A thousand and one, or maybe not, I thought to myself. I needed to be sure, and there was only one way to be sure. I recounted the marbles on the floor. Now I got a thousand and two. What am I to do, I panicked. My dad would be home soon.
I recounted the pile again – nine hundred ninety-seven. Another time – one thousand and three. My breathing grew heavier and my heart began to pound. My hand trembled and I dropped one, two maybe three marbles. I couldn’t tell; I couldn’t count. I must find the right number. I must! I must!. One thousand and four. I screamed.
What if the number wasn’t one thousand and four, I worried. I must count them again else Dad would whip me with his belt. He would whip me over and over until he is satisfied that I would never get the number right. I clenched my fists and pressed them on my head. I turned.
There he was, sitting behind me on the sofa. I yelled and picked up a battered stool close to me. I hit him, and hit him, and hit him. Putrid flesh and blackened blood splattered on me, the furniture, the wall and the floor. Finally I put down the chair, exhausted, trembling and crying.
I said, “I’m sorry, dad. I’m sorry.”
“You’re useless,” he growled, “Useless, useless, useless. You are going to be sixteen soon and you still can’t count.”
“I’m sorry. I’ll try harder.”
“You’ll never amount to anything.”
“I’ll get it right. I promise.”
“Liar. Stupid, useless liar!”
I began to sob. I wanted so much to please him, to make him proud, but I couldn’t count right. A knock on the front door jolted me. I ran my fingers over my hair and wiped my face on the shirt sleeves before I opened the door.
Standing on the porch outside was Mrs Lane and a strange man in a grey suit. They stepped away from me and Mrs Lane covered her mouth and nostril, and gagged.
The man said, “Hello. Are you Darryl?” I nodded and he continued, “I am Harold from child’s services. Is your dad home?”
“He’s in the living room,” I said and stepped aside.
He looked in then whispered something to Mrs Lane who ran back to her home next door. Then he sat on a wicker chair by the door and said, “Why don’t you come sit outside here with me?”
I hesitated. “I can’t. I haven’t finished counting.”
“What are you counting?”
I shrugged, embarrassed to admit to him that I was so stupid I still needed to count marbles.
He looked down to the road then turned back to look at me. “When I was a kid, I liked to look at stars. Do you know that there are people whose job is to actually count stars?”
“Do they ever get the numbers right?”
He smiled. “There is no right number for stars. Old ones die and new ones are born all the time. Do you count stars?”
“No, I count marbles,” I finally admitted. I waited for him to laugh at me, but he just sat there saying nothing. I explained, “I never get the numbers right.”
“Must be a lot of marbles,” he said.
“I…I guess.”
A series of wails, which were barely audible at first, grew louder by the moment until they filled my mind and drowned out my dad’s voice calling for me from the living room. Thankfully the two police cars were silent when they stopped in front of the house. I wished they would switched off the flashing lights too because they were hurting my eyes.
Harold waved them to him. Two officers walked up the path with one hand behind their hips while another two stood behind their open car doors, watching us with so much intensity I could feel goose bumps on my skin.
When the officers stepped on the porch, Harold said, “Darryl, I’ve asked these men to come and see your father, okay.”
“He’s… He’s going to be mad,” I whispered, “He doesn’t like cops.”
“Don’t worry about that. I want you to come out here and let them see your father.”
I shrugged. I was already in trouble with my dad anyway, what’s a few more whippings. I let them in and stepped outside.
I liked my new room. Everything was white and clean, and even my blue pajamas always smelled nice. The doctor also let me have as much paper as I needed. Every day I would write and write and write, and each time I showed them to him, he would praise me and tell me what a good job I’ve done. Harold visited once a week, and talk about stars. Each time he would tell me a different number of stars in the universe and then say that the number was most probably wrong because some of those stars might have died years ago. We just didn’t know yet because they were so far away, their light hadn’t reached us.
But at night when all the lights were out, dad would visit and tell me how stupid Harold and the doctor were. He also said that the orderlies were stupid because they couldn’t keep him out of my room and he said I was stupid for believing any of them. Then he would empty a bag of marbles onto the bed and I would count them on my knees until I fall asleep.
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