by Gae Polisner
“Yeah.” I miss my cell phone. Without it, I’ve lost all track of time in this place.
Gene watches me, rocks back onto the rear legs of his chair again. I try not to stare at him, or to look for the swastika tattoo.
“You ever fall?” I ask stupidly instead, indicating his chair. “I did that once in fourth grade. Fell flat on my back. Embarrassed the crap out of myself. Never did it again.”
He laughs, but rocks his chair forward again. I glance around for a wall clock, willing Sabrina or Martin or even Dr. Howe to get here, but there is none. I have no idea what else to say to this guy.
“So what do you think?” he says finally. He motions around the room, then leans forward, hands clasped under his chin, like he’s suddenly, intensely, interested in me. I shift nervously.
“About what?” Being in here? He can’t possibly mean that, because how many ways can one feel about being in here?
He shrugs and rocks back farther, precariously this time, arms folded behind his head. And then I realize. From this angle, I can see the tattoo on his biceps isn’t a swastika. It’s the number 55, that’s all.
“You looking at this?” He indicates his arm and I redden. I can’t believe I thought what I thought.
“Your tattoo,” I say. “What does it stand for?”
“It was my grandfather’s number. He played in the NFL in the sixties. ’66 to ’68, with the Browns. He’s the one who raised me. I got it last year when he died.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “But, that’s cool. About him playing for the Browns, I mean. The part about him dying obviously sucks.” I want to say more, ask more, like where his mother is. And his father. Like, who’s raising him now? “The tat is cool, too,” is all I manage.
“Yeah, I guess.” He drops his chair again and looks down. “I miss him. I miss him a lot,” he says.
“So, who do you live with now?”
“No one. I mean, it’s my dad’s house, but he don’t live there anymore. Not for years. Guy’s a piece of shit and the bank is about to take it anyway, so I mostly hang out with friends. Or, I guess, for now, I live here.”
“Oh,” I say, wondering what landed him here. Not that it’s any of my business, but it’s the Ape Can, not a hotel or a homeless shelter, right? So he must have done something crazy to be here. Because that’s what we all have in common.
Gene’s eyes shift to mine, and something in them is so sad, or maybe mad, like he thinks I don’t get it, or don’t care. Like whatever I’ve suffered isn’t half as bad. And maybe it isn’t. Or maybe the only thing worse than your own father abandoning you, is your own father shooting himself in the head. Deciding you’re not even a good enough reason to live.
“My father left, too,” I say. “Didn’t stick around.”
Gene nods, and his face softens. It’s enough what I’ve told him, if only a fraction of the truth.
“How come you keep lying, Alden…?” Sarah’s voice, calling me on it like she did that day in my room.
I don’t know why I lied. I don’t know why I continue to.
I close my eyes and grip my hands in my lap, feeling dizzy and off-kilter again. Dr. Howe’s voice drifts in from down the hall, then Martin’s. I’m relieved the others are here.
Sabrina follows, and they sit. Dr. Howe looks from me to Gene and back to me again.
“Nice to see you both here,” she says. “Ready and eager to get to work.”
But I’m not really here, am I? I’m back with Sarah, instead. Lost in the sound of her voice, the feel of her body. Lost in an early morning a few months ago, and the magical way she had of making me forget everything, of making the pain disappear.
* * *
“Hey, wake up, Alden.”
I nearly have a heart attack. Sarah stands next to my bed, hair hanging down, a mischievous smile on her face.
I prop myself up, confused, and wipe drool from the corners of my mouth.
Did I sleep through Tarantoli? Did she show up here to rescue me?
I reach out to grab my phone, but Sarah covers it with her hand and says, “Don’t bother. It’s Sunday. Ten thirty. I’ve been up for hours. Texted you three times, then got bored, so I walked my ass over here.”
My eyes dart past my half-open bedroom door, trying to hear my mother, trying to sort out what kind of disaster might have already gone down before Sarah made her way to my room.
