paintings that haunt the viewer. Jerry looked like a figure in a painting, his face expressionless, as if caught by an artist and frozen forever. After the first few minutes of sitting across from him, unnerved by the silence in the room and those terrible eyes, the Goober had started wandering around, glancing out the window, stooping to relace his sneaker, anything to avoid that terrible, empty stare.
But it really wasn't empty. It was like the difference between a vacant house where the windows are shuttered and boarded up and a house where someone might be peeking out of the windows when you're not looking, where a billowing curtain might hide prying eyes. Crazy, Goober thought, as he looked up from his sneakers, crouched on the floor. He told himself to cool it, take it easy, start from the beginning. This was his friend, Jerry Renault. They had played football together, had run the streets together after school although Jerry had had no interest in the track team. They had shared a lot of stuff. Like the chocolates. The goddam chocolates.
Goober was determined to try again.
'How about Canada, Jerry? Did you have a good time up there?' The question sounded stupid to Goober — Jerry had been sent to Canada to recuperate. How could he have had a good time up there?
'Yes,' Jerry said. The word fell between them like a heavy stone.
That was the problem. Jerry wasn't mute or completely silent, but he answered Goober's questions in monosyllables, squeezing out one-word answers that left Goober dangling. How are you, Jerry?
He wished Jerry's father had let him know what to expect when he'd arrived at the house. In response to Goober's inquiry—'How's he doing?' — Mr. Renault had merely shrugged, his face tightening as if his flesh had been drawn taut from behind his skull by invisible hands. Jerry's father was a mild, soft-spoken man who seemed to drift away even as you spoke to him. An air of sadness pervaded him and the apartment as well. More than sadness. The apartment seemed lifeless, like a museum. Goober knew without any doubt that the flowers on the dining-room table were artificial, fake. He had the feeling that Jerry and his father occupied the apartment the way mannequins inhabited rooms of furniture in a department store.
The Goober had forced himself to turn off the morbid thoughts as Jerry's father led him to a den at the far end of the apartment. At first glance Jerry looked fine. No signs of the beating he had absorbed, his skin pale but unblemished. Sitting in a rocking chair, he didn't look disabled but seemed fragile, sitting stiffly, as though he might fall apart if he relaxed.
'Hi, Jerry, good to see you,' Goober said, hoping Jerry didn't catch the false heartiness.
Jerry smiled remotely, said nothing, offered nothing.
That's when the one-sided conversation began, Goober like an inquisitor and Jerry like a reluctant witness, answering grudgingly or not at all.
Settling down in a chair across from Jerry now, Goober thought: One last try and then I'll go. Actually he was eager to leave, to get out of Jerry's sight. He realized that Jerry's reluctance to talk or to communicate probably stemmed from Goober's betrayal last fall. He had betrayed Jerry, hadn't he? He had allowed Jerry to face Archie Costello and Emile Janza and the Vigils all by himself. Had gone, finally, to help his friend when it was too late, Jerry bloody and beaten and broken, urging the Goober in painful gasps not to defy the Vigils or anybody else. Don't disturb the universe, Jerry had whispered out of his agony. Don't make waves.
Okay, one last try:
'Trinity's still the lousy school it's always been,' the Goober said, immediately disgusted with himself. He had vowed not to bring up Trinity unless Jerry specifically asked about the school. But, desperate, he found himself going on stupidly about the place, meaningless stuff about courses and report cards, avoiding certain topics, picking his way through the monologue like someone avoiding broken glass while walking barefoot.
Surprisingly, Jerry seemed interested, eyes a bit brighter, head tilted slightly, rocking gently, long fingers gripping the arms of the chair.
The Goober decided to take a chance, to say what he had waited all these months to say:
'I'm sorry, Jerry, about last fall.' Taking a deep breath, plunging on. 'I let you down. Let you face Archie Costello and Emile Janza and the Vigils by yourself.'
Jerry's hands flew up as if holding off an attack. He began to shake his head, eyes troubled now, not vacant or staring but shining with — what? Sadness? More than that. Resentment, hate?
'Don't. .' Jerry said. The word as if dredged up from deep inside of him. 'I don't want to talk about that. . '
'I have to talk about it,' the Goober went on.
Jerry began to shake his head furiously, rising from the chair as if in panic, as if the building had suddenly caught fire. Tears threatened his eyes.
'That's all done with now,' he said. 'It's got nothing to do with me now.' He turned away, walked to the window, and the Goober sensed that he was making a tremendous effort to control himself. Jerry faced him again and Goober was struck once more by how pale and fragile he seemed.
'I didn't invite you here,' Jerry said, in control again, no tears visible, chin tilted a bit, defiantly. 'My father did.' He seemed to be groping for words. 'I. .' And turned away again, shutting out Goober as he stared out the window.
'I'm still sorry,' the Goober said. Having to say it all, like confession, not expecting absolution but needing to confess. 'That was terrible. What I did last fall. I just wanted you to know.'
Jerry nodded, without looking back at him, still concentrating on something outside the building, still unreachable, still looking frail and vulnerable. Which heaped further guilt on the Goober.
'Better go now,' Jerry said. Sounding weary, spent. He turned around, facing Goober, but avoided his eyes.
'Right,' Goober said. 'Don't want to tire you out.' Pretending everything was normal. 'I've got an appointment with my dentist.' Throwing in an easy lie — was that another betrayal? 'I'll come back again sometime.' Never in a million years.
Jerry's father appeared at the doorway as if summoned by a bell the Goober had not heard.
'Going already, Goober?' he asked, false, voice off key, fake.
Goober nodded turned back to say good-bye to Jerry, hoping that Jerry might say:
Jerry said nothing. Merely stood there, looking troubled and abandoned as if wounded somehow, although there was no visible mark on him.
'I've got a dentist's appointment,' Goober heard himself say inanely to Mr. Renault.
'Of course, of course,' Mr. Renault replied gently, understandingly. 'I'm sorry. . '
Sorry for what?
'So long, Jerry,' Goober said.
Jerry lifted his hand in a limp salute, still avoiding his eyes, and looking somewhere beyond Goober.
The Goober got the hell out of there.
Later he ran the streets of Monument, pounding the pavement, not the leisurely pace of his usual stride but a frantic tempo, not singing as he sometimes did, lungs bursting now, full of pain and hurt but accepting the pain and the hurt Like a sacrifice. Like the psalm they recited at mass sometimes: I offer up myself as an evening sacrifice.
Hours later, safe in his bed, pulling the covers around his shoulders, eyes tightly shut, he saw only Jerry's face. Vowed never to go near him again. But he knew somehow he must. But would think about that later, next week, next year. He slept finally, a strange blank sleep, as if he had been erased from all existence.
The next morning at school he learned that Brother Eugene had died. Which was worse even than Jerry Renault's return to Monument.
'What's her name?'
'Laurie Gundarson.'
'School?'
