The Boy Who Understood
by Biff Spork
Chapter 6
Oink's Nutlets
David jerked awake from a half-dream. He squinted at the sun and tried to calculate how long he had lain with Zhiv. "I should check the time."
Zhiv sat up beside him. "First, tell me what you saw. Did any pictures or feelings seem real strong?"
"There was one," said David. "I saw it two or three times. It was a stream of clear water flowing over stones and making a tinkling sound like small bells."
"Belnit! That was Belnit, the stag. I asked him to think you. He has a stronger mind than most of us. Anything else?"
David recalled one other clear image. He had seen Zhiv seated cross-legged on a rock below a vast night sky dotted with stars. Beyond him, thousands of different animals had assembled like a crowd at a music festival. Emanating from them was a sound like a rushing wind, "Zhiv." The image had flashed through his mind in a second but left behind it a feeling of awe. "I think I saw you," David said. "You were with a lot of animals, and they were all looking at you."
"Yeah. They all think I can do something, that I can help them, but I don't know what to do. Sometimes it's a peaceful feeling. Other times, it's like I'm in a river, in the rapids, and I have no control over where I'm going, or what I'm doing."
"When I saw you inside, it seemed very peaceful."
"I saw you too," said Zhiv. "Because we were touching, it was pretty clear. You were at the lake on the plateau. There were lots of other animals around you too, just going about their lives like normal. I didn't hear any sound, but that'll come as you get stronger, and then we'll know your name, your inside name."
"Zhiv, I love this; I love doing this," said David as he got to his feet, "but I need to look at my phone to find out the time. To keep my mom and dad happy, I have to be home for supper." David smiled. "After what I've seen and done today, worrying about being late for supper is funny. It's like a different world."
In the cavern, David checked his phone and found he was not in danger of being late if he left soon. He emptied the pack of the food left over from their lunch and asked if there were other supplies he could bring.
"Just bring yourself," said Zhiv.
Zhiv shouldered the pack, and they set off down the mountain. When they arrived at David's bike, Zhiv set the pack down, and they moved into each other's arms for a long hug.
David said, "I'll try to come real early tomorrow. I won't be able to come after that until next weekend because I have to go to school, but it's the last week of school so I'll be able to come up every day after that."
"I wish you could stay here with me," said Zhiv, "I mean, all the time."
"Me, too."
They pulled apart, David dressed, and they faced each other.
David blushed. "Uh, I had a really good time today."
"Me, too."
"Will you meet me here tomorrow morning?"
"I'll be here as soon as it's light."
David hugged Berky and knelt to hug Erg. He stood and Zhiv moved into his arms again. When they pulled apart, David saw tears on Zhiv's cheeks.
"Oh, don't cry, please, or I'll start, too."
"It's not from sadness," said Zhiv. "I'm too happy."
David wheeled his bike across the clear-cut to the road. Zhiv stayed at the edge of the forest. They waved to each other, and David rode away. Zhiv squatted beside Erg and put his arm around the mountain lion. They watched David until he disappeared around a bend in the road.
Most of Celia's Social Services colleagues tried not to have clients outside of town. Rural visits meant long drives. Celia liked driving. It gave her the chance to think more deeply about how best to help the people in her case load. After she drove away from the Wilkins' hobby farm, Celia thought about Mrs. Wilkins. Then she worried about a case that affected her like an open sore.
Two years earlier, an orphan boy named Sol Mundy had been added to her roster. He'd been in the system since he was an infant, but the agency had been unable to find anyone to adopt him. He had spent his childhood in group homes and a succession of foster families.
Sometimes Sol had moved because a family became unable to have an extra child in the house. However, he was returned several times to the agency after a short stay because he was too sad. It seemed impossible to make him happy. Foster parents said he depressed them and their other children.
The Social Services' in-house therapist confirmed the boy was depressed. It manifested as persistent sadness. He prescribed a regimen of mood-elevating drugs. Sol resisted taking the drugs. He said he still felt sad, but the drugs made him feel stupid, too. Celia yielded to his wishes and dropped the drug therapy.
