A Question of Manhood Read online

  The door to his room was shut, and I could hear he was playing this new album by Cat Stevens he’d bought recently. I knocked on the door. And waited. I knocked again, louder.

  Chris’s voice, sounding a little odd, yelled, “Who is it?”

  “Me.” Who else would it be? I reached for the knob and turned it, but it was locked.

  “Just a minute!”

  What’s he doing in there, masturbating? Would Chris do that? I’d got as far in my thinking as Don’t be an idiot; of course he would. He’s not dead, when the door jerked partway open.

  “What?” He looked flushed, or surprised, or something. I barely caught some motion behind him.

  “I—who’s in there?”

  “What do you want?”

  Must be a girl! Chris has a girl in his bedroom! Oh well, sorry, brother, this can’t wait. “I really need to talk to you.”

  “Now?”

  “Yeah. The shit’s gonna hit the fan.”

  He kind of sighed, or something, cleared his throat, and said, “Great. Um…give me a minute, okay? I’ll come get you in your room.” He waited just long enough to be sure I’d heard him, and then he closed the door again. I headed toward my door, watching over my shoulder toward Chris’s, wondering how he’d got a girl up to his room past Mom. I positioned myself where I would be technically in my room but still be able to see if anyone headed for the stairs.

  I waited a good three or four minutes, but when someone did head for the stairs it wasn’t a girl. It was Jim Waters, this friend of Chris’s. I remembered him mostly because his family had moved here the year before, and I remembered thinking, Who would move to this place? So it wasn’t a girl; too bad. But at least, I figured, I hadn’t interrupted anything.

  Ha! I didn’t know at the time how wrong I’d been.

  I scooted farther into my room and waited for Chris to show up. He took a couple more minutes, and I was pacing by the time he got there; I would have thought he’d just come right in when Jim left. But it gave me time to decide how to start.

  “What’s going on, Paul?” His voice was flat, and I could tell he was irritated.

  Not having a clue at the time what had really been going on in there, I launched into my own problem. “I’ve done something real stupid. Really, really stupid. And I’m gonna catch hell for it. There’s no way out of that.”

  “So…”

  “So I need you to help me keep it from being worse than it needs to be. You know how Dad is.”

  “I guess you’d better tell me what it is, then.” He sat down on my desk chair. And I told him. But it didn’t turn out quite like I’d hoped. He sat there, silent, and at first I figured he was just letting me get the whole tale out. But the longer he didn’t say anything, the more details I gave him. Finally I ran out of words.

  Chris had this really awful look on his face, somewhere between “I can’t believe what I’m hearing” and “I don’t think I know who you are.” He was silent for so long, just looking at me, that I couldn’t take it. “Well?”

  He stood up, and he left the room.

  Dumbstruck, I followed him out and watched as he started to go back to his own room. “Hey, Chris! Are you gonna help me talk to Dad or what?”

  He stood in his doorway about three seconds, looking at me, and then he closed the door. I slammed a fist against the door frame, and then I heard Dad’s car pulling up. I stood at the top of the stairs, listening to the familiar phrases my folks almost always say to each other when he gets home. Tonight he added, “I’ve got to go back to the store after dinner, hon. Can we eat soon so I don’t spend all night doing paperwork?”

  I was edgy all during dinner, expecting the phone to ring any second, expecting to be hauled into the basement for a session with Dad’s belt. Chris was nearly silent. He didn’t speak to me at all.

  At one point Mom asked him, “Chris, are you all right, dear?”

  “Yeah. Just concentrating. Got a paper to write for school.” But I knew he was lying. He was being quiet so it wouldn’t be so obvious he wasn’t speaking to me. Nobody seemed to notice that I wasn’t exactly chatting up a storm, either.

  No one called that night. Marty called in the morning to say he and his mom would pick me up, which I took to mean he was willing to let me have my books back. I took Anthony’s as well; didn’t even ask Marty. I put them in my locker until English, when I thought I might see Anthony. He was there, bruised where I’d flung his book at him, and I just set his stuff on the desk in front of him. He didn’t even look at me.

