“What are you doing up there?” he asked.
I climbed down. I’d forgotten how thin he
was, how his eyes were greedy and cruel. He was blond but with no
fairness about it, perhaps because he kept his hair cut so short.
His face, which formerly had struck me as formless, was also
angular and atypical of an underfed adolescent his age.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“I came to see you. I’ve been watching for
you.”
He drew up and tried to kiss me. I pushed
him away. “Don’t touch me that way again,” I said hotly. “Never
again.”
“You’re too good for me now?”
“I never liked it. I did it out of fear, but
I’m no longer afraid.”
“It’s okay for you. I’ve no one. I’m all
alone.”
“You’re tough,” I said coldly, “you’ll get
by.” He slapped my face, and I must say, I deserved it. “I’m
sorry,” I said. “What do you want?”
“Will your new family help me. If I don’t
get out, I’ll be destroyed.”
I shrugged, not greedy of my good fortune
and genuinely wanting to help him, but also, I didn’t want him in
my life. I realized I was paralyzed, and as well, I didn’t want to
falsely raise his hopes. I was so torn by conflict, I thought I
might get sick to my stomach. “What’s happened?” I asked.
“I’m being forced to work for Digby,” he
said in a rush. “They hurt their scores now, you know, their
tricks. You can’t do anything with the scores either or Digby and
the others will beat you and call you awful names. I heard they
bashed in a few tricks in Central Park, you know, killed them, poor
buggers. I want out, but Dalmer and Darren spy on me. I’m
trapped.”
I had heard of Digby, a nineteen-year-old
Italian who had connections with bigwigs and I knew Dalmer and
Darren, two fifteen-year-old orphan Irish brothers who were the
worst bullies on Carling Street. They were really mean and like to
hurt their marks. “I can speak with my father. I don’t honestly
know what he will say. If he helps me, you can never tell him about
our relationship. Do you promise?”
“I’d never say anything anyway. I’m not a
faggot. I just liked you. I still do. There were no girls at
Carling Street, remember?”
“Okay. I believe you.”
“There’s been a guy asking around about you
at Carling Street. I didn’t see him, but Dalmer told me. He gave
him a couple of fins for info.”
“You’re kidding?”
“No man. Dalmer said he was a wiry guy with
curly hair.”
I couldn’t think of who it could be and
wondered if Stan had hired someone to find out about my past. “You
helped me out,” I said. “I’ll see what I can do for you.”
We shook on it and I left. When I returned
Sally was up and I told her about my meeting with Lloyd, but not
the part about the man asking about me. “Go and talk to Una,” she
suggested and kissed me.
I found Una in the pantry. “You must stop
scratching your scar, my full-grown child,” she said.
“It itches sometimes.”
“Resist the urge to scratch.”
“Lloyd helped me at Carling Street,” I said
with tears in my eyes after I told her about my meeting with him.
“He made sure the bullies didn’t take my things. It was horrible
there and he protected me. It cost him a lot of problems and he has
asked me to help him back. The bullies are forcing him to work for
Digby, a bad man who robs and kills for other bigwigs. Two bullies
at Carling Street are watching him. I promised I’d ask my dad what
he could do, but I’m afraid. What will Mom and Dad think? Will they
think I’m causing them too much trouble or that I’m a bad person
for being a friend of Lloyd’s?
“I see your problem, my full grown child,”
she said. “To stand up by your people is a sign of strength. I love
that in a person, especially one so young. You’re a good boy.
Tonight, after supper, go with Sally and talk to them. I’ll give
them the heads up and they’ll be open-minded. Trust them. I’ll tell
you something about why I’m their friend. They’re the best people
I’ve ever met . . . your parents are wonderful, as you will learn.”
Una hugged me and my heart filled with love for her. “Go play with
Sally. Mr. Vondt will be here soon enough.”
Sally and I called on Andy, then swam in the
pool. At noon, I joined Mr. Vondt in the Rose-room. I’d forgot to
put on a shirt and was distracted enough not to hear my regular
inner warning, when he didn’t ask me to go put one on. That sort of
psychological background noise was all around me, but that day I
was lost to it. A large chalkboard had been installed and I started
with printing and cursive writing. He always kept the double-doors
to the outside locked, the front door closed, and the curtains
drawn. He’d said it allowed me to concentrate, but I always felt
closed-in.
