Fell of Dark

by Patrick Downes

  “What’s wrong?” I said.

  “Stupid algebra,” she said. “Drives me nuts.”

  “Let me see.”

  “What?”

  “Let me see,” I told her. “I take all these enrichment classes since nobody knows what to do with me. I take advanced math.”

  “All this time with you,” she said, “and I never knew you were a little prodigy. I mean, I knew you were crazy, and you have a big vocabulary for your age, and you’re strong, but we never talked about school.”

  “I keep it secret.”

  “Uh-huh,” she said. “Well, here it is.”

  I took her homework. “We can do this one of two ways,” I said. “I can give you the answers, or you can do it with me to understand.”

  Janet laughed: “I’ll do it with you, handsome.”

  I nearly choked. At this exact moment, I got confused and thought she might be you. I was confused a long time.

  “You would be my wife if we were grown up.” That’s what I said, two years later.

  “I don’t know, Erik. You’re scary.” That’s how Janet Gill answered.

  I was eleven, and she didn’t come as often as she used to. She split her time between high school and ballet. Now she dances for one of the famous companies—ABT, I think—but then she still took outside lessons. I hardly needed the sitting, since I’d gotten tall and strong for my age.

  “Maybe you’re already my wife,” I said. “Husbands and wives help each other survive. They hold each other in their hearts. I’ve given this a lot of thought, Janet.”

  Janet laughed. “You can’t be my husband, Erik.” She laid her head on her arm and stared up at me, dreamy and smiling. “Even though I can’t think of anyone better for the job,” she said, “we’re a lot too young for that kind of talk.” Then she kissed me. She lifted her head and kissed my cheek. “I wish the guys I’m around all day had your depth. They don’t.”

  I didn’t move a muscle. She’d just broken my heart and taught me a lesson. Everything inside me, everything solid, organs and bones, turned to water. I sloshed and slooshed. I’d made a mistake. You, my true love, would never deny me.

  “Who are you?” Janet said. “What are you?” She put her hand on my shoulder. “You’re a strange one. A superboy. You’ll be a superhero. Everyone will wonder about you. You’ll be loved and hated. Your enemies will want to destroy the world and kidnap me. I’ll say, I knew him when his muscles were small and he was half my size. I’ll tell people, He did my homework for me at nine, and one day I kissed him.” She pulled me closer by the shoulder and kissed my cheek again. She kissed my ear. Then she whispered: “Are you ready?”

  I nodded.

  “I will never babysit for you after this, and we might never see each other again.”

  “I know,” I said.

  “Then we both know.”

  Her lips trembled, and I wondered if she had ever kissed anyone before. When would she have time between high school and rehearsal?

  The dry, shaking kiss came. She bit my lip. For a long second, she wouldn’t let go.

  No magic or miracle other than this. An older girl kissed a younger boy, a boy much older than she’d ever be.

  When my mother returned home, she sensed something had changed. Her eyes switched from Janet to me and back again. “Something happen?”

  “Mrs. Lynch,” she said, “I told Erik first, but I can’t come here anymore. I don’t think he needs me, and I dance too much. I don’t have the time.”

  “Oh.” My mother caught my eye. “I guess I wish you’d spoken to me first, Janet, but it’s really Erik you have to care for. I understand your decision. We’ll miss you. Erik especially. We’ll keep track when you’re famous.”

  “That would be nice, Mrs. Lynch. Thank you.” Janet put her hand on my shoulder and turned me toward her. “Give me a hug.” For what seemed like a century, I watched her face and her never-ending neck. She held me and whispered into my ear. “Maybe, Erik, maybe one day, real love.”

  “Well, here,” my mother said and handed Janet her last pay. They hugged, and Janet left.

  My mother closed the door after her. “Are you sure nothing happened, Erik? That seemed very awkward. I felt like I interrupted you two.”

  “What could you have interrupted, Mama? She was my minder.”

  “Well, what did she whisper?”

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “She whispered something, Erik.”

