Miles (23 page)

Zora
pulled us apart and led me like an Israeli Army officer might to the driver's
door, which she opened for me.  The freshly scrubbed black vinyl smelled
and felt great as I slid behind the wheel and started the asthmatic
engine.  The glove compartment was filled to the brim with soul cassettes,
still in their wrappers, obviously scored from the record store down the
street.

My
words were stifled with disbelief and joy.  "Where should I go for my
first ride?"

"Anywhere
you want.  Here's some cash."  Uncle Alex handed me a wad of
mostly singles.  “Buy some spray paint, maybe.”

"Hey! 
Is this some of my tuition money?"

Unc
blushed while Zora cackled wickedly.  "No, bubbala.  That's
safely tucked away so neither of you can pilfer it on your own. 
This," she said, patting the Bug as if it were a thoroughbred Lipizzaner,
"is paid for by the enduring appeal of avant-garde landscaping."

Unc
cleared his throat.  "I packed a bag for you, too.  It's in the
trunk, er, up front, with a couple of new notebooks."

"Are
you throwing me out?"

"No. 
But a drive should do you some good.  School doesn't start for another two
weeks, right?  Plenty of time to have an adventure someplace." 
We smiled at each other.  It was the greatest birthday present anyone ever
got.  "Just don't get arrested, don't wreck the car, and don't be out
driving past midnight.”

Zora
added, “Lock the doors and maybe put up the top until you get to the
expressway."  They walked arm-in-arm toward the apartment building
and waited for me to putter around the corner before they waved goodbye. 
Just like that.

I
figured on reaching the Canadian border in four hours or so.

Pain? 
What pain?

*

 The
Interstate that connects Chicago to all points east passes through a
particularly unimpressive stretch of northern Indiana, which, because of vast
overuse and poor Federal upkeep, remains a fragile choke point to the constant
stream of traffic that is forced to use the route. 

After
I had sat in bumper-to-bumper gridlock for an hour, I threw the Bug into gear
and wobbled down the grassy shoulder to the next exit.  It took me another
hour to side-street my way back into Illinois and to Chicago's far southern
suburbs, where I hoped I could find someone to spend a few minutes of my
birthday with.

Nobody
was home.  Nobody.  I checked Brennan's house twice.  Even the
DeVere's nursery was closed.

And
there I was, sitting in my new car, perfectly miserable and quite alone, having
the uselessness of my birthday and the rest of my life stuffed down my throat.

Alone. 
Ah,
that
pain.

*

I
had been hiding on my little unsafe balcony for over an hour.  My legs and
bare feet hung over the side of the concrete railing with my back pressed flat
against the building.  I glanced back and forth, watching the nighttime
traffic motor along on South Shore Drive below.  The air was warm, still,
and muggy.  The orange glow from the city's lights prevented me from
seeing any stars.

Uncle
Alex stepped out from my bedroom and sat down on the single canvas director's
chair I kept on the balcony.  He had a large snifter of bloodcurdling
Portuguese Marsala in his hand.  I guess that meant Zora had gone back to
her aircraft hangar of a house near Northwestern, of which, she quipped,
"they call the Harvard of the Midwest, and I call the Harvard of
Evanston."

"That
wasn't a very long ride."  As if side-streeting through northern
Indiana wasn't a long ride through a suburb of Hell.

"I
wanted to go to Canada, but a couple of trucks killed themselves on I-94. 
I couldn't get through."

"Canada,
huh?"

"I
figured I could maybe reach Kingston by sundown, and head to Quebec
tomorrow."  Despite Uncle Alex's paratrooper view of life, I decided
against telling him I had intended to keep going east, far beyond Quebec, until
I reached the ocean. 

"Well,
at least in Quebec, it feels like you're in a different country."

"That's
what I hoped."

"Try
again in the morning."

"I
don't think so.  It won't help."

"Help
what?"

"I'll
still be alone."  My voice took a bitter edge.  Happy Fucking
Birthday. 

"You're
not alone."  He waved me off and sipped his rot-gut.

