The man had pale skin, neatly trimmed light brown hair, luminous aquamarine eyes; cherubic would be an apt description. His hands cupped a small stuffed animal he held next to his cheek, as if protecting it: a beanbag puppy that had one black-spotted eye. He spoke infrequently, the article said, but when he did, it was through this small creature, whose name was Boo. He’d been repeatedly beaten and sexually abused by his caregivers. At forty-two, he had the mental capacity of a five-year-old.
Heartbroken parents left with few options …
The subjects of the article faced dismal futures. One would have to move back in with his sixty-eight-year-old father, who was suffering from mesothelioma; another would likely be institutionalized, since his retired parents had depleted all their funds; a third was being taken in as a charity case by an order of Catholic nuns who ran a small, underfunded experimental school for boys with autism on Shaw Island.
We spent everything we had, we thought it was safe, we love our son, we’d never knowingly put him in a situation like this, what parent would, we don’t know what will happen, who will take care of him after we’re gone?
Charles stood up. He still couldn’t decide which bin was appropriate for this material, so he returned all of it to the box, leaving it where it lay.
Dad, I have a question. A big, important question. It was the voice of Emmy as a child. How can you tell if a cardboard box is a girl or a boy?
The question—unexpected and perfect in its koan-like absurdity—made him start laughing so convulsively that his knees gave way and he fell back to the floor in a quivering heap.
Given this giddy state of affairs—and the fact that his resolves toward efficiency and decisiveness had all but vanished—Charles figured that he might as well uncork that wine.
We Now Conclude Our Broadcast Day
The person who made Garrett and Rita Marlow’s social life possible was Catherine Bernadette Ryan. In the lexicon of Charles’s childhood, it was Catherine who defined the word babysitter.
The Ryans lived in a nondescript one-story brick rambler that was across the street and two doors down. It looked far too small to accommodate the two adults, nine children, and numerous pets that poured in and out each day, and for that reason it laid hold of Charles’s imagination.
Maybe the Ryans had a hidden bunker—or (inspired thought!) a bomb shelter.
In the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis, bomb shelter was one of several new terms that had begun infiltrating adult conversation. Charles had learned from a recent Life ad that an adequately stocked, standard-size bomb-shelter unit could provide a safe habitat for five people for a period of three months. Hell, Garrett, he’d heard their next-door neighbor Hank Helmsdorfer remark while flipping T-bones on the backyard grill, think of the money we could save if we went in on one of those things together!
Charles understood the reasoning: Mr. and Mrs. Helmsdorfer were childless, the Marlows were only three, so the standard five-person size would be perfect; however, even though he was as worried about nuclear annihilation as the next nine-year-old, he was even more worried about what it would be like spending ninety days cooped up with a group of adults that included his parents, whose escalating aggression toward each other would probably erupt in a mushroom cloud the minute they sealed the shelter hatch, so they’d all end up dead of radiation poisoning anyway.
If and when the air-raid siren went off, Charles planned to make a beeline to the Ryans’; they’d surely ordered the deluxe-model bomb shelter designed for Catholic families.
The Ryans were not part of the Marlows’ social sphere; Charles suspected that their fecundity was an issue: they were real Catholics, they procreated.
They also worshipped. Every Sunday, the voices of the Ryan family could be heard raised in a choral free-for-all as they crammed into their wood-paneled station wagon and barreled across town for early Mass at the Cathedral of St. James. The Marlows slept in. They could leave as late as eleven forty-five and still arrive in time for noon Mass at the newer, more progressive congregation, St. Matthew’s, a mere three miles away.
Catherine was fifteen—old enough to be responsible, too young to have a boyfriend (or so Rita Marlow believed); in birth order, she was somewhere in the middle, so she knew her way around children, and her proximity was another plus.
For all of these reasons, Catherine enjoyed regular gainful employment at least twice a week for periods far outlasting the length of a level-one aikido class followed by five minutes in the Burger King drive-through.
