“Ooh,” she whispers.
“Ooh yourself,” I say. I’m suddenly feeling very James Bond–like—Daniel Craig, not Pierce Brosnan.
Gretchen giggles. She looks away. She’s quiet for a moment. And then she knocks me flat. “Billy? How come you’ve never tried to … you know…” She searches for the right words and can’t find them. But I know what she’s talking about. Other than that night on the Ferris wheel, our physical relationship hasn’t gone much beyond wild, crazy-making kisses.
“I don’t know,” I say, not feeling nearly so James Bondish anymore. “I mean, I really want to, I do, but—” It feels awkward to tell her the truth. “I don’t know if you do.”
The wind blows her hair. Strands of it touch my mouth. I can feel Gretchen’s belly, hard and flat, against mine. She looks at me. She looks into my eyes. She looks deep into my eyes and she asks me with her eyes to ask and ask again.
48
“Are you a virgin?”
Gretchen whispers the question in my ear. I’ve put the jacket on the sand underneath her. Her tongue tastes of wintergreen. I have my hand under her dress. I can’t believe how soft and wet she is.
“Yes,” I say. “Are you?”
“No,” she says. “Is that all right?”
“Of course it is,” I say. “You’re beautiful,” I say.
“Touch me here,” she says, guiding my hand, and when I do she half murmurs, half moans. After a while her hand goes to my belly and then slides lower.
It goes too fast the first time. All the things I thought I’d do and say go right out the window. I’m too excited and the feel, the very idea, of what I’m doing makes me cum the moment I enter her.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“It’s a compliment,” she says. Which is a really nice to thing to say. It makes me feel better. I stay inside her. I can feel her softly squeezing me. “I didn’t know you could do that,” I whisper. She just giggles.
It takes much longer the second time and is so much better.
My orgasm begins as a tickle somewhere out on the far side of the moon, so quiet I’m hardly aware of it at first. By the time it hits the earth’s atmosphere, I’m both inside and outside myself, praying to it.
“Do you believe in God, Billy?”
Dorie once asked me this from her hospital bed.
“No. Do you?”
“I do. Yes. I can’t help it.”
“It’s cool that you do. I wish I did.”
“If God does exist,” says Dorie, smiling her Dorie smile, “what do you think she looks like?”
We laughed.
I could tell her now. I can tell Dorie all about God. If God exists, her face is that of the woman looking up into my own.
49
“… reason to believe that this involves young people so if you see anything, hear anything, know anything, it is your responsibility as citizens to inform…”
If the policeman who arrested Twom for driving his grandmother’s car looked like Arnold Schwarzenegger’s nephew, the guy on the stage must be his uncle. He has short hair and a stocky, muscular build. The uniform is tight across his chest and belly. He looks like he wouldn’t go down if you hit him with a wood plank.
Cop man.
High School High is being brought up to speed on the Night Visitors and, except for me, Ephraim, Twom, and possibly Deliza, no one in the school auditorium could care less. The Latino kids and the black jocks are numb with boredom, some of them probably so inured to breaking and entering, they might as well be listening to regulations regarding jaywalking. The Asian kids are studying. The surfers are stoned. And even though it’s against the rules, practically every other kid in the auditorium has their cell phone in their lap and is tapping away.
No one is listening.
Beatrix has told me that when she was in elementary school, students did bomb drills in case of nuclear attack. They were all herded into school basements, stacked side by side against the wall, and told to duck and cover as if putting your arms over your head was going to ward off a hydrogen bomb. They would then be quickly loaded onto school buses, driven home and dumped off so their parents could drag them into the hastily built, backyard bomb shelter. Kids today wouldn’t go into the school basement or a bomb shelter on pain of death because it might cut off their 4G service. And if the bomb ever does drop and the servers go down, my generation, with no phones or iPads, will undoubtedly die of symptoms that resemble drug withdrawal long before they die of radiation poisoning.
“… when you leave the house, set your alarms.”
Twom yawns. Deliza is playing idly with the tips of her hair. Ephraim, however, hangs on the policeman’s every word as if it’s a death sentence.
“If your family is going out of town, remind your parents to notify their security companies…”
“We should confess,” Ephraim whispers across Deliza to Twom. His voice is trembling.
“You should go dig a grave in your backyard and bury yourself,” Deliza hisses back, not so much as even glancing at him.
“Maybe you should.” says Ephraim, like a defensive little kid. He turns to me. “Billy?” He says it as if he’s hoping I’ll agree with him and I find myself almost considering it because, frankly, just like Ephraim, I’m feeling like a small dog trying to shit a large bone.
It’s like this.
Everywhere I go lately all I seem to see are patrol cars. I see home security guards on foot checking out gates and fences. I see black-and-whites cruising for no apparent reason. Just this morning on my way to school, I pass some agitated home owner talking with two policemen on his front lawn. He’s yelling and gesticulating. The closest I’ve ever gotten to his house is right here on the sidewalk but still the cop turns and yells at me.
“You with the cheap, crappy coverup on your face! I’m talking to you, Normal Man! Get your ass over here.”
Actually he doesn’t say that.
