That was something I spent my nights trying to forget.
It happened quite simply. After that first evening in Collin’s room, talking maps and diagrams, I just went back again the next night, and the one after that, until it became routine. I never spoke to the boys about my friendship with Macon and never told Macon about what I did at night. The two parts of my day were separated by a steel wall and nothing could traverse from one side to the next—nothing but me.
Handle was thrilled, even more so than Collin. He went out of his way to make me feel included: letting me pick first or take the biggest bite, laughing at my jokes, even if they weren’t funny, especially then (and it was this trait, this genuine friendliness and concern for others, along with his happy-go-lucky personality, that would bring him riches and fame that far eclipsed his sister’s. Handle was always meant to be the star in the family. We just couldn’t see it then).
We didn’t do much. Sometimes we just hung around reading comic books and smuggling extra desserts from the kitchen. Sometimes we watched the game on Collin’s little TV set (me, pretending that I understood the rules, though I absolutely did not, while Handle and Collin argued over who was the best first baseman in the league). One time Remmy and his brother Jason got a hold of a Penthouse and we spent an hour poring over it, all of us nervous and giddy, watching the door with one eye as we ogled with the other. (Interestingly, this episode didn’t make me feel the least bit uncomfortable. We were all inexperienced, all fascinated by what we didn’t know. The pictures themselves might not have sparked anything much in me, but they didn’t seem to in the other boys either, especially the younger ones. It was the illicitness of the act that excited us more than what we were seeing. There wasn’t anything very sexual about it.)
I could have gone on like that right up to the end of my stay. I believed at the time that I was balancing it perfectly, that the one part of my day would never interfere with the other. I believed it because it worked best for me that way. But obviously, eventually I had to pick a side, choose an allegiance. Eventually I had to decide: would I betray the boys or the girl?
It didn’t take me long to choose.
I knew which side I wanted to be on.
The idea came to Collin via Remmy. I’d never really liked Remmy. He was always stirring things up just for the hell of it, making trouble out of nothing. He was chubby with big round cheeks and he loved to laugh (like Handle), but what he liked the most was to laugh at you and to egg the others on to do the same. (I’d once seen him tease Handle to tears over a bad fall he’d had off his bike. An older boy had had to piggyback him home and his knees had been cut so badly he’d needed stitches, which Remmy seemed to think was more deserving of ridicule than the fall itself, as though being hurt badly enough to need medical attention was ludicrous. Remmy didn’t seem to have a real understanding of other people’s pain. I wish I’d noticed that sooner.)
Though overall he was a good kid and often seemed to follow Handle’s lead rather than Collin’s, it was specifically his interest in Macon and all her eccentricities that turned me off. From the very first time I heard him call her Monetcon (a painful combination of Monet and Macon that made even Handle grimace) and laugh embarrassingly long at his own joke, when I saw Collin’s eyes light up at this unexpected support and how he always managed to make some nasty remark about Macon whenever Remmy was in earshot (so they could guffaw together, pointing at her paint-spattered sneakers as she retreated up the stairs), when I saw how they fed off each other, a part of me set off the alarm. A part of me sensed it.
Remmy would be the one to light the match, but it would be Collin who would set us all ablaze. It was always Collin who fanned the flames.
We were sitting on Collin’s bed playing cards, Remmy, Handle and me. Remmy was sleeping over again (which he did at least four times a week. Remmy’s father had a leather belt and wasn’t afraid to use it, Handle told me. I wondered if Handle really knew what that meant. I wondered if I did). Collin was on the floor doing pushups, though he couldn’t really manage a full one, only a half. I could do up to thirty in a row in gym class, and my muscles were bigger than Collin’s. (It was these private triumphs that kept me perpetually cheerful throughout my nighttime forays).
Collin collapsed on the floor after approximately ten minutes of “working out” and lay shirtless on the rug, panting as though he’d run a mile.
I told you, said Handle without looking up from his hand. It’s too hot.
