On My Honor

by Marion Dane Bauer

  "The Zabrinskys want to know where you saw Tony last," his father said when he had arrived at his side.

  Joel had a sudden image of Tony laughing, the river water streaming from his dark hair. "On the road," he said. "On the road to Starved Rock."

  "But where on the road?" Mr. Zabrinsky asked. "How far had you boys gone before you turned back?" Mr. Zabrinsky was a big man, with huge, rather hairy hands. He sounded impatient.

  "Oh," Joel said, scuffing the head off of a dandelion with the toe of his sneaker, "about as far as the bridge over the river, I guess."

  "The bridge over the river!" Mrs. Zabrinsky repeated with a small gasp.

  Mr. Zabrinsky leaned toward Joel. "But he was on his way to Starved Rock. Right?"

  "Right," Joel mumbled, wishing, again, that he had remembered the first time to tell the story he had originally planned.

  "Besides," Mrs. Zabrinsky said, "Tony can't swim. He'd know better than to go near the river." She seemed to be trying to reassure herself.

  "He can't swim?" Joel asked, squinting up at her. "Really?"

  She smiled, a crooked half smile that Joel had seen a million times. "You must know that, Joel. You've gone to the pool with him ... when he's willing to go."

  Joel shrugged, tried to look away. "Well, he mostly played on the slide—or on the ropes, you know?—but he never told me he couldn't swim."

  Mrs. Zabrinsky touched Joel's arm, and without thinking he jerked away. His skin felt clammy, and he was sure the stink of the river rose from him like a vapor.

  "Maybe I shouldn't have told you," she said. "Maybe he wouldn't want you to know. He tried swimming lessons once, but he was always afraid of the water."

  Tony? Afraid? Joel pushed the thought away.

  "Is that all?" he asked, stuffing his hands into his pockets.

  "Yes," his father said. "I guess that's all." And as Joel walked away, trying to look casual, trying to remember how his feet used to move when he wasn't thinking about them, his father added to the Zabrinskys, "Let's call the park ranger. If he doesn't know anything, then we should probably drive out there, take a look for ourselves."

  "I suppose I shouldn't worry," Mrs. Zabrinsky replied, "but you know what Tony's like. I guess I worry more about him than all the rest of the kids rolled up together."

  Joel stepped through the front door into the cool darkness of the hall. Why hadn't Tony thought about his mother, about the way she worried, before he had decided to go for a swim?

  Joel stood in the shower, the water streaming over his skin. He had soaped three times, his hair, everything, and rinsed and soaped again. The water was beginning to grow cool, so he would have to get out soon. His mother would be cross with him for using all the hot water.

  He turned off the shower, toweled dry. As he rubbed his skin, the smell rose in his nostrils again, the dead-fish smell of the river.

  He considered getting back into the shower, but he didn't. It wouldn't help. He knew that.

  He pulled on his pajama bottoms and walked through the dark hall to his bedroom. Bobby was in bed, probably already asleep. Lights were on downstairs, and the murmur of his parents' voices floated up the stairwell. They were talking about Tony, of course. What else?

  He didn't turn on a light in his room. He simply headed for the dark shape of his bed and lay down on top of the spread, arranging his arms and legs gingerly, as if they pained him.

  After a while he heard light footsteps on the stairs, and then his mother came into his room. She sat down next to him on the bed, so close that he knew she had to be pretending not to be offended by the smell.

  "Joel," she said, "are you sure you've told us everything you know?"

  "About what?" he demanded roughly, as if he didn't understand what she meant, wishing it were possible not to understand.

  "About Tony, about what you boys did today."

  For an instant he thought about telling her. It would have been such a relief to let the words spill out, to let the choking tears come. But then he thought about having to tell the Zabrinskys, too, and the police, and about the twisted disappointment in his father's face, and he couldn't. He simply couldn't. He flopped over onto his stomach, muffling his response with the pillow.

  "I already told you.... I got tired and came home. I don't know what Tony did."

  "Did you boys have a fight?" she asked gently.

  Joel remembered being mad at Tony, but he couldn't remember, now, why he'd been mad. Especially he remembered saying, "You're the one who's scared."

