Up There at the House

By Pete A. Martin

Away in the hills of an Eastern Kentucky county he has never left, a boy waits to be transportedto where, he does not know. He grits his teeth to keep the tears from his eyes. He refuses to let anyone see him cry. Just as they are leaving, the fine mist that has been falling turns in to a steady rain. A short time later, Cygnet A. DeKeigh is welcomed to his new home: an asylum.
Thankfully, Cygs new home is temporary and he is eventually released back into the poverty-stricken world that surrounds the Appalachian Mountains as the only child of unruly and unstable parents. As he continues a coming-of-age journey fraught with trials, tribulations, and triumphs, Cyg must somehow navigate through emotional upheavals, roller coaster relationships, and good and evil. Finally as he completes high school, Cyg has the chance to reflect on his experiences, his lessons, and most importantly, how he will pursue his dreams.
Up There at the House shares the provocative account of a boys coming-of-age journey in the Appalachian Mountains of Eastern Kentucky as he learns about life, love, and the value of an education.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Sep 21, 2016
• ISBN: 9781532005046

Pete A. Martin

Pete Martin grew up in rural Kentucky where he attended and taught in one-room schools. He continued his education at Lee’s Junior College, EKU, U Pike, U of D, Letcher Co., and in metropolitan school systems. Today, Pete works, writes, and lives in Whitesburg, Kentucky. Up There at the House is his first book.

Book preview

Copyright © 2016 Pete A. Martin.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Certain characters in this work are historical figures, and certain events portrayed did take place. However, this is a work of fiction. All of the other characters, names, and events as well as all places, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

iUniverse

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.iuniverse.com

1-800-Authors (1-800-288-4677)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-5320-0503-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-0502-2 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-0504-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016913204

iUniverse rev. date:    09/19/2016

Dedication

With love not always freely given, but is forever there.

This story of Cygnet is dedicated to:

William and Samantha Martin

Joel and Judith Martin

Allen and Emily Ritter (Sergent) Martin

Christy, Conrad Can, John, Alex Aleck, Hasedore Has, Willie, Annie, Nancy Nannie, Cordelia

Alex and Francis Pimmie (Meade) Martin

Sherd, Luther, Dewey, Virgie, Della

John P. and Francis (Meade) Meade

Loretta Bet, Daisy

John John Boy and Mary (Moore) Hall

Willie, Dicy Rose Belle Vera Victoria Dicy, Monroe, Elbert, Ida, Lillie Mae, Cora, Benjamin Ben

Bob and Lillie Mae Mae (Hall) Deaton

Mary Bell Bea

Luther and Lillie Mae Mae (Hall) Martin

Lucy, Virgie Bud, Mildred Louise, Astor Pete (Crippled Jim and Blind Jack),

Luther Jr. Luke, Hester Helen, Estil Curtis Curt, Betty Lois, Anita Joyce Nita

Elijah Lige and Mary B. (Deaton) Lucas

Linda Rose, Goldie Mae, Ruth Ann Ruthie, Kathy, Carol

Eugene and Virginia (Martin) Asher

Eugenia Lou, Paula Sue [Andrea, Steve, Daniel Danny]. Sheila Kay

E. L. Asher and Bill Watts

Johnny and Louise (Martin) Gregory

John Ella Louise, Jennifer Lori [Jayden, Emily]

Luke and Reba (Smith) Martin

Gregory Scott [Jackson]

Luke and Anita (Hardin) Martin

Garth and Helen (Martin) Bennett

Curt and Gail (Tolliver) Martin

Bret Allen [Bret Jr. Boomer, Amara], Shane Curtis [Martha, Derrick, Cassius]

James Earl Mose and Betty (Martin) Braddock

Jamison Renee Jamie [Arabella, Kensley], Tara Ashley Ashli [Brayden, Aubree Magnolia]

Mike and Betti (Martin) Johnson

Anita J. and Denzil

Estil and Lola (Stallard) Bentley

Yvonne [Tommy Tombo Mullins]

Efford and Lois (Stallard) Adams

Jackie Von LeQuire (cousin and best childhood friend)

Steven Slone-Martin (son?)

And to

Cygnet and all the cygnets in these Appalachian Mountains, and in the ghetto, or wherever they may be

Acknowledgements

My thanks to:

Anita J. Martin

Vocabulary oversight

Word processing

Spellcheck

Proofreading

Orderly arrangement

Louise M. Gregory

Layout and outlay

Scope and sequence

E L Asher

Technical assistance

Editorial commentary

Shane C. Martin

Reverse psychological encouragement

Adverse criticism

Martha Callahan-Martin

Helpful suggestions

Insightful discussions

Interesting conversations

Gaynelle (Duncan) Hall

Keyboarding

Corrections

Computer printouts

TRAYP

On whom the character imprimis of this book is based and personality imprimis is predicated

Local mountain folks

Inadvertently contributing their ideas and ideals, their philiosophy, their core beliefs, their background, their language and their way of life

and to;

Cygnet A. DeKeigh

For willingly and/or reluctantly staking his reputation and for sharing his story his secrets, his dreams, and the intimate details of his life without which this book would not be possible.

50770.png

The only dream he’d ever dreamt that was to come true was coming true today.

Along a particular stretch of a certain thoroughfare stands a framed sign, about the size of a standard billboard, with a dull, dark background and fading yellowish lettering. The sign reads:

******************************************************

Department of Health and Human Services

Residential Treatment Center

Eastern Division

******************************************************

The state seal appears in one corner, and the state logo (the outline of a fleeting horse accompanied by the words Unbridled Spirit) appears in the opposite corner. A long, narrow arrow points the way to a wide, locked gate, the only means of legal entry through the chain-link fence that encircles the entire complex.

