Whitechurch

by Chris Lynch

  “He’s gotta be asleep now anyway.”

  “For you he’ll get up.”

  Lilly extends a hand, and I pull her up by it. We begin walking westward, toward Lilly’s house up on the other lip of the bowl.

  “So you can offer me a drink when we get to your house, right?” I say.

  She doesn’t answer, doesn’t need to. Lilly’s parents are always home. Her two adult sisters are always home. And ever since she began dating Pauly, it appears that at least one of them is awake standing watch at all hours like it’s an army installation. So this is a joke.

  Once, it was a funny joke.

  “So where do you go?” she says. “You go to the cemetery?”

  “I go everyplace,” I say. “I just go, and then I go some more.”

  We make our way along the quiet brittle street, out of the center of town, and begin the first few degrees of the climb out of Whitechurch. I slip again into that calm feeling, the feeling of nothing going on, that proved to be so wrong when Lilly spooked the life out of me. Anyway, having the feeling is more important than being right about it, and it’s a groove and I’m liking it, liking it better in Lilly’s presence too as she is the only person who can be there and not shatter solitude at the same time.

  “So, you go for redheads,” I say.

  “No,” she says.

  “So, why?” I ask.

  “I don’t know.”

  We pass the modest square parish house where the Reverend lives and where Lilly babysits. No mistaking the quiet of that. It is real quiet, the kind of quiet that embarrasses you. We continue on, past First Unitarian, into the valley of the shadow of the tower of the White Church.

  For nothing, and from nowhere, it comes out.

  “Pauly?” I say into the cold air.

  “Ah, Oakley,” she says sadly. She gets a wrinkled-up look, like she’s trying hard to come up with a better answer than the truth. She shakes her head.

  I suppose I’m not really surprised. But I can’t suppress an involuntary heavy sigh. “Ah, Pauly.”

  Lilly veers.

  “What are you doing?” I ask from the sidewalk as she comes up to the large natural oak door of the church. “Suddenly you got an urge to pray?”

  Lilly pulls keys out of her pocket. You can hear the bang of the tumblers of the biggest lock in town clear to the other end of the town. Lilly has the run of the place. She does this and that, polishing and sweeping and the like, and so the church is at her disposal. I find something cool and powerful and sexy about this, and love to visit her there, especially when the church is empty and she is sweeping and the hard bristle broom makes a loud, echo-y scratching sound that could just as easily be a steam locomotive if you close your eyes.

  “Suddenly I do got an urge to pray,” Lilly says. “That okay with you?” She evanesces.

  “Can’t mess with a person’s religion, I guess,” I say, following into the church.

  I close the door behind me to find myself in near-total darkness. I listen, know Lilly is in there, but the feathery sound she makes could just as easily be a mouse crossing the floor.

  “You are a daring young man, Oakley-doakley,” she calls out from the creepy dark.

  “Am I?”

  “Yes you are. He gets jealous enough when you’re just dating me, but now you’re in the church, in the middle of the night … that’s like, his big fantasy. He’s gonna see red. And he’s gonna kick your ass.”

  This is an old joke, Pauly being jealous of me and Lilly. The oldest joke we have. There was a time when it was true followed by a time when it wasn’t, then a time when it was. We have all said it and denied it so many times, the thing has grown all serpentine and swirled in on itself to where nobody even knows anymore. So it works best as a joke.

  “Where are you?” I ask.

  She doesn’t say anything.

  “You could turn on a light. I don’t know this place like you do. You want me to hurt myself?”

  One small light snaps to life halfway up to the altar. “No,” Lilly says easily, “I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”

  It’s not even a light that is actually inside the main body of the church. It is spilling through the glass door of the small private worship room used for baptisms, small funerals, and when it’s too cold to heat the cavernous church for a congregation of twelve on a February morning. But the pinkish light spilling out of it is enough, reaching everywhere and attaching itself to the white granite of the walls so that they all have a low incandescence of their own. Quiet, everywhere light. The visual equivalent of a hum.

  Lilly crosses the width of the church, turns at the center aisle and walks toward the back, toward frozen me who can’t help but just have a long look at the grace of her.

  Who is she? I’ve known her forever, but not really, really.

  Who is she? I’ve known all this, you know, for a long time.

  Who is she? I don’t know a damn thing.

  When she finally finally reaches me, I’m shaking, with fear and other fine things.

  “Remember when you were in here the other day, and I told you you could really let loose in here when the meter wasn’t running?”

  I nod. Good job, Oak.

  “Remember then you couldn’t think of anything?”

  I nod. True, I couldn’t think of a thing then.

  “Well I did.”

  I have kissed Lilly before.

  But not this. No.

