Every Visible Thing, page 19
“Have a good day,” his father says. He is wearing the same flannel shirt and jeans he had on yesterday, his eyes are webbed with red, and he smells like he slept in an ashtray. Under normal circumstances, Owen would make things easier on him. But he’s desperate. He has already used every symptom in his arsenal, so he resorts to begging.
“I can’t go in there,” he whispers.
His father sighs. “Owen, we’ll have a talk later, okay? When you get home. But right now I need you to go to school. We’re busy looking for your sister and it would be better—” If I wasn’t around,” Owen mocks. “I heard her. Mom doesn’t want me around.”
“She’s just trying to protect you.”
“She hates me,” Owen says simply.
“Don’t be ridiculous. Your mother loves you.”
“Whatever,” Owen says, in a perfect imitation of his sister’s scorn. This is not, apparently, the best tactic to get his father back on his side.
“Get out of the car, Owen,” his father says quietly. “You’re going to be late.”
Owen opens the door, scrambles out, and slams it with all his might. He storms between manicured hedges toward the doors, anger quickly giving way to nausea as familiar faces turn to stare at him. He is sure he hears the word Danny whispered as he passes by, then virus. Almost to the door, he hears his name called but ignores it. He hears it again, closer now, and he turns at the hand that grabs his arm, cringing in expectation of an insult or a punch. But it is Tom Fisher.
“Didn’t you hear me?” Tom laughs. He’s out of breath. Owen shakes his head.
“C’mon, then,” Tom says, and though once he would have avoided this at all costs, Owen feels strangely safe walking next to Tom, and even forgets to feel sick as they enter the foyer, their shoulders brushing to fit through the door.
The feeling doesn’t last long. As soon as they get to their classroom, despite Mr. Gabriel’s attempt to diffuse the whispered gawking by announcing a pop fractions quiz, Owen is the center of attention. Everyone takes turns looking at him, some with confusion, others with disgust, or worse, with small smiles that suggest they know something he does not. The only one who doesn’t look at him is Danny. Danny pushes his chair back, balancing on the back legs, chuckling occasionally at something Brian Dowd says. His flicks his bangs out of his eyes in a gesture so familiar it makes Owen’s throat hurt. He is surprised at how disappointed he is. He’s afraid of Danny killing him, why should he care if he won’t look at him?
During the fifteen-minute quiz, five notes are passed to Owen’s block of desks. Tom handles them all, slipping them in his back pocket instead of forwarding them to Owen. There are whispers and snickers despite warnings from Mr. Gabriel’s furious red face. When the quiz is over—Owen leaves half of his fractions undone—Mark Flint and Brian Dowd walk out of their way to pass by him. They make slurping noises and waggle their tongues. Owen wonders how long he can wait before his need for the bathroom becomes an emergency.
“Just ignore them,” Tom whispers. This is something Owen’s father might say. Reasonable yet impossible.
“Vocab books!” Mr. Gabriel barks. “Now!”
Owen has forgotten to bring any of his schoolbooks.
“You can look on with me,” Tom says. Owen notices Jennifer Lemon, who sits next to Tom, give Jennifer Keyes, who sits next to Owen, a knowing look.
“Never mind,” Owen says, slouching in his seat. “I don’t give a shit.”
“Suit yourself,” Tom says, shrugging. His voice has that ridiculous, snooty mature tone again that makes Owen want to smack him.
He looks at the clock. It is only nine-twenty.
Since it’s a Tuesday, at eleven A.M. Mr. Gabriel dismisses them to Woodworking. Owen can barely breathe; the unchaperoned pilgrimage down one flight and two long hallways is the perfect opportunity for Danny and his thugs to make their move. But Tom latches on to Owen’s side and spends the whole long trudge downstairs chattering in his ear. Owen can barely focus on what he is saying, but nods every few seconds, when it seems appropriate. He doesn’t remember Tom being so talkative. Danny walks somewhere in the group behind them, so by the time they get to the safety of the Woodworking room, Owen’s back is slicked with sweat, the skin between his shoulder blades rippling with anticipation.
