Salvation City (31 page)

Like Cole, Clem was an only child. He lived with his mother and his grandmother in what had once been the town’s little red schoolhouse. His great-grandparents had been pupils there. Clem’s father had died in the Iraq war a few months before Clem was born. Clem kept his father’s army medals in a special case on his bedroom wall. He kissed the case every night before he went to bed. The Harleys also had a flu orphan living with them, an eight-year-old retarded girl named Olettra who refused to leave the house, fighting like a wild animal if you tried to make her. Everyone thought this was because she was too disabled to grasp the real reason her parents were no longer around and was scared that the monster that had got them could also get her.

Clem said, “I know some people are doing like PW said and staying home, but there’s a pretty big crowd at the church. I figure he’ll be going over there this morning. I don’t know if he’ll even have time for me.”

Cole explained that PW was not up yet. Clem nodded thoughtfully and said, “That pain just won’t let up on him, will it.”

Cole told him about the two attacks of the night before. Clem listened, frowning. Then he said, “I don’t know that drinking’s such a good idea.”

“But it really helps,” said Cole.

“In the short run, maybe. In the long run, it may turn out to be worse than the disease.”

It was this kind of thing that could make Clem seem older than he was. He often talked in this grown-up, authoritative way. Probably it had to do with the fact that his mother had never remarried and he’d always been the man of the house. A serious, level-headed, slow-if-ever-to-anger boy, precociously handy, and, like the father he never knew, a crack shot. Everyone admired him for the way he took care of his women. In general, he was more admired than liked, Cole thought. But he himself had always liked Clem, even though they didn’t have much to say to each other.

He was tall for his age, but that was his only good feature. He was pear-shaped, his skin and hair were drab, he was prone to sties and chapped lips and cold sores. Huge, blocky hands and feet made him look clumsy, though he was not—just as a sharp nose and black-button eyes made him look inquisitive, which he also was not. (In turn, his lack of curiosity often made him seem less smart than he was.)

He had a habit, sometimes irritating to Cole, of hesitating before he said anything, as if English weren’t his first language. Tracy, on the other hand, called it the mark of wisdom. (“He does like they say: Think before you speak.”)

The boys in their church were like other boys, meaning obsessed with sex. They might not have been as gross as secular kids, but they told dirty jokes and used words like
boner
and
tits
and
hump
and
blow job
. They’d huddle about a girl they thought was hot and what they’d do to her, even though they’d all pledged to stay virgins until they got married. It pained a lot of them (and a lot of girls, too) to think that Christ could return too soon, meaning before they got their chance to have sex. Meanwhile they could dream, and, at least when there were no grown-ups around, they could talk. Most would rather talk about sex than just about anything else. Except Clem. Not that he’d criticize others for talking, or leave the room when they did. He’d just sit there with a blank look on his face, as if everyone else were speaking a foreign tongue, or as if whatever they were talking about did not, and would not ever, have anything to do with him. He didn’t care—or at least he didn’t appear to—that this had led some to say he was gay.

Cole found it a mystery that Clem wanted to preach even though he wasn’t good at it. But though he knew he didn’t have anything like PW’s gift, Clem said he couldn’t imagine any other life for himself.

“Ma tells how I used to talk about being a soldier or basketball star or some other thing, but I don’t remember any of that. In my mind I was always going to be a preacher.”

Also remarkable to Cole was that Clem had never seen Jesus or been spoken to by Jesus, not even in a dream. Jesus had never woken Clem in the night with a message for him or sent him any special sign. Not that this bothered Clem. The Lord shows himself to me every day, he said. He did not envy those who’d been granted signs and visions and face time. He did not feel lesser than any rapture child or baby preacher.

Though Cole couldn’t help feeling there was something truly weird about Clem, something that didn’t necessarily have to do with his calling, the two were usually at ease together. And now that he was over his embarrassment at not having answered the door, he was glad Clem had come. His presence warmed the kitchen like something in the oven.

