The World of Normal Boys

by K. M. Soehnlein

  Finding Scott now seems more urgent than ever.

  When you call Information, you are first asked the town of the listing you are looking for, which is of course the one thing Robin doesn’t know. He checks out a reference book on New Jersey from the school library that lists every town in Bergen County, and he pulls a chair up to the payphone outside the cafeteria.

  “What city please?”

  “Allendale. ”

  “Yes?”

  “Gail Schatz?” He spells it for her.

  “I’m sorry. I have no listing under that name.”

  “How about Daniel Schatz?”

  When he figures out that the call is free—that he doesn’t have to worry about running out of dimes—he grows elated. There are seventy towns in Bergen County. It can’t take that long.

  It takes until Palisades Park.

  “Is Scott home?”

  “Yeah, hold on.” She shouts the name. Robin holds his breath, astonished that this moment is finally here. Through the phone, the woman shushes a baby’s cries. She says into his ear, “Sorry, hon, I gotta drop you,” and lets the receiver clunk against a wall. He waits nervously, trying to plan what to say. Hi, Scott. It’s Robin. Remember me?

  Suddenly back on the line, she says breathlessly, “I thought he was here. Want to leave a message?”

  He hangs up without another word, unwilling to leave his name, afraid that this woman—Gail—would not pass the message on to Scott. She might have the same attitude as Dorothy: she might be determined to keep Scott and him separated.

  Maybe it was a fluke. Maybe it wasn’t the right number. Maybe it was another Scott. He calls again.

  “May I speak with Scott Schatz?”

  “He’s not home right now. Who’s this?”

  He hangs up, reeling at the sudden turn of events.

  After the third call she recognizes his voice. “Oh, it’s you again,” she says. “The kid with no name.” She almost sounds amused.

  Every time he tries to reach Scott over the next few days, Gail answers the phone. He never speaks, just hangs up at the sound of her voice.

  The only thing to do is to go there. For days he makes the plan. He gets the street address from the operator, buys a county map at the Getty gas station in town, checks and rechecks the bus schedule.

  He gets Ruby to cover for him. “I’m going to walk you to church Saturday morning, but I’m not going inside. When you get home, just tell Mom I needed to be by myself for a while.”

  She hesitates at first, not wanting to be part of a lie, but then he gives in and tells her that he’s found Scott. “You told me to believe,” he reminds her, and she agrees to his plan.

  He has always wondered about the passengers who get on the bus at one stop in New Jersey and get off at another. For Robin, there has only ever been one destination: New York City. Why weren’t these people going all the way? His mother once pointed out to him that not everyone had a car, that some people relied on the Red and Tan Lines to get around. But he never liked the idea of it; it seemed sad to him, as if these people were doomed to never get out of New Jersey. Now he finds himself disembarking at an intersection in Palisades Park that he has passed through dozens of times before.

  10 A.M. A Saturday in January, 1979. From the street the town does not look half as sad or strange as it does through the tinted windows of the bus. It’s just another town, with cars parking in front of stores and a bank at the corner displaying an American flag and an enormous digital clock. Robin knows Scott doesn’t get up early on Saturday mornings, and he has planned to be here at a time when he thinks he will find him in. He calls from a payphone at the corner. “Is Scott there?”

  “Oh, my God,” Gail shrieks. “You actually called when he’s home. Scott!”

  The phone changes hands. “Hello?” Scott’s voice in his ear, clear as can be.

  Robin suddenly understands why people say “your heart skips a beat,” because that’s what his does at that moment. He has to force the words from his throat. “Hi, Scott. It’s Robin. Robin MacKenzie?”

  “I knew it was you,” Scott says. “Why didn’t you tell her your name?”

  “I don’t know.” Robin can’t tell if Scott is happy to hear from him or not.

  “Man, you were driving Gail mental. She was like, ‘You little druggie, what kind of enemies you got out there?’ ” Scott laughs, and just as Robin is wondering if Gail is still within earshot, Scott calls, “Right, Gail? Isn’t that what you said?”

  Robin hears Gail ask, “So who is it?”

