Child of My Right Hand (7 page)

“How many have you asked?”

She didn't respond, and as easy as that, they fell in step and moved to the next rack. “My daughter, Lizzie, has the same relation to Russell Crowe. After three viewings, I refused to pay for her to see
Gladiator
and she began using her own money. This fall she's been listening to the soundtrack on her computer and absolutely mooning over him.”

“You think I'm mooning over Kevin Spacey?”

Jack nodded and she beamed at him.

“What about you, Jack?”

“I'm not mooning over Kevin Spacey.”

“No, what movie are you renting?”

There was something about her. Maybe just that she was so small and direct, where Genna was neither. He said, “Simon has a friend over, and they want
Practical Magic
.” Jack longed to say more. Marla was charming, and he felt charmed, no doubt about it, but that was all he was going to let himself feel. He believed Marla would understand how strange it was for Simon to have a boy over who might be his boyfriend. She might even know Rich. “I also need a movie for the grown-ups.”

At his first oblique mention of Genna, the guidance counselor checked her watch. She started towards the front counter, then asked over her shoulder, “Have you seen
Fight Club
?”

“Not for Genna. Blood's okay, but no psychological pain.”

“I think you'd like it.” Marla raised her small hand and waved. “Night, Jack. Say hi to Simon for me.”

He rented
Practical Magic
,
That Old Feeling
(a Bette Midler romantic comedy they'd seen before and liked),
Three Kings
, and because the fourth was free, Jack checked out
Fight Club
. Driving home, he felt guilty and decided it would be better all around if he didn't tell anyone he'd run into Marla.

For a little guy, Rich had a big penis. At least Simon was pretty sure he did. He'd felt it Friday night through Rich's jeans, till Rich pushed his hand away.

“Your parents are home.”

“The door's locked.”

Rich gave him the Look: almost a smile, but not. Not happy, not sad. Just Rich. His eyes closed and slowly opened, but the whole time he felt as if Rich were looking right at him.

“I don't care.”

Simon almost answered, They don't care. They know and they don't care, but he didn't think Rich would believe him. He wasn't sure he did. Maybe Mom but not Dad, who still invited him to the gym to work out on weekends. What was that about except being a different kind of guy, an athlete like Uncle Russ? Unless it was about losing weight, another forbidden subject, his weight or what Dad called his atrocious diet.

Even if his parents were totally okay with the gay thing, which he didn't see how they could be, since he wasn't—he loved kids and how could he have any?—it was unappealing to have their permission to cop a feel of Rich's cock. So he didn't really mind Rich pushing his hand away, so long as Rich kept kissing him. Rich's tongue snaked around his, then beat against his lips like a moth's wings, like a clever little finger, while Simon's big body lay on top of Rich's smaller one, pressing down, pressing down, pressing down.

Rich had said he'd call Sunday morning when he returned from visiting his mom. Sunday afternoon Simon called Rich's dad's trailer every hour but didn't leave a message because Rich had asked him not to. Sunday night Simon phoned Rachel to ask if she'd heard from Rich, but no, all quiet on the Rich front.

Monday, Simon faced the bathroom mirror. He was considering letting the blond grow out then cropping back to his natural color, but he'd been dying it for two years and wasn't sure what that natural color was. He rubbed gel between his palms and laced his fingers through his wet-from-the-shower hair getting the one-inch spikes just right. Last winter, when he started styling, he'd gobbed on the mega-hold. His spikes were so stiff kids' palms bounced off. One freezing-cold day he was fiddling with his hair, and a big clump snapped off! Now, running his hands through his hair and watching them as if they belonged to someone else, his dad's ham hands, he remembered being two years old, the year they lived in France, or maybe he only remembered France from the picture on Mom's desk. Little Simon with blond curls, a big smile bright as day. He was so cute, I was so cute, what happened?

Lizzie pounded the bathroom door.

“Upstairs, you brat.”

“Goddamn you, Simon. It's not your bathroom.”

“Eat me, Dizzy!”

She kicked the door. “Asshole! I hate you!”

Her footsteps slashed away, and he looked again in the mirror for little Simon. The upstairs shower snorted; water gurgled upwards through the pipes. How she'd loved to spin, Dizzy Lizzie. In California—he could see it when he closed his eyes—they'd hold hands and spin until she fell down, laughing. Now she acted as if she were more mature than he was, but no way, of course, she wasn't.

Simon opened his eyes and returned to his terribly important hair.

