Even with Jackson’s return postponed indefinitely, construction of the room must be finished. Stan and Larry stay the night, and the next morning everyone rises early. They work for hours, Stan supervising, Clark and Larry looking to him for leads. All morning long, as Sheetrock goes up and Spackle is smeared, Robin hovers at the edges, fetching tools and doing as he is told, maintaining a resentful silence. He is aware of the role he is playing: Jackson’s role, youngest boy among the men of the family, the acolyte learning the ropes. A portent of the future, he thinks with a shiver—Robin forced to be the boy that Jackson was.
Nana makes them turkey-and-stuffing sandwiches. Robin takes his outside, in the cold, to eat alone. He looks at the house, at the exterior of the room they have been building. Plastic window coverings strain against the wind, snapping like wings that have been pinned down. The bare pine looks as though it has burst from the gray siding like an alien growth with a plan of its own. The roof now connects to the roof outside of his bedroom window; if Ruby climbed out her window they could meet in the middle. He has lost his private balcony.
Larry sits down next to him on the back stoop. Robin turns away from him and takes a bite of his sandwich. “What’s your problem?” Larry asks. “What, are you mad at me?”
“I’m not interested enough in you to be mad at you,” Robin says.
“Well, excuse me,” Larry says. He treads across the lawn, kicking dead leaves from his path. Robin watches Larry’s cocky strut—he has it all down: how to get through the world with every step an assertion of power. No one ever accused Larry of walking with too much of a sway.
The slam of a car door carries from across the back hedge. In the Spicers’ yard a hostile exchange of voices erupts. Robin stands to get a better look. Todd is sitting behind the wheel of his car; his father is shouting at him through the window. Though he can’t discern the words, Robin recognizes in Mr. Spicer’s gestures and vocal tones a frustration so similar to his own father’s when he struggles to make himself heard by Robin. The comparison is unsettling. Mr. Spicer looms large in his mind, a serious, traditional man whose rare bursts of rage are almost legendary; both Victoria and Scott have referred to the severe beating he gave Todd. Just a few months ago, the idea of his own father hitting him across the face was alien to Robin. Now he wonders if it was inevitable, if it is something that sooner or later happens to teenage boys: their fathers’ frustrations uncoil in one mad snap.
The shouting is overpowered by the car’s ignition. Todd guns the engine a couple of times, then reverses in a cloud of singed rubber. Mr. Spicer stomps back in the house.
“Who was that?” Larry asks him.
“Todd Spicer,” Robin says, as if Larry should know all about him.
“ ’69 Camaro. Very cool.”
“He’s a friend of mine.”
“Yeah, right. Tell me another one.”
Robin shrugs—he can’t be bothered trying to convince Larry. He turns around to see Ruby at the back door. “What was all that noise?” she asks.
“Todd Spicer,” Larry says, faking breathless adoration.
“He just drove off in his new car. His father was yelling at him.”
“I bet I know why,” Ruby says, lowering her voice with the promise of gossip. She looks around, making sure no one is eavesdropping. “Cathy Delatore said that Todd got Debbie Staley pregnant.”
Robin isn’t sure he’s heard her right. Debbie? The girl who hangs all over Todd at school? Even though Robin has seen them together, he’s never believed that they were having sex. If Todd was doing it with this girl, why would he want to do stuff with Robin? “Todd didn’t get any girl pregnant.”
“How would you know?” Ruby challenges. “They wouldn’t just announce it to the whole world.”
Larry puffs up his chest. “Well, she’s just gonna have to get an abortion.”
Ruby’s jaw drops in shock. “That’s disgusting.”
“You mean to tell me you wouldn’t get rid of it if it was you?”
Robin can see Larry bullying in on Ruby. “Stop bothering her, Larry. She’s not getting pregnant anytime soon.”
Ruby crosses her arms. “I don’t believe in sex before marriage. It’s against God.”
“Everyone does it anyway.” Larry loops his thumbs in his waistband and leans in closer to them both. “I got a girlfriend now, and we’re gonna do it.”
“I don’t care,” Ruby says.
“What about you, Robin? You gonna do it before you get married?” His face is smug, his voice facetious.
