Robin shivers with only his knit cap to protect him from the cold. The city buzzes in the glow of headlights, streetlights, and the fluorescent illumination pouring from the cigar store on Sheridan Square. Scott stumbles along at his side.
“Vincent gave me more money than I said we needed. We could even take a cab to the Port Authority.”
“What’d you have to do? Give him a blow job?”
Robin turns, furious, and points a finger at him. “Fuck you. I never blew anybody.”
“How much did he give you?”
“Ten,” he lies. If Scott wants to be an asshole, I’m going to keep most of the money for myself. I earned it, he thinks bitterly.
“Give me five.”
“No way. I got it from him. I’ll pay your bus fare and that’s it.”
“You did blow him.”
Robin grabs Scott’s arm and spins him around. “If it wasn’t for me you’d still be passed out on his couch and who knows what that guy could have done.” Robin knows he’s just a spit away from telling Scott about what happened with Vincent, but he can’t figure out how to describe it in a way that would sound like it wasn’t his own fault. Should he just come out and say, “That sex maniac made me play wiener in the bun?”
“You’re acting weird,” Scott says, looking away from his cold stare.
At the corner, Robin puts all his coins into a pay phone.
“Hello?”
“Victoria, it’s Robin. I need to ask you a favor.”
“Where are you?” She sounds worried.
“I can’t really say.”
“Well, they practically called the cops about you.”
“I’m in New York with Scott.”
“Oh my God. You are so in trouble.”
“If my mother calls you, tell her I told you I’m studying for science with George Lincoln.”
“She already called me.”
He leans the receiver into his leg and curses again. From the opposite corner, Scott shoots him a wary glance. “OK,” he says at last. “If she calls again, don’t tell her I called you.”
“She’s supposed to call me again in, like, ten minutes. You know she’s a major worrier.”
He makes a collect call.
“Where are you?” To his relief, his mother, and not his father, has answered.
“Don’t worry. I’m fine.”
“Tell me where you are.”
He tries to stall but she forces it out of him, and next thing he knows she’s crying. He almost never hears her cry, but this is instantaneous.
“Mom, don’t worry. I’m fine.”
She sniffles. “I don’t think you’re ready to be in New York without me, Robin.”
He can’t sort out what he’s feeling: guilty, angry, overpowered by mental exhaustion. He tries to sound relaxed, though his voice is quavering. “Mom, don’t freak out. I know my way around. I just wanted to tell you I’ll be home soon.”
His father grabs the phone. “Are you in trouble? Have you gotten yourself into trouble?”
He holds the receiver in the air until he hears his mother’s sniffling voice again. “Please, just reassure me that you’re in no harm,” she says.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” He thinks of Vincent’s hands squeezing his ribs and adds nervously, “Nothing I couldn’t handle, ha ha.”
“I’m just stunned, Robin. I really don’t know what to say.” Her voice falls into a helpless silence.
His father again: “I’m coming in to get you.”
“No. We have bus money.”
“Who are you with?”
“A friend.”
“What friend?”
“Dad, we’ll take the bus. I’ve done it a million times.”
“No fucking way. You’re not going through the Port Authority at this time of night.”
“Yes, I am,” he says, irritated. “OK?”
His mother again, excited by an idea: “I want you to go to my friend Tatjana’s, on Columbus Avenue. Remember, we had lunch there last year? We can drive in and meet you there.”
“Mom, I don’t want to see Tatjana right now. We’ll just get on the bus and come home.”
“Who are you with? What’s-his-name—Scott? It’s always that name.”
He looks to Scott, who is watching him intently.
“Mom, just let us come home without making a big production out of it.”
“Don’t mouth off to me!” He is surprised by her sudden shrieking. “In case you are wondering at all, your brother is not doing well. The doctors said today that he’s taken on a new infection. We needed to be at the hospital tonight, but we’ve spent the whole day trying to figure out where you are! Are you completely oblivious to what’s going on?”
