When My Heart Joins the Thousand

by A. J. Steiger

  I go to the window and crack it open. The windows in the rec room only open a little, because they don’t want us jumping out, but there’s enough of a gap that I can slide the book through. I push it out and watch it turn over and over as it falls and lands on the pavement with a distant, muffled thud.

  When I turn around, there’s a nurse standing in the room. “Oh, honey,” she says, “did the pictures in that book scare you? I can bring you some nicer books, if you like.”

  I tilt my head. She doesn’t really expect a response. I haven’t spoken to anyone since I first came to the institution, almost six months ago. “Can you bring me some books on quantum mechanics,” I say. “I’ve been wanting to learn more about that.”

  Her jaw drops.

  She tells everyone, of course, and the doctors start bombarding me with questions, which makes me wish I’d never opened my mouth.

  But I realize that, for the first time in months, I do feel something: restlessness. I want to get out of this place. I don’t know what I’ll do once I get out. I don’t care. I’m just sick of it—sick of the smell, the pea-colored tiles, the mushy green beans with every meal. I want to see animals again. Real ones, not the stupid cartoon cutouts pinned to the bulletin board.

  So I keep talking. I answer the doctors’ questions. I read more and more; the nurses start to call me Little Einstein, and bring me books as presents. One of them gives me a copy of Watership Down.

  After a while, a doctor says, “Good news, Alvie. You’ve improved so much, you’re going to be released into the foster care system. You’ll have a family. Isn’t that wonderful?”

  I wait to feel something. Anything, even a flicker of relief. But there’s no response from inside me.

  What they called improvement was simply a slow process of locking everything away, deep in the recesses of my mind, until I was numb enough to function. Over the past few months I have been building the Vault, stone by stone. Now I walk and talk, but a part of me is still far away, and I don’t know how to reach it.

  Mama is dead because of me. I should be with her, rotting at the bottom of the lake.

  Maybe I am, and that’s why I can’t feel anything. Maybe I’m like Schrödinger’s cat, alive and dead at the same time.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  The screech of rubber on pavement yanks me awake. My body jerks upright on the bench, and I open my eyes just in time to see a car swerve, narrowly avoiding a squirrel in the road. The squirrel freezes, then darts away in a blur of brown fur and vanishes.

  If things had happened in a slightly different way—if a quantum particle spun in one direction instead of another—maybe the driver wouldn’t have braked in time, and the squirrel would have been hit. Maybe in another universe, that did happen. Or maybe in yet another reality, the car hit a person instead. It could have been me. Or anyone.

  Snow falls thick and fast, covering the world in a blanket that muffles all sound. My breath steams in the air.

  I climb into my car and huddle in the backseat, though it’s not much warmer here. Shivering, I rummage inside my duffel bag until I find my tattered, dog-eared copy of Watership Down, the same copy the nurse gave me over six years ago. I read it for the first time that very night, in a single sitting.

  Before that point, I’d never had much interest in fiction—I preferred nature and science books, even as a child. Novels were always about feelings and relationships, things that confused and intimidated me. But somehow, Watership Down was different. I couldn’t stop turning the pages. Hazel and Fiver and Bigwig became every bit as real as the flesh-and-blood people around me. I was there with them in the pages. I felt it all—their hunger and fear and desperate yearning for a place they could call home.

  I touch the pages, my gaze lingering on a familiar phrase: My heart has joined the Thousand, for my friend stopped running today.

  For some reason, the words send a chill through me.

  I close the book and gently tuck it back into my duffel bag. My fingers are numb inside my gloves; I flex them, trying to restore circulation.

  I don’t want to waste my last bit of gas by running the heat, but if I stay here, I’m going to get frostbite. There’s a convenience store across the street, the windows bright, glowing with inviting warmth. Maybe I can spend twenty minutes or so there before getting kicked out.

  A bell jingles overhead as I walk in. I realize that this is the same store I used to shop at back when I had my apartment. The clerk glances at me, then away. Does he even recognize me, with my ragged, filthy clothes and matted hair?