Besides being sad, Sol was vegan. He would not eat or wear anything that came from an animal. His foster families usually found this irritating. Yet, despite his sadness and veganism, he wasn't a difficult child. He was never rude or violent. He didn't have anger management issues and was mannerly and helpful. He was a good-looking boy with bright blond hair. Though he seldom smiled, his face lit up when he did, and he was beautiful.
Celia was sympathetic to Sol's veganism because her parents had been vegetarian. She had grown up on meals of vegetables and whole foods. There was always cheese, butter, and eggs, though, so she wasn't a vegan. Nor was she religious about being vegetarian. If she was at a friend's home for a meal, she was not fussy and ate what everybody was having. It suited her personal philosophy of being kind and tolerant.
Celia had finally found a family who were willing to respect Sol's veganism. They were also prepared to work to overcome his sadness. From their first meeting, she had liked the young couple, Evan and Marie O'Brian. They were trying to survive on a small, organic, fruit and vegetable farm outside town. They were eager to share their life with a child and could use the extra income fostering would bring. Celia hoped she had at last found a home where the boy could thrive. She moved Sol out of a group home and placed him with the O'Brians.
On her first monthly visit, Celia found they had solved the vegan food difficulty. Marie had adapted her vegetarian cooking to Sol's veganism, and he said he was enjoying the food she prepared. Celia could see there was some mutual affection developing too, yet the boy's sadness had not lifted. Celia once asked him what made him sad.
"Sometimes I wake up at night because I hear a sound in the darkness like a lot of people crying. It's like they're hurting, someone is hurting them, and they're lonely and afraid. Once I tried putting a pillow over my ears so I could go to sleep, but the sound is inside my head, and I can't get away from it. It's not so bad in the daytime because there's other noises, but at night, it's all I can hear."
"Do you hear it now?"
Sol closed his eyes for a moment, then replied,"Yeah. Sometimes it goes away for a day or two, but it always comes back."
Evan and Marie's small farm couldn't provide everything they needed so Evan had taken a job with Jameson Pork Producers, a nearby factory farm that raised thousands of pigs for slaughter. One weekend, Marie had an appointment at the hospital for some medical tests. Evan was only working a half day so Marie asked him to take Sol to his work site. The boy could look around the pig farm or help Evan with his work.
Evan later told Celia what had happened. "So, I took the boy to work with me, but as soon as we went inside the pig shed, he broke down. He just leaned against the bars of first pen started to cry, not normal kid crying like he scraped his knee, but big sobs like his best friend just died or something. So I grabbed him and hugged him. I patted him on the back and we stood there for a minute. Then I noticed something weird — it had gone dead silent in the pig shed. Those pigs always make a lot of noise, squealing and grunting, but except for Sol sobbing, there wasn't a sound in that whole shed — thousands of pigs and not a squeak out of one of them, like they were listening to us.
"I couldn't get a word out of the boy so I took him outside, and he recovered a little. I asked him what was wrong, what was making him cry like that."
"This is the place!" he said. "This is the place where the sadness comes from. I know people say I'm too sad, and it's a problem. But now I know: All that sadness is not coming from inside me. It's their sadness that I feel, all those pigs. Can't you feel how much they're suffering? Doesn't it bother you?"
"I said no, it was just a job for me." Evan shook his head at the memory. "Sol kept on crying. I knew I had to take him home, so I phoned Willie to come in and take over for me. Then we came home."
By nightfall, he and Marie thought that they had helped Sol stop thinking about the pigs. Yet after they had put him to bed, muffled sobs coming from his room kept them awake. Again, they attempted to comfort him, but he continued to weep, and nothing they could say or do relieved his distress. Eventually they went to bed and slept. In the morning, Sol was gone. That was over a year ago. While an amber alert had been activated and photos posted all over the state, no trace of the boy was ever found.
Though she knew it was unprofessional, Celia couldn't shake the feeling that she was to blame. She had failed. A child in her care had disappeared, winked out of existence, leaving nothing but a handful of papers and a photo in a file folder.
Jameson Pork Producers needed a fresh stock of antibiotics. They were only available in Dryden, a small city in the next valley. Though it was Aaron's day off, he had offered to make the trip, two hours drive each way. He hoped it might mollify the old man, who continued to fume about the speeding ticket.