“No, I’m not. I’m just . . .” He bites on his tongue, holding back tears again. He had forgotten all about Jackson. His father is right—he is selfish and inconsiderate, and he causes harm to everyone. “I don’t know how to explain it,” he says and hangs up, pressing his palms into his wet eyes.
Scott is at his side, his voice gentle. “Just ignore them, man. Just ignore their bogus shit.” Scott drops an arm across his shoulders. Robin curls into his chest and lets a couple of tears spill out, and after a few moments, Scott wraps his other arm around and holds him while he shakes.
They stand like that for a minute, maybe two, until Robin forms an image of himself as lost in the center of an enormous steel maze. He pushes away from Scott, and the city’s clamor roars up. He does not want to cry on the street. After what happened with Vincent he thinks he hasn’t the slightest idea how to make his way through this city and all of its traps. Scott’s face questions him, almost tenderly; he guesses that Scott is scared, too. He remembers Scott this morning, in that doctor’s office, in that enormous hospital with his mother stowed somewhere inside, unreachable.
He makes himself stop crying. This isn’t some romantic movie. He’s not Natalie Wood on the fire escape. He has to get them both back to New Jersey.
The inside of the bus is shadow on shadow, only the filmiest orange light seeping in from the road outside. Scott has insisted that Robin wear his zip-up sweatjacket to stay warm, and Robin returns the favor by pulling Scott close to him, coaxing him into sleep. Robin’s arm has gone numb, but he does not shake Scott’s head from his shoulder. Along the highway, New Jersey presents a series of spooky landscapes: the barren, swampy Meadowlands; the concrete bunker clothing outlets; the vast sports complex rising up from acres of parking lots. Last year his father took him and Jackson to a Cosmos soccer game at Giants Stadium. He brought his transistor radio and spent most of the game roaming the stadium’s corridors listening to the Top 40 Countdown on WNBC. For a while he sat outside the men’s room, watching them come and go, all the dads and sons, the single guys tucking in their shirts and the loud guys—buddies together—laughing; all of them in some strange cycle of drinking beer in and pissing it out, buying more beer and rushing back to join the cheering crowd. Robin sees himself there, sitting on the cool concrete floor, radio pressed to his ear, singing along with Donna Summer: Last dance, last chance for love. Jackson had mocked him that night for his lack of interest in the game, and they wound up in a name-calling argument so mean-spirited that Robin spent the next few days dreaming up ways to ambush his brother and beat him to a pulp. Maybe, Robin thinks now, Jackson will be a new, nicer person when he wakes from his coma. Or maybe the struggle of learning to use his body again will transform him; instead of the hyperactive kid he’s always been, he’ll be a considerate person, grateful for a new chance in the world. Maybe his body will never be quite right again and he’ll have to develop his mind; maybe they’ll one day be friends. Robin cuts off his daydream—deriding himself for this wishful thinking. None of them even knows what’s going to happen tomorrow, much less in the far-off future. He can’t even be sure what will happen when he gets home.
The bus passes through industrial sprawl and the towns he’s never stopped in, where the
houses are so close they’re almost attached; then the new malls along Route 4, the car dealerships and the fourplex movie theater that is now a tenplex; and finally the quiet, orderly towns winding along Kinderkamack Road, where thick, twisted oaks line the sidewalks. After this strange day in New York, he sees it all anew; he feels the weighty pressure of returning inside of him, like the prodigal son going back to a family that cannot imagine the life he’s been leading while away from them. He manufactures a lie to tell his parents—We were trying to find Scott’s aunt in the city to ask if he could move in with her—but the effort of concocting a story that they won’t believe just exhausts him more. What if I tell them the truth? I ditched school, hitched a ride to Bergen Elms, where Scott and I made a scene and were chased across the Garden State Parkway by security guards, went to the city with hardly any money in my pocket (not even wearing a coat!), bought drugs on the street, hung out at the piers. Went to a strange guy’s apartment and . . . Robin lets out a “Ha!” that sounds kind of deranged. If I told my parents that, he thinks, they’d probably put me in Bergen Elms. He wants to tell someone, though. Victoria? She couldn’t handle it. Ruby? Ridiculous. Todd? He’d throw a fit because Scott was involved. Robin realizes with a pang in his stomach that the person he’d like to tell is Jackson; he wouldn’t tell him everything (he certainly wouldn’t mention what happened with Vincent). But he wants Jackson to know he’s not a wimp or a mama’s boy anymore. What did his mother mean, Jackson has a new infection? Was she just trying to lay a guilt trip on him, or is it really bad? Robin squeezes his eyes shut, wanting the questions to stop, wanting, for once, some answers.
