More Than Human

‘She went to jump back on the bed and a whole section of plaster fell off the ceiling on to the bed. The water turned on in her little bathroom and the plug went in, and just about the time it began to overflow, all her clothes fell off their hooks. She went to run out of the room, but the door was stuck, and when she yanked on the handle it opened real quick and she spread out on the floor. The door slammed shut again and more plaster come down on her. Then we went back in and stood looking at her. She was crying. I hadn’t known till then that she could.

‘ “You going to get Baby back here?” I asked her.

‘She just lay there and cried. After a while she looked up at us. It was real pathetic. We helped her up and got her to a chair. She just looked at us for a while, and at the mirror, and at the busted ceiling, and then she whispered, „What happened? What happened?”

‘ “You took Baby away,” I said. „That’s what.”

‘So she jumped up and said real low, real scared, but real strong: „Something struck the house. An aeroplane. Perhaps there was an earthquake. We’ll talk about Baby after breakfast.”

‘I said, „Give her more, Janie.”

‘A big gob of water hit her on the face and chest and made her nightgown stick to her, which was the kind of thing that upset her most. Her braids stood straight up in the air, more and more, till they dragged her standing straight up. She opened her mouth to yell and the powder puff off the dresser rammed into it. She clawed it out.

‘ “What are you doing? What are you doing?” she says, crying again.

‘Janie just looked at her and put her hands behind her, real smug. „We haven’t done anything,” she said.

‘And I said, “Not yet we haven’t. You going to get Baby back?”

‘And she screamed at us, „Stop it! Stop it! Stop talking about that mongoloid idiot! It’s no good to anyone, not even itself! How could I ever make believe it’s mine?”

‘I said, „Get rats, Janie.”

‘There was a scuttling sound along the baseboard. Miss Kew covered her face with her hands and sank down on the chair. „Not rats,” she said. „There are no rats here.” Then something squeaked and she went all to pieces. Did you ever see anyone really go to pieces?’

‘Yes,’ Stern said.

‘I was about as mad as I could get,’ I said, ‘but that was almost too much for me. Still, she shouldn’t have sent Baby away. It took a couple of hours for her to get straightened out enough so she could use the phone, but we had Baby back before lunch time.’ I laughed.

‘What’s funny?’

‘She never seemed able to rightly remember what had happened to her. About three weeks later I heard her talking to Miriam about it. She said it was the house settling suddenly. She said it was a good thing she’d sent Baby out for that medical check-up – the poor little thing might have been hurt. She really believed it, I think.’

‘She probably did. That’s fairly common. We don’t believe anything we don’t want to believe.’

‘How much of this do you believe?’ I asked him suddenly.

‘I told you before – it doesn’t matter. I don’t want to believe or disbelieve it.’

‘You haven’t asked me how much of it I believe.’

‘I don’t have to. You’ll make up your own mind about that.’

‘Are you a good psychotherapist?’

‘I think so,’ he said. ‘Whom did you kill?’

The question caught me absolutely off guard. ‘Miss Kew,’ I said. Then I started to cuss and swear. ‘I didn’t mean to tell you that.’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ he said.’ What did you do it for?’

‘That’s what I came here to find out.’

‘You must have really hated her.’

I started to cry. Fifteen years old and crying like that!

He gave me time to get it all out. The first part of it came out in noises, grunts, and squeaks that hurt my throat. Much more than you’d think came out when my nose started to run. And finally – words.

‘Do you know where I came from? The earliest thing I can remember is a punch in the mouth. I can still see it coming, a fist as big as my head. Because I was crying. I been afraid to cry ever since. I was crying because I was hungry. Cold, maybe. Both. After that, big dormitories, and whoever could steal the most got the most. Get the hell kicked out of you if you’re bad, get a big reward if you’re good. Big reward: they let you alone. Try to live like that. Try to live so the biggest, most wonderful thing in the whole damn world is just to have ‘em let you alone!

‘So a spell with Lone and the kids. Something wonderful: you belong. It never happened before. Two yellow bulbs and a fireplace and they light up the world. It’s all there is and all there ever has to be.