Lost in the Beehive_A Novel

by Michele Young-Stone

  “Not your concern.”

  “A boy doesn’t outrun his father.”

  Sheff lit a cigarette, slipping his hands in his pockets, his sandy-blond hair falling over his eyes, the cigarette dangling from his lips, and he tossed his head back to get a good look at his pop, to show him that he was nearly grown.

  “You’ve had your fun,” Pop said. “It’s time to come home.”

  Sheff didn’t say anything. He’d learned that there was no point.

  “I’m not asking,” Pop said. “I’m telling.”

  Then, Sheffield Schoeffler ran. He did not run for the subway, which was right there at the corner of Eighth and 23rd. He ran east. Sheff pulled down the fire escape ladder where the little boy had been playing, and he climbed up toward the blue sky and the birds. When he reached the roof, he saw six gargoyles across the street. They had maniacal faces, pointed ears, and dragon’s wings. They were observing Sheff as he observed them. They saw a young man who was tired of running from his father and the rest of the world.

  On the street below, the waitress mother, finding her subway tokens, screamed for her children to “Get over here right now.” A hot dog vendor was assembling his cart, setting up shop for the day, for the men who would come north from the meatpacking plants to eat hot dogs with chili and mustard and relish for lunch.

  The little girl in the sky-blue cape ignored her mother’s command and pointed upward at the birds now singing and chirping, perched on the gargoyles, a sundry of calls.

  On the roof, Sheff pulled his smokes from his coat pocket and hunched, blocking the wind, to light one, to figure out how he was going to shake his old man, once and for all.

  Below, the waitress applied her lipstick and, seeing her son on the fire escape ladder, called to him, “Billy, get down from there.”

  Sheff inhaled deeply, watching the cherry burn red. His father followed him onto the roof. “I’m so tired of your shit,” Pop said. Sheff pulled on his smoke, the ash growing. Then he turned and walked like there was no ledge. No fear.

  Sheff was a boy who could not bend, a boy who had already been broken. He walked on air because there was no place left to run. The gargoyles were stone, perched forever on that roof, but the birds saw Sheff. The youthful cardinal, the wise raven, the protective jay, the chirping grackles, all saw, and they disbelieved that a boy could fly.

  This was how I imagined Sheff’s end. This was how I would one day write it. No happy ending. I knew what the birds knew. Boys don’t fly.

  Technically, Sheff died from a cracked skull, eight snapped ribs, two shattered wrists, and a fractured pelvis and spine. But I knew the real cause.

  Sheff died because I’d left him at Belmont. Sheff died because we should’ve left sooner for California. Sheff died because you can only fight so hard for so long until you run out of fight.

  When the detective said, “The boy’s father followed him onto the roof. He was worried for his safety,” I bent forward and vomited on the lime shag carpeting. I waited for the bees, but they didn’t come. I remained there, hunched over, bile between my boots.

  Clark ran over with a rag.

  I felt one of the detective’s hands on my forearm and tried shaking it off. “We’re not done talking.”

  “He wasn’t on drugs.”

  One of the suits said, “Are we taking her to the station?”

  “Her parents have been contacted. They’re on their way here. Besides, from what Walter Schoeffler said, it sounds like suicide.”

  I couldn’t catch my breath. Clark was down on his knees, cleaning up my puke.

  I lost consciousness, waking with my mother on one side of me, my father on the other. When I opened my eyes, my mother kissed my forehead. “They just have a few more questions, and then we can take you home.”

  One of the suits sat across from us in an orange bucket chair. His jacket was gray. His eyes were brown. His shoes black. I noticed everything about him for the first time. He spoke to my father, “We want to let Miss Ricci go home, but she hasn’t been exactly forthright.”

  “She will be,” my mother said.

  “We searched their room,” he said.

  “Their room?” my mother asked.

  “They were living together in a one-bedroom.” He pulled a cellophane wrapper from a paper envelope. “We found these.”

  “His Valium,” I said.

  “It’s a depressant.”

  “He didn’t kill himself.”

