So Shelly (30 page)

Trust me, I heard it all that night (well, most of it), and I’ve shared it all in this book.

In school on Monday, Shelly was becoming Shelly again.

On Friday, the sixth of November, three days after the passage of the casino gambling bill by the voters of the state of Ohio, a wicked nor’easter, bringing wind-whipped rain and dark skies at noon, blew down across the lake from Buffalo and beyond. Shelly and I had taken to eating lunch together in the
Beacon
’s office. Glancing at the front-page headlines of the
Ogontz Reporter,
I read, “Island Tragedy.” A wave of portent nausea washed through me.

“Shelly?” I said. “Have you talked to Neolin like you said you were going to?”

“Not yet. I’ve tried, but he doesn’t answer his cell. I’m taking the Whaler up there tomorrow. It’s my last chance before it’s placed in storage for the winter. Why?”

“Just wondered,” I said.

As casually as possible, so as not to excite Shelly’s curiosity further, I gathered the newspaper and excused myself to the restroom. Instead, I detoured into the darkroom, where in the—appropriate for the occasion—blood-red light I scanned the article. According to the reporter, whose only source was the Ottawa County sheriff, while attempting to evict a trespasser from state-owned property on North Bass Island, a contingent of deputies had been fired upon. Following a brief standoff, the officers went all Navy SEALs (that’s my interpretation), and after a round of tear gas was fired, a sniper’s bullet brought the incident “to a tragic but unavoidable end.” At the conclusion of an autopsy, the article said, the body of Gabriel Smith would be returned to his mother and people in the Ottawa Nation of Oklahoma.

That’s as far as I read before the glare from fluorescent overhead bulbs flooded the no longer dark room. Squinting into the gaudy light and guiltily hiding the newspaper behind my back, I turned and leaned against the rusted sink baths.

Shelly stood with one hand still on the doorknob. “What you doing in here, John? I thought you were going to the bathroom. What’s that?” She indicated the newspaper in my hand with a thrust of her chin.

“Nothing. I … I … I just …”

Witchlike in her speed, Shelly closed the distance
between us. She reached around me—all the time staring accusingly into my eyes—grabbed the paper from my hand, read all of the article she needed to read, dropped the newspaper, and turned and walked out of the darkroom, the classroom, and Trinity for the final time. After Shelly was reported absent by her afternoon teachers, Principal Smith eventually charged her truant and placed her on suspension.

It didn’t matter. She wasn’t coming back anyway.

That night, she penned her “The Necessity of Atheism” essay and emailed it to
Newsweek
. Not long after, the article appeared in the magazine. By her birthday in December, with little resistance from Shelly’s family and none from Shelly herself, she was permanently expelled from Trinity (the essay being the final nail in her cross).

I know it seems pretty shitty of me, but I never even tried to contact Shelly after that. I planned to, and I kept telling myself I would, but it’s funny how seconds become minutes become hours become weeks become months become years become lifetimes without us doing the many things we promise ourselves we will.

I spoke with Gordon on only one occasion in the weeks following Shelly’s expulsion. I was alone in the media center, cleaning up after a staff (myself, Mr. Robbins, and the two remaining Gordonettes who had discovered an actual interest in publishing) Christmas party. With his hair still damp from swim practice, Gordon appeared in the doorway wearing a brand-new red letterman’s jacket with white leathery sleeves. I think it was part of some kind of image restoration
campaign he’d begun in the attempt to clean up his toxic reputation. It included divorcing himself from all things Shelly, like the
Beacon
. He tensely held a just-released issue like a baton, as if prepared to defend himself from a rioting rabble.

“S’up, Keats?” Gordon said by way of reunion.

“Hi, Gordon. Where’ve you been?”

He pointed to his wet head. “Swimming mostly. And working on
Asmodeus
. My publisher wants a draft ASA fucking P. You?”

“You’re looking at it. Put in a lot of hours here, and I’ve been working on some things of my own.”

“Oh, yeah? What kind of things?” he asked, but his eyes were busy surveying the room. I imagined them landing on and highlighting little hyperlinked icons in his memory that replayed past moments.

“I got this Web—”

“That’s cool,” Gordon interrupted. “Hey, nice job.” He raised the rolled-up
Beacon
to qualify his compliment.

