The Gospel of Winter (16 page)

He woke slightly and asked if we could sit down. I put him down on the stoop and he leaned toward the bushes and vomited. I looked away so I wouldn't do the same, but when I turned around he'd dropped into his own puddle, face-first in the dirt. I rolled him over quickly. “Oh, shit,” he mumbled. His sweatshirt and pants were soaked with what had come out of him, but his jacket was open and seemed relatively clean, and I peeled it off him. He didn't respond when I asked him if he was feeling better. He only smiled up at me with his eyes still closed.

One of his keys worked in the side door, and I eased him
onto a bench in the dark mudroom. As in my house, it led to the kitchen. I found some paper towels and cleaned him up as best I could, but his clothes still reeked. “Mark,” I said. He was completely asleep. With some effort, I took off his shoes, and then his pants and shirt. I grabbed the loose bag of marijuana from his pocket and put the clothes in a trash bag. Stretched out on the bench, it was easy to see how by anyone's standards Mark was the kind of attractive we all aspired to be. His shoulders and chest muscles pushed an outline into his T-shirt, and the bulge in his briefs was evident. I could have run my hands up the long lines of his leg muscles, touched him there, anywhere, because in his state, I could have done anything to him, or with him, molded him like clay to whatever purpose I wanted, and oddly, although he was asleep, he still smiled up at me shyly, as if he wanted me to act—the Bronze Man glowing beneath me, an air of supplication and eagerness humming somewhere between us.

And then I did. I slid my hands against his skin and cupped his crotch. I held him for a moment and then let go when nothing moved inside me. I wanted Josie. I could have kissed Mark again, if I'd been asked to, if it was a game and it included the girls—but I didn't want to. I didn't want Mark's body; I wanted his friendship. We were just beginning to see the world. I wanted his opinions about it; I wanted to experience it with him. Wasn't that a kind of love too, a kind that had nothing to do with sex and, instead,
everything else important that commingles between two people?

I got him up under my shoulder again and hauled his nearly naked body through the kitchen and down the hall to a den with a huge flat-screen TV. I flopped him onto the couch, covered him with a blanket, and slid down in front of the couch to the floor. I looked back at his sleeping, peaceful face. I couldn't meet Mark where I thought he wanted me to, but he was my friend. I admired him, but I didn't know how to tell him.

The remote was nearby, and I switched on the TV. Confetti, fireworks, concerts, crowds loosely whipping their heads to a beat: The parties were on their last breath in New York, but the day hadn't ended elsewhere. The celebrations continued across America, and I didn't want to knock out yet. I thought that somewhere Mother was still up too, not sleeping so she didn't have to wake, holding back tomorrow and its inevitable loneliness with her thin, birdlike arms wrapped around someone else's body. I didn't mind. It was my hope for all of us that we'd each have someone again soon, someone to cling to, however briefly, to remind ourselves we were alive.

I
was mid dream when I woke up with a start. My head was dropped back onto the couch, resting on top of Mark's shin. The television still blinked, but the voices I heard weren't coming from it, they were coming from the kitchen. They were shouting for Mark, and they entered the room before I could really move and process what was happening.

Mike Kowolski swelled into vision, a lavender polo shirt drifting in front of the television. “What the hell is going on?”

Barbara came into the room a moment later and let out a yelp of shock. Mark quickly squirmed into a sitting position and tried to blink himself awake. Sunlight blasted in through the windows. I still had on my jacket, and a film of sweat stuck to me beneath it. Barbara stooped and grabbed the bottle of Midori that stuck out of my pocket. I hadn't
realized it was still there, and I didn't remember us finishing as much as we did, but its syrupy aftertaste coated my mouth. She held it in the air and showed her husband.

“Pathetic,” he said.

“Dad,” Mark began.

“I don't want to hear one excuse. I don't want to hear what happened. Look at the two of you—Jesus Christ, Mark, where the hell are your pants? What are you doing?”

Mark blushed deeply and threw the blanket back over his waist. “No, but Dad—”

“No. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. That's all you have to say for yourself right now. Bullshit. The car is a mess, and you parked it up on part of the lawn. You are lucky to be alive. What a waste. That's what you want—to waste it all away?”

