by Martin Moran
“Shut the door, take a seat,” he said without looking up.
The door creaked like everything in these haunted halls, then clicked to a close. I sank into the middle of three straight-backed wooden chairs. I’d not sat in here before. Not much to look at. His old desk and a file cabinet. A couple of reference books were propped near his phone. On the binding of the largest was inscribed Libreria Editrice Vaticana. He remained quiet; flipping through what I guessed must be my life. My heart hammered to think what he might know. That what was written in there could be the truth. He sucked in breath, blew it out. I smelled the alcohol. Even we freshmen had heard talk of his problem. He was the first person I’d ever known to whom the world referred, in a gentle and pitying way, as alcoholic.
“Mr. Moran?” His head was still buried in my folder.
“Yes, Father.” I studied the blood vessels, like delicate veins of a leaf, crisscrossing his Jimmy Durante nose and spilling out across his sagging cheeks. He lifted his head, folded his hands, and focused his bloodshot eyes on me.
“In the space of one term, you’ve gone from near the top of your class to very near the bottom. Did you know that?”
“No, Father.”
“Well, you have.” He pushed his glasses to the top of his nose. I tried to spy what was on the page in front of him, but all I could make out was a column of scribbles and the usual embossed A.M.D.G. (Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam—to the greater glory of God) at the bottom of the stationery. “What’s going on with you?”
“Nothing, Father.” I glanced up at the portrait of Paul VI.
“Look,” he said, taking off his glasses, “going from sixth in your class to one-fifty-sixth is not nothing. You are known as a disciplined student.” His eyes were rheumy. They blinked at me. “Do you see why I’ve called you here?”
“I think so, Father. You want me to do better.”
“Yes, that’s true.” He spread his elbows along the desk and leaned forward. “And I want to know what’s weighing on you.” I had thought this seat was for punishment only. I was totally thrown in the face of concern. “Are things all right at home?”
I shrugged.
“I know about your parents’ separation, Marty. I’m sorry.”
His use—first time ever—of my Christian name, his “sorry,” caused my throat to close. I saw that he meant to be kind, and I craved the kindness, but I was terrified to let anything leak out. A leak might lead to a flood and I could feel, looking right at him, how every door of me was slammed shut. He was reaching out, and I sat there, numb. A blank.
He took out a white handkerchief and blew his nose. Then he stood and, with great, wheezing effort, tucked my life away into the bottom drawer between McLaughlin and Moroni.
“Have you thought about joining a team?” he asked as he closed the drawer. “Soccer or swimming? Something physical, outdoors, something to do with other boys. What do you think?”
I stared at the floor, at the soiled cracks between the ancient tiles. I had not one clue how to speak from my hiding place, how to get out from under my own JUG. “Maybe soccer,” I whispered.
He sat back down.
“Good. You think about it. Good for you to get out and do something physical with the other boys. You’d better get back to class.”
“Yes, Father.” I stood and walked to the door.
“Marty?” His baggy face was all goodness. “If you’d like to talk . . . I’m here.”
“OK.”
“Get those grades up.”
“Yes, Father.”
I walked back into the empty hall full of male eyes, with the firm knowledge that I was falling, like my grades, to the bottom of the barrel. I couldn’t keep it up, the act, the will. I thought of heading out the door, walking west toward the hills, but, instead, stepped into the boys’ room, into one of the stalls. I locked the door and sat on the toilet.
I hung my head between my knees and wrapped my arms around my ribs as if to hold them all together. I felt like a little kid who’d fallen on the playground, banged my head, doing OK . . . until the adult reaches out and offers sympathy. It’s then that the tears come, that the sorrow and unfairness of harm washes through you. The want of pity. I hated, but couldn’t stop, the tears leaking. And hated that I didn’t understand my sorrow, couldn’t pull it apart, look at it. All I knew was that there was this immense ache at the center of me. I didn’t really know how much I was trying to bury. How much I was working to hide the attractions I felt, to hide the places I’d been and the hunger left in the wake of what happened. I don’t think I knew how much I missed him. I’d banished him. They’d banished him. He’d been my friend, for Christ’s sake. My fucked-up love. He knew my secret. He knew my body. This not divine body that would never hold a good Catholic man. A citizen, a husband, a father. Despicable.