Robin reaches out and gives Larry a little shove. “Maybe I already have. I certainly wouldn’t tell you.”
“Bullshit.”
“It’s not bullshit.”
Ruby is telegraphing her confusion to Robin. Their father has instructed them that sex before marriage is prohibited, and at St. Bart’s the priest has lectured many times about resisting such temptation. Ruby might be titillated by gossip about Todd Spicer, but she does not want to hear Robin hint that he, too, has transgressed. Larry’s egged him on this far, but now Robin wants this conversation to end.
“This is stupid,” he says impatiently, trying to use his sense of superiority to get the better of Larry. “Because, for one thing, Todd’s not even doing it with that girl—he would have told me, or Victoria would have told me. And another thing, Larry, you’re just a big talker and a bully and all the rest of it.”
Ruby, relieved that Robin has asserted some control, pipes in, “And not everybody does it before marriage. Catholic people don’t.”
Larry locks his meanest smile in place. “Your mother did.”
Ruby’s jaw drops again. Robin sees in her eyes that Larry’s words have stung. When your mother is insulted, he knows, you’re supposed to rise up in defense. But there’s no time. Larry’s on a roll. “My father told me. She was pregnant when they got married. That’s why they got married.” He turns to Robin. “When’s your birthday?”
“December 15th.”
“And when did they get married?”
“At the end of May.” He looks at Ruby, already counting to seven. “But that doesn’t mean anything, because for your information I was born almost two months premature.” This is what he was told by his father when he was very young, what he’s always believed without question.
“You’re just lucky you weren’t an abortion.”
“You better shut your fucking mouth,” Robin yells.
“Make me.”
Ruby verges on bursting into tears. She turns to run back in the house just as Dorothy is opening the door, announcing, “Last call for lunch.” Ruby rushes past her, obviously upset.
“What in God’s name? Ruby!” Dorothy looks to Robin for an explanation.
His face burns in rage and confusion. “How much did I weigh when I was born?”
“Ten pounds or so. You were a big baby.” Dorothy looks puzzled, even alarmed.
“That’s not what Dad told me.” He casts a sidelong glance to Larry, who looks away, as if all of this has nothing to do with him. Robin hates his cousin more than ever, hates the way Larry is capable of only one thing: hurting anyone he thinks of as weak. “You should go talk to Ruby,” he instructs his mother coolly. “She’s upset.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, what brought this on?” The screen door slams behind her.
Watching her slip away, knowing she did not understand what he was really asking her—not only about the circumstances of his birth but about the lies told to him through the years—Robin clenches his jaw, steeling himself against the disappointment that consumes him.
“Told you,” Larry says.
Robin reaches out, entwines his fingers in Larry’s hair and pulls. With his other hand he digs into Larry’s exposed Adam’s apple, catching him completely off guard. Words rush out like lethal gas. “I am going to kill you one day, Larry. I swear, one day, I am going to figure out how to kill you.”
Larry manages to push him off. “You couldn
’t hurt a fucking two-year-old,” he wails—but his cherry-red skin and the ambushed shock in his eyes tell Robin otherwise.
He is on his bicycle, heading down the driveway. For days he has been thinking about how he might sneak out of the house, and now the opportunity has presented itself without announcement. He just walked past Larry to the garage. Pedaling fast down Bergen Avenue, the cold wind bringing tears to his eyes, he is freer than he has been in days, in weeks. Maybe ever. It’s not happiness: at this speed, sadness and freedom seem like the same thing.
His mother and father, married because of him. Once they had been young, almost as young as Todd and Debbie, just doing it for the hell of it, because it felt good. Then there must have been a conversation, a decision to go ahead and get married. Maybe they had been planning it already; or maybe they hadn’t really loved each other. Maybe that’s why they fight so much now, because from the start they weren’t in love. They married because he came along.
But why has he never been told of this?
His mother keeping such a big secret from him—that’s what thrashes inside his skull, sours in his throat. As if she was ashamed. As if he were something to be ashamed of. He’s glad he is keeping secrets from her now; he could keep secrets for the rest of his life and it would still not be enough pay her back. He throws his weight into his legs, emboldened by injustice. Familiar houses come slowly into view and then quickly out again—it seems to him that he is discarding them, dismissing everything in sight as useless, unworthy.
