Imaginary Men (15 page)

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Authors: Enid Shomer

Tags: #Fiction, #General, #Anthologies (Multiple Authors), #Literary Collections, #Literary Criticism, #test

BOOK: Imaginary Men
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Page 93
man without feet." I knew it was supposed to make me feel better, but all I could see the rest of that day were stumps.
After her pep talk, she went upstairs to her silent angels. Rumor had it that the deaf room was a scientific wonder, with state-of-the-art earphones and oscilloscopes. Kids said it was brightly painted and wallpapered and had shag carpeting. Amanda Frank's mother had told her there were all kinds of posterspolar bears with "real" fur and photographs of castles that Mrs. Gumm had visited on her yearly European vacations. I itched to see it. Could it really be so much nicer than our shabby room with its green chalkboard overhung with the cursive alphabet? Mrs. Page often brought flowers from home for her desk, but otherwise the room was a dull beige designed to hide dirt for years.
Thursday at lunch I convinced Julio to eat with the deaf kids. Carl tagged along. We waved hello as we pulled up to the table where they were bent over their macaroni casseroles and milk. A few returned the wave, then ignored us.
"I told you," Julio said, grabbing hold of Carl's chair handles to return him to our side of the lunchroom.
"Wait," I said, throwing on the brake lever of Carl's chair. He lurched slightly forward.
"They don't want us," Julio said, his foot tapping in annoyance.
I looked at the ten or so faces at the table. Most of them seemed relaxed as sleepers but with open eyes. They sat much closer together than hearing people and leaned and rubbed against each other. I decided to go for it and put my arm against the thin arm of a girl with reddish hair. She turned to acknowledge me and kept on drinking her milk. I felt a slight pressure back from her warm, smooth flesh. Then, as if someone had lowered a curtain, she turned away and began gesturing to the boy on her right.
"They don't like us," Carl said.
"No. They just like each other better," I said. Julio's face brightened. He moved his hands from Carl's chair to my shoulders.
"I like you," he said, and began to massage my neck. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Carl blush furiously, then move his wavering hand to touch Julio's leg. We froze for a moment. Then Julio released his gentle grip and pushed Carl to the wheelchair side of the cafeteria.
"The Christ is seven stories tall," Carl said, his face returned to its usual pale color.
 
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"All I want to know is do they sell cotton candy," I told him.
"I heard the Christ is so white. When you touch him your hands come away all silvery. And beautiful. Like moonlight."
"Or chalk," Julio said.
"They have a big Bible," Carl continued. "I heard the pages are made of steel."
"I heard they have lots of natural springs, and Mrs. Gumm wants us all to get baptized." Julio fiddled with the straw in his milk.
"Oh no!" I lamented. In the two years I spent at Warm Springs, clergymen of every faith had visited me, not to mention the evangelists I attracted on weekend family outings who tried to talk me into attending tent revivals.
"On the other hand, maybe they have rides," Julio offered.
"Oh sure," I said, "like the Tunnel of Sodom and Gomorrah." Julio cracked up.
"I could get cured," Carl said, staring out the window at the body shop where blue fire flared from an acetylene torch.
<><><><><><><><><><><><>
Back in the PT room, Mrs. Page arranged us on our mats, put on Beethoven at low level, and left the room to join Miss Simons and the rest of the staff in the faculty lounge. Beethoven always reminds me of someone having a temper tantrum, so for the first time I stayed awake. I looked at the other kids lying on the floor, some with knees bent and legs elevated like mine, others on their sides, and some curled up like unborn babies. Julio's red helmet stood out like a Christmas ornament three mats away. He was reading
Battle Cry
. It looked like a steamy sex novel from the cover, which showed a couple kissing, the man's uniformed body pressed hard against the woman.
"Hey, Julio," I whispered. "Are you getting ready for
Romeo and Juliet?
" We were going to read parts of it aloud in class for the next few days. Julio shushed me and kept reading. A moment later he said, "I'll turn down the pages with good parts for you."
"Thanks." Just then I heard thumping from the ceiling. Nothing so loud as to startle and not that creepy groaning that makes you think the roof will collapse. This sounded like people batting tom-toms.
"What is that?"
 
