Ironman

by Chris Crutcher

  I didn’t give it much more consideration because adults aren’t always on the money, even righteous dudes like Mr. S, but then I get this shotgun wake-up call at high midnight. I have this dream a lot: I’m standing by a huge steel door, intent on closing it in absolute silence. My father looms over me, hands on his hips, eyes blood red like some kind of special effect. (That’s how my dad always looks right after he wakes up.) I push the door so carefully it doesn’t even creak, and get it almost shut without a sound. Dad glares; he’s huge, way bigger than in real life. I handle the doorknob as if it were filled with nuclear waste. Just when I think I’ve done it, the latch clicks like a shot put dropped in an echo chamber and I freeze, staring back into Dad’s scowling eyes, and try again. Tonight I woke up on my third failure, my bedding crumpled on the floor, sweat pouring off me like early spring runoff.

  I know exactly where this dream comes from, Larry, but that doesn’t stop its effect on me. See, my dad is a man who lives by his schedule. Before their divorce, Mom left a cup of soup and a sandwich (tomato soup, tuna san) on the kitchen table each day. Dad came home from the sporting-goods store (which he owns) precisely at twelve, scarfed down lunch in five minutes, and napped the rest of the hour. Waking my father from his noontime nap was like castrating a wolverine with hot tongs and a dull knife.

  One Saturday in September when I was nine, my sister Kathy, who’s three years older than I am and off on her own, was playing on the front lawn with me, on the side of the house farthest from my parents’ bedroom, where the giant slept. It was hotter than the hubs of hell outside, and Kathy got after me with the sprinkler hose. She bore down as I streaked for the house, my jeans soaked, my T-shirt stuck to my body like cellophane. I reached the front door at full speed, shrieking as I kicked it open and slammed it hard; safe, momentarily forgetting I had ventured into the cave. I remembered the dragon at the same instant I glimpsed that spot where his dark slacks touched the top of his black wingtips. The crease was perfect, the shoes nicely shined, and I was in deep, deep shit. I brought my gaze slowly to his simple silver belt buckle, past the green alligator on his gray knit shirt to the deep bedsheet crease running vertically the length of his cheek, and into those bloodthirsty eyes.

  “What in hell do you think you’re doing?”

  “Kathy was—”

  He roared. “I asked you a question!”

  “I was running from—”

  He held his wrist in front of my nose. “Do you see what time it is?”

  I looked at the watch…quarter to one. “Yes.”

  “Do you know what that means?”

  “Yeah, but Kathy was—”

  “DO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS?”

  Even at nine I could take only so much confrontation before locking down. I have forever hated feeling small and helpless. I gritted my teeth and said, “Yes.”

  “You will stand here and open and close this door, quietly, ten times.”

  “But Kathy—”

  “Did you hear me, young man?”

  I stood ramrod straight, Larry, and the tension in my neck and jaw drew tighter than a bowstring. Airy dots danced before my eyes as I opened and closed that door so painstakingly its hinges didn’t squeak once. With each repetition, the latch clicked into place with silent precision.

  Nine times.

  On the tenth, I swung the door wide as the mouth of a crocodile in your toilet at the moment you squat, and slammed it so hard four windowpanes cracked from top to bottom.

  Dad stared in disbelief.

  I stared back in true belief.

  “I’ll check with Mr. Jarms down at the hardware store,” he said. “You’ll receive the bill for those within two days.”

  “Fine.”

  “Now open and close it gently twenty times.” Dad’s mouth barely moved as he spoke, and his intensity hung over me like wet fog.

  I said, “No.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “No.”

  “I’ll beat your butt till your nose bleeds.”

  I turned around and offered it up.

  Dad and I had reached our first clear impasse. The one thing he wouldn’t do was hit me, and the one thing I wouldn’t do was open and close that door one more time without ripping it off its hinges. Looking back, I’m still astonished at the flood of humiliation and hatred washing through me as I stood facing him, the field mouse before the hawk. I still don’t understand it completely, Lar, but one step backward was the abyss, and I made my nine-year-old stand.

