The Marbury Lens

by Andrew Smith

  Conner kind of gloated over it. Even though he was every bit as scared as I was that we might end up in trouble over what we did, he whispered to me how we were actually heroes for ending the career of one sick bastard. It scared me to think about it, though, because I felt like a hunted animal, so I just begged him not to talk about it anymore.

  But I didn’t sleep at all for those next three nights after what we did to Freddie Horvath; so I must have looked like a walking dead kid Thursday morning when Conner and my grandparents drove me up to San Francisco Airport. The whole ride there, I felt so torn: I didn’t really want to go, but I sure as hell didn’t want to stay anywhere near the place where Conner and I had accidentally killed someone. Even if that someone was a murderer himself.

  Stella and Wynn asked me to wait with them before leaving for my departure gate.

  “Let’s find a place to get some coffee,” Stella said.

  “I want to try to sleep on the plane.” It was my way of trying to push them all away from me, like they were holding me back from falling off a cliff and I wanted them to just let go.

  “Coffee sounds good,” Wynn said.

  I pulled out my cell phone to check the time.

  Two hours to go.

  “I need to go to the bathroom first,” I said. “I’ll be right back.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Conner offered.

  I sighed. “Whatever.”

  I left my small black carry-on at Stella’s feet, and Conner and Ipushed our way through the hundreds of anonymous people who were coming and going. And I felt like every one of them was watching us, like they knew what we’d done.

  “I’m going to be sick.” I leaned over the sink and splashed cold water on my face.

  Conner stood behind and watched me in the mirror.

  “It’s going to be okay, Jack. The more distance and time we put between us and Monday night…” His voice trailed off. “We’re going to be okay. I know it.”

  I shrugged and pulled some paper towels from the steel dispenser on the wall.

  I didn’t want to look at my friend, and he could tell. Conner grabbed my shoulders and shook me a little.

  “Look. Let’s try and have the greatest time we can when I get over there with you. Let’s try, Jack. I’ll be there in just a few days.”

  “I don’t know if I can do this, Con. I can’t sleep thinking about it.”

  We didn’t notice, but a man with a gray jacket folded over one arm had come out from a stall and just stood there, silently watching us. Conner looked at me, then at the man, and he smiled at me and said, “Yeah? So, we’re gay. Do you have a problem with that, creep?”

  The man glanced down at the floor, embarrassed, and hurried away.

  I gave Conner a push.

  “You’re messed up.”

  Conner laughed. “You can’t honestly say that wasn’t funny, Jack. Did you see how that guy was looking at us?”

  I tried to smile back at him.

  I balled up a wad of soggy towels and tossed them into the metal bin on the way out to find Wynn and Stella.

  I’ve never walked on a frozen lake. I can only imagine what it would feel like—wondering if the next time I plant my foot would bring me plunging down between knife-sharp, icy edges into a smothering black, to fight against the cold, the dark, straining to find a way back to the surface so I could take another doubtful step forward.

  Because I felt exactly like that when I walked away from Conner and my grandparents to pass through the first checkpoint on my way to the plane.

  No turning back.

  Even the crew on the plane who greeted me as I entered, holding my ticket in a shaking hand, looked like they knew who I was, as though they had whispered to one another while I made my way down the boarding chute, “Look, here’s the kid who killed Dr. Horvath.”

  I felt myself turning pale.

  I stowed my bag beneath the seat and wedged a pillow between my shoulder and the foggy plastic window. I looked out at the California sky, caught in the between-worlds nowhere of an airplane that would take me into a different day.

  Then the man who had been watching me and Conner in the restroom said hello, stuffed his jacket in the overhead bin, and took the seat right next to me.

  It was going to be like this, wasn’t it?

  I tried telling myself that it was crazy to think that everyone else in the world knew, they were all following and watching me. I felt myself struggling to catch my breath; I was sweating and felt sick again.

  “Traveling by yourself?” he said.

  I turned my eyes toward him, trying to give him a look that said leave me alone. He smelled like a lavatory soap dispenser and looked like any other middle-aged, plastic-mannequin business guy who you’d see on an airplane.

  “Going to London all alone?” he persisted.

  “I’m on my way to school. In Kent.” My voice sounded detached, like someone else was answering for me.

  “Oh,” he said. “Your friend’s not coming along?”

  “Next Monday.”

  Go away.

  I looked around, hoping for an empty seat there in business class. All of them were taken. I pretended I was trying to sleep.

  “Well, you guys are going to have a lot of fun.”

  Something about the way he’d said it made me start to feel angry. I knew what he was getting at.

  He went on, “I have an office in London. If it’s your first time there, I’d be happy to show you around to all the exciting spots this weekend.” He stuck his hand out. “My name’s Gary.”

  I didn’t shake his hand.

  He leaned closer, half-whispered, “I know the best clubs. You know what I mean.”

  I whispered back, “Leave me the fuck alone.” I plugged my headphones into my cell phone, turned away from Gary, and shut my eyes.

  It was going to be a long flight.

