“Who was that?” he asks.
“That was your grandmother. We had some words.” Her eyes meet his, wondering, he is sure, how much he overheard. He gives no indication.
“Is everything OK?” he asks.
“I told her it was best that we have a quiet Christmas this year.”
Christmas—it must be only days away. He’d completely forgotten. Every year they ate Christmas dinner at Aunt Corinne’s. This year, it seems, would be different.
He moves to the sink, fills a glass from the tap. For years he’s imagined beating up Larry, has contemplated the sweet victory of it. But now he sees Larry at home, traumatized in the arms of Aunt Corinne, perhaps tormented by nightmares of his own, and he takes no comfort in it. He considers making an offering, explaining his actions—though some part of him immediately rebels against the notion, not wanting to give up the ground he has fought for. He guzzles the water, wipes his mouth on his pajama sleeve. “It really hurts to talk right now.”
Her eyes study him closely and gradually her gaze softens. “There’s no need for you to talk,” she says very gently. “You just concentrate on getting better.”
He offers her a smile, thankful for the protection she is extending, and returns to the comfort of the couch. He curls up beneath his blanket, closing himself off from the world around him.
The skeleton of a Christmas celebration: a minimally decorated tree, hauled into the house by Clark on Christmas Eve; Barbra Streisand on the turntable; a handful of presents for Robin and Ruby. One box contains a zippered sweatjacket, meant to replace the tattered one he got from Scott; he musters up enough enthusiasm to thank his parents, but lays it aside without trying it on. Dorothy cooks a simple dinner, which they eat in almost torturous silence.
Robin’s favorite gift is a copy of Salinger’s Franny and Zooey. He spends the afternoon reading it, enraptured with the young hero, Zooey Glass, wanting to be Zooey Glass: a handsome, intelligent actor living in a roomy New York apartment, solving the problems of his colorful family with the help of an older, wiser brother. Dorothy sits next to him on the couch, sipping brandy for hours, listening to a Mahler symphony on the stereo, her eyes unfocused, her thoughts unknowable.
A car enters their driveway, its headlights filling the living room windows. Ruby peers through the glass, then turns around in surprise. “It’s Uncle Stan,” she says.
Clark jumps up from his armchair, where he has been reading the newspaper. Robin looks to his mother, who is staring wide-eyed at her husband. “I asked him to drop by,” Clark explains.
“Oh, Clark, you didn’t.”
“We’ve got to get this settled, Dottie,” he says, hands extended wide as if measuring something enormous. “He’s your brother, and he’s going to be around. I still need him to help finish the room. We’re leaking heat every day.”
“Absolutely not,” Dorothy says, rising to her feet and passing Clark on the way to the door. “Not now.”
“Aw, Dottie, for the love of Christ—”
She heads outside in her stockings, her steps unsteady but determined. Clark follows her, instructing Robin and Ruby to stay put and slamming the door behind him.
Robin rushes to Ruby’s side at the window. “He looks drunk,” Ruby says.
So does she, Robin thinks, but remains silent as an argument erupts. Within moments, all three adults are shouting. Robin hears his name mentioned, and Larry’s and Jackson’s, in the midst of sentences that he can’t make out, though each moment bristles with anger. “They’re talking about the funeral,” he says to Ruby.
She nods back at him knowingly, whispering, “I was wondering if this was going to happen.” Her voice sounds wiser than he thought possible.
Clark is jockeying for position between Dorothy and Stan, attempting to arbitrate, but it soon becomes clear that they are talking past him, firing their accusations at each other, and gradually he backs out of sight. Robin is caught between wanting Dorothy to win this fight, to see Stan slump away, humiliated, and an equally powerful urge to rush to her side and say something, anything, that might bring this to a close. Perhaps Ruby senses his turmoil—she grabs his hand and holds tight, keeping him at her side, behind the safety of the window.
“Get away from there,” Clark commands, suddenly behind them. Robin turns around, sees his father’s agonized frustration, his hands balled into fists. “It’s none of your business.”
“It’s about me, right? About me and Larry?”
