“I’m sorry,” Lisa said.
“Don’t be. They’re mostly cool, and it’s not that they don’t care. My mom works really hard and my dad does ... stuff.” More time passed. Eventually Anna showed up with Robbie, who had a long brown ponytail and white-flecked stubble. He wore a Dear Abbie Hoffman T-shirt. “So where do you live?” Anna asked. Lisa told her a neighborhood way outside the city loop. Berry started to feel hungry. He’d only eaten a few rolls, and that had been a while ago.
“We’ll have you home in a jiff,” Anna promised. A while later she announced she had to stop for gas. They found a Circle K with pumps. While Robbie pumped, Anna took
Lisa and Berry inside the shop and bought them gumballs. “Which do you think is the prettiest color?” she asked, holding a bunch in her hand. She started juggling the balls and dropped a couple on the floor. “Three second rule,” she said, scooping them and putting them back in her plastic bag. Then Robbie wanted a hot dog. He had to microwave it because no one wants a tepid convenience store Oscar Mayer. Berry got a hot dog too and shared it with Lisa, but didn’t microwave it.
Finally they got away from the Circle K, Anna wearing a big straw hat she’d bought and brandishing a CD of “Trucker Gold” from the store’s bargain rack. Robbie didn’t want to listen to Anna’s new CD and the two grownups argued while Lisa and Berry huddled behind them, a girl in a brandy-brocade muslin dress and a choirboy.
Anna screamed at Robbie, then pulled over in someone’s driveway. “Why don’t you respect me? You resent me because my portfolio is still worth something because I stuck with blue chips because I didn’t get carried away thinking a Jeff Bezos shat money because I’m not an unemployed Web designer with a tweaker’s attention span because you’ve never dealt with your childhood fear of being taken seriously.” There were a few more “becauses” in that sentence. Berry mentally charted the sentence structure the way Rat had taught him. It was all subordinate clauses.
It was fully dark. Lisa and Berry hugged. Lisa put her head on Berry’s shoulder. Berry stroked her hair. It felt like the velvet knee cushions at St. Luke’s.
Finally Anna and Robbie made up and Robbie confessed about his stock portfolio and his fear of being taken seriously, and said he’d try to pay more attention to Anna and buy a no-load long-term-oriented mutual fund. They pulled out of the driveway and set off again. Robbie needed to buy flowers to make up to Anna.
By the time Berry and Lisa got to Lisa’s house the dash clock read 7:52. Berry walked Lisa up the flint path to her two-story house, which had trimmed hedges all around it and a big wreath on the door. They hesitated at the door, then Lisa used her key.
She hadn’t turned it in the lock before the door opened from the inside. A lanky man with boxy glasses and a shirt buttoned all the way up with no tie looked down at the two intruders. “Lisa,” he said. “Do you know what time it is?” “I had church stuff,” Lisa said. “I . . .”
“Church ended hours ago. I called. Nobody knew where you were.” The man’s Adam’s apple throbbed, but his voice stayed even. “Lisa, it appears someone has thought with her aquatic brain again. Child development, like evolution, contains many throwbacks and dead ends.” He gripped Lisa’s arm. “Please don’t,” Lisa said. “I’m too old for that. I—” “Leave her alone.” Berry stepped forward and placed his big purple sleeve between Lisa and her father. “It’s my fault Lisa’s late.”
Lisa’s dad looked down at Berry. “And who is this?” he asked Lisa. He smelled smoky. He wore flannel pants and a horseshoe belt buckle.
“This is Berry,” Lisa said. “He’s from the church choir. He got me home.”
“You were supposed to take the bus,” Mr. Gartner said. “I’m very sorry,” Lisa said.
“The pool should be warm,” said her dad. “We’ll talk once the reptile has tasted its element.”
“Leave her alone,” Berry said again.
The man grabbed Berry’s collar frill and pulled hard enough to choke, Mr. Gartner lifted Berry off his feet. “Get out of my house,” he said. Then he stepped onto the stoop and threw Berry onto the lawn. Berry landed on his back and his breath rushed away.
Berry relaxed his chest to let air flow back in. It took a while. The door to Lisa’s house closed.
Anna Conventional and Robbie were gone. Maybe they hadn’t understood that Berry also needed to get home. Or maybe they hadn’t cared.
