Bells Above Greens

by David Xavier

  “His life?”

  “Sure. He now has the courage to approach strangers with his ideas. Maybe I revealed his calling.”

  “Such a high opinion of your powers.”

  “Well,” I shrugged. “Maybe I just changed his day.”

  I put the books in the basket on her bicycle. “For you.”

  “But I’m not a reader,” she said. “I’ll never get around to them.”

  “Sure you will. You might love them. It might change your life too.”

  “I didn’t know you loved books so much.”

  “There’s a lot of information out there. We’re lucky people wrote it down. It’s comforting to know that someone somewhere has faced all the problems that we have today and they wrote down the answers just for us to read about.”

  “There can’t be anything in these old books that relates to modern society. Things change.”

  “Not as much as you’d think.”

  I had to roll our bicycles alongside me after that. Liv caught and dirtied the hem of her skirt in the bike chain, and yanked at it in frustration until it tore away. She wasn’t up for riding through the market, saying she would rather walk because life is missed when you go rolling past it. There isn’t enough time to be spent goofing around on bicycles.

  We spent the evening watching the sunset from the patio of a café. Liv spent the time talking about the world as she saw it. How the world is full of people who have no morals. How young men go to war without a single thought to the people on the other end of their rifles. How she was becoming less and less confident in religion and the power it has invested in just a handful of lofty bishops in Rome.

  I listened and had seven cappuccinos. She drank five Irish coffees.

  “I’m talking too much.”

  “It’s the drink.”

  “The what?”

  “The Irish coffee. It’s spiked.”

  She pushed the empty cup away, looking at it as though it were poison, and put her hands to her head. “I feel tipsy. I thought it was too much caffeine. I was trying to keep up with you. I didn’t want to seem dull.”

  I pushed the cups away. “You had too much.”

  “I didn’t know there was alcohol in it. I thought it was a special flavoring. It tastes so good. You might have told me. Why did you have so many coffees?”

  Because I didn’t like what I was hearing from you and yet I couldn’t help but to hear more. “I don’t know.”

  “The world isn’t fair. Your friend, Myles. It’s not fair to him. If he doesn’t like it then he should change and do what’s right. He should be reasonable.”

  “I thought you liked Myles.”

  “I do. He’s perfectly charming, but he’s a rascal and he’s a fraud and he feeds off of those who are good to him. It’s because he is the way he is that I like him. I like the bad things in life.”

  “What things?” I said.

  She shook her head back and forth in disgust. “I’d rather hear about you.”

  “What about me?”

  “You haven’t told me a thing about you. All I know is that you like sports. I just learned that you like books. How simple is that to tell someone? You’re always – always hiding.”

  The spiked coffees had brought about the hiccups in her. She was suddenly in a foul mood and it pulled her features downward - all those feminine features that I had so many hopes for were now drowning in a spitefulness that I found somewhat relieving.

  “I go to school here and yet I have so many disillusions about it,” she said. “Everyone here is so devout on the surface and so different underneath. Every Friday is Lent around here and every kiss has to be pure. Life is better without rules.”

  “It doesn’t seem real, does it?”

  “And Saints. Why so many Saints? Why do you pray to a Saint when you can go to God directly? And why confess to a priest when you can go to God? Prayer doesn’t seem necessary anyway. If God can see into us, can hear us, then why do we spend time praying? A Novena is the same as wishing upon a star.”

  I walked her through the shadowed campus lawns to her dorm. The drinks affected her greatly and she spoke without a filter.

  “How many girls have you been with?” she asked me.

  “I’ve been on dates before.”

  “But how many have you been with?”

  “None.”

  “That isn’t real. It isn’t real. There are no rules about that sort of thing. If you want to then you should be with girls and not feel guilty about it.”

  “There are rules.”

  “And you’ve followed them?”

  “Yes.”

  “Without fail? Without even the slightest question about them?”

  “I question them.”

  “Rules are meant to be broken. Wouldn’t it be easier to follow most of them, but only try to follow some of them? If you make a mistake then it would still be all right.”

  “Yes, that would be easier.”

  “You can still be a good Catholic and have fun. You can drink too much and swear and skip a mass to sleep in and still be good.”

  “I suppose.”

  “Then why are you so uptight? God knows we are human. He expects us to make mistakes, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then relax and open up.” She kissed me then, standing on her toes and wrapping her arms around my neck. She took her time and I felt the hairs on my neck rise.

  “We can still be good in life and have time to enjoy it,” she said.

  She looked at me in the failing light, her eyes moving all around my face. She made a face of sudden discovery, of sudden distaste in what she saw.

  “Why do we have to go through life with a constant reminder of what not to do?”

  “I don’t know.” I do it because Peter was good and he’s watching me now. I know there’s a goodness out there that we are supposed to follow. I know it is there, I feel it in those around me. I follow it blindly.

  “You don’t know anything tonight,” she said. “You’re all wrapped up in yourself and you don’t see that life is right here in front of you.”

  “I want to have fun. What are you talking about? I kissed you, didn’t I?”

  “No. I kissed you. And I hardly felt it.”