  “It’s Robin,” Scott says. “Remember? I told you about him. Who I went to the city with? Whose parents ... ”

  “Oh, yeah. That one.”

  “What did you say about me?” Robin asks, unsure if he should be pleased that Scott’s been talking about him or full of dread at what has been said.

  “I just told her about going to the city, and how your parents busted me—”

  “Busted us,” Robin interrupts. “You have no idea what kind of things have been happening to me.”

  “Whatever,” Scott says, his voice cooling off. A car horn blares in the street behind Robin. “Where are you, anyway?”

  Robin forces a light laugh. “Oh, you know, in your town.”

  “You’re in Pal Park? Right now at this fucking moment?”

  “I got your address, so I figured—”

  “Well, I can’t just leave the house.”

  Robin is startled at Scott’s curtness. “Why not? Are you grounded?”

  “I mean, I just woke up and I can’t just leave because you suddenly show up.”

  Scott’s words sting. Robin pushes down the hurt and lets himself make a demand. “Give me one good reason why you can’t see me right now.”

  Scott says, “OK,” but offers nothing. Robin feels him backing down and feels his own determination increasing. He’s not going to let Scott, of all people, try to brush him off. Scott is all he’s got left, and he wants to make that clear.

  “I’m not trying to be a pain, Scott. I just thought you would want to see me. I mean, I want to see you. So what’s your problem?”

  Scott’s voice is an angry hush. “I don’t have a fucking problem.”

  The playground is the new kind: the equipment built from old truck tires strung on chains between wooden beams. The tire holes are all filled with snow, white on black, like enormous Oreos. Robin looks at the slide. It isn’t very tall, and its chute corkscrews in wide arcs to a deep snowbank that probably covers a sandbox. To get to the top, you climb big wooden blocks, not a steep steel ladder. Robin intones a deep, omnipotent voice, like Orson Welles on the wine commercials: “No children will be killed on this playground.”

  Robin is wearing the zippered sweatjacket—the original, not his Christmas gift—under his own quilted down vest. It’s not really heavy enough for the weather, but he’s hardly let a day go by where he hasn’t worn it, or curled up with it under his blanket, or sniffed the arm pits for a lingering trace of Scott’s body. He doesn’t even think of it as “Scott’s jacket” anymore; it’s “the jacket Scott gave me.” But when Scott comes through the chain link fence of the playground where he’s told Robin to meet him, he does not seem to notice the jacket, which, Robin thinks, is a bad omen.

  Scott is wearing sunglasses and an old army trenchcoat several sizes too big for him. The hem of it sweeps against the snow. Robin can see black lace-up boots kicking out from under Scott’s jeans as Scott takes long strides across the icy playground.

  “Nice buzz,” Scott says as he gets closer, puffing breath into the air.

  Robin pulls off his cap and turns his head. “It’s dorky, isn’t it?”

  “You should get rid of that side part and clip it really short,” Scott says. He pulls out a pack of cigarettes, pops two up. Robin takes one. “Mine is all coming off soon. As soon as I can convince Gail. It’s gonna be cool, really punk.”

  Robin lights his cigarette, hands trembling. He an
d Scott exhale at the same time, the twin jets of smoke crashing in the air between them. He says, “I can’t believe I’m really talking to you! I’ve been trying to find you for so long!”

  “I’ve been here. I’m living with Gail. She’s kind of my sister.” His voice sounds deliberately obscure.

  “She’s your sister-in-law,” Robin says eagerly. “I finally got the scoop from Cortez. I had to get the phone number from Information. I called the operator like fifty times!” Robin tries to decipher Scott’s silence, wishing he could see Scott’s eyes behind his sunglasses. “I was worried, you know, because of that night after we were in New York.”

  “Nothing to worry about now.”

  “So everything’s OK with your father?”

  “He’s there, I’m here. That’s good.”

  “I’m so sorry about my parents calling him.” Scott does not respond. Robin is growing alarmed by Scott’s silence; surely it can not be a good sign. “I was so pissed at them—you have no idea.”

  “It doesn’t matter, because here I am now.” A cold gust of wind rustles some bare branches above them. “Gail’s cool, and she’s got this kid I never knew about—Jake—so I’m kind of an uncle. ‘Uncle Scotty.’ Man, what do you think about that?” A hint of satisfaction colors his voice.

