Brutal Youth (33 page)

Davidek leaned his head back. He actually
didn’t
want to hear it. But Stein kept speaking. So Davidek listened.

“There
was
a fire,” Stein said. “And I set it. But it
wasn’t
accidental.” He looked up. His face gray and empty. An old man’s face in the dim light. “I set the fire on purpose, Davidek.”

Stein studied his friend for a reaction, and Davidek closed his eyes so he couldn’t get one.

“I didn’t kill my mom, though,” Stein said. “She had already done that herself.”

Davidek swallowed and opened his eyes. Stein was still hugging himself under his blazer, like someone freezing to death. He turned his eyes toward Davidek, just dark sockets in the shadows. “That’s the secret nobody knows.… Nobody until now. Nobody until you.”

Stein explained that his mother had attempted it a few times, but her doctors believed those were merely cries for attention. “When you slash your wrist, it makes a mess, but the veins seal up right away. They said people who really want to end things slash
up
their forearms instead of across. Anyway, we didn’t have any knives or razors in the house after that. That’s when my dad grew his beard.” Stein smiled faintly to himself. “And Margie’s legs got furry.”

Stein shifted, closed his eyes. “Anyway, one day, when I was nine, I walked home from school by myself. Usually she came to get me, but sometimes she didn’t. Especially when she had problems—her bad thoughts. Let’s just say, I had a key and knew my own way home.”

Stein’s head had lolled back against the radiator. He didn’t speak for a long time, and Davidek thought he might be asleep.

Then Stein said, “The building we lived in was a dump. The superintendent had this big plastic jar of white powder he gave us to sprinkle behind the refrigerator and in the cabinet under the sink to kill ants and cockroaches. Boric acid—I still remember that. Written in big red letters. Anyway, I had gotten home, but didn’t see my mom. So I was looking for Oreos when I found the plastic container on the counter—empty—next to a lot of spilled water and a glass that had the powder crusted on it. Her body was on the floor by the couch. There was vomit
everywhere.
Her eyes were open. So was her mouth. She had on a white robe, but no clothes underneath. I covered her up with the blanket from my bed.” Stein opened his eyes, even smiled a little. “It had Transformers on it.”

Davidek’s throat was tight. “She leave a note?”

Stein nodded. “That was the first thing I lit on fire. I don’t remember what she wrote. There was a lot, all scribbled out.… Mostly, it just said she was sorry. ‘Sorry, sorry, sorry…’ Over and over again. I tried to get her to put her arms around me, but she was cold. And she was stiff. Like a piece of the furniture. I started crying, asking her to wake up. But I was nine—not stupid.”

Stein looked over at Davidek. “I told you that my mom used to go to all kinds of churches, remember?”

Davidek nodded. Stein looked back at the floor. “I remember one of the church ministers, talking with my dad about my mom’s problems—after she’d been in the hospital a few times. The minister said we had to be really careful because if she killed herself, she wouldn’t be allowed into heaven. Do you think that’s true?”

Davidek didn’t answer. Couldn’t. Stein was quiet for a long time again.

“So I set the fire,” he said finally, as if hearing that news for the first time himself. “I thought … maybe I could
hide
what she’d done. Hide it so good, maybe even God wouldn’t know.”

Davidek was standing now. He couldn’t take any more. “You have to tell your dad. You have to tell people this wasn’t your fault.”

“I didn’t think I’d ever
have
to explain it,” Stein said. “I laid down next to my mom after I put that airplane glue all over her and the couch and the drapes. I wanted to go
with
her. I wasn’t even afraid. I was more afraid of these
feelings
beating around inside me—this sadness and anger and confusion and craziness. It was like this …
screaming
inside my head. I just wanted it to stop.” There were big tears in his eyes now—but Stein wasn’t letting them fall. “Do you understand? I
still
want it to stop.…”

“I do, too,” Davidek said. “But you survived for a reason.”

Stein looked at his friend like he was missing a much larger point. “That fucking Transformers blanket saved me. When I lit the glue, it didn’t burn—it
melted
. Onto my face. I wasn’t afraid to die, but I was afraid to hurt. And it hurt
so
bad … I thought it would all be over fast, but suddenly I was screaming, and running, and smacking the flames off my skin. I’m not even sure what happened next. There was smoke everywhere. They found me passed out by the door. The neighbors hit me with it when they busted in. They never got to my mother. The flames were too much. I was glad about that. In the end, it was all just a horrible accident, caused by a very stupid, very sorry kid.”

