Virgin Territory

by James Lecesne

  I’m back working at the golf course again. Same ol’, same ol’. Of course, the crowds are gone; they disbanded as quickly as they arrived, and except for the trash and trampled grass, they left no trace of ever having been there. There were stories, but no one ever got them right. (“She appeared in a band of light that swirled over the trees, and I heard someone was totally healed of MS.”) I think it’s weird that there were no protests about the downed tree; no one came forward to complain about the fact that a holy site had been desecrated or that anyone’s rights had been denied. I guess without the tree, there wasn’t much to see, so the people quietly went their separate ways, and that was that. The local bishop made a statement declaring that since the apparition had never been officially recognized by the Catholic Church, he didn’t see the need to comment on the matter any further. The Porta-Potties were removed. The hot-dog vendor chose a spot closer to the Roger Dean Stadium, where fast food was the order of the day. Des and her mother went back to Atlanta; Crispy and his mom to Massachusetts; Angela and Mrs. Ramirez, as far as I know, to Miami. Case closed.

  Crispy and I continue to text each other, so I’m able to keep him up to date as events unfold. Though I’m stuck in Jupiter and he’s back home in Cambridge, we have plenty to discuss.

  “Still no word from her,” is a text I send him at least once a week.

  And, of course, by “her” I mean Angela. I leave the occasional message on her cell, but I haven’t heard back. Not yet. By this time, my communication with her is strictly telepathic, which is to say, she is all in my head and, as Ora might say, she’s alive in me just the same.

  Still, there’s no denying that Angela changed my life, because once school started I noticed that I was thinking of myself as a guy who’d had a summer fling. Thanks to Chad, a rumor has been circulating that I ran off with a really hot Latina from Tucson and was then brought back against my will when the police discovered that she’d stolen my grandmother’s stuff. This rumor is much cooler than the one that I’d been living with since my arrival in Jupiter, and I’ve decided to go with it. As a result of my new and upgraded status, the girls in my class are staring at me in the hallways between classes with something more than pity in their eyes. I am somebody. The stories people tell about you are stories they need to tell. It’s not like they get it all wrong; it’s just that they are always less than completely right. Even the Blessed Virgin Mary has to put up with some pretty wild stories; people would rather see her face appear on a tree trunk or in a hubcap or baked into the occasional cinnamon bun than realize that she lives and breathes inside of them.

  Poor Prendergast finally suffered his much-anticipated relapse and then went into rehab. About two weeks after his release, I ran into him at the local pharmacy; he was looking as fresh and clean as a laundered shirt. He blinked at me and tried to recall my name, but it was as if everything except the truth had been bleached and pressed out of him. I tried to get him to confirm that he’d seen Frankie Rey that morning in the cafeteria, but he told me that he didn’t remember much from before. Very little. Actually nothing. I didn’t press him any further.

  I try not to think about Frankie Rey too often. But like a lot of people I’m trying not to think about, he refuses to fade from my thoughts. If I could see him with my own eyes just once more, I’d have some proof that he’s for real, but so far he’s a no-show. To be honest, I never stop looking for him. Not entirely. I always half expect him to pop up in a crowd or turn a random corner. The same is true of Kat and Angela and Crispy and Desirée and Marie. It makes no difference to me that some of them are dead or that one of them might not be real; the fact is that each one of them is under my skin, and alive in me just the same.

  “Are you named after the poet, Dylan Thomas?” my English teacher, Mrs. Seibert, asks me.

  I sit up at my desk and shake off my slouch and fog. I’ve been daydreaming. Again. All my classmates are staring at me. I can feel a thin film of sweat gathering at the back of my neck, threatening to turn into an all-out trickle. I don’t dare move a muscle. I just hold Mrs. Seibert’s gaze, playing chicken with her, as if my life depends on it.

  “Who?” I reply, trying to appear like not the brightest bulb. I don’t want everyone to think that I’m the kind of guy who sits around reading poetry in my spare time. I’d rather they think of me as a renegade who breaks into big houses, dates hot girls, and might run off to Mexico.

