City of Boys Page 13

  —He was bleeding, I finally say. —He has a disease that makes his chest bleed.

  She looks over at the girl on her other side. Their eyes meet in the mirror and they trade their miniature cosmetics. The girl next to me draws large red circles on her cheeks and I smile at her.

  I want these girls as my friends. I walk down the hall just a step behind them and grow older with each moment.

  —Lizzie, Glennie calls from the water fountain where he stands alone, but I do not hear him as I walk down the hall with these girls. Our skirts rustle in the cold air.

  What happens after this is what happens, and cannot be changed. Over the years only cruelties pass between us, and I do not remember them except as little flare-ups in a long glowing stretch of mirror. His cruelties are small, but dazzling in their sincerity. He calls me desperate names to get my attention, but I hear them only distantly; they are like the faint buzz of a fly caught between a window and a screen.

  * * *

  Glennie looks at me slyly over his cereal at the breakfast table, where I sit unwillingly, eating little, waiting to be released to school.

  —Lizzie, he says, his voice rising and falling in a little song.

  —I saw that boy you like.

  I look down at my bowl, soggy lumps of cereal floating in yellow milk. My parents do not look up from their papers, but they tilt their heads to listen, and after a moment their eyes meet.

  —He was smoking pot, Glennie says, and laughs. —Right on the street corner.

  My parents’ heads swivel slowly toward me like heavy flowers waving on thin stalks. They gaze blindly at me, waiting for an explanation, while Glennie smiles and drowns the lumps of cereal in his bowl, pretending they are bugs clinging to crumbling boats.

  When I walk by him later, he is standing in the open door, shirtless in the heat, trying to decide whether to stay in or go out. He has already forgotten the betrayal at breakfast, but I have not, and as I walk by him I am unable to stop myself. I watch my arm swing out, as though it belongs to someone else, and slap him hard on his back; it makes a horrible satisfying smack in the quiet afternoon and he turns to me with tears in his eyes. —Lizzie, he says, in horror and disbelief, touching his hand to his soft cheek. —You made me cry.

  His cruel little deeds are forgotten in a moment, swallowed up in his strange days, but mine will never fade, each a testimony to the frailty of my love. This slap will resound through the years; it will draw for me all the boundaries of my past and my future, his face turning to me in slack-jawed stunned innocence, the afternoon sun shining brightly behind him, his cheeks glittering with unaccustomed tears.

  These years of closed doors—I can hardly believe they happen. I barely remember each moment even as it ends. —Lizzie, he whispers at my door. —Let me in. I have to talk to you. I look out the window and watch the owls gathering in the trees. If he is gone before I sleep, I do not know. I imagine him curling up outside my room, and I can hear his slow breath through the thin door, his tiny heart beating against the floor. I lock the door and leave him to his life. He will get in my way and I will be left behind, mired in whatever it is I feel for him. I have no other choice: I lock my door and do not hear the faint scratch of his nails against the hollow wood.

  These are years that never happen. At school I look in the mirror and meet the eyes of the other girls. We exchange our lipsticks, and admire each other for the boys whose eyes we will catch, the boys who will watch us in the mirrors of their cars. Hardly a moment goes by for us that does not pass under the gaze of those boys, and I work hard to let them see how much I want them. They are so sleek, with their smooth hairless chests, and I am only happy when I find myself with one or another of them in the back seat of his car, the moon rising all around us, the engine hissing, our breath rising against the windows. I forget each boy’s name as we kiss, his face as he touches me, and when he lays his body over mine, inert and inattentive, I smile with a secret pleasure, but whenever I am careless enough to look over some boy’s shaggy head, I see Glennie there, his eyes like little black cavities in the moon; Owlcake, he winks, and turns to let a spray of butterflies into the milky sky. I close my eyes and concentrate on the smell of a strange boy’s skin, his quick breath in my ear, the unfamiliar welcome heart beating against my breast.