  “Your brother had a kid, and you never knew it?” Robin is still having trouble understanding how Scott wound up living here.

  “No,” Scott says, impatiently. “It’s a newer baby than that. From another guy.”

  “She got married again?”

  “No, she just had a baby.” Robin imagines Scott’s eyes rolling disdainfully behind his dark glasses, annoyed at how slow on the uptake he is. Scott hops around on his feet suddenly. “Fucking cold out here.” He lands in the path of the sun so that Robin can only see him in silhouette as he speaks. “Only thing is, she won’t let me sell weed anymore, but I guess that’s cool. She says, if I sell, I’m back to the old man. So that settled that. It’s decent though, ’cause I’m gonna get my shit together.”

  “What do you mean?” Robin says, shielding his eyes.

  “I don’t ditch school anymore. Try to do some homework. I’m gonna get a job. There’s a record store near here I put an application in for. I told them I was eighteen. I’m gonna turn over a new leaf, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Good riddance to Greenlawn—that’s about all I can say.”

  “That’s really good,” Robin says. The air is cold and brittle, and he feels it against his body like a punishment. The conversation stalls until he gets up the courage to ask, “Do you want to hang out anymore? I could take the bus. That’s what I did today.”

  “You don’t need to do that. I mean, if it’s too much trouble, just forget it.”

  “It’s no trouble. I had to sneak away but Ruby’s gonna tell them—”

  Scott interrupts. “I’ve got this new life now, you know? I don’t think I can just ...” He looks away. “Don’t make a big deal out of it.”

  Robin feels the approaching dead end of this conversation and wants to switch tracks. He doesn’t want Scott to turn this against him; next thing he’ll either accuse him of acting like a girl or will fall into silence and not budge. He clears his throat in desperation and announces, “My brother died.”

  Scott’s cool crumbles. He removes his sunglasses and takes a step closer. “Oh, shit. That sucks.”

  Robin feels a tingle of shame, using Jackson’s death to lure Scott back in, but it’s worth it just to get a look at Scott’s eyes, which are much more vulnerable than his tough stance had let on. “I just don’t know what to do,” he says. “About Jackson.”

  “Do? What ‘do?’ He’s dead, man. I mean, not to be an asshole about it, but there’s nothing to do.” Scott flicks his cigarette to his feet and stomps it out under one of his heavy boots. “Just don’t let anyone lay any trips on you.”

  “I hate getting out of bed in the morning. Half the time I just can’t even get my brain to work right.”

  The sun has swum behind a cloud, casting everything around them into a shadowless gray. “My advice is, just keep your mouth shut. When Danny died, I didn’t talk to anyone for a month. Everyone was full of shit.” He faces Robin. “I still talk to him, try to get him to come back. ‘Yo, Dan-my-man. Just come on back. We’ll forget about the whole thing.’ I been saying that one for years.”

  “But you didn’t make Danny die.”

  “You didn’t make Jackson die, either. You told me it was an accident.”

  “But I wanted it to happen,” he says, revealing for the first time to anyone the burden of his ill wishes. He remembers, as if it was just yesterday, praying to God: Make something bad happen to Jackson. And it happened: his petition was granted. He doesn’t know whether to whisper in shame or shout loud enough for its severity to be understood. He says it again, his voice cracking: “I wanted it.”

  “Look. It wasn’t, you know, premeditated. There’s a big difference between wanting something to happen and making it happen. So what? You told him once ‘I hate you’ or ‘I wish you were dead.’ Even if you told him that ten times the week of the accident, so what? My brother used to tell me I was the biggest pain in his ass on the face of the earth, and you think that means anything? He was my brother. Jackson was your brother. That’s what means something.”

  Scott turns and walks away from him, toward the exit of the playground. “Come on, man. It’s too cold out here.”

  Robin stands, momentarily stunned by Scott’s words. Is it that simple? He asked for it, but he didn’t really want it. He didn’t cause it. It’s never been completely clear what happened that day on the slide, but now, in the light of Scott’s certainty, he comes to an understanding. Whatever happened just before Jackson tumbled to the pavement didn’t start with his wish for Jackson’s death. He says the words to himself, listens to them, lets them sink in: I didn’t want him to die.

