Things Unsaid: A Novel

by Diana Y. Paul

  His mother came to his side and kissed his cheek. “Does that make your owwie better?” she asked, looking down at his legs: red welts with little white dashes where the stitching on the sides of his father’s belt were embossed. He raised his right leg so she could have a closer look. She bent down and kissed him on the leg, too. Andrew let her do it, but she made him uncomfortable: too much contact. He was the sun that rose and set for their mother. She often told him so, even in front of his friends.

  His very first childhood memory: his mother’s kisses. The ones in the wrong places.

  His father had ordered a rubberized, electrically charged sheet as a deterrent to bed-wetting. To make him a man. He was getting ready to enter kindergarten, and bed wetters weren’t allowed. The school principal had said that naptime would be ruined for the other children if anyone peed. So right before kindergarten started, he remembered waking up in the middle of the night, zapped with electrical current, his pajamas soaked through. Smelling like pee.

  Crying and screaming “Mommy, Mommy,” he would run to his mother, who would be waiting in the bathroom. Stripping him naked, she would hug him and stand him on the toilet seat, kneeling in front of him, washing his body with a cool washcloth. Andrew remembered her saying, “Now, now, Andrew. You’re a big boy. Your daddy wants you to go to kindergarten, so we bought that special bedsheet just for you. It’s to wake you up in the middle of the night when you do pee-pee. You can’t go to school if you wet your bed, you know. Big boys don’t do that kind of thing. And Daddy and Mommy want you to understand that. We love you very much and want you to make us proud of you.” And then she kissed his penis.

  It surprised him. Who kisses where your pee-pee comes from? He remembered understanding that much, even at five years old. But before he could say anything, he saw his father peeking through the cracked-open bathroom door. He still remembered that one dark eye tilted at him.

  He was the only son, and it came with a price.

  “You know, I never liked chicken when I was growing up,” his father would start off. “The slaughter of chickens would turn and churn in my stomach when I was a kid. Those bloodied chickens squawking with their heads cut off—gushing blood from open wounds, running in circles. They’d stink so badly. My father shoved it down my throat. Shouted that we had to eat whatever was in front of us. We couldn’t afford anything else. One of those chickens had been my pet. Used to sleep with it. I never ate chicken after I left home.”

  Andrew ended up hating chicken just like his father.

  But when he was maybe about ten years old, he’d tried an experiment. He’d chopped chicken into squares, skewered them, and slathered them with loads of spicy jerk sauce. The taste of smoky barbecue and the crispiness ringing the meat had been irresistible to his dad. After his father had eaten at least four kebabs, Andrew couldn’t control himself any longer. Smirking, he said, “Hmm, Dad, how’d you like those kebabs? They were really good now, weren’t they? They didn’t have any nasty smell or dirty taste, now did they—did they?”

  His father stared at him, the beginnings of suspicion in his eyes.

  Andrew couldn’t keep it to himself any longer. “You ate chicken,” he blurted out, gloating. “You ate chicken!”

  His father stood up immediately and said something in an unnaturally low, soft voice that Andrew couldn’t quite make out. And then it happened. He retched on top of the platter with the remaining kebabs. And he retched some more, throwing up everything, as everyone else jumped away from the table. Until there was nothing but piss-colored water with little pimple-size lumps. But even then he kept retching. And he never forgot—or entirely forgave Andrew for what he’d done.

  As the only son of a doctor, Andrew had exalted status. Some medical field would have to be his career “choice.” The arguments for this were constant and repetitive.

  “You know, your sisters will marry well, to a good provider, and raise a family,” his father always said. “That’s all they have to do. Like your mother. But you—I expect lots more from you.”

  And Andrew didn’t want to disappoint.

  “Well, you just remember—there are expectations you have to live up to. Your father is an important man in this city. Everyone knows me. Now, if my father had been more than a farmer, I probably would have followed in his footsteps. But I had other dreams … to be much more. A success. To have the life that only money can buy. And, of course”—this part seemed like an afterthought to Andrew—“a good wife and mother, and three wonderful kids.”

