Authors: Michael Cunningham
He smiled weakly and glanced at Rob, who stood with his hands in his pockets, looking apologetic. David’s mind leaped up out of his body and he thought with a pang of Rob turned away, sent home to San Francisco. He had to go. Janet didn’t love him enough. But it was all so sad. As David was led down the hall he said in a voice that came out deeper than his voice ever had before, “I’m sorry, Rob,” and Rob said, “Forget it. It was my fault.”
David slept without dreaming and woke in the dark, his mouth parched and his stomach queasy. He wanted water but lay still for a long while, thinking vaguely that sickness inhabited the air of his room, and if he moved it would sense him and attack.
The coyotes were far away tonight, their howls faint as bird calls in the hills. At a good enough distance they sounded like loons. David listened to them and thought with wonder of how he had beer)’drunk. Drunk. He had thrown up in front of everybody, too, and had had to be washed afterward by Mom. He could not decide whether he was a good interesting criminal or a fool, or both. At least Lizzie hadn’t seen him.
He heard footsteps on the stairs. Whoever it was stepped soundly onto the fifth tread, which squeaked. David sat up into a renewed wave of nausea. When his head cleared the footsteps had topped the stairs. He jumped out of bed and ran to the door.
Rob was walking slowly down the dark hall, his shoulders tensed against the blackness, his right hand raised before him to ward off obstacles. He had on his pants but no shirt. If he saw David he made no sign and for a long second David stoodin his own doorway with the big dark man coming toward him, hair and broad shoulders edged in the weak, icy light that shone in through the single window at the far end. David thought Rob saw him and would come make a joke or two about getting drunk. He and Rob would sit in the dark together, telling drunk jokes. He tried to think of one in advance.
Rob stopped at Janet’s door and waited there, ready to knock but not knocking. David said Rob’s name, softly, to tell him he had the wrong room. Rob turned his large indistinguishable face in David’s direction. His voice hissed, “Get back in your room.”
David obeyed instantly, unthinking as a mouse popping down its hole. He stood inside his room, behind the closed door, the pulse jumping in his neck. He heard Rob open Janet’s door.
After a silence the murmur of their voices came through the wall. First Rob’s, then Janet’s—low and high, an alternating current of sounds too different to be like music. Rob’s growl stretched on, Janet’s answering whispers were shorter. David moved from the door to the common wall and walked back and forth in front of it, seeking the spot at which the sound was strongest. He could not make out a single word. His blood raced, and he circled before the wall like a gpnned animal, searching and searching for a way out, unable to imagine that there might be none at all, checking the same places over and over again.
The rhythm of the voices picked up, though they didn’t get any louder. They took on a faster, more urgent pace. Davjd, having decided that the most audible point was toward the far corner, between his dresser and the outside wall, wedged himself into the narrow space and put his ear to the wallpaper. He worried they would sense his presence. It didn’t seem possible that he could be so aware of them and they completely ignorant of him. Their voices alternated rapidly now, Rob Janet Rob Janet Rob. David thought they must be fighting. He couldn’timagine what to do. He worked himself against the wall as if he hoped to squeeze through it.
The voices stopped. The noise on the other side of the wall went dead, and after a moment David heard the sound of Janet’s door opening and closing. He feared they might have gone out together, but no, the bedsprings creaked in Janet’s room, she was still there. Rob had gone alone. David went to his door and listened there, holding his breath. The fifth tread squeaked. Rob was back downstairs.
It had never occurred to him that Rob would invade the house like that. Upstairs was where the Starks’ most private lives went on, where Mom walked in her bra and girdle. David lay down on his bed and the bed, full of its warmth and its unmistakable odor, seemed to have been touched by Rob. He waited, ready, for the sound of Rob’s return. If Rob came upstairs again David would be ready. He wouldn’t let himself be flicked out of the way.
He didn’t fall asleep for over an hour and when he did, it was against his will. He fought to keep his eyes open but his mind kept drifting into vivid realms of its own, until even the simple thought, Stay awake, flowered into a giddy sensation of flight, of wind and gray sky and a stone building he thought he had seen once, with turrets and a spiked iron gate. His dreams deepened, and when he woke again all he knew was that he had had another monster dream, something about a blackness that dragged itself over the rotten leaves of a forest floor, all hungry attention, watching for lights.