The
sound of the passing traffic below took over as I didn't say anything for a few
minutes.  "That's what everyone tells me, but I still feel that
way.  All the time, it seems like."

"Then
stop being alone.  You have a choice, you know."

Unc
made it sound so damned easy.  "I didn't have a choice about Mom and
Dad."

"You
can choose to stop hurting about it."

"Why? 
Have you?"

"No. 
I probably never will.  But I'm trying to keep on going, to wherever I'm headed
to.  Whether I get there or not, well, I don't know.  At least I'm
trying, though."

"And
I'm not..."  His logic humiliated me into sullen and self-absorbed
quiet.

"Oh,
you're trying, all right, but not to figure out how not to hurt over people you
can’t have back.  You’re building some fortress around yourself, hiding
behind all your music and your notebooks and all the being-a-teenager opera you
take like some kind of drug.  That's not the someplace you want to go,
that's for sure."

Click.

I
wasn't making a sound, but I was crying.  Brennan had made fun of me once,
after I blurted out how much I hated crying, how badly I felt when I did, and
how much I despised how often I did.  "Crying is a sign of
strength," he said. "You're someone who's strong enough to hurt, and
strong enough to show that hurt by crying."  I thought he was full of
shit, Brennan and his metaphysical quasi-spiritualism.

Uncle
Alex waited for me to stop the saltwater before he continued.  "I
should know.  I've been there, more than once."

"How
alone have you been, carrying on all these years?"

He
chortled at me.  "I’m alone every time I look at a blank
canvas.  I look in the mirror into my own eyes, remembering people and
places that have gone away, all the hundreds of things I didn't do very well,
or never did at all.  Most people call it getting old."

"You're
no old man, Uncle Alex."

"Okay,
then, call it aging."

We
repeated one of his pet phrases together.  "Everyone ages.  Only
old people get old."  We laughed together, too.

"I'm
not pretending to know a lot about anything - "

"Unc,
you're one of the smartest people I know."

"Three
divorces and counting.  Yep.  I sure am smart."

"You're
not any good at being married.  So what?"

"Exactly! 
So fucking what?  So what if the world isn't nice to you?  It's not
nice to anyone.  So what if your wives turn out to be creatures from the
Black Lagoon?  Go out and get new ones."

"What
are you, the Sultan of Constantinople?  The guy who always tells me the
only way to make something happen or keep anything worthwhile is through
sustained effort?"

"And
it is the only way," he said.  "The bottom line is that, when
something goes wrong, make it go right, and if you can't, not won't or don't,
but can't, then hit the silk.  Get on up and get away.  Move the fuck
on."

"I
don't want to, alone."  Did Nicolasha feel this alone, I
wondered?  Is this what I did to Felix, make him feel like he was the last
man on Earth?  Whether he deserved it or not, remorse blocked up my heart,
tasting what I had so easily dished out to that absent friend.  Was he
sitting all alone, over a thousand miles away?

Uncle
Alex stood up and put his hand over my eyes.  "Sit back and take a
deep breath."  I did.  "Clear your mind of
everything."  Sure.  "Now, close your eyes and try to
relax.  Is your mind clear?"  I lied with a nod. 
"Good.  I'm going to ask you a question, and I want you to say the
first thing that comes into your mind.  Don't think about it, and don't try
and come up with something you think I want to hear, or you ought to say. 
Answer immediately."  I nodded again.  "Fine.  It's
the day after your birthday.  If you could have one wish, for anything in
the world, what would you want?"

I
took a deep breath and opened my eyes.  "I want Mom and Dad
back."

"You
can't.  God has them, now."

"Do
you believe that?"

"It
makes it easier when you try to.  Next wish."  He snapped his
fingers, and I closed my eyes again.  

"I
don't want to be alone, anymore."

"Too
vague.  Be more specific."  His fingers snapped once more, and I
took another deep breath.

"I
want to be friends with Brennan again."  I opened my eyes and looked
at the sky.  I may not have been able to see them, but there were stars,
somewhere up there.  That was my wish, first star I see tonight.

