After dinner he and his grandfather sit in the living room, reading the Sunday paper, while, in the kitchen, his grandmother does the dishes. He listens to the comforting sound of her bustling about, the cupboard doors banging loudly, the water going on and off with that peculiar, groaning wail as the pipes protest. Another memory that belongs to this old and comforting house. He waits patiently for the sports section. His grandfather reads every article, chuckling, rattling the paper at the stuff he likes; grumbling and crossing his legs when something annoys him. He leafs through his section casually, reading a dull article on riverfront-housing investments from beginning to end, testing his memory. He checks out his horoscope: home, family, your life-style are spotlighted. Taurus and Libra individuals figure prominently. He wonders about his life-style—what is it? He is becoming, Berger says.
An article, halfway down on page three suddenly leaps out at him. Girl Takes Own Life. Oh, God. He skips to the middle of it. “... carbon monoxide poisoning ... nineteen-year-old Skokie girl ... dead in her car early Saturday morning. She had been reported missing the night before by her father, Raymond Aldrich. ...” He goes back to the beginning of the article. “Karen Susan Aldrich of 3133 Celeste, Skokie, Illinois ... dead on arrival at Skokie General Hospital ... hose attached to the car’s exhaust pipe was drawn through a rear window....”
His body is suddenly numb. The words thicken and swim before his eyes. Oh God. Oh no. Oh God. His head fills with strange sounds—a tuneless humming, like violin strings. His body trembles. “... we are in shock ... father told reporters ... everything going so well, I can’t believe ... I don’t believe it....”
He folds the newspaper carefully, holds it carefully on his lap, rocking slowly. He is dizzy and sick at his stomach.
“Conrad? What’s the matter?”
His grandfather stands over him, the newspaper in his hand. “Are you all right?”
“I’m all right,” he says. He can hardly hear himself, the sounds inside his head are so loud. His grandmother is there and there is more talking; broken pieces of conversation that he cannot follow. Her hand is on his forehead.
“You don’t feel hot to me. Is it a headache?”
“A headache, yes,” he says, getting up. “I need to go to bed. I’m tired.”
“Let me get you some aspirin. You see? You don’t get enough sleep, and then you work outside and get chilled and overtired.”
“You’re going to bed?” his grandfather asks. “At seven o’clock?”
“I’ll get you the aspirin,” she says.
“Never mind. I don’t need it.”
He heads for the stairway, holding himself stiffly upright. In his mind he sees himself putting his feet, one before the other, on the steps, carrying himself upward. His body feels nothing.
Fully awake, he lies on his side in the bed, memorizing the lines of the desktop, and above it, the half-inch ridge of desk pad, the chair beside the desk, the precise angles of his schoolbooks piled upon the chair. His eyelids feel dry and scratchy.
So safe so safe floating in the the calmest of seas what happened? What happened? A stone bench outside the hospital where they sat for hours soaking up spring and its sunshine Leo with them laughing and joking Karen’s legs swinging back and forth back and forth and the blue cotton dress clings to her slim body her hair long and black freshly washed shines flatly against her skull smiling at him a dimple appears in her cheek what happened? “What happened?” Crawford you liar you promised you said you were never wrong oh Jesus God please I don’t want to think about this let me sleep God let me sleep
Eyes closed a knee in his back hand at his neck forcing his face into the floor of the elevator rough under his cheek smell of vomit and matted fur “God don’t hurt me” struggles against the indignity his pajamas pulled down around his knees a needle sunk deep into his thigh twists moans and all of it loose like water flowing salt tickles inner edges of his eyes into his mouth twists onto his back arms over his head raw wails of anguish break off in pieces hurt his ears “Baby, it’s okay” Leo is over him lifts coaxing “Let’s get up off the floor huh?” arm around his waist sags heavy his wrist aches where Leo holds him dragged along the watery dark he rolls off Leo’s shoulder to the bed eyes closed hands folded in prayer between his legs can’t look “God don’t hurt me. Please.”