  My dad put his arm around me. “Is it all right if we take her home now?”

  The detective whispered, “You might want to take her to see somebody, get her professional help.”

  The other one said, “We’ll be in touch.”

  On the way out, I turned back. “You should know that he was the best person I ever knew. You should write that down.”

  My father pulled me in tighter. “Let’s get you out of here.”

  15

  I WAS IN THE BACK of my dad’s new Chrysler, my parents whispering. I said, “I sent postcards.” Then, I fell silent. It didn’t matter what I said. I had nothing more to give. The police had told my parents their version of events, or Pop’s version. They painted Sheff as someone with a mental illness, as someone with a drug addiction. Sheff’s sole illness was his father. He’d been born to the wrong family, maybe to the wrong world.

  I stared ahead at the seat back, my knees pressed together, every muscle in my body taut. Why couldn’t Pop have left him alone? Why couldn’t Pop have come a week or even a day later? Then, my mother said, “I feel terrible for that young man’s family.”

  I punched the car door, bruising my fist.

  My mother spun around, both hands on the seat back. “Gloria! Stop that!”

  “Fuck them! He was never good enough for them!” I fell silent again. No one spoke.

  When we pulled into the driveway, I got out of the car. I stared at our squat suburban home, the black mulch where the flowers had died, the cold brown earth, and I dropped to my knees, then to my palms, then to my chest. I wanted to sink into the dirt. My parents watched, speechless.

  From the walkway, my mother said, “Come on inside, Gloria,” but I remained there.

  My father said, “You’ll catch your death.”

  The irony wasn’t lost on me. I remained where I was.

  A while later, my hands and face numb, I heard Gwen’s voice above me. “All right,” she said. “You’re home now.” My body was limp, but she managed to lift me up from under my arms, my knees dragging the ground. She called for my father, and together, they dragged me into the house.

  Once indoors, I stripped down naked. My father turned away. My mother said, “Why are you doing this?” Gwen ran for a towel. I followed Gwen into the bathroom, moving past her to the shower, my clothes in a heap in the living room. She said, “You’re going to be all right. It’s going to get better.” I turned the water as hot as I could stand. “I’ll be in the den with your parents.” The water beat down on my head, and I told God that I didn’t believe in him anymore. Fuck you, God! Fuck you! What kind of god kills all the best people?!

  I stayed in the shower until the water turned cold. Then, I wrapped myself in a towel and stepped into the hallway.

  I could hear my parents and Gwen whispering in the den. Hearing me, my parents came down the hall. It was obvious that they didn’t know what to say. There was nothing they could say. I went to my bedroom and put on my nightgown. I lay facedown, wishing I could rewind time. Then wishing I could sleep. A while later, my mother climbed in bed beside me. She lay on her side and tried to rest her hand on my head. I knocked it away. I expected her to get up and leave, but she remained.

  Eventually, I slept.

  The next day, my mother brought me a sandwich and a glass of milk. I wouldn’t eat. I couldn’t eat. She said, “I love you,” and I didn’t say anything. Hours passed, and then days. I ate a piece of dry toast every morning, but little else. Then, I remember my mother in bed besid
e me, one hand on the top of my head. She said, “I’m sorry about your friend. He must have been an amazing person.”

  I didn’t speak, but her words meant so much.

  “I know that if you loved him, I would’ve loved him.”

  I felt a lump in my throat. I spoke, “He was great.”

  “What should I know about him?”

  So many memories rushed back, but I said, “We were going to have the most beautiful children in the world.” I didn’t plan on crying, but I cracked. My dam broke. The pain came like a river. “He didn’t want to die.”

  I tucked my head between my knees. “He died.” My whole body trembled. “I loved him.”

  My mother held me. “Let it out.”

  My father brought a box of Kleenex.

  The days had no beginnings and no ends. I slept between bursts of sadness and rage. Sometimes, I was awake at three in the morning. Sometimes I was asleep at two in the afternoon. Everything blurred together.