I looked up at the rusty pipes and down at the filthy floor, whispering over and over: You’ve got to get out of here. You’ve got to get out of here.
On the bus ride home I held my list of irregular French verbs. Valoir: je vaux, tu vaux, il vaut . . . I couldn’t concentrate. I glanced up to see the streets thicken with people and construction as we approached downtown Denver. Suits and ties, secretaries and shoppers everywhere. I watched one man in a pinstripe suit with shiny cowboy boots rifle through his briefcase as, on the same corner, a group of Native Americans (Ute? Arapaho? Cheyenne?) huddled together on a pile of parkas in the shade of an old building. They passed around a paper bag. I’d see them there most every day as the bus stopped at the patch of red lights on the West End of town. They looked so lost, next to all the Plexiglas and steel. Visible but hidden beside the busy march of foot traffic, the honking horns. It was as if they were camped there in defiance while crazy, anxious white men built a city higher and higher around them.
The bus came to a halt at a congested corner not far from Sixteenth Street. I leaned my head against the window and watched a bricklayer at work. He stood alone at the corner, constructing, brick by red brick, a wall, which now stood about hip height to him. He was fast. He’d place a brick, swipe his trowel along the wet cement, line it up, smooth it out, pick up another one, and repeat. His arms were thick and sunburned. Globs of cement landed near his feet and on his yellow boots. His blue jeans were worn to white, covered with dust. He had a brown beard and, above it, ruddy cheeks and forehead wet with sweat.
As I watched him, a wave of anguish moved through me, a force that seemed to scoop away whatever will I had left. Why in the world was he making a wall? Doesn’t he know it will come to nothing? Why all this futile activity? Everywhere I looked was movement. Movement infused with some purpose, some essential ingredient gone missing in me.
Look at it, I thought, gazing up the busy street. This life is nothing but a lie. Couldn’t we all just agree to stop, for God’s sake? Lie down and stop? Remember you are dust, the priest says, and to dust you shall return. There’s the truth. I looked back toward the bricklayer. His lips were puckered. Actually puckered, and I could see that he was whistling. Whistling while he shoved another brick into place, while all the world, including me, moved past. He has a wife, I supposed. And kids. Is it for them that he’s whistling? Working? What possible reason? I couldn’t know and didn’t want to. All I knew was that would never be me. I’d never make it that far.
22
I GOT OFF the bus and walked toward home. I could hear the song from our corner.
Will I ever find the boy in my mind, the one who is my ideal?
The voice was spilling out onto the street. Mom was home early, had one of her favorite records going.
Will I recognize the light in his eyes, that no other eyes reveal?
She sat in the big chair in the living room, a bag of Hershey’s Kisses in her lap, head thrown back, high heels kicked off. She’d made it through another day at the office. I dropped my knapsack and landed on the couch. She sat up and took me in. She was surprised, I knew, to see me stop so close. I’d been avoiding he
r. We hadn’t talked much since I’d kicked a hole in the wall at the end of the hallway two weeks before, just after I’d called her a bitch.
Or will I pass him by and never even know . . .
“How are you?” she asked, picking up her chocolates. I could hear it in her voice, the tone, like I was a box of explosives labeled: Fragile, handle with care. It wasn’t just the hole in the wall. I’d been behaving horribly. Really mean to my younger siblings and outright hostile to my older sister. Recently Mom had dragged all of us in for a few sessions of family counseling to discuss the divorce, the tension in the house. She was trying, God knows.
“That song . . . again,” I said.
“I love it.” She popped another chocolate in her mouth.
“Langford?”
She nodded and plucked another from the bag. With her polished nails she tugged at the little white ribbon—kisses kisses kisses—then peeled back the foil.
“Do you want one?” she asked.
“No, thanks. Is she still alive?”
“Who?”
“Frances Langford.”
“I think so.”
“She sounds so sad.”
“I love her voice.”
