Afternoons with Dwain

Afternoons with Dwain

 

Let me tale you about an old man and a little kid. This is not the sort of tale you might expect. Such a tale will never be made into a Lifetime Channel movie. There is no moral to this tale. There is no great lesson for you to learn here. The old mentor will not grow old and die gracefully and the young kid will not learn a great lesson about the beauty and tragedy of life. If you like Opera Book of the month yarns, move on. You might not believe all that I say, and that’s fine. Perhaps some of the details have been shaded by time, and perhaps I take creative license.  I beg your pardon. I am an old man with bad eyes writing in a very dark room.

 

Adam always went to see Dwain on the pretense of playing with his kids, who were a few years younger than himself, but Adam didn’t much like those kids. They were often loudly fighting and fussing, and were hard to get along with. They often wanted Adam to go get food from his house and bring it down the hill, which mad Adam’s mother mad. He always felt a little guilty and disgusted around those little girls. When he walked up to Dwain’s trailer they were always sitting in the dirt or playing in the garbage, looking up at him with their big needy eyes.. Matted hair stuck to their dirty faces. The yard they played in was a riot of broken shit; washing machines in various states of disrepair, cars, dishwashers, big tractor tires that bread swarms of mosquitoes, a pile of plastic trash that was meant to be burnt but never was. The kids played in and among those things like toys.  

 

Once, one of those little girls had been bitten by a rat when she climbed in an old wash machine. When she went to school the next day, the bite was so swollen that she was sent to the hospital by the school nurse. As a result of that, CPS was sent to Dwain’s house. They told him to clean up the yard and the house, and complained to the city. They told him that they would be back to check up on things, and if necessary were prepared to remove the children from the dangerous environment. They had not been back.

 

Adam lived up a hill from Dwain’s dilapidated trailer. One summer day he rode his bike by the house, and the little kids ran up to him and started asking him to ride his bike. He felt sorry that they had no bikes, and being a kind sort he obliged. Adam walked up to the porch to sit down, and let the kids take turns riding. Dwain walked out on the porch and grimaced, smoking.

 

“Take care they don’t break it, those girls can break anything.”

 

Aron looked up. Dwain was wearing no shirt, dirty jeans, and blew gret clouds of smoke. Adam stood. “It’s o.k. I don’t see that there’s much that they can do to that bike. It’s real tuff.

 

Dwain spit, “You’d be surprised. Come into the house and have something to drink”.

 

 

From there they started talking and became friends. Adam would go to see him sometimes, just walking in the house. He would bring little sweets from his house to give the girls. Adam would often find Dwain sitting at the table, drinking, smoking. Downturned eyes. Flies buzzing. The whole house stunk because of the kitchen, vomiting up the stench of the rotting food in the sink.

 

You might be wondering why Adam who was maybe 13, would hang out with such a guy. For one, Adam felt bad that he was so alone, and would go by just because he was bored and he felt he could give Dwain some company. Also, sometimes Dwain would give him beer. Adam instantly liked the way the beer made him felt, from the first drink. He also found that he was interested, and a little scared, at the stories Dwain told.

 

Adam would pull up a chair and sit down, and Dwain would start talking. He was lonely and had no one else so I guess it was natural that he would pour his guts out. He talked almost exclusively about himself, his ex-wife, and the kids. He would trow in what seemed like advice, or lessons some, but Adam mostly forgot all that. He didn’t trust that Dwain had much to offer by way of advice. Adam heard about how he had been a truck driver years ago and was married. He would be gone for long stretches of time away from home and his life did not trust him. He wanted to be home more, but was a convict so his options for work were limited.  She was always nagging at him to get a better job, or make more money.

 

Dwain and his wife got to where almost all they did was fight. He would come home and they would fuck and fight. The kids kept coming but they were not really happy. She wanted him to be in town. She was lonely. Plus raising kids was no easy chore. But he couldn’t find a job in town. Especially in Woodville, the tiny hamlet carved out of the Big Thicket where he lived. There wasn’t much work around. Most folks in town worked at the saw mill, but they would not hire him on account of his record.

 

Well, it got worse and worse. He started smoking speed to keep him up on long hauls. When he came home he was tweeked, strung out, could hardly get it up. So the sex stopped, and she thought he had been fucking lot lizards, so he was worn out. But it was the speed. “The shit clogs up the veins down there”’ he told Adam.

