It was my fourth time in Mr. Bryant’s office, a tiny room tucked away in the corner of the guidance department. The place was sparsely furnished—a few nice prints on the wall, a bowl of candy and a worn baseball beside the computer on the desk, a set of Venetian blinds covering the window, a Red Sox cap perched on top of a bookcase. At least there wasn’t any couch. That’s what you usually see in a shrink’s office.
To be honest, I didn’t know if Mr. Bryant was an actual shrink or not, but he was my “school-appointed counselor.” Whatever, the guy seemed to know his shit. I admit I’d been a little rattled to be called in that first week of school, but it was to be expected after what had happened last summer. Besides, it got me out of math.
Mr. Bryant sat across from me, quiet, a sliver of smile on his face. This was how things usually started. Sometimes the silence lasted several minutes.
“Glad we finally connected, Gerry,” he said.
Bryant was the only one who called me Gerry. Probably because he was a Gerry too. Hence “the Gerry sessions.” His term, not mine, which I thought was pretty funny. He tended to crack little jokes like that—one of his therapist tricks to loosen me up, I’m sure. It was about as animated as he ever got. I swear, the guy must have been a Zen monk in a former life. Nothing seemed to bother him. I mean, I could set his desk on fire, and he’d probably just nod a few times, turn, and stare pensively out the window.
“Sorry I didn’t make it before lunch,” I said at last. “I forgot.”
He waved off the apology. “How was your weekend?”
“One big fucking thrill.”
I’d started swearing sometime during the second session, mostly just to see how he’d react. He didn’t. So I kept on doing it. Why the fuck not?
“Maybe you could be more specific.”
“You know, sat around the old double-wide. Watched shitty movies on cable. Ate mustard sandwiches. Just your typical white-trash weekend.”
Bryant laughed at the joke, even though we both knew it wasn’t far from the truth.
“Did you see your mother this weekend?”
“Some. She spent most of it at Ralph’s.”
Bryant nodded. “Okay. How about friends? Did you get together with anybody? How about Stewart? I mean, please tell me you stuck your head out of the trailer for at least ten minutes.”
It was my turn to laugh now. “Yeah, I saw Stewart. He actually dragged my ass up Bald Mountain on Saturday. Last time I’ll ever do that.”
“Wouldn’t want to get too much exercise, now, would you?”
“Hell, no. I might strain a muscle.”
“You’re pretty tight with Stewart, aren’t you? I always see you together.”
“We’re neighbors.”
“I was looking over both your schedules this morning. Is it hard, him being in the advanced classes when you’re not?”
Ah, here we go, I thought. Tricky.
“Hard for him, maybe,” I quipped. “Not for me.”
Bryant raised his eyebrows. He knew what I was getting at. “I see you did quite well on your PSATs last year. One of the highest scores in the school.”
He saw me stir.
“Didn’t know that, did you?”
This was a new side of Bryant. The tranquillity was still there, but the questions were coming faster, the voice with a hint of edge. So that’s the way it is, I thought. Game on.
“Got lucky, I guess.”
He snorted. “You didn’t have to take that test.”
I shrugged. Then my curiosity got the better of me. “Did I score higher than Stewart?” Stewart had never told me his scores.
He ignored the question. “You’re going to be graduating in a few months. Got any plans?”
“So that’s why I’m here. To talk about my future, huh?”
There was a long pause as he looked at me. Shit, I thought. I’d walked right into that one. I knew it, and so did he.
“You know why you’re here,” he said at last.
I rolled my eyes. “I was wondering when we were going to get around to it.”
“Around to what?”
I shot him a look. He knew. He just wanted to hear me say it. More therapist bullshit, I’m sure. I just thought it was mean.
“My father,” I said. “About him blowing his fucking head off.”
He wanted to hear me say it? Fine. I’d say it.
Bryant flinched. It was just an instant, but it was enough. That’ll show him, I thought.
He nodded. “I’m sure you miss him.”
“Of course,” I snapped. “But it’s nothing new. Nothing I wasn’t used to.”
