The Sound of Letting Go
Page 13
loud enough to draw Mr. Angelli’s attention.
But he just shrugs and returns to his map.
“Your AP scores will not be enhanced
by gossiping during class.” The Angelli-style reprimand
is delivered in the same dry tone
he uses to detail gruesome Civil War atrocities.
His eyes don’t flare with Mrs. Pendleton’s irritation,
passion, which I don’t like but I get.
For a second I try to imagine a Mrs. Angelli—
I’ve heard there is one—
but all I can picture
is a woman in a long brown prairie dress and bonnet chastely reading history books;
nothing HBO at all.
Justine waggles her finger, murmurs,
“Will not be enhanced,”
and we shake with silent giggles.
“Where are you and Dave going?” Justine asks.
“To . . .” I don’t want to say the pits.
I have asked Dave for very little and now I see
he’s given me exactly that:
a chance to lock lips again underneath a chill sky.
Maybe I want Dave to pick me up at the door,
take me to a meal, ask me to a dance.
“We’re working on a plan,” is all I can think to say.
“La Parisienne was awesome,” she replies lightly.
I’m certain there’s no way Dave could afford such a tab.
Since his folks broke up, he’s lived in the older part of town
where seventies split-levels pepper squat lots
with postage-stamp backyards too small for swing sets
and sandboxes.
I think of Cal’s holey jeans,
Steven’s high-priced tracksuits,
Shirley’s extravagantly feminine bathroom.
How many La Parisienne dinners would it take
to match the price
of a year of residential care for my brother?
How many elegant pink prom dresses
might buy a daughter’s forgiveness
for a father who left his only child?
I wonder if Justine knows her restaurant suggestion
is out of Dave’s reach
but needs, despite her love for me, to twist a knife,
prove there’s a guy out there who wants
to spend time with her.
I don’t like the way boys have driven
little wedges into our friendship, pushed Justine and me
to instances where we treat each other
with Ashleigh Anderson–style unkindness.
Maybe, though, this is one of those times
that I should use my talent for quiet,
for acceptance—
let my best friend have her moment
to flounce her pleated skirt and walk away.
86
“He your boyfriend?”
are Cal’s first words to me in the library.
“Who?” I reply dumbly as if I don’t know,
buying time to think of the answer I don’t have.
“That Dave fella.”
His gaze is clear, his lips set straight.
He is holding a spiral-bound notebook in his right hand.
A pencil is tucked behind his ear.
“I don’t know. You wanna get started on some history?”
I walk toward the row of private study rooms at the back
of the library.
Cal follows me.
87
Cal sets biographies
of Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass,
Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin,
and half a dozen other books
on the study room table.
I look at the names, the titles on the covers,
all familiar to me, people and stories
about which I have been taught since grade school,
but books I have never read.
“Have you read all these?”
“Some. Others, just pages here and there.
I am wonderin’ if we should try writin’ about a lad
or a lass,
someone stuck on a Southern plantation
or someone who’s made it on that Railroad to freedom.”
There’s something about the way his voice breaks
on that word, freedom,
that makes me look up from When I Was a Slave
with its frightening cover illustration of a bleak-faced family standing before an endless field of cotton.
I picture Cal, alone, on an airplane from Ireland;
imagine slave children being sold from their parents, shipped away to other plantations,
to strange, unfamiliar worlds.
When I look back down, the faces on the book’s cover
have all turned to Steven’s.
“Let’s make it a boy.”
My voice struggles for its don’t-pity-me tone;
my lips tighten
as if I’m about to buzz a high C on my trumpet.
Even after I’m able to swallow,
my eyes feel embarrassingly wet.
“And let’s make him . . . free.”
“Right then,” Cal replies softly.
He sits down in one of the wooden chairs.
I sit down, too.
The dusty library air is electric with secrets
almost palpable in the thick quiet that bounces between
Cal and those books and me.
