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WINTER, PART 1 Ricky’s parents brought him back to school very early Sunday morning, and Tom had said he’d be there in the afternoon, so Sunday morning would be quiet time for Ricky. Too quiet. He’d done too much thinking than was necessary or healthy over the past few days. When he walked down the hall to his room, he noticed something in the slot on the door. Each room had a little wooden slot or tray bolted onto the door. It was for mail. “Mail” was a very quaint old concept to most of these boys, of course. Parents and anyone else pretty much always communicated by cell phone or text or e-mail. A few of the guys got magazines, like Tom’s monthly Chess Life or a few other kids’ skateboard mags. Some older kids got information about college applications, or the football players would sometimes get recruiting packages from colleges. Teddy Bear used to collect piles and piles of those. But in general, these mail slots were almost always empty, a traditional relic, a link to bygone days. Ricky had never once gotten anything in his. But here was something. Ricky looked at the envelope which had his name neatly printed on it. Then it said the school’s name, followed by Ripton, Georgia. There wasn’t a zip code. Ricky looked at the thing strangely and held it up to the light. Then he noticed a round purple stamp on the envelope that he couldn’t read all of. The stamp said 23 Nov 2006 on one part of the circle and S Burlington VT, followed by a few numbers, on another. All that didn’t help solve the mystery at all. Ricky opened the thing and began to read. It was a letter all right, written on a piece of school notebook paper, the kind with three holes on the left. It was in big neat printed letters, just like the kind Ricky wrote. Ricky liked big printing. Made stuff easier to read. Dear Ricky, This is Matt. I wish it was your brother Matt who could write to you, but I’m the other Matt. Ricky, maybe you know by now that I’m not in Asheville any more, and it doesn’t look like I’ll be heading back there anytime soon. Yeah, we had that joke together about maybe I’ll see you somewhere down the line, but that seems not so likely anymore. I guess it could happen still, but nothing’s guaranteed now. Maybe you’ve heard people say things about me, and well, what you believe or don’t believe is up to you. I just wanted to say that I really, really enjoyed the time we had together last summer. You’re such a great musician, and such a great kid. You’re so rare and special—you have the musical talent, and you have goodness inside you that not every boy your age does. I wanted so much to see you grow up, see you grow both as a musician and also from boy into young man. But we can’t always have everything we want in life, and I know that probably too well. Good luck, Ricky. I’ll always remember you. Your friend, Matt Parsons Ricky read the letter a couple more times, trying to figure out if there was any extra meaning that he hadn’t understood previously, and then carefully stuck it back inside the envelope. He intended to keep it forever, or at least as long as it took before he could see Matt again. He then took a walk around the quiet campus, ate the school’s big Sunday brunch, and practiced some fiddling. Hours passed without him having any realization of time, any realization of anything. He then remembered something important, and his cell phone came out again, and the boy heard who he wanted to. “Jay? It’s me, Ricky. What’s up, circus freak?” “RICKY!!” replied the other boy, all excited, as he usually was. “What have you been up to? Where are you now?” “Nothing as exciting as you, that’s for damn sure. I’m back at school, just finished Thanksgiving break. Where the hell are YOU now?” “Galveston, Texas. Ya ever been there? It’s fun, people say it’s the world’s #1 party town, but we’ve been on the road so long now, we just got one more week, then a couple days of driving, then another carnie stop in Pensacola, then we’re done for at least a couple months or so. Lot of work, you know. Mom and Dad are getting bitchy these days, they work so hard, we’re really ready to get home.” “Hey, Jay. Remember you said maybe you could come to visit us in North Carolina for a few days around Christmas? That would be so cool, my parents said it would be OK. Can you make it? Last time you showed me stuff, remember that night we got all crazy last summer? Yeah, poking those sticks up the girls’ shorts? Hey, this time I’ll show you our town. How ‘bout it, man?” “YEAH! All the way! I’m so down for it, any farther down I’d be burning in hell. Let me have your parents’ phone number, I bet my parents will let me, they’ll probably send me by bus, it’ll be like my Christmas present, kind of. Let’s do it, man!” The kids talked for a few minutes more, making specific plans. Ricky wondered why Jay was always so hyper. He’s even crazier than Tom, and probably almost as smart. Well, compared to me, everyone’s smart. Ricky put his phone away in the velcro pocket of his cargo pants and was about to walk back to Hummer to put his fiddle back in the room and maybe take a nap. But before he got far, he heard another hyper voice, one he knew better than any other. “Hey, Ricky, get over here, quick, we need your help! AHHHH, GET THE FUCK OFF ME, YOU LITTLE SHITHEADS! Hurry up, Ricky!” The noise came from just outside the sports complex. Mr. Mayne must have gotten a couple of the soft pole vault pits from out of the building, and there was a massive tag team professional wrestling match going on. It was Father Ray, Mr. Mayne, and Tom against at least 15 or 20 useless little 7th grade members of Father Ray’s new Flock of Geeks club. Father Ray and Mr. Mayne could pretty much do whatever they wanted with the little creatures, but Tom, though he was now over 5 foot 6 and growing somewhat stronger, was having serious trouble handling eight or nine of the anklebiters at once. His cries for help were soon muffled as a couple seventh-graders were sitting on his face. Ricky grinned. All right, as long as he’s been here, I’ve had to help Tom get out of bad stuff. Let’s go. Ricky sprinted the 50 yards towards the scene. The exercise, movement, and play felt great. Ricky had been doing much too much brooding, sitting, and thinking for several days now, and this was just what he needed. It took a lot of sweaty effort, but he and Tom together were more than a match for all the smaller kids. Mr. Mayne and Father Ray took a short break and watched the two 9th graders mercilessly pound, strangle, and tickle the smaller boys til they squealed and begged for mercy. Ricky and Tom challenged the little ones for more, tried to grab hold of them as they hid or escaped off of the pits. Mr. Mayne and Father Ray grabbed a few of the more cowardly Bats boys and pushed them back onto the pits so they could receive more punishment. The men eventually felt it was getting a little too one-sided, so they changed sides, joining the 7th graders for a final all-out surprise attack against Tom and Ricky, who took some serious hits themselves before they successfully squirmed free and ran far and fast across the fields towards their own dorm. “That….” Tom panted, hands on his knees, “was….serious fun. I never….I never needed any help, ya know, I was just kidding. Did you see me beat the crap out of those little kids?” “Oh yeah, Tom, you’re just such a man, oh yeah, I just wish I could be as macho as you, didn’t you say before Thanksgiving you were gonna do your Bruce Lee thing to Justin? Let’s see it, I bet he’s back now!” “I gotta think about it first, plan my strategy, you know.” “You’ll be thinking about it all year, pussy meat!” Ricky smiled and closed his eyes for a moment while he recovered his breath. It felt so good to hear Tom’s voice again. After hanging out for awhile, having dinner, and playing some music up at Riley’s, it was cold and time to head back and get ready for bed. Ricky felt better now, though still hadn’t forgotten everything that had happened over break. The boys undressed and climbed into their own bunks, but weren’t really tired yet. Ricky wanted to ask Tom some stuff. “Tom? Remember I told you before break all about Matt, and you know, about that cop?” “Yeah. Did you find anything out from that lady musician friend you know? What did she say?” “She couldn’t tell me much, she didn’t know much more than I did. I think Matt ran away, maybe he found out cops were after him, and I don’t know if they’ve caught him or not. Some people have accused him of stuff, but I don’t believe that bullshit, I’ll defend him if I can or I have to. Hey, I got this weird letter from him. You wanna see?” Ricky climbed out of bed and passed the neatly-printed letter up to his friend in the top bunk. The younger boy read it carefully, though he obviously didn’t know anything more than Ricky did. “Hey, Tom, what’s Sperlington Vit mean?” “Huh? What?” “Look at the envelope. Someone put on a stamp, a round mark, it says Sperlington Vit.” Tom looked and rolled his eyes. “Ricky, you’re such a jerkoff, that isn’t Sperlington Vit! The S stands for South, and VT stands for Vermont. It means South Burlington, Vermont, and the numbers starting with zero are the zip code up there. That mark is where the letter came from, or at least where it passed through somewhere along the way here. Maybe that’s where Matt was, or is, or passed through sometime. But whatever, it’s nice that he still thinks about you.” “Mmmm. OK, I get it now. Well, I’ll tell you this much, no way any cop is gonna get this letter off me. I’m gonna hide it, it’s my business, not theirs. Hey, Tom, do you ever sometimes think about Bobby, you know, wonder how he’s doing?” Tom was quiet for a minute. “No, not for a long time. Damn, with everything that’s been going on, you know, cross-country, the Noga, all the bad shit in between, he kind of disappeared out of my head. That sucks, I bet no one here thinks much about him any more.” “Yeah, man, it does suck. I kind of forgot him for awhile, too. No way we should forget people. Goodnight, Tom.” PART 2 “Miserable bastards!” growled Ricky’s father under his breath as he emerged from the hospital where he worked into the parking lot. It was a bright, pleasant early-winter’s Monday afternoon, not even very cold, but nothing today could help his mood. “Miserable FUCKING BASTARDS!” he shouted, not caring if anyone heard. Mr. Spann was never a demonstrative, angry, or foul-mouthed man, but today he couldn’t help himself. “Miserable fucking BASTARDS!” he shouted again at the white stone building. “IS THAT WHAT YOU MEAN BY LOYALTY?” He balled his hand into a fist and punched a metal “Handicapped Parking Only” sign that stood on its metal post. He was surprised when he realized he’d actually dented the thing. He was about to head over to his car, but stopped and squatted down on his haunches, desperately trying to think about this new situation, this whole life change. Earlier that day, there had been a meeting. About 50 of the hospital’s administrative, clerical, finanacial, and non-patient-care staff were introduced to a smiling, tall, good-looking man named Andrew, who no one had seen before. He said he had news for everyone. He was from Raleigh, and was the CEO of a health-care conglomerate that served four states. He said that the hospital was now affiliating with his organization, which was bringing in new people from their Winston-Salem offices. Andrew said that everyone appreciated all the years of loyal service that everyone in the room had given, and he was confident that with this move forward, patients could be served better and more efficiently. Everyone in the room was given notice that the following Friday would be their last day working here. End of employment, end of benefits, end of medical insurance, end, end, end. Thank you all very much, and all of us at Healthsouth Managed Care Corp. would like to wish you and your families a joyful and peaceful holiday season. Dad stayed in his squatting position, and looked up close at the palm of his hand, whose fingers were massaging his forehead. Wasn’t a young man’s hand anymore—he was 46, had been with the hospital close to 20 years, and hadn’t really expected or thought much about what would it would ever be like to be unemployed. Unemployed, getting old, and useless. His hair was slightly gray on the sides, just barely noticeable, unless someone was looking hard. Plans and possibilities raced through his head, but he couldn’t focus on any one of the ideas long enough to think intelligently. He didn’t want to drive home yet, as he didn’t think he was in any emotional state to get behind the wheel of a car, even for the short 4-mile drive back to the house. He simply walked around the parking lot and surrounding grassy areas, trying to get his head together. He didn’t get into the car and drive home until two hours later. Mom was home, in the process of making everyone’s favorite meatloaf. She was singing something stupid to Ugly, who only tolerated her voice because she’d occasionally drop him a piece of food. Ricky was the one with the musical talent in the family, though only God knew where it came from. Dad tried, pretty successfully, to fake feeling normal until dinner was done, and then took his wife’s hands in his, looked deep in her eyes, and said they had to talk. Dishes could wait, wait all damned night if they felt like it. “Carla, dear, the hospital’s being taken over by a regional corporation, and I’m out.” There was some silence for a minute, both people looking at each other, sinking deeper into the den couch. “Out? Cameron, what’s ‘out’?” “Out is out. Fired, laid off, gone. Unemployed. Not just me, but damn near everyone in the business end of things there. Our services are no longer required, we appreciate all you’ve done for us, have a merry Christmas, and in eleven more days we’re gone. Simple, quick, painless, right? Damn, I shouldn’t be whining and feeling sorry for myself, we have decisions to make, dear.” “Oh, Cameron, I…I don’t know what to say. Look, I…Cameron, I’m here and I always will be. What are our options?” Mom, though she was also a highly-trained computer expert and a Stanford graduate, was in a lot of ways an old-fashioned wife, more old-fashioned than most women in the 21st century. She had her part-time work, but actually enjoyed doing things like cooking, cleaning, taking care of Matt in the early years, and Ricky more recently. She was a brilliant woman, and gave Dad insight and guidance into everything he did, but was more comfortable letting her husband make big decisions, letting him be the final authority. A more traditional wife’s role, if the word traditional was applicable anymore. “Dear, I’ve tried this afternoon to turn some things over in my head. No option is great. But I’ve tried to think at least a little bit logically about how we can do things. Thank God for those early years back in California. We were high-tech wonder kids, remember? The 80’s, we had the world at our feet, remember?” Mom just smiled softly and let her husband keep talking. “All right, we have investments, we have backup money. We’re not going to starve. We have to decide what we’re gonna do. The way I see it, we have two paths we can take. We can put resumes on Monster.com or somewhere, put our names out nationally, and see who wants us. Who knows, maybe we could do even better. Masters degrees, there has to be