Fell of Dark (4 page)

I said nothing. The sun dried me out, and I fell asleep with my arms straight out to the sides and my legs together, like I'd been crucified. This has always been comfortable for me. I woke up for lunch alone, Lincoln gone. When I got up, there was a water stain from my back on the boards of my uncle's deck. You could see me in the form of a cross in the wood. It was full sun, just about lunchtime, so I thought I'd watch the stain evaporate. I waited and waited. A year and a half later, there's still the image of my crucifixion in the deck.

Unrealistic Love

HERE'S A LETTER I
wrote to you last year. Invisible you. It's not long.

I know you were born today. I've never seen a winter day like this. January 20, and it hit 73 degrees in the park. Streets turned into streams of melted snow. The whole city splashed. The hot sun made strangers kiss, and the sad danced. Murderers and thieves slept. It's a Saturday, so I sat on a bench and watched the traffic lights turn red at the same time and the cars stop all at once. Everybody listened to the birds sing.
She's found her way in,
I thought. Now all we have to do is find each other. We will. Of course, we will.

Resolution

CHRISTMAS CAME AND WENT.
Christmas Day, my mother and I ate in silence. When I cleared my throat, my mother dropped her fork on her plate and looked at me with such hope I felt ashamed. I thought:
Does my silence hurt her? Does the fact I haven't spoken to her stab her heart?

I wanted to tell her, “You make the best turkey in the world.” I wrote it on a piece of paper instead. My mother cried, and I had no right to beg her to stop.

For New Year's Eve, we ate pickled herring. I could eat a whole jar of herring. Actually, whatever you'd think to feed a seal would be good for me. Anything from the sea. I have small ears, and I sometimes bark like a seal,
ahr, ahr
.

I love you
, I wrote my mother.
Happy New Year.

“I love you, Erik, very much.”

I waited, and then I wrote,
Mom, you're too sad.

“You look so much like your father,” she said.

Then listen to him.

“What's he saying?”

I don't know. Maybe he's saying, Magda, the next time a man asks you out to lunch, say yes.

“Is he?”

I'm sorry I wrote that.

“You don't communicate anything for so long, and then this?”

I'm sorry.

“You should be,” she said. “You don't know how much I hurt, Erik. You don't know anything about it. You've never asked. You've been in your world. We've gotten by. I've gotten us by.”

I nodded. I could feel my silence, my darkness. Why does anyone speak or write?

“The tricky thing is this,” she said finally. “You're right. I'm dying on the vine.”

I made resolutions yesterday. Here they are:

1. Write more, read more, think more
   
2. Volunteer at the soup kitchen at St. Barnabas
   
3. Try to get Mom to sleep in her bed
   
4. Stay alive
   

Pause

I WANT YOU TO
hear the silence. I want you to breathe and listen. Let the gap represent all the things, unimportant and important, I've decided to keep to myself.

Kiss

MY MOTHER HAD TO
rely on babysitters. No getting around it, a single mom. The one she used most, Janet Gill, began sitting for me when I was seven. Janet always wore dresses. That's how I remember it. Dresses no matter what the weather was like. She was five and a half years older than me and almost twice my height. At least it seemed like it. Most of her height was in her neck.

I remember the first time she made me feel like a giant.

She nearly laughed when I dragged her huge schoolbag into the apartment. My mother had raised me to be a gentleman. I carry bags when I can. I open doors. I stand when a woman enters the room. I offer my seat. I walk on the outside. So I brought in Janet's bag, and she said, “Let me feel your muscles, big boy.” I must have blushed, because she smiled. I saw row after row of tiny bright teeth. “Come on, bashful, let me feel.”

I made a muscle for her, curling my skinny arm. My body shook I tried so hard to make a muscle worth showing. I dreamed up muscles to impress her. Janet pinched my arm between her fingers and nodded once, a weird frown of approval. “You're a strong boy,” she said. “It's like a little stone in there. Imagine what you'll be like when you're grown up.”

I felt proud. Every time she came to the house, I wanted her to touch my arm, or my legs, or my shoulders and tell me I was strong. She touched me, and she smiled, and I became a giant to keep her company.

Finally, everything changed. When I was nine and Janet had been around for two years, we had a turning point, I guess you could call it, over her homework.

“What's wrong?” I said.

“Stupid algebra,” she said. “Drives me nuts.”

“Let me see.”

“What?”

“Let me see,” I told her. “I take all these enrichment classes since nobody knows what to do with me. I take advanced math.”

“All this time with you,” she said, “and I never knew you were a little prodigy. I mean, I knew you were crazy, and you have a big vocabulary for your age, and you're strong, but we never talked about school.”

