“Sure. I’ll come today.” I felt a wallop of excitement, and kept grinning.
“Can’t practice till ya get a physical. Doc’ll be in the health office tomorra. But we’ll suit ya up with some shoulder guards and jersey and helmet. You can meet the guys—mostly ninth graders, a few eighth. You’ll be the only seventh-grader. Got a problem with that?”
“Nope.”
“Good. Prob’ly got some used cleats for ya too. What size are ya?”
“I think eight.”
“No problem. Need a late bus?”
“No. I walk. Three blocks.”
“Good. I’ll go call your mother—make sure it’s okay with her. Think she’ll let ya play?”
“Yeah. I think so.” I envisioned Mrs. Heller’s face.
Mr. Palladine turned, walking back toward his office with other things on his mind. “See ya in the downstairs lockers at three, kid!”
I got my gear and a football locker after school, and Mr. Palladine introduced me to all those older, mostly bigger kids. I watched the whole practice, wishing that that school physician could have been there that day to give me my required physical. I was so thrilled. “This is the best setup I ever had,” I thought to myself. I just loved this school, my teachers, everything, except for strange Simon. My doubtful settlement around the Hellers was the only thorn in my flesh, my only disconcerting insecurity.
When I got home that night, after I did my homework and ate, excited about football, I immediately went into Simon’s room to work with the weights. While I was up there, Simon came home. He had been drinking again. I didn’t know who he was hanging out with, and I didn’t care to know either. As soon as I was done I went to take a shower. While I washed my hair, I heard the door open. It was Simon, with a wiry rod in his hand, letting himself in through my locked door. He pulled the shower curtains apart, looking at me with that glazed, feeling-no-pain look in his eyes. He had residue from his filthy cigar juice around his lips. “Hey, I hear ya playin’ football, guy!”
“Yeah,” I said, stupefied over his entrance, assuming his mother told him. “How’d ya get in here?”
“Easy,” he said, smiling, nodding to his wire, licensing his eyes to pore over my frame. He had this demeanor of authority, like he could do whatever he wanted in his house.
“Do ya mind?” I said, half grinning, careful not to have an attitude, careful to preserve my residence here since my stead at school was so agreeable.
“What?”
“I’m takin’ a shower!”
“So.”
I didn’t know what to say. Water spattered—over my face, swashing my speech some. I stood sideward, trying in vain to cover as much view from him as I could. He kept looking. There was a tense, bad feeling in the air. I began to hate him, feeling that old anger rise inside me.
“So I wanna take a shower alone like everybody else. Ya mind?” I laughed, disguising my disgust. I cupped my hands, catching water, then threw it onto him, dousing him, laughing artificially.
He looked angry for a moment, jumping back. “So what a ya, bashful? What’s the big deal?”
I just let out a long, diffident groan. “So if it’s no big deal, then leave me alone if I want!”
“Hey, look what I got.” He held up two Yankee tickets, safeguarding his relationship with me. He now felt awkward.
“When?”
“Next Wednesday.”
“But it’s a school night.”
“So.”
“I’ll have homework. Be over too late too!”
“Ah, you’ll be all right.”
“Who they playin’?”
He had to turn a ticket around to read it. He didn’t even know, and probably didn’t care. “Minnesota. The Twins!”
I really wanted to go, but not so much with him. “Maybe ya can go with a friend. I’m really trying to do good in school,” I said, knowing he probably didn’t have any friends.
For some reason this really annoyed him, and I could see it in his drunken eyes. “No,” he demanded, pointing. “It’s you and me, dude! We’re going! You’re just thirteen. I’m twenty-three! Get me?”
I wasn’t too sure what he meant by this, but it was threatening in a way. I think he was saying that he was boss. I don’t know. I was nervously angry, and I was terrified. “Aright! Aright!” I said. “Can I take a shower now?”
Simon shut the curtain abruptly, in a huff. Then I heard the door slam. I was relieved, but at the same time disturbed, to say the least.