“She’s not here,” Sarah says, walking to my door and pulling it open fully. She gestures into the empty hallway like a Price Is Right model showing off a new car, and adds, “I got here just in time to see her leave. Dressed up all neat and pretty, like she has a meeting with a CEO. So, I figure it’s safe to assume she’s not coming back anytime soon?” I wrack my brain to remember if my mother told me where she was going. “I let myself in. The door wasn’t locked. We have the whole fancy place to ourselves. Apparently your mom is under the delusion that you don’t need to lock your doors up here in the sticks.”
She laughs, and I sit up, overwhelmingly happy that she’s here. Especially given how tense things were the last time I hung out with her. I wasn’t even sure we were dating anymore.
“My mother is always dressed up,” I say, trying to remember where she went. Bereavement group? Fund-raiser? Lunch with a friend? “She could just be headed to the convenience store. Anyway, I’m glad you’re here, but you scared the crap out of me. I thought you were an intruder. I thought I was being attacked.”
“You wish.” She lifts the blanket, slips into bed, and crawls on top of me. “Or, maybe you are.” I feel self-conscious, though, about my breath, and more, about the piss boner I’m acutely aware of.
“Can you give me a minute?” I nudge her off me. “I really have to brush and take a leak.”
“Gross, yeah, you do.” She waves her hand in front of her face, and I get up, taking the sheet with me. “Anyway, I’m starving,” she calls. “I’m going to find us some breakfast while you’re gone.”
“Help yourself to whatever.”
When I return, washed and brushed, she’s taken me up on my offer. In one hand she holds two slightly crispy toasted waffles, and in the other, a bottle of maple syrup. Wedged under her arm is a bottle of expensive vodka.
“Sunday brunch!” she says, setting the waffles and syrup on my night table. She holds the vodka bottle up in a toast.
“It’s a little early for Grey Goose, no?”
“Maybe.” She smiles coyly. “But, we need something to wash those down.”
“Breakfast of champions,” I say, as she uncaps the bottle and takes a swig. “So, you’re serious then? At ten A.M. No glasses even?”
“Ten thirty. Lighten up, Alden. Or if you can’t, this will help.”
She presses the bottle forward, so I take it, though there’s not a chance I feel like drinking straight vodka first thing in the morning. Maybe I should explain that this bottle probably cost a hundred dollars or more, which is the only reason my mother hauled it up here. She doesn’t drink vodka, only highbrow shit like Prosecco or a fine French wine. But then I decide, fuck it, maybe she’s right. Maybe for once I should loosen up, and since my mother doesn’t drink it, she won’t notice. No sense in it going to waste.
I drink, feeling the liquid burn a bitter, hot trail down my throat, but I force another sip anyway, then a third, before putting the bottle back on my nightstand. A warm surge rushes me like melted caramel.
“There. You happy? Now you owe me,” I say, closing my door just in case. I fall back onto my bed, pulling Sarah down with me. “God, you feel good. I want you so bad, all the time.”
“I know you do, Alden. I know it.” She kisses my forehead and whispers, “It’s okay. I want you, too.”
I roll her off me and onto her back, simultaneously reaching toward my nightstand drawer, trying to remember if I have any protection in there. But I can’t reach, and when I get up to search, she gets up, too, taking the Grey Goose bottle with her.
She roams,
sipping and touching and looking at everything, when all I want is for her to come back, to let me touch her again. Instead, I watch from this distance, dumbfounded by how beautiful she is. Her body. Her hair. Her way of being. How wound up tight I am compared to how fucking free she is.
At my closet, she turns and gives me a mischievous smile, and pulls the door open.
It’s disappointing, I’m sure. No skeletons to be found. Only a few button-downs and a lone pair of khakis echoing on hangers. Everything else I own is either folded in my dresser drawers or still tucked away in boxes in the guest room or garage. There’s no old sports equipment, no boxes of books or toys giving clues into little me. No stashes of Bob the Builder Legos, or even a mess of dirty laundry. This isn’t my home and never will be, so why would I have bothered to unpack?
“Impressive,” she says, her voice turning somber. “I’ve never seen such a neat and empty closet. Hey, tell the truth, Klee, how come you never invite me over? Are you ashamed of me?”
“What? No!” I get up, but she holds a hand out, takes another sip of vodka and brings the bottle over.
