“Landed on my head, no problem.” It’s a cool thing to say. Twom falls back against the pillows. He looks exhausted. “Someone please tell me they threw that fucker in jail.”
Ephraim and I glance at one another. The news started making the rounds on High School High’s frantic information network around one in the afternoon.
“What?” says Twom, seeing our faces. He rises up slightly.
“He’s saying it was an accident,” I tell him. “That his foot slipped off the clutch. He kept going because he was scared of you.”
I might as well smack Twom in the head with a car again. “They believe that?” he says.
“You hit him with a lunch tray,” says Ephraim, as if that answers everything.
Twom closes his eyes and settles weakly back against his pillow. He has the look of someone who has been screwed by the system his entire life and the one time he thought he could trust it, it screwed him again and now he knows it always will.
“I’m gonna go in and wipe out his bank account,” says Ephraim. Like it’s something one of his superheroes would do.
“Yeah. That’ll fix him.”
Ephraim and I turn to see Deliza standing in the doorway. It’s hard to say how long she’s been standing there. She looks furious. Hardly glancing at us, she enters and moves to the side of the bed. She takes Twom’s uninjured hand in her own.
“Hey, Twomey, I’m here, baby. I’m here,” she whispers.
Twom’s eyes open. He is crying.
Deliza kisses the tattoos on his hand and wrist. She smiles. “You look like crap, guapo.”
Guapo. Handsome.
The look they give one another surprises me. It’s full of tenderness and warmth and I realize it’s not all just about screwing between them.
Deliza turns to me and Ephraim. She looks angry again. Angry that we’re here in the room or maybe just angry at me, angry that I didn’t do anything, angry that if I’d been a man, Twom wouldn’t be here. Angry maybe because I should be the one lying in the bed. “Only two visitors at a time,” she says. “One of you has to leave.”
Twom doesn’t even think to hesitate. “Get out of here, Ephraim.”
Ephraim’s eyes blink rapidly behind his glasses. He licks his lips, which I now notice are badly chapped. “Why me?” he says.
“Because no one wants you around,” snaps Deliza.
As Ephraim turns for the door, the expression on his face is that of a little kid, lost on a crowded fairgrounds, not sure where to go or who to ask for help.
“Mother, please give me your hannnddd…” moans the guy behind the curtain.
For the first time, I know that it’s all going to end so very badly.
56
Two.
I hear the sound of voices.
I’m in the family room, where the family never sits together, staring at the TV which is not on. It’s late and I’m tired from the hospital but I don’t want to even try and sleep. I’m thinking maybe I’ll go down to the drum room and bash the crazies out.
If I’m thinking at all.
The voices come from upstairs. They belong to Mom and Dad. Linda and Gordon. My parents.
The voices go back and forth, muffled but getting louder and more emotional in pitch. Dad’s the kind of guy who has to get mad and yell to express his emotions. Mom is the kind of woman who cries when he yells at her. Which makes him feel guilty. Which infuriates him even more and makes him yell louder. A door opens upstairs. I can hear words now.
“I can’t, goddammit—no more! Not anymore!”
“Stop, just—Gordon, will you stop? This is out of nowhere!”
“Are you crazy? Are you telling me this is news to you?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying!”
I know I should stay in my chair. I know it’s none of my business. But I can’t help it. I have this insane feeling that maybe I can help them. I want to.
When I come out of the family room and into the entryway, they’re at the top of the stairs. Dad is in Mom’s face, towering over her. Veins in his neck are showing. He’s practically spitting.
“You had to make this hard, didn’t you? You couldn’t let it be easy!” He’s carrying a small suitcase.
“You don’t talk to me,” Mom cries, “you shut me out! I never know what’s wrong or what you’re even thinking!”
“Bullshit!” says Dad. “Bullshit!”
I wish I could turn away. But I don’t. I can’t now.
“Since when are you even interested in what I think? You play tennis, for chrissake, you get your fucking nails done!”
