The Language of Men (14 page)

Don dug a dollar from his ripped jeans and pressed it in my hands. I whispered to him, asking him if he could just buy the ticket for me.

"No," he said. "I think you can handle it."

I folded and unfolded the bill in my hand as I approached the ticket counter. The guy behind the counter wore a paper hat and had terrible acne, as if he'd dipped his face in Jujubes. I whispered.

"What?"

"... please."

"Speak up, little man."

"Edward Scissorhands,
please."

He nodded. I passed my brother's dollar through the ticket window. The machine punched out a ticket and, when I held it, I was careful not to bend the perforated edge.

I passed through the heavy red curtains and into a party hosted by my brother. The house lights lit up groups of kids sitting on seatbacks, standing in the aisle, throwing popcorn, sipping something from brown paper bags. I thought of the scene in
Gremlins
where all the critters had taken over the movie theater.

I hesitated in the doorway.

"Come on," Don said, grabbing my wrist, pulling me into the crowd.

I met Jason and Adam and RJ and Rob and Ben and Larry. Allison and Christine and Meghan and Beth and Jessica. Jessica. I remembered her. The pale girl in the leather jacket who starred in the movie I had found in my brother's room. Fingerless wool gloves. Ripped jeans over white thermals. Doc Martens. Dark circles beneath her eyes like a Tim Burton character. It was strange to see her in person, and I couldn't think of anything to ask her that didn't sound rehearsed. She held out her hand and I stared at it. She smiled.

"Shake it," she said.

I reached out, and she moved my hand up and down. Up. Down. The lights dimmed.

"Move it, dude," my brother said. The kid beside him got up, and I took my place next to Don.

I was afraid of Edward Scissorhands. Seeing the coming attractions at home or walking past the movie poster at the mall gave me the chills, even though I had no idea what the movie was about. A pale man with wild, greasy hair dressed in a tight leather jumpsuit, brass rings and buckles dangling from his shoulders, his chest, his arms, leading down to his gleaming metal fingers.

The first few minutes fulfilled my expectations: the dark castle, the dismembered mannequins, Vincent Price. But later I found comfort in scenes of falling snow, the soft music-box tune playing in the background, the panning shots of the suburban streets. I remember watching the Avon lady pull her tiny car into the castle's thorn-canopied driveway, and thought of the years my mother had worked for Mary Kay. The woman got out, walked to the door, and lifted the black iron knocker. It was a moment when I wished the characters would listen to me—run when I tell them to run, duck when I tell them to duck. I watched her, wondering how such a small woman had the strength to open a castle door.

"You stupid bitch!" one of my brother's friends yelled and smacked the screen with a piece of candy. An older couple gave us a look, a look I'd usually shy away from, but I was in the middle of the row, protected by this pack of flannel shirts and Converse All-Stars.

Later in the movie, Edward is trying to protect a little boy. He crouches over him, his sharp metal fingers clicking frantically. Other people see this and think Edward is attacking him. A man knocks Edward off the boy, and Edward is moving so fast that he cuts the boy, almost as badly as he cuts himself.

"Get the fuck out."

"I am!"

My father stood at the beginning of the driveway. Don walked backwards, almost in the street.

"I don't care where you go, just get the fuck out."

My father said the words over and over with a calm, trained authority. I was in Don's room, watching from the window like it was a giant tennis match and I was the judge, sitting high in my chair. Don walked down the street but turned around every few steps and yelled. I looked to Don, then to my father, then to Don. Don yelled some more. My father watched, blowing streams of smoke from his nostrils. Don slammed the door of the Volare and turned the ignition. The car revved and revved but wouldn't start. My father nodded, taking another long drag. Don got out, told my father to go fuck himself, walked down the street, parted the fence beside the DEAD END sign, and disappeared. My father took one last pull of his Winston, inhaling through clenched teeth, and flicked it into the grass.

Where did Don go? I'm not sure how long he was gone but I know he didn't come back that night. It was one of the few nights my father didn't fall asleep in front of the TV. He took a shower and went to bed.