  That wasn’t quite believable to Andrew’s ears. He wanted to believe it. But his father just looked sad.

  How Andrew envied his sisters. They didn’t have to worry about what their father thought of them. They wouldn’t need to work. Their husbands would do all the heavy lifting. He wished sometimes that he had been born a girl—with a pink bow in his hair. He knew Jules wanted to have a profession. It wasn’t typically female, but she had been like that since kindergarten. Studying famous women in history, winning academic awards, even the National Latin Society, whatever that was. She should just relax. She would have it easy. Like their mother. But Andrew—he had to prove he was worthy.

  “No son of mine is going into something so worthless, to say nothing of mindless,” his father would say of race car driving and motorcycle competitions. “Racing cars and driving motorcycles are for ne’er-do-wells. Do you want to make me proud or not?”

  He would make his father proud of him. And, much to his surprise, he had begun to love studying the intricacies of the cardiovascular system. For the first time, he’d started to feel respected, aglow with medical jargon about this or that ventricular cavity and arterial defect. That was the way to his father’s heart. Dissecting animals helped reinforce learning about anatomy, too. He always aced biology exams. He had a collection in their attic: translucent, pinkish fetal forms with veiny, glossy legs splayed, strapped, and nailed to a board. Cats, dogs, birds, even a squirrel. He liked the squirrel tailbones best. Fine, delicate, easily broken.

  After the car accident, Andrew had spent the summer lifeguarding at the country club pool, wanting to save money just like his dad. That was the summer before he was sent away to George Washington Military Academy. His parents had talked to the board members, promising that he would follow the rules. No big deal, until Woolworth’s.

  “Can’t Buy Me Love.” The song was number one on the charts, and his friends wanted to get the single. Andrew had had his name on the waiting list for weeks but still hadn’t gotten his copy. He volunteered to go buy the record for them.

  He walked into Woolworth’s and nonchalantly wandered over to the right side of the store, where the Top Ten Hits section was located, and started flipping alphabetically through the singles in their paper sleeves, looking over his shoulder. Rows and rows of records, and yet only one of the singles he was looking for was left. On the envelope, clear and bold, was the warning: “Display Copy Only. Do Not Remove.”

  He looked around, down the aisles. The store was packed. Probably because it was so hot and the air-conditioning was on full blast. Everyone hung out at the mall on blistering July days like this one. But he didn’t see anyone working the floor. He bent way over the row of singles. Easy to slip the envelope into his baggy T-shirt.

  He was almost to the door when a heavily muscled man, about six foot four, stepped in front of him, blocking him from the exit. Towering over him, he tapped Andrew’s chest. “Buddy, come back into the store, please,” he said as Andrew felt his fingers set off a paper crinkle sound under his T-shirt.

  Red—his face turned so red. The guard escorted him upstairs to the small office on the second floor, directly across from the wall where the records were displayed. An unobstructed vantage point for seeing what he had done.

  “Hey, junior”—Andrew had never been called “junior” before—“we have a zero tolerance for theft.” The manager, a small, round-bellied guy of what Andrew considered to be “normal” adult a
ge, perhaps thirty, forty, turned over the single that was now in front of him. “You’re a shoplifter, plain and simple. And I believe the punishment they give you teenage thugs these days is nothing, as far as I’m concerned. The consequences should be harsh.” He picked up the 45 and looked closely at the label. “‘Can’t Buy Me Love,’ huh? Sounds like you can’t buy anything.”

  Andrew wanted to bolt. The guard stood by the door, no expression on his massive bulldog face.

  “Look, I can explain,” he said. “My name was on the waiting list for this Beatles tune. I can pay. I only borrowed it, until my copy came in. Just didn’t want to wait, you see. We’re having a party and all. To celebrate before school starts. Give me a break, won’t you?”

  The shop manager looked unconvinced, impassive. His dirty blond, greasy hair was long and clung to the back of his neck in the humidity.

