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Chapter Two

 
"For there is a man whose labor is with wisdom and
with knowledge, and with skill; yet he must leave
it for a portion to a man who has not labored in it.
This also is a vanity and a great evil." Ecclesiastes 2:21

Robby pulled up into the driveway and was greeted by his two youngest siblings—Duane, four, and Elvita, three. His grandmother waved to him from the window, and he smiled and waved back. She was too old to keep up with the kids for long, but she did her best until he could get home.

He was tired; he never got much sleep. He had a lucrative business picking up the trash the garbage men wouldn't—the big stuff too bulky to go into the compactors or trash bags.

He got up and went to work picking up people's trash at five in the morning. He got home at noon, and then he went to work turning one person's trash into another person's treasure. When his other five siblings got home from school he tried to help them with their homework. He cooked their meals and made sure they kept themselves and the house clean. He tried to teach them values and give them love and discipline. He also tried to give them what he never had—a childhood.

Robby's life had never been normal. Born Robert Strange, he hadn't been in school long when the other kids had started calling him Strange Robby.

His white father had been killed during a mugging when he was only two. His mother hadn't taken his death well, and she had moved from Shea City to LA where she apparently tried to sleep her way through the phone book. There was a long string of men, only a few that Robby really remembered, and all of those he wished he didn't. Mostly he remembered being cold, hungry, and lonely.

When Robby was five, his mom came up pregnant and married the first man who showed up with a paycheck. Janice was born, and eleven months later Evan was born. Their father decided it was too much responsibility, and he ran off with a coke whore. Or at least that's what his mother screamed when she was mad. She ended up in the arms of a grade A, number one creep named Jimmy Brown. Brown had been a drug user for years, and it wasn't long until he had their mother hooked on crack cocaine. He would drop in long enough to father a baby and take all their money, and then he would be gone again.

His mother became less and less responsible. She would leave and be gone for weeks at a time. So when Robby was ten, he started taking care of the house and caring for his brothers and sisters. That was the year Donna was born. Then Jimmy came back and Mama had Colistia, then he came back again and she had Devan. At the ripe old age of twelve, Robby was caring for five children including three babies who had to be changed, fed, and bathed regularly. Needless to say, Robby had to quit school, but he made sure the other school-aged kids went. Not only did it mean that they got an education, but it meant that they got to eat two square meals a day. By helping them with their homework over the years, he'd managed to get the rest of his education, even if it wasn't official.

His mother had often been gone as much as she was home. She spent all their—her's and Robby's—Social Security death benefits on dope and Jimmy Brown, so Robby went to work at a local pizza restaurant. He would sweep the sidewalks and the building, and the owner would give him a large pizza and a big salad every day. Eventually, the man was so impressed with Robby's work that he let him clean the bathrooms and threw in a large soda and ten dollars. The money helped Robby get the kids some of the things they needed.

One day when Jimmy walked in with his mama they were both high, and Robby saw the blackness for the first time. He saw what the man did, and what he wanted to do. The evil in the man's soul was clear, and Robby felt the power inside himself—the power to stop the blackness from creeping into anyone else's life ever again.

That night Jimmy ate all the pizza, and the kids went to bed hungry. Then he beat up their mama, stole the last of her money and went off—no doubt to buy more drugs.

Robby followed Jimmy, pulled along by the darkness that was suddenly as tangible to him as any rope. Jimmy hadn't seen him—hadn't heard him. It was as if Robby couldn't be seen at all. As if for a little while he was hidden in the trail left by Jimmy's overwhelming evil. He followed Jimmy down a dead end alley. In the trash and filth Jimmy looked nervously at his watch.

"Where the fuck is that nigger?" he cursed.

Robby walked out of the shadows and smiled at Jimmy as if he were the ice-cream man, and Robby had two quarters.

Jimmy jumped, startled by the suddenness with which Robby had appeared. "You! What the hell are you doing here?"

"I want you to give back our money," Robby said.

"Yeah . . . Well, you know what they say, boy, wish in one hand and shit in the other . . . "

"Ya fucking bastard, give me our money!" Robby screamed. Inside he could feel the power building, rolling like storm clouds in his belly.

Jimmy rolled up his sleeves.

"Now I'm gonna have to kick your worthless half-breed butt." As he spoke, he moved quickly to grab Robby.

Robby smiled even bigger and struck out with the power.

Jimmy flew backwards striking the side of the building and sliding down it. Dazed, he looked up at Robby who had moved to stand just in front of him.