Time ran its course. I achieved above-average rank with my grades the first quarter, and then the second quarter also. I received accolades in football, playing safety, making tackles, making two interceptions. I was very fast. And then when basketball season rolled around, I made the freshman team. I didn’t start but got a lot of playing time on second string. Naturally, this athletic success made me pretty popular in the Richmond Avenue Middle School. Everything was going well for me. Even my asthma and my eczema quieted down a lot. I scarcely had a problem with either of them those months. I don’t know if it was because my hormones were kicking in in my adolescence and all, or if it was because stress was at a minimum. All I know is I was well, and I liked being well.
Some of the girls at school were giving me a lot of attention also, even eighth- and ninth-grade girls. I was pretty popular for a new seventh-grader who’d gotten left back. One eighth-grade girl named Abby Fineman caught my fondness. She was a curly black-haired, brown-eyed, fair-complexioned doll with a big laughing smile. She was a cheerleader—so pretty—and I had the feeling that I caught her fancy as well, especially by the way she always wanted to sit by me in the cafeteria, and more so by the way she waited for me after her cheerleading practice, to walk home with me after my football practice, and even walk out of her way two blocks. There’s something about a pretty girl who likes you. You just can’t help liking that girl!
In January the school held a winter formal—a dance where kids got all dressed up and adult-like for a night. A lot of the kids were pairing up: boys were asking girls and girls were yielding, feeling grown-up and flattered, even though—as I recall—most of the girls were taller than their partners. (What’s funny about that early adolescent level is that the girls are often more physically mature than the boys.) Well, that wasn’t the case with me and Abby, though. I got some valiant audacity up a couple of weeks beforehand and called Abby on the phone. “Hello, can I speak with Abby, please?”
“Who is this?”
“This is Silas Dillon, from school.”
“This is Abby.”
“Oh, hi Abby. I didn’t know. Abby, will you go with me to the winter formal?” It just spilled out—clumsily, inexpertly.
“Okay. Let me go ask my mother,” she said.
I could hear murmuring, the phone fumbling, banging. Half a minute straggled by in uncertain suspense. I breathed, crossed my fingers, clenched my eyes, waiting.
She returned. “Silas?”
“Yeah?”
“I can go!”
I could just picture her pretty smile. I was ecstatic. My heart beat vigorously.
“Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow. Bye.”
“Bye,” she said. We parted, and all I could do was think about her that night. I could barely get my homework done.
The next day I told Mrs. Heller that I needed a suit, and then later on when Simon came home I could hear her telling him that I needed a suit for this formal. He seemed annoyed about it. (He was such an oddball.) The two of them got into a little argument about it, about who would take me shopping. I didn’t know what was going to happen until three days later. Sandra came on Saturday, and she took me to a men’s store, had me fitted, and bought me a nice blue suit with Cary County’s taxpayers’ money. I was all set.
Sandra spoke with Mr. and Mrs. Fineman about my foster care situation and all, and she arranged it so that Abby’s dad would pick me up on that night and take the two of us to the formal, and then pick us up aft
erward. When Abby came to the door with her dad, Simon seemed very annoyed. I could tell because he went into the kitchen and pretended to be aloof about it all. What did I care.
After this, it was understood that Abby and I were “going steady.” I bought her a stainless-steel ID bracelet with my name engraved on it in capital letters, SILAS. I gave it proudly. She wore it proudly. We talked—in school, on the phone—and walked home together. Sometimes we were together and just didn’t talk. It was all so ungraceful, and we were inept. Sometimes we held hands. I felt like the most significant person in the world! I really did. I was nearly fourteen, in seventh grade, and I was the prince of Richmond Avenue Junior High. I was madly “in love” with Abby Fineman, and I respected her. I was feeling so good that it scared me. I subconsciously feared losing all of this, but I just kept shoving that insecurity down into a dark corner of my head, refusing to surmise it. Nothing mattered except basketball, my grades, my classes, my popularity, and Abby. My past pains were out of my mind. Molly was out of my mind. Jesus was out of my mind. I was giving my heart carelessly away. I was king.
