The Heart Does Not Grow Back: A Novel (2 page)

From my silent and insignificant perch, I always thought the guy was a dick. He ignored the glorious affection of girls, and treated the guys as his assistants, aloof from them. He often came to school with bruises on his arms, neck, or cheeks, and he would tell the story of a fight won but never witnessed. I never understood how looking beat-up on a daily basis could win you the reputation of toughness and strength. If he were so fucking strong and tough, wouldn’t he avoid the black eyes, the fingerprints on his neck, the band of yellow and black circling his upper arms? Once in a while, sure, a lucky shot would land, but all the time? When it came down to it, I was probably the only one who thought his father hit him. A lot. Probably because my own father whipped my ass a time or two before he disappeared. The lasting memory of my father centers on pancakes. I complained about the pancakes he made one morning, so he grabbed me by the shirt, dragged me into my bedroom, and threw me into the wall, leaving a Dale-sized hole in the sheetrock I spent a whole weekend helping him fix.

If I let those girls throw me into the fray, I was about to shake the beehive of Mack Tucker, who loved an audience and was tempered by his daddy’s fists. He often spent time relegated to “The Wall,” watching recess with his back against the brick facade of the school, supervised by a teacher who did not allow him to break contact with said Wall, the punishment of choice for students back then. Most kids would eventually sink to their asses, curled up against the base of the Wall, ashamed and disappointed at the sight of other kids at play, prevented by grade-school law to join them. Mack would stand the whole time, his shoulders back and chest out, not caring that the other kids were playing—hell, they were playing
without him,
so it was a punishment to the whole school, if his body language were to be believed. And he spent plenty of time on the Wall because if you crossed him, if you beat him, if you got his attention, chances were, he was going to take his shirt off and beat the shit out of you. Taking off his shirt was a warning shot, for sure—a habit that he never broke, as if to give his opponents a chance for flight before the fight.

The guys were so engrossed in the game of hoops I don’t think they even noticed three of the cutest girls in our class with dork-ass Dale Sampson, blindfolded, in tow. I saw Mack Tucker and knew that the girls were just test-driving me for this, the big one. They were going to use me to get his attention. The strategy was actually kind of brilliant—they couldn’t really get into the middle of the game without pissing Mack and the other boys off, but they could toss me in there and see what happened.

I wasn’t going to let those girls get me involved with Mack Tucker. And what a bunch of brutal bitches they were—the moment my body hesitated against their guidance, the moment any sort of tightness began to bind my muscles, they shoved me right into the game. I careened forward just as Mack got an entry pass and took a power dribble, knocking his defender aside with a simple turn of his hips. He turned right into me and his shoulder found the center of my chest, drilling me backward with such force that I fell on my shoulder blades and almost kneed myself in the face, folding in half as I crashed onto the pavement. He made me wish for the days of simple poles and fences as dots formed against the white haze of the blindfold. I scrambled to take it off, aware of the laughter all around me despite being stunned by the fall. I figured I would take it off to find Mack standing over me, fuming, perhaps geared up for a punch or kick.

I flicked off the blindfold and Mack wasn’t there. The fine dust of the blacktop ground into my palms as I got to my feet. Mack had the basketball pinned against his hip, talking casually to the three girls, who were smiling. I couldn’t hear what they were saying through the laughter, chatter, and throbbing in my head—a lump was already forming.

I ignored the catcalls of idiot and dumbass, unable to believe that their ploy had worked—Mack had always resisted them. Sure, I overheard girls gnashing on rumors of steamy overnight tent stays or a make-out session here and there, but no girl could boast that they were going steady with Mack. As long as he kept them in play, I figured I would always have a chance by default, and here I was, manipulated in a game where my anguish entertained them, their inherent viciousness cloaked by silky hair and perfectly applied makeup.

I touched behind my ear and my fingers came away with a light, sticky coating of blood, and I thought to myself, Where the hell is the recess monitor?

Then, a miracle—the smiles of all three girls fell away. They hurried away from Mack, their huddle broken, and he turned around, smiling, looking at me as a whistle blared in the air, signaling the end of recess. Kids scurried to form the line, but Mack and I didn’t move. Some of the basketball boys lingered, but he waved them off.

“Get in line, you shitheads,” he said, and they obeyed.

