Shadow of the Lions

by Christopher Swann

  “When Father came home one night, a bit earlier than usual, we were all eating dinner and listening to Wat tell a story about a hot air balloon ride and his beauty pageant date, who was getting airsick. It was hysterical. Abby was snorting, and my stomach hurt from laughing. Mother was holding her hand to her mouth, saying, ‘Wat, now stop,’ but clearly not wanting him to stop. I was the first one to see my father. He was standing in the kitchen doorway, right across from me, watching us. I stopped laughing immediately. His expression was pretty blank, but my first thought on seeing him was that I was doing something wrong. Then I realized that he was watching what our family was supposed to be like, but wasn’t. It was one of the few times I felt like I understood my father, empathized with him, even. After a minute, Mother saw him and stood up. He waved her down and pulled up another chair, and Wat finished his story, although what we had thought was hysterically funny now only seemed amusing. I remember feeling a little embarrassed and wondering why we’d all been laughing so hard.

  “It was maybe a week later, I guess. It was pouring rain outside, had been all day. Abby was at another cello lesson, and Wat and Mother and I were stuck in the house. Father was at work, of course. I was in a funk. I didn’t want to listen to any of my music, read a book, watch TV, any of that. I was just bored, you know? The way we’d get sometimes at Blackburne on Sundays, sick of the day and wanting it to end but dreading Monday at the same time? Well, that was me that day.

  “Mother tried to play Scrabble with me, but we ended up fighting about words and spelling. Wat was sitting in a corner, reading Shakespeare of all things, Much Ado about Nothing, but he would look over the top of his book to watch us play. Mother kept building really good words off mine. I’d play help and she’d build epoxy off that, and get a double-word score. She was getting a kick out of it, too, I could tell. Now I look back and think she wasn’t thinking about beating me as much as winning a game, if that makes sense. But all I saw was that my mother seemed to enjoy making me look stupid. Then she played jovial for something like sixty points, and I was so irritated, I shoved the board away from me. Next thing I knew, she got up out of her seat and slapped me. She’d never done that before. I was being an asshole, I know, but then she just . . . cracked me across my face. She was pissed, but it all drained out of her face as soon as she realized what she’d done, and then she looked . . . I don’t know, old, I guess, and scared. I stormed upstairs, ignoring her as she called to me, and I heard Wat say something to her before I slammed my bedroom door and fell on the bed. I cried, man. Bawled into my pillow. My own mother had hit me, you know?

  “After a while, there was a knock on my door. It was Wat. He came in and closed the door behind him and came over and sat down on my bed, his hand on my back. He didn’t say anything. I felt . . . like I was safe. Like he was on my side. ‘It’s all right to cry,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing embarrassing about crying.’ I sat up and wiped my arm across my face, trying to get the snot off. He handed me a handkerchief, and I wiped my eyes and blew my nose and all.”

  Fritz stopped walking and looked again at the Saint Christopher medal in his hand, although I got the sense that he was no longer seeing the medal, or anything else other than his memory. We had walked around to the far side of the yard across from his trailer by a stack of hay bales. Somewhere beyond the trailer, I could hear men calling to one another, and a bull lowing. Fritz continued to stare at nothing. I was about to say something, his name maybe, when he sighed and looked at me, his eyes sad and weary.

  “He kissed me,” he said.

  I had no idea how to reply, so I simply parroted his words back at him. “He kissed you?”

  “I turned to give him his handkerchief back, and he leaned over and kissed me, full on the mouth.” Fritz said this clearly and without obvious emotion in his voice, although the bleak look in his eyes was awful to see. “I was shocked, you know? Like I didn’t know what to do. I just sat there and let my uncle kiss me.”

  “Fritz—”

  “Worst part was, I think I probably kissed him back. More reflex than anything, I guess. It’s . . .” His voice trailed off, and something hard shone in his eyes then. “He pulled away, looking at me. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. He put his hand on my cheek for a moment and then got up and walked out and closed the door behind him.” Fritz took a breath, exhaled. “You know the weirdest part? All I could think was that he would get in so much trouble if anyone found out. That was my biggest fear. Everyone loved Wat. I loved him. So I went to the bathroom and washed my face and then went downstairs and told my mother I was sorry, and she hugged me and cried and said she was sorry, too. And Wat sat in the corner behind his Shakespeare, smiling.”

