Best Boy (17 page)

I was so surprised I couldn't say anything for a second.

“You can do that?” I asked.

She smiled a big smile.

“You know a lot for a mental,” she said, “but also you really don't know anything.”

“Thank you,” I said. “Are you going to the General Meeting the day after tomorrow?”

“Only because we have to. But can you do me a favor, Todd?”

“What?”

“Get a haircut.”

I touched my hair. “A haircut?” And then I remembered that she'd asked me that the first time she'd met me.

She leaned close, then closer.

“Because my parents are coming to take me to lunch and I'd like to take you instead of Randy Atkins, but the way you look now,” she started to say when her mouth suddenly fell open and her head fell forward, her eye drooped and she made a sound from her throat that wasn't a word. From over my shoulder I heard someone say, “There you are! I've been looking all over for you! We're late for knitting.”

From her open mouth Martine made the sound again. The sound was, “Nguh.”

“Nguh,” she said, and shuffled slowly by me towards a staff named Connie and I watched the two of them walk away, with Connie stopping every few feet to let Martine catch up.

I went back to the cottage. It had always felt like just another place to stay but walking around on roads with cars going by and sleeping at night in a field made it feel that it was
my
cottage, more than ever before. Tommy Doon was away with his parents and I had the rest of the day off. I turned on the oldies station and lay down on my bed. I was flicking the fingers of my right hand while listening to Robert Goulet singing “Once I Had a Heart” when the phone rang on the living room wall. I slowly got up from the bed to pick it up.

“Hi,” I said.

There was a long pause. “Where to begin?” my brother said in a low voice.

“Hi,” I said again and remembered that my brother had told me he was going to call me back soon for a “real conversation.” During the phone call from Mr. Rawson's office he'd started slow but then began talking very quickly. I hadn't understood
a lot of what he had to say except that he was angry and also “humiliated” and also “quite frankly, stunned.”

“Todd,” he said quietly.

“Yes.”

“I think I owe you an apology,” he said.

“An apology.”

“Yeah, for underestimating how upset this guy made you. You told me but I chalked it up to new-shoe squeaks and that was my bad.”

“It's okay,” I said. I was still flicking the fingers of one hand. They were attached to my body but were part of my body. This thought surprised me suddenly and I slowed the flicking down so that I could watch better.

“You know what, actually? It's not okay. There are things that I can't talk about, but let's just say that I'm under a lot of stress these days. Be happy you don't know a bottom line from a fruit pie, Todd. Be happy you never even heard the word “externalities.” What I'm trying to say,” my brother sighed, “is that I wanna make it right.”

“Okay,” I said, “but Nate?”

“The answer to your question is yes, Todd.”

My fingers suddenly stopped moving.

“What?”

There was a long pause.

“Earlier this morning I had a long call with your people,” he said. “A good call, a real air-clearer. It helped me see your little walkabout as the cry for help it was. Well, I'm bringing it. Right after that call this morning we sat down and had a family meeting, Beth, me and the kids. The boys are a little older, you know, and I think we're all wiser. I really pressed Beth in particular and I guess what I'm saying is this: we'd like to invite you back.”

“
Home?
” I said. “
I can come home?
”

“We could have you out and maybe tour some of the places we used to go as kids in the area. You know, Ting-a-ling's Pizza with the giant pepperoni slices or the Leaning Tower of Szechuan—a trip-down-memory-lane kind of thing.”

I began feeling the breath going in and out of me quickly. “Really?” I said.

“I'm betting you're old enough to keep your nose clean, and as I say, the kids would really like to get to know their uncle.”

My voice was getting higher still. I couldn't control it.

“When?” I said.

“Tubers?”

“Yes.”

“Let a little air out of those tires, please.”

I started breathing again.

“Okay,” I said.

“I'm thinking very soon, like this weekend.”

“Yayyyyy!” I yelled.

“I thought you'd be happy.”

“I am happy!”

