Kindness for Weakness

by Shawn Goodman

  She touches my arm and says, “You just made my day, sweetie. If you were ten years older, I’d tell you to pick me up after my shift.”

  “So what time is your shift over?” I say, wishing I could press a button and gain ten years.

  She winks and glides away to the other customers. I leave a five-dollar tip and hustle out of there for fear of what other stupid things I might say.

  9

  At school, Earl, the morning janitor, pushes his cart slowly, humming along to the oldies songs on a small transistor radio he keeps bungeed to a mop handle. Earl looks impossibly old, too old to work, but I don’t think he minds, because every time I see him, he is humming and happy to see me.

  “Morning, boy,” he says, shaking my hand. “You got my coffee, right? Two sugars.”

  I put my hands out to show that they’re empty.

  “All right, then,” he says. “Tomorrow you owe me two coffees and … and one of them egg sandwiches. With cheese and bacon on it.”

  He laughs to let me know he’s kidding, but tomorrow I will bring him coffee and an egg sandwich. Because I know what it’s like to be hungry and thinking about what you’d like to eat. I’ll surprise him, and he’ll say, “What’s this?” And I’ll say, “It’s just breakfast, Earl.” And he’ll say, “Naw, boy, you don’t need to do that. You keep your money.” But I’ll insist, and maybe he’ll have a great morning because I have a job now and I can afford to buy Earl a cup of coffee.

  I walk down the hallway with a dozen or so robotics club and band students hurrying to their Advanced Placement classes. They carry violin and trumpet cases, and pieces from computer circuit boards, talking excitedly about scales and concertos and bits of programming code. They laugh and slap each other’s backs and stumble into each other on purpose in the way that kids are always touching each other.

  I am ashamed of how badly I want what they have. Am I really that different? So different that I will have to walk these halls alone, friendless, for another two years? I wish I was good at something like sports, or an instrument, or even smoking cigarettes, which isn’t really a skill or an interest but at least it’s something to do, something I could have in common with other kids who smoke. If I smoked, I could go right now to the green steel bridge next to school and say to a kid sitting on the railing, “Can I bum one of those?” and they would nod ever so slightly, looking impossibly cool and aloof. And I would lean back against the railing, too, blowing out my indifference to the world in perfect smoky rings. But I can’t do it, because it makes me cough like a spaz, and I don’t know the first thing about being cool or aloof.

  I turn away from the group of computer and band kids and go in to Mr. Pfeffer’s dark empty classroom. I take a seat, suddenly exhausted even though it’s only eight-thirty. Maybe it’s because I am finally full and warm, and for the moment, there’s nothing for me to worry about. I put my head down and close my eyes, but after what seems like only thirty seconds, Mr. Pfeffer bursts through the door with his gray-black beard and booming voice. “James,” he says, flipping on the lights. “How’s my favorite writer who doesn’t write?”

  Mr. Pfeffer insists that I am a talented writer who just hasn’t realized it yet. Why he thinks this, I’ll never know; I haven’t done anything with my life that is worth writing about, and I haven’t written a word outside of his class assignments. I told this to Mr. Pfeffer, but he waved his hand and said, “It’s voice and perspective, not experience. There are plenty of books by charming bastards who can’t get out of the way of their own talent. The world needs more voice and perspective. Yours will do, when you’re ready.”

  I pick my head up, rubbing my eyes, grateful that my favorite teacher, a man I admire and look up to, likes me, even if I don’t understand why.

  “Here.” He pulls two bottles from a mini fridge under his desk. “Have a root beer, and let’s talk like real men about The Sea Wolf.” He assigned the book by Jack London last week, daring any student to prove to him that it’s not the absolute greatest American adventure novel ever written. It’s about Humphrey Van Weyden, otherwise known as Hump, an intellectual and self-described sissy who gets plucked out of the sea by a sealing schooner. Van Weyden thinks he’s been saved … until he meets the captain, a brutal madman named Wolf Larsen, who forces him to stay aboard and serve as cabin boy. I’ve only read a few chapters, but I can tell Van Weyden is going to have to fight Wolf Larsen for his life. It’s that kind of a book, which is to say, it’s awesome.