  “What’s your name, junior? Better yet, you can tell it to the police downtown. See if they believe your sob story.”

  Andrew stared at the guy’s sweaty armpits. He worried that he was sweating as much as the manager. “Andrew Whitman, sir. I go to Hoban High School.” Maybe that would impress him. He wasn’t just some thief from the bad section of Akron. He went to a private school. His dad said that got you breaks in life.

  “Whitman, did you say? Whitman? Are you related to Dr. Bob Whitman?”

  Oh my God, thought Andrew. My father knows the manager of Woolworth’s. What would happen to him now? “Please don’t tell him, sir.”

  The manager called his father, and, as a satisfied patient, he agreed not to file a complaint.

  Walking into the assembly hall the first day of orientation, Andrew had noticed “Dr. and Mrs. Robert Whitman—for their generous donation” engraved on a plaque right next to the front door. He knew his father loved that George Washington Military Academy was exclusive, loved the snob appeal implied in their flyers. What his father didn’t know was that erstwhile shoplifters, drug “experimenters,” exam cheats, and other delinquents who had narrowly avoided juvie hall were all George Washington military cadets, there because of their parents’ money.

  The campus was beautiful. Lush landscaping and expensively manicured, red-and-white brick buildings as upright, perfect, and uniform in appearance as the cadets. The teachers were intimidating and handsome at the same time in their military uniforms. They paraded in front of the parents at the beginning of the semester, marching in step up to the auditorium stage for their presentations, exuding a cool, polite air.

  “All right, plebes,” Captain Grissim shouted after the parents left. Grissim was his barracks commander and the captain of the lacrosse team. Tall, blond, Germanic bone structure, his face never smiled. He was movie-star handsome. “No mercy or second chances will be shown for failing to make a military-standard bed. The test is quite simple. You pass inspection when the quarter I throw on the bed bounces without making a dent. If you pass, you move on to learning how to shoot. If you don’t pass, your choice is to do one hundred push-ups and then try again the next morning, or request permission to leave George Washington Military Academy permanently. And how would your fathers feel about that one? Huh? Not your mothers. Your fathers. So there really is no choice.”

  Andrew watched the other plebes perform. He could hear faint throw-up sounds in the bathroom. He assumed they were the two cadets who hadn’t passed. Now it was his turn.

  “Next. Whitman. Come on, we don’t have all day. You’re the last one and I want to go to the rifle range after this.” Andrew’s hands shook, trembling as if he had Parkinson’s like his grandfather, and he saw Grissim notice. How could he stop his vibrating, agitated movements so the older cadet would not suspect he had absolutely no confidence in passing? Grissim smiled stiffly. His parents must have spent a small fortune on his teeth. They were so perfect they looked fake.

  “I’m not sure I did it right.” Andrew said in that same falsetto, high-pitched voice he used with his father before a beating.

  “If you didn’t, you get to do one hundred push-ups in the shower. That is, after you wash down all the throw-up from those other two losers who are leaving the latrine as I speak.”

  Later—after washing down the vomit in the shower and performing one hundred push-ups while Grissim watched—Andrew learned how to pass bed inspection. The following morning, when the quarter bounced off the bed, Andrew saw an indentation in the bed covers, but Grissim insisted he had passed, flashing those beautiful pearly whites. Andrew could never stop staring at them. Or at Grissim.

  That afternoon, Grissim taught him how to shoot, both indoors and out on the immense range. The paper targets were rough outlines of a male body—the kind you see on the floor at a crime scene—but with red circles for aiming at the brain and heart.

  Family celebrations at SafeHarbour? Really? Who were his parents kidding? The last celebrations he had no choice but to attend were Thanksgiving and Christmas, when GWMA was closed. That first Thanksgiving was the beginning of breaking away.