"Out
of all the things you could have in the world, that's all you want?" 

That’s
all?  Resentfully, I decided to jump into the far end of an ocean I
suddenly wasn't afraid of.  I didn't know how cold the water was, or care
how deep the waves were.  (Spoken like someone who grew up swimming in
pools, not not oceans.)  But I did know someone was already in that ocean,
and was hopefully was still waiting there for me.  "Yes.  l love
him."   

Uncle
Alex's eyes lowered for a moment.  He knocked back a gulp of his revolting
red wine, swallowed loudly, and shot me an Oh, well, why not? look. 
"So,  go find a star up there and make your wish."

* * *

That ever love did make thee run into,

Thou hast not loved.

As You Like It

I
always hated hospitals.

Whether
it was because Mom spent so much time in her damned emergency room, time we can
never have back, or because of the deadening, antiseptic smell of fright I got when
I walked into one, I don't know.  But I hated them.

Brennan's
parents were hurrying out of their house when I drove up the next
morning.  I felt very self-conscious as they peered at me and came closer,
as if to confirm it was actually me driving the VW Chitty Chitty Bang
Bang.  Doris' eyes filled as they met mine.  George reached into the
car to shake my hand, and asked me to follow them.  I was mystified, but
complied. 

A
wave of despair and slow, creeping panic overcame me as their minibus turned into
the parking lot of Mom's old hospital.  It became unbearably worse as we
passed through the place and stopped in a ward I could see held patients that
were in a very bad way.  Papu died in one of these...chambers.  Was
the fridge where Mom and Dad were kept downstairs somewhere?

George
and Doris DeVere gestured for me to enter a room without them.

Oh,
my God, I hated hospitals.

*

Once
I was in Brennan’s room, the rotting, lonely damp of my summer steeled me
enough to open my eyes, but not enough to prepare me for what I saw.

Brennan's
body was a mass of bandages, tubes, and pain.

His
left arm, his throwing arm, was in a cast and suspended by a pulley.  The
cast went from his neck to his elbow.  Both of his legs had bruises on
them in different places, while his right foot was taped to a brace.

His
free hand rested sideways on his chest where the suction cups of the heart
monitor were placed.  There was a terrible, sewn-up gash across his
wrist.  Below that, he was hooked up to an IV.

Brennan's
face was only slightly better.  His long, blond hair was dirty and matted,
pulled outside of the bandages that covered his forehead and the right side of
his face.  His right eye was surrounded by swollen and discolored
flesh.  Somehow, his thin, gentle lips were left intact, except that they
were cracked from dryness.  His breath sounded horrible through the oxygen
tubes in his nose and a tube hooked over the corner of his mouth.

Had
someone thrown him from an airplane without a parachute, for Christ's sake?

I
was afraid to get close to the bed.

A
young Asian nurse came into the room as if I wasn't there, busily looking over
the various checkpoints across my friend's body.  She didn't appear very
cheering.  "He doesn't stay awake for very long, so don't you keep him
up."  I nodded before she left.

It
took me a few minutes to be able to come up and stand beside Brennan.  I
carefully touched his fingers.  They moved slightly.  I rubbed my
hands over my face like I was trying to shake off some awful nightmare, but, no,
it was still there when I opened my eyes and met Brennan's, which had also
opened a few centimeters.

A
sound croaked from his throat.  He began moving his jaw even though I
could see pain shoot through his face as he did.  "Don't say
anything, Brennan."  He kept doing it, and I began to panic.  My
eyes spun around the small and bright room until I saw a tray with a glass and
pitcher of water.

I
slid my hand under Brennan's bandaged head to lift him up a few inches. 
His lips met the ice water with relief.  He almost smiled at me. 
"I knew you'd come," he said, in a voice that left no doubts about
how much pain he was in, just laying there, whatever doubts anyone but a blind
man could have had.

I
put Brennan back onto his rotten hospital pillow.  I almost made him smile
again as I brushed my hand over his soft cheek.  I took an ice cube out of
the glass and ran it over his lips until I couldn't hold it any longer.