  The silence after Fritz stopped speaking was too horrible, so I rushed to fill it. “But you told someone, right? Tell me you told someone.”

  Fritz shrugged, the movement a pitiful rising of his shoulders. “Who could I tell, Matthias?” he asked. “I was afraid. Not so much for me, but for Wat. I was afraid my father would kill him. And it didn’t feel like he was molesting me.”

  “You were, what, twelve? He’s your uncle.”

  “Thanks for clearing that up,” he said dryly.

  “Jesus, Fritz!”

  Fritz actually smiled a little, the old lopsided grin. “I don’t think Jesus had an awful lot to do with it.”

  His calmness and that smile disarmed me so that I simply stood there. “So,” I said, my voice a bit strained, as if I were having to speak around something in my throat, “did this happen—I mean, was this a one-time event, or . . .” I didn’t know how to continue.

  Fritz raised an eyebrow. “Have you ever known Wat to restrain himself?” he said.

  I managed to sit down on a hay bale. If there hadn’t been a hay bale, I would have had to sit on the ground.

  Fritz stood there, considering me. He sighed and then rubbed his face again. “This sounds bizarre, I know,” he said. “But it felt like . . . something special with him. A connection, something private. Everyone wanted a piece of Wat. Women especially, even my mother. Men wanted to be seen with him, shake his hand, get into conversations with him. And here he was paying all this attention to me.” I must have made a noise or grimace, because he raised a hand out to me, as if in supplication. “I know, it’s crazy. And sick. It’s sick, Matthias, I know that. I didn’t have sex with him. Not intercourse. God, what a horrible word.” He took a breath as if about to dive underwater. “When Wat moved back into his town house about a week afterward, he would invite me to visit. Wanted to show me Washington, he’d say to my parents. He’d invite Abby, too, but she had lessons and recitals all the time. Now I see he planned it that way. So I’d go visit for a night, and Wat would show me D.C.—the Washington Monument, the Mall, the Capitol building. He tried to get me into the White House once, but it didn’t happen. And then we’d go back to his town house and have dinner, maybe watch baseball. And maybe Wat’s hands would wander, or he’d kiss me again. He’d be sitting next to me on the couch, and it would just sort of . . . happen. Not every time I visited.” He peered down at the Saint Christopher medal in his hand. “My God, once when he just kissed the top of my head after dinner and went upstairs to bed, I was almost hurt.” He shook his head, bemused by his own reaction.

  In a low voice, and making an effort to keep my voice from shaking, I said, “Is that why you ran away?”

  Fritz put the medal in his pocket. “No,” he said. “Not entirely. I’d thought about it before—what kid doesn’t think of running away from home, right? I guess I had more reason to run than most. The whole thing with Wat was—confusing. Was he gay? Was I gay? Women loved Wat, so why was he doing the things he did with me?

  “I’ve had a lot of time to think about this, obviously. And I think, sexually, he was immature. He loved women, but somehow they frightened him at the same time. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s never had sex with a woman. Or if he has, I’m positive it wasn’t a great experienc
e. And it wasn’t like he was trolling school playgrounds, picking up kids from bus stops or anything. He knew me. I was family, which in a perverted kind of way makes sense. He could trust me. I wasn’t threatening.

  “But that started changing. I’d see Wat maybe once a month, but then NorthPoint started making inroads with the government and the Pentagon, and both Wat and Father would be gone for weeks. The longer I was away from him, the more I could look at what he was doing—what we were doing—objectively. And by the time I was fourteen and about to head to Blackburne, I was beginning to freak out. Can you imagine what our classmates would have thought about what I’d been doing with my uncle?”

  I shook my head in protest. “Look, there’s nothing wrong with you. You were the victim. Wat—”

  “Wat is a pervert and a lech, but I was perfectly willing to let him be that,” Fritz said. “And you know I’m right. What would Diamond have said? Or Trip? Would you have roomed with me for three years, knowing what I’d done with Wat?” He appraised me for a few moments as I sat there on that pile of hay, shamefully unable to reply. “It’s okay,” he said. “I understand. Keeping that secret ate at me, though. You know when a battery is old and the acid leaks out, it gets all corroded? That’s what I felt like.

