Free Little Chicago by Adam Rapp

a word. But that’s a valuable piece of information. Thank you.
    You’re welcome, I say, and I just stay there. I put my hand on the swing set. The rust feels cold and prickly.
    Do you think he has anything to do with the Smudge Man? I ask.
    Cheedle says, Perhaps, and starts typing again.
    When I walk into the house Ma and the Ham Lady are talking to each other at the kitchen table.
    When they see me nobody says anything for a moment.
    You can hear the lights humming over the table.
    After a minute Ma says, Why are you so wet, Blacky? Didn’t you get the bus home?
    I missed it, I say.
    You missed it.
    Bathroom emergency.
    Oh, she says. Well, walking is good exercise.
    I look out the window toward the woods. Someone has spray-painted FUCK on the dead Ford Taurus.
    Ma fidgets a little and says, Do you remember Ms. Wolf, Blacky?
    The Ham Lady says, Hello, Blacky.
    Hello, I say.
    Ma is so tired she can hardly keep her body up. Her hair is stringy and matted. It stops looking red when it gets like that. I almost want to put a napkin over it.
    Busy day at school? the Ham Lady asks.
    Yes, I say. Pretty busy.
    How are your feet doing? she asks.
    Better, I say.
    They’re stinging even as I’m standing there.
    The Ham Lady is playing with that blue squeeze ball again. I imagine that she takes this item everywhere. I see her fiddling with it on a plane. I see her on a horse with it, too. The horse bucks her into a lake with sharks and piranhas but she hangs on to the ball.
    I want them to ask me about my hardhat but they won’t. I’m holding it out in front of me and trying to be obvious.
    Ma looks at the Ham Lady with a very pained expression on her face. For a second it gets so quiet you can hear the refrigerator and the lights humming. It’s like they’re doing a duet.
    Ma says, Did you get your makeup assignments?
    Yes, I say.
    She’s doing this thing where she’s not looking at me. It’s like she’s been replaced by a machine person. If I opened her up I’d probably find vacuum cleaner parts.
    The Ham Lady turns to me and then she glances at Ma and smiles. Her teeth seem too small for her mouth.
    Is Shay home? I ask.
    She’s in her room, Ma says.
    Okay, I say.
    We’ll just be a few more minutes, Blacky, the Ham Lady says, still smiling.
    Go dry your head, Ma says, but she’s still not looking at me.
    She’s making a guess.
    She’s looking at the toaster like it’s going to say something back.
    I put my hardhat under my bed and go into Shay’s room.
    Shay is listening to music that sounds like cars on a speedway.
    Her headphones make her look like she’s part UFO. Her hair is so red you can close your eyes and still see it.
    The thing about Shay is that she disappears a lot.
    It’s like living with an escape artist.
    She sneaks in and out of her window like a jewel thief. If you look behind her blue curtains you can see how the screen’s bent. You can also see many cigarette butts.
    A lot of her clothes are ripped cause of all the criminal activity. Once I saw her nipple poking through a hole in her shirt.
    Sometimes Ma pleads with Shay to wear a bra. She’ll say, C’mon, Shay, wear a bra. What kind of image are you trying to project?
    Shay’s seventeen and last year she had a baby that came out dead. She got sick shortly after this and it was discovered that she had hepatitis.
    Ma borrowed some money from her brother Jack and sent Shay to this place in Michigan called Open Grove Recovery Facility. Shay said it was full of rich kids who were junkies and prostitutes.
    When we drove up to visit her there was a snowstorm and the maple trees were so white Ma said she was going to write a poem about them, but she never did.
    We got to sit in this room with Shay and there was a foos-ball table and I played against an African American boy with a burnt face while Shay and Ma sat in chairs and stared at each other.
    The boy with the