After the Parade

by Lori Ostlund

  “Why?” asked Pilar. “Why must he sit on the floor?”

  “Because he buys car and keeps it in secret garage. This is how I meet him. He is selling car very cheap, and I think I will buy car and drive across America to my new home, which is San Francisco. He told me that he had to eliminate the car from his life because now his family knows he has car. They are very angry and also embarrassment because all of the Amish people know about the car, and they criticize his family. The car is called ‘stigma.’ ” Melvin wrote stigma on the board next to shun.

  “Stigma is what Jesus had,” Lerma said. “From the nails in his hands.”

  “Excuse me,” said Katya. “I am not understanding this word stigma.”

  She looked at Aaron, and from his desk he said wearily, “A stigma means that other people look at you in a negative way because they think something about you is shameful.” He paused. “If you have a mental illness, for example, people might think of you in a negative way, so we say, ‘There’s a stigma attached to mental illness.’ ”

  “What else?” said Katya. She was taking notes. “What else is attaching with stigma?”

  “Well, I guess being in prison, having AIDS, being homeless. But remember, sometimes the stigma disappears.”

  “How can it disappear?” asked Katya.

  “Well, because the stigma isn’t real. It’s about how people think, so maybe society changes. People become educated about a topic, and then they think the situation isn’t shameful anymore.”

  He could see from their faces that he was not explaining stigma well. He should get up and write his examples on the board, but he knew that if he left his desk, he would drown.

  “What about Jesus?” said Lerma.

  “That’s not relevant,” he said. He could hear the impatience in his voice. The others looked down. Lerma looked down also.

  Each day after class, Lerma took two buses to her job, her first job, which involved picking up a brother and sister from school and shuttling them home, where she oversaw their homework and made dinner and got them ready for bed. Their mother was there also, but she did not like to be disturbed. She required “peace and quiet,” lots of it, she had told Lerma at the interview. She reminded Lerma about this whenever the children became loud. Lerma put the brother and sister to bed, and then she went to her second job, sleeping in a chair beside the bed of a sick girl. Every two hours an alarm rang, waking her so that she could check on the girl. She did this until the nurse arrived at seven, and then she went home and changed in order to be at school by nine. This was her schedule every day except Sunday because Sunday was church day. She worked hard to improve her English. She did not complain or fall asleep in class. And in return he had yelled at her for wanting to understand stigma better. He said her question was “not relevant” because everything felt irrelevant to him now, and he had not stopped to consider that for Lerma it was more relevant than anything else.

  “I’m sorry, Lerma,” he said. “I’m very sorry. Everyone.” His voice trembled. “Let’s take a break.” He went across the hallway to the room where Bill used to teach sleuthing. It was dark inside, but he did not turn on the light. He went in and sat at the table and cried. He wondered whether his mother had felt this way when she sat in the closet after his father died, as though she had no idea what she was crying about at all.

  26

  * * *

  The next morning when Aaron pressed the button on his remote control, the garage door did not open. He tried the wall control, thinking his batteries were dead, but the door remained firmly closed, not even making the whirring sound that meant it was trying. He thought he could hear Mrs. Ng upstairs, so he seized a rake and banged it against the ceiling, but upstairs Mrs. Ng went blithely along with her morning routine, unaware that he was trapped below her. He began to think about earthquakes, for that was the way the mind worked, wasn’t it? And the more he thought about them, the surer he became that one would occur any minute. The house would buckle down on top of him, Mrs. Ng’s screaming the last thing he heard.

  In second grade, when he first learned the unbearable truth that the earth was spinning beneath him, he’d felt a similar panic. He remembered standing outside after school, thinking about it: this earth beneath him that felt so solid was turning at a frantic pace. He had flung himself on the ground and hung on. It seemed the only thing to do, and it had helped. He went back into his studio and lay down, wrapping his arms around the mattress.