“Your mother was sick,” Davidek said, choosing his words cautiously. “That’s not your fault. Not hers either. You were just a boy. And you saw something no kid should. It was a mistake, that’s all.”

Stein nodded, slowly, as if it hardly mattered anymore. “She deserves heaven, I think. Silly as that sounds. I hope she got there. She never hurt anybody.…” His voice drifted so low, he was hard to hear. “But
I’ve
hurt people.… I’d have hurt those guys today. All for a girl.” He snorted a laugh, but it could have been a cough. “One I couldn’t even … tell the truth to.”

“You can tell everyone the truth now,” Davidek said. “It’s overdue.”

Stein looked up at his friend, his arms still squeezed under his jacket. His voice broke, just a whisper. “You tell them for me … Okay?”

Davidek rolled his eyes. “Come on, man,” he said, reaching down. But Stein’s legs slipped against the floor. There was something beneath him, a darkness, spreading.

“Oh shit,” Davidek said. “Oh fuck…”

He dropped Stein, whose hands fell out of his jacket and flopped against the tile in great scarlet splatters. The belly of Stein’s white shirt, hidden before by his folded arms and dark blazer, was soaked black with blood, seeping into the top of his khaki pants.

Davidek tried to hold the cuts on his wrists closed, but couldn’t. The slashes were long jagged streaks reaching all the way up Stein’s forearms, glinting with flecks of broken mirror glass.

*   *   *

Davidek didn’t realize he was moving. In his mind, he remained rooted to the spot by the door, not cradling his friend, not watching Stein’s arms flail against his neck and face as he dragged the boy, screaming for help.

The bathroom grew distant in the dark hallway. Then he was in the rain. Someone was shaking him, grabbing his jaw and turning his face. He stared dumbly up at Sister Maria, whose eyes bulged, as if a giant fist were squeezing her. “Stay here!” she screamed. “Stay here!”

Then the nun appeared in front of him in a little burgundy car. Davidek was looking down through the back window at Stein, sprawled on the backseat, his blood smearing the gray cushions.
I’m sorry … sorry … sorry,
someone was saying. Maybe Stein. Maybe Davidek. Maybe both.

Then the car was gone, and Davidek was alone. He stood so long in the rain, staring at where his friend had gone, that the water pouring through his bloodsoaked clothes washed him clean.

THIRTY-THREE

It was midnight by the time the storm faded, retreating in threads through a moonless sky. Sister Maria’s little red car cut through the low mist on the street outside the convent and jerked to a stop with one tire perched on the curb. The nun got out and closed the door quietly, folding her arms across a blouse that had been white that morning but now bloomed with patches of dark brown, like a garden of dead flowers.

Behind the convent, the lightless monolith of the school cut a black square through the array of stars beyond it. Sister Maria looked next door to the priest’s rectory. Father Mercedes’s home was also dark, and she watched it in silence.

A window in the shape of a cross in the convent’s front door cast a glowing T across the floor as Sister Maria entered and crept upstairs, careful to avoid the steps she knew would creak. Feeling silly, like a teenager—sneaking home after curfew.

The nun felt along the wall of the hallway rather than turn on a light. Her housemate, Sister Antonia, was asleep, tucked neatly beneath the covers in her bedroom. Her white hair, usually hidden by a black habit, flowed out on her pillow, and a rosary was clutched in her hand, like a body laid out in a funeral home. The image filled Sister Maria with sadness. The convent once housed seven nuns, but someday, probably soon, she would be alone here.

In her own bedroom, Sister Maria clicked on the small reading lamp, and the taut pastel sheets over her mattress tempted her to slip between them and close her eyes. As she removed her ruined blouse, dried specks of blood fell from the buttons to the wood floor. She studied herself in the dresser mirror. It wasn’t her mirror—everything in the home belonged to the Sisters of Saint Joseph. The mirror had been there when she arrived, and it would remain after she was gone. Only the reflection was hers—this old woman, flesh spotted and gray. Weak. Frightened.