Berry shivered. The freezing day rolled over him like the sludgy river, and only his robes kept him a little warm. The darkness doubled his stranded status and the night sky and satellite dishes all around proclaimed the wrongness of his being here in these vestments. He might never see the city again. Hopelessness kept him down longer than breathlessness had. Maybe if he stayed flat on his back long enough, the lawn would swallow him, robes and all.
Finally Berry sat up and resolved to make sure Lisa was okay. He walked around the back of the Gartners’ house until he found an outdoor swimming pool set among flower beds, hedges, and porcelain statues. The pool had a flat plastic dome over it. At its highest point in the middle of the pool, the dome only reached about a foot above water level. Berry couldn’t see through the dome. He worried Mr. Gartner could see him from the house. All of its lights seemed to be on, including a big porch light over a glass door. Behind the door, Berry could see a yellow kitchen with bookshelves and racks holding pans, mugs, and implements.
Berry crawled, getting more stains on his white surplice. He tried to find a handle on the plastic dome. He couldn’t see anything. He pushed on the dome but it didn’t move. “Lisa,” he whispered. “Are you there?” He heard nothing.
He crawled through some rose bushes to the other side of the dome. He added dirt to his grassy cassock and pricked his fingers. Finally, at the deep end of the pool, Berry found a handle with a clasp on it. It only opened from the outside, but had no padlock. Berry slid the bolt out of its rings. Then he could raise the dome, which creaked. He managed to lift it a foot, but wasn’t sure what to do then. It seemed to be on hinges. It probably flipped over onto its side. Berry found a cinderblock to hold the dome ajar. He could just stick his head and one arm inside. He touched the water. At least the pool felt warm enough. He couldn’t see inside. “Lisa?” he whispered again.
“Berry?” Splashing. The sounds came closer. Berry saw Lisa tread water at the deep end of the pool. “What are you doing here?” Lisa still wore her prim muslin dress. It fanned into jagged wings around her waist. Her hair threaded the surface. The water covered everything but her face. She could barely tread water and talk.
“I wanted to make sure you were okay,” Berry said.
“I’m fine.” Lisa swallowed water and coughed. “Please go.” She coughed some more. “If my dad finds you here . . . he’ll kill us both.”
Berry tried to argue, but it just sparked more coughing. He waited until Lisa said she’d reached the center of the pool, then pulled out the cinderblock. He lowered the dome slowly and resealed the bolt. The dome would barely let Lisa get her head above water. He wondered how Lisa, as a little girl, had managed to tread water in the pool’s center, which must be too deep for a smaller girl.
The driveway to the Gartners’ house led to a small court, which led in turn to a street with sparse houses and big lawns. Berry walked and tried to remember how Anna Conventional had driven there. The endless cross-hatching of driveways made Berry feel tiny. He had to find a phone, call home, and hope Marco or Judy answered. They’d probably have another ’sode, but at least they’d rescue him.
Lisa’s dad had mentioned a bus, but Berry wasn’t sure where to catch it or whether it ran this late.
Berry walked along the suburban road. Everything blurred into boxes and lawns. Berry could tell one block of his neighborhood from another in his sleep, but here he could hardly tell when a block ended and another started. Berry hadn’t seen any cars in ages. Finally, Berry reached a junction with a big street where a few cars passed. Berry turned right and wa
lked a while. He wondered if Lisa was out of the pool yet.
Berry felt he could barely keep walking. He tried to think marching thoughts like a soldier, but all that came to mind were the Pickled Boys in jars behind a wall. For all Berry knew, his costume would attract Satan-worshippers to slice him up.
He reached a gas station/convenience store like the Circle K he’d visited with Lisa and Anna Conventional, it seemed years ago. The clerk stared at the muddy, grassy robe and kept one hand under the counter. “I just need a payphone,” Berry almost sobbed. The clerk jerked a hand at the corner of the store. The payphone hid between racks bearing condoms, lip balm, and greeting cards for every occasion except all the ones Berry had lived through recently.
Berry had almost no money in his pockets. Maybe he’d left it in his choir blazer, hanging in his locker back at the St.