88
Two hours later, I am driving home
unprompted by a text from Mom,
my stomach growling despite an A-plus hot lunch
of oven-fried chicken legs and fruit salad.
Cal and I have named our freed slave Jeremy—
his idea,
and I don’t ask the reason.
We’ve given him a home in Pennsylvania,
the first of the United States to pass an Abolition Act—
that idea was mine.
E-mail and cell numbers written down.
Research for Jeremy’s backstory, family tree,
current living conditions, divided.
Plans made to meet again on Thursday.
All painfully established between the arcs of silence,
the epic string of whole rests
that scored our time in the study room.
We’re both horn players, well trained to wait
through swathes of music
featuring flutes and clarinets and strings,
obedient in a certain way.
Despite my love of jazz, I failed at improvisation here.
My stomach churns again,
a wave of nauseous despair battling hungry acid.
Neither of us touched the last question
on the A-PUSH assignment rubric;
neither of us dared to invent
Jeremy’s future dreams.
89
Wednesday morning
Mom leaves Steven’s waffle too long in the toaster.
I freeze at my post at the island,
knowing too well what may happen
when the charred smell of burnt Eggo
reaches my brother’s nose.
Steven’s head whips straight back,
making contact with the kitchen wall behind his chair.
A pause, another whack. Then his elbows close in,
the hand-wringing begins.
The masochistic scraping of his palms is more bearable
than the bam of his skull
hitting the already-
weakened drywall.
But the smell is too much for just writhing.
Smack! Head slams back again.
Hands twist sixty seconds more.
Smack!
Mom hovers indecisively between the toaster
and the table, watching the writhing,
hoping Steven will spare his skull
long enough for her to clean up the mess.
Finally, “Be right back.”
She pinches the smoking disk
between surely-singeing forefinger and thumb,
runs to toss it out the door.
“Morning, everybody.” Dad saunters into the kitchen,
adjusting his tie, gearing up for our routines.
He scans the room for Mom only to find her, wild-eyed,
returning from the hall.
Sees the statue of me at the island.
Hears a nasal sound emerge from Steven. Then silence.
Smack!
Above Steven’s head,
a narrow fissure appears
in the putty-colored paint.
“I-I burnt the waffle,” Mom whispers.
A curtain drops over Dad’s eyes.
His expression becomes a replica of a human’s,
like that of a bust of Haydn;
he morphs into “brave robot,” “man of the family,”
the only one big enough to move toward Steven,
even though it’s an action not unlike
bashing one’s own head against a wall:
a promise of pain.
“Morning, Steven.”
He approaches the kitchen table slowly.
An unconvincing smile cracks the plaster of his face.
“Your waffle will be ready soon.
Then we’ll take our ride to school, won’t we?
Because today is a school day.”
He is rewarded with a flashing fist,
a punch into the soft part of his side, below his ribs.
He grabs Steven’s forearm. “No, Steven.
That’s not what we do, Steven.”
My brother makes few sounds as he struggles and lashes,
the snap of his head connecting with the wall
one last time
before Dad drags him from his chair,
through the doorway to the hall.
I can’t help myself. I rise from my chair,
watch them pass Mom, cowering against the fridge.
In his stocking-feet, Steven half-slides
toward the living room.
“God dammit,” Dad shouts to no one in particular.
“I don’t know what to do.”
90
All things eventually end, don’t they?
Minutes, hours, days;
songs, stories;
lives as we know them.
By the time the outburst has ended,
there’s a patch of sticky, blood-matted hair
on the back of Steven’s head,
but Mom is afraid to get close enough to check the cut
that surely lies beneath it.
Dad returns him to his kitchen chair.
Steven eats the new waffle Mom has successfully toasted.
“Want me to come with you to the ER?” Mom asks.
“You don’t think the nurse can just check this at school?”
Dad adjusts his tie.
“They might need to x-ray . . .”
She’s crying now, very softly.