But as one of the policemen turns and glances at me, I feel as if he might. The cruiser is parked on the street and I have to go around it. Looking through the open window, I see that there is an ugly but very efficient-looking onboard computer installed in the dash and a nasty-looking riot gun mounted on the metal screen behind the front seat. I flash on Twom sitting in the uncushioned backseat, his hands cuffed in front of him. Only instead of Twom it’s me. And unlike Twom, I’m not handling it well at all. The problem is I have something to lose now.
Gretchen.
It absolutely kills me that I’ve done something so incredibly stupid as to fall madly in love. I keep telling myself it’s nothing but infatuation, that sooner or later this whole “I can’t wait to see you” period will be over. But there’s a big part of me that doesn’t want it to be. It’s ridiculous. Gretchen and I eat lunch together. We unashamedly meet between classes. I borrow Mom’s cell phone so we can call one another at night. I’ve even gotten an e-mail account—[email protected]—so I can write notes to her.
On the weekend, we’ll say we’re going to the movies, Gretchen will pick me in the family van and we’ll go to the mall, park in the parking garage and screw each other’s brains out in the back. Once when her parents and sisters are out, we go over to her house and up to her bedroom. The bed, the sheets, the drapes, the covers, the smell of her everywhere—it’s wonderful. Having seen Twom and Deliza do it, I’ve discovered the joys of oral sex. I can’t believe how much I like it, making Gretchen gasp and pull on my hair and murmur my name. And when she takes me into her mouth I immediately turn into a quivering, slack-jawed, semiparalyzed anthropoid.
“Wow, that was a lot,” Gretchen says, and the way she says it, as if it was the very last thing she expected, makes the two of us laugh until we can hardly breathe. Not in my wildest imagination has it ever occurred to me that sex can be funny. It makes me like it even more.
But it’s not just sex.
I find that I enjoy going to watch Gretchen run after school at track practice. I’ll sit
high in the stands above the track with a book and sometimes I won’t even pretend to read. I can’t believe how great she looks in her running shorts and shirt, with her red hair pulled back in this long braid that goes down her back. She reminds me of an Amazon huntress.
Point of reference.
In Greek mythology the Amazons were this nation of beautiful women warriors who cut off one of their boobs because it got in the way of shooting their bows and arrows. When they weren’t hunting and killing things, their modus operandi—which is Latin for method of operation—was to go around kidnapping men and then screw them totally senseless so as to impregnate themselves. Once the mission was accomplished—datum perficiemus munus—they’d cut the guy’s throat.
Thankfully, nobody on the girls’ track team has cut off a boob and/or killed anyone yet. At least I don’t think they have. However, there’s no doubt they’re all very good at running and you could only wish for the screwed-senseless part.
Gretchen’s specialty is the fifteen hundred meters, which is this crazed all-out race that goes three and a half times around the track. It’s insane how they train for it. Gretchen and the other girls will be jogging along and all of sudden they’ll break into an all-out sprint that lasts about a minute and a half but seems like an endless lifetime. And then, they’ll stop and smoothly jog again for a little while. And then, unbelievably, they’ll suddenly kick it up into high gear again. You get exhausted just watching them.
When they finish the sprinting, even from a distance, I can see that Gretchen’s entire body is flushed pink, which is the way it always is after we’ve had sex. This makes me wonder if running wouldn’t be another fun thing Gretchen and I could do together, and so, at my suggestion, we go to the track one evening and, wearing shorts and sneakers, I run with her. I last for about three laps and, as opposed to fun, all I feel is the urge to fall into the high jump pit, puke and die.
So much for that.
The other thing I really like is when Gretchen has an actual track meet. They save the fifteen hundred meters for toward the end because it’s a big deal and I start getting nervous even before Gretchen and the other runners come to the starting line. They stand there, all of them different sizes but all of them in really great shape, and then all of a sudden they’re off and running in this closely bunched pack. They’re all elbowing and pushing and jockeying for position. They’re going stupid fast and you know they haven’t even warmed up yet. After a couple of laps it usually comes down to Gretchen and two other girls, and by the time they’re into the last lap I’m on my feet, screaming like some idiot, because I want her to win so much. In the last ten yards or so she usually does.
After Gretchen has walked around for a while and caught her breath, she’ll look up in the stands for me, and when she sees me she’ll give me this huge wave and big smile like she’s totally thrilled and it’s made her day that I’m there. And I’ll be smiling and waving back at her because I’m thrilled too.
That’s the best part. This is the worst part.
When I’m doing all this insane stuff, every now and then, I sort of experience what I assume is a feeling of unexpected joy and happiness. The world suddenly seems like it has the potential to be an okay place. And this bothers me because I know deep inside the world isn’t and never will be. I know this relationship is not going to last forever, that like with Dorie, like with what’s happening to Mom and Dad, it’s going to wither and die and I am going to miss it so much when it’s gone.
Still.
For the time being it’s as good a reason as any not to get into trouble.
50
“I asked for the transcripts of your SATs.”
This is the Tuesday morning in March when I’ve been called into the guidance office by Miss Barber. I assume it’s going to be about more applying-to-college stuff and it is. Sort of.