  In the hall mirror at home, I practice looking up at boys from under my eyelashes; I practice three or four dazzling smiles before I notice a little blot at the edge of the mirror, and turn to see Glennie hunched in a corner, staring at me. Every day at school he creeps along the hallways behind me. When I turn to smile at a boy, he is there, watching us from some doorway, or half hidden by his locker. I freeze my smile and fix my eyes on the face of the boy in front of me, so he won’t turn and see Glennie watching us.

  As I wait here by the campus, the boy I will love closes his eyes and finally sleeps, finally dreams. His roommate raises himself up on one bony elbow and watches the boy I love sleep and dream of me.

  When I am finally let free to go to college, my suitcases sit in a heap by the door. My mother becomes sentimental and adds to the pile a stuffed panda from my closet. I return it, but later it is replaced by a tiger whose face has been rubbed smooth. Glennie says nothing while all of this goes on. He hates school, and he is getting fat, swelling out of his shirts, rocking in the hot desert of the August sun.

  —Glennie, I’ll see you at Thanksgiving, I say. —Okay?

  —Okay, he says, not looking at me. He drags a stick through the ground, disrupting an anthill, and my mother and father listen to us from behind their closed door.

  Here at school I have tried not to expect anything. I go to classes and do not think of home at all. When I arrived, my new roommate suggested that we get identical bedspreads, and curtains to match. I could not think of what to say and only stared at her, fingering the rough chenille of the bedspread that covered my bed at home for so many years. She has a boyfriend who leaves when I come in, not looking at me.

  —Elizabeth, my mother says on the telephone. —You’ll have to come home. Your father and I need to talk to you. I have been here only a month. My roommate files her nails and looks at herself in the mirror.

  —What about? I ask.

  —Your brother, she says. Her voice is higher-pitched than usual, and it is clear she will say no more on the phone. My roommate looks at me without interest, and bites at the corner of one of her nails.

  At the airport my mother stands nervously in the entrance-way, so that I have only a moment to compose a face to meet her. She kisses me quickly on the cheek.

  —Let’s go, she says. —I’m double-parked. She turns and I notice that she has somehow acquired a tan while I’ve been gone, even though it is bleak fall in Ohio.

  Before she starts the car, she pulls the sun visor down to check her makeup in the mirror, using her little finger to rub away the faint smears of lipstick in the corners of her mouth. As we pull out of the airport onto the highway, she drums her long fingernails on the hard plastic of the steering wheel, and her eyes go back and forth between the rearview mirror and the road ahead, though there is almost no traffic.

  —We’ve decided to send Glen away, she finally says. —To a school.

  She glances in the side mirror. I roll my window up and down and stare at the landscape. So quickly have I become accustomed to the gentle hills of the East that this flat stretch of ground surprises me.

  —Away? I say. —What kind of school?

  —A special school. She glances at me, but I look away quickly, straight ahead. —We have to, she says, changing lanes and driving right into the splat of a bug on the windshield. —Damn, she says, turning on the wipers.

  —Have to? I say. She turns the wipers off, but there is still a greenish smear where the bug hit the glass.

  —Well, she says, —we can’t, and she pauses, pretending to search for the words they have already decided upon, —control him. He has a problem, she says, glancing at me quickly. —With
girls.

  I feel the world shrinking, narrowing around me, and I open my window wider. My mother has found her voice again and she goes on.

  —He forced himself, she says, pausing to push in the cigarette lighter, —on a girl at school. Get me a cigarette, will you, honey?

  She pushes her purse toward me.

  —What do you mean? I ask her. I know what she means, but I want to make her say it again. She looks in the mirror, takes the cigarette I offer her.

  —We don’t exactly know what happened. The janitor caught them. It was after school one day. In the auditorium. Behind the stage. She waits for me to say something. I roll my window up, down.

  —He’s just different, is all I can finally come up with. —I’m sure it wasn’t his fault, I say. I smile reassuringly at her, but I can imagine Glennie smiling secretly at the girl, following her secretly behind the heavy velvet curtains. I have no doubt he did it.

