The Artists - 3. The First Day, Afternoon, Part 2

Six stretched out on his sofa and opened Robert Charles’ memoirs to the index and looked up his Uncle Kevin. They were all there; including himself which kind of surprised him as he was almost certain he’d never met any of these people before. Uncle Kevin had quite a few references and Six thumbed back to the pictures, one of which was his grandfather, grandmother, father, and uncle all standing in front of a giant orange somewhere in Florida. He turned the page to a picture of Robert Charles, Jim Waters, and Kevin, who was still a teenager, standing in front of the house on Diego Island where Robert Charles had his art institute and where, each year, a few promising students, for a high fee, could explore their individual futures in the world of the creative arts. Six turned back to the table of contents and found the first reference for his uncle.

Their car was a nearly new red ’59 Chevrolet sedan, the one with the hideous fins on the rear. Though the driver thought they were rather stylish, the passenger thought they were totally bad. He’d been kidded enough at school about them to know his father wasn’t cool. The guard at the gate simply shook his head as he passed them through. They were family. They had a sticker on the windshield.

Rain fell softly on last year’s oak leaves as the car followed the blue line painted on the pavement when it branched off the entrance road and proceeded along a tree-lined lane that exited the Southwest State Hospital onto the grounds of the State School for the Mentally Retarded. The yellow brick monoliths of the School stood darkly in the dreary day. If they had taken any interest, the occupants of the car would have noticed each of the buildings, three on a side and one at the apex of the drive, were named for rivers in their State.

“Kevin Charles, please,” the man said at the reception desk. He was Kevin David Charles, IV, BA, MA, PhD, Professor of American History (specializing in North Coast Indians) at North Park College. Standing quietly next to him was his nine-year-old son Michael, known to friends and family as Mikey, who, if he had a basketball, would’ve been practicing his dribbling or bouncing it off the walls. They were there to see Kevin David Charles, V, patient.

“Doctor Charles and his son are here to see Kevin,” the receptionist said into telephone handset. “Yes, I’ll send them right up.”

“Thank you,” Doctor Charles said. “Come along, Michael.”

The boy didn’t answer. It wouldn’t have done him any good.

The interior of the building was green with walls covered with soft, light chartreuse paint and on the floor dark green linoleum tiles were flaked with white. It was meant to be calming, but seemed to be more stifling. The elevator came to a stop and the doors opened onto the third floor. The man and boy exited silently into a long hall that stretched out before them. The nurses’ station was on the right.

“Kevin is waiting for you in the lounge,” the duty nurse said as the man and boy walked toward her. “It’s halfway down on your right. He’s doing much better today.”

“Yes, that’s nice,” Doctor Charles said. “Thank you. Come along, Michael.”

The boy didn’t like it here. He’d seen some of the other residents, most of whom were as old as or older than his father. Most were not communicative, some drooled, some blabbered, some stank of dirty diapers, and some looked at him with empty eyes, his older brother among them. Kevin was eleven. Two years earlier his brain had been damaged from an infection.

Kevin’s brown eyes seemed to look up at them when they walked into the lounge. There were three other families there to see sons or daughters in conditions similar to Kevin. On this floor, the School kept the patients who were almost able to care for themselves, who were somewhat communicative, who may be getting better, and who might soon be moved to one of the residence buildings if their condition improved a little more.

Mikey looked at his brother sitting quietly in the wheelchair. He was wearing white pajamas, a blue terrycloth bathrobe, and navy blue corduroy slippers all provided by the School. He wasn’t aware that his father was free to provide clothes for his son, if not actually encouraged to do so. Kevin had the same buzz cut as the other male residents; he was skinny and his skin was pale; and he had a boner and it was sticking out of his pajamas. Their father readjusted the robe to cover it.

“Hi, Kevin, we came to see you,” Mikey said.

Kevin stared at their father.

“Do you want to go for walk?” Mikey asked. “Daddy? Can I take Kevin for a walk? Please?”

“Sure, Michael, that would be nice,” Doctor Charles said. He walked over to where the School had some magazines for visitors and sat in the sofa.

“Come on, Kevin, let’s go explore,” Mikey said as he pushed the wheelchair out of the lounge. “It’s raining so I don’t think they’ll let us go outside. Have you been practicing your talking? The doctor said last time that you can speak a little.”

Kevin looked at the walls, floor, and ceiling as Mikey wheeled him down the hall toward the elevator. He could hear his little brother talking. He could hear everything going on around him. He could talk, though not like he wanted. So far, his vocabulary consisted of toilet, chartreuse, yellow, orange, red, blue, purple, and today he heard himself say apple. Well, it was an apple and it was on his breakfast tray.

