by Kate Gray
This was the closest to forever I had come. The place in my chest where the sun had reached was a place that was now and always. We were bigger than this lake, our families, Mount Greylock in the distance.
“It’s cold,” you said, and you sat up. Your eyelashes did that thing they do: They made stars.
“Okay, then,” I said and sat up, hugging my knees to my chest.
“Ready to row bow?” I said.
You grabbed your glasses, and I held the shell for you. We pushed off the dock. Never had you rowed behind me. Never had I stroked. We both sat in new seats.
It wasn’t until the middle of the lake that we began to work together. Our blades at the catch, our feet pushing off, our hands nearly the same height, we found the rhythm we needed.
“You know what?” I said. The words sounded too loud over the slap of oars on water.
“I’m bad at bow?”
“Not bad.”
“What?”
“I can’t say it,” I said.
“Breathe,” you said.
The words I wanted to say were not on this lake. They were not passed in church through a mother’s hand to a daughter’s. The words were not a prayer. The words I wanted were about wanting, the opening in a chest, the loneliness.
“I love,” I said. The oars pulled through the water. “This.” My skin under the wet shirt shivered.
“I know, Taylor,” you said, “I know what you mean.” Your voice was sure, like flat water and a cox’n and all the crew behind you. But you didn’t know.
The slap of the oars, the wheels of the seats up the slide, the breeze. In my chest there was a forever place. In all the world, there was no love bigger than this lake, us two, and the highest mountain in Massachusetts.
Song / Specimen
The night when Carla snuck into the dorm when only the Second Formers and jocks were in their rooms, I had turned out my light by my rocking chair, and Carla was wrapped in my blanket on the couch. Long after curfew, few sounds down the hall. But then from the rat maze of cubbies where the Second Formers live, I heard a mewing, like kittens, too much air through too little throat. Hungry, hurt kittens, and when I pulled back the curtain and took one step inside, Kyle was curled up on the foot of his bed. “Kyle,” I said, “what’s wrong?” He was no longer the Light Brigade, no longer conquering lands for the British Empire. The mewing grew rapid and loud. If other boys heard, they kept quiet.
“Talk to me, Young Sir,” I said, but he said nothing. At the foot of his bed, curled up and crying, he looked feral, a specimen removed by force.
Behind me the curtain moved, and Carla stood in the space where I pushed the curtain back, and Kyle stopped. Carla watched and said nothing. Whatever she had been through was through with her. I said nothing.
Kyle started to snore, pretending to snore, louder than crying, and when I looked back at the space in the curtain, no Carla. Who knows what Kyle saw.
Taylor / Birch Bark
At sixteen, Fifth Formers are birch trees, bending any way the wind blows, bending to get out of breaking. When I say the ghost is real, they nod. When I say the ghost is a malevolent device of Hamlet’s psyche to cope with grief, they nod. It wasn’t until I showed the Olivier movie that they had shape.
Shannon McDaniel said, “Look at his face.”
Gerry Frankel said, “Yeah, he’s so expressive.”
Then Donny Zurkus said, “What a faggot.”
It took me a few steps to get to the light switch. Everyone winced and went overdramatic: “Ouch.” Then I walked right into the movie, Sir Laurence Olivier moving on my body, the black and white images on my button-down shirt. I walked from the screen into the cone of light, found the stop button, and the projector clicked, and the movie film drooped slack, the Fifth Formers shouting, “Hey, what happened?”
“Donny,” I said, “what did you say?”
I stood in front of his desk, his legs sticking out from under it. His head almost touching the backrest, he was so far slumped in the chair.
He brought his feet under him and slid his body up the chair. With his forearms flat on the desktop, his shoulders flexed, he could stand at any second. If he stood, we would look into each other’s eyes. He was my height, but thinner, raw, all muscle. The only things holding him back were the desk and his grade.
“I said he looks homosexual.” His cut jawline, hair clipped, his face all angles, turned flat at me. His eyes were not birch bark.
“And what,” I said, “does homosexual look like?” My voice was metal, my heart liquid.