  I pretend to browse through the newspapers. My gaze skims over the text, not really absorbing it . . . and then I freeze.

  The headline reads SCHAUMBURG TEEN CHARGED WITH ASSAULT AND BATTERY. I recognize the photo. It’s TJ.

  Beneath that: 18-year-old Timothy J. Hawke was arrested following an altercation in a public park with 19-year-old Stanley Finkel, during which Finkel was allegedly beaten with his own cane. Hawke claimed that Finkel initiated the confrontation between them, provoked him verbally, and struck the first blow, but only Finkel sustained injuries, the extent of which are unknown. Hawke awaits a court appearance on Monday, while Finkel remains hospitalized.

  The words blur. My hand begins to tremble, and my fingers tighten on the paper, crumpling it.

  I drop the newspaper and run out of the store.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  When I arrive at Saint Matthew’s Hospital, they don’t want to let me past the lobby. Maybe because I’m not part of Stanley’s immediate family, maybe because I look like a crazy person, with my grimy clothes and matted hair. But I won’t leave. I park myself in one of the seating areas. Whenever anyone says anything to me, I just repeat in a monotone that I want to see Stanley Finkel.

  I’m exhausted and dizzy with hunger, but I don’t care. I’ll stay here as long as it takes.

  Finally a nurse arrives in the lobby and says, “We informed him that you’re here. He says you can come up.”

  I follow her into an elevator, and we get out on the third floor. She leads me down a long, sterile white hall and stops in front of a door. “He’s been in and out of surgery,” she says. “I’d advise you to keep your visit short.”

  She opens the door. I step forward—then stop. There’s only one bed in the room, and there’s a sort of curtain tent around it.

  I take a deep breath and enter the room. The nurse closes the door behind me.

  “Stanley,” I say. There’s no response.

  Slowly I approach and tug the curtains aside.

  The sight hits me with a jolt, and my vision momentarily blurs. There’s barely a single part of him that’s not covered by casts or bandages. Tubes run from his wrist, more from his chest, as if he were part machine, sprouting wires. Thick plaster casts swath his body up to the waist; his legs are suspended in place with wires attached to the canopy of his bed. A cervical collar rings his neck, and there’s a bandage taped to his forehead, with a small rust-colored spot of dried blood soaking through.

  His eyelids open a crack. Ragged breathing echoes through the silence. He moistens his chapped lips with the tip of his tongue. “Hey.” His voice is faint and hoarse. He stares at me for a moment, his expression unreadable. Then his eyes close again, as if he’s too tired to keep them open.

  I can’t stop looking at him. It hurts to breathe. “How do you feel.” It’s a stupid question, but I have to say something.

  “Sleepy. They’re keeping me pretty doped up.”

  He doesn’t sound angry, or even particularly upset. Feeling unsure of myself, I pull up a chair and sit. “I saw the article.”

  “They wrote an article about it?”

  “Yes.”

  His eyes roll toward me. There’s a little starburst of red in one sclera, where a blood vessel has ruptured, but the irises are still clear and brilliant blue. “Slow news day, I guess.”

  “He’s lying to the police. He’s saying you started it. That y
ou provoked him.”

  “I did,” Stanley says.

  My mouth falls open.

  His eyes slip shut again. “We ran into each other in the park. Pure chance. It was just him, without his goons. He was going to walk away, but I started shouting at him, calling him an asshole. He kept telling me to shut up, but I wouldn’t. Not even when he knocked me down. And then, when it was over . . . he stopped and we just looked at each other and . . .” His breath hitches. “He was just a kid. Just some stupid kid with a few piercings and a leather jacket. And he looked so scared. Not of me. Of himself . . . of what he’d done.”

  The light outside the window begins to deepen in color, turning honey amber, and his eyelids look thin and fragile. They’re almost translucent.

  “How many breaks,” I ask.

  “Seventeen. Mostly in my legs, but I fractured my collarbone and bruised some ribs, too.” His eyes remain closed. His breathing rasps softly. When he speaks, his voice is oddly calm: “You don’t have to be here, you know. Knowing you’re hanging around out of guilt just makes it hurt more.”

