Stone Angels

by Michael Hartigan

  Around dinner time the room began to take shape, save for the one set-up closest to the door that had no sheets, no computer, no clothes and no roommate. Duncan still hadn’t shown up, despite the school telling us all to show up at noon and ignoring the plans he and I had made to go to dinner with our parents at some place called Federal Hill.

  “So, Ben, my family was going to go up to this place Cassarino’s at that Federal Hill thing,” I said.

  “Federal Hill is their North End, Shaw. Their Little Italy,” Lindsey informed us.

  “Yeah, that place. Your family interested in getting some dinner?”

  We figured out how to lock the door after only two attempts and then our families, plus Lindsey, went to eat.

  It was the first time Lindsey and I would break bread together at one of the cramped, candlelit Italian restaurants clustered along Atwells Avenue. We frequented that same family-owned eatery countless times over the ensuing four years, ordering chicken parmagiana every time. They made the best in town.

  “We have to come back here,” Lindsey repeated over and over during the meal. And we did. It was our go-to place.

  Eventually, when Lily and I kicked things off, I took her to that same restaurant. Of all the terrible things I did to Lindsey, I’m convinced this was the most painful. Jealousy flickered in Lindsey’s eyes when she asked me how the chicken parm tasted without her. I kept the barrage coming when I told her I didn’t know, that instead I tried fried calamari and lobster ravioli—Lily’s suggestion.

  If Lindsey weren’t so strong, and if Lily weren’t standing right there, Lindsey would’ve cried. Instead she swallowed hard, shrugged and said, “Chicken parm’s better.”

  Lily, to her credit, understood everything. She knew Lindsey and I were close. She wanted no ruffled feathers. There were plenty of other great Italian spots on Federal Hill. We’d just have to find our own. We ended up trying them all, but never went back to the restaurant I shared only with Lindsey.

  After Move-in Day Dinner, when we pulled back to campus, my parents tried to park and come up. I wouldn’t let them. I made them drop Lindsey and I off at the front of my dorm. Lindsey said goodbye and walked into the building with Ben, whose parents had dropped him and sped away.

  I leaned in the passenger window to kiss my mother.

  “I really like her,” she said in the most motherly way.

  “Who, Lindsey?”

  “Yes, Lindsey.” She smiled one of those smiles moms get that all at once says, I know you like her and I know you’ll screw it up. My mom, and most other moms as far as I could tell, all have that innate ability to sense pheromone fluctuation in their offspring.

  “She’s just a friend, mom.”

  “I know, I know. Just be good to her. She’s so good to you.”

  “She is. Sometimes I don’t deserve it,” I tried to joke.

  “Stop it! Don’t talk like that.”

  “I was kidding, mom.”

  Her eyes went glassy. She sniffed back tears and told me she loved me then pulled down sunglasses that had been sitting atop her hair.

  My dad got out of the car, walked around to me and leaned against the hood.

  “Nervous?” he asked.

  “Nah, not at all. It’ll be fun.”

  “Good, good. It looks like you already have a couple friends. Ben’s a good kid, that Lindsey is a sweet girl.”

  “Yeah, definitely. I’m looking forward to it. Plus Duncan should be here soon, I guess.”

  He looked in at my mother who was looking at herself in the visor mirror, wiping her hidden eyes with a tissue.

  “So, any good fatherly advice for me?” I said, jokingly.

  “I didn’t know I was supposed to give a speech. How about, don’t waste my $30,000.”

  We both laughed. I knew the financial burden that would be placed on my family and the gratitude couldn’t be expressed in words. My father looked at the ground and then back at me. He extended his right hand.

  “You know who you are, Shaw. You know what you want. Just be true to that, be true to yourself.”

  “Thank you, I will,” I said, as we shook hands for the first time I could remember; like one man to another. Was he choking back emotion? Or was that me?

  He got back in the car.

  “Be good,” he said. “Remember what I said. Look after yourself.”

  They both waved and started pulling away.

  “Don’t worry about me,” I yelled.

  The car was already turning the corner.