“He had a pretty long deployment, didn’t he?”
“I guess. And then when he got back…”
Bryant finished the thought for me. “He wasn’t the same.”
I didn’t say anything. I just stared down at my hands, my fingers all twisted around one another. My nails were dirty.
“How do you feel about what he did?”
I shrugged.
“You feel something,” he said. “In fact, you probably feel a whole lot of things, right? Sadness. Anger.” He paused. “Shame.”
I jerked my head up. “Fuck you,” I said, as nasty as I could.
It didn’t faze him, of course, not this time. The bastard.
“It’s an honest question.”
I didn’t answer.
He gave me a little smile and nodded. “I think that’s enough for today.”
“That’s it?” I was usually there for half an hour. I glanced at my watch. “We’ve still got twenty minutes.”
“It’s okay. It was a productive ten minutes. We’ll go longer next week.”
“Fine.” I stood up to go.
“Oh, by the way,” he said. “I think we’ll start meeting after lunch like this from now on.”
“Why’s that?” I asked, pausing in the doorway.
“You’re more interesting to talk to when you’re not stoned.”
CHAPTER THREE
It took me a while to get home. I had to walk the first three miles to the base of Suffolk Heights. Normally I didn’t mind. I used to walk everywhere before Stewart got his car. It’s one of the few acceptable forms of idleness. Not much to do, except maybe think. But I didn’t want to think today. I was still riled up from the Gerry session—in fact, I almost skipped the last two periods of school entirely—and all I wanted was to put one foot in front of the other and forget about everything. So I trudged along, working my steps into a rhythm that turned into a song in my head, and just stared around at the leaves. It was a nice day—sunny but with the slightest chill in the air, the kind that lets you know it’s not summer anymore.
Once I got over the bridge and started up out of the valley, one of the farmers who lived up on the Heights pulled his truck over. I jumped into the back for the rest of the way. My old man had worked for him in high school, so he knew who I was. He’d even offered me a job a couple months ago, but I turned it down. Who wants the hassle?
He gave me a smile through the back window as I settled down onto the bed liner, but behind it I could see the sadness in his eyes. I hated that pity crap. It was one of the worst things about the whole situation. If you’re going to pity someone, okay. Fine. Just don’t let them see you doing it. It won’t do anything but make them feel like shit.
Ten minutes later he stopped in front of my place. I jumped down, hollered thanks, and gave him a wave as he continued up the hill and out of sight. The house stood back from the road about fifty feet. It was nothing special, believe me—a yellow double-wide trailer with no real features except for a satellite dish bolted to the front and a pair of black vinyl shutters framing the kitchen window—but I knew plenty of kids who lived in worse. Mom and I both did a halfway decent job of keeping it tidy, probably as a tribute to my father more than anything else. The old man had been a neat freak. Army guys usually are.
The house—or rather the freezer full of Pizza Pockets
and ice cream—beckoned, but I didn’t go in. My mother wouldn’t be home from her job as a dispatcher at the state police barracks in St. Johnsbury for a few more hours, and I suddenly didn’t feel like leaving the sunshine for the trailer’s darkness. Besides, it was almost 3:30. Stewart would be done with his lesson pretty soon, and I had matters to attend to.
I crossed the road and trotted fifty or so yards back down the hill before turning into the driveway of a house that had seen better days. Drifting by the beat-up Camaro, I traced a line along its dusty side with my finger, then skipped up the broken steps and rapped on the door. It took a while, but the door finally opened.
“Hey, Ralph,” I said, staring up at the tall, scrawny figure.
Ralph—cheesy-mustached, mullet-headed, tight-jeans-from-God-knows-how-long-ago-wearing Ralph—was scrogging my mother.
I’d ascertained this painful fact a couple weeks ago. (I’ll leave it to you to figure out how.) When confronted, Mom admitted it had been going on for a while, right around the time I’d started back in school. I was pissed off at first. After all, my father had only been gone for a few months. And of all the men within a fifty-mile radius, it had to be this douche bag. But I got over it a few days later. I mean, I wasn’t crazy about it, but it was better than listening to my mother sob every night like she had all summer. And as for Ralph, yeah, he was a douche bag, but he was a lovable douche bag in his own pathetic way. It was almost impossible to hate the guy. Believe me, I tried.