This is who she was, though her faith taught that the body was just temporary. A rental, of sorts. The soul was all we truly owned. Sister Maria got down on her knees, the floor creaking along with her joints, and prayed thanks to God for letting the boy live.

But her work was not finished, and she asked Him to help her with that, too.

*   *   *

The nun crossed the moist grass in the front yard again, now wrapped in a warm, fresh sweater beneath a black peacoat. She passed under the pine trees bordering the priest’s home and walked up the rectory steps, where she knocked on the front door and waited. Then she rang the bell and waited some more. Heavy footsteps and groaning complaints descended the stairs inside. Father Mercedes’s hands fumbled with the strap of a terry cloth robe as he opened the door. The nun had known him a long, long time, but had never seen his skinny white legs before.

“Did I wake you?” she asked. A stupid question.

The priest pursed his lips, and asked one of his own. “Where the hell’ve you been?”

Sister Maria felt her pulse quicken, thinking:
This is how guilty students feel when they stand before me trying to lie their way out of trouble in the principal’s office.
“We had a terrible tragedy today,” she said, then waited to see what he’d say next.

“I’ll say you did,” the priest told her. He was trying to focus his eyes in the darkness of the porch, but had forgotten his glasses upstairs.

“Did you … go inside to see any of it?” the nun asked, praying that he had not.

The priest groaned. “I spent all day in Pittsburgh at the bishop’s biannual, explaining why our parish can’t match last year’s goal in the Vatican Advancement fund this year. You knew that—”

“Did you go
inside
 … when you got back?” Her voice was small, hopeful.

The priest shook his head. “Saducci said I’d need a wetsuit. And it was late. And I was tired, Sister. Anyway, I can’t can’t clean up all your messes,” he said. “I’ll see the damage tomorrow. If I must.”

Sister Maria held back a hallelujah. “Thank you, Father. I just wanted to make sure you were properly informed.”

The priest began to close the door and she thought that was the end, but he swung it open again for one last dig. “And where were you all day? Saducci and Mrs. Corde spent the afternoon in the church office, making appointments with contractors for tomorrow. Without you. Make sure you’re available to meet them.”

“I will, Father,” she said. “I just had to manage a small crisis today. The Stein boy.” Part of her wanted to say everything, right here and now—confess everything.

“What’s he got to do with this?” the priest asked.

Sister Maria backed away. She raised one hand from her coat. “Nothing, Father. We’ll talk tomorrow,” she said, smiling faintly. “No need to burden you more tonight.”

The nun descended into the yard, slipping around the side of her house, where she waited until the rectory lights clicked off again. Then she headed toward the school.

*   *   *

She had made a promise at the hospital, but wasn’t sure she could keep it until now.

Orderlies, nurses, and doctors had swarmed the boy as they retreated into the emergency room with his body, which looked like a gruesome doll on the white gurney, shriveled, unmoving. Sister Maria had knelt beside the vending machines, praying the rosary by memory, and at the start of the third set of Hail Marys, the boy’s father stormed into the waiting room. The nun gushed apologies, begged forgiveness. When the boy’s sister arrived, they all held hands and prayed some more.

Doctors came and went. They gave no predictions, no comfort, certainly no promises. Two police officers entered sometime later. Sister Maria repeated what she knew and answered their questions.
It was self-inflicted, yes? Was there anyone with him?

Sister Maria thought of the boy—Davidek.
No,
she lied.
No one else.

The police talked with the family, going over the boy’s history, his mother, the fire, his troubles at the school. A psychiatrist was called in to speak with the family about the boy’s mental state.

When the police officers departed, Sister Maria walked with them outside. “This will follow him, won’t it?” she asked. “All his friends at the school, other people in the town … How much time does he have before your report goes public and the newspaper picks it up?”

The police officers seemed embarrassed. They looked at each other and the equipment around their belts jangled restlessly. One said, “We do have to file a report, that’s the law.” And the other said, “Of course, we’ve got a lot of work to do.” The nun didn’t get the insinuation. He smiled at her. “Do you understand, Sister?” the cop asked. “We have a lot of
other
work to do. Real crimes—these personal tragedies … those reports go to the bottom of the list. Sometimes they stay there, or get misfiled. Unless something dire happens…”