Clark squeezes his eyes shut, as if unable to answer. “It’s about a lot of things. A lifetime.”
His father looks so unhappy, embarrassed, shaken up. It’s painful to see. “I’ll go out there,” Robin insists. “I’ll say something, whatever you want.”
“You can’t make it right. It’s bigger than you. And on top of it, they’re inebriated.”
Ruby speaks up, urgency and authority in her delicate voice. “Robin was telling the truth, Dad. About Larry and Jackson, on the playground. That’s how it happened.”
Robin sucks in his breath. Ruby’s eyes are alive with righteousness. Clark looks from one to the other, opens his mouth to speak, then clamps his lips together. His eyes water. Finally, in a hush, he says, “It doesn’t change anything. It can’t bring back my son.”
He leaves them alone. Robin looks at Ruby, marveling at her performance. He mouths the words, Thank you.
“I owed you a favor. Remember?”
Outside a car door slams. Rubber on cement, the squeal of acceleration. Stan is gone. Their mother stands on the front lawn teetering on trembling legs, her head in her hands.
“Come on,” Robin says to Ruby, “Let’s bring her back in.”
In the week that follows, the temperature drops and Clark makes a decision: he brings in a team of builders, three men who make fast work of finishing off the construction of Jackson’s room. Robin still thinks of it that way—Jackson’s room—because it has yet to be given another purpose, though no one ever refers to it as anything but “the room.” Just a couple of weeks ago, it seemed as though his father and Stan would be bumbling through the project forever. Stan is not part of this now; he hasn’t returned since Christmas night. Even Clark’s involvement is minimal. He’s gone back to work, getting up early, eating breakfast to the newsradio and catching the commuter train. Dorothy has returned to work as well, picking up day shifts at the library. In their absence, the house trembles with alien activity, as if it has been handed over to strangers. When his parents return at night, they have very little to say to each other.
Robin often spends the night in the living room, avoiding the eerie emptiness of his bedroom. All of Jackson’s belongings remain, inescapable reminders of everything that has transpired, everything that has fallen apart, his own unresolved guilt. Even the votive candles on the dresser are coated in dust; Ruby no longer tends the altar she had assembled. Some days, when he enters the room to pick out his clothes, he sits on Jackson’s bed and tries to talk to him, the way he did at the hospital. He begins a story, an update on their family, but he finds it hard to continue. His mind drifts somewhere else—to the dread of returning to school in the New Year, or to Scott, who has yet to surface. Catching himself off track, Robin simply runs his fingers along Jackson’s superhero sheets, whispers an apology, asks him to come back.
Asleep on the couch. He wakes before he opens his eyes, stirred by hushed, strained voices on the verge of argument. His mother sits on the arm, her back to him.
“Why aren’t you coming to bed?” his father is asking.
“I’m just paying Robin some mind.”
Robin keeps his eyes closed, pretending.
“He’s asleep. Tuck him in and come to bed.”
“I’m not tired, Clark.”
“Are you going to stay up all night?”
Robin hears her shift uncomfortably, letting out a chilly sigh.
“Dottie, I’m asking you to ... join me.”
“Not tonight.”
/> “Why do you do that? You make me feel bad that I want to be close to you.”
“Keep your voice down. He’s sleeping.” Her hand falls to Robin’s hair. He sucks in his breath, remains still.
“Then let him sleep. I want to be with you tonight.”
She does not respond.
Almost pleading: “It’s been so long, Dottie. I want to be inside of you.”
“Well, I’m sorry, but my own needs right now are not so ... acute. ”
His voice swells. “You make me feel like shit—you know that?”
“And you make me feel like a receptacle. So we’re even.”
Clark’s footsteps travel away, his wounded words trailing behind: “You don’t have to act like you have it so bad. I’m still a decent-looking guy. I’m still your husband.”
Stroking Robin’s head, still believing him to be asleep, she murmurs, “Yes, Clark, you’re my husband. For a while, you’re still my husband.”
He feels himself tighten inside, steeling himself up against all that is yet to come.
