My Sister, My Love (25 page)

“HEY RAMPIKE.”

In grade school, is anything more terrifying than being addressed by your surname, in a jeering-hostile boy-voice?

In the splattered mirror above a sink in the second-floor/east wing boys’ restroom at Fair Hills Day School, there loomed a bony-faced yet cutely freckled fifth grader, taller than Skyler by several inches, his icy-blue eyes fixed upon Skyler’s alarmed moist-brown eyes; his chin, triangular like a cobra’s, thrust aggressively forward.

“I said—‘Hey Rampike.’ You deaf, asshole?”

Bravely Skyler smiled and, in the spirit of boy-surname-exchange, stammered what sounded like, “Hey, K-Klaus.”

This response, far from provoking a smile in the other boy’s stern face, or placating him, seemed to offend him. With both hands, Calvin Klaus, Jr. shoved against Skyler’s back and pushed him against the rim of the sink, hard.

“‘Ram-puke.’ ‘Sky-ler Ram-puke.’ You and me, ‘Ram-puke,’ what’re we s’posed to be, brothers?—
not
!” Like a riddle these reproachful words leapt from Calvin Klaus, Jr.’s mouth that was twisted in an oddly adult fury, and before Skyler could defend himself, or duck and scuttle away as he’d learned to do in grade-school scuffles over the years, Calvin grabbed him by a sleeve of his hunter-green Fair Hills Day school sweater, and slammed him against the tile wall as other boys looked on, startled, alarmed, or smiling in excited expectation of a fight.

A fight? At “prestigious”—“exclusive”—Fair Hills Day? Where expulsion was likely to be quick, and non-negotiable, and would adversely af
fect the expelled student’s admission to one of the Higher Ivies, and by extension his entire life?

Skyler wasn’t going to fight back, for Skyler knew when he was outmatched. (Skyler was invariably outmatched.) In the confusion of the moment Skyler was yet able to register that, just visible on his angry assailant’s right wrist, beneath his shirt cuff, was a red-inked tattoo of some cryptic kind.

Might’ve been a skull. Or a dagger dripping blood.

Or a swastika.

Was this a gang attack? Was ten-year-old Calvin Klaus, Jr. a “gangsta” initiate, put up to attacking nine-year-old Skyler Rampike, a “target selected at random,” by one of the school’s (secret) gangs/fraternities?
*

Skyler wanted to protest, wasn’t Calvin his playdate friend?

Skyler wanted to protest
But I always liked you.

There came Billy Durkee pushing his way through the ring of staring boys, to grab Calvin by the shoulder and haul him away from Skyler now cowering on the floor.

“Let him alone, Klaus—the kid’s a cripple, for Christ’s sake.”
^†

S’POSED TO BE BROTHERS?—NOT!

At Fair Hills Day there’d come to be, among other short-lived juvenile slang, buzzwords, and profanities/obscenities culled from the cesspool of
popular-TV culture, a clumsy sort of irony involving statements with
not!
attached. As in, I think you’re really cool, Skyler?—
not!
Or, How’d you like a kiss, Skyler?—
not!

Yet, recalling the attack in the restroom, and Calvin’s mysterious remark, Skyler fixated on the word
brothers
.

S’posed to be brothers?

Brothers?

“Maybe Calvin likes me? Maybe Calvin wants to be ‘brothers’ with me?”

It didn’t seem likely. (Or did it?)

Hadn’t Mildred Marrow spoken wistfully of having Skyler for a brother? So that, by a magical way of logic, clumsy unattractive Mildred might’ve been ice-skating prodigy Bliss Rampike?

So Skyler brooded for days following the attack, as Calvin Klaus stonily avoided him, and Skyler had not the courage to approach Calvin to ask what he’d meant. Nor did Skyler mention the attack to any adult. (Hide your bruises, as you hide your broken heart! Kids learn young. During this interim, when Daddy was no longer living with his family on Ravens Crest Drive but in a “condominium” that Skyler had yet to visit, Skyler was anxious to protect Mummy from further upset of any kind; and when Daddy called, as Daddy made a point of calling his family at least once a week, he certainly didn’t want to upset/annoy Daddy by confessing he’d been jumped, thrown against a wall, utterly overcome in a boys’ restroom at school, and before witnesses.)

