Playing with Matches (20 page)

36

FEAR AND IGNORANCE

T
he strip mall was attached to a Wal-Mart that had closed five years earlier, when they’d built the supercenter. Half a dozen businesses clung to life: cell phone shops, insurance agencies, check-cashing services, and the bookstore where Melody reportedly was working.

The front door jingled as I passed through. The place reminded me of a cave. Little book-lined tunnels ran in all directions. Cobwebs hung from the ceiling; more piles of books cluttered the floor. A few bare lightbulbs cast a dusty glow. The musty, mildewy scent that accompanies old books hung in the air. I was somewhat shocked that there was a bookstore in St. Christopher besides the Barnes & Noble. Funny that I’d never heard of this place. The Fear & Ignorance Bookstore: What was that all about?

The store seemed deserted, which suited me just fine. If Melody was somewhere in there, I could talk to her without being interrupted by a customer.

“May I help you?” I turned toward the unexpected voice. It came from behind a cluttered counter. Two beady, narrow eyes observed me from above a newspaper.

“Um, no, just looking.” I was answered by a long stream of coughs.

I turned to poke through the cavernous store, then thought the better of it. “Excuse me…” I addressed whomever was behind the paper. “Is Melody Hennon working today?”

Another round of coughs. “Straight back, up the stairs.”

After passing the Political Science, Psychology, and Popular Cuture (sic) sections, I found the set of wooden stairs. A short jaunt brought me to a small alcove, where a shadowy figure was shelving books.

“Melody.” She turned at the sound of my voice and I saw her face. She wasn’t wearing her wig; instead she had a scarf tied around her head. As I looked at her enlarged lips, her taught, mutilated skin, and her almost complete lack of ears, I couldn’t help comparing them to Amy’s perfect features. And I didn’t care. This girl had made me happy. I wanted to be with her.

Melody looked at me for a couple of seconds, then returned to her shelving. I repeated her name.

“May I help you find something?” she asked with exaggerated politeness.

“Melody, I have to talk to you.”

“Good for you. Now go away; I’m busy.” She began to slam books onto the shelf.

This was not going well. I had kind of hoped there’d be some sign that she was glad to see me. Some memory of the times we’d had together.

“So how long have you worked here?” I asked, trying to get her talking.

“About a week, week and a half. And no, I have no idea what ‘Fear and Ignorance’ is supposed to mean.” She had finished her shelving in that section and tried to push past me. I grabbed her arm.

Melody didn’t resist; she simply looked at me with such wrath that I quickly let go. She stood staring at me. The laughter I had seen so often in her eyes was long gone.

“Melody, can we talk? Just five minutes?”

She leaned against a shelf full of serial Westerns. “Talk,” she challenged.

“I broke up with Amy.”

Melody didn’t blink. She just kept staring at me. “Was there something else?” she asked eventually.

“I broke up with her because I wanted to be with you.”

Melody cocked what used to be her eyebrow. “Did you?” Her tone was sarcastic.

There was a long, uncomfortable silence, broken only by the owner’s coughs echoing from below.

“Oh, wait,” continued Melody, “this is the part where I’m supposed to say ‘Oh, Leon,’ and fall into your arms, right? The part where you kiss me and we go back to exactly how we were before. That’s what you were expecting, right?”

Okay, so I’d misjudged a bit.

“Mel, I made a mistake.”

“Yes. And you lost me.”

“Melody, I screwed up! Can’t you give me a second chance?”

“No. I’m not going to put my heart on the line again. I’m not going to wait until the next pretty face comes along so I can go through this a second time.”

“It won’t happen again!”

“Why should I believe that? We had a good thing going, Leon, and you chucked it as soon as someone sexy came along. I’ve seen the kind of person you are.”

Amy hadn’t exactly just appeared out of nowhere, but I knew better than to mention it. Instead, I tried the only thing I could think of. I begged.

“Melody,
pleeease
…”

“Save it, Leon. This isn’t a movie. You’re not allowed to run off with the cute girl only to realize it’s the ugly chick you want.”

For some reason that infuriated me. “You’re not ugly!” My voice reverberated throughout the store.

“You’re not ugly,” I repeated. “You’re beautiful. I know I haven’t shown it, but I’ve always thought you were.” Maybe not
always.
“Don’t give up on us.”

For a couple of seconds, I thought I’d reached her. At least she no longer looked as angry. “You know, you’re the first person who ever made me believe that.” There was a glint of warmth in her eyes. Then it passed. “But you hurt me. You hurt me in a way I can’t forget.”

“I could try to make it up to you.”

She shook her head. “When you dumped me, I cried all night. I told my parents I wanted to be homeschooled again. I would have taken you back in a second. I would have made you think it was all my fault.” She abruptly turned to the wall, took a breath, and continued.