  Chapter 21

  Ben and Lindsey were sitting on the old love seat chatting when I got back up to the room after saying goodbye to my parents. Ben had left the door open so I didn’t have to fumble with the keypad.

  I stood in the doorway and examined my new home. Everything was as we left it a few hours before, except a huge pile of clothes now sat on Duncan’s bed. The further into the room I got, the more I noticed his set-up. Duncan’s computer was assembled, a stereo system on his dresser and a large array of shoes piled under the desk. He had also rearranged the desk perpendicular to the bed, so that if he sat at it, he would be fully underneath, looking out the door.

  “When did Duncan get here?” I asked.

  “Hey Shaw,” Lindsey said. “I don’t know.”

  “Must’ve come while we were eating,” Ben said. “Looks like he doesn’t mind the bed we assigned him.”

  “He’ll be fine, it’s all the same crap anyway,” I said. “I wonder where he went?”

  Until the floor meeting at nine o’clock, Lindsey and I decorated, trying desperately to add color to the beige paradise. I hadn’t even been there a full day and the blandness blinded.

  On my closet door I hung a poster of Eric Clapton. It was a picture of the picker playing his guitar, all in a blue hue. Under the strings of the first fret he had stuck a lit cigarette, the smoke curling up around his face, which had closed eyes and was deep in an emotional riff. Words at the bottom read, “Smokin’ Blues.”

  It took us an hour to hang anything on the cinder block walls. Ben lent us some blue sticky putty that, after some massaging, finally stuck. I hung a horizontal poster. It was a photograph of the backs of naked women, sitting poolside. On each back was painted a different Pink Floyd album cover.

  “I love that poster,” Ben said.

  “It’s more like porn,” Lindsey replied. “You just want to stare at their asses.”

  Ben and I both laughed.

  “Are you kidding?” I asked her, mid-laugh. “This is a great picture. It’s art, Linds.”

  “Plus, they have great asses,” Ben chimed in. We laughed for a while, Lindsey scowling and reprimanding us for being pigs.

  “All men are pigs. Some are just cuter than others,” I advised her. “Write that down, save it. You’ll use it some day.”

  “That’s not true, you guys are alright,” she said.

  “What are you talking about? We’re definitely pigs. Here, think about it this way. You know that warthog from the Lion King? He’s an ugly pig. But then there’s that pig from Charlotte’s Web. He’s cute and cuddly and nice and you love him, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, he’s still a pig.”

  “What does that even mean?”

  “Same thing with guys. Ben’s an ugly warthog,” I said. Ben hadn’t stopped laughing. “Me, I’m cute and cuddly and nice. But I love these girls’ asses. I’m a pig.”

  Lindsey wasn’t a fan of our line of reasoning. The scowl on her face told me so.

  “So you’re saying that you are allowed to treat women like shit because it’s ingrained in your genetic makeup? Sounds more like a justification of being an asshole.”

  “No, no, no. Not at all. I’m saying that you should just keep this in mind because most people aren’t what they make themselves out to be. You gotta be perceptive enough to realize when someone is being real and when they’re not. I embrace my piggishness.”

  “Oink, oink,�
� Ben added.

  “See Linds, a pig is a pig is a pig, no matter how cute Disney makes them.”

  The door swung open violently and slammed against the concrete walls. Duncan strolled in followed by a couple of burly guys I had never seen before.

  “Shaw! Benny-boy! Lindsey!” he yelled as he walked in the door. “I’m heeeeeere!”

  Lindsey and I both got up and went over to greet him. Ben stayed on the couch but shifted around to welcome our third roommate. The group of us stood around the couch, Lindsey and I on one side, Ben sitting, Duncan and his friends still somewhat in the doorway.

  “What’s up,” I said. “What time did you get here?”

  “About six o’clock,” Duncan said.

  “Where you been for three hours? Did you just dump your shit and leave?”

  “Whoa, what’s with the twenty questions, Inspector,” he said mockingly, looking around the room for reassurance. “I met these guys while I was moving my shit in. They live right above us.”

  Both of them were taller than me and bulkier. The one to Duncan’s left had sandy hair and huge, broad shoulders. He was wearing sweatpants, sandals and a wife beater. The wire-rimmed glasses gave him an air of jock-nerd.

