Bells Above Greens

by David Xavier

  “Hi,” I said with an uncomfortable grin. It was the only word that came to mind.

  “Oh. It’s you.”

  “It’s me.”

  “I thought I might run into you some day.”

  I nodded. “How – how have you been doing?”

  “I’m fine, Sam.” She said my name with ease. Like she had said it many times before.

  “Sorry about everything.”

  “Don’t be. Are you hurt?”

  “No, I mean, sorry about being rude to you earlier. At Fort Wayne. The bus ride?”

  “I remember. It’s okay.”

  “Well, I hope I didn’t leave a bad impression on you.”

  “You didn’t. I’ve thought about you a lot since then. You were hurting.”

  “You’ve thought about me?”

  “How could I not? You’re Peter’s brother.”

  “He would be furious with me if I didn’t apologize,” I said. “I’ve thought about you too. It’s been hanging over me all summer. The way I acted. I was angry about everything and I guess you were there to bear the brunt of it all.”

  She didn’t say anything. I thought I saw her lip quiver. Her eyes were wet. The team grunted from the field behind her.

  I cleared my throat. “Anyway, I just wanted to set it all straight again. You probably have an article to write about here.” I motioned to the practice field.

  “I’m done. I have my quotes from the coach.” She handed me my books. “I see you have a journalism book.”

  “Yeah, well the geology class had their lights off.”

  She smiled. “Will you walk me to my dorm?”

  We went down the wet sidewalks to St Mary’s College. I was getting wet in the steady drizzle, my hands in my pockets, and when I looked at her all I could see was a slender nose under her hood. The campus was quiet, almost abandoned of the students who would normally eat lunch in the sunny grass or sit on the steps outside the buildings.

  “I almost didn’t recognize you without your uniform.”

  “I know. I blend in just as much with other students as I did with the other soldiers.”

  She looked at me with a tender smile, a mask of happiness I thought. She had a beautiful sadness. “You probably don’t recognize me without my war paint on.”

  I cringed. “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay.”

  We walked a little.

  “I saw you in church yesterday.”

  She was not surprised. “I saw you too.”

  “I was going to speak to you then but I thought it would be easier out here. More welcoming for conversation, I guess.”

  “Everyone is welcome in church.”

  “You know what I mean. Just less intrusive.”

  “I was glad to see you in church. I thought maybe you would stop going.”

  We turned a corner and St Mary’s Lake was in front of us. I shrugged. “I can’t say that I didn’t think about it. Catholic guilt makes me go.”

  “What a wonderful tool of the church.”

  “You don’t have any trouble with going, do you?” I asked.

  “Of course I do. Or I did, anyway. But when your faith is broken the only cure is more of it.”

  “I guess.”

  We stopped in front of the lake and a cool breeze whipped my jacket lapel.

  “I saw you at the funeral,” I said. “Seems like that was such a long time ago now.”

  “They gave you the flag,” she said, fighting the waves in her voice. “I used to go see him after that. I want to still. But it makes you so sad to see the stone sitting there in the dirt.”

  “I used to go to ask him questions. I always ended up in tears because I felt I would not live up to his expectations.”

  “It’s easier for me to talk to him in a prayerful way. The same way I talk to God. Is that strange?”

  I shook my head. “He mentioned you once.”

  She looked at me, fully in the face this time, her cheeks red and angular under her hood, her chin disappearing slowly into the shadow. She had removed her glasses and her brown eyes gained a new sadness about them. A window to a soul in repair.

  “Just a few days before we were to come home,” I said. “He was excited to introduce us. I guess I messed all that up.”

  “I wish he had told me about you. You look like him, you know? Not a striking resemblance, but it’s there underneath.”

  “I know.”

  “He would be happy that we met.”

  We let a moment of silence pass as the lake shivered.

  “Do you know how it happened?” I asked.

