The Illumination

His body felt uncomfortable and strange, like someone else’s clothing. It seemed too small around him, or maybe too big. He collapsed in bed with his elephant and his bears. On TV, cops and detectives didn’t mind getting beaten up. They just brushed themselves off and began smoking a cigarette. In real life, getting punched made you tired and queasy. Chuck only wanted to lie there staring at the ceiling. Unfortunately, he had chores to do and homework to finish. His mom made him get dressed and sweep the driveway. The concrete was still wet from the hard morning rain. The water foamed and bubbled beneath the broom like soda. After he finished sweeping, he threw away the soggy leaves. He hauled the big green trash can to the curb. Then he went to his desk and did math problems. He read chapter nineteen from The Story of America. He studied the next ten words for his vocabulary quiz. Exasperation, paradise, fraying, infected, temporary, candid, camouflage, indignant, animated, cuticle. He knew the last word already, but not its spelling. The quizzes were actually working, he thought, improving his vocabulary. He wouldn’t have guessed they would work, but they did.

That evening, after dinner, his pretend dad called him outside. “What’s this I hear about you and the Rosenthal boy?”

Chuck bowed his head and looked down at his knees.

His pretend dad sighed and took hold of his chin. “It’s high time I taught you how to fight, son. Every man’s gotta know how to defend himself,” he insisted. “Now put up your fists,” and he thumped Chuck’s forehead. “You have one job: to keep me from doing that. Understand?” he asked, and though Chuck’s head hurt, he nodded.

Chuck moved his hands around in front of his face. He imagined that he was the Flash and had super-speed. He imagined that he was a robot with steel hands. It didn’t matter—his pretend dad kept thumping his forehead. He was a lot faster than Chuck, a lot stronger. Sometimes he came from the left, sometimes from the right. He used his index finger and also his middle finger. “Show some muscle,” he told Chuck, and, “Stop jellyfishing around.” “Come on,” he said, and, “What’s the matter with you?” “Dodge and parry!” he shouted, but what did that mean?

After a while, Chuck quit believing he could stop him. This was just what the world was like, he thought. This was how the rest of his life would be. He was the boy who couldn’t learn to defend himself. The boy who stood outside waving his tiny fists around. The boy whose pretend dad would not stop poking him. The wind was moving across the yard, swirling, then resting. The leaves on the grass were all glossy and speckled. They kept lifting onto their edges, then slowly toppling over. It happened thirty or fifty times, too many to count. He was reminded of waves rolling gently onto a beach.

Eventually he realized that the poking and shouting had stopped. His pretend dad was gone, and he was alone again. His forehead hurt with the sting of a hundred taps. His bruises were glowing, beating like hearts through his clothing.

The sun vanished in a pool of thick red light. He went back inside, and he slipped into his bedroom. The diary he had taken was lying on his dresser. He sat down and opened the cover and began reading.

I love the way chocolate makes your eyes light up.

I love hearing you try to defend Hall and Oates.

I love your compassionate heart—your big, sloppy, sentimental heart.

The pages looked just as sensitive as they always had. They were like a giant mosquito bite, infected from scratching. Chuck closed the diary and tucked it under his pillow. He lay down, patting the sad square lump it made. He wanted to heal the book, to make it better. If he tried hard enough, maybe he could do it.

In the morning, when he woke, his muscles were sore. The light of his wounds had spread across his body. His bruised places were dimmer and hurt a little less. The rest of him was what hurt a little more. He had a hard time waking up and getting dressed. His mom had to yell his name three different times. His pretend dad had to throw a shoe at him. The shoe thunked against the wall, leaving a black scuff.

Chuck decided to take the diary to school with him. He spent the day petting its cover under his desk. He massaged the wave, smoothing it down with his hand. Maybe he was imagining things, but it seemed to help. The pages still shone, but not as brightly, he thought. Not as brightly and not with the same awful pain. The book rested a little more comfortably in his hands. He began carrying it around with him wherever he went. People whispered about it for a while and then stopped. It was one of the many weird things Chuck did. He never said anything, and he laughed at stupid jokes. He couldn’t reach the basket when he threw the basketball. Now he liked to stroke a book under his desk. No surprise, and who cared, and what else was new?