Kevin knew a lot of things and his inability to talk troubled him. He could see the words, but he couldn’t say them. His therapist said they would move him to one of the residences if he could communicate better. She was nice. He liked her.

He didn’t walk very well, either. Most of the time his muscles seemed to have a mind of their own and refused to do what he wanted them to do, but at least he didn’t have to wear a diaper. That was a big motivation for him to go to physical therapy when he first arrived here. Now, he could walk, but not well enough to go on a walk with Mikey, so he rode in the wheelchair.

Other than not being able to talk or move very well, Kevin also couldn’t see very well, either. Actually, he could see as clear as before he was sick, he just saw everything either in primary colors, shades of green, or no color at all, like he remembered when watching television. They didn’t have a television in his ward, but someone told him there were televisions in the residences.

His therapist, whose name he never remembered, said these were all caused by the extremely high fever from the disease. That was the other thing about having been sick; he could remember some things but not others. He could remember bits and pieces of his life before getting sick and then nothing. It was as if there were empty places in his mind that had been erased by the disease.

Currently his short term memory capabilities weren’t much better, but his therapist said she was helping with that. They did different kinds of exercises when he went to see her. What Kevin didn’t realize was they were the same exercise; his memory hadn’t come up to speed so that he could remember what occurred on the previous visit. Each time he went, it was as if he might not have been there before.

“Mikey?” Kevin said questioningly.

“Kevin! You said my name!” Mikey exclaimed. He came around from behind the wheelchair and squatted down in front of his brother, who was smiling. “You said my name.”

“Is there something wrong, young man?” A nurse asked. She was coming out of one of the drooler’s rooms. Mikey could see him rocking back and forth on his bed. There was a soiled diaper in the nurse’s hand.

“Kevin said my name,” Mikey said. “Isn’t that great?”

“Kevin’s been doing pretty good lately, haven’t you Kevin?” The nurse asked.

“Yes,” Kevin said, smiling.

“Oh, god, I’ve got to call Doctor Jamison,” the nurse said as she hurried away.

“What was that all about?” Mikey asked as he stood up.

Kevin smiled. Two new words and he hadn’t even tried. He looked at his brother, again, and smiled. Mikey was yellow, now. He’d been grayish, but now he was yellow. Kevin had to assume that was good.

Doctor Jamison was young, tall, and shades of red. He had been grayish like most of the other people he came in contact with, but now he was red. He wore glasses like Daddy, but these were dark red. His red hair was always short like he had it cut here at the School. Kevin didn’t like Doctor Jamison because he kept sticking needles in him. He called them injections.

“How’s the birthday boy,” Doctor Jamison asked. “How’s it feel to be twelve.”

“Okay,” Kevin said. They were in an examination room by the nurse’s station on Kevin’s floor. Kevin was sitting on the table, without a sheet under him. The hard metal surface felt cold against his skin. He was naked. His pajamas, robe, and slippers were on the chair beside the door. Doctor Jamison always had him take his clothes off for an examination before giving him an injection.

“You’re certainly getting to be a big boy, aren’t you?” Doctor Jamison asked.

“Yes,” Kevin said as he glanced down at the doctor’s hand on his bare thigh, close to his penis.

“Not too talkative today. I’ve heard from the staff you’re getting to be a regular orator around here.”

“I have to practice talking,” Kevin said. The hand hadn’t moved, but the fingers were flexing into his skin and it made him feel uncomfortable. “I forget things and I can’t remember other things even though I try to remember them. These injections seem to be helping.”

“Oh, yes, Kevin, they are definitely helping you,” Doctor Jamison said. He turned to the counter where the needle was waiting beside the small bottle of medicine. “You know the procedure by now.”

“Yes,” Kevin said. He knew the procedure. He turned and lay on the cold metal on his tummy with his head resting on the pillow.

“It’s a shame you’re going to be leaving us for the summer,” Doctor Jamison said.

Kevin felt the doctor’s warm hand on his butt. He didn’t want this, but he knew better than to fight or complain. He didn’t want to be punished. He felt the hand go lower and pull his legs apart. He didn’t resist when he felt the doctor pull his penis back so that it pointed between his legs.

“You’re a good boy, Kevin,” Doctor Jamison said as his hand went back to Kevin’s butt and gently caressed the right cheek. “I want you to know that. You’re probably the best boy I’ve had in here in a long time and it’s too bad you’re going to live with your uncle tomorrow. I do hope your visit is a good one. I know you want to go home. I won’t be here when you come back, as I do wish we could’ve gotten to know each other so much more, so much more.”

