Sophomores

by Sean Desmond

  “There’s a huge storm coming, Pat. Where’s Dan?”

  Before he could answer, an air-raid siren started to wail and blare.

  * * *

  That same morning, Dan was holed up in his room listening to the spare testaments of John Wesley Harding while reading Shelton’s account of the motorcycle accident. His mother went out shopping without bothering to bother him. Then his father left for Mass without guilting Dan into coming. Can’t keep track of when one fight ends and another begins. Alone in the house, Dan wandered room to room. He took two finger-pulls of peanut butter from the jar in the fridge and funneled a handful of Honey Nut Cheerios into his mouth. The house was creepy quiet, like the walls were somehow absorbing sound. Dan settled into the back TV room. Through the window, he saw the dark peaks of clouds rising like a mountain range. Dan flipped around the channels, but it was the Sunday morning block of kiddie cartoons and TV preachers. Bored, Dan thumbed through a mound of his father’s papers—junk mail, résumés returned to sender, form-letter replies thanking him for his résumé, want ads from the Times Herald, and, below that, a small workbook.

  30-DAY CLINICAL TRIAL FOR HYPOVITAMINOSIS CHOLECALCIFEROL

  PATIENT DIARY PATRICK FRANCIS MALONE

  The phone rang. Dan extracted his father’s diary from the pile and dashed into the kitchen to answer. It was Cady Bloom.

  “Hey, Danny boy.”

  “Hey.” Too cheery for Sunday morning. Dan was on guard.

  “What’s happening?”

  “Not alotta.”

  “Same here.” Cady hadn’t called in a while. There had been a short pink-cloud period when they talked every day. But not anymore. “Listen, Dan, you don’t really want to go to Spring Fling, right?”

  “What?” Not a prank. He had agreed to take her to a real dance. Dan started to flip through the diary. His father had written a lot down.

  “I’m just saying we don’t have to go. Okay?”

  “Wait . . .”

  “Are you angry about it?”

  “I’m confused. What’s going on?”

  “Sorry, I shouldn’t have made a big deal out of it.”

  “That’s okay. We can go do something else.”

  “Dan.” Cady’s tone got pouty and impatient. “I’m saying not go together.”

  “Oh.” Dan put down the diary and started paying full attention.

  “You didn’t seem super into it, so let’s forget about it.”

  “Want to do something else that Saturday?”

  “Danny, that’s not gonna work.”

  Dan finally started to get it. “Are you going with someone else?”

  “No, not really.”

  “Hold up. Who are you going with?”

  “I don’t know. Just my girlfriends right now.”

  It’s that Julie Houlihan. Cady’s dumping me because Julie told her to, and then she’ll set her up with some other guy, so they can all go as a group. Fuck.

  “Wait, is this—”

  “I gotta go.”

  And the line clicked, and Dan let the phone slide out of his hand as he curdled with humiliation. He looked around the kitchen in disbelief until his eyes fell back down on his father’s medical diary. The following lines popped out at him:

  Anne and Dan won’t speak to me. I’m all alone and it’s my own goddamn fault. I did this to me. Fuck me. Just let me fucking die.

  Dan moved into the den and plunked down on a burnt-orange chair. He went back to the beginning of the diary and then skimmed ahead to the bad parts. His father was sicker than he had realized. He also drank too much. Dan closed the workbook. His head and heart tumbled with guilt, and he couldn’t think. He heard a car pull up in the driveway, his father’s Cougar. He ran to his father’s pile of papers and returned the workbook to the stack. He slipped into his own room as his father staggered through the front door. Dan sealed himself off and sank into despair. Such an awful confession. I didn’t know it was that bad. The MS had left him rotten. He could hear his father shuffling around the house. It’s losing his job. He’s depressed.

