Gold Dust (13 page)

Beverly wasn’t the forget-about-it kind. Something else she had in common with Napoleon.

“What, Richard, it’s one thing when you spend time with him but when I do it there’s something wrong? What’s he, not my
type?
Is that it? That better not be it, Richard. I hope it’s just something stupid like you’re jealous of him... or of me. ...”

It felt like it didn’t even matter what was right anymore. With every word my head sank lower like a whipped dog’s. “I’m sure it’s something stupid, Beverly. I guarantee it’s just something stupid.”

“Mmm,” she said. “Well, smarten up, Richard. Quickly.”

What else could I say? “Okay. I’m smartening up.” I even believed that was true. I wasn’t unteachable after all.

We left it there. We both tried to join the singing for real, which was a mistake. People started looking at us. We went back to miming.

“I wonder where he is anyway,” Beverly said. “This is two days in a row. I hope he’s all right.”

“I think he’s fine,” I answered. “He was on the field with me every afternoon for the whole week, before this.”

She turned, and lightly bopped me off the side of the head. “You psycho. Have you been dragging that poor guy out in this miserable weather every day to play baseball?”

“It has not been mis—”

“Not for
you,
it hasn’t. ’Cause you’re a mutant baseball-demented polar bear,
Riley.
Napoleon is from a tropical climate. He’s only been here for a few months. You could kill him, forcing him to be like you.” She bopped me again.

“I didn’t force him,” I said. “He loves to play. Why else would he?”

“Because he has basically no friends, other than us.”

“Oh, that isn’t even true,” I said, with no evidence to back me up. In fact, I knew what she said was true. But he had me, I figured, and we had fun.

“You need to start wearing your batting helmet more, Richard. You’re a little out of it, and I think you’re getting worse.”

“No, really, if Napoleon has no friends it’s because he doesn’t want any. Why else would it be?”

“Well, this isn’t really a very friendly place, is it? You might even say it can be hostile. Or mean.”

“Don’t you think that’s a little strong, Beverly? It’s got its problems, but... I mean, I’ve been in this school for—”

As nuns can do, Sister Jacqueline appeared like a puff of smoke, leaning right down in front of my face. “You will be next, Mr. Moncreif, unless you stop chatting, and start mouthing the words to this hymn.”

Even she knew about the miming.

It was all business from that point, but there was no shortage of facemaking between Beverly and me. She kept going back to one in particular, where she would wrinkle her brow,
tsk-tsk
me, and screw down one side of her mouth, to point out how clueless I supposedly was.

“I don’t think it’s as bad as that,” I whispered when the coast was clear enough. I made an effort to keep mouthing the approximate words everyone else was singing, while still getting out the words I was thinking. I must have looked like one of those dubbed Godzilla movies.

“Of course you don’t,” Beverly answered, doing the same thing. And yes, she did look like the Godzilla movies. “You think it’s wonderful here because it is wonderful for
you
here, because you have been here forever. You think everything will be great as long as you keep teaching Napoleon baseball in the daytime and taking him to boring baseball movies at night.”

“Hey,” I snapped, stretching it out to look like I was snapping “Hallelujah,” “I think it’s a good thing to show him our
national pastime,
instead of dragging him to see
The Great Waldo Pepper
like you would probably do.”

“You know, I would love to take him to
The Great Waldo Pepper.
But guess what I would do first? I would
ask
the guy what
he
wanted to see.”

She had done it now. I didn’t quite know how she had done it, but she had.

“He
loved
the movie,” I said loudly, blowing my cover completely. “He loved
Bang the Drum Slowly.
”

I did not notice the music dying down, but I did notice the voice speaking to me.

“Mr. Moncreif,” Sister Jacqueline said, “lend me your ear.” And before I had the chance to lend it to her or not, she took it, hard.

As we sat there in the office, no sound happening other than the organ and voices off in the distance, the feeling between Butchie and me was weird. We just stared for the longest time.

“’Tsamatter with you lately?” I asked finally.

“’Tsamatter with
you
lately?”

“What are you talking about, Butch?”

“You too good to hang out with us anymore? Where you been? What you doing?”

