by Kyp Harness
Suddenly Tim felt the flesh of her lips on his. He looked at her eyelids closed and placid as he felt her moving her mouth against his. He noted the way the pale sunlight was glittering on her eyelashes. They embraced, their bulky winter coats prohibiting any sensual realization from the act. He felt her move her tongue in his mouth, puzzled that he didn’t seem to be feeling the way he was supposed to feel. They broke from the kiss and Roberta looked down to the side, suddenly shy. “We can go further,” she whispered. “I did with my last boyfriend…”
Panic-stricken, Tim assured her that wouldn’t be necessary. What would they do if someone came up suddenly in the elevator, he wondered. He was frightened and guilty at being so close to betraying his love for Sherrie. Such an act would disqualify him forever from attaining his union with her, and to even allow himself to be in the position where such a thing might be possible was a grave infraction of loyalty. He moved quickly from Roberta’s welcoming arms, overcome with remorse for Sherrie, for Roberta, for himself.
Mona drove them back over the bridge at the end of the day, and when they dropped Roberta off, Tim got out to embrace her and to exchange another kiss. “Is that the girl who calls the house all the time?” Mona asked after he got back in the car.
He told her it was.
“Are you going out with her now?” she asked.
“No.”
Tim’s mother thought for a moment as she drove, then said, “You’re doing the same to her as what Sherrie’s doing to you.” Tim looked over at Mona, noting that she looked older than the mental picture he had of her. He thought about the way he pictured people in his mind when he thought of them, and the way it was when sometimes he saw someone he hadn’t seen for a while, and they had altered so much he’d have to change his mental picture of them. His mother had not greatly changed, but she had subtly, slightly become different somehow since the last time he’d updated his mental picture of her—the last time he’d consciously thought of her.
In the last several months, Tim realized, he’d been out of the house more than ever in his life up to that time—with his Charitas friends, with Russ and Sherrie, with his variety store job. His brother Jason had begun breaking away from the family a few years earlier, spending most of his time with his girlfriend. Now Tim was moving on, too. In the past he had spent more time with his mother than he did with any other person. For several years they had a membership to a classic films series at the library and would go to the monthly screenings together. From an early age he had read her the stories and comic books he wrote. Now he was leaving her on her own.
When Tim thought of his mother he often thought of a moment at his uncle Jim’s house during a holiday gathering years ago. When drinking, Dirk often ruined get-togethers, and on this occasion had started an ugly scene with two of his brothers-in-law. In the aftermath, Tim saw his mother slip from the basement where the party was and he thought to go and comfort her for the embarrassment they both felt. He found her alone in the living room upstairs. She was sitting on the couch, looking at the Christmas cards displayed there. Tim stood at the doorway and asked her if she was alright and she answered in her upbeat voice, pitched in a higher tone, smiling as she said she was fine, nothing was wrong, just looking at Christmas cards.
Tim looked over at Mona as she looked out from behind her sunglasses, smoking a cigarette as she drove. She had travelled back and forth to work for twenty years. As a boy he had asked her why she had to work and she always said, “Well, if I didn’t, there’d be a lot of things you’d be doing without.” He saw now that it provided an escape, or at least a balance for her. As they turned into the driveway, Tim thought of his mother in terms of a new aloneness—she was being left to while away the long Sunday afternoons, the long nights alone. Tim vowed to be kinder to her, and also decided to make it clear to Roberta Cameron that he would wait for Sherrie.
For several days Tim had not seen Russ at school. One afternoon on the way home he met up with Russ’s brother Dave in the empty lot he cut through. “He won’t go to school.” Dave shrugged. “Says that he’s finished. My mom’s worried about it. Maybe you can talk to him.”
That night Tim phoned Russ’s house. “Where’ve you been?” Tim asked.
“I’m educating myself,” Russ explained. “I can’t seem to get the education I want at school, so I’ve made the decision to do it myself.”