He considers going to Scott’s and demanding Scott’s whereabouts from Mr. Schatz. A fantasy takes hold: he finds Scott’s hiding place, rescues him, takes him away. They could hitchhike cross country, go all the way to San Francisco and live in peace with the flakes and fruits and nuts. He might find Scott at The Bird, holed up in the abandoned aviary, living off stolen food, bathing in the stream at night. Waiting.
The Bird. Anxiety rises up, a pocket of air in his throat. Without Scott, he must fight back the old fears: he is too young, too weak, not cool enough for this place. He has to ride past half a dozen parked cars, and the kids hanging out, to get to the bike rack at the entrance to the woods. He slows his pace, thinking that haste will reveal his discomfort. And then he sees a car that he recognizes: a ’69 Camaro.
Todd, leaning against the trunk. Faded denim jacket and black T-shirt. Beer can tilted back. Ethan and Tully and a couple of others circle around. At his side, under the protective reach of his arm, is Debbie Staley. Robin scans her body for signs of pregnancy. No big belly, no swollen breasts—just a smiling, skinny, flat-chested girl sucking on a roach.
Ethan sees him first. “Hey, Spicer, there’s your little friend.”
Todd nods at him, no sign of welcome on his face. He clutches Debbie tighter—the smallest of gestures, but one that Robin takes personally. Todd is off-limits.
“I want to ask you something,” Robin calls out to Todd. He hears the timidity in his voice and wants to stomp it out. “Have you heard from Scott lately?”
Todd swigs his beer. “Scott who?”
Robin spins his pedals backward, a wobbly tension holding him in place. “I think he ran away. He hasn’t been in school and his father’s been really rough on him lately, so I was worried—”
Todd looks away, annoyed. “Look, man, I don’t know anything about it.”
“Do you know where I could look?”
“Yeah, why don’t you look under a rock?” He pauses, looks coolly into Robin’s eyes. “Girly Underwear.”
Robin drops back, stunned.
Todd adds, “Why don’t you just get lost, Girly Underwear?”
Only when Debbie starts laughing, burying her head into Todd’s chest as if this insult, this dismissal, is a private joke they share, does Robin feel the violent pounding of his pulse. He calls out, “So I heard this rumor today, about you, Todd. And you—” He indicates Debbie. “Yeah, I heard that you got her pregnant.”
“Whoa—” The crowd around Todd is shocked, maybe even impressed, by Robin’s nerve. Debbie’s mouth widens. Todd steps forward angrily, his face reddening.
“But I said it couldn’t be true,” Robin continues, amazed at the composure he hears in his voice.
“Is that so?” Todd says, his angry glare warning that Robin is treading on thin ice.
“Yeah, I said there’s no way you could get her pregnant. Because you’re such a fag.”
Todd just stares, breath seized in his chest. In the dead brown of Todd’s eyes Robin reads that they are now enemies, that he has defaulted on everything Todd had let him in on, has renounced the access he had gained, has disallowed the closeness he might have wished for the future. Whatever it was that connected him to Todd, whatever it was that made Todd want to do sex things with him, is now history. Todd has not done or said anything in response, and even though Robin knows that Todd must soon do or say something to gain back the upper hand, and that it will only get worse from this point on, he cannot stop himself from inflaming the situation further. He wants the freedom to be as mean as everyone has ever been to him. He hates Todd Spicer. He hates him more than he could hate his parents for lying to him, he hates him the way he hates Larry or Uncle Stan or Mr. Schatz. He hates the meanness, hates it so much that he wants only to reflect it back. He inches the bike forward and hisses, “Cocksucker.”
Todd leaps toward him. Robin speeds into the parking lot, pointing his bike toward the exit—and puts himself into the path of a moving car. He swerves to avoid it and his front tire slips on loose gravel. The bike skids out from under him, sending him tumbling into a pile of dead leaves. The car passes, horn honking.
He is pinned under the greasy gears of his bike, his knee throbbing, his jeans streaked with dirt. Todd stands above him, beer can in hand.