  “What do you want me to do? Forget about everything and run through green fields of happiness with you?”

  “Yes!” She almost screamed it at me. She turned and walked up the steps to the dorm. When she turned, her eyes were wet. “I want to like you, Sam. I want to love you, but you make it so hard to know you.”

  I held my arms up. “What did I do? I didn’t do anything.”

  She touched her finger under the lip of her eyelid several times, careful not to smear her makeup. “Nothing. It’s nothing. I had too much. I’ll feel better tomorrow.”

  And with that she let the door fall shut behind her and walked down the lighted hallway trying to catch her ever-changing shadow without looking back. I watched her room window square-out with light and I caught her silhouette only twice as she moved about behind the curtain.

  What do women know about men? Only what we tell them and only what others gossip. Our words are not carefully chosen and few of them are edited or thrown out, but still it is the bare minimum. We speak in half-sentences, our stories greatly omitted of information. What is important to them does not cross our minds as necessary. There lies the problem. It takes a special understanding of this on a case-by-case basis, and women choose how many grunts they need to hear before putting all their trust in one man.

  I found myself standing under the darkness of the tree behind the dorms. A torturous sense of duty made me wait outside and see if Liv would come out again. If I was gone when she did then that might present itself as an obstacle to hurdle with her later on.

  A square of yellow windowlight, speckled by buds, spoiled my hiding spot then. I looked up and saw Elle moving about her room. She looked like she was trying to keep herself busy, r
earranging her notes on the table, folding clothes, standing in the room with her arms crossed for periods of time and then starting all over again.

  I called her name just loud enough to carry into her open window. She glanced at the sound and approached, holding her arms to her chest. She was in a nightgown.

  I called her name again.

  “Sam, is that you?”

  I held my eyes to the ground, seeing only her shape in the corner. “It’s me.”

  She disappeared and came back to the window after a moment, her hands busy with the tie-strings of a robe. “I should be more careful with my windows.”

  She said it in a way that pointed the finger at her. She was quick to include me in her night, despite her lack of decent wear and my strange appearance outside her room. Her comfort with it made me drop any feelings of accidental trespassing.

  “I was just passing by and I saw you,” I said. “I mean I didn’t see anything. I just saw that it was you.”

  “What are you doing out there in the dark?”

  “Security,” I said with a grin she probably didn’t see, but might have heard. “Making sure no peeping-Tom’s come by. You make it too easy for them.”

  “Now I know.”

  “Well, I scared them all away. You’re safe for now.” I pressed my heroic knuckles into my hips. “You looked busy.”

  “I thought you didn’t see anything.”

  “I lied. It’s a security guard’s job to see everything.”

  She combed her hand upward against her temple and held it there, a gesture of concern. “I’m just worried, that’s all. I don’t know what to do.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  She stuck her head out and looked left and right at the other windows. The lights were beginning to go out for the night.

  “Come up here.” She kept her voice low.

  “A gracious invitation,” I said. “What kind of a fella do you think I am? Sneaking into girl’s rooms at night.”

  “Not in here,” she said. “Climb the tree.”

  I was already reaching for the lowest branch when she said it. I pulled myself up and crawled across the sturdy curve of the branch that led to her window.

  “Can you even see me in here?” I asked from behind the screen of buds. I pushed away the branches as a chimpanzee would and sat across from her, balancing myself in a fork to let my legs dangle. “What’s wrong?”

  She leaned against her window and held the top of her robe closed with her fist. “It’s my brother.”

  “Your brother?”

  “Yes, he’s been so awful lately and he won’t tell me what’s wrong. I don’t know if I should step into his business or let him sort things out himself.”

  “I thought you didn’t have any siblings.”

  “Yes. I have a younger brother.”

  “I asked you if you had a sister.”

  “And I told you I didn’t.”

  Another light went out down the way and Elle’s was the last one left. I lowered my voice.

  “What’s the trouble? Is he older or younger?”

  “He’s my younger brother. He’s a student here. Myles.”

  I wobbled for stability and a few buds shook loose from the branches. “Myles is your brother?”

  “Yes,” she said, and leaned back from her hips. “Do you know him?”

  “A little. Yes, I know him. He’s in the fraternity house. Hangs around a drunkard named Jude Miller. I met him one night in the rain. I’ve seen him around. He was at the dance last semester.”

  “How did he look?”

  “He seemed fine.” I didn’t want to tell her about the car trunk and Pat Carragher. I wondered if she knew.

  “He hides his troubles so well. I never know if he’s happy or sad or what. But it’s easy to see now that he’s not doing so well. I just don’t know what to do about him.”

  “Myles will be fine,” I said. “He’s just a little mixed up about what he wants. Everybody goes through that. But he’s a smart kid.”

  “That’s what I tell myself but he’s such a child sometimes. I worry about him.”

  “What’s he done?”

  “He goes off on these tirades. These sulky, angry tirades. He worries too much about what other people think of him and he drinks too much. He says he doesn’t fit in here and he’s going to quit school altogether and go home. Mom and dad would be disappointed in me if I let that happen.”