  "No," he said. "We didn't have a fight."

  His mother continued to sit there, as though she expected him to say more, and after a while Joel began to hold his tongue tightly between his teeth. It was the only way he knew to hang on to the words that threatened to come tumbling out of his mouth. I know where Tony is, he wanted to say. I can tell you exactly where to begin looking.

  Finally his mother leaned over and kissed the back of his head, then got up to go. After she had left the room, Joel unlocked his jaws, relishing the burning pain in his tongue.

  A few minutes later he heard his father's footsteps on the stairs, heard him stop just outside his room. He waited there for a long time, but Joel pretended to be asleep, lying perfectly still and concentrating on keeping his breathing steady and slow. Finally his father went away, too.

  Joel buried his face in his pillow, pressing his nose and mouth into the suffocating darkness. It would have been better if he and Tony had tied themselves together and climbed the bluffs. At least he wouldn't have been left behind.

  Chapter Eleven

  JOEL LAY WAITING. HE STARED INTO THE darkness until his eyes ached, straining to see, to hear, though he didn't know what he was waiting for.

  When he heard a sound at last, the soft swish of automobile tires on pavement, the hollow thud of doors closing, muted voices, he stood and moved quickly to his window.

  A car had stopped in front of the Zabrinskys' house, and two men were walking up to their front door.

  Joel gasped. Police! The men were police officers! The teenage boy must have reported him after all!

  He tried to pull his jeans on over his pajamas, but his foot got tangled in the fabric. He kicked the jeans out of his way and hurtled down the stairs. He had to explain! If the police found out from Mr. and Mrs. Zabrinsky about the lie he had told...

  The front door was locked, and he lost precious seconds fiddling with it, jerking the lock this way and that until the door finally sprang toward him and he pushed the screen door out of his way. But at the edge of the porch, he stopped, caught his balance on the top step.

  Across the street, Mr. Zabrinsky stood silhouetted in his front doorway, talking to the officers. Behind him, Tony's mother moved through the lighted hall toward the front door and the cluster of men. Joel's stomach twisted. He was too late.

  He turned to go back inside, but the door opened and his father stepped onto the porch, buttoning a short-sleeved shirt. Joel looked to see if his mother was coming, too, but she wasn't. She must already have gone to sleep.

  "Come on, son," his father said. "Let's see if there's anything we can do."

  No! Joel wanted to whisper, to shout. I'm not going over there. Not a single sound came out of his mouth, though, and when his father put a hand on his shoulder, he seemed to lose all capacity to resist. He turned and walked with his father toward the Zabrinskys' house.

  "Here's the boy who was with Tony," Mr. Zabrinsky was saying as Joel and his father joined the officers on the porch. Mr. Zabrinsky spoke without inflection. All the life seemed to have been squeezed out of his voice.

  The two policemen pivoted simultaneously to face Joel, their eyes shadowed by the visors of their caps, their mouths set lines. One of them held a plastic bag from which he had drawn Tony's pale blue shirt. Joel stepped backward, but his father held an arm behind him. Joel couldn't tell if his father was protecting him or preventing him from running away.

  "What have you fou
nd?" his father asked.

  "The boy's clothes," the officer holding the shirt said. "By the river. His bike, too."

  Joel stole a glimpse at Tony's mother. She was swaying, her hands pressed against her face. Did she know the truth? Did she know he had been there, that he had seen it all? He couldn't tell.

  "Did you know Tony went down to the river, Joel?" Mr. Zabrinsky asked in the same lifeless voice he had used at first.

  "No," Joel said. "I didn't know anything. I got tired, like I told you. I..." They were all looking at him, the police officers, Tony's parents, his father. Staring. Again Joel started to back away, and again his father's arm prevented him from doing so. The slight pressure of the arm along his back made him want to strike out, to break away and run. If he could get away, he could hide someplace where those terrible eyes couldn't follow. Why had he come back from Starved Rock? He couldn't seem to remember.

  "Okay," he said. "Okay. Tony said he was going to go swimming. I tried to stop him. I told him the river was dangerous."