  Dan put on The White Album and turned it up, lying facedown on his bed, but then all he could do was listen to himself go crazy. Cady Bloom had dumped him and he’d never even kissed her. I’m such a fucking loser. He pulled a pack of cigarettes from a hiding spot under the mattress and turned off “Helter Skelter.” He whispered to no one, “What the fuck is going on?” and then got up off the bed. He ran out of the house and down the driveway, stopping at the concrete wall in front. The storm clouds were much closer, and the wind began to whistle through the trees. Cady, all those girls, it’s like a stupid game to them, everyone trying to rise in the cool rankings. Well, fuck that.

  He had no idea what to do. He lit a cigarette and started pacing along the wall. So many things he couldn’t hold in or let go. Who the fuck do you trust? How do you get close? It’s a goddamn mystery and I’m just a pathetic virgin and I don’t get why I’m wired like Frankenstein around girls. Is this how I’m built? Like some scared, ridiculous pervert? How did that happen?

  He coughed as the smoke blew back into his face. And I’m stuck in my own selfish bullshit, while my dad is dying. Fuck, I’m going to lose him.

  He tried hard not to cry. The traffic on Crown Shore was steady. People coming home from church, the wash and yawn of cars going back and forth. I just need to get out of here. No one seemed to notice Dan as he stood there holding in his sobs.

  Until a black Monte Carlo pulled up to the curb. The tinted window rolled down, and Dan quickly wiped his cheeks on his sleeve.

  “Are you okay?”

  It was Emma Wesselman. She was driving her father’s car.

  “No,” he blurted.

  “What happened?”

  “Nothing, leave me alone.”

  “Well something happened.”

  “You’re not fucking helping.”

  “Sorry.”

  And then something in Dan broke and his eyes met Emma’s worried smile.

  “Where are you coming from?”

  “Practice.” Emma was always playing basketball up at W. T. White.

  “Can we go somewhere?”

  Emma looked down at the dashboard and shrugged, and Dan hopped into the black velour of the passenger seat. They turned onto Marsh, then again onto Forest, cruising past the mini malls and drive-thrus, past the car wash, the Korean church, and the library. From there, they meandered back toward Dan’s house. The afternoon sun was blazing hot, but the cloud line had crept in, and there was a gust of wind as they cut through an alleyway behind Crown Shore that wound its way toward Truesdell, Emma’s street. They stopped and parked on a wide stretch of lawn at the end of the cul-de-sac where someone had planted a small orchard of crab apple trees.

  “So what’s going on?” Emma asked.

  “People are just fucking . . . disappointing.”

  “Like who?”

  “Never mind.” Dan flicked his lighter and stared down at the angry yellow flame.

  “So what do you want to do?” Emma knew she wasn’t going to get the full story. Another blast of humid wind came down the alley, tipping over trash cans. Dan scratched at his neck, sheepish, irritated. He was still coming down off his anger over the Cady rejection. His fear and grief over his father he couldn’t even touch.

  Dan looked into Emma’s brown eyes as they glimmered. The now-steady breeze caused a cloud of gnats and mayflies to scatter down from the crab trees. This girl likes you. Has always liked you, idiot.

  “We could watch a movie at my house,” Emma offered. She popped the car into park and swung her smooth, brown legs over the wheel and kicked them out the window. The sky was now fully gray, everything thrown under sudden shade. Emma leaned back toward Dan, who was holding her basketball. Dan leaned toward Emma. He was profoundly confu
sed. Now? Is this happening now? Just then Emma brought her hand slowly toward his lap.

  And tried to steal the ball from him.

  She slapped at it, laughed at her own sneakiness, then grabbed at the basketball, but Dan had a solid grip, and they wrestled back and forth, his arm rubbing against hers in all its softness.

  “Let go.”

  “Try to take it.”

  “Are you coming over or what? It’s about to storm.” Little shots of hail started pinging the hood of the car.

  “I’d like to, but—”

  “Come on.” She snatched at the ball again with one hand, prying Dan away with the other on his chest. “Stop it. It’s my ball.”

  “Stop what?” He gripped the ball tighter. He was stronger, but not by much, and now they were sitting really close, still wrestling for the ball. Emma tried to tickle the ball free by reaching under his arms; Dan wasn’t really fighting back. The wind swirled the branches of the crab trees something hectic. They looked at each other, both frightened, a rush of nerves. And Emma pulled away, unsure.