“Michael,” Barbara said, but she stopped when he looked at her. None of what he was saying was how I remembered it. At the time I thought we had managed all right. I turned to look at Mark, to see how we should respond, but my neck hurt too much.

“Dad,” Mark said again.

“I don't want to hear it! I don't want to know how you embarrassed yourself, your name, and mine. This is what I worked for all my life? So you can bring your deadbeat friend to my house and parade around in your underwear? Is that what you think? That you can squander it all away and shit on everything I've done?”

“Michael!”

“Dad!”

“Enough,” he said to Mark, and he thrust his stubby forefinger at him.

Barbara stepped over me and sat on the arm of the couch, next to Mark. She put an arm around him and whispered into his ear, “You can tell me what happened, honey. I'll try not to get too mad.”

Mike paced and muttered. “Completely disrespectful. Completely.” He shook his hand and balled it into a fat fist, and Barbara rocked her son gently.

Mark gazed wide-eyed at the floor. His hands were in his lap, his thumb twitched slightly, and his mouth was drawn into a comatose, flat line. Shouting behind me, Mike asked me to hurry up, and Barbara nodded along, but their protests didn't scare me as much as Mark's distance. It was as if he had abandoned his body, left it behind as collateral in the noisy violence of the room, and fled to somewhere silent. It was a retreat I knew well, and I wanted to follow him. I climbed to my feet wearily.

“Maybe I should call my mother,” I said.

“Yes. I'd like to speak with her,” Mike said. “She probably gave you the booze. You want to drag my son down into your family's problems? Is that it?”

“My family?”

“Yes.” He stepped closer. “You have to take someone down with you. Is that it?” Mike continued.

“Like you'd say that if my father was around,” I said, pointing back at him.

“How dare you speak to me like that.”

“Look at me.” I pointed to my swollen eye. “Think I care?” Mike stormed over to the phone and dialed my mother. Barbara chastised me, but I didn't listen. “I'm sorry,” I said to Mark. “I'm sorry, man.”

While we waited for Mother, Mike gave me a lecture in the front hall. I apologized, but my tone of voice belied everything I said. He tried to explain to me why we should be afraid of the things people like him tell us to be afraid of and why we should listen and respect the people whose responsibility it was to protect us—and what he said had the dull echo of words Father Greg had once shared with me, which rang more and more hollow as I heard them again.

I thought Mother would have sent a car to pick me up, but instead she came herself, and even more surprising, when she arrived she got out, left the car running, and bounded up the walkway. She called to me, and when she reached me, she stood poised and deliberate for a moment, surveying my swollen face. Then she took me by the arm and pulled me into a hug. Mike hung back, and I watched him deflate.

“Gwen?” he said weakly.

“Oh, deary,” she said to me, ignoring him. “What happened? Are you okay? We should get you to the hospital right now. You didn't tell me he looked like this,” she said
to Mike over her shoulder. “What's the matter with you? Just let my son bleed to death on your carpet?” She turned around and stepped closer to him. “Where do you get off calling me like that? Where's your son? Do I need to take
him
to the hospital too?”

“Now, Gwen, hold on. Just hold on a second. There's really no need.”

“You're not a medical expert, Mike Kowolski.”

“Gwen, please,” Mike said. “I thought we could talk about some rules.”

“How dare you condescend? I'll take care of my son from here, thank you.” She pulled me down the walkway. Mike called after us, but Mother hurried me into the car. He apologized repeatedly, and she paused by her car door to let him stutter impotently for a moment. “Mike”—she cut him off—“thank you for calling.” She chiseled each word with an exacting politeness. “It's good to know you have friends you can trust. Tell Barbara not to worry. I still want to share with her some ideas about her next party. I'll invite her to my office when they're ready.” The old pro, she tucked away any pain or frustration and wore a mask of indomitable cheer. I couldn't help but admire its efficacy. She silenced him, and each time she smiled, she pushed Mike back closer to his house. She closed the car door, shifted into drive, and angled us down toward the street without saying good-bye.

I told her how I'd been thumped in the face but that
it had been in solidarity with my friends, and she nodded with a kind of grudging understanding and pride. Still, she was worried for me, even though I told her it looked worse than it felt. I had to beg her not to take me to the hospital.

