Boy on the Edge

by Fridrik Erlings

  But now John was by his side. Now he couldn’t be like a cow. And there was so much to think about. It was so complicated. Henry had to pretend he didn’t care about the party, had to make John feel he was doing him a huge favor.

  “Can’t they go any faster?” John asked, and started to urge them on with shouts and high-pitched whistles. Henry didn’t like that at all. He was the one who was supposed to look after them, talk to them, and Henry knew you should never urge cows on. But he didn’t say anything because he didn’t want to offend John too much. The friendship was hardly anything yet. And if John started to dislike something at this point maybe there wouldn’t be a friendship at all. So Henry kept his mouth shut.

  John urged the cows on the way he wanted, until they were all running like mad, their udders swinging hard from side to side. Henry was afraid they might rip off.

  Finally they stopped, panting and grunting by the gate, and Old Red sent him an accusing glance. She breathed fast out of her huge nostrils, with thick angry brows over her eyes. Henry pretended he didn’t notice her look, but opened the gate and let them into the field. That’s friendship, he thought; in order to gain it in one place you have to sacrifice it in another.

  Then they started the long walk across the rugged lava. Henry tried hard to walk fast; he felt time was running out. John could lose interest if the walk took too long.

  “Where is this damn place?” John sighed, obviously tired of stumbling over the lava.

  Henry was out of breath and couldn’t answer, but pointed and nodded eagerly. He was soaked in sweat, his leg hurt, and slime ran constantly from his nose.

  Finally they arrived at the cliffs. Shipwreck Bay stretched out below them with its churning surf. A strong gust of wind blew up the high cliffs, straight into their faces, and John gasped. A white cloud of birds fell screeching out from the cliffs and stretched their wings on the wind.

  “Where is this place?” John called out, and gave Henry a suspicious glance.

  Maybe he was scared and thought Henry had tricked him all this way to throw him over the edge. For a moment Henry could see the image in his mind: John turning and twisting in the air in a slow fall until the surf gobbled him up and crushed him on the rocks.

  Henry sat down, swung his legs over the edge, and was about to take hold of the chain. But John jumped toward him and grabbed his arm.

  “Are you crazy?” he screamed.

  He hadn’t noticed the chain and probably thought that Henry was going to throw himself into the abyss. Maybe he honestly thought Henry was retarded after all.

  Their eyes met in a quick glance. That’s friendship: it wants to save your life. Until it has gotten what it wants.

  Henry raised the chain. “There’s a cave,” he said.

  John let go of his arm. He didn’t seem particularly happy. He looked rather disappointed and sat down. Henry clung to the chain, his legs dangling in the air.

  “This is hopeless,” John said finally. “The girls won’t have the nerve to go down there.”

  Henry looked at the friend he had almost had, without understanding anything; what girls could he be talking about? “Girls?”

  “Girls, man,” John said, raising his hands with open palms to stress the importance of the word. “There’s no party if there aren’t any girls!”

  From the look on John’s face you could tell that the plan had collapsed. It was as if Henry had ruined the whole thing. He didn’t know what to do; should he cling to the chain a little longer or go home? He might just as well go down to the cave; he was going to anyway, before John came along.

  Henry inched down the cliff until his feet touched the ledge. John decided to follow.

  They entered the cave and John looked around. His face lit up.

  “Great place,” he said. “Damn great place!” he added, taking a cigarette out of his pocket and lighting it. Now John was happy. He had a smoke and smiled.

  He didn’t offer Henry a cigarette. Of course Henry wouldn’t have accepted it, because he hated the smell of cigarettes, but nevertheless it would have been a gesture of friendship. Henry thought it would also have been polite if John had asked Henry first if he minded smoking in here.

  But John didn’t ask. And the awful smell filled up the cave as John went on about the party and the girls they were inviting, the girls he and Mark had met on the road while mowing the fields. The smoke stung Henry’s eyes and the foul smell made him sick. Suddenly he felt unwelcome in his own private sanctuary, which he’d foolishly given away in the hope of gaining John’s friendship. But now Henry realized it hadn’t turned out the way he’d hoped.

