Every Visible Thing, page 4
Aboveground I am bombarded by people. The intersection in front of the Harvard Coop is packed with pedestrians strolling across a brick crosswalk, ignoring the cars that honk on both sides. Along the opposite curb is a long line of orange cabs. The drivers stand around drinking coffee until the front one gets a customer, when they have to start their engines and move forward the length of one car. Behind the T station is the Pit, a depressed circle of sidewalk with stairs on all sides, like a concrete version of my kindergarten. Kids are sitting on all available surfaces, including the slanted back of the subway entrance where they are perched almost on top of one another’s shoulders. They are clustered into groups, and their faces have the same combination of boredom and barely contained mischief as the kids in the Quad. As if something melodramatic and possibly life-changing is about to happen, and everyone is ready for it. A few boys with skateboards have slanted a plank down against the stairs, like in Hugh’s photo, and ride around in loops, skateboard wheels rattling, the wood plank scraping against the concrete. The style here is punk, fluorescent Mohawks and multiple earrings, girls barely distinguishable from boys. Everyone seems plastered with accessories, zippers and leather and layers of different fabric patterns. The more an outfit clashes, the more authentic it seems, though I do see a few people with pet rats dyed to match their hair.
I wish I’d brought Tracy with me. She’d be annoying, but at least she looks like me. I’m sure I stand out in my outfit. I’m wearing red Converse high-tops, Guess jeans, a black hooded sweatshirt, and Hugh’s leather jacket. At home I’d imagined I looked sloppy and tough. Now I know it’s all wrong, not the pieces themselves but the overall effect. It looks too clean, unoriginal, like a costume bought in a bag at Woolworth’s the day before Halloween. I have zero accessories, only my green JanSport backpack over one shoulder, which suddenly seems childish.
I lean against a pay phone and take a pack of cigarettes out of my bag. Smoking, I know from the Quad, makes you look occupied, like you belong. I light one and inhale deeply, exhaling with an addict’s sigh.
It used to terrify me that my parents smoked. I’d stay up at night imagining their funerals. Our house smelled stale and dirty compared to the houses of my friends. When Hugh started smoking, I photocopied a picture of lung cancer from the encyclopedia in the library and gave it to him. He laughed and hung it up in his room. Now that I’ve started, I understand why they all ignored my begging for them to stop.
I tried smoking occasionally last year, but couldn’t get the hang of it. A week ago, I inhaled for the first time, accidentally, and already I’m up to a pack a day. I love everything about it—the smell the smoke leaves on my jacket collar, the bruised feeling of my lungs, and the rituals: thumping a new pack on the heel of my hand, removing only half of the tinfoil wrapping, turning one cigarette, middle row, second from the right, upside down and leaving it to smoke last, making a wish like it’s a birthday candle. I learned all of this in the Quad, where I now stop for a smoke before Photography. Tracy sits beside me coughing and waving her hand in front of her face. I’m saving the empty boxes of Marlboro Lights, which I buy at the convenience store on the way to school for $1.10, and taping them on the wall behind my bed. I plan to smoke enough to cover every inch of the walls of my room. My mother quit smoking when Owen was diagnosed with asthma, so I recently dug out the orange plastic ashtray she used to carry around the house. I keep it in my room, emptying it only when it gets so overcrowded it starts to smolder. I cover the smell by burning pine incense in a long wooden tray. As for my dad, he still smokes, mostly at the office and never around Owen. I can’t even stand it when he tries to talk to me, so I don’t worry about him dying anymore. I just find his smoking convenient. When I run out of cigarettes, there is always his carton in the pantry, extra long menthols that feel medicinal when I inhale, like Vicks VapoRub.