  No one called the next night, either. I was almost beginning to wish someone would, so I could get this over with. A couple of times I nearly told Dad myself, figuring it would be better that way, but the more time that went by, the harder that seemed. And judging from Chris’s reaction I wasn’t sure a lashing with the belt would be all I’d get from Dad. So I kept my mouth shut.

  Chris spoke to me only when he had to. And that was another reason I almost wanted the other shoe to drop. Bad enough that this tension was going on and on, but Chris not talking to me? That was agony.

  The third night, after dinner, I was sitting on my bed and trying to do some homework. The pages of my book kept swimming, and something wet fell onto my notes and blurred the ink. With kind of a shock I realized I was crying. Fourteen years old, and I was crying like some baby. I fell sideways onto my pillow and buried my face in it to muffle the sounds, and I cried. Don’t know how long I was at it before I felt a hand on my arm.

  It was Chris. He sat on the edge of the bed, I sat up, and he held me while I dripped all over his shoulder. “I hate myself,” I stuttered. “I hate myself.”

  “No you don’t, little brother. If you were bad enough to hate yourself, you wouldn’t know you felt this bad.”

  I’m not really sure that made any sense, but it made me feel better. I snuffled and pulled away. Chris reached for a box of tissues and I blew my nose. Then he said, “You need to tell Anthony you’re sorry.”

  “I can’t do that. He won’t even look at me.”

  “Write him a note, then.”

  “What about Marty?”

  “What about him?” I was about to protest that it had been his idea, but that hadn’t got me anywhere so far. When I didn’t answer, Chris said, “Marty will do whatever it is Marty needs to do. It’s you I care about. And you need to do this. Not for Anthony. It might help Anthony, or it might not. Do it for you.”

  I snuffled a few times. “I guess he didn’t rat. No one’s said anything.”

  “I guess not.”

  I never did tell Anthony I was sorry. After Christmas holiday that year, he didn’t come back. We heard he’d gone to another school, a private school with an advanced math curriculum. That seemed best, really; he got away from me and from Marty, and he would be with other kids like him. Maybe he’d even have to admit that he wasn’t the smartest kid in the world; small fish in a big pond now.

  Thinking back on this whole incident, I’m amazed it didn’t occur to me that Chris’s reaction was probably worse than Dad’s would have been.

  December ninth. That was the day the colonel, along with a lieutenant, showed up. Hats in hands, just like I’d pictured. It was a Saturday, so I was home. I’d taken to spending as much time as I could stand to at home, expecting this. But sometimes I’d just about go crazy waiting, and I’d have to get out, and the whole time I’d be gone I would wonder if they were at the house right now, that I’d get home to find Mom lying on her bed in hysterics and a doctor giving her a sedative, while Dad limped through the house punching things. I’d been noticing his limp a lot more these last couple of weeks. And I was angrier with him every day for putting us through this, for putting Chris through hell to make up for his own shortcomings, and almost certainly for getting Chris killed.

  And now it had happened.

  Dad wasn’t home; he was at the store, which he usually was on Saturdays. I was in Chris’s room, sitting on his bed, looking aroun
d at his things. The dumb things kids tend to collect had collected in spades in here. Chris was a bit of a pack rat, and even this stupid little fake mother-of-pearl handled jackknife he’d won at some fair when he was maybe nine was still in the drawer of the bedside table. I was in his room even though Mom had caught me in there several times since Thanksgiving and had told me to stay out. Damn it, I will not stay out. He’s my brother, after all, not just her son.

  So I was sitting on his bed when the doorbell rang, and I jumped, which was what usually happened these days when that thing went off, or when the phone rang, anything that might tell us Chris was gone. So it rang, and I jumped and then sat still. Frozen, more like. It’s the mailman, and there’s a package he needs a signature for. Or it’s kids selling candy for some school project. My ears hurt, I was straining so hard to hear.

  Mom was in the kitchen, and as I heard her footsteps I pictured her wiping her hands on her apron as she moved through the living room toward the front door. I heard the heavy wooden inside door open, knowing she could now see through the storm door to whoever might be there. I held my breath. And I heard my mom cry, “Oh! No! No!”