something. Or, we could stay here, and I could try to find work wherever. Asheville’s our home, you know.” “Cameron, yeah, we have Masters degrees, but how much have we really kept up with our fields since we’ve been here and raised our kids? We’re not hot-shot young minds anymore. Is there demand out there for the likes of you and me? And Cameron, in this market, we’d get murdered trying to sell this house. It’s dirty, it’s lived-in, it’s had two boys running around it for all these years, and home prices are less than nothing. Less than nothing, and even if someone did want to buy this place, no one can get a mortgage these days. But we have to find something, my part-time work for the town, that’s just fluff money, that won’t cut it.” “I don’t know what to tell you,” Dad answered. “We did decide, all those years ago, that this slice of western North Carolina was where we’d make our stand, make our stand for better or worse. It really is a small town in the grand scheme of things. But like I said, it’s home. We have our friends here, we have our life here. But what am I gonna do? Pound the pavement, looking for some minimum-wage dead-end job? Yeah, how ‘bout clerk at a 7-11, or bag groceries, or maybe Ricky’s manager at Wal-Mart, what’s the guy’s name, Jeff I think, yeah, how ‘bout I go to him, hat in hand, and maybe he’ll give me 15 hours a week? So damn unfair, you put your life into a place for all those years and they put you out on the street just like that. No severance, no health insurance, no nothing.” Both people brought out financial records, brought out legal documents and stuff, and turned over options until late, late in the night. Dad figured that he could sleep later in the morning. What’s the hospital gonna do to me if I show up late tomorrow? Fire me? Their final decision wasn’t made until hours later. After much agonizing and some tears, they decided that they’d stay for a year. Stay for a year, and see what played out here. Painfully dip into savings, but well, if this didn’t qualify as a rainy day, what did? Asheville was their home. Home town, by now. In a year, they’d reevaluate everything, and decide if it was time to look elsewhere for a new life. They’d stay, for now. But changes would have to be made, lifestyle changes, financial changes, attitude changes. The two of them were exhausted physically and emotionally, but Dad had one more thing he wanted to mention, one more area where he wanted to make sure he and Mom were on the same page. “Carla? Oh, what a day. Last thing. Let’s not tell Ricky about any of this, let’s tell him nothing, until the end of his Christmas break. He said he wanted to invite that kid Jay he met over the summer up here for a few days? Let’s let him have his friend, have his joy, have his Christmas vacation. Seeing him happy, that wouldn’t do us any harm, either. He deserves his Christmas. Guess we all do.” “Yeah, Cam. You’re right. We’ll talk to him afterwards, when the time’s right.” PART 3 Ricky had promised himself that he’d never forget people, and he didn’t. He found out Bobby’s phone number, and called him a couple times. Ricky talked for a long time, using up a good chunk of his December phone minutes. Bobby was hanging in, doing the best he could, just like Roach Clip told him to. He was back at school, dealing with things, learning to play wheelchair basketball. Bobby didn’t tell Ricky about the bad times, about the depression that sometimes took him over, about the constant medication. The huge, friendly boy who would never stand up again talked braver than he actually was. Regarding Matt, Ricky missed him, but gradually, subconsciously, pushed thoughts of him aside. If things happened right, maybe they’d meet again, but Ricky couldn’t know, and he was more and more occupied with the here and now, such as screwing around with Tom, his Christmas Concert, his excitement at the lonnnggg school vacation coming up, and looking forward to Jay’s visit, which would happen between the 27th and the 30th. Ricky was 15, now six foot one and a half inches tall, and quite naturally, his mind was mostly in that fast-changing here and now. Both roommates’ parents had been in contact, and they couldn’t pick up the boys until late in the afternoon on the final day. It was a cloudy but festive day, with everyone happy and excited, with a few snow flurries decorating the sky and ground. The older Spanns and Kleins first met in town, the town that was slowly but surely coming back, and bought two giant take-out pizzas to surprise their kids. The pizzas would get cold, sure, but Humboldt Hall did have a microwave oven in each grade’s common room, something that came in handy for times like these. Most of the kids were already gone by the time these boys’ parents arrived, so there was plenty of space and time for a happy party, for laughing and guzzling soda and belching, for wrestling with dogs who thought all the pizza was basically for them. The families split up, and Tom slept unusually late on his first morning back home. Slept completely through his normal 4:30 AM run, and on this blessed morning in his own room, there was no wakeup bell. By the time he finally emerged into the real world, both his parents had already finished breakfast and were out—Mom at work, Dad on some errands. Tom had the whole day in front of him, with not much planned, so he decided to take a run to the nursing home. Even on the coldest days, Tom usually ran in shorts, but this time he figured he’d be with Victor for awhile after, so he put on sweatpants too. He shoved the copy of the scoresheet he’d saved with that endgame Jacob had shown him in his pocket (that game would always be special in Tom’s mind, that game he’d analyzed just before all the wild stuff). He figured he didn’t need to bring his chess set, as Victor surely had one—also, while running, he’d have no way to carry the thing. Tom trotted along the road into town, then over to the nursing home. The run was short, only a bit more than four miles. He didn’t want to bother Mom while she was working, and easily remembered the way to Victor’s area through the maze of hallways. He found Victor in the common room, but for a moment, wasn’t sure if this was the same guy. Victor?? “VICTOR!! YOU REMEMBER ME?? WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU, WOW, YOU’RE SKINNY, YOU LOST TONS OF WEIGHT!!” “Ahhhhh, my memory isn’t what it once was, but I think you might just be someone named Tom! Yes, I’ve been on a special diet, your mother told me that your team is champion in cross-country for all of North Georgia, and I decided I’d need to get in better condition if I am to compete with you in that sport! And look at me, no more walker, see? So much time with the physical therapists, I call them physical terrorists, but look, now I can get up, move, walk, I’m just about good as new.” “All right!! How much weight did you lose?” “29 pounds, my young friend. I was 206, now I’m 177.” “I’m still faster than you. Race ya to the picnic tables!” Tom’s sprint speed was still nothing special. He wasn’t a turtle, but usually tried to avoid getting into a final sprint with someone in the last 100 meters of a cross-country race. When he and an opponent were locked together late in the race, Tom usually started his finishing kick way early, just to avoid finish-line confrontations. Still, he’d only been caught from behind once all year. He took off out the door and did manage to outrun the 83 year-old Soviet grandmaster to the grassy area where they’d first met. Victor couldn’t run, but could walk steadily and smoothly without a limp. They reached the picnic tables, sat down, and never actually got around to taking out a chess set. They just talked and talked, and for the first hour Tom did 85% of the yakking. Victor did over 50% of the laughing. Mostly Tom told Victor details of the glorious day of the Noga, and a play-by-play description of the party after. Victor said Tom was lucky the beverage that night was just beer and not traditional Russian vodka, or the boy wouldn’t have survived the night and the following morning in such good condition. Tom finally remembered to be interested in what other people were doing, also. “This is so cool that you’ve lost weight and you’re walking better now, Victor. Did you do anything else special this fall?” “Well, I really did. For the first time in over 15 years, I actually played in a tournament. Over in Greenville. Not a big one, not an important one, just with some local South Carolina players. My son drove me back and forth. No important players were there, the highest-rated master was only 2285. But it was chess, it was chess.” “The highest-rated guy was only 2285? And everyone else was lower? You must have won easily! You must have kicked ass, things musta got ugly!” “Ahhhh, Tom, nothing is so easy anymore. My brain isn’t like it was, and it’s been so many years since I’ve really played. I lost the last game, finished tied for second. The guy teased me—he tricked me into a bad line of the Queen’s Gambit, then he was all over me, then he made a positional error and let me breathe, and after almost four hours, just when I should have had a comfortable draw, I…well, Tom, you know the rest! Next time, we’ll look at the game, you can show me my mistakes!” “But still, Victor, it must have been fun.” More time passed, words flowed out of the boy and the old guy, and Tom ran back home. On the way home, he felt a little more energy, and picked up the pace for a few 200-meter bursts, just for variety. At dinner, Tom told Mom and Dad all about Victor and the tournament. He was intending to see Victor and practice his chess at least a few more times during the vacation. He was also wondering if he should show up at Rafe’s house. Rafe and the other guys were nice, but Tom wasn’t sure if they actually qualified as friends, if it would be OK just to show up, or if he’d look like a retard and wreck everything. Later that night, Mom came into his room just before he was ready to go to sleep. “I guess you and Victor had quite the fun day, Tom.” “Yeah, it was cool. He sure looks different all skinny, and walking normally now.” “Tom,” Mom started, then paused for awhile. She started the sentence again, stopped again, and finally got the right words out on her third try. “Tom, Victor has cancer.” Tom’s head moved, circled, changed angles gradually a few times. He tried to talk, and his lips and tongue were moving, but sound didn’t come out, nothing vibrated in the back of his throat. He knew what cancer was, but also knew that there were medicines and treatments and stuff. Victor did look good, he didn’t look like someone who had cancer. Soon enough, Tom found his voice, but couldn’t quite make a full sentence or thought. “Mom, is…is Victor….?” Mom had a certain brain connection with Tom, and could almost always tell what he was thinking. She didn’t always LIKE what he was thinking, but she could read her son’s mind with an extraordinarily high percentage of accuracy. She just had her way of knowing. “Yes, Tom, he’s going to die. I’m sorry, but we’re sure of it.” “I don’t get it, I mean I know cancer is something that can be slow, but he looks good, he looks better than he used to. How…I mean when…does Victor know, like?” Several questions, all coming out at once, and none in complete form. “The cancer’s aggressive, and it won’t be stopped, but recently he’s been mostly symptom-free. But when it comes back, it’ll come back hard and fast. We don’t know exactly when it’ll happen. It could be as quickly as weeks or a month or so, or with luck, he could last until well into the spring. Yes, Tom, Victor knows, he knows all about it. And the reason I’m talking to you now is that Victor asked for something, well, more like he asked me to ask you something.” “I don’t get it, asked me something?” “All right, it takes a little while to explain.” Mom stroked Tom’s hair, which he always liked, and then moved lower to his cheek and chin, which Tom usually resisted these days, but tonight he didn’t flinch or pull back. “Tom, Victor has talked over a lot of things with the family he has left. They’ve made a decision, a kind of unusual one, but it makes sense for them. They’re going to have the funeral beforehand.” Mom stopped talking to let this information sink in, but Tom’s face was puzzled. Funeral beforehand? “Tom, Victor and his family have decided that an elaborate funeral ceremony is really a waste of time, money, and resources, and it doesn’t do much good for anyone after the person is dead. He has four family members left—his son, his son’s wife, and his two grandchildren. The girl is 19 and the boy is 16. They’ve decided to do things this way—when the time comes, and they know it’s Victor’s last days, but while Victor still has his mind and consciousness, they’re going to gather together with him, whether it’s at their home or the hospital. They’re going to be together, say deep and sentimental words, cry together, tell jokes, laugh together, and take advantage of Victor’s last small amount of time here. And you know what?” “What? I don’t get it.” “Victor asked if you could come. You’re the only person, the only person in the world outside of his own family, that he’s asked for at this thing. He asked me to ask you if, when the time arrives, you’d be willing to come back from school and be with him. If you want to do this, it’ll be just six people—Victor, his family, and you. It’s your decision—you don’t have to if you don’t want to.” Tom’s face was dull and his eyes blank. He couldn’t cry, maybe because his mind was turning itself over and taking everything in. The funeral beforehand? I never heard of that, but maybe, just maybe it could be OK, sure would be different. “Yeah, Mom, if Victor wants me there, I’ll do it. He really asked for me?” “That’s right, Tom.” “OK. But can I still go see him this vacation some more? I mean he doesn’t look or seem to feel sick. He played in a tournament recently.” Mom just smiled softly, nodded, and left the boy’s small room. Tom slept deeply, and the next day walked into town, this time carrying his big plastic pieces and nylon board. He had something he wanted to say to Victor today, something he’d planned out the night before. Victor showed him one of the games he won, and Tom remembered that Victor had earlier said you shouldn’t dwell on games you’d won, you should concentrate more on games you lost. Tom kidded him about this, using Victor’s own phrase of “mental masturbation”, playfully accusing the old man of doing just that. Victor said that at his age, he was allowed to do whatever the hell he felt like. Who did he have to impress, after all? Then Tom took out the scoresheet of Jacob’s slow, but beautiful and inexorable win in that Rook-and-Pawn ending. Tom remembered and planned to show Victor everything about it, though not get into any discussions of the horny crazy sex that had followed! Anyway, there was one trick, one clever tactical turn, that Jacob had planned out and executed right near the end, the combination that sealed the deal. Tom was all excited about this and what he’d planned with the old Russian. “What do you think White should do here?” Tom asked, trying to disguise a mischievous look on his face. “Well, White has clear advantage, there is no hurry, I see two options, he can solidify the kingside pawns, push g5, or he can simply tempo with the king, play king d4, make Black commit somewhere. There’s