Other Plans (11 page)

His first year at St. Mark's, the president of the senior class had killed himself. John had been too young to have known the guy, but everybody said he had everything going for him: good looks, a good mind, good athlete. What else was there? But in the middle of March, during a snowstorm, the kid climbed a water tower over a hundred feet high and jumped. He landed in the soft snow, which turned out to be not nearly soft enough. Everyone was shocked out of their skulls. They kept it as quiet as they could so little twerps like him and Keith wouldn't wise up. Mrs. Arthur had worn dark glasses for days afterwards. Probably she had dished out the Last Duchess to that kid so many times that she'd pushed him over the edge. Even the city papers had sent reporters to town. Pictures of the school, the town, the guy's house, were everywhere. His parents, poor bastards, were on television. At the funeral. They always get people when their defenses are down, when they don't know what they're doing. Psychiatrists were dragged in to give their opinions as to why he'd done it. The TV nightly

“Did you ever suspect he'd do such a thing?”

“Absolutely not. He was a fine boy, never in any trouble. They were a fine family, went to church every Sunday.” How to make the kid's minister or priest or rabbi feel like a real winner, right?

The kid had left a note that naturally was kept secret. And later, some columnist wrote a piece about teenage suicide, which was beginning to rival AIDS as the topic of the day. Among the salient facts he learned was that March was the favorite month for suicide and that more seventeen-year-old males committed suicide than any other age group. The senior class president was a seventeen-year-old male and he had jumped in March.

Nobody knew what caused the kid to knock himself off and, as far as he knew, nobody ever found out. A memorial fund in the kid's name was set up at the school, and for a while contributions poured in. Then the dead kid's family moved away, leaving no forwarding address, and the donations stopped before there was enough money for a full scholarship.

He'd wondered off and on about the suicide note. Not so much about what it said, although he was interested in that, but what the family did with it after they'd finished reading it. And after they'd finished crying, which he figured they'd eventually have to do, once they'd emptied the old tear ducts and tried to see out of their swollen eyes and read every word one more time until they knew them all by heart, what then did they do with the note? Tear it into a thousand pieces and flush it down the toilet? Or did they hide it somewhere, in a drawer or a trunk or even in a safety deposit box in a bank? Or did they maybe bury it in the back yard under the apple tree in a shoe box with 10D written on it, his size, and take out the box now and then to study the words further for clues? Did they take it from wherever they'd hidden it on the anniversary of the kid's death every year and look it over and ask themselves for the zillionth time, Why? And did the words lose their power to hurt after a while? It might be better to burn a note like that, to destroy it rather than torture themselves with endless rereadings. But if they did that, there was always the added torture of thinking that if the suicide note had been studied carefully one more time, it might reveal the reasons the kid had for doing such a terrible thing. It might in some way absolve them of guilt.

He shuddered and hugged himself, suddenly freezing, wishing he'd worn his heavy sweater. The hall was frigid. The school was cutting back, trying to conserve energy, they said. The heat was turned down as far as if would go without being shut off. Mrs. Arthur wore a sweater over her sweater these days. And, when he thought no one was looking, old Gleason rubbed his pale hands together and tucked them up his sleeves for body warmth.

“Healthy, that's what this temperature is, healthy, my boy,” Gleason sang out when some novice complained of chilblains. “You'll find you have far fewer colds this winter, Ferguson. Far fewer colds, my boy, because your system will be better able to handle the cold,” raising his voice over the sound of poor skinny blue little Ferguson coughing his brains out as his breath fogged the wintry air.

10

Grace Lerner's niece met him at the door. Before he lowered his eyes, in the misplaced hope that this would make him less visible, he saw she had rosy cheeks, a broad face, and big boobs.

“Come on in,” she told him, throwing wide the door. How'd she know he wasn't the Boston Strangler? She didn't exactly collar him, but she gave the impression she might. Silhouetted against the light he saw old Grace herself hovering in the background, making little mating noises as she sucked on a cheroot, expelling smoke madly behind her hand so as not to contaminate any nonsmokers in the crowd.