  —Oh, honey, my mother says. —You don’t understand. All he does is eat and sit in his room, or watch your father in the garden. He doesn’t even watch TV. Without you here he’s impossible.

  —He’s your responsibility, I say, but my voice is hollow. We both know this is not true.

  —Oh, honey. She reaches over to stroke my cheek. It is a gesture left over from a time I don’t remember, a time that may never have actually happened. I let myself feel nothing except the touch of her hand; the smell of smoke clings to her skin and hair and clothing. I will start smoking myself soon, and that sweet compelling presence of smoke will carry my mother with me through all the gestures of my life. We drive the rest of the way in a silence broken only by the occasional drumming of her nails on the wheel and the pop of the cigarette lighter.

  Glennie has grown larger in my short absence, so that, rocking on his heels in the yard, he topples backward into the leaves. He sits up suddenly, surprised by this betrayal of his body, and looks at the ground around him as if searching for some ballast to loose. His ankles are puffy and he looks up when I slam the car door.

  One night is all I have agreed to spend here, and I lock my door when I go to bed, but Glennie is already in his room, his door closed. I listen all night long for him, but hear nothing, not even the whispers of my parents, or the occasional rustle of a squirrel outside my window. In the morning, I smooth the blankets up over my pillow, and go down to breakfast, eager to show the sleepless circles under my eyes.

  —Elizabeth, my mother says, looking at my father, who stares glumly out at his bare, ruined garden, dreaming of summer and spring. —We want you to drive your brother to the school. It’s all arranged.

  I feel as if I have come home to find a pet savagely neglected in my absence; all I can think is if only I hadn’t left, and all I can think is if only I hadn’t come back. This is not something I want to see. So much is happening now. Soon I will fall in love. Soon my father will die of a heart attack in his garden, and my mother will turn her face to me at last. Glennie will run away from the school, and I will wait here until he comes. These things will all happen, but for now all that is happening is this: we will drive together to the school. My parents will wave us off from behind their closed door; then they will turn and fall into each other’s arms.

  The boy I will love is awakened suddenly by some noise, but when he opens his eyes, there is nothing there. He thinks of what it must be like to touch my breasts, my white legs, and he swoons in a dream of heat and longing, but I do not let him touch me.

  The world rushes by us as we drive across the vast, flat waste of the Midwest.

  Glennie rubs his lips against the window. —Lizzie, he says.

  —I don’t want to go.

  —I don’t want you to go either, I say.

  —I want to go to school, he says. —Like you.

  —You are, Glennie. You are going to school. That’s where we’re going now.

  I feel his head turn slowly to face me, but I keep my eyes on the road. He closes his eyes and dreams, his head rocking against the window, and the miles go by like minutes.

  —Lizzie, he says, looking up from a book of travel games.

  —I’m bored.

  A huge truck pulls up on the right and slows. The driver stares down at us for a moment, then waggles his tongue between his teeth.

  —Look, Glennie, I say. —That truck is from California. Why don’t you count license plates? Remember, you used to love to do that.

  He gives me a scornful look. —I’m not a baby, he says, and savagely darkens a square on the page of his travel book. I want to ask him why he did it, what was he thinking, who was that girl, and what did he say as he held his hand to her face, his other hand round her neck. I want to ask all this, but already I know that answers are never really answers, they are only more questions. He would only smile sweetly and tell me it was me.

  —Lizzie, he says, —I’m hungry. Let’s stop and eat.

  He points at signs along the highway, for truck stops or restaurants, and I tell him we have sandwiches in a cooler in the back.

  —I don’t want sandwiches, he says. —I hate sandwiches. He throws his book to the floor of the car and turns his face to the window. After a while I hear him whisper to himself:

  —Ohio, Indiana, Ohio. His voice flutters against the window, and I keep my eyes on the road, the long strip of black that will take me there and take me back.

  Glennie pulls down the sunshield and looks in the mirror that Mother uses to comb her hair. —Lizzie. Look how round my cheeks are.