no rush, everything’s calm.” “NOOOOO!!!!!!! LOOK, VICTOR!!!” shouted Tom, whose fingers blazed across the board as he showed the old grandmaster Jacob’s sacrifice of his rook to create two unstoppable connected passed pawns, in a position where Black’s own pawns prevented his own rook from coming back to help. A beautiful conception by Jacob, or better said, Tom’s FRIEND Jacob. Tom smiled and said what he planned, in a cool fake Russian accent. “You say you see? What you see? You see NAWTHING! You see BOOLSHIT! You play BOOLSHIT!! YOU ARE BOOOOLLLSHIT!!!!” Tom laughed harder, and began punching the old guy’s shoulder. Victor giggled too, and grabbed the boy’s throat, shaking it back and forth like a rag doll. They both screamed BOOOLSHIT at each other for awhile longer, and very gently hit and wrestled with each other. Victor still had a pretty good grip and strength for an ancient guy. Tom was out of control laughing, but he also noticed his eyes were kind of wet with a bit of tears in their corners. It was weird, because Tom always only cried when he was sad or mad. This was all involuntary, all strange. He put up the key position again, played out Jacob’s winning line, and gestured wildly, just like Victor would often do when he found something. Oh my God, this is too freaky, Victor’s dying, and both of us are laughing, we’re so stupid. And I can’t stop. “HA, HA, YOU ARE BOOOLSHIT!!!” Tom shouted yet again. PART 4 The bus was almost to the North Carolina line, and Jay knew it wouldn’t be all that long before he’d finally get out of buses for good, or at least for a few days. He stretched his back and arms upward in his seat, feeling pleasure as muscles found new positions and relieved the pressure built up from all those hours of sitting. He smiled and opened up the dark green duffle bag next to him. Some clothes, a big and a small deck of cards, a few props for magic tricks, and a big plastic 3-ring notebook. He’d asked his mother if he could bring the notebook to Ricky’s house, show his friend everything, but he didn’t think Mom would let him. But surprisingly, she agreed, and Jay looked over everything—he’d seen everything in there many, many times since he’d been a tiny kid, but he often liked to kill time by looking some more. The lifestyle Jay lived, of course, was completely different from almost all other kids. The lifestyle of a travelling performer and carnie kid, always on the move, and never doing the routine things like school, like sports, like TV, or other things that seemed normal for most kids, but that Jay had simply never really thought about. He was now Tom’s age and about Tom’s height, but not so skinny. Not fat, just regular. He had reddish-brown hair, and an almost-always smiling face that still had some freckles on the upper cheeks. His eyes were sharp and wandering, always taking in something new, always sending some opinion to his brain about a place, a thing, or a person. Jay was a very, very active kid, with high energy and intensity about most things. He could talk people’s ears off when he felt like it. If his parents were the worrying type, they might have considered the possibility of him being slightly Attention-Deficit Hyperactive. But since Jay was very, very young, he’d always had responsibilities, always had things his parents expected him to do, and such strange conditions weren’t much thought about. Jay hadn’t slept all that much during the 18 hours of bus rides and waiting rooms. He didn’t sleep all that many hours normally, and as the late afternoon wore on and he approached Asheville, he was excited and happy. Ricky! That kid is cool, in a real band and everything. He did realize that he was really, violently hungry, and was glad that when Ricky and his parents were going to meet him at the bus station, it would be just about dinnertime. Sure enough, Ricky and his parents were right on time, and the reunion was loud and exciting. Mr. and Mrs. Spann looked at each other on the short drive to their home, while the two kids were in the back seat, joking and yelling and playing. Mom and Dad didn’t have to say words out loud to know what the other was thinking. Remember when Ricky never interacted with other kids, remember when he was in a world of his own, with nothing in it but the music? Jay was used to new places and new people, and felt comfortable almost right away in this new house. “Who’s THAT?” he asked, the minute everyone walked in the front door and were greeted by the hairy home security system. “Oh, he’s Ugly,” answered Ricky. “Well, kind of I guess, but I meant what’s his name?” “That’s his name. Ugly. Basically what you see is what you get. We just got him a few months ago, Mom and Dad got him for me while I was on the road. You wanna see him do his tricks?” Everybody was happy and hyper while Mom put the finishing touches on a gigantic dinner of steak, potatoes, and vegetables, and all around the table it seemed like four people were talking at once. The fifth person was quiet, but occasionally would sneak his head into the area of the boys’ sexual organs, sniffing and hoping that a tiny piece of food might accidentally drop that way. That trademark smile never left Jay’s face, and he was always polite, but not shy about eating and eating and eating until he was finally stuffed to his eyeballs. After dessert, everyone went into the den, and Jay was the first to say anything. “You guys want to see some stuff?” He was quite a boy. First came the decks of cards. Three-card monte, where’s the red queen, where’d she go? Don’t be shy, make her show! Jay’s voice and body movements were all part of the act, all designed to just slightly distract the audience from his flying fingers, and from the card that he’d deceptively throw UNDER the other one in his hand. There were two black queens and one red one, and Ricky or his parents would put a sugar cookie on top of the card they thought, always mistakenly, was the hidden red queen. Again and again, Jay turned it over, revealed a black one, wolfed down the cookie, and then showed everyone where the love card really was. Dad, especially, was blown away. He stared and stared as this strange boy shuffled and mixed the cards, and was always 100% sure that he knew where the lady was. He was wrong again and again, and everyone laughed like crazy. What the hell? Jay preferred the smaller deck of cards for three-card monte, but used the full-size deck for some sick, absolutely impossible card tricks. He had his lines down, knew just when to tease everyone. “Is it this card? No, don’t tell me, I don’t think it’s this one…ah, I forgot how to do this trick, help me out here, let me….mmmm, how about this nine of diamonds?” “WHAT??” screamed Ricky. “NO GODDAMN WAY!! How the hell did you…you gotta have another deck somewhere, you gotta have another card hidden, something is wrong here, something’s up!” “Other deck? Other cards? What do you mean, Ricky? Where?” asked Jay, smiling and lifting up his t-shirt. Jay was a long, long way from done, and he wasn’t even a bit tired. Soon he was pulling coins out of places where no one expected, like people’s pockets and Ugly’s fur, and making them appear and disappear where laws of nature dictated that it was impossible. Out came colored ropes that swirled and danced into and out of knots, small metal rings that interlocked strangely, and a few other small toys. It was a couple hours until people calmed down. There was a bit of silence to interrupt the laughing, and Ricky’s mom had something she wanted to know. “Jay? You are amazing! But I don’t get something, Ricky says you and your family pretty much just travel around most of the year, at shows and things? How did you get into all this? Is it something your mom and dad just decided to do, it’s interesting, but I don’t quite understand.” Jay looked over at the big wall clock that said 10:09. He smiled. He still wasn’t tired, if the other people weren’t. “It’s kind of a long, long story.” None of the Spann family moved a muscle or said a word. Ugly was the only one who was sleeping. Everyone else was just staring, ready to listen. “OK,” said Jay. “Here goes. If you get bored, just say so, I won’t be offended or nothing.” He reached across the couch for the notebook inside his duffle bag and began to talk. “It really starts a long time ago, back in Germany during World War 2. All of our family back then were from Austria, but we lived in Germany, and my great-grandfather, Otto Huebner, ran a circus back then. You can google him, there are some sites with stuff about him. It was the best circus anywhere. Anyway, my grandfather was a little kid back then, and he’s told me everything. See? Here’s one of the pictures of some of us, and that kid, second from the left, that’s my grandfather. We had freaks like midgets and fat ladies, we had acrobats, we had big animals, we had clowns, we had high-wire acts, we had everything. All together, there were about 60 people in the group, and somehow, the circus we had managed to stay together.” Jay stopped his speech for awhile as the family looked over the dozens and dozens of black-and-white photographs, and Jay explained each one. Some of them were the original ones, carefully encased in plastic, others had been digitally redone within the last few years. “Anyway, most of the people in the group were people who if the Nazis felt like it, they would have killed, like in the concentration camps. There were some gypsies, some handicapped people, some people who escaped from jail, but I think about half of the people were Jews. My grandfather used to always tell me how scared he was when in almost every town the German army officers would bust into the places where we had our trailers and tents, wanting to see identification and papers and stuff. He told me all about how some of the trailers and caravans had secret compartments and trap doors where people could hide while the army guys were searching, or how they spent tons of time and money faking ID’s for people, making them look like they were regular Germans. My grandfather says he didn’t know it then, but he thinks the Nazis really did know who the people were we were hiding, but they let us get away with it.” “Why?” asked Ricky. “Why didn’t they catch the people, if they knew?” “My grandfather says he doesn’t know for sure, but he has an idea. He said that especially as the war went on and things got way worse, when like millions of Germans were getting killed and places were getting bombed and everyone was poor and life was tough, he said that maybe the only thing that could get people happy and get their minds off the bad stuff was the circus coming to town. The only good thing to make people happy and laugh. He says that the Germans needed the circus way more than they needed to catch a few more Jews or gypsies. So somehow, even when the Americans and the English people were bombing the crap out of all of Germany, the circus went on. Finally, when the Americans came, my great-grandfather got in big trouble, got arrested. The Americans said that we were helping the Nazis out the whole time. My grandfather says that his father almost got put in jail forever, but when he showed the Americans that a lot of the people who worked with us, people we saved, were really Jews, they let him go. A few months later, the whole family moved to America. My grandfather was only nine years old then. Anyway, carnie and circus has kind of been just what our family’s done ever since.” Ricky’s father nodded slowly, and Ricky’s eyes were wide-open with curiosity. “But things aren’t the same anymore, my grandfather says, and he’s right. I can see it myself, and it’s all gonna be different now.” “What do you mean, Jay?” asked Mom. “The travelling carnivals, the fairs, the shows, there aren’t as many of them anymore, and it costs so much to even get a place in them. And there aren’t so many independent circuses anymore, and people have other stuff to do, it’s not such a big deal, like you know, ‘the carnie’s coming to town’. Mostly these last couple years we’ve just done food stands, like the fried dough or the calzones. And Dad says it’s like incredibly expensive these days to travel around, for gas and stuff. It’s really hard for my parents, especially after they’ve been on the road for a couple months in a row. Mom and Dad say that what I just finished was my last fall and winter tour for me. We’re still gonna go on the road this summer, to the same places I was last summer when I met Ricky, but no more year-round. Maybe do a few shows in Florida when some come around, but nothing permanent anymore. In a couple weeks, Dad’s gonna get a job, and I’m gonna go to school for the first time since third grade. It’s gonna be weird, I dunno.” Mr. and Mrs. Spann could finally see that Jay’s eyes were drooping, that tiredness was taking over his body. Mom leaned over and gently kissed both boys on the tops of their heads. Mom hadn’t thought to prepare the air mattress this time, and Ricky’s bed really was wide enough to fit both kids comfortably, and Ugly managed to find some space at their feet. The boys, especially Jay after the agonizing bus rides, were physically exhausted, but still excited about seeing each other. They’d be together for three more days, it would be so cool. “Jay?” asked Ricky. “Can you show me how to do all that magic stuff, that’s so amazing, I want to show Tom, he’ll be so into it.” “Who?” “Oh yeah, I guess I never told you. Tom’s my roommate at school. He’s kinda weird, kind of some genius dork kid, but he’s nice. He’s my best friend. He’s really smart, and he’s like you wouldn’t believe fast at running long-distances, he’s just sick at that.” “Hmmm. But no way, Ricky, sorry, I can’t show you anything.” “What do you mean, why not?” Jay smiled in the darkness. “If I showed you and told you stuff, it wouldn’t be magic anymore, right? And it it’s not magic anymore, it kinda sucks, doesn’t it?” Ricky had to think that over for a minute, was disappointed, but kept the conversation going. “Jay, all that stuff you showed us in the pictures, all those stories about Germany and your grandfather, was that all true, every bit of it?” “Yeah. At least my grandfather says it is. I’m pretty sure it’s all true, I don’t think he’s making any of it up. He says those were some really strange times, but he says most of the time he was happy.” “And you’re really going to school soon, the first time since you were little?” “Yeah.” “I was thinking, Jay. Why don’t you come to school with me and Tom at St. Brendan’s? The classes are hard, and I’m pretty stupid in them, but you could handle it. And there’s a lot of fun stuff to do, and the campus is really pretty, way out in the country. Hey, if you gotta go to school, it’s a pretty good place.” “Well, thanks, Ricky, but I don’t think so. I mean we’re not poor or anything, but we don’t exactly have the kind of money for me to go to sleepover prep school in another state. But it does sound kind of nice. Maybe I could come up and visit you there some time.” “Maybe.” The boys didn’t actually formally finish the conversation, and no one said goodnight or we’d better stop talking. But they’d run out of things to say for the night. Ricky closed his eyes and listened to Jay’s breathing next to him. Ugly made a gross snorting sound. Ricky let the beginnings of sleep wash over him for about a half-hour, then felt things. The things were Jay’s fingers, gently touching his skin, gliding