by Chris Rush
My heart sank. “But why? And where are you going?”
“I don’t know, we’re not sure. Somewhere better. Maybe out west.”
“Why not tell Mom and Dad so they can help you?”
“I told you, I don’t want any of their money. Vinnie will take care of me. And God.”
She gave me a hug. Told me to cool it with the mescaline.
* * *
WHEN I GOT UP the next day, Donna was gone. Apparently, the note she’d left for my parents was quite hurtful. Mom was still crying.
She asked, “Do you know where Donna went?”
I shook my head.
In the afternoon, my sister Kathy stopped by to comfort my mother. Kathy chain-smoked but never drank or did drugs. Though she’d once been a wild child, my older sister was now a fastidious homemaker, loyal to her new husband and little girl. She seemed more like an adult than my mother. During a crisis, Kathy could always calm things down.
Once all the tears had dried, my parents went about their business, like everything was normal. But I could see it was an act. Their favorite child had fled. For days, no one really talked, not even my little brothers. Donna had deliberately left the Mustang my parents had given her for graduation. Sitting there in the driveway, it reminded everyone that Donna was gone, that she was done with us. Finally, Dad had it towed. The empty space was somehow worse than the empty car.
I went to Donna’s room and breathed in the minty, gum-scented air.
I didn’t cool it with the mescaline.
* * *
I’M IN THE TV ROOM, bugging out in the dark. It’s really late. Ten feet away, my father walks into the kitchen and turns on every single light. Fuck. He fills the coffeepot, pours juice, gets out pots and pans. The noise is excruciating. It’s four in the morning and he’s making himself a manly breakfast.
I need to go back to my room, but the stairway is past the kitchen.
I walk into blinding light. The kitchen wobbles with weird energy. Dad is turned toward the stove, frying meat in his boxer shorts. He’s shrinking—his body too small, his legs too skinny. Without a suit, without his sunglasses and gold watch, he looks awful. He’s not wearing his brace; I see his ruined leg.
I can hear my mother’s voice—All those accidents.
His grief—my sister’s voice now.
And why is he so tiny? I want my other father back, the man in the tux, with my mother on his arm. I don’t understand him alone in the kitchen in his underwear. I only recognize him when he’s walking away, leaving us kids behind, flying off to Paris or Rome.
He turns to me and smiles. Maybe he’s forgotten who I am, forgotten the war between us, forgotten that his brothers are dead. “What are you doing up, Chris?”
Why is he speaking to me?
I can barely breathe. The room is disintegrating. Dad’s head starts to throb like some undersea protoplasm.
“I’m making pork chops. Do you want one?”
The creases in his neck crack and shatter.
“Boy,” he says. “Did you hear me?”
* * *
SUMMER ENDS in confusion.
Donna’s long gone. Oonagh’s fired for stealing booze. She’ll be sent back to Ireland the day after I leave for my new school. Locked in her bedroom, she won’t come out to say goodbye to me. I stand by her door, telling her I love her, that I won’t forget her. So much misplaced emotion—I’m in tears.
Mother says, “Leave the poor girl alone.”
7.
Star Farms
OFF IN THE WEEDS, the sign reads STAR FARMS ACADEMY.
Predictably, I’m ready to throw up out the car window. Mom cruises up the driveway, oblivious to my distress. “Come home for Thanksgiving if you want, dear, but you might get a better offer. You’re going to meet such interesting people! I envy you. I really do.”
Maybe she does. I’d heard her bragging at a cocktail party about my new boarding school. “It’s an art school, very chic. The staff is top-drawer. That actress who won the Academy Award—she went there.”
But when we pull into the parking lot, the scene is less than glamorous. Sweaty men drag luggage across cracked pavement, followed by grim adolescents and frantic wives in silk scarves and insensible footwear.
I don’t want to get out of the car. I’m nauseous and feel like I’m being punished. I ask a simple question. “Mom, why didn’t you send Michael and Steven away to school?”
