DUST

I overheard Dust and Travis talking while they were preparing everything for painting one day.  That was all we had left to do, and I’d been stretching out finishing the job.  I really like working with Dust.  I was sad we were about done.  We’d painted most of the inside already, done all the finish work, and shopped for and bought furniture including the mattress for the treehouse.  We’d even furnished the spare room, which I’d seen Travis eyeing.  But I’d left a little of the outside unpainted.  I wanted us all there when we finished it up, and I thought outside would be better for that.

Dust had asked Travis if he’d still be sleeping here once the new school year began.  Before he could answer, I’d chipped in, telling him I too hoped he would.  Dust has few inhibitions about saying anything in front of me.  He told Travis that now that they were boyfriends, he didn’t like sleeping alone and shouldn’t have to anymore.  Or eat meals or do homework alone, either.

“Or shower,” he said, after a slight pause, and they both giggled.

Then Travis paused, a pregnant pause, and I knew more was coming.  OK, I knew at this point I should have stopped listening, but they were sitting at the table in the alcove, and I was right there.  I was glad they didn’t hold back when I was around.  I’d heard most teenagers didn’t tell their adults lots of important stuff.  I was pretty sure I knew all the important things they both had to deal with.

“I don’t think Briar and Pat would like that,” Travis said, not looking over at me but not lowering his voice, either.  “You said she was moving out here when the house was ready, and it’s about ready.  Just needs a little more paint and you’ll be done.  I’ll probably leave then.  I don’t want to, but you guys are a family, and I’m a spare.  Besides, I’ve been eating your food all summer.  When I can, I’m going to pay Briar back for that.  But we have to stop sometime, and when the house is finished seems the cleanest break.  School will be starting pretty quick, anyway.”

“You’re not a spare!”  Dust was quite indignant.  “You’re my boyfriend!  You’re part of the new family I have.  A really important part of my life.  Briar and Pat want me to be happy.  I heard them say that.  Pat won’t object to your being here; I know she won’t.”  Then he softened his voice.  “But what about your dad.  Will he want you home?  Will he object?”

There was silence for a few moments, and then Travis answered, his voice more subdued, but I have good ears.  “Dust, my dad’s a drunk.  He doesn’t even know if I’m there or not.  He gets a disability check from the government, and uses almost all of it for booze.  The money I make mowing is what I live off.  I save it so I can eat in the winter, too.  No, he wouldn't object.  He’d only object if he ran out of booze.”

Two days later, I’d found out where Travis’s house was by talking to a sheriff’s deputy I knew.  I knocked on the front door.  No answer.  Knocked again.  Nothing.

I didn’t want to kick the door down.  If he was sitting in there with a shotgun pointing at the door, I could be in deep doo-doo.  Instead, I walked around the house, looking in windows.  That was difficult because every window except one had about four years’ grime on it. The one was a bedroom.  Looked like it might be Travis’s by the size of the bed and the books on the bedside table. 

From the looks of all the other windows, I was surprised there was any light at all inside during the day.

There was a back door with a window in it, and I could just make out someone sitting at a kitchen table.  His head was down, and when I knocked, he didn’t move.

I tried the door and found it unlocked.  I pushed it a couple of inches open and looked at the man without the filter of old grease, dead flies and cemented dirt that was on the window.

He looked like he was asleep.  More importantly, I couldn’t see a shotgun.

I walked in and shook his shoulder.  He took a few moments to come to, then tried to focus on me with blurry eyes.

“Huh?  Who’re you?”

I stepped back a bit.  I didn’t want to get drunk from the fumes.

“I’m Briar Wisdom.  Travis’s friend’s, uh, dad.  I came to talk to you.”

“You wanna drink?  I’m going to get just a sip of something.”

He tried to stand and wobbled enough that I reached out and grabbed his arm, just below the shoulder, and shoved him back into his chair.

