Now Is the Hour

by Tom Spanbauer

  Just in time, Mom hit the brakes and cranked the steering wheel. Directly in front of us, the old gray ’49 Ford was parked just barely off the road. All around my ears was a loud screech. My right hand held hard onto the armrest of the door. Both of Mom’s arms were on the steering wheel. Her hair was flying up. We were spinning. The sun was gone, and it was gray, and outside the windows of the Buick the world was spinning. We spun around for a long time. At least while we were spinning, it was a long time. Now when I look back, I wish the spinning had lasted longer. God spins you around like that only once in a while.

  The Buick stopped in the middle of the road, pointing toward town the way it was supposed to be pointing. The world was back in place, regular, the way it was supposed to be. My hand wouldn’t let go of the armrest. Mom’s hands were shaking so bad, she couldn’t get her purse open. When she finally got it open, she pulled out her rosary. Her fingers went straight to the crucifix, then started down the beads.

  But Mom wasn’t praying. She was cussing a blue streak.

  Her hand, her cut-to-the-quick nails, middle finger, index, and thumb, sliding the beads.

  Goddamn. Son of a bitch. Asshole. Bastard.

  All of them. She was saying all of the cuss words.

  I was waiting for her to say fuck or cunt or cocksucker, but she didn’t say any of those.

  But she did say a word I’d never heard her say before.

  To the man standing out in the harrowed field, under the cottonwoods. The driver of the ’49 Ford. The man whose clothes hung out of the driver’s side window. The naked man in the rain. My first time, my first naked man. The long smooth muscle of him, his hairy chest, his hairline down his belly to the dark brown-black between his legs. His brown and amber glow in the last spot of sunlight, his hands held up out in front of him, cupped. Just as I looked and before I quick looked away, that moment, a big fat drop of rain slow from a cottonwood leaf in the last light fell, the splash in his hands, crooked light.

  Mom’s fingers were on the bead of the first mystery of the rosary.

  Goddamn Indians, Mom said. Drunken bunch of no-good bastards. A menace to society. Especially that son of a bitch George Serano.

  Mom’s left hand quick rolled down her window. She stuck her head out, red lipstick lips, mouth pointed up to sky.

  Goddamn Indian! she screamed. Where’d you learn to drive!

  I’m calling the sheriff! she screamed.

  Injun George, you better get your pants on fast!

  Disgusting goddamn drunk, Mom yelled.

  And then she said it. The word I’d heard so many times before but never heard from her.

  Queer, she said. You goddamn queer. Those Indians and their goddamn queers.

  I heard this story about the Pope. When the Pope is blessing the crowd, the people up front right up close to the Pope are happy they’re up close, but they’re also dodging around, trying to get away from something. What they are trying to get away from is the shadow of the Pope’s hand. If the shadow of the Pope’s hand falls on you, it’s a curse. Sooner or later, no matter what you do, your fear catches up to you.

  The Wednesday morning I won the altar boy contest, and was given the black crystal rosary that was blessed by the Vatican, the shadow fell on me.

  The sign of the cross and the morning prayer, Sister Barbara Ann pointed the black grease pen to the box in the ninth week that was next to my name.

  Class, she said. Take a look. See who loves the Virgin the most.

  The winner! Sister Barbara Ann says. Rigby John Klusener!

  From out of her top drawer, Sister Barbara Ann took out a red velvet box. She held the red velvet box up so the whole class could see, then slow walked down the aisle holding up the red velvet box.

  Blessed by the Vatican, Sister Barbara Ann said.

  Inside the box it was white shiny cloth. The rosary was curled onto itself, a shiny, black, beaded snake, the silver crucifix on top of the folds.

  Hold the rosary up for everyone to see, Sister Barbara Ann said.

  I lifted the rosary up by its silver crucifix. The shadow of the black shiny beads fell onto my face, just between my eyes, down my throat, onto my shirt pocket just above my heart.

  At recess, there was nowhere to go but into the boys’ bathroom. All three of the stalls were full, so there was only the urinal. Allen Price stood next to me. Yellow pee coming out from between his fingers.

  Scardino’s miffed, Allen said. He’s going to kick you in the balls again.