“I keep it secret.”

“Uh-huh,” she said. “Well, here it is.”

I took her homework. “We can do this one of two ways,” I said. “I can give you the answers, or you can do it with me to understand.”

Janet laughed: “I'll do it with you, handsome.”

I nearly choked. At this exact moment, I got confused and thought she might be you. I was confused a long time.

“You would be my wife if we were grown up.” That's what I said, two years later.

“I don't know, Erik. You're scary.” That's how Janet Gill answered.

I was eleven, and she didn't come as often as she used to. She split her time between high school and ballet. Now she dances for one of the famous companies—ABT, I think—but then she still took outside lessons. I hardly needed the sitting, since I'd gotten tall and strong for my age.

“Maybe you're already my wife,” I said. “Husbands and wives help each other survive. They hold each other in their hearts. I've given this a lot of thought, Janet.”

Janet laughed. “You can't be my husband, Erik.” She laid her head on her arm and stared up at me, dreamy and smiling. “Even though I can't think of anyone better for the job,” she said, “we're a lot too young for that kind of talk.” Then she kissed me. She lifted her head and kissed my cheek. “I wish the guys I'm around all day had your depth. They don't.”

I didn't move a muscle. She'd just broken my heart and taught me a lesson. Everything inside me, everything solid, organs and bones, turned to water. I sloshed and slooshed. I'd made a mistake. You, my true love, would never deny me.

“Who are you?” Janet said. “What are you?” She put her hand on my shoulder. “You're a strange one. A superboy. You'll be a superhero. Everyone will wonder about you. You'll be loved and hated. Your enemies will want to destroy the world and kidnap me. I'll say, I knew him when his muscles were small and he was half my size. I'll tell people, He did my homework for me at nine, and one day I kissed him.” She pulled me closer by the shoulder and kissed my cheek again. She kissed my ear. Then she whispered: “Are you ready?”

I nodded.

“I will never babysit for you after this, and we might never see each other again.”

“I know,” I said.

“Then we both know.”

Her lips trembled, and I wondered if she had ever kissed anyone before. When would she have time between high school and rehearsal?

The dry, shaking kiss came. She bit my lip. For a long second, she wouldn't let go.

No magic or miracle other than this. An older girl kissed a younger boy, a boy much older than she'd ever be.

When my mother returned home, she sensed something had changed. Her eyes switched from Janet to me and back again. “Something happen?”

“Mrs. Lynch,” she said, “I told Erik first, but I can't come here anymore. I don't think he needs me, and I dance too much. I don't have the time.”

“Oh.” My mother caught my eye. “I guess I wish you'd spoken to me first, Janet, but it's really Erik you have to care for. I understand your decision. We'll miss you. Erik especially. We'll keep track when you're famous.”

“That would be nice, Mrs. Lynch. Thank you.” Janet put her hand on my shoulder and turned me toward her. “Give me a hug.” For what seemed like a century, I watched her face and her never-ending neck. She held me and whispered into my ear. “Maybe, Erik, maybe one day, real love.”

“Well, here,” my mother said and handed Janet her last pay. They hugged, and Janet left.

My mother closed the door after her. “Are you sure nothing happened, Erik? That seemed very awkward. I felt like I interrupted you two.”

“What could you have interrupted, Mama? She was my minder.”

“Well, what did she whisper?”

“Nothing,” I said.

“She whispered something, Erik.”

“Nothing important. Just good-bye.”

“And your lip?”

I touched my mouth.

For the first time, I lied to my mother. I betrayed my mother, and for another little while, a month or more, I kept silent.

Wife

SOMETIME IN THE FUTURE,
when I'm older, I will know you, my true love, at first sight. People won't believe me. They'll call me crazy or, worse, stupid. You'll look at me right away as if you own me. You'll look at me with some mixture of love, kindness, gentleness, and whatever else a woman has in her eyes when she looks at her true love. Then we'll decide to take a walk together, and on the walk, you'll say, “I can't believe I found you,” and I'll say, “Who am I?”

“My husband,” you'll say.

“And who are you?” I'll say.

“Your wife,” you'll say.

“There it is,” I'll say.

We'll kiss. We'll kiss. I'll pick you up in my arms, right there, on the street and walk with you, kissing you, until we pass by a couple of kids who'll start laughing at us, and then I'll put you down, and we'll hold hands, walk for a time in silence, until I say, “We have to find our home.”

I've never wanted a girlfriend. I've never wanted to go on dates. I've only wanted a wife.

That's right. But for now, you are you, only you, all you, undiscovered.