Glass Boys

by Nicole Lundrigan

  So many afternoons during those summer months, the boy would disappear for hours at a time. Leaving Eli with irritable cows, or weed-riddled fields, or a leak in the roof of the barn, rain on the way. Eli went looking for him that one day, and the bend in the long grass was as good as any arrow showing him the boy’s direction. Eli tramped through the woods, and found him perched by the stream. Stopping in the shadows, he watched the boy haul up a glass jar, hidden in the river. Waited as he opened it, and dumped all his filthy secrets out onto the grass.

  He saw the boy rocking on his haunches before a stack of photos, putting Eli in mind of some sort of queer animal. Sucking on the skin of his bare knee. Before Eli stepped forward, he felt the very air change. Heavy now. As though weighted with something forbidden. Something ugly. He believed Lucifer was lingering around the boy, drawing circles through the air, and his heart knocked hard against his ribs as he rushed out from the brush.

  Eli overtook the boy. Added ten years to his age when he saw the photographs. A child, a child, naked, sprawled on a wooden floor in some, leaning against a wooden wall in others. White under-grown flesh. Pillows of baby fat. Big wide smile. Teeth locked together with what Eli could only guess to be a mouthful of old brown candy. He even thought he knew the child’s face. His face. For that was all he could stare at. The face. And as he stood there, stunned, the boy danced. Hopping from one foot to the other. Eyes glazed and shiny, like someone gone mad. His hands flapping. A flightless, frightened bird. He began rambling stupid stories. Nothing believable, as Eli knew, the devil had hold of his tongue.

  His first instinct was to drown the boy. Without a second thought. Drown him in the stream. Be done with it. Hold his head under. Until he went limp. He reasoned it was no worse than scooping kittens into an old sheet, and tying them to the muffler of his truck. And for a long moment, he did. The boy gaped up at him from beneath the rippling surface, but the water wouldn’t take him, wouldn’t do its work. And while Eli hated that child, he feared him, too. He let him go. Let him breathe. Then, as the boy crumbled and sputtered on the grass, Eli jammed every photo into the jar, twisted the lid thinking one might escape. He never spoke a word, stomped out through those woods, jar locked in both hands. Sleeves of his shirt were wet from the stream, rest of it wet from his sweat.

  In a rusting barrel, he burned every last one. Struck them with a fork that was handy. Eli was senseless with disgust and anger and some sort of queer deep unease. And he couldn’t help but remember his long dead uncle. His father’s brother who lived in the room below Eli’s. Every evening, creeping upstairs, suffocating Eli with his weight. Drunk and fumbling. Sour reek from down there. Stench like rot in a barrel. Say hello to my pet, Elias. Every night. Say hello to my pet. Here. Those smooth handfuls and handfuls. Turning him over. There was joy in being someone’s favorite. Small, simple joy in that. Sweets under his damp pillow when he awoke. But that was a window long painted shut. Long painted shut. And Eli would not take a knife to it now. No. But it could have been him trapped in that jar. Could have been him.

  Hands between his bony knees, Eli leaned forward into the darkness of his barn, and listened. For something. He could sense his thoughts were in the air above him, like a texture or a layer. Rough against his crown. And he wondered how such a disturbance could hover there so silently.

  Eli slumped his back, snapped the sole of one boot with the sole of the other. Another claw, tugging, tugging, more memories of that summer afternoon. Roy Trench coming out of nowhere, grabbing his shoulders. Constable Trench right behind him. And then everything just clashed together. A thousand voices calling “timber” in Eli’s head. He couldn’t hear or see or think. And all he could really recall was the dimmest notion to cover it up. As much as he threw at his wife, hard as he was on her, something in him said she didn’t deserve that. To see that. To know she birthed something spoiled. She was a mother, first, who loved her son.

  Well, he could save her from the truth about that boy. Her own flesh. Flesh she wouldn’t let go. And he hadn’t meant to move his arm in the way he did. Hadn’t meant to have such force behind it. Strength in his clenched jaw, riding right down through his hand. A strike. A push. A twist. Eli’s hand covered with blood, and even after he’d washed, it hid in the cracks on his knuckles, grooves around his fingernails. Like stubborn dirt.