“You let those bitches fuckin’ blindfold you, man?” he asked.

I thought the answer was fairly obvious, so I didn’t say anything.

“They’re the Axis of Evil,” he added. “Amy is Germany. She is in charge. It was mostly her idea. She also stuffs her bra. Did you know that shit?”

I shook my head.

“Anyway, whenever one of these chicks tells you what to do, always do the opposite.”

That sounded rather strange, considering I’d seen my father do the exact opposite of my mother’s requests for years before he left—
Don’t hit Dale, don’t hit me, don’t get drunk, please get a job.

“They never talk to me. I didn’t know what to do.”

“Now they’re gonna.”

“Why’s that?”

“I told them you were my buddy and to quit fucking with you.”

To my knowledge, Mack had no friends, just subjects.

“Why did you say that? I don’t know you.”

“I didn’t like what they did, that was all.” Mack was a showman and a fighter, but it turned out he wasn’t a bully. He wasn’t like his father. When he came up with all those bullshit stories explaining away his bruises, I think he sensed that I saw right through them, just in the incredulous look I gave him when he had the rest of our grade enraptured in his tales. In a weird way, I think saving me that day was Mack’s first act of rebellion against his father’s violence, a rehearsal for the stand he’d have to make someday. I was someone quiet and scared, someone he recognized a little too intimately, someone he might have been if he didn’t feed that weak part of himself to the Mack “Truck” Tucker furnace that burned hotter every passing day.

“It’s not like we’re going to be butt buddies or anything,” he continued. “Just go back to being your weird, quiet self and shit will be normal. Or you can grow a pair of balls and pick up a basketball once in a while instead of playing on the swing set like a little bitch. You’re thirteen, for chrissakes, you still got He-Man toys at home?”

The fact that he was right about my He-Man toys gave me a chill.

“Anyway, you’re the smart one, man. Everyone knows that. That’s why they don’t talk to you. You read me?”

“I guess,” I said as we got into line. The Axis of Evil kept looking back at me, and I found myself petrified by the eye contact. But the few glimpses I got were different now, as if Mack had sprinkled fairy dust on me and I suddenly existed.

Mack Tucker was my best friend because he saved me from the desolate silence of sixth grade with his unique brand of chaos. And even though our friendship was a rough ride over the years, and our plans would get smashed and dented at every turn, Mack, chaos, and I got along for a long, long time.

TWO

I got ready for school one morning while Mom slept, which wasn’t anything new. I don’t resent her for not being up early, her apron stained from a home-cooked breakfast, buzzing around the kitchen like some caffeine-fueled hummingbird. She worked a lot and needed the rest, and fuck it, I was a big boy perfectly capable of pouring milk over a bowl of Captain Crunch.

She wasn’t a TV mom with kisses and baby talk—she was more like a rumor, a phantom, someone there but never quite there because of her work schedule, but whatever she was, I always had things to eat, the lights stayed on, we got air-conditioning in the summer and I had clothes without holes. All of these amenities made me upper class in Verner, Illinois, population 650.

Not to say our house was worth a shit. The ceiling had brown rings from water damage, discolored bull’s-eyes so you knew where to put the water buckets when clouds started gathering. For some reason I can’t explain, turning on the air conditioner while the water was running would send an electric current through all the water pipes. The paint on the siding was gray and bubbling, the concrete steps were split down the middle, with one side sinking. Ants and mice could not be denied entry. Mom and I often wore shoes in the house and I feared falling asleep on the floor while watching television.

Now that he could drive, Mack picked me up most mornings in his dad’s old Chevy. We nicknamed it “Old Gray.” He carried two gallons of water in the bed in case we overheated, which was roughly once a month, depending on the weather. I was nearing the end of my freshman year of high school, still without a girlfriend despite Mack’s pleas to be more confident and social.

First period was PE, but Mack and I never participated in the regular PE functions. The teacher, Mr. Gunther, was the baseball coach, and he allowed Mack to work out instead of playing dodge ball or floor hockey or whatever weird sport was lined up for the week. Even though I didn’t play on the baseball team, thanks to my Mack affiliation, I had the same permission to skip PE. We would go into the basement near the coach’s office and lift weights.