“But you won’t get any credit for doing it,” Tim said. “All you’re going to do is flunk out.”
“Well, every course of action has liabilities” Russ noted. “And for me, the benefits in this case outweigh the liabilities.”
At school the next morning, Sherrie asked Tim, “So what’s up with Russ? I haven’t seen him around lately.”
Tim told her of the phone call and concluded, “He seems to think he can get a better education at home than what he’s getting at school.”
Sherrie frowned, look off into the distance. “That’s weird,” she said. “It’s like he’s basically just dropping out of life.”
“Maybe we should go by and see him,” Tim suggested, eagerly taking advantage of her interest to come up with a reason to spend more time with her. “We could see what he’s up to.”
At lunch they walked out the back doors and across the field to the opening in the wire mesh fence that led to the empty lot bordering the subdivision. They made their way past the bungalows whose black roofs were beginning to assert themselves through the melting snow. They turned off onto the street of the identical townhouses all joined to one another like a string of paper dolls. Russ and his mother and brother had lived in one for the last five years since his father had died. Before that they had lived on the outskirts of the city in the parish of the church where his father had ministered. Tim and Sherrie came to the door and rang the bell. They waited for several minutes, then Tim pressed the button again.
Suddenly the door flew open. “Ah, the search and rescue team has arrived!” Russ exclaimed.
“What’s been happening?” Tim asked.
“Just what I told you on the phone,” Russ said, looking over the heads of Tim and Sherrie and gazing out into the street. “It’s gotten warmer,” he observed, breathing in the air. “I haven’t been outdoors for a while.”
“Can we come in?” Tim asked.
“Sure!” Russ obliged, stepping back from the door and lifting his arm in welcome. “Don’t have anything to serve you for lunch, I’m afraid.” Then as if struck by sudden thought he asked, “You didn’t bring anything, did you?”
“No,” said Tim.
“Oh well, I haven’t been eating that much recently. I’ll just wait until supper,” Russ said. “Be sure and take off your boots, that’s an expensive broadloom we’ve just had installed.”
“Really?” asked Sherrie.
“No,” Russ said.
They made their way down to the partially finished basement. There were some barbells and other pieces of weightlifting equipment on the carpet that Tim imagined were remnants of an attempt by Russ to augment his skinny physique. The three teenagers sat in old overstuffed chairs. Russ pulled a record out of its sleeve and put it on a turntable. The sprightly melodies of Vivaldi began reverberating in the musty basement air. Russ leaned forward, his hand covering his eyes visor-like as he sat, apparently in deep thought. Sherrie looked uncomfortably over at Tim who took this as a cue to try and engage Russ.
“So what’s the deal?” he asked.
Russ pulled his hand from his eyes and smiled at Tim as if seeing him there for the first time. He leaned his sweater-clad, angular body back in his chair. “Deal?” asked Russ. “The deal is that there is no deal. The deal is that I’ve rejected the deal I’ve been offered. Unfortunately no one has seen fit to offer me another deal.”
“Well, what is it?” Tim asked. “You just got tired of school, then?” He felt as though he was the bland defender of
ordinary, insipid existence.
“Tired?” Russ asked. “No, I wouldn’t say I was tired of school. Horrified, mortified, repulsed, repelled? Yes.” As he spoke, the overhead light glared on the lenses of his glasses, so that only a white brightness was shining where his eyes were supposed to be. “Nauseated, sickened, appalled? Yes,” Russ asserted. “But no, I wouldn’t say that I was tired, particularly. Come on, guys, you know how it is,” he said, waving his hand. “It’s a slaughterhouse. The only difference is, more lives are ended in high school than in any slaughterhouse.”
“Sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to do in order to do things you do want to do,” Sherrie suggested.
“That’s just it,” Russ noted, pointing his finger at Sherrie. “I categorically reject the premise of your argument. Because first of all, I don’t believe that one gets to do what one wants by doing things one doesn’t want to do. To me, that’s backward logic that doesn’t make a grain of sense.”
