“You live here?” Barton asks.
Sometimes I want to tell Barton to just shut up.
“Thanks,” Seth says in a weak voice. Then he turns toward me. “Again.”
“This isn’t going to happen again,” I tell him as I get out and try to shake his hand, then settle for patting him on the shoulder. “I swear it won’t.”
“Just let me know how I can give you back your shirt,” Seth says.
He’s a tall guy, taller than I am. He looks so pitiful.
“Yeah, sure, no rush. You know Fascination Records, close to downtown? The small record store on the corner? That’s where I work.”
“Okay.”
We see his toothpick-like figure head toward the only home with a light on. I feel something inside I can’t identify. It’s not just anger. It’s more than that. A lot more than that.
“There’s nothing you can do,” Devon tells me while he’s driving us back to his house.
“The football team better start looking for someone to replace your boy Greg,” I snap at Frankie.
“He’s not ‘my boy.’” Frankie is as frustrated as I am.
“He keeps you from getting sacked,” Barton says.
“He’s got issues,” Frankie says.
“Yeah, and he’s got more tonight,” I mutter.
“I don’t know if I’d get involved,” Barton says.
“We are involved,” I say. “We.”
“No way,” Barton says. “I’m not going to get stripped down on the side of the road by the football players.”
“That would be an unfortunate sight,” Devon says, and we all laugh.
“An ‘unfortunate sight’!” Barton howls.
I laugh with them, but none of this is funny. A decapitated head being tossed around in a cheesy horror movie is funny, but seeing a poor kid like Seth naked on the street and unable to talk isn’t funny. It’s beyond not funny.
For a while I don’t say anything as the car moves through the darkness.
“Greg is trouble,” Frankie says. “I’m just telling you.”
“I didn’t even know this guy Seth before I saw him getting kicked all over the park that day.”
“Greg’s father is trouble,” Frankie adds.
“He’s a cop.”
“Yeah.”
He says this in a way that says he knows more, but that’s all he says. It doesn’t matter if Greg and his father are trouble—somebody needs to stop this. Some adult needs to know what’s happening to Seth.
When we get to Devon’s house, Frankie pulls me aside and tells me one last thing as the two other guys are heading into the house.
“Greg’s dad, Sergeant Packard—he’s going to make sure his son doesn’t get kicked off the team.”
“How do you know?”
“I know.”
“What? How? Come on.”
Frankie blocks my way into Devon’s house.
“I know because I tried to get Greg kicked off at the end of last year,” Frankie tells me. “Not only did it not work, but his dad threatened me.”
“Shut up.”
“I’m serious.”
“Threatened you how?”
Frankie looks at the front door, then back at me. “He said he’d break both my arms if I said anything.”
Marvel called in sick again today, but that’s okay because she has a backup. A permanent backup working solely for the sake of being around her.
“Can I get paid for today?” I ask Harry.
“Well yeah, sure, since you’re actually going to work.”
His hair looks curlier than usual; the humidity outside is making it poof up like a popcorn kernel in the microwave.
“I work. What are you talking about?”
“You follow Marvel around like a puppy all day long.”
“While I work.”
“So is your big plan working?” Harry asks as he unrolls a poster he’s going to frame and hang on the wall.
“There’s no big plan.”
“Is she into you?”
“Yeah, I think. Sort of. Maybe.”
Harry looks over at me and shakes his head, laughing. “You’ll learn one day.”
“Learn what?”
“You can’t win. They are the superior race.”
“Who says I’m trying to win?” I ask.
“You’re trying to control the situation. But I’m telling you, it won’t work. Why do you think it was Eve who gave Adam the apple? He was just a dumb male like the rest of us.”
I think about his statement for a minute. “You sound like you got in an argument at home.”
Harry nods. “Oh, yeah, totally.”
“Did you win?”
“Are you kiddin’? When a woman gives birth to your three children, she always wins. Come on, help me keep this poster flat for a second.”
The minute I see the Hawaiian shirt and white legs in cargos and flip-flops, I know who’s stopping by. Lee. I’ve been hoping that old guy would come in one of these days. I want him to meet Marvel. Unfortunately, she isn’t here.
“Got any good Beach Boys records?” he asks me.
“None you don’t already have.”
Lee Fleisher is the town clown. He doesn’t actually wear the makeup and costume, but he still sorta resembles one. He’s nearly bald, and the hair on each side of his head is usually windblown, giving him a bad comb-over look. He was a businessman in Appleton until he retired years ago, but he still does motivational talks. I can’t imagine Lee giving businesspeople motivational talks, but he’s a millionaire with a lot of experience. Plus, he tells funny stories.
“What’s up, Lee?” Harry says from behind the counter.
“Absolutely nothing.” Lee wanders down an aisle at his usual pace.
He’s an avid music collector and one of the reasons Harry stays in business. He’s always buying albums and having us order stuff for him. He says his wife loves for him to play records and dance with her. Apparently she has something like Alzheimer’s and doesn’t ever come out of their large house in Glenforest Estates.