"What the fuck!"

Robby laughed, exhilarated by the power that surged through him. Power that not only could destroy Jimmy but that wanted to, needed to.

"Give me back the money," Robby ordered.

Jimmy got shakily to his feet and dug in his pocket. He pulled the money out and threw it at Robby.

Robby caught it easily and put it into his own pocket. Then he just stood there staring at Jimmy.

Jimmy cringed. He seemed to know what he was up against.

"Now go on, get out of here," Jimmy said. He was too obviously nervous for the order to carry any weight.

Robby smiled again and shook his head no. "I've seen what you've done and what you have a mind to do. I'm not going to let you do that to my sisters. I'm not going to let your darkness touch even one more soul."

Jimmy laughed nervously. "So what ya gonna do, kid?"

"This." Robby unleashed the power. It hit Jimmy like a red hot Mac truck, slammed him into the brick wall at his back, and all but blew him to pieces.

Robby searched, but could find no remorse for his act. Jimmy was going to hurt his sisters. He couldn't—wouldn't—allow that.

The police found just enough of Jimmy to figure out who he had been. They asked his mama about Jimmy. What was he doing in the alley? Who were his friends? Had he acted like he was afraid of anyone? But they never asked why Robby was home in the middle of a school day, or why she was stoned out of her head with three babies in the house. No one gave a damn about a coked-out nigger tramp or her bastard children.

His mother cried because Jimmy was dead. She screamed at Robby and the other kids because she said it was their fault that he'd left. That was when Robby knew he had to get those kids and himself out of there. She didn't care about them, and it would only be a matter of time until she brought in another man. Maybe he'd even be worse than Jimmy.

Robby called his maternal grandmother. She was old and frail and poor as a church mouse, but she put together the bus fare and sent it to them.

Robby waited till his mother went off again, then he loaded up the kids and their few belongs, and at fourteen he left LA and traveled half way across the country to Shea City.

His grandmother had hugs for every one of them, but the house was small—only two bedrooms and one bath—and in bad need of repair. The kitchen sink drain didn't work, there was no hot water, and several windows were broken.

Grandma said the damage came from raising four kids in a little shack. The house was also filthy, and Robby soon realized why—his grandmother wasn't in much better shape than the house. It was winter, and the cold blew through the walls like they weren't there. It was no wonder; half the underpinning had crumbled away, and there were cracks in the walls you could throw a cat through.

Robby started boiling water on the cook stove and found what was left of the cleaning supplies. Then he went to work. He got Evan and Janice to help while Granny told them it wasn't necessary and played with the babies.

All in all, Robby had decided it was the greatest place he had ever lived. For one thing there was a yard for the kids to play in. But best of all, for the first time there was an adult around who actually loved them and cared what happened to them.

The next day Robby sent the kids off to school, left the babies with his grandmother, and went out to find work. He got a job at a local grocery store sweeping floors and cleaning out the warehouse. It didn't pay much, but it was a great job. It was only a block from their house, and Robby brought home produce, milk, and bread when it was too old to be sold. He told them it was for his uncle's pigs, and they pretended to believe him. They even let him take home boxes, pallets, and metal shelf sets they weren't using any more, which Robby used to repair the damage to the house.

Some old plastic displays he measured, cut, and used to repair the broken windowpanes. He used the cardboard boxes to cover holes on the inside walls and tore the wooden pallets apart and used the wood to repair the holes on the outside. He cleared the sink drain and fixed the holes in it with duct tape. He got the hot water heater running with a simple good cleaning.

After he finally got the house squared away, Robby found his grandfather's truck and all his tools out in the shed. The truck hadn't run in years his grandma said, but Robby had a knack for fixing things, and he got the truck running and kept it that way.

Robby helped his grandmother with the utility bills. When he was sixteen he got a real driver's license. That was when he noticed how much good stuff people threw away. He started to collect the things he found in alleys and used them to fix their home up right. He even found enough paint to paint it inside and out—even though the outside was painted an odd green color because the only way he had enough paint from all that he'd found thrown away was to mix them together.

Just when things were starting to get good their mother called, wanting to send them two more babies. Robby took them on the condition that his mother send with them a document proving that she'd had her tubes tied.

Robby had worked long and hard. His grandmother couldn't take care of the new babies during the day, so he started his trash hauling business at night so that he could be home during the day. Evan and Janice would be there to help watch them at night.

Robby had more than his fair share of responsibilities. He had a lot of people depending on him and a power that wouldn't be denied.

 

 

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Framed