  Maybe John hadn’t meant anything by inviting Henry to the party; maybe Henry had misunderstood. What was he supposed to do at a party with girls, anyway? They’d be scared of him or laugh at him. He should have kept his mouth shut. Now the cave was no longer his place to come and sing with the surf. All things considered, it would have been far better to continue being the idiot in the cowshed who knew nothing. Besides, this party thing was bound to be against all the rules — and the commandments. Henry had traded his precious secret for the friendship he desired. But he’d gained nothing from it.

  Don’t desire: ten, he thought. But it was too late to change that now.

  And the rain arrived.

  Gray drapes glided across the ocean, dragging their hem over the land. The mountains in the north were covered in a white mist that wove around the ridge, stretching out over the lava fields and blocking every view. Only the nearest surroundings were visible, a stretch of lava and the white farmhouses with their red roofs. It rained from every angle. The wind pounded Henry’s face with water as he came around the corner. His feet splashed with every step, and the cows’ cloven hooves sank deep into the mud by the gate.

  John and Mark had finally finished mowing the field. The tractor stood by the barn wall with the mower raised. The sharp edges of the blades were coated in bits of grass. In weather like this there was nothing to do but wait; wait for the rain to stop, wait, wait. No work could be done on the foundations of the church either, for the sand ran everywhere. Nor was there any point in breaking the lava slabs into rocks in this kind of weather. It was out of the question. But not for Henry.

  After milking, he limped across the yard without a dry thread on his clothes. He found the crowbar and dragged it behind him, toward the quarry. Grabbing it with both hands, he struck the lava with all his might. His rage gave him power, like a force of nature, like a giant crunching the earth beneath his feet. The rain poured down and the storm pelted water against his face and shoulders, but he hardly noticed it. It felt good to break rocks in the howling wind and the hissing rain, felt good to squeeze the cold iron crowbar, to raise it high and then strike it against the lava, which cracked with a hollow sigh.

  It felt good to work like crazy when he didn’t have to. He wasn’t working for the reverend. He wasn’t working for anyone. He was doing it because he was furious.

  He raised the crowbar high and thrust it down with all his might. A piece of rock broke off the lava, and the raindrops drilled the earth, hammering his forehead like nails.

  He had given his cave to John and nothing had changed. John didn’t come to talk to him. It was just as he’d known it would be; they would never be friends.

  He didn’t want John’s friendship, anyway. He just wanted to be left alone.

  Suddenly he was exhausted and threw the crowbar to the ground and stormed back to his room. He stood for a long time in the quiet until his head was finally empty of curses.

  The tempest subsided during the night.

  In the morning, Henry heard the yellow Volvo honk farewell at the gate as Oswald drove to the city. The car disappeared down the road. This was the chance John and Mark had been waiting for; Henry knew the party would be tonight. Right after breakfast John and Mark attached the large metal tedder, which would rake the hay, to the tractor and drove to the field. The spikes glowed in the bright sun; t
he air was thick and warm.

  It was a laundry day and Emily had hung linens on the clothesline behind the farmhouse. The fresh breeze filled the white sheets and duvet covers like sails on a large ship that cut the waves on the black lava ocean.

  When he’d herded the cows to pasture after morning milking, Henry went straight to the rock mine. He stacked the rocks he’d been mining the day before, but he didn’t have the energy to do much else, so he just sat there, dozing off in the sun.

  Emily brought sandwiches for lunch. The little ones crowded around her, happily enjoying her company, but Henry sat aside. He wondered if he should tell her about the party, but then decided to say nothing. After all, he’d provided the cave, so in a way he was an accessory to the crime-not-yet-committed. He felt guilty and looked away when Emily glanced at him, smiling.

