by Chris Lynch
“Um, what is it?” I asked, half ducking in anticipation.
“You don’t know?”
I shook my head.
“Come on, Elvin, it’s right there. It’s our class picture. It’s us.” He rushed up to the portrait, pointed excitedly to a gob of green half on, half drooping off, the lower right-hand corner. “That’s you.”
I don’t know what happened to me there—maybe it was Oskar’s intensity, or his pride and enjoyment of it all, but I saw it. It looked like me. It looked like all of us.
“I like it,” I said. “Except I have a little more hair than that, and I part it on the other side.”
He held up his dripping hands as if to stop me: “Sorry, man. That’s my vision.”
I left him with his vision. I went inside.
“Drink?” Brother Clarke said cheerfully, hunched over his espresso machine again.
“No, thank you,” I said, walking on past toward the busy crafts table. Just as I got there, three guys plunked their faces down into bowls of puttylike goop. Three other guys pushed the heads down deeper from behind, held them there, then helped them back out. I crept closer to check it out as they toweled off, and saw perfect impressions of their faces in the bowls.
“Beautiful,” Brother Fox crowed, clapping. “Then we’ll pour liquid into this mold to make the mask. And when that is hardened, you can paint it or do whatever you like, to make it look however you want it to look.”
“Cool,” I said, not meaning to say it to anyone but me.
“Come on over, Elvin,” Lennox said. “Do one.”
I was already backing away. “Nah, I’m just looking,” I said.
I backed into Brother Percy. “Morning, Elvin,” he said. “You ready to do some work?”
Now I backed in the other direction. “Um, no. I thought I’d float for a while. You know, investigate other stuff.”
“Bravo,” he said, and walked away just like that.
The music was hard to ignore. It was also hard to like. Anyhow, it drew me down to the farthest end of the library, under the short balcony that ran the width of the building with stairs at either end. The door to the conservatory was ajar, so I nudged it, not really accidentally.
Brother Crudelle was seated at an upright piano, wearing a starched white short-sleeved shirt buttoned to the collar, but still looking cool crisp white. Opposite him, leaning on the top of the tall piano with their elbows, were the two giants. Eugene and Paul Burman. Singing.
Sort of. They didn’t sound good. They didn’t blend. They weren’t singing words, only sounds to match whatever chord Crudelle hit. They sounded like old cars, with the springs gone and many small holes in the mufflers.
But as far as I could tell, they didn’t know it. They were up on their toes, both of them, as if they needed it, trying to reach notes that would bring the rest of us to our knees. When Eugene saw me, his glossy face beamed, and he made a “yo” fist power sign. Paul couldn’t see me because he had his eyes shut tight.
When I first followed that sound, I was hoping it would be good for a laugh. But when I got there, it was a whole different show. I left the room and closed the door quietly. I sat down on the steps with my chin on my fist. This was a better place, I could already tell, because everyone here seemed so comfortable. But they were gripping something I wasn’t quite gripping. I mean, I was happier here, but I was no less confused.
“Ready?” Brother Percy said, calling down to me from the balcony at the top of the stairs.
“No,” I said.
“Start with this,” he said, dangling a book between his thumb and index finger. When it was obvious that I was looking at it, he let it drop, and I caught it.
It was Selected Writings of Edgar Allan Poe. I looked at it for a few seconds, didn’t open it, then threw it back up.
“Listen, you,” I said boldly. “I hate this stuff. I hate poetry. I hate Edgar Allan Poe except for the detective stories. The horror stuff is about half as scary as Barney the Dinosaur. I saw all the movies with Vincent Price. They were hysterical. I read ‘The Raven’ a hundred times in school, and it got more boring every time. Nevermore, already.”
He didn’t speak. He smirked like he knew everything. Then he dropped a second book. The Poetry of Robert Frost.
“Car commercials,” I snapped, and threw it back.
The third book dropped, and Brother Percy’s smile along with it. It was a paperback with a bright-pink cover. Final Harvest, poems by Emily Dickinson.
