Disclaimer: Jonathan Larson owns; I'm just borrowing the characters to express my teenage angst. Also Jim Henson owns Sesame Street.
COLLINS
As Halloween approached, the three of us gathered at Mark's house to rehearse our Biology presentation on the digestive system. Roger, being who he is, had asked if we could do the reproductive or excretory system instead, but Mark and I vetoed this immediately. So we were going to teach our Biology class about the human body and how it digests food.
We brought over old socks-- "Washed," Mark had stipulated, glaring at Roger, "clean socks."-- and, using old fabric and glue, made puppets, an activity which consisted mainly of sitting around the kitchen table trying not to confuse the glue bottle with something edible.
Roger pulled an old yellow sock over his hand. He had given it bright blue buttons for eyes and a clump of green hair. "I'm an enzyme," Roger and the puppet said.
"Hi, Enzyme," Mark said. He pulled his puppet on and said in a high pitch, "I'm your gastric juices!"
"Dude, move your hand when you do that," Roger said. "And funk up your intro, it's boring."
Mark scoffed. "Like yours is better!"
For a moment Roger remained silent, then he announced cheerfully, the sock puppet opening its mouth impossibly wide, "I'm Eddie-Eddie-Enzyme!" to which everyone laughed.
"Do you watch Sesame Street?" I asked.
Roger laughed. He never blushes, just laughs and shrugs. "Don't judge," he said, shaking his head.
"Elmo!" Mark cried, giving Roger a hug.
"Big Bird!" Roger grabbed Mark and they swayed dangerously, laughing. When they released one another, Roger turned to me as though seeing me for the first time and announced, "Cookie Monster!" He threw his arms around me. Roger does have a very nice hug for someone who shrinks from contact.
My need for physical intimacy resurfaced tenfold, twisting my gut (duodenum, jejunum, ileum, as my sock puppet would inform the class) twisting and my temperature rising. "Uh, hey, Elmo," I said, half-returning his hug. Much as I would have enjoyed giving Roger an actual hug rather than a sort of almost pat on the back, and much as Roger seemed to need a proper hug, I was closeted and so merely patted him in a playfully condescending manner.
Roger knows how to play. He sighed and let his head rest against my shoulder, which quite easily could have been flirting. I don't know what he meant by it. Maybe Roger was flirting with me, maybe he was just tired or joking around or something, I don't know. Whatever it was, it made me uncomfortable, and I sighed relief as he moved away.
Around that time, I received my first letter from home:
Dear Tom,
Hi. How are you? I'm fine. Everything's good here. I mean, not everything. I've been complaining to the library but still no William Blake to be had.
The fires are burning again. Santa Anas are a marvelous time. The sky was orange yesterday, and driving down the 5 I saw fires burning terribly close. I swear last week I heard coyotes screaming. I think they burned in one of the fires. Terribly romantic and Los Angeles, isn't it?
Have you taken your driving test yet? I can't believe you're not licensed. The weather channel was calling it the last sunny day, so we ditched school and drove out to the beach to swim. It was great, nice weather for surfing and kites. We missed you, Tom. It was pretty damn obvious that you weren't there. New York is on the coast, but it isn't the same, is it? It's the Atlantic, not our Peaceful Ocean. It's not really a place for climbing bluffs and riding bikes and swimming all year round.
The weather channel was wrong, by the way. It always is when it talks about "the last sunny day". It's sunny today and windy. I wake up with knots in my hair…
If anyone asked, I would simply say I had gone to the post office to mail a response to Jessie, which was true. I had written back to her. It's just, I was sending more than merely a personal letter.
On Saturday it rained. Following my mother's general rules for knowing my location, also known as the Parental Information on Locations, Liabilities and Activities Requirements System (PILLARS, for short, one of the many pillars of society), I left a note informing Mom of my location and stuck it under a magnet. Then I peeked to her room--she was asleep. Back down the hall in my room, I lifted my mattress and, propping it up with my shoulder, pulled out my sealed, stamped and addressed college applications.
In the kitchen, I wrapped the applications in aluminium foil to protect them from the rain, then realized the post office might misconstrue the aluminium and instead used a plastic shopping bag. Mom slept on.
I grabbed some bread for breakfast and ran out the door still stuffing it into my mouth and stuffing my torso into a sweater. Under a black umbrella, I ran to the post office, pressing the letters tight against my chest. As careful I was, I had an irrational fear of dropping those letters. Admittedly I had a few days left to rewrite my applications, but I would not manage without my parents noticing the constant work. They had ignored my nocturnal efforts, or not noticed, but this… it was asking too much for them not to notice, I would need entire days.
