God Box

Jayme, Jethro’s little sister, died last week.  It was a game he thought-not meant to hurt her.  But then again it seemed like every time he tried to play with her she got hurt.  Sometimes he wanted to hurt her.  Sometimes when Mama came to comfort her little girl he relished his punishment.  Before Jayme was a month old she had been back to the hospital twice because of Jethro’s playing games with her.

Jethro was a good baby.  He never cried.  Sometimes he felt like he was being looked over because he didn’t cry so when he was a toddler he learned how to throw temper tantrums.  He learned it from the children on the television.  Without any other kids for miles Jethro spent most of the daytime watching the god box-that’s what Mama called it since all the preachers had gone on it to reel more folks in.  She thought it was a great idea; with the television the word of god could reach billions at a time instead of just a few at a time.  Jethro most enjoyed doctor shows, he was fascinated by the body.  He wanted a doctor’s kit for play but Mama said no.  He wondered why but never asked because nobody questioned Mama.

Papa died working out in the yard or he was in prison or he had run away to California-no one was sure.  All Jethro knew was he hadn’t seen Papa since Mama told him she was having another baby.  Jethro never asked why.  Mama almost lost Jayme from her womb because Jethro was having a fit one day over not being allowed to have cookies before supper.  He jumped from his chair and kicked her in the belly and he hoped that the baby got hurt because Mama said he had to be gentle with her when she got there. 

Jayme survived three years without the protection of Mama’s belly.  Jethro did not want to hurt her after he saw how tiny she was.  He thought she would be bigger since she made Mama so fat.  Mama worked at Joe’s Restaurant in the morning and Baby Doll’s at night.  Jethro took the bus to school and Carol, the neighbor that babysat Jayme, picked him up.  He did not like Carol because she smelled funny and didn’t let him watch the television-she said it robbed children of their childhoods.  Carol made him play with Jayme while she played the piano or read a book. He did his best to use nice hands when he touched Jayme but when she cried he thought she was laughing and when she laughed he tried to keep it that way. 

Tuesday Carol was late to pick Jethro up because Jayme had a fever and she had to go to the corner store, which is not a corner store at all seeing as it is twenty five minutes away from her home and fifty minutes from the school, to get some aspirin.  The car door slammed and Jethro looked at Carol like her head had been shrunk.  I waited for an hour! he exclaimed.  She felt attacked and immediately rushed to defend herself explaining to the eight year old that his sister had a horrible fever and the only place around that sold baby aspirin, which is the only aspirin safe for younger children such as Jayme, was the corner store.  She paused and took a deep breath.

Why am I explaining myself to an eight year old?  Carol shook her head and sighed then looked to the back seat where Jamye was safe and asleep.  Mama just gives her whiskey Jethro thought.  He knew better than to tell Carol something like that because a few months ago he tried to take a swig of her wine and she lectured him for ten minutes because he knew better than that and because people should not drink after one another anyway. 

Carol’s house was two miles down a dirt road from the shack Mama rented.  Carol’s husband used to farm the land but he went into the army when that German guy started shooting bombs and never came back.  His picture is big as Jayme and hangs over the fire place.  Carol likes to talk about how if Jethro had a father figure in his life such as her dead husband or his own mysterious father he would not treat Jayme the way he does because no man would let another man, young or otherwise, treat a lady like Jethro treats little Jayme. 

Jethro ran to the front door and wriggled the handle.  Carol juggled Jayme and the keys.  Jayme’s eyes were open but she was mouse-like and only sniffled at Jethro instead of her usual squeal.  Since Jayme was sick and sleepy Carol laid her on the bed and closed the door.  Half an hour passed and Jethro completed his daily reading so Carol sent him to check on Jayme.  Jethro galloped to the room licking the thermometer like a lollipop.  Carol leaned against the hallway frame while she waited for Mama to come to the phone.  Jethro looked at the clock in the living room as he passed through and wondered if Mama was serving at Joe’s or teaching men to dance at Baby Doll’s. 

