by RJ Martin
Others joined Darcy in squirming in the bored-teenager style that looked like the bones hadn’t quite hardened yet. They bent and shifted in ways that would put full-on adults into traction unless they were contortionists. Maybe that’s what I’d been doing, twisting the truth into pretzels and then selling them to kids in my school. All so I could end up here but wishing I was somewhere else and with someone else too.
“Will there be hiking?” Dwight sat back, and his long legs arched in front of him.
Brother Chuck sighed and looked to Sister Margo for some guidance. She gave the slightest affirmative nod. “I think we can squeeze that in tomorrow morning.”
That didn’t seem to please anyone but Dwight. He nodded and dropped a long hand on each of his knees. I guess the promise of a slog down a muddy trail in dank March woods was enough to bring him around. At least one of them was cool with things. Bart sat next to him and didn’t seem to care either way. He didn’t look at me, and I didn’t invite him to. I was an invisible “young person” as Brother Chuck might say.
“Now, everyone close your eyes and take a deep cleansing breath.” He tried to find his happy-yogi tone, but the edge remained. “Close them now.”
I sideways glanced to Chad and then Darcy. Their eyes weren’t shut either. It was like an unspoken connection we all felt fear at once: wounded caribou surrounded by wolves.
“Jonah,” Sister Margo chirped through her scowl. My eyes shut tight but were still focused on her. What would she tell my pastor? “Jonah seemed disinterested, distracted, subdued.” She’d definitely tell him. She didn’t even want me here.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“NAILS, HERE!”
“Rusty, it’s me.”
“What?” Rusty shouted over the thundering bass that blared in the background.
“It’s Jonah,” I said as loud as I dared and not draw attention.
“Hey,” his voice flattened like I was the last person in the world he wanted to hear from. “I can’t really talk.”
“I just wanted to say hi.” I took a deep breath. Really there were lots of things I wanted to say. Like maybe choosing JC over him was a mistake. That I wanted to go to New York with him and not be here on a lonely mountain surrounded by kids who wanted my scalp.
“I’m in the city.”
“At the party?”
“Yeah, it’s okay.” Rusty tried to sound bored. I knew his I’m so hip mode and kind of resented him using it on me now.
“You went alone?”
“Who is this?” Angie took the phone. He brought her. “Hello?” Angie sounded thrilled. I imagined her surrounded by beautiful people and in my vision they were all wearing white. “Stop making my boyfriend frown, silent weirdo.” She hung up. I let my forehead fall against the wall, and it stayed there. How could he do this? Then again, he could say the same thing about me.
“WHAT UP?” Chad sat on his bed with his workbook open in his lap. Everyone was supposed to fill theirs in over the weekend and then keep it as a personal reminder of their faith. “I figured I’d get a head start.”
I sort of nodded and fell facedown across my bed.
“While we’re out hiking tomorrow we’re supposed to silently contemplate our relationship to Christ.” He held up the book. “Then we have to write it down in two hundred and fifty words or less.” Chad climbed off his bed and put the open workbook in front of me. “What am I supposed to write?”
“I think it’s supposed to come to you while you’re hiking.”
“All that’s coming to me is cold feet and a runny nose.”
I rolled on my side and farther away in the process.
“They’ll be all right tomorrow, you’ll see. I bet by the time we leave on Sunday, everyone will be glad they’re here, even that ditzy Karen.”
“You think so?” I didn’t care as much as I should have. I figured pretending I did was good cover for what really shredded my guts.
“You’ll win them over.” Chad sat on my bed. My whole body tensed at once like I’d just been tased. “You could always get kids to do good. How many times did I bring that paper rice bowl out trick-or-treating to get parents to throw in some change for the needy kids in Asia or somewhere? That was because of you, Jonah. And it wasn’t just me that felt that way.”
“We were little kids.”
“Okay, so now we’re not. It’s not as easy, but I believe in you, dude.”