  “Hey, wait,” Dan said softly.

  “What?” Emma sat back, but she was still there, waiting.

  Dan leaned in just as the air-raid siren began to wail and blare.

  * * *

  Earlier that Sunday, Anne stood in front of the frozen pizzas, the door to the freezer open, the cold, freon-laced air anointing her face, frosting the glass. She pulled out a Totino’s pepperoni. The idea of turning on the oven in this heat depressed her, but she had to feed her family something, and this seemed easiest. She lingered in the frozen-food aisle, trying to cool off. In front of the ice cream an old blue-haired crone was licking her thumb as she tried to separate the coupons she’d pulled from her pocketbook. But for the grace of God go I. Anne recognized that the store, full of food and fluorescence and Sunday shoppers, was actually a cold, miserable box sitting on an endless torched prairie. My life in Dallas is a series of moves from one box to the next, Anne thought, surrounded by strangers and emptiness.

  She pushed her cart into the next aisle and stared at the rows of cereal boxes. A hundred choices, more empty boxes.

  The Raleigh trial had ended. Anne had tried to hold out, resisting her fellow jurors, but she had failed Peggy and was still miserable about the verdict. Another false choice.

  It was too hot, too soon, and Anne couldn’t bear the thought of an endless Texas summer. Now that Pat had completed the Irish trifecta—Drinking too much, lost his job, and sick—she was losing her grip. With the MS, it was too late to leave him. What is the greater sin really: to walk away or to resent him? Anne stood there in the cereal aisle paralyzed by all the choices and downsides. And there was the old woman again, creeping along with her cart and coupons.

  After a long, tired pause, Anne walked away from her own cart and headed toward the front of the store. I don’t want any of this. I don’t want Pat, this place, the priest, any of it. In the produce section an old couple fought like jays over the seedless grapes. No. I refuse. Everyone seemed to be in slow motion, and a checkout girl stared at her cow-eyed. A fierce wind blasted the electric eye and triggered the double doors to open. Hot air squalled through the front of the store. And in that moment, Anne didn’t have any choices in her life.

  An air-raid siren stared to wail and blare.

  * * *

  Anne drove home through the start of hail and rushed up the driveway into the house to find her husband completely out of it.

  “There’s a huge storm coming, Pat. Where’s Dan?”

  The air-raid siren answered before Pat could. Anne dropped her purse on the kitchen table. The windows strobed with lightning. Thunder tore through the sky above them.

  “He can’t be outside in this. When did he leave the house?”

  Pat shrugged and pretended to look for batteries for the radio and the flashlight. “He’s fine.”

  Just then the roof was drummed with another barrage of hail. The wind keened. “He’s not fine. He’s out there. And you’re just sitting around doing fuck-all.”

  “Don’t start with me.”

  “Did you ask him where he was going? Jesus, Pat, you’re completely fucking useless sometimes.”

  “Now you’re blaming me for the goddamn weather.”

  The lights went out in the house, and it was very dark inside and out. The air-raid siren screamed in the distance.

  “Shit. Did he take his bike?” Anne grabbed the car keys back out of her purse. She was shaking with anger. “I’m going to look for him.”

  “Wait. I’ll go. Give me the keys.” Pat stumbled in his first step, his leg half-asleep and tingling.

  “Have you been drinking?”

  “Stop arguing with me.”

  “You can’t even walk straight. Christ, Pat. I can smell it on you.”

  “Stop with all the drama.”

  “I can’t fucking believe you!”

  An unnerving gale shook the house. Through the patio screen door Anne could see the trees in the yard, battered sideways. Pat’s chin sank into his chest. He had been caught. He put out his hand. “Just give me the keys.”

  The lights flickered back on for a moment, then went out again.

  “You useless piece of shit.” Anne turned to go. “You’re drunk before noon.”

  “I’m not fucking drunk! I’m just sick of all your bullshit.”

  And with that Pat lunged at his wife and ripped the keys to the Zephyr out of her hand.

