Breathing Underwater (8 page)

“I understand,” he says when Mario calls on him.

“What do you understand, Ray?”

“You’re saying it’s controlling behavior to separate her from her friends? We shouldn’t do that.”

Gold star for Ray.

“That’s what I’m saying,” Mario says, like he knows Ray’s a bootlicker too. He turns to me. “I saw you me-tooing before, Nick. Let’s get your input.”

“Aww, don’t call on him,” Kelly interrupts. “Richie Rich is too big to talk to the likes of us.”

Everyone looks at me then, so I’m cornered. I hit Kelly with a look. But I decide he’s not worth bothering with. Instead, I say, “I agree with Tiny. I mean, should I spend time with people I don’t like just because they’re her friends?”

“Not necessarily,” Mario says. “But can she?”

“We were always together,” I say.

“Maybe that was part of the problem.” I shrug again, and Mario says, “What about your guy friends? I’ll bet they hang with people you may not like. Do you say, ‘Hey, Bubba, it’s him or me,’ or do you just go along?”

I go along
, I think, remembering Tom’s friendship with Saint O’Connor. I’d spent hours, days of my life with that knuckle dragger. “That’s different.”

“How so?”

“Because if I told a guy to choose between me and someone else, he’d tell me to screw off.”

“Because you have no power over a guy, no control the way you have with a girlfriend?”

“No. ’Cause if you say that to a guy, he’d think you’re queer.”

“And if you say it to a girl, she’ll know you’re a control freak.”

I look around the room. Everyone’s pretending fascination with what Mario’s saying because they don’t want to talk themselves. Was I a control freak? If I hadn’t done stuff like that, would Caitlin still be around? But I go for broke. “So I’ll find someone else,” I say. “They all have the same thing between their legs.”

This gets some chuckles, some raised thumbs. But Mario shakes his head. “Somewhere down the road, Nick, I hope you’ll find they don’t all have the same thing between their ears. The good ones don’t put up with macho mind games.”

I’m coming up with a response when a voice interrupts.

“Why don’t you leave him alone?”

It’s Leo-the-cool. I gape at him, and Mario says, “What?”

“You said no put-downs, didn’t you?” Leo says. “That was one of your rules.”

“Confronting someone about their beliefs isn’t a put-down,” Mario says. “Challenging attitudes is the point of this class.”

“That’s a load of crap,” Leo says. “All you do here is play mind games and make people feel stupid.”

I’ve recovered from my shock enough to scowl at Leo. “I don’t need you to defend me.”

Even so, I’m wondering why he did.

“Sorreee,” he says. “Thought you did. Considering you got this look like an ant staring down a can of Black Flag.”

“You aren’t my mother,” I say. But that gets me mad. Why is he calling attention to me when I just want to be ignored? Why is he making me out like I’m some weakling? I feel blood coursing through my wrists, and I stand. I start toward Leo.

But Mario gets between us, real quick. “Are we still in my class?” His eyes are cold. “I know we aren’t ’cause there’s no fighting in here.”

“But he—”

“Not here. You take it to the streets if you have to, but not in my class.” He turns to Leo. “Hear that?”

Leo doesn’t look at me. “No biggie. I was just trying to help.”

Mario turns my way. “Nick?”

“I don’t need his help,” I say. “I’ve eaten as much shit as anyone here. He’s got no right to act like I can’t.”

Mario nods. “I agree with you. But fighting’s not what this class is about.”

“I don’t know what the hell it’s about,” I say.

“It’s about God kicking you in the butt so you’ll notice the mess you’ve made.” When I look at him, surprised, Mario adds, “Now sit.” He waits until I obey, then stares at me until I look away. He turns. “Next session, we’ll talk about eating shit. By that, I mean we’ll be discussing our families, our parents.”

He pauses like he knows the reaction he’ll get.

Stunned silence. Everyone who’s been shuffling around, getting ready to go, stops. He really wants us to talk about our parents? Like, about my
father
? Tiny says, “What’s that got to do with anything?”

“I know it’ll be painful for some of you—maybe all of us.” Mario walks around the circle, scanning our eyes. “But exploring the past brings out the sort of feelings that cause us to become insecure, controlling, even violent.” When Mario passes me, I don’t look at him. He sits, hands on knees. “Anyone have anything else before we call it quits?”

People start gathering books, keys, backpacks. Kelly’s recovered enough to volunteer. “I heard a wicked-ass joke.”

“Always got time for humor,
clean
humor,” Mario says.

“It’s clean.” Kelly flips a hand across his hair. “What’s the first thing a gal does when she checks out of the battered women’s shelter?”

Mario holds up his hand. “I don’t think—”

“The dishes, if she knows what’s good for her!”

People laugh, but me, I’m wondering what made Leo take my side. And what will I say about my father in class?

Later that day

I’m still thinking about my father hours later, instead of doing homework, instead of working on my journal. Fact is, my father is part of this story too. The next part. But I don’t want to write about him. And I sure as hell don’t want to tell Mario about him. Judge Lehman said she wouldn’t read the journal if I didn’t want her to. But how can I be sure? Finally, I open the wavy-edged book to a fresh page and write:

(DON’T READ
. YOU SAID YOU WOULDN’T.)

