Free Twist by John Lutz

but it was still plenty hot and uncomfortable. The small room was dank and smelled like urine, from when Squeaky could no longer hold his water and had to relieve himself in the bucket that was hosed out every two or three days.
    There was a pull cord and a screw-in porcelain light fixture mounted on the wall between the storm cellar and the basement proper. The woman pulled on the cord and a sixty-watt light bulb winked on. It was on the basement circuit, and the only source of electricity in the shelter. It provided barely enough illumination when both shelter doors were shut.
    Every morning, before the flatlands really heated up, Mildred would take the boy to the storm cellar. There was a small wicker stool there, and an old cane rocker with sturdy legs. She had taught Squeaky how to repair cane chairs, and he was almost ready, almost skillful enough to repair broken chairs that she’d buy at auction, repair, and resell at auction. She used to repair the chairs herself, but her fingers had fallen victim to arthritis to the point where she couldn’t work long with the long strands of cane. It was a job that required younger hands. Very young hands could do it well, up to a point. Squeaky would be even better at caning when he was older and stronger.
    Not that he’d ever be strong inside.
    Mildred didn’t completely ignore Squeaky’s education. She’d picked up some used textbooks at a flea market. They were marked on with pen and pencil, and a few of the pages were missing, but they were good enough. The infrequent lessons would start with basic grammar and reading comprehension. Squeaky would recite the alphabet, then read aloud a chapter of the book.
    “Ain’t no one gonna call you unschooled,” Mildred said. “Take you away from me.”
    After the sacrosanct alphabet had been successfully recited, she would barely listen as he read from the book. It was his grammar she was concerned with, not her own.
    When the grammar lesson was over, it was time for him to go to work.
    Mildred would sit on the wicker stool and watch, occasionally guiding his fingers to demonstrate. He toiled and learned to work with his hands in the stifling shelter, breathing in the stench of the bucket’s contents, and the odor of the woman’s rank body along with his own. He worked the cane strands between each other, over and under, over and under, lacing them skillfully as she’d demonstrated, finding the grain and splitting strands precisely down the middle, for finer work. Sometimes, for bends and corners, the cane had to be worked while it was wet and more pliable.
    Listening to each other’s breathing, Squeaky and the woman he knew as his mother would become lost in their task. Every fifteen minutes or so, one or the other of them would take a swig of water from the glass jug kept on a shelf. Other than that, they worked in silence, she watching the boy and correcting him when he did anything wrong, he learning patience and servitude, as well as a useful skill.
    When the heat became almost intolerable, Mildred would strip until she wore only her baggy shorts and a red sweatband. Her shirt she would use as a rag to sop sweat from her broad face. The boy worked only in his white Jockey shorts, which had long ago turned gray. He worked . . . worked . . . worked until his fingers bled.
    When the rocker seat was finished, Mildred stood with her hands on her hips and surveyed it. The boy watched her intently, trying to read something in her features.
    As usual, her expression gave him no clue.
    “Here, here, and here,” she said, pointing three times with a blunt finger. “It ain’t for shit!” She gripped Squeaky’s shoulders and shook him. “Can you do better?”
    His head felt as if it might snap off his neck.
    “I can do better!” he squeaked.
    She dabbed at her forehead with her wadded shirt, then got pruning shears from where they lay next to the jug on the wooden shelf.
    In a fury she snipped and struck and bent and