  Lilly’s top lip is against my top lip, and her bottom lip is against my bottom lip, and our mouths are open possibly an inch. Our hands are hanging at our sides until I take hers and squeeze them as hard as I can. Breath, we are exchanging, rather than tongues or motion. I close my eyes even though that is the absolute last thing I want to do. She begins to move her head from side to side as if she’s saying no but no is not what she’s saying. She’s creating small perfect frictions with her two separated lips rubbing so lightly my two separated lips.

  “I use my imagination quite a bit,” she says thoughtfully, into me.

  There is a pause, as if I should be adding my thoughts on the subject. I don’t believe I can.

  “Anyway,” Lilly says, “I think you almost have to, growing up in a place like this. You need to use your imagination fully. And I’ve gotten pretty good at it.”

  “I worry,” I say, and the words take me by surprise.

  Lilly kisses me. “Don’t.”

  “About imagination. It makes trouble.”

  I kiss Lilly.

  “You don’t believe that, Oakley.”

  “Well, as much as I believe anything …”

  “Really? Well believe this. As hard as I push, and wherever my mind goes, you know what I cannot imagine, Oakley?”

  “I can’t imagine, Lil.”

  “I can’t imagine you ever not being my friend, no matter what happens.”

  I try to think of one more evasive, glib thing to say. One more is all I’ll need.

  I haven’t got one more.

  Lilly takes off her coat, then, seeing me somewhat paralyzed, helps me off with mine. “Okay, Lilly” is what I say, maybe to what she’s doing, maybe to the words, certainly to the truth of the whole situation. As she sort of tugs down the jacket, pulling it from the sleeves and letting it drop to the floor behind me, I lean into her, burrowing into her neck.

  “Should we be doing this here, Lilly? Should we be doing it anywhere?”

  “You know what I think, Oak? I think it is very very much time that what you should do should be decided by you. And I’m going to do likewise.”

  Pauly now tries to climb into my mind. Still one creepy unit, the three of us. I should be guilty here. I want to be guilty. It will make me feel better, to be guilty.

  I grab Lilly’s face very firmly in my hands, turn it toward me. She kisses me on the corner of my worried, downturned mouth. I reach up and touch her hair, looking at it, as if I’ve never felt hair before, because hers looks and feels totally foreign
now.

  “I should go, maybe,” I say. “I should walk you home. How many guys is it gonna take to get you walked home tonight anyway?”

  “I’ve spent a lot of hours in here, Oak, and I’ve thought about this as much as anyone who ever sat in these pews.”

  “I’ve sat in these pews. I don’t know what was I thinking about.”

  “And I’ve seen the church in its underwear if you know what I mean. I have respect, y’know, and I appreciate what it means to worship, if you know how, and I think that most people don’t really know how.”

  “I don’t think I ever knew how, Lil.”

  “And I know what ‘sacred’ means.”

  “And I really wish I did. Pauly, he was always trying, at least, but I never knew what I was doing….”

  We sit down on the red carpeted floor, hip-to-hip and facing opposite directions. A small tilt of the head puts us once more face-in-face.

  “Pauly hasn’t got a clue what ‘sacred’ means,” Lilly says. “But you do.”

  “I do?” I ask, closing one eye on her.

  A quick small breath comes out of her.

  “You look like Pauly right now,” she says.

  “I was just about to tell you the same thing.”

  I do the leaning, then press my mouth against hers just as I finish speaking. I adore this feeling, more than anything I have ever felt, the sensation of talking right up against Lilly’s mouth, of talking into Lilly. I don’t need anything else. This is it for me, and all other parts of this may be great, but I know they will not be greater than this. They will not need to be.

  Muck

  GOTTA GET UP,

  PAULY says right into my ear.

  Right now,

  gotta get up,

  gotta show ya something.

  Damn, Pauly, I say,

  rolling away from him,

  propping myself up

  and staring,

  like a thing cornered,

  eyes wide but blurred.

  Pauly’s eyes no better.

  Hasn’t been to bed, and

  wet red rims

  halo dilated pupils.

  The rank of all the muck that’s inside him, the peculiar chemical hormonal stew,

  that always comes with him

  when things are happening,

  what he likes to call

  desperation perspiration

  fills my apartment,

  overpowers even the coffee scent.

  You don’t have to show me nothing right now,

  Pauly.

  Pauly snatches the bed covers and tears them

  away.

  Yes I do,

  right now.

  It might not be there later.

  Maybe, I say tentatively,

  pulling my blankets back up over me,

  you don’t have to show me at all.

  Maybe you could just tell me about it,

  or maybe even not.

  Pauly goes all calm.

  I could just dress you myself,

  but that would be kind of undignified

  for both of us,

  don’t you think?

  Pass me my pants over there.

  Pauly talks, sitting on the end of the bed, while

  I dress.

  Tell me about last night, he says.

  You look like you had a good

  last night.

  I snap up, zip up, pull on my boots without

  socks.

  What does a look like that look like?

  Tell me all, says Paul.

  Come on, Oak.