Lights blazed on, and I saw the clock. 3:00
A.M.
I blinked, tried to cover my face with the sheet, but my father pulled it away
.

“What is this?” he yelled, shoving a paper in my face
.

I said I didn’t know. I stood, then edged away, trying to focus
.

But he came closer, screaming, “I will tell you what. A receipt for beer. Beer! Rosa brought beer into this house, so where is it?”

The beer for Zack’s party. I said, “I don’t know. Honest, Dad—”

“Liar! I asked Rosa. She says you took it.”

“She’s
lying. Dad, I—”

“Thief! I did not raise you a thief, but you are one. When I was your age, I was away from home, working. You only steal from me.”

“I didn’t—”

He hit me hard in the face, and I stumbled back onto my bed. I lay not moving, not speaking. Arguing made his anger worse, and now I only wanted him to leave. He raged on about how hard he worked, what a lazy ingrate I was, but I stopped listening, my brain carrying me to an alternative reality, where I was watching someone else lying under my black bay window. Then, I went further. I don’t know if it was a minute or an hour. I stopped caring whether Rosa heard. I don’t even know if he hit me again. My mind took me to Caitlin
.

Finally, he left. My cheek throbbed, and I knew I should go downstairs and ice it. Instead, I rolled over and fell asleep to the sound of his footsteps in the hall
.

Monday morning, an hour before school, I hold the phone at 7-Eleven, truck exhaust belching in my face, watching a terrier trying to mount a shepherd mix behind the ice machine. Should I call? It’s juvenile, I know, calling, then hanging up. But I haven’t heard Caitlin’s voice in days, only every song on the radio crying her name. Finally, I dig in my pocket for change.

Her number is comfortable under my fingers, a no-brainer. Then, her voice.

“Hello?”

I twist the receiver above my head and take a sip of my Big Gulp Mountain Dew.

“Hello? Is anyone there?”

A group from school pulls in. I’ve seen them before, but I doubt they know my name. My friends don’t hang at 7-Eleven.

“Hello? Hello?”

The line goes dead, and I walk to school, Caitlin’s voice still in my head.

That day, lunch hour

I’m actually reduced to eating in the cafeteria. And alone. I try to separate mac-n-cheese with a spork, unable to eat, though I was hungry a minute before. I think of Caitlin. The way she sounded this morning. Hearing Caitlin’s voice always helped....

(DON’T READ!)

Friday morning, I stared into the bathroom mirror. My face was roadkill. I brushed my teeth, wincing at the tenderness inside my mouth, the puffy redness of my cheek. I should have iced it. I went to my father’s room and stood in the doorway, waiting for him to glance up from what he was doing. When he finally did, I told him he needed to call the school. Somehow, I said, I didn’t feel well enough to go. He just nodded. I told him to say I had the flu this time
.

He started to say something, but I walked away. Now was the only time I could get away with that. Did he ever feel bad? Never bad enough not to do it again
.

I went back to bed and lay there half an hour, forty-five minutes, staring at the ceiling. When I heard the garage door rumble up and down, I texted Caitlin to call me. Then, I waited
.

She didn’t call back. After five minutes, I texted her again. Then, three more times. Still, no answer. Where was she? Maybe she’d never call back, and I’d just drop off the face of the earth
.

I’d drifted back to sleep when the telephone finally rang
.

“Where were you?” I answered it
.

“It was ten minutes, Nick. I was in class.” I heard voices in the background and looked at my watch. She’d waited until passing time to call. Bitch
.

“I was worried when you didn’t show up this morning,” she said
.

I apologized for not chauffeuring her to school. “I’m sick, if you care,” I said. I knew I sounded pathetic, but I wanted her to be miserable like me, and she didn’t sound miserable enough
.

She said of course she cared. She’d come over later. I told her no. Because, of course, she couldn’t see my face
.

“I want to. I don’t care if I catch anything.”

“No. I said no.”

“Fine, Nick. Be that way.”

Now, she sounded miserable, but not for the right reason. Because I’d yelled at her, not because she missed me. “You won’t go to the game tonight without me?” I asked
.

She didn’t answer right away, and I told her never mind, sucking my lip. Go right ahead
.

“It’s just everyone will expect me.”

“Go ahead. Have fun with Everyone.”

“I won’t go, okay?”

“Go.”

“I said I wouldn’t.”

“Go! You bitch.”

The background noise had stopped, and I heard Caitlin gulping back tears. Finally, she said, “Don’t be mad. I know I sounded selfish, but I thought maybe you’d feel better by tonight. I don’t want to go without you.”

I didn’t answer a second. I was a worm. Because I’d been mean to her. Because of my face and my father’s hands. Because I was a worm
.

“I’m not mad at you,” I said, thinking,
I need you
. “But I can’t go tonight if I don’t want to suit up.”

“Oh.”

“Call me again at lunch?” I struggled not to add please
.