As the doctor was saying this, Kevin felt the fingers touch and prod him back there. He didn’t understand why the doctor needed to massage his butt before the injection, but he knew better than to ask. He didn’t want to be spanked like the doctor had done whenever he asked why this was happening. Then he felt the firm pinch and the needle go into his right cheek and the burning sensation of the medicine being injected started almost immediately. It hurt so much he wanted to scream. He didn’t feel his bladder let go, but knew it had.

“Oh, Kevin, you wonderful boy, oh, yes, Kevin,” Doctor Jamison whispered.

Kevin didn’t look. He wanted to look, but he didn’t. He knew the doctor was lapping and licking his urine from the table. He knew the doctor’s slacks and underwear were down at his ankles. He knew the doctor was rubbing himself. He knew all of this. This, of all the things he couldn’t remember, this he could and he’d only watched once.

Kevin wondered if there was any medicine in that bottle. Then he wondered why he thought of that. This was so strange. This wasn’t what doctors were supposed to do. He was going to have to talk to Uncle Bob about this. This just didn’t seem right.

The next day, when we came for him, Kevin was still slightly under the effects of the drug in the injection. He couldn’t see any colors, either. His memory was very active, though, and he could see far back into his past, including some of the things that happened when he was sick like being told Mommy was dead. It troubled him though. He knew he wasn’t going to remember all of these memories after the drug wore off, but some of them were going to stay. He didn’t have any control over which ones stayed and which ones faded away.

“Hey, Kevin, how’s my favorite nephew?” I asked as we walked into the room with Jim a few steps behind.

“Good,” Kevin said. He didn’t want us to think he was feeling sad that he was going to forget things, again.

“Ready to go home?” I asked.

“You mean live with Daddy and Mikey?” Kevin asked. He knew that wasn’t true. He knew Daddy didn’t want him living with them.

“Hiyah, Kevin, remember me?” Jim asked. He went to the chair where Kevin was sitting and pulled him up into a hug.

“You’re my Uncle Jim,” Kevin said as he pulled out of the embrace.

“Well, I’m not really your uncle,” Jim said.

“Uh, huh, you sleep with Uncle Bob and you, well I’ve seen you, kiss each other,” Kevin said.

“You have?” I asked. Back then you tried to avoid being seen. Being gay in the Fifties wasn’t what it is today.

“Uh, huh, and when I was little, before I was sick,” Kevin said with excitement. “Hey, I just remembered this, I can remember things when I have my injection and I remember seeing you with Uncle Jim and you were doing things naked.”

“Well, uh, when was this?” I asked. What had he seen?

“I was eight and Mikey and I were at your house because Mommy and Daddy went to Canada, I think,” Kevin said. In many ways he was still only a little boy.

“Oh, yeah, that week,” I said. Two boys on an island with adventure in every direction; what a memorable week that was. “Remember that week, Jimmy.”

“Oh, yeah, the two boys, together with us for a week,” Jim said. “And, you say you saw us doing things? When was that, exactly?”

“I’m sorry,” Kevin said, meekly, as tears welled up in his eyes and he pulled away from Jim. “Please don’t get mad. I didn’t mean to watch. I had to go to the bathroom and I heard you in your bedroom. I just remembered this. You were making noises and I didn’t understand. And you were naked and Uncle Bob had his penis in you.”

Kevin got quieter and quieter as he spoke so the last part was barely a whisper. He looked very fearful as if he expected one of us to hit him.

“I didn’t mean to watch, honest,” Kevin said. Tears trickled down his cheeks as he looked warily at us, especially me because, well, I do have a temper that shows itself on occasion. “I wouldn’t have said anything, but I just remembered it and I probably won’t remember it tomorrow because I start forgetting things when the medicine wears off. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, Kevin,” Jim said. He pulled the rather tall, skinny boy into a tight embrace. “It’s okay, Kevin.”

I wanted to join them, but I could see that Kevin’s heart was with Jim and there was nothing I could do to get it back.

When Kevin turned thirteen, he went to live with his father and brother. His father hired a housekeeper to generally act as a babysitter for Kevin because he didn’t believe his son had improved all that much since recovering from the disease. He’d read all the psychiatric and medical reports, but had just enough education to come to his own conclusions, even if they were contrary to the official stance.

Unfortunately, for Kevin, this visit was not successful and after barely one week he was sent back to the School. The reason for Kevin’s failure was due to a fifteen-year-old boy named Robbie.

It all started innocently one day shortly after Kevin arrived at the family home across from College Park, a five block by two block expanse of grass, trees, playgrounds, basketball courts, and baseball diamonds, one block from North Park College. Kevin had followed Mikey over to the basketball courts to watch him shoot baskets, or as Mikey said, “We’re going to shoot hoops.”

