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didn’t warn her.
    I lay in the tub, squeezing my eyes tight against all the blue eyes blankly gazing out from the walls into the black.
    I hear her cry out. I should go and do something. I hold the blanket over my ears.
    When I wake she’ll be gone and there will be a new poster on his wall.
    She yells out again, and I know it will be her up on the wall like the others, frozen and trapped forever staring out and hating me for forgetting her.
    â€˜Only way your
brother
is gonna learn not to piss himself is a whipping he remembers.’
    The pillows I slept on lie stained and wet on the floor next to the bed. She found I’d had another accident when she went to put the pillows back.
    He’s pulled out a brown leather belt from the small closet near the kitchen, and he’s clutching it doubled.
    â€˜Luther, I didn’t know you had it in you to be so fatherly.’ She’s in a T-shirt; it’s too big and stained yellow under the armpits, it looks like his.
    When she first came in the bathroom earlier this morning and sat on the toilet, all I could do was sit up in the tub and stare at her.
    â€˜Who are you to be sittin’ in judgment of me, huh?’
    â€˜You’re not one of the posters!’ I said.
    She wadded up some toilet paper and ran it under the sink tap. ‘How rude are you? Well, that’s how you got here, got news for you!’
    She threw the wet toilet paper, it splattered and stuck in the center of my chest.
    â€˜Get over here.’ He motions me to the bed.
    â€˜He’s never been spanked before, Luther, my parents spoilt him bad.’ She puts her arm around his bare waist and smiles at him. He adjusts his boxers. ‘Gonna be a lot more than spanking goin’ on here.’
    He hits the bed with the belt. I jump. ‘Let’s go!’
    â€˜See, you would so make a real good daddy . . .’ She pats his chest. The flattened morning light streams past the venetian blinds, making thick bars on the floor between me and the bed.
    He reaches out, grabs my arm, and jerks me toward the mattress. He pushes me over it, my face bounces on the crumpled sheets. My teeth start chattering. I try to push myself up, but he shoves me back down.
    â€˜Get his things down,’ he orders.
    Sarah leans over and yanks on my jeans and pulls them down.
    â€˜They’re wet again! I told him too many times already, next time he wets that’s it . . .’ Her hands slide into my underwear waistband.
    â€˜Your parents oughtn’t to be spoilin’ him . . . he wouldn’t be messin’ my good goose feathers pillows.’The belt slaps at the mattress again. ‘Damn, he smells like a alleyway in the city.’
    She slides my underwear down to my ankles with my jeans. ‘He pisses it, he wears it. Won’t wash it till he learns.’ She moves away from me.
    â€˜Now, son, I’m gonna whip you a beatin’ you can be proud of, and you won’t be wetting like a little baby no more. Ya hear?’
    I nod my head small. I want my clothes to smell like Sarah’s do. When she sent me into a gas station to buy us chips while she put in gas, a girl behind me on line tapped me on the shoulder. As I turned she said, ‘You stink.’ A man with her shushed her, but she stuck her tongue out at me and held her nose when they walked back to their car.
    â€˜Where your cigarettes at, honey?’
    â€˜Table . . . you sure you wantin’ to stay for this?’
    I hear her sitting at the table, and the crackle of the cigarette pack.
    â€˜Oh, I’ve got and seen my father give so many hellfire beatings I could sleep through it.’ She flicks the lighter.
    â€˜Thought they didn’t give no whippings?’
    â€˜Huh?’ She coughs some. ‘No, no, just him, spoilt just him.’ She waves away her smoke.
    â€˜â€™Coz once I start, I ain’t stoppin’ till I’m done, you