Off Banjo Road
Until Marcy told Witt about Banjo Road, he had never heard of it. Marcy herself had not heard of it until only a few days before. Billy had told her about it. And all Marcy really knew about Billy was from what he had told her, late the night he called her.
Now, Marcy and Witt were driving there, to Banjo Road. It was on the latest north end of Houston. Even if Witt had grown up in that part of town, it had been so long ago now that he hardly recognized a thing.
It seemed that most familiar landmarks were now gone, vanished. Changes after changes left little he might match with memory. Finally, when he did recognize a small green building on Eleventh Street, he pointed it out to Marcy.
"That veterinary clinic?" she asked. "What about it?"
"When I was a kid, I took three baby guinea pigs with broken legs there," Witt said.
"Now that's a cheery thought," Marcy said. "I don't think I want to hear about that just now. I thought I was driving, and you were looking for golden arches."
"I'm looking," Witt insisted. "I just haven't seen any."
Witt understood why she didn't want to hear about the guinea pigs now. She was not interested in small talk at all. No, on this day, all Marcy was thinking about was that kid, Billy.
Still, he wanted Marcy to know the story of the maimed pigs. He also needed to tell it, from beginning to end. How he had brought a pair of pigs and named them Sir and Lady Churchill.
They lived in a cage in his father's garage. They slept on a bed of cedar shavings. Sometimes, the pigs made love. He knew this was true, even if he never saw it happen.
One morning Witt had gone out to check on them. He discovered that Lady Winston had, during the night, given birth to five piglets. But he could also see that something was very wrong. Three of the piglets were whistling loudly in pain. He watched them and soon discovered that their legs were broken. They had hopped and gotten their feet caught in the wire mesh bottom of the cage.
Witt had gently placed the injured piglets in an empty Roi-Tan box and placed the box on his bicycle handlebars. He then rode his bike to the nearest veterinary clinic, the green building on Eleventh Street. He was looking for some kind of help for the pigs.
The doctor was rude and abrupt. He said he was late for a golf game. And when he looked at the three whistling pigs, he told Witt he didn't treat rodents. But they're guinea pigs, Witt had tried to explain, to no avail. Rodents, the doctor repeated, scorn in his voice. He also said that the crying noises were upsetting his other patients. He told Witt to leave, and to take the pigs with them.
Witt didn't know what to do. He stood outside the green building, cradling the cigar box in his arm. Then he remembered another clinic, one further away on the same street. He also remembered that it was some distance away, perhaps five or six miles.
He felt he had no choice. He began cycling north, the cigar box with piglets perched on the handlebars. He had to close his eyes when gravel trucks passed, spewing rocks in their wake. At last, after a long and precarious ride, Witt arrived at the other clinic. A white stucco building, it had dusty looking palm trees in the parking lot.
"I see arches," Marcy said. "I thought you were the one watching for them."
"I guess I missed them," Witt said apologetically. "Anyway, what are we going to do in there, buy something?"
"It's just McDonald's," Marcy said. "They don't care if we buy anything or not. All I care about is seeing Billy."
"Maybe you shouldn't try to talk to him. You know, while he's working?"
"I don't need to talk to him," she said. "I just want to see him. His eyes."
It was still morning on a Saturday. The McDonald's playground and its jungle gym and clownmouth slides swarmed with small children. Inside, people were lined up to order. Witt stood behind Marcy while she surveyed the faces of people working behind the corner.
"It's Billy's job to cook the hamburgers," Marcy told Witt. "So don't expect to see him on the front line."
Witt's eyes explored the recessed regions of McDonald's. Suddenly it came to him that he had no idea who he was looking for. And, as far as he knew, neither did Marcy. All they knew was what Billy had told Marcy on the phone when he called The Hotline. He said he was seventeen, with blue eyes and blonde hair. Now, looking around, Witt was certain no one with that description was working there. All of the employees were black.
Marcy asked to speak with the manager. Soon an older black woman with braided hair came forward. She was very pleasant. She listened to Marcy, then shook her head. She said she didn't know a Billy. But she also said there was another McDonald's nearby, another shop she called it, out on West Road. Maybe the boy works there, she said.