  I woke up four hours later when the flight attendant asked me what I wanted for dinner. Gary had his hand under my blanket, rubbing my leg. He’d been trying to unbutton my fly.

  And I thought, Why is this happening to me? I wasn’t sure what the attendant had asked me, so I just said a quick yes, and then I lowered my tray, looked Gary straight in the face, and said clearly enough for the closest ten people to hear: “If you don’t get your goddamned hand off my crotch, I’ll fucking kill you.”

  Gary jerked his hand out and turned his eyes forward, pretending he didn’t know anything about what was going on. The stewardess looked worried, maybe a little scared. She backed away from her cart without serving either of us any food, and went to the front of the cabin, taking a quick look through the curtain that separated us from first class.

  Gary cleared his throat and fidgeted nervously with his tray.

  If I could have jumped out the window, I would have done it. I tried thinking about Conner, about meeting him in a few days, about having fun again; but I kept running myself back to Freddie’s house, tied to that bed—and then seeing him all twisted up in the middle of the road.

  Panic.

  I felt like I was going to black out, do something really crazy. I remember shrinking back into the corner of my seat, wondering why the hell I’d gotten on this goddamned plane in the first place, convinced I would never make it through the next two weeks. Gary pushed the serving cart up the aisle and retreated behind me to the toilet. I watched the red OCCUPIED sign light up above the bulkhead.

  The flight attendant came back. Her eyes were soft and focused on me.

  “Sweetie, there’s an empty seat up in first class,” she said. “Let’s grab your things and you come up there with me. Would that be okay?”

  I nodded.

  “Okay.”

  For the entire flight, it felt like I was still on those drugs Freddie gave me. I didn’t watch the movies; and slept a couple of times through the shortened night and into the next morning.

  I never dreamed.

  I never saw Gary again, either. The flight c
rew managed to get me off the airplane ahead of everyone else and I raced down the endless corridors at Heathrow so I could disappear into the masses of people waiting to get passport stamps in the enormous arrivals hall.

  And after I’d picked up my backpack, I had to walk through the customs area, a gauntlet of eyes where uniformed men watched me, maybe looking for the telltale indication that something wasn’t right about this pale kid showing up all alone. And how could they miss it? I felt so lost, like nothing made sense, so I kept my eyes fixed on a yellow sign with an arrow on it that said WAY OUT TO TRAINS, and concentrated on making my feet move toward it, afraid to look back, afraid to stop.

  God, I felt so sick.

  This is when it started falling apart.

  I know that now.

  Thirteen

  I checked my cell phone. It was the next day, and I was on the other side of the planet. I really felt like I’d been torn from my world, even if there was still that lingering emptiness—like I had to wait for the rest of me to catch up.

  If it ever would.

  The train into London was empty, at least where I sat. Wynn insisted on buying a first class ticket on the Heathrow Express, and I realized that most travelers simply opted for less expensive methods of getting into the city. So I felt like I was inside an egg or something; and shifted my attention constantly between the news reporter on the television screen in front of me and the strangeness of the gray and green world that rushed backwards on the other side of the window glass.

  My grandparents had already paid for a room for me and Conner at one of the nicer hotels in the city. It sat overlooking Regent’s Park, just a few hundred yards from the Tube station at Great Portland Street, so it was easy to find, even if I hadn’t ever been there before.

  When I got in to the room, I threw my pack down on the bed. My back was sweating from having carried it in the humid summer heat. The room was nice, I guess, but not really much like the places I’d stayed at in America. It seemed so small, claustrophobic.

  And there was only one enormous bed, covered with a thick comforter and a ridge of pillows, a headboard as high as I stood tall with a circular mirror in its center. I thought, Just great, I get to share a bed with Conner. With a computer desk, an armoire containing a flat-panel TV, a stuffed chair, dressing mirror, and two nightstands, there was hardly any floor at all. I kicked off my shoes—the same Vans I wore the night Freddie Horvath kidnapped me. The guy we killed.

  Quit it, Jack.

  I looked in the bathroom. Equally small. I found that I couldn’t even open the shower door unless the bathroom door was open—or else I had to step over a tub that was nearly three feet deep, just to get a leg up into it.

  Strange.

  I filled a glass of water from the tap. It tasted thick and oily.

  I checked the time zones on my phone. It was still too early to call Conner, and I didn’t want to talk to Stella yet.

  I went to the window.

  There was something about the sky in London that seemed so flat and smothering. I was too used to the hills and rises of California. So the skyline in London made me feel like I was under a lens. But the air seemed so clear, too. It definitely didn’t smell like California.

  The park across from the hotel was surrounded by hedges and a tall fence. What I could see of it looked unnaturally perfect by the standards of home. Everything was manicured, green, alive. I saw groups of runners entering and leaving through the iron gates.

  Good idea.

  I opened my backpack. I was tired enough that I could have gone to sleep, but decided to try and stay awake until nighttime so I could begin to adjust to the time change. I took out my running gear and stripped off my clothes. For just a second, I sat on the edge of the bed and watched myself in the dressing mirror, but then I shook my head—like a wet dog—and laced up my running flats.