“Are you hungry?” asked Cole, who’d just realized he was quite hungry himself. “Do you want some breakfast?”

“Actually, that sounds good. But why don’t you let me get it? I could make us some French toast.”

“Okay. I’ll help in a minute.” And as Clem took over the kitchen, setting out bread, milk, butter, and eggs, Cole typed a message to Addy.

 

 

 

The French toast was perfect: eggy and crusty and on the dark side, the way Cole liked it. Clem had microwaved some bacon, too, while Cole set the table. Mindful of those still sleeping upstairs, they moved quietly and kept their voices down, and in that hush, in the soft early light, they might have been performing some ritual.

They ate in silence, full attention on their food, hungry, growing boys first.

In his message to Addy, Cole had said, “I’ve been thinking over your idea about my coming to see you.”

In fact, he had been thinking a lot about it, and the more he thought about it, the more appealing the idea became. He had always wanted to explore the world. Why not start with Berlin, Germany?

What he hadn’t said to Addy was this: “I know you care about me, but I’m not the most important thing to you. I know that even if you never saw me again, you’d be okay.”

Otherwise, he thought, she would not have left without him.

Not that he was going to hold this against her. “I’d like to make the trip as soon as possible.”

Of course, PW wouldn’t want him to go, even if it was just for a visit. Cole would have to explain—as he was going to have to explain about another decision he had just made: when summer was over, he did not want to go on studying with Tracy. Even if he had to commute all the way to a different town, even if he’d be the only kid in Salvation City not being homeschooled, he wanted to go back to regular school. He knew that Tracy and PW would blame Addy for this. But in fact: It was the day Taffy had come to pick up Starlyn. After they left, a forlorn Cole sat in front of the TV, clicking the remote until his attention was caught by images of some kids around his own age, maybe a little older. It turned out to be a news program about a special school in Washington, D.C. Not a private school—the government paid the tuition—but not a school that just anybody could go to, either. You had to compete to get in, and ninety-eight percent of those who tried to get in were rejected. Those who were accepted studied subjects that were more advanced than what kids their age normally studied. The very top students took college courses.

The students, who came from all over the country, were shown in an auditorium at some kind of assembly. “You are looking at America’s next generation of great leaders and discoverers and Nobel Prize winners,” the TV reporter said.

Kids in classrooms or in the cafeteria or out on the school lawn discussed science and politics and even sports in a way Cole had never heard anyone his age talk before. Over his head. And he who had always hated school was smitten with envy. The reporter and all the other adults who appeared on the program were obviously in awe of these kids. The parents of one boy told the reporter that the school had saved their son’s life. He’d been in a different school first, an ordinary school with ordinary students and teachers, and despite his extraordinary aptitude (among all those brainiacs, this kid might have been the brainiest of all), he had not done well. According to his parents, there’d been two reasons for this: their son had been bullied, and he’d been bored.

When Cole heard this he became flustered; he became enraged. He, too, had been bullied and bored. Forgetting all about the ferocious competition to get into the school, he failed to see why
he
hadn’t been plucked out and sent to Washington to study with genius classmates and teachers who never bored them. Tears of self-pity stung his eyes. He bet none of
those
kids was an orphan. (He was wrong.) And what would it be like if he ever met any of them? He would not be like them. He would not know all the things they’d been taught; he would not be their equal. And how would they treat him? For sure, they would look down on him. They wouldn’t bully him—they were above that, of course—but they would not befriend him, either. They would ignore him. Maybe even feel sorry for him. The one thing worse than bullying.

Cole had watched the program all the way to the end. He had turned the TV off then and sat for a long time, his soul in a stew. He felt cheated and humiliated and confused. Deeply, he believed he was more like those gifted kids than unlike them. His pride insisted on it: the future great leaders and discoverers and Nobel Prize winners—he belonged with them. A huge misunderstanding had been allowed to take place. Why hadn’t anyone seen that just because he hated school didn’t mean he was lazy and dumb? It was unfair; it was all a mistake. Somehow it must be corrected. If not, he would grow up to be something worse than an underachiever. He would grow up stupid, an ignoramus. He would have to hide himself away from the world or die of shame.