  “Nothing important. Just good-bye.”

  “And your lip?”

  I touched my mouth.

  For the first time, I lied to my mother. I betrayed my mother, and for another little while, a month or more, I kept silent.

  Wife

  SOMETIME IN THE FUTURE, when I’m older, I will know you, my true love, at first sight. People won’t believe me. They’ll call me crazy or, worse, stupid. You’ll look at me right away as if you own me. You’ll look at me with some mixture of love, kindness, gentleness, and whatever else a woman has in her eyes when she looks at her true love. Then we’ll decide to take a walk together, and on the walk, you’ll say, “I can’t believe I found you,” and I’ll say, “Who am I?”

  “My husband,” you’ll say.

  “And who are you?” I’ll say.

  “Your wife,” you’ll say.

  “There it is,” I’ll say.

  We’ll kiss. We’ll kiss. I’ll pick you up in my arms, right there, on the street and walk with you, kissing you, until we pass by a couple of kids who’ll start laughing at us, and then I’ll put you down, and we’ll hold hands, walk for a time in silence, until I say, “We have to find our home.”

  I’ve never wanted a girlfriend. I’ve never wanted to go on dates. I’ve only wanted a wife.

  That’s right. But for now, you are you, only you, all you, undiscovered.

  Food

  4:32 A.M. I’M SITTING at the dining table with a bowl of Hearty Oats cereal flooded in my mother’s half-and-half. I can see her asleep in the armchair, her neck craned. She can’t possibly be comfortable, but she sleeps. I eat my cereal. It’s good. I like raisin bran more, oatmeal even more, soft-boiled eggs a little more, which come in behind scrambled, and scrambled a mile from over easy, which can’t hold a candle to a ham sandwich on wheat with mustard and mayo, itself in the shadow of a salami sandwich on anything, with anything, and the salami may only wish it were sardines, the sardines wanting to be liverwurst and onions on rye with spicy mustard, and the liverwurst dying of longing to be a bowl of chocolate pudding, the chocolate pudding ecstatic to be anything like my mother’s meat loaf, but even my mother’s meat loaf would trade its onions to be a slab of poached salmon, a tuna sandwich, or pickled herring in wine, which finds itself narrowly beaten by mussels or clams. If I’m not a seal, I’m an otter.

  I do like a skinny piece of skirt steak with pepper, mashed sweet potatoes, and baby peas. I like English muffins with butter. Peanut butter, but leave off the jelly. Bananas have to be green, plums hard, and peaches soft. I can eat my weight in blueberries. Strawberries are gold. Anchovy pizza, yes. Vinegar, yes. Lettuces, yes. Spinach and kale, no. Arugula, yes, since it’s peppery. I don’t like candy, but I like chocolate chip cookies. Ice cream, chocolate ice cream, oh yes, and chocolate malts make me very happy. Pumpkin pie, though, is my favorite dessert. I like to drink milk almost exclusively. Why drink anything else? Seriously, with the exception of apple juice, can you think of a reason to drink anything else?

  Alone

  NOTHING RUINS SILENCE QUICKER than the voice of another person. I hear a voice, and I have to listen, even for a second, if only to decide whether or not it’s worth listening to. Why? We’re hardwired to listen for each other’s call.

  For the first time in I don’t know how long, I walked with Nick, Holly, Jerome, and Martin after school. I don’t
know how it happened, but somehow I ended up walking with them, or they ended up walking with me.

  “Erik.” Jerome, the athlete, punched me in the shoulder, and my whole arm went numb. I almost cried out, almost hit him, almost cursed, but I held it all back and started laughing.

  “Wait,” Holly said, “get him a piece of paper and pen so he can write ouch.”

  Martin laughed. “Or, You son of a bitch, I’m going to kill you.”

  Nick slid his arm around my shoulder. “Erik, my brother, what’s going on?”

  “Interpretive dance?” Holly again.

  All of us laughed, and Jerome said, “At least he’s a good sport.”