over the surface and exploring. Oh man, so Jay too? No way. For real? When Jay felt no resistance, the fingers got more courageous, and his legs began to entwine with Ricky’s much longer ones. Once Ricky involuntarily, silently giggled as something tickled his lowest rib. Now there was no doubt about things, as Jay’s hand was firmly and directly working on top of the mound in Ricky’s underwear, and Ricky couldn’t help stirring under the touch. This is so damn weird, seems like pretty much every friend I have is gay. Definitely Tom, almost for sure Father Ray, probably Matt, and now Jay. Ricky again giggled without sound as he remembered a stupid comedy TV show he’d seen once, where one of the men said, “if you’re a guy, and you want to know if you’re hot, go out and see how much you get checked out by gay guys.” Dammmm, I love Jenny, she’s a girl, but what the hell, I guess I’m sexy, too. This doesn’t feel bad or hurt or nothing, and Jay must be really lonely, I mean he probably doesn’t really even have friends. Ricky reached a long, skinny arm around the strange circus kid, pulled Jay into a soft hug, and gently rubbed the warm skin of the boy’s back. Jay made a very quiet mmhh noise, almost like a cat. We got three more days. PART 5 How much fun could two boys and one dog have in three days? Hard to measure, and almost impossible for scientific studies to quantify. Inside, outside, at the mall, in the streets of downtown, the kids were pretty much everywhere. Mom and Dad were actually happiest when they were out of the house, because when they were inside the walls, the boys pretty much screamed like animals and tore the place apart (accidentally, of course). Ricky’s size and Jay’s hyperactivity meant that a lot of objects somehow made crashing sounds. Feeding this Russian army of Jay and Ricky was close to a full-time job, as well. Ricky of course wasn’t gay, wasn’t anything close to gay. He had Jenny, and that girl was the one who made him horny. No one else ever. But at the same time, teenage boundaries between friendship and love and horniness aren’t always clear. The boys didn’t care about rules and categories, they were just happy. They’d find things to laugh about that no other person in the world, or even Ugly, could figure out why were funny. After three days, Jay was more exhausted and wiped-out from the nonstop playing around than he ever had been from working long, long shifts at his parents’ food stands. He knew he’d sleep for just about all the bus rides home. At the bus station, Ricky’s parents hugged him, and Ricky shook hands with him in several different grips. “You know we’re gonna try this again, sometime, right, Ricky? I dunno where, but hey, next time, for sure?” “Oh yeah! Never a doubt! Hey, good luck, Jay, stay real, man!” Jay kept looking backwards and waving until he actually walked up the stairs into the huge Greyhound bus that would bring him back towards Florida. Home that would really be home. On the night of January 1, when the new year was only about 20 hours old, Ricky’s parents knew the time had come. Can’t hide from facts, and can’t hide from our son. Dinner had been take-out pizza, Ricky and Ugly were sitting on the couch talking, and Mom and Dad went into their room and planned a bit what they’d say. One of them or both of them? Who should do the talking? Now or before he goes to bed? They talked over options without arriving at answers, and just decided to do what they had to do. They emerged and sat next to Ricky on the couch. Ugly knew he wasn’t supposed to be on top of the couch when Mom and Dad were around, so he disappeared to Ricky’s room. Dad took the lead. “Ricky, that was a hell of a time you and Jay had together. You know, seeing you two all happy and crazy, you don’t know how good that made me and your mother feel, too. You really want to see him again sometime, soon as you can, right?” “Damn right! He’s cool.” “All right, Ricky, but we have something else we need to tell you. I’m gonna be direct, gonna tell you straight up what the deal is. Ricky, a few weeks ago I lost my job. No more work.” “WHAT?? Dad, what did you do wrong? You’ve been at that hospital forever, you’re kind of like the boss even.” Ricky of course knew nothing of the business world, all he knew was that if someone was bad, he got in trouble. “I didn’t do anything wrong, just that another company took over the place, and they fired a lot of people, me included. They brought in their own people from somewhere else. Ricky, a lot of things are going to change. We’re gonna be OK, we’re a family, and whatever happens, we’ll do all this together. But Ricky, one of the changes is that we’re taking you out of St. Brendan’s. In about three more weeks, when the semester exams start and it’s halfway through the school year, you’ll be coming home.” Ricky’s mouth opened but no sound came out. He moved off the couch onto his knees on the floor, buried his nose down into the carpet, then shouted, “NO WAY!!” and bolted upright, running hard through the den and hallway into his room. Dad got up to follow, but Mom put a hand onto his shoulder. “Cameron, not yet. Let him be for a few minutes. He’s gotta process everything. Come on, darling, everything in its proper time.” Dad took a walk outside into the below-freezing night. Up and down the street, past houses of neighbors they’d known for years. We made the decision to make our stand in this town, in this home. People have had bad experiences before, and Ricky’ll have to deal with it. He’s such a good, good boy. He’s a better person than I am, that’s for sure. Not a great mind, but such a great heart. Come on. OK, it’s been a half-hour. Ricky was lying face down on the bed, sobbing a little, when Dad came in. Dad put his arm around his son’s back and felt Ricky’s muscles shiver and twitch with rejection. But Dad knew that was temporary, his son loved him. “Ricky, this’ll be tough, I know it. Nothing’s been easy for me or Mom either, you know.” “I can’t go back to public school!! It just sucks, everyone hates me, I’m so fucking useless there! It just, why, why?” Ricky paused, and slowly began to articulate something, say something he’d never thought much about before. “But…I dunno, I guess it costs a lot of money to send me to St. Brendan’s?” “A hell of a lot of money, Ricky, a hell of a lot. And to see you happier for this year and a few months, it’s all been worth it, it’s been money well spent. But like I said, things change and you’ll get used to going to school back here again.” “What do you mean, get used to? How the hell can I get used to it? You’d never know what it’s like, you and Mom are both smart!! You ever had people fucking chant “RETARD” at you? You ever had people come up to you, like right in your face, and yell, “duuuhhhhh”? You ever had people bark at you like a dog, draw pictures of you and show them all around the class, and everybody laughing? You ever had people grab your report card out of your hand, read the whole damn thing out loud to everyone? It SUCKS, all the kids there SUCK!! Don’t you see, Dad? They hate me, I’m the stupidest one, I’m the retard! How do you want me to get used to that?” Ricky’s body had softened now, and he let his father hug him tight. The kid’s taller than me now, but he looks and feels so helpless. What can I tell him? “Ricky, you had some bad, bad times back in 6th and 7th grade, we remember them, we remember it all. But you know, Ricky, sometimes kids that age are much worse than they are in high school. Sometimes kids that age are so unsure of themselves that they like to insult others. And often that bad phase passes away. And, Ricky, you’re not the same boy anymore either. You’re so much more self-confident, you’ve learned how to make friends, you’re on the basketball team, you’re 6 foot one inches tall now…” “I’m six one and a HALF. But I’m not that good at hoops, I just get to play on the 9th grade team ‘cause our team sucks. But don’t you see, Dad, I’ve got a reputation here, everyone knows I’m the stupidest kid, everyone just fucks me up. And Dad, I don’t know, I’m sorry I’m like this now, I know nothing’s your fault and I don’t wanna be like selfish, but how am I supposed to live without Jenny? Dad, I love her, I love her, all the girls here are gross and aggressive and dirty, just like the slutty townie chicks in Ripton. Dad, have you ever had a girl, and you want her so bad, and there’s nobody else?” Dad petted the back of Ricky’s hair. “Ricky, I think my girlfriend is a sexy chick that you call Mom.” “And you know what’s even worse? Tom was the first friend I ever had, he’s my best friend forever, but he needs me around, he gets stupid with people and I have to protect him. He’s gonna freak, there’s no way he can make it without me.” “Ricky, son, look. There’s not much I can say now to comfort you except to say Mom and I love you. That might not be enough right now. But things have happened before in the world to other people. Lovers and friends have been separated by disasters, by wars, by a million other things. Sometimes they’ve gotten back together in ways no one would have expected, sometimes they’ve found other people and…” “I’M NEVER GONNA FIND ANYONE LIKE JENNY!!!” “and sometimes as time goes by, the hole in people’s hearts gets fixed, gets filled in. You know, Mom and I have thought about Tom. You’re right, this is going to be very tough on him, just like it is for you. But he’ll have to rise to his own challenges, just like you will. Just like you, he’ll have to rise up and be a better boy or young man for it. And in some ways, living here will give you some chances you might not have at Brendy’s. I mean, you could practice and jam with your band more, you could develop your talents, I mean this is really the world center for bluegrass and traditional music that you play. I know, that probably doesn’t mean much to you tonight.” “I’m sorry, Dad, it’s like I don’t mean to be a wimp, I know it’s so much money to send me to Brendy’s, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I just don’t know how I’m gonna get through this stuff. All the kids here think I’m a retard or crazy or both, everything sucks, sucks, sucks, I’m sorry.” Ricky began to cry a little bit, then more. “There’s no rehearsing this stuff, Ricky. There’s no plan you can make for life, and for how you’re gonna feel.” “Like, well, what’s gonna happen? I mean, when and how are we gonna do all this?” “When we drop you off at school tomorrow, I’ll tell Headmaster everything. We’ve paid for you there through mid-year, which is right around January 24. That corresponds to the end of semester at the public schools here, too. We’ll come pick you up early that Friday morning, and we’d like you to visit your new public high school for a few hours later that morning and afternoon, get to meet some of the teachers and guidance counselor, get to know the place a little. If you need to do a little more walking around the new place to get used to it Monday, you can do that. Then you’ll start classes, and we checked, you can go out for basketball too if you want. Their season doesn’t end until like March 10.” “How and when am I supposed to tell Tom everything?” “That’s a decision you have to make for yourself. I know how you feel about Tom. He’s maybe been the most important person in your life for this time, he’s been the one who’s helped you so much, given you what you’ve needed. Hey, Ricky?” “What?” “Shhhh, let’s be quiet now. Can I stay here with you until you get to sleep?” “Yeah.” PART 6 Headmaster Carlisle listened carefully to Mr. and Mrs. Spann’s explanation about why and when they were withdrawing Ricky. He was a good listener, and had a superb memory for details, but also frequently let part of his mind wander while someone else was talking. Let part of his mind wander to consider how he’d deal with whatever issue was in front of him. Parents withdrawing students because of money considerations wasn’t unheard of, but it very rarely happened in the middle of the school year. This freshman class was beginning to seem cursed. This was the third 9th grader the school would be losing so far, less than halfway through the year. First, the terrible disaster with big Bobby, then a kid named David who simply couldn’t handle the discipline, and now one of the nicest kids in the grade, Ricky. Now as a school we’re down from 704 students to 701. And who knows how this will affect that neurotic little kid Tom Klein? 700? This 9th grade class has gotta be cursed. “Well, Mr. and Mrs. Spann, I’m really sorry for what’s happened to you, and I’m really sorry to be losing Ricky as a student. He’s such a fine kid, and it’s been such a joy to have him here. Look, I’m just going to throw an idea out here, and I’d like to hear what you think. I’m prepared to offer, here and now, a half-scholarship to Ricky for the rest of this school year, for the second payment period. Then, we could visit the issue again and negotiate again in May or June regarding the coming school year.” Dad looked at his wife, then back at Headmaster and grinned. “Mr. Carlisle, that is definitely the first time in our lives that we’ve ever heard the words “Ricky” and something to do with “scholar” in the same sentence!” “I know what you mean, sir. Yeah, I know, Ricky’s not the academic superstar. But there are different kinds of abilities—different kinds of excellence. Ricky brings so much to our community here, with his music, his good humor, his great attitude and kindly nature. If there’s any way we can find together to keep him here, I’d like to explore it.” Something had been bothering Mom for a long time, even from before her husband had lost his job. “Headmaster, but money issues aside for a moment, do you feel that Ricky was really learning anything here outside the music area? He’s a good kid, all the teachers love him, of course, but wasn’t he really simply getting passed along, getting passing grades because he smiled a lot and had his friend Tom do a lot of his work for him?” “There may have been some of that, I don’t deny it. We’re flexible here, and we’re willing to help students out with grades if they’re willing to work with us. As far as getting passed along, well, that’s going to happen anywhere. Any public school does the same thing, but probably actually does less than we do as far as reaching out to an individual student, as far as caring.” Dad sighed and knew his decision. “Headmaster, I appreciate your offer, and a half-scholarship, well, that’s generous and a lot, but our decision’s made. We have to make some financial changes, we’ve already told Ricky, and regretfully, our decision stands. But, things in the future can change. Can we leave open the possibility of Ricky re-applying for his 10th grade year, depending on financial situations, both yours and ours? This school has done so much for him, and we’ll always, always be grateful. We’d like to keep future options open.” “Of course. Options open, definitely.” “Headmaster, there’s one more thing I was hoping we could coordinate with you,” added Mom. “This is the first place in Ricky’s life where he’s ever had friends. May not seem much to most kids, but there are two people who are really, really special to him. Of course you know his roommate Tom Klein, but he’s also deep in teenage love with a Pine Ridge girl named Jenny who he visits almost every Saturday.” “Hmmm,” said Headmaster, smiling, “last I heard, Pine Ridge girls weren’t