  I twist off the bottle cap. The ridges dig into my hands, and I do my best not to show that it hurts. “Do real men drink root beer, Mr. Pfeffer?”

  “I drink root beer,” he says, thumping his barrel chest with a meaty fist. “You saying I’m not a real man?”

  “No, sir.” I laugh.

  “Good. You might pass yet. Now, about that book …”

  I take a swig from my bottle; it’s cold and delicious and wakes me right up.

  “At the beginning,” he says, “when Wolf Larsen tells Hump, ‘You stand on dead men’s legs. You’ve never had any of your own. You couldn’t walk alone between two sunrises and hustle the meat for your belly for three meals,’ what does he mean?”

  It’s an easy question, a gift to get the conversation started. “That Wolf has no respect for Hump, because he doesn’t do any real work. He’s living off the work of others.”

  “Right,” Mr. Pfeffer says. “But what’s he really saying?” This is how Pfeffer works, a simple question followed by slightly tougher ones.

  “That Hump’s not a man.”

  “And how does Hump respond to the challenge?”

  “He shrinks from it, because he’s afraid.” I open my copy and read from a spot I had underlined earlier: “ ‘What was I to do? To be brutally beaten, to be killed perhaps, would not help my case. I looked steadily into the cruel grey eyes. They might have been granite for all the light and warmth of a human soul they contained. One may see the soul stir in some men’s eyes, but his were bleak, and cold, and grey as the sea itself.’ ”

  Pfeffer smiles broadly. “Ahh, well done, boy!” he says. We clink our bottles together as a couple of kids come in and loiter around their seats. Mr. Pfeffer leans in close. “But read the rest of this book carefully,” he says. “It’s got some good stuff in it. Secrets. Do you know what I mean?”

  I shake my head, a little freaked out at the way he’s staring at me, dark eyes blazing, focusing too intently, like they’re trying to see into me. Maybe he’s suspicious about the bruise on my face, thinking I’m getting punked in the locker room. Or maybe he knows that Ron kicks my ass.

  “Listen,” he says. “There are certain books that should be read at specific times in your life. I think this is the book for you.”

  “Okay,” I say, even though I still don’t understand.

  Mr. Pfeffer leans in even closer, so close that I can smell his aftershave and the root beer on his breath. “There are things in this book that you need to know,” he says. “Like when Hump finally stands up to Wolf Larsen—and he does finally stand up—Hump says a real man is one who is brave and scared. He says that heroes with no fear aren’t really brave; they’re just being themselves. But a scared guy being brave … that’s the real thing.” Pfeffer arches a bushy black eyebrow, which is what he does whenever he introduces a paradox, two things that should be opposites but aren’t.

  He lets me hang on to that point and turns his attention to the rest of the kids filtering in before the eight-fifty bell. I think about Pfeffer’s paradox, hardly listening to his booming lesson just a few feet away. How is it possible to be brave and afraid? In my mind I run through everything I am afraid of, the awful terror I feel when Ron pokes his thick finger into my chest and says, “You think you’re something special because you read them books and shit? Well, I got news for you. You ain’t nothing but a … a trained retard, a weak sack of shit … an embarrassment to your mother. That’s right, she cries herself to sleep at night worrying ab
out you and your asshole delinquent brother.”

  I think about the kids on the lacrosse team who jump at me in the hallways with their sticks and their stupid-cool fauxhawk haircuts, only to laugh and call me a pussy when I flinch and back away. How can you not flinch when someone jabs a stick in your face and shouts at you? What are you supposed to do, stand there and take it? What would Louis do? He’d probably kick their asses and then beat them with their own sticks.

  I think about all these things, and it seems impossible that I will ever become a real man. How am I supposed to learn? From the movies, or from watching other guys at school? Who’s supposed to teach me? Louis is too busy, and I only see Mr. Pfeffer in class. I want so badly to be able to stand up for myself, to be a man and work, to hustle the meat for my belly, as Wolf Larsen put it. I want to protect my mother, and earn respect. And someday, I want a girl to take me seriously enough to trust me and fall in love with me.

