Embracing Darkness (53 page)

“Say something, Jess!” Swell urged.

“I-I-I can’t.”

“Oh, come on. You’re my best friend. If I can’t trust
you
 . . .”

Suddenly Jessie felt an uncontrollable urge to shout, “YOU FUCKING WHORE! HOW COULD YOU DO THIS? BILLY NORWIN IS
MINE
! HOW COULD YOU STEAL HIM AWAY FROM ME?” But again she refrained from saying anything she knew she’d regret after cooling down. Perhaps it was because she had briefly glanced up at the broken angel sitting on the shelf next to the picture of her parents. Jessie finally did think of something to say. “Where did you do it?” she asked.

“Uhm, under the rectory,” answered Sue Ellen, sounding guilty.

“WHAT?” Jessie yelled, and for a brief moment, remembered the man in the greasy overalls that Joey and Jonas had buried under there.

“Billy said we needed a place to do it. I told him we couldn’t do it up in my room because daddy’s a very light sleeper, and ever since mom died he gets paranoid and comes to check up on me while I’m sleeping. Better for him to think I’d gone for a walk in the middle of the night than to see Billy and me in bed together. Billy told me that since he shared his room with the three older boys, we’d have no privacy there because they’d all pretend to be asleep and end up watching us the whole time. And I couldn’t use your bedroom, it being Wednesday night and all.”

Jessie was grateful to Sue Ellen for her consideration in not asking for Jessie’s bedroom in which to screw the love of her life.

“Billy said he knew of a place where no one would find us. We went to the side of the rectory’s front steps, where Billy pulled off a wooden panel. He told me to wait while he went into the rectory to get something. A minute later he came out with a large blanket. We crawled into the space, and he immediately got on top of me, and… . the rest is history.”

Jessie’s mind wandered to the dead man in greasy overalls whom she, Joey, Jonas, Rex, and Theo had buried there several years back. “You didn’t
see
or
smell
anything down there, did you?” Jessie asked cautiously.

“Well, it was too dark to see anything, and it smelled like dirt. But listen! I’m still not finished! After we did it, we lay down side by side on the blanket and let the breeze outside cool off our naked bodies. Billy lit a cigarette, and we just rested there a spell. I don’t know exactly what he was thinking, or whether he was smiling, but I was grinning from ear to ear. We stayed like that for about ten minutes until we heard a clamor on the floor above us. It was Sister and Father Fin, who were looking for towels. Sister even screamed for the big blanket we were lying on, and that’s when Billy sat up quickly and said, ‘Oh, shit. I gotta get this back inside. They’re looking for it.’”

“What was happening upstairs?” Jessie asked Sue Ellen.

“One of those slobs clogged their toilet, and water was getting all over the place.”

“Oh, yeah,” Jessie said. “Ziggy got scared when he saw water coming up out of the toilet. For the last few days he won’t go to the bathroom unless someone goes with him.”

“So
that’s
what the kid was talking about when he asked whether my toilet went up or down!”

“I guess so,” Jessie said, again sounding completely withdrawn from the conversation. “So where does this leave you two now?”

“Who? Billy and me? We’re planning on meeting again tonight. He says he has another dollar for me!”

The thought of Sue Ellen’s having sex with Billy on her birthday made Jessie almost lose her cool. She jumped up off the bed, surprising Swell, and opened the door to the bedroom. “Sister’s not feeling well,” she said. “She’s in her room resting. I don’t want her to miss my party tonight, so I think we need to go outside so we don’t make any more noise. Turn off the record player, will you?”

Jessie started down the stairs with Sue Ellen close behind her. “But don’t you want to hear the rest, Jess?”

“You mean there’s more?” replied Jessie, incredulously.

“I made a dollar. I’m going to make another dollar tonight when Billy and I do it again! I wanted to tell you my scheme. Billy’s telling all the boys except for Ziggy, Charlie, and Dylan, of course, because they’re way too young, that I’ll be available after school and in the evenings under the rectory if they want to have a good time. ‘If you got a dollar, gimme a holler.’ That’s my slogan.”

“Even Lou and Gabe?” Jessie asked.

