The City of Mirrors

by Justin Cronin

  Compounding the difficulty is the fact that the boy has never been in love himself. Though the social patterns of Mercy, Ohio, are such that even a modestly attractive person can find opportunities in the sexual marketplace, and the boy, although a virgin, has been from time to time its beneficiary, what he has experienced is merely love’s painless presage, the expression without the soul. He wonders if this is a lack within himself. Is there a part of the brain from which love comes that in his case has drastically malfunctioned? The world is awash in love—on the radio, in movies, in the pages of novels. Romantic love is the common cultural narrative, yet he seems immune to it. Thus, though he has yet to taste the pain that comes with love, he has experienced pain of a different, related sort: the fear of facing a life without it.

  They meet the boy’s mother in the kitchen. He expects to find her dressed and ready to go, but she is wearing her flowered housecoat and terry-cloth slippers. Through some unspoken agreement it has been determined that his father alone will accompany him to the station.

  “I packed you a lunch,” she declares.

  She thrusts a paper sack into his hands. The boy unfolds the crinkled top: a peanut butter sandwich in waxed paper, cut carrots in a baggie, a pint of milk, a box of Barnum’s Animal Crackers. He is eighteen: he could devour the contents of ten such bags and still be hungry. It’s a meal for a child, yet he finds himself absurdly grateful for this small present. Who knows when his mother will make him lunch again?

  “Do you have enough money? Harold, did you give him any cash?”

  “I’m fine, Mom. I have plenty from the summer.”

  His mother’s eyes have begun to pool with tears. “Oh, I said I wouldn’t do this.” She waves her hands in front of her face. “Lorraine, I said, don’t you dare cry.”

  He steps into her warm embrace. She is a substantial woman, good to hug. He breathes in the smell of her—a dusty, fruit-sweet aroma, tinged with the chemical scent of hair spray and the off-gassing nicotine of her breakfast cigarette.

  “You can let him go now, Lori. We’re going to be late.”

  “Harvard. My Timothy is going to Harvard. I just can’t believe it.”

  The ride to the bus station, in a neighboring town, takes thirty minutes along rural highways. The car, a late-model Buick LeSabre with a soft suspension and seats of crushed velour, makes the roadway beneath them seem vague, as if they are levitating. It is his father’s one self-indulgence: every two years a new LeSabre appears in the driveway, all but indistinguishable from the last. They pass the last houses and ease into the countryside. The fields are fat with corn; birds wheel over the windbreaks. Here and there a farmhouse, some pristinely kept, others in disrepair—paint flaking, foundations tipping, upholstered furniture on the porches and abandoned toys in the yards. Everything the boy sees touches his heart with fondness.

  “Listen,” his father says, as they are approaching the station, “there’s something I wanted to say to you.”

  Here it comes, the boy thinks. This impending announcement, whatever it is, is the reason they’ve left their mother behind. What will it be? Not girls or sex; apart from one awkward conversation when he was thirteen, the subject has never been raised. Study hard? Keep your nose to the grindstone? But these things, too, have already been said.

  His father clears his throat. “I didn’t want to say this before. Well, maybe I did. I probably should have. What I’m trying to say is that you’re destined for big things, son. Great things. I’ve always known that about you.”

  “I’ll do my best, I promise.”

  “I know you will. That’s not really what I’m saying.” His father hasn’t looked at the boy once. “What I’m saying is, this isn’t the place for you anymore.”

  The remark is deeply unsettling. What can his father intend?

  “It doesn’t mean we don’t love you,” the man continues. “Far from it. We only want what’s best.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “The holidays, okay. It wouldn’t make sense for you not to be here for Christmas. You know how your mother is. But otherwise …”

  “You’re telling me you don’t want me to come home?”

  His father is speaking rapidly, his words not so much spoken as unleashed. “You can call, of course. Or we can call you. Every couple of weeks, say. Or even once a month.”

  The boy has no idea what to make of any of this. He also detects a note of falsehood in his father’s words, a manufactured rigidity. It is as if he’s reading them off a card.

  “I don’t believe what you’re saying.”

  “I know this is probably hard to hear. But it really can’t be helped.”

  “What do you mean, it can’t be helped? Why can’t it be?”