One of the many reasons Catherine had earned Charles’s special affection was that she always let him stay up late—not because she was unreliable or disobedient, but because they had a long-standing secret pact upheld by the promise of mutual, illicit rewards: from ten o’clock until midnight, Charles ate popcorn and watched Creature Feature in the TV room while Catherine rendezvoused with her boyfriend out in the back alley, in his car.
One typical date-night afternoon, Charles was watching cartoons waiting for Catherine while his mother got ready. She often came in and out a few times, modeling possible wardrobe choices.
“Do you like this dress?” she asked without preamble. “It’s brand-new. It came from Frederick and Nelson’s.” She pointed to an embroidered bouquet of large, colorful flowers and leaves winding up from the hem to the bodice. “See this? It was done entirely by hand. It’s called crewelwork.” She regarded Charles and sipped on her martini, in which floated a translucent pearl onion; it looked like the shrunken orb of a blind midget. “Your father picked it out especially.”
“When is Catherine coming?”
“Soon …” She lit up a cigarette and glanced out the window toward the Ryans’ front yard. “God, just look at all those kids,” she mused quietly. In an uprising three-note melody, she added, “Bing-bing-bing,” a chipper vocal flourish that was at odds with her masklike face.
Is this the right moment to ask? Charles wondered. He decided to risk it.
“Why don’t we have more kids?”
She turned from the window. “Phrase the question properly, Charles. What you mean to ask is, ‘Why don’t you and Dad have more children?’”
“Well, why don’t you?”
Rita Marlow patted her helmet of hair and took a long drag on her cigarette. “Probably because God knew that I could only be a good mother to one,” she said, gazing again at the Ryan youngsters through a cloud of smoke. “Like Mary.”
After popping the pearl onion in her mouth, she rolled it around a few times before trapping it between her back molars and biting down on it, hard.
•♦•
“And the certificate of merit for Palmer penmanship goes to …”
Mrs. Braxton paused for dramatic effect, as if there were an official-looking sealed envelope stashed within the depths of her Playtex Cross Your Heart, as if terrific suspense surrounded the identity of the honoree, and her teasing delay would prolong the audience’s tortured anticipation.
“… Charles Simon Marlow!” Mrs. Braxton gestured her meritorious pupil to the front of the room, presented him with a framed certificate, and then stood aside, initiating a round of applause that was taken up dutifully if weakly by the rest of the class.
Only Dana showed exuberance, bowing his head so that his gaze seemed directed at his sternum, ducking and bobbing his upper body in an odd manner, extending his fully straightened arms, anchoring his triceps to his ears, and clapping quickly and rhythmically, a kind of performing-circus-seal effect.
“Yay! Yay! Char-Lee! Char-Lee Mar-Low!”
Was Charles proud for having risen above his usual mediocrity?
Yes.
Would he have preferred to hear Donnie Bothwell cheering his accomplishment? An ally who was neither a reviled teacher nor a ree-tard but a fourth-grader from the ranks of developmental normalcy?
Absolutely.
But in Donnie’s absence, Charles gratefully received the peculiar fanfare offered up by Dana McGucken, an
d it was to him that he raised his eyes and muttered, Thanks.
The class’s energy soon lagged, but Mrs. Braxton allowed Dana to continue his huzzahs and applause a while longer.
“The ree-tard loves him,” Mitchell mumbled.
“The ree-tard is his girlfriend,” Bradley added.
“Fruit.”
“Faggot.”
“Creep.”
“Queer.”
“Yay!”
“All right, Dana,” Mrs. Braxton said, resuming her place at center stage. “That’s enough. I’m sure we’re all very proud of Charles.”
Dana kept clapping and cheering as Charles headed back to his desk.
“Yay, Char-Lee! Char-Lee Mar-Low!”
“Dana McGucken,” Mrs. Braxton admonished, her voice assuming its familiar edge. “Quiet down.”
But Dana swiveled around in his desk, his extended arms now suggesting a giant compass needle pointing to the true north that was Charles’s location, and began chanting: “Char-Lee Mar-Low! Char-Lee Mar-Low!”