On his return from Dryden, Aaron slowed as he passed Jana Mountain. He glanced around to see if there were any birds acting weird and rolled up the windows. The only movement he saw was an old man setting a plastic chair on the lawn in front of his house. It was a useless place to put a deck chair and confirmed Aaron's opinion that old people were nuts. He kept a careful watch on the speedometer. He didn't want another ticket.
As Aaron approached the junction of the Jana Mountain logging road and the highway, he saw a figure on a bicycle turning onto the pavement. He slowed when he recognized the cyclist. He passed the boy and honked while making a hand signal to pull over. Two hundred yards further, Aaron stopped on the shoulder. He walked to the back of the pickup, leaned on the tailgate, and waited for the boy.
David pedaled up to Aaron and stopped.
"Hey, I think I saw you last week," said Aaron.
"Yeah," said David. He remembered the red pickup with the gun rack in the rear window. "You were driving pretty fast. I had to jump off the road."
"That's why I stopped you now. I'm really sorry about that. A bunch of birds were chasing me, and I was just trying to get out of there as fast as I could. I hope you're okay?"
"Yeah. I'm okay."
"That's good. I would have stopped, but those birds were trying to kill me, and I could see through the rear-view mirror that you were okay. Sorry you had to jump outta the way. If there's anything I can do to make up for that?" He waited for David's answer.
David thought about Aaron's offer. Then he looked up and said, "How about you don't shoot any birds next time you're up there?"
"I wasn't shooting any birds, just tin cans and few bottles. Anyway, what I meant was maybe I could help fix your bike if it got broke, or something."
"No thanks, the bike's okay." David started to get on his bicycle.
Aaron held out his hand. "My name's Aaron Jameson."
David looked at Aaron's outstretched hand, then shook it. "David McAdam," he said.
"You probably know my little brother, River, from school. He's about your age."
"Yeah. I know who he is."
"Hey, you wouldn't be any relation to Deputy McAdam, would you?"
"My father's a sheriff's deputy."
"He gave me a speeding ticket that day."
David said nothing.
"My old man is pretty pissed off at me getting that ticket. You know it's gonna cost about five hundred dollars."
David looked at Aaron like he was a telephone pole.
"Dads are like that," said Aaron. "I guess yours was pissed off when he heard you had to jump out of my way, even though it was accidental? Maybe that's why he gave me the ticket?"
"No," said David. "When we were eating supper that night, my father told us about you getting pecked by some birds. I said I'd seen some starlings flying around your truck, but we didn't talk until he was home after work."
"I thought you might have been, you know, angry."
"No, I didn't get hurt or anything. I didn't think you'd done it on purpose."
"Hey, I'm glad you feel that way. So, we can be friends now. Right?"
"Okay," David said.
"Maybe, if you're talking to your daddy about this situation, you could tell him that ticket is giving me a lot of trouble. If he could just tear it up or forget it somehow?"
"No," said David. "I don't know about any 'situation.' If you want my father to do something about that ticket, you should talk to him, not me. It's got nothing to do with me, and I'm going to be late for supper if I stand around here anymore." He mounted his bike.
"Hey, why don't we throw your bike in the back of the truck, and I'll give you a lift home?"
"No thanks. I like to ride."
"Yeah, sure," said Aaron. "It was nice meeting you," he called to David's back, as the boy pedaled away. "Fucking, stuck-up, asshole kid," he added to himself.
Pete readied the grill and helped Doreen prepare the condiments for the burgers. The plant-based patties she'd bought looked like regular burgers, big and meaty. Doreen sliced some tomatoes, and Pete cut up some lettuce. There were some vegan cheese slices too. They looked the same as normal cheese slices. Doreen had also set out a big bowl of her potato salad.
"Is that vegan too?" Pete pointed at the salad.
"Everything's vegan. The cheese. The mayo. Everything."
"So, what's that?" Pete pointed at some small, white cubes in the salad. "Looks like egg white to me."
"Nope." Doreen shook her head. "It's tofu. After tonight, you will no longer be a tofu virgin."
