by David Beers
“Why not?” he said.
Lori gritted her teeth, not wanting to answer the question. Not wanting to be asked it, for that matter. “Are you thinking about him?” she said, trying to keep her voice light, but knowing she failed desperately. Because John wasn’t light. A heaviness resided in his voice like a cancer weighing down a body’s energy.
“Yeah, Mom. A lot.”
“Did you before?”
“No. Not in a long time.”
She didn’t want to ask the next question, but knew she had to. “Did talking to Dr. Vondi help with it?”
Now John paused for a few seconds. “I … don’t think so.”
“Why are you thinking about him then?”
Another pause. “Why have you always been scared for me?” he said.
And just like that, everything Lori tried to hide under everyone’s radar—even John’s to a degree—was out in the open.
“Because, John, there’s something not right with our blood,” she said quietly. No one else was awake in the house, but that didn’t matter. Lori could have stood in the middle of an arctic storm, and she still would whisper those words. “There’s something inside me, and was in my mom, and I think in you, that might make you do something … that you don’t really want to do.”
“Have you ever done something like that?” he said.
“No.”
“Did your mom?”
“Yes. Many, many times.”
Neither of them spoke for a few seconds, and then Lori said, “Are you feeling like that, that you might do something you don’t want to?”
“No.”
And she saw the lie the same as if John had been wearing a neon sign screaming LIE, LIE, LIE! across it.
“You’re sure?” she said.
“Yeah. I’ve just been thinking about Harry is all.”
“What about him?”
“Nothing,” John said, and she could almost see him shaking his head. “I don’t want to get into it.”
Lori didn’t know what to say. She wanted to keep pushing, to understand what her son was going through, but a part of her was too scared to know the truth. Because the truth inside these lies was far worse than she thought she could handle. She didn’t want to even imagine John doing something like Clara had. And yet, the part of her too scared to question further knew it was possible.
“What was wrong with your mom?” he said.
“She was … troubled,” Lori said, feeling that old disgust and hate rise up in her like some wicked bird, ready to pluck out the eyes of any creature looking up into the sky.
“What did she do?”
Lori saw a chance, a real one, to make a connection. To do something that might help John. She could have reached out, right then, and extended a hand to him—said ‘I’m here, and I know at least some of what you’re going through.’
That wicked bird was scared, though, because to go back to that place … She couldn’t. Telling Vondi had been enough—too much.
“I’ll talk to you about it sometime, John, but it’s too early in the morning right now.”
* * *
John thought about his mother’s conversation all day.
“What do you think happened with your grandma?” Harry asked.
“I don’t know,” John said, barely paying attention to Harry’s question. “I never met her, never called her grandma.”
His mom said something was wrong with their blood, but what did that mean?
“Something with your brain, man. It means you’ve got some things not wired correctly up there.”
Harry was right, that’s exactly what it meant. That genetically John was fucked and that meant …
“It’s not your fault,” Harry said. “You can’t help this anymore than you can help being white. You don’t let black people make you feel bad, do you, because you happened to have the same skin color of those that enslaved them? Then why feel bad about something else you can’t help.”
John ignored him, wasn’t even going to get into the differences in his comparison. But truth still lived in his words, even if not the whole truth. If John’s brain was different than the rest of the world, then what the fuck was he supposed to do? Was Alicia’s?
“Don’t call her,” Harry said.
“Why not?”
“I don’t trust her.”
“My sister? Harry, are you serious?”
“She’s never been there for you, has she? She won’t understand. I think your mom understands because I think she saw some things with her mother that might not have been wholesome. Your sister, though? No way.”
“Shut up,” John said. He grabbed the phone on his dorm room wall. He’d finally decided that not seeing Harry in his room would become awful as winter came. John called home. Alicia should be there and John had to hope that his parents didn’t pick up the phone and yell at him for being up so late.
“Hello?”
Good, it was Alicia.
“Hey, it’s me,” he said.
“Hey! How are you?”
John hadn’t talked to her since he came over. She didn’t call him and he didn’t call her and both seemed fine with it, yet he liked hearing how happy she sounded at his call.
“I’m okay, how are things there? Mom and Dad acting alright?”
She laughed. “They’re pissed right now, actually. I got a C in geography and they think that my life is over. That’s why I’m home, actually. Trying to pacify them a bit by staying at the house this week. The commute is a bitch, though.”
John hadn’t even thought about her not living at home—she was at college. What else was he not seeing since he fell into his and Harry’s shared mind?
Shake it off, he thought.
“Were you looking for them?” she said.
“Actually, I wanted to talk to you; I just got lucky that you’re at the house, I think.”
“What’s up? How is everything over there? Meet any cute girls?”
“Best of luck,” Harry said. He sat on John’s bed with a paperback open. One of Stephen King’s, something about a dark tower—John didn’t know, didn’t have any time to read. “She’s not going to let you get a word in edgewise. Women, am I right?” Harry didn’t look up and John only shook his head.