“I think I’m going to try clay modeling today,” I said, and tossed the book back. He refused to catch this one. It rose, arced, then fell back to me.
“Fine, but hold on to that one anyway. It’ll fit in your back pocket, and you can read it when you feel like it.”
This seemed like a good escape point, so I gave in. Even though he was exaggerating a bit—good thing I have large back pockets. I stashed the book and made busy, spending most of my time just poking around, looking at other people’s work, watching, feeling the textures of what everybody else was working, the clay, the paint, the piano keys, the soft metal, the wet paper. Watching it all from over shoulders.
Once, just after lunch, when nobody was looking, I picked up a brush and tried to make a picture. Of a house, and a small car, and a road and two people. When the painters returned, I crumpled mine up and threw it in the trash, burrowing to get it underneath the other trash.
“What is that?” Frankie demanded as he walked up behind me at Nightmeal. He pulled the book out of my pocket and took it with him to the other side of the table.
“It’s a book, ape boy. Give it back.”
He stared at it in his hands as if it was a talking severed head. “El, it’s a poetry book. It’s a pink poetry book.”
I made a stab to get it back, but Frankie was too fast. Then, quick as a cobra, Mikie snatched it and gave it to me.
“God, this is the worst slot yet, Elvin,” Frank said, real concern on his face. “How are we gonna get you out of this one?”
“I’ll be fine,” I said. “Don’t help me anymore.”
Mike extended his palm. He wanted to have another look at the book. “You really into poetry, El?” he said, browsing as he talked.
“NO,” I insisted. “That’s just what I backed into. Now I have this poetry teacher who has absolutely nothing to do except follow me around, haunting me with this stuff. He’s got nobody but me.”
“Do you have to stay?” Mike asked.
“No. Everybody’s pretty free over there.”
“So move, then.”
“Ya, Jesus, move out of there for god’s sake,” Frank said. “That stuff’s got nothing to do with you.”
“Move to where?” I asked. I asked Mike, not Frank.
“Good question,” Frank answered. “That whole Arts Sector gives me the creeps. All the weird guys are there.”
Mike and I banded together to try to ignore him. “Well is there something else you want to do? Like do you want to paint or something?”
“No. I don’t know. Ya. I don’t know.”
“That’s good, Elvin,” Frank jumped in. “Things are clearing up nicely now.”
“Okay, so here’s what I’m doing. I’m watching. I’m watching a couple of guys mixing paints together, and you wouldn’t believe it. They combine this kind of yellow, that I’ve seen somewhere before, and that kind of blue, which I’ve seen before, and they mix and mix, and add a drop and another drop, and they come up with a green I have never seen before. Mike, I watched paint mixing for an hour and a half. And all this one guy did when he got the color just right was he painted a circle, like a moon or a planet or something near the top of his canvas. Then he went on and mixed something else.”
Frank said nothing, just stared at me like I was retarded. Mike said nothing. But he stared and waited for the more of it.
“But I felt like I did something there. Like I had been someplace. Seeing what they did, being there for it, hanging over t
heir shoulders, was like, so satisfying. So I tried it. The kid saw me hovering, offered me a brush, and I tried.”
Mike thought this was the big discovery part of the story. “There we go,” he said.
“No, there we don’t go,” I said. “I hated it. I painted with watercolors for ten minutes, then went crazy and threw a glass of water all over what I’d done.”
“You’re getting really weird, Elvin,” Frank said, looking at me sideways.
“So painting wasn’t for you.” Mikie shrugged.
“No, it wasn’t.” I said, banging my fist on my supper tray. “And neither was music or pottery or collage. All that was for me was watching. Watching. Watching and watching. Mikie. I found out, that’s all I really want to do. But when I’m doing the watching, I feel like I’m doing the doing. You know? I mean, it’s much better than when I do it myself.”
“We have to get you fixed. El,” Frankie said, drop-dead serious now. “I don’t like the way you’re sounding. You’re not your old self.”
