If I Should Fall: The Second Book of Geshichte Falls

THAT SAME SILLY GRIN

CONTINUED

Niall Dwyer was immediately confronted with the question of what to do. It was not a question for eventual marriage or against it. There would be no marriage any time soon… Probably, there would be no marriage ever. The question was how many people would know about the baby? Would this remain a private thing? Would life go on as it had before with no one really knowing there had ever been a child?

“What do we do?” they kept on asking each other as they went through the park, walked all around Keyworthy and Breckinridge, stalked around their mutual houses. No one could tell they were distraught or frightened. They looked like themselves. They looked like teenagers.

“I don’t want a baby,” Sonia kept saying.

So the song went with the chorus, “What do we do?” and the verses, “I don’t want to have a baby. I don’t want this baby. I’m too young. I didn’t mean for it to happen. This will effect the rest of our lives,” followed.

Niall added no verses to the song. He did not feel he had the right. He remained silent while Sonia kept up the dirge for three days. Niall did not know what he hoped, or what he feared. He made himself numb and oddly enough he did not touch pot that whole time.

Thursday afternoon, when he got home from school, cutting out of dance class today, he walked around the house and wandered into his father’s study. It made him a little afraid to be in the high ceilinged, panel walled room with its large chair in front of the desk. This was his father’s chair, not to be shared. He could imagine his father walking in and giving him a cruel eye. Then he would have to hop up or apologize or duck his eyes.  But no, Dad wouldn’t be back until at least six thirty, and this must have been one of his spa nights.

So Niall sat down in the chair and began absent mindedly fiddling around.

The phone rang the same time he opened the desk drawer and his eyes widened to see, in neat rolls several bags of his own marijuana.

“Hello,” Niall said in a vacant tone, eyes on his weed.

“It’s me,” Sonia said. “I need you to take me to the clinic tomorrow. Okay?”

 

 

After being fed by Caroline and John, Ralph felt like the afternoon had more than made up for itself, and he told John he’d go downstairs and close up shop. Close up wasn’t for another half hour, but it was still a surprise when, at this time of night, in winter, in Little Poland, a car rolled up, and a nice car. He knew that car and as the door jingled and swung open, and Ralph saw Gilead Story in a black overcoat—of course in an overcoat—enter, he realized the car was Mark Young’s.

“So,” Gilead began, “I’m interfering.”

Ralph scowled and looked around the fluorescent lit store, at the rows of Fruit Loops and the dairy aisle.

“How much do you know?” Ralph said.

“I know everything.”

“Fuck.”

Then Ralph said, “Of course you know everything. You always know everything.”

“I know I’m interfering. But… I have a feeling if things were on the other foot, Russell would interfere.”

“Yeah,” Ralph nodded, biting his lower lip. “He would.”

“I could ask questions, but I think I know already.”

“What questions?”

“Why you stayed away from Russell ever since Anigel’s sister had her baby. But I think that’s because you had a thing with Cody.”

“You know about that!”

“I told you—”

“Yeah, yeah. You fucking know everything.”

“And you all are supposed to be friends, and then you go over and—”

“I didn’t expect that to happen,” Ralph said.

“I never expect things to happen. Russ…. He started it. I didn’t stop it. I… I didn’t want to. But…”

“You got up and left. You walked away and you haven’t talked to him since. And after Jason—”

“I’m not motherfucking Jason. He’s not even around. And he’s not going to be around. He’s a damn loser. I’m not him.”

“Well, whatever you are, the two of you have caused a lot of pain in his life for a while.”

“That wasn’t—” Ralph caught himself and lowered his voice. “That wasn’t my intention. And…. Why the fuck is Mark driving you around to tell me off? I never wanted to hurt Russ. I told him that. I told him how I feel. Before I left—”

“And ignored him?”

“Sure, Gil. Sure, fucking wise, know it all, Gilead. That’s what I did.”

