Caplet and mist: wishing-Wellbutrin, whole lotta Luvox (FDA-approved for the under-twelve set), peek-a-BuSpar (Shanggerla called it Juice Bar), tireless old standby midnight-rider Dexedrine, one-eyed hypervigilant Cylert (for bed-wetting; though children’s-court judges don’t like it prescribed anymore because of deleterious side effects), poison puff Adderall, hallucination-buster Haldol, whispering Risperdol, outmoded mellow-yellow Mellaril — and of course the anomalous Thorazine, great god Thor, inveterate vanquishing Viking of yesteryear. Kid, interrupted.

More dusty tenements in crypts that once held Roots clogs: squat round play-organ pipes with faded labels of forgotten names of all the thrashed little girls and boys — fruitless Day-Glo warning stickers and yellow CAUTIONS on the fresh-painted promise of Depakote; on man on the flying Trazodone and saber-toothed Tegretol; on tell-me-a-Ritalin; on bleachy Clonidine (to counter insomnia caused by the former); on catacomby Catapres; on a toy streetcar named Desyrel. It should be added that child-strength Motrin, Dimetapp (great for calming), Sav-On antihistamines and a hundred antibiotics (everyone is at all times on low levels to manage group head colds) are scattered in the boxes, like sleeping vagrants; over- and under-the-counter syrups and spent FloVent inhalers also trespass within, but, unlike the others, possess no gravitas and are accorded no real status.

Last but not least a sturdy Kenneth Cole contained this multiethnic low-rise ghetto drugscape: Cogentin, Ambien, Tofranil, Elavil, Pamelor, Asendin, Lidiomil, Anafranil, Nardil, Parnate, Tenex, Tractan, Remeron, Serentil, Loxitane, Moban, Trilafon, Navane, Stelazine, Prolixin, Norpramin, Orap, Dalmane, Symmetrel, Akineton, Effexor, Neurontin, Ativan, Doxepin, Prilosec, Librium, Zoloft (been good to know you), Clozaril, Vistaril, chloral hydrate and phenobarb — the rainbow of a decade of storms, prescribed by a certain eighty-three-year-old medic, a Gahan Wilson vampire as real as anything, who fancies Mrs. Woolery and whom she deftly, flirtily avoids.

The rest of the house never saw visitors and would not know how to greet them. Cold and barren, by now it loves only the children it harbors and the memory of those formerly berthed — loves them more than it could Mrs. Woolery or Jilbo or even the kindly, deaf Jane Scull, who comes weekdays to baby-sit and clean. Two of its bathrooms are used for storage, tubs filled with soiled clothes and broken toys. Jilbo thoughtfully removed the toilet seats; there is no water in the lurid, scummy bowls. A third (master) bath has a laminated précis hammered to its door.

Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder

1) Frequently fidgets or squirms in seat

2) Has difficulty remaining seated when required

3) Is easily distracted

4) Has trouble waiting to take his or her turn

5) Shouts out answers to incomplete questions

6) Has problems following instructions

7) Has difficulty staying “focused”

8) Frequently fails to complete tasks

9) Talks excessively, often interrupts others

10) Doesn’t seem to listen carefully

11) Engages in physically dangerous activities without considering the consequences

12) Often loses or misplaces things

A mobile home sits in the backyard, jacked-up on boards and stripped of accoutrements — it is the children’s domain. The gouged-out Airstream’s origin and reasons for abandonment are murky; perhaps Mr. Woolery once soldered slot-car chassis there.

Saturday morning and the pearl-white DeVille now comes. There she is, stepping out. The children (except for Dennis) are stirring. The fuzzy old charcoal Chanel suit pinned with a too-big tree-shaped brooch enters in a cloud of Bvlgari. She carries pills in her purse; she won’t need to visit the ancient locker.

Amaryllis wakes up disoriented. Crystel snores beside her — sometime in the night, she dropped down to the lower bunk. Dennis wheezes in his helmet. Hearing Mrs. Woolery’s footsteps in the living room, the foundling is seized by dread. Moments later, Shanggerla appears at the door, fresh-faced and juvenile. “Miz Woolery here!”

With that, Crystel Hallohan opens an eye, then another, and catapults from the bed, nearly stepping on Dennis’s small arm. Jarred, he opens his eyes for a moment, then shuts them again to dream.

