(c) 2013 all rights reserved

Robby was the last new boy,

having come to the Tarrant County Children’s Home

just days before.

He was pale and quiet, with Cherokee cheeks, a crooked nose,

straight dark hair and a hawk-like stare.

He carried an inhaler for asthma, and his

malnourished arms were so thin his shirt sleeves flapped

like little wings.

Radiators hissed at frosted windows

that morning our matron went after Robby.

He’d wet his bed again and was cringing

near some lockers where her gnarly finger pointed.

"Get over here!" she said.

Robby backed away, pleading,

“No, Mama Grossman!

Please! I didn’t mean to!"

Impaling him with cobra eyes,

she moved to where the board was kept—

a hefty plank of pine, sanded smooth, notched and taped for ease of grip.

It jolted me, that look of terror in his eyes

when Robby saw the board there in her hand.

I couldn’t look away but wanted to,

as he crouched there trying to disappear, screaming,

"No! Mama Grossman!

I won’t do it again!"

There was no way for me to know back then

that sight of the board in Grossman’s hand

had triggered memories of beatings by his mother.

In Robby’s bones, he knew too well

the consequences of a woman’s rage.

We gathered, all thirteen of us, to watch.

"I’ll show you what defying

Muh-E-e can mean!"

She wagged her head and bugged her eyes

as “me” roared up in a warbling growl.

"I tell yuh, now;

the longer yuh take;

the more you’ll get!"

On she came, gesturing, while

from her other hand, cocked against a hip,

hung her wooden tool of rising lust.

And with each step closer Robby backed away,

yet she persisted, ‘til the distance shrank and

she could grab his wrist and pull him clear

for an unimpeded swing.

"Now bend over! Grab

those ankles like I said!"

With flowing tears, the

sixty-pounder’s hands went down and

he took the posture of submission as directed.

The impact buckled his knees, and

he scrambled screaming past her reach, then turned, pleading,

tugging at his rump as if it were on fire.

But like a snarling dog, she said,

“Get back here! Grab those ankles!

Not tomorrow, grab ‘em now!

I could read on Robby’s anguished face

how torn he was between

the matron’s unrelenting power

and his urge to run. But where?

The reason he was there

was no one had a place for him.

When Robby could no longer stall,

he bent his bony frame, and just

as his trembling fingers touched his shoes

she swung the board with everything she had.

Up once more he lurched, dancing, screaming,

pulling at the fabric of his jeans. But

Grossman only glared and spat the sickening command,

“Get back and grab those ankles!”

From where I stood safe behind a table,

the dormitory clock had stopped.

The smell of pee was in the air.

The boys and I could only gape

and hope for this to end.

And yet the gargoyle carousel revolved, and—

again his trembling fingers reached,

again she struck,

again his body jerked and writhed.

Inverted, from between his legs,

Robby watched her backswing and prepared.

A veteran now, he’d worked out

how to time his move and spring erect,

absorbing energy with his baggy pants.

But those self-preserving antics

were like feeding oxygen to fire.

Her face a dripping mask,

she snatched his wrist and held him

as he struggled in an arc around her.

“I’ll show You!” she said,

grabbing his collar she jammed his head between her knees and pinned it there;

then, holding his belt she hoisted his rump and

worked on it like some hate machine gone wild.

The flabby arm attached to her sweat-darkened blue flowered dress

ratcheted up and down,

up and down,

            up and down,

while Robby, his upside-down face beet red, flailed

his arms among her granny shoes and the sweat and tear-stained tiles, while

Grossman’s teeth clamped pulsing onto her lower lip,

in rhythm to the impact of the board.

Then finally she staggered, released her quivering knees,

and let the whimpering mass that once was little Robby

tumble to the floor.

He bounced all the way to Vermont,

where in fifty years I found him,

a brush-faced fire-breathing sparrow of a man

with hands like iron.

I held him close, wiped his tears and told him,

“Love you man.”

We reminisced about the Home

and a certain marble game we’d played.

I bought him food and art supplies.

He drew me pictures.

Using Facebook, I found his sisters

and his children, all six of them.

A round of seasons came and went, then

Reverend Abernathy posted Robby had pneumonia,

but before his ashes filled the urn,

he got to see from the lap-held screen of his eldest woman child,

pictures of our Homer clan

and his own progeny.

Indeed, we said our final words,

three thousand miles apart, on Facebook.

(Thank you Mister Zuckerberg.)

Robby rides my shoulders now,

every day, reminding me

that I still owe him those

four marbles.

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