Dwelling Places Read Free Page B

teachers laugh at him behind his back. But Dale and Eric graduated last year, so maybe Young Taylor figures that Lydia and Kyle are better than nothing now that his real friends aren’t in school anymore.
    He’s my brother, and in a way I feel sorry for him, and I pray for him every day, Lord, even though he’s so irritating and tries to upset me. He seems lonely, but he’d never admit that. And he’s become too good for normal people, and he acts like he knows he’s handsome, which he is when he’s not made up to look like a vampire or something. But it’s the dark and dangerous kind of handsome that junior and senior girls go crazy for, at least when they’re not around school, where talking to Young Taylor would kill their popularity.
    I don’t know why I’m writing all of this, Jesus, but who else can I tell it to? My friends are tired of me complaining about my brother, and they think he’s kind of cute and I should just chill. But I’m afraid for his soul. The kind of music he listens to, and the way he talks—it’s so far from what you want for him.
    Anyway, help me act like a Christian toward him. And somehow make him behave when Dad gets home tonight.
    Love and praise,
    Kenzie
    Â 
    Before leaving her room, Kenzie studies her butt in the mirror. It seems to be getting wider, but she can’t be sure. She returns downstairs to get Mom’s input. Tonight needs to be perfect. She wants to be beautiful and happy for Dad. For everybody, Jesus included.
    Mack
    He never noticed before how many people around here drive Toyotas. While waiting for Ed to pick him up, he counts four Toyotas in twenty minutes. All several years old, bought used, no doubt. Tercels and Corollas from the late eighties appear at the rise in the road and slide down the hill and past the large, uneventful yard, making meek small-engine noises, tickety-tickety sounds that can barely be heard above the insects screeching in the tall grasses across the road.
    It has seemed odd to Mack that a mental hospital would have a front porch. This facility, somehow connected to the mental health services out of Ottumwa, has moved into a large, refurbished farmhouse inn, and the porch bothers Mack for how peaceful it appears. As if aunts and uncles and grandparents and children would waddle out there after Sunday dinner and find their favorite spots and let the feast digest at leisure as they share gossip. People don’t sit in this place in congenial chatter and silences. They don’t daydream or lap up the breeze while gathering energy for the next task. If they sit quietly, they are usually drugged and empty-faced. They wander to remote posts within the confines of the sprawling house and pass the time either absently or desperately.
    Mack now sits on the outdoor furniture, unconfined, waiting for his ride. He decides that the porch remains for just such an occasion.His time is up, his small light blue Samsonite latched and at his knee. The porch is his entryway back to home. He dares to rock a bit in the large wicker chair, and he allows himself to breathe in the balm of the bright, harvesttime winds and to feel just a little bit hopeful.
    He reaches down to feel the handle of the suitcase—from the luggage set he and Jodie received from his parents as a wedding present. They’ve used the complete set only once in nineteen years. When the kids were little, they visited Jodie’s mom down in Galveston. That was a year after Jodie’s dad passed and her mom sold the house in Oskaloosa and went to live close to her son. Jodie’s brother has a small place near the ocean, and for weeks prior to the trip the kids jabbered like blue jays about everything they would do there. Young Taylor was ten then, and he packed his own suitcase—this very suitcase—and left out underwear. That was a decent year, Mack and Jodie together long enough that the new had worn off as well as