"That
feels great."

"Don't
waste your strength thanking me."  I kept one hand on his face near
his lips and the other flat on his stomach.

"Thank
you for still being my friend."

"My
God, Brennan, be quiet."  I was trying to be strong for him by not
letting the tears in my eyes roll down my cheeks.  I nearly started
laughing, thinking about his theory about tears and being strong.

"It
isn't as bad as it looks."  Brennan was such a bad liar.  He
looked like he was about to fall back into healing sleep.  "I was
going to visit you yesterday...for your birthday."

Brennan
drifted off just as my damned tears fell.  His dad came in and walked me
out of the room and the building with a rather fatherly arm over my shoulders
as I smothered the remainder of my cry.

"We
were so caught up with everything last night, nobody called you.  I'm
sorry."

"That's
okay."  I stared out across the hospital parking lot to the adjacent
prairie.  "I'm never around when someone I love gets
hurt."  I paused, trying to give my voice a transfusion. 
"I love him."

"He
loves you," George DeVere replied, with an equanimity most fathers I knew
would find impossible to match in a similar situation.  The care and
respect I saw in his tired grey eyes was not a by-product of too many drugs or
a cool
Woodstock
way of life.  It was much simpler than
that.  He was a father who loved his son, end of story.  "It's
that kind of love that put him in one of those beds in there."  I
couldn't tell if he was being accusatory.  "He doesn't see why others
hate him for his...your...love."  I glanced up to the low and dark
clouds covering the summer sky, wishing it would rain.  "How no one
seems to understand."

"Or
won't," I added. 

"Maybe
in a different time and place," George said idly.

*

I
spent the rest of the afternoon driving aimlessly through the smartly
landscaped and mostly affluent streets of my old suburb.  I passed our old
house, and saw the new owners getting out of their car.  They were
black.  I turned down four good offers before a non-white put one
in.  Uncle Alex thought my parting shot to the subdivision of ex-city
dwellers was needlessly vindictive, and loved every bit of it.

It
began to rain.  I thought the canvas top was going to snap off its hinges
as I tried to raise it back up before I was soaked through.  I continued
my cruise down bad memory lane before I spotted Ozzie running home through one
of our old parks.  He wore a short pair of cut-offs, a black, sleeveless
t-shirt, and had a towel rolled up in one of his hands.  Probably coming
back from the pool, I thought.

"Hey,
Kneecaps!"  Ozzie skidded to a halt with a smile.  "Get in." 
He stared at me and my Bug for an incredulous second before coming in from the
cloudburst.

"I
knew you'd start spending that money of yours before college, son of a
bitch!"  He playfully shoved me sideways with his elbow.  Oz
glanced down at his wet clothes.  "Are you sure you want my wet body
in your car?"

There
was a time when I might have thought, no, I want your wet body someplace
else.  "Don't worry about it."

"Want
to go to the show?"  A movie or two sounded good to me.  I gave
him a thumbs-up and headed for the revival house.  "Can we stop by my
place to change my clothes?" 

We
looked at each other and smiled.  "Only if I can watch."

"Hey,
I'll let you watch me jack off if I can borrow your car Friday night!"

"Not
just for watching, Kneecaps."

*

I
waited inside of the large screened porch that took up most of Ozzie's
backyard, enjoying the sound and smell of the falling rain as he got dressed.

Oz
emerged with two cans of Mexican beer in his hands.  He tossed me one and
sat down next to me on the wooden bench that faced the remainder of the
yard.  He was wearing an old red White Sox jersey.

"I'm
sorry I wasn't around on your birthday.  We had to go to a barbecue at my
Dad's house."  Ozzie's Venezuelan parents had been divorced for
years.  He and his three little brothers lived in our old ritzy-titsy
suburb with their mom, who spent most of her day at the health and country
club, before throwing in a few token hours at home with the boys.  They
ordered out, most of the time.  The dad lived somewhere in the flatlands
beyond
Joliet
, selling cars to pay for his ex's
lifestyle.  "Is it too late to get you a present?"