She pauses—adjusts her wedding band—then lobs a couple of unconvincing compliments at me. “Your brothers are nothing like you—not nearly as smart or as creative. You’re a special case, Chris. The nice thing is that there’ll be other people like you here. Artistic.”
When I finally vomit in the bushes, Mom asks if I’d like a mint.
The headmaster is in the parking lot, yapping like a used-car salesman. He’s a short man in a seersucker suit, too much grease in his hair.
He zeros in on a few well-dressed mothers, including my own. “Ladies, did you know Star Farms grows over two hundred acres of corn and alfalfa? It’s real country out here, a very healthy life. And though our classes are small, our goals are big as all outdoors. Big, big, big!”
Avoiding spittle, my mother leans back.
“My son Christopher is an artist,” she says—and the headmaster nods. I sense they’re communicating in code.
“Mrs. Rush, right? Well, as I mentioned to you on the phone, our art department is just fantastic. The studios are run by Zelda Ping—one of today’s leading ceramic artists. No boundaries. And the studios are open twenty-four hours a day.”
“That seems excessive. I don’t want my son up all night with a bunch of clay.”
“Of course, Mrs. Rush. We’ll keep an eye out for him.”
Though she was not personally attracted to art or alfalfa, Mom decided I’d be better off at Star Farms than at a religious school. She’d heard nice things about the Farm from parents at the country club. Plus, my mother liked the price (“Expensive, and that means something”), as well as the institution’s stationery (“Cream linen—fifty pound!”).
* * *
PAST THE PARKING LOT, the grounds were picturesque. There were fat trees and lush lawns—a couple of cows standing around for effect. As Mom and I strolled past whitewashed fences and old stone buildings, Star Farms was a dream of wholesomeness. The smell of tea roses and fresh hay.
In my room: the smell of rotting flesh.
Mother scowled. “I know that smell.” She reminded me that her father had been a taxidermist. (“Sometimes he made me glue in the eyes…”) She sniffed. “Possum, or maybe raccoon. Open a window before we both vomit.”
I smiled, imagining us throwing up together.
* * *
AFTER MOM LEFT, I wandered the campus looking for my peers. The brochure had shown a clutch of smartly dressed teens, conversing under a map of Europe. Instead, I found a bunch of losers, passed out in the weeds.
One girl roused and told me to sit. She offered me a bottle of brandy. She was already quite drunk.
“Are you people stupid?” she said to the fallen kids around her. “Prep school isn’t for us, it’s for them.”
A boy turned to her. “Well, actually—”
“Shut up, I’m talking. This is my third school, so I know. Prep school is simply a socially acceptable way to get rid of a problem child.”
The boy mumbled, “I’m not a problem child.”
“Did I not tell you to shut the fuck up?”
* * *
BACK IN my possum-scented room, I considered my fate. Though my cell was tiny and the floor sticky—it was to be all mine, no roommates.
No curfew or dress code either.
Trying to relax, I unpacked things to put on my desk, familiar things: a cloisonné turtle (stolen from Mom), a tin full of brushes and pens, a bottle of India ink Father Bonny had given me—and, of course, my sketchpad. On a scrap of old paisley, I carefully arranged my books—Steppenwolf on top,
Bible on the bottom. I stared at all of these objects, my talismans, and felt better. Despite everything, part of me was excited to be here, to have the chance to draw and paint and find out what was waiting inside my brain.
In the bottom of a bureau, I put my almost-empty jar of mescaline—to remind me of Valentine. He’d just married his girlfriend, Jo, in a church built by my father. Afterward, the two of them had driven off to Tucson to smuggle Mexican weed.
As for my sister: neither my parents nor I had heard from her since she’d taken off with Vinnie. Every night I prayed for her.
I got out an X-Acto blade to carve my initials on the desk. I did it carefully—artfully—so that my initials just looked like part of the scratches on the wood. Maybe, I thought, that could be a project. Writing letters and words that no one could see.
Secrets hidden in broad daylight—to a child, the idea seemed profound.
* * *
HEADMASTER STEVENS SPOKE at our first assembly, held in a converted barn.