“Dana McGucken! Silence! Now!”
Startled, Dana’s smile collapsed, his face blanched even paler, and he folded in on himself and began frantically massaging his hand.
•♦•
Charles looked forward to the Saturdays when his parents left shortly after breakfast and were gone until the wee hours; long days, to be sure, but Catherine kept them interesting and varied. They took walks to the drugstore or rode bikes if the weather was nice. If it was cold and rainy, they played gin rummy and Parcheesi, built with Legos, read books. Once, Catherine taught him the recipe for Charlie’s Chicken of the Sea Surprise, a casserole that alternated layers of canned tuna, Campbell’s Condensed Cream of Mushroom Soup, and potato chips. (Years later—before Alison put the kibosh on processed foods—Charles taught Cody to make this dish, rechristened as Cody’s Chicken of the Sea Surprise.)
This Saturday, however, his parents were hosting a tailgate party at the house from ten o’clock until twelve thirty, so Catherine would be arriving later.
A little after eight thirty in the morning, while Charles was still lingering in bed reading comic books, he heard the front door open and close; there were heavy footsteps in the foyer accompanied by the sound of labored breathing, and then his mother’s voice erupted from the kitchen:
Damn it! she yelled. Damn it, Garrett! What the hell did you do?
…
What?
The responses to her tirade were too quiet to understand.
… You’re lucky you didn’t kill yourself!
…
Did you have to start before they got here? Look at this! We’re going to run out of gin before they even get here.
…
Stop that.
…
I said, Stop it! I’m going to have to go to the liquor store.
…
Are you crazy? You can’t drive. Goddamn it, they’ll be here in an hour.
It turned out that, after downing a few drinks, Garrett Marlow had decided that the front yard needed mowing. He’d stumbled into the deep well of one of the daylight basement windows. Fortunately, the lawn mower hadn’t fallen in with him.
Charles’s mother left him with strict instructions to take the olive cheese puffs out of the oven the moment the timer went off; she then snatched up her handbag and rushed out.
Garrett Marlow limped a meandering path out to the patio, collapsed into one of the lounge chairs, rolled up his pants, and stuck his injured foot into the big Coleman cooler that was already packed with ice and beer. After turning the radio to the pregame broadcast, he sat back and closed his eyes.
The timer went off. Charles pulled the olive cheese puffs out of the oven, burning his hand in the process.
Hey, Charlie! Make me a drink, will you, now that your mother is gone?
After calling out the instructions for rimming a glass with salt, Garrett Marlow talked Charles through the rest of the process, including the celery-stick garnish.
Well, look at that, he said. You just made your first bloody mary, Chuck. Bravo.
Having fulfilled his responsibilities, Charles retreated to his room.
A few minutes later, there was a knock on his door; his mother poked her head in, her face pink and sweaty, her lipstick worn off.
Charles, I need you to come out here and do the things your father would be doing if he weren’t such a useless SOB.
Garrett Marlow spent the duration of the party with his foot in the cooler, wearing his purple-and-gold hat with the W on the front at a jaunty angle, holding court while his wife and son served as caterers. At one point, emerging from the kitchen with another tray of olive cheese puffs, Charles discovered that Mrs. Helmsdorfer was snuggled into his father’s lap, nuzzling his neck.
Mr. Helmsdorfer didn’t seem to mind. Shit, Garrett! he bellowed. You’re gonna get frostbite, leaving your leg in there so long. You’d better pull that thing outta there or we might have to cut it off!
For no reason Charles could think of, the adults found this wildly funny.
•♦•
After winning the certificate of merit, Charles was awarded the role of fourth-grade teacher’s assistant. He hadn’t bargained on this result; it was one he’d soon come to rue.
Mrs. Braxton now expected him to stand at the blackboard not only during penmanship practice but also during lessons in world studies, reading, science, and spelling. This allowed her to patrol the room as she lectured—slowing her speech and emphasizing words or phrases that she wanted transcribed on the board—and exert her fierce, up-close-and-personal vigilance over the class in a nonstop manner.