The students go to their cubbies to retrieve their current projects, spreading out among the six large wooden worktables, a metal vise at every corner. Mr. Mac—well over six feet tall and clad in a heavy apron and goggles, sawdust showered over his salt-and-pepper hair—stands by the electric saw and sander to supervise. During Owen’s absence, the class seems to have advanced; the Schroepfer twins are sanding the edges of their bookcases, Marcia Flemming is nailing planks on the top of a folding step stool. Tom, who stakes out a high stool next to Owen, is painting the individual pieces of his coffee table art—a dolphin that dives and spins when set on its curved ocean base. Tom’s piece is much more polished and artistic than anyone else’s; Owen finds it flashy and irritating. He can’t understand why Tom didn’t just make a piece of furniture like everyone else.
Owen has no project waiting for him. He goes to the sample table where students pick what they want to build from the weathered, dusty creations of Mr. Mac, who has been supervising the same projects for twenty years. None of the student projects ends up looking as good as Mr. Mac’s samples; the careful sanding of wood and time’s patina make his look like antiques. There is a full wooden train set, cars connected by tiny magnets, various pieces of small furniture, puzzles painted first then cut into complicated amoebas with the detail saw. While the process of picking a new project once excited him, now it seems there is nothing Owen wants to make. Mr. Mac comes over with a small plank of wood under his arm.
“We’ll be starting string puppets next time,” he says to Owen. “Why don’t you work on this today?” He has penciled Owen’s name onto the plank, in the fat, perfectly formed bubble letters that all the girls try to replicate on their notebooks. Owen is supposed to trace the outlines of the letters with a hammer and fat nail, settling his name permanently into the wood. A few coats of stain and two drilled holes for a string and it will be ready to hang on his bedroom door. Lena made one of these once, as did Hugh. Everyone in the school makes one at some point. Owen already has two himself. It’s a babyish project, meant for third-graders, more popular with girls, and Owen’s throat tightens at the offering. Perhaps even sweet, un-assuming Mr. Mac, whose layoff has been rumored ever since Proposition 21/2 but never happens, has heard that Owen is a fag. He doesn’t trust himself to speak, so he just nods and takes the plank.
“Do you want a picture on it?” Mr. Mac asks. They’re allowed to request a favorite object or hobby next to their name: a kitten, a soccer ball, a rainbow, a racecar. Owen once admired Mr. Mac’s ability to render a simple cartoon of almost anything, but now he merely shakes his head. His hobbies these days are not the type you put on a bedroom sign. Angels are for girls, and he can’t ask for a gravestone, or a glass thermometer.
Owen spends the rest of the hour hunched over his name, banging the nail at close intervals to create a channel of pressed wood in the penciled curves and angles, while Tom tells him about role-playing games. Owen accidentally smashes the hammer onto his fingertip, cracking the nail and drawing blood. Molly Wood and Rachel Krauss, sitting across from him, scream about his blood being contagious and move to another table. Mr. Mac, looking confused, gives Owen a Band-Aid.
At lunchtime, Tom follows him toward the cafeteria, but Owen veers off with the excuse of the bathroom and goes to the nurse’s office instead. He has come prepared, so when the nurse turns her back, he replaces her glass thermometer with one of his own. She clucks when she reads his fever. She calls home and has a brief conversation with his mother, who does most of the talking. When she hangs up, she looks at him, and Owen can’t decide if it is with pity or suspicion.
“You can lie down for a while,” she says. “But your mother wants you to stay until two. Your father will pick you up after school.”
Owen lies on the cot behind the standing screen, staring at a poster about scoliosis. He wonders if the nurse has a chart of AIDS symptoms, hidden away but memorized. When the bell signaling the end of recess rings, he tells her he’s feeling better and goes back upstairs.
By the time he gets there, the classroom has already been rearranged for math time tests, and Tom has made sure their desks are next to each other.
