A Perfect Snow

by Nora Martin

  The sun rose as I walked around, repeating in my mind everything that had happened in that strange night. I started with Eden telling me she wouldn’t see me anymore, the fire, David’s arrest and then my folks not coming for me at the hospital. I think I was in shock, kind of, because I felt totally empty. It was like I had died and left the world behind. Now there was only a shallow spirit left, released to wander some blurry unknown land.

  I roamed ghostlike around the neighborhoods, watching the lights come on in houses. I smelled wood smoke from one house and it made me shiver in the spring cold. I could picture the people inside starting their day, getting ready for work or school.

  All these people still have a life they can touch, I thought, like the solid walls of their houses.

  It was more than an hour before I ended up on the street where my aunt Jana lived. The truck I had left at the housing project was parked in front. As I came closer I heard arguing from inside.

  Stopping to listen, I recognized my mother’s voice. “He didn’t know, Jana. Neither of us did.”

  “That’s hard to believe,” Aunt Jana said. “Frank had to have known. How could he have gone to all those meetings and not gotten some idea?”

  “He blames himself,” Mom said, defending Dad. “When I told him what was happening he was crushed. He said all he thought about was how Lonn got him a job.”

  In the pause I knocked on the door. When it swung open Aunt Jana exclaimed, “Where did you come from? Look at your face!”

  I felt the side of my cheek where David had hit me. It was tender and I knew there must be a bruise.

  My mom rushed to me and hugged me. “When I got to the hospital you’d taken off. I’ve been so worried, Ben.”

  Then Aunt Jana noticed the bandages on my arms. “My God! Come inside.” Both sisters led me to a chair. I noticed Aunt Jana was in her nurse uniform and had a bowl of cereal half eaten on the table. It was already past seven. “I have to be at work by eight,” she said.

  I took the mug of coffee she set in front of me. As I grasped the cup my arms throbbed and I felt exhausted.

  “Where’s Dad?” I asked.

  “He’s still at the jail,” Mom answered.

  “Tell us how this could happen,” Aunt Jana pleaded. “How did your father get you in with these awful people?”

  I looked to Mom, trying to read her face.

  “He didn’t know,” I said. Mom’s relief was obvious. “Maybe he should have known,” I told them both. “But Lonn is very careful to keep what his guys are doing hidden. At the meeting there are always new people he doesn’t know, people who come once and don’t return, so he doesn’t mention the violence. I’m the one who is to blame. I got David into this stuff.” I told them everything that had happened.

  When I was finished Mom said, “I didn’t see it. None of it.”

  “Don’t blame yourself, Donna.” Aunt Jana took her hand across the table. “This has been a hard time. You’ve been wrapped up in just trying to survive.”

  “No.” Mom shook her head. “Our life from the very beginning has been wrong. It must have been.” She spoke in statements but looked into my face for answers. “Our life taught you to hate people you didn’t even know. Our life taught you to blame other people for your problems. I am responsible for that life.”

  She began to sob. Aunt Jana said, “What about Frank? Why hasn’t he said something to these boys that will help them?”

  “We’re all to blame,” Mom said.

  Aunt Jana had to agree. “We didn’t come from families that were very good about talking things through.”

  I felt exhaustion sweep over me.

  “You’d better go crash on the couch,” Aunt Jana said.

  She gathered blankets and a pillow and made me a bed on the sofa. “Come get some rest.” She gently tucked the covers up around my shoulders. I was glad I was there.

  Mom came and sat on the edge of the couch. “How do you feel?”

  “I hurt,” I told her. “But I think I can sleep.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Aunt Jana said. “Now, I have to get to work.”

  “As soon as Ben feels rested we’ll head home.” My mom’s voice sounded as tired as I felt.

  “Let me help in any way I can,” Aunt Jana told Mom.

  At ten o’clock on Monday I sat with Mom and Dad in the back of the county court. Aunt Jana came in and slid in beside us.

  “Anything new?” she asked.