The door creaked open and Jayme stirred amongst the overstuffed pillows and down comforter.  He called her name but she did not wake.  He tapped her shoulder and looked at her sideways, as a confused puppy might, and whispered in her ear.  A few weeks ago Mama took him with her to Baby Doll’s.  He sat in the car while she went inside because it wasn’t a place for little boys, but Jethro couldn’t imagine why not because when the door opened he got a peek at a lady dancing naked around a pole and a bunch of men watching.  When Mama clogged back to the car Jethro explained to her that little boys like to watch naked ladies dance-that’s why Johnny and Kim hide dirty photos in the boy’s bathroom.  Mama shook her head and scolded him the whole way home.  He thought about this while he looked at Jayme lying in Carol’s bed and became curious about what Jayme looked like naked. 

One time, he recalled, he saw a doctor put a thermometer in a Mama’s butt.  He was supposed to be in the waiting room but the chest nut and moth ball smell made him cough so he sneaked down the hall to spy through the crack in the door.  Was he supposed to take Jayme’s temperature through her butt?  Carol did not say where to put the thermometer and he had never taken a temperature before.  He tried again to wake Jayme but again she only stirred. 

I’m going to take your temperature, Jayme, he said aloud then uncovered her.  Her body was hot and clammy like the kitchen when Mama boils soup.  The elastic of her pants was wet from sweat and when he smelled it he noticed something happened to him that he could not control.  His private area hardened and when he moved and brushed against the bed it gave him goose bumps.  He wondered if this was the adult feeling Mama had told him about on the way home from Baby Doll’s.  This had to be the feeling Johnny and Kim told him about when they looked at the dirty pictures; he never got that feeling from their stash.

Carol opened the door and began yelling at him.  What are you doing?  She snatched Jethro by the arm, her nails dug into his skin, and Jayme began crying.  Carol dragged Jethro out into the hallway screaming: what the hell were you doing to her?  Before Jethro began his explanation Carol thrust him into the wall and pointed to his trousers with her jaw gaping.  Jethro stuttered and shrugged but Carol kept yelling and Jayme was still crying.  He wanted to smile because he thought Jayme was laughing at everything but when he hinted a smile Carol’s hand graced his face and his trousers became wet-he darted to the living room. 

Carol gave Jayme some more baby aspirin and called Mama again.  Jethro could not make out what she was saying but she was hysteric and he was scared.  When Mama came to get them she did not even look at Jethro and when he tried to speak with her she looked the other way or began humming.  Mama was wearing her sequence dress and a fluffy coat, Jethro told her she looked pretty.  Their shack was a kitchen, bathroom, and little room which Mama’s bed took up most of.  Mama laid Jayme down in bed.  Jethro waited by the front door but he did not know what for.  Mama told him to take the television outside.  Apparently the God box had been wrong about something.  Maybe Carol had convinced Mama that the box was corroding Jethro’s brain!

The next day the rain saturated the wooden box that held the electrical components.  Mama had to call off of work to take Jayme to the clinic-the hospital was too costly.  As the man at the clinic took Jayme’s temperature, Jethro watched.  I thought it went in her butt he blurted as a late defense.  The man laughed and Mama scowled at Jethro.  He slinked out to the waiting room.  No matter where he moved the fan was pointing at him and the receptionist’s eyes followed his every move as her hand scribbled on bleached paper. He surveyed the room for a television-there wasn’t.

Mama smacked him in the back of the head with Jayme dangling in her arms on her way out.  He jumped from his sleep to follow her.  He wanted to know what was wrong with Jayme but Mama wasn’t saying anything so he did not open his mouth.  Tears bubbled up in Mama’s eyes on the way home.  She had a bottle of pills in her lap that she fingered; the bottle was so full they did not rustle.  Jayme was awake now; the only noise that came from her was a whistling when she inhaled and a rumble when she exhaled. 