“I been around. I been doing stuff.”

“Not with me you ain’t.”

“Oh. Oh, I get it. You mean baseball.”

“Well, duh. You don’t
do
nothin’ else.”

“Oh I do loads else, don’t give me that. Anyway, I’ve been playing almost every day, so I don’t know what you’re moaning about.”

“Ain’t been playing with me. Ain’t been playing with Quin or nobody else I know of. We ain’t been playing any ball.”

“Napoleon’s been throwing to me,” I said. “He’s not afraid of the weather like the rest of you guys. You know you can come on down anytime you want to. You know where we are.”

“Nnn,” he said, shaking his head. “Your friend wouldn’t like that. He’s too good for us. Don’t want to dirty his hands with neighborhood trash like us.”

“That’s just stupid, Butchie, and you—”

“He don’t mind handling our girls, though, huh?”

I practically spat on him, laughing. “Our girls? I didn’t even realize we
had
any girls. Jeez, you think I’d notice a thing like that.”

Butchie’s always-shaky sense of humor was all the way gone these days. He got up, walked across the bit of carpet between us, and stood over me. I stayed in my seat, staring up.

“You know what I’m talking about, Riley. Guy like that, comes in here out of noplace—”

“Dominica. Not noplace, Dominica. It is a place. An island, actually.”

“Comes in here, to our place, starts looking down his nose at scumbags like me, brings in his smartass father to show off even more, then goes after the... local girls, like he’s just picking one more banana off his own personal tree.”

I stood up. I still had to look up at him. “What’s this thing you got with bananas lately?”

I wanted him to laugh, to see how stupid this all was. And I wanted him to shut up. People don’t have to be perfect for life to go on okay, they just have to be good enough. They just have to not be awful.

And even while I was saying it to myself, I knew it was already too late. And I knew he couldn’t keep it to himself just because I wanted it that way.

“I
hate
bananas,” he said, real nasty, real close. His breath stank, like bacon gone raunchy.

“Are the two of you going to be a full-time job for me today?” Sister said as she stepped in between us. “I don’t know what has gotten into you, but get it the hell out, right now.” She used the word “hell” regularly and freely, and in many different ways, which I admired.

“Yes, Sister,” we both answered.

“Now the two of you get back to the class, and tell them I will be along in five minutes so get busy in the meantime.”

“Yes, Sister.” We sounded like zombies.

We walked back to class, near each other, but not really together. We didn’t talk until we were about to go through the door. I put a hand on his shoulder as he peeked through the window and made a face at everybody. He stopped, turned, and stared at the hand before looking at my face.

“You know, Butch, you’ve only been here since halfway through last year yourself, so as far as I’m concerned you’re about as foreign as Napoleon.”

I thought I was reasoning with him.

He took a deep loud breath through his nose, then removed my hand from him like it was a snotted-up Kleenex.

“How stupid are you, Riley?” he asked and then walked through the door.

I was getting pretty sick of that question.

W
HEN I CALLED HIM
on the phone I was again surprised at how islandy Napoleon could sound if all you had to focus on was his voice. He sounded older too. And right now, a lot slower.

“Hey,” I said. I wasn’t a natural with the phone.

“Richard? Is that you?”

“Ya. How’s it going?”

“Well. I haven’t been well. Not well a’tall. Getting better, though.”

It never took me long to run low on conversation on the telephone. “Hey. You’re good on the phone, huh? Like a different guy. Like a pro.”

“Thank you, I suppose.”

“So,” I said. “Just kind of wondered, y’know, where you were, how you were, that kind of thing. Been missing some pretty funny choir practices, you know.”

Napoleon sighed. He was sounding sadder than I had figured, what with the vacation from school and all.

“I am sorry to be missing them,” he said. “I will not be missing the performance, though.”

“You sound like you
want
to do it. But that couldn’t be true.”

“I do. Very much so. I love music.”

Huh? This was news. This was
such
news, and while being weird and interesting, it felt to me suddenly sad. If, like Beverly said, he didn’t have any other friends, then shouldn’t I have been the guy knowing things like this? Even if I didn’t much want to know about his music, I would still want him to tell me about it.