  His father draws a breath. “Listen, you’ll thank me later. Trust me on that, okay? You might not think so now, but you’ve got your whole life ahead of you. That’s the point.”

  “That’s not the goddamned point!”

  “Hey, let’s watch the language. There’s no reason for that kind of talk.”

  Suddenly the boy is on the verge of tears. His departure has become a banishment. His father says nothing more, and the boy understands that a border has been reached; he’ll get nothing more from the man. We only want what’s best. You’ve got your whole life. Whatever his father is actually feeling lies hidden behind this barricade of clichés.

  “Dry your tears, son. There’s no reason to make a mountain out of a molehill.”

  “What about Mom? Is this her idea, too?”

  His father hesitates; the boy detects a flash of pain on the man’s face. A hint of something genuine, a deeper truth, but in the next instant it’s gone.

  “You don’t have to worry about her. She understands.”

  The car has come to a halt; the boy looks up, amazed to discover that they’ve arrived at the station. Three bays, one with a bus awaiting; passengers are filing aboard.

  “You’ve got your ticket?”

  Speechless, the boy nods; his father extends his hand. He feels like he’s being fired from a job. When they shake, his father squeezes before he does, mashing his fingers together. The handshake is awkward and embarrassing; they’re both relieved when it’s over.

  “Go on now,” his father urges with false cheer. “You don’t want to miss your bus.”

  There is no rescuing the moment. The boy gets out, still clutching his paper sack of lunch. It feels totemic, the last vestige of a childhood not so much departed as obliterated. He hoists his suitcase from the trunk and pauses to see if his father will emerge from the Buick. Perhaps in a gesture of last-minute conciliation the man will carry his bag to the bus, even send him away with a hug. But no such thing happens. The boy advances to the bus, places his bag in one of the open bays, and takes his place in line.

  “Cleveland!” the driver bellows. “All aboard for Cleveland!”

  There is some confusion at the head of the line. A man has lost his ticket and is attempting to explain. While everyone waits for the matter to be sorted out, the woman just ahead of the boy turns toward him. She is maybe sixty, with neatly pinned hair, shimmering blue eyes, and a bearing that strikes him as grand, even aristocratic—someone who should be boarding an ocean liner, not a dirty motor coach.

  “Now, I bet a young man like you is off somewhere interesting,” she says merrily.

  He doesn’t feel like talking—far from it. “College,” he explains, the word thick in his throat. When the woman doesn’t respond, he adds, “I’m going to Harvard.”

  She reveals a smile of absurdly false teeth. “How marvelous. A Harvard man. Your parents must be very proud.”

  His turn comes; he hands his ticket to the driver, moves down the aisle, and selects a seat at the rear because it is as far away from the woman as possible. In Cleveland he will change buses for New York; after a night sleeping on a hard bench in the Port Authority station, his suitcase tucked under his legs, he will catch the first bus to Bos
ton, departing at five A.M. As the big diesel rumbles to life, he finally turns his face toward the window. The rain has returned, dotting the glass. The spot where his father parked is empty.

  As the bus backs away, he opens the bag in his lap. It’s surprising, how hungry he is. He tears into the sandwich; six bites and it’s gone. He downs the milk without removing the carton from his lips. The carrots are next, devoured in an instant. He barely tastes any of it; the point is simply to eat, to fill an empty space. When all else is done, he opens the little box of cookies, pausing to regard its colorful illustrations of caged circus creatures: the polar bear, the lion, the elephant, the gorilla. Barnum’s Animal Crackers have been a staple of his childhood, yet it is only now that he notices that the animals are not alone in their cages; each is a mother with her baby.

  He places a cookie on his tongue and lets it melt, coating the walls of his mouth with its vanilla sweetness, then another and another, until the box is empty, then closes his eyes, waiting for sleep to come.

  Why do I relate this scene in the third person? I suppose because it’s easier. I know my father meant well, but it took me many years to process the pain of his decree. I have forgiven him, of course, but absolution is not the same as understanding. His unreadable face, his casually declarative tone: all these years later, I still puzzle over the apparent ease with which he dispatched me from his life. It seems to me that one of the great rewards of raising a son would be the simple enjoyment of his company as he moves into the real business of adulthood. But having no son of my own, I can neither confirm nor deny this.