  “Dylan Thomas,” she says, leaning over her desk and pointing her pointy nose in my direction. “The Welsh poet. He wrote the famous lines: ‘Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.’ ”

  “No,” I tell her. “I’m named after the singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, from the nineteen sixties, who wrote the famous lines: ‘Lay, lady, lay, lay across my big brass bed.’ ”

  The whole class bursts out laughing.

  But not me. I sit there without letting on that I understand the joke. I’m just reporting the facts, after all.

  “Really?” asks Mrs. Siebert in the neat, clipped tone she saves for the wiseass in her class. She’s clearly annoyed, but she isn’t going to give in to it, just like I’m not going to give in to the hilarity.

  “And what else can you tell the class about Bob Dylan?” she asks me. She positions herself on the edge of her desk, folds her slender arms, and then raises her chin at me.

  I look around, and all I can see are the blank stares and fidgety faces of my classmates. Their collective dullness and disinterest registers with me as a kind of challenge, because I suddenly realize that not one of them knows me, not really. Three years into this school, and I haven’t bothered to get under anybody’s skin. I’m not alive in any of them. In fact, at this moment, I wonder if I’m even alive. Where is Desirée? Where is Crispy? Where is Angela? Where is anyone who can make me come to life again?

  “Mr. Flack,” says Mrs. Siebert, “you have the floor.”

  I’ve seen her do this to other kids. It’s her way of encouraging them to say more about themselves than they intended, and then once they get going, she suggests, as a homework assignment, that they write about it in a personal essay for extra credit. Mrs. Siebert is all about the personal essay. But this is the first time that she’s called on me since school began. She’s given me the floor, and now she’s standing back to see what I might do with it.

  I begin to tap my fingers lightly on my desk, keeping time to an internal rhythm. I close my eyes, and instead of the nervous coughs and shuffles that are emanating from my classmates, I hear the music in my head. My tapping is getting louder, and eventually my lips are moving, mouthing words. Who needs a guitar? It’s just a matter of seconds before I cross some crazy divide and become known forever as that kid who sang out loud in Mrs. Seibert’s English class, the nutcase, the nerd; but there’s also a chance that my plan to reinvent myself will work, and I’ll finally be revealed as cool. In fact, I’m counting on it, because for the first time, I’m not doing this just for myself. I’m doing it for Kat and for Angela and for Crispy and for Desirée and for Marie and for Ora and for Frankie Rey and, yes, even for Doug. I’m going to sing for everyone, for the former planet known as Pluto, and for anyone on Earth who is, or ever has been, alive in me just the same.

  Buckets of rain

  Buckets of tears

  Got all them buckets comin’ out of my ears

  Buckets of moonbeams in my hand

  I got all the love, honey baby,

  You can stand.

  I been meek

  And hard as an oak

  I seen pretty people disappear like smoke

  Friends will arrive, friends will disappear

  If you want me, honey baby,

  I’ll be here.

  Acknowledgments

  I want to thank the following people for their kindness in shepherding this book into being—Melanie Braverman, Michael Cunningham, Eve Ensler, Andy Giammarco, Cynthia O’Neal, Christopher Potter, and Lorraine Whittington. Als
o big thanks to my buds at Career ForumTM (Sal, Seth, Meg, Dave, David, and Christopher). Laura Geringer has believed in this book from the very beginning, but along the way she also challenged me to become a better writer by encouraging me to always trust the story. I am also indebted to her for introducing me to my new home at Egmont USA. And speaking of Egmont—thank you to everyone there who touched this book: Greg Ferguson, Alison Weiss, Mary Albi, Elizabeth Law, Rob Guzman, Michael Nagin, and the entire Egmont gang. And finally, without the wise and steady council of my agent and friend, Bill Clegg, I simply would not be doing this. Thank you all.

  About the Author

  JAMES LECESNE is an author, actor, and activist whose film Trevor received an Academy Award for best short film. His first novel, Absolute Brightness, was a William C. Morris Award Finalist. Lecesne lives in New York City. Visit him online at www.jameslecesne.com.