 

During these summer blab sessions the kids would run in and out of the trailer, and they screamed and fought and always wanted something. Adam came to feel bad for them, and at the same time hate them. Why did they have to be so loud? His feelings for Dwain were similar. Adam felt bad for him, but at the same time, the more he hung out, the more a feeling of (what he would later call) disgust built up. Why didn’t he get another job? Why was he always so unkempt and dirty, why did he only talk about himself? Sometimes Adam would ask about this, why he didn’t (in effect) go one with his life, get a job, and move on. Dwain always had some answer, some excuse, why he couldn’t go back to work. He was receiving disability checks, and his wife sent a little money each month for the kids. He tired to get her to take one of them off his hands but she didn’t want nothing to do with them. “She’s too busy partying and hooking” was his explanation. He had a bad back and the state said he was bipolar and had ADHD. Both parties agreed he couldn’t work. He was too fucked up. His back was too hurt. He was a two-time looser and there were no jobs for him, etc..,

 

 

All that summer Adam would just at the table, ask questions, sit a listen, and drink beer. He liked the smell of the whiskey and cigarettes. Sometimes his oldest daughter would be around. Adam liked her too. She was always dressed skimpily. Even at 13 Adam knew what the status was. Adam always tried to make conversation with her. He often stared at her tits and he knew she knew he was starring at her tits but didn’t care. She would go swimming with her friends at the creek and wear the most outrageous bikinis’ (so it seemed to Adam).  He didn’t care what she knew. He wanted to touch her badly. He would just stare and stare. Once he asked if he could go with her and her friends swimming. She pinched his cheek and said he was just a little boy, and couldn’t hang out with them.

 

Dwain would always complain that she was like her mother. He would complain; “Girls only dress like that for one reason” he said, “and it ant because its hot. You see these little hoochies in that shit in the winter time. They want to get boys. That’s the long and the short of it, and If she gets pregnant she is on her own! She better get married to a man who can support her if she knows what’s good for her.” She had a lot of friends and boyfriends and it seemed to Adam she was never home. But he liked it when she came swinging into the house and always hoped she would. She was sassy and pretty and had a lot of energy. Adam liked that alot.

 

After a few years of driving the truck, Adam felt he had to make more money. The kids kept coming and so did the bills. His wife was getting more adamant that he “man up” and make more to support his family. So he started moving speed across state lines. This was risky business because it was a Federal crime. To make a long torturous short he got caught and did 8 years in the pen. His wife left him the day he got out and dumped him with the girls.

 

Every time Adam went to see him the conclusion of his drunken monolougs were about the same; “Life’s been so hard ever since. I can’t get a good job with my background and the money my ex sends is not enough.”

 

Towards the end of the summer Adam’s mom caught him drunk and knew where he was getting the beer. She forbid him going to “play” with Dwain’s girls. He went to high school in the Fall and he was excited and busy and forgot about Dwain a little. When he did think of him he had a vague rage and sadness and disgust, all mixed into one. He didn’t like the feeling and so he put him out of his mind. Why was he so ragefull? What had happened to those people? Why were things like that for them. Adam lived in a nice trailer that was clean and had a few nice things. Adam knew his mom would never leave him. He shuddered at the thought. Why didn’t Dwain give those girls a bath, why couldn’t he work? Adam started to hate Dwain, but he felt bad too, like a ball of hate and sadness and disgust all mixed together…Adam decided that something had gone terribly wrong, and that he must know what went wrong, but with all the new experiences of highscool he soon forgot his resolve.

 

Adam had almost put the experience out of his mind when he came home at the end of one spring day to find that the street down the hill was full of cops and Ambulances. He ran down the hill to see all the cops standing around. He asked the cops what happened and the cop told him Dwain had went to the hospital. It was the last trip Dwain ever took.

 

He asked where the girls were and the cops told him they were ok. “But where are they” he persisted”?

 

The cop looked down with annoyance. He had dark glasses on so you couldn’t see his eyes. “They are at a good place for kids, now get out of here.”

 

He stood there hating everyone around him, the cops, the ambulance, the dirty shitty trailer, everything. He couldn’t stand to see his mother or father. He felt like screaming WHAT’S WRONG?! But he didn’t. He ran off into a spot in the woods he sometimes went to, and sat and thought and thought about what could have been so wrong. Why? Why? Why? Spun around and around in his mind until deep in the night.