That’s no excuse, Collins replied. Kobe Bryant works out for four hours a day, six days a week. More during the off-season.
But I noticed that he didn’t resume his pushups.
Handle snorted. Like you’ll ever be Kobe Bryant.
Collin swatted at Handle’s leg but he moved it out of the way in time. More might have come of it if Collin had been in the mood. It might have gotten ugly. Earlier he’d held Handle in a headlock for nearly ten minutes until his face had turned purple and he’d cried uncle uncle. This was over the last chip in the bag, which Handle had swiped with a flourish. (I was fascinated by these little bursts of violence, sometimes brutal, which came and went among boys, like furious gusts of wind, leaving them breathless, their clothes askew. I never participated, but it was great fun to watch.)
Then, without preamble, Remmy said, Where does she keep all those masterpieces anyway?
I kept playing. It was my turn and we were playing Hearts. I put down a jack of spades and won the round. Handle groaned and flopped on to his side, re-arranging his cards.
Collin sighed. Who? he asked, rolling onto his back, hands behind his head.
Who do you think? Remmy said. He hunched his shoulders and his neck disappeared entirely into his thick torso. He said, Your freaky sister.
Collin still didn’t take the bait. For a moment I was proud of him. He said, Upstairs somewhere, gesturing lazily with his hand.
Handle played a five of hearts, Remmy played a ten of spades, I played a five of spades and Remmy collected the cards.
Remmy leaned on his elbow. He was looking only at Collin now. Do you ever wonder about it? he said. I mean, wonder what she’s got up there.
Paintings, of course, Handle retorted, then smacked down a card. Masterpieces. You said so yourself.
I worked at keeping my face expressionless. I didn’t like where this was going. I didn’t like the tone of mischief in Remmy’s voice.
So many paintings just waiting up there, without an audience, Remmy said. It’s a shame, really, don’t you think? All of them hidden away…
(He might as well have drawn red arrows leading out of the room and right up the attic stairs.)
There was a dreadful pause as Handle waved at the air around his face trying to make a breeze and I held my breath. Then Remmy seemed about to say something more and Collin and I both interrupted him at the same moment.
Nobody heard me. (Maybe if I’d spoken up sooner, talked louder. Maybe if I’d established myself as the oldest one, the dominant one, earlier in the summer, right at the beginning. Maybe then things would have turned out differently.)
Handle and Remmy turned to Collin as he spoke. Remmy was grinning in a self-satisfied way.
Collin repeated himself. I felt strongly, though he wasn’t looking my way, that he was speaking to me only. Daring me.
He said, Want to go check it out?
So we tramped up there, the four of us. We weren’t even quiet about it. The attic wasn’t off-limits anymore, now that I was better. The only thing that had been keeping the boys away, it seemed, was disinterest. But Remmy had taken care of that.
It was dark and the only lamp in the room was the one by my bed. Macon used candles when she worked at night, but they’d been collected and taken away by Uncle Charlie a few weeks back (upon threat of a whole autumn of raking duty if he ever caught her using matches again). I was hoping they would never find the light at all and get frustrated with the game before it even began. I wasn’t prepared for t
his sudden clash of worlds. Looking around in the gloom, I became hyper-aware of all the evidence in the room that linked me with Macon’s art, revealing my interest.
(You see? It wasn’t the betrayal of Macon that had me worried, that was merely a stirring in the pit of my stomach. It was my precious boy status that mattered to me most. It was the charade.)
Handle flicked on the overhead light, shocking me. Had there been a light there all along? The room looked alien under the glare, my bed illuminated, my things laid bare: my books, my teddy bear, my wrinkled sheets and scattered socks. I scooted over to my side of the room and kicked my dirty clothes under the bed.
I didn’t realize until I turned around that Handle had followed me over. He stood in front of me, a serious look on his face (which was a shocking sight to see on Handle). I sat down on the mattress. It was a high one and even though I was sitting and he standing I was still taller than him.