Crystel and Shanggerla greet their benefactress.

“Well, look what the cat drug in,” she says — the sort of scary genial hillbilly thing that is her trademark. Mrs. Woolery is alive with the atoms of the outside world, and the girls are excited at the airy, wicked newness she brings to a room. Amaryllis, frightened and hungover from yesterday’s epic pilgrimage, creeps to the hall and listens. “How’s Newbie?”

“Good,” says Crystel.

“Y’all have breakfast yet?” Crystel shakes her head. “Well that’s good, ’cause Jane Scull’s bringin’ Mickey D.” She screws her nose at Shanggerla and sniffs. “You on your period, Paradise?” The gangly girl nods. “You stink. I would like to see you bathe today.”

Shanggerla casts sleep-encrusted eyes to carpet.

“Yes, ma’m,” she says.

“You bloody too?” asks Mrs. Woolery of Crystel, who solemnly nods. “All you people do here is bleed.” She shouts to the newbie: “Hey! You a bleeder?” Amaryllis doesn’t answer. Then, more to herself: “She will be soon.”

“Her tits hurt,” says Crystel.

Mrs. Woolery tightly sets her jaw and grits it around. “You can phrase that another way.”

“In her shirt — she was crying.”

“Well, we’ll see.” Mrs. Woolery turns to Shanggerla. “Get the first-aid kit. In the master bath.”

“Come on out now,” calls Mrs. Woolery to the still-unseen newbie. “I ain’t gonna bite.” Crystel makes a mini-move toward the hall, but Mrs. Woolery stops her. “Let her come herself. Won’t go nowhere with you clucking over her like a hen.”

Amaryllis slowly emerges, barefoot.

“There she is! C’mere, sweetheart — it’s all right.” Amaryllis stands trembling in the doorway. “Suit yourself.”

Mrs. Woolery sits in the fringy chair and sighs. Amaryllis fixates on her hair, frozen on the head like silvery meringue. There’s something about her face that is unassimilable — the features are large and over-painted, and though she isn’t a tall woman, she strikes Amaryllis as giant, big as Topsy. Voice deep, clacking nails fire-engine-red, eyes ice-floe blue, teeth bright rows of graves.

“What’s your real name, Newbie? Sure as hell ain’t Edith. Might as well say it — they will find out.”

“Amaryllis.”

After all her vows, it comes out: just like that. What is the power of this woman?

“That’s a mouthful. We’ll call you Armadillo! Know what an armadillo is, Crissie Fits? Funny-lookin’ little armored creatures — usually get runn’d over. Are you roadkill, Dillo?” Amaryllis shakes her head. “Well you surely are not. But you could be, couldn’t you, if you don’t mind. But you will—mind, I mean. You’re a minder. She’s a minder, isn’t she, Shangg?” Shanggerla smiles at the ground while Mrs. Woolery fishes in her purse. “A mind is a terrible thing to waste, ain’t it, Shangg?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Mind over matter, mind over matter,” she mutters, to no one in particular. “I don’t mind; you don’t matter. Crissie, git some water.” She obeys, shouting, “Crystal Geyser! Crystal Geyser!” which elicits a small laugh from Mrs. Woolery, who then turns to Amaryllis. “Dillo-girl, I want you to take these.” She holds three pills in her hand — a yellow Caplet, a pentagon flecked with baby blue and a tiny pink sphere that slides down the lotioned crease of her proffering palm.

“What are they?”

“Them’s good things. Doctor things — don’t you worry too much about it. Curiosity killed the ’dillo.”

Crystel hands the glass of tap water to her friend. “Why did you say you were Edith?” she asks.

“Uh-oh — good Lord!” laughs Mrs. Woolery. “Betrayed! Look out! You watch her live up to her name, Dillo! Lookit! She gonna have a Crissie fit!”

Crystel darkens as Dillo the Newbie works up the courage to take her pills. “Are you Earlymae because you were born in May?” she asks ingratiatingly.

“No, December,” says Mrs. Woolery, mouth buckling in disgust. “Well uh course I was born in May! What do you think, stupid?” She laughs and so does Crystel; Amaryllis tries to smile. “May third to be exact. I’m a Taurus and that ain’t no bull. Now swallow ’em, Dillo — swallow ’em up. Hup it!”