Chapter Thirteen
He returns to school on a January day of startling clarity. The sun is large and low in a pale blue sky; broad, blinding swathes of light reflect off banks of white, white snow. He has refused a ride from his mother and now plods through ice and slush, sweating under the weight of his winter clothes. He is no longer ill but is aware of the limits of his physical strength; even breathing takes effort. Time stretches as he anticipates his return, as he tries to imagine what he will say to anyone who asks where he’s been. Or does everyone already know what has happened, and will they greet him with awkward silence? He has spoken very few words to Victoria since the funeral, and none to anyone else beyond his family. Mr. Cortez called once to check in, but Robin wouldn’t speak with him, full of resentment because Cortez had denied his mother’s request about Scott.
Today he’ll visit Mr. Cortez to arrange a schedule of meetings with Dr. Gottlieb, the school district’s psychiatrist. Robin had refused to partake in these sessions when his parents first raised the idea; he consented only after they told him he would visit Dr. Gottlieb instead of going to phys. ed. He might as well be going to confession at St. Bart’s: he’s afraid what he will reveal, what will be found out about him, what the consequences will be. He has never seen Dr. Gottlieb, but he imagines him to look like the actor who played the police chief in Rebel Without A Cause, who wants to be helpful but in the end just isn’t there when he’s needed.
His goal: to be solitary, unobtrusive, invisible. He wants to avoid the minefield of explanation, isn’t sure he could even come up with adequate small talk about Jackson’s death. His head aches with disturbing knowledge about himself and the way the world works. His mother used to tell him he was one of a kind among his peers, more sophisticated and worldly because she had shown him the city and promised him the secret wisdom that it held. But only now does he truly think of himself as different from the others: most people go along as if life is basically good even though bad things happen every now and then. But Robin believes he has figured out the truth, a truth larger than anything his mother ever taught him—that life is mostly bad because people are capable of terrible things. Most people think that life offers you endless opportunities to get what you want, but Robin thinks there are endless possibilities for it all to be taken away.
His English teacher welcomes him back in front of the entire class, but he does not look up for fear his eyes will telegraph some terrible truth about himself. In social studies his long absence is not acknowledged at all, which is worse because he spends the entire class anxiously expecting the spotlight to be turned on him again, avoiding the stares of curious classmates. During third period he struggles in vain to get up to speed on his German lessons, the day’s dialogue far surpassing his knowledge. After three hours he’s actually looking forward to seeing Mr. Cortez.
On his way into the guidance office, he catches sight of Todd Spicer striding down the hall with Ethan and Tully, laughing and faking a punch into Ethan’s chest. The image is timeless; he could have seen Todd like this on any day since he’s been in high school. Nothing that has happened in the last few months has had the power to alter this basic fact about Todd: every day, between classes, he can be spotted with his pals in the hallway, laughing and faking punches. The familiarity of the moment is remarkable to Robin. How can it be that everything has changed inside of him when all around everything seems to be the same as ever?
Todd’s eyes rest on him for a moment, then willfully, casually look away without recognition. Robin remembers Todd delivering that same studied avoidance once before: to Scott, in the cafeteria, passing him by as if he wasn’t there. He thinks, So this is what it feels like.
“Good morning, Robin.”
“Nothing good about it so far.”
Mr. Cortez expresses his sympathy about Jackson, surprising Robin by pulling him into a sturdy embrace. “Having trouble coping with it all?” Mr. Cortez asks.
“If I wasn’t, we wouldn’t be sending me to a head shrinker, would we?” Robin hears the sarcasm in his own voice, traces it back to the anger he is harboring toward Cortez.
Mr. Cortez says, “You’re not crazy, Robin. That’s not what this is about. You’ve been put under a great deal of stress, and we need to get to the bottom of it.”
Mr. Cortez speaks all the right words, but it feels like a trap is being laid. “Yeah, well just don’t expect me to spill my guts to some stranger,” Robin says.
