“Definitely. Very definitely.”
“They told me I could only stay five minutes,” I said, fast. “I just wanted to check and make sure you were all right. I was going to tell you I was sorry but I figured that might be dumb. You know that anyway.”
“Sorry for what? You’re the one’s going to be sorry. Those docs are going to stitch me up into such a handsome dude the girls will drop like flies in a huge circle around me. All you’re going to get is my rejects.”
The door opened and the nurse looked in. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but it’s time for visitors to leave.”
She stood there. Obviously she wasn’t going to go until I did. I went over to the bed and took Jeff’s hand.
“Well,” I said, “I might as well be going. Just wanted to see how you were doing.”
We shook hands.
“When you come again, I want you to bring me some of those magazines with naked girls on the cover,” he said in a voice that carried a couple of miles. “Don’t forget.”
“I won’t,” I promised. There wasn’t anything else to say.
“I’m glad you came, Mark,” he said.
“Sure,” I answered.
When I got back to Tony’s room, they were still laughing.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
That night I had the dream for the first time. I was driving along a slippery road. A tunnel loomed ahead and a sign said, “Remove sunglasses before entering tunnel.” I didn’t have on any sunglasses but still the tunnel was dark, with slick, sloping sides, like a toboggan run. I drove faster to get out into the sunlight I could see ahead. Just as I thought I had it made, a steel door slammed down in front of me, like in a James Bond movie. I put my foot on the brakes as hard as I could, but it didn’t do any good. My car hit the steel door with such impact that the door and the car, with me in it, melted in flames and hideous sounds.
“I didn’t mean to,” I said, sitting up in bed. “Please, it’s not my fault. I didn’t mean to.”
My father stood by the side of my bed, silhouetted against the light from the hall.
“Didn’t mean to what, Mark?” he said.
“It’s O.K.,” I mumbled. “It was just a dream.”
“Would you like a glass of water?” he asked me.
“No thanks,” I said. “I’m sorry I bothered you.”
Pat came in behind him. “Maybe a glass of hot milk would help,” she said.
“He’s all right,” my father said. He took her by the arm and turned her toward the door. “He’s perfectly all right.”
“Why don’t you let him say how he is?” she asked in a tight voice. “Would you like some hot milk, Mark?”
“No thanks,” I said again. “I’m practically asleep now.” I pulled up the covers high around my ears and shut my eyes. The trouble with that was, pictures snuck up behind my eyelids; pictures of Tony and Jeff stretched out, side by side, on a marble slab, and where their eyes were supposed to be, there were tiny dark caverns, empty caverns, staring up at me.
“Maybe he ought to see a psychiatrist,” I heard Pat say. Their bedroom door must be open a crack. “Maybe a good one could help Mark.”
“No,” my father said. His voice rose and he sounded angry. I had never heard him use that tone of voice to her before.
There was a silence. I opened my eyes so I could listen better.
“Why are you so against psychiatry? I went to see a good doctor when I was going through my divorce and he helped me a great deal. Why have you closed your mind against something that might help him?”
“The kid is going to have to work this out for himself.” My father’s voice was cold and positive. “He doesn’t need some expensive assistance to make him see how selfish he was. He’s fourteen years old. If I’d taken the family car at that age and wrapped it around a tree, either with or without my brother and a friend in it, my father would’ve handled it without benefit of psychiatry. It’s too easy to resort to that. For some things, yes. For out-and-out self-centeredness, no.”
Another silence. “Then I’m glad I never knew your father,” Pat said. “What applied when you were a boy doesn’t necessarily apply to Mark.”
“The basic concepts of right and wrong remain unchanged.” I knew how my father’s face must look as he said this: thin and unyielding.
“I never knew you stood in judgment on people,” Pat said slowly. “I thought your mind was open, not closed. Open to all sorts of things. I thought you were a kind, loving man. A compassionate man. I can see I was wrong.”
I heard her go down the hall, down the stairs. My father shut the door firmly. That was all.
Dad and Pat were fighting. They were having a fight over me. The first chink in the armor, the first ravel in the sleeve. All over me. At one time, like a couple of days ago, I would’ve felt triumphant. As it was, I felt like a bastard. A lousy, big-nosed bastard.