After three cigarettes in a row, a small corner of a cement stair clears of people, and I settle there, taking out the binder where I store Hugh’s photos and negatives in three-ring plastic sleeves. I have the camera with me, but I feel like I’ll draw too much attention to myself if I start snapping photos. Instead, I work on my photo lists. I’m matching the numbers on the negatives to memories, figuring out the year they were taken and writing down what I can remember. His later photos, of the Quad and his friends I never met, have big question marks next to them. Writing stuff down has always made me feel better. That’s why I keep track of the time in class. When I was little I kept lists of everything, like my stuffed animals by name and birth date, or my Christmas presents in the order I opened them.
It starts to drizzle, and I tuck my hair into the neck of my sweatshirt, pulling the hood like a visor over my forehead. When I next look up, someone is standing in front of me.
“Pick a hand,” a voice says, and I squint up, focusing on him. A boy a little older than me, hair sculpted sharply into black spikes, a diamond stud in one ear. His outfit is similar to mine, jeans and a leather jacket, but he has great accessories. Black combat boots that lace halfway up his calves, a thick chain leading from his back pocket to his metal-studded belt, a red plaid shirt, the flannel so worn it looks like it has a history, black waffled long underwear peeking at the collar. His jeans are dark with graffiti, cartoons fighting for space with what looks like poetry. His nose is small, slightly turned up, the same little-boy nose as Owen, like it’s his only feature that survived puberty. I think he’s wearing eyeliner.
“Go on,” he says. “Pick a hand. They don’t bite.” He’s holding two closed fists in front of me. One hand is in a fingerless gray glove, the other is bare, scabbed, and dirty.
I try to look bored as I tap his fist with my pen. I pick the gloved one, avoiding the scabs.
He turns the hand over, opening an empty palm.
“Sorry.” He grins. “Better luck next time.” Though I’m annoyed, I figure I can’t afford not to be nice to him. So I shrug and fake a smile.
“Can I bum a cigarette?” he says, and I take the pack of Marlboro Lights from my pocket. I have three left, and hesitate before grabbing two, leaving the lucky cigarette rolling alone inside the cardboard. I hand him one, and he wrinkles his boyish nose.
“Chick cigarettes,” he complains, but accepts it anyway. He sits down next to me and takes a metal Zippo from his pocket. He drags it across his thigh, opening and lighting it in two swift motions. He lights his cigarette with the sloppy flame first before offering to do mine. The lighter smells of gas, which I taste in the back of my throat on the first drag. On the thigh of his jeans, smearing the graffiti, is a dark mark from dragging that lighter over and over again. He holds the cigarette with his thumb and two fingers, drags deeply and looks around, bouncing his knee up and down like he can’t bear to sit still. At the nape of his neck is a braid so small and delicate it is like the hair of a doll.
“Whatcha writing?” he says, peering rudely at my binder. I shut it and cap my pen.
“Nothing,” I say, and he chuckles.
“You’re new here.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I know everyone in Harvard Square and I don’t know you.”
“You can’t know everyone,” I argue. “That’s impossible.”
“Ev-er-y-one,” he repeats, dragging each syllable out with a tired emphasis.
“I’m from Brookline,” I say. After I say it, it occurs to me that I could have lied.
“You run away?” he asks casually.
“No,” I say, too loud, making it sound impossible, when actually I liked him thinking it.
“Why’d you come all the way here to sit alone and write in a notebook, then? Don’t they let you loiter in Brookline?”
I shrug, not meeting his eyes. I can remember when it was effortless, talking to boys, I rarely thought before I opened my mouth. Now I am some sort of social retard.
“Oh, come on,” he says. “Is it a secret? You can tell me. I keep everyone’s secrets. Can’t get them out of me. I’m like a lawyer, or, what’s the other one?”
“A priest?” I can’t help but smile.
“Exactly. Tell Father Sebastian what’s troubling you, my child.”
“Nothing’s troubling me. I’m just looking for someone, that’s all.”
“Who? I told you I know everyone.”
“You don’t know this one,” I say.
“Try me,” he says.
I shake my head, my brother’s easy smile intruding into my mind. Then I think of something. I pull the picture of the Pit out of my folder, pointing to the boy with the spiked blond hair. “Do you know this guy?” I say.