“I don’t want to talk right now.” I slid farther away from him so my knees banged the wall. The twin bed wasn’t big enough for me. One thing that cheered me was the idea Bart would struggle with his, and Dwight too. Dwight was more okay with my omissions and exaggerations about the real agenda for the retreat, but he still got in my face in gym class, and for what? Some girl was into him. That should be a good thing. I really liked having someone want to be with me even if it only lasted like a day. I buried my head in my pillow.
“Is this about something else?” Chad’s voice dropped. “I mean are you bummed out because things aren’t going so great here or that you’re here at all?”
“I want to be here.” I hoped I had better luck convincing Chad than I did myself.
“Even Darcy noticed.”
“You guys were talking about me again?” The emptiness in my core began to fill with anger. Didn’t they ever stop this who gets Jonah stuff?
“She said you didn’t seem too excited to be here. Maybe if you were more invested, then the others might be too.”
“Leave me alone, Chad.” I lifted my head just enough so the words wouldn’t be muffled. Was he seriously guilting me? He’d make a good nun.
“We talked to like every kid in school twice to help get you up here, and now you act like it doesn’t matter at all.”
“It matters, all right. Thank you. Tomorrow I’ll try.” I tried to convince myself of that too but still, no luck. I felt the mattress shift beneath me as Chad slid closer.
“You know that guy Rusty kind of reminds me of James.” I knew how Chad felt about his older brother, and I already felt defensive. “He was everybody’s friend, always smiling. He got my parents to pay for his school; he got me to look up to him. When he didn’t want anything more from any of us, James just left.” His voice caught. This was the first time Chad had ever really talked about him. The only other times James was even mentioned was when Chad got a random out-of-nowhere card that included a promise to visit. When it ended up not happening, Chad wouldn’t say anything, and I’d pretend he never had.
“That’s what guys like that do, Jonah. They just leave.”
“You’re just jealous.” I uncoiled from my fetal perch and sprang at him. “I’m not into you, dude, okay!” I pushed my best friend with both hands as hard as I could. Stunned, Chad fell off the bed and crashed against the dresser. His toothbrush, razor, and comb fell down around him as Chad slumped on the floor. “I never have been and I never will be.” My whole body quaked. “Don’t touch me anymore.”
Chad’s face twisted into a scared, sad knot. His mouth opened. No words came out and he dug his fingers into the well-trod, braided rug.
“Lights out, my brothers!” Brother Chuck called out as he walked the hallway. Upstairs, Sister Margo would be doing the same thing with the girls, I was sure, without the pleasantness of a stranger. Chad was the first to move. He went to the wall, flipped the switch, and flopped onto his bed. I slowly lowered myself into bed too like it was suddenly important not to make a sound.
Neither of us said anything or even moved. I was sure he wasn’t asleep and he knew I wasn’t, either. Somehow just staying put was communicating. I didn’t know what messages were being sent or if they were the same. I should have apologized but any conversation would lead back to Rusty, and I couldn’t deal with that now. At last I could hear his breath get deeper. When I was sure Chad was finally asleep I crawled out of bed.
The hallway was dimly lit a pale red from the exit signs at each end. The room wasn’t warm, but the hal
lway must’ve been completely unheated because I could see my breath. I shivered my way into the bathroom and dropped into one of the doorless stalls. I took a seat and curled my feet under me to keep them off the practically icy, concrete floor. I leaned my head against the tile wall and imagined this was my monastic cell. I would have liked to offer my suffering up to JC, but considering Rusty was the cause, I kept it to myself. I huffed and watched my breath fade. A line segment again, cut off from them both, I could freeze this way.
I must’ve fallen asleep because the next time I opened my eyes, Sister Margo was standing in front of me with Chad on one side and Brother Chuck on the other.
“Jonah, you’ve been crying.”
“No, Sister.” I felt humiliated and tried to wipe the evidence from my cheeks with the sleeves of my too-big sweatshirt.
“How did you know?” Her eyes widened beneath her habit and its bobby pins. That’s when I noticed she was wearing a bathrobe. “Someone already told you?”