  The last time he saw his mother, she was in bed also. After Gloria gave him Clarence’s book, she took him upstairs to where his mother lay, in a bed that was clearly too small to accommodate a second person, certainly not Gloria with her giant body. The covers were pulled up over her, so he could not even tell which way she was facing. He and Gloria stood in the doorway, and finally Gloria said, “Dolores, Aaron’s leaving. He’d like to say good-bye.”

  His mother did not reply or take the covers off her head to look at him.

  “I’m hoping to be back in the Twin Cities by noon,” he said, “so I guess this is it.” He thought he should say more, but he could not act as though this were a routine visit, one that concluded with him thanking her for her hospitality. “Remember the coma?” he said. “I used to worry about it all the time, wondering whether it could happen again. I still do.” He paused. “When I woke up that night, you were sitting by the window in my hospital room. It was dark outside, and for a while, I just watched you. You seemed to have forgotten all about me lying there behind you. Afterward, I could never call up the image of you looking out into the night without thinking that that was the moment I should have known you would leave.”

  He turned as if to go, but he knew he would regret it if his last words to her sounded bitter, angry. “Anyway,” he added, “I want you to know that I’ve had a good life.” It was not that he forgave her. He did not, not yet, but he was giving her permission to forgive herself. He did not think she would. His mother was not ready to be done with guilt or unhappiness.

  It was eight thirty. He was going to be late for work, but he did not get off the bed or think about the garage door that would not open. Instead, he thought about how Walter used to get into bed with him when he sensed that something was wrong, about the way Walter would take his hand and hold it tightly and they would lie together, not talking, just staring at the ceiling because Walter had understood that sometimes it was enough for two people to be looking at the same thing. And just like that he could breathe.

  He called Marla and told her what had happened. He asked whether Taffy was at work already, and Marla handed the telephone to Taffy, who was sitting right there in her office and who did have the Ngs’ number, had written it down when she arranged for him to rent the studio. He listened to the phone ringing above him. He listened to Mrs. Ng walking across the room toward it. He thought that she hesitated right before picking it up, but then she did pick it up, answering in Chinese, and soon he was free.

  * * *

  Winnie had told him once that when she felt stuck, she tried to find the wherewithal to make just one change. She said that if she could do that, sometimes everything else followed. That afternoon he stayed after school, looking through apartment listings in the computer lab, and three days later he found a new studio. It was near the school, but what he liked most about it was that it was on the fifth floor. When he stood at the window while the landlord pretended to be busy behind him, he could see the ocean just nine blocks away. He had not known until then that just seeing the ocean would make him feel better.

  The studio cost more than the Ngs’ studio, but he would be leaving the school soon. It was not a place one stayed for long, unless you were a lazy teacher like Felix or ill-equipped for the world like Taffy. Until he found something else, a job that paid better, he would be fine. Walter had sent him a check, a buyout for his part of their house in Albuquerque. It had arrived one week after he sent the letter from the airport, wrapped in a half sheet of blank t
yping paper. He had not cashed the check yet, but Winnie said he needed to, her reasoning based not on the fact that he needed the money (though he did) but on her observation that he needed to stop giving substance to his guilt.

  He told the landlord on the spot that he would take the apartment. Then he walked up Fulton and cut down into the Castro. He went into the café where he had met George, ordered a slice of apple pie, and sat at a table to eat and read poetry and wait. He did this every afternoon for the rest of the week while in the evenings he repacked his few belongings into boxes. He told the Ngs that he would be moving out. They did not ask why, and he did not tell them because there was no reason to tell them. They knew they argued. They did not need him pointing out that they were unhappy.

  One afternoon, Eugenia came into the faculty room and stared at him in that way that meant she was waiting for him to look up so that she could start talking. In the past, he had listened to her with a bland expression on his face that Eugenia always interpreted as interested, but today he pretended to focus on other tasks—his timesheet, corrections to Pilar’s résumé. Finally, Eugenia could not help herself. “You’re going to the Pride Parade this weekend, right?” she said, asking in the same way that she had asked about the missing Lake Wobegon tapes, as though assured of his interest.

