The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys (10 page)

Craig Dockery and the other black kids had boycotted soccer because of the purse-snatcher killing. I didn’t see the connection. They clumped around the drinking fountain, playing a game where you put your palms on the other guy’s palms and he tries to slap your hands before you can draw them away.

Tim had his exhausted paperback of
Animal Farm
open to a page of underlined sentences. He held a pen to his mouth and nibbled the cap. “So you think you’re brave enough for the Wildcat Caper?” He didn’t look up.

I said I reckoned I was stupid enough to do it.

“Good. Then you won’t have any problem with this other rite of manhood I’ve arranged for you.”

“Manhood?”

His eyes flicked up at me, then back to the page. “I sent her a note.”

My heart contracted. “What, who?”

“A love note to Margie Flynn. I signed your name.”

“Oh God! You’re kidding, right?” I felt myself going red. I didn’t dare look in her direction.

“I’m serious. You’ve got the kind of opportunity I’d sacrifice a finger for, and I’ll be damned if I’ll sit around while you let it evaporate, man.” He took the pen from his mouth and underlined something. He looked at me.

I flung my head down into my hands. “Goddamn it, Tim, why
the hell did you do this to me? I’m too mortified to ever face her now, you asshole.”

“It doesn’t call for this much suffering, Francis. It was a few sentences designed to make her fall in love with you. I’m tired of seeing you mooning around and her looking like the end of the world. Besides, I bet Rusty five bucks you’d go steady.”

Caustic ripples of shame rose up in me. I moaned. “What did it say?” I felt that all the girls were laughing at me across the park. I peeked through my fingers. They weren’t all laughing.

“I told her—in your vocabulary—that you thought she was the most wonderful girl in the school but you didn’t know how to tell her. I worked in a couple lines from Robert Frost. She’s smart, she’ll get it. Trust me.” He was grinning like an imp, his long hair tucked behind his ears.

“Do you realize how goofy you’ve made me sound? I ought to beat your ass,” I said.

“You can’t. I’d kick you right in the hernia. Besides, it succeeded. Margie’s been staring at you for ten minutes.” He paused to let this work on me. “I told her how you really feel, didn’t I?”

“Maybe so, but Jesus! I wanted to wait until I felt ready …”

“Exactly, Francine, but you never feel ready for anything. You never think you’re good enough. So I did you a favor. I’m your good angel.” He cuffed my shoulder and I shrugged violently. “She’s sitting over there sighing, buddy. She’s probably written your name on her notebook about a hundred times, and I bet she thinks about you when Neil Diamond songs play on the radio.”

“You’ve made it sickening. You’re like my mother.”

“I’m realistic. She’s twelve years old, man. She’s not sophisticated enough to not like you. Sure she looks like she stepped out of a Frazetta painting, and she’s nice, intelligent, but she’s a kid. Even more than us. She’s probably flattered out of her mind. Don’t agonize, go take your damn bounty!”

“I believe I’ll join the priesthood,” I said miserably.

“Are you really mad at me?”

“Why should I be mad?” I told him he was a dick.

“Fuck you, then. Join the ranks of the lemmings. And when you have your hernia operation you might as well get them to snip your nuts off.” He stared into his book.

I slid down between the thick oak roots and they rode up alongside me like railings. “Look,” I said, “I know you’re trying to give me a friendly push, but I like this girl too much. I feel like I’m going to faint when I get near her.”

“So tell her that stuff, fruitbat, not me.”

Fat Joey O’Connor fouled the soccer ball and it skidded towards us. I put out my foot and it bounced off my sole. Tim stood and slung it back at them.

I said, “Why don’t you snare a girlfriend? You’re always tricking other people into doing things.”

He looked grim. “It won’t happen for me. I’m this little stick figure with an enlarged brain or something. I have to do things through you guys.”

“Bullshit. If you’re such a genius, why don’t you use that to impress girls?”

“I’m the size of a nine-year-old, if you hadn’t noticed. Asshole. But I’m as smart as a grown-up. And even if I could tolerate a twelve-year-old girl, she’s not going to be impressed by a brilliant midget.”

“Somebody like Margie might.”

“Well. You want me to experiment on her?”

“No … but there might be …”

“You go ahead. I’ll see how it works for you first.”

