Virtual Silence Read online

  “I came to talk to you about the …” He cocked his head toward the living room. “… well, you know what about. I talked to my brother, and he said he could do it. But like I thought, he was gonna want to be paid for his trouble.” He squatted down in front of me, I guess in an effort to get me to look at him. “But you know what, Jarrell, I ain’t gonna do it anymore. And you know why? Because you’re whacked. If you had had a …” He nodded, then whispered. “… a gun … tonight, I’d be dead. Is that right or not?”

  It occurred to me that my mother might be listening, so I picked up the remote and clicked on the TV. The two men who appeared on the screen were arguing. One had a gun in his hand, holding it at his side and gesturing angrily with his free hand. While Frankie, who seemed to have forgotten that he had just asked me a question, stared at the screen, I retrieved my pad from the night table and was just about to scribble a response when his hand shot out and grabbed my wrist. “Don’t start that writing bullshit with me, okay? You save that for your smart-ass friends in school. You want to say something to me, then you say it. I don’t put up with that kind of shit.”

  He snapped my wrist and released it. Then he began to pace. “I can’t believe this,” he mumbled to himself. “First she tries to blackmail me, and, idiot me, I let her, and then she calls the Thanksgiving squad, and I got to sit and make small talk with some goofy character who wants to know how long we been going out every time a commercial comes on … And those two twin clowns, peeking in from the kitchen, giggling and whispering to each other …”

  The door moved, and Frankie stopped pacing to stare at it. When he saw that it was only Surge, he smiled. “Well, your dog likes me at least.” He got down on his knees and started swiping at him.

  “He’s old,” I said. “Don’t do that.”

  “What are you talking about? He loves it.”

  Indeed, he seemed to, growling and lurching at Frankie’s arms, his tail wagging constantly. When Frankie finally stopped, Surge nosed him to get him going again.

  “How did you get here?” I asked, sweetly I hoped, for I was intent on showing him that I had another side besides my “whacked” one. He was right: I had acted impulsively. But I knew that if I’d had a gun, I would have had more control. I was determined to get that across.

  He was petting Surge now, in hard sweeping movements that went from the top of his head to midway down his back. “A friend dropped me.”

  “How are you getting home?”

  He shrugged. “I’ll walk.”

  “Our car’s at the Newets’. It’s not very far. If you want, we could walk over and get it and then I could drive you home. We could talk about all this on the way.”

  “No way. No offense, but I don’t want anyone to see me with you. That’s why I came all the ways over here tonight. I didn’t want to be seen talking to you in school.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  He went to stand up, but Surge wouldn’t let him. His thumb, I noticed, was scarred, and two of his fingernails were dirty. “This isn’t about looks or like that, Jarrell, so don’t go getting … the way you girls get. This isn’t about who you are now, sitting on your bed with your little feet not even reaching the floor, looking like you just lost your best friend.”

  “I did,” I interrupted. “Two of them.”

  As I spoke, it hit me that Thomas Rockwell, similarly friendless, must have felt exactly as I did now. His neighbors had confessed that they hadn’t bothered to speak to him at the pool, that he had always appeared to want to be alone. But maybe he hadn’t. Maybe he went down there precisely because he hoped someone might speak to him, touch him in a way that would break the spell that had been cast on him. We were no different, he and I, I saw, except that he had snapped and I was only verging on it. I had never felt so miserable in my entire life.

  “This is about who you are in school,” continued Frankie, who hadn’t heard my comment, “walking around with your nose up in the air. I don’t want no one thinking I’m kissing up to you.”

  “There’s no one on the roads at this hour, asshole. Everyone’s home with their families. It’s Thanksgiving.”

  “I’m an asshole?”

  I looked away, so that he wouldn’t see my lips quivering. I had never called a boy an asshole before. I had never called anyone that. I hadn’t meant to say it, hadn’t even known it was coming until I heard it myself. Yet for some sick reason, I was delighted with myself. I wanted to keep saying it: asshole, asshole, asshole, asshole.… I felt that if I did, it would get me laughing, and that laughing would get me crying, and that what I needed more than anything else in the world right then was a really good cry. “You’re the asshole,” Frankie said.