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Julio came over and sat down beside me. "I don't know. Maybe it's some kind of vibration therapy. Or dancing."
"Have you ever been upstairs?"
"No. But they do it just about every day." He suspended the book in front of my eyes. "Read this," he instructed.
"So what?" I said, after speeding through it.
"I thought only babies sucked women's tits," he admitted.
"Well that just shows how much you know," I said, trying to sound cool.
<><><><><><><><><><><><>
Mrs. Page had turned off the classroom lights and lowered the window shades to simulate night. She was posted by the switch to bring the dreaded dawn on cue to Romeo and Juliet. Amanda was reading the part of Juliet, and Julio was Romeo. "It was the nightingale," Amanda insisted, trying to get Romeo to stick around even though he'd been banished.
"It was the lark," Julio argued. I waited for my lines, but it took forever. Besides, Juliet's nurse didn't have a lot to say in this scene. "Yon light is not daylight . . . It is some meteor that the sun exhales," Amanda said. She sounded like someone reading the ingredients on a cereal box. But Julio was really getting into his role. "Let me be put to death," he screamed, clutching his chest. "Come death and welcome! Juliet wills it so.'' This startled Amanda, but she continued to read flatly. ''Now be gone," she told him with equal emphasis on each word. Mrs. Page flipped the light switch. Julio looked at the ceiling as if he were seeing it for the first time. "More light and light. More dark and dark our woes!" he wailed. I quickly wheeled over to the couple. "Madame!" I reprimanded Juliet. "The day is broke, be wary, look about." Julio planted a wet one on Amanda's hand and retreated to the back of the room. By then Amanda was very interested in her part, and her "Oh think'st thou we shall ever meet again?" was passionate.
From the doorway Julio's voice boomed in an astounding stage whisper that gave me goose bumps. "I doubt it not." he reassured Amanda, "and all these woes shall serve for sweet discourses in our time to come." Amanda just sat there, a lovesick expression on her face.
 
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"Cut!" Mrs. Page ordered, returning to her desk. "That was good. Would anyone like to talk about the meaning of this scene? I mean, how we might apply it in our own lives?"
"Can we rehearse it again?" Amanda blurted.
"We won't have time today, I'm afraid," Mrs. Page said.
Carl was thoughtful. "You just know they aren't going to live happily ever after," he said. "I don't know how, but you do."
"That's true," Mrs. Page agreed.
"But you want them to so bad, like wanting to believe in miracles."
<><><><><><><><><><><><>
Four days before our trip Mrs. Gumm delivered an orientation lecture to the whole school. I took plenty of notes, figuring that a studious, attentive attitude might come in handy if I had to bargain for taffy apples and chili dogs.
"Gethsemane Sinkhole," she intoned. "Even the name is magical." She paused while Miss Simons signed for the deaf kids. Julio passed me
Battle Cry
with a juicy passage set off by blue-ink brackets. I read it as I continued to take notes about our destination. It was a strange combination of facts and word pictures: Harold J. Wilson whose money had built the Christ and whose features it supposedly bore. . . .
A dressing gown, sheer, whiteit flowed like a billow to the floor
. . . . From a distance the outstretched arms (sixty-five feet across) give the appearance of a mammoth cross surrounded by 20,000 orange trees. . . .
Across the room each heard the other's deep breath. . . . He could see the nipples of her breasts through the film of silk net
. . . . Three automobiles can be suspended from either wrist without affecting the statue. Free juice samples. . . .
Their bodies seemed to melt together; she sank her fingernails into his flesh. "Oh God, God, God," she said
. Seventy feet tall. White cement.
"Bring your cameras," Mrs. Gumm suggested, "and some mad money. The Christ Only Art Gallery has lovely crucifixes." She pulled a large crocheted handkerchief from her purse and stretched it taut against her black dress. The familiar gossipy groupings of
The Last Supper
emerged in incredible detail. "Handmade," she crowed, pivoting so that everyone could see the sacred scene displayed on her chest.
 
