Glass Boys (27 page)

He needed to pee, decided to stop, eased the car onto the thin gravel shoulder. Just outside his passenger side window, he saw a dense patch of spruce trees. One branch bent against the glass, leaving a jagged smear of sap. That will be difficult to clean, he thought, sticky and persistent. He got out, stepped around the car and into a weak shadow near the edge of the woods. As he unzipped, legs spread, he faced the school, wondered if someone might see him there. Was watching him now. Peeing. His urine forcing a cavity into the forest floor, spattering up onto his good trousers. Garrett would apologize, act embarrassed. “I never realized,” he'd sputter to the teacher. The principal. But no one came across the dirt lot, and he walked out of the woods, got back into his car. Mildly disappointed.

He shifted in his seat, now, eyed the squat brown building with rows of narrow windows. He counted them from left to right. Twenty-three. He pretended that twenty-three was a new number. That the school was a new school. That he had never set foot in that particular patch of woods before. That taking the first three lefts after leaving the carpet shop was a random choice.

Not much separated him from the playground, a few feet of damaged pavement, a chain-link fence, large hole slit in one section. Garrett checked his watch, and breathed with his mouth. Recess soon arrived, and a handful of boys were the first to burst through the double doors. Hello. Checkered sweaters and skinny legs in a blur of brown corduroy. Two wearing knitted hats to ward off the autumn chill. As the gang of them marched across the parking lot, Garrett's lungs stopped functioning, and he pulled oxygen in through his pulsing skin. One dropped a soccer ball onto a hardened patch of earth. And Garrett's eyes widened, recording every move as they darted about, hopping and jumping, the lucky ball bounding between them and drawing the lines of a jagged star.

Garrett's hand left his upper thigh, crawled over to the other seat. There, his fingers located a puncture in the vinyl of the seat, about two inches wide. As he watched the boys playing, he jammed two fingers into the hole, moved them through the matted layer of stuffing, pushed. There, near the edge of the seat, he located a broken spring, and he rubbed the spring, feeling some type of smooth synthetic batting between his skin and the metal. He closed his eyes for a moment, rubbed some more. And often, that was enough.

“LOOKS LIKE IT might rain.” Ween leaned against the classroom window, stared up at the low clouds. “You going out?”

“Nah, I don't feel like it,” Toby replied.

“Can I use your rubbers?”

“Don't you got your own rubbers?”

“Yeah, mine got a blow out in the toe. If it rains, my feet'll get wet. I don't need to tell you about wet feet, do I?”

“Go on and take 'em.”

Ween slipped his feet out of his indoor shoes and into Toby's rubber boots, a remarkably good fit given their different heights. He was about to haul on his knapsack, medical book inside, but decided to leave it, asked Toby to keep an eye on it. Then he darted out the door, across the paved divider between the junior high and the elementary school. That morning, Ween's mother had asked him to spend recess with his little brother. Yesterday, the boy had come home with a purple ring around his eye, and he told them he had run into a rock. “Did the rock happen to be flying through the air in your direction when you ran into it?” He wouldn't say. Ween's mother feared the boy, who was small and soft-hearted like Ween, was being bullied. “'Tis your job to watch out for him. That's what big brothers do.”

They were just tumbling out of the building as Ween approached, and he joined in as they kicked the ball back and forth. At first he eyed every other child, waiting to identify the bully, but there was no sense of menace within their small circle. Soon, Ween forget his task, enjoyed the game, considered how all the running and jumping was good for his cardiac muscle. The ball was hard, overinflated, and when Ween did a running skip kick, kissed the underside of the ball with his boot, Toby's boot, the ball jetted up into space, dove down onto the hood of a car.

“Shit,” Ween yelled. He saw the outline of a driver sitting behind the wheel. A man.

“Shit,” the other boys repeated.

Ween frowned at them, said “double shit” inside his head. “I'll get it,” and he bounded through the hole in the fence. Ran across the dirt road towards the stranger's car.