Luke’s rehearsal room. He realized he’d also missed a dose of his pills. But he found a few coins in one pocket’s lint ball. He popped two of them into the phone and dialed home. It rang a long time. Eventually Berry heard Judy’s voice on tape: “You’ve reached the answering machine of Marco and Judy. Friends and clients can leave a message after the tone.” The message sounded normal enough except for a low cackling, probably Marco’s, throughout. Just as Judy said the word “tone,” Marco said “ow” loudly and Judy put an extra emphasis on that last word, either to cover Marco’s pain or to emphasize whatever she was doing to him. Berry left a short message saying he’d lost his friends and gotten stuck in the suburbs.
After Berry hung up, he realized he should have kept talking for a while. If Marco was at home but not answering the phone, he might have heard Berry and picked up. Berry looked through his change, but didn’t have enough to call home again. He sat on the floor of the convenience store, at eye level with a clump of gum and Fritos in the aisle leading to porn. Berry stared at that clump. He studied its contours as if it were a clue or a city. Berry heard a sound and realized the clerk stood behind him looking dowm. Berry stood up unsurely, the way homeless people at the cathedral often did. He felt his legs melt like swizzle sticks in cocoa. “I’m just thinking who to call,” Berry said.
“You want to think outside?” The clerk wasn’t much older than Berry, but he had a mustache and attitude. Past his best-before date, like everything else in this mart.
“It’s okay,” Berry said quickly. “I’ve figured out who to call.” As if he had a million options. He dialed the operator and asked to place a collect call to Wilson Fennimore. What was Wilson’s dad’s name? Berry thought for a moment.
“George Fennimore,” he said. “Collect call to George Fennimore.” The clerk watched suspiciously. This was the kind of collect call where the caller gets a chance to speak for fifteen seconds before the recipient chooses whether to accept. When his chance came, Berry blurted: “Pm Berry, a friend of Wilson’s. I need some help. I’m in your neighborhood.” Mr. Fennimore accepted and Berry explained a little more. “I got separated from the others in my church group and I think each van driver thought I was in the other van.” Mr. Fennimore asked where Berry was. Berry asked the clerk, who gave the information like a death threat. “It’s not far,” said Wilson’s dad. “I’ll be there in a few minutes.” Berry dreaded seeing Mr. Fennimore. He’d only met Wilson’s folks once or twice. But Wilson had always described his dad as a scary drunk and angry poet wannabe. Wilson’s mom just sounded violently disappointed.
Mr. Fennimore surprised Berry. He wandered into the convenience store in a T-shirt and jeans, big smile between shy hairline and weak chin. “Berry,” Mr. Fennimore said in a casual tone, “you’re looking very ecclesiastical today. This must be the longest recessional hymn you’ve ever had.” He swatted Berry on the shoulder and led him to a VW Rabbit.
In the car, Mr. Fennimore wanted to talk to Berry all about the relative merits of Palestrina and Gibbons. Mr. Fennimore talked for about ten minutes about passion and sinew, infrastructure and melody. Finally, Berry said in a dry-bone voice, “Gibbons rules. Palestrina sucks.”
“Oh. What about R. Vaughn Williams?”
“Sucks.”
“Stanford?”
“Rocks.”
“I see.” Mr. Fennimore was actually quiet for a moment. “You know, I wish Wilson was more like you. I sent him to that choir to learn about music and all he ever talks about is cars. He’s never once expressed a musical opinion.”
Berry wasn’t sure if he was supposed to defend Wilson or agree his friend was an assbag. He thought it must blow to worship cars and have a dad who drives a Rabbit. Berry couldn’t remember being so tired.
Wilson’s house was way less nice than Lisa’s, and on the inside it smelled of damp animal. Every surface held books, including the sofa and the kitchen counters. Mr. Fennimore barely shut the door before he grabbed a bottle of whiskey and poured a drink. “Would you like anything? Food, juice, a copy of my book of poetry, self-published but acclaimed?” Berry was about to say no thanks, but then he remembered he hadn’t eaten since that half hot dog hours ago, so he made himself a sandwich. He ate it in seconds, then waited for Mr. Fennimore to finish his whiskey. At last, Wilson’s dad handed Berry a sleeping bag and led him upstairs to a door with a poster of two robots fighting and a banner that said “Nerd Free Zone.”
“Wilson,” Mr. Fennimore said, knocking. “You’ve got a visitor. ”
“Huh?”