  She put her head down and all I could see was her nose again. She breathed a whisper. “No. I’m afraid to find out. I’ve dreamed that it was doing something brave. Like saving another soldier. Like saving his brother.”

  I watched the water.

  “Were you wounded?” she asked.

  I did not want to spoil her vision of Peter’s bravery by telling her that he was killed in a routine patrol after the war had already been called to an end. I didn’t want to tell her but I did not want to lie to her. To Peter. “No,” I said.

  “Don’t tell me. But say he was brave.”

  “He was very brave,” I said. I was still watching the water then, and I could actually see myself there as if I was spying from a dozen yards away. “I wanted to be just like him. I’ve always wanted to be like him. Maybe the worst injury for a soldier to have is to not even be wounded when you have a brother who was killed.”

  “Don’t do that to yourself, Sam.” She spoke very quietly. “Don’t put yourself in pain.”

  We walked on, an unspoken agreement made between us to leave that spot of conversation, that memory, and move away.

  “How did you meet him?”

  She smiled finally and that dimple showed up again. “I was writing sports articles for the school paper. I approached him outside the stadium after the Michigan game that year. He was bruised and sweaty, wearing a torn tshirt, and his hair was sticking up where the holes were in his helmet.”

  “And you fell in love at first sight,” I said, trying to lighten the mood. She did not need any help to feel better. Her memory of the moment brightened her face.

  “He was so nice to me. Some of the players are so tired after a game they can hardly stand. Peter spent nearly an hour and a half talking to me that day.”

  “That’s longer than the actual game. Must have been a great article.”

  “We spoke for only five minutes about the game. He asked me to come to the next game and cheer for him. He must have known that I attended all the games anyway for the paper, but he still invited me. I thought it was the sweetest thing. I still have the article I wrote. I quoted him in it and I cut it out and kept it.”

  “I’d like to read it some time.”

  “He was a great player. I attended all three of his games before he shipped out. He was leading the team in tackles at the time. Everyone thought he was going to be an All-American. He was always the first out of the locker room. I was so excited to see him. He would run right past the news stations and Tribune reporters and come right up to me. I was just a journalism student writing for the school paper.”

  “And now you write sports for the South Bend Tribune?”

  She nodded. “Just Notre Dame sports. Readers are mad about Notre Dame sports. It wouldn’t have mattered to Peter if I was a reporter for a big paper or a small one. When he came out of the locker room he always looked around for me.”

  “He was nice like that. He made everyone feel good about themselves,” I said. “I always tried to be manly like him, you know? I wanted to be as strong as he was but he was always nice to people too. Gentle, I guess is the word, and he wasn’t afraid to show it.”

  She gave a shy laugh. “He was so rough-looking after that first game. Like he won the entire game by himself. I didn’t expect how outgoing he was.” She nodded. “Yes. Gentle is the word.”

  “You knew him
for a month before he shipped out?”

  “Yes. It sounds funny now, but it could have been a day and that was all we needed. He wrote the nicest letters to me. You learn a lot about a person through letters.”

  “That’s exactly what he told me.”

  “Did he? It’s true. You see who a person truly is by the words they write. There is no shyness in a letter. Every word was exactly how he thought it inside. I used to check my mailbox five times a day for his letters. They would always come all at once. A couple week’s worth of his letters. I would respond to ten of his with one of mine. I wish I wrote more to him.”

  “It was enough. I’ve never seen him so excited. He told me he didn’t know if you would let it amount to more. Your relationship. He told me that.”

  “Really?” She looked at me with big eyes, still in love with Peter.

  “Yes.”

  She walked up the steps to her dormitory. I stayed at the bottom. She turned to face me, her expression suddenly twisted in sadness, her hands wringing together.

  “Why didn’t he tell me about you?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe he didn’t want to be embarrassed if you didn’t wait for him.”

  She looked over my head to the wet greens behind me, the pale trees shedding their summer wear. She looked back at me and her eyes were wet again. Her hair swirled about her face and she fixed it behind her ears with gentle fingertips.