“Well, so are we.”

He said something and then so did I and then he said something else and hung up while I was still talking. But I didn't care. I was going home. I would be taking a plane that went along a kind of high, curved road in air and ending up at the door of the place I was born in before walking through the rooms where Momma's mouth once said things like, “You're the most special person in the whole world.” And, “Look at how beautiful the sun is on the leaves today!” And, “It stings, manikins, and then the sting goes away.” I spent a long time after the phone call with my brother alone in my room, my hand in my mouth,
rocking hard and fast to keep up with all the new feelings. The feelings shot away from me in every direction. I flung myself so far forward after them that I almost fell onto my knees and then so far back that I almost tipped over. As I did this I said the word, “Yah!” again and again. “Yah!” I said, trying hard to keep the feelings in view as they went away over the edge of the horizon and I galloped after them as fast as I could.

TWENTY-SIX

T
HE
G
ENERAL
M
EETING WAS HELD IN THE
M
AIN
Hall. Everyone was there and someone had filled the stage with pictures of Greta Deane that were projected very large on a screen. So there was Greta Deane with her hair short. And also with her hair long. And smiling. Or looking down in a shy way that showed her eyelashes. Or staring at a parakeet on her finger while laughing. Or shaking that same finger at someone but not like she was really angry.

She was alive in these pictures. But like my parents she'd already returned to that place I didn't know she'd come from till she went back there forever, which was Death. When I was a little boy I thought Death was where bodies were sent to be changed like coats by the smaller, deeper parts of people called their “spirits.” Bodies were brought by these spirits and put on and then dropped again when people died and the body was sent back to Death to be recycled like the things in the compost heap my Daddy used to keep inside a ring of stones in the forest
behind the swingset. It was filled with hay and coffee grounds and old eggs and paper that rotted with a sweet smell. But it made heat. It made a lot of heat, even in the winter. It sent steam into the cold air. Like a living body.

Also, many of my staff went away forever and that was like a death too except they sometimes sent you postcards. In all the therapeutic communities staff were always leaving. They were leaving to “raise a family” or join the Army or go back to school or get a better job. First they touched you on the shoulder and asked you to step into the living room or a quiet space for a “tough conversation.” Then they cried as they said goodbye. They smiled lots. They hugged you very tight. Then you never saw them again. That's what happened with Curtis and Rhonda and Leshawn and Duane, and also with Katie and Bob and Clarence and Latifa who went away forever like a death even though it was only changing states or cities.

Mr. Rawson was in charge of the meeting. He walked onstage wearing his blue suit and looking serious. He took his place and tapped on the microphone while I looked around the room. Two years earlier a maintenance man had a heart attack and drowned in Payton Pond and that was the last time I'd seen the Main Hall so full. All the villagers were there and all the staff too. The men from Physical Plant sat together wearing blue overalls. The daystaff, the secretaries and cleaners, the security guard and administrators sat in different places and the villagers themselves were divided a little bit into the BI's and everyone else. The BI's mostly sat in separate bleachers and had more staff with them than the Developmentals because they have a harder time following orders. Several of them were wearing mouth guards and a few of them also had modified football helmets and one had a padded shirt on that kept his arms pinned. In the bottom
row on the ground level were several adults who dressed like they were going out to dinner and sat very carefully with their hands on their laps. These were parents.

I was seated halfway up next to Raykene who must have been nervous because she kept saying, “All right,” and “Here we are,” and “There you go,” as people went by us to take their seats. On the other side of her was Tommy Doon who had returned from his trip with his parents and barely said hello to me. He seemed very angry about something.

“Good afternoon, villagers, staff and friends,” Mr. Rawson said into his microphone, “and welcome to this special plenary meeting of the Payton community.”

“Good afternoon, Mr. Rawson,” we all said together.

“As most of you are aware,” he went on, “Greta Deane passed away recently in circumstances that can only be described as tragic. Greta was a daughter, a friend and a vibrant member of our Payton LivingCenter family. It is our purpose today to honor her memory.”

