A Place Called Home

People say that home is where the heart is and I believe that is true. Many people find that home in a house - often it’s even their own house. As 10-year-old Tobias Haines rounded the big curve in Thresher Road (the curve where two fatal accidents had occurred not one year apart) he knew what was waiting ‘round the bend - the place where his father and mother and two younger sisters lived. But it was not home for Toby.

In a moment, the house came into view. Toby’s stomach began to ache and his heart pounded like it always did when he looked at the gray, crackly two-story house with patches of white paint still clinging to some spots under the eaves. Toby carefully picked a path through the weeds by the side of the road until he came to the two large logs that lay like giant legs across the ditch. He often wished the logs would not be there when he came home from school, that the giant would tire of being a bridge and simply rise up and trudge away down the road. That would be Toby’s excuse to keep walking.

But the logs were still there, and so Toby balanced himself on them and carefully threw his lunchbox into the weeds on the other side of the ditch lest he lose it again in the water-filled ditch. His father, who used the very same lunchbox when he went to work at night, dragged Toby to the ditch that day and held him by the ankles, lowering him into the cold ditch water in search of the lunch pail. Toby thought he would drown until his father finally threw him into the waist-deep water after it was apparent that the lunchbox was gone. Toby had later traded a pocketknife to Terrence Pembroke for a lunch pail, but his father never said a word about it. Toby figured it must be what he was supposed to do.

After crossing the logs, Toby wished what he always wished when he got to the other side of the ditch: that a dog, maybe a pup, would be there waiting for Toby and would jump up and down and lick Toby’s face and hands. They would romp for hours in the bullrushes and Toby would have to keep the pup quiet . . .

Suddenly, a black, snarling figure emerged from the shadows and leaped at Toby, tearing his shirt with its teeth and pulling away a small patch of flesh from his shoulder. Satan, his father’s dog, had been given more chain than usual and was able to catch Toby unaware. The dog landed on top of Toby and was looking for a juicy bite when Toby shoved against the dog with all his might and rolled off to the side, hoping he was out of reach. Satan lunged again, but this time the dog yelped out in pain as the choker chain constricted around his neck. Toby picked up his lunchbox and looked around for the painting he had brought home from school to show his mother. He saw the brightly colored paper in the tall grass near the dog and knew he would not be able to retrieve it.

He placed his lunch pail on the wooden kitchen counter. His 8-year-old sister, Alice, stood on a tall box and rinsed a plastic pail of beets under the water in the cast-iron sink.

“Look at you, would you?” she said to her brother.

“Look at me what?” Toby said as he climbed on a corner of the box and started to wash his hands.

“Mama! Toby’s washin' his hands over the beets!” Alice hollered at her mother. “Look at you with a tore up shirt is what. Daddy’s sure to kill you!” Alice gave Toby what she believed to be a concerned, motherly look. Toby winced at the thought of his father finding out about the shirt.

“Satan got me,” said Toby.

“Daddy won’t believe you,” said Alice. “He’ll say you did it in a fight at school like always. You better change your shirt before he comes in from the shed.”

It didn’t take Toby long to figure out that was the best approach. His father spent his days “working” in the shed, getting drunker and more and more sour by the minute. Toby ran upstairs to change. The house had only two bedrooms: the smaller belonged to his two sisters and the one across the hall, his parents. The large landing at the top of the stairs was where Toby slept on an old mattress on the floor. Beside the mattress was a small bookcase which held his few scant possessions.

On the other side of the landing were two boxes. One contained his folded clean clothes and the other his dirty clothes. Toby grabbed a gray tee shirt from the clean box and sat cross-legged on the mattress. He removed the torn shirt and tossed it in the dirty box; then, he put on the clean shirt. After thinking more on it, Toby got up and walked over to the dirty box and took out the torn shirt. He lifted all the dirty clothes up and placed the torn shirt in the bottom of the box before depositing his dirty clothes on top of it.

Toby could hear his three-year-old sister, Louisa, in her bedroom scolding her dolls. “I th-wear you kidth are gonna be the death of me,” she whined.

He peeked into his parents’ bedroom. His mother lay across the bed with her head on a frilly, pink pillow. Toby thought his mother looked like an angel at rest in her white cotton dress. Her long, red hair, which she had not cut since she married Toby’s father, flowed across the pillow and onto the tattered quilt. Toby liked to watch his mother sleep. It was the only time his mother did not display a deep look of pain and weariness on her face.

Alice did not accidentally or on purpose reveal Toby’s secret that evening, and, therefore, Toby felt surprised in the morning when his father, totally enraged, dragged him from his bed.