Tim noted that Sherrie frowned at having her premise so roundly rejected.
“Secondly,” Russ continued, “who says I want to do anything?” He relaxed back into his chair and turned his head in the direction of the strains of Vivaldi. He paused as if to savour the genius of the music. “Why should I have to do anything?” he asked. “Who says I have to do anything? What is this business of everybody having to do something all the time?”
“Well, you want to be an artist, don’t you?” Tim said. “You want to create, right? That’s something.”
“Not necessarily,” Russ countered. “Who says you have to create to be an artist? Aren’t the things the artist creates simply the evidence of an artistic mindset? So why not just have the artistic mindset and call it a day?
“What do we take from the works of Shakespeare?” he argued. “We know that he was a gifted, wise, intelligent, sensitive genius. Fine—I’m cutting to the chase. Instead of creating works so that hundreds of years after my death people will talk about what a wise, intelligent genius I was, I’ll just settle for the fact that I know I’m a wise, intelligent, sensitive genius and be done with it.”
Having delivered this statement, Russ settled back in his chair and folded his arms over his chest. “Of course, I’m sure you’re not suggesting that to be an artist you have to be good in school,” Russ added, looking pointedly over at Tim. “Non serviam and all that!”
“The idea, though,” Sherrie offered in her quiet voice, “is that by sharing your gift with others, like Shakespeare, you’re helping humanity, performing a service for it.”
“Humanity, schmumanity,” Russ scoffed, waving his hand. “Humanity doesn’t deserve my gift. What good did Shakespeare do for humanity? Give it something to entertain itself with between butchering excursions? I mean, how can you sit there and say that humanity has been bettered by Shakespeare or any of the so-called great artists? Has it stopped society from killing little children? Has it stopped society from herding kids into classrooms and destroying their spirits and turning them into a bunch of dead-asses for the sake of the almighty dollar?
“Also, sorry to inform you,” he continued, “but most of our fellow humans care more about procuring a six-pack of beer than the collected works of William Shakespeare. And further to that, they care even more about winning the lottery or amassing a bundle of loot through some other means.
“Truth be told,” he said, “that’s what the whole process of school is about. Everybody’s just going and getting their credits to get a diploma and get a job. They’re not being stimulated or educated in any real sense. They’re just grinding through to make money. They don’t care what they’re learning, and the teachers don’t care what they’re teaching. It’s all about money on both sides—just like everything else in this stupid society.”
“I guess that’s the thing, though,” Tim noted lamely. “Everybody has to do something to make a living.”
“Yeah,” said Russ. “Well, maybe being a minister is the thing, then,” he observed wryly. “Just have to do a sermon once a week, you get a place to live, nothing too strenuous…” His face clouded over and he stared down at the carpet as if something there was causing him dismay.
“Well, if you wanted to become a minister, you’d have to get a high school diploma to do that,” Tim reasoned cautiously after a moment. He looked over at Sherrie, who nodded in agreement.
“Hmm, yeah, I suppose you’re right,” Russ mused. “My dad had to go to Bible college. Isn’t it interesting,” he asked, “that Jesus Christ Himself didn’t have a high school diploma, but you have to have one to be one of His representatives, to speak in His name?”
At that moment the phone rang and Russ glanced over at it as if weighing its claim on him. He shrugged his shoulders and picked it up. “Hello? No, Russ… No. Okay, I’ll tell her when she comes in, then. Okay. Bye.” Russ replaced the receiver and sat staring down at the floor in silence. Then slowly his shoulders began bobbing up and down, and he raised his head in a quiet laughter that worked its way into a loud bark.
“What’s the joke?” Tim asked gamely.
“The guy on the phone!” Russ spluttered between gasps of laughter. “He said, ‘Hello, Gus?’ and I said ‘No—Russ!’” He dissolved further into delighted barking.