  “I did some research, too. Looked up sexual abuse on the Internet, read articles about pedophiles. Something like half of all child molesters were molested themselves. I remember sitting in the library, staring at the computer screen after reading this, and thinking that I might grow up to be a child molester.”

  Something cold and hard seized me, a half-acknowledged and dreadful thought. Unable to stop myself, I glanced past Fritz to the trailer door. Tommy was in there, playing alone. He wouldn’t do that, I thought. He wouldn’t. Then, horrified, I realized Fritz saw where I was looking. “No, Fritz,” I said, “I don’t—I’m not—” I felt my face flush and panic rise in my throat, threatening to squeeze it shut. I stood up, waving my hands as if to blot out what I had just done.

  “I know,” he said, reassuringly, but I had seen the look of pain on his face when he had realized what I was thinking. “I fucking know. That’s why . . .” He closed his eyes and then seemed to force them open again. “I haven’t—talked about this, ever. Not to Shanna, not to anyone. It’s this thing, a—a shame . . .”

  I shook my head vehemently. “You would never . . . I mean, come on, Fritz, you—you wouldn’t do that. Not to anyone.”

  To my great relief, Fritz let out a long breath and smiled weakly. “I don’t think I would, either. But then, after everything that happened with Wat, all I saw was the possibility that I might end up doing that. I was fucking freaked out. Every time sex came up, I’d freak out. Fletcher Dupree or someone else would say, ‘Blow me,’ and I’d start sweating. I’d go to the A/V center on Saturdays, sit in the dark with everyone, and watch R-rated movies . . . Remember Dracula, the Coppola one with Keanu? That vampire chick rises up between his legs?”

  “Monica Bellucci,” I said unsteadily. “Goren loved that flick, watched it every weekend.”

  Fritz nodded. “I’d watch it, and I’d wonder if I was turned on enough. I couldn’t keep a girlfriend—”

  “You always had a girlfriend.”

  “Never kept the same one for long, though,” he said. “Sort of like running away, I guess. First sign of trouble or stress over sex, I’d dump her and move on.” He closed his eyes. “I almost killed Wat once.”

  Silence for a beat. “Okay,” I said.

  He opened his eyes. “I mean it. He was at our house one night over Christmas break our senior year, and Mother had to run to the store. My father was at the office, as usual. Abby was upstairs writing a letter or something. Wat decided to watch The Searchers on cable while waiting for Mother to come home and have dinner. He just sat there on the couch, watching John Wayne, and I went to the hall closet and found a pistol my father had always kept there, tucked under an old blanket on the top shelf. It was a .45, big ugly thing. I’d never fired it before, but I walked quietly down the hall to the den where Wat was watching the movie, his back to me, and I pushed the safety off and pointed it at his head.” He paused and then exhaled heavily. “Didn’t do it. Couldn’t.”

  “Why not?” I murmured.

  “Abby,” he said simply. “I didn’t want to shoot him and have her see him that way, see me with the gun in my hand. It was a near thing. I pushed the safety back on and put the pistol back into the closet and went outside and threw up behind the garage. There’s got to be something wrong when the only reason you don’t shoot your uncle to death is because you’re worried how your sister will react. Later, of course, I was horrified at the idea. I almost went to pieces. I didn’t come back to school until later, remember?”

  With a shudder, I did remember. “Yeah, your mom said you were sick—flu, I think.”

  “On the verge of a nervous breakdown, more like it. And then spring break . . .” Fritz grimaced.

  “What?”

  “My father found pictures on Wat’s computer. He was doing a security sweep to pave the way for some government contracts or something, every NorthPoint computer account got the once-over, and his IT guys flagged something buried in Wat’s hard drive. A file with hundreds of pictures. All porn. All boys.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Wat was at our house that night when Father came home. I’d never seen my father so angry. He told Wat he needed to talk with him, and Wat raised his eyebrows and went into Father’s office and closed the door. I stood outside Father’s office and listened to him shouting at Wat, asking how he could download porn of all things, accusing him of setting the company up for ruin. I couldn’t hear what Wat said, but suddenly he opened the door, trying to leave, and I nearly fell into the room. Father looked livid, just white with anger, but Wat stared at me as if I were a ghost. Then Father looked from him to me.”

