“Is everything okay?”
“In a week he’ll have been dead a year.” Somewhere she’d read that the minute a phrase leaves your mouth it becomes true. Theories like that were hard to discredit as Tim’s face and everything around him, the calendar, the bookshelf, took on a wet tremble. It didn’t feel like she was crying, but when she looked down there were little black circles on her slacks. “Sorry.”
“Is the memory getting stronger? The memory of his suicide?”
She winced at the word. It still made her panic, even when she saw it in its most benign forms, like part of a song title, or on the giant billboards that warned of depression’s fatal consequences. She let in a breath and looked up at him. “I can still hear it.”
She was expecting him to say Hear what? or Do you actually hear it or do you just recall it? but thankfully he only put his hand over his mouth and looked back at her.
“I think about it all the time.”
“I can imagine,” Tim said, even though they both knew he couldn’t. “Is that what you’ve written down on that paper?”
She glanced down. “This?” She turned it over, then back to the front. “No, this…this is nothing.” She returned it to her purse, shoving it back to the bottom where she’d found it.
“Nothing.”
“It’s stupid. I write these things down and forget what they mean.” With her tongue she traced the sharp parts of her teeth. It felt like they were talking about something different now, and she was glad for it. The thing she’d come to talk about was sinking back down to its place. She tucked her purse under her chair. “I never remember any of it.”
“Is it stuff that bothers you? What kind of things do you write on the list? What’s one of them? What’s one you don’t remember?”
“I don’t know. One of them says ‘orange rind.’ Another says ‘flirting.’ Well.” She shook her head. “I guess I know what that one means. A few weeks ago I actually flirted with someone. A new hire at the plant.” She looked over at his desk. “His name is Daniel and he works in AP. I don’t know why I’m telling you this.” She covered her face and her voice struggled through her fingers. “I’ve done it a few times now. I know I shouldn’t. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“Why shouldn’t you?”
She looked at him, her glare sharper than she could control. “My husband just died.”
Tim reached for his pen but decided against it. He looked at her for too long, as though she was one of those optical illusions and he was waiting for her secret code to jump out at him. “I know you feel like you’re betraying Alan,” he said finally. “But that just isn’t true.” He folded his hands together and placed them under his chin. “The human spirit can only grieve for so long. Alan has been gone for almost a year. And you’re still in mourning. You’re still smoking, even. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that. We all move at our own pace. Just that there’s a point when the heart, like any living, feeling thing, needs nourishment. Maybe it’s time to listen to your heart.” He smiled and took up the pen, so pleased with himself. “You flirted with a coworker. Tell me about that. How did it start?”
Listen to your heart. She couldn’t believe she was paying over a hundred dollars an hour for someone to quote love songs. Nor could she believe he didn’t even feel sorry for her.
“Diane.”
The seconds were ticking by on the clock. She counted them like pennies dropped into a jar. There was something awful about his patience. Finally she rolled her eyes in a way that reminded her of her daughter. “As plant manager, I’m responsible for giving tours to new employees. The new employee happened to be Daniel. He started flirting with me. I liked it. I flirted back.” She put up her arms like she was out of ideas. “That’s all.”
“So he initiated it?”
“Of course. Jesus. I don’t go around flirting with younger men.”
“He was younger?”
“Is that so surprising?”
“No. That’s not what I meant. I meant that it probably made you feel good?”
She folded her hands and looked at the carpet. Her cheeks warmed at the memory, even though she was frowning. “Yes,” she said. “It did. But it didn’t mean anything.”
“It doesn’t have to. There’s still a lot to take away from that. Remember, grieving is not your job. You have to allow yourself joy. You have to realize there’s still a lot left in you. Men will see that, and they’ll be attracted to you. They have every reason to be.”
She looked up. She thought of these men and their schoolboy flirtation, regardless of their reasons. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, and to her the word ridiculous sounded ridiculous and she laughed at its ridiculousness. Her laughter felt inappropriate and she put her hand over her mouth as she shook her head. “It’s so stupid,” she said through her fingers. “But thank you.”