  "And did you see him go into the water?" one of the officers asked, stepping closer to Joel.

  The other one moved in closer, too, asking, "Were you there?"

  "No!" Joel cried. "No!"

  "Nobody's blaming you, son," the first officer said. "But the more you can tell your friend's parents"—he indicated the Zabrinskys with one hand as though directing Joel's attention to a picture or a statue in the doorway there—"the easier it will be. It's the not—knowing that's the worst."

  "Please," Mrs. Zabrinsky whispered. "If you know anything..."

  Mr. Zabrinsky leaned against the doorframe, one massive fist pressed tightly against his mouth, weeping silently.

  "Joel?" his father said. "You've got to tell us." And then he turned to the others and added, laying his arm heavily across Joel's shoulders, "Joel is an honorable boy. He'll tell you what he knows."

  Honorable! Joel staggered beneath the weight of his father's arm, then pulled away, teetering on the edge of the porch. The five faces bent toward him were like five pale moons, but it was his father's face that loomed the largest.

  He took a deep breath. "Tony wanted to climb the bluffs at Starved Rock, and I was scared to do it. So when he changed his mind, when he decided to go swimming instead ... I thought ... I thought..." He was shaking all over as he spoke. "I looked for him. When he went under, I tried to find him. But I couldn't.... He just ... he just ... disappeared."

  "Oh ... Joel!" The arm that had been holding him didn't reach out to touch him again. "Joel!" his father repeated.

  Mr. Zabrinsky moaned and stepped backward into the shadowy hall. Tony's mother stood perfectly still. She didn't look at her husband. She stared only at Joel, her face twisted and ugly.

  Everybody was looking at him, blaming him. He wanted to turn away, to run at last, but his feet refused to carry him in that direction. Instead, he stumbled toward his father, his hands raised and clenched into fists. "I hate you!" he cried, pounding at his father's chest. "It's all your fault. You never should have let me go!"

  His father said nothing, did nothing to shield himself from Joel's fists. He simply stood there, absorbing the force of the blows until Joel could bear it no longer. He turned and leaped off the porch and bolted across the street.

  But even as he slammed through the door and ran up the stairs to his room, he knew. It wasn't his father he hated. It wasn't his father at all.

  He was the one.... Tony had died because of him.

  Chapter Twelve

  JOEL LAY CURLED ON HIS SIDE, FACING HIS bedroom door. That's where his father would appear when he came to punish him. He would have to do it this time. He wouldn't have any choice.

  He would punish him for yelling at him ... for hitting him ... for daring Tony to swim out to the sandbar.

  Joel had known from the beginning that it was his fault. From the moment Tony had disappeared, he had understood. Running away hadn't changed a thing, and coming back hadn't changed anything either.

  Nothing could change what had happened ... ever.

  A light summer breeze fanned across the bed, rustled the leaves on the maple tree outside his window. It was the tree Joel and Tony had been building a tree house in. The sound of leaves, the touch of cool air on his skin, was good. It was good to be able to feel such things, but Tony couldn't. Tony couldn't feel anything anymore.

  Joel lifted his arm to his nose and sniffed. The smell was still there, so sharp that it made his eyes sting. He supposed it would be with him for the rest of his life.

  Why had he been dumb enough to dare Tony, anyway? He knew what Tony was like. If somebody had dared him to walk through fire, he would have done that, too.

  Joel pulled the pillow over his head, pushed it off again. His eyes were as dry and scratchy as sandpaper. He wished his father would come, get it over with.

  The front door opened and closed again. Joel could hear his father fiddling with the lock. Didn't he understand yet? Bad wasn't something that could be locked out. Bad was something that came from inside you when you didn't even know it was there.

  His father was moving up the stairs now, his footsteps heavy and slow, and he stopped outside Joel's door as he had earlier in the evening. Joel lay quietly, holding his muscles rigid, although he knew pretending to be asleep wouldn't work this time.

  His father came in. He pulled a chair away from Joel's desk, set it next to the bed, very close, and sat down. At first he didn't say anything, and Joel thought, He's going to sit there all night. That's his way to punish me. He's going to sit there so I can't run away, so I can't sleep, so I couldn't even cry if I wanted to.

