Come Destroy Me

a division of F+W Media, Inc.

F
ROM HIS BEDROOM
window in the bungalow on Conrad Street, Charlie could see the hills of Azrael, burned rust color from the hot July sun. The little town was in the heart of the Green Mountains of Vermont, and if Charlie went to Harvard in the fall, he’d miss Azrael. Plenty! He’d miss those hills — he used to ski down them in the winter — and he’d miss the fresh green smell of Azrael in the spring. He’d miss walking up Sock Hill on his way from town, the giant pines lining the sides, the kids playing cave man in the vacant lot, and at the top the groups of granite workers gathered to wait for the red bus that went past the quarries. He’d miss sugaring time, the rows of trees with the pails hanging on their trunks, and the taste of the maple candy fresh made. Little things he’d miss. He’d miss … a lot of things.

One thing he wasn’t sure about, because it was crazy. It was the library. Not just the library, but what it was like to be there. It was
clean,
for one thing, hallowed. There was never any noise. He could go there and stay there and no one ever looked over his shoulder or said anything to him or interrupted him. He spent a lot of time there, almost every night, and sometimes
she
came, but oh, what the hell, why think about
her?

Except I always do, he thought. Oh, wow, cripes, this is the silliest goddamn summer I
ever spent.
When will it be over?

Charlie was tall, tall and thin with gaunt facial features that made him look older than sixteen, and a brush cut to his black hair, and piercing dark brown eyes. He wore a pair of gray summer slacks and a white shirt unbuttoned at his chest, no socks, and scuffed brown loafers on his feet. He picked up the red leather-bound book of verse that was open on his desk, and, slumping down into the wicker chair with the soft brown pillows, he began to reread the poem, underscoring in ink.

“I wish I were where Helen lies …”

“Not
him,
he won’t come out to say good-by.” The saucy voice of his sister, Evie, drifted into the room from the hallway. “Really, Inez, you never saw such a hermit!”

“I think he’s sexy,” Inez said.

Evie raised her voice. “Hear that, Charlie? ‘Nez thinks you’re sex-see!”

He began the line again: “I wish I were where Helen lies …”

“Sex-see, Charlie — hear?”

“I guess he doesn’t think I am,” Inez said.

“Sex-see, Charlie.” Evie’s voice droned farther away as she walked with Inez to the front doorway.

Charlie was staring at the print without knowing what the words said. It just ruined everything when Evie got that way. It spoiled everything. She was in love with talking like that since she began college. It made him ashamed of Evie, and, curiously, ashamed of himself too. It made him not want to finish what he was reading, and it reminded him of something funny to remember.

He remembered going to the movies with his mother Friday nights in the winter, and the way he tried to hold his breath whenever a man and woman kissed on the screen. He tried to hold his breath so his mother wouldn’t hear his breathing hard, because he was embarrassed. Holding his breath only made it worse, and once he had a violent fit of coughing in a close-up where Dane Clark was kissing a girl in a two-piece bathing suit on a beach. Charlie had had to go downstairs in the lobby and get a drink, and when he saw his face in the mirror, he hated it. He said, “You!” to it, and wished to God he didn’t have to go back to his seat. When he did return, his mother smiled and whispered, “O.K.?” and he had wanted to slap her. Now explain that one! Ah, why try to understand
everything?

Evie wasn’t going to win this time. He picked up the book again and began to concentrate.

“I wish I were where Helen lies …”

“Char-lee!”

“He won’t come, Mom. He’s busy — reading.”

“Well, he better come. Can’t wait dinner for him.”

“Leave him alone, Em. Boy will come soon enough when he’s hungry.” Charlie recognized Russel Lofton’s voice. So
he
was staying to dinner again.

His mother complained, “I wish he wouldn’t read so much. All he
does
is read. Never bothers with people. Reads all day. Charlie!”

“What does he read?”

“Anything! Everything!” There was a note of pride in his mother’s husky voice; there always was when she talked about the way Charlie didn’t do another thing but read.

“Let’s just go ahead, Mom.”

“I wish he’d
come.”

“He’ll come.”

“Charlie Wright!”

“Out of my bed she bids me rise …”

“He doesn’t even hear you. Mom.”

“Let the boy be, Em.”

“That’s right, Mom. He doesn’t even hear you.”

“Says haste and come to me!”

Oh, I hear you, all right, I hear you. Charlie stood up slowly, put a marker in the page of the book, and stretched his long arms above his head. The poem beat its cadence like a drum in his brain. I wish — I were — where Hel — en
lies.
For a moment he let it pound around, a real rhythm he could really hear, and he stared again at the hills and the sun setting behind them. Whenever he thought about that poem he was confused. He liked it. He imagined a beautiful soft woman calling him, a white goddess, a sylphlike girl, calling him. He decided she would not be naked. She would wear
something.
Something silky, flimsy, white. She would call him at all hours and he would have to go to her and he would imagine rising from his bed to go to her, but what then?