“I believe you. It’s no big deal. Drink. And eat your waffle. Today I get to the bottom of who Klee Alden, International Man of Mystery, really is. I could have done this without even waking you. I thought about it, too.”
She walks to my desk, and opens and closes its drawers. She won’t find much in there either.
Except she does. Because I’ve forgotten the album. If I had remembered, I may have tried to stop her. I don’t want to look at that now. Maybe not ever.
“Eureka,” she says, pulling it from the back of the bottom drawer.
My heart aches. It’s not mine, but my father’s. From a long, long time ago. When we were packing up the apartment, I’d found it and shoved it in my backpack for safekeeping.
She walks to the bed, sits, and opens to the first page. “So, tell me, Alden,” she says.
Tell you what? Nearly all the air leaves my lungs.
My father’s young face looks up at me. Handsome. Hopeful. His hair shorter and darker than I remembered. No gray. Almost a crew cut. His eyes crinkle with his smile. He sits on a park bench with his arm around my mother. She looks young, too, and happy, which makes me feel sorry for her. For everything. When did she grow so cold and bitter?
“You’re wasting your time if you want dirt on me,” I say to Sarah, who keeps flipping. “This was my father’s. From before they were married, and I was born.”
“Not exactly,” she says when she gets near the end. She stops and holds out a photo of my father holding a baby. Me. Wrapped in a white blanket with blue stars. Asleep on his shoulder.
Sarah looks at me.
“Me, obviously,” I say.
She touches her finger to my newborn face and says, “You were pretty then, too,” but I’m not listening. I’m lost in my father’s eyes, trying to see if they look happy or sad. To see if he was glad that he brought me into the world. He looks like he is, but who can tell?
I study his face some more. When did he get so unhappy? Unhappy enough that none of this mattered anymore?
“So, you never told me,” Sarah says, closing the album. She walks to my desk and puts it back where it came from. When she turns, she says, “How did he die, again? Cancer, right?”
“Yes,” I say. “Cancer.” I should tell her the truth. Blurt it out. Get it over with. But I don’t. I can’t. I don’t know why. I’ve never even spoken the word “suicide” aloud. I’m not even sure I know how to. Anyway, it doesn’t seem true. As if, in my head, I’ve substituted a whole other story. Cancer. Or a car crash. Something more glamorous, or at least nobler. Something that doesn’t mean I didn’t matter.
Because, if I tell her that—the truth—then she’ll know, too. I. Don’t. Matter. Enough. Not to her, or my mother, or to anyone. How can I, if I didn’t matter enough to him?
“It was awful,” I add, “but he went fast.”
She stares at me, then sits on the bed and says, “How come you keep lying to me, Alden? Why don’t you trust me?”
I pick up the bottle of vodka and drink some more, but the room is already spinning. I search for my waffle, but I put it down somewhere. Or maybe I ate it already.
“I don’t know,” I say. “The fast part is true.” She touches my hair, looks in my eyes, and waits for more. I need to tell her. I owe her that. “He killed himself with…” My voice hitches. “He killed himself.”
I watch her face, waiting for the words to undo me, waiting for them to send her running from my room. But they don’t do either. We just sit there, the words still ringing in my ears.
Finally, she says, “Oh my God, that’s awful, Klee.” She touches my arm. The look on her face, it’s brutal. She pities me. It’s exactly what I didn’t want to see.
I shake my head. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore. I only want to be with you now. That’s the only thing I want in the whole world.”
“You should have told me…”
“I know. But now I did. And, I don’t want to talk about it anymore. Please. I just want to be with you.”
I stand and pull off my boxers, tug at her shirt, until she lifts her arms and lets me peel it off over her head. Her breasts are beautiful. Her body is beautiful. She smells like cinnamon and apples and falling leaves. The feel of her skin erases everything.
She slips off her jeans, and I climb on top of her, not waiting, or kissing, just needing to be fully immersed with her now. Then I remember, and pull out, and fumble at my nightstand drawer.
“It’s okay,” she whispers, “I’ve got protection,” and she guides me back in, and we move together, delirious, and sweaty in our vodka-soaked haze.
