The Waste Lands (24 page)

He had reached it and was preparing to scramble over the top when a terrible thought suddenly seized his mind.

A little moan of horror escaped him. He turned back and after a moment his eyes picked it out, although it was deep in the shadow of a neighboring building now—a tiny pink shape in the dimness, vulnerable, beautiful, and alone.

But a voice spoke up in his mind, a voice that was surely that of the man he had met at the way station in that strange other life.
No one will pick it. Nor will any vandal crush it beneath his heel because his dull eyes cannot abide the sight of its beauty. That is not the danger. It can protect itself from such things as those.

A sense of deep relief swept through Jake.

Can I come here again and look at it?
he asked the phantom voice
. When I’m low, or if the voices come back and start their argument again? Can I come back and look at it and have some peace?

The voice did not answer, and after a few moments of listening, Jake decided it was gone. He tucked
Charlie the Choo-Choo and Riddle-De-Dum
! into the waistband of his pants—which, he saw, were streaked with dirt and dotted with clinging burdocks—and then grabbed the board fence. He boosted himself up, swung over the top, and dropped onto the sidewalk of Second Avenue again, being careful to land on his good foot.

Traffic on the Avenue—both pedestrian and vehicular—was much heavier now as people made their way home for the night. A few passersby looked at the dirty boy in the torn blazer and untucked, flapping shirt as he jumped awkwardly down from the fence, but not many. New Yorkers are used to the sight of people doing peculiar things.

He stood there a moment, feeling a sense of loss and realizing something else, as well—the arguing voices were still absent. That, at least, was something.

He glanced at the board fence; and the verse of spray-painted doggerel seemed to leap out at him, perhaps because the paint was the same color as the rose.

“See the TURTLE of enormous girth” Jake muttered. “On his shell he holds the earth.” He shivered. “What a day! Boy!”

He turned and began to limp slowly in the direction of home.

THE DOORMAN MUST HAVE buzzed up as soon as Jake entered the lobby, because his father was standing outside the elevator when it opened on the fifth floor. Elmer Chambers was wearing faded jeans and cowboy boots that improved his five-ten to a rootin, tootin six feet. His black, crewcut hair bolted up from his head; for as long as Jake could remember, his father had looked like a man who had just suffered some tremendous, galvanizing shock. As soon as Jake stepped out of the elevator, Chambers seized him by the arm.

“Look at you!” His father’s eyes flicked up and down, taking in Jake’s dirty face and hands, the blood drying on his cheek and temple, the dusty pants, the torn blazer, and the burdock that clung to his tie like some peculiar clip. “Get in here! Where the hell have you been? Your mother’s just about off her fucking gourd!”

Without giving Jake a chance to answer, he dragged him through the apartment door. Jake saw Greta Shaw standing in the archway between the dining room and the kitchen. She gave him a look of guarded sympathy, then disappeared before the eyes of “the mister” could chance upon her.

Jake’s mother was sitting in her rocker. She got to her feet when she saw Jake, but she did not leap to her feet; neither did she pelt across to the foyer so she could cover him with kisses and invective. As she came toward him, Jake assessed her eyes and guessed she’d had at least three Valium since noon. Maybe four. Both of his parents were firm believers in better living through chemistry.

“You’re
bleeding
! Where have you been?” She made this inquiry in her cultured Vassar voice, pronouncing
been
so it rhymed with seen. She might have been greeting an acquaintance who had been involved in a minor traffic accident.

“Out,” he said.

His father gave him a rough shake. Jake wasn’t prepared for it. He stumbled and came down on his bad ankle. The pain flared again, and he was suddenly furious. Jake didn’t think his father was pissed because he had disappeared from school, leaving only his mad composition behind; his father was pissed because Jake had had the temerity to fuck up his own precious schedule.