  If I could do that, I told myself, I must be getting better.

  The hotel’s lobby was like a terraced cave. I had to walk down a short flight of stairs from the elevator to the crowded main, circular room. Everyone there looked like they were dressed to attend some kind of formal event. So I tried to tell myself that they were all looking at me because nobody would expect to see a tired-looking, skinny kid with uneven hair that hung over his eyes, wearing only running shorts and a holey T-shirt in a place like this.

  Then I realized that without pockets, I didn’t have anywhere to keep my room key. It made me nervous to think about leaving it with anyone. I looked over to the front desk. The guy behind the counter was staring at me, smiling. He seemed to catch on to what I was thinking. I slipped the key card into the liner of my shorts, hoping it wouldn’t fall out. Not very comfortable. He watched me do it.

  I made my way toward the uniformed men who stood at the entrance. I tried keeping my eyes down on the floor. Dark wood. Just like where I was born, I thought. I was so embarrassed for some reason, I felt like my skin was burning under all the attention.

  Stop fucking looking at me.

  The doormen stood ready, their gloved hands poised to let me out.

  I passed the lobby bar.

  Something made me stop.

  That was the first time I saw the man with the purple glasses.

  And I didn’t realize it at that moment, but that was the first time I had a flash of the other side, too.

  I guess I need to slow down here and try to remember exactly what happened.

  How things began falling apart for Jack.

  Fourteen

  There was something about the man wearing the purple glasses that scared and relaxed me at the same time. It’s hard to explain, but it was kind of the same way I’d felt about Freddie Horvath, too.

  He stood there, obviously watching me, and when I looked at him, he didn’t glance away. He just kept watching me through those glasses, with a hint of a smile on his face like he’d been expecting me.

  And, considering where we were, he looked as out of place in that lobby as I did: He was wearing a long, dull-colored traveling coat and sweater, despite the heat of the day, and he held a rumpled hat in one hand. He seemed young, maybe in his twenties, but he also looked very tired, like he’d been on the road for months. The uneven, sand-colored stubble on his face made him look too young to grow a full beard, and it seemed he hadn’t been in front of a bathroom sink in at least a week. When I passed by, he stood up from the stool at the bar where he’d been drinking a glass of beer and quickly pulled the glasses away from his eyes, jolted, as if he recognized me, but I told myself I was just being ridiculously paranoid about people, and wondered if I would ever let myself relax and trust anyone again.

  But the thing that was most intense about him—and I know this now after what I’ve been through, even if I shrugged it off at the time—were his purple eyeglasses. Because they weren’t just purple, there was something else about them, and when I caught him staring at me and looked right at him, I swear that just for a blinking instant I could see something on the other side of the lenses.

  Something that was all white and gray, with edges and folds.

  Something like two deep holes that stretched farther and deeper than anything I’d ever seen before. Really big, like cracking a layer on one of those stacking Russian dolls and finding something you’d never expect could fit inside.

  And I swear that for that smallest of moments, I could see people on the other side of the lenses, too.

  All week long, I’d kept thinking about how the drugs Freddie Horvath gave me must have ruined something in my brain.

  I gave the man a dirty look. I was sick of people staring at me.

  That shit in his glasses had to be nothing more than the reflection of all those creepy old people hanging around in the lobby.

  Nothing else.

  Fuck this place.

  The doormen pushed open the heavy glass doors.

  I think I started running before I was even out of the hotel.

  Fifteen

&nbs
p; I ran.

  My ankle hurt. I thought it was probably bleeding inside my sock. I didn’t look. It just wasn’t healing well.

  Yeah, I remember you, Freddie.

  Fuck you, too.

  As soon as I forget about you, you really will be dead.

  I ran fast. Sweat dripped from my chin and elbows. Sometimes, I’d look back to see where it left dark coins trailing my direction along the pathway.

  The park seemed to stretch forever beside an expanse of lawn where men in white played cricket, and blankets made red or yellow rectangles in the sun where lovers lay tangled, sleeping off the drowsy contents of emptied wine bottles.

  Conner and Dana.

  And everyone seemed to be looking at me.

  Quit it, Jack.

  A towering stone building on the other side of the trees to my left supported an immense clock on its highest peak. Five o’clock. I had to think about what time that really was to me.

  I kept running, over a bridge and along the shore of a lake where an old man stood throwing crumbs to the birds that came out onto the grass between the water and the path. Behind the zoo, I made a circle around what I guessed was the perimeter of the park, clockwise, back toward the entrance.

  Clockwise.

  I stopped in a narrow garden that was walled in on both sides by tall hedges and lined with intensely bright flowers along the gravel of the pathway. I was drenched. My shirt was plastered to my skin. I took it off and held it to my face, bent forward, resting one hand on my knee.

  “Are you hurt?”

  Startled, I let the shirt fall. I straightened up.

  An old man with a moustache bent toward me. A cricket player. He smelled like tobacco.

  Smoke.