Kevin didn’t know what Mikey meant, but didn’t want to sound stupid so he didn’t ask. Kevin was still in institutional mode and generally followed whoever spoke to him. He was sitting on a bench watching Mikey and some other boys shoot hoops. An older boy sat down beside him.

“Hi! You’re new here,” the boy said. He wasn’t much taller than Kevin, but he was definitely older. He had a buzz cut and acne splashed on his face.

“Yes,” Kevin said.

“You want to come over to my place and smoke some weed?” the boy asked. “I know none of these weenies want to.”

“Okay,” Kevin said. He had no idea what the boy said, but he stood up and followed the boy anyway.

“My name’s Robbie,” the boy said as they waited for the light to change.

Kevin didn’t answer as he hadn’t been asked anything. He’d learned early at the school not to ask too many questions. You never knew which question might anger a staff member and lead to some form of punishment, like oatmeal for breakfast seven days in a row, no lounge privileges, being moved into one of the four-bed wards with three droolers, or, which Kevin feared the most, losing visitor privileges for a couple months. The staff had no qualms whatsoever about calling a family member to say a patient was having some sort of imaginary difficulty and it might not be appropriate for a visit for a month or two.

The houses on this side of the park were post-war, built in the early Fifties to accommodate a burgeoning population of newly married couples with a baby or two. They all had three bedrooms with one taking up half the attic, one bath, and an attached one car garage. The only distinguishing characteristic at the time of purchase was the color of the paint on their exteriors, which led to the common statement of a lot of kids on that long block of twelve homes, “I live in the second blue (or yellow, green, or brown) house that way,” and pointing in the direction of their house.

To Kevin, who had never been to this side of the park and was still plagued with the color vision problem, these houses looked the same; they were all shades of green. Only the house numbers, the arrangement of a maturing landscape, and which side the garage was on, distinguished one house from another. They went into 321 and up the stairs to the attic bedroom.

“I’m getting comfortable,” Robbie said as he started undressing. “It gets kinda hot up here in the afternoon. You don’t have to take off your clothes if you don’t want to. Did you say what your name is?”

“No,” Kevin said. He started to slowly undress. He wasn’t the least embarrassed about not having clothes on, as many times at school nudity seemed to be part of some activity, like swimming or playing outside on a warm summer afternoon. It was just something they did at school. He saw that Robbie stopped taking clothes off when he got down to his briefs. Kevin was wearing boxers.

“Are you kinda dense, or something?” Robbie asked. “Hey, what’re you wearing that kind of underwear for? That’s what my brother wears in the Army. He got drafted last year and is in Korea. Is your dad in the Army?”

Kevin stared at Robbie trying to figure out what all these questions were about. People weren’t supposed to talk to him like this. That was a rule. It was on the piece of paper they gave Daddy.

“Hey, come on; is there something wrong with you?” Robbie asked. He came to where Kevin was standing.

“I was sick,” Kevin said. “I have a card.”

Kevin squatted down and took a small business card out of his wallet. He gave it to Robbie. This was printed on one side:

My name is Kevin Charles.
I am brain damaged.
In an emergency, please contact:
Dr. Kevin Charles
302 Park Place N., North Park
or at
Dept. of History, North Park College

“Hey, is your dad like a professor or something?” Robbie asked.

“Yes,” Kevin said.

“Cool. So like have you ever smoked?”

“No,” Kevin said. Daddy smoked cigarettes.

“A buddy of mine knows this guy who hangs out down on the Ave all the time and he got me these. Took up all my allowance for these three.”

Kevin looked at the hand rolled joints and wondered if that was what they were going to smoke.

“Come on over by the window and we’ll share one,” Robbie said as he turned on the radio. “I hope you listen to KJR because I don’t listen to those other guys.”

Kevin didn’t like music because it made him feel sick, but after coughing through his first few hits on the joint he was kind getting into what he was hearing. Then he looked down at the hand on his thigh.

“You ever corn holed?” Robbie whispered.

“Yes,” Kevin said. When he moved to the teen/young adult resident ward he quickly learned about corn holing.

“You wanta do it?” Robbie whispered.

Kevin looked at Robbie’s briefs and saw the outline of the erection. He placed his hand on it and grasped it lightly with his fingers. He pulled his boxers down and went over to the bed where he lay down on his stomach.

“Cool!” Robbie exclaimed.

Kevin watched Robbie slather a lot of cold cream on his erection and tried to relax as much as possible. He knew it was going to hurt at first, but also knew the pain would go away after a while.