“They’re a bit young too, but my cut-off is eight years old. I won’t go below eight. They’re like babies under eight! I mean, I can still show eight-year-olds a good time. They wouldn’t have to do much. I’ll charge them fifty cents each. The older boys can pay full price for their turn. It’s not too much to ask.” Noticing Jessie’s uneasiness with the whole conversation, Swell added, “Come on, Jess. It’s not so bad. The boys get what they want, and so do I.”

“When you were carrying on before about needing to tell me something,” Jessie began, “I figured that you were going to tell me you were in love.”

“Well,” said Sue Ellen. “I
am
in love.”

“Y-you are?” asked Jessie. With whom?”

“With him!” Sue Ellen said smartly, taking out the dollar Billy had given her and kissing the portrait of George Washington.

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU! HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DEAR JESSIE! HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!”

Everyone cheered as Jessie blew out all sixteen of her candles, the sixteenth one being for good luck. As Jessie surveyed the crowd, she noticed that Billy and Swell had disappeared. She then thought of the crawlspace just under her feet.
They’re
under
there
right
now,
screwing
their
heads
off
.

Sister Ignatius had made it to the party after all. She was pale and walked more slowly than usual, complaining of dizziness, but was in good spirits.

They had assembled in the rectory’s common room but briefly made their way to the dining room to sing “Happy Birthday” and divide the cake up before heading back to the common room. Jessie was so wrapped up in everything that Swell had related to her that she forgot to wish for her parents to be alive again as she blew out her candles.

She didn’t realize her mistake until Sister said softly in her ear, “I wish Rex could have been here. Is that what you wished for? No, shh. Don’t tell me! Remember that if you tell anyone your wish it won’t come true. It’s between you and God.”

Jessie could barely manage a smile. She hated thinking of Rex. Every time she did she remembered his letter and imagined him getting attacked by the boys in the barracks. She wanted to show Sis and Father Fin the note she’d received from Rex before he was killed. It mentioned the name of the man who had tormented him so
—
Zachary Black
.
As long as Jessie lived, she swore that she’d never forget that name.

Jessie had seen the impact of Rex’s death on Sister Ignatius. She refused to bring up the sordid topic again for fear that it would kill the woman, and she decided to leave well enough alone. Besides, if the United States Army’s investigation into Rex’s death had ruled it a suicide, what made her think that showing his letter to Father Fin and Sis would change anything? The name Zachary Black wasn’t familiar to her, since she had been a toddler when he disappeared. Father Poole, Sister Ignatius, Argyle Hobbs, and Jonas never spoke his name in front of the other children, having agreed not to ever mention him again.

After we’d divided the cake among ourselves, we retired to the common room, save for Jessie. She stood by the extensive table, alongside her dissected cake. She fretted about neglecting to make her annual wish.

“Happy birthday, Jess,” a boy’s voice called to her from the threshold of the dining room. It was Billy. He was standing there with what seemed to be a present in his hand, although it was wrapped in toilet paper. She walked over to him but stopped short of a normal distance for casual conversation.

“They already sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to me,” she said, sounding angry.

“I know,” he replied. “I heard from bel… .”

He stopped and raised the gift he held to eyelevel. He tried to think of something else to say, but instead felt ashamed at how he’d wrapped it.

“So where’s Sue Ellen?” she asked, still sounding irritated.

“I don’t know.”

“Perhaps you should go find her. I wouldn’t want you two to be without each other’s company for long. You might die of loneliness or, better yet, sex deprivation.”

“Deprivation” was a word she’d learned a few days before when Argyle Hobbs was putting out rabbit traps behind the shrubs around the rectory. Jess had asked the old man what he was doing.

“Too many damn rabbits. They’re screwin’ each other purple. Deprive ’em of sex, and there won’t be many left after too long.”

Jessie asked what he meant.

“You know,” said Argyle. “Sex deprivation is, well, when you take away the chance for them to do it.”

Jessie knew what that “it” meant.

“You get rid of one, and there’s nothing the other can do. She won’t have no more babies.”

“Sex deprivation,” repeated Jess.

Having launched her barbed comment, Jessie walked past Billy Norwin, meaning to leave the dining room.

“Jess!” he said passionately.

She stopped but didn’t turn around.