In a previous chapter titled “Adventures in Playdates II,” ten-year-old Calvin Klaus, Jr. appeared only briefly and was yanked away at once by the anxious author afflicted with a neurological variant of J.L.S. (Jumpy Leg Syndrome), who could not bear to dwell upon the impending crisis in the Rampike family. In fact, Skyler and Calvin had been brought to each other’s homes upon several occasions, to watch popular boy-videos (
Chucky I
,
Chucky II
,
Chucky III
,
Terminator I
,
Terminator II
,
Robo-Boy Goes Ballistic! Revenge of Robo-Boy
, etc.) and to be overseen by one or another Maria. Skyler, the younger and less assertive of the two boys, had no idea if Calvin Klaus enjoyed these visits or merely tolerated them, as Fair Hills children tolerated so much for the sakes of their anxious mothers. All that I can recall of the numerous words these boys
must’ve exchanged is
How’re things at school with you
and the shrug-reply
Okay, I guess. You?

For days following the unprovoked attack Skyler unobtrusively (he hoped) trailed Calvin Klaus at a discreet distance like a lovesick/kicked dog, when their class schedules allowed. In the school “dining room”—not a “cafeteria,” for this was Fair Hills Day School where tuition rivaled tuition at the Higher Ivies—Skyler sat in a strategic position where he could unobtrusively (he hoped) observe the older boy with his fifth- and sixth-grade friends. How attractive Calvin seemed to Skyler, with his lean, angular, sharp-boned face, his “innocently” freckled skin like the skin of a boy in a Norman Rockwell illustration of bygone times in America, and his wolfish habit of lowering his head as he ate, or laughed. If from time to time Calvin glanced in Skyler’s direction and saw Skyler watching him, quickly Calvin looked away.
The stalked has become the stalker.

Wish I had time to pursue this theme. How we are drawn to and come to adore and will recall through decades of our lives teeming with a Milky Way of other individuals those very persons who, when we were children, terrorized us.

Sly Skyler arranged for Maria to pick him up after school an hour later so that he could linger at the rear of the school, and observe Calvin Klaus being picked up—usually by a Hispanic housekeeper though occasionally by his mother; Skyler’s reward was to catch a glimpse, and more than a glimpse, of Morgan Klaus, a glamorous woman with prominent cheekbones, bemused icy-blue eyes, a throaty, lockjawed way of speaking, chic understated clothes and stylish crimped blond hair: the woman in the solarium!

Skyler shut his eyes. Heart pounding seeing Bix Rampike’s outspread grasping fingers—Daddy’s big fingers, that could grab, and squeeze, and shake if they wished—on the woman’s back where the creamy-pale skin was bare—naked!—above the silky black dress.

Jesus are you beautiful when can I see you crazy for you honey

Poor Mummy! Where Mummy was insecure, smiled too much, over-made-up and over-dressed, with her glossy helmet of “tinted” hair even a
nine-year-old could see was unfashionable, Calvin Klaus’s mother was so assured, so striking in her demeanor, you would scarcely notice that she wasn’t beautiful. Some days, Mrs. Klaus showed up at the rear entrance of Fair Hills Day in a low-slung gleaming-avocado Porsche, other days, in suburban-soccer-mom style, for Calvin Klaus did play soccer after school, in a gleaming black Reaper S.U.V. large enough to accommodate half the soccer team though it was only Calvin who climbed into the S.U.V., sulky-faced. Once, Skyler overheard Mrs. Klaus call out to her son in that throaty-sexy drawl: “Come
on
. None of that passive-aggressive shit with
me
. I’m your damn mother, not your damn chauffeur.”

There was a mother!
Crazy about you.

Many times Skyler hoped that Morgan Klaus would take notice of him waiting alone by the curb, stoically bearing the weight of a book-crammed backpack on his narrow frame, still a “cute” kid by most maternal standards; but the bemused icy-blue eyes merely glided over him as if he were invisible; and Calvin Klaus, having caught on that Skyler was hoping to be seen, stonily ignored him. Only once, when Skyler was alone shivering in the rain when Mrs. Klaus pulled up in her massive Reaper, did his classmate’s mother take notice of him, with a startled little smile: “Is that—Scooter? Rampike?” As Skyler stepped forward eager to be offered a ride home, and the hell with whoever was coming to pick him up in a few minutes, rudely Calvin elbowed him aside saying in a loud raw voice: “No, Mom. This isn’t him.”

The threat in Calvin Klaus’s voice, Skyler wasn’t about to dispute the issue of his identity.

“YOUR DAD AND MY MOM, THEY’RE ’SCREWING’ EACH OTHER—KNOW WHAT
that is?”

Screwing? A giant—screw? Skyler winced not wanting to think what this might mean.

Not sure, but Skyler mumbled yes.

“You
do
?”

Skyler mumbled yes sort of.