“You know,” he said, “like that.” He pointed at the screen. “Lips all pooched out, wrists bent, all floozy,” he said. And he bent his wrist, said the words, lisping the Ss in wrists. A couple of boys near him turned in their seats away from Donny, and a few boys bent their wrists and touched their eyebrows with light fingers. The girls’ laughter was high and icy.
“You don’t know your history, do you?” I said.
“I got an A in it.”
“Then you must know he married Vivien Leigh.” I was river around stone.
“So?”
His chin lifted, and I could see the muscle tighten by his jawbone. We looked at each other, and in his eyes, he was hiding something, like a small boy hiding a jackknife he’s not supposed to use. He was trying not to be scared, trying not to poke fun.
“So,” I said, “it’s unlikely he was a faggot, especially since a faggot is a piece of wood.” The girls giggled. The boys looked at Donny.
“I know what a faggot is,” he said.
I took a step toward him. “Then,” I said, “you know that derogatory terms will not be tolerated in this classroom.” I stopped before his desk. I stopped before my hand could do anything but say, “Stop.” The muscle by his jawbone flexed, released, flexed, released, and I turned and walked back to the movie projector. The projector stuttered, and the film caught in the sprockets. When I went back to my seat, the film made Olivier walk on my back.
No one said a word. There were no squeaking desks, no sighs, nothing but birch bark faces in the light of the screen, nothing but film clicking through sprockets.
I was still river.
When you and I watched the French film, Ménage à Trois, at the movie house in our college town, where they showed the artsy films in the early eighties, I was waterfall in the dark. You were sitting next to me, snug in your ski jacket, the one with the white stripe that ran up your left across your shoulders then down your right on a blue background. When the two women made love on the screen, I wanted to put my hand in front of your eyes. The movie light washed out the color of your face. Shouting “Fire!” would have made everyone run. If only you were someplace else. But you were there, and I was on the screen. I was kissing a woman and you were watching and everything was wrong.
Walking back along Spring Street after the movie, we didn’t say anything. We both watched our boots on the icy path, the narrow part slick and gray from other people walking. We went to my room, my room in Kruger Hall. When we walked in, I apologized for the mess as I always did when we walked in my room.
You said, “It’s fine. It’s you.”
I said, “It’s not fine.”
You tipped your head up from where you were sitting on my unmade bed. I couldn’t sit by you. I couldn’t sit. Your brown eyes with those little flecks were as big as eyes on a movie screen.
“I’m not fine. You didn’t like the movie, did you?”
“Of course not. Did you?” You leaned forward, and your eyes got narrow like they were trying to see in the dark. In the dark, afraid of the dark, I was walking blind in the mess of my room.
“No, no, it was gross,” I said. My head moved back and forth, a searchlight.
What if I’m afraid of the dark, but I walk into a dark room to see that there’s nothing there? It’s one thing to walk in and out, and nothing happens. It’s another thing to have someone I care about be there, hiding, and jump out at me. What
if the thing I fear comes true?
“Why did we go to that movie?” you asked. You put your hands between your thighs, squeezed your shoulders together.
“Because,” I walked toward the door. I turned back, “Because the film is me.” I couldn’t stop. My arms at my side, I bent over you as I spoke. “I’m one of them. Homosexual.” My head above your head, my body before you. “If you can’t handle that film, you can’t handle me.”
My voice was walking into a dark room without turning on the light.
You said nothing.
Your eyes were not trying to look in the dark any more. The part in your brown hair was a clear white line. Your hands came out from between your legs. You stood up and said nothing. You turned toward the door and said nothing. Three steps. The white stripe on the back of your jacket, a U upside down. The door closed.
Boo.
And Hamlet stabbed Polonius on the screen at the front of the classroom, and the Fifth Formers said, “Gross!” Donny said nothing.
“Okay,” I said. “I don’t want to give all of it away.” Olivier, his lithe body, moved on me until I reached the projector and shut it off. Lights on, the Fifth Formers stretched their arms above their heads.