  I hope like hell Mr. Pfeffer’s right, and The Sea Wolf is the book I’m supposed to read at this time in my life. And maybe if I try hard enough, if I push through my fears and don’t pussy out, I can change. I close my eyes and set my jaw to look more like Louis, and I make a silent pledge: I will study this book carefully to learn what might be hidden within its pages. I will listen to Mr. Pfeffer, and to Louis. And before the end of the school year, I will stand on my own two legs. I will become a man.

  10

  Throughout the rest of class I stare at my paperback copy of The Sea Wolf. The cover shows a schooner plunging through a black sea, and I begin to doubt that the 244 pages can hold as much meaning as Mr. Pfeffer promised. How could they? Jack London is dead. And he never knew about meth freaks like Ron, and my mother’s gray lifeless skin, or the way she stares out the window ignoring the calls from work: “Doreen, are you coming in to work tonight? Doreen, pick up. I know you’re there. Don’t flake out on us again.” He never knew about the lacrosse players, either, or the suspicious way the little kids look at me, like they know I don’t belong.

  But I do trust Mr. Pfeffer, so after school I walk a few blocks to the creek and sit in the sun on a big flat rock. The fishermen walk by in their khaki vests and felt-soled waders, slipping quietly into the water. I open my book and read. Wolf Larsen says, “It is a whim of mine to keep you aboard this ship.… And keep you I will. I may make or break you. You may die today, this week, or next month. I could kill you now, with a blow of my fist, for you are a miserable weakling.”

  I want to read more, to find out what’s going to happen to Van Weyden, but the air has started to cool, and I don’t want to be late. One of the fishermen wades out of the creek, a really old guy with deep lines baked into his smiling face from the sun and wind. I ask him for the time.

  “Four o’clock.” He taps his watch and crunches away over the stony shore.

  I get up and start walking the same route I did the day before, past the old abandoned steel mills, and then through the nicer neighborhoods bordering Fredonia, where the state college is. But this time I blow past the dandelion fluffs and the kids on their Big Wheels and scooters. I ignore the inviting houses with their blue glowing television sets inside comfy living rooms. And I think that maybe I am changing. Maybe I am growing up a little bit because I’ve got a job now, and a book that Mr. Pfeffer says will teach me how to be a man. I’ve got purpose.

  I turn right onto Central Avenue and head toward the strip mall. Louis is waiting for me at the parking lot, but he’s not in his Bronco. Instead he’s got this crappy little Honda with holes in the door. The holes bleed lines of rust like the car is wounded and hasn’t got long to live. I look inside to make sure it’s him, because the Louis I know wouldn’t be caught dead in a rusted Civic. But it’s Louis, all right; he sticks his head out the window and calls to me.

  “Get in,” he says in this businesslike kind of way, without any of the “little bro” stuff from the other day. And I can tell something’s wrong, because he’s got a cut-up face and a busted lip. He looks like I do after a bout with Ron, but his left arm is in a sling, too, like whoever did this really took it to another level.

  “Louis …”

  He shuts me down with his good hand. “I need you to shut up and listen.”

  I stay quiet even though my mind is racing. Where is his Bronco? And what happened to his face? Who did that to him? A selfish part of me wonders if I’m at risk, but then I put the thought away. Louis pulls out a pack of Marlboros and shakes one loose.

  “The car is temporary,” he says, lighting the smoke with an unsteady hand. “I owe money to these guys, so I can’t pay you today. But I’ll get you back.”

  “What guys?”

  “Just some guys.”

  Who would beat up Louis and take his truck? I pull out and offer him twenty-five bucks (what’s left from this morning). He says, “This is bigger than twenty bucks,” but takes it.

  “Twenty-five,” I say. “I only bought breakfast.” Thinking of it reminds me of the pretty waitress, how she said she’d go out with me if I were older. I’d like to tell him about it, but I know he’s not interested, which kind of makes me sad and mad at the same time. I should be able to tell him stuff about my life, shouldn’t I? Why doesn’t he want to know? It’s what brothers are supposed to do, talk to each other.

  “Whatever.” He forces out a stream of smoke and takes a final drag before tossing the butt. The window won’t roll back up, and he pounds on it, cursing.

  “How much bigger is it?” This means that we won’t be going to Dimitri’s later on tonight. Louis will want to be alone to think, and then I won’t have anyone to hang out with. I’ll have to go home to Ron and my mother’s shitty couch.

