The Night Gwen Stacy Died

by Sarah Bruni

  Two weeks after he was released, he woke in the middle of the night, filled a backpack, and walked to the Greyhound station in his slippers because his shoes were in the hall closet behind a squeaky door that would surely wake his mother. He could afford a ticket to Chicago or Detroit and chose Chicago because the bus was boarding in an hour. He’d lived there since. Once, and years later, he had written his mother a letter of apology; that had been eight years ago, and he never had heard anything back.

  In another room in his apartment, he could hear the girl crying again, softly, but audibly. Novak placed his head down on the table beside his undisturbed glass of water and closed his eyes.

  It hadn’t always been his plan to try to destroy himself by the age of eighteen. There had been so much going on. By his junior year of high school, he had broken every record in the three-hundred-meter hurdles that the boys’ track team had ever set. He had a driver’s license and a Chevy Impala with a radio. Never mind that no one ever came to watch him run. Never mind that he was fatherless and friendless. His life was finally getting started. His coach had said there was even a chance of running for a small private college, if he was so inclined, and he might have been so inclined. There was really no saying the extent of his options then. He had reason to believe he would have some say in his future.

  He had tried out for the track team on a fluke. No one had ever suggested to him that he was the least bit athletic. He had been sneaking cigarettes in the garage since he was fifteen. He had never played a sport in his life. He’d spent a good chunk of his childhood and most of early adolescence indoors with his face in a comic book. Exercise and fresh air were neither enforced nor encouraged by his mother. But these coaches, they couldn’t get enough of him. They threw up their hands, bearing stopwatches, and cheered at the numbers reflected there as Novak crossed the slender white line painted on the track. They gave him a uniform, a number.

  “Good for you, honey,” his mother had said, when he’d shared the news. Then she’d sighed heavily and looked at the calendar beside the phone. He had been looking after his brother in the afternoons. With practice after school, his mother would now have to change around her shifts at the hospital so someone would be home with Seth.

  One-hundred-meter dash, four-hundred-meter dash, three-hundred-meter hurdles, four-by-two-hundred-meter relay. Novak said the names of the races quietly to himself as he drove to school or walked through the halls, or waited to fall asleep at night. A world of hollow batons and narrow specialty shoes had revealed itself to him in all its complexity, so there was nothing else he wanted to do but run. It was only later that the running itself was no longer enough, that he needed an audience for it to mean something.

  As a general rule, Novak didn’t pay much notice to the other boys’ mothers in the stands. For the most part, they seemed an embarrassing lot—cheering excessively, brandishing homemade signs praising the speed of their progeny—it seemed a faintly disgusting display of familial bias that made him a little glad that his own mother worked on Saturdays. Edith sat away from these mothers in the stands. She attended the track meets regularly, always the full four to six hours, always sitting in the top left corner of the stands in the same red raincoat, even on the sunny days. It was halfway into the season when Novak first noticed her, and after weeks of trying to determine whose mother she was, and never once seeing another boy approach her, he decided she was there for him. It was a crazy presumption; she could have been anyone. But before Novak knelt into starting position, he would look for the orange-red streak that was her at the top of the stands. He would focus on her raincoat until he bowed his head at the starting line and took a deep breath.

  He was lacing up his racing spikes in the grass beside the track, getting ready for the three-hundred-meter hurdles, when he saw her up close for the first time. She was leaning over the fence by the concession stand with a hot dog in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Novak smiled at her, and she waved with the hand that held the cigarette. As he stood up from lacing his shoes and made his way toward the track, he was aware of her presence, so he knew it was her voice speaking when he heard someone address him.

  “Think you’ll win again?”

  He turned. She had finished the cigarette, but she was still working on the hot dog. In addition to the raincoat, he now noticed she wore platform sandals that seemed to be made of straw, and sunglasses propped on top of her short hair. She was short even with the sandals, and small-boned, almost miniature. If it weren’t for the tenor of her voice, Novak would have thought she was closer to his own age.

  “Beg your pardon?” he said.

  “You’re pretty fast,” she said. “Where were you last year?”

  Novak smiled. “This is my first year on the team,” he said. “Who are you here watching?” he asked.

  She looked puzzled for a moment. She was looking out onto the track lanes behind him like there was someone else there. “Whoever wins,” she said.

  The announcement for his event was being called over the loudspeaker then, and Novak made his way to the starting line. He already knew that he would win the three-hundred-meter hurdles, and when he approached the last hurdle, as he took a final leap, he felt just as sure that Edith’s eyes were fixed on the finish line, waiting to see the red of his uniform pass.

  Halfway into the season, he had broken three school records already. His coach said he was doing a hell of a job. Novak drove home from the meet with all the windows open. The sweat in his hair dried in the wind. When he saw her, she was standing at a stoplight, waiting to cross. Novak saw her before she saw him. He was still trying to figure out if he should acknowledge her, when she looked up from traffic and into his car.

  “Do you need a lift?” he said.