“Miss Alta,” Rambo said, “is the ghost really evil? I mean, if he is Hamlet Senior, wouldn’t he protect Hamlet Junior?”
From the front row, Gerry said, “Not necessarily. What if he just wants revenge?”
“He could do that without Hamlet,” Donny said. “He could get the other minions to do his dirty work for him.” Donny leaned on his forearms.
Rambo said, “But who else would have access to Gertrude’s chambers?” She looked at Donny, then at Gerry, then at me.
“Maybe Ophelia. She’s wacko. She’d believe anything,” Donny said.
“Interesting,” I said. Leaning back against the desk at the front of the room, I crossed my legs at the ankle. “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Is she crazy, or pissed off?”
The Fifth Formers shifted in their seats. Teachers weren’t supposed to say “pissed off.”
“There’s nothing like a girl with a grudge,” Frank said. He sat in the third row usually with his arms crossed over his chest, his eyes down at the desk. The boys’ laughter was low, foggy.
“Seems to me there’s nothing like King Hamlet coming back from the grave,” I said. “I’d say he has a grudge.” My weight shifted to my feet. I pushed off from the desk and stood before them.
The girls said, “Gotcha.”
“Freud would interpret this a different way,” I said. “I know you read Oedipus in Second Form, so you know about the marrying-the-mom-and-killing-the-dad thing. Maybe Prince Hamlet secretly wanted Gertrude, and he feels so guilty that the ghost is his subconscious haunting him.”
Donny’s desk smacked the floor. “No way, Miss Alta. King Hamlet isn’t coming back to kill Prince Hamlet. He’s coming back to kill Claudius.” Donny’s desk was a gate keeping him in.
“Donny, you haven’t read the ending yet. And maybe the subconscious is more powerful than you think. Maybe Hamlet feels so guilty for wanting his mother that part of him wanted his father dead. This is Freud talking, remember?” I looked from Donny to Gerry to Rambo to the rest.
“I still say that’s crazy,” Donny said. “Freud was a freak.” Donny crossed his arms and slumped back in his chair. A little boy practicing with a jackknife.
“Freud is one way of looking at things.”
All at once the students leaned over to pick books off the floor, close their books on the desks, stuff their book bags. When dismissed, the Fifth Formers turned sideways to fit around the projector in the aisle, their one arm on the backpack strap, the other arm out almost rodeo-rider style for balance. They passed me in pairs, the girls touching forearms with their girlfriends, the boys turning their heads to the boy behind them so their necks flashed at me as they passed single file through the classroom door.
Rambo said as she passed me, “See you later, Coach.”
Before class, before rowing on the lake alone, I woke up crying.
In the dream we were in college, but you were about to die. In the dream we both knew. We were in Kruger Hall, on my bed, your back against the headboard. I was leaning on one elbow at your feet. You told me about a new guy you liked, not Mark, since I knew Mark was already seeing someone else. I didn’t know if you knew; that secret was knotting my stomach up. Your new guy’s name was Richard, curly red hair, studying to be a minister, same Episcopalian as your Episcopalian. And I encouraged you to see him, even though we both knew you were going to die.
The knotting of my stomach turned tighter, and I curled into a ball, laid my cheek on your shin, the jeans soft on my cheek. My other hand fit around your other shin.
I said, “You know, it just isn’t fair.” And the knot cinched inside me, and my knees contracted toward my chest.
I never finished the sentence. I never said, “It isn’t fair that you’re going to die.”
Books closed and stacked, stuffed into my briefcase, I zipped the bag. The desks in the room were bigger without students trapped in them. Gertrude’s voice, not Hamlet’s, lingered in the classroom.
“All that lives must die, passing through nature to eternity.” Is it natural to have no body, to die for no good reason?
The movement in the halls was the rapids of students changing class.
Song / Torch
A Korean girl is a living paradox. Two things at once seemingly contradictory, but apparently not. Hard and determined to achieve, soft and eager to fit in. Closed to distraction, open to culture. Flowering, wilting.