Besides, as I’d discovered long before I learned he and my mother were doing it, Ralph had other uses.
“What’s up, bro?” Ralph said.
Ralph always called me bro. A weird thing to call a kid when you’re banging his mother, but whatever.
“I need a bag. A quarter.”
Ralph raised his eyebrows. “I just got you one two weeks ago. Don’t tell me you’ve gone through it already.”
“I told you before, Ralph—it’s not for me. It’s for a friend.”
Technically that was true, though I’d certainly had my share. I could see him hesitate.
“Look, man,” I said, “I’m trying to do you a favor. You want the business or not?”
“Yeah, yeah. Come on in.”
“I can’t stay long,” I said, following him into the living room.
“Whatever, bro,” he said, disappearing down the hall to the back room where he kept his stash.
The room smelled of cigarette smoke but not of weed. I guessed Ralph refrained from smoking pot in the house now that he was with my mother. Maybe she’d gotten him to stop altogether.
I flopped onto the couch and looked around the dumpy old place Ralph had inherited from his mother—complete with the same dirty wallpaper she’d hung probably forty years ago, the same pair of faded Sears portraits of Ralph when he was five years old on top of the TV, the same kitschy knickknacks on the shelves he still hadn’t put away in the two years since she’d died—but it was definitely neater than it ever used to be. My mother’s doing, no doubt. In fact, I noticed one of our mugs sitting on the coffee table in front of me. It was one I’d given her for her birthday about five years ago. World’s Greatest Mom! it said. Lame, I know, but I was only twelve at the time. What the hell did I know?
It felt strange seeing the cup here in a different setting, this lost and lonely thing surrounded by alien artifacts. But then, the more I stared at it, the more it seemed like it was the only right thing, like everything else around it—the newspapers, the ashtray, the living room, the house—was wrong and out of place. Still, I didn’t like it. I reached out with my toe and gave it a little kick. It tumbled off the side of the table, fell onto the threadbare carpet, and popped into three clean chunks.
Ralph reappeared as I was picking up the pieces.
“Sorry, Ralph. It got knocked over.”
“Whatever, bro,” he said, clearly not giving a shit. I wondered if he even knew the mug wasn’t his. I put the pieces back on the table and stood up.
“Fifty, right? I’ll bring the money by tomorrow.”
“Yeah, okay.” He looked around the room as if he’d forgotten something, as if he were trying to figure out where he was. “So is this for that Stewart kid, or what?”
“No,” I lied. “It’s for someone else. Someone at school.”
He nodded, but he didn’t look at me. I don’t think he believed me.
“Okay, that’s cool.” He held out the bag of weed, a generous quarter ounce, then drew it back as I reached for it.
“Just be careful, Frenchy,” he said. “Don’t go smoking too much. It’s not good for a kid your age to smoke too much, right?”
I reached out and took the bag with a snort. This time, he let go.
“Yeah, thanks, Ralph. Thanks for the concern.” The guy had only been selling me pot since I was fifteen. “You’re a fucking compassionate soul.”
His face reddened. He hesitated again.
“You’re not going to tell your mom, are you? You know, about all this?”
“You mean that I buy pot from you?” I asked, trying not to laugh. “No, Ralph, I don’t see that happening.”
I could see the relief on his face. The poor dumb shit.
“Thanks, bro.” He held out a fist.
I touched his fist with my own. “No sweat, bro.”
As I started to leave, he stopped me.
“You want a bag for yourself, Frenchy?” he asked. “I could fix you up a little something. No charge.”
Remembering his earlier concern, I shook my head. Typical Ralph. God bless him.
“No thanks, Ralph. I’m good.”
CHAPTER FOUR
I hoofed it back up the hill. A quarter mile or so above my place, a dirt road turned off to the right. The green sign at the turn spelled it out: Shangri La, PVT—private road. The Bolgers lived at the end, a few hundred yards from the main road. It was a big house. A nice house.