Winter skidded into spring. My days remained pleasantly full with school work, Abby, and now baseball. (My positions were pitcher and a catcher, and I was batting over 500!) Simon’s days seemed to be full as well, with work, overtime, and visits to his favorite bar somewhere near his job. When we crossed paths, I spoke respectfully politely. On two more occasions since the first, he boldly intruded into my privacy, finding me naked, seemingly aiming to find me that way. I tried my best to regulate my shower times when he was out of the picture, but sometimes I was just surprised by the creep.
Sometime in April Simon lost his job. He came home drunk at about eight o’clock that Friday, and all I remember is the screaming and cursing between him and his mother. Boy, did they hate each other. So now Simon was back to the lifestyle I remember him living in when I first arrived that last summer. He was lifting weights, drinking, and probably viewing his pornography on the Internet and in his hidden magazines. I stayed out as often as I could.
In early May we had a home game against some team from Brooklyn. I pitched, allowing only six hits, and leading our Richmond Avenue Middle School to a 5-0 shutout. Sometime in the sixth inning, while I was warming up on the mound, I noticed in the small bleachers amid the parents Simon, sitting alone, wearing sunglasses, a Yankee cap, and the grisly thick goatee he’d grown, sucking on one of his stinking cigars. I felt a strange, sudden panic, but then just dismissed it, focusing on my pitching. I wondered how he knew about this game, my schedule. I hadn’t told him. It was all so weird. I just figured he probably called the school and had nothing better to do, being unemployed and all. But still, it bothered me. I just didn’t like him around.
He left the field before the last out, and when I arrived home that evening, he wasn’t there. I didn’t ask Mrs. Heller. I first took a quick shower, then grabbed some chicken and cake from the refrigerator, and went up to my room to do my math homework and study. I finished at about 8:30, feeling prepared for a social studies and a science test. Before I went to bed I gave Abby a call. This had become routine. We never really talked about much; we just liked to hear each other’s voices.
“I wish ya could a seen the game today!”
“I know. Ya won?”
“Yep. Five nothin’.”
“Wow. The Brooklyn teams are usually really good too!”
“I know.”
“When’s ya next game?”
“Wednesday.”
“Maybe I can come.”
“Yeah.”
“What position did ya play today?”
This was what I waited for. I didn’t want to just come out and brag. I waited eagerly for this open-door moment. Thank goodness it came. “Ah, pitcha,” I said, changing my tone, vain.
“Really?”
“Yep. All seven innings.”
There stood a moment of silence. “Ya must a did good, Silas!”
“Yeah, pretty good. Shut out! Five nothin’!” This came out in rapid succession.
“Wow. That’s great. Well, I gotta go now, Silas.”
“Bye, Abby. See ya tomorra.”
“Bye, Silas.”
We hung up.
I went to bed about nine o’clock, feeling so content and so tired, immediately falling asleep. Simon still didn’t come home. Two hours later, while I was in a deep state of rest, dreaming of Abby, I dreamed in my obsessive infatuation that we were married and living in a big beautiful house somewhere in the windy heights near where the Roccos lived. In the strange jumble of the dream, the house was the inside of the school—enormous, many roomed—where there was an indoor baseball game going on, and I was pitching, on the gym floor, only the gym floor was rows of green grass, like Yankee Stadium. Abby watched me, along with Mr. Palladine, some other teachers, Molly, Daddy Sparks, and kids from school. People applauded. I felt good. Then, in the strange fantasy of this dream, it seemed like the sky, the rafters, something black from the hazy heights above fell, crumbled. Ending the triumph, the joy, the unreality, the dream. I awoke.
It was nearly eleven. I didn’t hear Simon enter my room, but I awoke, discovering him sitting on my mattress, right there in my room in the dark. I was instantly wide-eyed, fully alert. He smelled like alcohol, cigars, sweat. His brawny, orangutan-like, long-nailed hand was on my shoulder. I could hear him breathing, and I tightened my shoulder, resisting.
“Silas,” his voice uttered.
“Yeah.” I wouldn’t look at him.
“How’s it going?” He began to rub my back, with pressure.
“Fine.”
“Fine?”
“Yeah, why? What are ya doin?”
“Sayin’ hello.” His tone was slurred, bossy, with an “I can do whatever I want” sort of domination in it, or a “you owe me a lot” demand.