  “Way bigger. You can’t even comprehend.”

  Louis touches the side of his face that’s cut up, and says, “Let’s get to work.” He hands me a black messenger bag filled with mailers. I’m not sure, but I think he looks scared.

  “Shouldn’t we let things blow over?”

  But right away I see that he’s not scared. Louis doesn’t get scared. He gets pissed off. Pissed off because I ask too many stupid questions. Pissed off because some guys took his truck. Pissed off because his life is tough and he has to make his own money for rent and food and all of his super cool clothes. Pissed off because now he has to rely on me, and I am no one to be relied on.

  His eyes are blazing, nostrils flaring. “How do you think I eat and pay rent? Don’t be stupid, James. I’ve worked my ass off to get to this point, so just keep your mouth shut and do what I say.”

  What’s he mean, “to this point”? Beat up and rattled in a crappy car? But I keep quiet. I sling the bag over my shoulder and climb out. I don’t know what trouble Louis is in, and I don’t like it that he owes money to dangerous people. But he’s my only big brother, and I can deliver a few stupid envelopes if it will help him out. I can do that all day long.

  Before driving away, he says, “Follow the map. I’ll be waiting up the street if you run into trouble.”

  11

  The map is easy because the houses I’m supposed to deliver to have been marked in red, with arrows showing the direction to walk in. At the first house there’s a college-aged guy in a ripped Fredonia State sweatshirt. His hair is stuck to the side of his head, like he spilled something on the floor and then lay down to sleep in it. “Dude,” he says, “you’re late. I mean, what the fuck?”

  “Sorry, dude,” I say.

  “Don’t ‘Sorry, dude’ me, asshole. I got people waiting, and you’re fucking up my shit.”

  “I’m here now,” I say, beginning to tire of delivering drugs for my brother. “You want these or not?”

  He smiles, scratches his stuck-down hair, and says, “Okay. No problem. It’s all good now.” He takes the mailers and gives me the money.

  I walk away toward the next house on the route. I give people their drugs and collect. It’s easy. I wonder how much money Louis makes doing this. It must be a lot, because when he
started, about two years ago, right before leaving us, he bought all kinds of expensive stuff like a fifty-inch LED TV with an Xbox, and designer clothes. But the big question is, why doesn’t he make the deliveries himself? Why pay me if it’s so easy? Because it probably isn’t so easy. Because Louis always has his own reasons, and it wouldn’t occur to him to share them with me.

  Maybe it’s best if I don’t know … if I pretend to believe that Vern joined the marines and Louis is being a good brother. Just like I pretend that my mother still gives a shit about me when I leave her apartment early, when I put my head down and walk until my feet hurt and I’m hungry. A fine mist of rain coats my face and hands and hair, but I don’t remember the weather changing. I don’t remember seeing a cop car pull up, either, but there it is, a giant black SUV with those stealth lights on the top. I keep walking, trying to be cool … but inside I am freaking out. Just act normal, I tell myself.

  Two cops with crew cuts get out of the cruiser. One has a mustache and a pink face that looks like it’s been freshly scrubbed.

  Oh, shit! I think. I walk by them with my head down, clutching the messenger bag against my chest with both hands. Maybe they’re here for someone else.

  “Hey, kid,” says the cop with the mustache.

  I don’t stop or slow down.

  “Kid, your …,” he says, turning with me, pointing at my feet or the ground (I’m not sure which).

  Don’t panic, I tell myself. But something sharp and electric is crackling through me, and I break into a sprint, feet pounding the sidewalk in wild panicked strides. I tuck the bag under my arm like it’s a football and lean forward, for speed. Run faster, I think.

  “Damn it!” he says. He’s chasing me now, the sound of breathing and cop boots rebounding off the sidewalk behind me. How can he be so fast? I pump my arms to gain a little more speed, trying to close the distance to Louis, who I can see is two blocks away, waiting in his car. Something heavy hits me from behind in the small of my back; I lose my balance and sprawl onto my face, scraping my hands and forearms. I try to hang on to the bag, but it slides off my shoulder and flaps open on the cement.