Shock. His mind egg-shaped gray loose tracings of paths over it rat scratchings white hospital gown gentle Leo helps him into it never hurries him old friends in the steel-and-white room greet him with smiles “Here he is just lie back and relax head on the pillow that’s it” get him ready shoot him up so he can’t move can’t get away Leo smiles down at him his face is purple in the light his teeth glitter “Easy now you know it doesn’t hurt” no but afterward exhaustion fatigue that moves outward from the center of him flowing like warm oil in his veins can’t lift arms or legs his ears ring his head light and empty all rat scratchings erased and Leo feeds him “Atta baby eat some peaches. ”
His body jerks awake. His hand reaches for the lamp. He turns it on; lies motionless in the sudden, bright light. He is in the narrow, twin bed in his grandmother’s spare bedroom. Blue bedspread, blue-and-white-striped wallpaper, blue-and-white rag rug on the floor, everything in order. No good. No good to think about it. About anything. It will not change. Just as before, it is done. He wills his mind to drop him under; to let him pass through into dreamless sleep.
Sits against the wall cool at his back in only his shorts the door locked testing only testing tension of skin sharpness of blade thin threads of blood well up from scratches his legs his arms have no feeling in them draws the blade down into his left wrist a deep vertical cut the artery bubbles up like a river widens does it again to his right arm warmth and color floods the room he is free at last comforted it crosses his mind to compose himself for dying awkward there is nowhere to put his hands the blood makes everything slippery lies on his side using one arm as a pillow he sleeps and then arms tied his jaw aches something hard pinches his mouth between his teeth “to keep him from swallowing his tongue” they say he knows better it is how they punish you for failure here and someone crying crying “Lord, what has he done? What has he done to himself?”
He awakens to fear again; his mouth dry. For terror-filled seconds he doesn’t know if it is happening all over again. Or worse, that time has tipped backward and it is happening still. Numb with fear, he scrambles out of bed, pulling his clothes on over his pajamas.
The house is dark. It hovers around him as he fumbles for the stairway, fumbles for his jacket in the downstairs hall closet, quietly feeling for the handle of the front door, to let himself out.
He walks swiftly, without direction. To calm himself. To get away from dreams, because there are worse ones and he doesn’t want to remember them, doesn’t want to think at all, less intense, less intense, but how to do it? To concentrate on that is to at once accomplish the opposite. A phrase attaches itself to his mind: “... Why a kid would want to hurt himself ...” a swift, sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach as he remembers another newspaper article. About him. The police chief was quoted. He couldn’t understand why a kid would want to hurt himself like that. Crawford had let him read it afterward. He had tried to explain that he had not been trying to hurt himself, he had merely been trying to die.
No. You do not slash yourself in a dozen places if you are merely trying to die. Nor do you overlook the full bottle of Valium beside the razor blades in the medicine chest. Not for him that quiet, dream-drifted road outward on sleeping pills. Too easy. And too neat. Oh, God, why, then?
He stops walking. The sidewalk is shadowy; the air around him still and cold. Stiff, black limbs arch over his head. The black houses crouch, ready to spring. He is shivering, his skin clammy and wet underneath his pajama top, down his back, under his armpits. Freezing out here.
Ahead of him, a car approaches. It pulls to the curb opposite him. Police car. The door opens, and he has a sudden urge to run
; swiftly he puts it down. He stands still, shoving his hands into his jacket pockets as the cop crosses the street.
“Where you headed?”
“Nowhere.” He wets his lips nervously. “Just taking a walk.”
“Pretty late, isn’t it? After two. Where do you live?”
“Fourteen-thirty Heron Drive.” He is surprised at how calm, how normal his voice sounds.
The cop frowns. “Long way from home, aren’t you?”
He has given his home address. He takes his hands out of his jacket pockets; lets them hang limp at his sides. See? I’m harmless. I’m okay. “I’m staying with my grandparents. On Green Bay Road.”
“Where do they live?”
For a moment, he panics. He cannot remember the number, and he stumbles over the words: “It’s a gray house with black shutters. On the corner of Green Bay and Booth. Fifty-one thirty-five—”
“What’s the name?”
“Butler. Howard Butler.”
“Yeah, okay.” The cop smiles, then. “I know the house. They know you’re out?”
He shakes his head. His hands are sweating. His wallet is back on the dresser, in the bedroom. Suppose they should ask him to prove who he is. Will they take him to the station? Call his grandparents?
“What’s your name?”