  So many years, he had worked to confuse himself. Erase the sins of the boy. Must the actions of a youngster mark out the grown-up he becomes? And so, Eli allowed the boy to stay. Living under his roof. And, in his head, he changed Roy Trench into a scheming trespasser, who was bound to do his property harm. Though he never could quite trick his mind fully, and he’d never been able to forgive myself for stealing someone’s life.

  Of course, that wasn’t the end of it. Eli understood things like that don’t end. They settle deep in the dirt, instead, just waiting to be kicked up. And now, a lifetime later, when the circle closed, when the dog finally caught hold to his tail, what choice did he have? Those two boys in the room that night. Life pooling on the floor. What could he do? Should he let the runt who had infected everything pass away? Should he let the runt be and tend to the healthy stock?

  Pain spiked through his drug-numbed flesh, but Eli spoke again. Slowly. “I am a farmer. And, may God punish me. May He punish me for all eternity. But there was never any question.”

  He unclasped his hands, took several quick breaths through his nose. Waited. Hard rain tapped the window behind his left shoulder, and hand gripping the rough windowsill he hoisted himself up a few inches. He shifted the old curtain, glanced out across the backyard towards the empty house. And there, in the middle of the lawn, was a murky shape, as though a foreign stone had risen from the depths, settled there.

  Eyes adjusted to the night, and when he looked up at the rafters of his barn he could just make out the cross of wood. He shook his head slightly. Eli knew who it was. He turned to look again. After watching for several minutes, he reached for the lantern, lifted the glass chimney, and, with a match, lit the blackened tip of the wick.

  THE HEAVENS OPENED up and icy rain pelted down, striking Lewis’s scalp, the last few strands of hair slithering back and forth. He didn’t seek shelter, stayed next to the disintegrating barrel until he was soaked through and through, and his skin began to swell on his body. He never noticed the light bobbing across the backyard, until a glove and a glowing lantern appeared right in front of his face. Someone gripped him firmly underneath his arm, guided him to his feet.

  “You got to go on,” Eli Fagan said to Lewis. No trace of anger in his voice, but no softness either.

  “Yes.”

  “Idn’t doing no good to no one.”

  “No.”

  Eli lifted his lantern, and for just a moment, in the pitch blackness of that backyard, there was a radiance between the two of them. Reddened eye meeting reddened eye. And in that instant, Lewis felt nothing. The hatred he had cradled for so long was gone. In its place, a curious whisker of something else.

  “Eli.”

  “Don’t.”

  “But—”

  “I wants to see your suffering no more than you wants to see mine.”

  “You done something and I needs to—”

  Wet blackness once again, Eli had blown out the light. Voice from somewhere beyond. “Get on. Take what you got. I only—” A pause, sound of boots squishing wet grass. “Oh, I only—”

  Lewis took several steps, reached into the night, wanting to touch Eli’s shoulder, wanting to grip the farmer’s waxy coat. But Eli was gone, swallowed in darkness, and for a moment Lewis was disoriented, wondered if the old man had been there at all.

  SHOULDERS HUNCHED, Eli shuffled across the backyard, didn’t slow when the wind stole his hat, lifted his strings of hair. When he reached the back of the house, he turned to look, but the yard was empty. The stone gone.

  He rested against the door frame. The handle of the lantern was cutting into his finger joints, and Eli leane
d, dropped it onto the stoop. His teeth clacked against each other, but Eli didn’t feel cold at all. Sweaters and trousers wet and heavy, but inside the dragging fabric his skin-draped skeleton felt lighter than it had in years. And he lifted his face in the dark rain. Opened his mouth, let the clean drops rinse across his tongue.

  AS HE MADE his way home, the rain lightened, and the moon peeked out through a crack in the clouds, making the naked world shine. He walked up his driveway, towards the warmth of his trim house, past the logs Toby had been cutting a month ago. Lewis bent to throw a few errant junks of wood back to the group. He stared at the pile, at the saw, blade rusted, and tried to assure himself that tomorrow, he and Toby would work on that together. Finish cutting, stacking a neat row against the shed. He could hear Mrs. Verge, Peggy, in his head, her kind words. Tiny steps. That’s all anyone can ask.