  “You again?” she said, as if annoyed. But he could see she was glad to have run into him. “I’m Edith,” she said, as she got into the car.

  “Jake Novak,” he said.

  “I know,” she said. “I hear it announced.”

  “You’ll let me know where we’re heading,” Novak said.

  “Sure,” she said.

  But the place she directed him toward seemed much farther than she could have walked in her shoes made of straw. “You live all the way out here?” he asked.

  “Oh no,” she said. “There’s a diner up ahead that I always stop by on my way.”

  Novak nodded.

  The diner was a rest stop a mile out of town, the kind you pull up to for lunch when you’re on the road all day. It stood alone on a frontage road. When he had pulled the car up to its entrance, Edith opened her door. “Well, thanks for the lift,” she said.

  “How do you plan on getting back?” Novak said.

  Edith pointed to her feet. “They still work okay.”

  Novak looked at her ankles, crossed on the floor mat of his car. Then he looked at his own floor mat, as if for direction. “Maybe I’ll join you?” he heard himself say.

  “Sure, honey.” Edith said. “Whatever you like.”

  She bought him a chocolate milk shake, and a coke for herself. She was on a first-name basis with all the waitresses and knew the jukebox as well as a personal collection, giving him a couple of quarters with specific requests for half of the songs she wanted played.

  “Geez,” Novak said, “Come here often?” which was supposed to be a joke, but she seemed to take it as an accusation. She stirred her straw around her coke, stabbing at ice cubes.

  She smiled then, a little meanly. “You hear what Hank’s singing over there about minding your own business?” she said, indicating the jukebox.

  “Yeah,” Novak said.

  She raised her eyebrows and stabbed at her ice again.

  Novak felt stupid for asking if he could join her then. For a moment, he had felt like an adult, someone who could speak plainly to a woman in a raincoat and make her laugh. Now he looked down at the red shorts of his uniform, the straw of his milk shake. Everyone probably thought she was his mother.
Novak was hoping that the check would come soon, and he could drive back home and get in the shower, get out of these red shorts and sweat socks. They barely talked as he finished his milk shake. When she paid the check, she only lifted her chin to let him know it was time to go. So he was surprised when he got back behind the wheel of his car and asked her once again where they were heading, to feel, as if in reply, her small hand on his leg, her tongue inside his mouth.

  “I thought the meets ended at one,” his mother said when he walked in the door at a quarter to four. “I only had a sitter hired till one.”

  “I gave someone a ride home,” he said. “And hung out for a while. I forgot,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

  “I really need you home by one,” his mother said. “Seth can’t be alone with a sitter all day.”

  “Where is he?” he said.

  “Upstairs.”

  Novak headed toward his room to take off his clothes and shower; he opened the door to find Seth inside.

  Novak smiled. “What, are you lost or something? Aren’t you in the wrong room?”

  “No,” Seth said. “I was looking for something.”

  “Looking for what?”

  Seth pulled a comic book from behind his back. “I read this one already.”

  “And what? You want another one?”

  Seth nodded.

  “Too much reading rots the brain,” Novak said.

  Seth shrugged.

  Novak pulled down one of the crates from the top shelf of his closet. He could see Seth’s eyes widen at the stack, so he let him pick another one, then sent him back to his own room with it. He closed the door to undress, but first he sat down on the edge of his bed. He touched his hand to his leg; he touched his hand to his mouth.

  They started meeting at night. After track meets was no good due to his family obligations, and anyway Novak wanted to keep his interaction with Edith to a minimum around the team. Whole Saturday mornings would go by in which he barely said a word to her. But at night, he was allowed to leave with the car, and he would pick up Edith and drive around. Sometimes they drove a long time on middle-of-nowhere dirt roads and tried to find their way back. But first they would roll up all the windows and climb into the back seat of his car. The first time Edith let him do with her whatever he liked. He pushed his hands under her raincoat, her skirt beneath it, and lifted her on top of him. He was surprised by how light she was. She felt as slight as a girl, which made it easier to forget she was older. Her raincoat was like a girl’s. The way she laughed was like a girl. But in the back seat of his car, in the way she pressed her fingernails into his arm, in the way her mouth formed lines around her cigarettes as she lit them, Novak saw the habits of someone older, someone who hadn’t been a girl for a while.

  But Novak didn’t mind this. Edith looked after him. In his car, she kissed his forehead and smoothed his hair from his face. She asked him about his upcoming races, and come Saturday, she was there in the stands, every week, silently taking in his victories.

  One night, they pulled off one of the dirt roads and into a field. They were sitting in the car when she reached for his hand. She looked into his palm, like she was tracking down something misplaced, and traced her finger along the lines there.

  “You’re going to live a really long time,” she said.

  Novak shook his head. “I don’t want to know.”

  But Edith didn’t stop talking. “There’s those people who live forever, longer than anyone would want to,” she said. “But you’re not one of those.” She was looking out the window now, but she didn’t let go of his hand. “I can only tell you a few things anyway.”

  “Where did you learn how to do it?” Novak said.