Reaching the post office was a great relief. There was a bucket set out for umbrellas; I deposited mine, somewhat amused by the splash as it thudded into the plastic bin. Very few people were out, just one old woman with a package, an Asian man in a suit who checked his watch every few seconds, and at the counter a woman in red hospital scrubs to whom the teller said, "Thank you, Mrs. Davis, have a nice day."
"Mrs. Davis?" I stepped out of line. "Excuse me, Mrs. Davis?"
She paused and looked at me, scanning my face for recognition. She had dark hair, splashed with grey though she didn't look much older than forty. Overall she looked little like Roger; she had a square chin, brown eyes and a childish splash of freckles across her nose. Maybe his sister looked like her, but if this was Roger's mom, he must be the dead spit of his father.
"Yes?" she said.
"Hi, are you-- are you-- do you have a son? Are you Roger's mother?"
"Oh!" With a relieved look, she nodded. "Yes, I am. Are you from his school?"
I nodded. "I'm Thomas Collins." It seemed as though we should have met already, with the amount of time Roger and I spent together. I offered my hand and she shook. "I'm new here and Roger's really helped me find my way around. You must be really proud of him." Whether that's true or not, I can't say. Roger was helpful and he didn't exactly hurt people without reason, but at times he could be morbid and caustic enough to terrify any parent.
"Oh… yes," she said. She seemed distracted, not as though she wanted to get away but as though she wanted to focus on the conversation at hand and was unable to do so.
"I should go now, Mrs. Davis. Gotta get these mailed. But it was nice to meet you!"
"Oh... you, too, um…"
"Thomas," I supplied.
Mom was awake by the time I returned home. I stepped inside and she looked up from the kitchen counter, where she was halfway through making breakfast. "Hey," she said. A lot of the books I read talk about women in pajamas and dressing gowns first thing in the morning. Obviously, those authors did not know my mother. She likes her sleep, but the second her eyes open she is wide awake. My mother looks unnatural in pajamas.
"Hey, Mom."
"Mailing a letter back to L.A.?" she asked. I nodded. "Hungry?"
"Always." I started to set the table, plates and cutlery, folded napkins. A squashed bit of bread provides some sustenance and energy, but my mother's proper breakfast is a full meal, not some low-effort snack. "Mom…" Now that I thought about it, my mother was employed as a nurse and there are not many hospitals nearby. "Do you work with someone called Davis?"
She raised her eyes. "Davis?"
"Yeah… I don't know her first name but she's got, um, really dark hair with grey streaks and freckles… she has a bunch of kids."
My mother considered the description for a moment, then nodded. "Yes," she said. "Yes, I know her. Audrey Davis," she said. "Why do you ask?"
"Um… what's she like?" I asked.
"Competent," My mother answered. "She knows what she's doing, but she has no backbone. If someone tells her she's wrong she'll just accept that, no matter who it is." By the time she concluded, we were sitting at the table, ready to eat. Mom kept vegetarian, a condition which in her opinion meant eating eggs, but not chickens. I flush a human egg down the toilet every month, she would tell me. Now, I wouldn't eat a human egg, but I do toss it out. Think of how many women there are in the world. That many eggs, gone, each month. And those are not fetuses. So neither is it wrong to eat a chicken egg: it's not a chicken. "There is something wrong with that woman."
I took a bite of toast and considered my next question carefully. Mom hates busybodies. It's the one thing she cannot abide. But Dad says that to let a wrong go unamended, unchallenged, is wrong. This was no matter for Voltaire, Luther, Nietzche. This was no matter for great thinkers. I was a teenager and very much a child and had no desire to cross either of my parents.
"Mom… does Mrs. Davis ever have bruises, like on her face or her arms? Or does she take pills?"
She scowled at me. "Thomas, what's going on? How do you know Audrey Davis?"
"She's my friend Roger's mother. And sometimes Roger has bruises he won't talk about, and he's always in fights so--"
"Thomas, if he doesn't talk about them it's not your business."
"Okay, Mom."
She knew I was placating her. "Thomas," Mom said in her severest tone, "leave it alone."
I nodded, sighed, and grudgingly agreed, "Okay, Mom." We said nothing more on the topic, which is just as well. I hated lying to my mother, but there had been no alternative.
I was buzzed the entire day, unable to overcome the glory of having sent of my college applications. A part of me was terrified: of rejection, of my parents finding out. But there is so little fun in doing that which is right and so much glory in that which is righteous.
TO BE CONTINUED