“I had cancer, goddamn you! Cancer!”
“Well, you don’t anymore!” bellows Dad. Quickly turning from her, he starts down the stairs
“Gordon! Gordon, oh, please, don’t—” Mom is begging now. I wish she wouldn’t. It’s worse than the yelling and crying.
At the bottom of the stairs, Dad moves right past me as if he’s afraid to look at me. Mom has collapsed into a seated position on the top step and is sobbing. She sounds like a little girl.
Fact.
Human beings are the only creatures that cry tears of emotion. It’s thought crying is an unconscious appeal for the protective presence of a parent.
I turn and go after Dad.
I’m halfway across the yard when I see that the Range Rover is already parked at the end of the driveway out in the street. I don’t know how long it’s been there. Dad opens the rear door of the car and throws his bag in. As the car light comes on, I see that there is someone sitting in the passenger seat.
“Dad!”
Dad stops. He looks back at me now. The look on his face kills me, it really does. It’s the look he had when he came to tell me about Dorie. You know he wants to say something that will make it all right but either he doesn’t know what to say or he just can’t say it. Or maybe he already did.
Just always remember I love you, okay?
He quickly closes the rear door and gets in the driver’s side. I’m close enough to see who’s in the car now.
I’d read the diary. I should have known.
Mrs. Taylor.
Dad closes the car door. He starts the car.
“Dad! Don’t go! Daddy!” I actually call him that. What can I be thinking?
The lights inside the car fade to black as Dad puts it in gear. He and Mrs. Taylor turn to shadows. The car accelerates away. I walk out into the street and watch the Rover go down the hill. It turns at the bottom. And then it’s gone.
“Screw’m!”
I turn in shock. Up and across the street Mr. Taylor is standing in his driveway, next to his car, a Lexus sedan.
“Screw’m t’ hell!” He takes a step, staggers and almost falls. I realize that he’s drunk. “Fug’m both!”
I want to kill him. Kill him for his pig-faced stupidity. For his inebriation. For his total cluelessness.
“Fuck you!” I scream. “It’s your fault! You! You never asked! It was in front of your nose and you never asked her about anything!”
Mr. Taylor doesn’t answer. He turns unsteadily to his car, opens the car door, half falls in and then closes the door. Somehow he starts the car up. Putting it in reverse, he backs out way too fast. He crosses the road and the rear wheels of the big Lexus slam hard into the curb. Mr. Taylor slams it into drive and peels out, weaving, barely in control. The car disappears up the street and is gone.
When I go back in the house, Mom is still sitting on the stairs, the same place she was when I left. Her face is numb and expressionless. It scares me.
“Mom? Are you okay?”
She looks up as if she’s surprised to see I’m there. “Are you?” she says.
“Sure,” I say.
“Then I am too.”
She takes a deep breath. She has to use the banister to get to her feet. She makes herself smile so I’ll know she loves me and that it’s all going to be all right, even though it probably never will be again. Taking careful steps, Mom walks sl
owly down the hall to her bedroom. And then she’s gone too.
57
And now—three.
I come running out of the house. I feel like my brain has snapped. I hear unintelligible sounds coming out of my mouth.
In ancient Babylon the penalty for adultery was death by drowning.
The Taylor house is dark. The front door is open. The alarm isn’t set. In the living room, the dachshund is lying on the couch, head on its paws. Its terrified eyes follow me as I cross toward the stairs.
Islamic law regarding adultery calls for death by stoning. In ancient Rome, the sentence was banishment.
The Taylors’ bedroom is a mess. Clothes, both men’s and women’s, are everywhere. The bed is unmade.
I move to the bureau. I open the drawer. I throw clothes aside. I pick up the gun. I can’t tell if it’s loaded. I assume it is.
Someone somewhere has got to pay for their sins tonight.
