Your knives are sharp,
When you put them my heart
Though the truth, you'd say
Is I like them there thay way
From this hoodlum skin,
I can always run to him
Undeserved
Capsized
In the gutters of his eyes
Darling I need you far more than I say,
None of my fears are as dear to me
The Wild Son, by The Veils
The day went just like another.
He sat in the usual seat and listened to the usual lesson: math; fractions. Helga shot spitballs and they did the routine, a quick turn around and an incredulous 'what?'. By the time class ended she must've shot twenty at him. He felt relieved when the bell rang.
He got on the bus with Gerald and they rode home talking about the new boarder. Gerald had heard things: the man was an ex-convict, a former armed robber. All around bad man. Arnold shook his head and said, "Nah, that can't be. He seems real nice." Gerald laughed and said something about Arnold being naive. "My man Fuzzy Slippers don't lie, Arnold. This man is mean, know what I'm sayin'?"
Arnold shrugged it off. When he bus arrived at his stop he got out and endured a harsh elbow to the kidney from Helga: "Why dont'cha watch you walk, football head!" He scowled and got off the bus with Gerald and began to walk. She went in her own way.
"Gerald, do you seriously think that Lonnie is a...criminal?"
"Yeah, man, I'm tellin' you. You sure do make some shady friends. First Frankie G and now this guy..."
Arnold said nothing. Eventually they reached the boarding house and did their handshake and Arnold went inside, dropping his backpack off by the coat rack. Grandpa said, "Hey there, Shortman. How was school?"
"It was alright."
He went up the stairs, walking to his room, passing Lonnie's door without a glance.
But then the door opened and he stood there and said, "Oh, hey, Arnold. I was meanin' to talk witchoo'." Arnold turned around and looked at the hallway: deserted. "Uh..." he said, but Lonnie wouldn't hear it.
"Come on in, take a seat."
Arnold shrugged and walked into the apartment: bare except for a table and a bed and a stuffed bookshelf. The journal from the seat of his car was laying on the table beside a bowl of cereal. Arnold eyed it warily and then looked at Lonnie.
He was wearing a suit. An old threadbare brown one with a black tie. Arnold was about to ask why he was wearing, but all he got out was "W--" because Lonnie started to speak.
Arnold sat down and listened. "I was thinkin' about your problems with that girl, whatshername. I thought I might tell ya' a story...thought it might help."
He cleared his throat, took a spoonful of cereal. Arnold looked across the room and saw a bouqeut of flowers sitting on his bed. Flowers? What?
"When I was a kid," he began, his eyes going far away, to another place. "I was kind of...ignored, you could say, by my parents. They were always fawning over my older brother, the jerk...always got good grades, football star. I was just sorta' shoved aside in favor of him. I don't even think they'd meant to have me on purpose...
"And it made me mad. But I didn't take my anger out like most people do...I didn't punch a pillow or nothin'. I took it out on other things. Cars, shop windows...people...I was a ball of rage. Always breakin' something or stealin' something. By the third fuc--freakin' grade I'd already been arrested six times, and lemme' tell ya, when my folks had to bail me outta' lockup they sure noticed I was around then. I was a hellraiser. A bully.
"I guess you could say that I was the wild son. Now one day, in the fourth grade, right? I'm sitting outside the school 'cause my parents forgot to pick me up. I'm sittin' there and it starts to rain and there isn't any place to hide, and this girl comes up...this beautiful girl. Nice black hair, delicate face. A real doll. Her name was Morgan, and I'd noticed her before...a goody-two-shoes, always helping kids out. And she hands me this umbrella...and I'm asking, 'What's this for? Why're you doing this?', and she says, 'It's raining and your getting wet.'
"Now I don't thank her because my jaw is hanging down to the sidewalk and she walks away and goes wherever. My parents never did pick me up. I took a cab home and got beat up by the cabbie 'cause I couldn't pay.
"And let me tell you now...I fell in love with that girl." Arnold's eyes opened wide and he shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Where was this going?
"I started following her around, writing poetry and stuff about her. Now that may seem strange to you...a guy like me writing poetry. But to be honest I never liked that...the violent life style. I wanted to be a writer when I was a kid. A movie writer or somethin'. Maybe romance novels, I dunno'..." He blushed a little and Arnold suppressed a laugh.
"So time goes on and I just keep harboring these feelings. I keep hiding who's on the inside of me. We get older and she has boyfriends and I stay alone because I just can't move on...and then we go our seperate ways. She graduates from high school and goes to college and becomes a child psychiatrist or psychologist or whatever, and I drop out and...and I go my own way."
There was a silence. Arnold looked up at him and realized what that 'something else' in his eyes had been: a great sadness.
"Point is, Arnold that sometimes you keep something bottled up in inside, and you tell yourself that you'll let it out when you're ready, and eventually time runs out and all you can do is think about what coulda' been. I think this girl that's always botherin' you could hear that advice. Do you see what I'm saying?"
Arnold saw what he was saying and a ball of fear--fear?--appeared in his stomach, ice cold, turning over and over like it was propelled. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I guess she could...yeah, she could hear that."
He sat there a moment and Lonnie said, "What, what're you waiting for? Go tell her." He checked his watch and stood, grabbing the bouquet and shutting the journal. Arnold walked to the door and turned back and said, "Thanks, Lonnie." Lonnie waved his hand, a dismissal.
Arnold left the apartment ran down the stairs, feeling that ball in his stomach grow larger but knowing that if he didn't do this now he'd never be able to do it.
Lonnie watched him from his room's window, bolting down the street. He checked his watch again.
He hoped the kid would tell her.
Author's Note: I think that the Veils' song I quoted up there really sums up Helga's feeling about Arnold, don't you? Great song, from the album The Runaway Found. Please read and review, and I hope you enjoyed this chapter. There should be three more to go and maybe an epilogue.