The fight had something to do with a video my brother had shot at the pizza parlor on Main Street. He and a group of his friends, ten or more, had ordered one or two slices, shared one or two Cokes, and hung out for hours. The owner peered at them. He pounded his floured fists into the dough as my brother and his friends balanced salt shakers on the table, then watched them fall to the floor. The red light on the camera glowed. The owner had told them to leave; they didn't. He had told them to shut off the camera; they didn't. He had asked them again; they laughed.

Cut to our phone ringing: My father picked up. He nodded as the owner told him the story.

Flash forward to Don's side of the story:
That guy's a fucking asshole. We weren't doing anything.

I don't know for sure what happened at the pizza parlor. Maybe it wasn't even the reason why my brother got thrown out that time. It could have been because my brother failed gym, which completely baffled my father. Or it could have been because of the time my brother's friend called, mistook my father's voice for Don's, and asked him if he "dropped it yet."

"Don drops anything other than his drawers, and I'll break your legs," my father said and hung up.

There were days when I didn't say a word to anyone. On my walk home from school, I'd practice talking, regurgitating a day's worth of swallowed words. The cars rushed beside me, their hot, loud exhaust drowning my voice, but I could still feel the vibrations in my throat. It felt strange, oddly painful, like walking out into the sun after a long movie. I didn't want my voice to sound awkward during a driveway talk with my father or as I gave my mother the summary of my day, as she stood over the foamy rush of water in the kitchen sink.

My room was my decompression chamber, equalizing the me the world saw and the me I really was. On very bad days, when my anger swelled like a kinked hose, I'd bite the brown headboard of my bed and shut my eyes. My jaw trembled. My teeth broke through the brown varnish, leaving a chemical taste in my mouth and deep white impressions in the wood. It only took a few seconds to satisfy me. Then I'd open my mouth wider, pulling my teeth out of the wood. I remember the sun shining through my windows, illuminating the dust in the air, while I scratched the varnish off my teeth. I felt guilty and relieved. I worried more about the times when I didn't bite the wood, and the anger swirled in me like carbon monoxide filling up a small room.

I did weird, secret things. When I was about nine, I went with my parents to visit their friends, Bobby and his wife, Linda, who lived a few towns over. Linda collected Coca-Cola memorabilia. While they played cards on the patio, I wandered around their house, reading that classic red and white script on t-shirts, buttons, coolers, lamps, plates, jackets, books, picture frames, and stuffed animals. The old wooden floor creaked beneath me as I moved from item to item. I found an expensive-looking watch on the table, lots of dials and silver buttons, a watch I imagined a deep-sea diver would wear. On the face, two smiling polar bears gripped long, full Coke bottles. I wrapped the leather strap around my wrist but it was too big, even on the first hole. I swung my arm and felt it dangle and spin. When I turned the watch upside down, the Coke seemed to drain from the bottles into the bears' mouths. Backing out of the room, I shut off the light, closed the two glass doors, and slipped the heavy watch into my pocket.

At dinner, I ate with one hand. The other felt the watch, spun the dials, pressed the buttons. The grown-ups were all laughing loudly and smoking cigarettes. I watched Bobby cut his steak and Linda sip her wine while a dizzying dose of adrenaline pumped through me. For a little while, I thought I'd put the watch back, but when we got in the car at the end of the night and started to back out of the driveway, I slid one end of the watch out of my pocket and moved my gaze from the watch to Linda waving from her stoop.

I put the watch in one of my socks and stuffed it in the back of my top dresser drawer. Each week I'd pile new clothes on top of it, pushing it further and further into the back of the drawer, burying it.

One day, I was watching TV in my room. My father called me downstairs. He was on the couch, the phone pressed between his cheek and shoulder. I was halfway down the stairs when he looked at me.

"You didn't see Linda's watch, did you?"

"No. No, I don't think so."

"He says he hasn't seen it." He spoke into the phone while his eyes peered up at me. The tips of his fingers slid up his neck in slow, scratchy strokes.

I went into the kitchen, poured a glass of orange juice, and asked Mom what she was making for dinner. She said pot roast and I asked how she made it. What spices? How long did it take to cook? Was the meat frozen or fresh? I couldn't think of any more questions so I walked back into the living room and headed upstairs. Before I reached the top, I knelt down and stuck my head through the wooden bars.