Wilson didn’t get out of bed or open both eyes. Berry got out of his trashed robes, then stripped down to his briefs and climbed into the sleeping bag. It smelled pessimistic. “Hey. So what happened to you today? I didn’t see you after church.”
Berry started in on the whole long story, but exhaustion wrong-tracked the details. He wasn’t sure how much to tell about Lisa’s dad and the swimming pool, and anyway, by the time he reached that part he’d gone over to rambling. “And her dad was like, psycho killer qu’est que c’est, and I had to leave and by the time we’d had our scene the car was gone ...” Berry realized Wilson hadn’t heard anything he’d said.
“You kissed Lisa?” Wilson sat up in bed, both eyes open at last and mouth cocked.
“Well, sort of. Really she kissed me. But it was more a sort of friendly how-ya-doin’ kind of kiss. More like the chocolate than that heavy metal band.”
“It was as good as chocolate!”
“No. Yes. Sort of. I thought you didn’t like Lisa any more.” “You have no idea how long I’ve lusted after her.”
“What about Maura?”
“What about her? She’s a loser. That whole lizard millionaire thing was just the end.”
“Anyway, you don’t have to worry about me and Lisa.” “I know I don’t, because I’m going to tell her you’ve got Pam Anderson jugs.” Wilson’s voice sounded like his dad’s, but way rougher.
“Aw no. You promised. You said you wouldn’t tell anyone.” Wilson didn’t reply. “Besides, she’ll never like you if you go spreading dirt about other people.”
“Maybe you’re right. We’ll see. Anyway I gotta get my sleep. My dad wants me to raise my grades and I’ve got three tests tomorrow.”
Berry lay in the sleeping bag and shut his eyes, but he couldn’t sleep. His body felt meat-packer tired, but his head kept turning over and over. He’d lied to Wilson: that kiss with Lisa had been heavy-metal-band good, not just chocolate good. It had been white greasepaint and black eye makeup, torso sweat and guitar-on-fire good. Not that
Berry listened to seventies metal, but he heard it in Mr. Allen’s car. Berry thought about Lisa trapped in her swimming pool, drowning a mythic reptile. He imagined Wilson running around his Quaker day school telling Lisa and whoever else cared that Berry had a chick’s upper half. By the time Berry slept, the sunlight animated Wilson’s race car curtains and flashed their headlights.
Wilson’s dad had to drive into the city for a mid-morning meeting. He dropped Berry off near home. Berry wore his white shirt and gray pants but not his choir tie and ruined robes. He gi
ngerly opened the apartment door and crept to his room. He just wanted a shower and a change of clothes.
“Where have you been? Where were you last night? Why aren’t you at school?” Judy wore a tracksuit and headband. She’d obviously taken a day off and stayed home to study or wait for Berry. She held a book about law in one hand. She’d told Berry paralegal school was about the same thing as being a librarian, making connections between subjects and fitting pieces.
“Hi mom. I was at a sleepover. I told Marco. Didn’t he tell you?” Judy threw her hands up in the air and made an unoiled door noise. “When does Marco tell me anything?” “I wanted to get to school, but my ride from the sleepover messed up. This is the first day I’ve missed since . . . that thing, and anyway I’m pretty wiped.”
Berry remembered at the last moment to fold his arms over his breasts, which jabbed under his white shirt.
Judy didn’t seem to notice. “You’re going to school now. I’ll drive you.”
“’Kay. Just give me five minutes to change.”
Judy nodded. “Five minutes.”
In the car, Berry asked “So what’s going on with you and dad? I haven’t seen you home lately. And he’s acted stranger than usual.”
Sigh. Click lip against teeth. “I’ve been taking a break. Studying hard. Staying with a friend.” Jingle keys in ignition. “I’m sorry I haven’t been around for you, Berry. I care about you. I love you a lot. I’ll try and do better.”
“No problem,” Berry said. He glanced at the dash clock and realized he was late enough to miss Swan time and go straight to Goose. “Just keep learning what you’re learning.” It sounded wise in Berry’s head but dumb when he said it.
10.
Say you listened to religious music sung in another language or without voices, and you didn’t think of God. Say you decided Mozart’s “Ave Verum Corpus” expressed lust or racism. Who knows what Mozart thought of when he wrote it. He may have been thinking about his cable bill, or how he wished he’d composed last month instead of playing Xbox, and then he wouldn’t have all these deadlines.
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