A Troublesome Boy (11 page)

We just sat there for a minute looking at each other. Then he smiled — one of those sick smiles adults put on when they're trying to be sincere.

“I visited Timothy this afternoon. He told me what happened with Father Bartlett. Afterwards I had a word with Father Bartlett. I told him I wasn't happy with the way he treated Timothy. Or you.”

“And?”

“He apologized. He said he let things get a little out of hand. He said it wouldn't happen again.”

“Good for him.” My heart was still racing. But thinking of Bartlett, the way he'd treated Cooper, made me angry all over again.

One of Prince's eyebrows got a little twitchy, but he didn't say anything and we sat there for a few minutes on either side of a big chilly silence.

“You haven't been happy here, have you?”

“Who could be?”

“Were you angry? When your parents sent you here?”

“My parents didn't send me here. My mother's boyfriend sent me here. And, yeah, I was angry. I'm still angry.”

He leaned a little toward me. Got one of those big Mr. Serious looks on his face.

“How were things at home?”

“Shitty.”

“Well, you and Timothy both seem to have had a pretty unhappy time of it.”

“You can say that again.”

“Would you like to talk about it?”

I shook my head. No way I was unloading anything on a guy like him.

“Timothy has been finding it helpful.”

“Finding what helpful?”

“Talking. Sharing your thoughts can be a great relief,” he said.

I shook my head.

“Would you like something to drink?”

“Drink?”

“Pop? Water?”

Shook my head again. “I'm beat. I just want to get back to bed.”

“Certainly. Yes. It's getting late.”

He leaned toward me, put his hand on my thigh, gave a little squeeze, looking me right in the eye all the while.

“Come back any time.” Another squeeze.

Come back any time? He made it sound like I'd just turned up at his door for a little heart-to-heart.

“If you feel like talking, I would be more than happy to listen. To offer whatever advice I could.”

What was I supposed to say to that?

“Good night,” he said.

Took me half an hour to get to sleep, trying to figure out what all that was about.

—

BY SATURDAY, COOPER
was back from the dead. Didn't look a hundred percent, but wasted no time getting his coat and hat on and heading for the door. Rozey was parked in the usual place. He had the engine running and the heater going. It was freezing, and the first snow was flying.

“Welcome to winter, boys. It'll be snowing from now right through to May.”

“Great,” said Cooper. “Can hardly wait.”

“What do you boys feel like doing today?”

“Rozey?” I said. “Can I ask you a favor?”

“Sure.”

“Can Cooper and me be alone at your place for a little while?”

“No problem. I got some things need doing. Got to get to the dump. And I got some things to do in town.” Rozey drove us out to the farm.

We watched him head back down the lane. Then Cooper turned and went into the house. We stamped the snow off our boots and hung up our coats.

“What's up?” Cooper dropped his smokes on the kitchen table, grabbed an ashtray from the sideboard, sat down. I sat across from him.

“Prince called me out the other night.”

“He told me.”

“What did he say?”

“That you and him had a nice little chat.” Cooper gave me a funny look. Then he went to work on one of his fingers.

“It wasn't a chat, exactly.” Cooper looked up at me, then back at his finger, started chewing again. I told him all about it, pretty well word for word.

“‘A pretty unhappy time of it?'” Cooper looked up at me. “That's what he said?”

I nodded.

He smiled. “He hasn't been listening. Fucking miserable time is more like it.” He chewed off a chunk of skin, spat it out. Then he gave up on his finger and lit a smoke.

“You know what I was thinking this morning?” he said.

“What?”

“All the time I was growing up, no one ever hugged me.”

“Your mom never hugged you? Your dad?”

“Never.”

Who could imagine that? My old man was always giving me pats on the shoulder, putting his hand on the back of my neck, giving me a squeeze. My mom was always fussing with my hair, giving me kisses when I headed out the door. Big hugs every now and then for no reason. Used to, anyway, before Henry showed up.

How weird would it be if no one ever did that?

There was a long pause. Then Cooper said, “Last night I dreamed about my mother. It was sort of like her and sort of not. She was my mother but she didn't look like my mother. I was telling her what was happening to me and she just held me and smoothed my hair and said, ‘Don't worry, Timmy, everything will be all right.' She never held me in my whole life, so where's that come from? That's what got me thinking about never being hugged.” He was rolling the end of his cigarette against the edge of the ashtray, then stubbed it out. “Nobody ever loved me.”

What do you do when someone tells you something like that? I wasn't so sure my mom and dad loved me anymore. But they used to, when I was little. I knew that much. I couldn't imagine what it would be like to say no one had ever loved you, and mean it.

“I used to wonder what it would be like,” he said. “You know, to live in a normal family with brothers and sisters, a mom and a dad. Get up in the morning, a whole bunch of us, getting ready for school, having breakfast together, talking and laughing. Come home after school, have supper together, maybe play games or just sit around and read the paper. You know, just normal stuff.

“Every once in a while someone would invite me over to their place after school so I knew some people actually had lives like that. I could hardly stand it, knowing I had to go back to my foster home. And I knew it wouldn't have been any better if I was still at home. My mother always buzzed, all her so-called friends over drinking their brains out. You never knew what was going to happen next but you knew whatever it was, it wasn't going to be good. There was always fights and you'd wake up to the sound of bottles breaking and people screaming and swearing. I'd put my clothes on and just get the hell out of there. There was a little lawn shed out back and I'd just go in there and shut the door and try to sleep until morning.

“It was pathetic, seeing your mother all spaced out, surrounded by all these jerks. And the worst thing was knowing that they meant more to her than I did.

“When the social worker took me home for a visit and said this is no place for you, honey, she was right. What she didn't say was there
was
no place for me. I wasn't very old but I was old enough to know that. And I knew that this woman who hardly knew me cared more about what happened to me than my own mother did. And she was being paid to care.”