“Jarrett. Conrad Jarrett.”
“Well, listen, Conrad, I wouldn’t walk around here this late. Too many nuts in the world, these days. You want a ride back?”
“No, that’s okay.”
“You’d better head back, then. They might wake up. Be worried about you.”
“Yeah, I will.”
They drive off. He lets his breath out slowly, even manages a wave as they signal to him from the car window. Too many nuts. Meaning you aren’t one of them. All the outer signs must be right, then: hair cut to the right length, polite answers, expensive suède jacket made in Mexico. You’re all right kid. Ordinary. And this event, walking the streets at two o’clock is ordinary, too, but something is wrong about it, something not normal, what is it? He cannot remember. He is shivering again. He wipes his hands on his pants, zips his jacket up tight; turning, he follows the disappearing taillights, two red eyes in the darkness.
The door is unlatched, as he left it. He slips quietly inside; goes to the kitchen, to the sink, where he hunts in darkness for the faucet and a glass. He drinks greedily, then lets the cold water run over his hands. Still in the dark, he makes his way to the den at the back of the house. No lights. He doesn’t want to wake them. No going back to bed, either. Not safe there. He sits upright in the chair beside the door, his arms along the armrests, not leaning back.
Unforgivable. It is unforgivable. They wrestle with the boat together, the sails snapping like rifle cracks in the wind “Get it down! Get the goddamn sail down!” grabbing at gray a billowing mass sticky and wet against his face it smothers him with its weight a loud crack and the terrible rolling begins everything out from under the water closing over his head he fights his way back to the surface screaming emptied of everything but fear “Buck! Buck!” in front of him a hand stretching out an arm along the upturned hull water crashing against him pushing them apart Buck yells “Kick off your shoes!” mindless he obeys chokes as water closes him off again from the moon from everything they collide in the water Buck grabs his shirt “Hang on, I’m gonna go under, have a look!” he screams at him “Don’t go Don’t go!” and the wind takes it throws it back into his face Buck is already gone and above him the sky lumpy with clouds black it is painful to breathe terrifying he must turn his head away from the dark shape of hull from safety to do it Buck surfaces beside him shaking hair from his eyes gasping “We screwed up this time, buddy! He’s gonna haul ass over this!” They stare at each other and Buck breaks into a grin “Well? You got any ideas?” he shakes his head biting his lips to keep back the terror “Always thinking, aren’t you?” and he finds his voice then “It’s not so goddamn funny, Buck!” he soothes him “Okay, okay. They’ll be looking for us, they’re looking now, for sure, just hang on, don’t get tired, promise?” He says “Don’t you either!” and they stop talking then address themselves to the dull, dogged task of enduring and the clouds level out it starts to rain hours into the night they hang two fish caught and strung off the sides of the boat arms straining hands numb with cold the water is icy laced with foam like root beer “How long you think it’s been? I dunno. An hour? Two hours? Oh, hell, longer than that, don’t you think?”
When did it happen? When did they stop calling to one another from opposite sides of the stern where they hung for better more even balance did he think it was over?
“Man, why’d you let go?”
“Because I got tired. ”
—“The hell! You never get tired, not before me, you don’t! You tell me not to get tired, you tell me. to hang on, and then you let go!”
“I couldn’t help it. ”
“Well, screw you, then!”
Unforgivable and his grandmother crying at the funeral “Poor Jordan, poor baby, he didn’t want to do it, he didn’t want to leave us like this!” and he had answered her saying coldly “Why did he let go, then? Why didn’t he hang on to the boat?”
And he was punished for that because afterward everything made him ill. Food and the sounds of people eating it crushing breaking slurping. Smells. He would lift a glass of orange juice to his mouth inhale the acrid odor of dirt and dying flowers even to think about eating made him gag and for weeks afterward not being able to sleep that was punishment too being forced to submit over and over to a hopeless rerun of that day to what could have been done to make the sum of it different. Nothing. That is the nature of hell, that it cannot be changed; that it is unalterable and forever.
Was it painful? He cannot believe so if it was he would have cried out he would have known it and he could have stopped him he could have said “Buck take me with you I don’t want to do this alone.”