She also explained her phone conversation with Mike, and how he referred to her as a “single parent.” “Men,” she said. “They just assume they know better. As if I needed advice now that your father has gone. As if your father was ever around!” We stopped at a red light, and she again asked if she could take me to the hospital. “Please,” she said. “I'd feel much better if we went.”

“No, I don't need to. Elena will take care of it tomorrow when she's back.”

“Elena?”

“Yeah,” I continued, “she'll know what to do. Let's just go home.”

“Elena? You're thinking about Elena right now? Why can't I just take care of you?”

“C-Come on,” I stammered. “You know. She's her and you're you, and—”

“What the hell does that mean?” Mother shouted. She paused and breathed and became quiet. “You know, I'm trying here, Aidan. I'm trying. How about a little support from your end? I'm putting this family back together, even if it is just you and me, and a little pat on the back from my own son might go a long way. And anyway, I dismissed Elena. So you'll have to get used to that.”

“You can't fire someone who's a part of our family.”

“It's already done. We'll find a day when she can come collect the rest of her things. She's not family, Aidan. That's precisely what I'm talking about.”

I wanted to yell at her, but I wasn't sure what to say. If it had been Old Donovan who had named me, it had been Elena who had raised the boy he had named. But where did that leave Mother? “She might as well have been family,” I said. “You can't do that to a person.”

“Oh, Aidan. Grow up already.”

“I liked having her around,” I said.

“I've thought about that.”

“You have?”

“That's right, I have.” She shook her head and then smiled. “Look, I had an instructor,” she said. “A mentor. I thought I could never dance without her. I was young, and I thought I was nothing without her guidance. Then, for family reasons, she moved back to Vienna. I thought I was going to quit dancing altogether, but I decided to train on my own until the auditions for Juilliard. That's life, Aidan. I got in. We can get better. We don't always need the people we think we need. I was still young when I learned that, and I was lucky. Just imagine. To think I almost forgot that lesson. Your father has left. That's a fact. But here's another: I don't need him.”

+    +    +

Mother's attempt at a pep talk did little to rally me. We avoided each other in the house, unless I was getting fresh ice for my face, but eventually, I decided I needed to get out of the house, and I went for a walk. I knew I was hungover, dehydrated, and dizzy from the blood throbbing around my black eye, but a deeper, more profound uneasiness shook through my body. I wanted to see Josie, Sophie, and Mark again, right away, but I was also nervous and afraid to go back to CDA. All the people staring at me in the halls would see below the black eye. They would read my thoughts, and the thin mask, the puffy face, was a useless disguise for the damaged, demented, crazy, fucked-up boy beneath it. They'd all point to me and say,
See, we knew it, we knew you were a freak, a jack-off boy, a doll for a priest. What are you, Aidan?

I didn't have an answer. I was a somebody to Josie now, and the taste of her lips still lingered on mine. As she'd leaned over me in the boathouse, I smelled the vanilla shampoo in her hair, the hints of cocoa butter on her skin. I still hadn't showered, and I wanted to find those smells still on me, wrapping me in the memory of her lap. But who was I, really, to her? She knew so little about me, and if she knew more, what then? Why would she waste her time with me? I was fixed on her in a way that felt so new and jarring, in a way that drove me crazy for more, and it hurt to think of Mark, instead, looking up at me from the bench in his mudroom, and my cold hands sliding over him to prove to
myself that his body couldn't warm them. How much did he remember? Couldn't he ask me too? How could I answer in a way that wouldn't make him run away?

As I walked, I drifted across town in a familiarly beaten path, circling and circling with those same questions until I found myself standing across the street from Most Precious Blood. Just as the hands and fingers remember a song on the piano long after you forget you know the piece, I didn't realize I'd walked there until I was staring up the long drive, wondering how I could address questions I found too difficult to answer by myself. He was in there, wetting his lips, musing over the same trite maxims he'd probably used on innumerable boys. I wanted to scream and roar and tear the place apart stone by stone with him still in it, and yet a dull ache still rumbled inside me, the memory of a time when his voice calmed me, his words assured me, and my belief in him guided me. All that was gone now.