DELINQUENT

CHAPTER 16 EXCERPT... "The Retard House"

Jodi was there and I saw her sprawled out, under the sun, on a long, yellow towel. She was all lathered in oil in a two piece with cherry print. Her eyes were closed so I watched her an interminable moment. My eyes were so fixed on the sight of her I did not see that a retarded man, behind the fenced pool area, was watching her and the others too.

Joe caught me staring and said, "Get that!"

I told him I was looking at the trees behind her but I cracked a smile and he wasn't buying what I was selling.

I jumped off the low dive a couple times doing suicides and Joe did a cannonball when a couple small town cops came and arrested the retarded onlooker, who, by that time, was causing a scene. A couple mothers were rounding up small children and taking them inside to the shower room. They didn't know what else to do to avoid them asking questions while the retard jacked off. Girls were pointing with disgusted faces and boys were laughing. Pool guards were sitting in little, white towers, blowing whistles to maintain order in the chaos of the situation. The music stopped for an announcement over the intercom.

Soon after, Joe told me his ears were hurting him so we left. I asked what the hell that was all about and he said that sometimes retards would do that.

"It's usually just this one retard, though," he said.

"This happens a lot?" I asked.

"Sometimes," he said. He went on to say that the cops couldn't really do much about it. He said they cuff 'em and take 'em back to the retard house.

"The retard house?" I asked.

"Yeah, there's this house where all the retards live. There's like a dozen of them or something. They don't usually cause any problems, but sometimes that one guy can't help himself at the pool, you know."

I asked him where the retard house was and he knew where it was but didn't want to tell me so he said he didn't know. What he did say disturbed me beyond what I let on. He said that they usually just worked and that they were very strong. He said he once saw a high school kid making fun of one of them so the retard yelled and screamed a little, then pulled the kid out of his car and beat him half to death before three people pulled the tard off of him. That really didn't disturb me at all. In fact, I found it amusing. What threw me for a loop was the work that some of them did. I asked and Joe didn't want to say but I pressed the subject and Joe finally told me what kind of work they did.

"Well," Joe said, "They do a lot of outside work, you know."

"Like what?" I pressed.

"They mow yards 'n stuff," he finally said.

And at that I understood the laughter, on my first day back to school, when I introduced myself and said that I mowed yards for money.
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