Whitechurch (4 page)

Back at our station.

“You’re embarrassing,” I said to Lilly as she handed out ices to one polite kid after another. They all wanted napkins. “Don’t touch a person’s head-bump just because he asks you to. I don’t care
what
number it’s shaped like.”

“Loosen up, will you, Oakley? I was just having fun.”

“Ya but, what’s he gonna think? When a girl starts feeling the bumps on a guy’s head … Hey … what are you … hey, stop laughing at me.”

“How old did you say you were, Grandpa?”

I was about to defend myself but came up empty. “Okay,” I said, finally getting a small laugh at myself.

“Come on, Oakley, don’t you, just for a second, wonder what it would feel like to kiss a mouth like Stan’s?” As she said this, she went into a sort of pantomime gimp kiss, tilting her head to the side, trying to do the trick of puckering only half of her mouth.

“Not for a
second
,” I said sharply, perhaps underscoring the point about my tightness. “I’ll loosen up, but I’m not gonna loosen up that much.” I turned away from her, started jamming, forcing change into the children’s weak little hands.

Then all at once even these well-mannered, well-entertained kids let out a great collective “Ooohhh,” as Lilly kissed long and loud, sloppy and slurpy, on my unguarded cheek.

I stopped moaning, whining, handing out change, and breathing.

“You are funny, and yet you are a bit of a stiff, aren’t you,” she said into my ear as I stared into the giggly faces before me.

“I may be a stiff, and I may not be your boyfriend, but I can still try to steer you away from freakish guys.”

“Too late,” Pauly blurted, parting the crowd and practically flopping himself on the counter.

Lilly laughed.

“Wouldja stop laughing at him?” I barked. “Pauly, for cripes’ sake, what are you doing
here
now?”

“Just in the neighborhood,” he said, cheesy-smiling at Lilly.

“
This
neighborhood? You got no business in this neighborhood. You got no friends in this neighborhood—”

“Ya, but I got money to pay for my ice cream now,” he said, slapping two dollars on the counter. I noticed all the other kids had scrammed. “And I got myself awful thirsty in the process. Howsabout a Coke?”

“My cigarette’s nearly out,” Stan called, and the truck growled into action. As he looked back our way, Stan fixed Pauly with a stare and, with crack marksmanship, flicked the last of his cigarette at his head.

“Take me with you,” Pauly said.

“No,” Stan said, putting the truck in gear.

“Then come hang out with me,” Paul called, trotting alongside us. “This looks boring as hell anyway.”

“Can’t,” I said.

“Didn’t mean you, numbnuts. I meant her.”

Lilly marveled at us. “Between the two of you … you guys must laugh all day long.”

“All day long,” I said, and went to sit up with Stan. Lilly hung back to wave to Pauly, as he ran along with the truck.

I watched out of the corner of my unconcerned, unjealous, unboyfriendy eye. Watched Lilly watching Pauly. She liked him, no question, in a way … well, in another way. The rat.

Then I looked at the rat himself, chugging along after us like a nutter.

She had every reason in the world to like him. I knew that. Most people didn’t. Now Lilly did.

“He says he wrote me a poem,” Lilly called to us.

Lilly smiled. Stan did not. Not even a half of a half of a smile. He gunned the engine. Gunning the engine of the Good Humor wagon was not exactly heading into hyperspace, but it was jarring enough, looking at Stan’s pale face go pink, listening to the motor strain and groan and slowly overtake the tinkling ice-cream-man music, then the blast of the radio. The whole machine rumbled and shook, made worse by Stan’s jagged little jerks of the wheel and inexplicable pattern of gear shifting. I looked back to see black smoke billowing in Pauly’s face.

“Can you stop, Stan?” I asked.

“No, I just got it into third—”

“Please,” I said, and though he remained in his fringes of society-slanted, hard-guy glower, he worked us back down into second … first … park.

Pauly was winded but couldn’t wait.

Whatsername #1

All day I follow

Bad Humor Man

Freak Albino Burnout

Stan

Just so I can meet

The Girl

Let’s just say her name is

Pearl

The one who’s gonna change

My Luck

Get close to me

and lose the Duck

It must have been some serious effort to pull that off smoothly, because as soon as Pauly finished reciting, he went into spasms of wheezing and coughing like he would die.

“Come here, come here, come here,” Lilly said, cracking open a Coke and nearly pouring it into him. Pauly slurped at it like a baby being bottle-fed. Lilly shook her head as she watched and, no doubt, replayed the words in her head.

“What
is
it about this town?” she said. “All these, like, good-sir-knight kind of guys. I never met anybody like you people. It’s like
Camelot
around here.”

“Hey,” Stan yelled. “Bad Humor Man Freak Albino?” He tried to sound mad, but he came off more like, proud. “I have a very good humor.”

“So who’s the duck?” I blurted. “Huh, Pauly? Is that me? I’m the duck then, is that it?”

Pauly started laughing, then wheezing.

“Pearl,” Lilly said. “Pearl. That’s lovely, isn’t it? You’re really good at that … poetry. Turning ordinary things into special things. That’s how it works, isn’t it? You are really good….”

“I can’t carry you all,” Stan said. “If that’s where we’re headed with this. That’s too much.”

Paul was catching his breath, and backing away from the truck now.

“No,” I said, and got down. “I really don’t want to ride anymore.” And it was true, I didn’t. And besides …

“Get up there,” I said hard into Pauly’s ear.

“I’m coming with you, Oakley,” Lilly said.

“No, you have to work. And also … you should take this guy. He can’t even breathe.”

Stan started the truck and jammed it into gear. “Whoever’s coming, come now,” he said.

“Really?” Lilly mimed to me.

Pauly had no such hesitation. He was already on board and digging around in a cooler.