  A week after I was home, Uncle Eddie came to my room. He sat in the window seat, the frost lining the glass. He said, “I had this shrink out west after the war who told me that I needed to burn the things that hurt me.”

  I thought about Brian Biden’s business card. I’d never told Brian that we weren’t going to Berkeley. I wondered if anyone had told him. Of course, he would hear about it. Someone at the Big Panda would tell him. Uncle Eddie kept talking. “The idea is that you burn everything that you associate with your pain so you can be free of it. It’s like a purging. I brought you some matches.” I pulled a match from the box and struck it, using the flame to light a cigarette.

  “Did you do this?” I asked. “Did you burn something, and did it help you?”

  “Well, yes and no. I mean that I did burn some things, but it didn’t help.”

  “What happened?”

  “I wanted the things I burned to come back. I wished I hadn’t burned them. But that’s me. I’m a fucking wreck. And this is you. Is there anything that you want to burn? It should be something that you won’t want to have back. Obviously.”

  I wanted to burn myself, a big funeral pyre. All I’d done all week was replay Sheff’s last day, that last morning we were together, the number of things I could’ve done to change the outcome, how Sheff must’ve felt when he saw his pop.

  Uncle Eddie and I went to the carport for a cardboard box. I liked the idea of a fire, but I wasn’t going to burn anything having to do with Sheff. Rather, I collected my old notebooks, the story about Joan of Arc, everything I’d ever written, and I dumped all of it into the box. I had the letter Isabel had written and some records she’d given me. I’d burn those too. Eddie and I sat in the backyard like a couple of Boy Scouts, a pile of sticks and the box of matches between us. I scraped my nails against the red sulfur tips and snapped one in two before glancing up at him. He said, “You’re kind of fucked up, aren’t you?”

  “I’m all right,” I lied. I piled my composition books, notes from Isabel, and the records she’d given me in a heap and lit the match. The smoke rose between us. I knew my parents were watching from the sliding glass door. As the notebook pages burned, their edges blackened and curled. They smoldered orange, the heat creeping page to page, while the vinyl records folded in on themselves, releasing a noxious smell. The darkness came up from the grass and simultaneously down from the clouds. I looked to see my parents at the sliding glass door, but they’d gone. Eddie sprayed the fire with lighter fluid, the flames leaping into the blackness, everything burning faster. The fire was hypnotic and warm. Right then, it was helping. I lay on my side, the sparks illuminating Uncle Eddie’s face. He said, “Time will help, Gloria. It makes things easier.” I didn’t respond. I didn’t know what I was going to do, how I’d go on, but I figured I had little choice in the matter. As the fire burned down, the paper floated up, raining ash over our heads.

  Later, I woke with Uncle Eddie gone, the fire out, my father helping me to my feet. He guided me indoors and back down the hall to my room. I got into bed and rolled to face the wall. The tears were coming back. My father patted my shoulder. “You’re tough, sweetheart.” He stayed there all night, rubbing my back, whispering assurances.

  He and my mother held vigil those first few months. It was like they were afraid that I was going to take my life. Their fear was unnecessary. I felt that it had already been taken.

  part two

  This is the story of America. Everybody’s doing what they think they’re supposed to do.

  —Jack Kerouac, On the Road

  16

  AFTER GRADUATING HIGH SCHOOL, I got a job at Bink’s Department Store downtown as the tie girl. Each morning and evening, I meticulously cleaned the glass top. I organized the plaids and Kelly greens, the limes, chartreuses, cherry prints, cotton-poly blends and silks. Everything was in order. Four years and three months had passed since Sheff’s death. The world felt unsafe, but within my glass cubicle, I was protected.

  Monday through Saturday, I sold neckties, ascots, bow ties, and cravats. Cravats were my favorite because they were mostly bought by the older set, retired gentlemen who knew what they wanted. They were my easiest customers.

