I am building a fountain. There is a 5-year old helping me. Kid’s pretty good as long as you give him something that he can do and you feed him and give him water. Kid’s name is Sam. You have to throw a ‘good job’ his way every once in a while, and make sure he’s not getting sunburned. In addition, you have to give him a real goal, not something generic like ‘guard the fountain’ or ‘go play’ because the damn kid is going to get confused and not be able to articulate the fact that he doesn’t know what or why or how you want him to do it, and he’ll act out, and you will think you were smart to give the child idiotic directions to keep him busy because he would be so much worse if you didn’t, but the only reason he’s upset is because he doesn’t have the words yet to articulate the idea that you are the idiot, because your instructions were so stupid, and that is the only reason you win the battle. So give him something, like, which I did, a piece of sandpaper, and tell him to make sure that every part of the fountain is smooth, because that actually needs to happen, and the kid is then integral to the experience.
It’s granite. The fountain. Rather large. Grey. The granite is bumpy and old; therefore, the sandpaper and Sam. The fountain is sitting there in this backyard we are occupying. And I suppose it was a bit of a lie to say we are building it. We are more like building upon it. Faith is sitting there on a bench, and for some reason I’m really angry with her, and I wish she’d do or say something because I don’t know if drilling holes through granite so that a multi-leveled aviary maze can be attached is a good idea, but if she’d tell me it was, I’d feel much better.
“It’s a good idea,” Faith says while examining at the unpainted nails on her left hand, “I just don’t know if you have enough time.”
She has a point. We’re waiting for K-Box to get back with some food, hoping that the people who own this place don’t come back before she does, because we’d have to up and leave, and how then will we find her (having left and having left no forwarding address because we cannot exactly leave a note for obvious reasons and besides we don’t know where we’re going)? I’m not going to worry about it because K-Box always comes back just in time, but Faith worries because she thinks that K-Box dawdles and is going to get raped (dawdling and rape not being related).
“Not questioning the aviary-maze,” Faith adds. “As I said, it’s a good idea, if not exactly the right time. It’s just, K-Box, you know, why does she have to go?”
My brow furrows despite my intention to stay calm. I say, grumbling, “Because she’s small and innocent looking,” and I make it clear that I’m done with my response.
The kid, by the way, Sam, you know, is happy, or at least I think he is because all he asked me was “Is this smooth?” and I told him yes, and good job, and told him that we’d eat when K-Box got back, and he kept on working, and so did I, because I’m not going to be upset or worried about things I cannot change. Besides, birds need something to keep them busy, you know, when all you have all day is flying and searching for food, why not have a three dimensional maze to make bathing more exciting? Moreover, rather than trying to pretend like we don’t exist, I think it is a better to show people that we do exist, and we aren’t bad, or smelly, or useless, because, look, I’m building a bird-maze for them, and I’m taking care of their kid to boot, so who can say that what we’re doing is wrong or nothing because there it is, the aviary maze in your backyard and your kid ok and happy?
“What if K-Box gets raped?” Faith asks.
You can’t get her to shut up once she starts. I just want to build the fountain, and be left alone, and wait for K-Box because I know she is going to come back. I try and change the subject by ignoring Faith completely and telling the kid that he’s doing the most amazing fucking job I’ve ever seen ever for someone who has never sandpapered a granite fountain before, but even on top of that, it is the best damn granite smoothing I’ve ever seen done, and I bet it is the best in the world, but even that doesn’t stop Faith.
“You know, it always happens with smiles and poking,” she adds. “It’s grotesque and awful because they seem like they are having fun the entire time, while you are paralyzed with fear out of your mind. And for them it wasn’t rape because it was good, and if it was good and fun, how could it be bad?”
Calmly, so as not to cause the inevitable spiraling into fear that cannot be dealt with, I say, “K-Box knows what she is doing. She’s heard your story enough to know how to strike eyes and cut balls off. Because she knows this, she looks like she knows it. She stops it before it even begins with what’s behind her eyes. If you keep the match from lighting, then there’s no bonfire, right?”
The kid asks for some water. I ask him if he knows where the cups in the house are. He nods. I ask him if he knows how to get the water and put it in the cup. He does. I say, go ahead, and he says that he’s scared he’ll break the glass, and I tell him, you’ll never learn if you don’t try, so just do it, and don’t break the glass. He goes, and I’m sure he won’t break the glass, and if he does, oh well, he won’t next time.