  “No, you are.”

  “No, Jarrell. I’m just some poor chump who got born into the wrong family.”

  It was time to change the subject. Clearly, this would get us nowhere. “So, you have my money?”

  “What money?” Surge was licking him now, and Frankie was turning his face from side to side to keep from getting it on the mouth.

  “My deposit, asshole.” I simply couldn’t help myself.

  “No, I don’t have your deposit,” he replied sarcastically, “because I didn’t know until you pulled up with your friends that I was going to have to change my mind about doing it.”

  “Won’t your brother be disappointed? I mean, $460 must have sounded like easy money to him.”

  “He’ll get over it. What’s his name?”

  “Surge. Where exactly is my deposit?”

  “My brother’s got it.”

  “What if he won’t give it back? What if he already spent it, asshole?”

  “Then I guess you’ll get your gun. And I guess I’ll have to spend the rest of my life feeling some responsibility for the people you kill.”

  “I didn’t realize you were such a moralist, asshole.”

  He shrugged. “You ever go away on vacation, stuff like that?”

  “Sometimes, why? You want me to let you know so that you can stop by and rob the house, asshole?”

  “Chill, Jarrell. I just thought maybe you would want someone to watch your dog for you, so just chill out.” He put Surge’s big head between his hands and shook it. “This is one fine dog, aren’t you Sarge?”

  “Surge.”

  “Whatever. Hey, how many pounds of dog food does he put away a week?”

  Surge rolled onto his back and extended his legs up in the air, and Frankie, who was squatting over him, began rubbing his stomach. I had never realized that he liked to be petted that hard. “I have no idea, asshole.”

  “Listen, Jarrell. If it is too late—and I hope to God it’s not, because you are whacked—and if my brother didn’t already go ahead and spend the money, then we got this other matter to consider, namely what my cut’s going to be. Now I have a suggestion that won’t cost you a red cent.”

  “And what might that be, asshole?”

  “You let me borrow your dog now and then. We had a real good time together tonight, didn’t we, Sarge?”

  He lowered himself to the carpet and spread his legs out. Surge stepped between them and sat. Frankie began scratching his chest, and the harder he scratched, the faster Surge’s left leg twitched—as if there was some direct connection between them. “How come you don’t mind me calling you asshole, asshole?” I asked.

  Frankie shrugged without looking at me. “I guess cause I’m used to it. That’s what my old man calls me.”

  “Ginny!” my mother called from the other room. Her voice was shrill. “Ginny, are you cursing in there?”

  10

  I’d never felt like this before, so I had nothing with which to compare it. In my imaginary conversations with Sharon, who would have been the one to know, she explained away my feelings with her customary objectivity: I was a victim and could relate only to others of my kind; I was reacting to the fact that she, Sharon, had deserted me, and thus I had chosen just the kind of boy she would have
found despicable; I was reacting to the fact that my father had deserted me, and thus had chosen just the kind of boy he would have found despicable; shock (his father calls him what?) had set off some suppressed maternal instinct; I was losing my mind, and seeing that the way back was too strenuous, I had chosen someone who was likely to hasten my descent.

  My initial reaction to Mom’s query that Thanksgiving night was indignation; she must have been in the hall to have heard me. I clicked my tongue and sighed disgustedly, but when I looked at Frankie, I saw that he was not only bobbing with contained laughter but also that his brows were raised as if to invite me to share his amusement. We laughed aloud together then, a shared chuckle in which our eyes were briefly but genially linked. Some trace of laughter remained on his face a moment later when he stood up and reminded me that I was not to speak to him in school, that one way or another, he would be in touch.

  However, after a long weekend spent thinking about him, I was so eager to make myself available for this looming encounter that on Monday I wrote a note to Mr. Lovet, who presided over my study hall, and asked to be freed from that period until Christmas so that I could do some research in the library.