  Fried bologna breath.

  Allen’s crooked eyeglasses. The piece of tape across the nose. That’s when the boys’ bathroom door slammed open. Allen’s eyes were wide open green with gold flecks in the green. Ronald Wilson, Roger Waring, Ricky Divine, Tony Smith, Alvin Gosford, ran out of the boys’ bathroom, rats from a sinking ship.

  The toilet stalls on the one side of them, the sinks and the mirrors on the other side, Scardino and Breck and Muley stretched their legs out wide in one combat line across the room. Price and me were hemmed in. The boys’ door behind Scardino, Breck, and Muley was our only escape.

  Scardino’s shoulders were back, his chin up, the grin on his face, one side of his upper lip up a little. His one tooth there that was sharp. Both his feet square beneath him.

  At home in front of the mirror I’d practiced to stand like that. When I stood like that, I couldn’t stand like that.

  Scardino’s white shirtsleeves were rolled up. His arms big biceps, smooth olive skin down his forearms, something scary how his forearms flowed down to his wrists, his big hands, knuckles big from popping. Usually some kind of ink tattoo on his arm or his wrist that Sister Barbara Ann made him wash off. His dark brown hair as long as he could get away with, wavy, combed back in a duck’s ass. Brown eyes that behind something was always going on. The top button of his white shirt unbuttoned. Just down below his belt, somehow perfect how that part of him down there looked. His corduroy cuffs rolled up, white socks, black shiny wedgies.

  In the mirror, the three of them lined up left to right: Scardino, Breck, Muley. Breck and Muley trying to look like Scardino. Chests out. Thumbs in their pockets. DA’s. Then myself in the mirror. The cold sore I’d woke up with this morning was a big yellow pus scar across my lip. A head taller than anybody in the bathroom, skinny. My long, skinny arms and skinny legs. My neck poking up out of my shirt collar, guck, guck, silly goose. My stupid Adam’s apple. My hair in a crewcut because it saved on haircuts.

  Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, just me trapped in a bathroom trapped in a body that couldn’t even think of making a fist, let alone make a fist, a tall, gawky tantrum with nowhere to go, standing next to a body who was something even worse than I was. A true dork. The worst dork you could possibly get in the world. Allen Fucking Price.

  Scardino stepped one step toward me. Scardino’s lips said queer, said syphilis lip.

  My feet were stepping backward. Somewhere behind me was the wall. Scardino threw all his weight into a John Wayne punch. I moved just enough so the punch wouldn’t hit me in the face. Bam, square in the shoulder. I found the wall behind me, slid my back against the wall to the corner. The smell of mothballs from the little white beehive things you pee on, water running along the back side of the white urinal.

  That was the moment, the end of the rope, cornered, the feeling in my forearms that meant I was helpless. Breathless. Shit out of luck.

  A real man honors his promises no matter what, but I never have been a real man, at least not until recently. As ever, honor, when faced with Scardino and his gang, turned into a shit bird and flew out the window. I just didn’t know what the hell else to do. So I said it.

  I said, Leave me alone, and I’ll tell you a secret.

  I said, Puke’s got a secret, and I’ll tell you if you’ll leave me alone.

  Allen’s crooked glasses. His belt sticking out and his pants all bunched up around the waist.

  Allen whispered, Rigby, no. He whispered, Rig, you promised.


  Secret? Scardino said.

  That’s when Allen did something that surprised us all. In that place and time, when every movement was watched, where every tiny movement had meaning, Allen broke the spell and walked over to me, stepped in front of Scardino, leaned into me in the corner. His stupid crooked glasses. Allen put his hand on my shoulder, where Scardino had hit me.

  Rig, Allen said, remember? No matter what. You promised.

  I slapped Allen’s hand away.

  It’s a book, I said. On the right-hand corner of his desk. Next to the inkwell.

  Scardino’s little smile was all the way across his face. He laid his hand on Allen’s shoulder, leaned in close to me like Allen. Scardino’s thumb and index finger had Allen by the ear. But Allen didn’t seem to care. His eyes stayed looking into my eyes.

  What kind of book is it? Scardino said.

  Allen’s head was slowly headed to the floor ear-first.