“You’re welcome. And it isn’t stupid. There’s a lot about you that would charm any man. Any sensible one, anyway.” Tim shrugged and crossed his legs, bumping the edge of the table. The pen rolled toward her and they both reeled forward to reach for it. Their hands stopped no more than an inch apart, his holding the pen and hers poised to grab it, had she been quicker. For a second that’s what they looked at, the other’s freckled and vein-laced but very different, very unfamiliar hand. When they pulled away they both laughed like it was funny, even though it wasn’t, and Tim clicked the pen in his fingers but wrote nothing new.
Diane reached for her purse. “Do you want to come outside with me?”
“What?”
“I need a smoke. Talking about this. My husband, a few minutes ago. I was gonna step outside, if you want to join me.”
“I don’t smoke.” He clicked the pen once more and set it down. “But it’s a nice day. Probably one of the last till spring. Why not?”
It was a nice day, though you couldn’t mistake it for anything but autumn. Death always seemed dry in October, or crisp. It was a cloudless afternoon and the sun’s angle gave each building around the parking lot a redness that crept up from the concrete. “It’s gorgeous,” Diane said as she dug through her purse. “Too bad it’ll all be buried in snow a few weeks from now.”
Tim checked for dust or bird shit before he leaned against the railing. “Don’t say that. The sooner you mention snow, the sooner it happens.”
She watched her breath rise up grey between them, curling back in on itself before the wind took it. “So you think it’s normal for me to flirt with men.”
“I don’t see why not.”
The leaves scuttled across the parking lot like blind crabs. When the wind reached her it carried with it the clean smell of October like sun-dried tree sap. She lifted her face to smell it again but it was gone. Tim was watching the leaves and her eyes fell to the buttons on his jacket, too golden to be gold. Out of seven billion people on earth, he knew her best. An animal image put itself in her head and she shook it out. She wondered what he would have said if the list hadn’t distracted them, if they had gone on to talk about Alan and his basement office, the notebooks she was reading—one list in particular called The Pros and Cons of Living. The pros had run out pages ago, and—just like in life—you couldn’t argue with him. For the first time since youth she’d considered it. The thought of her own brain, lapping loose in her skull like she was just a bowlful of gazpacho, made her feel faint. “I’m not interested in anyone,” she said.
“Sorry?”
“Dating. I don’t want to date anyone.”
“Okay.”
“I’m not interested.”
“You don’t have to be.”
“Okay.”
Tim shrugged his shoulders forward, as if he were cold. It wasn’t that cold. “I’m gonna head upstairs.”
She nodded. Behind her the door’s hinge cawed like a rainforest bird. There was a leaf trapped in an updraft across the lot, blowing in a circle. He’s been dead a year, she thought, and it was true. The leaf f
luttered to the ground to rest before it was tormented all over again.
It was Andy who brought Colin back to prayer. They were never a religious family, church visits limited to Christmas Eve and Easter morning, but Colin had long assumed God would understand how busy they were. He assumed God would listen anyway, that He’d have a genuine interest in helping him, and what he told God—after too much time with Heather’s magazines or three showers in one afternoon—was that he’d do anything in exchange for one thing. He wanted to look at Andy without feeling like a creep. He wanted to sit cross-legged on his sleeping bag and talk about girls with the same enthusiasm, the same vulgarity, and he wanted to do this without the constant reminder of Andy’s shirt, balled up under his head because he’d forgotten his pillow.