He didn’t know how long Robbie had been doing him, when suddenly there was a lot of shouting and he was being pulled up from the bed. There was a woman in the room with them and she hit him repeatedly on the head with one of Robbie’s penny loafers. The pain was unbearable until he lost consciousness.

The next time Kevin was fully aware of his surroundings, he was in the infirmary at the School. He remained in that institution for the next two years while various legal, medical, and social entities vied for control of his mind and body. As a former resident, he quickly adapted to living at the School and, one might say, he flourished under the State’s control. He simply existed, which is about as much as one can expect from an intelligent boy who is forced to grow up in an environment where certain degrees of mental disability are taken as normal behavior.

On the legal side, he was initially charged with rape. That he was younger than the other participant, being sodomized by the other participant, and had been brutally assaulted by the other participant’s mother, seemed to have little import to the eventual outcome of his case. The parties to his case, both for the prosecution and defense, seemed to ignore Kevin through the entire process until it was finally presented to a judge, who it can be said seemed to have a lot more sense than those around him.

For his part, the judge might be seen as the hero in this story. As this case progressed, it was the judge who suggested Kevin’s age might be important and should be considered by both the prosecution and defense which resulted in a lengthy delay.

When the case eventually came back to the judge, he didn’t seem too happy with either side. Both lawyers and their staff were more than happy that Kevin was now being charged with sexual assault. That the defense was happy with this situation can only be laid in the lap of Kevin’s father who seemed more than willing to have his oldest child kept away from “normal” society for the rest of his life. An outside observer, say the proverbial fly on the wall, might have laughed when the judge asked, neither party in particular, how exactly Kevin committed assault when he was being sodomized by the older boy.

The attorneys were crestfallen. Months and months of wrangling, delays, deferments, postponements, and interrupted meetings bore little impact on their case. Where exactly did they err? How was it they both determined the victim was the rightful party to be prosecuted? Who was to blame, as blame had to be assigned? Someone was at fault.

Fortunately, the judge was less than scathing in his rebuke to their combined ineptitude. He did ask why Kevin was not in his courtroom. When informed the boy had been readmitted to the Southwestern State School for the Mentally Retarded at Cape Disappointment, the judge asked why that was so when Kevin was not mentally retarded. When informed the family did not have the means to properly care for Kevin and ensure the public’s safety due to Kevin’s predilection toward homosexual behavior, the judge asked why was it Kevin was living at home at the time he had been the apparent victim of an act of sodomy, which strangely was not being prosecuted.

Kevin may have continued to languish in State facilities if it hadn’t been for my and Jim’s attendance at the hearing. I advised the judge we were willing to take Kevin into our home on Diego Island, which was co-located with the Diego Island Art Institute. When asked why Kevin’s father wasn’t willing to assume his parental duties, I explained my brother’s continuing belief that Kevin had been responsible for his mother’s death, the attack by Robbie, and other errors in judgment.

Taking Kevin, now a teenager with all sorts of teenager ideas and needs, turned out to be quite a problem. At least until Eric came into his life.

We were talking about him, again. He could hear all (mine, Jim’s, Euphorbia’s, and our three students that autumn Artie, Marcus, and Stephanie) our voices jumbled together into an indistinct din. His room was turning gray. For some reason, he believed I was going to send him back to the school because we didn’t have a box. Kevin looked everywhere for a box, but either we’d hidden it for some strange reason or we simply didn’t have one, which didn’t make any sense to Kevin. He had to be punished and the box was the only certain way to make him behave. He was expected to follow the rules even if he didn’t know them. Ignorance is no excuse.

If I had known having a four-foot by four-foot plywood box would’ve kept Kevin in line, I’d have put one down in the basement in a flash, but I didn’t know the school had been that cruel to their residents. I thought we were living in the Twentieth Century, not some earlier time when naughty little boys were put in boxes to turn them into nice little boys.

The problem he didn’t understand was why he had been bad. Was he being punished because he said he liked doing it with another boy? He’d tried to make it sound like a joke, but it was the truth. It had just come up in the dinner table conversation and he said it. He tried to apologize, but we wouldn’t let him. I didn’t see any need for an apology, but Kevin was still in institutional mode and his thinking wasn’t normal.

Kevin believed he had to get away. There was nothing else to do. He was so certain I was going to send him back, he had to get away, but it was dark out. All the colors were gone, but he had to go anyway.

Kevin put on his heavy winter parka and boots. As quietly as he could he went out of his bedroom, down the hall, and down the stairs. We were loud in the dining room, but he still couldn’t understand what we were saying. He heard his name come out of the noisy room, but none of the other words made any sense. He had to go out the front door and he was careful the screen door didn’t slap against the frame.