He started to cry. “Shit,” he said.

I was thinking of how me and my dad always sat together on the couch, him reading to me before bed, me snuggling right up against him.

What would it be like if no one ever did that with you?

“You talk with Prince about all this?”

He nodded. “Yeah.” Lit up another smoke. Exhaled. “That's how it started, anyway.” He looked down at the table, then up at me. “Next thing, he's sliding over beside me on the sofa, putting his arm around my shoulders.” He shook his head, drew on his cigarette, looked at me. “First time anyone had ever done that. Ever hugged me.” He looked at the window, shook his head. “Fuck,” he said. “How could I have fallen for that?” He smoked the rest of his cigarette, then stubbed it out.

“I hate what's happening to me. I hate it that I go with him and do all those things with him but part of me thinks I must like it, like he says I do. I can't stand to think that I do but sometimes I think maybe I do. That's the sickest thought. And I can't get away from him. I'm in The Dungeon, I'm in class, out in the yard and I'm trying to think of other things and then he's right there inside my head. It's like he's taken over my whole life. It's like he's gotten right inside me. Jeezus.” He looked at me. “Don't let him start with you, Teddy.” He shook his head. “Don't let him start.”

We just sat there like that for a couple of minutes, looking at each other.

“You've got to talk to someone. Tell someone.”

He looked at me. Sarcastic little grin. “Like who?”

“Stewart. For starters. If he doesn't do something, we can go to the cops.”

“The cops?” He shook his head. “And who do you think they're going to believe? A thieving little kid, or a priest?”

“They'll have to believe you. I'll go with — ”

“Drop it,” he said.

“Cooper . . .”

“Drop it.” He pushed his chair back from the table. “I gotta take a whiz. Get the cribbage board and the cards.”

And that's how Rozey found us — slapping down cards, moving the pegs — when he came back.

—

HE DROPPED US
off at the usual spot. We waved and headed up the street.

“Jeezus, it's freezing,” said Cooper. He started to run. He was long gone by the time I got inside. I ditched my coat and headed to study hall for mail call. No Cooper. Just as well. No mail for Cooper.

“Clemson?”

I put up my hand.

Docherty whistled a parcel in my direction. I shot up my hands and grabbed it.

“Nice catch,” he said.

“Nice throw,” I said. “For a change.” Even he laughed.

I took the parcel out to the yard, found a spot more or less out of the wind, lit up a smoke and opened the parcel. Cookies, smokes and candies. She'd put her letter underneath everything. I opened the envelope, took out the bills she'd put in there, unfolded her letter.

Dear Teddy,

Haven't heard from you in a while. How about a letter now and then? I wasn't sure what to get you for Christmas so I'm just sending along a few little things. I'm enclosing some money so that you can get yourself something special. Just want you to know that Henry and I are going to Mexico for the Christmas break. I hope you won't mind staying at school over the holidays. I really
 . . .

I crumpled up the letter and dropped it in the trash can.

6

MOST OF THE
boys went home or to relatives' places or somewhere for Christmas. Six of us were left high and dry. Nowhere to go, no one to be with. Cooper and me, of course.

The priests didn't believe in Christmas decorations or Christmas trees. There were no colored lights and no carols. If you didn't know it was Christmas time, you'd never guess by the looks and sounds of St. Iggy's.

What kind of priests didn't pay attention to Christmas? Even Rita went all out: little porcelain Christmas tree on the counter by the cash register, cards strung up along the wall behind the counter, strings of lights around the windows.

How hard was it to do things like that?

It made me kind of homesick remembering all the Christmas stuff back home. Me and my dad going out every year to cut the tree, me and Mom decorating it, all the presents that started to pile up under the tree, the lit-up trees you saw in people's houses as you walked along the sidewalk, all the decorations in the store windows downtown, the cheesy Christmas music playing everywhere.

For two weeks we had St. Iggy's to ourselves. Even most of the priests had gone somewhere for the holidays.

The good thing about it was there was no routine. We could get up when we felt like it, the Catholics could go to chapel if they wanted to. Meals were the same time, same crappy food, and then we had the days to ourselves. We could fool around in the gym or go out and slide around in the snow in the yard. We could walk the few blocks to town. It was almost like having your real life back for a while.

It sure beat being back home with my mother and Henry. I wouldn't have minded being back home with Dad, but it seemed like he was busy with his new life.

Cooper spent most of his time with his pal Wordsworth. He sat there by the hour, chewing what was left of his nails and flipping pages, stopping to read a poem, his lips moving as he read. It was as if he was reading the poems out loud, only we couldn't hear. Every now and then he stopped reading and started writing things in the margins. Then he'd go back to reading.

I came up beside him, took him by surprise.

“Read me a poem, Cooper.”

He snapped the book shut.

“Not in the mood.” He crossed his arms on his desk and put his head down.

The best part of Christmas was we got to hang around with Rozey pretty well every day. Cooper and I went down to the boiler room every afternoon. Rozey brought the cribbage board to work and he'd set it up on an upturned crate and the three of us would sit around and play for an hour, maybe two.

—

That week went
by in a blur. Cooper and I hung out in the yard, we hung out in study hall. He was like the old Cooper again, friendly, fairly chatty.

One morning we were in study hall, just sitting there reading. Cooper closed Wordsworth and looked at me.

“You ever do it with a girl?”

“Not really.”

“What do you mean, ‘Not really'?”

“Copped a feel once. What about you?”

“Once,” he said.

“All the way?”

“Umhm.”

It was with the daughter of some foster parents. She was a couple of years older than him. She'd been making little moves on him for a while and then one afternoon when her parents were out she got him down in the rec room and the next thing you knew, they were out of their clothes and onto the sofa.