“Told me what?” The dawn light through the window reminded me of my weekday masses at Holy R. It had only been a few weeks, but they were like distant memories to me now. Like ones of being a kid and riding a school bus for the first time. Or when I used to sleep with Caleb Jon under my arm.
“Your mother just called.” She set a hand on my shoulder but more gently than her NC3 Heisman. “Your grandmother went to the angels last night.” The principal nun studied my face for a reaction. I didn’t think there was one. All I felt was cold. “It was a car accident.” Sister Margo seemed almost eager to tell me. I guess grief management was part of her training too. “She hit a deer… your brothers were in the backseat.” As she continued her breathless monologue I was too tired and stunned to really hear it all. I only took in the bullet points. “No one found them for hours… night air through a broken windshield… no inhalers… both twins in a hospital down in Glens Falls…. Angie ran off to NYC… author’s son.” At last I think she figured out I couldn’t process any more, and Sister Margo stopped for air. She squeezed my hand. Hers was rough and bony. “Would you like to say the rosary, Jonah?”
I might have, but I knew no one else wanted to or probably even knew how.
“No thank you, Sister.” I really wanted to call Angie’s cell or Rusty’s, but I was never alone the whole time before I left the retreat center. Sister Margo and Brother Chuck watched me pack. Then they sat with me during breakfast at a separate table away from my understimulated classmates. The in-crowd who blamed me for their lost weekend and the faithful who resented me for ruining theirs came together as one to gawk and whisper. Chad and Darcy sat off by themselves, and I didn’t try to get closer.
FATHER SVI’S SUV was kind of a mess inside. There were empty packets of nicotine gum, almost empty water bottles, and a bunch of pamphlets and paperbacks about grief, divorce, addictions, you name it. I had no idea there was so much suffering around me, except there it was all over the backseat. He didn’t seem to care about the disarray. I had to resist the urge to tidy it up, the same way I did in Mom’s station wagon. He hadn’t said a word in almost an hour. Not since he came and got me at the retreat center. His “wisits” had brought him up near the Canadian border last night, and he didn’t have to go too far out of his way—by rural standards anyway—to bring me home. I was sure the detour probably cost him over an hour and money for the gas.
“Are you hungry?”
“No, thank you.” I was ravenous but figured I could get him to stop at any one of the many fast food places along the highway. They all sounded good, but that was the problem. I didn’t want anything to make me feel better right now. I just really wanted to go home.
“Sister Margo thinks you might have had a wision or a premonition or something.”
I didn’t say anything in reply.
“Okay,” Father Svi answered my silence. He sipped his too-big coffee that was almost empty and turned on the radio. He pressed the presets until he came to a hip-hop station. “This bother you?”
“No, Father.”
“It relaxes me.” He smiled just a little. “Warm enough?” He reached for the heater knob. It was already all the way in the red.
“I’m good.” Not true, but I wasn’t about to confess to Father Rapper. I used my coat like a blanket and sat curled up kind of like I’d been on the toilet at the retreat center last night. I kept my eyes on the endless stream of thick, gray tree trunks and glistening snowmelt that thinned further with each mile south we went.
Father Svi knew the words and rapped along in his z-and-w-filled accent with the guy on the radio. Our assistant pastor had been sent to get me because Mom and Dad had gone after Angie but were now racing to the hospital to be with the twins.
Mémé must’ve been taking them to ball house for dinner except she wasn’t supposed to drive in the dark. I began to worry her accident was the vengeance of an angry God. Was JC showing his father’s Old Testament side to whip me back into shape? I was like the Bible Jonah, except the inside of my whale was a dirty SUV with a priest that liked hearing about homies and bling but not me. It had decent speakers and the thumping bass tickled in my chest. The next song involved “big booty,” and Father Svi sprang forward to switch it off. If he was alone, I’m sure he’d listen to it. He pulled the clerical collar from his shirt and undid a button.