  After work, I went home. Mother, Father, and I ate together, watching the evening news with Walter Cronkite. Vietnam was on fire. All the leaders of the civil rights movement had been murdered, and the National Organization for Women was calling for the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment. On Fridays after work, I went to Gwen’s. We drank martinis. My mother started taking classes at a community college. Then one evening after she got home, she said, “Can I talk to you?”

  We sat at the kitchen table. She unpacked her notebooks. She had homework, a pile of text and library books.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “You’re hiding.”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Why don’t you get a job in the city? Get out of Maryville. Live a little.”

  “I’m fine how I am.”

  “I’m worried about you.”

  “Don’t be.” I left her at the table with her schoolwork.

  The next afternoon, I met a man as dark as Sheff had been fair. Dark hair. Dark eyes. He stood a little slouched, his hands deep in his pockets, glancing up as I sold a bow tie to a young woman. After the young woman left my department, he remained. I walked over to the jewelry department and asked my coworker Cora, “Is that man looking over here?”

  “The good-looking one?” Cora was funny. She was always husband hunting.

  “I don’t know.”

  “He is. Now he’s walking toward the tie counter.” She smiled. “You better get over there. Maybe he’s rich.”

  He was waiting for me. “Hello. How can I help you?”

  “I don’t know if you can,” he said. His fingers were spread wide, smudging my countertop.

  “Are you interested in a particular cut or color?”

  He had thick eyelashes and brown eyes. “Actually, I’m interested in you.”

  The brashness was familiar. “Excuse me?”

  “I like you,” he said.

  “You don’t know me.”

  “But I could get to know you.” He smiled. “Go out with me.”

  “I think not.”

  “If I buy a tie, will you go out with me?”

  “No.”

  “I’ll buy five ties.”

  I cracked a smile. “Do you need a necktie?”

  “As much as any guy needs a noose, but that doesn’t matter.”

  “Of course it matters. If you don’t need a tie, you shouldn’t buy one.”

  He leaned across the countertop. “Which ones do you like?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Show me your favorites.”

  “Why?”

  “Please.”

  I slid the case open and pulled out my favorite Italian silk ascots. “Feel this,” I said.

  He rubbed at the yellow silk, but kept hi
s eyes on me. “Do you like spaghetti? There’s an Italian place just down the street. I like spaghetti.”

  “Why me? Why not bother someone else?” I asked.

  “Why not you? The blonde curls. The blue eyes. Your smile. I was in here last week buying some boxer shorts, and I saw you, and I knew that I had to come back and ask you out.”

  Sheff had once said, If you’re not living, you’re dying. “What’s the name of the Italian place?”

  “Gino’s.”

  “I know it. I could meet you there.”

  “I want to buy the ascot.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “Sure, I do.”

  “You really don’t.” I showed him the price tag.

  “I really don’t. But something else. Something for our date. You pick.”

  “It’s not really a date.”

  “Sure it is.”

  I chose a thin blue tie, a cotton-poly blend, nothing too fancy, nothing too expensive.

  He said, “Is seven good?”

  I nodded. Then, I saw Cora waving her arms to get my attention. She pointed at him, fanning herself, feigning fainting. I laughed. He looked back to see Cora.

  “Who’s that?”

  “Cora. She works in jewelry.”

  He waved back. “So, I’ll meet you there.”

  “Okay.”

  “Great. See you at seven.” He tapped the counter with both hands and turned to go.

  “Wait. You don’t know my name.”

  “You’re wearing a name tag, Miss Gloria Ricci.”

  “Then I don’t know yours.”

  “Jacob Blount.”

  “Pleased to meet you.”

  “I’ll see you tonight.”

  As he walked away, Cora rushed to my counter. “What does he do?” she asked.

  “I don’t know what he does.”

  “Did he ask you out?”

  “He did.”

  “What did you say?”

  “Yes.”

  When I got to Gino’s, Jacob was already seated. There was a red votive on the checkered tablecloth. He wore a white button-down oxford, the blue tie I’d picked out, and faded jeans. His face was clean-shaven, and his dark hair was combed back in a pompadour. Seeing me, he got to his feet, an eagerness in his stance. “You look really pretty.”