  Joel tried to keep his breathing steady and slow the way he had done before, but he felt as though he had been running for a long time and had to gasp for air. His skin was too tight. He was going to explode.

  "I'm sorry," his father said finally.

  "Sorry?" Joel blurted, astonishment rolling him over onto his back. "Why sic you sorry?"

  His father didn't answer at first, and just when Joel was convinced he wasn't ever going to answer, he said, "I'm sorry I misjudged the situation. I'm sorry I gave you permission to go."

  Joel didn't respond.

  "And," his father added softly, "I'm sorry that I wasn't there to help you, that you had to be so frightened and so alone."

  "It was my fault," Joel said dully. "The whole thing was my fault."

  "Probably nobody could have found Tony in that water," his father replied, not understanding. "And if you had managed somehow, he might have pulled you under. He was bigger than you, heavier. He wouldn't have known what he was doing."

  Joel thought of the swirling water closing over his head, pouring into his lungs, and his skin rippled into gooseflesh. But then he thought of Tony, Tony taking dibs on his bike, Tony dancing a jig on the bridge, Tony pretending to be a prehistoric monster. "It should have been me," he said.

  Joel's father took hold of his arm, almost roughly. "Don't you say that," he said. "Don't you ever let me hear you say that."

  Joel looked his father full in the face. "It's my fault," he repeated. "If I hadn't gone down to the river, Tony would have stayed out of the water."

  "Maybe," his father said. "Maybe not. There's no way to know. You can't live your life by maybes"

  Joel's arm was beginning to hurt where his father gripped it, but that wasn't enough. Nothing his father said or did was enough. "Are you going to punish me?" he asked.

  His father sighed, was silent again for a moment, his hand gently smoothing away the earlier pressure. "Is that what you want?"

  "You said I was on my honor this morning. I wasn't supposed to go anywhere except the park."

  His father merely asked, "What would it teach you, son ... more punishment?"

  Since Joel had no answer for that, he said the only thing he could think of to say, said it harshly, as though it were an accusation. "Your hand is going to smell like it."

  "Like what?" His father raise
d his hand to his face.

  "Like the river. Don't you notice the stink?"

  His father sniffed his hand again, bent over to bring his nose close to Joel's skin, then straightened. "I don't know what you mean, Joel. I can't smell anything."

  "But I can smell it," Joel wailed. "It won't go away."

  His father didn't say anything.

  "Make it go away," Joel spoke in a whisper, as if they were discussing another person standing in the room, someone who could be forced to leave.

  His father smoothed the hair back from Joel's face. "I can't," he said, very quietly.

  The anger surged through Joel's veins. He wanted to push his father away, to pummel him again. What good was this man who couldn't protect him from bad things happening and wouldn't punish him to make things right? "You don't understand," he said through clenched teeth. "I dared Tony to swim out to the sandbar. I knew he couldn't swim all that well. I must have known. And I dared him."

  Joel expected ... he didn't know what he expected, actually. Maybe he expected the world to fall in. At the very least he expected his father to rise up in rage. Instead there followed only another silence, the kind that made him want to scream. He held himself carefully rigid, though, and didn't move, only waited.

  "It's going to be a hard thing to live with, for both of us," his father said at last. "But there is nothing else to be done."

  Joel sat up. He was shouting now. 'What are you talking about ... we? You didn't do anything. You didn't even know you shouldn't have let me go!"

  "But we all made choices today, Joel. You, me, Tony. Tony's the only one who doesn't have to live with his choice."

  For a moment Joel could only stare, uncomprehending, at this man who wouldn't ... couldn't take away his pain. Tony was free, while he, he and his father, would have to live with this terrible day forever. And though Joel clenched his jaw and squeezed his eyes shut, it was no use. He began to sob.

  "Ah," his father said, as if relieved, and he leaned forward, drawing Joel onto his lap. Joel felt awkward, oversized. Surely there was no longer room for him here. But his father wrapped his arms around him tightly, and Joel's cheek settled into the hollow between his chest and shoulder. The racking sobs flowed out of him like water.