by Paula Guran
In school he didn’t mention it.
“Is Derek sick, do you know?” Mrs. Albright asked him, and he said yes.
After school he had haunted house practice, but his mom called Father Don, who said it was okay if he missed it to visit the hospital. The Creature from the Black Lagoon suits weren’t in yet anyway, and they knew what to do, they didn’t have to practice being monsters.
“Do you not want to go?” his mom said in the car.
“No, I do”
“He’s not going to be mad at you, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“I know,” Mark said but he was thinking about the farmer who’d lost his crop. How could you not be angry?
Derek’s room was on a floor just for children; the halls were crowded with parents, and the decorations were the same as downstairs. The shades were down and Derek was asleep. His stepfather and mom were both there. His roommate had just been released, so there was an empty bed next to his. Derek’s mom took them out in the hall to talk to them.
“They say the eye itself isn’t as bad as they thought, but the thing is lodged in there. They’re going to try to get it out but they say there’s a chance the retina might detach.”
“Is there any way to reattach it?” Mark’s mom asked.
“No, if it detaches you lose the eye.”
The surgery was scheduled for tomorrow morning. That night they prayed for him, Mark’s father talking about the mystery of God’s purpose and their acceptance of His will. Mark thought it was wrong, that there must be something they could do to fix things. It felt like giving up to him.
And then after the surgery they still had to wait another day to see if it worked. The doctors said everything went well but with something like this there was no guarantee.
Sunday before church Derek’s mom came over; she was in the same clothes as yesterday and said she hadn’t slept. They weren’t going to be there, so she wanted Mark to say Derek’s name during the Prayers for the People. Everyone thought it was a good idea, and Mark did too. Maybe this would help a little. He’d already planned what he was going to say during the Confession. It would be like an offering. He didn’t think it would change anything, but still, it was something.
His mom laid out his good white shirt and Mark buttoned it till it pinched his neck. His hair was still wet; it combed down dark in the mirror so you wouldn’t know he was blond. He fixed his part and leaned close to his own reflection, looking at his eyes, one and then the other. The black part and the green around it and then the white was like a bullseye, three rings. He put his hand over his right eye and everything off to that side disappeared.
It wasn’t that much different, was it?
But he could always take his hand away, he thought. Derek couldn’t.
His mom drove and he and Peter sat in the back, his dad’s guitar case across their laps. Even the new part of the parking lot was full; Mr. Jenner waved people in with a blaze orange vest and parked them on the grass. Mark waited for his dad to slide his guitar out, then followed him around the car to where Peter and his mom were waiting. He saw the Tates across the lot, all dressed up, and Mrs. Lerner in her white gloves, carrying a lily in purple foil. The bells were playing from the loudspeakers above the front doors, and everyone was headed for them. It wouldn’t be hard, Mark thought. All he had to do was stand up and say Derek’s name.
Inside, it was warm with voices. Since Derek’s stepfather wasn’t there, Charlie Wycoff was up front tuning up, and Mark’s dad needed to go over some changes with him.
“Play well,” his mom said, and gave him a kiss.
She let Mark into the pew first and sat down with Peter on the other side of her, on the aisle. They shared the pew with the Rotas, and Mark wasn’t used to all the space. His slacks slid on the wood, and he pushed himself side to side like a goalie fixing his crease, his feet on the kneeler. “Stop,” his mom said, a hand on his leg. “Now are you all set with what you’re going to say?”
“Yes.”
“Here.” She had her prayer book open to where they said it. “Right after Father Don says this here.”
She marked the place with a white ribbon and gave him the book.
His dad and Charlie Wycoff started playing and people stopped talking. Father Don came out in his robes with his old Bible and raised his arms to welcome everyone, and Mark wondered what Father Don would say to him. It wouldn’t be like his dad and his farmer story, it would be different. If Derek’s eye was all right, then it was a chance for Mark to learn something. In school, Mrs. Albright drew a minus sign on the board, then waited a second till they all saw it and made it into a plus. “Make a positive,” she said, “out of a negative.” Now Mark wondered how that fit with the two farmers. What could you make from a burnt up field?
Not much.
It was just a story, it wasn’t something that actually happened.
They stood to sing and knelt to pray, and he read the whole program, seeing who donated the flowers for the altar this week, whose birthday was coming up. During the announcements before the sermon, Father Don reminded everyone that there would be a sneak preview of the haunted house this Wednesday for church members only, so it would be a good time to beat the lines. Last year they raised over five thousand dollars, so how about a big hand for all those folks who helped put it together?
“That’s us,” Mark’s mom said as they clapped.
And then the sermon, which seemed long, and the offering, and another hymn, until finally Father Don raised his arms and said, “Let us pray,” and lowered them for everyone to kneel down.
Mark had the book turned to the right page. They prayed for the president and they prayed for the bishop and for Father Don. They prayed for all those struggling against injustice and oppression and for the poor and the unfortunate. And then they prayed for the sick and infirm, and Father Don asked God to especially keep in mind those members of the congregation in special need of His healing
It was quiet then, and Mark’s mom touched his arm. He stood up.