  It was close to evening by the time John and Mark drove back to the farm. Henry was leading the cows to pasture after evening milking when the green tractor suddenly appeared on the dusty road. John sat at the wheel, bare to the waist, and Mark sat on the fender beside him. The rake was suspended high in the air behind them, the wheels rotating slowly, the pikes shimmering. This was their victory chariot. They were like soldiers coming home from war, full of pride for their deeds on the battlefield, young and excited, with a great feast awaiting them. They didn’t notice him, or pretended not to. The cows became afraid of the racket caused by the diesel engine and kicked their hooves, pricked up their ears, and flared their nostrils, while the monstrous rear wheels gobbled up the dusty road.

  John and Mark talked loudly to each other and laughed like grown men. Mark was wearing a red T-shirt with a light jacket tied around his waist. He raised a tight fist and shouted, making the veins bulge on his forehead and his neck. John joined in. They were heroes.

  Henry stood in the swamp, below the road. He couldn’t go any farther because the cows wouldn’t move until the danger had passed. As they came closer, Mark ripped off his T-shirt and swung it like a battle flag above his head, shaking his fist at Henry with his other hand, and bellowed a war cry. John lifted one hand from the steering wheel, as if greeting Henry, and held it still in the air while the victory chariot rumbled by in a cloud of brown dust and the stench of diesel fumes.

  The wheels on the rake squeaked as the faded pikes slowly turned another circle.

  Henry had a hard time falling asleep that night. He was kind of hoping that John would come and invite him to join them in the cave. After all, it was his cave. But John didn’t mean anything he’d said. He didn’t care about Henry. They could go to hell anyway. Henry thought about when John raised his hand off the steering wheel. He’d probably been mocking him. Maybe the gesture was his way of saying, “Here I am, riding my warhorse, and there you are, stuck in a bog behind your cows’ asses.” He should wake Emily up and expose them. Then they would get their punishment on Reverend Oswald’s return.

  But then he was also hoping that John wouldn’t invite him at all. His mother had sometimes had parties when he was small. She’d drink with ugly men who bellowed loudly while she lay limp and silent, the apartment engulfed in a gray cloud of cigarette smoke, bottles falling over on the coffee table. Then, sometimes, he had gotten scared.

  No. He was not interested in parties.

  He tossed and turned under the duvet and tried to sleep, but his heartbeat kept him awake. The longer he lay, squeezing his eyes shut, the more relieved he felt that John hadn’t invited him to join them. But, at the same time, he wondered if John had ever intended to anyway. Then he became angry. Vacillating between relief and anger, he tried to fall asleep.

  But just as sleep was finally gaining the upper hand, he heard the cowshed door open. A second later someone peeped into his room, chuckling in the dark.

  A foul stench of booze filled the room, as Mark stepped in and sat on his clothes, which lay on the chair. Mark was holding a bottle, which was lit up by the dim moonlight coming through the window. He was smoking.

  “Listen,” he said, inhaling sharply and then exhaling. “There’s a problem. We just have two girls. But there are three of us. Three boys, two girls: trouble. Cute girls even. Phew. A big problem.

  “John asked me to tell you,” he went on, “that maybe it would be better if you joined us next time. What do you say about that? This won’t be our last party, and that’s a promise.”

  Henry lay rigidly in his bed with the duvet covering him. For some reason he was suddenly afraid of Mark, and the familiar troll’s fist punched his stomach from inside. The boy seemed somehow bigger and more threatening, all smiling and happy with a little booze in his head.

  “This is for you,” Mark said, handing him the bottle.

  Henry had never tasted alcohol. He had seen how it changed normal people into monsters. He was enough of a monster as it was. And it smelled awful as well.

  “G-go away,” he said.

  Mark put the bottle on the floor and stood up with the cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth.

  “Unfortunately the mixers are all in the cave,” he said. “But I’ve always liked it best unmixed; straight from the cow, as they say,” he added with a grin.

  Then he staggered out and closed the door behind him.