  Up ahead, Scott waves him on. It takes Robin a moment to catch up.

  Scott’s bedroom was once the dining room of the little house that Gail rents. Picture windows, covered with dark, tacked-up curtains, line one wall. On the other side of the room, sliding doors block off the kitchen. A couple of bedsheets hang between the living room and Scott’s sleeping area, bunching up sloppily on the tramped-down olive green carpet. Gail and the baby are out, but the evidence of their life here can’t be missed. Toys and books and piles of clothes clutter the floor and the furniture, even in Scott’s room. The only thing familiar is Scott’s aquarium, dotted with purple fish.

  They are sitting on Scott’s bed, passing a roach back and forth. Scott is rolling a fresh joint on a Cars album. The record on the turntable spins out an anxious male voice: I don’t mind you coming here, and wasting all my time.

  “I thought we couldn’t smoke,” Robin says.

  “She doesn’t care if I smoke it, as long as I don’t sell it.” Scott pinches the roach between his fingers. “You know, Spicer used to tell me, ‘You shouldn’t do more than you deal,’ but Gail actually has the opposite philosophy. A little smoking never hurt anyone, but dealing makes you paranoid.” He takes another puff. “The biggest bummer is that I have to buy it from these kids at my new school, and their pot sucks. I’m like the biggest hardass customer, too, because I know quality.”

  “I guess I might buy some of my own,” Robin says, thinking of this for the first time. “Not that I know how.”

  “You know how. We did it in New York.”

  “In New York, they ask you.” He remembers their stoned afternoon in the Village, watching the homosexuals parade around in the falling sun. He remembers revealing to Scott that he wanted to do more sex stuff together. He remembers Scott’s resistance. Has this changed, too, along with all the other changes in Scott’s life?

  “Go to Socks,” Scott says. “Barry Sokowitz. That’s who I used to buy my dope from.”

  Robin has seen this guy: a hairy, acne-scarred ox in a Judas Priest T-shirt hanging out in the co
urtyard. Trying to set up a drug purchase with him seems preposterous. Robin recites a line from a lesson in health class: “Marijuana kills brain cells.”

  “And lowers your sperm count.” Scott rolls next to him and inserts the joint backward between his lips. The ember disappears inside his mouth. He thrusts the outward-pointing tip into Robin’s face. Through clenched lips he instructs, “Shotgun.”

  “I could burn you,” Robin says, but Scott’s eyes urge him on. He moves close enough to Scott to feel breath puffing from his nose, and sucks in on the roach. A delicate shock of static electricity flicks between their lips. The pungent resin cuts at his throat.

  A rush to his skull, like heat from an open oven.

  Scott widens his lips to show Robin a wisp of smoke inside his own mouth. He gulps it down his throat. “It worked.”

  Robin hasn’t been high since before Jackson died. He sinks eagerly into it, as if smoking could bring him back to those days, when the worst had not yet happened. He visualizes the sweet smoke wrapping around his brain stem, blanketing worries and troubles. A word emerges from the fog. “Painkiller.”

  “You got that right,” Scott says, flopping back on the bed. “My mom’s got her drugs and I’ve got mine.”

  The kissing is the best part. When their tongues are swirling around each other, it’s like a magic spell, stirring a cauldron together, something new rising up. He feels better about Scott while kissing him than at any other time. He likes the smells of it, too, smells you only get when you are up close to someone: cool and smoky in the damp under his arms; like lemon or mustard in the warmth between his thighs; inside his mouth, where he smells like a baby. Compared to the kissing, the humping is more like work—he worries that Scott will come first and then end it abruptly. But this time it didn’t happen that way. This time Robin lay on top of Scott; this time, he sucked on Scott’s neck so hard he left a little bruise behind; this time, unlike any other time with Scott, Robin shot first. When he was done, he put his mouth around Scott’s dick, staring up at him, watching the pleasure in his face. He understood what Todd liked so much about sucking. It was like dessert in the middle of the day.