“Yeah, things are good. I’m actually talking to one girl. Her name’s Cindy.”
“Oh yeah? What color hair does she have? She better be a brunette like me.”
John smiled. “Nah, she’s blonde.”
“The Devil, all of them.”
John heard his sister still smiling and didn’t want to go forward, but had to. If what his mom said was true, then maybe Alicia felt some of the same things he did.
“Don’t do it, John. She’s a well adjusted chick. She’s not like you,” Harry said as he turned the page in his book.
“I wanted to ask you something serious,” John said. “You got a second?”
“Sure.”
“Has Mom ever talked to you about her mother? Our grandmother?”
“No. She doesn’t like talking about her, I don’t think,” Alicia said.
“Why not?”
“I don’t know, to be honest. I think something happened when she was younger. Dad never met her either.”
John nodded, seeing that his mother wasn’t just hiding whatever lay in her past from him, but from the whole family.
“Look, this is going to sound weird, but do you ever have strange thoughts?”
“What do you mean?” she said.
“Told you,” Harry said. “Told you, told you, told you. Listen to the way she said that—she’s not asking with any reservations. She’s genuinely curious.”
John knew he was right, heard it in her voice the same as Harry.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I think I’m just tired.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, yeah. I’m sure. I’ve just been having some weird dreams lately and I didn’t know if you had them at my age.�
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“What kind of dreams?” she said.
“Just end of the world type stuff.”
Alicia laughed. “No, never dreamed about that. Go dream about that cute blonde.”
“Maybe I will tonight. Thanks for talking, Alicia.”
“Anytime. Call me up at college; I want to hear more about what’s going on.”
“Sure thing,” he said. “Bye.”
He hung up and looked to Harry, who didn’t glance up from his book.
“King is good, man. Have you ever read him? This gunslinger, I need you to be more like him. It would be a lot easier for all of us.”
“So, it’s just me. Not my mom and not Alicia.”
“You got me, John. Don’t ever forget that,” Harry said.
23
A Portrait of a Young Man
“I’m going to hold your hand now,” John said.
“Oh, are you?”
“Yes, I am. And if you don’t let me, I’ll probably have to tackle you.” John smiled, winking as he said it.
“Well, I suppose I don’t have a choice, but I want to be on record as saying that I’m doing this because I was forced to.” Cindy reached for his hand and took it in hers, interlocking their fingers.
Neither said anything for a minute or so, both just walking hand in hand. The air was cool, winter letting the world know its time was near. The sun went down three or four hours before, but neither noticed. They had just finished a movie, John’s first true English film.
Now the night was coming to an end and John didn’t want to pull away. Harry never showed up when he was with Cindy. John could forget that part of his life and just … be.
“I like you,” he said.
“Yeah? Do you feel like a traitor?” Cindy said.
“A little,” he smiled and looked at his feet.
A second passed. “I like you, too. A lot.”
They walked a few more feet, the silence not feeling the least bit awkward.
“I’ve never said that to a girl before,” John said, still looking at his feet and smiling.
“Have you ever kissed a girl before?”
“Bold, aren’t you? If you were a bit bolder two hundred years ago, you might have won the war.”
Cindy pulled her hand away and punched him in the shoulder. John kept walking, but she didn’t move.
“I’m only kidding,” he said as he turned around, finally looking up.
“I wasn’t. Have you kissed a girl?” She stood about four feet from him.
“No.”
“Can I be your first?”
He looked at her eyes, shining in the moonlight, and thought he’d never seen anyone more beautiful.
“You’d be my first, too,” she said.
John stepped forward, not sure what he was doing, but knowing that he was going to do it regardless. He placed his hands on her hips and leaned forward, closing his eyes. Their lips touched, softly, and then with more surety, he leaned in, pressing harder against her. A small sigh escaped her lips and she pulled him closer.
Their tongues touched and John felt sure that there would never be another moment better.
They pulled away, both of them breathing a bit heavier.
“Not bad for an American,” she said, smiling, and then looked down at her feet—perhaps the first awkward gesture John had ever seen her make.
And then, John saw a horror from the deepest part of the worst hell to ever exist. John saw Harry.
He stood behind Cindy, about ten feet off, a hand waving and a giant smile across his face.
“Hey,” Harry said, his voice rising enough to cross the distance.
John’s eyes flashed back to Cindy, who still looked at the ground. He tilted her head up, touching her chin with his finger. “Thank you.”
“I’m still heeerreee,” Harry said, his voice slashing through the shield John tried to create by looking at her. “Kissing the girlfriend isn’t going to change anything.”
“Can I walk you home?” John said. He felt himself about to unravel, trying to focus on Cindy and at the same time his mind feeling like a hive of angry bees, unable to understand what Harry was doing or planning to do.
“Well you’re sure as hell not leaving me here,” she said, her brilliant smile returning.
She took his hand and they began walking again, moving down the sidewalk.
John heard Harry’s footsteps behind them.