  “How did you get your bruise?” she asked.

  I put my fingers under my eye. “Just games with the boys. Boys will be boys, right?”

  She came down the steps and gave me a hug, her chin on my shoulder, pulling me in with a motherly hand on the back of my head. “Come and see me again, Sam.”

  “I will.”

  I felt good then. A weight had lifted and I was trudging forward in the world.

  At the door, she turned one last time. “Sam?”

  I twisted my shoulder back around. “Yeah?”

  “I would hardly call Pat Carragher a ‘boy.’”

  Chapter Eight

  Winter came early the following weeks. The snow piled high and stayed there for days, melting slowly and forming an icy crust that held your weight for a moment before breaking through.

  Roads became slick with ice in the evenings, the snow piled black at the curbs. Cars slid slowly through stop signs, and children shoveled driveways for a dollar. Students walked to class with their chins tucked in scarves, flipped coat collars at their red cheeks, clouds billowing from their mouths, fumbling their books through mittens.

  When the snow melted, the bleak cold was still there, crawling in your nostrils, numbing your ears. From the rooftops of South Bend, Emery and I worked between classes. Wind-whipped trees shook the air with thin, stretching arms and bare fingers. Hammer strokes took on an echoing clatter sound, and the bells of Notre Dame gained in volume as the rest of the world muted all around.

  “I’m seeing that girl,” Emery said in a crouch, shingles spread out before him.

  I straightened my back and worked my shoulders. “Who?”

  “That cheerleader. The brunette. Her name is Claire.”

  “No kidding. How did that happen?”

  “I waited outside her classroom until she came out.” He looked at me. “That makes me sound like a stalker, doesn’t it?”

  I took off my gloves to breathe into my cupped hands. I rubbed them together.

  “Well, I don’t care if it does,” Emery said, his frozen breath swirling around his head. “Between you, me, and the hammers here, I was stalking her. That’s the only way to meet a girl out here. But if she asks you about it, it was mere coincidence.”

  “Of course.”

  “She likes to ice skate. I’m hoping the lakes take their time in freezing over because I can’t skate worth an Indian nickel.”

  “All those theater classes and you can’t skate?” I crouched against a wind gust. “I thought you’d be pirouetting over the ice like an angel.”

  “You’re the one hanging around puffs,” he mumbled.

  “What do you mean?”

  “What’s that kid’s name? Follows us around all the time taking pictures. Little guy.”

  “Myles?”

  “Yeah, that’s him. Clings to you like a child. I imagine he’s taken an interest in you.”

  “I don’t know him too well.”

  “He likes to think he knows you. Sits against the wall all night watching us play pool. He’s probably stalking you.”

  “He’s harmless.”

  He nailed down a series of shingles then dropped his hammer and whipped his hands back and forth to get the feeling back. “We’re going to the game on Saturday. You can meet her.”

  “Who?”

  “Claire. You have someone you can bring?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, you do or you don’t. What’s her name?”

  I looked around and said, “Liv.”

  He looked at me and held his hands out after a moment. “Well, what’s she like?”

  “I don’t know. She’s nice.”

  “Oh Lord.” He looked heavenward and crossed himself. “Am I a dentist today?”

  “What?”

  “Pulling teeth. Nevermind.”

  “She smells good,” I said finally.

  “That’s better than not, I guess. We’ll save you some seats. You want to bring her?”

  “I don’t think she would come with me if I asked.”

  “Why not?”

  “I left her alone in the stands at the last game we went to.”

  Emery rolled against the rooftop, his laughter sounding as a frozen cackle of hammer strokes. The ladder against the gutter came alive, bouncing a hollow aluminum sound. Mr Callahan’s head appeared.

  “Cold enough for you boys?” His fists appeared beside him, steaming. He steadied himself. “Brought some hot cocoa. Just like a mama would.”