  29

  DECEMBER PASSED INTO January, without as much as the toot of a metallic horn. Toby didn’t mind the quiet, and he spent many weekend afternoons in the woods, cutting down birch, hacking bare branches with his tomahawk. Sweating inside his coat, his sweater, often working in nothing more than a T-shirt. Sometimes, at noon, Angie would find him, bring him a thermos of something warm, and they’d sit in the tamped-down snow, talk for a while about nothing in particular. He couldn’t look her in the eye, had asked her to stop coming, but she refused. Said, “I don’t know who you think you’d be helping, but it’s neither of us.” He wanted her to stop caring about him, but she told Toby she couldn’t manage it. “Fine, then,” he said. “Give it some time, and you will.”

  One afternoon, when he finished his work, he walked about, thumped heavy boughs with his fists, let thick layers of snow tumble down onto his head and the hood of his coat. He didn’t turn towards home until the wet cold invaded every square inch of his young body. Pushing his legs through the foot of sticky snow, he wondered what it might be like to lie down and sleep. Would he dream of Angie? No, he knew he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t allow himself the comfort. If he dreamt at all, he’d dream of Melvin.

  He walked into the kitchen, and there was Mrs. Verge, balancing on a chair, pinching runners from a spider plant. Fresh snowfall outside shot white light into the room, and Toby could see a yellow glow coming off her wide sides. He stood there, in dripping boots, jacket hanging open, damp scarf letting go, a bright blue puddle on the floor.

  Mrs. Verge turned, jumped slightly, frame jiggling. “Oh my gosh, Tobias. You startled me. Near stopped my heart.”

  Toby’s mouth fell open just a shade, and he said, “What?”

  “I said you near stopped my heart.”

  Toby shook his head, “I never meant to, Mrs. Verge.”

  “You never said nothing when you come in.”

  “I never said nothing. No.”

  With deliberate steps, she held the table, eased herself off the chair. Came over to Toby, and placed her strong hands on his shoulders. “My gosh, darling. You looks like death warmed over. You’re working too hard. There’s enough wood in the basement and shed for half of Knife’s Point.”

  “I likes to cut wood.”

  “But—”

  “I’m good, Mrs. Verge.”

  Hands on her hips, she tutted. “All this talk of being good. Being fine. You men people. I tell you, ’tis run its course, buddy boy.” She plucked up his scarf, yanked his coat from his arms, hung them both over a chair.

  Toby turned to leave the kitchen, but she clutched his wrist. “Not so quick, my son.” Spun him around, caught him in an embrace. “Now,” she said. “Now, I got you.”

  “Mrs. Verge?”

  “You let it out. Right out.”

  He squirmed, bleated, “Let what out?”

  “You knows, Tobias Trench. You knows exactly what got to be let out.” Toby tried to catch some air, and he smelled something floral and soft on her clothes. While his own mother had been nothing more than a draft, skulking around his ankles, here was Mrs. Verge, fully present, a hot oven, door wide open. He was lost in her fleshy folds, face plastered to her chest. “Nothing to let out, Mrs. Verge,” he mumbled. “Nothing.”

  “You don’t get off that easy,” and she squeezed, tighter and tighter until he coughed. “I idn’t letting you go no time soon.”

  He waited, encased in her fat arms, soft breasts. Finally, he mumbled, “You’re hurting me, Mrs. Verge.”

  “I’ll be damned,” she said as she released her grip. “You men. The whole load of you. All alike.”

  “I’m good, Mrs. Verge. Honest, I is.”

  “Well, you won’t escape my tongue that easy.” Hands on his shoulders again. “I got something I needs to say, and you best remember it.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Verge.”

  “You is you, Tobias Trench, and you is not your father or your mother, and not your brother, God love him. You is young and you is able, my son, and there’s a lot of lovely things in this world, lots of good, and the snow looks so clean right now, but that will go too, and you’ll have plenty of mud before you finds another spring. But spring will come, it always do, with green grass, and enough birds singing in the mornings to drive you right batty. Do you get what I’m saying, Tobias?”

  “I does, Mrs. Verge.”

  “You is a special one, Tobias.”

  “I idn’t, Mrs. Verge.”

  “Yes, you is. I knowed it since you was young.”

  “No, Mrs. Verge. Melvin was special. He really was.” Toby looked out the window, tried to study the blankness of the winter sky.

  “You can make this all good,” she said, hugging him again. “Just grow yourself up and live a happy life. Simple as that.”

