In Loco Parentis

were some quite creepy men — one used to lie down on the dayroom floor, then get us all to pile on top of him — and a basilisk- eyed matron in a blue uniform with a watch dangling beneath her right collarbone.Thump thump thump went her footsteps, making the asbestos ceiling tiles quiver, and me want to hide, or run like a rabbit in a fire . . . What we lost, we lost forever. A minor devil played at chess with us, forcing the pieces to levitate and hover, flourishing swords, in midair. I’d grasp them now, the orotund bishop, the stealthy knight, the all- knowing queen, but they dissolve in my fingers, refuse to return to the board, to their squares.