  “California,” she said. “I took a class.”

  “California?” Novak said. “What were you doing out there?”

  “I used to live there. A long time ago,” she said. “Before I was married.” Now she was concentrating on his hand again. He was watching her nails move around his palm. She said, “You will never stray too far from home. You will love two women in your life, deeply, but you’ll never commit.” She dropped his hand. “That’s probably enough,” she said.

  “You don’t wear a ring,” Novak said.

  “No,” she agreed.

  “Why not?” Novak asked.

  “I stopped wearing it last year,” she said, as if this were a reason.

  The next Saturday, Edith wasn’t at the track meet. Novak waited before every event to find her in the stands, but she never showed. He drove to her house that night and knocked on the door. He had picked her up there before, but she was always outside waiting for him. He had never walked up to the door. She answered in sweatpants and a T-shirt that was twice her size. She answered the door without saying anything.

  “Can I come in?” Novak asked.

  She shook her head. She didn’t apologize, or make an excuse. She looked just over his head into her front yard.

  “You weren’t at the meet today,” he said.

  “I’m moving,” she said to the oak tree in her yard.

  Novak looked behind her, into her house he’d never stepped foot inside. “None of your stuff is packed.”

  Edith shrugged. “I’m not taking any of it.”

  She had been crying, he noticed then. He could see it in her eyes. “Edith?” he said.

  She looked at him. “Listen,” she said. She squeezed his hand for what seemed like a long time. Her bottom lip shook, and he reached for it. Edith shook her head. She said, “Please don’t come here again.” Then she shut the door. Novak stood on her front stoop for another fifteen minutes and waited before driving home. He didn’t know what else to do.

  She wasn’t there the next week either, and Novak started to lose races. At first, it happened from sheer lack of motivation. But once he had started to lose, he felt he was under less obligation to win, and he found himself stalled in starting position at the sound of the gunshot, rising a half-second after everyone else had taken off. His coaches did not agree.

  “Novak!” they yelled. “What the hell’s wrong with you? Get your head out of your ass!”

  He said nothing. Or he promised to concentrate better, to train better.

  He was in the locker room changing into his sweats when he heard the question put to him a different way. Larry Vlasnick was a high jump prodigy, a senior. He was tan with long hair, and he had a towel tied around his waist. When he approached, Novak took a step back.

  “Decided to let Thompson keep some of his records, Novak?”

  He blinked at the sound of the name. Jeremy Thompson was a boy who had died in a car wreck the year before. He had been popular and school had been cancelled for the day to allow students the necessary opportunity to grieve. He also held most of the school records for hurdles that Novak had broken. Novak had never known Jeremy Thompson; he had only known of him.

  “I guess so,” he said. He shut his locker.

  A couple of boys were listening now.

  “I didn’t realize you were tight with him,” Larry Vlasnick said.

  “I wasn’t,” Novak said. “I didn’t run last year.”

  Larry Vlasnick smiled, obviously already knowing this. “But you’re tight with his mom.”

  There was some snickering between the lockers.

  Novak shook his head. “No,” he said. But as soon as he said it, he understood his error. Before Larry Vlasnick had described her raincoat, before someone else said how everyone knew his mom went a little wacko after Jeremy died, Novak understood that he had been sleeping with someone’s mother. He had been sleeping with Jeremy Thompson’s mother, weeks after breaking his three-hundred-meter hurdle record.

  He quit the team Monday, and with it went any chance for a scholarship. His grades were low, and as long as he wasn’t going to continue his education, he saw little reason to continue going to class. Instead, he drove the Impala around during school hours, up and down the highway, until one day he ran out
of gas near Atalissa and hitched a ride back to town.

  “Where’s the Impala?” his mom asked.

  Novak shrugged.

  His mother grabbed his arm and shook him, but Novak brushed past her and went upstairs to lie down. It was then that he decided he would prove Edith’s premonition wrong; it would be an easy enough thing to do to steal a few pills. By then, everything he thought he cared about had been systematically stripped away until there was no reason not to try. If he had known he would fail so terribly, he wouldn’t have put his mother through it. But once he had, he felt ashamed enough to leave town through any exit he could uncover.

  He had fallen asleep with his forehead resting on the kitchen table, and when he woke up, it was with a stiff neck. It was starting to get dark, but it was hard to say what time it was. The girl had left a note on the table where he could read it.

  Mr. Novak,

  You looked like you really needed the sleep, so I didn’t want to wake you. I’ll be back before nine, and then I can make something for dinner if you’re hungry. The “dog” is with me, if you’re wondering. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, and I think I’ve figured some things out which pertain to our conversation earlier. This is really important. Please don’t try to get away!

  Gwen

  P.S. Even if you do free yourself, if you would please just stay there until I get back.

  He wasn’t sure how long it was until nine, but he wasn’t the least bit hungry. He did, however, need to use the bathroom. He made no attempt to free himself. The rope was an annoyance now, but an annoyance he bore patiently. The girl promised she would return, and Novak believed her.