To avoid punching him, I shoved off the roots and walked away. “I’m not your goddamn guinea pig,” I said, angry and shaking and ashamed.

“That’s real noble,” Tim called. “Puss out. If you were the Boy Scout you think you are, you’d walk right over and deal with her!”

I kept walking furiously. The soccer players shifted downfield.
I looked over and saw that Margie really was watching me, and I dropped my eyes. There were soft mounds of clover puffed through the grass. Someone shouted, “Heads up!” and the ball boinged off my shoulder and swished to the grass beside me and then a body fell on me from behind and my teeth snapped and I sprawled. Kevin Hurley, our athlete, stumbled over me and booted the ball away. He glared back like I was an idiot, shouting, “I said, ‘Heads up.’” Kevin had terrycloth sweatbands on both wrists. The players stampeded around me. Rusty pounded past, laughing and wheezing.

I got to my knees and turned to the bleachers. Margie’s hands were over her mouth. She’d seen me get tackled.

I walked straight towards her, my knees dark with grass stains. Margie kept looking away, then back at me, until she was sure I wasn’t going to stop. Her legs were together, slanted sideways out of her skirt, white socks bunched at her ankles. She smoothed the green plaid over her thighs and folded her hands in her lap.

I shoved my fists in my pockets and stood right in front of her so the other girls wouldn’t hear. Some of them were leaning in to each other now, whispering. I heard a thunk and glared over at the softball diamond where the ball was shrinking into the air and a boy was running the bases, a plume of orange dust rising from the clay at his heels.

“Look,” I said, sounding much too angry, “I didn’t send that note. An ex-friend of mine did it as a joke.” I looked at her, felt ugly and stupid.

She said, “Oh,” and stared at the ground with her lips slightly apart, wounded possibly.

I wanted to cry now. I turned completely around and watched the soccer game. Margie’s brother Donny smacked Pat Doolan in the neck with his cast and O’Leary blew the whistle.

“I just wanted you to know I didn’t write it,” I said. I dug a heel into the new wispy grass and turned it, grinding. I glanced
back at her. She nodded without looking at me, and her hands tightened in her lap.

“I didn’t really think you wrote it,” she said.

“Well, I didn’t. See you around.” I hunched my shoulders and walked away, hands in pockets, sick in love with her and furious now at myself. I whirled and stared. Margie brushed her hair back, twisting it over gold with a little turn of her hand, an awkward, innocent imitation of what a woman would do, and she looked very small and vulnerable and I wanted to hold her. I walked back to her.

I kept my eyes on her hands. “I’m real sorry, I mean if I sounded real mean just then,” I bumbled. “I was only mad about the joke.”

“It’s okay. Thanks for being honest, Francis.”

My name, softening out of her mouth, the magic little combination of teeth, lips, and tongue, stunned me like a cherry bomb did once, too near, the world exploding into clear, startling quiet. My attraction to her at that moment tugged so heavily I was actually leaning down towards her, and her least gesture became unbearably precious, the delicate closing of her mouth, her fingers relaxing in her lap, the sudden soothing green of her upturned eyes. Her awareness of me made the entire universe a shimmering drunken joy.

I told Margie that everything in the note was true. Blood bumped in my neck. “I think about you all the time,” I said quickly. “It keeps me awake at night.” I turned away and saw the priest butt the ball with his head. The ball fell, boys swarmed it. “I guess you must think that’s pretty creepy.”

Margie touched my arm and all the breath went out of me. Her thumb moved across my forearm. “I’m sleeping okay for the first time in months,” she said, “and I dream about you. Your hands are wonderful.” She laid her hand back in her lap and lowered her head, then looked up and smiled. “I mean, I think you’re smart and nice.”

“Same here,” I said vacantly.

We tried not to look at each other for a minute, smiling each time we did. Except for the tiny scars on her wrists, she seemed perfect to me, and so I loved the scars, because they meant that I could save her from something, and save myself. When our eyes held, I wasn’t there anymore, but I felt like I was looking in a strange mirror and recognizing myself. The air dazzled me. I breathed sunlight, and distances melted away and I stood there peacefully. There were faraway pleasant shouts, birds calling.

I stuffed myself with the details of her face, then the rest of her, the careless beautiful hair, thin girl’s body, slick gorgeous ankles. A thrill climbed from my stomach and tingled up inside my ears.