allowed off their campus unless it was with an organized and chaperoned school trip.” “Oh sure, Headmaster, prep school rules versus 15 year-old hormones, I guess you know who’s going to win that battle! Anyway, here’s what I was thinking. Would it be possible for him to come back and visit once in awhile on weekends, hang out with Tom and go see his girlfriend? It would mean so much to him. This transition is going to be so hard on him. We’d like to think he could still have some connections to St. Brendan’s and those two people. Maybe if it’s OK with you, he could even leave his bicycle here. He can tool around Asheville on my husband’s bike when he needs to. Having a little bit of connection, that would help him a lot emotionally.” “Carla,” interrupted Dad, “you never mentioned any of this before to me. I wish we could have talked beforehand.” “Ricky will always, forever, be welcome on this campus. We’d love to have him visit once in awhile. If he comes, make sure he stops by my office or house, I’d love to see him too.” “All right,” said Dad, “like I said, my wife never talked to me about this, but I suppose it’s OK with us if it’s OK with you. We could bring him one-way, maybe have him take a bus the other way, maybe a Friday night or Saturday morning to Sunday night thing. But Carla, he has to understand that our home now is his home, public school is his place now. I want him to be in town for at least the first five or six weeks, maybe even more, before he returns here. He needs to get used to things, needs to try to make new friends, needs to experience the separation. After that, I don’t know, maybe once a month or so, it sounds like a nice compromise, a nice way to keep his old friendships alive a little bit.” The people talked over some more practical details about money and schedules. They’d come get Ricky in 19 more days, when the first half-year payment period would end. They shook hands, and the Spanns went out towards their car. They considered trying to find Ricky and say goodbye again, but it wasn’t necessary. They’d said goodbye before, and Ricky surely had things to do. Before they drove out through the gates, Mom looked wistfully at the now-bare winter trees and the contrast of the gray sky with the green grass. While his parents were in Headmaster’s office, Ricky was in a far corner of Riley’s Field with Father Ray, crying like a little kid and telling Father almost everything. He let Father hold him, which seemed weird because he was now way taller than the priest. Way taller, but in a way as small as he was at the beginning of 8th grade. “What am I gonna do? Remember, Father, when I first told you about Jenny, we were up in the ampitheatre, you told me stuff? There’s no way I’m ever gonna want or find another girl, Jenny’s like, I dunno, I don’t care if it sounds wimpy, I love her. I mean I sometimes just see her, hear her voice, even smell what she smells like inside my mind.” “I know you do, Ricky, I know you do. Remember when Tom was hurt last year, and you were so scared you were hiding from everyone in the world? She was the first person you ever went to see. I’m not gonna sit here with you and tell you, oh, it’s all fine, no problem. It’s gonna hurt, Ricky, that’s how things are with people you care about. Do you think the two of you will be able to stay together even though you won’t be able to see each other very much?” “I dunno,” answered Ricky. He wasn’t crying anymore, just thinking hard and looking over Father Ray’s head toward the trees beyond the far end of the soccer field. Ricky had about the same relationship with Father as many 9th graders had who used to hang out with the priest a lot. He’d outgrown his need for Father Ray’s constant attention, constant playfulness, and often didn’t see or think about him for weeks at a time. But once in awhile, and especially at this tough time, he’d seek the man out. Ricky had a pretty good idea about what kind of guy Father Ray was, but that didn’t matter or bother him. He was probably the only teacher who was willing to spend so much time listening to him, or was willing to put his arms around the boy without needing a reason why. “And you know what also sucks? I was thinking, when am I gonna tell Tom about all this? You saw him earlier, he got all crazy when you were talking about taking him and the other geek kids skating or maybe take them out to your house in the winter. I mean if I tell him, he’s gonna lose it, you know, he doesn’t know how to be with people so good, he needs me around. Should I tell him now, or just you know, let him be happy, not tell him til the last day?” “I guess it depends what kind of friends you two are. The deepest friendship means that you’re willing to tell a friend what he doesn’t want to hear sometimes. You can pretend, act like nothing’s happening, and I guess that’s all right. If that’s what you decide, believe me, I understand. And I want you to enjoy your last few weeks here, too. Just don’t forget that whenever you feel like talking, or bitching, or laughing, or crying, whatever, just find me, Ricky. Just find me.” “Yeah, OK,” Ricky sighed, and turned his long legs sideways to let Father Ray hug him from behind. “I don’t know how I’m gonna handle everything. Right now, today, I guess I’m too scared or chicken to tell him. Yeah, man, we’ll talk some more sometime. Thanks, Father.” PART 7 “Ricky, what’s your problem?” yelled Tom after they’d finished Thursday night’s homework. “Why don’t you look at the board? Look! You can’t move the rook, you’re still in check! See, my bishop’s in the same line as your king, the diagonal. You gotta learn to look at the board!” “Shut up, Tom, I’ll kick your ass!” Ricky smiled and grabbed Tom around the neck, then punched him in the face not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough to knock him backwards. Three of Tom’s white pieces went flying, and Ricky scooped them up and hid them in his pocket. Unfortunately, Tom noticed the situation and was all over his roommate, making him open his hands and pockets and put the people back where they belonged. Ricky had basically decided that the only way to go was to pretty much pretend stuff wasn’t happening. Tom was fun to be around when he was all happy, and anyway maybe, just maybe, Dad would get his job back or get a better one. Or at least Ricky was going to think that way for most of the time. He did know that he’d have to tell Jenny, though. That part he couldn’t hold off, they had to face that part straight up. He was going to see her Sunday. But with Tom, no. Ricky just couldn’t bring himself to say anything. For the past couple nights, he was letting Tom try to teach him chess, and he could sometimes remember how the pieces moved, but couldn’t see how they related to each other in patterns, how what one piece did affected others. Ricky’s mind could hear and make patterns with music, but couldn’t see two-dimensional relationships on a 64-square board. It didn’t matter. It was fun, and the exercise of hitting or choking or wrestling his friend into submission felt good, too. Feeling good and loved wasn’t something that Matt had known much about for many, many months. He pulled his parents’ ancient pickup truck into a rainy, cold Virginia truck stop and ordered something greasy and nasty, but that would stick to him and get rid of the hunger built up over long hours of southbound driving. He ate up the food, and figured that he should be grateful for the good stuff that had happened in the past ten days. Gerald had recanted his accusation, all charges were dropped, life at least had a chance to go on. A chance, nothing more. He now thought of his ex-wife and her predatory friend (Gerald’s mother) with nothing but bitterness. Of course nothing was free. An unspoken, but very clear condition of the charges being dropped was that Matt had to agree to amend the divorce settlement. Basically pay his ex-wife more money, more money, more money. Money he didn’t have, but with the help of his parents, somehow came up with. He remembered the phone conversation with the bitch’s lawyer. “Both the boy and your former wife at this point simply want to put things behind them.” Yeah, sure. Goddamn vultures. Another part of the agreement was a restraining order that Matt could never see Gerald again. Fine. He was on his way back south to sign documents, and find out if maybe he could actually build a life there again. He was on his way south for those reasons, but was debating with himself whether to do one other thing. If I could just hear his voice, and know whether or not he still likes me, that would be so cool. Even if I never see him again, just if I could know whether one boy still thinks I’m worth a damn, still thinks I’m his friend. Matt had a phone number, but was worried that someone at a general switchboard would be suspicious, refuse to put through his call. But the restraining order is only for Gerald, not for Ricky. Just let me hear his voice. Even if he hates me, even if he believes or knows I’m a fucking pervert, at least let me know one way or another. Matt finished his dinner and dialed a public phone, and fortunately didn’t have to talk to any adult. A menu of extensions came up, and after reaching one of them, someone told him how to connect to the building where the 9th graders lived. “OK, I’ll get him for you!” someone on Ricky’s floor said. Seconds later, Ricky and Tom heard a knock on the door and Joey’s voice. “RICKY, GET THE PHONE OUT HERE! IT’S FOR YOU!” Matt’s heart was pounding like a little girl’s. Please, God, I just want to hear him. Whatever happens, I can deal with it. But oh, man, if he’s still nice, oh man. “Hello?” “Ricky, this is a voice from a long time ago, this is Matt.” Oh my God, I’ve said it. Give me a reaction, boy. Give me something. “MATT!! HOW ARE YOU, I’VE BEEN SO WORRIED ABOUT YOU!” Ricky screamed into the phone, causing a couple kids’ heads to poke out the doors to their rooms. “I HEARD SO MUCH STUFF, I DIDN’T KNOW WHERE YOU WERE!! ARE YOU OK NOW? This cop tried to make me say you were, you know, but I didn’t say anything bad, no way. Can I do anything for you? Are you somewhere safe? Shit, I got your letter, but that didn’t tell me anything, I wanna see you, what the hell’s the deal? Please, whatever, I was really worried, Matt.” Matt almost cried a little bit. He likes me, my life ain’t worth a hell of a lot, but it’s still worth a tiny bit. Something’s still worth going on for. “Ricky, I’m OK now. I had a bad, bad few months. I don’t know what you did or didn’t hear about me, but I’m OK and I’m safe, and there’s no trouble anymore. I’m heading back south now, I don’t know for how long, but I have stuff to do. Maybe I’ll only be down south for a couple days, maybe more, nothing’s sure yet.” “I WANNA SEE YOU!! WHEN CAN I SEE YOU?” This part wasn’t planned. Wants to see me? Shit….My God, a boy wants to see the likes of me? “You mean it, Ricky?” “Yeah, Matt, please? Look, I got an idea.” Ricky’s mind was slow and dull at school things, but details about people and their plans got him thinking quickly and accurately. Matt said he’d be in Asheville tomorrow, and then he’d have to see how things went. “Look, Matt, how ‘bout this? Can you drive out to Georgia Saturday? Look, I could meet you somewhere right in Ripton, it’s a small town. I mean you can come to our campus, you’d like it here, but they probably wouldn’t let you just walk into the place unless you were with someone or with me, ya know. But if you’re with me, it would be no problem, especially on a Saturday. We could meet in town, and I’d ride my bike back to school and you could follow me slow. And I want you to meet my roommate Tom, he’s my best friend. Please? I got so much I gotta tell you. Please can you come?” Wo. Matt couldn’t believe the words he was hearing. This was more than unplanned, this was like out of control. But go with it. All it costs you is gas money, and hell, you’re in debt up to your ass anyway, a little more on the Visa card won’t make any difference. It’s a boy, and a beautiful and good one. See him. Yeah, let it ride. A few more details were worked out, and Matt walked out into the evening rain. It didn’t matter at this point if he got wet. He heard that voice in his head again. Please, can you come? “YO, TOM!” shouted Ricky when he opened the door to the room. “GUESS WHAT? Remember all I told you about Matt, my friend from the band? I can’t fucking believe it, that was him, he’s OK now, he’s not in trouble, and he’s coming here to see me Saturday! Hey, Tom, you and me, we’ll ride into town in the morning, we’re gonna meet him there, then we’ll show him the way back to the school, we’ll hang out. This is so decent, this is so good that he’s OK. You’re gonna like him, I hope he brought his instruments with him, he plays way, way better than me.” Ricky didn’t ask Tom if he wanted to go, if he felt like meeting Matt, or if he was worried that Matt was until recently an accused child molester. Ricky just made his roommate’s plans for him. But he knew Tom, knew Tom better than anyone else in the world did. “DAMMMM!” said the smaller boy. “All riiiighhhtt!! We’re doin’ it!” PART 8 The arrangement was for Matt to find the kids in front of a place called the Cracker Barrel, an old-time general store in the middle of town that had survived the tornado and that everyone knew. A place with a shady porch, lots of papers full of notices and ads on the outdoor bulletin board, and all kinds of stuff inside, from newspapers to hardware stuff to fancy cheeses. The Cracker Barrel. When Matt got to town, he could ask anyone and find the place easily. “Matt said he’d be driving an old black pickup truck that looks like a piece of shit,” said Ricky. “Keep looking, Tom, he said 11:00, he’s gotta be coming soon.” Both boys did look, but nothing was sure until someone got out of the vehicle a block down on the other side of the street and looked around. “THAT’S HIM, TOM! COME ON!!” The boys raced across and down the street, and Ricky was a fast sprinter for a tall boy. He beat Tom by at least three meters to the spot. “MATT!! YOU MADE IT, MAN! ALL RIGGHHTT! You don’t look so bad for an old guy, but hey, what’s the deal with that little bit of gray hair on the side, when did that happen?” “Ricky! And what the hell happened to you! Dammm, you grew!” said Matt, holding his hand horizontally a few inches above his own head. “I dunno, maybe more like you shrunk!” “Wouldn’t doubt it, kid, hey, maybe a little bit of both!” “Anyway, Matt, this is Tom, he’s my roommate at school, we can all hang out pretty much all day I guess. You ready to come see our school? It’s only like 4 miles from here, we’ll just ride and you can keep it slow with us, or maybe we can fit our bikes in the back of your truck?” Matt was smiling and listening, but also staring the much smaller kid Tom. Oooh! Just my favorite kind, oh, let’s say three-quarters of the way between cute little boy and handsome young teenager. Oooh! But shit, those days are long, long over. The man couldn’t stop his penis from straining inside his clothes, a feeling that he really wished he could do away with. Tom’s beautiful, but that’s all, don’t even get any thoughts. But we’re gonna have a fun day. “Yeah, yeah,” said Matt, “sounds like a plan. But I’ve been driving for a few hours, I wouldn’t mind walking around, eating something. You think you and Tom could survive with some apple pie from The Black