  “No,” he said. “I don’t like parades.” This was true. He had never taken to parades. People who knew about his father treated his dislike as a given, for how could he ever get past the memory of the float and his father tumbling backward through the air? But he believed that his aversion was a response to the overall aesthetics of parades—the gaudy floats, the music that inspired marching, the sun bright overhead—though it was possible everyone else was right.

  “But everybody in San Francisco goes to Pride,” Eugenia said.

  “Well, that’s one more reason to stay home,” he said. He laughed to show that he was sort of kidding, and then he said, “Anyway, I’m moving this weekend.”

  In class the next day, Paolo asked whether he would be going to the parade.

  “Actually, I’m moving this weekend, to a new apartment, so I don’t have time for parades.” He pretended to sound disappointed.

  “Are you needing help?” said one of the Borols.

  “No,” he said quickly. He did not like people handling his belongings. He never had, but he especially did not want his students doing so. He did not want to think of Chisato carrying a box that contained his underwear and socks or the Thais lifting his mattress, because how did you carry someone’s mattress without picturing the person on top of it, sleeping or having sex, intimate activities that he did not want his students imagining when they looked at him. He had boundaries, and boundaries were a good thing. But letting others help you was a good thing also. Winnie had told him that on the trip.

  He took a breath. “Actually, I am needing help,” he heard himself say.

  “I will bring shuttle van,” said Leonardo, who had graduated from delivering pizzas to driving an airport shuttle. “We can fit many things.”

  “I have car,” said Katya.

  “I have car also,” said Yoshi.

  “I will bring pizzas from delivery mistakes,” said Diego. “They will be from past night but still very good.”

  “Old food?” said Aaron. The students laughed hard, so he knew they forgave him.

  On Sunday morning they arrived at his place at nine o’clock, as if they were meeting for class, except they were all on time. The Brazilians brought cheese bread and coffee, and the Thais brought bags of dried mango and durian chips. Aaron had everything packed, and he stood with the garage door rolled up, waiting for them.

  “Where’s Melvin?” asked Ji-hun. Melvin was the only student missing, except for one of the Bolors, who’d had to work. He had not said he was coming, nor had he said he was not coming. He had, as usual, said nothing, letting the conversation swirl around him as though he were not really part of it. Aaron wondered whether the others had actually expected him to show up.

  “He left a message on my cell,” Tommy said. “This morning before I was awake. He has some problem with his fiancée’s visa paperwork, so he will meet us at the new apartment.”

  Sure enough, when they pulled up at Aaron’s new address two hours later, there was Melvin, leaning against the building. The other students greeted him, and he put on gloves and helped them unload the shuttle van.

  “Melvin,” Aaron said as they carried in boxes together, “can I talk to you after everyone leaves?”

  “I must go home very quickly,” Melvin said.

  “It won’t take long,” Aaron assured him.

  The Thais were the last to go, and when Tommy called to Melvin, asking whether he needed a ride, Melvin turned and said, “Thank you, but I must talk to teacher Aaron.” He was at the window that looked out over the ocean, and Aaron wondered whether Melvin was the sort of person who felt hopeful when he looked at the ocean’s vastness or overwhelmed by his own insignificance.

  “Do you mind sitting on the floor?” Aaron said, because it would be awkward to sit on the bed, awkward even to suggest it. They sat and leaned back against the wall. “Thanks for your help today,” Aaron said.

  “It is my pleasure,” said Melvin, bowing his head at Aaron. Aaron looked at the crumpled side of Melvin’s face, remembering how it had risen slowly in the basement, the eyes filled with shame.

