She spotted a clerk stacking cans in a bodega and leaned back against the headrest to stare at the ceiling foam. When she looked out again, they were a couple of blocks from the turnoff for the BQE. She knew the trip to Bronxville by heart; she could see one highway turn to another, then another, until they reached the surface streets and the house where they’d begin their second act as a family. There was still this short stretch left of her present life to go through, though. She felt no stirrings of nostalgia as she took in the Boulevard for what might be the last time. She shut her eyes to put it behind her the sooner. There was a blessed nothingness behind her eyelids; the darkness there could have been the peace of death. She’d spent her whole life working toward this moment, and she was exhausted. She felt she could sleep for years without waking.
The sounds of the streets, muffled by the air conditioning, grew less and less distinct, and the next thing she knew the car was pulling into the driveway. Her first thought as she took in the house through the window was that it didn’t look the way she’d remembered it. It was smaller somehow, more ordinary. She thought to tell her husband to pull back out, that this was not their house, that they’d find their real house if they kept looking. Then she saw the truck with their belongings coming around the bend.
She stepped out and stretched her long limbs to shake off the drowsiness. Ed and Connell were standing looking aimless. She remembered that she had the only set of keys in her pocketbook.
The driveway, which had baked in the heat of a dry summer, was scored with cracks that would only expand as the weather got colder. The forecast called for clear skies for a couple of days. If Ed and the boy got started first thing in the morning, there would be time for a new layer of blacktop to dry. In a little while she would send Ed to the hardware store for push brooms and buckets of asphalt.
She let the three of them in. They drifted to different corners of the kitchen and stood looking at each other in silence, frozen by the unknown future awaiting them in other rooms. She opened a cabinet door held on by only the top hinge, and it swung like a pendulum in her hand. She had seen the chipped paint, the peeling paper, the old cabinets, the ugly lacquer, the Formica countertops missing edges and chunks, but somehow she had forgotten just how bad it all was. It struck her now that this kitchen was worse than the one she had left behind. She was beginning to understand how much work everything was going to be and how much it would cost.
She considered saying something to christen the house, but she didn’t want to think about how inept her words would sound. Instead she just sent them out to unload the car. There would be time later to savor the reality of their altered lives, to appreciate having arrived where they’d arrived.
She opened the front doors and stepped out onto the porch, leaning cautiously into the rickety railing. She watched the couch sway slightly as it rose up the lawn, the heavy hickory dresser behind it undulating as the movers took their halting steps. For a moment the furniture seemed borne on invisible waves, like flotsam from a sunken vessel, and she imagined she’d been hauled up from the wreck of her old life to stand on the deck of a ship bound for an unfamiliar shore.
She stepped inside and made way for the wide arcing path the couch took through the expansive foyer. She examined the bricks. The finger-thick lacquer on them would have to go immediately. She felt she was coming out of a stupor.
The movers held the couch up in the living room and looked to her for instructions, but the simple question of where it should go baffled her utterly. She told them to put it down while she thought it over. She directed the men with the dresser upstairs. She wanted the next phase of her life to remain forever potential and the rest of her things to stay in the truck. When the movers were finished, they would drive off, leaving her and her family behind in the empty spaces she’d fought so hard to procure.
She told them to place the couch flush against the wall, under the windows. She didn’t get the jolt of pleasure she’d expected from making her first decision in the house, because aside from the fact that nothing would have a home for a while, certainly not the kind of permanent home that could put her restless mind at ease, she also had a nagging feeling that it was only the first of many more decisions to come, that she was the ship’s captain now.
The men with the couch were heading back to the truck, but she asked them to wait a second. They stood on the steps looking up at her. They were all, herself included, waiting for the next thing she would say. She tried to freeze the moment in her mind. She knew it would be one she’d want to come back to later. The future stretched out before her like a billowing fog, nothing about it distinct. All she had was her vision for the house and their lives in it. The house itself, as it was, was not what she wanted. It could be what she wanted, but it would take time and money, and she was afraid that both would soon run out. The reality of how their lives would be lived was waiting at the bottom of that hill, in the dark of that truck. These men, on the other hand, were clearly in focus. They pulled at their damp T-shirts, leaned on the railing. She would have to say something; there would have to be something to say. If only she had another minute, she could come up with the perfect thing. She could see them growing impatient. All they wanted to do was move her things from one location to another. They had no idea that everything they placed in a definite spot brought her one step closer to disappointment.
Part IV
Level, Solid,
Square and True
1991–1995
35
Connell passed through a long, dark tunnel and emerged into an enclosed courtyard, where he joined a buzzing mob of boys waiting, as per mailed instructions, for someone to usher them in. There were no adults present, so they were exposed to each other without buffering—boys used to being at the top of their class, each now merely one of many. One head towered over the others, and Connell heard speculation about the big guy’s basketball prowess, the city championships he might lead the team to by dunking on helpless opponents. It was thrilling to think of the havoc he’d wreak on their collective behalf, the revenge he’d enact for the years of slights and indignities they’d suffered as grammar school nerds. His size was a metaphor for the greatness promised to them. He would reveal the past to have been a prefatory period, a chrysalis of awkwardness.
