Every Visible Thing, page 11
“Don’t look at me, you faggot,” Brian says, and Owen closes his eyes.
“He’s thinking about sucking your dick,” Mark says, and Brian punches Owen hard in the abdomen. Owen slides to the floor and, before he can stop himself, wheezes out, “Please.”
Mark laughs. “He’s begging now. Begging for his boyfriend.”
Brian kicks Owen hard in the ribs. “Shut the fuck up,” he says. “Save your begging. Danny’s got something planned.”
After this, Owen stays home for another straight week. His parents hang around while taking his temperature, but there is always a moment where a lapse in their attention allows him to replace the thermometer in his mouth with a preheated twin he hides in the elastic waistband of his pajama bottoms. On his next visit, Dr. Cloherty sends him over to Children’s Hospital, where they take X-rays of his abdomen and five tubes of bright blood from the vein in the crook of his arm. Though it makes him woozy, Owen forces himself to watch his liquid insides rush to fill each tube, thinking of Anne Rice’s vampires and the salty flavor of his best friend’s neck.
He is sketching with his new pens, propped on the couch in his pajamas, stopping occasionally to shovel handfuls of popcorn into his mouth or sip ginger ale through a straw. He freezes when he hears the key in the front door, suddenly aware that the whole house smells of popcorn and oil. He barely has time to hide his bowl under the lap quilt when a teenage boy, a sweet-faced punk with spiky black hair, a leather jacket, and complicatedly laced, heavy boots strides into the room. It is only when another, almost identical but taller boy comes in that Owen realizes the first boy is his sister.
“If you tell them I was here I’ll show them your thermometer collection,” his sister threatens. She gestures for the twin to follow her to her room. They stay there, music thudding under the door, for long enough that Owen begins to blush at the thought of what they might be doing. When they emerge, the reek of marijuana teasing Owen’s memory, Lena’s friend winks at him on their way out. Only then does Owen realize that he has been holding himself in anticipation, waiting for another glance at these two, so much like the figures he has been drawing with thick black strokes in his sketchbook, tall and dark-haired and magnificent, the mere suggestion of wings folded in promise behind their backs.
9. bicycle
I develop a roll of negatives of someone with spiky black hair, and at first, though I haven’t taken any pictures, I think it’s Sebastian, or me. Then I realize it’s Hugh. There’s a girl in the other frames, first with long blond hair, then with hair cropped and dyed to match Hugh’s. The haircuts are the same as mine, the smiles are from a different life.
Hugh started high school when I was in the fourth grade. I remember teachers asking about him, like he’d moved to another country. “Tell him to stop by sometime,” they’d say. I didn’t bother to explain that he had forgotten them. He was a teenager now, a word my parents said with mock dread, smiling at his closed door, his loud music, his grumpy morning mood. I wasn’t sure what any of this meant. If it was a stage or a permanent transformation. It didn’t seem at all funny to me. As far as I could tell, being a teenager meant that he had no interest in anyone from his childhood. Including me.
I couldn’t understand why Hugh and his new friends hung out in the park by the grammar school. (Now I know it was because, as ninth-graders, they were still babies at the high school, and they felt older in the park.) On the same benches where I waited my turn at bat in Little League, Hugh and his group of fidgety boys and squealing girls with feathered hair and tight jean skirts spent hours doing absolutely nothing. They didn’t play games, or act things out, they just moved around one another in little circles. Hugh, like the other boys, would sit on the bench, lie prone on the bench, roll off, lean against the fence, circle the group, then sit on the bench again. The girls stuck closer together, pulling at their miniskirts, crossing and recrossing their legs.