“Where’d you go?” he whispers, but Mr. Gabriel barks for quiet, handing out test papers facedown. Owen does worse than ever, finishing only half the page in the allotted four minutes. He’s stumbling over sixes and sevens now, doesn’t even attempt the eights and nines. Tom is not one of the fastest, but he still finishes in under four minutes. After they hand in their papers and they’re putting their desks back, Tom gives Owen a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. Owen freezes, looking around to see if anyone has witnessed this.
“Don’t worry,” Tom says. “I’ll lend you my flash cards.”
“I don’t want your stupid flash cards,” Owen hisses. Tom, who seems incapable of taking a hint, shrugs nonchalantly. For the rest of the afternoon, Owen tries to ignore him, but Tom is oblivious. He keeps chatting at every opportunity, not noticing that Owen never responds, that he merely sits, curled into himself and blushing with rage and disappointment, glancing hopefully over at the only boy in the room who matters.
Owen has returned to school just one day before February break. He is buoyed by the knowledge that he won’t have to come back for a week and a half. Mr. Gabriel keeps Danny and Brian Dowd after class, under the vague accusation of disrupting curriculum, giving Owen a head start. Owen says nothing when Tom asks him to wait while he uses the boy’s room, then runs away as soon as the door swings shut. He is relieved to see his father already in the queue of cars at the front pick-up area. He climbs in the passenger side, refusing to answer when his father asks about his day. As they wait in traffic held up by the crossing guard, Owen scans the front of the school for Danny, who will soon be let loose from Mr. Gabriel’s clutches. He imagines Danny sliding a cigarette from behind his ear and lighting it in the middle of a throng of children unwrapping pieces of Bubble Yum. He wants to see Danny now, wants Danny to look at him, even if it is with the hatred he’s afraid of. Anything would be better, he thinks, than not existing in his best friend’s eyes.
Instead, he sees Tom, looking befuddled and pathetically eager, his T-shirt tucked hastily and unevenly, scanning the crowd for a glimpse of him. Owen slinks down on the bench seat to below window level. His father taps the turn signal on and drives away.
At home, things have deteriorated. His mother’s clothes are limp, her nose and chin greasy, her eyelids so swollen from crying they’re dimpled. When they come in, she leaves Owen’s father in charge of the phone and goes to lie down in her bedroom. Owen looks at his father.
“She didn’t get much sleep last night,” he says. No suggestion that this could be the beginning of more years spent in bed.
The phone rings and Owen’s father picks it up before the first ring is done. He says, “Hello?” eagerly, then his shoulders drop with disappointment.
“She’s not available right now. May I ask who’s calling?” He listens, looking annoyed. Owen thinks it must be for Lena, until his father speaks again.
“She’s fine, David,” he says. “It’s sort of a family emergency. She’ll be back to work soon. I’ll tell her you called.”
“Isn’t that the guy with AIDS?” Owen says, after his father hangs up.
“I think so.”
“What did he want?”
Owen’s father is not looking at him, but at the bulletin board next to the phone where they tack school notices, calendars, and photos of other people’s children that come in the mail.
“He was just wondering why she wasn’t around,” his father says. “Don’t you have homework?” he adds.
Owen goes to his room. He sits on his bed, tries to concentrate on the fractions homework, the first in a large stack of sheets he still has to make up. He falls asleep before he finishes it.
He wakes to his father shaking him, in dim light that could be dusk or dawn of the next day. His father’s voice sounds distant, not as if he is far away, but as if Owen is going deaf.
“Owen,” his father says again, translating what he didn’t catch the first time. “Your friend is here.”
“Danny?” Owen asks, sitting up in alarm.
“No, the other one. Tom.”
Owen is seized by disappointment and relieved of fear all in one instant, and what comes out of the combination is a boiling up of unexpected rage.
“He’s not my friend,” Owen spits out, angry at his father for being so quick to believe what people tell him. They’ll never find her, he wants to say, but this would make no sense; they are talking about Tom.