  “This is Regan Connelly.”

  Regan gave everyone a wave but didn’t change his vacant facial expression.

  “And this one is Tom Goneril,” Duncan said, gesturing to the other behemoth standing to his right. “Everyone calls him Flask.”

  Flask was just as big as Regan, slightly leaner and fitter. He clearly spent plenty of time in the gym. He was wearing a tight leather jacket, jeans and a backwards New York Yankees hat that told me he was probably from Connecticut or New Jersey. It was my experience that ninety percent of Yankee fans said they were from New York. But it was also my experience that ninety percent of people at school who said they were ‘from New York’ weren’t actually from New York. Rather, they were from the ritzy suburbs an hour outside the city but wanted to sound eclectic and mature by asserting their allegiance to the Big Apple.

  “They’re both from New York City.” I was wrong.

  “Oh, really? That’s cool,” I said. “I’ve only been there once, to Manhattan. Tourist places, you know. Are you near there?”

  “Well, actually we’re both from Greenwich. Right outside the city.”

  I wasn’t wrong.

  “Flask?” Ben asked. “Your mom’s maiden name?” he chuckled.

  Flask reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small gunmetal flask, popped the top and took a swig.

  “Always be prepared,” he said.

  “That explains it. Good advice, though,” Ben said.

  “Regan, Flask this is Shaw, Ben and Lindsey,” Duncan said.

  Flask stepped out from behind Duncan and over behind the couch, closer to Lindsey.

  “Lindsey, eh? Very nice to meet you.”

  “Same here.”

  “I have an idea though, how about we go upstairs to my room.”

  “What?”

  “Let’s you and me get out of here and go upstairs. I need to break in my new bunk bed, give it a good initiation,” he said.

  “Excuse me?” Lindsey scoffed. I could tell she was getting quickly annoyed. Lindsey had no patience for machismo. “I could’ve sworn you just said you wanted to ‘break me in.’”

  “No, no. I want to break in the springs in my mattress. I need to test out the durability and I want you to help me.”

  “Wow, I don’t even know how to reply to that.”

  “Do you know her?” I asked him.

  “Who, me? No, why?” he said. He looked genuinely confused.

  Nothing annoyed me more than stupidity. And this guy apparently juiced himself up with needles full of it.

  “I was just wondering if you knew her because I can’t imagine you would say that to any girl, let alone a girl you just met.”

  “Dude, relax I was just kidding. Is she your girlfriend or something?”

  “No, and that doesn’t make a difference.”

  “Actually it does, if I wanna fuck the bitch I can.”

  “Excuse me?” Lindsey screamed. “Wow, Romeo, you must be great with the ladies. All those sweet nothings must be like honey in a girl’s ear. How old are you, you fucking child?”

  “Get behind me, Linds,” I said, trying to step up to Flask. I hadn’t heard Lindsey swear like that in ages.

  Flask moved out from behind the couch next to Duncan. Ben stood up next to me.

  “Disgusting pig,” Lindsey sneered.

  “I’m no pig, baby,” Flask retorted. “More like a stallion.”

  “All men are pigs, some are just cuter than others,” she said. She put her hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “You aren’t one of the cute ones.”

  Duncan looked increasingly nervous and confused, as if his puppy just bit someone. Lindsey stood next to me fuming, enraged that any guy had the balls to address any girl the way Flask just did. Awkward tension and silence enveloped us for what felt like hours.

  “Hey, hey he’s just kidding Shaw, he’s messing around,” Duncan finally said. Nobody moved. “Seriously, relax man. And Linds, c’mon, it’s a compliment! You’re hot, deal with it.”

  It struck me as odd that Duncan would defend this guy he had met an hour before instead of the girl who had been his friend for months. At the time, I took it as his effort to keep the peace and prevent an unnecessary brawl.

  Whatever his intentions, the intervention worked. Tension dissipated.

  “My bad. I apologize, Lindsey—that’s your name, right?” Flask said. “I was just teasing, trying to get a rise out of you.”