The church was a field of heads bent down, and he was taller than all of them, except Father Don, who turned to look at him, as if he expected this.
“Derek Rota,” Mark said, and Father Don nodded.
He wasn’t loud enough, he thought, but it was too late and he knelt dawn again.
“Eileen Covington,” someone else said, and then it was quiet.
“Gertrude Wheeler.”
“Jan Tomczak.”
It went on for eight names. Mark thought it was a lot, all of those people in the hospital, and all their families worried about them. Some of them were probably going to die. He’d barely noticed this part of the service before, and now it seemed terrible to him, proof of something gone wrong.
But none of the other people had shot anyone, had they?
They finished and everyone sat up with a rumble of kneelers. “You did very well,” his mom said, and then his dad stepped to the center and played and they all stood up to watch the altar boys take the cross away.
In the receiving line, Father Don shook his hand in both of his. “Are you ready to be the Creature?” he said, because the suits had come in yesterday.
“Sure.”
He’d have to come by and try it on tomorrow. Mark’s mom said it wasn’t a problem.
Outside, the little kids were running around on the new sod, one girl crying because she’d gotten grass stains on her white dress. They waited for Mark’s dad, who had to pack up his stuff. When he came out he was still talking with Charlie Wycoff.
“He’s pretty good,” Mark’s dad said in the car. “He’s really been practicing a lot.”
“I thought Mark did a nice job too,” his mom said.
“I heard. Good projection.”
In the back seat, Peter made a face, and Mark elbowed him, and Peter went to hit him but stopped short just to make him flinch.
Outside the fields went by, long harvested, the stubble white and be
nt down by the reaper. He could smell someone burning leaves; you weren’t supposed to but people still did.
Nothing had changed, Mark thought. Nothing had happened. He’d just said his name, that was all.
But what if saying his name saved his eye? That was possible, wasn’t it? That’s what faith was. If the two farmers had had faith—was that the meaning of it? He wanted to ask his dad: What were the farmers supposed to do?
It was dumb thinking about it; it was just made-up.
At home they changed clothes and ate lunch and put on the Steeler game. It was dumb; they were beating up on Houston. Mark was thinking about going out and raking the yard when Derek’s stepfather came over.
Mark answered the door. Usually he’d just let him in, but Derek’s stepfather asked if his dad was around.
“I’ll go get him,” Mark said.
His dad was lying on the couch with the football in his lap. He looked surprised and got up and handed off to Peter, and Mark knew not to follow him.
His dad didn’t come right back. He closed the door and went upstairs where his mom was working on the costumes, and then in a while the two of them came down together. Peter looked at Mark like this was about him.
His dad clicked the set off and had everyone sit down.
“Take hands,” he said, and they did.
“Mrs. Rota just called. The doctors said Derek’s eye was just too badly damaged.”
He went on, but Mark had stopped listening, concentrating on the shot, that one stupid moment with the gun. It was Derek who made up the game, it was Derek’s rifle. Derek had shot at him a million times, even shooting one of his mom’s cigarettes out of his mouth on three tries. But none of that mattered. Now, bending his head in prayer again, his dad’s hand strong in his, all that mattered was that one shot. It was his fault, and he was sorry, but that wasn’t enough.
“Amen,” his dad said, and there was the squeeze, like a reminder.
Later he went out and raked the yard by himself until he saw his mom at her sewing room window looking down at him. She’d bought a huge trash bag that looked like a pumpkin, and he stuffed it with leaves and faced it toward the road so you could see it when you came around the curve. Then he went in and watched the late game, or sat there not watching, startled when Peter called out, “Nice! Nice!”
No one told him it wasn’t his fault. After the dishes, his mom took him into the living room and said he hadn’t meant for this to happen. Tucking him in, his dad told him he shouldn’t blame himself, that what was done was done. He was a good guy, everyone knew that. Derek knew that, Derek’s parents knew it. Okay?
“Okay,” Mark said.
His door closed, blocking out the hall light, leaving him alone. He wondered if Derek was awake in the hospital, if he’d gotten a new roommate. He closed both his eyes and tried to see. Blue dots floated, then shifted when he tried to look at them, drifted like galaxies, little soft stars. He opened his eyes and the room grew back. No, he thought, that wasn’t what it was like at all.
It was just one, he still had the other. Peter said that to be mean, but it was true too.
The wind was in the trees. It was only two weeks till Halloween; his mom had already bought candy and hid it where his dad couldn’t get at it, set out bowls of candy corn around the house. Would Derek be able to be a Creature? Mark wanted to see him, to say he was sorry to his face. He couldn’t remember if he did when he shot him. It was funny: he thought he would never forget it, but already, like his part in the service this morning, the Steeler game, the leaves, the two farmers—like the blue stars under his eyelids, it was all fading away.
The next day his mom picked him up after school and drove him over to church. Father Don had the two suits hung over folding chairs in the parish hall. They were greenish-black, the color of snakes, and sagged like empty skins. They were so fake it made Mark want to laugh. Their claws came to sharp points. On the table sat the two heads, the eyes bugged out under angry brows, flipperlike gills behind the jaw.