  I took the stairs two at a time, and when I got to the door everyone was just standing there like they’d been waiting for me to make my entrance before the action could continue. Mom was staring at the two officers, hands to her face. They looked businesslike but contrite, as sympathetic as they could, I suppose. But they were messengers from hell.

  I remember going all cold. Something clicked off, and something else clicked on. I took Mom gently by the shoulders and guided her away from the door so that I could open it and let the evil in. Still speechless, she kind of fell into the easy chair I led her to. I gestured toward the couch, and the two men sat while I fetched a box of tissues for Mom. Standing next to her chair, I held her hand while the colonel spoke.

  “I’m very sorry to bring you this news, Mrs. Landon. Your son, Private First Class Christopher Landon, was killed two days ago while serving his country in Vietnam.”

  What the fuck are they doing? Do they think we don’t know where he is? Mom gasped and then sobbed and covered her face completely.

  He went on. “He died a hero. His squadron was ambushed, and everyone but Private Landon and four other men were killed very quickly. Those four men were wounded. Your son found cover for them. He got three of them under cover and was almost back with the fourth man when he was killed. All of the men he rescued survived, so we know how brave your son was. We know his story.”

  You know nothing! You don’t know anything about him! I was blinking like crazy and breathing oddly, but I would not cry. I nodded at them so they would know they’d done what they needed to do and they could leave now. And that’s just what they did. They stood, and the lieutenant said, “Please accept our sincere condolences. We’ll be in touch again soon. And remember that there was much honor in his death.”

  As if that would help. He’s dead! He’s gone, he’s fucking dead! I gritted my teeth.

  The colonel saluted Mom, not that she noticed, and said, “We’ll see ourselves out.”

  She was trying to say something, but she was crying so hard I almost couldn’t make it out. “I have to call your father.”

  “Oh, Ma, no. Not over the phone.” I felt oddly calm, and somehow I knew that was the wrong thing to do. I didn’t have my full license yet, but this was no time to quibble over details like that. I said, “I’ll take your car and go to the store.”

  “No! Don’t leave me alone.”

  “Then come with me. We can’t tell him on the phone, Mom. That’s all there is to it.”

  She did her best not to sob too much in the car, and I could tell the effort was costing her. She barely breathed all the way. Despite how calm I felt, my vision kept blurring, but I clenched my jaw and blinked a lot. It isn’t like I hadn’t known. It isn’t like Chris hadn’t told me this would happen.

  When we got to the store Mom made me park away from the door, away from the other parked cars. “I can’t go in like this, Paul, and I don’t want anyone to see me in the car, either.”

  So I parked where Mom could see the front of the store, facing that sunshine yellow sign that read LANDON’S PET SUPPLY. I trudged alone across the pavement, barely aware of how far I had to walk between the car and the store—it’s a big lot. Something in my mind was focusing hard on stupid details like avoiding icy puddles where I might slip, noticing all the wrinkly edges where the water had seeped between bits of pavement grit before it froze. I was in some kind of low gear, some survival mode I couldn’t remember having experienced before. I tried to come up with an opening sentence for telling Dad, but there was no right way to say what I had to say.

  Dad was standing near the registers, in an animated discussion with some man whose small dog was wrapping the guy’s legs in the lead it was on. Dad stepped out of the way so the dog wouldn’t get him, too. I stood off to the side until I could get Dad’s attention, and then I jerked my head to the right, toward his office, and headed that way.

  Carol was in there doing some paperwork. “Hey, Paul!”

  “Hi.”

  “How are you?”

  Does anyone ever really want to know the answer to that question? “I’m just waiting for my dad to come in. I have to talk to him about something.”

  “Oh. Do you need me to leave?”

  I’ve always liked Carol. For an old person, maybe even older than Dad, she always seemed pretty with it. But how could I answer that? I was looking at her, feeling helpless, when Dad came in. He took one look at me and asked Carol if we could have a moment. It was an eternity before she shut the door from the other side.

  “Paul?”