“Owen!” his father scolds. Owen looks up to see Tom standing in the doorway, Owen’s forgotten nameplate in his hand. Owen’s denial of him has not quite registered enough to wipe all the eagerness from his face. It’s the same expression he’s had all day, the desperate, overly willing, easily compromised demeanor particular to a child with no friends. Owen despises him.
“He’s not my friend,” he repeats, glaring at Tom’s half-smiling face. This time, it registers. Owen feels an initial jolt of satisfaction, but loses his nerve and looks away before Tom’s face can completely fall. He doesn’t want to see it as much as he thought. He stays in bed while his father follows behind their guest, offering apologies as Tom runs for the front door.
15. lipstick
In the morning, when I stumble into the kitchen in a flannel shirt and boxer shorts, Lionel is there making pancakes. He’s made a huge stack like he’s feeding an army, but there’s no one else up.
“I made too much mix,” Lionel says to me, trying to flip a pancake. He’s not very good at it; half gets folded under. He has the burner on too high—and the butter in the pan is turning brown.
“Want one?” he says. I shrug. I’m not sure why he’s being so nice all of a sudden, but I don’t want to jinx it. I take a plate and he glops butter on and hands me the Aunt Jemima, whose syrup-filled breasts used to embarrass me as a girl.
He sits down at the table with me, lighting a cigarette. I take a bite. The outside of the pancake is burned, but the inside is still raw. I’m trying not to look at it, which means I have to look at Lionel.
“You my brother’s girlfriend?” he says. I shrug, trying not to blush at the memory of last night. Sebastian and I rolled around kissing for a while. Nothing serious, but my hip bones are a little sore.
“How old are you?”
“Fifteen.”
“Run away?”
I shrug again.
“I just want to know if someone’s going to come looking for you.”
“Not here,” I say.
“Good,” he says. He takes a drag of his cigarette and blows the smoke out his nose. He glances at my chest again. He seems to be deciding something.
“You don’t really think you’ll find your brother, do you?” he says. I don’t answer this. “I thought they decided he was dead,” he says.
“No one decided anything,” I say.
“Well, if I were you, I’d ask that slutty girlfriend he had.”
“Emily?” I say, incredulous.
“Yeah. Emily.”
“They broke up,” I said. “Way before he disappeared. He was over her.”
“Are you kidding? He was totally obsessed with that chick. He never got over her. Everyone knew that.”
Something inside me goes very still. Like if I move, take another bite, look up at Lionel, breathe, I’ll shatter into tiny pieces. All those pictures of Emily.
“You’re just a kid,” Lionel says, shaking his head like this is a shame. “How’d you get mixed up with my brother?”
When I don’t answer him, he chuckles and goes back to flipping pancakes.
I keep checking the kitchen wall clock, feeling a jolt in my stomach every time I think of the clock in my own kitchen. Of my parents waking up, moving around in the pantry, pounding on my door, finally opening it when they get no answer. It’s almost noon by the time Sebastian gets up.
One of Lionel’s friends, Max, who I’ve seen in Hugh’s pictures with more hair, wanders into the kitchen in underwear and sunglasses with a can of Coke and a bottle of Tylenol. Lionel asks him if he knows what happened to Emily Twickler.
“She stayed in western Mass,” Max says. “After rehab. I think she goes to UMASS Amherst now.”
“Let’s go there,” I say to Sebastian, while he smokes his wake-up joint.
“Why?” he says after an exaggerated exhale.
“She knows something about Hugh.”
“Can’t you just call her?”
“I need to go somewhere,” I say. “It’s too late to go home now.” Sebastian smiles at this.
“I know the feeling,” he says.
Lionel looks up then, from his coffee and Mad magazine at the breakfast table. He’s wearing a fedora with acid papers and joints stuck along the brim. He squints at us and for a second I think he looks worried, but then he smiles.
“I’ll drive you,” he says.
“Thanks,” I say. Sebastian just glares at him.
“It’ll be good for business,” Lionel explains. “Amherst kids will take anything.”
Lionel’s car is a beat-up gray-blue Chevy Impala, with such a big front end it looks like a cartoon version of a car. It sounds like a lawn mower when he starts it up.