There was a silence in which I began thinking about the soda machine. As we'd entered the Main Hall I'd seen a man in a white van loading trays of cans into it. This meant the machine was full and that my favorite drink which is called Rolly-o Root Beer was now available.

“To that end,” Mr. Rawson said, “we'll talk a little today, and we'll sing a little and we'll laugh and maybe cry a little as well. Life is not reckoned only in calendar years but in the quality of its time and by that accounting Greta Deane had a very good life, indeed. I still remember the shy, distracted girl who showed up here as a nineteen-year-old and how she blossomed into an assured young woman who would be the pride of any community she lived in, special needs or not.”

He continued talking but I was looking across the large auditorium. I was gazing past the folded basketball backboards and to that place on the other side where there was a row of people that contained a girl in a black eyepatch. She was easy to see in a crowd. Something flew out of me and shot across the room towards her and was almost all the way to her when it realized that Randy Atkins was sitting next to her. The flying something stopped where it was in the air and fell down on the floor.

“Memory is life,” Mr. Rawson was saying, “and that's why we'll have a little help in remembering her today. Clyde?”

Suddenly we heard a sound and saw Clyde Marsh who was a vocational supervisor wheeling something in from the side of the room and towards Mr. Rawson. It looked like the metal skeleton of a tree. It was very tall and it clanked a little and seemed to have hooks on its branches.

“Our Remembrance Tree,” said Mr. Rawson, “will host the individual memories of staff and villagers. Monitors will now begin passing out leaves. Later in this ceremony we'll take a moment to write a word or two down on one of these leaves about Greta which will then hang on the tree. A phrase or an image or anything that brings her back to life. The tree will stand in the Main Hall and we'll all have a chance to visit it and thereby remember her.”

People began talking a little bit to each other as they passed baskets containing paper leaves and pencils down the rows. Mr. Rawson looked out smiling at the crowd and said, “Yes, it
is
a great idea, isn't it? It was suggested by someone in the Development Office named Nita Oleska. Nita, are you here?”

A woman I'd never seen before stood up.

“Thank you very much, Nita,” said Mr. Rawson. He paused to let people continue passing out the leaves. Then he said, “A
person's fundamental identity can be seen most clearly in what they like, their taste in things. To that end, we're now going to listen to one of Greta's favorite songs, suggested to us by her Peace cottagemate Cathy Polhemus. During the listening, let us ‘visualize' Greta, thinking of pictures of her in our minds. The music is by a singer from . . . Australia, I believe. Her name is Sia, and the song, correct me if I'm wrong, is called ‘Lentil.' I don't pretend to understand what the song ‘means.' The point here is to try to draw close to our departed villager. Rob, if you'd be so kind?”

He nodded at someone. Instantly from the ceiling came the sound of a piano playing. A voice of a woman sang along with the piano. It was a very clear, strong voice. Mainly what it was, was sad. I didn't know what she was singing about but I could see the sad pictures on the screen in my head when I shut my eyes. Particularly what I saw was each of my parents now lying in coffins while they turned gradually into giant cigars from the process called
decomposition
. I started to cry. Instantly Raykene's hand was pressing into my arm.

“Let it all the way out,” I heard her say in my ear. “There's no such thing as too many tears in this life. And Lord knows, we need some relief around here.”

I opened my eyes while the music was going on and I saw that not everyone was crying but that everyone was completely still. The staff was still and the Developmentals and even the BI's were sitting without moving as the piano made its singing sound and the voice sang over it. There was no perseverating or biting in the room. There was no head-banging or groaning or shouting or hissing. The Main Hall was perfectly quiet as the music went into the people in it. Then the music stopped and the crowd began again making sounds of individuals moving
in their seats and speaking in little bits of conversation. Several people groaned loudly and Mike Thomaselli, who had been at Payton even longer than me, made his usual two-toned snort.