Are You Alone on Purpose? (13 page)

He'd get dressed and have breakfast. Hang out. Then, later, if he felt like it, he'd call Alison.

 

Just before one o'clock, Alison arrived. Harry was outside waiting, tossing a basketball in the air, juggling it between his hands. He felt wonderful. “Hey, Shandling,” he called out as soon as he saw her approaching on her bike. “It's a B-ball day. Knew it the minute I got outside. Let's go! There's a court in the park a couple blocks over. You can leave your bike here.” He wheeled out onto the sidewalk to meet her.

Alison dismounted, walked her bike over to the side of Harry's house as he indicated, and leaned it up against the garage. She turned back to Harry, frowning. She had a pocketbook with her. Why did she want to haul a pocketbook around on such a beautiful day? And it was bulging out on one side with a shape suspiciously rectangular, like a book. A book. When they'd agreed on the phone to do something outdoors. Well, at least she was predictable. He sort of liked that. But she definitely needed a little shaking up.

“I was thinking we could take a walk,” she was saying. “Maybe down to the cemetery. I passed it on the way here. It looked really pretty. The forsythia's out.”

“Forsythia?” said Harry.
Cemetery
? he thought.

“It's a flowering tree. I can't believe you don't know it. Look—there's one over there in that front yard.” Alison pointed. “Isn't it pretty?”

“Oh, right, yeah, that yellow stuff. Forsythia.” He paused. “Okay, so great, we saw it. Now we can go play hoops. Everybody's happy.”

Alison didn't look happy. Harry tried a smile on her. Nothing. “C'mon,” he said. “Please? Huh?”

It worked. Alison grinned back, if reluctantly. Harry felt a sudden spurt of pleasure with himself. “Oh, all right,” she said. Harry handed her the ball. She held it as if it were an unexploded bomb. They started off.

“You're sure there'll be some guys there for you to play with?” Alison asked after a while. “I guess I don't really mind. I have a book, of course. And it's nice to read outdoors.”

Oho. She thought she was going to read. Harry couldn't control himself. He laughed out loud. Hell, she probably thought a cemetery was just a big outdoor library with a lot of backrests. Queen Nerd paradise. Well, okay. She was young. Harry wouldn't tell her different. She was a case, wasn't she? He bet Dr. Jefferies could have just as much fun snooping around in Alison's brain as she did with Harry's. He snickered again.

“What are you laughing at?” Alison squinted at him suspiciously.

They'd reached the park. Two guys were playing one-on-one on half the court, but the other end was still free. Good. Harry stopped his chair on that end, claiming it.

“I'm laughing at you,” he said to Alison. She looked surprised for a moment, then indignant. “Give me your bag.”

“What?”

“Give it to me. And don't look so worried.” He took the pocketbook from her. “I'll give it back later.” He opened the backpack hanging on the side of his chair and shoved the bag down in there, deep. “When you've earned it.”

“What are you talking about? My book's in there!”

“We are here,” said Harry, slowly, deliberately, “to play some ball. Get some exercise. Outdoor activity, Shandling. You don't need your book.”

“Wait. You expect
me
to play with you?”

“Amazing. Must be that famous Shandling brain.” Harry tapped the side of his head with his index finger and nodded knowingly.

“Don't you make fun of me!” Alison had flushed. She looked pretty like that. She was clenching her fists at her sides. They were the wrong kind of fists, Harry noted idly. She had her thumbs tucked inside; if she ever really tried to hit someone like that, she'd break them. “You know I don't do sports! Play with those guys over there. I'm no good!”

“Well,” said Harry, “I'm only a cripple. So you're starting small.”

She stared at him, horror clear on her face. It was that word. “Cripple.” It hung in the air between them. She'd never used it. Neither, Harry realized, had he. Not out loud. Not with her, not with anyone. It had popped out like a jack-in-the-box.

“You know you'll still beat me,” Alison said after a pause.

“Even though I'm a cripple?” He said it again, on purpose this time, experimenting. He hadn't choked, had he? She still looked scared. “Huh?”