  A bill from Jarms’s Hardware lay on my pillow when I arrived home from school the next afternoon—thirty-eight dollars and seventeen cents, installed—and my allowance dried up like a creek bed in Death Valley until it was paid in full.

  And my isolation began. Dad sat the family down at the dinner table that evening and announced that as long as I wasn’t willing to respect the rules in his house, he felt no obligation to me other than the provision of basic food and shelter. Until I was willing to open and close that door gently twenty times, I would come home directly from school each day, extracurricular activities being a thing of the past. Mom was to serve my meals in my bedroom, one helping from each of the three basic food groups and no more; desserts went the way of extracurricular activities. She was forbidden (a word she loudly eliminated from the family vocabulary the night of the divorce bash) to wash or iron my clothes; I would do that at a designated time each week. My homework was to be done in my room, and I would not be invited to family activities, including watching TV, a privilege reserved for “contributing” members.

  I disappeared. For almost seven months I ceased to exist. Dad persuaded Kathy that if I refused to respond to discipline, my life would amount to garbage; that she could help me by respecting his embargo absolutely. This shit was for my own good. He forbade conversation with me other than what was utterly necessary.

  Mom secretly urged me to apologize and perform the ritual openings and closings of the magic door, but I wasn’t sorry and would happily eat a bowl of live bumblebees before I’d give that son of a bitch the satisfaction of bringing me to my knees. So she watched helplessly as I fell into a monotonous after-school grind: nap, eat, nap, homework, read, sleep.

  Through each of the first twenty-four days of December, I glanced sideways at the Christmas tree as I passed through the kitchen and living room on the way to my bedroom, noting the scarcity of presents, and I truly believed my heart would break. So be it. In the wee hours of December twenty-fifth, I lay on my bed reading a Popeye comic book while my parents and sister opened their gifts less than four feet on the other side of the wall, and I felt a cold, stainless steel cage close over that heart. I vowed he would never win.

  Two days after New Year’s, my mother came into the bedroom and asked how long I was willing to let this go on.

  I gritted my teeth, blinked back the tears, and said, “Forever.”

  She begged me. “Please, Bo. Your father won’t budge. You know how he is. I hate this.”

  I said, “He can go to hell,” and she slapped my face.

  I said she could go to hell, too.

  It was Easter Sunday when Dad finally came into my room and said, “You may rejoin the family now.” Nothing more was said at the time, at least not to me.

  It was the nature of my father’s power over us that no one outside the family had an inkling of my interment. Even as we stood locked in our struggle, I knew family business was no one else’s, and never thought to call for help. I waged my war alone. I don’t think I’ve ever forgiven Dad for the time he stole, but though we’ve had plenty of raging conflicts since, he’s never taken me on like that again.

  But now I’m real nervous about where things are headed, Lar. I do not want to join Nak’s Pack, and not just because it’s filled with desperados who’ve stashed body parts in the dark corners of their basements, either. I’m afraid that story’s the kind Mr. Nak will want to hear—there are plenty more where that came from—and even thinking ab
out telling them in a crowd puts a hole in me. Plus, as angry as I get at my father, something in me wants to protect him from the outside world.

  Mr. Nak is one of those guys who knows stuff, Lar. I mean, knows stuff. He’s a little Japanese guy—you probably figured that out from his name—from Texas. He talks like Slim Pickens and dresses like his fashion guru is the Marlboro Man. I’ll bet he doesn’t weigh more than a hundred-thirty-five pounds and he couldn’t be five and a half feet tall, but peculiar as he may be—which is pretty peculiar if you believe half of what you hear—he’s got this confidence. I don’t know about you, Lar, being a guy who has interviewed Dustin Hoffman and Cher and G. Gordon Liddy without breaking a sweat, but guys who can look inside you scare the hell out of me. You never know when they’ll come out and say what they see. I can’t tell you how much I’m afraid of looking bad. The loons I know in Anger Management aren’t afraid of anything. Those guys will divide up my belongings if they see what I’m really like. Being uneasy in front of people makes me feel out of control, and when I feel that way I do things I would never do when I’m okay. More than anything, I hate feeling foolish.