Carla is little contradiction. She is singular in her conviction. American girls exceed their bounds. In the letters Carla wrote me she told me she could feel wherever I was, what chair I was sitting in. She wrote that she was that chair, could feel my legs on her legs. Her imagination was scary detailed: the hairs on my legs soft, my butt going onto her, the curve of her lap, a perfect fit. She imagined so much heat between her lap and my butt, we were both slick. I almost slid off her, my chair. Her letters over the summer held no ambiguity, no contradiction. I cannot imagine my sister imagining such a thing.
Never write things down. Could be used against you.
Five things needed for class. Associate one thing with each finger. Thumb is bowl. Index finger is cold can. Third finger, the hand that’s needed for the demonstration. Fourth, the mouth that’s needed. Fifth, soap with glycerin. Bowl, can, hand, mouth, soap. Move the fingers as I walk down the hall to the lab, and I won’t forget.
“Mr. Song, Mr. Song,” Tommy Underwood yelling. “Come quick.” His shirt untucked, his hair every which way. What a crop of Second Formers.
The sound of something, air, a torch, the compression of gas through small opening, loud, getting louder. Tommy opens the door to the lab. The metal stands on the table, little crosses. The hoses for gas. The beakers and dishes and stink of formaldehyde. Donny Zurkus and his minions. They pinned Kyle to a lab table, a frog.
Safety goggles across Donny’s face. Blowtorch in hand. They rigged something up. Blowtorch to glass funnel, glass funnel to stand, object in funnel, dripping, funnel to tube to Kyle’s ear. He’s spread out on his back. Five kids pinning him.
“Boys,” I say. Two kids holding his legs down, they look up.
“Zurkus,” I say, and I walk up behind Donny, grab both his shoulders. Clammy in his dress shirt, big muscle boy. Don’t spin, don’t aim that blow torch somewhere else. I hold him in place. His head pops up. Busted.
“What the hell?” Donny says. He turns to look over his shoulder, but he can’t see me right behind him. Between my hands, his body twists. You’re not going anywhere, Mr. Shit.
“Zurkus. Turn the torch off.”
“But we’re working.” His voice louder than the torch. He looks at the other boys. They look at the table. Kyle is laid out on the slab, pinned, but no hands pin him.
Donny Zurkus turns the kno
b on the blowtorch, flame off. I let go of his shoulders. He takes his goggles off. I about flatten him.
“Mr. Zurkus,” I say, “What do you think you’re doing?”
“English. You know Hamlet?”
“Don’t give me that.”
“Honest. You know, the part where Claudius kills Hamlet Senior? No way you can kill somebody through the ear like that. We were checking the real world implications, you know?” He looks at his minions. The boys in his minion look down. Kyle doesn’t move.
Donny and the lingo. Admissions tours. Brochures. Tim-Tim’s ambassador.
“We were only using wax. See?” And Donny gestures with the blunt end of the blow torch, now turned off, to the glass funnel with wax melting in it.
Nothing moves, and everything else is in the shelves along two walls, the Pyrex measuring glasses, the thermometers, Petri dishes, all the tubes and wire and balls. Microscopes on their stands.
“Bull, Mr. Zurkus,” I say.
“But it’s true, Mr. Song,” Donny says. “It’s not fair. You’re not giving us a chance.” His voice gets girly.
“Report to the headmaster, all of you.”
“I’ll miss practice.”
“Mr. Zurkus, you may miss many things. Go.” I look at Kyle. Safety goggles slide across the table. Donny Muscle-Boy with Big Moves. Door swings open. He probably flips me the bird. The other boys go out the door after him.
Good riddance.
Inventory of the shelves. Still everything looks in its place. I have to clean this pigsty. Mr. Lazy Song. Mr. Disorganized. Not like Kim.
We never had to share a room, not like most FOB kids. Old Korean clothes, cramped American quarters. Our parents worked hard to get a real house. My room, messy with books. Kim’s room, dolls in boxes, matching outfits. Pink bed made perfect.
When she started to bleed, got the purpura all over after falling, playing at foursquare, when she didn’t stop bleeding, I folded her clothes for her, made stacks in her drawers. Older brother. Nothing much I could do.