Page 38 of The Reformatory

Like he could pick up a phone anytime he wanted. Like Loehmann would take his call.

Loehmann had pretended to be nice by giving him a sandwich and advice, but if Loehmann gave a damn, he never would have brought him. Robert pursed his lips so tightly that his teeth hurt. He ripped the card in half, and again, and again, until the pieces floated to his feet.

“Better not leave no trash,” Blue whispered, a peace offering. “I was just playing.”

Robert collected the torn card and threw it into the dented gray metal trash can on his way out of the door. He didn’t hang close enough to Redbone and Blue for anyone to notice, but he never strayed far in the stream of boys he did not know. Robert had fallen into a dark tunnel, and his new friends were the only light.

The line for the shower room barely allowed Robert inside the doorway. A husky boy’s jostling sent Blue and Redbone four or five places ahead, so Robert tried to vanish into the line, staring at the mildew-veined walls, his fingers pinching his towel around his waist so tightly that his fingers cramped.

The cloak of steam wasn’t thick enough to fog the chipped mirrors, so his own wide eyes stared back at him from the mirror above the sink. The sight of his own face startled Robert, his eyes so big, his shoulders so small. He forced himself to straighten up, to stop standing like a turtle in a shell, to narrow his eyes into a glare. No, too much: someone would take offense. He softened his glare into a thoughtful scowl, alert but unafraid, practicing which face to wear.

The shower room had ten showerheads on each side divided into five stalls, all of them crowded. Everyone shared a stall with at least one other boy, sometimes two. And he was trapped. Robert wanted to turn around and take his chances in the bunk room, but Boone had said everyone had to shower, and he was already afraid he smelled bad from peeing himself in the warden’s office. He had learned from Mama’s bedsheets that urine smelled worse over time.

Pumpkin, you’ve got no reason to be so shy, Mama used to say.

Or had she just said it again now? Robert had heard her voice in his ear, somewhere buried in the hissing water and low, quiet taunts and the memory of her soiled bedsheets. Her voice came to him again, somehow inside his ears: Don’t be scared, Robert. This is only a season, and it will pass. No matter what happens—it will pass.

Her voice was as plain as the smell of the smoke, real enough to touch. Mama was here!

Miz Lottie and Papa’s kin talked about haints and spirits, but for the first time Robert understood: Death was not the end, just like Reverend Jenkins said when he quoted from the book of John. Mama was stronger here than she’d been at home, somehow. Closer, somehow. Maybe because he needed her more.

“Ma—” he started to call for her, but buried his blurting as a phony cough. The boy behind him sniggered. Robert coughed again to be more convincing, but Mama’s voice had set his heart racing. What will pass? Her voice had seemed urgent, a warning.

“Mama?” he whispered.

And a pipe above him made a small ringing sound. Ping.

It was soft, but Robert’s ear caught it. He stared behind him and found a whitewashed water pipe nestled in the wall, traveling the length of the room. Ping. The tiny notes raced faster, nearly identical in pitch, but not quite—enough to sound like movement and life. For him alone.

Pingpingpingping.

“Mama?”

Ping. Clear and strong, the loveliest note yet. It sounded so much like a yes that tears came to Robert’s eyes. His heart raced him dizzy.

“Forget you, then,” the boy behind Robert said, and shoved past him in line. A second boy followed. A third might have too, except that he was smallish, so Robert stood fixed and dared the boy to try to butt ahead of him. If he let himself get pushed out of the line, it would happen again the next night. And the next. He didn’t need Blue and Redbone to tell him that.

“You cryin’?” the boy behind him said. “Crybaby.”

“No.”

The boy tried to pass again, but Robert blocked him with his hip, more forcefully this time. “What you gonna do?” the boy said, biting his lower lip to try to look meaner, or taller.

“Guess you’ll find out,” Robert said.

But the boy never did find out. He fell back to his own place to wait. Robert listened for another ping from Mama, but none came.

Instead, a smell answered him. The odor floated from the steam itself; something wet and rotting, as if dozens of rats had died in the pipes and the water was washing away bits of stewed flesh and fur. From the smell, the shower water should have been brown or gray, but instead it sprayed clear like any other. Robert gagged.

No, not rats. Worse than rats. Robert couldn’t name the foul smell. For a moment, the smell made him forget who and where he was, a blanket smothering him.

“You goin’ or what?” a voice said behind him. Someone gave him a small push, and he stumbled forward to a shower stall where only one other boy was bathing, his back bare except for streams of soapy water. Robert thought about how he had undressed in the warden’s office, the uncomfortable memory holding him still so long that the lukewarm water pelted his towel. He finally took off his towel and flung it over the stall wall like the others. He hoped no one could see him trembling. He lifted up his chin and closed his eyes beneath the showerhead’s stream so no one would see his tears. The water was lukewarm, almost cool.

And sour.

He spit out the taste as the stench in the water spilled across his skin. Robert kept from throwing up only because of his fear of ridicule and his worry that Boone might take him to the Funhouse for making a mess. None of the other punishments were fair, so why would it be different for getting sick? He glanced quickly at the boy beside him, who was slapping his soapy hands under his arms without a care.

Maybe no one else could smell it. Maybe it was a ghost smell, like the fire.