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the intercom. The brown box with gold wiring made me flinch as the words flooded out. “Miss Douglas, we need Brandon Willard up at the front office.” My stomach tightened as Miss Douglas stopped rubbing her temples long enough to nod.

As I reached down for my book bag, Dewayne leaned down across from me. With his face turned sideways, the fat in his cheeks gathered under his eyes, making his face look like it was a filled cream puff. “Sizzle, sizzle, says the electric paddle.”

“Dewayne Pickings! Get to work this minute,” Miss Douglas screamed.

As I walked down the sidewalk, Dewayne’s words raced in my mind but did little to make my heart beat any faster. Little did he know that a cigarette burn and a punch to the back beat an electric paddle any day.

Rounding the corner towards the office, I saw the school secretary, Miss Parnell, right next to the poster that the art class had made of the American flag.

“I know it can’t take this long to get him out here.” The raspy voice scarred from too many cigarettes caused my legs to freeze.

Through Miss Parnell’s thinning teased hair, the white sunglasses from my past swayed back and forth like a cork caught in a wind-storm. I tried to hide between the rows of lockers. I needed time to think how to handle Mama without Miss Parnell getting all nervous the way she did whenever the line to purchase pencils got too long at the front-office window. I pictured Miss Parnell calling the guidance counselor for backup. They would offer slanted smiles as they examined my mama and me standing side by side.

“Baby?”

Miss Parnell’s pouty lips and Mama’s wide smile were on me tighter than security cameras. “Hey,” I said more for Miss Parnell’s benefit than Mama’s.

The retarded boy who helped sell pencils opened the office door next to Miss Parnell. She never lost her glare on Mama as she moved to let the boy enter. “Now look here, missy. Like I told you, your name’s not listed as guardian.”

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Mama pushed her sunglasses back and flung out her hip. The painted flower on the jeans flapped as if a breeze had just swept past.

“Miss Parnell, you know me, okay. You know I’m the boy’s mama. I want you to go on and fill out whatever it is that . . .”

The steady tapping from the feet of important visitors drowned out Mama’s official comment. Flocked together like geese with the lady senator as a bright yellow canary, the group rounded the corner behind Mama.

“Now, Senator Strickland, did I mention that we received some of the highest rankings on English in the state?” Mr. Jenkins was still smiling when a man with a black camera showed up to take their picture. If they had been standing any closer, Mama and Miss Parnell would have been in it too.

Mama pulled her tight T-shirt down. She stared at the principal the same way she might examine a potential boyfriend. “He doesn’t have time to talk with you. So get that notion right out of your head,”

I heard Miss Parnell warn.

Before the group broke their posed smiles, another set of footsteps rattled the hall. A brown pocketbook was strapped to Nana’s wrist and swung back and forth as she marched forward.

Just as the camera flashed, Mama threw her hands up in the air.

“Oh, shit.”

“You best watch your mouth,” Nana said in hushed tones. “When are you going to learn?”

“Umm, umm, umm.” Miss Parnell’s hair rotated back and forth as she shook her head.

Mr. Jenkins was speaking extra loud and watching the commotion all at the same time. The only person still looking at me was the lady senator. Senator Strickland’s eyes were motionless and seemed lower than they had in the classroom. It was a stare that made me think someone she might have known was standing behind me.

“By the time I’m done, y’all are gonna have your asses in court.”

Mama jerked away when Mr. Jenkins tried to grab her arm.

“Young lady, either leave or I’ll call the police and have you escorted
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out.” Mr. Jenkins propped his hands on his white belt. I wondered if he thought of getting the electric paddle and beating her but good.

Mama dramatically kissed her index finger and waved it at me. All the eyes that had been studying the wild creature slowly drifted towards me. Watching her flower-painted jeans flap like wings, I wished she would’ve taken flight. Along with their pitiful stares came the weight of being her son. Right then part of me wanted to take flight with her and soar high above the school to a place where nobody knew about a past that always hovered nearby.