“You look out of the mouth,” Father Don explained, and fit it over his head.
“Can you see?” his mom asked.
He could, but just a wedge between two even rows of ridiculous fangs. He’d have to remember to tell Derek.
“Okay,” Father Don said, “take that off and let’s try the body.”
It was heavy, and the webbed hands went on separately, like rubber gloves. The feet went over his shoes, kept on with a gumband. It was like wearing armor, he thought, everything covered up.
“How does it feel?” Father Don asked him.
“Good,” Mark said.
They had him move around some; it wasn’t easy.
“Okay,” Father Don said, “get that off and try on the other one. They’re supposed to be the same size but it never hurts to check.”
So then Derek was going to do it. For some reason, it made Mark afraid the suit wouldn’t fit.
It did. Father Don zipped him up, and Mark put the head on and stumped around.
“Growl,” his mother said. “Look like you’re going to drag someone overboard and take them to your secret cave.”
“Graaaahhhh,” Mark tried, claws raised, and his mother screamed like she was the girl in the movie. Father Don stepped between them to protect her, and he knocked him aside with one blow.
“Very convincing,” Father Don said. “Okay, let’s get it off.”
Mark wondered if Dracula would have been better. Probably not. It all seemed cheesy now, dumb.
After that they visited Derek. He was awake, drinking ginger ale through a straw. He smiled when he saw Mark. He had a patch over the eye, otherwise he was fine. He turned so his good one was aimed at him. It was brown; Mark hadn’t noticed it before.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey,” Mark said. “How’s it going?”
“All right. Got to miss school. It would have been great but they don’t have cable, just the regular stations.”
Mark didn’t have anything else to say.
“Randy took the gun apart,” Derek said. “Did you know that?”
“No.”
“He unscrewed all the parts and put them in this plastic bag. He says I can have it back when I’m fifteen.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. That’s all right, he said we might get a Nintendo 64 for my birthday.”
“Cool,” Mark said. It was good to hear Derek talk like he always did. It was only bad when he looked at the patch. “Hey, I’m sorry.”
“That’s okay,” Derek said. “Did you know there’s a club for people with one eye? Yeah, it’s called Singular Vision. A lot of famous people are in it, like Wesley Walker, the receiver for the Jets.”
Mark didn’t mention that he was retired; Derek knew that. He thought he should say he was sorry again. It was like saying his name; he expected it to do something, but it didn’t.
Derek was coming home tomorrow. He could have come home today but they had to fit him with a prosthetic eye.
“It’s not glass,” Derek insisted. “It’s a special kind of plastic they did experiments with on the Space Shuttle. You can drop it fifty feet onto concrete and it won’t chip.”
“Huh,” Mark said.
It was dinner time; a man with a hairnet was rolling a cart down the hall, bringing trays into the rooms. Derek’s had plastic wrap over some kind of chicken. Derek’s mom peeled the plastic off and steam came up.
“I guess we ought to be heading out,” Mark’s mom said, and Derek’s mom walked them out into the hall. “We’ll see you tomorrow, I guess.”
“Oh yeah,” Derek’s mom said. “We’re having a little welcome home party for him.”
“We’ll be there.”
“Thanks for coming,” Derek’s mom said to Mark.
“Sure,” Mark said. Because what else was he supposed to say? You’re welcome?
He thought about all this in bed—which was dumb, he thought. There was nothing he could do about it th
en.
Tuesday after school Mark helped his mom hang a banner from the porch. It was one she rented out. It said WELCOME HOME and then had a patch where you spelled out the name of the person. Mark handed her the scratchy, Velcro-backed letters from the plastic bin and then held the ladder.
They were all waiting on the porch for him, and then when the Rotas’ truck pulled into the drive they all ran down to the yard. Derek was sitting in the passenger seat; he waited until his stepfather came around to open the door for him.
The patch was gone. At first Mark couldn’t see because his mom was hugging him, and then Sarah, her hair pulled back in a black velvet scrunchy. Derek’s mom was crying a little, and trying to laugh at how sappy she was, and then Derek turned to get a hug from Mark’s dad and Mark could see the eye.
It seemed big, maybe because the lid was puffed-up, and Mark tried not to watch for it to move. It couldn’t, he thought, but he couldn’t be sure, and he didn’t want Derek to catch him staring. But it didn’t look right.
No, because inside when they sat down to have cake, they sat Mark right beside him, on that side. It was like they did it on purpose, so he had to see what he’d done, and so close it was impossible not to see the eye was plastic, and stuck looking straight ahead, no matter who Derek was talking to. To talk to Mark he had to twist around in his chair and look at him over his nose.
“Good cake, huh?”
“Great,” Mark said.
“My mom said you tried on the costumes.”
“Yeah.”
“So, are they like amazing?”
“They have teeth just like you said.”
“Cool.”
“Are you boys ready for the big night?” Mark’s dad asked. ”You got your act down?”
“Oh, forget it,” Derek’s mom joked. “I’m not going anywhere near that place. I’ve had my scare for the year, thank you.”