“Math is 610, writing 620, critical reading 590,” Miss Barber says. “Middle of the pack.”
She’s holding the printed transcript out to me as if she thinks I want to take it and look at it. I don’t. She pulls it back.
“What I find interesting, though,” Miss Barber says, turning the page, “is the unscored variable section.” She looks at me. “The part that’s used to try out new questions for future SATs?”
My stomach sinks. I know where this is going now.
“Almost 800 on a critical reading section,” Miss Barber says, “which would put you in the ninety-ninth percentile. On a section that’s probably more difficult than the SAT itself.”
I’m such an idiot. You’re not supposed to know which is the experimental stuff but it’s so obvious. For some stupid reason, I thought it’d be interesting to give it a real go. It never occurred to me anybody was going to grade me on it.
“That’s really hard to believe,” I say. “Because I was just fooling around.”
From the way Miss Barber looks at me, I can tell she doesn’t buy it. “What is going on with you, Billy? What’s going through that brain of yours? I know you have one.”
I don’t know what to say to that so I don’t say anything.
“I’m going to recommend,” says Miss Barber, “that you see a school-appointed psychologist.”
51
“Billy’s school guidance counselor thinks it would be a good idea for him to see a psychologist,” Mom says quietly.
It’s a beautiful evening and we’re having dinner outdoors on the back patio. It’s Dad’s favorite, filet mignon, baked potatoes, and a lettuce wedge with Roquefort dressing, but I can tell he’s all of a sudden expecting serious indigestion.
“I thought we were over that,” he says, dumping a thick wad of butter into his potato.
By “over that,” Dad is referring to the fact that a year after Dorie died, I was still feeling sad on occasion and Mom thought it would be a good idea for me to see a psychologist for evaluation. Dad was against it.
“It’s four hundred bucks an hour,” said Dad.
“We can afford it,” said Mom.
“You sure the kid’s not just feeling sorry for himself?” said Dad.
“He’s not,” said Mom.
“Yeah, well, what are people going to think?”
“I don’t care what they think. I think we all should be seeing someone.”
“Not some quack of a shrink!” Still a blue-collar laborer at heart, Dad thought the whole idea of therapy was bogus.
And it was.
On the moron scale, Dr. Belafonte, who wasn’t even a doctor, just a Ph.D. and who left magazines like Car and Driver and Road and Track in the waiting room for his whacked-out patients, was a possible twelve. About the only thing he assessed was that I was possibly an apopheniac, which meant I had, depending on your definition, either a talent or a psychosis for formulating meaningful connections out of random data. At that point Dad, who equated weird behavior with his mother, said enough was enough, and despite Mom’s protests, that was it for Dr. Belafonte.
Until now.
“We are over it,” I say. “Really, I’m fine. Really. I’m really fine. Miss Barber’s making a big thing out of nothing.” Even though I’m not crazy about steak, I take a big bite and chew it to show how healthy my appetite is.
“She says she doesn’t think Billy is trying in school,” Mom says. “She says he’s too smart to be getting the grades he’s been getting.”
“What? He’s not failing,” says Dad. He takes a suspicious swallow of wine. “Is he?”
“No,” Mom says. You can tell she wants to remind him that there are such things as report cards and there are parents who occasionally look at them.
“Then what’s the big deal?” says Dad. “School’s overrated anyway.”
“Gordon, it is not. It’s important.”
“So what’s a shrink going to do, take his tests for him?”
Shaking her head, Mom pushes some meat around her plate with a fork. She’s not really eating, just cutting her food into smaller and smaller b
ites. “I can’t believe I wasn’t paying attention to this. You and your sister always got such wonderful grades.”
“Aw, if you’re going to start blaming yourself again,” says Dad, tossing his napkin down on the table.
Mistake. They glare at one another. It suddenly has the potential to get very ugly and so I jump in. “It’s no one’s fault,” I say. “I’m trying. I really am. Really. But it’s hard.”
Mom turns to me. “The guidance counselor says you haven’t even been applying to colleges. Why did you tell us you were?”
Shit. This is true. I even gave them a fake list. “I didn’t want you to worry about me,” I say. This is also true. Not to mention, I didn’t feel like having to talk about it.
“Oh, honey,” says Mom, concerned now. Which is the last thing I want.
“But I thought I’d apply to college next year,” I say. “When I have a better idea what I really want to do in life.”
“I think a job would teach you a thing or two about life,” says Dad. You just know he’s going to start his “when I was a kid” spiel any second. Mom cuts him off.
“You’re not having trouble sleeping again, are you, honey?”
This is the very last place I want to go. “No,” I say to her. “I’m sleeping well all the time. I really am. Really.”
“I don’t know,” says Mom. “Maybe we should see Dr. Belafonte again.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake!” says Dad.
“Stop it!” shouts Mom.
Dad should really shut up now if he knows what’s good for him. But Dad doesn’t know what’s good for anybody anymore.
“What? We do it your way? Like always? That does a lot!”
Mom’s eyes are closed now. She might be softly humming to herself. The look on Dad’s face says he knows he’s gone way too far but it’s too late to go back. Dad never cries but right now it looks like he could.
The Tragic Age Page 14