More Than Human

‘Look,’ I said, ‘we don’t like this any more’n you do. If Lone hadn’t told us to, we wouldn’t never have come. We were doing all right where we were.’

‘Don’t say „wouldn’t never”,’ said Miss Kew. She looked at all of us, one by one. Then she took that silly little hunk of handkerchief and pushed it against her mouth.

‘See?’ I said to Janie. ‘All the time gettin’ sick.’

‘Ho-ho,’ said Bo

Miss Kew gave her a long look. ‘Gerard,’ she said in a choked sort of voice, ‘I understood you to say that these children were your sisters.’

‘Well?’

She looked at me as if I was real stupid. ‘We don’t have little coloured girls for sisters, Gerard.’

Janie said, ‘We do.’

Miss Kew walked up and back, real fast. ‘We have a great deal to do,’ she said, talking to herself.

Miriam came in with a big oval pan and towels and stuff on her arm. She put it down on the bench thing and Miss Kew stuck the back of her hand in the water, then picked up Baby and dunked him right in it. Baby started to kick.

I stepped forward and said, ‘Wait a minute. Hold on now. What do you think you’re doing?’

Janie said, ‘Shut up, Gerry. He says it’s all right.’

‘All right? She’ll drown him.’

‘No, she won’t. Just shut up.’

Working up a froth with the soap, Miss Kew smeared it on Baby and turned him over a couple of times and scrubbed at his head and like to smothered him in a big white towel. Miriam stood gawking while Miss Kew lashed up a dishcloth around him so it come out pants. When she was done, you wouldn’t of known it was the same baby. And by the time Miss Kew finished with the job, she seemed to have a better hold on herself. She was breathing hard and her mouth was even tighter. She held out the baby to Miriam.

‘Take this poor thing,’ she said, ‘and put him – ‘

But Miriam backed away. ‘I’m sorry, Miss Kew, but I am leaving here and I don’t care.’

Miss Kew got her honk out. ‘You can’t leave me in a predicament like this! These children need help. Can’t you see that for yourself?’

Miriam looked me and Janie over. She was trembling. ‘You ain’t safe, Miss Alicia. They ain’t just dirty. They’re crazy!’

‘They’re victims of neglect, and probably no worse than you or I would be if we’d been neglected. And don’t say „ain’t”. Gerard!’

‘What?’

‘Don’t say – oh, dear, we have so much to do. Gerard, if you and your – these other children are going to live here, you shall have to make a great many changes. You ca

‘Oh, sure. Lone said we was to do whatever you say and keep you happy.’

‘Will you do whatever I say?’

‘That’s what I just said, isn’t it?’

‘Gerard, you shall have to learn not to speak to me in that tone. Now, young man, if I told you to do what Miriam says, too, would you do it?’

I said to Janie, ‘What about that?’

‘I’ll ask Baby.’ Janie looked at Baby and Baby wobbled his hands and drooled some. She said, ‘It’s okay.’

Miss Kew said, ‘Gerard, I asked you a question.’

‘Keep your pants on,’ I said. ‘ I got to find out, don’t I? Yes, if that’s what you want, we’ll listen to Miriam too.’

Miss Kew turned to Miriam. ‘You hear that, Miriam?’

Miriam looked at Miss Kew and at us and shook her head. Then she held out her hands a bit to Bo

They went right to her. Each one took hold of a hand. They looked up at her and gri

Miss Kew walked over and handed her the baby and she started upstairs with him. Miss Kew herded us along after Miriam. We all went upstairs.

They went to work on us then and for three years they never stopped.

‘That was hell,’ I said to Stern.

‘They had their work cut out.’

‘Yeah, I s’pose they did. So did we. Look, we were going to do exactly what Lone said. Nothing on earth could of stopped us from doing it. We were tied and bound to doing every last little thing Miss Kew said to do. But she and Miriam never seemed to understand that. I guess they felt they had to push every inch of the way. All they had to do was make us understand what they wanted, and we’d of done it. That’s okay when it’s something like telling me not to climb into bed with Janie. Miss Kew raised holy hell over that. You’d of thought I’d robbed the Crown Jewels, the way she acted.

‘But when it’s something like, „You must behave like little ladies and gentlemen,” it just doesn’t mean a thing. And two out of three orders she gave us were like that. „Ah-ah!” she’d say. „Language, language!” For the longest time I didn’t dig that at all. I finally asked her what the hell she meant, and then she finally came out with it. But you see what I mean.’

‘I certainly do,’ Stern said. ‘Did it get easier as time went o?’

‘We only had real trouble twice, once about the twins and once about Baby. That one was real bad.’

‘What happened?’

‘About the twins? Well, when we’d been there about a week or so we began to notice something that sort of stunk. Janie and me, I mean. We began to notice that we almost never got to see Bo

‘ “Miriam’s taking care of them, dear,” Miss Kew says.

‘Janie looked at her with those eyes. „I know that. Let ‘em eat here and I’ll take care of ‘em.”

‘Miss Kew’s mouth got all tight again and she said, „They’re little coloured girls, Jane. Now eat your lunch.”

‘But that didn’t explain anything to Janie or me, either. I said, “I want ‘em to eat with us. Lone said we should stay together.”

‘ “But you are together,” she says. “We all live in the same house. We all eat the same food. Now let us not discuss the matter.”

‘I looked at Janie and she looked at me and she said, „So why can’t we all do this livin’ and eatin’ right here?”

‘Miss Kew put down her fork and looked hard. „I have explained it to you and I have said that there will be no further discussion.”

‘Well, I thought that was real nowhere. So I just rocked back my head and bellowed, „Bo

‘So all hell broke loose. Miss Kew ordered them out and they wouldn’t go, and Miriam come steaming in with their clothes, and she couldn’t catch them, and Miss Kew got to honking at them and finally at me. She said this was too much. Well, maybe she’d had a hard week, but so had we. So Miss Kew ordered us to leave.

‘I went and got Baby and started out, and along came Janie and the twins. Miss Kew waited till we were all out the door and next thing you know she ran out after us. She passed us and got in front of me and made me stop. So we all stopped.

‘ “Is this how you follow Lone’s wishes?” she asked.

‘I told her yes. She said she understood Lone wanted us to stay with her. And I said, “Yeah, but he wanted us to stay together more.”

‘She said come back in, we’d have a talk. Janie asked Baby and Baby said okay, so we went back. We had a compromise. We didn’t eat in the dining room no more. There was a side porch, a sort of verandah thing with glass windows, with a door to the dining room and a door to the kitchen, and we all ate out there after that. Miss Kew ate by herself.