Looking at Andy had become difficult over the summer, and was made worse with the start of the school year. Colin couldn’t get through a lunch period at Andy’s table without him bringing up the length between his legs, holding his hands apart to show the other boys why he was superior. Day by day, something was tightening in Colin’s chest, some wheel or hot coil. Almost as if it were part of his school day—the Pledge of Purity—he’d swear never to masturbate again, and fail before the day was over. He kept failing, every morning and night, sometimes not twenty minutes after lunch in a quiet stall while everyone else was in class. He liked to read stories printed out from the Internet and kept under his mattress, and when he thought about them later he modified the details until it was the two of them, best friends, stranded in the school for the night, or until it was Colin who slid to the floor in a movie theater at Andy’s request. He couldn’t fall asleep without failing, couldn’t get out of bed. He no longer cared what Paul heard. His dreams and his nightmares often met in the middle, and after an evening spent rereading his father’s account of hell Colin dreamt that he and Andy were trapped there and could only escape after they did whatever the demon commanded.
He continued with the other notebooks, but this one he never returned to its place on the shelf. It was something he referred to at least once each day, refreshing himself on some detail like the sparkle under hell’s starlight as the grass collected dew or tears or sweat. It was hard, his father had written, to tell them apart. The fact that hell had grass—that it was more than a maze of granite and fire—made it feel true. That it had a sky full of stars that weren’t our stars meant something but he couldn’t pinpoint what. Colin felt if he read it over and over he could learn more about his father, as though this one entry, only a dozen or so pages, could tell him whether or not what he’d done was wrong.
It was hidden, the notebook, stuffed under his mattress with the wrinkled-up stories, a sci-fi book his father had never finished, and a yellowing T-shirt, all equally incriminating. He told his mother to stay out of their room, mostly because he didn’t want her putting sheets on his bed. The way she looked at him—like he was so disgusting it was funny—made him want to list for her all his redeeming qualities. But there was nothing redeeming anymore, not with the notebook and not with the prayers Paul overheard, and not with Andy stretched out on his sleeping bag, the way the basement’s one naked bulb spackled all his hollow spots with shadows. Nobody would hear them at this time of night, this far underground.
“Is little baby Colin gonna fall asleep without his angel to protect him?” Andy asked as Colin laid down the ten of diamonds. They’d learned blackjack the weekend before. “Hit me.”
“You’re just jealous. Nobody made you a picture like that.”
“I don’t want a picture like that. You only keep it ’cause you have a total boner for her.”
It wasn’t the best drawing of an angel—the colors faint, its wings like clumsy arcs of chicken feathers. In fact it sucked, but he kept it. “She’s okay,” he said, trying to avoid the trap.
“Dude, you know you want to fuck her. You probably lay here all night looking at the angel and beating off.”
“I don’t do that.” Colin looked at the jack of spades, whose sterile profile couldn’t tell when he was lying. He flipped over the next card. “Ha. You lost again.”
“Whatever. Cards suck.” Andy leaned back, his hands behind his head. He stretched out until his leg rested in Colin’s lap. Colin felt the bare foot against his thigh, cool even through his jeans. He wasn’t as pale, Andy. He wasn’t as bony. You couldn’t see his veins, and the black ellipse in each armpit actually looked like hair. Whenever Colin raised his arms in the locker room he felt ashamed of his light brown curls, almost invisible in the green fluorescents as though he was still a child. He shoved Andy’s leg away. “Your feet fucking stink,” he said, treasuring the little electric spot under his jeans, that circle of skin within a finger’s length of his crotch.
Andy brought his foot to his face. “Mmm. Eau de athlete’s foot.”
“Anyway, I don’t think Chelsea’s into me.”
“Well then you’re fucking stupid.” Andy sat up. “She’s totally into you. She’d probably suck your dick if you asked. I mean, if she could find it.”
Colin threw out his fist and landed a punch just below Andy’s collarbone. He’d hit harder than he meant but didn’t want to apologize. “She could find it,” he said.
“Maybe with a microscope.” Andy massaged the knuckle marks on his chest. “Sorry. I forget not everyone’s hung like a porn star. Maybe one day I’ll let you play with it, gay boy.” He patted his crotch and made a face that cleaved Colin’s heart in half. Then the normal Andy face returned, just mean enough to make you hate yourself. “Hey,” he said as he sat up. “That reminds me. What do you think of Mr. Miller?”