  “Have you seen him lately?”

  “I saw him sitting alone near the lake this week. I had to skip a class because he was in such a bad mood and I didn’t want to leave him alone. I think he’s failing out. I don’t know if he even goes to his classes anymore.”

  “I’ll watch over him,” I said.

  “Will you?” Her eyes opened with such gratefulness. “Will you please?”

  “Of course. It’s the least I can do. You have your hands full with enough right now, what with the Tribune and all. Don’t worry about it.”

  “Will you pray with me now?”

  “Sure.”

  The she closed her eyes and made the sign of the cross. Before she spoke, I reached into my pocket. “I still have the rosary you gave me.”

  She led the prayer. I fumbled my way through it, saying the words, trying to speak with conviction.

  “I’ll stop by tomorrow and talk to him.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Myles’s room was empty. His bed sheets were pulled up at the edges and I saw him there for a moment wrapped up in them like a lost boy fighting for warmth. There were dishes scattered about the room and empty bottles in the corner, crumbs on the floor. His books were open where they lay tossed. More than one temper tantrum had taken place here.

  The only place that was orderly was his desk, free of any distractions, a notebook and pencil placed squarely in the center, his camera just above it, and a dozen rolls of film scattered about. I opened the cover and found pages of careful handwriting, loopy letters you might see in a girl’s diary. I was afraid to read the words, afraid I might find a note that would send me to every corner of the campus to search for him and find him too late.

  Instead, what he had written were poems. Not the dramatic tales of gloomy hearts and lost ways, but the beautiful poetry of a sensitive boy who had found an outlet to a world where things were right. A place where he fit in, even it was just on paper, where a thoughtful soul placed the hopes he had for the future.

  There were pages after pages of it. Soft, profound words, sometimes a simple verse taking up four lines on a single page, and sometimes a story put into tender stanza taking up several pages. He wrote with the innocence of a young boy who had not discovered cruelty in the world yet.

  I waited outside for Myles until noon. When he did not show up I went to join Emery on the newly warmed rooftops.

  Emery was sitting barefooted on the peak of a housetop, leaning over some sort of gadget. He looked up and pressed a finger to his glasses when I came up the ladder.

  “I was about to send the search party,” he said.

  I pointed to the rigging of metal bars, a dog’s muzzle or a catcher’s mask, that he was tying to the bottom of one of his shoes. “What’s that?”

  “This,” he said, holding it up with an inventor’s smile. “This is the future.”

  I sat among the paper-wrapped bricks of new shingles with my back to him. “This should work out well.”

  “Just working out the kinks,” Emery said. “You know how a sewing machine has a foot stomper? Or a piano has pedals? This here is the same principle. The next phase in roofing. You see this little piece has the bounce and the nails go in like this. You put it on your shoes and then all you got to do is stamp your nails into place.”

  “Oh good. For a moment I thought it was going to be something ridiculous.”

  I felt a carefully tossed nail land on the back of my neck and slip down my shirt collar.

  “Dad doesn’t want to buy a nail gun yet. I don’t either. T
oo costly. This here is the poorman’s nail gun.”

  “Patent it and make a fortune,” I said, picking up a hammer.

  Emery straightened his back and popped away the knots of knuckles that gripped his neck. “I’ve been working on it all morning.”

  “Time well spent.”

  He lowered the contraption, that bear’s trap of a roofing device. “What crawled up inside you today?”

  “Huh? Oh, nothing, I guess. Sorry.”

  “Everything alright with school?”

  “I think so,” I said. “I’m thinking about changing majors again.”

  “Oh, Lord. Stick it out or you’ll never finish.”

  I tapped the hammer thoughtfully on the shingles between my knees. “Does Claire have any brothers?”

  “Yeah. The talkative little weasel I had to share a room with. Remember?”

  “Does Claire talk about him a lot?”

  “Sure. I mean as much as anything else. The way any big sister talks about her baby brother, I guess.”

  “Why do girls always have such an easy time figuring out what they want to do? Boys haven’t got a clue.”

  He made a noise of equal bafflement to match mine and we spent a moment free of words, just simple thoughts that the warm spring air breezed away as quickly as they appeared in our heads.

  “Well this will cheer you up. You’re the new lead on South Bend. Dad’s pulling back his hours for a semi-retirement. I’m taking on Elkhart for now.”

  I turned and faced him. “I’m not done with school yet. Neither are you.”

  He shrugged and bent forward into his twisted mechanism again, forcing an ammo clip of nails into the side of it.

  “I don’t know if I’ll finish. This is a pretty good deal I have here. I’m four years into a degree I’ll never use and I’ll be married next year.”

  “I’m four years into a degree I haven’t started yet,” I said.

  “We’ll keep your hours flexible. You can work when you have the time. Dad will stay on the paperwork and the phone calls. You won’t have to worry about that side of things. He just can’t walk the rooftops anymore.”

  I looked out to the houses, the hundreds of shingles that lay before me, a never-ending schedule of good work in my future. An honest profession. Why did it look so different than what those words stood for?