  30

  TOBY WALKED TWO steps behind his father. He kept his head down as he passed a man wearing only faded pajamas. Bottoms shrunk, riding up over the ankles. Feet without slippers. The walls were painted a sickly green, the color of a plant long denied sunlight, and Toby could not see a single picture, not a single image mounted to break the long stretches of nothing. On either side of the corridor, some doors creaked open, unfocused eyes peering out, others closed, moans and stutters slithering around the door frames, sounds that burrowed into Toby’s head. With every breath, the smell of cleaning chemicals and sour cotton edged further up his nose, and he knew it would take some time to dislodge it.

  There was nothing worthy of a giggle in the hallway, but Toby could barely keep it in. He looked up at the ceilings, so much higher than they needed to be. And Toby wondered if the building was built that way for the crowd it housed. Not enough room in your head? Well, there’s plenty of extra space up here. The very thought made Toby pause, fingers touching a door frame, bent at the waist to accommodate a silent full-body laugh.

  A few feet ahead of him, his father slipped to the left, disappeared inside a room. Toby stopped just outside the door, leaned against the wall. He couldn’t go in, he couldn’t do it. Not with this type of laughter rollicking through his body. He closed his eyes, swallowed hard, and chomped the inside of his cheek.

  “Hey, son.” Toby heard his father’s voice, and he leaned in closer to the door to listen.

  “Hey.”

  “How you getting on?”

  “Good. I’m good.” Voice flat, and Toby thought, unfamiliar.

  “You need anything?”

  “Nah.”

  “You sure? ’Tis no trouble, Mel.”

  “Well. I could do with something to... to read.”

  “Magazines? Word search, or something?”

  “No, I means books. Some good books on places. Different places in the world. I likes to think about where I might go someday.”

  A pause, then, “You got it, my son. We’ll hunt you down some of that.”

  “Thanks, Dad.”

  Toby heard the whine of bedsprings, and then his father saying, “You know. I been thinking these days a whole lot about fishing. Something I used to love when I was a young feller. And it come to me, in all these years we never fished the Grayl
ey together.”

  His father paused again, and Toby waited.

  “There’s a cabin upriver a good ways. Used to go with my father. Fly fishing first thing in the morning. Cooking up whatever you caught.”

  “Sounds nice.”

  “When you gets all better, when the doc says you’re a hundred and ten, that’s the first place we’re going. You and me and Tobe.”

  Toby held his breath at the mention of his name. Then, the bedsprings groaning relief, his father up and barking gently, “Tobe, Tobe. Where you got to?”

  Don’t be a puss, Toby told himself, and before he could think any further he rolled himself around the corner, into this new home. A small room, practically empty, a bed, a pressboard closet, a stretch of curtainless windows near the ceiling. And a boy.

  He hadn’t seen Melvin in months, and some days Toby wondered if Melvin were even alive. But there he was, sitting up and seated on the side of the bed, dressed in pale blue drawstring pants and a white T-shirt. Skinnier, and his once long hair now shaved close to his round skull. A winding scar, reminding Toby of the accident, visible in the black fuzz on the back of his head. Melvin’s tongue kept daubing his bottom lip, and every few seconds he winked. Hard. With both eyes.

  Toby stared at the marks on Melvin’s skull. Then he glanced at his father, wide smiling mouth but wet eyes. Inside Toby’s gut, the desire to laugh suddenly tumbled across the floor, now replaced with something else. Flat fish flopping over, pale soft belly exposed.

  Toby couldn’t look his brother in the eye, mumbled. “You good?”

  “I’m alright, Toad.”

  Toad.

  Toby choked out, “I miss you, Mellie.”

  “Yeah.” Big sigh. Melvin rubbed his crown with his knuckles, and then he stood, moved towards Toby. “You been missing me a long time.”

  The tips of warm fingers moved across his back, Melvin’s hand touching him, and Toby hiccuped. He leaned forward, cheek against his brother’s ribs, and at once the hiccuping broke through, and sobs tumbled out. Toby wrapped his arms around Melvin and cried. Long and hard. Cried for not being good enough to keep a mother, and cried for the ghosts that moved through the walls of their home. Cried for Melvin, and the voices that spoke to him, whomever they might be. Cried for the anger that filled up their father, and the words that were trapped in the man’s throat. Cried for Mrs. Verge, a spoonful of human sugar. Cried for how beautiful the world could be whenever Angie smiled. Toby held on, and Melvin curled his tall frame over him.