The World of Normal Boys

by K. M. Soehnlein

  His father rubbed one hand soothingly with the other. He sat at the kitchen table, sipping whiskey and badgering him about responsibility. Robin remained standing, concentrating on the pain in his face in the hopes of easing it. Counting to himself each hot pulse of blood to his cheeks, he obliterated his father’s voice.

  Now, a week later, just a single passage from the hour-long harangue has stuck: “You want to have it both ways. You want special treatment, for us to send you to some private school, and you want to be able to cut school and take off for the day with some little pothead.” He thinks about it: Victoria gave them Scott’s last name, and they called Scott’s father. Scott’s father told them that Scott was a pothead, which was all they needed to know.

  When Nana admonishes him that his silent treatment isn’t helping the situation, he says to her, “It’s not the silent treatment. I just have nothing to say.” She stares at him as if she too is convinced that he is on drugs.

  One night, while waiting for sleep to overtake him, he remembers this moment: looking into the kitchen mirror at Vincent’s apartment, Vincent behind him, a heavy hand on his ass, asking, “Is Scott your boyfriend?” Robin can’t remember what he answered; he thinks he said yes. How did Vincent know? He and Scott weren’t acting like boyfriends, were they? And how, he asks himself, did Vincent know that I would do sex with him? Was it just that he was sure I could be scared into it? Or did he see something in me that made him think it would be easy? He stays awake for hours, horrified at the idea that he might look gay, that he was somehow prey to gay sex maniacs, the kind of Village queers Todd had warned him about.

  He takes a science test and surprises everyone by acing it. At dinner that night, his father proclaims the new disciplinary measures a success.

  That night Robin sticks his face in his pillow and lets sobbing overtake him: just a week since Scott disappeared from his sights and already his memories of that day are fading into dreams that he can only half conjure. Just one piece of that night still shakes his bones like an electric jolt: the terrible shock of Mr. Schatz—the fury his presence stirred from the air, the twisting of Scott’s body as he tried in vain to pull away from his father’s imprisoning grasp. When he pictures this, he thinks that he will never see Scott again, that Scott must have been seriously injured that night, maybe he’s even dead, his body stuffed in a plastic bag by his father and left at the town dump. It would be his fault, like Jackson’s being in the hospital is his fault, like Vincent getting him to do sex was his fault, too. He pulls on his hair and screams from the back of his throat into his pillow. The muscles in his face ache from crying; he chokes on snot and saliva. When he hears his mother’s worried footsteps hurrying up the stairs, he runs into the bathroom, locking himself in, running the water, flushing the toilet again and again. He does not answer her, he does not shout out at her, he cannot break the spell of his wailing. He will not talk to her or to any of them—they are as much to blame as he is. They made him into who he is: his mother with her stuck-up attitudes and her pride in all his weakest qualities; his father never listening to him, never caring about him. He has become a dangerous person because of them; he has come to hate himself along with them.

  Only when he realizes that this is the first time since Jackson’s fall that he has been able to cry uncontrollably does it begin to subside. When he leaves the bathroom he lets his mother embrace him, and he does not protest when she leads him back to his bed. As she strokes his hair, he thinks of how it would feel to take so many pills that you didn’t wake up, or to jump from a high place and die on impact with the ground. A rope around his neck, the chair beneath kicked away. His father’s razor blades across his wrists, blood bubbling out. A bottle of Drano—he could pinch his nose and make himself swallow. Shove his face in the bathtub and hold it there until he passed out. A gun, a bullet in his temple. Something so quick he wouldn’t feel the pain.

  In the cafeteria he asks the lunch lady to give him ten dimes for a dollar, and between every class, he goes to the payphone and dials Scott’s number. Day after day he does this with no answer, until his calls are no longer hopeful, just a habit. And then one day Mr. Schatz answers, and Robin is so startled that he instantly hangs up.