It was night outside, but a full moon was rising in the east. Kevin liked walking in moonlight because everything was distinct even though there wasn’t any color. It was like he was seeing normal, again. It was like he could see before he was sick when everything wasn’t chartreuse or gray and people weren’t other colors, well mostly yellow or orange.

He had a choice to make. He could follow the road down to the ferry dock where someone would call the institute and we’d go and get him. Or, he could go around the house and down one of the trails toward one of the small studios at the edge of the property. He’d already been to the fence that set the limits of his exploring, but stiles had been put up ages ago when property lines weren’t so strict and people followed various paths around the island instead of going on the county road which simply circled the island. The paths continued on; one across a rocky pasture that had small furry animals in it Kevin couldn’t remember ever seeing; and the other went into some trees that were planted in rows.

The moonlight was brighter and Kevin set out on the path toward the trees. He was careful around the house because someone might look out and see him. He’d have to go back, then. The studios where I, Artie, Marcus, and Stephanie worked on their art were dark. Kevin remembered having to do what was called art at the school. He couldn’t paint because he always got all the colors wrong and everyone would laugh at him saying how stupid he was. He worked with clay and made bowls, lots of bowls, and he would paint them with that stuff that changed colors, but they all came out chartreuse. No one laughed at him when he made bowls, though, and that made him happy.

No one here did anything with clay, but Marcus was getting very creative with large marble blocks he had shipped from somewhere back east. Kevin enjoyed watching the students work on their various projects, but none of them liked him watching, which surprised him because at the school someone was always watching when you did art.

Artie was experimenting with abstract expressionism, but his Upper Westside childhood kept a tight-reign on whatever creative juices he was trying to raise out of the bile in his gut. He couldn’t seem to grasp the simplistic complex dichotomy necessary to release his grounding to allow it to freely soar to unbelievable heights. Having Kevin squatting in the corner of his studio was driving the boy nuts and he wanted Kevin kept away from him. That was one of the subjects we were discussing while Kevin was taking a powder.

Dear sweet Stephanie painted the prettiest watercolor landscapes you’ve ever seen. She had that rare, unique talent of capturing Nature’s beauty with a minimalist style seldom witnessed in one’s lifetime. Unfortunately she came to Diego with that talent and refused to expand herself outward to capture whatever hidden talents she could’ve mustered. And, she was scared to death of Kevin because he’d spent too many years in a state institution. I truly think she thought Kevin was going to try to rape her. Her concerns were on the table that night, too.

The moon was up quite a bit by the time Kevin came to the stile. On the other side he followed the trail into the trees. It was cold and he put his hands in his coat pockets to keep them warm. There was hardly any noise except for his footfalls upon the weed covered path that was imperceptibly diminishing in width and depth as small side trails scampered off into the night. Finally, the path simply ceased to exist, but Kevin kept walking between two lines of trees on either side of him.

After a while, Kevin came to a one lane road. There weren’t any trees on the other side, just another wire fence with wire stickers and a pasture, but Kevin couldn’t see any animals in it. To his left there was a barn and a big tree with big branches that stuck out in all directions. He didn’t know what kind of tree it was and didn’t actually think of why he didn’t know. It was just a big tree next to a barn. A dog barked.

Kevin looked around as the dog barked, again. He recognized the sound of it though, but he didn’t know how or why he knew what the dog meant when it barked. All Kevin knew was the dog was sending out a warning, probably to whoever owned it, there was a stranger on the property. Kevin turned toward the barn as he figured that was a good place to hide.

Only, the closer he got to the barn, the more and louder the dog barked. The wire fence turned into a wood fence and Kevin followed that until he came to the tree. He could see past the barn. There were a lot of other buildings and a two-story house was across a wide open space. There were lights on in the house. The dog was whining now. Kevin knew it wanted to be let loose so it could run out to where he was standing and check him out. Kevin wasn’t afraid of the dog.

“Hey! What are you doing here?” A voice called out from the trees behind Kevin.

He stood very still as a light cut into the darkness around him. Someone had a flashlight.

“What are you doing here?” The voice asked, again, but a little calmer, now.

Kevin didn’t say a word, but guiltily hung his head and waited to be taken back to the house.

“Hey, are you deaf or something?” The voice asked as the person came up beside Kevin.

“No,” Kevin whispered.