Then, Charlie thought, then the hell with it. It was all muddled up in his mind and he did not know why he even bothered with poems like that. He snapped his fingers as if to bring himself to, stuffed an old handkerchief in the pocket of his trousers, and slicked back his hair with a broken comb he found on his dresser. He looked at his own reflection thoughtfully when his hair was combed, and then he grinned, because it was silly to see himself staring at himself, and he thought with sardonic amusement, I must be getting
simple,
plain
simple.

As he walked from the room he whistled softly. There was no tune, just random notes. He went down the hall with its worn blue-flowered wallpaper, past the antique rosewood coat rack with the angry head of an eagle mounted on top, and on to the entranceway of the dining room. He paused to listen to the conversation before he went in, but they weren’t even talking about him any more.

“Say, this is swell,” Russel Lofton was saying. “How
do
you do it, Em?”

Charlie despised the barking manner in which Mr. Lofton spoke. He was a lawyer in Azrael and his wife was dead, and he was always hanging around the Wrights, calling Charlie’s mother Em. He never called anyone by the name everyone else did. He had his special names. Evie was ?-venus, and Charlie was Chucker.

“Well, well, well, well, Chucker!” Mr. Lofton said as Charlie walked into the dining room. “Chucker!”

He reached out and touched Charlie’s sleeve as the boy pulled his chair forward and sat at the table. It was an annoying habit Lofton had, catching hold of the coat of the man or woman he was talking to, or gripping him by the arm. He was in his middle forties, but he could easily pass for a man of fewer years. His physique was good, wide athletic shoulders, fine muscular arms and legs, and a flat hard stomach. He had a good head of thick black hair, which only in recent years showed gray at the temples, large brown eyes, a thick crooked nose, a broad full mouth, and a square jawline.

“So you did hear after all, honey?” Mrs. Emily Wright said. “Some boys you have to call from ball games. Have to call
you
from
books!”

“Aw, Mom, forget it.”

“College won’t be all books either, you know. They have football and hockey and rowing — ”

“Sure, Mom. O.K.”

His mother looked tired. Her face had a tense, haggard quality. She was a handsome woman, thin like Charlie, but perpetually weary. She had married Charlie’s father when she was twenty-two, had Evie the same year, and lost Egan Wright when she was twenty-six, a year after Charlie was born. People in Azrael said she never got over Egan’s sudden death in the quarry cave-in, and that was the reason she never remarried. But she said, “There simply wasn’t anyone, and when there was, he didn’t want a ready-made family.”

Sometimes when she said that, Charlie resented it, because he liked to think it was the other way — the way folks said. His mother was a dark, tall lady, quick and talented. She had managed the Azrael Gazette for ten years now, and if she was occasionally annoying and usually slovenly in her dress and actions, Charlie tried to remember she worked hard. Her hair was cut short and brushed back from her forehead, and her eyes were a matching brown color. Her nose was small, and her chin pointed and determined. Russel Lofton was her best friend, a fixture around the Wright house, like a lamp or a table, and there was never any fuss made for him. He was treated like one of the family, like a father to Evie and me, Charlie thought, and it made him angry. He had no specific reason for disliking Lofton, but he knew that he resented him.

Mrs. Wright said, “Hungry, honey?”

“Eat a horse,” Charlie answered.

“You ought to,” his sister said. “You’re too skinny, doll. You ought to fill out.”

“Your sister’s right,” Mr. Lofton said. Charlie didn’t even look at him.

“So you can get a girl friend when you go to Haa-vud.” Evie giggled and winked at Russel Lofton. She was a slim, pretty, nineteen-year-old girl, medium-sized, with a good bust, a shock of dark hair cut poodle style, regular features, good legs, a soft voice, and a cocky manner.

“You know what ‘Nez thinks. Maybe you ought to date ‘Nez and practice up.”

“Time enough, time enough.” Mr. Lofton chuckled, reached over with his large square hand, and patted Charlie’s wrist. “Time enough for girls, eh, Chucker? Time enough, eh, boy?”

Charlie felt himself squirm inside.

“Never mind
girls.”
Mrs. Wright smiled. “I just wish he’d play sports more.” She looked at Charlie, nodding her head slowly, as though she would never get used to the idea that he was the way he was — an intellectual, she called him to herself — and she was pleased. “Books!” she said, smiling. “Land! I’d never have thought — ”

That was the way that July evening began, slowly, evolving into a typical evening, with small talk and not too much to do, and everyone saying much the same things they might say on any warm night in the Wright house in Azrael, Vermont.

Mrs. Wright sighed. “Whew, it’s a scorcher! Whew!”

Time enough for girls, eh, Chucker? Time enough, eh, boy?

It began slowly with Charlie thinking when his mother said, “I suppose you’ll go to the library again after dinner?” that yes, he would go to the library. He would.