"Wow, looks like hard-boiled egg-white."
"Tastes like it too, but it's tofu."
Pete had thought about this meal all afternoon. At first, he felt disappointed with himself. It seemed like he had given up, surrendered. Then he realized that he felt like a big weight was lifting off him. Maybe now he wouldn't go around feeling grumpy so much, but he worried about his low flash point. If David did something that showed he thought he had won, Pete was afraid he would explode. He mentioned this to Doreen.
"He's not like that," she said. "Don't worry, Pete." Doreen crossed her fingers behind her back. She knew this meal was more about healing old wounds than satisfying hunger.
As he rode home, David tried to devise a plausible excuse for going up the mountain so often. He knew he wanted to spend all his time with Zhiv, but he couldn't tell his parents about a naked boy who ran around with wild animals. He had to have another reason for his trips to the park. He came up with an idea as he neared home. After he parked his bike in the garage and plugged it into its charger, he joined his parents on the patio behind the house.
"I hope you're hungry," said Pete. "Should I start the burgers?"
David saw the plant-based burgers package and scanned the vegan cheese and mayonnaise. "Starving," he said, looking around to see if there was any meat. Everything seemed to be vegan. What was going on? He stole a glance at his father. Everything was normal, except there was no meat.
Pete laid three of the patties on the grill. They sizzled in an appetizing fashion. Doreen handed him some sliced buns to toast.
"Did you have a good ride," asked Doreen.
"Yeah," said David. "That bike is great. I went up Jana Mountain again today, and it takes me up that old logging road like it's flat." He continued to scrutinize everything on the table until he was certain. All the food was vegan. It was all he could do to resist jumping up and cheering. He knew he had to pretend it wasn't happening, that his father would get upset if he made a big deal out of it
"What do you do up there?" said Pete.
That was the question David had anticipated. "Mostly just look around. I like being in the forest. It's really peaceful. But I wish knew more about the plants and animals, especially the birds. There's so many different kinds of birds." He paused.
"Yeah," said Doreen. "I know what you mean about peaceful. When I was a girl, we lived on the edge of a forest, and I spent a lot of time in the woods."
"You told me once that you were a bird-watcher," said David..
"Yeah, I was really into it. I wanted to learn the name of every bird I saw. I was surprised at how satisfying it was to get to know them like that. I've pretty much forgotten all that now, but at the time, I could even identify a bird from hearing its call."
"Wow. I'd like to be able to do that," David said.
"I still have my field guide and binoculars," said Doreen. "They're packed away somewhere, but I could dig them up for you if you'd like?"
"Thanks Mom, that would be terrific."
"Do you want some of that fake cheese on your burgers?" asked Pete as he flipped the patties on the grill.
David and Doreen both said they did. Pete said, "Okay, but the personal Pete special burger always has a dollop of mustard on the patty. Then I lay the cheese on top. So, mustard?"
Pete received two loud affirmatives.
"Mom, can you dig up that guide and the binocs tonight? I really want to get started on bird-watching tomorrow when I go up the mountain, and I want to go early."
"Okay, honey. I'll try, after supper. Mayonnaise?"
"Yes, please," he said.
He eyed Pete while his father took a bite from his burger.
"This is great," said Pete. "Anybody want something to drink?"
He reached into the cooler for a beer for himself and colas for David and Doreen.
"I used to cycle a lot when I was a kid," said Pete between bites. "Once I even took part in a cycle race around the state. It was an annual event that took about ten days. Me and my best friend did it together, with about a hundred other riders. I guess we weren't much older than you are." He looked at David. "It was one of those charity things where you get people to sponsor you."
"Wow, did you win?" said David.
"No, we just did it for fun. I never got a prize, but my friend did. He wanted to be a rock star, and always sang his favorite songs when we were on long, lonely stretches of the route. The prize he got was for 'Loudest Cyclist.'"
David confessed that he, too, liked to sing while he pedaled.
Two more of the plant-based burgers hit the grill for Pete and David. Doreen went into the house to search for her field guide and binoculars. She came back outside with them as her boys were finishing their second burgers.
Pete sat back and looked at his son. Then he burped, a challenging burp. David belched in reply, managing to make it louder and longer.