There’s a new photograph framed on Mr. Cortez’s desk. It’s the same woman from the other picture, only now she looks less like a hippie and more like someone who gets up and goes to work. In this picture she’s older, and her hair is shorter and permed, and she’s wearing a pantsuit and high heels. Mr. Cortez has his arm around her waist, a big grin on his face, as if just being at her side is enough to make him proud.
Cortez sees Robin looking at the photo and smiles. “You want to know a secret? She’s pregnant.”
“Your wife?” Cortez nods. Robin studies her thin figure. “She’s not pregnant in this picture, is she?”
“Yeah, Jenny had just gotten the test back, and she said, ‘You better take a picture before I get big because my body will never be the same again.’ You know, women.”
Robin puts the picture back on the desk. He is thinking of his mother, of what that must have been like. Getting the test back: passing meant failing. “Was it an accident?”
Cortez picks up the frame, studies it as if the answer to Robin’s question lies coded in the image. “You want to know the truth? We weren’t going to have kids. We decided we didn’t want to bring another kid into the world, what with overpopulation and nuclear meltdowns and all the rest of it. Like racism. I mean, this kid’s gonna be half Puerto Rican and half Irish. Maybe he’ll have a tough time of it.”
“So then why are you doing it?”
“You can’t always think philosophically about these things. Sometimes you just go with your gut instinct instead of what you think you should do.”
Cortez smiles—Robin sees contentment there, expectation, joy. He can’t discern any hidden agenda. Without warning, his own eyes water up. He lowers his head and sucks in his breath to keep tears from spilling, but Cortez notices and pats his shoulder empathetically.
Robin slinks back from the touch, remembering his stored-up anger. He wipes his eyes and blurts, “Do you have a number where I can find Scott Schatz?” Cortez’s expression momentarily hardens, which Robin takes as the prelude to a refusal. “Forget it,” he says, rising to his feet. “I shouldn’t have asked. My mother said you wouldn’t tell her.”
Mr. Cortez holds out his hands as if deflecting an onrush. “Whoa, wait a minute. I’m not the heavy here, Robin. I told your mom where Scott is now, and I said I’d leave it up to her to decide whether or not to tell you.”
“Really?” Robin lowers himself back to his seat, bewildered. Who’s lying—Mr. Cortez or his m
other?
“Look, Robin. Scott’s fine. He’s living with his brother’s wife for a while. Waiting for his mother’s release.”
“His brother’s wife?”
“Do you know about his brother?”
“Duh, he’s dead.” The thought sprints through him that he and Scott now have this in common. It’s so obvious—he can’t believe he hadn’t yet made the connection. All along, Scott has been living with this reality: to be the one left behind after a brother dies. That’s why he always listened when I talked about Jackson—he knew what was coming.
Cortez is explaining. “Daniel Schatz married a girl named Gail a few months before he died. And she lives—” He stops himself. “Well, she lives nearby.”
“Where?”
“In Bergen County—that’s all I’ll say.”
“You really told my mother? She said you wouldn’t tell her.” Robin still isn’t sure what to believe.
“I guess she has her reasons for keeping it to herself.” Cortez rubs his fingers against his brow. “Robin, you know, every year I tend to get in a little over my head with one student—I guess you’re the lucky candidate this time. But I can only go so far. Your parents have final say.”
Leaving the office, clutching a schedule of appointments with Dr. Gottlieb, Robin turns one more time to look at Mr. Cortez, with the vague notion that he’s left something important behind. Cortez’s back is to him as he stands leafing through a file cabinet. Robin takes in the curve of his shoulders, the shifting of his torso as he raises his arm, the vertical stripes of a button-down shirt disappearing behind his belt. Mr. Cortez looks like he has been poured into a compact body mold—not fat or skinny, not bulky or pudgy or bony. He looks solid. Robin takes this in with a yearning that is less about desire than about a need for an answer: what does a man—a man he might even trust—look like? Maybe that’s all I need. Just be more like Mr. Cortez. Less like my mother and more like Mr. Cortez: Go with your gut instinct, not what you think you should do.
The World of Normal Boys Page 35
