The Decrepit Ones
The Twain Children’s Museum sign illuminates in the sunlight as a big, yellow school bus rolls in front of the building. Adults exit the buses first, then the little ones—holding hands, finding buddies, and carrying lunches. Heads are counted promptly. Trying to get the kindergarteners to stay still long enough to recheck the current headcount is difficult.
Men wearing shirts that read “Security” escort the class to the lobby: a group of Black and Brown kids led by pale, pinkish Caucasian men. One of the students, Kan, a quiet but much inquisitive Black boy, taps a chaperone on the side of the hip.
“Yes?” the smiling woman asks, wearing several lanyards around her neck.
“May I go to the bathroom?” Kan asks.
“You need to hold it,” she says as they walk through the museum to where the tour begins—the dinosaurs. Despite warnings to use “inside” voices, nice hands, and turtle paces, the children run, screaming toward the tyrannosaur that towers above everything in the middle of the showroom. A summer intern tells the tale of the great Cretaceous Period nearly seventy million years ago.
Some are unimpressed and veer to a much cooler stegosaur, while others are entranced that creatures as tall as the ceiling once roamed the Earth. But they fear the fated news that everyone understood to be common knowledge: the destruction of the dinos. The children’s faces turn down in disappointment. Their smiles return after hearing the fun fact that dinosaurs do indeed still exist in the form of chickens and crocodiles.
Kan rubs his crotch a little. He has to go to the bathroom even worse but can hold it. In the distance, a wailing spirals down the halls like a lonely wind. It howls as if someone is crying for help. He ignores it and joins the group, heading toward the tour’s next area.
The shadow of an Apollo rocket ship replica creeps upon them and a growing glee seems to race through everyone—both kids and adults. The black velvet rope does not prevent the tiny grabbing hands from feeling the rocket’s metal and plastic exterior. Brimming with questions—especially about how the museum got a huge rocket into the showroom—the children surround the tour guide.
Kan glimpses the employees and wonders if they, too, feel the same awe even though they see the exhibit daily. This time, it is not a tour guide that speaks, but one of the security. The escort, a white man with pepper spray sticking out of his pocket, explains about the astronauts, spacewalks, facts, and trivia.
Kan glances around the room, searching for the chaperone whose hip he tugged. The woman with the lanyards is nowhere to be seen. Yet that howling—can anyone else hear that? the boy wonders—has become a deep, mournful weeping.
The white security man leads the group to the bluest room they’ve ever seen. As the children walk through the blue tunnel, they learn about pufferfish. Then, a substantial pixelated whale zooms overhead. Most of the children believe the creature is real and, to them, this has officially turned into the best field trip ever. Kan notices that the security man’s pepper spray has miraculously transformed into a gun. And the weeping—what is that?
Somewhere down the hall, gibberish sounds deepen into frightening snarls. The kids at the front of the line cower. Their eyes swell with tears, and their noses run snot. Some kids press their heels into the ground, stopping in their tracks. The white men reach into their pockets to reveal large, colorful lollipops. The kids wipe their faces and crowd around the men, reaching for candy. With lollipops in their mouths, the children pat their eyes dry, and the white men guide them further down the hall.
In the next exhibit, the children stare at wax figures whose hands also have thumbs and index fingers, nails, and curious lines going through the palms like railroad tracks on busy routes. They have reached the Dawn of Humanity. The wax figures of cave people are stuck in positions holding large clubs in the air or tackling coyotes.
The need to go to the bathroom overwhelms Kan, who searches for the lanyard-wearing chaperone. He doesn’t see her anywhere. Mrs. Sarah, Ms. Jenkins, and their college assistants have also disappeared. But there are more white men; their guns are large. Kan taps a security guard on the elbow, who looks down at the boy with a stone face. Kan does not bother to ask for the bathroom.
And that crying! It has returned with growls weaved between. Where is it coming from? Kan tries to ignore the wailing—it is too worrisome to consider.
The children file through a set of double-mesh nets into the Jungle Room. Stuffed tigers and jaguars growl atop mâché rocks. An assortment of butterflies scurry in the air. The children nearly tackle one another while waiting in line to hold a butterfly. A bit of nectar is all it takes to entice a butterfly to land on a child’s sweet finger.
Kan does not hold a butterfly. Instead, he counts the number of white men wearing bulletproof vests across their chests and backs with pads on their joints. Kan can no longer contain his bathroom urge, but is too afraid to poke the side of a tall weapon-wielding, angry-looking person. So, he crawls on the floor through the mesh nets.
Following signs and avoiding large men, Kan sneaks through the museum. He feels a tap on his shoulder and turns to see Fetty, a Black girl with big braids. She takes his hand, and they read the enormous foldable maps and signs until they reach a door with the word “toilet” pasted on its front. But, oh, they dare not go inside because from behind the door . . .
Weeping . . . Weeping . . .
A chill runs through the two; they break into a fast walk at a pace that does not seem out of place. They do not want a guard to catch them roaming around, so they blend in with another group of kids too entranced by the tyrannosaur to notice. A timid white boy with scraggly hair shakes uncontrollably. A look of fear stretches across his face. Kan and Fetty approach the boy.
“Are you okay?” Kan asks, gripping Fetty’s hand.
The little boy furiously shakes his head.
“What’s your name?”
“August,” the boy whispers.