He said, Jacob, I don’t like this. He looked over his shoulder at the others as they stepped between the tables, making jokes and pointing. I’d never seen Handle react this way to Collin’s antics before, standing back instead of joining in. (He certainly hadn’t stood back when we’d raided his parents liquor cabinet two nights before, each of us taking a sip from a dusty bottle of something called Grand Marnier before rushing to the bathroom to wash out our mouths. Handle said the great mariners were crazy. He’d never bring that stuff on his boat, that’s for sure.) But this time even Handle could see we’d crossed a line and somebody had to turn us back. He looked at me expectantly.
He knew it wasn’t up to him.
I ground my teeth and stared down at my hands. Didn’t he see? If I objected, if I made a fuss, it would all come out. I would be labeled. I wouldn’t ever be allowed back.
I sat under his gaze for a full five minutes, until he sighed and walked away. And though he was younger than me I felt the bitter sting of his disappointment, just as I had at the beginning of the summer when my father had sat across from me in the principal’s office and refused to meet my eye. It was familiar, that burn of shame.
Yet, still, I did nothing.
It happened fast. (That’s what I told myself after. It all happened so fast.)
They saw the lake painting. It was hanging by the window (and I should have realized, but didn’t. I didn’t turn my head. There were a few moments there, I could have done something. But I was too slow, too ashamed. I didn’t see it). Remmy said the fish looked stupid. Collin gave the painting a dirty look, as he had been to all the paintings—it was what he always did when he was confronted with something he didn’t understand. I’d seen him give the computer the same look the day before when his mother had put the child restrictions on after finding “girls girls girls” in the search history.
Handle looked at the painting for a long time with his hands behind his back and didn’t say anything.
It surprised me that they didn’t see the brilliance of the new style paintings compared with the old. Handle might have had an inkling, but the others saw those paintings as just the same as the rest—stupid colours on a canvas. They barely stopped in front of them. They barely looked. I wandered over, searching their faces for some realization, but there was none. Thy sneered and rolled their eyes. They jerked the canvases around like they were toys, or trash. They had no respect. They didn’t care.
It was incomprehensible.
It was then, as Handle noticed his own image in the painting of the boy hanging upside down and he covered his eyes, embarrassed; as we stood side by side examining it, our backs to the others; as my eyes slipped back to the lake painting just next to it—it was then that I knew there really was going to be trouble.
I spun around too late. Remmy was already standing at the foot of my bed, looking up at the painting Macon had hung there for me, moving the lake painting to the other wall. Remmy was already calling us over, calling Collin over. It was too late, so quickly too late.
There was nothing I could do now.
Collin’s body went still. He stood staring up at his own face, his cheeks twitching. Handle said something like, Wow, it really does look like you. Remmy chuckled and poked Collin in the side and Collin flinched violently. I caught my breath. It would happen now.
In an instant the painting was off the wall and in his hands. His face was a mask of pure disgust. Macon had painted Collin with such realism. The look on his face in the painting was one of tenderness, openness. I imagined she’d painted her brother as she wished he could be—a soft brother, a loving brother. But that look on his face in combination with the abandoned pose… I saw it right away, through his eyes. The boy in the painting looked almost feminine.
Collin was humiliated.
How dare she? he cried. He was so angry he was vibrating. He gripped the canvas in his hands as though he would tear it to pieces.
Handle quietly stepped behind me. Remmy stopped laughing.
I took a chance, my one chance. I said, It’s a good painting, Collin.
He turned his furious gaze on me and I tried not to shrink. He was breathing like a bull. He said, Oh really, Jacob?
It was the way he said my name, so full of scorn.
I didn’t say another word.
Remmy found the butter knife on the plate by my bed. He handed it to Collin, telling him to “cut it out” if he didn’t like it, telling him she had no right. His words spun around me, sliced through me. For a moment I simply couldn’t grasp their meaning. When I saw Collin raise his arm, I turned away. I couldn’t bear to watch.