  She still fumed.

  “Yeah, whatever. But just a word of advice, that line will most definitely not get you laid.”

  She huffed and flopped into my desk chair, turning her back on the whole scene.

  Flask turned to me, stuck his hand out and I shook it.

  “No hard feelings. Good to meet you, though,” he said. Our hands were still clenched together. We locked eyes and squeezed until our knuckles turned white. I wasn’t a small guy but mine looked like a child’s hand enveloped by his mammoth paw.

  “Overreaction on my part. Blame it on moving day – lots of stress,” I said and rolled his fingers against each other in my grip. His knuckles popped. Flask flinched with the sudden pain, surprised by my ability to overcome his strength. My teeth bared a little as my smile widened.

  “No worries,” I said. Flask let go first.

  We both looked over to Duncan. He returned an awkward smile and nodded.

  Ben walked around me and over to Duncan and his two friends.

  “It’s almost nine, we should get out into the hallway,” he said, ushering them along. He put his arm around Duncan’s shoulder and asked him how he’d been, if he enjoyed his summer and was excited to finally be at college.

  Much of that night remains a blur but the next morning I arose in a heap on an extra mattress lying in the middle of our room. Shaky and groggy, I peeked up into my lofted bed to find Lindsey snoring sweetly underneath a jacket; we never fit the beds with sheets or blankets. On Ben’s bunk lay a pile of what looked like laundry but after a few seconds rose and fell with my drunken roommate’s breathing. Duncan was nowhere to be found.

  I sat down to recollect the previous night’s happenings. Somewhere between wanting to kill some kid named Flask and stealing someone’s mattress I poisoned myself to a degree of total blackout. I put my head in my hands and tried to dig deep for answers.

  “Hey drunky,” a quiet voice whispered from somewhere near the ceiling.

  Lindsey’s chin was resting on the edge of the bunk rail. Her hair rustled into a ponytail save a wisp falling over her cheek.

  I just grunted.

  She flicked me a wide, soft smile, all lips, which made her blue eyes narrow and sparkle. Her cheeks reddened. A vague dimple shimmered on her chin. She was beautiful in a way I’d never imagined her; lu
stful, curious and all at once content with the way the world was in that moment. The smile told me all this that morning. It was one I had never seen before, reserved only for me; I liked to think. I would see that smile many times over the ensuing four years. It came to be a comfort; my rock and I saw it in many times in the privacy of our own embraces. She smiled like that when she told me she loved me.

  “So do you remember anything from last night,” she said after a soft chuckle.

  “Um, not really,” I grunted. “The night’s a little hazy. How about you?”

  “Well I ended up throwing a pitcher of beer at Duncan’s buddy Flask, right?”

  I laughed. Memories stumbled into the light.

  “Yes, we played Team Quarters in the hallway with my RA and the whole floor.”

  “That’s why he gave you a quarter yesterday during move-in.”

  “It’s coming back to me. Sort of,” I said.

  Tim the RA thought it would create hall camaraderie if we all broke the rules together on the first night. So he bought a few cases of cheap beer, set up a few glasses on a table in the hallway and made every room bring their quarter and play the classic coin-bouncing game, only team-style.

  Duncan deserted us to play with his new bozo friends. Lindsey jumped in with Ben and I and was surprisingly accurate.

  “We kicked some ass, I think,” I said.

  “I couldn’t miss,” Lindsey said. “I think I made a good impression on my first night at college. What do you think?”

  “Half the floor was in love with you before the end of the night.”

  “Shut up.”

  “Seriously. I didn’t ruin anything for you, did I?”

  “What would you have ruined?”

  “I don’t know, I guess because I’m your friend from home other guys might stay away.”

  “Please, Shaw. Don’t flatter yourself.” She laughed.

  “Alright, sorry. I just don’t want to get in your way.”

  “Shaw, you’re my closest friend here. We’ll find the way together.”

  Silence floated down from her lofted position and enveloped me. I started feeling awkward because even though I looked down at the linoleum floor, I knew Lindsey was still staring at me, her bright azure eyes glistening with the onset of hangover.