GARRETT LUNGED FORWAWARD, fingers freed, banged his chest on the steering wheel. He opened his eyes just in time to see the soccer ball rolling off the hood of his car, into the ditch. Then he saw a squat boy with thick black glasses clamoring through the wound in the fence, running towards him, waving, looking guilty. Garrett pressed his damp back into the seat, felt around his thighs to find his dropped keys. Maybe he could leave before the boy reached him. Maybe he could disappear. The gap was closing, closing, and the boy was smiling, and Garrett felt the ball striking the windshield over and over again, and then the ball striking him, his head and his back, and he had to think of something to make him strong, to bring him back to where he was.

Garrett breathed once, twice, rolled down his window.

“Hey, Mister,” the boy said. “Sorry about that.”

“Is you?”

“I don't think we done no damage.”

“Maybe you should check.”

The boy leaned across the hood, stared at the glass, and at the same time Garrett leaned forward, so that he and the boy were only inches apart. He could see that the boy's forehead was not perfectly smooth, but had a bump in the middle, and that his oversized glasses were streaked with grime. Fingers reaching, Garrett touched the windshield. The child's face was not as young as he might have liked, but his body was compact. Garrett could clean his glasses for him. Stroke the lenses so softly on his shirttail.

The boy bounced back, ran around the front of the car to grab the ball. “I don't see nothing.”

“Oh. Do you wanna ride?”

“What?”

“Do you need a ride somewhere? I got time.”

“No, Mister. I don't need no ride. I got school.” He hugged the ball, started to back away, heels on his large rubber boots dragging a line through the dirt.

“Is you sure? We could go somewheres. I can get you some chips.”

“Yeah, I'm sure,” he replied, then turned and ran, slipped through the fence.

As playfully as he had run towards Garrett, the boy receded, getting smaller and smaller, swept away in a tide of children. And Garrett never blinked until they had all been sucked back into the school, tucked inside cement and peeling boards, and windows that were dark and unwelcoming.

Rain came, huge drops striking the roof of his car. Garrett reached down around his ankles, found his keys behind the heel of his right foot. His muffler backfired when he turned the key, and a bird burst out of the spruce tree, passed just in front of his car. Wings wet, weighted, rain pressed the bird downwards, skewing its path. Garrett waited for it to stop, settle into other branches. Then, reluctantly, he rolled his car around, drove away.

“EVERYTHING GOOD?”

“Yeah.”

“No one picking on him?”

“Not for me to see. Guess he really did run into a rock.”

Toby laughed, closed the encyclopedia.

“Tobe?”

“Yeah?”

“There was this—”

“This what?”

Ween lifted the book off of Toby's desk, slid it into his knapsack and zipped it closed. Ran his hands over the fabric, then lifted it off the ground a little, making sure his treasure was still inside.

“What?” Toby said. “What was you going to say?”

“Nothing,” Ween replied, and he slid his knapsack underneath his desk, sat down, locked his feet on either side. “Nothing. Boring over there with those kids. Glad we don't got to go there no more. Glad we're already half growed up.”

GARRETT PULLED OUT onto a main road, and saw the police car behind him, Constable Trench gesturing for him to pull off.

Hands clenched around the steering wheel, Garrett stopped his car. Waited for the end.

“You got yourself a flat tire there, my son.”

“I do?” Garrett leaned his head out of the window.

“'Tis that road, Garrett. What were you doing in there?”

“Uh, driving. Wandering around, I guess.”

“Well, that's no place to wander. Youngsters in there always up to no good. Tons of broken bottles around.”

“I'll remember that.”

Hand ready to roll up the window, but Constable Trench was still there. Staring at him. Garrett's heart began to knock against his chest, and he had to force himself to not look down.

“Garrett?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You still working over to Clarey's?”

“Yes, sir. I is.”

“Good. Good for you.”

“Okay.”

“And Garrett?”

“Yes, Constable Trench?”

Cleared his throat. “You don't have to– have to be—”

“Yes, Constable Trench?”

Hand waving, clearing the air between them. “Ah, go on.

Best get that tire looked after. And keep off the old roads.”