"I think I actually did see it. Next to the snow globe on the little table."

"Little table?" my father asked.

"Yeah."

I sipped some orange juice, stood up, and went back to my room.

The next day, I sat at the end of our block, drawing lines in the sand on the side of the road. I took the watch out of my pocket, placed it in the sand. I found a smooth, fist-sized stone and bashed the face of the watch. The silver dial broke off. I turned the watch on its side, supported it with two small piles of sand, and bashed it again. It cracked, and the two polar bears fell out, the sun gleaming off their silver bodies. Then I gathered the parts in my hand and tossed them into the bushes.

My father's Chevy rumbled around the corner. He drove a few feet up our block before the brake lights glowed like two red eyes. The truck idled on the side of the road. A cloud of smoke billowed out the window; a Winston pinched in his fingertips. I ran over to him.

"What are you up to, boy?" he asked.

"Not much, just waiting for Marlon to show up."

"Uh huh." His eyes were hidden behind his dark sunglasses. He bit the filter of his Winston and spoke through clenched teeth. "You be careful, ya hear?"

I watched from the end of the block as he drove up to our house and made a sweeping turn into the driveway.

A few days later, I searched the bushes and couldn't find any pieces of the watch. I don't think he took them but I knew exactly where I threw them and they weren't there. We never talked about the watch again.

BILLY LIVED down the street from me, near the dead end. I was ten and he was eight, but he had a way about him that made him seem older. He lived with his mother and two sisters—Mary, eleven, the oldest, and Josephina, five. His father showed up every other week or so. We could hear the music blasting from his white Camaro when he pulled around the corner. He parked in the street, wheels angled toward the road. I remember him walking across the front lawn—a tall thin man with short, dark, curly hair, white sweater, black jeans, and tennis shoes. He stopped to pick up a bright yellow Tonka truck off the lawn and carried it to the front of the house.

"Hiya, Bill," he said, dropping the truck in the patch of dirt beneath the front windows. There was no garden, no bushes in front of his house like mine, no tall flowers or pine trees—only a strip of dirt and a chipped gray foundation.

Billy and I sat on the front steps, crushing small rocks with larger rocks. His Dad slid his iridescent sunglasses into his hair and squeezed the back of Billy's neck. He called me "Tony," the only one who used that nickname, and it always made me feel like he knew some secret about me. I smiled politely as he walked past us and into the house.

The inside of Billy's house was like a wound, something delicate ripped wide open. Josephina's juice boxes and melted ice pops left hard, red blotches on the beige carpet. Crushed saltine crackers dusted the stairs. The big red couch was stained with Coca-Cola, and one of the cushions was torn so badly it looked like it was sliced with a steak knife. When we watched TV, Billy pulled chunks of cotton from the couch and threw them on the floor.

Billy's father didn't seem to notice. He walked down the hall and into the bedroom. I heard him say something to Billy's mother and shut the door behind him. Billy nudged me with his elbow, thin black hairs curling over his top lip as he grinned. He muted the television and crept toward the hallway. Mary sat with perfect posture at the kitchen table behind a fort of math and science textbooks. Josephina was alone with her bucket of chalk in the driveway. Billy beckoned me toward the hallway.

We got down on our hands and knees and crawled toward the bedroom door. I was right behind Billy, the dirty bottoms of his bare feet almost touching my fingers. He turned around and slid backwards on his butt until his back was against the wall. I crawled forward and sat next to him. Billy put his finger to his lips.

His mother moaned—a soft whimpering, the whispers of a foreign language. Steady and breathy, as if there wasn't enough air in her bedroom. Billy giggled quietly, thrusting his hips into the air. I'd heard these sounds in the movies Billy and I watched on cable late at night, men and women rolling in bed with sweaty, painful expressions, but I had never heard them in real life. She moaned louder; I pressed my ear to the door.

"Billy!" Mary whispered, peeking over her history textbook. "Get away from there."

Billy looked at her, gave her the finger. She shook her head and looked at me. I shook my head, too, with half a smile as if I didn't want to believe what was happening. Part of me didn't. Part of me was frightened of what went on inside their house. The other part was curious.