  So it was that I arrived at Harvard University in September 1989—the Soviet Union on the brink of collapse, the economy in a state of general decline, the national mood one of weary boredom with a decade of drift—friendless, orphaned in all but name, with few possessions and no idea what would become of me. I had never set foot on the campus or, for that matter, traveled east of Pittsburgh, and after the past twenty-four hours in transit, my mind was in such a state that everything around me possessed an almost hallucinatory quality. From South Station I took the T to Cambridge (my first ride on a subway) and ascended from the cigarette-strewn platform into the hubbub of Harvard Square. It appeared that the season had changed during my journey; muggy summer had yielded to tart New England autumn, the sky so shockingly blue it was practically audible. In my jeans and slept-in T-shirt, I shivered as a dry breeze moved over me. The hour was just shy of noon, the square thick with people, all of them young, all apparently at perfect ease with their surroundings, moving purposefully in pairs or packs, the talk and laughter passing between them with the crisp assuredness of batons in a relay race. I had entered an alien realm, but this was home to them. My destination was a dormitory named Wigglesworth Hall, though, reluctant to ask anyone for directions—I doubted they’d even stop to talk to me—and discovering that I was famished, I made my way up the block away from the square, looking for someplace inexpensive to eat.

  I was to learn later that the restaurant I chose, Mr. and Mrs. Bartley’s Burger Cottage, was a beloved Cambridge landmark. I stepped inside to an eye-watering assault of weaponized onion smoke and the roar of a crowd. Half the city appeared to have shoved itself into the cramped space, filling the long tables, everyone trying to talk over everybody else, including the cooks, who were shouting out their orders like quarterbacks calling signals. On the wall above the grill was an enormous blackboard bearing elaborate descriptions in colored chalk of the most off-puttingly garnished burgers I had ever heard of: pineapple, blue cheese, fried egg.

  “Just you?”

  The man addressing me looked more like a wrestler than a waiter—a huge, bearded fellow wearing an apron as stained as a butcher’s. I nodded dumbly.

  “Singles at the counter only,” he commanded. “Grab a stool.”

  A place had just come free. As the waitress behind the counter whisked away the previous occupant’s dirty plate, I slid my suitcase against the base of the counter and took a seat. It wasn’t very comfortable, but at least my luggage was hidden from view. I took my map out of my pocket and began to look it over.

  “What’ll you have, hon?”

  The waitress, a harried-looking older woman with sweat stains at the armpits of her Buger Cottage tee shirt, stood before me, pad and pencil poised.

  “A cheeseburger?”

  “Lettuce, tomato, onion, pickle, ketchup, mayo, mustard, Swiss, cheddar, provolone, American, what kind of bun, toasted or plain?”

  It was like trying to catch bullets from a machine gun. “Everything, I guess.”

  “You want four different kinds of cheese?” She had yet to lift her eyes from her pad. “I’ll have to charge you extra.”

  “I didn’t mean that. Sorry. Just the cheddar. Cheddar is fine.”

  “Toasted or plain?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  Her eyes, weary with boredom, rose at last. “Do … you … want … your bun … toasted … or … plain?”

  “Jesus, Margo, take it easy on the guy, will you?”

  The voice had come from the man sitting to my right. I had studiously kept my eyes forward, but now I turned to look. He was tall, broad-shouldered but not overtly muscular, with the sort of well-proportioned face that gives the impression of having been made more carefully than most people’s. He was dressed in a rumpled oxford shirt tucked into faded Levi’s; a pair of sunglasses was perched on his head, held in place by the folds of his wavy brown hair. One ankle, his right, was propped on the opposite knee, showing a scuffed penny loafer without a sock. In the periphery of my vision he had registered as a full-fledged adult, but I now saw that he couldn’t have been more than a year or two older than I was. The difference was one not of age but of bearing. Everything about him radiated an aura of belonging, that he was a scion of the tribe and fluent in its customs.

  He closed his book, placed it on the counter next to his empty coffee cup, and gave me a disarming smile that said, Don’t worry, I’ve got this.

  “The man wants a cheeseburger with the works. Toasted bun. Cheddar cheese. Fries with that, I think. How about a drink?” he asked me.

  “Um, milk?”

  “And a milk. No,” he said, correcting himself, “a shake. Chocolate, no whip. Trust me.”