24

IN A CIRCLE of dry earth, Toby leaned against the trunk of a maple tree near the bank of the stream. All the red leaves still clung to the tree, and while he waited, they protected him from a light rain falling straight down. He watched the woods, wondering if she might show, or if her parents might discover her sneaking away from her house, up to no good.

He didn't have to wait long before he saw her walking through the woods. Hair like string, red pants and jean jacket darkened from the drizzle. Sides of her sneakers were coated in mud, and before she crawled underneath the tree she twisted each ankle, scraped the muck away.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey.”

Even though they'd been talking during lunchtime at school, they'd never really spent much time alone together. Toby coughed, shook his shaggy head so his hair covered his eyes. He couldn't look at her face, still pretty even though she was wearing enormous round glasses, navy rims.

“Do your father or mother know where you is?”

“Nope, never told them. Too wet to do anything, so they don't care. You?”

“Dad's working.”

“Oh.”

“And I told Mrs. Verge I was going to the library with Ween.”

“Well, she'll know you're lying for sure. Half lying anyway.”

“Ah, she don't care.”

Toby glanced at her, saw her hair sticking to her face. Her jacket was open and hanging off, and he could see part of her bra strap riding over her shoulder. He guessed it should be bright white but it wasn't, and that made him think of laundry and clothes on a line, and he wondered if she'd be embarrassed if her mother hung all of her underwear and other stuff out where her brother might see.

Angie lit a cigarette, held it in her left hand, and dabbed at the messy makeup behind her glasses. “So,” she said.

“Yeah.”

He thought to tell her about what he'd read today. In Ween's book. About Melvin and his head, and how his brain chemistry could be gone off. Explain it to her, and get her opinion. Maybe if he talked to Melvin in a different way, things might change. But he didn't want to betray Melvin, and if he shared those troubles with Angie, that was what he'd be doing.

“Umm. Do you want to play truth or dare?”

Unwanted redness jumped into Toby's cheeks, and he wasn't sure why. “Not really.”

“C'mon.” She nudged him. “I won't ask nothing hard.”

“Alright, I guess.” And he shook his hair again, tried to cover his face.

“Okay.” She stubbed her cigarette out near the base of the tree. “Okay. Truth or dare?”

“Well, seeing as I don't feel like getting drenched and I knows you'll say something like jump in the stream, I'll go for truth.”

“Okay.” She paused. “Who was your first crush?”

“That's easy. I don't got no first crush.”

“Not fair, Toby. You got to have one.”

Toby thought, chewed his bottom lip, smiled a little. “Okay. I got one, but I won't say the name.”

“Your mother?”

“No.” Toby saw Melvin's young face in his mind now, eyes wide and forever hopeful as he stared at their mother. Toby remembered how rarely she stared back.

“Who?”

“An older woman. You got that right.”

“How old was you?”

“Four, I think.”

“Mrs. Verge?”

Shook his head. “Not even close.”

“Who, then?”

“Miss Penny.”

“Who? I don't know her.”

“I thinks she's Mrs. Timothy now.”

Toby heard a choking sound.

“Mrs. Timothy? That teacher that smells like booze half the time?”

“Ween said she got something wrong with her insides. So sometimes she's fermenting, I guess. That's why she smells.”

“Yeah?” She leaned back against the tree. “Can't blame her horse teeth on that. Do she talk or do she whinny?”

“Oh, she whinnies. When I was little, I used to dream about going for a ride on her back.”

Snorts, now. “God. You're funny, Toby Trench.” A deep breath, composed again. “Your turn.”

“Alright. Okay. Ummm. Okay.” He tried to resist chewing his knuckles. “Ah. What's the most specialist thing about you?”

She leaned forward, clapped her hands together. “I know. I know. I can touch my tongue off the end of my nose.”

“Show me.” He glanced sideways, through his hair, saw her thin pink tongue jutting out, and sure enough she could kiss the sharp tip of her nose. “Shit,” he said. “Is that normal?”

“I don't see why not.”

“Does it go any further?”

“What?”

“I means, can you push your glasses up?”

She punched him, laughed. “Yeah, right, and I'm the only person ever who gave themselves their own cowlick.”