  “Pat, stop . . . please. You can’t . . . Listen, we’ll both go—”

  “I’ll find him!”

  Pat glared at her with bloodshot eyes, then limped away quickly. Anne threw her head into her hands and started to cry. A blast of hot air rushed into the house as Pat left, slamming the front door behind him. He’s going to kill himself, Anne thought. But she didn’t stop him. She went to the front window as Pat skidded down the driveway and tore off in her car.

  Anne didn’t know what to do, so she checked that all the windows in the house were shut tight. Five torturously long minutes passed. Anne closed her eyes and prayed. Lord, I never ask for anything. But this is my hour of need. Please, Lord, deliver my child to safety. Let this storm pass. Please, I never ask—

  The front door swung open, and Dan, his hair tangled with chips of hail, staggered in. Emma Wesselman was right behind him, the wind blasting the drapes off their rods and tossing an oil painting of Manhattan off its nail in the living room.

  Dan, his face flushed with fear, shouted at his mother, “This is bad!”

  * * *

  Anne offered Emma and Dan towels. They had tried to go to Emma’s house, but a downed telephone pole was blocking the alley behind Truesdell. The hail stopped and was replaced by quiet and darkness. Dan turned on his father’s battery-powered radio, and a chirping noise came through as he tuned it to KRLD. It was the emergency broadcast.

  “This is a tornado emergency alert for Tarrant, Dallas, and Collin Counties. Residents are advised . . .”

  Anne pulled the flashlight from a kitchen drawer and slapped at the old batteries in its stick until a weak ray of light shone. She looked out again through the screen door. The wind had stopped howling, and the sky swirled with weird tinges of yellow, green, and brown. The backyard held enough hail to mistake it for a hockey rink. A strange gray-blue pall settled over the house, almost like an eclipse. The air-raid siren wound up again. All was still as the thunderclouds moiled silently.

  When the air-raid siren wound down, there came a new noise. A buzzing. Like a hive of bees. And it got louder, like a freight train far away mounting tracks. Anne, Dan, and Emma heard it and stared at each other. A noiseless fork of lightning flashed, and Anne pressed against the glass patio door, mesmerized by the unnatural light. And in a moment, the stillness was gone and the trees began to tremble. A pool umbrella from
the Peñas’ backyard lifted into the air and flew across the Malones’ backyard before slamming down on the patio.

  “Get to the bathroom,” Anne commanded. “Go! Everyone in the tub. The pipes are the deepest thing in the ground. Move!”

  The freight train churned louder. Anne turned back and saw a branch of the mimosa tree crack and scrape against the gutter, just missing the glass door she had been standing at. Emma and Dan were two steps ahead of her as they made for the bathroom. The wind gathered in a chorus of terrifying wails. The train drew closer, its grinding, swarming howl deafening. Anne squatted in the tub with Emma futilely holding on to the faucet. Dan was yelling something at her. Anne couldn’t hear him as the beams of the house bent and shook with awful wrenching and cracking sounds. The train was tearing in, and Anne couldn’t make out what Dan was saying.

  “What?” She drew as close to him as she could, one arm braced against the toilet tank.

  “Where’s Dad?”

  Dan yelled something else, but it was too late. Anne just shook her head. The pounding force of the wind tore at the house. The freight train was charging past, and they all looked up, waiting for the roof to fly away. Anne closed her eyes and prayed through the deafening roar.

  * * *

  This damn Zephyr handles like it has four flat tires. The gusts and gales of wind shearing against him, Pat struggled to keep the car on the road. You have to be drunk to drive in this shit, he thought, and circled the neighborhood, running up Cedar Bend, then down Rosser, on the lookout for Dan. But Pat had no idea where his son might be, and the search was secondary to Pat’s fury. Ignoring the dangers of the storm, he was locked into driving himself mad.

  “What do you want from me?” he said aloud, alone.

  Pat tried to reconcile the hundred ways he had gone astray, and thought of his father. A drunk, another fool out in a storm—Pat swallowed hard—and I’m no better, and maybe worse.