Driving is harder than I imagine. The pickup truck is heavy and seems to have a mind of its own. Even going slow, giving it short bursts of gas and then gliding, I cross the center line. I swerve back, veering toward the curb, and then I’m up on the sidewalk. Braking, I hit the pedal too hard, lurching and then abruptly stopping. I don’t care. I’m no more dangerous than Mr. Taylor. I’m no more dangerous than any drunk driver with a gun on their passenger seat.
I know where I’m going. Even if I hadn’t known him since grade school, last August his parents left for a week and he threw an impromptu party. The address was posted on every social network at High School High. I didn’t go, but three hundred other people did. They were still talking about the carnage when school started in September.
The Porsche Boxster is parked in the driveway. I pull in as close to the sidewalk as I can. I turn off the truck’s engine. I turn off the headlights. I get out. I close the car door as quietly as I can. Lights are on in the house. I cross the lawn and walk around toward the side of the house. The wooden gate is unlocked. It squeaks slightly as I open it. Next door, a dog yaps shrilly. I wait for it to shut up.
In the backyard, double French doors open onto a brick patio. From where I stand, out beyond the edge of the light, I can see John Montebello sitting on a couch, watching television. He looks sullen and bored as if the only exciting thing he’s ever done in his entire life is half kill someone a day ago.
Mrs. Montebello appears behind him. She’s an attractive woman. She’s passed her looks on to her son. I can’t quite hear what she says to him and I don’t hear what he says back but he scowls. Mrs. Montebello says something again and this time I hear his reply.
“Leave me alone!” says John Montebello. The look on his face makes you wonder if he’s ever felt anything for anyone but contempt. Shaking her head, Mrs. Montebello turns and disappears. It must be horrible living in the same house with a person like this, even worse knowing you brought him into the world and raised him.
John Montebello picks up a remote and turns off the TV. He tosses the remote aside and gets up. He scratches his stomach and then his balls. He yawns and turns away. A moment later the lights in the room go off. I move across the patio to the French doors. They’re open. The gun feels light in my hand.
Determinism is the idea that every event in the universe is determined by a chain of prior events.
Opening the door, I enter and move across the room as quietly as I can. I enter a hallway. The floors are carpeted. The house is quiet.
Free will is an illusion.
There is a light on at the end of the hall.
No actions are uncaused.
His bedroom door is open. His back is to me. He is taking off his shirt, pulling it over his head. He turns in surprise as I enter.
Everything that happens must happen. Anything that doesn’t happen, doesn’t because prior events have made it impossible at that moment in time. Fate.
I raise the pistol and, as he lifts his hand in alarm, I shoot John Montebello in the chest. He falls back against the bed and then to the floor. I look down at him. The contemptuous look is gone.
I raise the pistol and place the muzzle against the side of my head and—
—quickly lower the pistol from the side of my head with a jerk.
I’m outside the French doors, still on the patio. John Montebello is somewhere in the house, feeding his face with a snack or brushing his teeth or showering or beating off or going to bed.
I turn and retreat back around the side of the house. I run for the truck. I know where to go now. I’ll drive slow. I’ll get there. I have to. It’s the only hope I have left.
58
For some reason it’s a popular question on high school physics tests.
Romeo is standing in the rose garden throwing pebbles up at Juliet’s window. He wants the pebbles to hit the window without breaking it. He is standing fourteen feet below her window and fifteen away from the base of the house. How fast are the pebbles moving?
Answer 1. In Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, no one ever throws pebbles at anything and the dimensions of the courtyard are never mentioned. The question is erroneous.
Answer 2. If Romeo had a cell phone, he wouldn’t be standing in the garden in the first place. He’d have called Juliet to meet him at the front gate. Because everyone in the entire world now has a cell phone, no one will ever throw pebbles at anyone else’s window ever again. The question is irrelevant.
Answer 3. Unlike the rest of the world, I still do not have a cell phone. Therefore I am throwing pebbles at a window.
At 22.11 feet per second.
Inside, a light goes on. A curtain is pulled back. I can see a face looking down at me. The window opens and Gretchen leans out. She looks down at me. Juliet was never such a welcome sight.