  Henry was relieved for only a moment, and then full of fury. Why did John have to send Mark? Why hadn’t he come himself? And why did he send a bottle? What was Henry supposed to do with it, drink it on his own?

  He turned to face the wall, rolled the duvet between his legs, determined to sleep. But he could feel his heart beating fast in his ear, which was pressed against the pillow. He turned onto his other side.

  On the floor stood the bottle from John.

  What an idiot Henry had been, imagining a friendship just because John had asked him about the east and north, just because they’d laughed together on the knoll that day. What a fool he had been when John had pretended to be helping him with the cows. How stupid to let Mark go so easily. He should have beaten him up, taken the bottle and smashed it in his grinning face. What an idiot.

  He pulled the duvet off and sat up with a thousand screaming seagulls in his head. Before he knew it he was fully dressed, walking down Spine Break Path with the bottle in his hand, as fast as his clubfoot would allow him. He was going to give the bottle back to John and tell him to rot in hell.

  There was a half-moon in the purple night sky. The breeze from the cliffs brought with it echoes of girly screeches. Henry lay on the edge and looked down. A small fire was burning on the ledge outside his cave. He heard the voices of John and Mark telling the girls tall tales about themselves. They talked fast and loud, interrupting each other all the time. The girls gasped and whined with laughter.

  “Thank you, my sordid Lord,” Mark said in a sanctimonious voice, imitating Emily saying grace at dinner. “Thank you for the grub and the fat and the shit that I shat. Amen and hallelujah!”

  The laughter seemed to come from every direction, even the ocean. The surf giggled; the cliffs chuckled. And there was music too, a demonic sound that made the rocks tremble.

  “Cheers!” John shouted. Then bottles clinked.

  Henry stretched his neck farther over the edge, turning his head a little, pricking up his ears. One girl appeared at the mouth of the cave and asked if there was somewhere she could pee. Mark said she could just place her bottom over the ledge and let go. “The biggest toilet in the world!” he said, laughing.

  There was a rattling from the chain, then three dark figures crawled up the steep path. Henry jumped to his feet and limped for cover in a hollow close by.

  Three girls climbed with ease up to the ledge, three elves from the underworld, looking around them for a good place to pee. John’s worries had obviously been unfounded, because they didn’t seem to be afraid of heights in the least. Three girls, black around the eyes, with purple nail polish and flaming red lips. One in a very wide T-shirt and miniskirt with a dog-collar necklace around her neck. Another with a teddy-be
ar backpack hanging over her shoulder. The third pointed with a glowing cigarette across the lava field, and the three of them tiptoed over the sharp rocks.

  Three girls. One each if Henry had been invited. Somehow this lie was the worst of all.

  They squatted in a circle, facing one another like witches, peeing in the lava and throwing glowing cigarette stubs in all directions, whispering about who should get which boy.

  One liked John, another liked Mark, but one was afraid of Mark, and the one who liked John agreed Mark was disgusting. They put on more lipstick and ruffled their hair, squawking like seagulls in coarse voices as they inched themselves back down the chain. The demonic music grew louder as soon as they disappeared over the edge.

  Henry stayed still, taking in what they’d said. If Mark was disgusting, what was Henry? He wasn’t even good enough to be invited, even though there were too many girls. He was a monster. No doubt about it anymore. Henry lay still and looked at the moon. It looked like half a face, peeping from behind a dark curtain. Maybe God’s spy, checking what the naughty children were doing while the good children were sleeping.

  “The devil’s children,” as Reverend Oswald had called them. “Intoxication and Lust are their parents,” he had said. “They will have to live with that dreadful legacy, unless they accept Jesus Christ as the master of their lives. Only then can the devil’s children receive forgiveness,” he’d said.

  The Peeping Tom in the sky looked down upon Henry with a furrowed brow. He was also a devil’s child, begotten in the multiple sins of his mother, who probably didn’t even know who his father was. Why does God allow the devil’s children to be born? Henry wondered. Is it so that they can be saved? And what of those who don’t get saved? Are they outcasts forever?