If my mama didn’t do one thing else by showing up at school, she did manage to put Poppy and Nana into motion. In a weakened condition Poppy even agreed to meet with the colored lawyer that Senator Strickland had told Nana about.

The brightly colored balloons that were painted on the dingy block building seemed out of place. Like fresh ribbon tied around some forgotten gift that had been found in the attic. A big white sign welcomed us: “Child Advocacy Network ‘CAN’ Make a Child’s Destiny.” While Poppy scratched the stubble on his chin and Nana straightened her skirt, I studied each of the block-shaped letters. They seemed as foreign as the Egyptian words that were stenciled on the sides of temples in my social studies book.

“A.B.” Nana stood at the front door with the pocketbook balanced on her wrist like a scale.

Poppy got out of the car in a hunched-over way befitting an old man. “Never guessed I’d end up using a colored lawyer,” he mumbled.

Nana never turned around as she led the way up the sidewalk.

“They said she’s the best for this sort of thing. So hush your mouth and open up your ears.”

Inside, photos of various children ranging from infants to ones older than me greeted us on the bulletin board. Guarding the photos at the front desk was a young woman with braids of strawberry-colored hair.

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Slumped in the small vinyl chair, Poppy pulled the brim of the John Deere cap even lower over his forehead. When our lawyer appeared from behind an office door, I heard Poppy mumble again.

She had a wide piece of gold material wrapped around her head.

A matching dress dared to touch the points of her body. As she glided towards us there was no smile. For all I knew she might have been toothless. But the way she tilted her head ever so slight told me she was equipped to take on anything that got in her way. The sharpness in her cheekbones made me think of the drawing of Cleopatra.

“Hello.” Her earrings swung wildly as she reached out for Nana’s hand. “I’m Nairobi Touchton.”

Nana smiled and introduced herself and Poppy. His hands were planted deep into pants pockets, and his gaze never seemed to settle on one particular person.

Nairobi leaned down and the top of her dress opened to reveal the edge of brown breast. The way my eyes danced around the room I’m sure she thought nervous eyes ran in the family.

Nanny and Poppy met with Nairobi behind a conference-room door covered with gold-colored plastic grooves. It all seemed to take on the feeling of a CIA type of mission that would be best suited for G.I. Joe. Their shapes were distorted through the imitation glass, but there was no denying where Poppy sat at the table. His slump gave him away.

Drifting closer to the bulletin board, I studied the photographs.

Babies lined the top row, and a few had little gold balls on their ears; variously colored adults clutched them with surprised smiles. Orphans, I figured. When my glance fell to the bottom of the poster, so did my spirit.

The boy with the name Alfonso stenciled underneath his picture caused the hair on my neck to stand at attention. It was the emptiness in his eyes. A boy deserted not at a hospital, but most likely in a neighborhood or a shopping center. Deserted like the cat Mama said we could no longer afford, so she shooed him out of the car on a street filled with two-story homes and swimming pools. Taffy, the cat,
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had long been forgotten, but suddenly his green eyes were as wild as the boy’s on the poster and just as frightened. Without a calling card to announce its arrival, the hatred that had been buried beneath a need to take care of Mama rose to the surface. While the lady at the desk was busy writing down instructions from a caller, I snatched the photo off the poster with one clean swipe. Alfonso rested inside the pocket of my Toughskin jeans as comfortable as he would have in any two-story home with a swimming pool.

No matter how many times Nana prayed, my mama never did leave town. The farmhouse soon became a place filled with muffled words and worried stares that would magically turn into tense smiles whenever eye contact was made.

The light from the kitchen bled across the hall floor. I gently stepped on the board that always creaked regardless of where I placed my foot. Nana coughed, and I paused to determine her location.

As I turned the handle to the hall closet, the click from the light switch might as well have been a firecracker. Nana jumped the same time I did, and the hall light shone on me like a police searchlight.

“What in the world are you doing up?” Then she looked down at the urine-soaked pajama leg.

I opened the closet door and reached for the sheets. Her hand was warm against my arm. The pat was as gentle as her voice. “We’ll fix it.”