  A sharp pain jabs through my chest. “That’s not why I’m here.”

  “Then why?”

  I open my mouth, but nothing comes out.

  “Just go.” Still, there’s no anger in his voice; it would almost be easier if there were. “You don’t have to worry about me. I’ve been through this a million times. Go home.”

  “I can’t go home.”

  He blinks and looks at me as if seeing me for the first time—the disheveled hair, the dirty clothes. His forehead wrinkles. “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve been living out of my car.”

  His eyes widen. “When were you planning to tell me about this?”

  I look down and self-consciously tug one braid. “I wasn’t.”

  There’s a long pause. His breathing sounds strange; I can’t tell what he’s thinking or feeling. “You can sleep in my house. My keys are over there, next to my wallet, on the table by the window. Eat whatever you want in the kitchen, and if you need to buy more food or anything else, just use whatever cash is in there.”

  There’s a lump in my throat. “It—it’s getting cold. So thank you,” I manage to whisper. But I don’t move. We look at each other.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I shouldn’t have left the way I did.”

  He stares at the ceiling. “It doesn’t matter now.” His voice is flat. Empty.

  For a few minutes, I sit, hands balled into fists in my lap. Finally I stand, walk into the adjoining bathroom, and wet a cloth in the sink. I lean over him and wipe his sweat-damp brow.

  “Don’t,” he whispers, voice cracking. “Don’t do this.”

  “Is it too cold.”

  A tear leaks out from the corner of his eye. “Don’t you understand? I’d already given up.” He squeezes his eyes shut. “Just leave me alone.”

  I lower my gaze. Of course he’s not happy to see me. I broke his heart. I don’t understand human emotions very well, but I know that once you’ve hurt someone, you can’t just come back and have everything be okay again.

  But I can’t leave him. Not now, not like this.

  After a moment, I resume wiping his forehead. He doesn’t protest; he doesn’t say anything. The pink glow of sunlight illuminates the plane of his left cheek. As the last bit of daylight fades, the light turns a soft blue, then purple, then disappears. His eyes stare through me, as if he’s lost somewhere inside himself.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Over the next week, I visit Stanley in the hospital every day. I help him eat when he’s not feeling well enough to sit up. I keep the damp cloth on his brow moistened, and when his pain medication is getting low, I badger the nurses to refill it. I sit with him through blood draws and CAT scans.

  The nurses no longer object to my presence. I have been to Stanley’s house and washed up and cleaned what clothes I have.

  Through it all, he remains withdrawn. He answers questions with monosyllables, always in that mechanical voice. I’m not sure if it’s because he’s still angry at me or because he’s medicated most of the time. Or maybe it’s depression. He’s stuck in this place he hates, enduring a barrage of uncomfortable and invasive tests, and it will be months before his injuries heal. Of course he’s depressed.

  He feels so far away. But he’s not, I remind myself. He’s right here. And he needs me.

  Things can never go back to the way they were; I’m aware of that. But right now, neither of us has anyone else to rely on.

  By the time they release Stanley, the bulky casts on his legs have been replaced with wrappings and braces, but he still can’t walk, not even with crutches.

  I drive him home. As soon as we’re away from the hospital, there’s a noticeable shift in his demeanor. Though still quiet, he seems more awake, more alert.

  Back at Stanley’s house, I retrieve a wheelchair from the garage and park it in the living room. As I help him into it, he sighs. “I was hoping to never need this stupid thing again.”

  “It’s just temporary.”

  “Yeah, I know. Mostly I’m just glad to be out of the hospital. I can’t wait to take a real bath.”

  In his current condition, that will be difficult. Still, I hesitate a few seconds before asking, “Do you want help.”

  His shoulders tense. A flush rises into his cheeks, and the muscles of his throat constrict as he swallows. “Just get me into the tub and bring me a washcloth. I’ll take it from there.”

  Lowering him into the tub takes a lot of maneuvering, even with the metal rails already in place. He has some mobility in his left arm now, at least; the sling from his first encounter with TJ is gone. Still, he winces when he tries to pull his shirt off.