“Sure, that’s Lionel,” he says, looking less amused. “But I can score for you without going to him.” It takes me a minute to get this.
“He’s a drug dealer?” I squeak before I can stop myself. Sebastian’s eyes had gone kind of cold and professional when I showed him the picture, but they flicker at this.
“Did I say that? I don’t think I did.”
“I just want to talk to him,” I say.
“Lionel’s not much of a talker.”
“Is he here?”
“Nope. Haven’t seen him today. Why are you looking for Lionel if you don’t want to score?”
“I just…I want to ask him something.” I have no idea what I might say to Lionel. Did you murder my brother? If not, do you know who did?
“Well, be careful. Guys like Lionel don’t like questions.”
“Forget it,” I say, feeling foolish. I’ve given too much away, too quickly. “It doesn’t matter,” I add. “I know a friend of his, that’s all.”
The drizzle that chased half the crowd into Au Bon Pain has cleared and people are now collecting around us again.
“Me, on the other hand, you can ask me anything you want. Go ahead. Ask me something.”
“Okay,” I say. “What are you doing here?”
He laughs. “I’m always here,” he says. “Twenty-four seven.”
“Are you homeless or something?”
“Not yet. They do kick me out periodically. Keeps life interesting.”
“Who does?”
“The ’rents,” he says.
“Your parents kick you out?” I’ve never even been grounded, and can’t imagine my parents ever getting mad enough to do such a thing. “Where do you sleep?”
“There’s lots of places I can crash.”
“Your parents must be horrible.”
“Aren’t yours?”
I shrug. I complain about my parents all the time, but it’s automatic. They are annoying, but have never done anything truly awful like hit me or molest me or send me away to a school for delinquents like other parents I know. They’re just generally disappointing, in ways that are hard to explain.
“Want to get high?” Sebastian asks me suddenly.
“No,” I say, trying to sound casual. “Not right now.”
He looks at me as if I’m about ten years old.
“Give me your lucky cigarette,” he says.
“It’s my last one,” I say.
“I know it’s your last one. Sheesh. I’m not gonna smoke it, I’m going to do something to cheer you up.”
“What, do I look sad or something?” I say, taking out the pack.
“Yeah, you do,” he says. He makes this observation quietly, without looking at me, as if he’s not expecting me to protest. He takes the Marlboro Lights box from me and digs in his pocket for a lighter—a yellow plastic Bic this time. He tells me to lay my binder flat on my knees, and he leans over it, grinding the flint wheel of the lighter back and forth without pressing on the lever. He does this for a minute or two, raining little black specks onto the marbled orange cover of my binder. He is so close I can smell the damp of his leather, stale cigarettes, and jeans worn too many times without a wash. I can see the white flakes of dried hair gel glittering at his scalp.
When my notebook has a fine layer of flint, he takes my lucky cigarette from the pack and runs it quickly over his tongue. Seeing inside his mouth startles me, and I blush, but he is too absorbed to notice.
He sweeps both sides of the damp cigarette across the notebook, collecting the flint. He blows on the paper, drying it, and replaces the cigarette, still upside down, into my empty package.
“For later,” he says, and he smiles. His eyes are mossy green with a star of gold around the pupil.
“I’m not,” I say.
“Not what?” he says, staring at me. He has annoyingly steady eye contact.
“Not sad,” I say.
“If you say so,” he says.
Two older boys come up to us, one with an orange Mohawk, the other with a wool hat pulled low over his ears.
“Let’s go, Sebastian,” the Mohawk says. “College kids need their fix.”
“Who’s this dude?” the other one says, gesturing at me.
I haven’t bothered to remove the hood of my sweatshirt. They snort in apology when Sebastian tells them I’m a girl. When I was younger, with my short hair and scraped knees, lots of people thought I was a boy. I always took it as a compliment, and though I know it should be insulting now that I’m older, I can’t bring myself to care.
“Want to come?” Sebastian says. I don’t get a chance to answer.
“No way,” the Mohawk says. “None of your girlfriends tonight. Slow us down.”