“Leon, we were going to have sex. Maybe that didn’t mean anything to you, but it meant everything to me. And after a while, I realized if that meant nothing to you, then I meant nothing to you. And we were better off apart.” She looked at me almost with pity. “It wasn’t easy. It hurt. But I don’t want you back in my life. Not ever.”

I couldn’t remember ever feeling so low. It wasn’t even that Melody wouldn’t take me back. It was that she had trusted me and I hurt her. She had thought I was great and I treated her like she didn’t matter. Thirty years from now she’d remember the guy who kissed her for the first time, and feel angry.

“So now what?”

“Now we say goodbye.”

“Can I call you?” I was really grasping.

“No. Summer vacation starts in two weeks. By the time we’re back, I’m sure you’ll be telling some other girl how beautiful she is.”

I stood there for a few seconds. “Goodbye, Melody. I’m sorry.”

“Goodbye, Leon.”

There was one last thing I could try. I remembered how Melody and I used to tell jokes to each other.

“A three-legged dog walks into a bar and says, ‘I’m looking for the man who shot my paw.’”

Melody smiled, but it was an indulgent smile, one you’d give a kindergartner who told too many knock-knock jokes. I felt embarrassed all of a sudden and made my way down the dusty steps. Before I hit bottom I could hear the thunk of books being slammed onto a shelf.

37

GET THEE BEHIND ME, DAN!

P
lunk.

Another Friday night. First Friday night in May, a week and a half left of school. Another night hanging out at the lock and dam. Another moonlit bonfire. Jimmy and Rob sat on a log, shooting the breeze. A little bit out of the firelight lurked Dan, a silhouette in the darkness. I had been kind of surprised when he had arrived with Rob.

“He just showed up at my house,” Rob whispered to me. “I couldn’t tell him no.”

Johnny was out with Jessica, and Samantha was working. I stood away from the fire, tossing rocks into the chilly river.

Plunk.

Dan was telling one of his unending tales of the dark side of humanity. “So when the guy wakes up, he’s in a bathtub filled with ice, the girl’s long gone, and one of his kidneys is missing.”

Rob cracked his knuckles. “I heard that story five years ago, Dan. It never happened.”

“Not true,” Dan insisted. “I know the guy involved.”

“You know the guy who lost a kidney?” asked Jimmy.

“No. I know the guy who took it.”

I didn’t laugh. I was too grumpy. For the past few days, I had been a whiny bitch, and I knew it. Melody was gone; Amy was gone; I was pissed; and I wanted everyone to feel sorry for me.

Plunk.

Jimmy opened a grocery bag and passed around sodas. “You want one, Sanders?”

I didn’t answer; I just grabbed a rock and threw it into the water.

Plunk.

I was pissed at myself; I knew that much. Melody had laughed at my jokes, told me her secrets, and watched my favorite shows, and I had blown it in a most spectacular manner. And I’d pissed off Amy in the process. What a loser. What a dick!

The thing about being in a bad mood was you wanted to bring everyone else down with you. It wasn’t enough that your friends wanted you to be happy. You wanted them to be unhappy. It galled me that Samantha and Ben had made up, that Johnny and Jessica were probably naked somewhere, and that Rob had just gotten a thirty on his ACTs. How dare they be happy?

I picked up another rock and held it in my tightened fist. A month earlier I had kissed Melody, not twenty feet from where I stood. Why hadn’t I realized how happy I was? Why had I let her get away? Furious, I hurled the rock off into the darkness. It ricocheted off the
NO TRESPASSING
sign and pegged the sedan Rob had borrowed from his dad.

“Hey! Watch it!”

“Sor-ree!” I apologized sarcastically.

“My dad’s gonna have my nuts if that gets scratched!” hollered Rob. I shrugged.

Rob got up and stood next to me. “Dude, you got to lighten up.”

“Piss off.”

“Seriously. I know you liked Melody, but it’s all over. You got to move on. Find someone else.”

“What would you know about that? When was the last time you had a date?”

It was a mean thing to say and I knew it. I hadn’t seen Rob with a girl in quite some time. Zummer High wasn’t exactly a liberal school, and not all the girls there would consider dating a black guy.

Rob’s eyes narrowed. “You know what, Sanders? Go screw yourself. You wanna be an asshole, do it without me. I’m outta here.” He hopped into his dad’s car and gunned the engine. Jimmy got up from his log.

“Um, he’s my ride,” he said with an uncomfortable grin.

I turned away, disgusted with myself. Now that I’d chased off the women in my life, why not my friends? Why not everyone? I heard Rob’s tires kick up gravel. Then there was silence.

I sat on the bank of the river and buried my face in my knees. I wished they hadn’t gone. I really could have used a friend right then.

Suddenly, I screamed and jumped three feet forward, landing in ankle-deep water. A hand had gripped my shoulder from behind. Only when I realized that it belonged to Dan did my heart stop trying to bust out of my chest.