In the morning all that remained of Rob was a pile of folded blankets and sheets and a pillow, neatly stacked on one end of the sofa. Mom made breakfast for David and Lizzie; Janet stayed in bed. “I don’t know what time Rob left,” Mom said as she scrambled the eggs. “I didn’t hear him, did either of you?”
“No,” David said. He and Lizzie were sitting at the table. Lizzie scraped the tines of her fork along the table’s edge and did not speak.
“Well, he’s probably halfway to Santa Barbara by now,” Mom said. She beat the eggs with a gentle lap-lap-lap that sounded like Mom herself.
“I guess so,” David said. “He was weird.”
Lizzie skated her fork along the tabletop so hard a pair of thin curled shavings, like question marks, rose in its wake. “Hey,” David said. “Lizzie’s digging into the table.”
“Shut up, you pinhead asshole,” she said, She gripped the fork handle and looked at David with such hatred he thought she might jump across the table and stab him. He said, “Mom?” just to be sure she was keeping an eye on things.
“Please don’t murder each other,” she said. She prodded the eggs in the frying pan. “Lizzie, don’t destroy the furniture, I just finished paying for it.”
Lizzie’s tightened face drooped in on itself, as if some of the air had been let out. She blinked and pressed a single tear from each eye. Then she got up and walked, slowly, out of the kitchen, still holding tightly to the fork. She could be heard walking slowly upstairs.
“What’s the matter with her?” David said.
“Never mind,” Mom said. “Just eat your breakfast and get off to school. I’ll take care of Lizzie.”
She put a plateful of eggs and toast in front of him, and went upstairs. David sat alone. He pushed the eggs around on his plate for a while, then dumped them in the trash and covered them with a few wadded-up paper towels. He took the milk carton from the refrigerator and stood there with the cold air falling down over his pants and shoes, downing the milk in big gulps that made his head ache. He put the carton back. He was surprised and a little disappointed at having no hangover.
David had a dull ache in his chest, a coldness, like a sack of old wet leaves hung heavily around his neck, and he wondered if that was what was meant by a hangover. It was subtler than he’d imagined it. On his way out of the kitchen he checked his reflection in the toaster, and found his face in order. He triedout a new smile, a close-lipped, crooked one like Gonzo’s on “Trapper John.”
He picked up his books and his lunch and the note Mom had written excusing yesterday’s absence. Outside it was a regular morning, with a high pale sky and a flock of round, plump clouds that lay just above the rooftops. The horizon was just beginning to deepen with the day’s smog.
David checked the street for Rob’s car. It was not there; all he found was the usual string of Camaros, Mavericks, Gremlins. He must have been halfway to Santa Barbara. It was over. Janet could start studying for medical school and the worst David had to worry about was Billy. The sun was shining and he walked along the familiar tree-lined street with his arms (his own!) swinging, their tiny gold hairs catching the speckled sunlight that worked its way through the branches of the trees.
He thought that today he’d try talking to Billy. They had been best friends since second grade, they had seen each other naked—it wasn’t possible for Billy to just turn into somebody else, a stranger. As David walked toward school he planned his approach. He’d walk right up to Billy, unafraid, and say something like, “Don’t be crazy, Billy, you know what good friends we are.” Something like that. He pictured Billy’s face as he hesitated, adding it up. “Come on,” David would say, and Billy would smile in that unwilling way of his. When Billy had to smile he couldn’t stop himself, it came over him like a sickness. Remembering Billy, just like that, struggling to stay serious but giving in always, finally, to the power of friendship or a good joke, David felt cheerful about the possibility of everything.
He felt so good he started to sing. “Beat It” was the first song that came into his head and he sang it under his breath. He tried out a new walk, a bouncier one, more like a dancer, as though a cord tied around his chest kept lifting him slightly off his feet.