Sheep Diner down the street?” “That would work, yeah, Matt, thanks!” said Tom, spinning himself around 360 degrees. “Ya know, Ricky, anyone who feeds me, hell, cool in my book! We’ll just get our bikes.” Soon enough, everyone was back on the St. Brendan’s campus, with Matt having parked his truck in the outer lot. His guitar was in his hand, and he looked over the peaceful, pastoral main part of campus, with its greens, browns, and grays. It was very mild for January, just about 60 degrees and mostly sunny, so on this day no one needed anything heavier than a light sweatshirt. Ricky told Matt that he’d show him their room, and it would be fun to hang out at Riley’s Field for awhile, which was nice, all spread out, and where no one would bother them. “Small room to fit two kids!” Matt observed when they were inside. “Bet you guys have to fight for space sometimes!” “Yeah,” said Ricky, “but our fights don’t last long. I kick Tom’s ass fast, one punch and he shuts up, he knows who rules.” “Fuck off, Ricky, you know you’re my bitch!” Ricky proved who was right, belted Tom in the stomach, knocked him into one of the desks, and that was settled. “Hey,” said Matt, “I see your instruments, Ricky, but is that your chess set or Tom’s? I didn’t know you played.” “That’s Tom’s, he’s a smart genius geek faggot. Do you know how to play? Hey, we’ll bring it out to Riley’s with us, yeah, I hope someone here can beat him, that’ll shut him up.” “Yeah, cool,” said Tom, “let me tape it to the wooden backing so it’ll stay flat, yeah. Ricky, which one of your instruments are you gonna bring out? You said Matt was really good.” “He’s got the guitar, guess I’ll bring fiddle and banjo, all right, guess we’re outa here.” No winter sport practiced outside, no one was anywhere near the three people at Riley’s, and it was their own private world for awhile. There was music and laughter, and Tom kind of wished he’d known this Matt guy for longer. He was funny. The chess set came out, and it turned out that Matt, to Tom’s surprise, had a clue what he was doing. Shit, this guy’s a chessplayer. Ricky wasn’t helping out his roommate much, was mostly making gross noises in his ear to distract him, and saying how Matt was gonna take him down. Gonna take you DOWN, boy! Tom knew he had a slight middle-game advantage, with a strong-looking knight camped out in front of Matt’s backward pawn, but this would take work, and he felt like the other guy(s) had a home-field edge. “Come on, Matt!” shouted Ricky. “Kill! Kill! Kill!” Then Ricky grabbed Matt’s guitar, and then started half-singing, a tune and a song. “We was both jumping up and down, right there next to the group W bench, yelling Kill, Kill, Kill, and then a sergeant came in, pinned a medal on me, and said you’re our boy!” “Hey, Matt,” Ricky continued, “you gotta sing him that song, you know that long one, Alice’s Restaurant, that song is sooo stupid!! I was laughing and laughing back then, Tom’s gonna love it.” “Would the both of you please just shut up when it’s my turn?” Tom giggled. Matt got playful, too. “I’ll show you shut up, you little woman!” He grabbed and tickled Tom for awhile, but eventually Tom got enough of his concentration back and knew what to do. A little combination in the style of Capablanca, with Tom coming out two pawns ahead and shattering Matt’s kingside. Five moves later Matt knew he’d had enough, and turned over his king. “All right, Ricky, Matt, we know who’s the Man now. You two ready to get down on your knees and worship me now?” Ah, thought Matt, down on my knees in front of this kid, wouldn’t mind a bit, but not in this time, this space, this place, this world. Maybe in another one. “Hey, Ricky,” said the man, “you think Tom’s ready to hear the famous Alice’s Restaurant Massacree song?” “Oh yeah! You can get anything you want, at Alice’s Restaurant!” Matt began playing and singing, and Tom had no idea the whole thing went on for like 20 minutes. Ricky was right, the song was soooo stupid!! Oh, it made him laugh. Tom couldn’t remember everything, something about the police officer station in West Stockbridge, Massachusetts and a guy accused of littering on Thanksgiving. Matt repeated again and again about twenty-seven 8 x 10 color glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one, all followed by something about the guy getting drafted and yelling Kill, Kill, Kill. Ricky sang along for some parts that he knew, and Tom couldn’t remember the last time he’d laughed so hard. A couple times, he started choking because he was laughing too out of control and couldn’t breathe. Finally, finally, the song shut up. “That was funny, Matt. Oh, man. Did you write that song?” “Not me, Tom, no way. That was written by Arlo Guthrie, that song is from way back when I was a kid smaller than you! But I know the place, I know West Stockbridge, Massachusetts better than I care to, and yeah, there is to this day an Alice’s Restaurant there. To this day, kid. Hey, Ricky, can I borrow your banjo? Follow me on the fiddle, boy, let’s get loose, start with ‘Lonesome Highway’, come on, Ricky!” Ricky was a superb musician, but he had been right, Matt was even better, and the two of them together four times as good. Blazing wild fast tunes, slow ones, singing together, Tom’s thoughts went back to his first night on campus out at this field, listening to Ricky alone. That was a long, long time ago. Everyone just hung out, and time just flowed. “Hey, Ricky,” Tom said, “I told Father Ray I’d be going on his mall trip at 3, then we’re gonna cook out dinner at his cabin. You gonna come? And I dunno, Matt, I guess you could too, if you feel like, you’d like Father Ray, he’s cool.” “Na, Tom,” said Ricky, “you go ahead with your Flock Of Losers. Me and Matt have some stuff to talk about. Have fun, Tom, see ya after dinner, OK?” “OK. Laters. Matt, thanks for coming to see us. Hope you can come back sometime, that was a fun day.” Tom moved closer to the guy and they rubbed each other’s backs for a moment, then Tom trotted across the field and down the hill. Ricky watched his best friend run away, then looked back at Matt’s face, a face that really did look older than before. They knew stuff had to be said, but it was difficult to start. Maybe it would be easier if they were physically moving. “Matt, you feel like taking a walk? There’s another cool place to show you, it’s called the ampitheatre, it’s really cool and peaceful there, it’s about a ten-minute walk from here.” They picked up their musical instruments and began to walk slowly. There were some minutes of silence until Ricky spoke again. “Matt, I mean I don’t wanna ask stuff that’s not my business or nothing, but when that cop was here, I was so scared and then I was worried about you, and I didn’t know if I was ever gonna get to see you again. I thought maybe you were even in jail or something.” Matt looked upwards into the tall boy’s face. “Ricky, like I said, it was a bad, bad few months. You know, for what it’s worth, and like I said, you can believe or not believe anything, but, well, I guess I’ll tell you something. I’ve done a lot of bad things, a lot of things I shouldn’t have in my life, Ricky, but I didn’t do, never, no how, no way, what they were accusing me of. I didn’t.” “OK. If you’re telling me, I believe you.” “But you know, once people hear this kind of accusation, once people hear stuff like this, it kind of doesn’t matter if you’re guilty or not. It’s like toothpaste out of the tube. Basically, what happened is I have to pay my ex-wife lots more money, but all the police stuff is over, I was never even arrested or formally charged or anything. But it was bad, bad times, my friend.” “So for a few months, were you like hiding out from the police?” “Yeah. Pretty much. I had to admit what happened to my parents, that wasn’t easy on them, you know, they’re about 70 years old. They stayed on my side, helped me out, and I lived with some people they knew. My mind was messed up bad. And now I gotta see how and where I can make a life for myself. “But you’re coming back to Asheville, right? I mean you didn’t do what they said, everything’s gonna be OK now?” Ricky moved his body closer to Matt, and put the man’s arm around him in a semi-hug. “You can’t use the work OK with something like this, Ricky.” By now they were at the ampitheatre, and they found a comfortable place to sit, looking to the far reaches of campus where you could still see the spaces where remnants of the fall tornado had knocked down a few trees. “You know, like I said, with something like this, people hear stuff, they think differently about you. This is something that doesn’t get erased just like that. Tomorrow I’m gonna have a long, long talk with Mike and Julie, and depending on how that goes, I’ll decide if I should stay in town, if there’s a way to get a job, a way to pick up where I left off the best I can. Yeah, Ricky, I’ve screwed up bad in life, even though in this case I didn’t do what they said. I gotta see where things go.” “Ya know, when I was saved, I just gave all my sins, all the bad stuff I did, I just gave it all to Jesus, and He took it for me. Damn, He took it all. Sure helped me feel better. That was about a year and nine months ago.” “Oh yeah, I saw those posters in your room. I didn’t know if they were yours or Tom’s. So you’re really into this Christian stuff?” “Yeah. I mean I don’t get all up in people’s faces about it, Preacher Cal told me to respect whatever anybody believes. Tom’s Jewish, and that’s cool. But, yeah, if you’re asking, I got saved back then, and I guess I’m pretty much still into it.” “I wish I had your faith, Ricky. Maybe I doubt things too much, I dunno.” “Anyway, I got bad shit of my own going on now. Not anywhere near as bad as happened to you, but still, things are gonna suck for me really soon.” Ricky moved his body into his favorite position when he used to talk to Father Ray out here. It was more difficult these days now that he was so tall, but he scooted his butt toward Matt, leaned his back against Matt’s chest, and reclined a little bit so the top and back of his head was against the man’s chin and jaw. Ricky spoke outward to the air, not looking at the guy who was holding on to him, but they were close enough that it was easy for Matt to hear him. Ricky talked, talked, and talked some more, repeating what his father had said the previous week, and how he expected the bad times to return. Matt listened patiently without interrupting or asking many questions. This is so strange, when will I ever have a kid in my arms like this again, when will I ever be in a position that a boy trusts me like this? He’s a great kid, and he’s oh my God beautiful. Maybe it’s best that he’s really a little too old for my tastes. Not too old, maybe just too damn TALL. I certainly never thought I could get all horny over someone who’s five inches taller than me. But his hair sure smells and feels perfect, I can remember the smell from last summer. Matt decided not to actually kiss the top of the head that was really right in his mouth and nose, but just let his lips and nose feel and smell the blond hair. He let two of his fingers wander down the side of Ricky’s face as the boy continued talking. Face is still perfect and smooth. Sooner or later, there’ll be awful scratchy sharpness there, fuzz or scraggle. President Clinton once said something about sooner rather than later, well, in this case let it happen later, not sooner. Why does Ricky think he’s stupid? He’s not. Say something. “Ricky, I’m sorry that because of your report cards and how you do in schoolwork, maybe some people used to think you were stupid, but it’s not true. If people back home used to think that way, that’s their ignorant problem, not yours. You have a musical gift, you have kindness and goodness in you, there are so many ways of being smart that have nothing to do with grades in classes.” “Mmm. My mom says that, too. But most people who say that never were as bad as me in classes, never got picked on, they used to pick on me and keep fucking going til I like cracked open. Tomorrow, when I see Jenny, I guess I’ll find out more about where that’s going.” “Whatever you two decide, just be honest with her, Ricky. If you love her, don’t play head games, be straight up with her. That’s something I should have learned a whole lot of years ago.” “And Tom, he’s gonna be a head case, he can’t make it without me, I know it. He’s smart, but he just says and does stuff, people see him and they’re like wo, what the fuck? I’m really, really scared for him.” “Ricky, I hear what you’re saying, and I met Tom, and I’m wondering something, kid. You know, he seems pretty regular, maybe he can adapt better than you think. Are you scared for him or more scared about yourself?” “I dunno. I just never really thought about something like this happening.” By now it was 4:30 PM, and the light of the short winter afternoon was beginning to fade. Most of the sky was white or light gray, with just a few scattered openings of blue. Matt gently pushed Ricky off him, opened up his guitar case, and let the strings do the talking for a few more minutes. Ricky listened, noticed the temperature had dropped some, and rubbed his hands together for warmth. PART 9 Neither Ricky nor Jenny expected the temperature to drop by almost 40 degrees that night, and for the next morning to also be ferocious cold, with a constant unforgiving wind. It was even colder on Ricky’s bike, whose motion created more wind, more pain in the boy’s nearly numb fingers. He arrived at their isolated park, and Jenny was there as promised, this time not so beautiful wrapped up in a thick winter coat, and with her hair buried inside a wool hat. “Hi, Ricky. Thanks for coming. But we gotta get outa here, I’m freezing my ass off!” “Jenny, I gotta tell you something today. I gotta tell you something serious. I mean, something happened, and, uhhh, where can we go where we’re not freezing like this?” “The library’s open on Sunday for a couple more hours.” “Yeah, at least it’s warm, but, I dunno, Jenny, this is kinda heavy and personal, I don’t want people to be all listening to us.” “Ricky, what’s wrong?” “This is gonna hurt, Jenny, let’s just go to the library and I’ll tell you everything all at once, please? They gotta have a corner of the place where I could tell you everything all quietly.” Ricky walked his bike next to Jenny, and within 15 minutes they were in the warm and pleasant sanctuary. There were hardly any little kids in the childrens’ section, and the 9th graders sat in the corner, with no one listening or eavesdropping. Ricky explained everything from the beginning, and he was getting a little annoyed or bored at having to tell the same story to so many people, the same story over and over again. Father Ray, Matt, Jenny. At the moment he couldn’t even think about his friend Tom. Telling the story hurt almost as much as having to hear it from his father. Surviving without Jenny, damn, that’s just so not fair. “So that’s pretty much the deal.” Ricky finished talking, and looked at his girl, who was staring sadly right into his eyes. “Ricky, we gotta go back outside, I mean, no one’s bothering us here, but still. I don’t care if it’s cold, let’s just go outside to the park benches on the green.” They got there and Jenny took Ricky’s hands into hers. “Ricky, maybe this thing is like a test for us. Maybe this is where we really find out some things. Ricky? Do