  I said, “He knew?”

  Fritz shrugged. “It was all over our faces. I was scared—terrified, even—but at some level I was relieved. We could deal with it, get it out in the open.” He said these last words with such bitterness that I nearly rocked back on my heels.

  “What happened?” I said.

  Fritz clenched his jaw as if afraid to speak. “He buried it,” he said. “My father buried it. Had Wat’s laptop wiped clean and fired the IT guy who had called him. Made up something about the guy selling NorthPoint secrets to the Koreans or something, I don’t know.”

  “The Chinese,” I said hoarsely. I saw in my mind’s eye Wat Davenport in his townhome, sitting in front of the fire, his laughter brief and harsh. It sounds like a bad movie, doesn’t it? Wat had said. Chinese spies!

  Fritz frowned. “Yeah, maybe it was the Chinese. Anyway, he fired the guy to keep my uncle from getting in trouble. And he wouldn’t even talk to me the rest of vacation. He just . . . looked at me, like I was offensive.” Fritz’s voice wavered slightly before hardening again. “Then he sent me back to Blackburne. That was when I knew I had to leave. My own father didn’t want to know what had happened to me, or how I felt, or anything. He just wanted me gone because he thought it would hurt his fucking company.” He stabbed a finger toward his trailer. “And now I’m a father, and I have a son, and I swear to God I won’t ever abandon him the way my own father just . . . left me. He left me.” His voice dropped, though his tone was no less harsh and insistent. “He left me. When I needed him, he wanted me gone. I just obliged him. I got as much cash together as I could and planned to take off after spring break.”

  I heard myself ask, in a small voice, “How did you do that? I mean, you didn’t ‘take off ’—you disappeared. You walked off the edge of the fucking earth.”

  Fritz looked weary now, resigned, as if he revisited his history every day. Which, I realized with a shock, he probably did. “I stole a bicycle,” he said. “Earlier that year. One of the older faculty kids left it out in a field near his house, and one day during cross country practice, I ran by and saw
it and realized that was how I could get away from my family. I pretended my laces were untied and let my teammates run past. Then I went and got the bike and rode it into a stand of trees about a quarter mile away. I felt bad for the kid who owned the bike, but I just saw it as something I needed. The night before I left, during study hall, I ran back to that stand of trees and found it still lying there, a little rust on it but nothing terrible. I think I told you I was studying in the library.” He shrugged in apology. “The next night I went back and got on the bike and just rode down the Hill and down the driveway out past the lions. Made it to Staunton in an hour and bought a bus ticket to West Virginia, and then kept going west.” He made a halfhearted gesture at the trailer. “Ended up out here, eventually. Finally got to be a cowboy, I guess. Dodging a bull’s not much different than dodging tackles. George is training me.”

  “I thought,” I started to say, and then had to clear my throat. “I always thought you left because—we had that argument. About college and . . . how I lied to you.” My voice sounded pitiful in my own ears. Your uncle molested you and you almost killed him, and when your father found out, he covered it up and then you ran away, but the important thing is that I need to apologize.

  Fritz gave me a strange look. Then he reached into his back pocket and pulled out a worn leather wallet, from which he extracted a much-folded piece of paper. He held the paper out to me, and I took it from his hand and unfolded it. It was a letter from UVA addressed to Francis McHugh Davenport. “Dear Fritz,” it began. “Congratulations! You have been accepted . . .” I looked up from the letter and stared at Fritz, who gave another small, lopsided grin.

  “Got that the day I left,” he said.

  My head was whirling. I’d heard that description before, about one’s head whirling, but this was the first time I had fully experienced it—a sense of vertigo, the ground seeming to lift and rotate beneath me, the air itself thin and hard to breathe. “Wait,” I said. “Wait a minute. You told me you hadn’t gotten any mail that day. We were by the lions. You said you’d gone and looked in your mailbox and there was nothing.”