But why did I think this might help? She already knew I’d let a four-year-old drown; did I really want the profile updated to include my leading role in doing absolutely nothing while my first love was raped? It seemed a dreadful option, perhaps worse than Einstein’s insanity. Wasn’t it better for her to dump me without knowing the full depths of my worthlessness?
Unless:
Was it possible there was a third course, in which Kelly, and Amy—yes, it always came back to Amy—might forgive me?
I felt the clock ticking, the rest stop two miles ahead, Kelly scanning her iPhone, probably downloading dating apps and prepping her the-last-guy-I-dated-was-a-disaster story for all who might listen.
I took a deep breath, tapped the brake, and swerved into the right lane, cutting off an SUV, the other driver flipping me the bird, the horn blaring “asshole” in Jersey Morse code.
“Why are you pulling over?” Kelly asked. “Is something wrong with the car?”
“Something is wrong with everything,” I said.
. . . . .
The white noise from the highway zipped over the rest stop, the whir of the heavy trucks an aural fog as Kelly and I sat in the rental car watching a Sikh couple changing a baby’s diaper on the hood of a black Mercedes. Across the parking lot an old man in a Mets T-shirt scattered raisins for the pigeons by his feet; a State Trooper, texting on his smart phone, stood on line by the Rent-a-John, the back of his shirt a Rorschach of sweat. I didn’t care about any of them, but they soaked up my attention, which needed someplace to land; they were useful scenery as I waited for Kelly to respond.
I’d told her everything about the drawings, even the last one—my worthless face asleep in the corner while my teacher raped my girlfriend.
The Sikh baby screamed and squirmed as the mother wrestled with the dirty diaper, the father watching sternly, arms folded over his thick chest. The old man with the raisins turned and walked toward us, the pigeons squawking as they followed, begging for more, two of them flying over our car and leaving a black splat across the windshield. I turned on the wipers and pressed the fluid button, the twin blades swooping the windshield clean.
“I don’t know what to say,” Kelly said, finally. “Anything I say will be trite. I don’t want to be a Hallmark card.”
The Rent-a-John door creaked open, a young woman in a pretty dress stepping out, her face a corkscrew of disgust. The State Trooper gave her the once-over and disappeared into the john.
Kelly smoothed out her skirt, pushing away the wrinkles.
“I don’t know,” she said. “All I can think is …maybe you should get out of the car …”
So here it was: Be gone, you wretched man!
“…get out of the car, look up at the sky, and scream.”
She unhooked her seat belt and opened the passenger door, her legs swinging out.
“Does any other reaction make sense?” she said.
I thought about John Lennon and his primal scream phase, all those haunting shrieks on his first solo album, Lennon’s voice haunted and pained, howling out his demons. Uncle Dan said it made more sense than “Imagine,” and had I been in the war I might have understood. He played that album every day at the Jaybird until a customer complained that all that goddamn screaming made the pepperoni taste like dirt.
“Yes, definitely,” Kelly said. “You need to scream.”
She walked in front of the car toward the driver side and reached through the open window, unlocking my door.
I stepped out of the car and glanced at the sky. It was blue, not a cloud in sight—one of those days that the local TV weathermen would always hector you about, badgering you to get outside and enjoy it, as if they had built the day themselves and would be offended if you let it pass without seizing it.
Kelly watched, waiting. The Sikh mother handed the baby to the steely-eyed father and rushed the soiled diaper over to the trash. As I thought about those drawings, I felt something in my gut twitch; my spine grew icicles, my shoulders clenched as the sun painted the back of my neck with a pointed heat. The scene from the last drawing played out before me; you couldn’t tell the location, but now I was certain it was the living room of Ronan’s house, the coffee table pushed to the side, a blanket spread over the hardwood floor. Sometimes after school I would stop by his house to show him the latest scene I’d written, and sometimes Amy would come along for the ride. Those days, we were inseparable.
From the corner I watch as she takes off her jeans; there’s a bottle of Peppermint Schnapps on the coffee table, and Mr. Ronan pours her a shot. He grins as she chugs it down, reaching into his pants to play with himself while Amy slides off her underwear. Another shot of Schnapps and Amy drops on all fours; I hear the keys and the loose change jangling in the pockets of Mr. Ronan’s pants as he lowers them. There’s a candle burning—a pine scent, but fake and sickening, like aerosol spray on an artificial Christmas tree.
“Tell me you want it,” Ronan says, and I hear Amy’s voice, because I am there, too. I am there, but asleep. I remember my words from the previous night, the momentary whispers as I passed Amy in the dining room hallway.
My voice is a feather, shedding its barbs. I was there, wasn’t I?
“So now you know.”
“Scream,” Kelly said.
And so I did. My God, did I scream! I screamed so loud, and so long, and with such primal, searing, Please-God-I-don’t-believe-in-you-but-please-make-it-stop anger and pain that the State Trooper burst out