you love me?” Oh shit. This question got Ricky heaving and gasping for breath, got him crying like a little kid. He reached over and hugged her as best he could through all the layers of winter clothes. “YES, JENNY! I love with with everything I have, everything that’s in me. I love you so much, but I’ll be so far away from you, I won’t be able to see you again, I don’t know what to do!” Jenny kept her emotions under control. She was wise and wonderful, and so good at comforting those who needed it. Just at the right times and in the right ways. She’d comforted Ricky after he’d run away last winter, and it was time to do it again. But with a little bit of humor, not too much and not too little. “And I love you too, Ricky. Remember all those times I made you say the word ‘forever’, and you did it, but I could tell you thought it was stupid, like you know, why won’t this girl stop with this ‘forever’ stuff every second, like gimme a break?” “How did you know? How did you know what I was thinking?” Jenny smiled and tilted her head in that sexy way, but poor Ricky didn’t even notice this time. “Girls are smarter than boys, and we just know these things. I know allll about you, Ricky.” “But damn, you were right! I’m sorry. I know you were right, I don’t want any other girl, no way. I love you so much, but how can we be forever if I’m gonna be back in public school and I won’t be able to see you?” “We still have vacations, we still have summers, we still have the phone, we still have e-mail and stuff. I mean it’ll be harder, because we’ll miss each other more and we’ll have to decide whether deep down, we really trust each other enough to know that we won’t be with anyone else. That’s what I meant by it’s like a test. If we love each other, I mean REALLY love each other, we’ll be OK. We won’t be OK every day, it’ll be bad, sure, but in the long run we will. If you really want this to be forever.” “You mean it, Jenny? I don’t know what to say, I mean I’ve never had a girl before you, and I don’t know how stuff like this works.” “I’m making this stuff up as I go along too, Ricky. But I know I’m right. Look, every time something back home sucks, like some loser kids start teasing you, or some teacher won’t leave you alone, or when you and your parents get in a fight, just think of me. I’ll be around, I won’t forget you.” “Thanks, Jenny, and I’ll do that. But it still sounds I dunno, like too easy. I made it through the summer without seeing you just because I knew that first thing in September, I’d be with you pretty much once a week. Now all that’s different.” Jenny nodded, and they both looked up at the sky, where some snow flurries were starting. It almost never snowed more than a couple inches in this part of Georgia, but little swirls of flakes were common on winter days, and made the atmosphere pretty for people who took the time to look. Ricky thought about everything Jenny had said, and of course she was right, she was smart so she was always right. Vacations? Summers? Is that all there is, and is that enough? “OK, Jenny. What do you want me to do?” “You mean right now?” “Now, later, whenever, I dunno. I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about.” “Well, let’s just take things slow and we’ll just focus on right now. Right now, Ricky, I want you to hold me really tight, and kiss me and say the word ‘forever’.” A few months ago, Ricky would have made a joke, or rolled his eyes, or just gotten annoyed. But this time, he did exactly what Jenny said, did it exactly the way his special girl wanted. If Jenny wants it, she can have it. Forever, if she says so. WINTER, PART 10 Days counted down and Ricky became more and more tense. Right after he’d gotten back to campus from his visit to Jenny, he remembered that he’d completely forgotten that his parents had given him permission to come back to the school and visit once in awhile on weekends. Once in awhile, as long as he didn’t whine about every weekend, and stayed home for at least the first five or six. Completely forgotten to tell Jenny. Stupid. He called her back that evening and explained. Jenny said every few weeks or every few months, they’d do whatever it took. Ricky knew he should tell Tom everything. Really not nice to keep a secret like this from your best friend, not nice to leave him hanging like this. But was it really leaving him hanging if Tom didn’t even know about it? Ricky made up this and other excuses in his mind, day after day and night after night. He was mad at himself, and figured he was just plain chicken to tell Tom. Would Tom do something like this to you, keep you in the dark until the end? Eventually Ricky’s final Thursday arrived. No way out now. He arranged with his teachers to blow off his two after-lunch lessons, and got permission for Tom to, also. They finished lunch and were heading out of the cafeteria. Damn. Now or never. Please, Jesus, let me do this right, let Tom be OK. Here goes. “Hey, Tom, I gotta talk to you. This is important.” “Cool, Ricky, I’ll see ya before dinner, I got PC class now, we just started our schedule for swimming, been looking forward to that for weeks. Gonna run after school, then. See ya after your basketball practice. Later, bitch!” “Tom, no, I mean now.” “Don’t wanna be late, we only got 45 minutes, and by the time…” “Shut UP, Tom!!” Ricky grabbed his friend’s shoulder hard. “Tom, I told you this was important. I got permission for you to blow off your classes. Just listen, will ya? For REAL. Now.” This got Tom’s attention and he finally figured out that something was up. His eyebrows came together in curiosity. “Huh? What do you need, Ricky?” “Just come inside with me for awhile. I’d say we should go up to Riley’s where it’s quiet, but it’s fucking freezing out now. Let’s go to the common room, I don’t feel like sitting in our room now. Come on, Tom.” They began to walk together back to Humboldt Hall. “Tom, I’m gonna tell you something when we get there, and please, please, just…let me tell you, don’t talk to me til I’m done. OK?” Tom’s mouth was open and he was looking Ricky over from head to toe, searching for signs, but he obeyed and stayed quiet. They arrived a moment later, took off their coats, and sank into the soft, well-used giant couch. “All right, Tom, I’m just gonna get right into it. Tom, my father lost his job before Christmas, and I guess it costs a lot of money to send me here, and anyway, I’m leaving St. Brendan’s. I’m gonna go home, go to public school. I wish it wasn’t happening, fuck it if I sounds like a pussy, but I’m gonna miss everything, like school, like you, like Jenny, this sucks but well, it’s the way it is.” All the air and all the blood instantly drained out of Tom’s body. He looked around the room and shook his head quickly back and forth, trying to wake up from the dream. But just like the last bad time, this dream wasn’t ending. His mouth went desperately dry, and his tongue and lips provided no relief. He didn’t physically move or say anything for awhile, and Ricky let him take the time he needed. Ricky simply looked at him sadly. “All right,” Tom said eventually. “When?” “This is my last day, man. Tomorrow morning, my father’s coming to get me.” Only now did Tom start to cry, and he buried his head into a couch cushion to try to stop tears and stop being embarrassed. “WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME BEFORE, RICKY, WHAT THE HELL? I mean, I dunno, I just…look, Ricky, the only reason I stayed here, the only reason I wanted to come back this year is because you were gonna be here.” Ricky thought of putting his hand on Tom’s back, but kept a small bit of distance. “I should have told you, I should have done a million things, I’m sorry. If there was anything I could do, it’d be different. It’s not quite as bad as all that, I’m gonna be able to come visit once in awhile on weekends, maybe once in April and again before the summer, and we can hang out. Headmaster says I can stay in our room then, and I’m gonna leave my bike here.” “It’s not the same thing!” “I know it isn’t, Tom, it just…what am I gonna do? You know, way back last year, I told you all about those jerkoff kids back home. Yeah, I’m gonna go back there, be the retard again, be the goddamn Jesus Freak retard, or I think they fucking call it learning-disabled, I dunno.” Ricky didn’t want to hear silence at this point, so he simply kept talking, poured out all about how bad things were going to be. He noticed one thing different as Tom lifted up his head and quietly listened. Tom’s the only person who didn’t try to say yeah, it’ll be all right, yeah, there are other ways of being smart, all that stupid bullshit that didn’t mean anything. Tom knows, at least he’s not trying to say stuff everyone knows is bullshit. Ricky talked until he couldn’t think of anything more to say, then said he’d get the guitar and be right back. With everyone else in classes, the room was completely silent. Ricky returned and began to strum the thing. Even though his fingers had grown so much longer, he still used the same guitar he’d had since 7th grade, and didn’t seem to have any trouble with it. Tom sat with his back bent down, and his skinny fingers interlocked behind his head, buried in his thick hair. While Ricky was gone, Tom had gotten a drink of water, but it still didn’t moisten the inside of his mouth any. Ricky’s voice began again softly, like he wasn’t even aware he was singing anything. “And if I ever lose my legs, I won’t cry and I won’t beg And if I ever lose my legs, away hey hey hey hey hey hey hey I won’t have to walk…no more I’m bein’ followed by a moonshadow, moonshadow, moonshadow, Leapin’ and hoppin’ on a moonshadow, moonshadow, moonshadow” Tom looked up a little bit and tried unsuccessfully to make sounds, but at least he could manage to move his lips to the words. “And if I ever lose my mouth, all my teeth, north and south And if I ever lose my mouth, away hey hey hey hey hey hey hey I won’t have to talk…no more I’m bein’ followed by a moonshadow, moonshadow, moonshadow,” Leapin’ and hoppin’ on a moonshadow, moonshadow, moonshadow” The voice eventually died away, and Ricky’s guitar began to sing something else by itself. There wasn’t anything else to say, but Ricky again decided to fill the space. “Tom? You gonna be OK?” “Yeah. I guess. No, that’s a lie, I ain’t gonna be OK. Shit, I’m not mad at you or anybody. It’s just not fair, I dunno. Ricky, I gotta get outa here. Look, I’m gonna go for a walk or a ride or something. I’ll see you at dinner, all right?” “You gonna run away again like that time after that cross-country meet?” “Not this time, Ricky, I promise. Just…I dunno, just let me go somewhere. I won’t get stupid, I’ll be back by dinner. For real.” “Yeah, OK.” WINTER, PART 11 Neither boy remembered much about the next few hours. Tom just walked to nowhere, and when he arrived there, tried to break into a run, but after less than 100 meters, didn’t see any reason for putting in the effort and he simply kept walking in the opposite direction. Of all the things that could have happened, all the stuff that HAS happened, damn, I never thought of this one. I got beat up like my first week here, I broke a record at last year’s Founders’ Day, I almost got killed when I splattered my head into the pool deck, I lost the League Championsip by getting stupid with Mr. Ostrander, we all then came back and won Noga later, everything, everything. But I never thought Ricky wasn’t going to be here. For Ricky’s part, he went to basketball practice and told the guys a much shorter version of the story, simply told them this was his last day. They were sorry, but it wasn’t a huge deal. The basketball coach told Ricky that he was probably good enough to make a JV team at most public high schools. Practice went on normally, and at least Ricky didn’t have to think about anything. It was better that way. The boys didn’t think they’d be hungry for dinner, but they did snarf down piles of food, maybe to convince themselves that things were going to be all right. Tom noticed that it was the same Salisbury steak with vegetables that he’d eaten on his first night here, before he was officially a student, back when Mom and Dad had left him alone with Ricky that first night. Tom tried to remember what were the first songs and tunes he’d heard out of Ricky’s voice and guitar that night. Think, stretch out the memory card up there, what were the songs? Rocky Top, Tennessee, then something about gospel, then…I forget. Back at their room later, Tom just sat in a chair and looked at the floor. “Tom, aren’t you gonna do your homework?” “Why? I know the stuff, doesn’t matter, I probably know it better than the teachers.” “You gotta do your homework, Tom, come on, you gotta go on. Hey, I’m not gonna pack my stuff up til tomorrow morning early. I guess I’m still a fucking student til then. I went to the morning classes today, let’s pretend like it’s normal and you help me with mine.” Ricky stood up and shuffled a couple books, a notebook, and a pen. “That’s really stupid, Ricky.” “Sorry. Guess you’re right. Wanna hear some music?” “Not really. Guess I heard all of it I need to, you know. All right, second thought, how ‘bout just one, can you play me again what you did before, that one about being followed by a moonshadow? I liked that one. But what’s a moonshadow?” “You think I know? Right. But anyway, here goes.” The words were sung and died away, but Ricky kept strumming for a few minutes longer. “You wanna hear the Alice’s Restaurant Massacree song, last time you were laughing so hard you were pissing all over yourself, I think. You were damn near having a heart attack, you couldn’t even breathe!” Tom did manage a little smile. “No thanks, Ricky. Nah, I don’t feel like hearing anything else. Ricky?” “What?” “Is there any chance your parents might change their minds, you know, decide you can stay at St. Brendan’s after all?” “Not happening, Tom. Mom and Dad talked over everything with me. Dad’s a little hard-ass about stuff now. I understand and all, and you know, this is tougher on my father than it is on me. I mean, the people he worked for fucked him over big-time. It’s nothing I can complain about. But still, you know something? You were the first person ever who knows I’m stupid, but doesn’t care, or at least doesn’t try to make up some crap about oh, it’s all no problem, you’re really smart, yeah, yeah, fuck that. At least you say the truth. Thanks, Tom.” Tom nodded an acknowledgment. “And you know what else, Tom? Yeah, me coming back once in awhile on weekends isn’t the same thing, you’re right, but it’s something, and we only live a few hours away from each other by car.” Tom pretended to stare at some homework for about a half-hour, anything so he wouldn’t have to look directly into Ricky’s face and start crying or do something wrong. Anything to pass time, but starting tomorrow, he’d have to pass unlimited time, so it wasn’t like what was coming would ever end. Never would be the same thing. His eye caught a view of his individual plaque from the Noga meet, 8th place. 