Marcy and Witt got back in the car and drove some more. They passed beneath a freeway and soon found themselves on West Road. It wasn't long before they found the other McDonald's.
They pulled into the parking lot and got out. Just before going inside, Marcy stopped.
"Look over there," she said. She was pointing at something across the freeway.
Witt looked in that direction, but all he could see was a drive-in theater. He could even read the marquee, which advertised two Kung-fu movies, Spanish, playing there.
"Billy said his girlfriend was a cashier for a drive-in close to his job," Marcy said. "She works in concessions. This must be the right McDonald's."
But once they were inside, they saw no one who resembled Billy in the least. When asked, the manager said he had no one employed by the name of Billy. They walked outside again, unsure what to do next.
"Now what?" Witt asked.
"I'm thinking," Marcy said.
Witt was thinking about the injured pigs again. Seeing the old green clinic had brought that experience back again. He had not thought about the pigs in a long, long time. Now, that ordeal seemed fresh once again.
The second vet had been kind. He opened the cigar box, took out the piglets and set them down gently on the shiny examination table. When he felt their broken bones, the pigs whistled loudly in protest. Then, with his fingers, the vet massaged their small heads. Witt watched, waiting for some kind of verdict.
"I'm afraid they can't be helped," the vet said at last. "They're just not big enough to fight for their health. How old are they, a day or two?"
Witt nodded silently. The pigs were goners. He saw the sadness in the vet's eyes when the man shook his head. Witt wondered how many times the man had shook his head like that, having to tell people the bad news.
"If you like," the vet said, "I can put them to sleep for you. You don't want them to suffer, do you?"
"No," Witt said. He could feel tears coming.
"I won't charge you anything," the man said.
Witt watched as the vet reached inside a glass cabinet and removed a syringe and several small bottles. With great care, he slowly filled the syringe, tested it, the injected the serum into the piglets. Then, very respectfully, he covered the pigs with a white towel. The pigs had cried out when receiving the injections, but soon they became very quiet and still. It was all over quickly.
"I don't know what to do next," Marcy said. "I never thought it would be this hard to find Billy."
"I don't mind looking some more," Witt said. He knew this was important to Marcy.
They stopped at a gas station to consult a map and a phone book. They discovered that there was a third McDonald's nearby, but it wasn't on West Road. They sat awhile in Marcy's car, deciding on their next step.
"Maybe Billy was too upset to remember where he worked," Marcy said. "It's possible. I know I'd be upset."
"Or maybe he doesn't work at McDonald's at all," Witt said. "Maybe he works for Burger King and just doesn't want you to find him. I could understand that."
"No, I don't think so. The night he called, he wanted me to come sit with him at his house. His parents were out of town and he was feeling kind of jittery, being there alone. but I couldn't leave The Hotline until midnight, and that was just too late. He even gave me his address, but I don't want to go there. His parents would wonder about that, a stranger coming to the house."
"You mean he didn't tell them what happened to him?"
"It's not unusual, Witt. I don't blame him, not wanting them to know. He's ashamed. He thinks there's something wrong with him. Like he's wearing a sign."
"Okay," Witt said. "There's that other McDonald's over on Little York Road. That's not far. Want to try there?'
"I guess it wouldn't hurt."
Witt wasn't thinking so much about the piglets by now. He knew what had reminded him. It was seeing the old green veterinary clinic. But now he realized that something else had reminded him as well. It was Marcy, who had become obsessed with Billy. It was Billy this, Billy that. She had talked of little else since Billy called. She didn't have to explain why she was so concerned. From experience, Witt already knew.
He had been Marcy's friend and neighbor for several years. She was one of the nicest people he had ever met. She had a great capacity for caring about others. Witt had never known another person to spend so much time trying to help others. But until she told him why, one night when they were drunk, he had no explanation for her fervor.
That night she had come home from The Hotline feeling low. Normally the phone calls didn't bother her so much. That night, however, one call had devastated her. The call had come from a woman whose husband was slowly beating her to death.
It had gone on a long time, maybe half a dozen years. In that time her husband had broken her jaw twice, and both her arms, not to mention all the bruises on the rest of her body. The woman had put up with it all, staying with her husband until the last beating, the one that precipitated her call to The Hotline. During the last episode, the man had also beaten their daughter, who was nine.