“Yes.”

He looked at her. He waited. The silence lengthened.

“Even though you're a cripple,” she said finally. “Is that what you wanted me to say? Well, are you happy?”

He
was
happy. Harry was suddenly, gloriously, irrationally happy. “Yeah,” he said. “I'll beat you. But that doesn't matter. It's not about winning.” He spun around, heading closer to the basket. “Come on. I'll show you some moves. You're probably not as bad as you think you are. Attitude is real important in sports, and, to be frank, Queen Nerd, yours sucks. We can work on that.”

After a minute, dazed, Alison followed Harry.

A
fter dinner that night, Alison helped Adam clear the dishes from the table and load them into the dishwasher. Adam measured and put in the soap, closed the washer's Plexiglas see-through door, and started the washing cycle. Then he sat down on the floor in front of the washer and watched it. Alison hesitated and then, abruptly, sat down next to him. She saw Adam glance at her and away. He didn't smile, just accepted her presence and ignored her, focusing on the dishwasher. It was as companionable as Adam ever got.

The jets at the top of the dishwasher were revolving, shooting out water in a slightly jerky motion onto the dishes below. It was a reliable little machine. It would clean up the mess. Alison wondered if it could do anything with her life.

Alison's life was a mess. Today, Saturday, she had again not seen Paulina. She'd called, but Paulina hadn't been in. “I'm sorry, Alison,” Mrs. de Silva had said. “Paulina went to the mall. I thought... I thought you were going too? With that girl Felicia?”

“No,” Alison replied. She'd said good-bye and hung up quickly, before Mrs. de Silva's voice could get any more concerned. Felicia. She'd stood there a few moments, stunned, and her hand had still been on the receiver when the telephone rang. It was Harry. He'd sounded like she felt. Unsure. Defensive. He'd asked what she was doing, she'd said nothing, and in the end she'd biked over. Just like that.

It had seemed both utterly normal and utterly bizarre, going to visit Harry. She hadn't told her parents. It was risky to let them think she was at Paulina's, because her mother was so friendly with Mrs. de Silva.

But Alison couldn't explain to her mother. Not about Harry. And not even about Paulina. She didn't know why Paulina was acting this way. Was she mad about Jason Shepherd? Or about Harry? Alison knew it had probably looked weird to Paulina—all the time she'd spent with Harry at school in the past week. Alison hadn't explained to Paulina about Harry. She didn't quite know how. Things had happened so fast—and so differently from what she'd expected. Even if she could explain, Paulina couldn't possibly understand.

The fact was, Alison had set out deliberately to befriend Harry. She had never done that with anyone else. She'd seen other kids who did, kids who hung around persistently on the fringes of crowds they wanted to belong to—like Paulina these days.

But Harry wasn't a crowd; he was all alone. Once she'd thought he was friendly with those other kids, or at least with some of them. But he wasn't, and he was hurt.

Alison looked at her brother. The dishwasher was now full of soapy water, with more water shooting down hard from the top onto the dishes; Adam was completely absorbed in watching. When she was little, Alison had wondered if Adam had done anything to deserve being autistic. If God had done it to him. She had asked her mother, who had been aghast. It's not his fault, Mrs. Shandling had said. God doesn't punish people that way.

What does He do then? Alison wondered now. Just sit there and let awful stuff happen to people for no reason?

Buddhists believed that you paid in your current life for sins in your last life. Rabbi Roth believed that God had punished Harry for his father's mistake about Adam. And her own father didn't believe in God at all, just in science.

She wondered what Harry would think about all this. She wondered what he would think if he understood that Alison felt responsible for him and for what had happened. If he realized that Alison had begun to hang around with him because she felt that, like it or not, she had to do something.

Because no one else—including Harry's father, and including God—would.

 

They had gone for a walk that afternoon, after Alison had made enough of an idiot of herself, dribbling and throwing the ball at the basket, to make Harry happy. It was true she had gotten a basket or two after Harry insisted she try it with her glasses on. But Alison had not been comfortable. What if the ball fell on her face and broke her glasses? It wasn't safe.