“It’s like ‘fucking’—know what that is?”

Fuck/fucking
were words Bix Rampike sometimes muttered beneath his breath or, if really exasperated, out loud.
Fuck/fucking
had to be something that disgusted you, made you angry and impatient. Less certainly, Skyler mumbled yes maybe.

“Hell you know, punk. You don’t know, I bet.” Calvin Klaus laughed derisively. “
I
know. I’ve seen pictures.”

Pictures of Bix Rampike and Morgan Klaus? Or—pictures of strangers? Gamely Skyler tried to recall the blocked-out images of Fox Hambruck’s lurid “home movies.” In Skyler’s memory these had become confused with blocked-out images from Tyler McGreety’s lurid autopsy photographs.

It was nineteen days after the assault in the boys’ restroom. Finally, Calvin Klaus had cornered Skyler Rampike another time, in a deserted corridor at school. Though Skyler was frightened, expecting to be pummelled and slammed against a row of lockers, he had not tried to run from Calvin; he’d decided
I will be brave. Daddy would want this
. But Calvin seemed less angry with Skyler now as if in the intervening days he’d become burnt-out with anger. Or, having seen Skyler Rampike trailing him about with a wistful-doggy look, he’d decided to have mercy on him.

Skyler said impulsively, “‘Adult’ry.’ That’s what it is.”

“‘Adult’ry.’ What’s that?”

“What they do.” Skyler paused importantly. His voice quavered speaking of such matters. “‘Adults’ not married to each other.”

Calvin regarded Skyler quizzically. Among his classmates, Skyler was acquiring a reputation for being weird in an intriguing way: a freaky kid, given to odd mannerisms, gnomic outbursts, and brooding silences, but not only just a freak. It had become known that Skyler’s father was a VIP in corporate business of some kind and that his younger sister, who was too special to attend school, was rapidly becoming a famous ice-skater to be seen on TV, her picture in the media. Vaguely it was rumored that Skyler had been a prodigy-gymnast who’d injured himself irrevocably in an accident. Vaguely it was rumored that the Rampikes were rich and had powerful political connections.

Who knew?—maybe Skyler Rampike himself was a genius? One of those legendary Fair Hills pupils whose I.Q.’s were said to be “off the charts” though their class work, for neurological/psychological/pathopsychopharmaceutological reasons, might seem but ordinary.

Sneering Calvin said, with the belligerence of a humanoid figure in a video game: “Yo smart-ass: what do adults
do
? You tell me.”

Desperately Skyler tried to think: what
do
adults do? And
why
? As Calvin poked him in the chest with a bony forefinger, Skyler could see the boy’s red-inked tattoos (a heart dripping blood, a dagger dripping blood) on the underside of his wrist.

If Calvin was a new initiate of the (secret, forbidden) Fair Hills Bloods, his issue with Skyler didn’t appear to be gangsta-related, but personal.

“Okay, asshole. I’ll explain. It’s with”—Calvin said, gesturing at the crotch of his neat-pressed corduroy trousers, with a look both lewd and revulsed—“they ‘screw’ them together. The woman has a hole between her legs, the man’s cock fits in. Sometimes, they make a baby. That white stuff out of your little punk cock—that’s ‘sea-man.’ It gets shot up inside the woman like a spray can and can snag in there and turn into a baby, like a tapeworm that gets huge.” Calvin paused, swallowing hard; you could see a fleeting nausea in his pale freckled face. “Sometimes, like with my mom I overheard talking once, on the phone with one of her women friends, they ‘get rid of ’ this baby-thing, and it’s flushed down the toilet like shit. Could’ve been you, or me—like, we could’ve been brothers—twins—see? If your dad and my mom had been screwing, a long time ago. And if they get married, we will be.”

Calvin spoke excitedly, not very coherently. Skyler stared at him in dismay. A sudden roaring in his ears, he wasn’t hearing this. Brothers?—twins?
Married?

“You little punk, why’re you looking at me like that?” Calvin said, flaring up. “Like you don’t believe me? My mom wants to get a divorce from my poor asshole-dad, who’s essentially clueless in all this, and marry your dad, except your dad is moved away from Fair Hills, I guess? ‘Bix Rampike’—used to be some kind of big-deal football player? My dad’s got guns, see. And my mom gets drunk, and mean, and tells him all
kinds of things to make him mad at her, your dad better watch out somebody doesn’t blow off his head.” Now Calvin did shove Skyler back against the row of lockers, though not hard: you might say, companionably. His breath was warm and anguished in Skyler’s face. “If my dad doesn’t, maybe I will.”
*