8th place for me and a Noga Championship for the Cougars. But fuck the Cougars, well not really, but what the hell do the Cougars mean without Ricky? Awhile later, even while it was still free time and the other kids were racing through the halls acting hyper, the kids crawled into bed together, up in Tom’s top bunk. It was always a little bit warmer up top. Ricky lay flat on his back and Tom lay sideways, half on top of him, gently fingering Ricky’s neck, chest, and armpit hairs. Armpit hairs that weren’t so soft and light anymore, that had turned curly, thicker, and matted since the beginning of this 9th grade year. Ricky had talked to Jesus on the way back from basketball practice, and didn’t really have anything to say to Him or ask Him right now. Can talk to Tom, though, may as well. “Tom, you know, I was thinking, I dunno, don’t be ashamed or nothing if you’re gonna cry, man, I understand. Like don’t worry about it.” Tom was sniffling and whimpering a little bit, and tried to let himself go, but couldn’t quite get there. Couldn’t do the big wailing cry, it just wouldn’t happen. He tried to think of something more to say, but decided to wait awhile before composing the right words. He buried his nose in the corner of Ricky’s chest right near his right armpit, taking in the smell. It wasn’t a gross body odor smell, it was just the Ricky smell, the smell Tom had gotten used to for so long. It was soooo good, but Tom couldn’t really enjoy it this night, knowing that Ricky would be leaving in the morning. Tom angled his head a little bit so his ear was parallel with Ricky’s chest, and he could feel his friend’s heart beating. “Hey Ricky. You know something?” “I know a few things, just not a whole hell of a lot of ‘em. What?” “You remember that night, I think it was like my fourth night here or something, that night after I got in that fight with Joey, and we were out at Riley’s, and you told me all that stuff about you back home, and we made that deal?” “Oh yeah, wow, that was a long time ago. We were really little back then. Especially you.” “Yeah. Remember we made that deal, we said that we’d always look out for each other, we’d have each other’s backs if anything went wrong, and no matter what, we’d stay friends for as long as we were here?” “Mmm. Yeah.” “I was thinking, Ricky. I guess we kept the promise, we really did. I guess we did what we said we would. That’s for damn sure.” “You got that right. Look, Tom, please, let’s just sleep the best we can now, I don’t feel like talking anymore. Please just shut up now, Tom. OK?” In the dim light, Tom nodded his head and Ricky closed his eyes. He thought about the words “shut up, Tom” in his own voice. How many times have I said the words “shut up, Tom”? He almost laughed to himself. Let’s see, we’ve been here about a year and a half, that’s 365 x 2 would be 2 years, but subtract 182. But then there’s summers and vacations when I didn’t see him. All right, figure that part out later. If I averaged saying “shut up, Tom” 4 times a day, and if I multiply that by 365, plus, I don’t know, I hate stupid math. Mom’s right, though, I have to learn enough of it to function in the world, yeah, she says that word function. Hell with that for now. Anyway, who’s gonna tell him to shut up when I’m not here? Ricky kept his eyes closed and focused on his sense of touch. He could feel various points of Tom touching his skin. Where and how? Tom’s toenails and ankle were wrapped into Ricky’s left foot. The length of Tom’s leg was warming Ricky’s, and Ricky could feel the hard bulge of Tom’s penis pressing into his upper thigh. That was Tom’s hair lightly tickling his upper chest, and Tom’s fingers of one arm were gripping his opposite shoulder. Actually digging in with his little claws, that kind of hurts. Ricky touched the other boy’s hand and the grip loosened. Tom let Ricky gently stroke the skinny fingers. Tom’s lips were a little moist against the skin of Ricky’s other shoulder. Ricky opened his eyes for a moment just to see if Tom was asleep yet. Nope. The smart kid’s eyes were wide open, looking beyond Ricky’s body to the room’s opposite wall. Ricky closed his own eyes, petted Tom’s hair, and listened to Tom’s slow breathing. The other kids on the hall were finally in bed, too, so there was no other noise in the world. PART 12 The boys got up with the wakeup bell, dressed, and headed to breakfast without saying much. While they ate, a few basketball players and a couple other kids Ricky knew a little bit wandered over, said a few things, and shook his hand. Tom was a bit resentful of these guys taking up space on his last little while together with Ricky, but he didn’t say anything or show any attitude. Classes always started 15 minutes after breakfast finished. Both boys walked back to their room and Ricky started packing up his stuff. Tom sat in a desk chair, saying and doing nothing. “Tom, time for you to get to class, man,” said Ricky, briefly looking up from what he was doing. “Fuck that.” Please, God, this is so embarrassing, thought Ricky. Just let Tom go, this sucks so bad with him still looking at me. If I gotta do this thing and leave, just let it happen, don’t make me say stuff and get all weird. Please, come on. “Tom, for real. Get to class. Please? I got stuff to do, and so do you.” Pause. “Tom, there’s nothing more to say, let’s just do what we gotta do.” Ricky extended his hand rather formally to his friend. Wasn’t the right gesture, but it was all he could do. Tom took the hand, didn’t say anything, and slowly walked the four steps towards the door. He turned back and Ricky made an upward movement with his head, a movement that said go on, see ya, outa here. Tom left and closed the door behind him. Classes were different, just mostly a strange dull haze. 2nd period was with Mr. Ostrander, and Tom decided to raise his hand and answer a question in the first few minutes, along with making another comment about the lesson. That way I’ve done what I have to, he’ll leave me alone for the rest of the period. Why do they bother to teach us all this bullshit, no one really cares about Westward Expansion anymore, people are already out in California and Arizona and places, not like it matters anymore. Mr. Ostrander really is leaving me alone, all right, that’s nice of him, I’ll give him that much. I gotta go to seven classes a day, the rest of the year? Oh my fucking God. The kids had a half-hour free before lunch, and Tom slowly walked back to his room. He didn’t really know what it would look like. The only time the room had been empty, this year or last, was for the few days of cross-country training camp. He opened the door and carefully looked at the every corner of the room, as well as the floor. He wondered if maybe there was still one of Ricky’s t-shirts somewhere, or a loose sock. Anything that smelled like him? Nope. No musical instruments, no clothes, no books or nothing. Tom looked at the wall above Ricky’s desk and noticed that the religious posters weren’t there anymore. Tom had never looked at them all that carefully, just noticed them subconsciously for all these months, just about 16 of them. There was one with Jesus’s face looking slightly sideways, not really smiling but looking friendly enough. Tom had always thought the guy looked too handsome and well-groomed for someone who was about to get the crap kicked out of him and then crucified. The guy’s hair and beard seemed all washed and trimmed nicely. Then there was one with a big cross, with the camera seeming to look upwards from the ground and a blazing sun in the background. Then there was another one with footprints on a beautiful isolated beach and a long poem along the right side of the picture. Tom had never read the poem, as the letters were pretty small and he’d just never thought about looking that closely. Tom kicked off his sneakers and climbed up to his top bunk. Supposed he could move down to the bottom now, though he’d gotten used to the top. He moved a blanket and noticed a huge rolled-up paper under his pillow. Huh? Tom unrolled it, and it was indeed the poster with the beach. He read the whole thing. It was about a guy who evidently was dead and looking back on his life, looking back to when he and Jesus were walking on the beach together. Then he complained to Jesus that during the times when things sucked, there was only one set of footprints. Jesus, why did You leave me during the toughest times? Jesus told the guy that the reason there was only one set of footprints, those were the times when I carried you. OK, Tom thought. He rolled it back up and walked out of the room to put it in the big common room trash barrel, but stopped halfway down the hall. NO. Whatever, if Ricky gave it to you, you’re not just gonna throw it in the trash, that’s not right, Ricky didn’t leave school on purpose. Tom brought the poster back into the room, rolled it up a little tighter, and stuck it in a corner where Ricky’s instruments used to be. So this is it. All right. What now? Tom lay on his bunk, jerked off, and stayed up there until after lunch. There were only two classes after lunch, gym and then math. Gym class won’t even care if I’m not there, Mr. Rodriguez will just figure I’ve gone out for a run. Then math, maybe I’ll show up, but Mr. Mayne is nice, what’s he really gonna do to me if I don’t? Tom put his laptop, Dad’s old one, in its case and walked towards a tiny corner of campus, between the ampitheatre and the tornado damage area, an area where he was pretty sure no one else had ever been, or at least no one ever went there normally. He opened the computer and began typing. Type now, then put it on a scandisk and send it from the computers in the library that have internet. Dear Jacob, This is me, Tom. How are you doing these days? What happened at that tournament in Quebec City? You said that was your chance for your last grandmaster norm. Did you make it? Must have been colder than frozen hell up there, second week in January. And parles-tu francais? I think someone said tout le monde parle francais dans la belle province. I used to know French, but j’ai oublie presque tout. Here, well, some stuff happened, and it’s a long story. Sorry if I’m about to bore you, well, if this is too long you can read this e-mail a little bit at a time. I think I once wrote you about my best friend and my roommate here Ricky, who’s really the first friend I ever had. Anyway, he’s not here with me anymore and I am so fucked-up. I don’t know what to do. Tom stopped writing for a couple minutes, and looked at the winter clouds moving across the gray mid-day sky. All right, it’s not like you can say this stuff out loud with your mouth, so you may as well say it in Microsoft Word, then e-mail. Let it go. Tom went back to the keyboard, and did just that, telling everything he felt, everything about nothing was worth anything without Ricky being here. Type and type and type. He ripped into deep emotions, and the only thing he didn’t mention was sex emotions about him and Jacob. Everything about what was inside him except for the gaysex part. Tom wrote that he didn’t really imagine how he could go on at this place, or anywhere else for that matter. He finished about three hours later, brought the machine back to his room, and then took his bike out on some quiet winter roads. For the rest of that afternoon and evening, Tom put miles and miles on his sneakers, though walking rather than running. He couldn’t survive sitting still, so he simply walked. Father Ray came in to see him at bedtime, and that helped a little bit, just temporarily. Father Ray hugged him and said he understood, then let Tom cry for awhile. The priest kept the embrace for 15 minutes, kept the embrace for as long as it took. A couple times, Father even kissed him on the side of his forehead, right above the corner of his glasses. It made Tom feel better, but Tom knew it was only short-term. After midnight, Tom put his sneakers back on and walked out into the cold night. Cold bright starry night, which would have been pretty if Tom had been able to notice. The time eventually reached 2:44 AM, and Tom was sick of thinking without saying anything. His lips moved and sound came out. “I’m not going to commit suicide. NO WAY!” Then he got mad and actually shouted, then yelled with everything that was in him. “I AM NOT!! GOING!! TO COMMIT!! SUICIDE!! NO FUCKING WAY!!!” He repeated himself, once screaming, once a bit softer, until one of the security guards appeared at his side. It was an older guy that Tom knew slightly, knew just to say hello to. He was old and skinny and black, and Tom thought he looked like Morgan Freeman, the actor who was in the movie about the lady boxer. Tom heard the man before he saw him. The security guard’s deep southern voice was gentle, and he touched the back of the boy’s coat. “You’re right, kid, no one’s committing suicide, not this night. Come on, I got you now. You ready to head back to the dorm?” Tom wasn’t thinking clearly enough to even be embarrassed by the whole scene. Answer the question, tell him. “Almost. Can I hang out here for about five more minutes?” “Yeah, sounds reasonable. You don’t mind if I do, too?” “Guess not, I’ll be ready to go down the hill soon, I promise. I meant it, no way in the world am I gonna kill myself, I don’t care what happens, I won’t do it. Sir? What’s your name?” “Lenny.” PART 13 The other kids could see what was happening to Tom. Was pretty obvious. In class, he’d just look ahead like a zombie and only mumble something barely coherent if he was called on. Once a few kids giggled when Tom admitted he’d blown off some homework, but when it became day after day, they knew that his head was badly screwed up. Sometimes a kid or group of kids would try to make him feel better. If it was a group, they’d elect one of their number to visit Tom and invite him to do something, like play foosball or go into town to hunt for slutty females. Kevin asked Tom to accompany him on his afternoon runs, as the Founders’ Day Race was coming up. The answer was always the same. Tom would smile just a little bit and say some variation of “No thanks, I got stuff to do,” even though the stuff to do was usually just lay there in his top bunk or take long, endless walks to places no one seemed to know. Lenny and the other night security guards got to know where the boy hung out when he took his late-night walkabouts. They knew, and Lenny occasionally stopped by to sit with him in some freezing corner of somewhere. That was about all anyone could do. One mild, rainy afternoon found a bored Tom in the school library. He opened his e-mail and became more alert when he noticed something from Jacob. He’d largely forgotten his older friend in the five days since he’d written to the New Yorker. Hey, Tom, Tom, man, I’m really worried about you. Guess I’ll first tell you what’s going on here. Yeah, you can call me grandmaster now. I got my last norm in the Quebec tournament. Needed two wins in my last two games, both over other GMs, to get it, but somehow it happened. Quebec was kind of nice—cold like a mother, and all snowy, but the air was fresh and it was somewhere different. I’m gonna graduate in early June. School here’s still stupid. Tom, I’m really really sorry that your friend Ricky left your school. That sucks, but like you said, it’s no one’s fault and there’s nothing you can do. You know, about friends, I’m gonna tell you something. Before you, I never had one. Never thought anyone or anything was important if they didn’t play chess. Really. So anyway, I’ve been thinking about you a lot. Just try to keep on with stuff, and bit by bit, you’ll make other friends. They’re not gonna be the same as Ricky, but you can’t just lay around and be a vegetable forever. I really hope you can come up to see me in New York |