“That Vangelis record still hasn’t come in,” Harry tells him.
“I told you, I think it’s out of print.”
“They keep telling me it’s in stock.”
“Never trust people trying to make money off artists,” Lee says. “You hear that, Brandon?”
“Yep.”
“Tell me—what do you want to do when you grow up?”
“I want to be like you.”
“What? Old, fat, and bald?”
I laugh. Lee is always making fun of himself, which is probably why he feels he can make fun of everybody else, too.
“I want to own a whole selection of Hawaiian shirts like you have.”
“When I die I’ll bestow them all to you. God knows our boys hate these things.”
Lee is funny, especially when talking to ladies in the store. One day Harry’s wife came in, and Lee wasn’t even subtle about flirting with her. Harry couldn’t believe how crude the old guy was, but she just laughed.
“Phil’s not in, is he?” Lee asks.
“Not today,” I say.
“That guy hates me.”
I somehow can’t see hippie Phil hating anybody. “Why would he hate you?”
“I just get that hate vibe from him.”
“It’s probably because you don’t like seventies music,” Harry says.
“I don’t dislike it. I just don’t get into the heavier stuff, the stuff you need drugs to like. Pink Floyd and all that.”
“I bet you’re not a fan of Dennis Shore then, huh?” Harry asks.
Dennis is a best-selling novelist living in Geneva. He stopped writing for a while after working hard to take one of his books out of circulation. Rumor had it that he’d plagiarized part of it or something like that. He’s since started publishing again and even did a book signing at Fascination Street earlier this spring.
“That guy? What a hack. I can
write better books than him.”
“Big Pink Floyd fan.”
“That explains a lot,” Lee says. “I bet he only has half his brain cells left.”
After a few minutes of waddling around like some big duck, Lee calls out to me. “Hey, Brandon. When are you going to come over and cut my grass?”
“I told you your lawn is too big.”
“Bring help then. I’m just trying to support the local talent.”
“Talent?” Harry asks.
“I bet this guy barely pays you,” Lee says.
“If you only knew,” I say.
“Come on. I love young entrepreneurs. I used to be one myself.”
“What?” Harry asks. “Back in the twenties?”
“Yep,” Lee says. “During the Depression. Tough times.”
Lee loves to joke. But the thing is, this guy is loaded. I make a mental note to get someone like Frankie to help me cut his lawn. We might make some nice money, which is something I definitely could use these days.
I think of Marvel again and contemplate calling her at home. But I decide not to. Last thing I want to look like is a stalker. Or someone trying too hard.
I want to try just enough to have her suddenly figure out why she needs to be with me.
The guys and I are going swimming. On my way to the quarry I pass an old church building that’s been empty for a while. I glance at it as I’m coasting down the hill toward the bridge to go over the Fox River, and I spot Marvel. She’s heading into the church.
I call out, but the door shuts and she’s already inside. I slow my bike down and prop it on the sidewalk. I see the date on the side of the church telling when it was built: 1846. I wonder when people stopped going to this big Baptist church. Ever since I can remember, it’s been empty. I guess maybe if families like mine actually attended church on Sunday mornings, places like this would still be open.
For a while Mom tried to get us to go to church, but she eventually gave up. None of us really wanted to go. And once Dad lost his job and the financial pressure went onto Mom, having a “day of rest” meant sleeping in and not worrying about being somewhere at ten thirty.
I’m thinking maybe Marvel just walked into the building to check it out, so I wait outside for about five minutes. It’s a clear, hot day, with cotton-ball clouds shuffling around in the sky. After I start to sweat, I decide to go inside and see what Marvel is doing.
The church looks as if it’s been waiting for a congregation to come back and sit in its long pews for the last decade. It smells musty, and it’s dark with grainy light coming in. Plus it’s about as hot as the outside, except this is a thick heat like a blanket smothering you.
I see Marvel sitting in the middle set of three sections of pews. She’s bent over, so I assume she’s praying. I stand back and watch her, feeling like a weird stalker, feeling like I’m invading a very private moment.
Maybe tell her you’re here before freaking her out when she sees you.
I almost cough as I enter the large sanctuary. The ceiling seems to tower ten stories above me. The cross on the back wall is lit up with reds and oranges from the reflection of the sun, almost sizzling. This place doesn’t feel like a church. It doesn’t feel holy. It only feels stuffy and empty.
I hear a whimper, and suddenly I realize Marvel is crying. I keep moving down one of the two aisles cutting through the church. Then I clear my throat.
“Marvel?”
Her head jerks back for a moment, and I see those dark eyes and round cheeks. She closes her eyes as if she’s disappointed. I slide into the pew behind her and hear the cracking of the old wood as I sit down.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“What are you doing here?”
Her voice is barely a whisper. It sounds weak, her nose stopped-up.
“I saw you on the street. I just—I called your name but you didn’t hear me.”
“So you followed me in here?”
“Why are you crying?”