This is a drab and dreary place where trees, flowers, and grass do not grow, where birds do not chirp and sing, where children do not play freely. There is no pattern to the construction within this compound. It is a mix of bricks, blocks, concrete, steel, and asphalt. The sprawling structures are all connected by walkways and sidewalks. It is not easy to tell one from the other, with only one exception. This is the outlandish, antediluvian building adjacent to the parking lot. It has a very steep roof and, in front, an expansive archway fitted with two extra-wide doors that, though barred, have thick, full-length, granular glass panels. Offices of Administration is painted in red on one of the twin doors, and Assessment & Orientation is painted, also in red, on the other. Of course, the state seal is prominently displayed in the center of the rigid semicircular woodwork directly above these majestic doors.

On the northernmost side of this antiquated building, only an inch or so from the wall, looms a gigantic rock. Over the years, droplets of rain and melting snow dripping steadily off the sloped roof onto its silky-smooth, marbled surface have weathered it down until blinding rays from a hellish sun upon the flaming sheen now gives the onlooker a magical illusion of fire on ice. If there is a story behind this boulder, no one seems to know it. Perchance the story may yet be told.

The people running this place refer to the wards as units, patients have become residents, and this mental hospital is called a treatment home. This PC changes nothing: units are still wards, residents are still patients, and this treatment home is still a mental hospital. The residents are segregated in accordance with gender and age. A zigzagging wall, which appears to have been haphazardly erected, separates the units. The ones on the left provide housing for the adults, while those on the right house the children through sixteen years of age. On their seventeenth birthday, regardless of how feeble or immature they might be, they are transferred to the other side. This is one rule that thus far has not been broken.

In keeping with current policy, at least on paper, of mainstreaming and inclusiveness, selected members of these groups are permitted to meet during inclement weather for indoor, supervised recreation; otherwise, there is practically no contact between them.

A large kitchen with a small dining area for staff only is conveniently situated near the units. Other facilities maintained here include treatments and counseling rooms, a clinic for treating minor cuts and bruises and temporary aches and pains, an infirmary for caring for more serious ailments, and a pharmacy where those precious pills are kept. At the very end of the hallway in the main building is the state-of-the-art electroshock therapy station. This room is padded so as to muffle sound.

Bright lights stay on 24-7 in every unit. There is lighting along the sidewalks and walkways. Lights on utility poles come on at dusk and go off at dawn. And yet this is a place of dim and hiding shadows, a quiet zone where noise never ceases.

Away in the hills of his county, a county he has never been out of, a boy waits to be transported—to where, he does not know. He grits his teeth to keep the tears from his eyes; he will not let the bastards see him cry. Just as they are leaving, a fine mist that has been falling on this cloudy and gloomy day turns into a steady rain.

When Cygnet first landed here, he was immediately taken to the ad building, where he was just as quickly ushered into the first room on the right, the receiving room. Two male orderlies were on duty. Neither one greeted him. The ugly one cropped his hair unceremoniously and then told him to take off all his clothes. When he had done so, the other orderly, the sissy one, shuffled him into a shower stall where the water was already running. While still in the shower, the orderly sprayed him from head to toe, front and back, for Pediculus corporis, a.k.a. body lice. Less than five minutes later, one of them called to him to come out.

They gave him used underwear and socks, a pair of deck shoes, and scrubs. (Belts were not allowed.) The scrubs were much too big for him. The attendants realized this, but they were not about to make an exchange since the boy’s name tag had already been pressed on them.

Cygnet finished dressing in a hurry. Now looking like the little idiot they said he was, the sissy orderly escorted him directly across the hall to the evaluation room.

A lady with spectacles down on her long nose and a bushy head of hair that flared out on both sides was perched behind a very large desk. Her raspy voice was not pleasing to the ears.

Sit, sit, right there, she said, pointing to a chair. Do you know where you are?

He just shrugged his shoulders.

Do you know why you are here?

The boy shook his head.

Can you tell me what time it is right now?

Cygnet jutted a thumb toward the clock on the wall.

I like to hear about people’s families, the lady cajoled. "Do you want to tell me about your family?"

Again, the child shifted his shoulders.

She continued her questioning—Cygnet, his silence. Throughout her interrogation, she was scribbling on a yellow legal pad:

13 April, Friday

C. DeKeigh #124569

no ident scars, marks observable

visibly malnutritioned [sic]

blank stare

nervous, agitated

unaware of surround

uncommunicative

nonverbal resp

diag—dementia praecox?

med/therapy reg tbd

appt. w/ child psych STAT

temp assign to U 7

A tiny slobber in one corner of Cygnet’s mouth had not gone unnoticed by this assessor. Although she did not include this observance in her initial report, it was because of this little slobber and because he refused to talk and answer questions that she placed him in Unit 7. This is the ward specifically reserved for the severely mentally retarded—(pardon be begged)—the exceptionally challenged. His placement was meant to be temporary, yet when he finally did start to talk and cooperate, for whatever reason or for no reason at all, Cygnet was never moved from this unit.

While her subject sat there slumped in his seat, the woman behind the desk dictated her findings electronically into a database. After making a quick phone call, she got up and walked to the door. She turned to Cygnet and told him, Stay right there and don’t move, and then left the room.

In a little while, a younger man, recently employed there, showed up. He had on a cherry-red shirt splattered with oversized flowers, which to Cygnet looked like a woman’s blouse, and his broad smile did not fit his face and seemed out of place in this place. You wanna come with me? he patronizingly inquired. On the way, he informed and advised the boy, You’ve got two or three total nuts where you’ll be staying. They’ll be bugging you. The best thing to do is to ignore them and try to stay out of their way.

A spacious, rectangular extension had recently been added to the lobby of the unit to which this new boy was assigned. This pen had soon become the center of activity where many of the kids in this ward passed idle hours.

Timing is virtually meaningless to these youngsters. Their diurnal and nocturnal schedules get all mixed up in their minds. As if walking in their sleep, they can be seen wandering the hallway at night or sauntering into the pen hours before daylight. They may be fully awake one minute and fast asleep the next. One day is likened unto another, and the nights are not that different, at most, not to them.

When Cygnet walked into Unit 7, he was unprepared for what he saw.