“Go slower, Christian,” he said softly.
“Your writing is improving, but your spelling is still
atrocious?”
“What does atrocious mean?” I asked.
“Terrible.” He rose and came to the board.
“It’s your single major problem in passing the test to get into the
school.”
He wrote the word your on the board. “We
have only two weeks left,” he continued. “Your, you’re, and yore,
are three completely different words. Your is possessive. It’s your
future and you’re learning fast.” He wrote the word you’re on the
board. “You’re – You are learning fast. Yore is a thing of the
ancient past. For example, in times of yore, the knights wore
armor.” He wrote the word, their and there. “Their purchases are
paid for over there.” He continued with two, too, to, and other
anomalies of the English language. “When you take the test,” he
warned, “think before you write. Go slow! It’s your best bet.
Remember, y-o-u-r is possessive.”
He took out the book I was reading aloud to
him, The Hobbit, by J. R. R. Tolkien. While I read, he checked my
homework from the weekend. Although The Hobbit seemed like a good
story, I’d trouble with the words and it went slow for me. Every
third or fourth word I read, needed clarification by Mr.Vondt. I
knew he had hoped I would finish it by September and would start
reading a continuation of the story, The Lord of the Rings, by the
same writer, but I found it hard.
The lesson went much the same as the others.
But near the end, something happened that I had been dreading from
the day I met him. I was at the part where Bilbo was lost in the
black orc-mines under the Misty Mountains. This is where Bilbo
finds the ring and outwits the vile creature, Gollum. Mr. Vondt had
finished marking my homework notebook.
I struggled with misspelled sentences such
as, What has it got in it pocketes? He sat beside me closer than he
had ever risked, and then he put his hand on my shoulder and all at
once tried to kiss me.
“What are you doing?” I said and attempted
to struggle out of his embrace, but he was too strong.
“I want to talk to you a moment,” he urged
with a whisper, his hands still on my shoulders, but he no longer
tried to kiss me. “Will you stop squirming and I’ll let you go?” I
nodded and relaxed in his grip. “I have a lot of love to give you,”
he whispered. “I can teach you much about life. I’ve been
every–”
I sucker-punched him in the nose, just as
Lloyd had taught me, and jumped out of his grip. I then hit him
over the head with The Hobbit as forcefully as I could. It was a
hard covered edition, but it had no effect, moreover, his nose
wasn’t even bleeding from my sucker-punch. I should have run. I had
missed my opportunity to escape. He grabbed me and pinned me down
on the floor, sitting on top of me. He proceeded to try and kiss me
again, but I spit in his face.
“My father will kill you,” I hissed with
venom.
He drew his fist back to strike me, but
stopped himself at the last second. “I know about you and your
friend Lloyd, you little bugger.” He smiled and must have seen I
knew it to be true. He’d been the man asking about me at Carling
Street. “I visited with some of your friends,” he continued. “Your
new parents don’t know about Lloyd, do they? If you put out for him
and held your tongue, you can do the same for me. If not, I’ll tell
them what a sodomist they have adopted! They’ll send you back . . .
they’ll be repulsed and be glad you’re gone. Now, turn over!”
He raised himself off me and I pretended to
turn over, then elbowed him in the crutch, rushing out of his
reach. Then the front doors flew open and I ran behind Una who
stood there as I’d never seen her before. Her eyes were filled with
fury. Mr. Vondt’s face had turn an unearthly pallid grey. He looked
truly evil, truly scared. She said nothing for a time and when she
spoke it was no more than a rustle.
“I’ll fetch you the doctor,” she whispered
and suddenly was upon him, smashing from her right and left fists
with her huge frame pushing out the force behind them. He fell from
her blows, rose on one knee, his face already a mass of cuts and
blood. However, she hadn’t finished, and although, he tried to fend
off the final blows with his hands, they came at his ears and
cheeks and he keeled over. She stood over him shaking.
“You’ll be gettin’ out,” she cried in one
violent burst of emotion, “and be glad to be there. If I see you in
my home ever again, I won’t let you breathe one more breath. That’s
more than you deserve.”