I turned over on my stomach and tried to burrow deep into the mattress and go back to sleep. Me go to a psychiatrist? All the guy does is listen to you. Why not? He gets plenty of bread to listen. Like about fifty bucks an hour. I don’t think I could talk about myself for an hour straight. On the other hand, if I was paying the guy that kind of scratch, I could make up a few things—dreams and stuff. They’re big on dreams. That and how you feel about your parents. Do you hate them, tolerate them, or wish they’d get lost? Not to mention your siblings. Do you have a subconscious desire to rub out your little brother? Is that why you wrapped the car around a tree with him in it? Hell, I could be my own psychiatrist and cut down on expenses.
I’ve got to pull myself together. I’m going to be in hock for a long time. After I finish paying for the damage on the new car, I have to start paying Mr. Fields for the plastic surgeon. Jeff says he can’t decide if he wants the doc to make him look like Robert Redford or Rudolph Valentino. Rudolph Valentino was this really cool Latin cat who had the dames flopping in the aisles like a mess of beached trout.
Plastic surgeons are very expensive, I understand. I’m going to have to work my butt off for the next ten years. Maybe longer.
I went to see Mrs. Baumgartner this afternoon. A tall, thin man was sitting in the kitchen drinking a can of beer.
“This is my son, Joe, Mark,” she said. Joe said “Hi” to me without really acknowledging my presence.
“Mark’s been a tremendous help to us the past few months,” Mrs. Baumgartner told Joe. “I don’t know what we’d have done without him.”
“Is that right?” Joe said. “I notice a big change in Dad since I was last here,” he said to his mother. “He’s going downhill fast.”
“He might hear you, Joe. He’s in the next room. He understands everything you say.” Her cheeks were flushed and her hands trembled.
“Mom,” Joe said in a patient tone, raising his eyebrows, “you’re kidding yourself. He’s a vegetable.”
“No, he’s not.” My voice sounded very loud, even to me. Joe sat up and looked at me for the first time. “He knows me whenever I come. He listens to conversations. He listens when he’s read to.”
Mrs. Baumgartner smiled at me. “You’re absolutely right, Mark.” I knew she was pleased by what I’d said.
Joe got up and put on his jacket. “O.K., then, tell him I said good-bye. Let me know when you take him to the home and I’ll come see him.” He leaned over to kiss his mother and she stood, rigid, while he bussed her on the cheek. “So long, kid,” Joe said and was gone.
“Well,” she said. “Well. There you have it. That’s my son.” I didn’t say anything because I couldn’t think of anything to say.
“It’s a terrible thing to dislike your own child,” Mrs. Baumgartner said.
A thought came into my head that I would just as soon hadn’t; I wondered if my father felt that way about me. I felt depressed when I realized it was a possibility.
“Henry’s having a nap, otherwise I’d say go and talk to him,” she said. “He tires very easily. After, after, he …
goes, I’ll go into an apartment. It won’t be too bad. You’ll come to see me?”
“Whenever you want,” I told her.
“You know what you said about it taking a lot of energy just to stay alive?” I asked her. “And how it was worth it? The older I get, the more I know you’re right.”
“I’m glad you decided that,” she said. “You’ll make a good man. I’m sure of that.”
“I don’t think my father will ever forgive me.”
“Yes, he will,” she said. “It may be tough going, but he will.”
I wish I could be as convinced as Mrs. Baumgartner. That everything will turn out all right.
Do you know where you are?
The words keep coming at me. No answer.
If I did answer, it might be different today from tomorrow. So. No answer at all.
About the Author
Constance C. Greene is the author of over twenty highly successful young adult novels, including the ALA Notable Book A Girl Called Al, Al(exandra) the Great, Getting Nowhere, and Beat the Turtle Drum, which is an ALA Notable Book, an IRA-CBC Children’s Choice, and the basis for the Emmy Award–winning after-school special Very Good Friends. Greene lives in Milford, Connecticut.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1977 by Constance C. Greene
Cover design by Connie Gabbert
ISBN: 978-1-5040-0086-4
This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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Getting Nowhere Page 8