“No, I’m going to talk to you, and you’re not going to be drinking while I do.  If you want water, I’ll get you some of that.”

He shuddered.

I glanced around the room.  It was a sty.  Well, I’ve seen fresher sties.  It looked like every dish in the house was in the sink or on the counter—every one of them crusted with food, if that’s what it had been.  Looked mostly like canned beans.  The room was stifling and stank.  Flies buzzed around, enough of them that their atonal chorus was annoying.

I didn’t want to sit.  I didn’t want to touch anything in the room, not even the seat of a chair with the back of my pants.  So, I stood.  “Mr., uh, I guess I don’t know your name.  Travis never told me his last name.  What is it?”

He looked up, and it seemed to me he had to think a moment about the answer.  “Snyder,” he eventually said.

“Well, Mr. Snyder, you’ve got a great kid, and you’re letting him down.  Which you know and don’t care about; you just care about your booze.  So I’m here to tell you what we’re going to do.  Recently, Travis has been spending most nights at our place.  I think he only comes here at all to see that you’re not dead or lying on the floor with a broken leg.  I have no idea how it is you have such a happy kid, his growing up with a deadbeat father and all.  You don’t deserve a kid like that.  You piss me off, people like you.  You take no responsibility at all.  But that’s going to change.”

“Huh?”

“Not much point in me explaining anything because you won’t remember it.  All you’re thinking of now is me leaving so you can get another drink in you.  But I’ll just say this.  I’m having the sheriff send someone out here, and he’ll arrest you for child neglect.  I have some friends in the sheriff’s department.  They’ll take you away and put you in a program.  You’ll get out when you’re dried out, and if you want to retain custody of your boy, that’ll be discussed at that time.

“You should be thankful I’m doing it this way, because if I went through CPS, you’d lose him for sure and probably do jail time.  Of course, if it went that way, CPS would probably relocate him, and Dust would lose him, too.  I’m doing this for him and Travis, and if incidentally this is good for you, too, well it’ll be up to you to take advantage of that.  Or not.”

“Who’s Dust?”

I ignored him.  “While you’re away, we’re going to fix up this house.  It’ll be both livable and salable when you’re ready to function again.  So, the next person to knock on the door will be the law.  You might think about letting them in.  Sometimes they’re not as gentle as I am.”

I left, leaving the back door open.  I was hoping more flies would leave than enter.  Odds were, considering the fly population density both inside and out, that was likely.  I looked back and he was still sitting there, head in hands.  I wasn’t fooled.  He was waiting till he couldn’t hear me any longer, then would be heading for a bottle.

When we’d started on the outside of our house, we’d scraped, sanded, replaced bad boards, cleaned the gutters and tightened them where they were loose.  Dust had eventually asked me if we needed to spit shine the chimney, too, and I’d just shaken my head and walked away, feigning disgust.  Walked away and come back with two five-gallon pails of white paint.

“One for you, one for me.  I was thinking of a nice bright yellow but was afraid the neighbors would complain.”

“What neighbors?” he asked.  “We don’t have any?” 

“Oh, yeah!”  I slapped my head, then said, “Well, should I take this back and get another color?”

“You just want me to make the decision.  OK, I will.  White’s fine, and I’m ready to paint.  I’ve been ready for four days while we were prepping.”

“No you’re not.  Look at you!  You’re wearing decent clothes.  First time painters need to be wearing something they can trash afterwards.  Shoes, too.”

He didn’t have any trashy clothes, and I knew it.  I just wanted to see what he’d say.  He’d taken to arguing with me and sometimes even adding a little sarcasm.  I couldn’t believe how far the boy had come from when I’d met him.  His spirit was irrepressible and now it sometimes even reached his mouth. 

