The Heart is Deceitful above All Things Read Online Free PDF Page A

water, listening to the little gasps escaping her. She raises her head, her eyes dripping black ink. ‘Get the fuck into bed!’ she screams.
    â€˜We gotta go, we gotta get the fuck outta here.’ There are garbage bags partially filled on the kitchen floor. She unplugs the clock and drops it in.
    â€˜Get dressed . . . go, hurry!’ She waves her arm at me. I go into my room, flick on the light, and dig out my clothes from the milk crates. They’re all clothes I’ve worn already. I don’t have my own hamper here. When I told her all my clothes were dirty and showed her the pile, she said if she wears her clothes until they’re ready to walk, so can I. I feel comforted by the dusty smell of my clothes as I put them on.
    â€˜Goddamned social workers telling me what to do,’ I hear her mutter. ‘Stuck-up cunts, fuck them, fuck them . . . let’s move it in there, kid!’
    She comes into my room with a big black garbage bag.
    â€˜Pack.’ She opens it and throws my clothes in, then hands it to me to do. She starts pulling my blankets off my bed. ‘Goddamn it, you pissed it again!’ She pulls them off and shoves them into the bag. ‘I told you, you’ll lie in it till you learn it ain’t the goddamn fucking toilet! Jesus!’ She finishes stuffing it in and leaves my room. I hear her swearing and tossing things into bags while I put the rest of my clothes in on top of my blankets.
    â€˜We’ll have fun!’ she shouts. ‘I’ll take you to Disney World. I’ll get me a job as a character, I’d make a good princess or somebody. You can be there all the time, you like Mickey Mouse, don’tcha?! . . . It’ll be better there, you’ll see . . . I’ll get you so many fuckin’ toys your fosters’ll seem like poor damned slobs.’
    I hear her tossing things across the room. ‘I take care of my kid . . . fuck them!’ Something slams into the wall and breaks. ‘Fuck them.’
    Everything is loaded into the car. Plastic bags are in the trunk, in the backseat, and under my feet. ‘Isn’t this fun?’ she asks me while snapping open a beer.
    â€˜Yes’m,’ I whisper, and yawn, looking out at the sky, a thick, pasty black. She backs out of the cracked, concrete driveway and onto the gritty tar road. Insects and dust zoom by in the headlights like crashing meteors.
    â€˜You’re mine. Fuck them, telling me what all to do.’ Yellow porch lights blink by. ‘Pay a goddamn baby-sitterfour dollars an hour, and I don’t near make that in tips when it’s slow. Fuck ’em.’ She hits the dashboard with a fist, and I jump.
    â€˜We got two hundred dollars waiting in a wire for us when it gets day.’ She grins to the windshield, then turns to me with a sly look on her face. ‘Know who sent us that money?’ I don’t answer. ‘You won’t believe who sent us that two hundred.’ She laughs.
    â€˜The only thing your grandfather hates more than an unrepentant sinner like myself . . .’––she slaps her chest––‘is the goddamned government telling people all what to do with their own life, money, and childrens.’ She laughs louder. ‘And Lord does he hate them social workers.’ The sky seems to be getting blacker, not lighter, or maybe it’s just the mountains rising up around us.
    â€˜One tried to come into his house, somebody made some complaint saying they’d seen Noah, my brother, whipped . . . well, after he got done speaking with all those folks he’s donated the church’s money to . . . well . . .’ She shakes her hand like it’s too hot. ‘Not only was she fired, but no uninvited government folks ever set foot on his land again.’ She laughs so hard, she has to rest her head on the steering wheel for a few seconds.
    A thin, pale blue ooze of light streaks the sky ahead of