Jane Scull appears at the screen door with bags of McDonald’s, and Crystel eagerly lets her in. (Shanggerla makes her own entrance, carrying a tackle box filled with bandages, disinfectant and bug spray.) A sweet, heavy girl with wet, whitish acne and double hearing aids. “You smell worse than Shangg,” says Mrs. Woolery while Crystel greedily takes the bags and Shanggerla sets the table with Golden Arches paper and plastic.

Mrs. Woolery tells Amaryllis to come over. She says it again and the girl obeys. “What’s this about your upper part?”

She shyly retreats, but Mrs. Woolery insists. Lifts her blouse.

“Lord, what happened here?” The others stand around goggling, and each time Amaryllis tries to lower her shirt, Mrs. Woolery stops her. “Better call someone about that ’fore they say I did it. Good Lord, that is ugly.” Shoos the girls back to the table, insisting Amaryllis eat because she’s going to give her a Percocet for pain. “I’m gonna have to put something on that mess and don’t want you cryin’.”

A living room feast: Mrs. Woolery allows them to have their repast on the Lemon Pledge — polished Ethan Allen table. What a pretty picture for clients’-rights managers the nation over! Sweet-faced sucklings tucking into Egg McMuffins on a sleepy Saturday morn … but soon Amaryllis was feeling odd. Tongue dried up and heart began to race. Stopped eating — just plumb stopped in her tracks — and was dimly aware of others commenting on that, laughing about it too. Then she was on the couch, woozy, heavy-lidded, cotton-mouthed, Mrs. Woolery daubing her chest with alcohol-soaked tissues while Jane, Crystel and Shanggerla looked on. Pain stabbed at her as the nipple was roughly disinfected, but foremost there was nausea; as the poor soul ran to throw up, Shanggerla comically chased after, holding slender caramel catch-basin hands under Amaryllis’s chin — the newbie chose not a sink but one of the dead toilet bowls (which infuriated Mrs. Woolery). The salty innkeeper trudged in not long after, reaching behind the porcelain tank to turn the water on so the McBarf could be flushed. Assuming the lion’s share of meds came up with the food, she decided to give the girl another round. By this time, Dennis the Phantom Menace was lurking, on best behavior. Then he whined and cried because the food was gone and Jane Scull gave him fries and the rest of her McMuffin.

Amaryllis was lifted to bed. She panicked because with the second wave, she didn’t know what to do with her arms; it was as if they belonged to someone else. She thought of Edith Stein and other Blesseds throughout the ages — Hildegard and Theresa, and the virgin martyr Cecilia and the hardships they endured, and of course thought of her babies too. Unexpectedly, Boulder Langon popped into her head in time to say some harsh, untranslatable thing before Amaryllis fell asleep to the giddy horseplay screams of roommates beyond.

Snapshots: darkness at noon. Stranger in a strange land — Mrs. Woolery’s land. To the bathroom again, but this time Shanggerla leads the way. Amaryllis on the bowl, making a torrent. The pee smells funny. Shangg brings her back to bunk. An interlude — duration unknown — then bathroom again. This time she’s left there sitting long after her business is done. Now led to living room, where Dennis and Crystel play raucous games with Jane Scull. Mrs. Woolery gone. Jilbo opens screen door, sullen in a bad C&R suit. Jane, stricken to see him. He goes to kitchen locker and gets Shangg and the boy pills. Jilbo gives some to Crystel, who hands them to Amaryllis. Dillo swallows. Jilbo storms down hall and shouts. Shangg hurries to rip befouled Glad bags off futon while the helmeted boy wheels and whirls his way to the Airstream.

Amaryllis sleepy on kitchen floor. Crystel reaches into wall — party plates with M&M’s, Fritos and Dimetapp. Her mom’s in jail for cooking speed. She says the bushes and dirt around the house used to catch fire. Stands up to chase the shrieking Dennis. Jilbo gone. More games with Shangg and Jane Scull. They prop Amaryllis on the couch.

Bunk and bathroom with Shanggerla again. Dennis sticks a hand under while she pees. Puts tip of finger inside her hole, then runs out laughing. Shangg laughs too.