Tim and Sherrie started laughing along at the silliness of the exchange, but they were also carried away by Russ’s mirth. He was kicking his legs and rocking in his chair. As the laughter continued, Russ leaned forward, and Tim could see that Russ’s face bore a grimace of anguish. His own laughter stopped. He looked over at Sherrie and saw that she was still laughing along.
“Well, anyway,” Russ stated, suddenly sober. “This has been fun, guys, but I’ve got to get back to work, and I know you do, too.” He looked away, and Tim thought that he could see him blinking tears away behind his glasses. Russ led his two friends up the basement stairs and to the front door of the townhouse. They told him that they hoped they’d see him again. Russ shrugged. Tim and Sherrie walked from the townhouse down the street filled with huge puddles where the snow was melting. “Back to work!” Russ called out to them. “Crack those books! Happy hunting!” They looked back to see him bent with laughter in his doorway. “Adios! Sayonara!”
As they continued through the empty lot out back of the school, Tim looked over at Sherrie and saw her disturbed frown. “What’s he going to do now?” she asked after several moments in silence.
“I don’t know,” Tim said, glad that the situation had furnished a problem that bound him and Sherrie together in concern, though he was still disquieted by Russ’s behaviour. Was Russ right? Should he drop out of school, too? “He’ll be back, I’ll bet—he’s just going through something,” Tim assured her.
Sherrie frowned, looking straight ahead as she walked. “Have you encouraged him about going on Charitas?” she asked.
“Oh, yeah,” Tim said, nodding. “But he’s skeptical about those things.”
“Well, I think it would do him a lot of good,” Sherrie said as they entered the school. The bell was ringing and teenagers on each side of them were hurrying to their classes. Tim and Sherrie had discussed Russ attending Charitas many times before. They wanted their friend to experience what they had experienced, and they felt that the retreat would open Russ’s heart, free him from the isolation he so obviously felt.
Tim and Sherrie were both helping to plan the next Charitas weekend, which was to take place on Easter. Tim was glad to be involved chiefly for the extra time it gave him to spend with Sherrie. His mother would usually drive him to the planning meetings at people’s houses or at the church, but after a while he made the acquaintance of Eric Dunphy, a tall, thin fellow with a lantern jaw, glasses and a peaked cap he invariably wore.
During the prayer at each meeting, Eric Dunphy sat with his head bowed and his hands outstretched before him with upraised palms as though he was balancing tea sauce
rs on them. Eric had a small car in which he began to give Tim rides to the meetings. Much of Eric’s talk involved the amazing connection to God that his mother had. Eric would marvel at his mother’s ability to pray to God for just about anything and find that her prayers were answered.
“Our church group was going on a skiing weekend,” Eric related, motoring along in his car. “For a week before that there hadn’t been any snow and so Mom prayed for some for us. Comes the day of the trip—still no snow. We set off anyway. Then that night we get a blizzard that lasts three days! We’re snowed in! It’s like, okay Mom! We got it! That’s enough!” he exclaimed, shaking his head, watching the road. “Enough with the snow already!”
Eric seemed to speak with an English accent, though as far as Tim knew, neither Eric nor his parents had been born in England. His other topic of conversation involved various girls he was involved with in the Charitas group. He spoke of all of them as though they were erotic temptresses, though Tim thought them rather ordinary when he met them.
“Now Emily,” Eric would relate, “she does the flirt-flirt-flirt, and last week she gave me a hug that basically knocked my socks off! I said, ‘Emily, what are you doing to me, you know I’m with Paige!’ She said, ‘Eric, when I saw that skinny body of yours I just knew it needed a hug!’ Good Lord!” Eric exclaimed, shaking his head, his jaw protruding prow-like ahead of him as he steered the car. “I said to God, you know, just basically, ‘What do You want me to do here? You’re giving me these two different girls and You’re tearing me in half!” He shook his head again. “And that Emily has got such a cute face on her!”