To this point in his life, Jake had been aware of only three feelings about his father: puzzlement, fear, and a species of weak, confused love. Now a fourth and fifth surfaced. One was anger; the other was disgust. Mixed in with these unpleasant feelings was that sense of homesickness. It was the largest thing inside him right now, weaving through everything else like smoke. He looked at his father’s flushed cheeks and screaming haircut and wished he was back in the vacant lot, looking at the rose and listening to the choir.
This is not my place
, he thought.
Not anymore
.
I have work to do. If only I knew what it was.

“Let go of me,” he said.

“
What
did you say to me?” His father’s blue eyes widened. They were very bloodshot tonight. Jake guessed he had been dipping heavily into his supply of magic powder, and that probably made this a bad time to cross him, but Jake realized he intended to cross him just the same. He would not be shaken like a mouse in the jaws of a sadistic tomcat. Not tonight. Maybe not ever again. He suddenly realized that a large part of his anger stemmed from one simple fact: he could not
talk
to them about what had happened—what was
still
happening. They had closed all the doors.

But I have a key,
he thought, and touched its shape through the fabric of his pants. And the rest of that strange verse occurred to him:
If you want to run and play,/Come along the BEAM today.

“I said let go of me,” he repeated. “I’ve got a sprained ankle and you’re hurting it.”

“I’ll hurt more than your ankle if you don’t—” Sudden strength seemed to flow into Jake. He seized the hand clamped on his arm just below the shoulder and shoved it violently away. His father’s mouth dropped open.

“I don’t
work
for you,” Jake said. “I’m your
son
, remember? If you forgot, check the picture on your desk.”

His father’s upper lip pulled back from his perfectly capped teeth in a snarl that was two parts surprise and one part fury. “Don’t you talk to me like that, mister—where in the hell is your respect?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I lost it on the way home.”

“You spend the whole goddamn day absent without leave and then you stand there running your fat, disrespectful mouth—”

“Stop it! Stop it, both of you!” Jake’s mother cried. She sounded near tears in spite of the tranquilizers perking through her system.

Jake’s father reached for Jake’s arm again, then changed his mind. The surprising force with which his son had torn his hand away a moment ago might have had something to do with it. Or perhaps it was only the look in Jake’s eyes. “I want to know where you’ve been. ”

“Out. I told you that. And that’s
all
I’m going to tell you.”

“Fuck that! Your headmaster called, your French teacher actually
came here,
and they both had
beaucoup
questions for you! So do I, and I want some
answers!
”

“Your clothes are dirty,” his mother observed, and then added timidly: “Were you mugged, Johnny? Did you play hookey and get mugged?”

“Of course he wasn’t mugged,” Elmer Chambers snarled. “Still wearing his watch, isn’t he?”

“But there’s blood on his head.”

“It’s okay, Mom. I just bumped it.”

“But—”

“I’m going to go to bed. I’m very, very tired. If you want to talk about this in the morning, okay. Maybe we’ll all be able to make some sense then. But for now, I don’t have a thing to say.”

His father took a step after him, reaching out.

“No,
Elmer!
” Jake’s mother almost screamed.

Chambers ignored her. He grabbed Jake by the back of the blazer. “Don’t you just walk away from me—” he began, and then Jake whirled, tearing the blazer out of his hand. The seam under the right arm, already strained, let go with a rough purring sound.

His father saw those blazing eyes and stepped away. The rage on his face was doused by something that looked like terror. That blaze was not metaphorical; Jake’s eyes actually seemed to be on fire. His mother gave voice to a strengthless little scream, clapped one hand to her mouth, took two large, stumbling steps backward, and dropped into her rocking chair with a small thud.

“
Leave . . . me . . . alone,
” Jake said.

“What’s
happened
to you?” his father asked, and now his tone was almost plaintive. “What in the
hell’s
happened to you? You bug out of school without a word to anyone on the first day of exams, you come back filthy from head to toe . . . and you act as if you’ve gone crazy.”

Well, there it was—
you act as if you’ve gone crazy
. What he’d been afraid of ever since the voices started three weeks ago. The Dread Accusation. Only now that it was out, Jake found it didn’t frighten him much at all, perhaps because he had finally put the issue to rest in his own mind. Yes, something had happened to him. Was still happening. But no—he had
not
gone crazy. At least, not yet.