He sees his father leaning on the car next to the bus shelter before they even get off. Arms crossed, chin raised, eyes searching the bus windows. Scott wakes up as they pull to a stop.
Robin watches his breath curl like mist as he steps to the sidewalk, surprised how much colder it is here than in the city. It’s the last unfettered thought he has before everything erupts around him. His mother is rushing out of the car, shouting in a voice straining between relief and anger, “Let me look at you before I slap you;” his father steps forward and lays a hand on his shoulder, his stony expression a portent of the punishment ahead; the bus groans and takes off again, bellowing fumes. His numb arm awakes in a dance of pins and needles.
He turns around to say good-bye to Scott, but it’s too late. An explosion, an implosion, the night splits open: Mr. Schatz is there, one meaty fist already clamped around Scott’s bony arm. Robin opens his mouth to protest but no words come out.
“In the car,” Robin’s father commands, guiding him toward his mother. She tries to embrace him, but he wriggles away, stepping back toward Scott, who is trying to shake himself free of his father.
“Robin, let’s go.”
“No!” Robin shouts. “Scott should come with us.”
Mr. Schatz is already tugging Scott toward the van. “Let go. You’re hurting me,” Scott begs.
“Don’t even try it,” Mr. Schatz says. He pauses long enough to make eye contact with Clark and Dorothy. “Thanks for the call. Sorry you got dragged into this.”
“Sure. If there’s anything we can do ...” Clark’s voice trails off.
Robin looks in disbelief at his father. “You called him?” he whispers in horror.
His mother speaks through a balloon of cigarette smoke. “Robin, we’ve been worried to death all day.”
He steps away from his parents again and shouts to Scott, “Call me later!”
As Mr. Schatz’s van pulls away, Robin looks at his mother and father and yells, “I can’t believe you called his father! You assholes!”
His mother charges at him, shakes him by the shoulders, her cigarette breath spews into his face. “What is happening to you?” she cries hysterically.
“Don’t touch me,” he growls. All he can see when he meets her eyes is the face of a betrayer.
His father pulls him to the car. “Not another word out of you. Not a word.”
He searches through the back window, praying that Scott has jumped from the van and is now running back toward him.
They move from the center of town to the dark streets of his neighborhood. His father watches him in the rearview mirror, his eyes glowing with contempt. “In case you happen to give a shit, your brother isn’t coming home anytime soon.”
“Lucky him,” Robin growls.
Dorothy spins around. “Robin, that boy is a runaway, for crying out loud.”
“He’s not a runaway! His father beats the shit out of him all the time.” He pauses, waiting for either of them to show some sign of concern for Scott.
“You don’t know what’s going on in that family,” his mother says, her voice exasperated. “And it’s really not any of our business.”
“I know more about it than you! Why do you think we had to go to New York? We were trying to find one of his relatives so he could live with them.”
His father cuts him off. “Enough!”
His mother stares straight ahead and says softly, “Robin, we had no idea where you were.”
“I couldn’t tell you; it was an emergency. You don’t understand, his father could kill him!” His heart is beating so fast he is sure they must be able to hear it. “Scott’s father is a major drinker, and he takes it out on Scott. Plus his mother’s in Bergen Elms; she’s been there for like a year, because his brother died—” He stops. They aren’t listening. He is looking up at them from the bottom of a deep, narrow well, his voice dissolving before it reaches their ears. “It’s all just fucked up. That’s why we went into the city. He’s probably getting the shit beat out of him right now.”
