Works and Days

Grits

Continued

Thom had largely ignored Patti. Her anger wasn’t real for him. What she’d said wasn’t serious. For various reasons Thom had spent a life time deadening his intuition and his emotions and this had given him a head hard enough to zoom into his driveway at six and come to the door, open it—it was never locked except for Patti’s drama this morning, and she was past that—and walk in to see Patti standing squarely in his face.

She was wordless. She patted him down, reached into his side pockets, pulled out his keys, wrenched at her index finger and replaced the keys with her wedding ring, then closed the door in Thom’s face, slid home the lock and put on the chains. The backdoor was already locked.

Thom drove around town about an hour, an amazing accomplishment considering the size of Geschichte Falls, before his pride finally released him and he could head to his sister’s apartment on Royal Street.

“It’s about time you got here,” Jackie said. “I’ve got dinner waiting on the stove for you, and I made up the let out bed.”

Thom looked at her confusedly.

“Patti called me,” his sister explained. “She knew you’d end up here.”

“This is ridiculous!”

“Really?” Jackie’s blunt featured face stared at him, her blue eyes bemused, as she pulled a hand through her thick, dark hair.

Thom ignored his sister and threw his suitcase on the sofa before the large window overlooking Royal Street.

Then he said, “Yes, really.”

“Well,” said Jackie, heading back to the section of the apartment that served for a kitchen. “It might be ridiculous, but I wouldn’t try to go over there again if I were you. She’s serious.”

“What about Russell?”

“What about him?” Jackie paused in slopping the microwave veal parmesan on plates.

“What’s he gonna do?”

“What he’s always done. He’s practically living with Chayne.”

“I don’t like that. Chayne coming back into town and all.”

“Firstly, Chayne Kanzierski or anybody else doesn’t give a shit about what you like and second, it’s better Russell have Chayne take care of him than no one—”

“I was there. And Patti—”

“Thom,” Jackie said, bringing the plate to him and sitting on the steamer trunk that served as a coffee table, “neither one of you has been there for Russell in the last few years. That boy has been like a wild weed. And he can pretty much take care of himself.”

Thom scowled and played with his food. Jackie slapped his hand. She was bigger and taller and wilder than him. He was so little and cute, Jackie thought, that it sometimes felt like he was the younger sibling and not the other way around.

“I never knew how to get to Russell,” Thom said. “Russell’s different. He’s like Mom. He’s like you when you were a kid. Just all over the place and you don’t know where he’s coming from.”

“Is that what I was like as a child?”

Thom nodded.

“No one knew what to do with you. Except Mom cause she’s just as crazy. She just laughed.”

“But you and Kristin...”

“We’re different,” Thom said.

“You all are normal. You all are so conservative and in control and well bred and... Republican!” Jackie laughed. “And then Mom turned around and had me and Finn.”

“Have you heard from Finn?” Thom had started eating now.

“Last time I heard from him he was in Texas. In jail again, I think.”

“And then,” Thom said. “I had Russell and who knows where Russell’s headed! He’s nothing like me. Sometimes....”

“He disappoints you?”

“No,” Thom sat up and shook his head, shocked. “Does he think that?”

“Maybe a little. That’s how I used to think you and Kristin felt about me.”

“No,” Thom said more gently. “Jackie, sometimes I’m afraid.that I disappoint him.”

Geoff Ford walked into the church that morning to prepare for eleven-thirty Mass and heard piano music playing.

To the right of the tabernacle was the altar of the Virgin, blue glass votives terraced under her feet, but to the left of it was a smaller chapel, with pews and a smaller tabernacle, Mary and Joseph standing together off to the left. You had to step up into this chapel and before it, turned to the major part of the church stood an upright piano where Russell Lewis was playing.

As Father Geoff approached, Russell did not notice him. He switched to another hymn, this played haltingly. He tried to sing it to himself.

“Dada dada, da da da da dada. Dada da da da dada.... shine in my heart, O, Jesus! Um,” the boy frowned.

“Russell,” Father Geoff startled him.

Russell looked up at the priest. Geoff Ford was a young man with thick, gold-brown hair and a sort of firm roundness to him, his face, his lips, even his hands. His blue eyes seemed mildly concerned.

“Father Ford?”

“Shouldn’t you be in school?”

Russell stopped playing.

“I guess you could say that. But I’d rather be here.”

“Russell, you ought to be in school.”

“I need to be here even more,” Russell told the priest. “A lot more. Do you know this song?” Russell tried to play the song again.

“No, Russell, I don’t.”

“Father Ford?”

“Yes?”

“Why did you become a priest?”

“Are you thinking about becoming one, Russell?”

“No,” Russell replied frankly. “I was just asking, really.”