Sebastian looks as if he may argue, but I stop him.
“It’s okay,” I say. “I’m going home soon anyway.” I feel silly and kind of mad at the mention of his girlfriends. I don’t want to be added to a list of conquests. At the same time, I’m kind of disappointed that he was about to deny that I was one of them.
“See you later,” he says, and he lopes off, leaving me so abruptly I feel conspicuously alone. I open my notebook and write Lionel next to all the numbered negatives he appears in. I push away the hood of my sweatshirt to let the cool air tickle my scalp, and take out my lighter and the last cigarette.
“Lena?” a voice says, and I turn my head, looking up. It takes me a moment to realize that the preppy guy staring at me is Jeremy Lispet, who is twenty now and a student at Harvard. He’s with a girl, a short, chubby girl with glasses and bright red cheeks.
“Hi, Jeremy,” I say, standing up. He’s wearing a blazer and a maroon scarf over a white shirt and khakis. He’s looking around at the Pit as if he has just turned over a rock. He squints at my jacket, wondering.
“Do your parents know you’re here?” he says, and I force a smile.
“Sure,” I say. “I’m meeting friends to go see Back to the Future, but I was early.”
“Which theater?” Jeremy says. I had no idea there was more than one, and I open my mouth without planning an answer.
“Do you want us to walk you there?” Jeremy says.
“No, I’m okay,” I say. He is looking at me in a way I can’t stand. A way that has made me avoid talking to him for the last five years. My mother hears all about him when she sees Mrs. Lispet, and it always makes her lock herself in her bedroom like the old days.
“All right,” he says. “Be careful. Oh,” he says, when the girl next to him takes hold of his arm. “This is Sarah. My girlfriend.”
“Nice to meet you,” Sarah says. When she smiles she is suddenly pretty. I can’t help but grin back. That’s funny—Jeremy Lispet with a girlfriend.
“You really shouldn’t hang out here all alone,” Jeremy says, and that’s when I know my mother will hear about this. Sarah rolls her eyes.
“Give her a break, honey, this is Cambridge. What could happen to her in Cambridge?” Jeremy smiles stiffly, and they say goodbye. But he gives me a quick look back, as if to say: You know what can happen. We both know.
When they’re out of sight, I sit back down, lighting the cigarette I’ve been hiding in my palm. White stars explode from the tip, like the sparklers Hugh and I used to light on the Fourth of July. They’d always seemed dangerous to me, and I’d held them at arm’s length, turning my head and flinching. Now the sparks are closer, spiraling out with every drag of my cigarette, and I sit still, letting them almost touch my face before they disappear.
4. light bulb
The permission slip Mr. Gabriel sends home calls the class Human Development, but Danny says it’s sex ed. There is a check box on the bottom for religious parents who want their children to go to the library instead. Owen gives the form to his father, who blinks at it in the dim light of the living room.
“You’re doing this already?” he says, but doesn’t wait for an answer. “Come to me with any questions, okay?” he adds. Owen nods. His father has already told him how babies are made, warned him about wet dreams, alluded to and vaguely excused masturbation. Owen knows that Lena took Human Development, but wonders if, ten years ago, when the Fureys were still Catholic, and Hugh was in the fifth grade, his father would have described masturbation as a sin and checked the library box. Now Owen’s father signs the permission form with a quick, uninterested scrawl, barely forming the separate letters of his name.
On Friday after lunch, instead of the math time tests, all the girls go across the hall to Ms. Lieberman’s room, and her boys come over to fill the empty desks. The boys are strung tight, shooting crude phrases across the room like rubber bands. Their eruptions of laughter startle Mr. Gabriel, who, normally impenetrable, now looks pale and in pain.
“Settle down,” he calls out meekly, unrolling two posters that he tacks to the same corkboard he wheels out for geography. When he turns the board toward them, they explode again.
“That’s enough,” Mr. Gabriel barks, with more authority this time. They fall silent, but continue to grin and poke at one another.