“It is what you did and you can call me as many names as you want to and that doesn’t change.”

Neither one of them said a word, and Gilead said, “As long as I’m here, get my that pack of Carltons.”

Ralph, in his apron, turned to get it and Gilead said, “Help us out with that bottle of bourbon. I got cash.”

“I cannot sell you alcohol.”

“You also cannot fuck my best friend and keep dating Vanessa Karinski, but you are.”

“You’re such a piece of shit,” Ralph said, with no real rancor and put the bottle of bourbon next to the cigarettes.

“That’s five.”

“It’s not. It’s more.”

“It’s five tonight.”

Ralph bagged the cigarettes and the bourbon and Gilead said, “Please do the right thing.”

“You’re so fucking nosey.”

“Russell’s family stays up late, There’s still time.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

“Merry Christmas, Ralph.”

Anigel Reyes stood before the statue of the Blessed Virgin, watching the lights of the votives flicker across the Mother of God’s face. Her eyes seemed as if she knew what the world was going through and could only shake her head in sorrow over it. Or maybe it was a half smile, a sympathetic one. Anigel couldn’t tell. Mass and belief and all the other things she had once known were not a part of her life, but she lately she never missed a change to come into the almost empty church in the evenings before or after leaving her sister’s.

It was time to go now. She could fall asleep here. Maybe she could be a nun. Not that nuns lived in churches and slept on pews, but maybe she could. She rose, crossing herself and genuflecting despite her atheist, and turned around, walking down the side arcade.

“Niall Dwyer?”

He looked up.

“What are you doing here?” she whispered.

The grand old structure of Saint Celestine’s was the pride of Little Poland and a bit of a distance from Breckinridge.

“I didn’t want to go to the one near my house,” he said. “Too many people. I just wanted to... sit. You know?”

“You don’t drive, do you?” Anigel asked, shifting her purse higher on her shoulder.

Niall shook his head. “I’m too young.”

“Well, how about you sit for a while and when you come out I’ll give you a ride back home? Alright. I’ll just go down the block and get the car.”

She didn’t give Niall a chance to protest. By the time he was through with sitting in the large old church, he came out and the station wagon was ready.

“How old are you?” he asked Anigel.

“Twenty-two,” she told him.

“Do you... They always say that high school’s the best time in the world. Do you ever miss being a teenager?”

“Nope.”

“But life gets better?”

“You got a problem?”

“Life. Family. I’m not sure if I should get into specifics.”

“Nuff said,” Anigel nodded. “Well, I don’t know if it gets better, but you get stronger.”

“Oh?”

“I don’t know what you’re going through. But… You will survive it. You’ll be happy again. Alright?”

They were quiet as Anigel crossed Archer Street, then Niall said, “I heard you weren’t... religious.. you know?”

“Nobody’s religious,” Anigel said. “I’m just up front about it. But what?”

“Do you believe in sin?”

“Well.. yes.”

She became sober. “Yes, Niall, I believe in sin.”

“What is it?”

They were approaching the Breckinridge now. She wasn’t exactly impressed, actually she was a little bit disapproving of these large, far apart houses with their lawns that could fit another house.

 Not my business. Not my business.

She said, “What do they teach at Our Lady these days?  No, I know, probably what they always taught. But sin... I guess it’s when you injure what God loves... his world, his creation but mainly his people. You know? When you hurt someone that must just piss God off.”

“What if it’s just to you? Just to your body, you know?”

They were at 1733 Breckinridge now. Anigel rolled up into their driveway. She observed, to her surprise, Ralph’s car and saw Ralph getting out and walking up the drive to Russell’s house. Gilead’s nosey ass was at the back of that she was sure.

“Nothing is ever just you,” she said, returning to Niall. “And even if it was, you would be part of God’s creation. I and you, we would be the thing he loves, and even if we harmed ourselves, that would be evil, wouldn’t it? I think that would be the greatest evil of all.”