***

He walked down the hall after fourth bell, headed for the auditeria. Bad news and more bad news. Failing pre-calc, which he learned yesterday, and now, failing French. Just wait till Dad found out. You're grounded for the rest of your life. Dad's big ha-ha from middle school. Why did he ever think that was funny?

Simon approached the end of the corridor. Asshole Corner. His palms bled. His heart beat like it did last spring after they made him run the mile, and he nearly passed out. He turned the corner and there they were, three round faces, moon boys with bowl hair and piggy eyes, Big, Bigger, and Little Asshole, and he didn't know where to run or hide.

“Hey, faggot. Faggot, yeah, you.”

Simon flattened himself against the wall to let them pass. What a joke, he was too big to flatten against anything smaller than a Winnebago.

“Faggot, you're dead!”

But they swept past without hurting him.

In the lunchroom, Simon looked for Rich. Not finding him, he heaped his tray and sat at Rachel's table. BHA number three: Something green with every meal. With his heart still roaring, Fag-got, fag-got, fag-got! Simon started on his salad. His left leg twitched as it did when his mind was elsewhere: up-down, up-down, up-down.

Rachel gazed at him through sweet doe eyes. “You're shaking the table.”

“My leg,” he said. “Always does.”

“Not always.” He sometimes thought she liked him in a boy-girl way. “Would you try? You're annoying people.”

He ordered his leg to stop. But like everything, his leg was out of control, and Simon felt a gooey wave of despair crash over him. He punched his left leg above the knee, punched and punched until it stopped.

“You're such a nut.”

He didn't feel like such a nut. “Those guys were calling me names again.”

“What guys?”

“Assholes all look the same.”

Rachel sipped her Arizona iced tea. “You've really got to do something.” She tucked fly-aways behind her ears, then whispered, “Rich isn't coming back.”

“What?”

“His dad doesn't want him, so he has to live with his mom up in Earlham.”

Oh God. “Where's Earlham?”

“Like two hours north.” Rachel touched his arm. “I'm sorry.”

Simon demolished his first slice of pizza, then started on the second. Under the table, his leg twitched as if it were running away.

***

Jack spoke to his first student group Sunday night: the hall council in Sturtevant, one of the university's two remaining women's dorms. They met in the ground floor common room where the scent, or was it the aura, of well-bred Midwestern girls had worked its way into the upholstery, the cream-colored walls and drapes, even the slightly frayed Oriental rug around which they arranged their wingback chairs. They were waiting on the final member, a senior named Mandy, whom everyone assured Jack would arrive soon; she was doing laundry.

Jack sat at the head of the oval, sipping Diet Coke while sucking a mouthful of sweet and sour Smarties. His speaker's kit contained: information sheets detailing how grossly underpaid Tipton teachers were and how moderate the tax increase would be; voter registration cards; a map of polling places; and a bagful of miniature Smarties rolls, each of which had a yellow label which proclaimed, Be Smart for Tipton Schools.

The girls were dorm officers and RA's, who'd agreed to live on a freshman hall dispensing hot chocolate and sisterly advice in exchange for room and board. Yvonne, a first-year African American grad student from Jack's department, introduced him, then Jack passed around Voter Registration cards, the information sheets, the bag of Smarties. These were nice girls, concerned about social issues and their own weight; the bag of Smarties came back undiminished. Then Mandy entered, blond hair tugged back in a tight ponytail, wearing a gray Tipton T-shirt and running shorts. Clearly, laundry night.

“Sorry.” She took the last available chair.

TUTS strategy was straightforward: get the students to vote. Last spring, after the college kids left town, a levy lost by fifteen hundred votes. No More Taxes (the opposition) spread the word that last spring's levy was trying to revive plans for a new high school, which wasn't true. TUTS was now proclaiming, the statement being at least partially true, that it was in the students' self-interest to bring better schools to Tipton.

“Without good public schools, ” Jack began, “the university has difficulty hiring and retaining the best young faculty. As some of you may know, the Director of the Art Museum has just taken a job in Tennessee. In his resignation letter, he wrote, and I quote, ‘The poor quality of the public schools was the deciding factor. I had to do what was best for my family.'”

He looked around. Such well-scrubbed, well-meaning faces. Only one or maybe two appeared bored. “For eight years, my wife and I commuted because we didn't want our kids in Tipton schools. Our colleagues, when they recruited us, warned us. Now I don't have to tell you, if someone's commuting an hour each way, they have less time for students.”

The girls murmured. No doubt some professor had turned down their request for a late-afternoon meeting.