  I’ll have to show you, I said.

  A lot of commotion, then pushing back and forth, and I looked, and Allen’s glasses fell on the floor. Then Scardino’s shiny black wedgie stepped on Allen’s glasses. Glass crushed on concrete and tile, that sound. Scardino stopped, lifted up his foot. The glasses, the parts that go over the ears, twisted, crooked, sticking up every which way.

  In the classroom, the sun came in through the big east windows, big, glowing, gold sun into the room, onto the desks, onto Allen’s desk, onto the blue-green hardcover Nancy Drew, The Mystery of the Brass-bound Trunk, in the right-hand corner, next to the inkwell.

  I didn’t touch Allen’s book, just pointed to the book.

  Scardino’s big-knuckled hands picked up Allen’s book, turned the book over, rubbed his thumb down the binding.

  Nancy Drew, Scardino said.

  It’s a girl’s book, Muley said.

  What do we want with a girl’s book? Breck said.

  The secret is inside, I said.

  Scardino looked around the room. Ronald Wilson, Roger Waring, Ricky Divine, Tony Smith, Alvin Gosford, were all crowded in the doorway.

  The black and white clock next to the American flag said 10:55. Five minutes before Sister Barbara Ann rang the ten bells.

  Scardino kicked the boys’ bathroom door open. The bathroom was empty. Allen wasn’t lying on the floor anymore, no broken glass, no broken glasses frames. In the stall nearest the wall, under the locked door, in the mirror, I caught a glimpse of Allen’s shoes poking out of his pants and shorts down around his ankles.

  Scardino took hold of my elbow, grabbed it hard, but somehow because he had touched me, something inside me relaxed.

  Back by the long urinal against the green wall and the white toilet stall on the end, the four of us stood there, Vern Breck, Michael Muley, Joe Scardino, and me, in a huddle, like I was one of them, like I was on their side.

  Scardino’s big knuckles, his big, smooth Italian hands, held Allen’s book.

  Turn to page forty-two, I said.

  Scardino’s fingers flipped through the pages, stopped on page forty-two. The carved-out hole inside the book.

  Scardino and Breck and Muley started hooting and hollering, saying, Shit, look at that. Wow, how’d Puke do that? and Why is there just radio tubes in there? I’d put my rubbers in there, I’d keep pictures of naked women, I’d jerk off in there.

  Sister Barbara Ann rang the ten bells. At the fifth bell, Scardino threw the book over the stalls. The book landed against the back wall, above the stall where Allen was sitting.

  Radio tubes falling, more glass breaking, thin glass against concrete and porcelain. After the tenth ring of the bell, after the classroom doors closed and everyone was gone, I was alone in the bathroom leaning up against the sink, looking into the mirror at myself, and beyond, at the pile of corduroys and underwear bunched around Allen’s ankles under the white stall door. Behind the white stall door, Allen was great big howls and whoops of crying. I walked up to the stall door. My hand was formed into a fist so I could knock. Then I looked at my hand as a fist, and I wondered where the hell that fist was when I needed it.

  When Allen saw my shoes under the door, he quit crying. Just like when you shut the lights off or turn the water off or shut the radio off or you stop the car, Allen stopped crying.

  At home that night, after the dishes were done, I went into my room. The red velvet box was under my pillow. I sat down on my bed, turned on the light on my nightstand. I adjusted the light so the light went right into the red velvet box. With my fingertips I touched each word in gold swirly letters, “The Holy Vatican.”

  Mom was sitting on the green couch under the standup lamp. Her hair was flying up, and her glasses were down on her nose. This time of day, she always looked tired. She was darning a pair of my socks.

  I held the red velvet box out.

  Her eyes, her almond-shaped hazel eyes. The look in her eyes at that moment was the look I’d forgot I’d always been waiting for.

  The velvet box in my mother’s rough, red farm hands.

  The Holy Vatican, my mother said.

  A present for you, I said.

  Mom’s clipped-to-the-quick fingernails.

  Open it, I said.

  Inside the box, the shiny white cloth. The rosary was curled onto itself, a shiny black snake, the silver crucifix on top of the folds.

  The sound from out of her.

  For me? my mother said.