  His first thought is that if Mr. Schatz is alive then Scott really is dead, and he feels the tears welling up, feels his imagination already transporting him to the police station where he reports the crime, then on to the morgue where he identifies Scott’s battered body. He sees the coffin wheeled up to the altar at St. Bart’s, the crowded church murmuring in collective grief. He sees himself in the courtroom, where he points the finger from the witness stand and testifies, with perfect composure, to the bruises and scars on Scott’s body, the dried blood under his nose and the stories of his father’s beatings that Scott had passed on to him. “Hearsay!” Mr. Schatz’s lawyers will shout, but his testimony will have been so compelling that the judge will quickly overrule. Robin will continue, more determined than ever to bring justice to Scott’s memory.

  He makes himself dial again. This time, after Mr. Schatz grunts a hello, Robin blurts out, “Is Scott there?”

  “No.” The voice is almost defiant.

  “Do you know where he is?”

  “Who wants to know?” Mr. Schatz slurs his words into one drunken, mush-mouthed phrase: Whowanshoono?

  “Oh, I’m just... an acquaintance of your son.”

  “Are you that kid? What’s the name ... MacKenzie?” Muh-gen-zhi.

  Robin deepens his voice and says, “No, sir. Actually, this is Mr. Cortez from Greenlawn High. I’m a guidance counselor, and I’m wondering if Scott has been home sick this week?”

  “How come you just said you were a friend?”

  “I said I was an acquaintance, Mr. Schatz.” Robin fakes a chummy laugh. “Ha-ha-ha, no matter. You see, sir, actually, it’s our policy to not reveal who we are at first. Sometimes we catch truants that way, you know, by saying we’re an acquaintance. Reverse psychology. It works on those juvenile delinquents.” Robin clears his throat and tries to maintain a deep, even-toned delivery. “Sir, we’re just trying to locate your son. He hasn’t been at school. Has there been trouble at home? Is there anything you want to tell us?”

  “Who the fuck is this?”

  “Perhaps I could come by the house for a visit. Sometimes we do that with problem cases.”

  “Look, kid, I don’t know what kind of asshole you think I am, but I got news for you: I don’t know where Scott is. He took off a week ago. How do you like that? And another thing: if you see him, tell him to stay the fuck away. I got no more patience for his shit.” There’s a shattering of glass in the background, Mr. Schatz striking out in fury. Robin slams down the receiver. His knuckles are white.

  Now he doesn’t know what to believe. If Scott ran away, wouldn’t he have called by now? Maybe he is mad at Robin because his parents brought Mr. Schatz to the bus that night. He might have saved a little money from selling pot, but probably not even enough to last him a week. Whom would he have asked for money? Robin thinks about it and the name Todd Spicer comes back at him like a shout from the end of a tunnel.

  He corners Victoria between classes. “Do you know if your brother has heard from Scott Schatz lately?”

  “No.”

  “I think he ran away, but he doesn’t have any money.”

  “Robin, I told you not to hang out with him. He’s such a megaloser.”

  “I bet Todd knows where he is.”

  “Yeah, right. They’re not even friends. You’re so mental about this.”

  He feels himself snap. “Shut up, Victoria. Just shut your mouth. You don’t know anything! You’re just some stuck-up bitch who acts like she’s better than everybody else.” Without any effort, his voice is at hysterical pitch.

  Victoria backs away, checking over her shoulder for someone level-headed to intervene. “Grow up, Robin,” she says, her voice shaky. “Why don’t you ask someone who cares?”

 
“I thought you were my friend,” he accuses.

  “I was your friend before you turned into Sibyl.”

  He slams his fist into a locker, and she jumps back. She stares for a moment, stunned by his aggression. And then her face hardens. She gives him the finger and walks away.

  He stands at the edge of the courtyard between classes, trying to work up the nerve to ask Todd directly, but he can’t get near him without navigating the circle of burnouts who surround him. That girl Debbie is always there, laughing at Todd’s jokes, slipping her hand into his back pocket.