Not another word was shared as we stripped the soiled sheets and balled them in the middle of the floor. The popping sound of crisp clean sheets reminded me that all was still in order in the farmhouse.

Nana’s long gray ponytail swung side to side as she bent down to secure the sheet. She smiled and nodded towards the dresser. Pajamas decorated with cowboy hats were neatly folded in the corner of the drawer. I clutched them to my chest and hoped the clean smell from fall air had been captured from the clothesline. A smell so clean that it would protect me from the darkness that had seeped into my mind and caused it to take flight with nightmare.

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When I returned from changing in the bathroom, Nana was smoothing out the wrinkles and had the sheet folded down tight like I’d imagine a fine hotel would do. She fluffed the pillow and lifted the edge of the sheet. After I was secured in bed, she kissed my damp hair.

I wanted her to stay and lay beside me, to tell me everything would be fine come morning. I wanted to hear the words from our usual script.

But tonight she just smiled from my bedroom door. Against the back-drop of the hall light, she looked like an angel standing at the doorway.

When the door hinge squeaked as she pulled the handle, my heart raced again. Before she had completely disappeared into the hallway, I did it. I called out as loud as I would have if I hadn’t been used to nightmares. “I want to talk to that judge.”

“Now don’t you worry about . . .”

“I mean it. I want to talk to him. Remember Nairobi told me I could if I wanted to.”

Nana slid into the bed. Her stomach was soft and warm against the small of my back. “Shh, now,” she whispered. The thick arm draped against me and in her clutch I knew there was nothing that the judge from my nightmare, the one with the long white beard and fangs, could do to take me away.

But the judge I faced in real life had no facial hair at all. His white hair was streaked with tints of leftover nicotine. The hair was just long enough that it twirled up at the base of his neck. His gold-wire glasses and easy smile made me wonder if he had ever played Santa Claus down at the mall in Raleigh. My grip on the leather chair loosened.

Rows of wide books lined the shelf behind his desk. The walls in his office were tall and paintings of the beach hung next to me. Mama had always said she wanted to live at the beach. She had always claimed the setting sun helped settle her nerves. Thinking that any minute she might bust into the judge’s office and provide a rerun of the act at school, I gripped the chair again. But there was no screaming inside the room, just the steady tick of a brass clock and the ruffle
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of papers as the judge flipped through my case. Just when I started to lean forward and see if my name was stamped on the side of the file, Nairobi rubbed my shoulders. She winked and nodded enough so that her big silver earrings danced. Her chair was so close to mine that at first I thought they were connected like a pair of Siamese twins I had seen in the encyclopedia.

A skinny man with long sideburns glanced at me over black glasses. He halfway smiled and continued scribbling on a pad. Mama’s lawyer. Nairobi had prepped me on who I would find inside the judge’s chambers. She had told me to be myself and that everything would work out fine.

“Brandon, I want us to get to know each other a little better. You know, chew the fat as they say,” the judge said. “Now this is Mr. Jeffords.

He’s working with your mother just like Nairobi is working with your grandparents.”

Mr. Jeffords smiled bigger this time, and the woman sitting in front of the little typewriter started pecking away.

The judge rubbed his hands and looked up at the ceiling. “So tell me, how’s school going?”

“Fine.” My comment echoed against the high ceiling, and the woman clicked at the little typewriter.

“I see you make excellent grades.” The judge flipped the file open and glanced at the pages. “They tell me you’re a smart one.”

The clicking of the typing filled my ear. Bouncing off the ceiling, it sounded like clicks from a gun. “Good grades are very important.

But what about downtime, are you able to have fun as well?”

“Yes, sir. I play with Mac and Mary Madonna a lot. Poppy put up a tire swing for me. Sometimes we play inside the old car Poppy uses for parts when the tractor gets messed up.” I moved to the edge of the chair, hoping to see the notes the judge was making. The vision of my permanent record sprawled open on the guidance counselor’s desk came to mind.

“Mac and Mary Madonna are Brandon’s cousins. They live next door,” Nairobi said.

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“I see. Well, tell me about your friends. Do you have friends visit you at your grandparents’?”