“You can turn the heat down now, Father.”
“Thanks.” He wiped the sweat off his forehead with some fast-food napkins. Without the radio the only sound was the pelting spray of grit as the tires churned through a winter’s worth of rock salt and sand on the winding mountain road. After what I guess he thought was the length of the song Father Svi switched the radio back on. Now a girl sang to a guy that he couldn’t “hit this unless you got a broomstick.” Father Svi grimaced and spun the dial. He even passed a Christian rock station. That just made him sigh. Off again and he tapped the wheel a few times.
“Jonah, how long have you wanted to be a priest?”
“All my life.” Don’t talk, just drive. I was already in the middle of a love quadrangle with my sister, JC, and our boyfriend, mourning for my gassy grandmother, and my brothers were in the hospital.
“Nobody knows that. How long really?”
“Since I became an acolyte.”
“You were little then.” He looked at me, expecting an answer. I kept my eyes on the two-lane highway that was the final leg home. “You are not zo little now.” Again he looked, and I acted like I didn’t notice. “When I was a boy in Ukraine, it was not easy for anyone, especially the Polish people. They told me the church meant freedom. The life was hard there and the government did nothing for people. The church was for people. They treated you like you mattered. To leave that place was not easy but a priest could go. The church could do that. Zo, I went to seminary and came to America.” He was still a youngish man but his eyes looked old. Like they’d been transplanted from one of the sinful codgers who came to Mass every day. “Here I saw real freedom and knew I wasn’t, not really.” Father didn’t try to face me anymore. He talked straight ahead at his reflection in the windshield. “If you become a priest, I don’t think you will be free.”
“Okay,” I said, surprising myself. I really didn’t want to even acknowledge anything he told me, but on the other hand he did, and that deserved something. “Thanks.”
“We won’t tell Father Dom about this, okay?” He smiled and looked at me again. “He is too much a hothead already.” He sped up but left the radio off, and I sat back comforted soon I would be home and the assistant pastor didn’t seem to dislike me or even think I was weird. I thought he was pretty whack now but more priestlike than I’d ever seen him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
ANGIE FLIPPED through a rack of sport coats. This was the first time we’d ever headed down to Glens Falls to the mall together, just the two of us, even though we’d both been there lots of times. Our task was to get me a dark suit for the wake and funeral. We quickly realized our g
rieving father had not given us enough cash. “A blue blazer is far more practical anyway,” Angie said as she held one up against me. Her idea was I could wear my NC3-issue gray slacks and white oxford but with a generic tie and new blazer. “Your shape is such a hard fit.”
“What’s wrong with it?” I looked in the mirror at the end of the aisle: tall, lean, hips. “The same as you without boobs.”
“We could try the women’s?”
I ignored her and flipped through the rack, but she was really the one doing the shopping.
“Can you believe all this is happening?” Rather than rehang the blazer, Angie tossed it on top of the rack. “Mémé wouldn’t have been driving if Mom and Dad hadn’t totally melted down and come after me.”
“I know.”
“You think it was my fault?” She grabbed another blazer, this one marked tall, and held it against me.
“No more than mine.”
She looked at me funny, but I didn’t think much of it. I had just said something strange. I’d been at retreat, being holy, how could I have been responsible? “Try it on.” She held out the jacket so I could slip my arms into the sleeves.
“This one fits, I think.”
“You haven’t asked about New York.” She buttoned the front and pulled so hard I took a half step forward to keep from falling. “Too big.” She grabbed another from the rack. Her actions had an edge to them now, and when she pressed the next blue jacket in front of me, I nearly fell backward. “I would’ve thought you’d want to know all about it.”
“Why do you want me to ask?”
“Well, since you finally did.” Angie pulled the sleeves too hard, and I stooped. “Stand up, Jonah.”
“I was until you yanked me.”
“New York was amazing. Rusty’s apartment is a loft in Tribeca. That means triangle below Canal.” Angie took the latest blazer from me and threw it on top of the other three.