“I like you better when you sit around and sulk.” Faith says.
“No you don’t,” I reply.
“Yes, I do. It gives me more to talk about.”
I realize that it is just she and I. She calms down when it’s just us two. I wonder momentarily if it is my fault or hers.
“I miss hiding,” she says quietly.
I’ve told her a hundred times that we are not dead, we are not invisible, we are not lazy, we are not unproductive. We have to do something to pay back everyone. It’s better than hiding from it. Hiding is the worst. The WORST. Besides, our bodies just atrophy when we crawl into a hole. We have to get out there. We have to make it happen. We have to move forward. I’ve said this before, a hundred times, so I don’t say it now, I get further involved with the wire maze. I wonder if the maze should have one path, or many, because do birds have enough brain power to get through a three-dimensional maze even if there is only one way through it. Will they even see the wiry milieu as a ‘maze?’ I think one path will do.
“I’d like to be the kind of person who agrees with you on this, but it seems so hopeless. She’s probably getting raped right now.” It’s so hard to focus.
It’s my fault. It’s probably because I make K-Box ‘give thanks.’ It takes her longer to get back. The probability of rape increases with time. Snowball-effect. But, I operate this way because the body thrives on escalating challenges. The mind rests easier when you Do The Right Thing. You run farther than you ever have one day, and your body will be ready for more the next day. And if you do something Right, you will do more things Right. Habituating and ritualizing escalating challenges and Right actions is what we have to do! By God, I woke up this morning without an alarm and found this spot by what felt like 9am! And something has to be said that none of us are smoking, or drinking, or using crack, or heroin, but just doing what we do, and eating whatever we can eat, and for the most part I’ve trained K-Box to steal vegetables and fruit, and her manner of giving back is quite funny at times (one time she set a case of ramen noodles on fire and the people in the supermarket, employees and customers, got a whiff of that awful burning styrofoam smell, and saw that for some reason or another those dried ramen noodles were like igniting as if they had lighter fluid thrown on them, and all of them, employees and customers, decided not to touch ramen noodles anymore). But Faith gets all worried because I make K-Box take the long route to stealing, when she could just take stuff and run, but I can’t imagine her grabbing some gummi bears and calling that dinner, and, besides, K-Box is hardcore, and what other way is she going to put her creativity to use I ask you?
The kid comes outside without a glass. I ask him if he got some water. He says yes. I ask him where he put the glass, and he says in the sink. I tell him good job. I wonder for a moment if he called the cops but is a five-year-old smart enough to call the cops and then come back out pretending like he didn’t? I don’t know. That is why I focus on this thing that I’m doing. That kind of paranoia sneaking into my mind is exactly what I don’t need right now. I tell the kid that I appreciate his help, and say we have a little bit more to do here, and if he comes on this side of the fountain, I’ll go to the other side now, and I tell him to make sure that he doesn’t miss any of the parts on the upside of every curve, the parts you have to look up at, the parts you have to crouch down for, the parts no one is ever going to see, the parts that you practically injure your neck looking at, no less sanding, and he nods, and is fine and dandy thank you very much.
That kind of ‘yessir’ attitude gets me focused again on the aviary, but then Faith interrupts things by saying, “I’m going to go find her,” and then disappears through the house. I pause everything that I’m doing and kind of just stare obnoxiously down and to the left with my head cocked. I can tell you this, because I see how ridiculous it is to pause everything as if to say something like “what the fuck?” to Faith, when she is not there, and the kid is practically underneath the fountain so he can’t see it either. I look like a drama-queen. Embarrassed, I think I should get revenge by yelling at her to use the back-gate in the back yard we are in as loudly as I can, but I don’t want the neighbors to hear strange voices screaming, so I don’t do anything but stare.
And I can’t tell her everything anytime I think it or I know she’d leave, and I really need her here, because I don’t know how I’d cope without her, and I wonder if that is something that I should get over or not, which is an after-thought, but the truth is I don’t know what I’d do without her, and that scares me a bit, so I think to myself I had better keep my mouth shut.