I thought I wasn’t listening to Frank, but he was getting to me anyhow. I leaned more desperately toward Mikie, who had the ignoring Frank thing locked. “Is that all right?” I asked. “Can I do that? Is something wrong with me? Is that a slot a person can have? Watcher?”
“Does anyone mind, that you’re doing all the watching?”
“No. I think they like it, even, having an audience.”
“Then it should be fine.”
“Ya. I suppose. Except that poetry guy. He seems to think I should be doing something.”
“We have to get you straight,” Frank repeated, shaking his head slowly. “Listen. Last night of camp, this Saturday, Obie and the guys are having a send-off party. Gonna be a big blast. Now this time, you guys are not invited, because of your awful behavior in the past, but I bet I could get you in, seeing as I’m like the guest of honor and all.”
“No, thank you,” I said quickly. “Actually, the Arts Sector is having its own little party Saturday night in the library.”
“What do you mean, the guest of honor?” Mike finally addressed Frank.
“My debut party. My coming-out party. Passing of the torch stuff. I told you guys this from the beginning. I told you these guys were the people to know. Now they’re handing the keys over to me, making me the new king. Like I said, they’re leaving, I’m coming in. Changing of the guard. I’m going to be king. But don’t worry, I won’t forget you guys.”
Frank grinned. He had been waiting a long time to make that speech, or one just like it. Mikie went stone cold again. I was—no surprise—confused. I was happy for Frank, because Frank was happy for himself and that didn’t happen as often as most people thought. But I was afraid too. I didn’t think I wanted him to be King of All the Wild Things.
“So they’re having a party, your whole Sector?” Mike asked, shutting Frank’s story off.
“Ya,” I said. “Goofy, huh? They’re all really weird, Mike.”
“Basketball Sector’s just going to show a highlight film of the Knicks-Rockets finals. Even big hoops fans don’t want to look at that.”
“Yuck.” Frank and I finally agreed on something.
“And you’re allowed to do pretty much whatever you want?” Mike went on.
“Pretty much,” I said.
“Cool,” Mikie said.
“Cool?” Frank said. “Please, Mike, we only have a few days left here. We need at least you to come out of it the same as when you came in.”
Chapter 12: Coronations and crossroads.
I SAT AT A table early the next morning, watching the only other guy in the place. I was the second person here, as I was getting up earlier each day now, running and showering and eating faster than I had before. This guy, though, was always here. He was here at night when the last of us went to get Nightmeal, and he was here no matter what time we got here in the morning.
He liked glass. He was always doing things with glass. His dark face pressed right up against whatever he was working on, squinting hard through his own glasses, which were two fingers thick.
This morning he was cutting—cutting a green, then a brown, then a clear, then a black bottle into strips like long glass French fries, with a glass cutter. There wasn’t a sound yet in the building other than the scratch-chinking of the tool ripping the glass. Then he super-glued a piece of fishing line to the top of each, carefully cutting very specific different lengths and assigning each to just the right shard. When he had them all assembled into the mobile, he picked it up and held it high above his head for us both to examine.
The sun from a high window shot down through it and shattered into shafts and shadows of those four colors plus four more and four more. He blew lightly on it and it tinkled nicely, but the music was half what the light show was. He turned to me, allowing himself the faintest smile.
“What do you see?” he asked.
I was absolutely certain.
“I see fifty pairs of hands, made of ice, flying straight down wiggling their fingers, trying to reach something and touch it.”
He looked away from me, back up at his thing. Then he looked back at me again. “That’s right,” he said, and went off to hang it from the sash of that window.
“Drink?” Brother Clarke called out.
I hadn’t even noticed when he came in. “No, thanks,” I said. The glass kid didn’t answer, just dug out his soldering iron from a fishing-tackle box of art supplies and went to work on a lead frame for a window he was making.