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On my notepad I wrote Julio a message: I NEED TO TALK TO YOU.
<><><><><><><><><><><><>
Rest hour was the obvious time to get a look at the deaf room. Julio and I sneaked out of PT together. The other kids were asleep as usual and the teachers safely out of earshot in their lounge.
"This is perfect timing," I reassured Julio, as we contemplated the steep staircase to the second floor.
"I'm not worried about getting caught." He shoved his shirttails into his trousers with abrupt pecking motions. "Maybe I should bring you up in your chair?"
"The chair would make an awful racket against the metal."
He kicked the bottom tread, and a slight ringing filled the stairwell. "You're right," he said.
"I'm strong," I told him. "I can pull myself up by my arms. Come on, Julio, I'm dying to see that room."
"Me too. Mrs. Gumm's 'heaven on earth' for her little angels! And we can see what the noise is, too."
"Yeah." Actually, I hadn't thought about the thumping since that first day I heard it, but now I noticed again random thuds right over my head. I slid onto the second step. "Only seventeen more to go," I said cheerfully.
"I can help you," Julio offered, as I began my slow ascent. "Tell me what to do."
I have been called "fiercely independent" so many times that I practically answer to it as my name. I looked at Julio's pale cheeks against the red of his helmet and his hands outstretched vaguely in my direction. "Stand on each stair as I climb. That way I won't get scared looking at the spaces between the steps."
He stood above me, backward, on the stairway, his arms extended straight from the shoulder to grip the iron railings on either side. It was comforting to see his legs firmly planted in front of me instead of the floor receding below as I hoisted myself along. His black trousers were neatly cuffed and his sweatsocks nice and clean. Soon I began to use his ankles to grab onto as I climbed.
I stopped at the landing to catch my breath. "Let me pull you the
 
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rest of the way," he whispered. "We can practice here first. I'll drag you along a little bit and you can see how you like it."
In my mind a big neon sign began flashing BREASTS BREASTS HANDS HANDS. I knew that for him to get a good grip he'd have to touch me there, but I told myself it would be like a doctor doing it. "Okay," I muttered. Very gently he put his arms around me and, locking his hands together, slowly pulled me six inches closer to the steps. "Try to relax and just let it happen," he urged. I recognized this as the line that the soldier in
Battle Cry
used to seduce his girlfriend but said nothing.
I couldn't completely relax as he pulled me or my bottom would have been bruised blue as a berry. His helmet frequently grazed my cheek, and more than ever I wished he'd take it off. I knew the bones of his skull hadn't joined together, but I was sure I wouldn't be shocked by the sight of his head.
Finally we reached the top of the stairs, outside Room 22. Julio straightened up, turned the doorknob slowly, opened the door a crack, and peeked in with one eye. "Oh!" he gasped, and closed the door.
"What is it?"
"Oh boy," he said, his face a deep pink, the color your hand turns when you shine a flashlight through it.
"I can't reach the doorknob, Julio. Open the door," I pleaded.
Wordlessly he turned the knob, pulled the door ajar, then flattened himself against the wall. I squirmed to the door and Julio goosenecked around me. We looked in. My throat closed and my eyes popped open like umbrellas. There they were, the silent angels, partly undressed, some of them doing it. Julio slumped down beside me. I eased the door shut. We sat there for what seemed like an eternity. Finally he said, "I don't feel sorry for them anymore."
"Right," I said.
Julio took my hand in slow motion and placed it inside his helmet against his cheek, kissing it as it passed his mouth. I felt all my blood flow into that hand, as if the rest of me had gone to sleep. My fingertips tingled. "Oh Julio," I said, moved beyond the point of trying to sound original, "that feels so nice."
We snuggled closer. I squinted my eyes shut and kissed him on the mouth. The air around me felt thick as cotton batting, and for the first time in my life all I could do was feel pleasure, a sensation of floating. After a while, he unbuttoned my blouse and very gently

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