“You do? Really? How come I never knew that? What kind of music? Not church music.”

“Yes. I love church music. Also James Brown, and the Ohio Players. Bob Marley and Jimmy Cliff. Organ music of all kinds, I love.”

Way out of my league now. But I had to try. “Ever hear John Kiley? He’s the guy who plays that really loud organ at Fenway. And did you know he’s the same guy who plays for the Bruins and Celtics at the Garden? Now that’s talent, huh?”

He waited. I thought I had carried that off pretty well, but in the break it occurred to me that he could be laughing with his hand over the phone. Or gagging or something.

“I will go hear him sometime,” Napoleon said politely. I was grateful for those manners of his. But still, this did not feel quite right.

“Can I say something?” I asked.

“That is about all one can do on the telephone.”

“Well, you don’t sound good. I mean, you don’t sound sick, but you don’t sound so... good.”

Pause. Longer pause. “I am. I am... good. Thank you.”

“You’re... welcome. Did I do something wrong, Napoleon?”

“No.”

“You mad about something?”

“No.”

“You want to tell me something?”

“No.”

“Something happen to you that I should know about?”

“No, and no, and no. Don’t you ever... Richard, don’t you ever have those days when you’re just feeling down? It is normal, no? They come and they go, don’t they? Doesn’t that happen to you?”

I actually had to give this some thought. Had to kind of search around in my insides for something loose in there. I did as thorough a search as I could.

“No,” I said. “I have to be honest with you. No. Sure, I have a beef here and there like anybody. But you know, I don’t mostly feel like I have a lot to gripe about.” I shrugged, even though that wouldn’t contribute much to the conversation. “My life’s pretty okay, as far as I can tell.”

This produced our longest pause yet. Felt like it was nearly as long as the talking part of talking.

Stupid, stupid, Richard. It was as if I was looking for the most unhelpful thing to say. “Of course
you
don’t think things are so bad here,” was what Beverly had told me. I had it all here, and I knew it. Napoleon did not, and I knew that too.

“Do you miss home, Napoleon?” I asked this as easily and quietly as I could, though I had no business doing it. One week at a camp two hours away was the greatest separation I had ever endured. It was at a lake, in July, with half of my friends. It was
better
than being home. I knew nothing about what he was living through, and had no right going into it.

I felt like I had to go into it.

I heard a rapid series of short shallow wispy breaths, like a muffled asthma attack. He would not talk. Then it went quieter, like he was covering the receiver with his hand. I waited, until I couldn’t stand it anymore.

“It’s probably just me,” I said tentatively. “Maybe there’s just something wrong with me. You know. No brain, no pain?”

Nothing.

“Ignorance is bliss, right?” I tried, brighter.

For this, he came back.

“Getting warmer,” he mumbled.

Which, after all that, was what cut. I could feel the smile slither off the edges of my face. I thought I was on his side. I thought I was helping. I thought I was doing good. I had been trying to cheer him up a bit, and could feel the actual sting in the middle of it.

In the middle of me.

“Oh,” I said, my voice sounding probably worse than Napoleon’s. “I get it.”

“Wait, Richard,” he said.

I didn’t.

I lay down on my bed, grabbed the ball off the night table, and began bouncing it off the ceiling and catching it. Bouncing it off the ceiling and catching it.

Why couldn’t I seem to get through a single conversation anymore? Why did things have to be hard for no good reason? Did I owe somebody an apology for liking things pretty much the way they were?

Were happy and stupid both the same thing?

I could smell spring. All things right were about to come together, just like they did this time every year, so why shouldn’t I feel okay? Why couldn’t I?

My ball began making a foreign sound. For every bounce off the ceiling I was hearing a shadow bounce. Twinned. I don’t know how long it was happening before it occurred to me to go to the window, but Napoleon Charlie Ellis looked pretty cold by the time I saw him throw that last leather ball,
thump,
off my storm window.

I opened the sash, opened the storm.

“What’s that?” I asked coolly.

“Cricket ball.”

“Looks stupid.”