“Thanks.” I ignored his rudeness. “I just finished what Shelly started.”

“Yeah, but you’re the new editor in chief.”

“For now,” I said. “It’s no big deal.”

“Bullshit. I’m sure Shelly’s proud.”

With the mention of her name, a funereal pallor fell over the room. The very space, which she had filled so often, and the atmosphere, which she had charged with such energy, mourned her absence.

“Have you talked to her?” he asked.

“No.” For all that I criticize Gordon for his self-absorption,
I didn’t prove to be such a good friend to Shelly either. “Have you?”

“No. I’m not exactly welcome at the Shelley home.”

“Did you see her essay in
Newsweek
?”

“Yeah. Very cool.”

“Did you hear about”—I hesitated to say the name, not sure of the degree of sensitivity Gordon felt regarding Shelly’s other love—“Neolin?”

“Yeah. It sucks. I’ve tried texting her a few times, but she never texts me back. She probably blames me. I guess I would too, if I were her.”

“She just needs some time. You know, to sort some of this out.”

“You’re probably right, Keats.”

That was it. Neither one of us had anything more to offer regarding Shelly, or to one another.

“Guess I’ll see you around,” Gordon said, and he was gone.

In late December, Claire gave birth to her daughter and named her Allegra. Within six weeks, she was back at Trinity, haunting Gordon.

I saw Shelly alive only one more time; it was on a beautiful Saturday in late May with weather that can make you forget the crappy winter you just endured and how much you hate living in Ohio. The kind of day that makes you long for the summer in the offing. From my upstairs room, I heard a heavy, purposeful knocking on the front door. It was Shelly. She looked good, like her old self, with her hair long and undone, falling over a black T-shirt with the likeness of Jim
Morrison screened in white on its front. She was in flip-flops and a pair of cutoff jeans, and she was holding a box half-full of books, mostly poetry. On a quick glance I recognized several names on the spines: Plath (of course), Sexton, Dickinson, Angelou, and Ryan.

“Hey, John,” she said as I gladly opened the door.

I invited her inside, but she declined.

“I was cleaning my room and”—she paused as if rethinking her decision to part with the books—“I’d like you to have these.”

“Thanks,” I said, “but …”

She stopped me before I could ask why.

“I saw last semester’s
Beacon
online; you did a great job finishing that issue.” She was changing the subject, making small talk.

“Thanks,” I said.

“Thanks for keeping my stuff in. You must have gotten some grief for that.”

“A little,” I said. “I’m nearly finished editing this semester’s edition.”

“That’s great. How’s Gordon?” It took only that long for her to get to what she’d come to ask.

“Don’t you live next door?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she said, looking away and watching a boat-sized Cadillac, riding low, cruise by with speakers blasting some rap song. “But it’s surprising how far away next door can be.”

“I know that better than most,” I said, watching the Caddy continue down the street.

Shelly said, “I’ve tried to text him, call him, Facebook
him, but he won’t respond. I kind of avoided him after all the shit of last fall. I’ve probably hurt his feelings.”

“It isn’t you, Shelly. It’s Gordon. That’s just how he is. You should know that by now.”

“I do. I finally do,” she insisted. “But I need to talk to him. I have a favor to ask him. Could you maybe pass that on to him at school?”

“Well,” I began. “Since you … um … left, Gordon doesn’t come around the
Beacon
much. During swim season, we talked once, but I haven’t talked to him since. But I’m sure I can catch him in the hall sometime.”

“I’d really appreciate it if you could do it soon,” she said. “Oh! Here.” She reached into a back pocket of her jean shorts and held out a copy of her R.E.M. mix. “I made one for you. Keep it. I’m going to want to listen to it with you someday.”

I absentmindedly started to open the case, but she stopped me with her hands. “Not now, John. Listen to it later. You’ll know when,” she added cryptically.

“Okay.” I laughed at her earnestness. “You can trust me; I’ll take good care of it.”

Then, weirdly, she placed her hands on my shoulders, sprung to her tiptoes, and kissed me on the cheek. “Thanks for everything, John. Don’t forget to tell Gordon that I
really
need to see him. Okay?”

“Sure,” I said, still a little stunned by the kiss.