Drunk or not, I don’t last long, but she doesn’t seem to care—not this time—and when we’re finished, we lie there, quiet and breathless, if not the smallest bit free.
Day 9—Evening
“Do you swim, Mr. Alden?”
Sister Agnes Teresa stands by my bed, holding a pair of yellow swim trunks.
It’s late, after ten, because the lights in the hall have been dimmed for quiet hours.
I press the remote that turns off the television and swing my legs over the side of the bed.
“Um, yeah, I guess I do. Why?”
“Good,” she says, tossing them onto my bed. “Go change. I’ll wait. I can rescue you, if need be. I’m a certified lifeguard,” she adds.
* * *
“Klee?”
“Yeah?”
I stare at my phone, at Sarah’s number, then press it again to my ear.
“You there?”
It’s 2 A.M. I’m probably dreaming. I’m not even sure if I’m awake.
“Yeah,” I say anyway. “Is everything okay?”
“Yes. Sure. But I need a favor, okay?”
“Of course. Anything.”
“I need you to rescue me. Tomorrow ten A.M.” I hear the tears in her voice now. “My dad is coming. I thought … I need you to come with me into the city.”
* * *
Sarah calls me early the next morning and says to meet her at the Northhollow train station. “Don’t pick me up. I want to walk,” she says.
The only other information she gives is that we need to be at the Midtown Hilton by noon.
When I get there, she’s already up on the platform. She’s wearing a black wool peacoat with a baby blue scarf slung around her neck, and black leggings with Timberlands beneath that. At least she’s dressed warmer than I thought she’d be.
“Hey,” I say, wrapping my arms around her, but she wriggles free.
“This weather sucks, sorry. They’re predicting a blizzard.” She blows on her bare hands. “Thanks for agreeing to come.”
The train is delayed, and the stationhouse is locked, and my hands are already numbing through my gloves. Two weeks before Christmas, and it’s downright frigid out. Thick, wet snowflakes have begun to spiral down through the gray air.
�
�Want mine?” I ask, pulling off my gloves and holding them out to her. She shakes her head. “So, what are we doing again? Midtown Hilton, I know. But the rest was kind of vague this morning.”
“Yeah, I know. Sorry. My dad is in. With Tyler and Stephanie. I learned this late last night. Apparently they got tickets to something.”
“Stephanie?”
“My stepmom. Whatever.”
“Well, you like her. So, that’s fun, no? I’d think you’d be happy. Why do you want me to come?”
Her eyes dart away. “Not for me,” she says. “Just them. The tickets are for her and my dad. They want me to watch Tyler while they go.”
The train finally comes, but it’s slow going because of the weather. The city, however, is going to be packed with the holiday shoppers no matter what. Tourists flooding in from everywhere. My dad used to have a rule: No museums or shows or even mildly trendy restaurants from the day after Thanksgiving through the New Year. So, anywhere we’d take an eight-year-old is going to be hell on earth.
Still, I’ve come up with some ideas and I’m going to brave them, because Sarah seems miserable, and I want her to have a good day with her brother.
She barely talks on the train, or on the subway up to 53rd Street. And, when we enter the lobby of the Hilton, the first thing she mutters is, “Stupid fucking asshole” under her breath. At first I’m not sure why, but then I am. There’s a small boy alone at the concierge desk. He looks like her, with dark brown hair, a round face, and the same wide-set blue eyes. A bellman stands next to him, tapping away on his cell phone.
“Sarah!” The boy exclaims, and she lets go of my hand to run to him.
“Where are Steph and Dad?” she asks, but only after they’ve hugged.
“They paid him to watch me,” Tyler says, indicating the bellman. “Roberto.” The bellman nods at us, then goes back to whatever is on his phone. “They were going to be late because you were supposed to be here by noon.”
He makes a face, and Sarah says, “Jesus, it’s only twelve thirty. I can’t help it if the train was delayed because of the weather.”
“Don’t worry,” he says. “I didn’t mind. Roberto is nice. He watched me. Oh, and they said to tell you they weren’t planning this. So, no dinner. Cuz we have to be back home tonight. But that they’ll see you when you visit longer in two weeks.”