I forced myself back into myself.

“Could I meet you in the circle park after dinner sometime?” I asked.

“I’d love to,” she said. She turned her hands over, so the scars didn’t show.

“What about tomorrow night?” I guessed that would give me time to get used to the situation.

“I’m already waiting.”

Some part of me wanted to shout, whoop, and this in itself was shocking. I started backing away on loose legs. I couldn’t take any more. I was insane for this girl.

“What’s your middle name?” I called, retreating.

“Angela. What’s yours?”

I hesitated, having trapped myself. “Duncan. I could change it.”

“See you tomorrow night.” She waved, the sprinkle of fingers, and a wonderful smile, all having to do with me. The other girls were looking too, but differently, as if I had on nice clothes or had grown tall. I put my fists in my pockets, figuring three bulges were less conspicuous than the one.

I turned around and smacked face-first into a metal fencepost. I saw sparkles, and the pain burned tears into my eyes. I felt a trickle of blood run out of my nose, wiped it, and knew it was smeared across my face. I turned back. Margie’s hands were at her mouth again, and the other girls were giggling. One of them said something about true love that should’ve embarrassed me, and didn’t.

I smiled at Margie, then turned back to the fencepost and deliberately thumped my forehead against the metal. It rang like a softball had struck it, but didn’t hurt, because I used the hard part of my skull, the way O’Leary taught us in soccer. I felt like a boy pretending to be a boy, so I laughed at myself, felt another dribble of blood, and Margie laughed into her hands, wide-eyed, and I walked away, treading happy grass, and soon I was leaning back with tree bark rough against my shoulder blades.

Tim had his book turned down over one knee. “I didn’t expect you to get your ass totally kicked talking to a girl.”

“You’re a horrible little bastard,” I said. “Lucky for you, everything worked out okay.”

“Delirious. You’ve taken three blows to the head in five minutes. I think you’re a masochist. Hey …” He passed his hand back and forth in front of my face. “Snap out of it and thank your buddy.”

I sniffled and tasted blood. The soccer players blurred past Margie. On the diamond, the softball teams were exchanging places, tossing gloves to the field team, and trailing small rounded shadows in the afternoon. I lifted my hand and Margie waved again. It seemed miraculous.

“You look like a junkie.” Tim picked up his book again. “I hope you can shake the fairy dust out of your head for next weekend. We’ve got to get to that bobcat before you two can live happily ever after.”

“Thanks,” I said. Everything was nice. I spit on my hand and
wiped the red off my face. It was warm, breezy, and the shadows of clouds chased bright green spaces along the field. My friend chuckled. I’d have to say I was happy. A priest with a girlfriend kicked the ball past the goalie and boys cheered. Solid against my back was the great oak, hundreds of years old, evergreen.

Prior to meeting Margie, I sat with my friends in Wade’s house and heard their advice and attempted to drink away my fear. I held my breath and gulped silvery watered gin, listening to Elton John on the stereo, garbled and straining in a likable way, above his heartbroken piano. The music grew lovelier with each swallow, though one speaker was blown so that the bass parts were fuzzy. The alcohol rolled over me like a warm breathable wave that edged everything with light and made my friends friendlier. The songs were melancholy, and we grew deliberately, pleasantly depressed.

Wade’s mother was out with her boyfriend. The house was furnished in imitation Spanish, woodgrained, polished, stuccoed. You smelled burnt hair and chemicals from the garage room where she ran a small beauty parlor. We’d already been pestered for drinking by Wade’s little brother Steven, but we’d ordered him into his room. When threatened, he went.

Wade, sitting at the head of the dining room table, copied a panel from
Swamp Thing
onto a piece of white cardboard, his nose almost touching it as he worked. “Margie’ll let you do whatever you want,” he said.

I didn’t want to hear that. I had never kissed a girl. When I
was nine, though, I convinced Ann Doolan to slide her panties down for me. I dropped my pants as part of the deal. We touched each other in her garage. I remember a creased blankness which didn’t do much for me. Somehow her daddy found out and called my folks, and my dad whipped me until I pretended to cry. Rusty told everybody she was my girlfriend, so I stopped talking to her.

Tim said, “I wish girls were as easy to get as booze.”

“They are,” Rusty said, leaning his chair back onto two legs. “You just don’t know any.”