  Of course I never went to the library. I had my lunch at Bev’s table with the others and then moved off to another table to await the arrival of the late-lunchers. The table I chose was at the front of the cafeteria, at some distance from the one in the back where Frankie and his friends ate. Four subdued sophomore girls sat at one end of it, all but oblivious to my sudden appearance at the other. I kept a book opened before me, and a soda. Whenever I took a sip, I looked in his direction.

  The first day he didn’t notice me. He had his back to me, and I was able to do no more than scrutinize the back of his neck, most of which was concealed by the stained collar of his denim jacket. The second day, however, he sat facing me, and midway through his lunch, he did notice me. I smiled then; I couldn’t help myself. He looked away, pressed his lips together—pensively, I thought—and looked back again. I smiled once more, but this time when he looked away, it was for good.

  His indifference continued in the days that followed, allowing me ample opportunity to reevaluate my initial impression of him.

  His hair, for instance, was roughly cut and always slightly greasy. It was parted on one side, and the side opposite the part was longer than the other. He had a cap, a peaked gray woolen thing that looked like it was from the twenties, which he often wore in school—in spite of the fact that they weren’t permitted. When he had it on, his hair stuck out in tufts. Those greasy tufts, I realized now, were so black they were nearly blue when caught in the sun coming in through the cafeteria windows.

  He seemed to have only two pairs of jeans, neither of which fit him properly. One pair was too baggy—not in the way that was stylish at the time, but more in the way that hand-me-downs are. The other pair was cheap, thin, shiny, imitation denim, and they were tight—too tight, I had once thought. Now, however, I saw that they they revealed his thigh muscles nicely, and I longed for the days when he would wear them—usually the last three days of the school week. Likewise, his T-shirts were stretched out at the bottom, and sometimes you could see clothespin indentations on them. The bagginess at the bottom, though, only enhanced the way they fit his shoulders, which were broad and straight.

  His skin was light, and slightly pinkish. His brows were long, nicely arched, and very dark. His lips were long, full, lazy-looking, and highlighted by the shadow of the beginnings of a mustache above them and a small but deep indenture below. He looked at things—his lunch, his companions, and, though rarely, me—sideways, with his head slightly tilted. He laughed a lot, at things his companions said, but he seldom spoke himself, so that I guessed that he was not quite comfortable with his lunch mates, and I delighted to discover that we had this in common. When he wasn’t eating, he sat back, as far back as he could without falling off the bench—probably so as to remain on the periphery of the conversation. His kept his knees far apart, one elbow on each of them and his hands together in between—not folded but one over the other with both thumbs sticking up. His eyes revealed more lid than anything else, and that, coupled with his full lips, gave him a look of indolence which I had found disgusting in the past but now thought incredibly appealing.

  Surge, I knew, was the key to our relationship. So, on Friday, instead of going to the cafeteria, I went to Frankie’s locker and taped an envelope to it. Inside was a note saying that Mom and I would be away all day Saturday, that he could come and take Surge if he wished, and that he should stop by my locker after school and let me know.

  He didn’t stop by—or at least not in the five minutes I had to spare before I boarded the school bus that would take me to work. Nevertheless, I felt certain that I would see him on Saturday.

  Oh, the power of love—or whatever it was. I even found myself smiling at the day-care center, and I had more patience with the children than I had ever had before. When the little ones handed in their projects, I gasped (I had gone back to not talking after Thanksgiving) and stood with my brows up and my mouth opened until they looked up and discerned my delight. Nor was it feigned. They were cutting out clouds that day, and each sharp edge seemed not an error but an ingenious effort to indicate that theirs, like mine, was an altered perspective.

  That evening, at home, I insisted on both washing and drying the dishes, and afterward, when Mom started in on me again about the therapist, instead of holding up a piece of paper saying, NO WAY (I kept one handy on top of the toaster oven), I sent her little notes saying, I’ll think about it; You may be right; It’s definitely worth some consideration, etc.