“I’m tryin’ to sleep.”
Silence. He kept rubbing, and hiccupping. “You like living here, Silas?”
I thought of Abby, school, baseball, this year, my dream. “Yeah, why?”
“Ya like school?”
“Yeah.”
“Ya girlfriend?”
“Yeah.”
“How about—” The involuntary spasm of a loud, open-mouthed hiccup broke into his sentence, forced him to begin this fourth impish inquiry again. He tried in his drunkenness to sound sophisticated, confident. Boy, did I hate him. “How about baseball?”
“Yes, what a ya askin’ me for?” I wouldn’t dare look at him. I just lay there with my head on my arm, on the pillow.
He had this self-serving, brutish, diabolic distance about him. I felt frightened.
“And what about me, Silas? Do ya like me? Ya like me, don’t ya, Silas?” He continued to rub, down my back, and he continued to include my name in each of his quiz questions this way, instead of just asking the questions. This repetition suggested each question was loaded with expectation of a conceding response.
I was stumped. “I guess.”
“You guess? What do you mean you ‘guess,’ Silas? I mean, come on buddy, Simon your friend takes ya places and gets ya things, doesn’t he?” The greasy softness in his subdued voice was paradoxically harsh, sarcastic, sick. His referring to himself in the third person made this all the more fiendish.
“I don’t know. I wanna sleep.”
Silence. I heard my breathing, his breathing, a car passing on the street. “I’m tired,” I said. “I wanna sleep.” Three-quarters of my tone conveyed a submissive plea; the other quarter held a faint attempt to govern in this uneven situation, but my lack of assurance was evident.
Hiccup. “Ya wanna keep livin’ here don’t ya, Silas? Simon lets ya stay here and use his stuff, right?”
“Yeah, what—”
“Ya wanna keep going to ya school don’t ya? And bein’ with ya girlfriend?”
“It’s ya mom’s place. Isn’t it?”
After this his other hand joined in, and like some kind o
f a quadruped he began kneading me—my whole frame, thoroughly.
In raging anger and fear and worry about my future I tightened every muscle in my body. Every sinew flexed, resistant.
“And playin’ baseball and football and basketball? Ya wanna keep playin don’t ya? And liftin’ my weights?”
I wanted to spew out curses. I didn’t. I didn’t respond, except with more bodily tautness; but that didn’t foil or frustrate him. He persisted more firmly. His musclebound arms and torso subdued me. He was as strong as a monkey. The pressure was on. I was confined, confused. He kept talking. With each advance, I yielded, afraid, furious. The next fifteen minutes were the worst in my fourteen years, ones I survived by thinking forward, by compartmentalizing each instant aside, out of my mental absorption, forcing my mind away, into counting, into organizing school responsibilities, somehow anticipating relief as though I sat in a dentist’s chair. He was a filthy anthropoid ape, I thought. He needed to be caged. He needed to be dead, I thought.
I loved my arrangement at school. I didn’t want to lose any of it. I felt I had no alternative but to let this baboon assault me. I understood that if I snitched, I’d be removed, and to who knows where. I was not ready for any of this. His march forward was determined. He had his forceful way, and I felt pain, infuriating pain. He poisoned me with the venom of hatred.
The following day I couldn’t help but notice my physical pain. It was glaring, dull, drawing my conscious attention throughout the day, as I walked, as I did everything. I kept silent about what had happened, about Simon’s violence. I pretended well. I was paranoid. No one suspected anything. I felt shame. I felt the maddening shame of helplessness and defenselessness. It burdened me with isolated rage. I began imagining killing him, and myself. The violation held me in such shame that in self-awareness and embarrassment I retreated, building higher the wall of dishonest non-transparency between me and other human beings. I had to fake it, to hide, to conceal myself, to smile. At first I felt a strong inducement to tell Abby, because I trusted her; but I just couldn’t, wouldn’t, because of the shame. I wanted to be able to cry on her friendly, gentle shoulder. Shame, that ugly, mean-eyed, nocturnal creature caught unawares in the daylight—desperate, restless, alone—kept me searching for a hiding place.
Silas Dillon of Cary County Page 21