A child lay naked at the entrance door. Cygnet skittishly stepped over whoever it was. He glanced around fast, trying to take in everything at once. There on the floor, creation and miscreation mingled with flesh, torment, and human ordure. On one side of the hall lay another naked child foaming at the mouth, his saliva dripping between the legs of another nude body. Straight across from them, an older unclad lad, in a moment of autoerotic arousal, was playing with himself with both hands. Near the center of the pen, one of the male youngsters had regurgitated and was smearing the stuff with his hand, then licking the vomit off of his fingers. Green flies, those former maggots, were making a feast of what was left. Off to this boy’s left, a disrobed child had his head bent down to a pool of stale urine and giggled as he made it bubble when he blew into it. When he raised up, his wet lips glistened as the salty liquid drooled down his chin. Two other kids in their underwear were on their hands and knees engaged in weird antics, first backing their butts into each other, then turning around and butting heads. A bigger boy, also buck naked, off in a dark corner by himself, had just defecated and was now fingering his own excrement as a lowly cockroach (cucaracha), daring to face the light of day, crawled along the fresh fecal material clinging between his buttocks.

Cygnet shifted his eyes over toward the far right of the lobby. One little boy was in a chair getting his hair cut. Wearing only long T-shirts, a couple of other boys with big, wide stupid grins on their faces were milling about awaiting their turn. Becoming tired and impatient, they began pulling up their nightgowns above the waist and fondling their genitals.

Meanwhile, the TV, always on a cartoon channel, was blaring as it did all day, every day.

At this point in time, a scowling janitor came through with a water hose. First he sprayed the children, enjoying watching them squirm as he did so. Then, turning the pressure up full blast, he thoroughly sprayed the floor, flushing the filth down the drain into the sewer.

The housemother on duty led Cygnet to a cubicle furnished with a single bunk, a plastic chest level with the bunk, the top of which could by used as a table, and a thatched waste basket. That was it. Out of Cygnet’s reach, in a corner above the bed, an oversized night light that stayed on 24-7 emitted a harsh yellow glow.

This is where you be sleeping, okay? the housemother told him, but you can come here whenever you want, okay? Her voice was so loud that Cygnet figured she must think he had too much duck shit (his term for wax) in his ears, but she did seem to be a kind person. She continued, You see the big happy clown here on the side? That’s so you’ll know which place is yours, okay? Can you be remembering that? I bet you can!

Cygnet nodded affirmatively.

I’ll be back in a little bit, okay? she was saying as she walked away, but she never came back the rest of the day.

Looking out the lone window in the unit, Cygnet could see the big rock. Feeling perplexed, apprehensive, and scared, he sat down on the edge of the bunk. As if to clear his mind, he shook his head vigorously and slapped his forehead with the palm of his hand. A little mouse, experiencing neither of these emotions, scurried noiselessly across the floor.

It was time for dinner (which is called supper where Cygnet comes from). The caterers arrived, two of whom were pushing red double-decker, plastic carts. One of them called out, Time to eat while the other one, like a moron, shouted, Food, food, food.

Meals were served in Styrofoam trays and cups, sporks and straws included. Cygnet’s first supper in his new asylum was a thick soup, mainly rice and noodles, fries with ketchup, a T-bologna sandwich, and a grape drink, unsweetened. (Excess sugar made them hyper.) Several of the children were being spoon-fed. They gurgled the drink and slurped the soup. Snot from runny noses and spit from salivating tongues slid down their chins and spilled into the messy porridge, but they ate it anyhow.

Cygnet waved away a couple of houseflies, Musca domestica, that flitted about his face. He had eaten only a few bites before getting sick to his stomach. He dumped the remainder in the garbage.

Late that evening, they were treated to a Little Debbie snack of whatever flavor other than chocolate. (Chocolate was poison to the mental faculties.) One child was bypassed. The new kid would soon find out that he would get this nightly dessert if and only if he had not gotten any demerits for that day.

Cygnet lay on the bed in a fetal position, the stench from the pen nagging at his nostrils and the noise of the place ringing in his ears. He jerked the blanket up to his shoulders and angled the pillow so the glare of that damn yellow light would not be on his face. He thought of his home and his friends so far away. He wished he could talk to J. T., and then suddenly, silently, that’s what he was doing. Pretense and reality were getting him mixed up. I don’t like it like this, he whispered as his eyes closed and he drifted off into a fretful sleep.

He woke up early the next morning to someone yelling, Time for breakfast! Breakfast time! Time to break the fast! A few of the boys’ eyes were wide with anticipation. Their biological clocks told them this was the weekend when the breakfast menu was supposed to be special. Their excitement abruptly turned to anger and disappointment. Instead of dry cereal and a banana, scrambled eggs and bacon pieces, and buttered toast, they got balled-up oats, watered-down gravy, crumbly biscuits, and a half pint of milk that was always served with the morning meal. Sour oranges had been substituted for juice.

To protest in the only way he knew how, one juvenile smeared his face and other bodily parts with oatmeal and gravy, then started throwing bread across the room and splashing milk wherever it went. Several of the others joined in. Those who didn’t couldn’t have cared less. Oranges hit the ceiling. The staff was running helter-skelter from one brawling boy to another, trying to restore order. As for Cygnet, he was just siting back thinking, Way to go. One thing for sure—for sure not many Little Debbie cakes would be handed out that night.

Hoping to rein in their stress, each of the children was given a rice pudding cup shortly after breakfast and promised another after a lunch of baked potato and chicken noodle casserole.

The next day, Sunday, was ice-cream day, and at midmorning and midafternoon, ice cream is what they got.

Already, Cygnet was beginning to take stock of the individuals within the group setting. Every single day, a tall, lanky boy they called Moaner spent much of his time bent over at the waist, an ear next to a wall, going around and around and around. The others had no way of knowing what in the world this child with the inflamed brain was listening for. Perhaps he had already heard it, whatever it was.

His forlorn moans as he circled the room may have been in answer to the voices in his head.