  Then tall Martin put his hand on my head. My head like an acorn in the hand of a grizzly. “How can you say no?” he said.

  “Come sit with us,” Nick said. “We’re going for French fries and shakes. You can sit there smiling like a chimp, not a word, if you want.”

  The five of us, the quintuplet, a word I love, though I like quincunx more, stood in the middle of the sidewalk, the four of them looking at me, and me looking back at the four of them.

  “Please, Erik,” Holly said. “This once, and we’ll leave you alone.”

  I should have said yes. I should have gone. Maybe if I had, I would’ve gotten them back. Other than you, who will I have when the story of my life comes to an end?

  Mercy

  I WALKED BY MY mother this morning on my way to the kitchen. She was asleep in her armchair. It was later than she ever sleeps. I poured her a glass of orange juice, and I brought it to her.

  I tapped her shoulder. Nothing. I never touch her while she sleeps, since I never want to wake her up. But I touched her again, and she jerked awake.

  “What?” she said. “Everything okay?” Her eyes were wild and unfocused. “Erik, are you all right?”

  I nodded and pointed to the clock. Almost seven thirty.

  “I’m sick,” she said. She took the juice and drank a little. “Thank you, sweetheart. I have to call in.”

  I got the phone from the sofa table.

  “No, no,” she said. “I’ll use the one in my bedroom.”

  I noticed immediately, but it wasn’t until my mother got to the door of the bedroom, holding her blanket around herself, clutching it under her chin, that she looked back at me and heard herself again in her own ear.

  My bedroom, she’d said. My bedroom.

  Overnight, she lost something of my father, the tightness of his grip loosened up, and she was saved.

  Do you think my touch made a difference? If I had put my hand on her years ago, while she dreamed of my father, or between her dreams, would she have healed sooner? Did I close up the hole in my mother’s heart?

  Question

  HOW LONG SHOULD A miracle last?

  I hear people talk about the miracle of nature, and I know what they mean. Nature has always been and always will be, as far as my tiny brain can understand, miraculous. Except, nature won’t last because the world won’t. It’s a known fact our sun will explode. When our sun explodes, it will take away from the universe everything I have ever known or could imagine, and everything behind and ahead of me. I don’t know how this figures in with God.

  A miracle will last as long as a god or God allows it. A minute or an hour or centuries. A miracle might last as long as there’s a world and nature where it can live. Or it will end when the world ends.

  Maybe, though, maybe you and I will be a supermiracle. How can we know we won’t go past the end of the world, past time, even past God?

  Who says we won’t?

  Red

  I’M BLEEDING. I JUST noticed. It’s slow. An oozing, not even a trickle. From a hundred little holes in my forehead. The blood won’t stop.

  What would you say about this? What could you say?

  How did this happen? It’s like finding a bruise on your arm and having no idea how it got there. I have nowhere to go for answers.

  A miracle, right? A fresh miracle.

  I’m used to my unknowing. I don’t even know when to be afraid. I mean, is there anything more frightening about blood than an immortal flower or a water stain or my mother’s healing?

  Easter week.

  Concern

  MY HEAD STARTED BLEEDING first. Now blood seeps from holes in my wrists. And just like that, a slow bleeding to death.

  I wear a hat, long sleeves, and fingerless gloves, even inside, like it’s some kind of phase. How long can I get away with it? Spring has sprung.

  The End of the Beginning

  EASTER SUNDAY, AND WHILE some kids hunt for eggs, I bleed.

  My blood smells dark. Like what? Like a pine.

  Evergreen sap.

  Invisible thorns prick my head so the blood drips down through my lashes and into my eyes. The blood glues and tangles up my hair.

  My punctured wrists weep blood. I bleed from holes in my feet.

  All this blood makes me think I’ll die young.

  This morning, when I woke up, my pillow was sticky with blood. I decided I had to talk with my mother. I wanted her to wrap my hands in bandages, to wrap my feet and my head.