The Republic of Congo, the Soviet Union, Puerto Rico, Cuba …
Other perks followed:
She had a desk and chair set up beside hers. It was not an adult desk, nor was it the cramped, standard-issue all-in-one chair/desk that everyone else inhabited. Charles wondered if it had been stolen from some poor unwitting sixth-grader, possibly a former certificate-of-merit holder whose penmanship had lapsed.
She bestowed upon him with unprecedented liberality the much-coveted hall pass so that he could fetch supplies, refill her coffee cup, and deliver messages. This freedom would have been exhilarating had it not been won at such a cost.
Bradley’s and Mitchell’s contempt ratcheted up several notches.
Astrida Pukis continued to emit an embittered loathing that abated only during math, when she exerted her dominance during blackboard multiplication races.
Class morale plummeted. The students of room 104 began to look haggard—
Fidel Castro, Nikita Khrushchev, Cape Canaveral, the Iron Curtain …
—with the exception of Dana, who seemed to expand under these conditions, maintaining his snaggletoothed insouciance even as his white suits became grimier and his fingernails continued to grow unchecked, accumulating a yellowish, gritty opacity.
Underdeveloped country, gross national product, crop rotation, drought belt …
As the de facto class clown, Dana provided the only leavening element during those long, grim days.
Montgomery, Alabama; Anchorage, Alaska; Phoenix, Arizona …
Charles now understood that his tenuous social position—which had been compromised from the very beginning, when he’d shown up on the first day of school without Donnie Bothwell at his side and then exchanged words with Dana McGucken—was now cemented: he was a toady, a sycophant, a Jewish policeman in the Warsaw ghetto.
It is of course not always the case that teachers’ pets become social outcasts. Had Mrs. Braxton been more popular, less feared, it’s possible that being anointed as her favorite would not have carried such a stigma.
As it was, however, because Mrs. Braxton’s leadership style recalled that of the Old Testament Jehovah, her preferential treatment brought into high relief the sufferings of the poor and unfortunate: God’s un-chosen people.
In the classroom, Charles occupied the pinnacle seat, but on
ce removed from that setting—in the cafeteria at lunchtime, on the playground during recess—he sank to the bottom, into the special hell reserved for certain elementary-school children: the leper colony of the tribeless.
•♦•
There was always something terribly hollow and disturbing about the end of the broadcast day. Seeing the rippling American flag in black-and-white and hearing “The Star-Spangled Banner” made Charles feel as though the world had ended. Still, he felt compelled to remain and watch until the flickering test pattern appeared and the airwaves went silent.
After turning off the TV, he brushed his teeth and turned the back-porch light on and off three times; that was Catherine’s cue, and she emerged from her boyfriend’s car within moments, waving to him as he drove away. Charles never did meet him, but Catherine revealed that he was twenty-seven years old, rolled his own cigarettes, and worked for the railroad, bare-bones facts that only enhanced his mystery.
How was the movie? Scary?
Uh-huh.
What was it tonight?
The Mummy.
Oh, I’ve seen that … That is scary. You didn’t mind watching alone?
No.
After firmly tucking the covers around him, Catherine leaned down to pet Charles’s hair. Her small gold crucifix dangled close enough that he could move it with his breath.
Did you say your prayers?
Yes.
Good boy. Good night. Sweet dreams. Sleep tight.
She left the door slightly ajar so that a long thin spindle of gold from the hallway illuminated Charles’s room. It must have been Catherine Ryan’s experience, having mothered many of her siblings, that young children are solaced by light and connection.
When Garrett and Rita Marlow got home, Charles always woke up.
Did you have any problems?
Was he good?
Pleasantries were exchanged.
How much do we owe you?
Thanks so much.
Charles’s door was still open, admitting that yellow ribbon of light.
See you next week.
We’ll watch till you get home.
He pictured Catherine walking home to her large, sleeping family.
Good night! Garrett and Rita Marlow called. Thanks again!
Language Arts Page 17