Shelly backed off the porch, down the steps, and into the MINI Cooper, with the baby car seat in the back, that she’d borrowed from Claire. It’s ironic, now, thinking of the
manner in which she would return to that same driveway on the day of her wake.

I stood in the doorway for several minutes, trying to make sense of what had taken place, but soon I resumed my life, after throwing Shelly’s disc onto the top of my dresser.

Tom’s debilitation made it impossible for him to work, so I took a dishwashing job at Tom’s old restaurant and planned to increase my hours once school let out in a few weeks.

A few months earlier, the counselors at Trinity had gotten nosy and contacted Erie County Social Services. It was probably my smelly clothes that had tipped them off, or the weight I’d lost because the only real meals I’d eaten in months were school lunches. The social worker assigned to our case helped us to apply for every kind of government aid imaginable. It was humiliating, and my father was probably doing somersaults in his grave, but the aid was instrumental in providing for Tom’s doctors, medicines, therapy, and the increasing number of apparatuses required to keep him even marginally mobile or able to sit or stand upright.

With the Shelly-Gordon drama out of my life, I was better able to concentrate at school and to return my grades to normal, without sacrificing the time I still needed to devote to my writing and Web page updates. Although my readership had plateaued, and the only advertiser I had attracted was for a vanity publishing company out of Cleveland, my writing was improving, thanks to the feedback from my readers and from an online writers group I had joined.

Shelly’s father didn’t set a course for the marina as Gordon had suggested he would. Instead, he idled his boat and mirrored our path through the woods from the water. His cherry-red cigarette boat was visible through occasional breaks in the trees. Tired, hungry, emotionally spent, scratched by branches and brambles, I stopped.

“Gordon, wait. I need a break.”

“What you need is to start working out. We haven’t gone a hundred yards.”

“Just give me a minute to rest and catch my breath,” I said, panting, and I bent over with my hands braced heavily against my knees.

He looked out toward the lake, where, scanning the woods with binoculars pressed to his eyes, Shelly’s father bobbed in his boat.

“We need to get to this beach up ahead and spread these ashes,” Gordon said. “You know, I didn’t think she had the
balls to go through with it,” he said as he commenced blazing the trail.

“Go through with what?” I asked, sincerely clueless.

“This!” He stopped and nodded toward the urn upraised in his hands, then spun slowly around, indicating the entire island.

“What do you mean?” I asked, as a really bad feeling began to gurgle up from the well of my ignored gut feelings.

“Killing herself.”

“You mean … I thought you said …”

“Yeah, I knew about it. She told me her plan.”

“Wait … What? ‘Killing herself’? You knew about it? And you didn’t do anything to stop her!” I was incredulous. I was an accomplice. I was the one who’d passed on Shelly’s message of needing to speak with him. This was the result.

“What’d you want me to do, Keats? Sit with her twenty-four/seven?”

“Gee, I don’t know, talk her out of it, maybe? Christ, at least tell somebody!”

“She made me promise not to. Her father would have put her in a nuthouse, which would have killed her anyway. Besides, I didn’t think she was serious. You know how she was.”

“Oh, that explains it. She made you promise not to. What? Did you pinkie swear?”

“Look. It’s what she wanted. Who was I to tell her what to do with her life anyway? If she was so unhappy that dying seemed a relief, then why should I deny her that? We have no choice in when or to what asshole parents we come into this world. At least, shouldn’t we be able to decide for ourselves when to leave it?”

“You were supposed to be her friend, you selfish prick!” I shouted as I gave him the most ineffectual shove in the history of chivalry.

“
I’m
selfish?” He’d grabbed my arm at the wrist and twisted until I was bent over again and, this time, in excruciating pain. “You think I should have convinced her to go on living miserably so that
your
feelings wouldn’t be hurt? Don’t give me that bullshit about the selfishness of suicide. What’s selfish is insisting that she continue in her misery so
you
won’t have to feel sad or guilty.”

“Guilty? Why should I feel guilty?”

“She told me about the poetry books, dude. What’d you think she was doing? Organizing for a garage sale?”

He released me from the submission hold and sent me reeling, as if on drunken legs, until I stumbled off the path and fell onto the razor-sharp leaves of the now pissed-off plant growing in the sandy soil. The boom box catapulted from my hand.