Knock, knock, knock on the pavement, and John didn’t know for sure, but he thought Harry wore cowboy boots. The motherfucker put on cowboy boots so that John would specifically hear them as he walked.
John picked up his pace, feeling a slight resistance from Cindy.
“In a hurry?” she said.
“No, just cold.” He didn’t slow down, though.
They walked the relatively short distance from the theater to her dorm. Harry kept following, quietly except for the repeated crash of his boots on the sidewalk.
“Are you okay?” Cindy said as they stood outside of her building. “I know it’s dark, but you look pretty pale.”
“Yeah, I’m okay. Just don’t feel well all of a sudden.”
Cindy turned her head slightly sideways, studying him, and perhaps judging—seeing if he told the truth.
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“Of course. Mini-golf,” John said, trying his best to smile.
She leaned in and gave him a light kiss on his cheek, then turned and walked into her dorm.
John stood outside under the light pole and listened as Harry approached from behind.
“She’s perfect,” Harry said.
“For me?”
“No, no. For us.”
* * *
“No.”
John lay in his bed with his eyes closed. He said the word quietly, though inside him an emotional tornado raged.
“Why not?”
“You know why, Harry. The same reason I won’t kill my mom. I care about her.”
“You barely know her,” Harry said. “You’ve known her for a month or so. Just because you gave her a little kiss doesn’t mean you can’t kill her.”
John didn’t want to open his eyes, didn’t want to see Harry on the other side of the room. He could already hear the flipping of pages as Harry moved through his book, holding this conversation with the same focus as someone discussing the weather.
“I’m not going to do it. That’s all there is to it.”
Harry sighed, a long one that portrayed only one phrase: stop being such a child, John.
“It’ll be painless. One bullet and she’s gone. You don’t even have to stick around and watch what happens after.”
“I don’t want you to ever come around us again. Do you understand that?”
“I understand the words, yes. But, I think she’s the one, John, do you understand that? I think that we’re going to have tons of fun with her. I mean … imagine if she lets you fuck her first? You lose your virginity twice in one night. If that’s not fun, I don’t know what is.”
John flew off the bed as if propelled by a rocket. He stood and moved across the room barely understanding he did it—simply reacting, anger driving him to a state he hadn’t known before. The rest of the room blacked out; John saw only Harry, the fat, fleshy ghost from his mind. He faced him, inches away from Harry’s nose, and he could smell the stench. Rotting meat. A smell moving with Harry’s breath that spoke of dead and diseased things.
“I’ll kill you,” he said. “How about that? I’ll fucking murder you, Harry, and then I’ll put you back out in that ocean. This time you can float away forever, but you won’t be able to scream, because when I slit your throat I’ll make sure I cut your goddamn vocal chords too.”
Harry looked on, his non-burst pupil expanding almost to the same size as his wrecked eye. “You watched me, didn’t you? That’s why I’m here. You watched me drown and you didn’t do anything. Oh Lord have mercy, you’re more fucked up t
han I thought, John. What did it feel like when you watched your best friend die at sea? How long would it have taken you to get help? My parents were two hundred feet away, weren’t they? How long to get a lifeguard out there? It would have been a tight race, no doubt, but I think I might have lived. Do you?”
“I’ll do it again, Harry. I’ll kill you.”
“How did it feel?” Harry said. “Do you remember?”
And the emotions rolled back, rising high in his body, higher than the anger rushing forward at Harry. Because watching him die had been the greatest thing John ever saw. Hearing his screams and knowing that no one would save him—no life boats, no life guards, and in the end … no life.
“Yes …,” Harry said. “Yes, that’s right. Remember it.”
In the end, Harry’s screams weakened, unable to fight to stay above water. And then the water came in, through his mouth and filled up his young lungs. Suffocating him. And John saw it all, watching like a bird of prey circling a small, wounded animal.
“You see, John. We’re not very different, you’ve just forgotten what it feels like. We can get her just like you got me. Why don’t we give it a try?”
“I’ll kill you first,” John said. “I swear it.”
But they both understood that might have been a lie.
* * *
John,
I hope things are well. I miss you terribly, more than I thought would be possible. I think about your smile all the time, even though it’s a rare thing to see. I hope you’re smiling more over there.
Alicia told me you called her. She said you had a girlfriend, is that true? Said she’s a blonde? She wasn’t too happy about that, but then again, blondes have more fun, from what I hear. Don’t have too much fun, if you understand what I’m saying.
Your father sends his love. He’ll probably write you soon, too, though he’s not as free with the pen as I am. I know people are starting to write with computers, but I think writing it longhand may let me gather my thoughts some.
Before I go on, I want you to destroy this letter when you’re done reading it. I don’t mean throw it away in the trash; I mean you burn it. What I’m going to say here, John, is something that I should have a said a long time ago, but I just don’t have the courage. Your father might, if he knew these things, but I don’t. I can’t face them, not truly, despite what I’ve been doing with Dr. Vondi. So you burn this and you don’t talk to me about it again, okay?