"That's
okay.  You've kept me company all summer.  That's present
enough.  Besides, I made out pretty good this year."

"I'll
say!"  He took a long swig of the cheap beer.  "You're so
lucky."

My
lips tightened.  "That depends on how you look at it."

Ozzie
put a hand on my arm.  "You know what I mean."  I nodded
and finished my can.  "I've always been kind of jealous of you. 
It seems like you've got so much more than I do, but I forget how you got a lot
of it.  Damn, I'm sorry."

"At
least no one will throw cabbages and tomatoes at you and your date when you go
to the prom."  He put his hand on my arm again as we laughed quietly,
hearing lightning in the distance.

"It
must be hard on you, sometimes."

Did
you say 'hard on', Kneecaps?  "The loneliness is, I guess, but I'm
not sure my being queer has anything to do with it."

Ozzie
shook his head.  "Don't call yourself that.  If you didn't listen
to that Russian music so much, you wouldn't feel so lonely all the time."

I
sat back on the bench and finished the can of beer.  "Have any of you
gone to see Brennan?"
 

"Huh. 
Most of them haven't talked to him since he...well, you know."

"No,
in the hospital, I mean."

Ozzie
looked at me.  His eyes were wide and frightened.  I could barely
hear his voice.  "Brennan is in the hospital?"  I nodded,
watching him carefully.  There was something I felt in Ozzie's measured,
almost stiff reaction.  "What happened?"

"I
saw him earlier today.  He was beaten within an inch of his life. 
His throwing arm was broken, too.  I don't think one person did it,
myself."

Ozzie
looked away from me as he stood up, walking to the edge of the screened
porch.  He put one of his hands flat against the wire mesh, which was damp
from the rain that gently hissed down around us.  His head sunk to his
shoulders.  "I thought they were kidding."  He began
shaking his head in denial.  "Brennan..."

"Who?" 
My voice became level and cold, as cold as I felt my soul wax.

"I
had no idea," Ozzie said, turning back to look at me.  His brown
curly hair and boyish looks were draped in regret.  "My God..."

"Who
was it, Oz?"  He caught the hard and already vengeful glaze that had come
over my dark eyes.

"Eric
and Mickey..."

Eric
Brazier was an effete toad from a stuck-up family of doctors just about all of
us hated.  Whatever was hip, he liked, and whoever wasn't popular, he
didn't.  He acted like a leader, but only after he knew what everyone else
had in mind, so he could propose or promote an idea that he didn't have the
imagination to come up with in the first place.  There was always some
rumor going around, about his father buying a grade for him here, or he buying
one directly from a smarter student there. I didn't doubt any of it.  His
one redeeming quality was that he could move his wiry, sunlamp-tanned body like
a pretzel, and was a great second baseman as a result.

Mickey
Sreckov was a different story.  His parents were second-generation white
trash that maneuvered their way into what they fancied was ‘class’ through
slum-lording and real estate graft.  Like our suburb, a haven for whites
of varying means who just didn't want to live with the blacks that had
encroached into their old city neighborhoods, was classy, as if property tax
had anything to do with class.  Mickey was a soft-talking, hard-thinking
mixer, handsome and well-built, but arrogant about it.  He was the best
center fielder I've ever played with, but a fink, all the same.

"...they
were the ones who always talked about it...showing Brennan 'how to be a man',
they kept saying.  The rest of us blew them off."

"You
didn't do anything else?"

Ozzie's
voice was almost hysterical.  "We...I didn't take them
seriously!"  He sat down heavily next to me.  "None of us
understood or liked what Brennan told us.  Here was our friend for, what,
how many years?  Then, one day, he's somebody else."    I
looked at Ozzie remotely.  "You're right.  He is somebody
else."  I stood up and dropped the empty beer can into Ozzie's
lap.  "He's a hospital patient now."

*

I
called on Brennan every evening until visiting hours were over.  George
spent the morning with him, and
Doris
covered the afternoon.  As bad as he looked
when I first saw him, Brennan's first-rate overall health and fitness, not to
mention glowing spirit, helped him recover quickly.