When the woman called, she was on the run with no place to go. She had no one to take her in. Marcy kept the woman on the line while she called various shelters on another line. They were all full except one. Close to Christmas, it was also the worst time of the year for abuse. The problem was that the one shelter with room could not take the woman because, when she left her house, she had also taken her son along with the daughter. The shelter was for women only, and would not make an exception.
The woman told Marcy she was afraid that her husband, who had been drinking heavily, would start on the son next. The boy was five. The woman said she could feel the circle of anger getting bigger and bigger.
Marcy asked the woman if there was someone she knew who could keep the boy, just for the night. The woman said she was afraid to leave the boy with someone else. Then, as they were still talking, Marcy heard a man's voice. It got louder and louder on the woman's end of the line.
Marcy feared the worst. She asked the woman what pay phone she was calling from, but there was no answer. At last Marcy heard the woman scream. The line went dead. The woman never called back.
Marcy and Witt had been drinking wine when she told him this story. They both sat there without speaking for awhile, each wondering what had become of the woman and her children.
Then Marcy told Witt that she had been abused my her grandfather when she was still a child. It happened several times before her parents found out, but by then it was too late. Her insides were so torn up that she would never be able to have a child herself. If she could not help herself, Marcy had decided she would at least try to help others.
"It's a crazy world, Witt," she told him that night. "All over the place, there's people paying prices for things they never bought."
Just in the time Witt had known her, Marcy had worked on a mayoral child abuse panel, had interviewed schoolchildren who had been abused, and of course had worked for The Hotline, listening and consoling. She tried to help them if she could. But there were many, like that woman on the phone, who just seemed to disappear.
After they had driven awhile on Little York Road, Marcy suddenly slammed on the brakes.
Witt was thrown forward and nearly hit his head on the windshield.
"What's the matter?" he asked.
"We just crossed Banjo Road," Marcy said.
"So?"
"Banjo Road is where Billy said it happened."
They turned back and onto Banjo Road, coming to a stop near a deep ditch. Across that ditch was a dump site, the place where it had happened. Witt didn't want to walk through that dump, but he also knew it wasn't safe for Marcy to go alone. They got out of the car, jumped across the ditch and started walking.
The ground was muddy from a recent rain. Witt noticed fairly fresh tire tracks on the wet ground. The tracks led back to Banjo Road. He imagined that the tracks from the truck that brought Billy there were gone now, washed out.
Billy had been walking home from McDonald's when his shift was over. A pick-up truck with two cowboy types stopped and asked if he needed a ride. Billy told them no, he didn't have all that far to go. But then they had insisted, telling Billy it wasn't safe to be walking alone at night in that part of town.
This made sense to Billy. He climbed into their truck and thanked them. The driver, a fat man wearing a Stetson, drove for awhile, then veered off the main road into the dump site. It was late at night, with no one around for blocks. Then the driver pulled a knife from his boot. The other man, who had remained silent until then, began to giggle nervously, like some kind of halfwit.
The driver told Billy he had some learning to do. And that's how it had started, Billy paying for something he never bought.
"This must be his," Marcy said.
She bent down and picked up a shirt from a McDonald's uniform. The buttons had been ripped off. She held that muddy shirt for a moment, then let it drop to the ground.
"Poor kid," Witt said.
"Yeah."
"There's nothing we can do, Marcy. You helped him all you could. He knows he can call you again if he needs to."
"Oh, I know that, Witt. It's just that I needed to see him, that's all. It would help me, I know it would. If I could just look in his eyes, I'd know if he was going to be okay. The eyes, Witt.
That's how we recognize each other. There all people all over America with those eyes."
They walked slowly back through the dump, jumped the ditch again and got back inside Marcy's car. She was crying and trying not to show it. They started to head back home. Driving back toward the freeway, they saw a young black boy in ragged clothes dancing in a muddy yard by his house. There was no music to be heard there, on Banjo Road, but the boy didn't seem to care. Watching the boy dance, Marcy began to feel a little better. She wasn't sure why, but watching him made her hope for one thing, or maybe many.