She leaned over, picked him up by the scruff
of his shirt and pants and carried him through the house to the
front door. “Get the door, Christian,” she called. I was surprised
to see that she actually gave it the old one, two, three, and threw
him out onto the front lawn.
Sally came running to the front hall.
“What’s happened, Una?” she screamed, crying.
Una’s eyes were glazed over and she took a
large breath. “Getting rid of vermin. Oh, the stove.”
She raced to the kitchen and I took Sally
into my arms, hugging her. Then I told her the story. We returned
to the Rose-room and helped Una clean the blood off the floor. “You
were brave, my full-grown child,” Una said, “and did good to fight
back. Remember, when you’re in trouble, it’s no shame to call for
help. It doesn’t mind at all, if you’re a boy or a man.” She caught
my eyes. “You both understand, something of this has to be
explained to Mary and Stan.”
I nodded, but wasn’t happy about it. “What
will you say?” I asked.
“I’ll tell them what I saw and that you were
resisting with all your might. I’ll tell them that big Una boxed in
his ears and that we won’t see him again.”
“What about Lloyd?”
“This doesn’t change a thing. They are two
separate issues.”
To me, it didn’t feel like two separate
issues. Worse still, I had lost my teacher two weeks before the
test, and as the time drew nearer, I’d become desperate to pass and
show Mary and Stan that their faith in me wasn’t wasted. “What will
happen to my instruction?”
“I’ll do it,” Una said. “Would you like to
partake in it, Sally?” Sally gave a little giggle and nodded.
“There, problem solved. Go play.”
That night we ate together and I knew Una
had told them about Mr. Vondt. After our meal which I couldn’t eat,
I was too nervous, we sat in the living room. I again sat in a
Wassily chair and Sally sat in the powder-blue couch with Mary.
Behind me, the curtains weren’t completely drawn, and by turning
slightly, I could see part of the pool and the clusters of white
birch trees from where I sat. The two enormous pictures on the wall
were lit up tonight. One of them was of a mysterious landscape; a
wretched mountain and forest in the mist. It was silvery-blue-grey
in color and was taller than it was wide, blending perfectly into
the room. I didn’t know then that the room had been designed for
the painting and not the other way around. It was worth more than
anything else in the mansion.
Stan stood before it as though studying it
anew and then sat in the other Wassily chair beside me, turning it
to face me. Una sat on a love-seat against the wall and took up
almost the whole chair. “First of all, Christian,” Stan said, “Mary
and I wish to apologize to you. I chose Mr. Vondt and feel guilty
about it, but we are very proud of you. You weren’t intimidated and
fought back. You won’t see Mr. Vondt again. Una has agreed to
finish your educational instruction for the next two weeks. She’s
highly educated, far more so than Mary or I or even Mr. Vondt. We
are equal partners with her and have every confidence in her
decisions. From the beginning she could have done it, but she does
so much for us already, that we didn’t dare ask. We’ll get Una some
help in the kitchen for the next weeks, but we don’t want you to
think that Mr. Vondt has been replaced by someone who’s his
underling in this regard, on the contrary, she is a genius, even if
quite mad.”
Both Mary and Una laughed at this, but Sally
seemed baffled, and I know I was as well. Bringing up the matter of
Lloyd, was as hard a thing as I ever did. I simply didn’t know
where to begin and felt not too thrilled about further obliging my
new parents, but there was nothing for it. Una knew, and so did
Sally, if I didn’t speak up, they might. “This morning when I
visited my mother’s gravesite,” I said, “a friend was waiting for
me. His name is Lloyd Mills. In Carling Street, there were bullies
who made the younger kids do mean things.”
Mary was obviously shocked. “Like what?”
“They took their food, toys, money, whatever
they had,” I answered seriously. “Lloyd wasn’t afraid of these
bullies.” I’d no intention of telling them that he was one of them.
“He carried a knife and the bullies avoided him. He protected me.
They beat the other kids and made them do their chores and other
things.” The other things were sex, and of course, I could tell
them nothing of that either.
“I never realized it was so bad,” Stan said
and clenched his fists on his knees, “but this Lloyd, he helped
you.”
I nodded. The next part was the most
difficult. “The bullies are now forcing him to steal from people
out on the streets,” I said. “Some marks even get hurt.”