One very pesky and obnoxious teenage boy was so grossly obese he wobbled when he walked. His excessive flatulence enabled him to pass gas long and drawn out, like a fully blown-up, slowly bursting balloon, and simultaneously belch like a constipated ape—big time, followed by swallows and burps in rapid-fire order. The other kids did not seem to mind the foul smell. They would guffaw and laugh uproariously when he performed, but Cygnet didn’t think this was so funny. Appropriately or not, this lad was called Lard Ass.

Another one of these boys could walk on his hands as well as Lard Ass could walk on his feet. Lost in silence, he kept mostly to himself. Cygnet had not heard him say one word. They nicknamed him Headless.

A frail lad, small for his age, was tongue-tied and couldn’t speak splain for spluttering. They gave him no other name. Maybe this was because he was little, or it was because his given name was Tyler.

As time overtook time, Cygnet got used to the loud noise, the raunchy odor, and the crisscross goings-on in the place. While he accepted the raucous, sometimes freakish behavior of the children, he never really became a part of it. One thing he did not get used to was that plain rice and noodles and plain noodles and rice day in and day out. Despising them both, he gulped them down so as not to taste either one bit more than he had to.

Cygnet hardly ever saw any of his female counterparts for more than a very brief while. He guessed they were not as insane as the guys. Had he gotten to know them, he would have come to realize that, generally, there were a kinder, gentler lot. In contrast to the boys, they did not react or overreact so quickly to insignificant stuff. He would have been underwhelmed by their overall sweetness. One little girl cried for a week when her surrogate mother reached age seventeen and was now on the other side of the wall. There was this one particular girl Cygnet always smiled at when he did see her, and she always smiled back.

The grown-ups idled away their time pulling at their hair, plucking their fingernails, or fumbling with the ragged threads on their scrubs. They were kept medicated much more so than the juvies. Several of them were doped and drugged to the max on a daily-type basis; still, they begged for more. Numbness was more prevalent among them than depression. Anxiety and panic attacks were common, violence rare.

These women and men could see each other from afar whenever they were let out on the yard in front of the unit. One elderly senile gentleman carried a cane. A bowlegged woman, who complained of back pain, was using a walker. No one was on crutches or in a wheelchair. At these opportune times, these men and women openly flirted with each other, waving, blowing kisses, and making sexually suggestive gestures. Yard time was a happy time for them!

Anyone who had laid claim to another was not shy in letting everybody else know it. Seldom did two of the women or a couple of the men go at one another physically. When they did, the trouble between them could most often be traced to jealousy over a lover or a love affair by remote control. In these type situations, the women were far more aggressive than any man there dared to be.

It is strange how folks such as these know the names of the meds they are on. It is strange how folks such as these refer one to the other, not by name but as a mental disorder. Psycho seemed to be the most commonly preferred one.

Cygnet had settled into a sort of routine. He did not go out of his way to interface with or suck up to the staff. He volunteered on his own to help some of the kids who desperately needed help straightening up their little rooms. He was told he didn’t have to this, but he did it because he wanted to, and besides, he was getting to be quite popular with his fellow wards of the state.

Mail and phone calls to and from residents were monitored, and visits were limited. This was of no concern to Cygnet; he had never written or received a letter, never gotten or made a phone call, never had a visit. In a word, he was incommunicado.

Church groups and college classes toured the place now and then, gawking at the children as if they were cowering monkeys in a zoo waiting for the next banana to be thrown their way. What impressed them most, rather than these kids, was the piano with matching stool and the cushioned chairs on the covered plaza that opened up into the recreational area.

State officials made annual inspections; federal authorities inspected biennially. The institution was notified in advance the date and time to ensure the children were free of smudges and grime. Even the keyholes in the door locks were cleaned with cotton swabs dipped in rubbing alcohol.

As a general rule, the inspectors did not speak with the residents person to person; nonetheless, this time one of the feds offhandedly questioned Cygnet about the food. Without hesitation, he replied, Let’s put it this way. My dog wouldn’t eat much of it.

The housemother on the evening shift, a bossy, overbearing type whose authority had gone to her head, had overheard Cygnet’s remark. After the dinner hour, she approached the little hillbilly and commanded, Come with me, Mr. DeKeigh. It’s time-out for you. You were warned.

Cygnet didn’t know what she was talking about, but he had heard about the time-out box. He followed her to a square structure hidden away from public view beyond the far end of the wall. It actually looked like a large box. Here Cygnet was confined for the next eleven hours. Whatever went on in there during that time, he never talked about it afterward.

This infraction notwithstanding, Cygnet was soon thereafter chosen to participate in the rec program. This is where he got to know three of the adult residents pretty darn well.

The one he liked best was a little old lady who over and over introduced herself to him as Mrs. Ronald Wilson Reagan and then, as time permitted, proceeded to give him a detailed account of her life with the (former) president. She related the exact day and time when she said she was told her husband had been shot. Tears came to her eyes as she talked of her ordeal following this dreadful news. She shared a love letter with Cygnet, which she claimed was from Ronnie, but which, in reality, she herself had written. The only thing she didn’t seem to know about this man was that he had been dead for many, many years. He had Alzheimer’s disease.

Another lady he really liked could play the piano by ear. She was a big, but not fat, woman, and she was toothless. Her long, straight black hair, prominent nose, high cheekbones, and deep-set, roving eyes gave her that regal look of an Indian chief. Sitting beside her in one of the plush chairs that felt so comfortable to his butt, Cygnet would whistle a melody, and she could play it at once. He didn’t give a care that everybody knew she wore an adult diaper; he loved to hear her play. The music made him forget for a little while that he was there. Something everyone else did not know was that in this woman’s medical file was recorded a singular prognostic entry—inoperable brain tumor.

Some people in this weird place sometimes amazed the boy. One such gentleman he gradually came to know was the 10 x 3 x 1 +2 x 3 + 1 years old. His demeanor was odd, but this is what Cygnet liked about him. He was immaculate in appearance, fastidious in dress, and meticulous in habit and manner. So finicky was he when it came to food, he refused to drink that most perfect of all foods, milk. He worried about a speck of dust or a smidgen of dirt, washing his hands a dozen times or more a day. The staff joked that you could eat off his sanitized behind. He usually had a short no. 2 pencil between his fingers, the eraser end of which he kept putting up to his lips and puffing, as if he were smoking a slim-stemmed pipe.