“We’ll talk about it in the morning,” he repeated. He walked across the dining room, and this time his father didn’t try to stop him. He had almost reached the hall when his mother’s voice, worried, stopped him: “Johnny . . .
are
you all right?”

And what should he answer? Yes? No? Both of the above? Neither of the above? But the voices had stopped, and that was something. That was, in fact, quite a lot.

“Better,” he said at last. He went down to his room and closed the door firmly behind him. The sound of the door snicking firmly shut between him and all the rest of the round world filled him with tremendous relief.

HE STOOD BY THE door for a little while, listening. His mother’s voice was only a murmur, his father’s voice a little louder.

His mother said something about blood, and a doctor.

His father said the kid was fine; the only thing wrong with the kid was the junk coming out of his mouth, and he would fix that.

His mother said something about calming down.

His father said he
was
calm.

His mother said—

He said, she said, blah, blah, blah. Jake still loved them—he was pretty sure he did, anyway—but other stuff had happened now, and these things had made it necessary that still other things must occur.

Why? Because something was wrong with the rose. And maybe because he wanted to run and play . . . and see
his
eyes again, as blue as the sky above the way station had been.

Jake walked slowly over to his desk, removing his blazer as he went. It was pretty wasted—one sleeve torn almost completely off, the lining hanging like a limp sail. He slung it over the back of his chair, then sat down and put the books on his desk. He had been sleeping very badly over the last week and a half, but he thought tonight he would sleep well. He couldn’t remember ever being so tired. When he woke up in the morning, perhaps he would know what to do.

There was a light knock at the door, and Jake turned warily in that direction.

“It’s Mrs. Shaw, John. May I come in for a minute?”

He smiled. Mrs. Shaw—of course it was. His parents had drafted her as an intermediary. Or perhaps translator might be a better word.

You go see him,
his mother would have said.
He’ll tell you what’s wrong with him. I’m his mother and this man with the bloodshot eyes and the runny nose is his father and you’re only the housekeeper, but he’ll tell you what he wouldn’t tell us. Because you see more of him than either of us, and maybe you speak his language.

She’ll have a tray,
Jake thought, and when he opened the door he was smiling.

Mrs. Shaw did indeed have a tray. There were two sandwiches on it, a wedge of apple pie, and a glass of chocolate milk. She was looking at Jake with mild anxiety, as if she thought he might lunge forward and try to bite her. Jake looked over her shoulder, but there was no sign of his parents. He imagined them sitting in the living room, listening anxiously.

“I thought you might like something to eat,” Mrs. Shaw said.

“Yes, thanks.” In fact, he was ravenously hungry; he hadn’t eaten since breakfast. He stood aside and Mrs. Shaw came in (giving him another apprehensive look as she passed) and put the tray on the desk.

“Oh, look at this,” she said, picking up
Charlie the Choo-Choo.
“I had this one when I was a little girl. Did you buy this today, Johnny?”

“Yes. Did my parents ask you to find out what I’d been up to?”

She nodded. No acting, no put-on. It was just a chore, like taking out the trash.
You can tell me if you want to
, her face said,
or you can keep still. I like you, Johnny, but it’s really nothing to me, one way or the other. I just work here, and it’s already an hour past my regular quitting time.

He was not offended by what her face had to say; on the contrary, he was further calmed by it. Mrs. Shaw was another acquaintance who was not quite a friend . . . but he thought she might be a little closer to a friend than any of the kids at school were, and much closer than either his mother or father. Mrs. Shaw was honest, at least. She didn’t dance. It all went on the bill at the end of the month, and she
always
cut the crusts off the sandwiches.

Jake picked up a sandwich and took a large bite. Bologna and cheese, his favorite. That was another thing in Mrs. Shaw’s favor—she knew all his favorites. His mother was still under the impression that he liked corn on the cob and hated brussels sprouts.