  Instead, he waits for the second bell to ring and the halls to clear of students and teachers; then he retreats to a quiet stairwell behind the stage of the school auditorium. From the other end of the hall he can hear the school choir, the few students with any talent fighting to be heard over the off-key masses. He recognizes the tune, “Getting to Know You.” His mother and he stayed up late one night watching The King and I on the midnight movie, and he had cried at the part where the princess and her lover met secretly, singing “We Kiss in the Shadows.” The next day, he went to New Sounds and purchased the soundtrack. He spent days sketching pictures of Deborah Kerr’s pale blue ballgown, trying to get it just right. He finds himself humming along—and then makes himself stop. An angry chill runs up his spine. The song is foolish; the whole film, he thinks now, is such a corny fantasy. Life isn’t about winning the favor of strangers with your good manners and charming perseverance. In real life, Anna’s strong-mindedness would probably get her thrown into prison and tortured by the King of Siam’s henchmen. In real life, if you broke out into song, you wouldn’t make new friends—you’d get your ass kicked. Why do movies try to convince you happiness is only a song away? Next time he goes to New Sounds he’s going to buy the Patti Smith record Scott played for him.

  “Something bad happened to Scott.”

  His parents look at each other. His father sighs, annoyed. “Not during dinner, Robin.”

  “Who’s Scott?” Ruby asks.

  “He’s not at school. All week. What do you think that means?”

  He is frustrated by their silence, each of them looking as if they are trying to prepare something to say, something other than the truth. “I called his father and he sounded really suspicious, and it made me think that maybe something’s wrong.”

  Clark is clearly unhappy with this news. “You shouldn’t be bothering the guy.”

  “I wasn’t bothering him. I was asking where Scott was, which is pretty normal for a friend to do.” He slides his plate away, exasperated that they can’t see the urgency of the situation.

  His mother lays down her knife and fork. She speaks each word carefully, deliberately. “Robin, I know Scott is your friend, and I’m sure he’d be happy to know that you’re concerned about him.” He doesn’t like the way this is starting—it sounds like she’s ready to preach—but he waits before interrupting, hoping maybe she might still possess the capacity to understand him. “I know you’ve spent time with him and had some adventures together, but the fact is that you don’t know him very well. Now, your father and I spoke to Mr. Cortez about him.” She shoots out her hand to silence him, seeing that he has opened his mouth in surprise. “Wait. Don’t say anything. When we met with Hector we just asked him what we should know about this new friend of yours, and he told us that Scott has a history of running away. He’s been caught selling marijuana to kids at school. He’s been left back a year.”

  She pauses for a sip of wine, and Robin interjects. “But all that’s just because—well, he has reasons!”

  “His home life is very difficult, it’s true. And God knows your father and I have a lot of sympathy for the fact that he’s lost his brother....” Her attention drifts away for just an instant—a pause heavy enough for Robin to register the ever present specter of Jackson’s mortality.

  “Who’s Scott?” Ruby repeats, her eyes shifting awkwardly between her hardly touched London broil dinner and the faces around the table.

  “This is a boy who goes to school with Robin—”

  Robin interrupts defiantly. “He’s my new best friend.”

  “He had an older brother who died a violent death. It’s not at all the same situation that Jackson is in, so we don’t need to be thinking bad thoughts. Don’t let any of this upset you, Ruby.”

  Ruby remains expressionless. “I’m not upset.”

  Clark reaches out and pats her shoulder. “You’re excused from the table, if you don’t want to stay.”

  Robin is surprised when she doesn’t leave, and he reads this as a display of solidarity. “You know, Mom, just ’cause Scott’s a little bit of a burnout doesn’t mean . . .”

  She shakes her head; she isn’t going to budge. “I’m telling you what Mr. Cortez told us. You know Mr. Cortez, Robin. He’s got your best interests in mind.”

  Robin’s leg shakes under the table, rippling the surface of his water glass. His mother is so sure, so calm, that he thinks maybe he should listen to her. Scott has never revealed very much about himself, after all. The fact that he hasn’t called Robin might be proof that he never cared for him—and if Scott doesn’t care for him, Robin thinks, maybe he’s been lying to him, too. Maybe things aren’t so bad at home. Maybe Scott himself is the problem... But that doesn’t make sense either. He has seen the bruises, seen Mr. Schatz in action. Why is his mother making him doubt what is true? “All I know is, I think something really bad happened to him.”