I was obsessed with the book Harriet the Spy, and I crouched in the bushes behind them, recording everything they said in a black composition notebook. I didn’t come away with much. Most of their sentences were unfinished; they were always interrupting themselves. Half of what they said made no sense at all, inside jokes they repeated over and over, until I wondered if even they knew what they meant. They bored me; I gave up on them after two spying sessions. The only exciting part was the five minutes where Hugh, who used to refuse phone calls from girls (he made me screen female voices), let a pretty girl with blond bangs frizzled by a curling iron sit on his lap. This seemed to mortify them both. They didn’t speak to each other while it was happening, but to their friends on either side, and other than her butt on his thigh, there was no physical contact; Hugh’s hands gripped the bench and the girl’s were folded in her lap. After five minutes they popped apart without even looking at each other, and were swallowed back into the group. They acted like it had never happened.
For the four long months between Christmas and spring, this girl, Emily Twickler, was Hugh’s girlfriend. She called him every night, and Hugh stretched the phone as far as it would go, so that the base was in the middle of the hallway and the white spiral cord was pulled out of shape under the edge of his bedroom door. On the afternoons that my mother was out doing errands with Owen, Hugh and Emily would disappear into his bedroom, shut the door, and play music so loud that I couldn’t hear a thing even when I went outside and listened by his window. I didn’t understand why my brother wanted to spend so much time with a girl. Emily Twickler wasn’t smart, I could tell by the way Hugh dumbed himself down when talking to her. I knew about sex, but couldn’t believe it was that great, or that it took up three whole hours behind a closed bedroom door.
It was Emily who dyed my brother’s hair, along with her own. They locked themselves in the bathroom one afternoon, where I imagined them taking a bath together in the same tub where I once bathed with Hugh. I had to leave the house and do laps around the block on my bike to calm down. At dinner, my parents joked about Hugh’s head, so black it was almost purple, the dye left in so long his scalp was only a few shades lighter than his hair.
“I hope you didn’t use the good towels,” my mother said, spooning pasta onto Owen’s plate. Hugh was preoccupied with himself, running his hands through his hair every few seconds, though it fell immediately back into his eyes. My father announced that he’d once had hair to his shoulders, and Hugh looked unimpressed.
“You look like a bug,” Owen said, and this made our mother jump up to get more water from the kitchen.
The thing is, I was the only one who was angry. I was the only one with an urge to punish Hugh, scream and hit and shake him back to himself, because I was already having trouble remembering his real hair, what he looked like and who he was my whole life up until that afternoon.
Since I dyed my hair my parents gang up to talk to me. Probably because I lost it last time, screamed and swore at them, which I’d never done before. They’re scared of me now, which is just fine. Once I said that stuff out loud, I wanted to say it over and over again. They’re better off ignoring me.
They knock on my door together, standing side by side like police officers there to deliver bad news.
“What,” I say, hiding my smoke-filled room by holding the door open just enough to stick out my head.
“Come out and talk to us, please,” my father says, pretending to be a normal, reasonable parent. He forgets I know better.
I go only as far as the kitchen table, still within bolting distance of my room.
“We got a progress report from your teacher,” my father says. I forgot to check the mail today. I sigh and roll my eyes like I’m bored by this news.
“So?” I say. My mother takes over.
“You’re failing Geometry,” she says.
“Not really,” I say. “I just have to make up a test.” They look skeptical.
“Where do you go every afternoon?” my father says.
“To the photo lab,” I say.
“With who?” my mother pipes up.
“By myself,” I say, slowly, as though they may have trouble understanding me.
“Not with a…boyfriend?” my father says. I laugh. I have never had a boyfriend, but I guess my father doesn’t know this. Why would he?
“Have you been skipping school?” my mother says.
“Just a couple of classes,” I say. “Everybody does it. It’s no big deal.”
“If I call the school, is that what they’ll tell me?” she says. I shrug. I doubt she’ll call the school. She’s far too busy. Still, my insides clench at the thought of it. I’ve burned progressively serious notes from the office, including one that requested my parents come in for a conference.
“We want you to start coming home right after school,” my father says.
“Am I grounded?”
“Put it that way if you want. We want to know where you are and your brother could use the company.”