  Pauly is no longer

  grim and cryptic.

  C’mon, c’mon,

  guys tell.

  Friends tell.

  Decent folks don’t.

  Decent folks don’t, he repeats,

  and is big-time amused

  by the sound.

  As I reach the bottom

  of the stairs,

  Pauly comes up behind me,

  grabs me in a hug

  that carries us

  right out onto the frosted sidewalk.

  Pauly’s chin is resting on my shoulder,

  as if we were one

  two-headed beast.

  Thank you. He says.

  But why don’t you tell me anyway.

  I tell you everything.

  If I even have a thought,

  I tell you about it.

  Whether I want you to or not.

  Exactly.

  No secrets between us,

  ever.

  I’m taking you to see my surprise right now, am I not?

  Which I have a strong feeling I don’t want to

  see.

  I pull away, banging Paul hard in the chin with

  my shoulder.

  Paul lays a hand on his chin.

  Which way are we going,

  and how the hell did you get in my house

  anyway?

  We’re going that way,

  toward the train station,

  and your place is the easiest building

  in all of Whitechurch

  to get into.

  Sometimes I let myself in

  when you’re sleeping,

  I come in,

  don’t even wake you up,

  stare at you a bit,

  then I go out again.

  Just to do it.

  Lie.

  No lie.

  We walk down Main,

  into the crux of the town,

  cut up Station Street to the north.

  Up the hills again,

  the famed seven hills of Whitechurch.

  Up one of them anyway.

  Until we have reached

  over the north lip of the bowl

  and down again,

  where the land flattens

  and the Victorian station rises

  with its rusted iron lamps

  still lit,

  its bleached wooden platform

  empty and exposed.

  We stand there, freezing.

  I’m freezing anyway,

  Pauly shows no sign.

  As we look all around

  the dead-Sunday-morning depot,

  looking like we’ve seen it look

  a billion other times.

  This isn’t what you wanted to show me, Paul.

  Paul shakes his head,

  pulls me by the jacket.

  We walk out onto the platform,

  jump down onto the tracks.

  We cross the tracks,

  enter the immediate, dense woods

  of maple and fir,

  shocks of white birch and

  blurs of blue spruce.

  We travel on

  for another hundred yards or so

  until Pauly stops dead,

  and starts growling

  like a dog.

  What? I say, as this is strange stuff

  even for Paul,

  and rush up beside him to look.

  I look while Pauly growls.

  Ah … no, Paul …

  The words barely get airborne

  as the life

  drains from my belly.

  The Stranger is lying,

  in a spot

  where campfires often burn.

  There is a broad circle of round white stones ringing him entirely,

  and another

  leaning against his cheek.

  There is one visible injury on him

  but one

  seems to be plenty.

  It is impossible to see

  a left eye,

  in the socket

  pressed against the rock.

  I drop to a seat on a large stone,

  grabbing two handfuls

  of my own hair

  for, I don’t know,

  support,

  grounding.

  Lilly didn’t come home last night,

  Paul says,

  flatly infor
mational.

  I hung by her house till four thirty this morning.

  I cannot let go of the tight grip of the hair, or the head and hands

  will both shake

  insanely.

  You knew, Paul.

  Never once asked her

  not to.

  I was just testing, he says, again, sounding almost rational,

  as if he’s surprised

  there is any confusion

  over this.

  Maybe you should stop

  testing

  people

  Pauly.

  Maybe it’s fucking time

  you stopped.

  He shakes his head.

  That’s how you find things out.

  The only way to really know

  anything.

  He gestures,

  with an upturned open hand,

  at the Red-Headed Stranger.

  A guy doesn’t do

  that kind of a thing.

  This guy here,

  he’s got no damn respect.

  You just don’t come along …

  he didn’t even walk her home,

  which I think is what made me maddest.

  Four thirty, I gave up,

  went out looking,

  found him

  just out buzzin’ around town,

  like he ain’t even satisfied yet

  and he’s lookin’ for more.

  With a snap of his head, Pauly’s now looking at

  his

  lifelong friend

  who is me.

  He found it, though,

  didn’t he, boy?

  He was lookin’ for more,

  and he sure got that,

  didn’t he,

  Oakley-doakley?

  My eyes are closing,

  on their own,

  and I can feel the roots of my hairs

  letting go of the scalp.

  I wonder if Lilly will even ever know. Sure she

  will,

  sometime,

  but probably not today or this week because

  she is gone,

  was gone,

  before Pauly even came to get me,

  I imagine.

  Already packed up and hitched, most likely. South to Boston

  would be the thinking,

  what with the college visit and her having made

  up her mind and

  not likely to change just like that.

  That would be the thinking,

  but I’m thinking

  probably otherwise.

  I’m thinking she points west.

  I’m thinking she never really did mean

  to go to Boston,

  but meant to do it

  more or less exactly

  the way she did it,

  leaving no tracks,