“Listen, Jess. Swell told me she’d confided in you. She thought you looked upset about the whole thing. I don’t blame you for being sore.”

“Sore? Why should I be sore? I mean, it’s a stupid thing to do, having sex under a church. I mean, aren’t you afraid that God will… oh, what’s the word?
Smite
you or something?”

He chuckled. “We weren’t exactly under the church.”

Turning to face him, her cheeks a bright crimson and her expression livid, Jessie walked up to him and slapped him hard across the face, causing him to drop her present, which made a sound as though whatever was inside might have broken.

“Shit!” he exclaimed, bending down to pick it up.

“Don’t tell me it’s another stupid angel,” she snapped.

He turned his back to her, tore the tissue off the box, and opened it. He pulled the object out and turned back around to her. It wasn’t broken at all. It was a necklace of glass beads, all different colors. He offered it to her. A tear began to pool in her eye. He unfastened the clasp and joined the two sides behind her neck. Then he let the beads rest on her shoulders as he pulled her ponytail up over the necklace and set her hair down gently over it.

“Happy birthday, Jess,” he repeated, and kissed her. She closed her eyes, as did he, and their lips met. He then stroked her cheeks gently with his thumbs.

“But what about Swell?” she asked.

“She wanted my money. I offered it to her, and she took it. Giving the money to her was to show her that no feelings whatsoever were involved. It was like business, that’s all.”

“Is that what you want? Someone like her? No feelings for each other?”

“I only went to her for it because I knew you wouldn’t. I respect you. I’d never even ask you for sex. And besides, I think there’s something between
us
.”

An overwhelming sense of joy filled Jessie’s heart. The boy whom she loved did indeed love her back! And he had proved it to her by his gift, by tenderly stroking her face, by his soft kiss, and by his candor. Forgetting about her parents, about Rex and about everything she had wanted before, Jessie got something that evening she’d wanted for the longest time—the boy of her dreams. And she never had to wish for it.

Twenty-Two
If You See Darkness, Color It Black
 

The town of Holly was always good at overlooking many things: the abuse of its children, as was evident to anyone who uttered a kind word about Father Poole and the Catholic church up on the hill; domestic disturbances turned deadly, as was the case of Wilma Hodges’s shooting her husband dead before taking a bullet herself; and the corruption of its police and lawmakers, Captain Ransom making more off bribes and blackmail than from his own salary and dodgy Mayor Errol Aberfoyle, now halfway through his sixth term and fighting allegations of having stolen every election since 1928.

The residents of Holly were odd people, not least for the incredible ease with which they dismissed certain things. Some local tragedies were regarded as misadventures brought about simply by bad luck, pure accident, or the inscrutable will of God.

A visiting cousin from Plymouth, for example, died from a backwards fall off a third-story balcony while imbibing with his uncle and his uncle’s old fraternity brothers in late June of 1942. “What an unfortunate occurrence,” blandly opined the good townspeople of Holly.

Then there was the incident in the early morning hours of July 5, 1942, when Mayor Aberfoyle’s wife unexpectedly confronted her husband and accused him of infidelity after he’d come home at 2:45 a.m. with traces of lipstick on his shirt collar. When he had denied the charge, she screamed “LIAR!” and smashed a Royal Doulton tea cup on his cranium, rendering His Honor temporarily unconscious with a pronounced lump just above the left temple. “Perhaps he was out celebrating the Fourth until quite late,” some constituents dismissively speculated.

On one summer afternoon that year two boys in Holly happened to be beguiling their time by playing a game of marbles. While arguing over who wasn’t playing with his knuckles down, one lad shot his aggie, hitting two marbles out of the ring. “Ha!” he shouted to his opponent, crawling carefully into the ring so as not to disturb the remaining marbles. When he stretched his arm beyond the circle to retrieve his winnings, he was stopped by something that startled him. A large booted foot had come down hard on the marble that had caromed to the left.

“Hey! What gives?” the boy exclaimed, but he stopped short of saying another word upon seeing the face of a man whose eyes alone inspired terror. He was breathing heavily, and his lips were paper-thin. It was a man the eight-year-olds had never laid eyes on before, definitely a stranger in town.