  The Akron-Cleveland airport was suffocatingly crowded. His parents and sisters spotted him right away by his signature GWMA helmet. It always was an attention getter, an odd, archaic sort of thing—a pickelhaube Prussian spiked helmet, more a weapon than a type of headgear. He spotted them. That was his family, all right. They didn’t know how to act—even pretend to act—like normal people. He lowered his head and walked towards them. As if he were a bull facing opponents in a bullfight, horns pointed at the vulnerable center of the toreador. He was a bit self-conscious of the slight double chin this posture created, incongruous on the face of any average-weight teenager. He was slimmer than he had ever been, but military posture required emotional control of one’s face.

  “Hi,” he mumbled as his mother reached up to graze his face with that topaz-and-diamond encrusted ring she had promised to Joanne someday. Lipstick exactly defined in two fire-engine red lips was stamped several times on his face. He didn’t have to look in the mirror to verify that. He just knew it. He glanced at Jules and Joanne; they saw him cringe, and they looked at each other, smirking in collusion. Maybe that was why he had been sent away: to get away from the female influence in his household. Or was it just to get him away from his mother?

  Andrew reached down and expertly threw his giant duffel, GWMA emblazoned in navy-blue and gold lettering, over his shoulder without disturbing his helmet. In the car on the drive home, he carefully placed his pickelhaube next to him while he told tales of his first two months at George Washington Military Academy—the great guys there, the sneaking into town to drink, missing curfew. He loved being the center of attention, watching his sisters sponge up the stories, thirsty for adventure and something new in their boring lives.

  All the stuff that their father thought he wouldn’t be able to do in military school was exactly what Andrew liked to do.

  Their father’s hands, white knuckled on the steering wheel, looked cadaverous—all the veins wormy and popping up. He was silent. Uncomfortably silent. Andrew’s mother turned around in her seat and reached far over to stroke his head, her red-polished fingernails curled under like claws. Her eyes luxuriated on his face, that type of eye contact he hated.

  “Good thing you got lucky, hon—with the lower bunk and all,” she said when he told them of Grissim’s bunk test. Her right hand, adorned with that cockroach-size ring, stroked his cheek, just missing his eye.

  “So I’m spending all this money on you, and for what?” his father grumbled. “That school’s supposed to make a man out of my son. What a waste.”

  Still, his parents seemed relieved to find that it was only alcohol he was experimenting with. They didn’t know about the dope and other recreational drugs. Shoplifting was in the distant past. He had found his religion: adoration for a new trinity—the military, guns, and authority. Guy things.

  “Hmm,” his father broke in during one of his stories, “you mention Grissim an awful lot!”

  “Like I was saying, Dad, the te
achers are awesome. Learning a lot.” Andrew ignored what his father had said. His own voice sounded hollow, parrotlike, to his ears. Turning around, perhaps to look for a sign of truth in his face regarding what his father said, his mother smiled. But Andrew was in control of his face.

  “I never had any doubts about you, sweetheart. And you need a few years’ break before all the girls start chasing you in college. They won’t be able to keep their hands off of you.”

  Like you, Andrew thought, ignoring her. He looked at Jules and Joanne and grinned like the Joker in Batman. There was no way that anyone in his family would think there was something “off” about his smile. They didn’t get him. Never did. Never would.

  “Hope George Washington isn’t some kinda glorified gay camp.”

  “Dad, you keep telling me that GWMA’s for the best of men: courage, discipline, integrity. Isn’t that why you sent me there?” Andrew thought way back to that electric rubber sheet. A tool so he wouldn’t be a bed wetter—someone who could turn gay.

  “Yeah, yeah, sure,” his father said. “Didn’t want you getting into even more trouble.” He sighed, looking worn out by time.

  “Dad, listen. I feel at home. They’re my brothers—the brothers I never had. My family away from home.” He hoped he had put his father’s mind at ease, so he could return to GWMA.

  The envelope lay on his desk. His wife, Abigail, always placed his mail carefully there, each envelope discretely sliced open, staggered—one envelope layered halfway beneath the previous one—so that each return address was neatly revealed. His wife was very precise and dependable. He loved that about her.