This man had suffered blunt-force trauma to the head while in his teens. Following this injury, he had lain comatose for three months. Three years later, he had had what he called a nervous breakdown. He could quote, in hurried, grandiloquent speak, well-known Bible verses from G through R only to forget a moment later the biblical passage he had just recited. He would be telling Cygnet about something he had heard, seen, or done, and in midair lose his train of thought. But Cygnet enjoyed listening to him anyway.

This argumentative and confrontational fellow resented the leader in group therapy referencing him as a client. He maintained from day one that it is a myth that psychoses, organic or functional, run in families.

On his way to and from rec, Cygnet passed very close by that (electroshock therapy) room at the end of the hall in the main building. The boy had no idea what was in there, but he would swear he sometimes heard screams coming from that padded cell.

The director of recreation was a good-natured, considerate, patient man with a friendly smile and an easy laugh who enjoyed his work and truly cared about the residents. He had no formal training in the mental health field. He related to these problem people not as invalids but as human beings and respected them in a way he would any other normal person. He matched the activity to the skill level of the individual. Anyone having difficulty was duly noted. This man did not need an attitude adjustment. Of all the workers there, he was without question Cygnet’s first pick.

These people put away in there do not ask for, nor do they want, pity. They are not so prone to that PLM (poor little me) syndrome. They have learned to deal with what they must. But for a quirk of nature, they would be out there getting on with life as it was meant to be. Regardless of what might have been, they may very well be happier living their vapid, wizened, and, some would say, wasted lives in their own little dimensionality than those in their little world outside this fence, coping with their afflictions, addictions, and fixations, defects and disorders, stress and duress, hang-ups and hangovers, and, amongst others, the trendy shaky leg syndrome and, currently, that ever-creeping, all-pervasive information overload syndrome (IOS). The vast majority of those beyond these walls are not aware that a place such as this exists, and it wouldn’t matter that much even if they were aware.

Time, crawling or quickening, overtook time as time does. The winds blew, lightning flashed and thunder rumbled, the rains came, the snow fell, and cloudy and sunshiny days merging and alternating came and went. Cygnet lost track of time. He could no longer tell how long he had been here, but he could tell when his absolutely most favorite holiday was at hand by the colored lights strung in the unit and the bag of downright delicious goodies he was given, compliments of the Salvation Armey. Mmn, mmn.

That day, a day that never comes for an overwhelming number of these mental cases, finally came for Cygnet. He was called to the office right after lunch. He exited the office carrying a long envelope containing documents in one hand and, clutched in the other hand, a large paper sack containing everything he owned in this world except what he had on. (Seven years before this child was born, his mother had been in the same predicament.)

Cygnet went back to the unit, stopped at a trash barrel in the foyer, and quickly found what he was looking for. He walked in his cubbyhole, took a seat on the bed, and turned the plastic chest of drawers upside down. With the aluminum pop-top, he carved his initials, CD, on the bottom. Underneath the letters he cut his personal trademark, a symbol like a stretched S laying flat on its side with twin, slightly slanted, vertical marks in the middle. They’ll never find that, he thought as he turned the chest back upright. He put the tab and the envelope in the paper bag, neatly creased down the folds, and placed it on the floor. He stood up, stepped to a corner, leaned his back into the wall, and slowly slid down onto the hard surface. Pulling his legs upward, he crossed his arms across his knees, his left hand dangling above the sack at his feet. That yellow bulb was still burning. Cygnet rolled his eyes toward it and said aloud, I won’t miss you.

The person who had come to get Cygnet was standing by outside. He had already checked in with administration, provided the necessary information, and signed the triplicate release form. He was given the pink carbon copy. It was official: Cygnet DeKeigh was no longer in the system.

Back in the ward, Cygnet looked around the little room for the last time, then lay down his head on his arms and waited … and waited …

Eventually the young man who had acted as Cygnet’s guide upon the boy’s arrival showed up. To Cygnet’s way of thinking, this man didn’t look to be so young now. Your transport’s out there, he informed Cygnet. You ready?

Yeah was the boy’s one-word answer.

Groping the paper sack for dear life, Cygnet hurried down the hallway. As he went into the lobby, Headless came up to him and, grinning, said, You’z not be crazy no mo’, Cyg. This was the first time Cygnet had ever heard the ebony boy utter a word. Cygnet smiled as the boys gave each other a ghetto handshake. As Headless waved farewell to him, Cygnet walked out the door of Unit 7 into the parking lot.

Cygnet squinted his eyes against the sun’s blinding rays dancing on the steamy pavement. As sometimes are the last of the summer days, today was intensely hot and humid, not a hint of a breeze, the still air muggy and sticky. Already, Cygnet was beginning to sweat.

As he and the driver, who was waiting for him, walked to a red truck, Cygnet threw a phantom dart at the burnished boulder. They got in and slammed the doors shut. The old pickup, somewhat dented and a little bit rusty, started up on the first try. The experienced operator put it in gear, eased out on the clutch, and slowly pulled up to the gate. The gate parted, sliding to either side on guide rails, and suddenly they were exiting the premises.

As Cygnet left these precious, cattle-eyed souls behind, he never looked back. To do so would be bad luck. He had now been psychologically profiled and stigmatized with a label and an institutional number (124569) with which he would be stuck for the duration.

In mere minutes, they were on Interstate 75 heading south. You didn’t fly over the cuckoo’s nest; you flew into it, didn’t you, Cyg? the driver stated, then questioned.

Ah, piss on them, Cygnet replied as he rolled down the window and let his cupped hand ride the waves.

You want a cigarette?

Heck yeah.