“People, you are now part of the Star Farms Experiment, on five hundred acres of God’s own front lawn. Milk a cow! Knit a hat! Read a book! Anything is possible. Maybe this year we’ll finally make preserves.” He had changed out of his seersucker suit and now wore overalls and a bow tie. “I want you kids to watch out for each other. And our two main rules: kindness and respect. Let’s be proud of who we are!”
I felt a small thrill. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad.
Then the boy next to me said: “I wonder how many suicides we’ll have this year.”
* * *
MY TEACHERS WERE a change from the monks of St. John’s.
The man who taught science at Star Farms was blind and managed the room with a kind of bat sonar. In geometry class, we were made to do jumping jacks. To wake the brain, our teacher said. He wore lederhosen and often yodeled.
Cove Callahan taught first-year composition. Suave and gray, he let us know right off he was ex-OSS-CIA. Said he was tight with Marshal Tito.
Twice a week, there was hatha yoga in the gym. Karma Kay, the teacher, was a frail reed, swaying in a black leotard. At the end of each class, she’d light a Lucky, reminding us to fear nothing—not even cigarettes.
Art class was a dream.
Zelda Ping, master potter, was more than serious about clay. Zelda was a firm, silver-haired woman—a matron dipped in mud. The first day, she dumped a hunk of clay in front of each one of us.
She said, “Touch it—touch your mother!”
There were no assignments in Zelda’s class, just music and mayhem, kids making a mess. Over the coming weeks, I made figurines and monster heads, hash pipes and Roman urns. Late one night, alone in the studio, I made what turned out to resemble a surreal volcano. The slimy mouth was open and ready to erupt.
When Zelda found it the next day, under a sheet of plastic, she yelled, “Who is responsible for this luscious vaginal representation? Come on, don’t be shy. It’s a stupendous piece.”
In front of the whole class, I raised my filthy paw.
“Chris, this is good, very good. The feminine aspect—it’s very alive. But go deeper. Get yourself—inside! Like this. Ooooh…” In front of everyone, she put her hand in my vagina.
I was flattered.
* * *
THE ONLY TEACHER who was neither hip nor funny was Mrs. Galdi, who taught history. I immediately liked her, and, after art, hers was my favorite class.
Always formal, like a schoolteacher in a black-and-white movie, she wore tailored dresses the color of bark, her hair always in a tight knot. Serious cheekbones cut into her round face, her eyes narrow and green and unafraid. She had a way of staring at you when you spoke as if she was actually listening. Someone said that Mrs. Galdi had been in a concentration camp. I wanted to ask her about it, but didn’t dare.
Her Hungarian accent was pure Dracula. “Gilgamesh, exhausted by hiz many defeats, sought immortality, sought the jewel-laden tree. He defeated za scorpion men, and in turn, negotiated with za evil vitch.”
I had always loved books, but no one had ever read to me. In Mrs. Galdi’s tremendous voice, Gilgamesh came alive, fighting the forces of darkness.
I read more books at Star Farms than I had in the previous fourteen years of my life. Inspired, I wrote notes in the margins, pompous juvenilia: This is the same dilemma I raised in my essay on The Scarlet Letter!
* * *
A SUNNY DAY in late October. Parents strolling the lawns, bluegrass music drifting from the gymnasium. The Star Farms Art Show was on—with displays of paintings and sculptures by me and my fellow Farmers.
My vagina, fired and glazed, did not win a prize but received an honorable mention. I stood beside the special table, waiting for my parents—late as usual.
I chatted a bit with Terry Bopp, who’d won first prize for a rustic urn the size of a five-year-old. It was wobbly and purple, like a mutant eggplant.
“Very cool,” I said.
“Thanks, Chris. Hey, meet my parents.”
I shook their hands and when they asked to see my piece, I pointed it out. “That’s something,” the mother said. “Is it a mountain?” the father said. “Don’t be stupid, guys,” Terry hissed. “It’s a vaginal representation.”
Maybe it was good my parents never showed.