I went up to her. “You nervous, going with Pauly?”

She shook her head. “Nope. You think he’s okay. So he must be okay.”

“Yup,” I said quietly. “You’re gonna love him.”

So they saddled up and headed out. I walked along, in the scorching summer sun, enjoying the toasted feeling coming over my face. I closed my eyes to it, continued walking, and listened to the goofy tinkling Good Humor music. I wondered what I had just done.

“Cast thy bread upon the waters …” an old comforting voice came back to me.

Until half a block away, Stan skidded to a halt. Out popped Lilly. Walking back my way and waving over her shoulder at the truck. But no Pauly. The rat.

Until one hundred feet further … another skidding stop. The rat.

And then there were three.

W
HEN WE WERE KIDS
at this school,

we were famous for this,

me and Pauly.

We stunk the joint out

every time we took to the court,

and in spite of that,

we took to the court

every chance we got.

Crowds would gather.

We’d go an hour

without either of us sinking a shot.

Still all true.

Clang
, my shot goes off the rim.

Points were never the point

of shooting.

Clang
.

’Tsamatter with you? Pauly.

Pauly knows, because he knows me,

and he knows
stuff
,

and he knows the world,

and he has this keen perception thing going,

the way maniac people do.

He’s not nuts, however.

But I don’t want him to know.

Nothing, I tell him.

I lie because I’m afraid he might help.

The Lilly is the death flower did you know that,

Oakley?

It is Saturday morning,

sun shining,

air biting in a nice

October morning kind of a way,

and we are shooting

baskets in the school yard

of Edna St. Vincent Millay

Middle School,

which we attended as kids.

Vince,

we called it then and now.

Lilly’s the death flower, well, yes,

I suppose I did know that. That is,

I knew the lilly showed up at funerals a lot.

I walk behind the basket, and attempt a shot

right over the backboard.

It’s a game of horse.

A twelve-year-long

game of horse.

I think we’re on

the letter O. Possibly I have an R.

Ever seen one of them? he asks.

Those funerals where they’re all

deadly dramatic

and put a lilly flower

in the dead guy’s

hands?

Ever seen one of them?

He is not within range of the basket.

He has to throw the ball

like a football for it to even come close.

He does,

and it doesn’t.

You went out without me, he says,

watching me retrieve and square

up for another shot.

His hands are on his hips, and he walks

toward me without any sense

of purpose at all.

Defense is not really an issue with us.

You know I hate that, when you go out without

me.

I know you do, I say, and throw the ball

clean over the backboard.

And still, you do it anyway, he says,

in such a sincere voice

I could laugh or bow my head

in shame.

As a compromise

I bow my head

and laugh.

Unamused,

arms akimbo,

he lets me chase

my own miss.

I pick up the ball, rest it on my hip,

and look back across to where my friend waits.

He stares at me,

I stare at him.

I sit on the curb.

He sits on the court.

Time

out.

To think about what I’ve done.

Or to think about what I haven’t.

This is what he wants. My all.

Because that is what he donates. His all.

Time out.

I don’t need a lot.

I get back up and walk over.

No Pauly, I say, I have never seen one of those

funerals

deadly dramatic

where they place in lilly-white hands

a bone-white lilly.

And neither have you.

Okay I haven’t, he says, but I have thought

plenty

about being buried with Lilly.

Christ Pauly,

is all I say

and all I should have to say.

Even he should know.

We have set up about ten feet apart, and are

just passing the

ball back and forth,

first easy, gradually with more pepper.

Like, you want to be buried alive with her, or will one of you be dead

and the other one’s supposed to just

jump in?

He sighs, whips me the ball.

Oh, I don’t know, he says. Just more

the
spirit

of the idea that I like,

more than the

practical side of it.

Know what I mean?

Well, I whip it back, and tell him I do. He truly

can’t see

life post-Lilly.

But I still don’t think the answer

is Lilly post-life.

There is no practical side, Pauly.

Pauly withdraws, backs away,

stretches his hands out toward the sky.

He wants the ball.

I pull back and heave it.

Passing, we do fine.

We are excellent passers.

He gathers it in, does his one well-rehearsed

move,

a quick three steps

and two dribbles east-west across the lane, and up goes his hook shot.

Doesn’t hit the net,

the rim,

the backboard.

If it were possible to miss the ground,

that shot would have.

Pauly looks at me and I look at him and I smile my good-bye.

I don’t see why people have to leave, he says.

We don’t need that, you and me.

It’s like the whole world

happens to us right here, doesn’t it?

I catch the hard throw and I throw the hard

throw

and he throws again harder still.

I ratchet up.

He ratchets up and up again.

I don’t want to throw the ball this hard

anymore.

It is stinging my hands,

and the last one very nearly broke

through my grip and bashed me

in the face.

But I keep on, pushing up the speed.

I don’t know, Paul. Maybe it’s not such a bad

thing,

even if it means friends,

and well,
friends
,

gotta split.

What is a friend for, after

all?

Is it to make the bad parts of life

feel a little better

by smoothing them over?

Or is it to help a person through

the truth

as painlessly as possible

while still

allowing it to be

the truth?

I want my friend to feel better,

not worse.

So why do I throw the ball as hard as I possibly

can?

He laughs as he catches it, and

whips it back, harder.

I rear back, more like a pitcher than a

basketball player.

As soon as it leaves my hand I know

this is it, this is the one, this is the break-through ball that he cannot catch, and it is deadly

face-high

and I don’t know why I did it

and I want to pull it back.

I can even feel my body language,

the way you do that when you throw something

but you still need to control it as it flies.

I’m pulling it,

then steering it,

past his head one way,

then the other then over

his head, but it will not listen