  Even my father’s relationship with Goliath no longer en-flamed me quite so much. I compared the way he had looked when he had spoken about her—casual, composed, remote—with the way I imagined I looked when I thought about Frankie—idle smile, empty eyes, a look of blissful stupidity, I suppose—and concluded that he could not truly be in love. Goliath was just a passing thing. As he had said, I couldn’t expect him to sit in that little apartment alone all day and night. He was practically agoraphobic. Maybe Goliath would bring him out of his shell. Once out, surely he would see the sense in returning to us.

  I wrote Mom a note in the morning saying that Frankie was coming for Surge for the day. Why? she wanted to know. I wrote another, explaining that as she was going to be out all day and as I was considering going out too, I thought Surge would be better off spending the day at Frankie’s than being tied to a tree in such nasty weather. Actually, it was quite nice out, chilly but sunny, just the kind of weather Surge liked best.

  Mom asked me where I got the idea that she was going out. In fact, she said, she planned to stay home all day and tackle the laundry that had been accumulating for the last three weeks. I hit my head with my palm—my mistake, Mom—and volunteered to stay home and help her. But, I wrote, since Frankie was already on his way, we might as well let him take the dog.

  Frankie appeared shortly thereafter, and as Mom was in the shower, I got to talk to him alone. And talk I did. I didn’t want to incur his wrath again. He had borrowed his brother’s dilapidated Chevrolet—its muffler had announced his arrival—and he planned to take Surge up into the mountains for a hike and a picnic. “Oh, he’ll love that!” I exclaimed, though I remembered the lassitude that Surge had displayed the last time he’d been picnicking with Mom and Ida and me. He pulled me aside, so that I could feel the heat on my elbow where he cupped it, and asked me where my mother was. When I said that she was showering, he informed me that his brother had already spent the deposit and so he would be getting me the gun—though he himself still thought it was a “shitty” idea. He suggested we talk about it, maybe when he brought Surge back in the evening.

  “Perfect,” I said.

  And perfect it was. Ida came over that evening. She was upset again, about some nasty remark that Charles had made about her cooking, and she and Mom were so preoccupied discussing it over
Zinfandel that they hardly seemed to notice when Frankie and Surge arrived. I led them both to my room and all but closed the door behind them. Then I sat down on the carpet, so that Frankie would feel no reluctance about making himself comfortable on the bed. Surge, meanwhile, went to his rug and immediately fell asleep.

  Frankie, whose cheeks glowed, told me, although reluctantly, about his day in the mountains. They had hiked up to the falls and had their lunch. They had seen two deer, one of them a buck, and Surge had chased a rabbit. Then Frankie sat forward, his elbows on his knees, his hands dangling, and got down to more serious business. The day I had come to his house, I’d said that I wanted a gun small enough to fit in my shoulder bag. What he wanted to suggest was that I keep it in my closet, up on a shelf. I said that I would, that I would be extremely careful, that I had really learned my lesson Thanksgiving night. He nodded, his gaze traveling around my room. “You got Nintendo?” he asked. “Mortal Combat? Or just that there?” and he jutted his chin in the direction of my computer.

  “Just that,” I said, and in response he spread the fingers of one hand, as if to say, Well, that’s it then.

  That was my cue. I jumped to my feet and insisted he have a soda before he went. Then I ran off to the kitchen before he could protest and returned with two sodas, a tray of egg salad sandwiches which I’d prepared in advance, chips, and some stale Twinkies I’d found in the back of the pantry. I turned on the TV and clicked the remote several times until I saw his brows merge with sudden interest. There was a murder mystery on the screen, and Frankie, who had been on the edge of the bed, leaned back, and without taking his eyes from the TV, reached out for a sandwich.

  The following Saturday I invited him to come for Surge again. This time I teased him and said that I couldn’t imagine my Surge, who was twelve years old, chasing rabbits and hiking as far as the falls. He looked insulted at first, as if he thought I’d meant to insinuate that he was less than honest. Then he saw what I was up to and smiled coyly. “What? You don’t believe me, Jarrell?”