* * *
OCCASIONALLY, AT STAR FARMS, I could hear some of the kids talking about college and the future, like it was all planned out. Other kids seemed to do nothing but sleep and get stoned. I’d not yet joined either camp. Was I a futurist or a somnambulist?
Eventually, I set my sights on T Bopp—the boy who’d won first place at the Art Fair. I assumed he was a futurist. Shy, I didn’t talk to Terry directly, but rather followed him around—always a few paces behind, like some Hindu bride.
Terry was often with Nicky Bloom. One day they turned and stared at me. “Can we help you?”
They were both older than me—Terry a strapping New England Wasp, and Nicky a homely Jewish kid from New York.
“I just wanted to say hi.”
“You’re the vagina kid, right?” said Nicky. “Do you want to get stoned?”
I joined them for a joint in the woods. Quickly I understood that Nicky was the boss. He had superior taste (Diane Arbus, the Velvet Underground) and very rich parents. Under a storm of black hair and bad skin, he scowled at everything bourgeois. Though impressed by his assessment of Star Farms (“This is where the East Coast trust-trash is dumped”), I was shocked by his vocal unhappiness (“I hate it here—I’m the next suicide”).
Terry played air drums and made rhymes for the word hate.
“Hate! Fate! Mastur-bate!”
The three of us got high quite a lot after that—but I think we liked dope far more than we liked one another. Glad not to be alone, we formed a company of losers: Bopp, Bloom, and Rush. We talked about nothing, a subject I’d not previously realized could be discussed for days. (I missed my conversations with Pauly, missed talking about God and the Devil, the nature of existence.)
“My last school was very strict,” I said. “Star Farms is more Lord of the Flies.”
“Who is he?” asked Terry.
I explained the reference—the book by Golding.
“What’s that, Goldilocks?” Nicky said, playing dumb.
“We’re just fucking with you,” Bopp said, bopping me on the head before passing the joint.
Hanging out with Nicky and Terry, I soon met all the Star Farms zombies. I was offered barbiturates, angel dust, speed, and cocaine, but I declined. I wanted to stay true to my sister, wherever she was, and take only God-approved substances. Donna, like Valentine, believed only in sacrament, only in psychedelics. Everything else was unclean.
Of course, I still got stoned, skipped classes, stayed up all night talking. Dope was the main topic of conversation. Bragging, I said I knew a smuggler in Arizona.
* * *
HISTORY WAS THE ONE CLASS I never skipped. Drifting into Galdi’s room one
morning, I was hoping she’d spend the whole period reading out loud to us. Instead, class began with a question.
“Students, has one of you lost your text?”
At that moment, I was naked, the only student without a book.
“I found one yesterday, after class,” Mrs. Galdi said. “Never would I pry into your affairs. You are young men and women. Your private lives are none of my business. However, the book had no name, only a letter inside. I only read za letter, hoping to discover za owner’s identity.”
She did not look in my direction.
“I was shocked by what I read, and saddened. The letter described Star Farms Academy as a drug emporium. The writer lists all za drugs that can be consumed. Apparently zis school is a joke to zis person. No schoolwork, he says in the letter, only just the ‘getting high’ is cared for.”
A few kids laughed.
“Is this true?” Mrs. Galdi asked. “Do you children live this way? Do you hold such a debauched view of life? That the opportunities of learning should be squandered—this upsets me very much. It is tragic.”
She shook her head and was quiet for a while. “These books we read—are they not important?”
Then: “The letter is unsigned. I would like to return it to its rightful owner. Please come see me after class to retrieve it. Now let us go to page one hundred eleven.”
She began to read, but my shame rang like a bell. I could barely hear her.
Afterward, waiting until the room was empty, I crept up to Mrs. Galdi’s desk. I planned to explain everything—that she’d misunderstood the letter, that I was exaggerating, showing off. I would tell her I took a lot of drugs last year, but now I was barely doing anything.
Maybe she’d have some sympathy. Maybe she’d explain things to me. I felt sure she was a much wiser person than my own mother.