I can’t help it, I let out a snort at that.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” my mother says. She looks upset. Her eyes are starting to glaze over in that way they used to before she stopped looking at all of us and focused only on school.
“Nothing,” I mutter. They have no idea that Owen is taking them for a ride. He’s missed something like three weeks of school already. I hate that they’re so gullible, but I’m not going to be the one to say so.
“We want you home every day by two-thirty,” my father says.
“What about the drama club?” I say, thinking of something I heard in the Quad. “Play rehearsals are every day.”
“Since when are you in the drama club?” my mother says.
“I take the pictures. It’s part of my assignment for Photography.”
My parents look at each other, deciding whether or not to believe me. I sit still and look bored and innocent. My mother finally shrugs, looking so exhausted I know they’re about to give in.
“Fine,” my father says. “Come home right after that.”
“Sure,” I say. “Can I go now?”
“There’s one more thing,” my father says. He looks to my mother for support, but she’s rubbing her eyes, no longer paying attention.
“Yes?”
“We were thinking you might like to talk to someone.”
“Like who?”
“A therapist,” my father says. He’s blushing. My mother snaps back to attention. She fakes a smile, trying to pretend, I guess, that this is a reasonable thing for my father to be suggesting.
“You’re joking, right?” I say quietly. My head is pounding.
“No,” my father says.
“No way,” I say. I don’t look at them. If I do I will swear or spit or scream, and I’d rather get every minute I can away from this house even if it means not telling them they’re the stupidest parents alive. Too little, too late, I almost say.
“Think about it,” my mother adds.
I go back to my room and turn my music up loud, drowning out their voices and all the things in my head that I might say if they were the kind of parents you could tell the truth to.
Sometimes I wonder if Hugh figured this out. If they were like this before and I just didn’t notice until after he was gone and I grew up.
In the morning I make a point of loading a fresh roll of film into Hugh’s camera and strapping it around my shoulders. My father smiles and says good morning when I pass through the kitchen, as though yesterday were some sort of bonding experience. I leave with my hair still wet, just as my father asks Owen how he’s feeling. Owen looks genuinely sick at being stuck there. Instead of books I stuff my backpack with a change of clothes, eye liner, and hair gel, and change in the Dunkin’ Donuts unisex bathroom. I take the T to Cambridge, hunching down in my seat when we pass the Longwood stop, the one near the hospitals, where men and women in scrubs and white jackets climb on and off the train, plastic IDs clipped to pockets or worn on chains around their necks. Something about their uniforms and badges makes them look like they have a purpose, like they are members of an exclusive world, where everyone speaks the same language. This is why my mother became one of them, I guess. When she has her ID on, even just around the house, she moves faster, like she has somewhere important to go.
It’s after noon by the time Sebastian shows up at the Pit, hungover and smelling like he slept in his clothes again. I’m still not sure where he sleeps, though I assume he crashes in the houses of the kids we’ve met. He seems to know a number of girls who act like they’d love to have him sleep over, but I try not to picture that.
Today he is moody, and I’m a little pissed from waiting so long. He doesn’t have any cigarettes and smokes half of mine and makes me buy him a coffee. He asks if I’m coming with him to campus. He’s never given me any money for helping him deal, not that I’d take it, but somehow I end up paying for stuff for him half the time. I don’t know what he does with all the money people give him. I have a headache from the cold and it’s making me testy and this is how we end up in our first fight.
“When are you going to introduce me to Lionel?” I say. I’ve never even glimpsed Lionel, or the other kids in Hugh’s photos who congregate around him. I’ve pretty much figured out that Lionel supplies what Sebastian sells, but he never talks about him.
“I’ve introduced you to lots of people,” Sebastian says. “What’s your hard-on for Lionel?”
I try not to flinch at that expression. Sebastian talks to me sometimes like I’m a guy, even when no one else is around.
“I just want to meet him,” I say. “I told you that in the beginning.”
“So come out at night. He rarely shows his face in the day anymore.”