  —Like apples, I say.

  He looks again, turns his face from side to side, touches his cheeks. —Do we have any apples? he asks.

  —We have sandwiches. And cookies.

  —No apples?

  —No apples.

  —Let’s stop and get some apples, he says. His face bobs at the window, searching for signs to the next exit.

  —Glennie, I say, —why don’t you just have a cookie? You don’t even like apples.

  He turns on me furiously. —How would you know? he says.

  —How would you know what I like? You haven’t even been here. I love apples. I love them.

  These child’s words sound strange in his changing throat. He rocks in his seat and his eyes are as slick as oysters blue and full of tears.

  —Look, Glennie, I say. —There’s an exit. We can stop and get some apples.

  He does not look at me, but rolls down his window and gazes at the driver of the car we must pass to get into the exit lane. The driver glances over at Glennie and looks quickly in his rearview mirror. When he slows down, we pass and move into the exit lane.

  From the store, I can see Glennie blowing against the car window, then drawing sloppy hearts in the steam left by his breath. He does not see me. He breathes against the glass and draws my name, then wipes it off with his moist hand and smiles to himself as I come back with the apples.

  As I wait here, it grows chilly and wet. Boys and girls turn off lights, put away books. My roommate wonders for a moment where I am, then turns out the light in our room.

  Glennie’s school has tall fences and a guard, who waves us in without stopping to check our forms. Glennie does not look around, but continues to draw thick circles around jumbled words in his travel book. In the office they seem somewhat surprised that I am the only one with him, but they adjust quickly, and reach out to him with kind, efficient hands. He pulls away and stands by aloofly, watching while we make arrangements. I look up from the papers and his eyes meet mine, unbelieving: surely I am not going to leave him here; surely we can regain all that we have lost.

  —This will be fun, I tell him. —You’re going to like it here. He nods, but we both know that this is a place in which nothing can be believed. Boys stand around sullenly, leaning against walls, waiting for someone to claim them, and now he is one of them.

  We walk to his room and are left alone for a few minutes. I do not ask him what he was looking for in that girl, but as I say goodbye to him at the do
or of his blank white room, he turns away from me and says to the thin mesh covering his windows: —I didn’t do anything to that girl, Lizzie. I just missed you.

  Walls rise behind him and his hands open and close at his sides like tiny wings.

  Driving home from the school, I am for the first time alone; I feel as if I have reached the end of my life, and a new life can now begin. I push Glennie from my world; he is fine, I tell myself, he will be just fine there, and all I will let myself notice from this night are the stars overhead, a sky packed full of them. I close my eyes a moment, and Glennie whispers, —Owlcake, but when I open my eyes, all I can see is a sky full of stars.

  When my mother calls, I know something has gone wrong, because it is the only reason she would have to call me.

  —Elizabeth, she says, —Glennie’s gone.

  —Gone? I repeat. My roommate looks up from her legs, then goes back to spreading lotion along the smooth dark skin.

  —From the school. He ran away.

  I’ve been waiting for this call, but I don’t want it. I know he will ruin everything, and I would rather spend my life alone, unobstructed by his gaze as he stares past me into a darkness I can only see reflected in his eyes.

  The library has closed now, and most of the lights have gone out in most of the buildings, but cars still rush by, on their way to Boston or New York. The drivers pay no attention to me standing here waiting. I have brought all the money I could find, and still I know it’s not enough. When Glennie comes, I want to turn away or hide. I see him across the busy highway, moving closer in his dark jacket and pants. He has grown taller in his short time at the school, taller and thin, and his white face catches the moonlight. Like a raccoon or a possum, he creeps along the side of the road, waiting for a break in the traffic, and his eyes gleam in the rushing lights. He is dressed like a thief, moves like a thief, crosses the road like a thief. Our eyes meet and we both look away, suddenly shy.

  —Look, I say. —I brought you some money.

  I hold it out and he looks down at it, then glances around the campus, then at me. —Lizzie, he says. —I want to stay here. With you.