Since not much else was happening yet, I sat at a corner table and read some of my book so that I’d have something to say to Brother Percy. I read the introduction about Emily Dickinson and how she never, ever left home and how she didn’t want to see anybody or make new friends or, basically, do anything. I hated it. I shut the book when I got to the first two lines of the first example:
The Soul selects her own Society—
Then—Shuts the Door—
“Ready to work?” Brother Percy said, sneaking up from behind and clapping me on the shoulder.
“Here,” I said, shoving the book back into his hands. “I hate poetry. And I’m not nuts.”
“Mercurial, that’s good. You’ve got the temperament...”
I was about to yell at him to get away when there was a loud smack against the window nearest us. We both turned to look.
“What was that?” I asked.
He pointed casually at the substance running down the pane. “An egg,” he sighed. “Don’t worry about it. You’ll learn to ignore it.”
“Faggots,” a gravelly voice called from outside. A second egg hit, and another on the next window. Then the sound of several people running away.
“So you don’t care for Emily Dickinson?” Brother Percy asked, right back to business.
“Huh?” I was still staring up at the window.
“You want a new book.”
“Um, ya. That doesn’t bother you?” I said, pointing up at the egged window bubbling in the sun.
“Of course it bothers me. If I could do anything about it, I would. But since I couldn’t do anything about it last year or the year before or the year before, I figure it’s best to just go on with our work.”
“Well couldn’t you at least tell somebody? So they know?”
“Tell somebody? Like whom?”
“I don’t know. Like, the boss. Brother Jackson.”
Brother Percy covered his laugh with his hand. Then he turned out to the room at large, where all the other artist Brothers were busy ignoring the eggs and trying to teach their students to do likewise. “Hey,” Brother Percy called out, “Elvin wants to know why we just don’t go tell Brother Jackson what happened.”
They all laughed together, a nasty angry laugh that wasn’t aimed at me exactly, but at the situation.
“Good idea, Elvin,” Brother Mattus, the Santa Claus, bellowed. “But you better run and catch him right now before he washes his hands.”
It wa
s scary, the way the Brothers all laughed together at that.
“Fine,” Brother Percy said, returning to the subject and finally seeming to get a little agitated with me. He snatched the book up.
I snatched the book back. Frankie was right: I was getting weird. “I’ll just hold on to it until you find another one for me.”
“Deal,” Brother Percy said, and he went back to browsing the stacks.
I felt guilty. He was trying so hard. I just had no poetry in me, and no interest. But I tried, to make him feel better. I opened the book to the middle and read some more.
I winced, shut the book again. “You’re no Rummy Macias, Emily,” I said. “God, I hate poetry.”
“Then quit it,” Mikie said.
I looked up and he was standing there.
“You made it sound so good,” he said, grinning.
The rest of the week was fun, with me and Mikie finally together again, and for the most part it was quiet. I brought him around to show him the ropes of watching other artists work. But that wasn’t good enough. He wanted to do stuff. So he did. He painted a little. He sculpted a clay dog modeled after the late Freckles, his old Scottie. He remembered enough of his piano lessons to nudge Brother Crudelle off the stool and play for a while. He drank Brother Clarke’s espresso, which made Brother Clarke very happy. He did a little of this and a little of that, and as usual he was pretty good at everything although not great at any one thing. And as usual he was a hit and everyone liked him and he fit like a glove.
But not as usual, I wasn’t jealous of him. He had a good time, and I had a good time watching him do it. Just like I had a good time watching all the other artists do their thing.
Brother Percy kept bringing me books and I kept rejecting them. It got kind of fun for both of us. I am no poet.
We kept getting egged. We kept getting screamed at and laughed at, and usually the windows looked like there was some kind of grotesque storm going on outside even though it was sunny every day. It was all supposed to be just a joke.
By the end of the week, people had settled down to their final projects, to be unveiled at the party Saturday night. Thursday and Friday were the quietest, with groups broken off into corners to do their hush-hush work. I was the only one who was allowed to look at everybody’s work. They guarded it all jealously from each other, but they all let me see.