On living room couch, shirt bunched under chin. Bandage off, nipple lactating pus. Jilbo stares, rubbing his crotch. Jane red-faced, squirmy, dumb-sobbing. Crystel watching from hall blank-faced as Jilbo suckles bacterium. Porky Jane thrashes and mutely wails, a widow in a silent film.

Darkness — real darkness, outside too. Pills worn off enough to wander. No one on the futon … freshly “made” with new lawn-and-leafers. Creeps into living room, where E. Allen props adorn the deserted stage. A thought occurs: Leave! Now! Hurry! Through the front door …—but she cannot. To the back of the house she goes, and into the night. Dim lights burning in shell. She has to find Crystel … but why? To tell her — maybe she’ll come with. She is the only familiar thing. Walks toward trailer … what if it’s Jilbo inside? Hears Airstream laughter of a child. Britney on radio. Walks up steps and goes in. Trailer musty, close, incense-filled. Dennis on his back, helmet intact and Crystel astride, stuffing in the soft little dick. Sings and laughs along to the Britney — and Shanggerla with something inside her. She takes it out and nudges it to his butt-hole, then puts it back in her mouth, then buzzes back to his butt-hole then back inside her. Penis Rollin’ Tens …

Crystel sees Amaryllis.

“He likes it,” she says, heading off judgment. Amaryllis comes closer, mesmerized. Dennis the Phantom Menace looks at her and laughs. Fuck me! he says. Crystel laughs. Fuck me! says Crystel, laughing and grinding anew. Shangg is laughing too. They all watched Jilbo’s porn tapes. Fuck me! Fuck me! say Crystel and Dennis. Fuck my juicy pussy with that fat white cock! My pussy is so wet! Make me come! Can you make it come? Make my pussy come! As Amaryllis backs out, Crystel grabs the dildo from Shanggerla, rusty with blood, and shoves it in herself. Like a tagged wrestler she scampers to the boy, pinning and laughing and sucking—

Out! — through the driveway, under cover of shivering trees, hugging the shore of lawns and bushes as she goes, choking and crying. The main road looms. Winds up beside the trash bin of Kanyon Korner Mart. She thinks of Topsy standing beside her that morning at the bakery — Topsy! The very name makes her yelp in the chill air. A car parks and a teenager gets out.

Amaryllis hears her own voice: “Excuse me, miss, but do you know the time?” The girl looks at her as if she’s mad. “Nine-thirty.” Amaryllis thanks her. Chest is burning and she has to pee; a low wave of pharmacological inertia washes over … She thinks of asking the girl for money when she comes out; maybe she’ll go in after her. Jolts awake: what if Jilbo’s shopping inside? Or Mrs. Woolery! She begins to run — yelping and crying, toxins excreting through hot tears, straight down the middle of the brightly lit boulevard. Anyone could see her: any cop or concerned citizen … even Earlymae. She was convinced that woman didn’t sleep and spent the night trolling the streets for children, ricocheting between residential homes.

Amaryllis felt superhuman as she ran, like the day she fled the St. George; maybe the earth would give way and she’d fly off into space. Her shadow overtook her body, and she wished she were back with her mother, who after all this would now surely mend her ways! Topsy would take them to the special part of the rescue mission reserved for single women with children, and they’d have turkey and gravy and pomegranate pastries. She was sure that if the postulator of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints could see her run, he would favorably assess her worthiness; she would slowly ascend, walking on starry black air just as Jesus walked on water—that would be the miracle to beatify her. Secretum meum mihi …

Then a shape bulleted toward her from across the street, grunting freakishly. Its trajectory was certain, but the thing itself uncoordinated, like a sack filled with tomcats falling from a bridge. Numb with terror, Amaryllis ran off the highway and up a hill, but the thing pursued and she was no match. It tackled her, and she screamed as it gurgled, lurched and spat into the air, holding her to its big, dirty bosom so she couldn’t breathe.

It was Jane Scull who held her down.

^†In this regard, Mrs. Woolery’s expertise was such that she had no use for that of others. It’s a fair certainty her present boarders began their extirpation long ago; and can even be said without overdramatizing that the boy Dennis, sometimes disparagingly called “D-Rate” by Mrs. Woolery, after the code for special-needs children — and who would live ten years beyond this writing — was already dead.