The blow hit him on his shoulder blades, so strong it carried him three gigantic steps before he pitched over onto hishands and knees. Rather than his dropping down, the sidewalk seemed to rear up and collide with him. For a moment the cement was a vertical surface, he smacking into it as if he’d flown into a wall. A weight flung itself onto his back, and he knew it by the smell. Billy. Hands scrabbled for his neck and though he squirmed like a weasel the fingers closed around his windpipe. He wriggled his way onto the grass but the hard squat fingers dug in and he knew instinctively that resistance was no way out; the only hope was to go limp. He collapsed onto the grass, his elbows squeaking over the slick waxy surface. The two hands lifted his head by the neck until he thought it would crack, then brought it down. He saw the patch of lawn like a miniature landscape, each grass blade throwing a shadow. He managed to tuck his chin so his forehead took the brunt of the blow, and when his head struck a dazzling white light erupted before his closed eyes. Billy’s hands pulled his head up again and loosened a bit, uncertain of how much damage had been done. David was able to flip halfway around and get a purchase on Billy’s shoulder. Billy lay diagonally across David’s back and David pushed with the angle of Billy’s position, forcing him off. He struggled to his knees and was met by Billy before he could stand. Their faces locked. They grappled one another, briefly fumbling and rearranging themselves like lovers. Billy dug his thumbs into David’s shoulders and David grabbed hold of Billy’s arms. They pushed, each trying to force the other over and to end up on top. Billy was stronger than David and as David felt himself start to falter he threw his weight to the side instead, to save himself. Billy went with him and they landed hard on their shoulders, still locked together. Billy’s strong breath whistled into David’s face. Billy tried to roll on top and David pitched him over and then David tried to do the same and Billy pitched him over. They rolled along this way. David felt the grass prickling under him. Blood flowed warmly from his nose, and he tasted the iron of it as it crept over his lips. It seemed to him that the fight was failing,its main fury used up in the clumsy jockeying for position. He was about to say, “Okay, Billy, that’s enough, let’s call it a tie,” when Billy, on one of his swings to the superior, worked an arm free and punched David in the stomach. The wind rushed out of him and suddenly he was watching Billy from far away. He heard himself gasp, a thin squawk like no sound he had ever made before. It scared him and it scared Billy too, he saw it on Billy’s face. That scared him worse. He could not pull air in and the harder he tried the louder and more insistent his squawking grew. Then the air caught in him, roundly. He drew a deep rapturous breath. Billy’s face lost its worried look and with gleeful confidence he swung back and planted a good one on David’s jaw.
The world turned blazing white. David’s head rang hollow, and his vision when it returned came from the outside in. Though he could see sky and earth at the periphery, a pale fireball hung stubbornly at center, where Billy ought to have been. He tried blinking it away. He realized Billy had gotten off him and he began to make out, through the corona, Billy looking down at him with satisfied contempt. David tried to stand but when he moved the brightness flared hotter. He sank back down to rest his head on the grass. Faintly, he saw Billy point an index finger at him and shoot.
“That’s it,” Billy said. “You’re really dead now.” He blew the smoke from the tip of his finger, turned, and walked away.
David lay waiting for his vision to return. He dabbed at his nose and felt the gummy wetness of blood. It came to him that Billy had jumped out of the tree; he must have been waiting there, knowing David would pass underneath. He must have been there yesterday too, waiting. David wondered if a passerby would stop and take him to the hospital. His body had not yet quieted enough to feel much pain, and he didn’t know how badly he was hurt. He thought probably he should not move, in case anything was broken. A couple of older boys walked by, smoking, on their way to school. One of them said, “Hey,kid, did you get hit by a car?” David said, “No.” They paused, ground out their cigarette butts, and moved on.
After a while the pain gathered and centered itself in his head, a steady pulsing. The pain had roots in his jaw but they extended from a seed of pain buried deep inside his skull. His bones did not seem to be broken. Cautiously he sat up and looked around. His books were scattered. The geography book lay open on its spine, the breeze flipping its pages. His pale brown lunch sack lay fatly on its side. He got to his feet and gathered the books and the lunch. He also found Mom’s note, vivid in its white envelope on the grass. He could not quite believe a fight like that would stir so little commotion in the neighborhood. On both sides of him houses similar to his own sat placidly unconcerned. This made neither more nor less sense than the fact that Billy hated him to the point of murder when David had done nothing. Nothing. You could edge so mysteriously into the wrong: for spilling milk at the table or scratching yourself in public or for nothing at all, for not doing something you were supposed to do but didn’t know about.