Dan didn’t react to my display of terror; he just stood on the bank, looking hypnotized.

“I thought you left with the guys,” I said, sloshing through the muddy bank.

He shook his head.
Great.
Now I had to give him a ride home. I stood next to the fire, trying to dry my shoes.

“Lovely night,” said Dan, still standing by the river. “Full moon, shining on whatever blasphemies sneak through the darkness. Fire…” He crept toward the bonfire and stared intently. “Son of the morning…bringer of light.”

I dug mud out of my shoes. “Yeah.”

“One might wonder what bloated, eyeless things crawl through the primordial slime of this river. Pity we don’t have dates here.”

My temper was on a short fuse. “Dan, let’s go home.”

He ignored me. “Nothing like the soft touch of a woman. Her smooth skin…or her rough scars.”

I shot up. Dan was standing on the opposite side of the fire. The blaze reflected redly in his dark eyes.

“Dan, shut up. Shut the hell up or I swear I’ll leave you here.”

He took no notice. “I warned you, did I not? Warned you of the fire?”

I stepped around the fire, toward him, but he circled away from me. His gaze held mine. The flames that flashed in his eyes seemed to come from within.

“Melody was hard; now she’s harder. She’ll hurt less in the future. You should be proud.”

“Shut up!” I lunged at him, but he easily dodged. Slowly, slowly, we circled the fire.

“Amy’s harder too. You should date more women, Sanders. You’re a one-man blast furnace.”

I tried not to listen. I wanted to deck him, sock him in that stupid leering mouth of his.

“And you went through the fire too, didn’t you? You hurt a little less now, right? Just a little colder, a little harder?”

I lunged again and almost caught my jeans on fire.

“I know what it’s like to lose someone you love. It’s better this way.”

I feinted left and charged right. Grabbing Dan by the lapels, I smashed him into the gravel.

“Who have you ever lost, you satanic dick? Who have you ever loved?”

The strange light in his eyes had gone out. Instead, for the first time since I’d met him, Dan looked hurt and embarrassed. He mumbled something.

“What?”

“My father.”

“What are you talking about?”

He stood up and brushed himself off. Without looking at me he explained. “You asked me who I’d lost. My father. Left home when I was nine. He sends me a hundred bucks at Christmas, fifty on my birthday, and I haven’t seen him in five years.”

This was the first time I’d heard Dan express anything like a human emotion. But quite frankly, I was sick of hearing about other people’s parents’ divorces. Before I could think of a reply, his veneer of evil had returned.

“No matter.” He looked back at me. His eyes were now dark and shiny. “Crying never brought him back. But the fire helped me. It cleansed and hardened me. I don’t feel the pain anymore.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“I want to help you. Surrender to the fire, Leon. It burns away hopeless, useless feelings. It only hurts for a second.”

“Dan…I don’t want that. That’s cold.”

“Love hurts, Leon. Let the flames cauterize your feeling for Melody.”

“I can’t do that. I think I love her.”

Dan sighed a world-weary sigh.

“Well, then what can I offer to make you happy? Thirty pieces of silver?”

“C’mon…”

“John the Baptist’s head on a platter? Or Dr. Bailey’s?”

“Let’s go.”

“If I offered you all you surveyed, would you bow down to me? No? Well then, what is it that you want? What would make you happy? How about…” He paused dramatically. “Melody’s heart?”

I was horror-struck until I realized he was speaking metaphorically. “She’s done with me.”

“Yes. And you know why.”

“Duh, I cheated on her.”

He waved a chastising finger at me. “Men have been forgiven for worse. That’s not why she left. She left because you told her she was ugly.”

“I never said that!”

“Did you not leave her for someone prettier?”

I winced.

Dan nodded. “She’s always thought of herself as ugly, but you sealed it. She trusted you and you called her ugly.”

“If you’re trying to cheer me up, you’re doing a lousy job of it.” For the observations of an insane person, Dan’s were hitting close to home.

“What I don’t understand is why you’ve given up on her.”

“She won’t take me back! I just said that.”

“Not right off the bat, Leon. I’m sure the fire burned away all her feeling for you. But maybe not. Maybe…”

“Maybe what?”

“I
hear things.
”

“What? What things?”

“I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell.”

“Dan!”

“And a friend of mine mentioned that maybe Melody still likes you. Which is not to say she doesn’t hate you too.”

I was near the point of throwing Dan down again. “Who? Who said that?”

Dan smiled, and for once it wasn’t a devilish grin. “All I’m saying, Sanders, is don’t give up just yet. If you really…” He seemed reluctant to say the word. “If you really
love
Melody, don’t count her out.”

Dan walked to the riverbank and unexpectedly shook his fist at the sky. Maybe he was cursing the universe; maybe he was hating his absent father; maybe he was daring God to strike him dead. Whatever the reason, he was through talking for the night. I sat on my fender and pondered what he had told me.