She looks up at me, her face angry one moment, then suddenly sad again. She seems too tired to put up a fight. “It’s just, sometimes it’s all—” The rest of her words come out mumbled and incoherent.
I place an arm around her because I don’t know what else to do.
“It’s going to be okay,” I say because I can’t think of anything else to say.
“I know it will. That’s what I’m trusting. That’s what I tell myself every single day and every single night. I smile and know that God has given me this day for a reason, but still, sometimes . . . sometimes . . .”
She begins to cry.
“What?” I ask her.
“No, not—I don’t mean to be like this. I’m not like this. Not like this. Like this.”
“It’s okay,” I tell her, thinking whatever it is is something she’ll get through.
“I moved here because my father murdered my mother and my sister and then killed himself.”
I hold in a breath, unable to talk, unable to move.
It’s not okay. It’s definitely not okay and it won’t ever be okay.
“God spared me for a reason, and I know that and I’m thankful, but I still miss my family. I miss my sister. I miss the life I once had.”
I still don’t know what to say.
“Marvel—”
“There’s nothing to say. It’s okay.”
She takes my hand as if she knows what I’m thinking.
Murdered? By your father?
“It was in the news,” she says. “But my name was never mentioned. And people don’t pay attention to the news, right? Someone gets killed in Chicago and nobody really notices. A crazy man decides to torch his family, but because they’re Hispanic nobody really notices that much, right?”
“I’m sorry. . . .”
“I know,” she says. “I am too. I’m sorry every single day, Brandon.”
“But what happened? Why?”
She wipes her cheeks.
“Because there was a devil living inside of my father and it finally had had enough with my mother and her faith and her love of Jesus.”
I want to ask a dozen questions, but they all seem so wrong and so unmentionable. I remain quiet, thinking of the weight this girl must be walking around with.
But most of the time she’s so bright and happy.
“I knew I’d eventually tell you because these things get out. I just didn’t know how. You’ve been so kind to me.”
“Not really,” I say.
“Yes you have. And I just—I’m just trying to figure things out.”
“Like what?”
“Lots of things. The first one being you.”
“What about me?”
She waits for a moment to talk, then looks back up toward the cross. “Brandon, do you believe there really was a man called Jesus Christ?”
I shrug. “Yeah, sure.”
“No, really. Tell me the truth. Do you believe he was the Son of God and came down to be a real man and die on a real cross?”
“Umm—well . . .”
It’s never been asked of me what I really and truly believe. I’ve accepted it the same way I accept that we need Christmas and Easter holidays.
“I’ve never seen the cross in the same way I see it now. Christ’s death. For me. His saving me. I just—I’m so overwhelmed. Yet I still have days when I just feel beaten down.”
“I’m sorry,” I tell her.
“You didn’t do anything. You’ve been there for me since I got here. Making me laugh and making me forget. Two very good things.”
“I didn’t know about your parents.”
“How could you? I still don’t understand the why, Brandon. I understand why God came down to this world to save us. It’s because we needed to be saved. But why I was saved from the thing my father did . . . I will never know.”
I want to ask details, but I also want to get out of here.
“Do you want to be alone?” I ask.
She la
ughs. “What do you think?”
“Um, yes?”
Marvel shakes her head. “Come on—let’s go back outside.”
Ten minutes later we’re sitting across from each other at a deli eating sandwiches. One minute she’s talking about her father who burned her whole family, next she’s talking about how much she doesn’t like pickles.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
“Of course.”
She seems again like the Marvel I know. Confident, smiling, curious.
“I didn’t know,” I say again. I feel like I did something wrong in not knowing.
“I’ve been carrying this around ever since I came into the record store.”
“I know—it’s just . . .”
“God gives me daily strength. Some days—most days—I feel it walking with me. But some days I forget to bring it with. Like today.”
She doesn’t sound like a preacher at a church or one of those Christian speakers trying to sell a product or something. She’s sounding like this strength is something that is real, like a backpack she carries around with her every day.
“I love the verse in the Bible where it says God will wipe every tear from our eyes and there’ll be no more death or sorrow or suffering, that they’ll be gone forever. I know that’s what heaven will be like. A place where nobody is sitting in a dark church crying. There won’t be abandoned churches, for one. There won’t be death or crying or pain.”
I’m not very hungry, but I’m eating my sandwich to avoid talking. I swallow and nod at her comment. “That’s a cool thought.”
“I think about heaven a lot. Maybe people we always wondered about will one day pass by our open door. I like thinking that doors won’t be locked there. Maybe the houses won’t even have doors at all. It’ll be like those hotels without doors I’ve seen pictured in exotic locations, inviting guests to enter and exit whenever they want. I like to think we will be pleasantly surprised by some of the guests who visit us. I think heaven is like a great surprise we’ll experience daily, hourly. Goose bumps greeting us all the time. Never getting old. Never getting routine.”
“You must think about it a lot,” I say.
“This place is just a trailer for a film, Brandon. Our lives here. Heaven is like the movie. Except there’s only one trailer before the movie. And the movie won’t ever end.”
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