Dirt Road Home by Watt Key Read Free Book Online Page A

against me and the breezes slipping through the pines and through my open window. Hearing Daddy snoring in the room next to me and feeling safe and right. I dreamt about Carla and the time I couldn’t help myself and leaned over and kissed her on the tailgate of my truck. And the way I’d felt when she’d kissed me back and then later when she’d stood behind meand put her hands in the front pockets of my jeans and pulled close against me.
     
    I woke the next day to someone shaking me. I opened my eyes and saw an older woman, shriveled and hardened beneath her nursing uniform. I heard the noise of the boys in the distance. I wanted to plug my ears. I wanted to cry.
    “You’ve had enough sleep,” she said.
    I lay there while she changed the bandages on my face and made notes on a clipboard.
    “I didn’t do anything,” I finally said to her. She nodded absently.
    “I was—”
    “You can tell Mr. Pratt about it shortly.”
    She hung the clipboard on the wall beside my bed and left. I reached up for it and pulled it down. I read the report.
Administration Section
Resident
: Henry Mitchell #135
Summary
: Patient involved in violent incident with unknown assailants.
Location
: Washroom North
Comments
:
     
    Medical
Diagnosis
: Abdominal bruising. Bruises around the neck. Various cuts and bruising about the face. Possible concussion.
Treatment
: Disinfect and clean wounds, Ibuprofen
    I assumed Mr. Pratt had filled out what I saw in the administration section. The handwriting didn’t match the nurse’s below.
    I put the clipboard back on the wall. After a short while the nurse returned with breakfast. I was eating in bed when Mr. Pratt walked in. The building was quiet and I figured the rest of the boys were already in their classrooms.
    “What happened?” he said.
    “They jumped me. I was just goin’ about my business.”
    He took out his pad and a pen. “Who was it?”
    I didn’t answer him. After a second he looked back at me. “Don’t get on the wrong side of me.”
    “I can’t say who it was.”
    “Can’t or won’t?”
    “They jumped me.”
    He shook his head, made some notes, and put the pen and pad back into his shirt pocket. “Okay, kid. You wanna learn the hard way, that’s fine with me. I get paid the same. Maybe next time you’ll be a little more observant.”
    He turned back to the nurse. “Go ahead and send him back out there, Mrs. Phillips.”
     
    I went to the bunk room to get my books for class. A new bar of soap, fresh towels, and toilet paper had been placed in my locker. I shoved the soap back behind the towels, hoping no one would take it this time.
    On my way to my classroom I saw Mr. Pratt leading a new boy through orientation. A white kid maybe a year older than me. He looked stunned and scared. We locked eyes for a moment and then I looked away. I passed thehall to solitary and glanced at the black doors. They were closed as usual and no sounds were coming from behind them.
    The instructor didn’t stop talking when I entered the classroom and went to my desk. The boys watched me, but I didn’t pay attention to them. I sat down and pulled my books out and stared blankly at the chalkboard and fingered the bandages on my face.

12
    I was one of the first into the mess room for lunch. I got my food and went to my seat in no-man’s-land. Caboose came in after me and took his seat. After a while Leroy came through the door. He was pale and weak-looking from his stay in solitary. He glanced at me and then moved on. I studied the red, crusty wound etched into his neck.
    After lunch we returned to our classes. I sat through another useless lesson as the boys talked and joked and wadded-up paper flew by my face. A couple of times they tossed things at the instructor. He kept scratching on the blackboard and mumbling to himself like we didn’t exist.
    It started raining that afternoon, so we went back into the main building after class. I went to my bunk while the others went to