  Mom and Dad both shook their heads.

  “I tried phoning Lonn’s shop,” Dad told her. “But whoever answered just hung up on me.”

  “I’m glad you tried,” Aunt Jana told him.

  Dad looked surprised to hear a compliment from Aunt Jana, but he nodded and accepted it.

  Near the front, I saw several people I recognized from Lonn’s meeting. Lonn wasn’t there.

  But what surprised me more than Lonn not being there was that Eden was. She sat with her father in the middle of the courtroom. I couldn’t stop myself from staring at the back of Eden’s head. And as if she could feel my eyes like a breeze, she turned around. Her face was unreadable.

  Soon they brought in David, Chuck, Travis and the others, seating them in the front row. Everyone stood as the judge entered.

  The hearing didn’t take long. My brother and the other guys were each appointed a lawyer. The prosecutors asked the judge to schedule the arraignment for a future date so they could have time to prepare. They called it a hate crime and this seemed to make the charges more serious.

  I whispered to Aunt Jana, “What do they do at the arraignment?”

  “That’s when David will enter a plea of guilty or not guilty and they’ll set a date for the trial,” she said.

  The prosecutor told the judge they wanted to charge the defendants as adults. I cringed. I knew that if David was found guilty, he would go to the state prison. That’s when Mom broke down crying.

  I wanted to stand up and yell, This is my fault. I got my brother into this. I should be the one you send to jail. But I also wanted my parents to tell me everything was okay. That David wouldn’t go to jail. That I wasn’t responsible.

  Bail was set for each of the four. They were then led away and the hearing was over. In the hall outside the courtroom Mom hugged me while Dad stood back with his hands stuffed into his pants pockets. Finally, still looking at the floor, he said, “I’m sorry, Ben.” I could see how much he was trying to say with those words.

  Then, as if I were the parent and he were the child, I put my arms around him. He held me tight.

  Finally Dad dropped his arms, took my mom by the hand and said, “Let’s go, Donna.”

  “Are you coming, Ben?” Mom asked.

  “In a while,” I answered as I nodded toward where Eden and her father were standing.

  After my parents were gone I sat back down heavily onto the bench. I felt someone sit down close to me. Thinking it was Aunt Jana, I didn’t look up. But then I heard Eden’s voice. “I saw how hurt your parents are. I’m so sorry for you all, Ben.”

  Blindly I reached for Eden’s hand. Clasping her warmth like a prayer, I held it to my lowered forehead. She felt so comfortable next to me that no more words were needed.

  But out of the corner of my eye I saw her dad watching us. He must hate me more than Eden does, I thought. He came over to her. “I’ll wait for you in the car.”

  Eden and I sat for a few minutes more.

  “I can’t stay,” Eden whispered.

  “I’m sorry,” I struggled to say.

  “You did the right thing, Hero.” Her kindness hurt.

  I tried to say, Maybe we could start over. Maybe now I could be better at telling her what was going on inside me. But no words came out.

  “I’ve got to go,” she said.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Bone

  In the days after David’s hearing, my parents tried to act as if everything were okay. But I heard them up late in the night talking
quietly in their bedroom. Mom forced herself to shed her quiet withdrawal and began to at least sound like she used to. She made my dad promise to quit the job at the Quick Mart as soon as he found something different. He was relieved, and her energy seemed to give him hope.

  On Wednesday Mom came into my room. “Ben, get up. Go back to school. You stayed in bed all day yesterday. That’s enough.”

  I didn’t move. All I could think about was having to face all those students and teachers staring at me.

  “I’ll give you a ride on my way to work,” Mom said.

  “I can’t do it, Mom. I can’t go out there yet. Everyone knows what happened. They’ll all be talking about me.”

  “Yes, they will,” she agreed. “Just like the women at the motel will be talking about me. But we have been avoiding our problems for way too long in this family. It has to stop. I’ll write the school a note saying you’ve been absent because of family problems.”

  I groaned. Then I sat for a minute trying to summon the will to go on.