He is awake again. No more. No more. He gets up quickly; goes to turn on the television set, kneeling beside it as it warms up. An old set; the images are snowy. The brightness hurts his eyes. He tunes the sound down and goes back to the chair, focusing his eyes in concentration on the screen. His hands smooth the worn denim of his Levi’s methodically as tears fill his eyes, run down his cheeks. He feels the sudden, chill prick as they drop from his chin on to his jacket. Nearly morning now. Outside the window he can see faint streaks of light, separating the trees from their background of sky. Six-thirty already. On the television, a Sunrise Semester course in astronomy. Soon the light inside the room will match the grayness on the screen.
He gets up again, to go to the bathroom, taking a leak, washing his hands, staring at himself in the mirror. He can barely make out the contours of his face. His heart is pounding slow and full, keeping time with the cracking headache that has ignited behind his eyes. He leaves the bathroom, going to sit in the hallway, beside the telephone. It will be seven soon. People get up, then. It is not too early to call.
He looks up the number in the book: on Judson Avenue in Evanston, his home number. Waiting, he stares at the faded wallpaper, a pattern of eagles and stars in gold and blue and dull red. As he traces it with his eyes another pattern emerges. Wings and talons, a sideways stripe across the wall. It begins to move and his stomach heaves. He quickly dials the number.
It is Berger’s voice at the other end: “Hullo.”
“This is Conrad,” he says. Tears blind him. His throat closes up.
“Conrad? Are you there?”
“I need to see you,” he whispers.
“Yes. Okay. Can you make it to the office in half an hour? Come in through the back. The front doesn’t open up until eight. I’ll prop it for you.”
“All right.”
He replaces the receiver; goes upstairs for his wallet and his keys. He scribbles a note to his grandparents, leaving it on the telephone stand. Had to leave early. See you tonight after school. The writing look
s stiff and jerky to him.
Nearly light as he gets into the car. He wipes his eyes, wipes his hands on his pants again. This is how people get in accidents keep calm keep calm. He grips the wheel tightly, his wrists aching, his head throbbing as the grayness around him washes away to chilly March sunshine. It is thin, without power. A huge truck, gears grinding, lurches past on the Edens and he fights the panic that engulfs him, trying to think of nothing but the mechanics of driving. Now a red light, now stop, now watch the car in front of you turning left. It feels like the very first time he has been behind the wheel. He tries to stay in his own lane, tries not to swerve, to keep his foot on the gas constant and even. He focuses his eyes carefully on nothing but the road ahead.
27
The light is on, and he pushes the door open. He stands a moment in the waiting room.
“You made good time.”
He moves to the doorway. Berger is in the corner, filling the coffeepot. He says, over his shoulder, “You gonna come in and sit down?”
Outside the window, down below, a truck rattles slowly up the street. He is fumbling for the zipper on his jacket, but he cannot find it. There are pockets of tears behind his eyes. His throat aches. He stands, motionless in the doorway.
“It might help if you just let it out, Con.”
Not the words but the use of his name that releases him, and he comes slowly forward to sit in front of the desk. The tears roll down his cheeks.
“I need something—”
“Okay,” Berger says. “Tell me.”
But old and powerful voices slam into him. He covers his face. He is back in the hospital again back in B Ward the night of the burning Robbie Clay his friend a bachelor certified public accountant the joker always laughing his sister had committed him “First I was a certified public now I am publicly certified!” that night no jokes no laughter but an agony of sound the roaring of a bull Robbie had burned himself with matches a rag tied around his waist soaked in alcohol where had he gotten it? Nobody knew they knew only that he had hurled himself into the void it could happen to any of them it lay like a disease over the floor the nurses walking by talking late that night they passed his room he heard the words “penis, scrotum and thigh ”and a wave of dizziness nausea sweeping over him he had gone to stand facing the corner of his room hands on the wall and Leo had found him “Baby he’s okay you don’t have to worry about Robbie” he had snarled “Stay the hell away from me!” but Leo would not he was the only one who could get close when he was begging loudest to be left alone laid his hand on his back “It isn’t bad he’s gonna be fine” but of course he wasn’t fine moved that night up to Three and never seen again. Buck. Robbie. Karen. Everyone he touches he has a sudden vision of himself naked tied down on a table his penis scrotum and thigh cut away