“Where’d you learn to ride this spiffy bike, Girly Underwear?” He kicks one of his workboots into the wheel, sending it whizzing on its axis.
Robin pulls his leg out from under the frame and scoots back. Todd moves with him, straddling his body, a leg on either side. Robin watches Todd’s hand wrap tighter around the beer can, callused fingertips denting the aluminum.
Todd licks his lips. “I think you owe me a fucking apology, Girly Underwear. Maybe that way I won’t have to bust up your face.” He lowers his voice. “I’ve done it before. I’ll do it again.”
“I never did anything to you!” His voice quavers; his throat has gone dry. His smallness exposes itself it in so many ways—he wants to stamp it all out. “I’ll hit you back this time,” he says angrily.
“Oh, you’re so fucking tough,” Todd mocks. Robin is ready for the beer to come pouring down, but instead Todd drops to a squat, still straddling Robin’s body, and tips the can back, drinking greedily.
Todd’s body, so close to him. The familiar smells: cigarettes and beer, vinyl car interior, sweat-stained clothes. Robin can’t help himself: he watches Todd’s throat ripple, catches the caress of hair against Todd’s neck, feels himself dissolving at the edges. His hatred for Todd has only subdued this longing, not obliterated it—and Todd knows this. Todd smiles an unreadable, close-lipped smile, and then without warning thrusts his head forward, splattering a mouthful of beer across Robin’s face.
The shock of it: skin icy, eyes stinging, cheeks heavy with foam. He shakes his head to be free of it. Todd’s lips are parted now, buttered with beer and spit. He inches closer.
Robin hisses through gritted teeth. “What do you want from me?”
“Dust,” Todd says in a hush.
“What?”
“That’s all you are to me, Robin,” he whispers. “A pile of fucking dust.” He fires a needle of breath at Robin’s face, extinguishing a candle. “And that goes for Scott Schatz, too. Jesus, I can’t believe you’re wearing his smelly old jacket.” With one last contemptuous glare, he pushes himself to his feet.
Robin remains on the ground, stunned. Is it over? Todd struts back to the car, exaggerating his triumph: his arms
cast wide, his voice bellowing, “Gotta teach these punks some respect.”
“What did you say to him?” Debbie asks.
“I made him eat his words,” Todd growls, peeling open a victory beer.
“You should have creamed him,” Ethan complains.
Robin concentrates on Todd, surrounded again by his fan club, all of them evaluating the show. I’m supposed to run off crying now so he can gloat in it. No way. He wipes his face and sucks snot up his nose, spits a gob from the back of his throat. Standing up, he takes his time wiping off, checking the frame for damage, inspecting the chain. It’s a test: how long can he linger, knowing that Todd might still come back over and beat him up? But Todd does not even look his way—leaving Robin wondering whether this failure to make eye contact is a further insult or, on the other hand, a failure of Todd’s will.
He pedals slowly toward the exit. The air flutters against his damp skin. Free of Todd’s overwhelming physical closeness, he allows himself the experience of relief: I didn’t eat my words. Fag. Cocksucker. Todd couldn’t deny it.
He pedals through Greenlawn, feeling at one moment completely abandoned; at the next, completely set free. Going toward something or moving away—he can’t tell the difference. He just rides.
A song enters his head, a song from Saturday Night Fever, and he sings aloud, his voice alternately pained and defiant. I’m going nowhere, somebody help me, somebody help me, yeah. I’m stayin’ alive.
And then he remembers; he knows where he must go next.
Jackson is curled on his side, folding into himself, a fetus. Robin strokes his hair, it is oily, flattened to the skull. He listens to the horrible raspy breaths. This half-alive creature is the same person as his wild brother. Just a couple of months ago Jackson was streaking through the house naked; now Jackson doesn’t even have the strength to wake.
“Goddamn it,” he pleads. “Come on, Jackson. Enough of this shit already. Enough of this playing around. Just come home, would you? You’ll get your own room and everything. It’s gonna be different now. You won’t believe how much everything’s changed. You won’t believe how much I’ve changed.”
The World of Normal Boys Page 31