  Later, as I got out of our truck in front of the school, I saw a group of kids staring at me. Passing by, I heard one of them hiss, “Nazi.” I walked on as fast as I could.

  Inside the door I stopped to get myself together. How many other people there knew what had happened over the weekend? The story had been in the paper the day before. My name hadn’t been mentioned specifically in the article, but Lodgette was a pretty small town; news got around fast.

  I felt my teeth clatter with nervousness as I walked through the door. In the office I handed the note my mom wrote to the secretary. When she took it briskly from my hand, I wondered, Does she know? Was she reacting angrily to me or was she just in a hurry?

  As I went down the hall I felt people must be staring at me. And even though I mostly watched the floor, I could almost feel them pointing me out and whispering. Then I saw Eden. When she saw me, she stopped and looked unsure for what felt like forever. I was torn as to whether I should rush over to her and throw myself into her arms or run the opposite way. Finally another girl spoke to her and Eden walked away in the direction of her class.

  After Eden was gone my whole body began to tremble and my lungs felt as if they were collapsing. I knew I wasn’t going to make it through the day. I ducked into the art room.

  I closed the door behind me, leaving the dusty smell of the hallways for the strong scent of turpentine and ink. It was quiet and empty. But then someone came out of the storeroom.

  “Ben!” The voice sounded surprised. “You don’t look so good.”

  “Jason? What are you doing here?”

  He shrugged with a half grin. “I like to mess around in here—Woodcuts, mostly. My old man says that art will never support me. He doesn’t let me take the classes. So I do it in the mornings and during study hall.”

  “I didn’t know that,” I said.

  “I’m not very good. I don’t really advertise the fact. Anyway, Ben, how are you?”

  “Eden won’t even talk to me,” I murmured.

  Jason sat down across from me. “I gotta say, Cowboy, I knew you had a temper, but you don’t seem like the skinhead type to me. You even got to like me and that can’t be easy.”

  “I thought I was one of them,” I said. “I tried to hate everyone and blame them for what was wrong in my life, including you.”

  “What happened?” Jason asked.

  “When my brother got in on the action—you know, the crime stuff—it was like watching myself.”

  “You hate yourself,” Jason repeated. “So what makes you different from a lot of other people? Come on in and join the club.”

  I looked at him, amazed. “Oh, right. You’re telling me that you hate yourself. Rich RETCH with the big house, big car, big checking account.” It made me mad that Jason could think he had experienced anything like I had.

  “RETCH?” he asked.

  I felt embarrassed as I explained. “It stands for ‘rich enough to cheat.’”

  Jason looked me straight in the face. “Daddy’s house, Daddy’s car, Daddy’s bucks. My whole life he has made it clear that I didn’t deserve any of it and that if he didn’t take care of me, I’d end up as trailer trash. Sorry, Ben. His words, not mine.”

  I still couldn’t buy the poor-little-rich-boy line, but Jason seemed at this moment the only friend I had. “I’m not only trailer trash but a criminal as well. So how do I get out?”

  “Start over?” Jason suggested.

  “How?”

  “You’re asking the person my father calls the stupidest child ever born.” Jason tried to make a joke but I didn’t think it was funny. He became more serious. “You taught me, Ben, when we were building the housing project. You start at the bottom and work up, one nail at a time. Remember how you told me to find a rhythm to the work?”

  “Yeah,” I answered.

  “You were right,” he said. “I think maybe this is the same. Each step you take will make the next one visible.”

  I didn’t really understand him but I said, “Thanks, Jason.”

  He nodded. “I’m pretty glad we crashed into each other, Campbell. Anytime you want to hang out, you know, pound some nails, shovel gravel . . .” He left the sentence unfinished, smothered in a laugh.

  Jason’s advice felt good, good enough to go on.

  For the rest of the day I shuffled through classes almost unaware of anything that went on around me. I stopped noticing if there were stares and gestures. I didn’t hear what teachers said or what lessons were done. But a plan grew deep inside me.