“What’s wrong?” Kan asks.
Fetty points to the wet spot at the front of the timid boy’s pants.
“The bathroom,” August whispers.
“Yes, we have to go too,” Fetty adds.
“No. No. I saw inside,” August says, his hands trembling.
In the bathroom, from where the crying leaks, the kids starve. They feast on feces and drink their fluids. They vomit from the smell and the thought. They are hungry, so they eat that too. They are teens who have been visitors for years.
In the bathroom, the kids starve. They sleep with their heads in the urinals and their feet near the drains. They obey the guards. They can never leave. They have to survive until they are eighteen—when they can be free. Starve till you’re eighteen, and maybe one day, you can have your own children to starve.
“The kids . . . when I opened the door, they just stood there—dirty and smelly. They looked so sad.” August focuses on the floor. “I’ve been here for three days hiding in the rocket ship. I’m hungry,” he says.
Fetty shows her pockets. “I stole some snacks and juice boxes from the front desk.”
The three snack on protein bars and slurp orange juice together, letting August have most of it. Kan shuffles as the urge to pee travels through his small body. He frantically scans the room and does a double-take at a fake elephant ear. He scurries toward the plastic plant and urinates behind it.
“We have to escape,” August whimpers.
“We can’t let the others go hungry!” Kan says with determination.
“I want to go home.” August lets his tears flow.
“We’ll get you home. Just help us save the others,” Fetty says.
August nods and the three tiptoe to the front lobby and eye the desk.
“We need a map and more food,” says Kan.
“I’ll do it.” Fetty skips to the desk.
“Hello, ma’am. May I have a map?” Fetty says to the woman whose scowl makes her face look like a prune.
“What happened to the map I just gave you?” the woman barks.
“Sorry, I lost it.”
The woman mumbles, “Good for nothing brat.”
While the woman rummages through a box, Fetty grabs handfuls of food and stuffs them in her skirt and training pants. All the kids knew Fetty still struggled with toilet training, but none teased her. It is the adults who always scold her.
The woman lifts a map from the box and pushes it into Fetty’s hands. “Here. Don’t lose it, okay?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Fetty says with a smile. She skips her way back to August and Kan, who looks very impressed.
The three hurry through the exhibits to find their classmates. First, the dinos, then through space, the deep sea, cave dwellers, and the jungle. They walk through the maze of dollar-store foliage disguised as exotic jungle plants to another part of the museum. Toys, miniature trains, water games, and tower blocks crowd the room. Children scream with excitement and run around in circles. Armed guards watch as they play. One of the guards steps to the front and with a booming voice demands, “Time for the bathroom. Line up.”
The class starts a line in front of the guard. Fetty, Kan, and August tap as many kids on the shoulder as they can in the brief amount of time they have. “Don’t go to the bathroom. It’s scary in there,” the three whisper to those who will listen.
Only six out of the bunch of kids duck behind displays. Meanwhile, a new group of children enters the room to begin their playtime. August, Kan, Fetty, and the six escapees stay hidden. Together, they eat candy bars and devise the best escape plan a group of kindergartners can construct.
They blend in with the revolving groups of elementary and middle school-age children until they reach the front lobby again. Together, they try to push up against a heavy window. It will not open. Fetty grabs a metal chair, but she struggles with it. The surrounding children realize her intent and help her lift the chair and chuck it at the window. The glass shatters, the pea-sized shards flying away and sliding across the floor like marbles.
“Hey, get those kids!”
The children leap from the window while bullets whiz, but their small feet are too fast. They zig-zag to the parking lot like they’ve all seen in the movies. But the school bus has disappeared, and the parking lot is abandoned.
The children run as fast as they can toward anywhere. Somewhere unknown ahead of them, but away from the horrors behind. But they are not home-free. They have a mission to prepare. Once at their homes, the children gather weapons: kitchen knives, broomsticks without their heads, and pet dogs ready to charge. The children are surprised not to hear their parents object. In fact, where are their parents? There are none to be found.
Anywhere.
Not one grownup is available to help them—except for the guards. The guards—white men with big guns—always exist here.
Fetty snatches the car keys from the kitchen counter in her house. She has seen her parents drive before. She would sit on her mother’s lap in the driver’s seat and watch as the car moved and swayed down the roads.
The children are set and ready. Fetty is in the driver’s seat. August holds a phone with a GPS program directing them. And Kan just stares out the window. It is raining now. It is a lonely rain. A long rain. Every drop lasts a lifetime. Kan thinks about those kids in the bathroom. He and his accomplices must save the decrepit ones.
They must.
The car skips and spurts to the Twain Museum. The group of armed Black and Brown children and a little white boy named August opens the doors to the museum and runs inside, fearless and unwavering in their mission to save the others.
The guards’ guns prove useless as their owners are so stunned they are unable to shoot. Who has ever dared to fight back? Who is cocky enough to challenge their authority? This has never happened before. The children are fighting back. And winning!
In the horrific bathroom, the decrepit ones wait on the other side of the door. Every day, the same. The ones who eat and drink filth. The ones who are scared. The ones shot for wanting food. Shot for wanting toys. Shot for wanting hugs. The survivors are the frail ones who live to grow old and will force their children to chew on muck one day.
But no more will they be oppressed. They will be saved now. Saved by the children who dared to fight back.