“I think I need to go to public school.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“Well, with all the busing, the problems, I don’t think that’s an option. Have you mentioned this to your father?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Well, let’s give it some time, some thought.”
I stood, went downstairs to my room, and shut the door.
There were enough of them now. I counted twenty-something pills, piled up and waiting. I stared.
Wait till summer. It’s not so far away. Go to the mountains and do it there, just disappear.
No, chickenshit. Get it over with. Do it now!
I sat on my bed and struggled to devise a plan. The first thing that occurred to me was that I was scheduled to give a reading at the All-City Youth Mass a week from Sunday at 7:00 pm. Ten days away. I’d promised, was honored, to do it. (I’d become very involved with the Catholic Youth Organization, one of my extracurricular attempts to shine; to find Jesus.) Wouldn’t that be fittingly dramatic, I thought. Stand before them, the way you like to do, articulate and capable and nice. Greet all your CYO friends. Then go home and die. That’s the bargain. Ten days, no matter what. I put the pills back in their hiding spot.
The next evening, I altered the bargain slightly. It seemed to me that I should at least make a final effort to tell someone what I was planning. Maybe that would change things. At least give it a try, I thought. There was a girl whom I adored. She played guitar at Mass, had the kindest demeanor, the most beautiful soprano voice. For some reason, she was the friend I thought of. Nancy, I could hear myself whispering to her, I think I have to kill myself. I saw her that weekend in the community room, doughnuts and juice after church. I sat with her and it was hellos and how are yous? I tried to tell her with my eyes. Didn’t work.
The following week, I remember, I took long walks at night around the neighborhood. Just moving in a depressive trance. A couple of times I stole the car (still had no license) and drove aimlessly around town, lugging with me this ache to connect, this unbearable sorrow. I remember driving the VW in circles under the ghostly street lamps in the parking lot of the bowling-swimming center—Celebrity Lanes—stopping the car in the back by the trash containers to scream at the world, to masturbate. To find reprieve. But nothing seemed to work, to give relief. I was parked there once, done jerking off, my head in my hands, when a Glendale policeman drove up. “What are you doing here? Are you driving?”
“No . . . no. I’m just waiting for my dad.”
He looked at me a long while.
“Why are you sitting in the driver’s seat?
I shrugged.
He finally drove off. I waited a long time before I started the car and made my way home, heart pounding.
When that Sunday arrived, I repeated what I thought was my final bargain: I’ll go to Mass, I’ll do the first reading, I’ll see everyone, and then I’ll come home. I’ll wait for my sister to get in from her job at Angie’s Pizza Parlor. I’ll try to speak to her. If she stops and talks, I’ll take it as a sign. I’ll tell her what I’m planning.
I waited at the kitchen table after Mass.
It was well past eleven when Chris flew in the front door, smelling of grease and pizza dough.
“Hey,” I said. I stood and moved toward her, toward the hall, which led to the bedrooms and bathroom.
“Hey,” she said, dropping her backpack and keys on the bench. Her face was stern, her long blond hair a mess. She went straight to the bathroom and shut the door. That was it. A two-second encounter. She was my last chance, my sign from God to go ahead with my plan, and she didn’t even know it. I wanted her to ask me what I was doing up so late, sitting at the table. I wanted her to read my mind, but how could she? She had a job, she had a life, she was coping as best she could. So much fell to her as Mom went to work and Dad moved out—laundry, cooking, babysitting. She was already scheming her way out, saving every dime possible so she could find a place of her own. I didn’t realize any of that then. All I felt as I watched her disappear into the john was that nothing would ever change. That I’d never be able to speak to anyone, really, about anything. Ever. It was too late. I’d never be able to correct what was wrong with me. There was no priest or parent or sister who could possibly hear this story, this shit. I had no choice now; I had to be brave enough to follow through.
It was nearing midnight. I decided to take one more walk. I moved past all the dark houses on our end of Glencoe, then around to Flamingo Street. I walked by George’s old house; I hadn’t seen him in months and months. He’d moved. The one time I did see him we’d smoked a joint and stared at the sky, talked of nothing. Never of Bob.