Todd Rosenthal had been suspended from school for the week. On Monday, when he returned, he avoided looking at Chuck. He stomped past his chair without even kicking the legs. His hair had grown up in a soft-looking brown fuzz. He kept rubbing it with the palm of his hand. Chuck bet it would feel the way a peach felt. Or slightly fuzzy, but also firm, like a tennis ball. Or prickly like Velcro, the side with the plastic bristles. He wanted to run his fingers over it but didn’t. Some things were so obvious that they weren’t even rules.

For the next two weeks, everything was good for Chuck. School was a paradise where no one noticed he existed. His bruises went away, and his scabs began to peel. Todd Rosenthal ignored him, sitting quietly next to the window. He did not step on Chuck’s shoes in the recess line. He did not ask him to be his gay boyfriend.

Then one morning Ms. Mount stayed home with a cold. They found a substitute—a man—sitting at her desk. He was Mr. Brady, he said, “but call me Felix.” He was skinny like Chuck, and short, and wore glasses. He forgot to collect their homework after he took roll. He didn’t understand what the bell meant when it rang. Worse, he began allowing the class to vote on everything. “Who votes we line up by height today?” he asked. “Who votes that we read out loud from the textbook?” “What would you like to study next: science or history?”

At the noon bell, Mariellen Chase asked him a question. “Is it okay if we eat lunch in class today?”

“Let’s put it to a vote,” Mr. Brady—Felix—said. “All in favor of eating in class, raise your hands.”

Fifteen hands shot up immediately, and only five stayed down.

“Okay, then,” he said, dropping his fist like a hammer. “By a count of fifteen to five, eating here wins.”

He spent the next half hour working on a crossword puzzle. He kept rolling a cough drop around in his mouth. Now and then he looked up, saying, “Quiet down, guys.” But everybody was too busy talking, and no one listened.

Chuck finished his bologna sandwich and his pack of Twinkies. He put his lunch box away and took out the diary. He stroked the cover, trying to brush its pain away. He pretended it was a cat, purring in his lap. He wished that he could feed it a cat treat.

Lunchtime was nearly over when Nathan Chowdhury grabbed the book. He caressed it and kissed it, murmuring, “Oh, baby, baby.”

Todd Rosenthal said to him, “Nathan, man, chuck it here.” Chuck’s heart beat faster at the sound of his name. (It wasn’t really his name—he knew that—but still …) He watched the diary’s pages flutter apart in the air. Todd caught it, smiled at Chuck, and cracked it open. Right away, without a thought, he tore a page out. The light was terrible and made Chuck’s stomach go tight. His mouth tasted bitter, and his hands began to sweat. To see all that love and sadness destroyed was agonizing. Todd Rosenthal noticed his reaction, laughed, and tore another page. The whole class turned around to watch what was happening. The sound of ripping paper was louder than their conversations. They looked at Chuck, at Todd, then at Chuck again. They wanted to see if he had started crying yet.

“Hey, what’s going on back there?” the substitute teacher asked. Suddenly he crossed the room, stopping next to Todd Rosenthal. “That’s enough monkey business,” he said, and took the diary. He handed it back to Chuck, torn pages and all. Then he brought him the Scotch tape from his desk. “It could be worse, right?” he said, squeezing Chuck’s shoulder. “Tape it back together and it’ll be good as new.”

Apparently, Mr. Brady didn’t know that he should punish Todd. He didn’t seem to understand how the check system worked.

Carefully, Chuck repaired the book, ignoring the whispers he heard. He slid the loose pages into place, squaring their edges. He fastened them together with long strips of invisible tape. He made sure all the broken words lined up correctly. When he was finished, he let the book fall shut.

It wasn’t as good as new—it was nowhere close. It shone like a man whose bones had been broken.

The rest of the afternoon passed slowly for Chuck, hazily. At recess, he spotted Todd Rosenthal climbing the wooden tower. It was freezing cold, and everyone had a sore throat. A few kids were playing soccer in the parking