“Contact lenses,” said Harry after they left the park and started back. “They're perfect for sports. You have them, don't you?”

“Yes,” said Alison doubtfully. She didn't like wearing contacts. She liked her glasses. The wire frames were green and funky with tiny flecks of silver on them.

“Wear the contacts,” said Harry, as if that settled it.

Alison said nothing. They went on in silence for a while. Then, when they came up to the cemetery and Alison paused, looking in at the forsythia, Harry asked, “Do you really want to snoop around in there?”

Alison nodded. “It's peaceful.”

Harry snorted. But he swiveled his chair, and they went in.

It was a Christian cemetery, well kept and beautifully landscaped, with crosses embedded on lots of gravestones and no little stones left on top for remembrance. But there were flowers, and Alison noticed a spot that would be good for reading. “Under that tree. It's shady, but there's plenty of grass, and you could lean up against the tree. Or against that big vault thing.”

“Vault?” Harry was looking at it like he'd never seen one before.

“Yeah, the little building.” She paused awkwardly, suddenly remembering about Harry's mother. “It's . . . for a whole family. I think.”

“What?” Harry seemed fascinated. “You mean the caskets go in there instead of in the ground?”

“I think so.”

Harry stared at the vault. “That's disgusting.”

Alison shrugged. Harry's face looked very odd. Alison felt increasingly strange. She began to wish she had never mentioned the cemetery.

“I can't believe it,” Harry said after a long minute. He was still staring at the vault. “Why would anyone want to do that? Do you know what that means? Huh?” He swung his chair around to face Alison. “Every time somebody died, you'd have to open it up, and you'd have to go in there, and...What do you do then, huh, Shandling? D'you say, ‘Hey, hello there, Mom, company! Here's Dad!' ” He paused, trembling.

“I think only really rich people do it,” said Alison, inanely. She was sorry the minute she'd said it.

“Stupid rich people,” said Harry.

Alison said nothing. There was a huge knot in her stomach. She wanted to get out of the cemetery.

“I'm going to get burned,” said Harry abruptly. He had turned away from Alison again. “I'm going to have them cremate me, and then I'll have someone scatter the ashes. No coffin, no gravestone. Nothing.”

Alison wondered if Harry thought about death a lot. Did he think about death as often as she thought about Adam and God and responsibility? “I know what you mean,” she said.

Harry started; he looked at Alison as if he had forgotten she was there and didn't like being reminded. “No, you don't,” he said. His voice went hostile on her. “You—Queen Nerd. You may know a lot of math, but you don't know fucking anything about what's really important. Hanging out in cemeteries. You're so stupid, it's pathetic.”

Harry turned his chair and started back down the path toward the cemetery gate. Alison stood stunned, staring after him. She inhaled sharply.

Just who the hell did Harry Roth think he was, anyway? Alison heard the “hell” in her head with satisfaction; she suddenly understood why Harry swore so much. It let people know you were mad. She yelled it aloud: “Who the hell do you think you are, Harry Roth?!” And she ran down the path after him, aware somewhere in her head that she was running the way Harry had just taught her at the park. She raced past Harry and then turned, stopped, put out her hands to catch his chair by the arms and halt his progress.

“Let go, you little bitch,” said Harry. He continued to push on his wheels. Alison pushed back in the other direction as hard as she could. She was leaning forward, panting, her face practically touching Harry's. He glared at her as he continued to try to force the chair forward. Alison pushed back just as hard, and they came to a standstill.

“Give it up!” Harry yelled.

Alison kept shoving. It felt good. She yelled back. “You think you're the only cripple in the world, Harry Roth? You think you're the only person with problems? Well, grow up!” She yelled it right in his face. “Just
fucking
grow up!”

Abruptly, Harry stopped trying to wheel the chair forward. Caught off guard, Alison's own momentum threw her forward on top of him. She stared into Harry's eyes for a paralyzed second. Overbalanced, the chair teetered. Then it tipped, toppling them both over onto the pebbled walk.