He stared down at his sneakers and wondered if it was too late to run.

“Come on in,” the niece said again. Put a menu in her hand and she'd be a natural for a hostess job at Hojo's. I want my mother, said a small voice within him. If I get my hands on my mother, I'll throttle her.

“John!” Grace Lerner cried, striding toward him purposefully. Who else did she think he was. She touches me, he vowed, she lays a hand on me and it's curtains. If ever his karate training was going to come in handy, this was the time. The three of them stood under the merciless glare of the overhead light. Without raising his head he knew that if someone were to run a muscle contest here, now, this minute, he'd lose, hands down. The thought depressed him immeasurably. He opened his mouth to say something disarming, something like “I just found out I have leprosy,” stealing Keith's father's line, but all that came out was a little squawk. Like a chicken before the farmer comes at it, ax in hand.

“Grace, this is John Hollander. About whom you've heard me speak.” Old Grace was really putting on the dog tonight. The whoms were really flying. His collar felt tight. He wondered if he'd zipped his fly.

“Your name's Grace, too?” he whispered.

“They named me after Auntie Grace because they hoped I'd look like her.” The two ladies smirked at each other. It was one of those family anecdotes that should've been shot down the first time it was sent up.

“Well,” he shuffled his feet, “we better get going.” Young Grace mucked about in her Bean boots, hoisting her down coat in the air suggestively, wanting help.

“You have your key, dear? Uncle Larry and I have a dinner date,” old Grace tossed out, hinting that the house would be empty, the young folks free to come in, make some Ovaltine, get to know each other.

“You sure you'll be warm enough?” He waited in his corner while young Grace suited herself up in enough clothing to outfit a family of five. If they arrived late at the movie, the picture would have started, the lights would be dim. No one would recognize him. On the other hand, as he observed young Grace donning her outerwear, tying her scarf up under her eyes, pulling down her knitted hat to meet her eyebrows, then turning up her coat collar to keep out drafts, he figured people might mistake her for a luminary in disguise. His spirits lifted.

They set out. The night was warmer than the day had been. Young Grace was going to work herself up a good glow before she got where she was going. The sky was very black, a small, moaning wind their only companion.

“We're walking?” she said in surprise.

“Yeah, I'm in training for track.”

“How old are you, anyway?” she asked, suspicious.

“What's your last name?” he countered, setting a brisk pace.

“I asked you first.” They were two tiny tots, playing together for the first time.

“Seventeen,” he lied.

“So am I. I'm going to be a chemical engineer.” He felt her pause, expecting a reaction. Maybe in Seattle they dropped like flies at this announcement.

“My father's a chemical engineer, and my brother is into music, so when I told my parents I wanted to be a chemical engineer, my father cried.”

“Your father cried?” he said, incredulous.

“Yes. He was so happy. Haven't you ever seen your father cry?” He felt her peering at him in the darkness.

He snorted. “The only reason my father might cry is if I got arrested on a drug charge or kicked out of school. Then he'd cry tears of rage. He's been expecting something like that to happen ever since I hit first grade.”

“You don't get along with your parents? My mother and father are my best friends.” Her voice was solemn, and smug.

He turned to her. “Man, who do you talk to about your sex life, then?” She looked straight ahead and speeded up. As a track star, he had to keep up with her or lose everything.

“My father's not my pal, he's my father,” he panted, catching up. “You can't be both. If you have a father for a friend, you don't need an enemy.”

“I don't think that's very nice.”

“You want me to take you home?”

“Don't be silly,” she said, deciding apparently to forgive him. “What do you want to be then?”

He thought of telling her he was into heavy metal and S-M but he figured they might not have S-M in the Pacific Northwest and it would require too much explaining. Anyway, he'd offended her enough for one evening.