“You can help by registering to vote in Tipton. If you're already registered back home, you can re-register and save yourself the bother of getting an absentee ballot. It's perfectly legal. You live here.” Jack looked at them one by one. Several girls nodded. “Even if you're apathetic about the national election—after all, it's an off year—in Tipton, your vote matters. You know how important a good high school education is. Without it, you wouldn't be here.”

Mandy raised her hand. “But we don't pay taxes. Is it really fair for us to vote for a tax increase?”

Jack glanced from girl to girl ending on Yvonne, the only black face.

“You spend money in Tipton. And if you live off-campus next year and the levy passes, your rent will probably be five dollars a month higher to pay your landlord's higher taxes. But that's less than a movie, or a pitcher at Joe Mac's.”

The girls grinned. Joe Mac's was a popular student bar. “So even though it may cost you or your parents a little extra, it's the right thing to do. The tax rate is so low, the school district can't retain staff. In the past three years, Tipton schools have had to replace 40 percent of their teachers. It's not right.” Jack looked at them one by one. Such fine young women. “And you can help.”

***

Monday afternoon, when Jack returned from work, music boomed up the stairs so loudly it nearly blew him out the door. Oh no, he thought, recognizing the melody before the nuns began: How do you solve a problem like Maria? Jack hurried to the deck, where he found Genna and Sam, saving their hearing.

“What's wrong?”

“No hello?”

“Hello.” Jack kissed her quickly, the kind of kiss couples share after twenty years. “What's wrong?”

“Why must something be wrong?”

“
The Sound of Music
, max volume, and you haven't made him turn it down.”

“He's failing math and French.”

“Is that all?”

Genna laughed, Jack thought, a bit hysterically. Damn, but parenting was humbling. Simon was often failing after the first six weeks. He didn't want help, he didn't need help; he wanted his parents out of his goddamn business, that was the only help he needed. So each year they backed off until the first report card.

“No,” Genna admitted, “that's not all. Rich moved to his mother's house and changed schools. Simon's heartbroken.”

“In the middle of the school year?”

Genna shrugged. Rich's people, Jack thought, were just the shabby sort to do it. He'd driven the boy home Friday night and felt his humiliation as they turned into the trailer park.

“I told Simon we'd talk about his grades after you got home.”

“Oh great,” Jack said. “Lizzie still at soccer?”

Genna nodded. “She got all A's, one B.”

They shared a guilty smile. No time to focus on the child doing well. They reentered the house, descending through a silo of sound. Mother Superior howled, “..ford every stream, fol-low every rain-bow…”

Outside Simon's room, the music was so loud Jack's diaphragm quaked.

“Until…You…Find…Your…DREAM!”

When the song ended, Simon heard the pounding and opened up. His eyes were red. At least three days of dirty clothes littered the floor, or maybe they were just rejected outfit options from that morning.

“We have to talk,” Jack began.

“I don't want to.”

“I'm turning the music off.” Genna stepped lightly between them and fumbled for the power as Julie Andrews broke into that cheerful fantasy of Austrian childcare. In piping voices pumped to six-million decibels, the Von Trapp children answered, “Do, re, mi.”

Then the sound went off, and Simon threw himself on his bed.

A year, even six months earlier, Jack would have pushed the clothes into an angry pile and announced the room looked like a goddamn pigsty. Instead, he began, “Mom told me about your grades.”

Simon looked at Jack as if he were a giant bug.

“First thing, you're grounded until you pull your grades up. No phone or television during the week.”

“That's not fair.”

Jack hated that particular expression, which no doubt magnified its appeal for Simon. “What's fair got to do with two F's?”

“I don't care what you say.”

“What?” Jack could already feel the tendon bulging on his neck.

“Maybe one or the other,” Genna offered. “No television and no phone school nights until we check and see your homework's finished.”

He looked so sad, Jack thought. “You always have this problem in the beginning of the year. We know you can do the work.”

“No, I can't. I don't understand anything in French or math. Who the hell wants to take pre-calculus anyway?”

“We can work together on the math,” Jack said. “Like we used to.”

Simon looked at Genna and then at his father. “I'd rather be dead. You're always right. You're always right. It makes me feel stupid.”

Genna said, “Maybe we can get a tutor like last year.”

“I hate that school, I hate it.”

Back and forth, back and forth, and every second Jack was thinking, I'm a terrible father, a terrible father, I make him feel stupid. But he also knew Simon was jerking him around. Simon failed two classes because he did no work. Then the phone rang, and Simon leapt for it.

Genna said, “You better get Lizzie at soccer practice.”

Disappointed, his eyes still red-rimmed, Simon said, “It's for you,” and handed Jack the portable phone.