I walked up the street and sat on someone’s grass. Across the street, in the vacant field near Cherry Creek, I could see the Four Mile House. George and I used to ride our bikes right by it. It was named for its location in relation to the center of downtown Denver. It was where, in the old days, carriages from St. Louis and other parts east stopped to freshen up horses and clothes before making an entrance into town. Now it was abandoned, the white paint peeling from its three fancy stories of slatted wood, tumbleweeds piled in the huge yard. It stood there like a giant Victorian ghost in the moonlight. I stared and wondered how many people had passed this way, by stagecoach. Through time.
I got up and moved under the hum of street lamps, past the quiet houses. I was in a stupor. I remember finding myself back on my own street and just throwing myself down onto the Newcomb’s front lawn. I rolled back and forth, squeezing my rib cage as if to keep my body from flying apart. There was the smell of grass. There were my arms around my chest. I was rolling like a guy who’d been punched in the stomach in a barroom brawl. Stop it. Stop it. I remember telling myself: You’re out of control, losing your grip. I kept my arms tight around myself as though staving off an explosion. I will be a bomb, I thought, of bone and blood, scattered, splattered against the street and the walls, a message written in red: Remains of an unspeakable boy.
I heard a horrendous noise, like a dog, an animal howling or dying and it scared me, made me leap to my feet. I looked around. Everything was quiet and I realized the sounds had come from me and I was afraid that someone had seen or heard. I hurried down the block, back to my house.
I opened the fridge, poured a tall glass of milk (milk!), and went to the basement, to the privacy of my bedroom. (My little brother had long since moved to his own room upstairs.) I sat on the bed and swallowed the pills. It was easier to do than I thought it would be. Once I’d decided, I didn’t hesitate. Pouring the milk. Carrying the glass down the stairs without spilling. Taking the pills out of the baggie. Swallowing down the orange and yellow pile, two or three at a time.
I took off all my clo
thes and put on my red checkered robe and sat on the edge of my bed. And waited. I wrote part of a note saying goodbye, saying how I just couldn’t bring myself to speak to anyone, that I was sorry, that I’d tried to be a good Christian. That I wished I loved myself. I didn’t finish it. I just wanted the sleep, the rest, to come.
I woke with my head at the foot of the bed. My robe was flung open. I tried to close it, didn’t want to be seen naked. But my arms didn’t work, they were asleep. I scooted around and put my feet, my toes, onto the floor, the orange carpet. The color made me think of the pills and I was hit with the dread of remembering what I’d done. Oh, shit. I’m going to die.
I stumbled toward my desk. I didn’t know why I was headed there, something to do with the telephone? An idea of calling for help? I reached toward the phone but, instead, swiped at my clock radio. It crashed onto the floor. It had those large numbers that flip and when the clock landed upside down they tumbled backward, scrambling the time. The numbers were stuck, unable to turn, and the clock wheezed and clicked as the digits tried to flip forward. I remember (the memories so sharp despite the medicated blur) feeling such regret that I might have broken it. I liked that clock. It had fake paper stuck to it that looked like wood. Matched my paneling. It had a radio tuned to a cool talk/jazz station. Big numbers, loud alarm. I broke it, damn. A flash of panic, of terrible sadness, shot through me. I’ve done it. I was staring at the upside-down digits, at the crumpled clock, and that’s the last thing I remember before my face fell toward the bright orange carpet.
The next picture stuck in my head is of Mom trying to wake me, panicked: What have you done? she was asking. Are you on drugs? She was pushing up the sleeve of my robe, examining the veins on my arms. I understood at once that she was looking for needle marks, looking for signs that she was living with an addict. Feeling hurt and disappointed, I thought, Ah jeez, lady, you’re barking up the wrong tree. I kept trying to close my robe, cover myself. I didn’t want her to see me this way, my new patch of pubic hair.
I recall then that somehow I’d gotten upstairs. Time was warped—minutes were hours and hours seconds—but I was curled up in the big chair in the living room, vaguely aware that I’d gotten there on my own. My words were thick and slurred as I announced I wasn’t going to school, that I felt very sick.