  “Melvin,” he said, “we never talked about what happened in the basement.” He saw fear in Melvin’s eyes, and he added quickly, “And we don’t have to. I understand that maybe you don’t want to talk, and that’s fine. I just want to say that if you do want to talk, or you have questions, or just need help with something, you can ask me. Okay?”

  Melvin kept his eyes down.

  “I’m sorry if I’ve embarrassed you,” said Aaron. “Can I get you anything? Water? A beer? Leftover pizza?”

  “I must go,” said Melvin.

  “Thank you for your help,” Aaron said again.

  At the door, Melvin looked up. “It is the stigma of my life,” he said sadly.

  “What is?” said Aaron, but Melvin had already turned to leave.

  * * *

  When he and Winnie had pulled off the interstate in Needles late in the afternoon, Aaron could not remember which direction to turn to get to the motel. He went right, but after several blocks, he decided he should have gone left, so he turned the car around, and there it was, nondescript and unappealing, the sort of place that people looked for when they wanted to sleep without frills. He pulled into the parking lot, and they got out. He showed Winnie the spot where Britta’s boyfriend had punched and kicked him until he announced that he was gay. He laughed and said, “Beaten up until I said I was gay,” and then, “What if Britta doesn’t work here anymore?,” which was what he had been saying since they left Minnesota, and Winnie replied the way she had been replying. “We’ll find her,” she said. “We’ll figure out what happened to Jacob.”

  She put her arm through his, and they walked toward the front entrance of the motel, but when they got to the door, he stopped. “I can’t do this,” he said.

  “Of course you can. We’ll do it together. Okay? You’re just nervous.”

  He leaned against the wall beside the door. “No,” he said. “I really think I should not do this. If Jacob’s dead, there’s nothing more I can do about it. Not really. Right?”

  She nodded.

  “So what would it change for me to know?”

  “Well, you’d know for sure. Sometimes clarity is important.”

  He remembered the force with which Lex had kicked him that night, desperate to know the truth about what Britta had been doing in his room. But had knowing changed anything? Had it made Lex understand the woman he loved any better? Had it made Britta love him more? Had learning where his mother had been all these years made Aaron forgive her any faster?

  “Clarity is important,” he agreed. “But maybe clarity is sometimes ab
out knowing what you don’t need to know. For months I’ve been thinking about Jacob, imagining his life before that day and his life after, and maybe I’ll go through the rest of my life wondering about him, but it’s okay. I saved him. I was running away, saving myself, and I saved him as well. Maybe that’s enough.”

  Winnie put her hand on his shoulder, the shoulder he had used to break down Jacob’s door. He remembered the feeling as it gave way, the certainty he had experienced as he saved Jacob’s life. Was certainty what Walter felt as he drove out of Mortonville that Sunday afternoon with Aaron beside him? He’d never asked him, but he thought he might, someday soon, because there was so much about Walter he didn’t know.

  The motel wall was warm against his back. He turned back toward the parking lot. As they drove past the front office, he slowed the car and glanced inside. A young woman stood behind the front desk. He thought it was Britta, but he couldn’t be sure. It could be any young woman.

  * * *

  Before he dialed, he planned out what he would say. “This is Aaron,” he would begin, “and I’m calling to see how you are and to apologize for not calling sooner.” He wrote the words out and practiced reading them aloud, but it was like the script he had used when he was twenty-two and working for the political campaign, like something you read to a stranger. In the end, he decided just to see what happened, even though spontaneity and the unknown were everything he hated about the telephone, but when he heard Walter’s voice, Walter sounded like a stranger, like someone who required a script.

  “It’s Aaron,” he said.

  On the other end, Walter was running water, washing dishes maybe, and the sound of the water stopped abruptly. “Aaron,” Walter said. “I got your letter. I see that you haven’t lost your flair for metaphor.” Just like that, he sounded like Walter.

  “I miss you,” Aaron said, but that was unfair because it gave the wrong idea about why he was calling, so he said, “That’s not why I’m calling.” Except that made it worse.