I stopped in first at the workshop—a copper-roofed, cedar-shingled building beside the garage—and poked my head through the open doors, blinking against the shower of sparks flashing from the center of the room.
Stewart’s dad was hard at work, acetylene torch in hand. He paused on seeing me, then lifted his visor and killed the torch.
“Hello, Frenchy,” he said, wiping the sweat and smoke from his eyes. He didn’t smile, but then he never did. A bit of a cipher, he played it close to the vest like my old man had. It was the one thing they had in common.
“Hey, Mr. Bolger. What’s shakin’?”
“Living the dream, Frenchy,” he murmured. “Living the dream.” His usual joke. Probably the only one he had.
Stewart’s dad had cashed out four years ago from some big software company he’d started down in Boston, retiring early to start his new career as a metal sculptor. He’d been working hard ever since to break into the craft-fair circuit—without much success. Glancing at the freakish jumbles of cobbled-together scrap metal cluttering up the shop, it wasn’t hard to figure out why.
“Good for you, Mr. Bolger. So what’re you making, anyway?” I always made a point of asking about his work.
He stepped back to survey the mass of wire and steel. “It’s called Spider’s Dream.”
It looked like a giant birdcage that had been stepped on, but what the hell did I know about art?
“Oh, yeah. Yeah, I can see that,” I said, but he’d already flipped the visor down and gone back to work.
I crossed the driveway and bounded up the steps onto the front deck, then rang the set of chimes by the door, knocking for good measure. Mrs. Bolger’s face appeared in the window, smiling at me through the glass. This was her little game. It was kind of goofy, but sweet too. I just smiled back, waved, and waited until she finally opened the door.
“Frenchy, hello!” she gushed in an airy voice. She always sounded out of breath, as if she’d just come back from a run or something. Maybe she had asthma.
“Hi, Mrs. Bolger.” I slipped past he
r into the kitchen.
The house was bright and warm, filled with the buttery glow of hardwood and tasteful lighting. I closed my eyes and breathed in all the usual aromas—spices, garlic, the scent of Mrs. Bolger’s patchouli. And then there was that other familiar smell.
“Have one, Frenchy,” Mrs. Bolger said. “I just took them out of the oven.”
I opened my eyes to see her standing there with a plate of cookies. Stewart’s mother was always making cookies—healthy, organic cookies, made with molasses and oats and shit. They were also delicious, especially when Stewart and I would come back from a “walk in the woods” with a serious case of the munchies. No wonder I was getting fat.
“Thanks, Mrs. Bolger.” I grabbed a handful. “Is Stewart done with his lesson?”
“Yes. Clark, the teacher, left about ten minutes ago,” she said, watching me stuff a cookie in my mouth. “So how was school?”
“The usual thrill. How about you? How’s life at Shangri La?”
Her face tightened. “Fine.” She glanced up at the ceiling. “Stewart’s been a pain lately. Another one of his phases. You know how he can be, Frenchy. Sometimes I just…” Her eyes started to glisten. I looked away.
“Frenchy!”
I turned to see Stewart bounding down the staircase. Thank God.
“Hey, man.” I reached out to slap his upheld hand.
“Lucinda,” he said, turning to Mrs. Bolger, “Frenchy’s going to stay for dinner. Okay?”
Lucinda and Phil. Stewart called his parents by their first names. I think he always had. And I always flinched when he did it. I just couldn’t get used to it, not even after four years. If I spoke to my mother the way Stewart spoke to his parents, I’d get slapped faster than you can say “Mylanta.” And as for my father—well, let’s just say I’d have gotten a major dose of military discipline if I’d ever dared mouth off to him.
“Of course, honey,” she replied. “We’d love to have you, Frenchy. We miss having you around.”
I’d practically lived with the Bolgers after my father died. After a few weeks I had to go back home, though. It was doing a number on my mother. Of course, she hadn’t hooked up with Ralph yet.
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