These were his thoughts, but they were not thoughts he would have been comfortable revealing to Clem. Nowhere in the program about the prestigious school had there been any mention of God or church or any kind of religious instruction. Clem would have no truck with such a place. He would have called it a school for fools.

But there were other things Cole could share with Clem, and to which Clem could speak better than most.

About that crowd gathering at the church—

“What do you think is going to happen next?” asked Cole.

Pause.

“I think the more time passes, the more folks’ll calm down.”

Cole’s heart beat faster. “So you’re saying you don’t believe it’s the rapture.”

Clem took even longer to answer this time. “I believe I know an elopement when I see one.”

Cole could have kissed him. But his spirits sank when it became clear that Clem was no more concerned about Starlyn than PW was.

“Far as I’m concerned this is Mason’s responsibility,” said Clem. “He’s done a bad thing, I admit, but it’s not like it can’t be fixed.”

“Well, I think he’s way evil,” said Cole hotly.

Clem looked taken aback. “Evil? Mason?” He gazed sadly at Cole and shook his head. “That’s not right, Cole.”

“Then how could he pull a dirty trick like that?” Cole’s voice cracked, but he was too angry to be embarrassed. He waited impatiently for Clem to respond.

“You know how it is. It’s like, some people, they get religion and that’s that. But other people, they get religion and after a while they lose it. Then they get it back, but then maybe they lose it again. It happens all the time, like falling off the wagon. And it’s not just the weaklings and the hell-raisers who have to get born again and again. Lucky for us, our Lord is the Lord of many chances. If you fall—”

“But what about Starlyn?”

“Girls have always been hard for me to figure.” The way Clem said this suggested any attempt at figuring them would be a waste of time. “I don’t believe Mason would ever hurt her, though. I think he loves her. I guess love can make a dude do crazy things.”

“Have you ever had a girlfriend, Clem?”

“Nope. You?”

“Not exactly,” said Cole. He was thinking of Jade Korsky. But though it was he who’d steered them in this direction, he had no real desire to go there. “Where do you think they are now? Do you think they’ll ever come back?”

“I don’t know. But maybe if they do come back, there’ll be three of them.”

This outrageous thought had not yet occurred to Cole. He stood up and began clearing his dishes, making a lot of noise, as if the outrageous thought were a living creature that could be scared off this way.

Clem got up from the table, too. “Hey, I got an idea,” he said. “Why don’t I cook up some more French toast? Then we can keep it warm for when Tracy and PW get up.”

He was already at the counter, cracking an egg into the bowl.

Cole was too agitated to sit down again. He opened the dishwasher and began unloading the clean dishes from the day before. The sun was slanting through the kitchen window now and birds were singing in loud, ecstatic bursts. Cole had heard it was supposed to turn hot again.

Cole didn’t want to be angry with Clem. He wished that he could make him understand. He looked at Clem’s tall pear-shaped back and found himself wondering what his mother would have thought of him. Lately this had been happening a lot: he’d be thinking about one thing or another and suddenly he’d start wondering what his mother or father would’ve thought about it. It was part of the spell that had begun to lift with Addy’s arrival. He could remember his parents without horror, without feeling the need—the pain being too much for him—to shut them out. Now there were times when he wanted nothing more than to recall his old life. He would stare into the past and try to reconstruct things: The rooms of all the houses he had lived in. The last time he had seen his grandparents. The names and faces of every teacher and classmate he’d had since kindergarten.

It was like a game—it could be fun—but it felt like something more than just a game as well.

He even tried to recall bad things, like his parents fighting. Some T-shirt his dad had worn and that his mom said was juvenile . . . a slogan that rhymed . . .