  As I walked into the trailer that afternoon I saw my dad was on the phone. “You tell that bastard Lonn he better talk to me.”

  There was silence as he listened to the response, and I stood in the doorway looking at him. He was crouched in angry tension over the phone as if he might punch the person he was talking to right through the line.

  When it was Dad’s turn to speak again, suddenly his whole body changed expression. He stood up straight and answered in a quiet voice, “I will see Lonn in court, then. And all that needs to be said will be.”

  Dad hung up.

  “It’s the best way, Frank,” Mom told him. “What can you say to him over the phone? He won’t listen.”

  “It would make me feel better,” Dad said to both of us.

  “To Lonn, David and guys like us are just the expendable dummies in the trench,” I said. “If we get blown away, he can always find new foot soldiers. He simply steps over the bodies and goes on.”

  “Well?” Mom asked me then. “You survived the return to school?”

  I told Mom and Dad about my conversation with Jason. Then I described how Eden had avoided me. This was something brand-new that Mom said she was going to make Dad and me do. Forced communication, she called it. Every day we would have to sit down and talk about everything we’d done that day.

  “But I’m not going to let this thing with Eden end in silence,” I said. “I’m going to call Eden until she lets me see her.”

  It wasn’t as easy to pull off, though. When I phoned her house no one answered. I left a short message and decided to try again later.

  But no one ever answered. She never returned my calls. And at school it was as if she had disappeared. The girl who had drifted into my life with the snow now melted away.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Skin

  On Saturday morning when I woke up the sun was already coming through the small windows. It made a puddle of golden light on my floor. The luxury of not having to go out where people would stare at me was a relief.

  All through this difficult week the only good thing was Jason. After we’d talked in the art room he had spent the rest of the week sticking up for me. I was glad I’d bloodied his nose, even though it’s a strange way to make a friend.

  I smelled coffee and heard Mom moving around in the kitchen.

  “So,” she said when I came through the door. “Your dad is already up and out looking for a ne
w job.”

  “Do you think he’s going to be all right?” I asked.

  “He has to be. We have to be, all of us,” Mom said. “What about you? What are you going to do?”

  I pushed the hair out of my eyes. “Start looking for an after-school job,” I said. “Then when I have my hearing I’ll be able to say I’m trying to do something okay with my life. I’m going to talk to Randy Mansfield about working for him.”

  “You should also look at the want ads.” Mom took the section out of the paper and passed it to me.

  I poured a cup of coffee and sat down to look through the list. “Here’s one. Part time at the burger place on Main Street.”

  “Sounds fine,” she said, joining me at the kitchen table.

  “I’m also going to work on fixing up our trailer and the neighborhood.”

  “Whether David’s reasons were good or bad,” Mom said, “he did manage to get the garbage cleared out.”

  I tried to swallow my bitter feelings about David’s project. “How about starting with a coat of paint on the trailer and a white picket fence in front of the place?” I offered. “Then I’ll dig you flower beds and some for Mrs. Kenny.”

  “Oh, Ben. That would be wonderful. I think I’ll go by the plant nursery after I get off work.”

  I folded up the paper and watched her leave. I didn’t really know if everything was ever going to be all right. But that day I would just shoot for a little serenity.

  After Mom left I went outside and started the lawn mower. I cut the shaggy grass in front of our trailer and Mrs. Kenny’s. Then I drove stakes with string tied to them, lining out where the fence would go. As I finished, my aunt’s car pulled up. Aunt Jana climbed out.

  “How are you, Ben? Do your arms hurt?”

  I shook my head. I had taken off the bigger white bandages the day before, leaving only a few Band-Aids.

  “Mom went to work,” I told her.

  “I figured she had,” she replied. “I was hoping to see you.”

  “About what?”

  “I wanted to tell you that I think you have a lot of courage. It was you who faced up to the truth of what that con man of a preacher was doing to you and your family. It was you who walked away.”