  Like with Redmond. Hell, I knew I had two suspensions. I knew what happens when you get three, and I knew I was mixing it up with the one guy who’d go out of his way to give me the third, but when he started repeating my name like some ridiculous mantra, I felt every kid in the room staring at the humongous wuss inside me, and it was exactly like that day with my dad; I didn’t care what Redmond did to me.

  Not that school itself is a big deal, but I really do like Mr. S’s Journalism class, and I need to graduate. Plus, I’ve been lifting and working out pretty hard and I’m not looking that bad—still on the scrawny side, maybe—and I think there’s an off chance I might be able to snag me a girlfriend if I could stay around long enough to build up a little rep. I don’t want to lose all that.

  Another thing: When I get freaked and go off on a guy like Redmond, I usually feel okay inside, even though I know big trouble is coming, because Redmond really is an asshole and I don’t care whether he likes me or not. But the minute the word “asshole” spills over my lip, I know he’s got me. Though my diagnosis may be correct, all anyone sees is a bozo out of control. Afterward, I’d do anything to keep them from seeing that.

  Even worse, I trash people I care about that very same way when I start looking bad, and when I get rolling I can’t stop, don’t want to stop. I do it with Mom all the time, and I did it with the only girlfriend I ever had, so far. When it’s over, I feel stupid and ashamed, and I don’t think there’s a feeling worse than that.

  Enough. There are no answers in life, and I’m afraid I’m making a case for attending Mr. Nak’s group. Besides, I need my sleep. Mr. S said I could work out with the university swim team if I’d show up at five o’clock in the A.M., and that comes early. Thanks for listening, Larry. You’re a good host. After you’ve made me famous with this masterpiece, you ought to think about being a shrink.

  Outta here,

  The Big B

  “Man, what’s he doin’ here?” Ian Wyrack nods toward Bo standing chest deep in the university swimming pool, gasping for oxygen after the last swim in a set of twenty hundred-yard sprints. “He isn’t on the team. Hell, he isn’t even enrolled here. Aren’t you that high-school punk whose picture was in the paper for that triathlon crap? Wants to be an Ironman or some shit?”

  “Punk’ and ‘Ironman’ in the same sentence would seem a contradiction in terms, Ian,” Lion says from the deck. “Besides, I counted eight of those repeats in which this high-school punk kicked your butt.”

  Wyrack pulls himself out of the water, his triceps bouncing on the backs of his arms like tennis balls, pectorals dancing. Bo glances up, then quickly away, thinking, This guy is Terminator III.

  “Shee,” Wyrack says, “I dogged those.”

  “You sure you want me to know that?” Lion asks, and the shrill blast of his whistle ricochets around the walls of the pool house. “Line ’em up!” he hollers. “By his own count, Wyrack dogged eight of those! Help him out, guys; let’s do those eight again!” To a man, the small team of nine swimmers groans. “Way to go, Wyrack!” “Nice job, Wyrack!” “Hey Wyrack, keep it to yourself!”

  Wyrack kisses his knuckles as Bo drags himself from the water. “You’re meat, Ironman.”

  “I’ll assume you’re dogging any repeat Brewster wins,” Lion says, his eyes following the second hand on the giant workout clock above Lane Four as it drifts toward twelve. He moves behind Bo five seconds before the start whistle. “A true Ironman would take that as a challenge,” he says in a low voice. “See how long you can keep these guys in the water. I’ll let you out a few minutes early to get to Mr. Nak’s group. You’ll be gone before Wyrack has dried off.” He blasts the whistle.

  Sixteen hundred-yard sprints later, Wyrack finally touches the wall a tenth of a second ahead of Bo for the eighth time to end that workout segment. He is without sufficient oxygen to predict Bo’s short lifespan aloud, but draped over the lane divider, sucking air like a tropical depression, he points a finger at Bo’s heart.

  At the same moment Lion glances at his wristwatch. “Brewster, you’re outta here, man. Gonna be late to your early morning class. Thanks for giving us a push.”

  Bo hauls himself once more out of the water, refusing to look back in the direction of the groans.

  Don Sheridan, the head janitor, bangs down the panic bar with his broom handle from the inside on the side entrance door, allowing Bo to enter the school building. “Bad boys is down in thirty-two,” he says, pushing his sweaty Notre Dame baseball cap back on his crown. “Best hurry if you want a good seat.”