Well, I wouldn’t technically lift weights—I would spot Mack as he tried to bench press as much as possible. Benching was about the only exercise he ever did in the weight area, which wasn’t so much a weight area as it was a cold room with a concrete floor adorned by spiderwebs and murky, dust-slathered windows.

He’d bench-press a few sets and then we’d head upstairs onto the school stage, set up tees, and hit Wiffle balls into the curtain. He would whack them as hard as he could, pick them up, and hit them again. He never adjusted the tee or worked on hitting specific kinds of pitches.

I hit the Wiffle balls with him. We would hit in the near darkness, the only light a floor lamp behind us, making small talk between the
tink-thump
of an aluminum bat driving a plastic ball into a heavy curtain.

That morning, we didn’t talk for about ten swings, but I could tell he had something brewing in that devious brain.

“I talked to Jolynn about you last night,” he said. Jolynn was his flavor of the week, a lithe and freckled girl with black hair and an easy smile. Mack was rife with stories of her flexibility and wanton behavior in her parents’ camper.

“Not during the sex, I hope,” I said.

“I mentioned she should try to hook you up or something.”

I stopped hitting. I had no impression of my looks or reputation. I certainly didn’t trust my own perception; I had to rely on the opinions of others, and I never got those opinions, not even from Mack—he mostly talked about himself, but that was just the way he was.

I kept waiting. I didn’t know Jolynn aside from her smile and the sex stories. The comments he was about to share would be the unbiased verdict of my social status. He hit, picked up the ball, and hit again.

“Well?”

“Oh,” he said, stopping for a moment. “No dice, pretty much.” He set up the ball with a steady hand, ignoring me.

“What the hell, man?” I said. “Did she say anything specific?”

“No, dude. I mean, she called you ‘okay.’ That’s a nice way of saying she thinks you’re not ugly, but what does she or any other girl have to work with? You don’t talk to them. You basically hardwire your jaw shut around chicks. Seriously. Speak the fuck up and maybe they’ll know something about you other than your grade point average.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” My bat felt like a weapon, lighter than normal, the grip soft in my palms as the barrel rested on my shoulder.

“It means you make good grades so you’re a fuckin’ dork. A nerd. You’re quiet, so that’s the way it’s gonna be until you break that shit up.”

“So I should fail classes to—”

“Fuck no, man. Hell no! I’m saying take a chance and speak up. Crack one of those sick-ass jokes you crack around me. You think I’ve been friends with you these last few years for you to help me with my homework? Well, you’re right. Kidding—no, you’re funny as fuck when you let loose, but you never let loose.”

I stood there, bat on shoulder, with nothing else to say. He picked up my ball from the tee and held it in his fingers, held it up to my face.

“You see this thing? I fucking dominate it because I swing hard. If I hit it, it’s gone. Fuckin’ gone.”

He put the ball on my tee. I didn’t like what he was saying, but the slivers of truth prickled me, pissing me off. For once, I swung hard, my teeth and hands cinched tight. I missed, striking the neck of the tee underneath. The tee toppled, rolling into the curtain. A hard vibration rattled through the aluminum bat, stinging my hands, and I flung it into the curtain. The ball landed in front of me, at my feet, going nowhere while Mack laughed his ass off.

“You never miss,” I said.

“I only batted .650 last year, so—”

“No, with girls. You’ve always got your pick of the litter. You never miss.”

He smiled and picked up my bat. “You never swing.”

*   *   *

After eating lunch, students gathered in the gymnasium. Clusters of like-minded and like-dressed students stood in circles or sat on the bleachers in groups that faced each other, their voices mixing in with the sound of basketballs thumping against the gym floor as pickup games spontaneously erupted.

Mack and I never subjected ourselves to the cliquish dynamics of lunch hour. Basketball was a distraction, according to Mack, so we gave it up to concentrate on baseball. So during lunch, we hit more Wiffle balls. Each thump would cause a wave in the curtain seen by a couple hundred high school kids, since the stage was the visual centerpiece of the gymnasium. For plays and graduations, the janitors just cranked up the basketball hoops and opened the curtain. I’m sure Mack enjoyed a public forum for something as mundane as practice, but no one could make fun of his obsessive hitting habits because they paid off in the form of massive home runs when most guys couldn’t two-hop the fence.