“Then what are you doing on our property this late at night?” The voice asked. Kevin didn’t look up, but tried to stay as calm as possible as he waited for the hand to grab his shoulder and pull him to wherever the person took him. “Hey, you’re that kid from up at the Institute, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Kevin whispered. He was definitely going to be sent away. Being on someone’s property without their permission was wrong.

“Well, come along, I’d better get you inside,” the voice said. Kevin looked up and saw that it was only a boy, probably not much older than he was. “Do you know how cold it is out here?”

“No,” Kevin whispered as he followed the boy toward the house. The dog was barking, again.

Kevin was sitting on an old wooden high back chair at an equally old wooden dining table in the middle of a big country kitchen with a fireplace on one side and the sink on the other. The other sides had the range and refrigerator opposite an opening to a hallway and two doors that were closed. The boy who brought him into the house was sitting to his right. A girl, who appeared younger than either of the boys, was sitting to his left. A man, who must have been the father, was sitting opposite. The mother was standing at the sink doing the dishes.

Surprisingly, at least to Kevin, the room was completely chartreuse the moment he walked in. The father and mother were yellow, their daughter was orange, and, strangely because Kevin had never seen anyone that color, the boy was pink.

“He can’t be much younger than you,” the mother said when her son told them who Kevin was. “Do you know his name?”

“It was on the flyer they sent around after the meeting at the Grange Hall,” the father said, “but I don’t remember it. Do you have a name, boy?”

“Kevin, Kevin David Charles,” Kevin said meekly. There was no telephone that he could see and he didn’t think anyone had left to get Uncle Bob, so he wasn’t too certain what he should do.

“Wow, three first names,” the daughter said. “My name is Deidre. Don’t bother trying to spell it because I couldn’t until I was eight.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” the son said. “I’m Eric. We’re the Parkers. That’s my Mom and Dad.”

“Hi,” Kevin said meekly. He didn’t want to make them mad so he assumed his defenseless, submissive posture. He knew it was best not to appear threatening as most people didn’t understand he was brain damaged not mind damaged. There was a difference and he learned about it at the school.

“Dad, can I take Kevin up to my room?” Eric asked.

“Sure, son, that’s probably a good idea,” Mr. Parker said.

Kevin got up and followed Eric down the hall. Without a bulky coat hiding his body, Eric appeared kind of interesting to Kevin. Broad shoulders, muscular arms, narrow waist, and the jeans were tight enough to show off the boy’s ass, which wasn’t too big. Kevin didn’t like boys with big asses. Eric’s was sort of between nonexistent and big. It had a nice shape to it. It was something he could enjoy as he hadn’t been with a boy since coming to Diego Island.

About halfway down the hall, Kevin heard Mrs. Parker say, “He’s seems to be such a dear boy. It might be nice if he and Eric could become friends.”

“You mean, other than Peter?” Mr. Parker asked.

“Well, yes,” Mrs. Parker said.

Kevin wondered who Peter was and why Eric’s parents wouldn’t want him to be friends with their son. He thought of Robbie and wondered if Peter was that kind of boy, too.

Kevin followed Eric up the stairs and down a short hall lit by a bare lightbulb in a socket high on one wall. There were two doors opposite each other, one of which was open. Eric opened the other door while Kevin looked in the other room. Deidre was in there sitting at her desk reading from a book. Other than her panties, she was naked.

“Oh, don’t mind her,” Eric said. “She’s just showing off. She does that to all my friends. She doesn’t know it, but she’s getting quite a reputation on the island.”

“I heard that!” Deidre called out.

“Are you going to do anything about it?” Eric called back.

“I could take off my panties and hang out with you two,” Deidre called out.

“Deidre! Get down here this instant,” Mrs. Parker yelled from downstairs.

“Oh shit!” Eric exclaimed in a whisper. “She’s going to have to find a piece of kindling now.”

“What’s kindling?” Kevin asked.

“It’s a narrow piece of cedar used to start a fire,” Eric said. “That’s what Dad uses to spank us.”

“Does he spank you?” Kevin asked, horrified at the thought of Mr. Parker hitting Eric’s cute butt.

“No, I haven’t been spanked in years, but Deidre still has to go out to the woodshed, now and then. She’s a lot older now than when I stopped getting spanked, but she’s a girl and you know how they are.”

“I don’t know anything about girls,” Kevin said. He looked around Eric’s bedroom and was struck by the starkness of it. There was a double bed along the wall, a desk and chair by the window, a small dresser between the door and bed, and a sort of wardrobe along the other wall. There was a bare lightbulb in a socket in the ceiling and a reading lamp on the desk. Everything was chartreuse, which surprised Kevin.

“You don’t have a sister?” Eric asked as he sat on the bed and lay down on his side with his head propped up with his hand. “How about a girlfriend?”