"You guys are so gross!" said Doreen.
"But you love us anyway," said Pete.
She handed the field guide and binoculars to David.
After they had cleaned up their meal and put everything away, David said, "Dad, you used to ride a bike a lot when you were a kid. Have you ever ridden an electric bike?"
"No. It must be pretty much the same, I guess."
"Well, yes," said David. "But it's different, too. Do you want to try mine?"
"Oh, I don't know. It's been a long time…"
"It's easy, and riding a bike is like swimming — once you know how to do it, you never forget. It's not dark yet. We can go for a spin. I'll ride my old bike. C'mon, Dad."
When they had gone around to the garage, Doreen continued sitting on the patio. Pete and David came out of the garage and stood in the driveway. Doreen could see that David was explaining the controls on his e-bike. Pete nodded as he listened. Then they both mounted and rode out onto the street. Doreen smiled. This was the way it was supposed to be. There was nothing better than this.
Later, when she and Pete were sitting watching TV, David came in to say good night. He was fresh-showered, soapy-smelling, and barefoot. In his dinosaur-patterned pajama shorts, he looked like he was eleven. He embraced his mother, "G'night Mom."
Then he turned to his father and said, "Uhhh," and hugged Pete. "Thanks, Dad."
"For what?"
"For everything," said David and raced upstairs to his bedroom.
"I saw that McAdam kid today, on my way home," said Aaron. "So, I stopped to see if I could get him to talk to his daddy about that ticket. First, I said I was sorry for nearly hitting him, though it was his fault as much as mine. I was being friendly, but he was just like a stone. 'Okay' he says, like he don't care."
"That's what he's like," said River. "You talk to him, and there's nothing. You might as well be talking to a wall."
They sat at the supper table, Aaron, River, and their father. The two older brothers were out at what they called a 'beer-b-cue.'
Their father bit into a deep-fried pig testicle and chewed it. Then he asked, "Do you ever wonder why they can make millions of dollars selling 'Chicken Nuggets,' but if we tried to sell 'Pig Nuggets,' we'd get run out of town?"
"It's all in the name, in advertising," offered Aaron. "You've got to call it something cute, like 'Piglet Bits" or 'Oinker Nibbles.'"
"How about 'Porky Bites'?" said River.
"Oinker Nibbles," said their father. "I like that. Or maybe 'Oinker Nutlets'. We could call the franchise 'Oinkers Away.'"
River laughed and sang, "Oinkers away, my boys, Oinkers away."
"A shorter name is better," said Aaron. "Just call it Oink's. Then it sounds like a friend's nickname. People could say, 'I'll stop at Oink's and pick up a barrel of Nutlets and Gravy.' We'd hafta do gravy, too. People will eat anything with gravy on it."
His father smiled and held out the bowl of pig testes. He said, "Have another nutlet, Aaron. So, what did the kid say about the ticket? Did he call his daddy?"
"He said he didn't even tell his daddy about me until they were at supper, hours after I got the ticket," said Aaron.
"Do you think he was tellin' the truth," asked the senior Jameson. "Maybe he was afraid you'd get mad if you knew he'd called the law on you. Where did all this take place anyway?"
"He'd just come down the Jana Mountain logging road. He musta been up there again. It seemed like he didn't care about our little run-in last week. He did get kinda upset later. We talked a bit and shook hands all friendly-like. I asked him if he might talk to his daddy about the situation with the ticket, that I was sorry and all. That got him like a firecracker up his ass. 'No,' he says, 'there ain't no situation,' and he's not gonna talk to his daddy about nothin'. Then he rode off in a huff."
"You're some diplomat," said his father. "River, you get close to the kid at school next week."
"Okay, Daddy, but he ain't friendly."
"Well, see if you can do better than your brother. Maybe try a different approach."
"Yes, Daddy."
Darkness was falling at the lower edges of Jana Mountain Park. A single starling perched on a birch tree branch and fluffed his feathers. On lower branches, six red hens and a rooster clucked softly while they settled themselves for the night. In the morning, Lilili would lead them deeper into the mara. They were eager to meet Zhiv.
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