As they trucked on mile after mile, it was the driver who did most of the talking, catching Cygnet up on stuff that had happened while he was away. It was odd that he never mentioned Cygnet’s father, but then, too, Cygnet never asked anything about him. It was easy to tell these two knew each other very well.

Soon they were on the road again. Leaving I-75, they turned onto the Mountain Parkway. The farther they went, the bigger the hills became, and the taller grew the trees. Their outline against the sky looked all too familiar. As the mountains were closing in on him, Cygnet fell silent. The driver must have thought he had gone to sleep. Not so. Memories, bad and good, were coming back as fast as the markers on the road were going by. It seemed fitting that at this time John Denver’s version of Take Me Home, Country Roads was playing on the radio. Cygnet mentally changed the words West Virginia to Old Kentucky.

Lewis DeKeigh was not a very social being. The best he could figure, he was of Scotch-Irish descent, but this was of no interest to him. He was born and raised in these mountains (or what was left of them) in the southeastern corner of this south-central state. He knew these hills as well as, if not better than, he knew himself. He could not spell Appalachian yet could sketch a map of these valleys, ridges, and streams, pinpointing exactly the little acre or so where he dwelled. His way of a livelihood was not like the industrious bee, the utilitarian ant, or the persistent termite but rather not unlike hapless dung beetles or listless arachnids (mites).

Lewis’s father was a strict, overbearing man with dull eyes, his mother a stout, stern woman with a strident voice. Grant Wood’s American Gothic would best portray them, the pitchfork depicted in that painting standing for the harshness that comes with being poor and living hard. Lewis was the youngest of five children, three boys and two girls. Their daddy was a closet drunk; their mother never drank such drink. The parents were always arguing and fighting over the same old conflicts, which they seemed incapable of ever resolving. Lewis and his siblings felt the brunt of the belt buckle when their father was in a drunken rage, and at times the swaps of a keen switch at the hands of their mother whenever something made her angry or someone got her mad.

Lewis was religious up to a point. He was a staunch atheist but had been to church, the Old Regular (Hard Shell) Baptist, only three times in his whole life. He cherry-picked the King James holy Bible, hanging on to snippets of scripture that supported his theological convictions while ignoring any others. He had nothing against preachers so long as they preached the Word according to Lewis. Still and all, he didn’t have to listen to them. He had the good book. What more did he need? If he prayed, he prayed silently. In his book, hell on this earth was assurance enough for a place in heaven somewhere.

Lewis struggled with literacy but was tolerable at measurements and numerals. Although his daddy was far too impetuous and ill-tempered to bother teaching him, the son nevertheless learned what little he now knew about farming by watching his old man. Corn was Lewis’s crop of choice. Later on down the line, he would become one of the mighty few left in these hills who turned grain into liquid.

Lewis was in his early teens and the only one of the children still living at home when, on a cold and wintry day, his father suddenly died. One man who knew him fairly well said DeKeigh had died because his bowels locked, but this is what he said every time he heard about any man, middle-aged or older, who had died unexpectedly of natural causes.

Less than two years after the death of his father, Lewis’s mom was stricken with a lingering fever. Lewis had never attended school regularly; when his mother became ill, he dropped out altogether. Like Adolph and Sigmund, he, too, tried the best he knew how to care for his mother. Three years to the day following her husband’s death, with Lewis at her beside, Mrs. DeKeigh passed away. For both of them, that muddled relationship between mother and son had never before been the same as it had been the past year.

Lewis stayed on at the old homestead.

The youngest member of the DeKeigh family was living in the twenty-first century, but in adulthood, his way of living was more like that of a young man raised by a grandmother a hundred years ago. He deplored everything digital, including lovemaking.

In one major way, Lewis’s pa had been a wasteful man; not so with Lewis. Frugal at first, he soon became so niggardly his reputation as a hard-nosed tightwad was well established. Folks made fun of his stinginess to his face, but that did not deter Lewis. He scavenged roadsides, ditches, and trash bins, saving anything of value or salvaging something that might someday come in handy. He piled junk on top of junk. Anyone needing a part for an outdated machine or worn-out appliance or a component for a rattletrap knew where to turn. Word had it that if Lewis didn’t have what a customer was looking for, it wasn’t likely to be found around there. What was amusing was that these people may have time and again bought back the very stuff they themselves had thrown away. Lewis knew well the places where such stuff was discarded. Such a hoarder was he someone started calling him Pack Rat Lew. The name stuck until a more infamous one came along and replaced it.

Lewis didn’t need a cane, but he almost always carried a stick he whittled out of a crooked cudgel from a gnarled dogwood tree, carving a curved notch at the top so that it resembled a cane. This trademark of his served a double purpose; it was his security blanket, and it could be used as a sympathy card. While he was proud of his perceived independence, Lewis was not too hubristic to accept or too haughty to ask for governmental handouts. He unapologetically contended that he deserved help just the same as everybody else did.

Elsie was a coarse, woefully uneducated woman, an uncultured Eliza Doolittle without a single flower to sell. Her knowledge of her genealogical history was sparse and bleak indeed. All she surely knew of her ancestry was that it had something or other to do with raters, and she remembered times she had overheard the whispering voices whenever someone in the family mentioned something about traces of that bad disease somewhere in their unholy background.

Acquaintances either felt sorry for, laughingly mocked, or trashed Elsie’s large family. She had four brothers and three sisters. Her father was a short, stocky, balding man with a paunchy gut who never seemed to finish what he started. He had three big benign knots on the front part of his head just above the forehead. One can readily surmise what he was called.

Elsie knew not where her mother was from originally, but she knew it was not from around there. Tarnation! She didn’t even know her mom’s maiden name. Her mother was a pretty woman with long, flowing hair that accented her solemn face. She appeared so unhappy so much of the time. There was a longing, distant look in her downcast eyes as though her mind were far away. She just sat around moping or else looking at pictures in magazines until it was time for the soaps to come on, and then she was in her own virtual reality. She watched and kept up with them all while letting herself and the housework go. Elsie’s daddy, like her mother, acted as if he, too, were unaware of the children, and so it was left up to them to half-raise themselves.