  “It’s Chris.” I didn’t need to say anything else.

  He walked slowly around his desk, limping heavily, touching everything solid he could reach, everything that wouldn’t move if he leaned on it, and sat in his chair. That calm I’d had was disappearing like so much fake fog in a horror flick. A few tears came out of nowhere and ran down my face.

  “Where’s your mother?”

  “Outside in the car. She didn’t want to stay at home alone, and she didn’t want to come in.” I swiped at my traitor eyes.

  “Who drove?”

  Who cares? “I did.”

  He took a few deep breaths, rubbed his face, and then asked me how we’d found out. And I started bawling for real. It was almost like now that he knew, the burden was shifting onto him. When it had been just Mom and me, I’d had to be strong. I’m not sure whether I couldn’t carry the weight anymore or whether Dad had done something to take it off me and now I could let go. I’ve wondered about that a lot.

  So I told him how Chris had rescued those other guys, how he was a hero. To keep myself from losing it too badly, I pictured Dean Pendleton’s blue wool hat, thinking that at last Chris had made up for letting him down. I told Dad everything Chris would want him to know.

  What I wanted to tell him was that this was his fault, that Chris was dead because of him. I wanted to tell him that Chris had known he’d die, that he’d been really scared before he went back. I wanted to tell him why Chris felt he had nothing to keep him alive anymore, tell him about Mason. Maybe that’s why I was crying—because of what I couldn’t say.

  I don’t think any of us slept all night. The room next to me, Chris’s room, seemed more than empty. More than hollow. I should have been used to not having anyone in it. It had been like that since Chris had signed up, but suddenly it was different. It was a black hole, and it was sucking all the light inside and devouring it.

  In the morning I heard Mom get up, and I expected to hear Dad as well, since he’d been going to church with her for weeks. But it was only her.

  I went downstairs and found her standing at the counter, watching the toaster. It was a cloudy day, and the light over the stove was on. I’ve always loved that light. Whenever the kitchen is dark and that light’s on, it seems like all the world
is somewhere else, doing whatever it has to do, and the light over the stove creates this haven, this zone of peace and security, just for me. That morning, seeing the light from across the room, shining down on nothing and Mom off to the side in the darkness, it didn’t give me that feeling. Maybe it will again some day, when I can believe in peace again, when I can believe there are havens anywhere. That morning, seeing Mom’s tired face with the skin sagging in odd places, it felt to me like that light was—I dunno, inadequate. Pathetic.

  She lifted her head slowly when she knew I was there. Then she looked back at the toaster.

  “You going to church?” I asked. She nodded. “Dad isn’t up yet, you know.”

  “He’s not going.”

  We stood there like that, her watching the toaster, me watching her. I jumped a foot when the toast popped, when that jarring metallic crunching slapping noise shot out into the room. I said, “I’ll go with you.”

  She didn’t say anything, didn’t even nod. She started buttering her toast. I headed back upstairs to wash my face and put on some clothes that would do for church, and when I got back to the kitchen Mom had made me some toast with butter and jam. She had made coffee for two, out of habit maybe, and I poured some. I’d never had it before, and it tasted terrible. Mom smiled at the face I made, so at least that was good.

  “You might like that better with cream and sugar,” she suggested. She was right, but I still didn’t think it would ever be my favorite drink. Even so, I decided that I would start drinking it. I would just start, that’s all.

  I drove. Chris used to drive her to church, and then Dad, and probably she liked that. We didn’t speak all the way. It felt surreal to me. Like we’d crossed into another world somehow, just driving along, not many cars on the road, gray light and dead-looking trees all around us.

  We sat in the same pew as my uncle Jeff, mom’s brother, and his wife, Diane. Mom had called them last night, sobbing more than talking, and Aunt Diane had come over and they’d cried together. They nodded to me and smiled sadly, and Aunt Diane reached over and squeezed my arm. Probably Mom and Chris had always sat with them when he drove her. My aunt had had two miscarriages years ago and then I guess they’d decided against trying for any more, so at least there were no irritating cousins I’d have to deal with.