“Yeah, well, I'm going to be a writer for Woody Allen.” Let her chew on that one. Out of the corner of his eye he saw her retreat into her coat collar. Coming from Seattle, maybe she thought Woody was a logger. “This movie we're seeing is rated PG,” he said. “But I hear it's plenty raunchy. The producers figured if they gave it a PG instead of an R it'd make a trillion instead of a billion.” She stomped alongside, offering no comment.

To break the conversational logjam, he said, “So what's Seattle got going for it?”

“Plenty.”

“What besides fog?”

She stroked her cheek. “Fog's good for the complexion. Seattle girls are famous for their English-type complexions. Are you in love?” she shot at him.

“Sure.” He didn't break his stride. “With three femmes. I'm only having a relationship with two of them, though. Two is all I can handle at one time.”

She sucked in her breath. “Are you paying?”

“For what?”

“For the movies. Aunt Grace gave me money in case this was going to be Dutch. Out home we go Dutch lots of times. Plenty of women's libbers pay their own way. I don't care. I'm not that much of a women's libber, although I do believe in equal pay for equal work.” She said it as if she'd invented it.

“My mother's footing the bill,” he said crassly. “On account of she's a buddy of your aunt's. My mother's loaded. She has a trust fund,” he improvised. “She hands me a couple of C-notes a week, sometimes more. Depending on the market.” He was having a good time lying to her. He was a pretty good liar when the scenario called for it.

She tucked her arm cosily in his and he reminded himself, too late, that the mere mention of money frequently acted as an aphrodisiac. Another of Keith's nuggets. He stepped up his pace, hoping to shake her off.

“Two,” he panted at the box office, “on the aisle.”

The girl in the ticket booth didn't look up at him. “Aisle seats are all taken,” she said, “and no smoking anywhere in the theater. Plus,” she raised her head, “the management frowns on making out except during intermission.” He felt himself blush.

“Don't mess with the big girls, sonny,” the ticket puncher whispered in a friendly way. Actually, John thought, he might like her. Maybe next time he'd ask her to the flicks. On her night off. If she could break away from her husband and three kids waiting at home in front of the TV.

“Quiet please, the show's already started.” The pimply usher had obviously let his uniform get to him.

“Wait here until I get some popcorn,” he said.

“None for me. It's too fattening. I'm on a diet.” Terrific. He bought two bags, one for him, the other for him, too. Giant popcorn pigout tonight.

They settled into their seats. He clutched one bag of popcorn between his knees for safekeeping and dove into the other. This wasn't all bad. A free movie and two bags of free popcorn. So she looked like the Elephant Man done up for a turn in the park. There were worse things. He slid down in his seat. The popcorn was delicious; crunchy, hot. Nice and greasy, the way he liked it. He polished off the first bag while watching some dame dressed in a slip, showing lots of
belle poitrine
, being worked around the head and shoulders by old Burt, who was behaving in his usual lovable fashion. The dame screamed now and then, but you could tell she had the hots for Burt's bod and it was just a question of where and when.

He dipped into the second bag and touched bare flesh. Young Grace was trolling in there already. Her hand moved with admirable skill, as if it had had plenty of practice. She was light-fingered and sharp-toothed, he realized with dismay, listening to her chomping away.

“I thought you said you didn't eat popcorn!” he hissed at last, unable to contain himself. The man in front turned a furious profile aad said, “Shhhhh!” spraying spit indiscriminately.

“I don't,” young Grace whispered back, wrist deep in butter and salt.

What could he say. Old Burt scored a couple more points, the popcorn disappeared, and the next thing he knew the show was over. The lights went on. Music swelled as they rolled out the interminable list of credits. He slid lower in the seat. He needn't have. There was no one there he knew.

Once more out into the night they went.

“I'm thirsty,” young Grace announced.

No wonder. All that salt would give a horse a thirst.

“How about if we get a soda or something?” she said. “My treat.”

A modern woman, after all.

“We could go to Alfie's,” he suggested. “It's this really raunchy joint down by the tracks. Full of weirdos. Around this time of night they usually start punching each other out.” She looked interested. Very.