In a sudden access of courage, Connell drifted across the courtyard toward the tall boy, who up close had a childlike face. When Connell introduced himself, a startlingly deep, though gentle, voice emanated from the boy, whose name was Rod Henni. He learned that Rod also rode in from Westchester, from a town called Dobbs Ferry. They were ushered into the auditorium, where they listened to speeches, filled out forms, and collected books, before heading to the cafeteria to continue buzzing through an excited lunch. At the end of the day, Connell and Rod took the 6 down to Grand Central together, steeped in the newness of everything they’d heard. They agreed to meet in the morning by the clock.
The next day, as Connell approached the clock, Rod waved to him and leaned his crane-like form down to pick up his backpack. Connell felt the nervous stirrings of new friendship, which offered the potential for mutual understanding but also for disappointment. He didn’t want to start out on the wrong foot and be unable to recover.
“What’s up, man,” Connell said, looking away to affect casualness as they slapped five. He tried to drain his voice of any character whatsoever.
“I’m so excited to be heading to school!” Rod said. “I never thought I’d say that!”
As Rod looked to him for confirmation, Connell realized that this boy was not going to be his salvation. Rod’s eyes were bright, his body hunched in an awkward question mark. Connell wanted him to stand up straight.
When they gathered in the gym that day for a free hour of play, Rod confirmed Connell’s suspicions. He couldn’t catch a pass or dribble. He certainly couldn’t dunk. He could barely hold the ball and jump in the air at the same time. The only damage he could do on the basketball court wa
s to himself.
That first week of school, Connell couldn’t shake Rod, who came to the cross-country meeting with him. It was an open call; there weren’t any tryouts. If you came to practice regularly, you were a member of the team.
Cross-country wasn’t a cool sport. Waking early on weekend mornings to run for miles, running every day after school, and enduring the ribbing of “real” athletes kept people away. Connell prided himself on being a “real” athlete, a ballplayer, but no one would know it until spring came around. He joined the cross-country team to strengthen his legs for baseball, to increase his velocity and stamina. He learned to care about the sport and his performance at it, though, and to feel frustrated by his limitations. He had long, lean muscles and was trim and fit, and he was good enough to know what it felt like to hang with the really good runners for long stretches. As they pulled away, he could feel in his body what it would take to stay with them, to be great.
In practice, Rod was deadly serious, a grinder, Coach Amedure’s example for everyone else. Coach always talked about how he was going to make a hurdler out of Rod come winter. It was obvious that Rod lacked the coordination necessary to leap over a single hurdle, let alone a series of them.
Rod’s times in practice never fluctuated, no matter how hard he worked. He was always a minute behind the slow pack. He excoriated himself for his slowness. The source of this ruthless self-criticism became clear early in the season, when Rod’s father came to a meet. As Rod crossed the finish line, Mr. Henni screamed at him in full view of everyone else. Connell and his teammates gathered around Rod, patting him on the back, but that week at practice they took up the charge themselves, sensing Rod’s weakness. They made fun of Rod’s gait, his heavy breathing, his profuse sweating, even his shorts. Connell didn’t refrain from joining in. He knew it was wrong, and Rod knew it too. When he laughed at Rod’s expense, Rod searched him silently with his eyes. A modicum of natural ability was all that separated Connell from Rod; that and maybe the fact that Mr. Henni was sort of insane. It wasn’t easy to have a father like that, but Rod didn’t help his cause by walking around with an innocent, vulnerable look on his face. That was the kind of look that made people nervous, made them want to do something to make it go away.
• • •
When Connell got home from practice, his father was on his hands and knees in the kitchen, scratching at the brick floor with a metal brush to strip away the dingy varnish. He was making his way from the kitchen to the den and into the foyer, one brick at a time. Connell changed into an old pair of jeans and joined him. Hunched and silent, they worked side by side. As Connell pushed his weight into the metal bristles, he felt the ache of the five-mile run descend into his muscles.
“At this rate, we’ll be done in the year two thousand,” he said.
“Keep working.”
“The fumes are killing me.” All the windows were open and there were fans set up on the kitchen counters, but it was a hot day in September, and the solvent-smelling air barely moved. “I have a headache.” Connell sat up and rubbed at his hands, inspecting them for raw patches.
“You don’t want to help, don’t help.”
“I’m helping.”
“Then do it without commentary.”
They dug at the crannies in the bricks. The solvent ate at the varnish, but he had to work hard at each brick. He thought there must be a machine to do this, but his father was determined to do it this way, his way. He refused to rest, as if he was trying to make some kind of point.
Connell scrubbed another half brick clean of varnish. “I have a Latin quiz tomorrow,” he said.
His father waved him away without looking up. “Do your homework,” he said.
“I can help,” Connell said guiltily.
“Do your goddamned homework.”
• • •
That weekend, his father took him to Van Cortlandt Park for a cross-country track meet. The sunny morning, the expanse of sky, and the brisk winds all filled Connell with a feeling of possibility dampened only by his dread of what would come once the gun went off: a mile-and-a-half run through hell; acid respiration and an agony of fatigue. A little distance away on the meadow, locals chased after a soccer ball, indifferent to the impending torture.