“I don’t—I don’t understand why you’re getting involved with this boy’s troubles,” his mother says, her voice straining to sound reasonable. “You shouldn’t be in New York without me.” She reaches back across the seat as if she would caress his face, but he swats her away.
“Hey!” His father pivots, raising his hand as if he would strike—but the move jerks the steering wheel, throwing Robin and Dorothy into their doors. A car horn blares from the road and tires squeal as oncoming headlights arc across their faces. Clark shouts and spins the wheel to regain control. They careen down Bergen Avenue, unscathed but shaken.
“Clark, please. Everyone just stay composed. Please.” Dorothy’s voice quavers. She grips the dashboard and rights herself.
Clark speaks through gritted teeth. “Robin, just think about your own family for a while. Think about what the hell is going on with your own goddamn family.”
Robin replays the near collision, imagining that his father had spun the wheel just a moment later, that the car he had cut off was just a few feet closer. He imagines the massive force of the impact and the scream of shattered glass. He is trapped beneath twisted metal, the life being squeezed out of him, his parents just on the other side of the seat, eyes open, mouths bloody, breathing their last breaths.
Chapter Eleven
Scott is not in school the next day, or the next. By the third day with no sign of him, Robin is frantic: Scott has been beaten to death by his father; Scott has finally struck back hard enough to kill his father; Mr. Schatz has had him arrested or locked up in Bergen Elms. Robin waits for the phone to ring late at night, for word from Scott on the run from the cops. On the fourth night, after dinner, Dorothy answers a call on the first ring and finds no voice on the other end; Robin, convinced it was Scott trying to get through, spends the next few days waiting for another call, which never comes.
His parents have forbidden him from using the phone, even to reach Victoria. He finally just stops speaking to any of them, even to Nana Rena, who has come back for another visit. The house suffocates in silence. Nana watches television with the volume so low he is sure she can’t hear it. His mother and father exchange wordless, weary stares with each other. Ruby and he stay in their rooms as much as possible. He wears Scott’s hooded jacket every day, afraid that to not wear it will
jinx his chances of finding him.
For a full week he signs in to central detention. He does his homework and talks to no one. His mother picks him up at four o’clock and takes him to the hospital for an hour, where he completes his assignments in a chair outside Jackson’s room. He can’t look at Jackson without feeling like he himself wants to curl up and die. Jackson is hardly recognizable: bony, wet-breathed, weaker than the machines that sustain him. He has been fighting off a respiratory infection, and the increased strain on his breathing has transformed his body into something tense and fragile, like the unbroken surface of water. Robin finds himself wondering if the sight of Jackson’s deterioration has been chosen by his parents as his punishment.
When they had arrived home, that last night he saw Scott, his mother kissed him good night and then turned to his father, saying, “Don’t overdo it, Clark.” Watching her climb the stairs without a look back, clutching a wine bottle and a glass, Robin realized that a plan had already been arranged. His mother had wanted to stay and his father made her promise she wouldn’t interfere—or perhaps she had simply absolved herself of any responsibility, no longer convinced she could talk sense to him. Alone with his father in the kitchen that night, Robin felt nothing: no fear, no remorse, no allegiance to anyone but Scott.
“Aren’t you supposed to say, ‘This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you?’ ” he had asked.
His father downed a shot of whiskey, took a deep breath. “Are you doing drugs?”
Robin said, “No,” and his father slammed him across the face with the back of his hand. “This is to make sure you don’t get any ideas about it,” he said, then slammed the other side of his face, knuckles crunching against Robin’s cheekbone like a bag of gravel. Robin stumbled backward from the impact, balancing himself against the smooth, cold surface of the refrigerator.
He shut his eyes, waiting for the next blow, but his father said, “OK, that’s it—I’m not a violent man,” as if he were negotiating the punishment with some invisible third party who wanted him to continue hitting.
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