We continue each step in our routine,
just later than usual.
Trying not to quicken the pace, invite another punch.
This morning is another nail
in the coffin of my parents’ decision.
Without details, without a timeline, still I realize
that the eventually with which this family will be broken
apart
is going to come soon.
My days watching Mom and Dad and Steven
around the kitchen table are numbered.
The house grows still, the only sounds
Steven’s slightly stuffy breathing,
the occasional tink of his fork against the waffle plate.
I try to feel love for him
but come up with only a heart full of confusion
and a yearning not to break this gentle silence
by pushing back my barstool,
snapping shut my horn case,
rifling through my key ring.
So I cannot leave for jazz band.
My father walks slowly around the table,
looks at Steven’s head. “Can’t be too bad.
Heads bleed like crazy, and this has already stopped
without our even touching it.
I’m bringing him to school.”
I hate the victory in Dad’s expression.
91
“Love you, Steven,” Mom musters
as we watch Dad usher him belatedly out the door.
I don’t know what meaning she feels behind that word.
Whom do we love, anyway?
People who love us?
People who care for us?
People who are put in our care?
Is love trust, understanding,
the ability to communicate?
Is it the ability to touch
and be touched in return?
Is it the humble ritual of bending to tie sneakers,
of returning from the office,
albeit late and with grim reluctance,
to give a boy a shower?
I don’t think I know anymore
what the meaning of that word is
or how to find it
or how to give it up.
92
Thursday morning, it is easier not to go to practice.
I leave the house as if jazz band were my destination,
but I cannot bear the thought of the squawks and
squeals of tuning up,
the cheer of chatter among musicians.
My blue varnished fingers clutch the steering wheel.
I remember the rebellious wet,
the gratifying cold of applying polish.
But darkened eyes and nails are not enough
to make my parents realize that this decision for Steven must be theirs, not mine.
That if (or when) he is gone, I may never be able to feel
safety without sorrow,
relief without remorse.
It is hard to be a rebel with good grades
and a three-year All-State number one trumpeter streak.
I love making honor roll. I love playing beautiful sounds that make people forget
all they know about my difficult daily life,
about the bad parts of the days they endured before they opened up their ears.
But if I keep playing, how can I show Jasper
there’s a tragedy happening in its midst
without actually telling anyone?
I drive to Evergreen High,
park in a spot far away from the door,
curl up like a kitten in the driver’s seat,
leave the motor running to keep the car warm.
93
“I’ve been learnin’ about your American Thanksgiving,”
Cal greets me in the library after school.
“It was Abe Lincoln there who proclaimed it
a national holiday, to try to get a sense of unity
’tween the North and the South.”
“Aren’t you the studious one.” I don’t tell him
I’d assumed Thanksgivi
ng was a steady date
from the days of feathered headdresses
and square-buckled pilgrim hats.
Lincoln was Gettysburg, the ironclad USS Monitor, assassination,
not turkey and gravy.
“What’s that got to do with our slave?”
“I was thinkin’ about how our lad
might spend his first free Thanksgiving,
but the research tells me it’d probably be the same
kind o’ day as any other.”
He looks disappointed by the notion,
as if it cannot be the case
that this grand American holiday
might have passed unnoticed by so many citizens.
But I am unsurprised by the notion
of extraordinary days performed as ordinary:
the narrative of my life.
I rub the inside corners of my eyes with my middle
finger and thumb.
“Writing stories is harder than playing music, isn’t it?
Weaving together all these facts is not the same
as playing a score.”
“Life is a big story. Music is just one way to tell it,
to realize how many tales all kinds of people share.
Like this North and South; we’ve got that in Ireland, too.
‘The Troubles,’ they call that history.
All about religious freedom,
Home Rule.”
“We’ve got a slew of rules at home.” I laugh, then
my automatic instinct to keep my family’s front door closed kicks in. I glare into the curiosity sparking in Cal’s eyes.