Behind the Vents

Kim doesn't understand what is happening.

When we had first arrived at Eagle’s Retreat, we had taken our meals, buffet style, in a big room with everyone else, but after my father disappeared, our meals were delivered to us by a very mean looking man, and they were nothing like the huge plates, loaded with food, that I had been used to.  I remember my mother arguing with the man, but he laughed at her and called her a name that had her seething with anger.  It seemed as if we received less and less food at each serving.  My mother began hoarding food, even when I complained that I wanted more.

One day she made up a game.  She took the floor vent cover off our heating duct and told me that it was a secret tunnel.  She was going to leave our room, and after a short time I would not hear and feel the air blowing from the duct.  When that happened, she said, I was to get into the duct and explore the secret tunnel.  Before she did this, she gave me her watch and spent an hour teaching me how to tell time.  When she was satisfied that I had learned this lesson, she left the room.  Soon I felt the hot air blowing from the heating duct stop, so I dropped into the secret tunnel.  I was in a short rectangular can, and when I crouched down I could enter each side of the duct.

I didn’t have any trouble negotiating the passageways, and I could easily turn around when I needed to do so.  The heating duct was located in the basement, and it ran the length of the building.  An inclined portion, hidden in the walls, led to the upper tier which was overhead of the second story rooms. In those rooms, the vents were in the high ceilings.  By pressing my body against the sides of the duct and wiggling, I was able to reach the upper level, and I explored most of the building’s heating ducts before I felt air moving again.  Quickly, I scrambled back to the can leading to our room.  I pulled myself out, replaced the vent cover, and pushed a chair over it, just as my mother had showed me.

Seconds later, I heard loud noises, and the mean man shoved the door open.  He was holding my mother by her upper arm and yelling at her.  He pushed her to the floor, and that’s when I noticed the big bruise around her eye.  I hadn’t learned enough English to know what he was saying, but I could see that she was terribly afraid of him.  He pointed to me and said something, and she responded by dropping to her knees, bowing repeatedly, and apologizing.  By that time, she was crying, and I started crying, too.  The man left, and my mother hurried to me and wrapped me in her arms.

After that day, the building always seemed to be cooler, and less heat flowed from the vent.  My mother taught me a new game.  At night I was to get into the heating duct and creep around, very quietly.  If she heard me, she scolded me soundly, even spanking me if I had been too loud. I soon learned to be very quiet when traveling through the ducts.  Then she gave me a tiny screwdriver from her purse, and she told me to stick the screwdriver and my fingers through our vent cover and practice removing the screws that held the vent cover to the heating duct.  It did not take me long to become proficient at this.

 

On the last day, I got into the heating duct at her command, and for the first time, she replaced the vent cover while I was inside.

“I don’t know when it will be safe to come out,” she said. “Stay inside.  If I bring you food, you must eat a little every day, not all at once.  Promise me.”

She sounded very stern when she said this, so I promised her that I would stay in the duct until she said otherwise, and I promised to eat only a little of what she brought me.  Through the vent, I watched her remove a pillowcase from the pillow.  Next, she pulled the electrical cord of a heavy lamp from its socket, placed the lamp on the floor by the door, and left the room.  I was quite puzzled by her actions.  Soon I heard the rush of footsteps, and she barreled through the door, dragging the pillowcase.  She ran to the vent, lifted the cover, dropped the pillowcase into my hiding place, and slammed the vent cover into place.  She pushed the chair over it.

“Go! Hide!” she screamed.

I knew I should obey my mother, but I could not leave her.  I lifted the vent cover a tiny bit and watched, tears streaming from my eyes.  She grabbed the lamp, stood by the door, and when the mean man charged through, she smashed the lamp against the side of his head.  He fell to the floor, bleeding from his temple, and she hit him again and again, splattering blood across the room.

She appeared to be as shocked as I, but when she saw me peeking from the vent, she whispered, “Go!”

I grabbed the pillowcase containing the food she had taken from the bad men and slithered into the duct.  Behind me, I heard a commotion from the room.  That was the last time I saw my mother.  On rare occasions, at night, I left the heating ducts to steal food or just to stand straight, but other than that, I lived in them for two years until I was nine years old.