Colin didn’t want to answer. He wanted to pick up the cards and put them back in order, to deal another hand. He wanted Andy to keep losing. He wanted him to put his shirt back on.
“He’s okay,” he said. “He knows a lot. About science and stuff. I think he’s pretty cool.”
Andy grinned. “Figures you’d like him. My brother said he’s a faggot.”
Colin rolled his eyes. “They say that about all the dudes who teach.”
“This is for real, though. He said when he was our age he saw Mr. Miller creeping on this kid in his class. He’s a total homo. He probably rapes little kids when he’s not at school.”
“Whatever.”
“Seriously!” Andy put up his hands, palms open. “I swear to God.”
Colin pictured Mr. Miller, his button-up shirts always un-tucked, his hair parted down the middle. When he drew the diagram of a heart on the board he held the chalk like a pen, letting it rest against his finger. Colin didn’t know what this meant. “He can’t be gay,” he said.
“He probably lies about it. I mean, it’s not like he could tell anyone at school.”
“Is he married?”
“If he is she’s probably a dyke. Like they have an agreement or something.”
“Whatever.” Colin lay back on his pillow. “You need to find some new shit to think about.”
“I’m totally saying something in class. I’m gonna see what he does.”
“Don’t be stupid. You’ll get suspended.”
“I’m not gonna say anything to his face. Maybe I’ll call you a faggot in class and see if he gets all mad or whatever. Holy shit!” Andy slapped his knees like an excited toddler. “What if I got him to hit on me? What if I could get him fired and sent to jail?”
Colin looked at the ceiling and thought of his science teacher escorted from the room in handcuffs. “Dude, just leave him alone.”
“But he’s totally a rapist!”
Colin sighed and looked at the halo around the overhead light. He shut his eyes and there it was again, a green ring in the dark. He was thinking of Andy alone with Mr. Miller, after class on some Friday, their discussion of the human body and its rapturous mechanics. Blood trickled to his pelvis and he let his fingers slide beneath his waistband. He realized Andy might be watching and he scratched his pubic hair and withdrew.
“Do you
think we should defend ourselves?” Andy asked.
“Just shut up already.”
“I’m serious.” Andy leaned over and prodded Colin in the ribs. “We might have to carry protection, you know. Like Mace or something.” He looked over at the office door. “Or a gun.”
“Don’t even think about it. You’re not gonna carry around a gun.”
“Maybe just when we’re not at school, like if he tried to follow us home or something.”
“I’m serious. Forget about the fucking gun.”
“Let’s just practice with it,” Andy said. “You don’t have to load it. Let’s just try hiding it under our shirts or something, and drawing it out real fast.” He was folding the skin on his palms, looking at Colin like a much younger brother desperate to play. “We won’t even touch the bullets, I swear. You know what? I’ll stay out here. I don’t even have to go in there. Promise.”
“I told you to forget it.”
“Okay, how about this.” Andy leaned forward and made a fist. “If you don’t get the gun, I’ll punch you in the balls. And if you still don’t get the gun, I’ll punch you in the balls again. I’ll punch you until you sound like SpongeBob. ‘Hey guys! Has anyone seen my balls?’”
Colin looked over at the office door. He’d never shown Andy how to pick the lock, and now it was clear he’d never paid attention while he stood guard.
“You have five seconds,” Andy said.
Colin groaned and retrieved the paper clips from behind the furnace. Andy stood just outside the doorway, chewing his lip as Colin reached into the bottom drawer.
It wasn’t long before they grew bored, aiming at a large strip of exposed insulation on the far wall that could’ve been a man’s shadow. “What if Mr. Miller had a gun?” Andy asked, and pointed it at Colin. He imitated their teacher’s deep voice, drawing out each word, only it sounded like someone who’d just learned to speak English. “Take off your clothes, kid,” he said, and laughed when Colin lifted up his shirt and squealed Please! Don’t!
Some Hell Page 9