The School on Heart's Content Road (5 page)

When Erika brought
this
bone home, Donnie said there had to be something lost in the telling here. But then Donnie's cousin Steve was over one Sunday afternoon and told how the DHS had threatened to take his neighbor's kids away if they couldn't afford health insurance. They said, “No health insurance is child abuse . . . puts the kid in danger. You must apply for MaineCare.” Donnie said nothing to this. Ever since Jesse has been dying, Donnie is a quiet man who questions nothing.

The screen shrieks.

See the situation comedies that portray Americans who are just like you! They are cheery, bubbly folk with cute, easily-solved problems. And see here! The court trials, not actors, no way! This is reeeeeal court. See the troubles of the victims, their grief and need for revenge, and see those
on trial, all these Americans whose troubles are mighty and
ghastly
and
gory
and outrageous and
far
WORSE than
your
troubles. See! Watch close!! Isn't it astonishing!!! Real people on trial. Bad, ghastly, unapologetic people ON TRIAL. Watch close.

Erika Locke at the Egypt town office.

It has come to this. Erika is going to see about some “assistance.” She has put this off for a long time, afraid of social workers, the way once you make out that first paper, cash that first check, rip out that first food stamp, the government
eye
is on you. Everything about you, maybe even a print of your DNA, is theirs, quick as a computer key-tap. They, the mighty foot; you, the ant.

Erika is so afraid, she has seen small frisky stars cross her vision all morning ever since she got up.

She has worn her sea-green top with the lacy collar, which fits better since she started her little diet two weeks ago. And a denim skirt. Flip-flops. And socks. Early this morning her hair shined, but now the humidity has claimed it.

Behind the high counter is Harriet Clarke, the town clerk, reciting to someone on the phone all there is to know about purchasing a permit to move heavy equipment. Beyond is a computer with a deep-blue lighted screen with words that run along the bottom, then off the edge, then return from the other side to repeat.
BE PATRIOTIC . . . CELEBRATE JULY 4 . . . BE PATRIOTIC . . . CELEBRATE JULY 4 . . . BE PATRIOTIC . . .
over and over and over.

And now, repeating across Erika's eyes, her own personal fear-stars. They drift along like something crushed, multiplying into hundreds.

Erika has heard that “social work” nurses will pressure you to let them inside your home to look around, scope the place out. They will interrogate your children. They look at their bodies for marks—bruises, scratches, burns—which all kids have unless you strap them to a chair for the first ten years of their lives. Erika has had three friends lose their kids temporarily, because of two bruises on one kid, a broken finger on another. The third had a burn. Three families. Two families loud and physical; the kids play as hard and rough as lion cubs. One family, quiet and nervous, nasty-neat types; the kids, too, very
nervous, high-strung. None of these families are into heavy-duty punishment. But all three are poor.

A man saunters in from the hall, yellow, white, and blue motor vehicle registration papers in one hand. He wears glasses. A shave has given his pores a chemically scoured look. Wears a floppy madras fishing hat. A man of the legs-apart, arms-crossed, short, bullish, freckled, fifty-five-ish, hard-working, old-Yankee-blood, proud, proud, proud iron-fist-Republican variety.

The clerk finishes with the phone and asks Erika, “How you doin' today? What d'ya need?”

“Who is it I need to see about some town assistance?”

The clerk has a hard face with lines around the mouth, but a soft expression. She disappears a moment, squatting down behind the counter at some floor-level drawer or cubby, then pops back up, paper in hand. She uses the flapping paper and her other hand to point, shape out, and underline her words. “Take this. Go over across the hall to the meetin' room where it's quiet. Pens on the tables there. Make this out the best you can. Sign it. Then come back and I'll see what I can do, long's you have everything you need: your last pay slips, W-2 forms, any proof of pay for the last twelve months. State card if you have it. That would save us a lotta trouble at this end.”

The man behind Erika has been listening in dead silence, moving his eyes over Erika's breezy little sea-green top and plain brown hair with its sweet part, her round face and pink spots of emotion, one spot to each cheek—an ordinary girl, yes, like tens of thousands of sometimes giggling brown-haired American girls who, one overlapping the other at this hour, would make a vast plain of soft sturdy silhouettes that threaten no one.

In a voice cracking with anger, the man bellers, as if in a room of deaf people, “Harriet! When are you people going to do like Representative Connell's been sayin' an' start fingerprintin' them so they'll stop rippin' the taxpayer off?!”

The woman behind the counter flushes. “Go on, David. Don't start on that. I don't need indigestion today.” And she laughs.

And Erika walks out. The hall walls are made of skinny vertical boards painted white. Her flip-flops make an echoey racket. The tall windows in the meeting room are all open, screened. Little stage at one
end. Bare. The wood worn a warm yellow brown. She finds the can of pens. She takes her time, hoping the man will be gone.

But he's not. When she returns to the hall, he's there, hanging around by the bulletin board. He looks right at her, but he shows no recognition. Light from the doorway just touches his glasses as he turns away. And his face doesn't really look angry anymore. Said his spiel and feels better now? Or is it that, without a gang, posse, or pack, his might is diminished? Here in the hallway, his bald-faced humanity is all he's got.