This family cultivated a scrawny garden by hand and raised a few leghorns. Weeds obscured the vegetables, and the chickens ran freely in the yard where they were constantly being chased by the old hound dog. They boys mined coal from a coal bank dug into the hillside. Coal was the fuel that heated their home, and this was the only purpose for which it could be used that was not proscribed by the coal company that had bought up the mineral rights in this region; however, these boys snuck around anyway and sold a few tons of house coal on the sly. They never did get caught! Their dad would work at odd jobs for a couple days, then miss work for two or three days. He insisted he could not hold down a steady job because he had a bad back, and, besides that, he had flat feet.

When the girls in this family got old enough to start running around, they soon acquired a bad reputation. The public talking point was that their shiftless, no-good parents had raised a bunch of whores; of course, there can be no whores without whore-hopping whoremongers. Sometimes the brothers got involved in a brawl, as ready they were to come to the defense of their sisters.

Elsie was fifteen going on sixteen when she had her first though very brief romantic encounter. A local young man who had migrated up north to find work was now living in Cleveland. He had come back home on his first vacation to visit his folks. That same evening, Elsie and the city boy sneaked away in his new sports car and did not return until after the midnight hour. She never had any personal contact with him again. Soon afterward, tongues began wagging. The gossip was that she had been raped, that this boy from out of town had taken advantage of this slow, weak-minded girl and that anyone could see that she wasn’t too bright and was a little off in the head. Elsie neither confirmed nor denied the rumors. Only she and the young man she was with knew the truth.

The assumption that this young lady was mentally flawed was based mainly on the fact that she muttered continually. No matter what she was doing, she muttered. She started muttering as a child and never outgrew the idiosyncrasy. People couldn’t tell if she were muttering to herself or to someone else or to God, but one thing was for sure; if she were mumbling at God, she never used His name in vain, unlike most of the people who talked about her. It was only natural that they dubbed her Muttering Elsie.

When most of the children were grown, or nearly so, Elsie’s mother, for reasons known only to her, just suddenly up and left. She was there tonight and gone the next morning before daybreak. Elsie had no idea where she went. Not that long after that, the family scattered. Two of Elsie’s sisters left the state. They tried to get Elsie to go with them, but she gave no consideration to their invitation. Two older brothers enlisted in the army. Following Basic at Fort Bragg, they were stationed at Fort Knox and then deployed to the Middle East but not to the same country. Elsie didn’t know where the Middle East was, and she sure as heck couldn’t find the countries on a map. She was the only child now remaining at home, and then on a weekend without a word of warning to her, her daddy bought a used Jeep truck, packed his stuff in it, and headed off down the road, caring not that his daughter, all at once, just like that, was left houseless.

A sprawling, convoluted hill stands between the hollows where Lewis and Elsie grew up. Lewis knew a shortcut and could cross that hill on foot in forty-five minutes or less. He did so quite often. He and Elsie may have seen each other in passing, but they didn’t really know one another. Tales had been circulating about how Elsie had been living in caves and coal banks and sleeping in junked cars and under cliffs, but tales have a way of getting out of hand, and so Lewis dismissed them as, more or less, made-up stories. He found out there might be something to those tales after all on that morning when he came down Elsie’s side of the mountain and started walking up the creek. He just happened to glance over that way when he saw her. There she was sound asleep in an abandoned automobile. He rapped on the broken window with his homemade cane.

Luckily or not, Pack Rat Lew and Muttering Elsie had finally met for the first time face to face!

Lewis rattled on the cracked glass again with his stick. Elsie raised up and looked straight at him. Cranking the window down a couple of inches, she spat in his direction; he, in turn, put a thumb over one nostril and blew snot out the other in her direction.

Come on up out a there, Lew firmly but gently goaded her.

You can’t make me, Elsie retorted. Git ’way from me, she ordered him.

I got a place over yander t’other side. You can’t stay hure. Cold weather’ll be settin’ in purty soon now.

Ignoring his implied invitation, she stubbornly insisted, I’ll stay ’ever I want to.

Suit yerself, he said.

Lewis decided on the spur of the moment not to go wherever it was he was going and instead started walking toward the shortcut that led back up the mountain. A moment or two later, he heard a car door slam. He darted his eyes over his left shoulder and saw that she was following behind him. Lew didn’t know it at the time, but this was one of her ways he would come to accept. He took a few more steps, then turned to really look at her. She stopped when he stopped.

Her hair was a tangled mess, and she looked frazzled. She was not a small woman. She had large, wide eyes, little ears, a straight nose, and full, pouted lips. Her neck was a bit thick, her shoulders broad, and her hips well rounded. Her waistline was hardly noticeable. Her arms were short, the dwarfish hands rough, the fingers stubby, the nails fragile and uneven. Her shapely legs seemed too spindly for her hefty frame. She was taller than her father but not quite as tall as her mother. She held her head high when she walked as her bouncing bosom jutted up and outward.

Elsie was wearing an old dress with unraveling lace around the hemline that came down below her knees. Over the dress, she wore a man’s shirt, the tail ends of which she had tied in a knot at her midsection. She had on a pair of mismatched sandals that was giving her difficulty as she climbed the hill, so she took them off and went barefoot. She was carrying used clothing and personal things in a dirty pillowcase. She had the top of the pillowslip wound around her hand, the fingers closed in a fist holding tightly onto it. Some such of a thing, kind of like a purse or bag, hanging by a looped string was slung over her shoulder. Lewis would have thought it peculiar to know that this pouch was a fanny pack; what was a sight more of an oddity was that Elsie would have one to carry in the first place. Lew turned back around and started on up the hill. As he walked, he was thinking, She ain’t pert nigh purty, but I bet she’d make a damn goodin’.

While Pack Rat Lew was standing there looking at her point-blank, unabashedly sizing her up, his cane idly swinging back and forth in pendulum mode, Muttering Elsie came a step or two closer and stared right back at him. Her first thought was, He looks like a bag a ol’ bones somebody’s poured a bucket a skin over.