He grunted as he jabbed the knife into the painting. At the sound of metal tearing through canvas I had to catch the edge of the table to hold myself up. I looked down at Handle (who would never break my fall again). He stared at me, stricken, his face white as paper, then he fled for the stairs.
Collin stalked around the room stabbing every painting he saw: the portrait of his father, the neighbourhood from above, Handle upside-down, The Sickroom (striking the knife almost directly through my face, making me gag), older paintings of dogs and cats and chairs, a painting of a boat in a storm, of a group of kids running. He missed Night Playground, maybe because the colours were too dark and he couldn’t really see it. He skipped an old painting of a woman sitting on a bench, I never knew why.
Remmy skipped ahead, pointing out paintings that he thought truly merited the knife, delighting in the anarchy. I crouched to the ground and picked up the remains of Boy, the face expertly carved out, the canvas edges flapping around the hole. They had reached the lake painting.
Collin raised the knife and I screamed out in horror. I stumbled across the room, trying to fling myself between him and the painting, but I was too late. He’d already cut a long gash right down the middle.
How can you do this? I screeched. I shoved Collin back. I snatched the knife out of his hand. Both he and Remmy were staring at me. I didn’t realize that I’d been crying, that my face was splotchy and swollen. I didn’t realize how loudly I’d screamed. We could hear footsteps approaching.
Remmy backed into the darkness and disappeared, but Collin reared up.
He said, It’s just a stupid painting, Jacob.
Why can’t you just leave her alone? I countered.
You didn’t have to be her brother your whole life, he answered, he face flushed with emotion. You don’t know!
I tried to pull the pieces of the painting together, to make it whole again, but it was no use.
You’re just jealous! I cried. Because you don’t have an ounce of talent. You can’t even touch her!
Oh, really, cousin? Collin said with a sneer. I’m jealous? Are you sure you have that right? Because it seems to me that of all the people in this house the only one who’s jealous is you.
I took a step toward him and stooped so we were face to face. I said, Believe what you want, but you’re the one who’ll have to live with this, not me.
You think so? Collins replied. You think I’m the one she’s go
ing to blame?
(I didn’t consider this, I couldn’t just then. It’s difficult even now to admit how right he was. You have to care about a person to feel the weight of their accusation. And if you love them, as I loved Macon, the wrongs you’ve done them can follow you for the rest of your life. Even if, or so you tell yourself, you didn’t really mean them.)
We were nose to nose and I still had the knife in my hand when Macon came running into the room, followed closely by her parents.
Aunt Vera let out a string of expletives, many of which I’d never heard before. Uncle Charlie grabbed the knife from my hand and threw it to the floor so violently its blade cut an inch-deep gouge into the wood floor. Then he took us by the shoulders and shoved us down the stairs, as behind us Aunt Vera cried, over and over, What did you do? What did you do?
But it was the look on Macon’s face in that first instant as she saw what we’d done that haunted me that night (that haunts me still). Like Macon herself, it was a complicated look, a mixture of horror and dismay, incomprehension and accusation and hurt. There was anger there too, of course, there was. And tucked in a little corner of her face, hesitant but gaining strength, there was also something I couldn’t quit put my finger on.
It was almost like… relief.
I was sent home the next day, no discussion. Aunt Vera packed up my things while I was sleeping and my mother was there waiting for me when I woke up.
Collin wasn’t allowed to leave his room. I didn’t even say goodbye to him (which was probably for the best. I had the feeling I wouldn’t have the courage to punch him in the face with the whole family watching, and saying a cordial goodbye, as if he’d done nothing more than tie Macon’s shoelaces together, frankly would have made me wretch). Handle gave me a half-hearted wave from the porch as Uncle Charlie loaded my suitcase into my mother’s car. Then he turned and went into the house. I got the message: I was no longer his idol.
The Sickroom: A Novella Page 6