  I had to break my silence. The sound of my voice made her cry, but I had to get her to listen.

  “Erik,” she said, “you’re scaring me. What are you talking about?”

  “Close your eyes,” I said.

  “Oh, Erik,” she protested, but she closed her eyes. “Really, you’re scaring me. I just want to hear your voice.”

  “Please,” I said. “Wait.”

  I took off my hat and gloves, my socks, my long-sleeve T-shirt.

  “Okay,” I said. “You can look.”

  My mother opened her eyes. For a moment, she said nothing, and I knew she must have felt shocked into silence.

  I held out my hands, and she took them in hers.

  Another moment, and then she said, “What am I supposed to be looking for, honey?”

  “What do you mean?” I said.

  “You have me confused.”

  “Don’t you see the blood? It’s all over me.”

  My mother turned my hands over, then back again. She shook her head.

  I was suddenly afraid. The wounds were bleeding. Why couldn’t my mother see this?

  “Erik?”

  “Hm?” I took my hands back. I laughed. “Nothing. I’m awake.”

  “Is it a headache?”

  “No, I’m fine. Nightmare. I thought I was bleeding. I’m sorry.”

  “You scared me, you know?” She kissed my forehead. I saw my blood smeared on her lips. “Let me get you breakfast. We’ll talk all morning.”

  My invisible wounds. I have no answer, no proof I bleed. But I bleed. Sure as I love my mother and you, I bleed.

  THORN

  VOICES IN MY HEAD. Growls and grunts and whining saws.

  A woman got on the train and pushed right past me. She sat on the floor. Tote bags between her legs. The crush of people, so I turned a little to see her. No one wanted to stand too close. She had sunglasses on, huge ones that fit over regular glasses. She looked old, but I wasn’t sure. She didn’t have any teeth. And her hair was dyed an unnatural shade of red or something closer to orange. I thought I saw gray underneath. I don’t know. She might have been old and suffered a lot. Or she might have been young and suffered her whole life.

  She talked to herself. Her hands flew around like frightened birds. Something moved inside of her. Spirits.

  Homeless? Who knows?

  There she was, on the terrible floor. High socks held up with rubber bands, and her skirt falling down her legs. She didn’t care, and I didn’t look away. I don’t know why. What does a crazy woman wear under her skirt?

  Then I noticed something. Her legs. Her legs were young. I expected wrinkles or s
pots or veins. And her smooth hands, long elf fingers, knuckles like little skulls.

  She was skinny, skinny. When did she last eat? Days or weeks or years? But she had perfect legs and perfect hands.

  The train slowed down.

  The woman dumped an ancient brown coat and a gold scarf out of a bag right onto the floor. She wrapped the scarf around her head and tied it at the back of her neck. She pushed herself up to her feet, pulled on her coat, lost her balance. She grabbed my shoulder. Her eyes. Black and pink in her sunglasses. Her eyes, or not her eyes exactly, her gaze was a needle. A needle pushed straight through to the back of my skull.

  “Get it out of my head,” she said. “You look like a nice boy. Get it all out of my head.”

  I touched her. I held her up. “It’ll be better now,” I said. What else could I say?

  The train stopped. She picked up her bags, slid out, and disappeared into the crowd.

  It all might have been a dream. Or did it happen? I can’t always tell the difference.

  Dreams, memories, what does it matter?

  I have a memory from when I was very young. How long out of my mother?

  I remember a man lifting me over his head one-handed, two suns shining out of his dark glasses. His mouth filled up with a golden light. This must have been my father.

  I remember crawling into an oven and sitting under the coils.

  I remember a dark alley and the black points of buildings stabbing the sky.

  And I remember a windy day. I was walking next to my mother down on the avenue. The wind lifted me off my feet and sent me flying. My mother couldn’t hold on. She screamed. A Doberman pinscher snatched me out of the air and saved me. It dropped me at my mother’s feet.

  Is even one of these memories true? Or did I make them all up?

  They feel true to me.