Lewis was not a big man by any means, but he did look a little on the stodgy side. His stomach was pudgy, and his shoulders sloped. When he stood up straight, he was taller than Elsie by four or five inches, and he would certainly outweigh her by more than four or five pounds.

Lew had an old, worn tattered hat on his head with the brim turned down over his pensive brow. A jagged hole or two had been gnawed in it by those rodents called rats. His matted hair was slicked back on both sides behind and inches below his knobby ears. His scraggly eyebrows made his eyes look more sunken than they really were. The bridge of his sharp nose was dented on one side and had a tiny protrusion on the other, indicating it had once been broken and allowed to heal on its own. His lips were thin, the lower one shaped a smidgen like the tilde (the diacritical mark). As was his unbreakable habit, ever so often he nervously moistened them with that reptilian tongue of his, especially when he smoked, at which time he licked them excessively. His knobby, peaked chin gave way to a turkey neck. He had gone for more than three days without a shave, and his beard made for a scary sight; the wiry stubble grew in patches in shades of different colors in all different kinky directions.

DeKeigh was not that muscular, but he was stronger than his looks would suggest. His gut was thick, his pork chop hips sagging just a bit. Varicose veins stuck out on his rather lengthy arms, the knotty elbows rusty, the back of both hands slightly blemished, the nails of his feminine fingers broken and dirty. His legs, too, were somewhat longsome, his flattened feet like sled runners, toes pointing outward, out of proportion to his inordinate frame.

Lewis was dressed in a baggy pair of checked trousers and a striped outing flannel shirt with short sleeves. The tail of the shirt was tucked in on one side of his pants and hanging out on the other. His shoes were dusty and crookedly laced. His wide leather belt was buckled at the last hole, which was an extra one Lewis had punched in it so he could tighten it enough to hold up his britches.

Lewis DeKeigh could haggle with the best of them when it came to buying, selling, or trading. He was even more cunning than Brandstein when it came to business, oftentimes expediting the transaction with a few free snorts of that DeKeigh moonshine. He had gotten everything he had on, including his funky socks, at a yard sale. He never bought anything new.

It was a little wonder that Lewis’s teeth were already turning a putrid yellow rot, for he had never once brushed them. He had never head of dental floss and wouldn’t have known what it was for even if he had, but he did pick his teeth from time to time with a broom straw. Floss or Flossie was a common name around there for a cow, and it was in this context Lewis had ever heard the word used or ever used the word himself. Elsie took notice that two of his front teeth were chipped.

Lewis had not noted if Elsie had any teeth or not; neither had he noticed her putting a hand to her mouth when she said those six or seven little words to him.

Going downhill was a rest from climbing uphill. Lewis could hear Elsie behind him muttering about something, but he couldn’t begin to understand what in the world it was she was mumbling about. He guessed she was talking to herself.

Elsie didn’t give a care one way or the other if Lewis heard her carrying on about him. One thing she was fussing about was his hat and what might be underneath it. She was saying, My own ’pinion is he’s a wearin’ that ol’ raggedy thang is his head on top is as bald as a picked jaybird’s ass.

They had arrived at the DeKeigh place, Elsie still trailing behind. I’m a goin’ on up hure at the barn, Lewis shouted down to her. You go on in the house.

Might, might not, Elsie called back bluntly.

The spunk Elsie showed that day would weaken and crumble as Lewis wangled and molded her to his will, beating her down so gradually she was not aware of the change that was taking place.

The house turned out to be nothing more than a four-room shack built on rocky terrain against a backdrop of mountainous slopes. It was located in the main head of the hollow, which Lewis called the swag, about three-quarters of a mile from the nearest neighbor.

The shack was covered with a tin roof; several sheets of the metal could be traced to a vacant mining site. The floors were laid with rough, undressed slabs of sawed logs, whereas the doors were made of thinner, splintered strips of culled lumber hewn and trimmed to halfway fit the frames. A small, lopsided window had been cut out on the sunny side of each of three of the rooms. Rafters were visible here and there in the ceiling. Faded layers of torn and tattered cardboard lined the walls. A wide porch ran the length of the front room. The steps were large, flat rocks stacked and balanced one over the other.

The furniture was sparse and shabby. In the parlor was a huge, sagging couch minus the cushions, a rocker that creaked when rocking, an ancient, straight-backed, bark-bottomed chair, and a round homemade stand in one corner on which a black-and-white television was setting. A gun rack with one lone rifle secured across the middle rung was nailed firmly to the wall. The only light was the one overhead attached to a wooden beam. The naked bulb shining at night attracted bugs like chickens on corn. A single board above the fireplace, which served as a mantelpiece, completed the furnishings in this room. An imprint in the dust on the mantel was unidentifiable.

The combination kitchen and dining room had a one-bowl sink with no cabinet, an off-white stove with a cracked burner and a rusting oven rack, an enormous cupboard reaching almost to the ceiling, three not-matching chairs at an oval table without a tablecloth, a low, built-in wooden stand with three drawers to the left of the sink, and a milk crate turned upside down in the center of the room. This was the best place for the most light from the little lamp with no shade that was on top of the crate. A compact, single-door refrigerator, which Lewis called an ice box, stood against the wall near the window. A Maytag washer with a roller wringer sat out on the porch just outside the kitchen door.

The bedrooms were bedrooms. When they were growing up in this house, Lewis and his brothers had slept on pallets. A small bath in a corner of the larger bedroom was curtained off by a worn and shedding blanket hanging over a wire stapled to two two-by-fours.

As he walked toward the barn, Lewis could hear his dog begin to bark. He invariably claimed the dog to be a rabbit dog. Wagging its tail, the bony animal came running out to greet him. Lewis swore as he swung his foot, giving the mutt a glancing blow to the nose. Git, damn you, git, he scolded angrily. Then, in a sharp tongue, he railed, Dahdburn me if’n I don’t … The threat was left up in the air as the dog, now with its tail tucked between