Now seated in metal chairs between two heaped desks, Erika and the clerk go over what papers and proof of income will be needed. They talk awhile about how town assistance works. Sometimes, Erika's voice seems uncharacteristically little-girlish. The clerk's hair is white. Her blouse and slacks are white and cream. She tells Erika that even though Donnie's part-time thirty-nine-hours-a-week job is not making ends meet, as long as they own two houses they cannot be eligible for assistance. “And all that land too.” The clerk sighs. By the guidelines, the Lockes and Gammons are not destitute, and destitute is what they must be. She suggests that Erika and Donnie go to the bank and mortgage one of their houses for a loan to live on for awhile.

Erika begins to smile in a most strange way. And the stars now as thick as TV snow make a cold pressure upon her eyes.

The woman, Harriet, who is on the other side of Erika's silvery wall of stars, is now suggesting they sell the big house and live in the smaller one, or sell both places and keep two and a half acres for a trailer. On the market, they could get quite a sum for their real estate.

Real estate.

Erika speaks now, her voice squeaking with panic. “There's really only one house. The place my mother-in-law lives in is really just a garage and bathroom. No stove or anything. The floor is cement. It's just one room. She's really with us in our house all day.”

Harriet smiles. “Can she work?”

Erika frowns. “She's too shy. I mean she's
really
shy.”

“Too shy to work?”

“Too shy, yes,” Erika murmurs.

“Can't she watch the kids while
you
work?”

Erika blinks. She lowers her eyes and says with shame, “I want to be with my son.”

“But can't
she
get a state check? And MaineCare? With her little one, she sounds eligible . . . and the fifteen-year-old. She would probably be eli—”

Erika interrupts. “It would be nice if Donnie could get a raise or something . . . or if they'd give him health insurance. It's not like he's goofing off! He works!” Her voice gets quite babyish. Lilty and brightly amazed.

Harriet laughs. “Well, nowadays they want us
all
working. Nobody stays home.” She laughs again. “This gives burglars jobs, too . . . all those empty houses!” And she laughs again.

Erika giggles girlishly, then looks down at her hands with shame. “I really just want to be home with the kids.”

Harriet snaps her pen, eyes sliding up and down the fine print of qualification rules. “Perhaps you can get Britta to move out. Turn her place back into a garage. Tear out the toilet and sink. The acreage doesn't actually matter rule-wise, as long as it's all part of your primary residence.”

Erika cocks her head, trying to make sense of this. No stars now. Just the clear hard edges of the clerk's desks and the computer screen and map of Maine on the wall and the slight gurgle of realization. Of
it:
the vast order of things, the world's logic, a global thing, even here in this room, especially here in this room, bouncing and leering and hilarious and formidable and growing bigger by the minute.

Erika says sweetly, “I just want a little help with my baby's medicine, that's all. Just his pain pills. Why can't we get just that one thing without . . . all . . . you know . . . all that?”

“Like I said earlier, if you aren't eligible for MaineCare, the hospitals have a program for that!” Harriet says cheerfully. “At least they help with a percent of certain types of medicine. Even doctors, working with the drug companies—they have a way of getting certain drugs free, I heard. There's some paperwork on that. It all depends on income, though. And there are services through various agencies that could help with various areas of need. There's a regional services coordinator who is in here twice a month who can help you make out the right papers to the various agencies. Just bring all your paperwork here and that other stuff you'll need . . . oh, here . . . it looks here like you might be eligible for fuel assistance and winterization next winter . . . oh, and I think maybe . . .” She is running a finger over the
small chart. “Family counseling services. You could get that. The services coordinator can—”

Erika interrupts. “I just want pain medicine. Just that.”

The clerk goes on studying the charts on her desk, snapping her pen. Her tongue makes a soft deep-thinking sound against her teeth. She sighs. “There
was
a pretty good state program for prescriptions, but the legislature gutted it last term. The waiting list on that one was impossible anyway.” She sighs again. “I can see you aren't eligible for MaineCare. The second house will be a problem with them too. And your husband makes a little too much. It's iffy. You could try. It depends on what your expenses are, although they don't give you much leeway for expenses anymore. Maybe if
he
moved out! Your husband.” She says this jokingly.

Erika looks down at her hands. “It goes like this. We get his pay. We buy the medicine first. Usually after the medicine and bills, there's just a little bit for groceries. We get the medicine
first
and pay the lights, and gas for the car, and everything like that . . . groceries last. We lost the phone. There's just so much!” Her voice rises, childlike, not a shriek exactly, but a little thrilled thin edge to it. “It's those doctors! And tests! When Jesse was first sick, I couldn't believe how much they ask for those tests. Just the few times we went . . . it'll take us forever to catch up! Then also Elizabeth, my husband's oldest, she has trouble with her feet and legs: special shoes 'n' stuff. Gas for Donnie to get to work is wicked. My mother-in-law's youngest had some infected mosquito bites. Made her sick. That salve and antibiotic was wicked expensive. And this spring all the kids needed sneakers. Except Mickey. He just goes around like a bum. And then the roof leaked! It was only in one little spot, but even that was four hundred dollars to fix! Everything is just so much! Liability insurance is more this year. And my driver's license had to be renewed last month, for the picture and everything . . . and then you know our property taxes; we've stayed right up with those . . . and then propane; we ran out of that but got some last week . . . and toilet paper and wax paper and a new can opener 'cause the other busted and we can't open cans with anything else, and the—”