  “Your mother’s right. It’s not your concern.” Clark has relief written all over his face; Dorothy’s speech has spared him having to make one himself.

  Robin slams his hands on the table. “Forget it, just forget it!” He raises his voice in sarcasm, gesturing exaggeratedly as he stomps from the kitchen. “We’ll just forget about the fact that this kid who gets beaten up by his father every day has not been seen by anyone for a whole week, and we’ll just act like everything’s normal. Even though he’s my only friend in the whole world, I’ll just stop worrying.” From the top of the stairs he yells out once more. “Everything’s normal! Just perfectly normal!”

  He dashes to his parents’ bedroom and dials Scott’s number. He won’t hang up until he gets an answer. Until he finds Scott. He lies on the floor with the receiver a foot away from him. His breath slows down, keeping rhythm with the unanswered mechanical ring. The operator interrupts—Please hang up and try again. His eyes shut heavily.

  He snaps awake at the sound of the phone being put back on the receiver. Ruby stands above him. “I’ll pray for Scott.”

  “Don’t pray for him. Just help me.”

  “What can I do?”

  “I don’t know,” he says, his voice cracking. “I have to figure something out. I have to.”

  Ruby drops down on the rug next to him and takes his hands in hers. Her touch is warm, her grip sturdy. He searches her face, expecting to see pity, a glazed, angelic smile meant to smooth away his worries. Instead, her gaze is concentrated, her jaw set in fierce determination. “You’ll figure it out,” she insists. “You’re smart, Robin. And you’re strong. You just have to believe.”

  Believe? He repeats the word in his head, and it sounds like a question. Believe in what? But her fingers tighten around his, and he understands that she believes in him, in this mysterious notion of his strength, and for the moment it is enough, and he is thankful for it. He squeezes back to let her know he is willing to try.

  No one speaks of being thankful at the Thanksgiving table. Robin feels Jackson’s absence as palpably as the winter drafts that hiss through the exposed, unfinished room, chilling the dining room table where they eat their holiday feast and struggle to make conversation. Nana keeps their plates full while Dorothy gets looped on wine.

  Stan takes advantage of the moody silences around the table, filling in empty space with his opinions on the state of the world. His particular fixation this day: San Francisco, which has been all over the news lately. First came reports o
f the San Franciscans who followed a guy named Reverend Jim Jones to Guyana and committed mass suicide under his direction. Robin saw the gruesome photos in Time: a metal basin, the kind you use in bobbing for apples, filled with poisoned grape Kool-Aid; a field of twisted corpses facedown all around. Then there was the city supervisor who gunned down the mayor of San Francisco and another supervisor; this second victim, Robin had been surprised to learn, was a homosexual. He tries to picture this guy in San Francisco’s City Hall. Was he like one of those muscular, mustached men from Christopher Street, but sitting behind a desk signing official documents? It doesn’t make any sense. How did he even get into office? Who would vote for a gay?

  Stan uses this fact as proof of the city’s absurdity. “So you got them electing a fag and an assassin. No wonder they’re all running off to Guyana and killing themselves. I always said, San Francisco is like a breakfast cereal—fruits, nuts, and flakes!”

  “Dad, you heard that on Johnny Carson,” Larry says, unimpressed.

  “It was probably funny when he told it,” Robin mutters.

  “Guess I gotta work on my delivery,” Stan says, his smile fading.

  Robin is struck by the notion that Scott might have run away to San Francisco. Maybe he had heard Todd talk about hitting the road, heading out to northern California with its fields of pot plants. Maybe he figured it was the place to go if you didn’t have anywhere else.

  The fact that their house is in tatters still catches Robin by surprise. The dining room carpet ends in a pile of fine sawdust, and at night, the bare, unfinished wood planks disappear into the darkness of two-by-fours and tarpaulin. When you talk inside the new room your voice reverberates like breath blown into a bottle.