About then Travis came back from a mowing run.  He was wearing ratty clothes, as usual, but I think it was really the first time that Dust noticed Travis’s clothes.  Travis had brought his things over, a few at a time, since he’d been living in the tree house with Dust, but everything I’d seen him wear was either worn out or outgrown or both.  I didn’t know if he still had some good stuff at home, like school stuff, or if he’d be going on a shopping trip, just as I’d be doing with Dust before school started up again.

Travis saw the pails of paint.  “Hey, now that you’re done with the grunt work, I want to help,” he said, sounding excited.  “Give me a brush, too!”

I saw Dust almost open his mouth to tell him he had to change clothes, then stop.  The thing was, I think this was when Dust first realized Travis didn’t have much.  They’d spent a lot of time together, but they’d had other things on their minds, like getting to know each other and enjoying being together, and how Travis was dressed never even occurred to him.  I was pretty sure Travis would have talked as little as possible about what his home was like.  What boy would have said more with a house like Travis’s? 

I could see Dust about to say something and just as quickly change his mind.  And I knew what it was.  It had dawned on him that maybe Travis might not have good and bad clothes.  Maybe all he had was the stuff he was wearing, and that stuff was a lot worse than the clothes Dust had.  Travis had said he mowed lawns because he had to, but I wasn’t sure that statement had registered with Dust.  Now I saw him thinking that maybe he should be a little more aware of things and that he needed to be careful of Travis’s feelings.

I was standing there, listening, and I could see Dust freeze up, not knowing what to say.  Time for me to step in.

“Travis, you’re about the same size as Dust.  I’ll tell you what.  You probably have some old clothes that you’ve mostly outgrown up in the tree house.  How about you lending him something he can paint in and picking something for yourself you don’t mind getting ruined.  Then, as payment for helping us paint, I’ll buy you some good duds to replace what you and Dust painted in.  Maybe something you can wear to school.  Is that a deal you could live with?”

Travis got one of his incredible, winning smiles on his face and promptly agreed.  He asked Dust to come with him to the tree house and he’d find things for them to change into.  I of course couldn’t leave such an opportunity alone.  “Just change,” I called after them as they were climbing up the ladder.  “The paint’s getting stale and the weather’s getting warmer and the light’s beginning to go”—it was 10 AM, but so what?—“and we don’t have time for any mine’s-bigger-than-yours tomfoolery right now.”

Travis called something back over his shoulder as they went into the tree house, but it was too rude to record here.

The three of us were painting when a sheriff’s car pulled up.  A deputy got out and walked over to watch us.  I was up on a ladder.  I didn’t like the boys working up there.  They tried to lean out too far rather than come down and move the ladder over.

The deputy watched for a while, then said, “Is one of you Travis Snyder?”

Travis was on his knees, painting baseboards.  He looked up.  “I am, sir.”

I climbed down the ladder. 

“I need to speak to you for a moment.  Maybe in private?”

Travis suddenly looked nervous, and his eyes showed uncertainty.  I knew what this was about and knew it would be better if I was there when the deputy spoke to Travis.

“Travis is staying with us this summer, Deputy.  I’m sort of looking out for him.  If he agrees, you can just say what you have to say with me here.”

The deputy looked back at Travis, and the boy nodded and took a step closer to me.  I rested my hand on his shoulder.

“Son, we’ve taken your father into custody for child neglect.  He’ll go into a detox program and then go before a judge.  Usually the way things work is, if he tells the judge he’ll clean up his act and go into the AA program, the judge will put him on probation and he won’t lose custody of you.  So things can eventually work out well.  In the meantime, however, I need to take you to the Child Protective Services office.  They’ll determine where you’ll be staying.”

I squeezed Travis’s shoulder.  “He’s staying with us now and can stay as long as he needs to; he’s been here most of the summer.  My girlfriend, who’ll be moving in within the week, is a registered foster parent.  If need be, I’ll have her come tonight.  Just one thing…”

I gently pushed Travis away so I could look into his face and he into mine.  “Do you want to stay with us, Travis?  For the time being—or longer?”

That kid had just the greatest smile!