  Bo thanks him and starts down the long, unlighted hallway.

  “How’d you get yesef in with that bunch?”

  Bo turns. “Just lucky, I guess.”

  “Well,” Don says, “that kinda luck, I wouldn’t spend my allowance on lottery tickets. I know you—Brewster, right?—an’ you’re trouble, but you ain’t that kind of trouble.”

  “Tell Mr. Redmond that.”

  A look of acknowledgement crosses Don’s face, and he laughs. “Naw, that’s okay. Redmond’s a prick. First few years I done this job, had this little rat-lookin’ dog I couldn’t get housebroke. Used to leave him in Redmond’s room while I cleaned the rest of the school. I’d still be doin’ that if Redmond wouldn’t a’ started blamin’ the kids. Bunch of ’em he thought done it got a three-day vacation. Hell, I ain’t said a word to him since I dropped outta tenth grade. That there’s a philosophy you might wanna adopt.”

  Bo doesn’t argue. Don’s been head janitor almost fifteen years and most of the students like him, though they have dubbed that portion of his ample posterior that peeks over the back belt loops of his low-slung jeans “the crack of Don.” Don has seen a lot at Clark Fork High over the years that he has kept to himself, as if he knows the kids need at least one person over twenty-one on their side.

  Bo gazes into room thirty-two with great apprehension. It is too much like his dream. Mr. Nak sits cross-legged atop the teacher’s desk, with more than a dozen students, ranging in age from fourteen to nineteen, seated in a circle. Anger seems heavily male, as there is only one girl—the one he saw working out in the university weight room. Small world. All eyes fall on him in the doorway.

  “Aha,” Mr. Nak says in his slow Texas drawl, “everbody present and accounted for.” He motions Bo to the one empty chair in the circle.

  Bo breathes deep, and moves slowly toward the seat.

  OCTOBER 11

  My dearest Larry,

  I think anyone who wants to get his temperament firmly under control should stand in the doorway to Mr. Nakatani’s anger management group for about sixty seconds or so, and let the member felons cast their gaze upon him. What you say to yourself at that moment goes something like this: Dear God, I will never again raise my voice in anger against anything—living or dead—on your sacred planet, I w
ill besmirch not one of your creatures no matter how disgusting, not even my brother or his puppy-mill cocker spaniel who watches television seven hours a day and gets so excited when he snatches food off your unattended plate that he pees all over the floor; and I will eat leafy green vegetables as the main course of every meal with a smile on my face if you will please, oh please, just turn back the hand of time to the moment I did whatever I did to get me here and make me be a good boy.

  It seems God doesn’t answer your prayers without first taking them under lengthy advisement, and I didn’t have time for that because Mr. Nak motioned me to my place among the thieves and murderers.

  He said I must be Bo Brewster.

  I said, “Yes sir.”

  Two or three of the inmates snickered, and Mr. Nak said that was because they hadn’t heard anyone called “sir” since they were last in juvenile detention.

  Mr. Nak said the group was a little short on manners, as I could probably tell, but that everyone would introduce themselves shortly. “Shuja,” he said, nodding toward the only black kid, “why don’t you tell Bo how things work in the early mornin’ here on the ranch?”

  “Why, I’d be right proud to,” Shuja said. He’s a big, strong, good-looking kid with a wide-open face that looks like he never gets mad. “First, some teacher who don’t like your black ass just ’cause it’s black tells you you got a ’tude, and you best be gettin’ here to Mr. Nak’s early mornin’ ‘tude-fixin’ class or you won’t be comin’ back to school, in which case you won’t never get no diploma, in which case you won’t never get no job, in which case you’re gonna end up in prison like your older brother done. Then, since you can’t be lettin’ no midget shiny-head algebra teacher be your fortune-teller, you say, ‘Hey nigger, don’ be predictin’ my life ’til you got one a’ your own,’ and then they haul you away, and you show up here ’cause you wanna grow up to be a productive citizen of this here raggedy United States.” He looked at Mr. Nak and smiled. Most everyone else laughed.