Parents and siblings stood around in a groggy pack. On the edge of the group, Rod was bent over double, palming the ground with his long planks of hands, as diffident a presence as a six-and-a-half-foot-tall boy could be. One of Connell’s teammates, Stefan, who kept everyone on edge with sarcasm, snickered in Connell’s direction at the spectacle of Rod’s ungainly lankiness curled up in an awkward, striving stretch. The only one of Connell’s teammates who didn’t laugh was Todd Coughlin, whose natural dominance on the course allowed him to be generous.
Connell’s father took pictures of the team as they stretched. Lately, his father had taken pictures of everything. In protest, Connell looked away from the camera, tunneling into his stretches, concentrating on the useful burn in his hamstrings and the territorial defensiveness he felt at the fact that another team had started stretching nearby. They were hopping and flapping their thigh muscles out with an aristocratic ease.
After the gun there was some rough jockeying for position—elbows, furtive shoves—as the mob converged on a point in the middle distance. The pack winnowed quickly into a grim line; a natural order emerged. A long, flat expanse led to grueling back hills, where, except for human trail markers stationed at bridges and overpasses, he was on his own, taunted by the leisurely scrawled graffiti on the rocks, dodging horse manure, and trying not to twist his ankle in the jagged ruts in the path. The hills culminated in a precipitous downhill, which he took at a breakneck clip to avoid giving away too much ground. At the bottom, near cars whizzing by on the Henry Hudson Parkway, came a quick turn and a shock of open space, a quarter-mile straightaway flanked by spectators and hollering coaches, where he wearily approximated his best sprint to the finish, his heart and lungs in pure revolt.
He saw the distant mob at the finish line as though through the wrong end of a telescope and wanted to step to the side and vomit. A large pack of runners passed him, calling on some mysterious reserve. He could hardly keep his head up.
He heard his father’s voice before he saw him. “Come on, Connell,” his father shouted gently through cupped hands. “Come on, son.”
He took deep breaths and flung his legs out before him as though they didn’t fit and he wanted to return them to their rightful owner. He gained on the pack a bit. A wall of cheers rose up as the finish line neared. He wanted to come through with the others. There wasn’t much time left to catch them. It wasn’t the first pack; those guys were resting already, turning over spray-painted gold in their hands. What it was was a little cluster of competitors. There may or may not have been medals left to fight for. They always gave out so many: thirty, fifty, God knew how many. The top quarter, the top third. Gold ones, silver ones. Then bronze. Then nothing. Coach Amedure got annoyed if anyone asked how many would be handed out that day. “Why do you care?” he’d say. “Why do you want to feed off the bottom?”
He caught up to the cluster, barely. They were funneled into the rope cordon. Plenty of medals remained. Hunching over, trying to catch his breath, he watched the officials hand them out. Each subsequent medal cheapened his own a little. When the medals ran out, runners came in to less fanfare. Individual voices could be heard in the din. The crowd at the finish line began to thin.
The laggards came trickling in. Among them was Rod, upright and stiff, like a totem pole come to life. Rod’s reedy father screamed at him in frustration and the other voices around hushed at once. The harangue continued after Rod had crossed the finish line. People looked away, embarrassed for the boy, and Coach Amedure tapped his pen at his clipboard in impotent censure.
“What’s that boy’s name?” Connell’s father asked.
“Who, him?” Connell said. “Rod.”
“Stay here.”
“It’s Rod, right?”
Rod nodded.
“What do you want?” Mr. Henni asked sharply. “I’m talking to my son.”
“I was wondering, Rod,” Connell’s father said, ignoring him, “if you wouldn’t mind posing for a picture with me.”
Rod looked surprised but answered “Not at all!” while Mr. Henni was stunned into silence. Connell’s father handed the camera to Stefan, who looked around in embarrassment before getting ready to take the picture. Connell couldn’t believe what was happening, how much awkwardness could attach itself to a single moment. He rushed over and took the camera from Stefan and framed the shot as fast as he could. His father and Rod were smiling; you’d never know what had been going on moments before. Connell pressed the button once; then he went to Coach Amedure to find out what place he had finished in. The coach looked away in disdain as he showed Connell the clipboard.
• • •
A kid from Connell’s grade, Declan Coyne, rode the train down from Bronxville with him. He started taking Connell around with him on the weekends.
“You look like a guido,” Declan said. “You need to look like a prep.”
“Okay.”
“That mock turtleneck, for one. You need to wear a different shirt. Something with an actual collar. Rugby shirts are fine. Polo shirts. Button-downs.”
Declan had grown up in town and had gone to St. Joseph’s. He knew all the Fordham Prep and Bronxville High kids in the area, and he fit in with them easily. They didn’t care that he was a distinguished piano player; what they cared about was that he’d been the goalie on the Empire State Games soccer team during eighth grade. They probably also noticed the MG Declan’s father parked in the driveway on sunny days.
“That spiky haircut—no way,” Declan said. “All that hair gel. Let your hair grow. Part it on the side.”
We Are Not Ourselves Page 30