  I won it in the altar boy contest, I said. I had the most points.

  Blessed in the Vatican, I said.

  My mother lifted the rosary up by its silver crucifix. The shadow of the black shiny beads fell onto her face, just between her eyes, down her throat, onto her blouse pocket just above her heart.

  All our prayers will be answered, she said. If only we pray to the Virgin.

  As it turned out, that Wednesday after school, while I was riding home on the bus — everybody else at Saint Joseph’s, even Sis, at the baseball game — at the bottom of the ninth, Saint Anthony’s was three and Saint Joseph’s was zero. The bases were loaded, and Scardino was at bat.

  One strike, two strikes, three strikes, Scardino was O . . . U . . . T.

  Scardino didn’t show up for school Thursday. Or Breck or Muley.

  Or Allen Price.

  All day I had a day I could breathe easy. Then after school, walking to the Pocatello High School, one block from Saint Joseph’s School, at the intersection, there was Scardino in a red T-shirt and Levi’s and Breck and Muley in Levi’s and T-shirts, standing the way they’d stood in the bathroom, spread-legged, one combat line across the sidewalk. Between me and Pocatello High School. Between me and my bus ride home.

  I didn’t stop to think. I was the tallest in the class with the longest legs, and I was the best runner, and I turned around and started running. My red binder in my right hand, I was pumping my red binder forward and back, forward and back, grabbing at the air. Pulling the air from in front of me to behind me. I was going in the opposite direction from where I should have been going, but I tried not to think about that. I concentrated on getting my ass out of that crack even if I had to run the whole twelve miles all the way home the wrong way.

  The Memorial Building is a red brick building with columns at the entrance and big trees all around it just over the Portneuf River across the Hayes Street bridge. I was midbridge when I decided I was going to run to the Memorial Building.

  All around me there were tulips. Planted in the borders along the porch with the columns and along the wide cement sidewalk into the entrance, red tulips, yellow tulips, pink tulips.

  How can it be so beautiful while you are so afraid?

  Scardino and Breck and Muley were right behind me, yelling at me. The doors to the Memorial Building were always locked, so I didn’t think of trying to get in, so I kept running by. I jumped a row of red tulips, yellow tulips, pink tulips, like an antelope. Then jumped the other row of tulips on the other side of the sidewalk. I was beating it around the Memorial Bu
ilding down the slopes of the other side. Soon as I made it around the corner, I ran smack into Breck and Muley.

  We played dodge and fake for a while, and just when I saw an opening between them I could run through, something big hit me from behind. It was Scardino, and I went flying. There was quite a slope there, and Scardino hit me, and I was midair, arms and legs waving around. Seemed like I was going to take off flying altogether. I landed, and there was a buzzing around me, and things weren’t in focus. Scardino and Breck and Muley were on top of me. Scardino’s red T-shirt, his belly, his chest, over my mouth and nose and eyes, and there was no air. Then a fist, a shoe, something hard and square hit me in the stomach.

  Right before I passed out, I almost remember wondering who would find my dead body on the green lawn with all the blooming tulips.

  I finally opened my eyes, I was kneeling on the grass. I was looking at the grass and wondering if I was on a golf course. Big piles of puke on the green lawn, and I was barfing loud, and I wondered if the loud noise I was hearing was me. I don’t know how long I lay on the green grass, even after I could feel the wind on my ass so I knew I had lost my pants. But I wasn’t lying, I was kneeling, with my chest against my knees, my ear to the ground, my ear on the blades of green grass, sunlight and shadows on the green. My arms were out there somewhere, and my hands at the end of my arms.

  I saw the shadow of it first. It’s funny now that I say it. I mean, I can’t help but see how ridiculous I looked.

  There was a tulip stuck in my ass. A yellow tulip.

  All the rest is just the end of the story. Nobody saw me, I don’t think. My pants and my jockey shorts and my shoes and socks and my red binder were lying around me on the real green grass. When I was pulling my socks on, there was the hole in my sock that Mom had already darned. I phoned Mom from the Wyz Way Market. I don’t remember walking to the Wyz Way Market. I just said: Mom, I missed the bus, come pick me up at the Wyz Way Market, and hung up.