  “I’ll help with your clothes,” I say.

  “That’s okay.”

  “The doctor said you shouldn’t move around too much yet.” I reach out.

  He catches my wrist. “I can handle it.”

  “I want to help.” I start to tug his shirt up, and his whole body goes rigid.

  “Alvie, stop!”

  I freeze.

  His gaze is downcast, his cheeks burning, his breathing rapid. “Please,” he whispers. “Let me do this on my own.”

  A burning, prickling lump fills my throat. I swallow. “I know you’re angry at me. But there’s no sense in injuring yourself just because—”

  “It’s not about that.”

  In a flash, I remember the motel room, the way he seemed so reluctant to take off his clothes. Even now, he doesn’t want me to see him. I want to tell him that his scars don’t matter, but I know that words won’t make a difference. “What if I kept my eyes closed while I washed you.”

  A pause. “You could do that?”

  “Yes. I won’t look. I promise.”

  “And you’ll stop if I ask you to?”

  “I will.” I’m surprised he even needs to ask.

  Slowly, he nods.

  I close my eyes and reach down to unbutton his shirt. Without sight, it’s tricky; my hand comes down on his face. I pat my way down his neck until I find the first button and undo it. After that, it’s easier. My fingertips graze something rough and puckered on his chest, and his breath hisses between his teeth, as if the touch burns.

  “Sorry,” I say.

  “It’s okay.”

  I start to tug the shirt off, being careful to touch only cloth, not skin. It takes a few minutes.

  “Hang on,” Stanley says. “Let me—okay, now.”

  The shirt comes off. My hands move down to unbutton his slacks, and he twitches. His breathing quickens as I tug the pants down a little, then a little more. This would be much easier if he were standing, but he’s not in any condition to stand. The process takes a few minutes, but I manage to remove the slacks. I set them carefully aside, then pull off his socks. My palm brushes against his leg; I feel the cool metal and smooth leather of the brace, the rough linen of the bandage beneath.

  S
oft, shuddering breaths echo through the silence. Aside from the bandages and braces on his legs, he’s naked, every inch of him exposed.

  I dunk the cloth in a bucket of warm, soapy water, wring it out, and lay it against his chest. A small sigh escapes his throat.

  “Let me know if the water is too cold.”

  “It’s fine.”

  Taking care not to touch his skin directly, I wash him. His breathing sounds very loud in the quiet as I run the cloth over his chest, his shoulders, and abdomen.

  My fingers brush against his cheek, and I feel the heat in his skin. “Are you embarrassed,” I ask.

  “I just feel really helpless, like this.”

  “Is that a bad thing.”

  “I don’t know. Not exactly, I guess.”

  I rub the cloth over his inner thighs. His muscles tense. “Maybe I’d better do that.”

  He takes the cloth from me and quickly washes off the rest of himself. “Can you get me a clean set of clothes?” he asks.

  I retrieve a fresh T-shirt and cotton drawstring pants from his bedroom. Still without looking directly at him, I help him get dressed. It’s easier than undressing him; I deliberately chose loose clothes that I could slide on without much difficulty.

  “Okay, you can look now.”

  I do. He’s flushed, breathing a little more rapidly than normal. My gaze strays to his groin, and sure enough, his pants are tented. “You have an erection,” I blurt out. He gulps, but this time, he doesn’t apologize. He just stares straight at me.

  It doesn’t mean much, I tell myself. Males are hardwired to respond to certain stimuli. Even so, I can’t deny that it feels good to know that his body still wants me, at least.

  I avert my eyes, suddenly self-conscious. “I didn’t look,” I tell him. “When I was washing you, I mean. I wanted to. But I didn’t.”

  He lets out a tiny chuckle. “Well, I guess I can’t blame you for being tempted. I mean . . . all this.” He gestures down at his thin body, his legs, still bound up in wrappings and braces. He gives me a lopsided smile. It’s strained, and his face is pale and drawn, but it’s the first smile I’ve seen out of him in days.