Kevin shook his head and looked for a place to sit. He went over to the desk.

“Why don’t you close the door and you can lay on the bed with me,” Eric said. “I don’t have many friends over like this. Peter, who is my age, lives over on Smoky Point. That’s nearly two miles from here by road. Dick, who’s a senior, lives almost as far in the other direction. Sally and Suzy, they’re twins, live on the other side of the hill, but it’s nearly five miles by road to their house. They’re freshmen. There aren’t a lot of kids on the island and dances down at the Grange Hall are pretty pathetic. Someone always ends up dancing with a parent and they don’t do any of the new dances. What radio station do you listen to?”

“I don’t listen to music,” Kevin said. He was lying on the bed facing Eric in the same pose. “It makes my head hurt.”

“Are you sick or something?” Eric asked.

“I had encephalitis and nearly died,” Kevin said. He tried not looking at Eric as he talked because the boy was very good looking, besides being pink. His long, wavy dark pink hair almost covered his ears and contrasted with the light pink on his skin. The pink button down short sleeved shirt was tight across his chest and his pink jeans were tight enough that Kevin was certain he could see something in the boy’s crotch. He swallowed at the thought of being this close to another boy.

“My brain doesn’t work very well,” Kevin said.

“What grade are you in?” Eric asked.

“I don’t go to regular school,” Kevin said. “I don’t think I’ve been to school since I was sick. I don’t remember very well. They didn’t want me because I can’t learn very well. I’m a dummy.”

“No, you’re not!” Eric exclaimed. “Don’t say things like that about yourself. Maybe you just need more help. Can you remember anything from school?”

“No, I don’t know how to read anymore,” Kevin said.

“Maybe I could teach you,” Eric said. He got off of the bed and went over to his desk where he started opening drawers. “Ah, here it is.”

Kevin sat up and Eric sat down beside him. They were very close. Eric had a magazine and opened it to the first page. Kevin looked at the words, but nothing made any sense to him. Plus, he was kind of distracted by their closeness. Then he felt Eric’s arm across his back and a hand resting on his shoulder. He swallowed nervously.

“You hold the other side,” Eric said. “Yeah, that’s it. What’s this word?”

“I don’t know,” Kevin said as he looked at the three letters Eric was pointing at.

“What’s the first letter?” Eric asked.

“I don’t know,” Kevin said. He felt like he was going to start crying and he didn’t want that. “I can’t remember the letters.”

“That’s a ‘T’ ”, Eric said. “Can you find some more ‘T’s’ on the page?”

Kevin looked at the page and with his left hand he pointed at all the “T’s.”

“There’re a lot more,” Eric said. “The lowercase ones look like this.”

Kevin looked at the letter Eric was pointing at and then began to point out all the other lowercase “t’s.”

“Yeah, that’s it,” Eric said. “I think we need to start at the beginning, though. Do you remember your ABC’s?”

Kevin furrowed his brows and pursed his lips as he began looking back in his cloudy mind. He remembered that phrase, ABC’s. It was something Mommy taught him.

“A, B, C, something, something, G, something, um, K, elemeno, P, queer are us, T!, something, something, um, uh, Z,” Kevin recited. He smiled.

“Well, you got the first three right and you remembered the T and the last letter,” Eric said. Then quietly, almost in a whispered he asked, “What did you mean by queer are us? That should be Q, R, S.”

“I don’t know,” Kevin whispered. He looked at Eric. They were very close. Their eyes met and Kevin felt himself being drawn toward the other boy, but he held back, not wanting to ruin this. He wanted Eric to make the move. He tried to smile. He’d been here before, but it was not his place to do what needed to be done. As if in answer to a silent question, Kevin watched Eric turn his head slightly and their lips met. It was a tentative gesture, a momentary meeting of two boys unsure of the feelings between them. After a moment, Eric pulled back and smiled.

“I liked that,” Kevin said.

“Yeah,” Eric said. “Have you ever kissed another boy?”

“Yes,” Kevin said. “Have you?”

“No,” Eric said. He came in again and their lips met.

Kevin could tell Eric was uncertain what was supposed to happen, but he knew he couldn’t rush this. He had to let Eric learn the steps on his own. He knew enough to correct when necessary, but it was nicer when the other boy didn’t know. Kevin felt Eric’s tongue on his lips and he opened his mouth slightly. His own tongue went forward and welcomed the stranger to its home.

“Oh, man!” Eric exclaimed in a whisper. “I can’t believe I’m actually doing this.”

“It’s okay,” Kevin said.

“We need to work on your ABC’s,” Eric said.