“I’m grounded at night.”
Sebastian looks delighted. “How sweet,” he says.
“Can’t you just bring me to his house?” I say. “We’ve been to everyone else’s.”
“Stop nagging,” Sebastian says. “You sound like somebody’s mother.”
After that he wanders away to talk to some of the other kids at Au Bon Pain while I fume over the fact that I have no money left for hot chocolate and seriously consider going home and crawling under the covers and never coming here again.
He comes back in twenty minutes and pretends nothing is wrong. When I tell him I’m going back to Brookline to develop photos, he offers to come with me and I let him, mostly because the thought of not being with him for the rest of the day leaves me anxious, as though I’ll miss something I can’t afford not to have.
We stop by my house so I can change again. Owen is on the couch eating popcorn and he stares at us with his mouth open, yellow husks in his teeth. I forgot he’d be here and don’t like that he’s seen me, but he’s easy enough to threaten.
“What’s wrong with your brother?” Sebastian says, after we’ve closed ourselves in my room. He’s lying on my bed smoking, and I’m half inside my closet, my back turned to him as I pull my arms into my shirt and unwrap the Ace bandage around my chest.
“Nothing,” I say. “He’s faking to stay home from school.”
“Why?” Sebastian says. While tented under my huge shirt, I slip my arms through my bra, noticing how pilly the white cotton is under the arms. I fumble with the back clasp and feel the cool air where my shirt rides up with the movement of my elbows.
“I don’t know,” I say. I hear the creak of springs as Sebastian gets off the bed, feel goose bumps rise on my back as he approaches. I let go of the bra and try to pull my shirt back down. But his hands are already blocking it.
He reaches up and, very gently, without pulling tight or fumbling, fastens the two metal hooks on my bra. I barely feel his fingers brush against my back. I hope he doesn’t mistake my goose bumps for pimples. Then he walks back to my bed, sits down, and lights a joint. I pull my shirt down and add another layer, a gray sweater large enough to fit a whole other me inside it.
By four o’clock it’s almost dark out and the Unified Arts Building is deserted. I use Mr. Allen’s key to let us in the photo lab. I collect the last photos I printed from the drying rack, while Sebastian opens every cabinet and sniffs hopefully at chemical bottles. He’s not putting anything back where he found it and I can’t decide what to do about this. I don’t want to leave the place a mess and show we were here, but I know what his reaction will be if I suggest he pick up after himself. I end up putting everything away myself while Sebastian locks himself in the negative closet to see how long he can last in the dark.
I show Sebastian the latest photos to see if he recognizes anyone. He barely looks at them, just keeps shaking his head. Finally he points to a kid holding Lionel in a headlock, a handsome boy with long curly brown hair escaping from his ponytail.
“That’s Max,” he says. “He’s from Cambridge. He still parties with Lionel sometimes. He looks different now, though.”
“If I could get out at night, would you take me to one of Lionel’s parties?” I say. Sebastian shrugs.
“They’re not usually planned,” he says. “We’ll see.” I have an urge to shake him until he promises.
“Wait here,” I say. “And stop touching stuff.” I close myself in the negative closet to break open two more rolls of finished film I have taken from Hugh’s box. It’s been two weeks since I showed up for Photography. I need some new pictures. Even if I don’t know who they are or what they mean, I can’t stand leaving them locked in plastic.
When I’m halfway through the second roll, I hear voices outside the door. Someone is talking to Sebastian. In my hurry to finish I fumble and have to restart the roll. When I open the door, a canister in each hand, I have to blink my eyes to adjust to the fluorescent lights.
“Hi, Lena,” a voice says. It’s Jonah, standing in a tough-boy pose I’ve never seen him use, legs apart and arms across his chest. He looks taller because he’s standing straight instead of hunching beneath his greasy hair. Sebastian is leaning against the Formica counter, casually rolling a joint. I wonder what they were talking about. They are quiet in that way people get after someone has said something unforgivable.