“Well,” the priest looked nonplussed. “There were many reasons. That’s a very difficult answer. God... called me to it. We do the things God calls us to.”

“And everything is God’s will?” Russell’s voice was blank.

“Yes, Russell.”

Russell shrugged and got up, sliding his backpack onto his shoulder again.

“I better go to school,” Russell said.

“Good idea, Russell. Have a good day, Russell.”

“You too, Father Ford.”

The church was bright and full of sunlight. Walking out onto Kirkland it was even brighter. Oppressively so. Russell was one of those people who wished for winter. Summer had gone on too long. This September Russell was holding out for the first autumn leaf. He did not turn right, in the direction of Lincoln Street. He turned left, for Curtain Street, and Chayne’s house.

The bell went off again, and Jeff Cordino and Chuck Shrader had to maneuver the halls full of shouting boys, many bumping into them saying, “Sorry, Mr. Cordino. ‘Scuse me, Mr. S.” Jeff was setting up for class, and Chuck Shrader was wasting time when, as the first students were coming in and along with Tommy Dickenson entered Doc Brennan.

He was an ugly little man, but had been at Our Lady of Mercy long enough to have his own classroom, something Jeff could only dream of right now.

“Jeffrey,” began Doc Brennan. “You know Russell Lewis?”

“Yes, he’s one of my best students.”

“He’s in my homeroom. I’ve been hearing that even though he’s on the attendance records he can hardly stay in school a whole day. That he’s not even really here today. But he’s marked on my list for being present. Is he really in school or does he need to be reported?”

“Oh, he was here,” Jeff said, adding a laugh. “How could Russell be the student he is if he wasn’t here? I only wish I had more like him. Why today... he gave one heck of a presentation on the Reformation, and we’ve hardly been in school a month! He could really teach the rest of those blockheads a lesson.”

I amazement, Jeff listened to himself lying. Chuck Shrader did too. He had heard Jeff go on about this kid never showing up. Russell had been pointed out once to him, and once pointed out, was never to be forgotten. So Chuck added, figuring there had to be some reason for the lie:

“Well, he was in my consumer-ec class today is all I know, and kids were making fun of how he’d done in Jeff’s class earlier.”

“Just checking,” Doc Brennan nodded. “Yeah, you guys are right. Russell’s a good student. I had just heard a rumor and had to check on it.”

The class was filling up. Some of the boys looking at the three teachers.

“I better get going.”

Doc Brennan left.

“Yeah, me too,” added Chuck Shrader, sliding off the corner of the desk and looking at his friend before he left.

“I guess you know what you’re doing?” Chuck challenged.

Jeff raised his eyebrows and said, “No. not really.”

Chayne was on the roof of his house, looking toward sunset on Reynold Street when he heard a knock at the door far below. Carefully, Chayne went along the ridge of the roof and shouted down the covered porch. “Be there in a moment!”

Russell stood at the door, his bags before him. Unceremoniously he walked into the living room and set his things down.

“I’m here, now.”

He told Chayne about the situation at home and then said, “I’m out of the nuthouse. Mom can have it. Come to think of it, the world is the nuthouse. I’m out of it. Out of it all!”

“Dada da da, dada da da da da—” Chayne cut himslf off and put down his notebook.

“Damnit, Russell, now you’ve got me doing it, too.”

“Sorry, Chayne.”

To Chayne, Russell seemed a little more sorrier than he needed to be.

“I want to walk...” Chayne began. “Dada da dada da... I want to follow Jee-sus... um um ummmm.... shine in my heart, Lord Jesus!”

“Chayne, I hate my life,” Russell said suddenly.

Chayne’s ears pricked up because there was no bitterness or exaggeration in his friend’s voice. There was fear and desperation. It called to the teenager in Chayne.

“I hate it,” he said. “My parents are morons. I have no friends—but you. And that means everything. But still, I wonder if there’s something wrong with me. Nobody my age likes me. I hate getting up to go to school. I went to Saint A’s this morning, but Father Ford practically threw me out and I just sort of panicked because I didn’t know where else to go or what to do. I couldn’t go to school. I couldn’t really hang out. There’s no out but here and I can’t just keep coming here.”

“Yes—” Chayne said, “you can. Whenever you want to, and stay here as long as you want. Whatever.”

“Chayne,” Russell’s voice broke a little, and he hung his head so that his red hair was in his face. But he did not weep. He lifted his head up and pushed his hair back. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.” He was panicked his voice was filled with fear. “I don’t think it’s ever going to get better,” he whispered.

Weeks ago Chayne would have assured him that it would. But now here he was, half a country away from his dead job, living in a half furnished house. He was out a small fortune. Chayne didn’t have it in him to tell Russell it would get better. So he said, “Get up.”

“Hum?”

“Get up,” Chayne said. “Let’s walk.”