The Five Pearls by Barry James Hickey

grinned.
    Pete leaned across and kissed her. “You knows I love you,” he said.
“I knows,” she said. She closed her door and rolled down the window. “Matthew, honey? I’ll send the old man back after lunch so you can have a break.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
“Any news on the education?”
“Still on hold.”
“I didn’t need no pigskin to get where I’m at,” Pete yelled from the car. “By the by, there’s ants in the house. See if you can sweep ‘em out, boy.”
“Just dust ‘em with kitchen cleanser,” Alice advised.
“And dump the live ones in the neighbor’s yard.” Pete coughed.
“Okay.”
Alice and Pete twiddled their fingers at Matt. It was a family affectation for saying goodbye. After their jalopy smoked off down the street, two small children in dirty underwear and tee shirts came out from the trailer.
“We’re out of Sugar Pops,” the little boy said.
“And there’s ants in the sink,” said the girl.
Matt set the kids on the recliner. They were both redheaded and freckled like him, but without so many dots to connect. Matt took his jacket off and covered their skinny legs.
“Watch the baby,” he said to the little boy.
“Why?” the little boy asked. “He can’t even walk yet.”
“Just watch him,” Matt said, slightly irritated. “He just might get up and start runnin’ any minute now.
The children giggled.
Matt went inside the trailer. There was filth everywhere: piles of smelly clothes, stacks of grocery store magazines about celebrities and aliens, Sunday newspapers still in their wrappers, and enough junk mail to build a paper house.
Pete and Alice didn’t care, but Matthew did. He used to try cleaning the dirt box of a trailer, but between his parents and the three little ones, there just wasn’t any getting ahead. Only a month ago, he had packed a runaway bag and stashed it behind the Dumpster at the end of the trailer court. When night fell he intended to escape the pigpen forever.
But then Pete and Alice came home with hot store chicken. They let him play a card game called Texas Hold ‘Em and drink beer that they said was from Texas, too. He forgot about leaving just then.
But now the feeling to escape was back.
“Maybe, if they find a teacher real soon. Maybe I might stick around some more,” Matt decided. “Otherwise, I’m long gone. Texas mebbe. Alaska, too… someplace where no one will ever find me again… if I can figure out a way…”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
    Big Bill Hogan read the job posting from Battle. “You’re not serious?”
“I’m serious,” John said.
“You want to spend your end of days as a substitute teacher in an after-school program for those five deadbeat kids?”
“Yes.”
“You’re a crazy man. Out of meds already?”
“I can do this job, Hogan. Or at least fake my way through it.”
“You’re supposed to be dead any day now. What about that?”
“Look. I’m fate’s hand now. Besides, I worked fifteen years in a prison library. I helped at least a hundred guys get their high school diploma or GED.”
“You can do that in jail?”
“Some jails. I touched every book, encyclopedia, dictionary, catalogue and magazine that ever came in and out the library door. And at least twice.”
Hogan drew up his pants around his belly. “Okay, wise guy. What’s the state flower of Colorado?”
“Columbine. In Texas, it’s the bluebonnet.”
“Feet in a fathom?”
“Six.”
“Ever use a cell phone?”
“Not yet.”
“Know how to use a fax machine?”
“Not yet.”
“What about the Internet?”
“We had one in the library. Limited access. I used it for research. Legal pleadings to help other prisoners, mostly.”
“Own any CD’s?”
“I’m still a vinyl man,” Battle smiled.
Hogan frowned. “The universe has changed drastically, John. These kids? They’ll expect things you don’t know anything about.”
“I know.”
“This isn’t like lawyering,” Hogan said. “It’s nothin’ but cry-babies and brats now!”
Battle held