  The waitress looked at me doubtfully. “Okay with you?”

  The whole exchange had left me baffled. On the other hand, a shake did sound good, and I was in no mood to turn away a kindness. “Sure.”

  “Attaboy.” My neighbor climbed down from his stool and tucked his book under his arm in a way that suggested all books should be carried in precisely this manner. I saw but did not understand the title: Principles of Existential Phenomenology. “Margo here will take good care of you. The two of us go way back. She’s been feeding me since I was in short pants.”

  “I liked you better then,” Margo said.

  “And you wouldn’t be the first to say so. Now, chop-chop. Our friend looks hungry.”

  The waitress left without another word. Their repartee suddenly became clear to me. Not the banter of friends but something rather like a precocious nephew and his aunt. “Thanks,” I said to my companion.

  “De nada. Sometimes this place is like a big rudeness contest, but it’s worth the hassle. So where did they put you?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “What dorm. You’re an incoming freshman, aren’t you?”

  I was amazed. “How did you know that?”

  “The powers of my mind.” He tapped his temple, then laughed. “That and the suitcase. So, which is it? I hope they didn’t put you in one of the Union dorms. You want to be in the Yard.”

  The distinction meant nothing to me. “Someplace called Wigglesworth.”

  My answer obviously pleased him. “You’re in luck, friend. You’ll be right in the middle of the action. Of course, what qualifies as action around this place can be a little staid. It’s usually people tearing their hair out at four A.M. over a p
roblem set.” He gave my shoulder a manly clap. “Don’t worry. Everybody feels a little lost at first.”

  “I kind of get the feeling you didn’t.”

  “I’m what you’d call a special case. Harvard brat from birth. My father teaches in the philosophy department. I’d tell you who he is, but then you might feel you should take one of his courses out of gratitude, which would be, pardon me, a huge fucking mistake. The man’s lectures are like a bullet to the brain.” For the second time in as many days, I was to receive a handshake from a man who seemed to know more about my life than I did. “Anyway, good luck. Out the door, take a left, go down a block to the gate. Wigglesworth is on your right.”

  With that, he was gone. Only then did I realize that I had neglected to get his name. I hoped I might see him again, though not too soon, and that when I did, I could report that I had ably inserted myself into my new life. I also made a note that at the earliest opportunity I would go shopping for a white oxford shirt and loafers; at least I could look the part. My cheeseburger and fries arrived, shimmering deliciously with grease, and beside it the promised chocolate shake, standing tall in an elegant, fifties-era glass. It was more than a meal; it was an omen. I was so thankful that I might have said grace, and nearly did.

  College days, Harvard days: the feeling of time itself changed in those early months, everything rushing past at a frenetic pace. My roommate was named Lucessi. His first name was Frank, though neither I nor anyone I knew ever used it. We were friends of a sort, thrust together by circumstances. I had expected everyone at the college to be some version of the fellow I’d met at the Burger Cottage, with a quick-talking social intelligence and an aristocrat’s knowledge of local practices, but, in fact, Lucessi was more typical: weirdly smart, a graduate of the Bronx High School of Science, hardly the winner of any prizes for physical attractiveness or personal hygiene, his personality laden with tics. He had a big, soft body, like a poorly filled stuffed animal’s, large damp hands he had no idea what to do with, and the roving, wide-eyed gaze of a paranoiac, which I thought he might be. His wardrobe was a combination of a junior accountant’s and a middle schooler’s: he favored high-waisted pleated pants, heavy brown dress shoes, and T-shirts emblazoned with the emblem of the New York Yankees. Within five minutes of our meeting he had explained to me that he had scored a perfect 1600 on his SATs, intended to double major in math and physics, could speak both Latin and ancient Greek (not just read: actually speak), and had once caught a home run launched from the bat of the great Reggie Jackson. I might have viewed his companionship as a burden, but I soon saw the advantages; Lucessi made me appear well-adjusted by comparison, more confident and attractive than I actually was, and I won not a few sympathy points among my dormitory neighbors for putting up with him, as one might have for tending to a farty dog. The first night we got drunk together—just a week after our arrival, at one of the countless freshman keg parties that the administration seemed content to overlook—he vomited so helplessly and at such extended duration that I spent the night making sure he didn’t die.