Jethro tried to figure out why Mama had tears in her eyes, why Jayme whistled, why Carol screamed at him.  He was placidly confused.  It was a game to him, which Jayme was playing with Mama and Carol.  She was trying to get their attention.  Jethro thought about how much Mama and Carol listened to the doctors, it was as though their undivided attention was connected to Jayme’s survival-Jayme played pretty clever but Jethro had played that game before.  He learned in physical education that in order to win a game you only had to be better than whoever you were playing against. 

Mama was in the shower.  Jethro sat on the edge of the bed so close to Jayme that her heat radiated and made his back warm.  He thought about what Carol had told him about treating Jayme better and having a male influence.  The doctor was a man and he gave Mama pills for Jayme, maybe if Jethro gave Jayme some of the pills and she played along Mama would forgive him for trying to stick the thermometer in Jayme’s butt.  And maybe then Mama would get a new television!

He took six steps to the kitchen, pausing at the honey suckle scent of Mama in the shower and noticing his trousers bulge-scurried.  The pills were in an amber bottle with a click top, as he reached for the bottle he hesitated.  No, he spoke into the humid air, Mama is going to be so proud of me. 

Jayme was almost acting normal now-the equivalent of normal that Carol acts after about five glasses of wine.  Mama had given her two pills earlier.  Jethro read the bottle: 3 pills by mouth, his thumb covered the daily between pills and by.  The second line said: keep out of reach of children-I am no child he muttered with his thick brown brows furrowed.  The lid clicked to the right to open, there was an arrow on the top that said so.  Jethro plopped three pills into his palm.  Little blue coated capsules with tiny white numbers waded in his little cusped hand. 

Take your pre-scription he snickered as he nudged her on the shoulder- feeling proud to be the doctor.  Jayme’s flushed cheeks puckered; they looked like apples against the white of the sheets.  Thakyo Bubby she sighed. 

The bottle cap clicked and Mama stormed from the bathroom with the towel under her armpits, hair sopping and eyes protruding with worry.  Jayme turned over to hug the pillow her bare back exposed from the sheets.  What are you doing Jethro?  Mama leaned forward.  Jethro struggled with his hands twisted behind him to push the pill bottle under Jayme’s pillow.  The top popped off and the pills cascaded and rolled to Mama’s wet feet.  Jethro, surprised by the concern in the wrinkles of Mama’s forehead gasped. 

I gave her night time pill he said under his breath.  Mama pushed him aside and turned Jayme over.  Jayme’s head rolled over on Mama’s forearm, her eyes were closed-Jethro poked around Mama and said: she’s sleeping.  She ain’t sleeping Jethro!  Mama wailed as she bounded to the telephone. 

Jayme was rushed by sirens to the hospital.  Jethro tried to peek in Jayme’s room but Mama caught him.  He saw Jayme though, for a half a second which was long enough for him to see tubes hanging from her arms, a mask swallowing her face and the doctor shaking his head.  She reminded him of the broken God box; outside by the concrete steps saturated from the rain.  Jethro sat on the cool tiles of the hospital hall with his back to the wall, he outlined the tiles with his index finger.  He did not think anything and did not feel anything until Mama broke the hum of machines and doctor’s speak with a wail.  He turned to peek through the crack between the door and the frame when a nurse slid out of the room with red welted eyes.  This place smells like a wet dog he said aloud as the door closed and the air was shuffled.  The nurse shook her head and tip-toed away.

Mama came out, the doctor wrapped around her shoulder trying to console her.  She looked down on Jethro.  The doctor asked how Jayme got into the pills.  There was a moment overtaken by stillness and silence as Mama looked to Jethro and wondered if he understood what he had done.  He did not of course, he thought he was making Jayme better-a game of doctor-Jayme the unfortunate experimental patient.

While Jethro was watching the television and I was showering she must’a gotten hold of the pills off the kitchen counter she said with a tear trembling down her cheek.