  “Thank you, Mr Callahan,” I said. I scooted down the rooftop to the ladder and took the broken handled mugs from him. He made an immediate boxer’s feint to my chin when my hands were full.

  “Got the teeth rattling there.”

  He came aboard, a barrel-chested man with legs forever bent in balance, his back ruined in a roofer’s curve, a paper silhouette against the white sky, his sunwrecked eyes searching about.

  “Season’s coming to an end,” he said. “We’ll have a few houses through the winter.”

  “How’d we do for the summer?” Emery asked.

  “Good enough.”

  I walked on my knees and gave Emery one of the mugs. He curled his fingers around it and stared into it, the steam making frozen spikes of his eyelashes.

  “No marshmallows?”

  Mr Callahan looked about at the bare spots on the roof. “Marshmallows are for the ladies. I gave you extra.” The old man bounced his weight twice on a new patch of shingles. “Nails running low?”

  “Nails?” Emery made a wondering face of joked confusion that quickly turned to a smile. His father circled his fist clockwise at his hip. He stopped and studied the sky, the shades of white and gray clouds folding over themselves.

  “Won’t snow for a bit.”

  Emery looked up and around. “How can you tell?”

  “Radio told me so.”

  Emery nodded. “Give Sam some old man advice, dad.”

  “Advice for what?”

  “How to court a lady.”

  Mr Callahan shooed a passage of cold breath, tossing his hand in a gesture over his head. “You’re asking the wrong man.”

  “Sam thinks it’s best to leave them halfway through a date.”

  “It wasn’t a date,” I said.

  “Leave while you’re ahead. Not a bad strategy if done right.” The old man looked at me with kind eyes in a rough mask. He grinned at the corner of his mouth.

  “You’re fishing in the right hole,” he said. He pointed off toward the bells on campus. He pulled a fold of
hot paper from his inside pocket and unrolled it. Breaded fish fillets steaming in the cold. He held it to both of us.

  “It’s not Lent,” I said.

  “It’s Friday,” Mr Callahan said.

  I ate in gratitude. “Thank you, sir.”

  He settled in on the roof, a large man finding the softest way to drop himself, rolling back just enough to take the fall out of it. Sitting Indian style he went to work on his fish fillet.

  “Tell him, dad.”

  Mr Callahan rolled a bite around in his mouth to make room for his tongue. “When I was your age I would not even date a girl who wasn’t Catholic. Bless your mother, Emery. She was a handful, God rest her kind soul. You’ll not have that problem if you stick to the girls here.”

  “What difference does it make, sir?” I said. I caught a glance of Emery’s face behind him.

  “A whole hell of a lot of difference.” Mr Callahan looked to the sky and crossed himself. “You’ll be fighting an uphill battle the rest of your life.”

  “Love conquers all, right? Sometimes you can’t help it what the other person believes in.”

  “I left a girl in the middle of a date once,” Mr Callahan said. “Found out she was a Protestant.”

  Emery was laughing with a mouthful of cocoa behind him.

  “That’s close enough, isn’t it?” I said, trying to keep my face straight.

  The old man shrugged. “To each his own, Sam. I’m just laying out the groundwork for you. This girl of yours, did you find out she was a Protestant?”

  “She goes to St Mary’s College. She’s a Catholic.”

  “There are wolves in sheep’s clothing.”

  “She goes to church. Christmas and Easter.” I looked away to hide my face. I heard Mr Callahan almost choke.

  “Jesus,” he crossed himself with a half-fillet.

  “Emery’s seeing a girl. A cheerleader.”

  Mr Callahan shifted and spoke over his shoulder. “She a Catholic?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “She nice?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Marry her quick. Only half of a successful marriage is falling in love. The first half is finding a Catholic.” Mr Callahan nudged me with his foot. “You know what I had to do with Emery?”

  I turned to face him. “What’s that, sir?”