She comes out of the house. She’s wearing gym shorts and a T-shirt. She looks for me.
“Billy?”
“Here,” I say.
I’m standing in the bushes. Even though it’s not cold, I’m shivering. She moves toward me and I know she’s going to hug me.
“No,” I say. “Don’t. I’ll lose it.”
She does anyway. And it’s all too much and as hard as I try not to I start half blubbering into her neck.
“I’m so sorry,” Gretchen says. “I’m so sorry. It just happened.”
“It’s all right,” I say. “It’s all right. It doesn’t matter.”
“It does! I was so stupid! We were just back and our parents are friends and he asked me out. And he was such a shit after!”
“I should have done something,” I say. “I should have hit him! But I was afraid.”
“No,” Gretchen says. She kisses the blotchy flesh of my cheek. “No! I don’t care! I’m glad you didn’t.”
She kisses my mouth. “Just don’t let this do anything to us!” She kisses my cheek again. My mouth again. She kisses my nose. My eyes. It’s like a salve. Where her lips touch, the pain goes away.
“I miss Dorie,” I say.
Gretchen wordlessly takes me by the hand and leads me into the darkened house.
Fact.
The one thing that can influence fate and all its myriad chain of events is a creative act of the soul.
We don’t make love at first.
We’re on the first floor, in a small guest room. Gretchen quietly pulls back the bedcover and we get in with our clothes on. We just hold one another. She doesn’t ask any questions. She hardly says a word.
“It’s like I’m falling,” I whisper. “Falling down this deep, deep hole. The bottom is rushing up. Impact just doesn’t get any closer.”
“So sad,” is all she says. “Such a sad, sad boy.”
When she feels me starting to get hard, she slips off her gym shorts. I push down my jeans. She rolls over on top of me. She guides me into her. She puts her head down on my shoulder. We lie like that. Not even moving.
“Do you love me, Billy?”
“Yes,” I say. “So much. Do you love me?”
Sh
e kisses me on the mouth. “I love you with all my heart, Billy Kinsey.”
Truth.
We love in order to know we’re not alone.
59
When we come out of the guest room, Dr. Quinn is sitting in the kitchen. In a quiet voice, he tells Gretchen to go upstairs to her room. In the same quiet voice he asks me to leave and I do.
60
Easter. Old English translation—eastre—Goddess of the Dawn. Deity of Resurrection and the Returning Light.
In Madrid, a flash mob of one hundred fifty young people celebrate the day by looting a 7-Eleven Store.
So much for bunny rabbits.
In Brazil, a disgruntled mob protesting the Olympics throw three teenage boys off a six-story roof, killing one. In retaliation, soldiers open fire on a crowd of several hundred, most of whom are engaged in Easter mass. Fifty are killed, scores wounded.
So much for jelly beans.
In Nigeria, Islamist terrorists storm a Christian school, killing a teacher and twenty students, while in Eastern Jerusalem, a car bomb kills seventeen Orthodox Jews, including four children. This is just days after a similar blast kills nine Coptic Christians which is just days after an identical blast kills twenty-three Sunni Muslims which is just days after an even bigger blast kills eleven Buddhist monks visiting from Cambodia. Meanwhile in Sumatra, angry tigers trap six poachers in a bamboo tree for the holiday weekend, causing them to miss dinner. Sadly, these men are rescued. And as they are, perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not, in the Netherlands medical experts report that due to the frenzied pace with which mankind is destroying wild habitats and disrupting ecosystems, the next deadly pandemic will be a virus that spills from wildlife into human beings. Because of urban density and human interconnectedness, it will kill millions if not billions.
Just another thing to look forward to.
Meanwhile, home on the ranch.
It was the writer Mark Twain who wrote that one of life’s most overvalued pleasures is sexual intercourse and one of life’s least appreciated pleasures is taking a shit. In popular online videos celebrating the modern rites of spring, young people do both.
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