I also wonder if conscripting this kid into my fountain army is a good idea. I question the Right-ness of it all. I mean, wouldn’t people be angry if they knew I put a child to work? Shouldn’t this kid be out there playing? But isn’t everyone just a little too worked up all the time thinking that life is only pleasurable if there is playing going on all the time? I mean, I’m here, building a fucking aviary maze, and I think it is a just fine and dandy way of spending a morning/afternoon. However, I admit, I’m getting a little wound up, and it might have to do with the maze I’m making not working out so well, and Faith leaving, and the moral implications of child-labor being my idea of a good time, so I ask the kid if he wants to run around for a second just to get some of the frustration of building a fountain out, and he says ok, and I tell him that we’re going to jog at our own pace and it is so nice to not have Faith here asking me if this is a good idea or why am I doing this, because for some reason this kid just gets it, the why and how and what, but he doesn’t know how to say it, and that’s ok with me.
The running is pretty slow, and the backyard is small, but we don’t care, because going in circles feels good. I think about slugs, and wonder if slugs like to just move in their own way, you know, slug-jogging through life because they have to get the kinks out. I think about Faith and K-Box running away from someone trying to rape them, and I wish I hadn’t thought that because it makes me scared, so I think about how thinking right things and wrong things are just things, and it isn’t real, so it doesn’t matter, and what else would you think if someone had just–twice–mentioned out-loud that she was worried about K-Box and had run off because of rape and all. Some of these thoughts run over each other and repeat each other and eventually I notice that I’m breathing hard. Unlike everyone else, I know that running like this will not kill me because my body will adjust to spite me and say, “You aren’t going to kill me this way!” so I keep it up.
The kid is much slower than me, but I don’t slow down for him. We are going in circles, remember, and he’s never out of sight. And we’re just running. First the kid was sanding granite, and now he’s running, and for a kid who, all alone at home, has to deal with three strangers coming into his backyard and telling him what to do, he’s doing a great job of it, and thank God it was us who came into his backyard, because, as Faith would tell you, there are some messed up people in the world, and running won’t kill you, but knives and rape might, which is why I am running here, and Faith is running somewhere else, all three of us running all the time, and our bodies keep smiling and saying, “Good fucking job.” Yes, a good job, here, I’m doing, of keeping this kid busy. I keep expecting something to go wrong, like the kid crying, or the kid complaining, or the kid wanting, or the kid whining, or the kid dying, or something, because too often people tell me I’m wrong, and evil, and terrible, but I don’t think I am, because this kid looks normal and peaceful, and just kind of living for the swing of things running along, and that is good for him, you know, to be calm and happy.
So, you won’t be surprised to hear that I decide that the best thing for Sam and I to do is to go looking for Faith and K-Box, because if there is rape happening, it is best if we are there to hit the hard, bony parts with even harder solid things, because boys break bones, and girls tear flesh, and a combination of these things is bound to end rape as we know it in this world, and because Sam and I are already warmed up, we can get to the trouble-spot in the nick of time. And Sam is just happy as hell to run through his house, jog with me down the block, and far, far away from the home he knows having left the door open and the fountain near-complete, and, by the way, I remind him that he did a wonderful job.
I swear to you, if he asked me to, I’d bring him back. But he seems content. Anyway, that day we found Sam, it turned out that K-Box got a feast of apples and cucumbers, and told us the tale of how she gave back by opening up one of those big crates of bouncy balls that you hardly ever see anymore, and all the people there played with the balls, even the employees, and laughed together as no one in the store thought that stopping it was a good idea at the moment. And I say, if there is Justice in this world, then it must know that I think I’m doing a pretty fucking good job considering what I could be doing, which would be raping people and smoking crack, and so could us all.
Besides, why was that kid all alone for so long?
To be quite honest with you, I think Sam is disgusting. I mean, growing up in this wacky place is probably not that great for anyone, but, like, right now, I’m wishing that the creepy little fucker wouldn’t pick that scab on his knee and throw the scraps all over the floor of the living room. I feel this so intensely that I want to throw the bowl of grapes I’m eating (blue flowery ceramic!) at Sam’s head. But I don’t, and won’t, and never have, and that is what makes me special: this amazing ability to control myself even as I can see the kid peering down over to the lee side of the knee, half curled up, other leg kind of crooked with the cuff of his jean leg all pushed up having caught on the edge of the broken and raised hardwood floor that we will never be able to afford to fix Faith being such a low wage earner, this ability to control myself is like one of my most amazing qualities, and thank you very much for noticing that I didn’t even ask him to stop.
