The Sorrow King (8 page)

It wasn’t just her figure that held his attention, it was her entire demeanor. It was the demeanor of someone who was beautiful but has not been out in the world enough to realize she is beautiful.

He resolved to try not to stare at her anymore. He was pretty sure one of her friends had seen him gawking so he bent over the table, wiping his unwashed hair from his forehead and concentrating on his cookies and milkshake, the lunch of champions, and tried to hear what the girls were saying.

The other two girls were “really bummed” baseball didn’t have cheerleaders because they were so into cheering and the basketball season was such a blast. Elise was not, he figured, a cheerleader. There was to be a party Friday at “Cricket’s” house. Elise didn’t think she was going to go. None of them were going to the “dead kid’s” funeral tomorrow. Steven hadn’t planned on going to that either, although he figured he would probably leave school early.

Then the girls stood up and, from what he could discern, were going into the bathroom to make calls on their cell phones.

What an exciting world we’re living in, he thought, where people can stand around in a group and have private conversations in public with other people who were not there.

He threw his tray away and prepared to muddle through the rest of the day, images of Elise dancing around in his head.

Connor walked home slowly, taking in the day. The weather had turned pleasant, somewhere in the low sixties, and he knew it could just as easily be snowing tomorrow. He possessed a native Ohioan’s distrust of the weather. Spring was still weeks away. Even now, the sun disappearing behind clouds, the chill crept back in and by the time he reached the house he just wanted to be inside where it was warm.

Steven’s truck was parked out on the curb. This reminded Connor of exactly how late it was. He had managed to accomplish exactly nothing while Steven was away at school. Thinking about it, he refused to see the day as a complete waste.

He was still trying to digest everything Ken had told him. First, he had to figure out if he even believed it before he could get on with the digestion part. It would be like digesting a meal you hadn’t decided on yet. If there was one thing drinking made him, it was philosophical. He tried not to regress too far into the retarded philosophy of a young drunk. Hopefully, he was a little more mature now. He didn’t want to get caught in a debate as to which was the better fabric—cotton or polyester. No, he was going to try and keep his philosophies on a completely metaphysical level.

He would take tonight to think about it.

If he decided to believe what Ken had told him (and he didn’t think Ken had any reason to lie to him) then that meant he needed to have a little talk with Steven. No, not a little talk. The Big Talk. The one he had been putting off ever since Alison’s death. It was what he had seen after her death that kept him from disbelieving Ken entirely. What he had seen would undoubtedly come up if he and Steven had a conversation. Hell, he had tried so hard not to think about that over the past two years he didn’t even know if he could automatically bring it to his memory’s forefront in order to describe it. Maybe it wasn’t even important. Or, maybe it was of the utmost importance. Those were the same conundrums philosophy had always brought him.

The one thing he was now certain of after his conversation with Ken was that there was something dreadfully wrong going on in Gethsemane. That was apparent. He didn’t know why he didn’t see it before. Why it took a conversation with a relative stranger to make him realize it. How could he have missed the obvious signs? Four kids had killed themselves. How could he, just like the rest of the residents in Gethsemane, smirk and think, “Imagine that. Ain’t that strange?” He couldn’t resist the bone feeling that the suicides were not over. When would they affect him?

What if Steven killed himself? That was a question he kept coming back to. What if Steven killed himself? How could he live with himself if that happened? How would he cope with that, especially if he had even the slightest feeling he had ignored a situation that was drastically wrong?

The boy was obviously depressed. He had every reason in the world to be depressed. Connor himself, being depressed ever since he had met the whirlwind of a woman that was Steven’s mother, wouldn’t have recognized the symptoms. But now, in this new light, the symptoms were there, sprawling out in front of him.

In the house now, he thought about bringing it up to Steven right away. He expected Steven to be asleep, as he usually was at this time. Surprisingly, he wasn’t asleep. He was in the kitchen making dinner and when Connor stepped into the kitchen, he saw that the boy was not depressed at all, but absolutely radiant. Like that, Connor’s suspicions of impending doom were soothed, if only temporarily.

“
Dinner smells great,” Connor said.

“
Steak and mashed potatoes.”

“
We had steak?”

“
I found it in the freezer.”

“
That’s like months old.”

“
If you put enough garlic on it you won’t even be able to taste the age.”

“
And I’m pretty sure I bought it off the reduced-for-quick-sale rack to begin with.”

“
It’ll be great. Trust me.”

“
You have many years to go before I will ever trust you. The young are to naturally be regarded with great suspicion.”

“
Okay. You got me. Not only is the steak bad, it’s probably poisoned. Sit down and take your medicine.”

He obediently sat in a chair at the piled-up kitchen table only . . . it wasn’t piled-up anymore. “You clean the table?”

“
Well . . . I moved the contents of the table. I wouldn’t really say I
cleaned
it.” Steven pointed a pair of metal tongs into the corner of the kitchen where the various books, magazines, circulars, newspapers, and bill stubs were heaped.

Steven sat the plate in front of his father, went to the refrigerator and grabbed him a Rolling Rock.

“
Now this is service,” Connor said. “I knew I was raising you right. So is this where you tell me that you’re gay? Or joining the service? Or, hell, both?”

“
Yep, both of them. Oh, and I killed someone.”

“
Just to watch them die, I hope.”

“
Is there any other reason?”

Steven made his own plate and sat down across from his dad. They had a nice dinner together, making pleasant conversation. Maybe it was just a little too pleasant, like both of them had very heavy things on their minds and were trying very hard to avoid talking about those things. Connor didn’t want to be the one to bring down the mood.

One more night, he thought. One more night to think about whether or not he wanted to believe what Ken had told him, knowing he had already made a decision and this time the decision didn’t fully accord with the path of least resistance. He didn’t know if that prospect thrilled him or terrified him.

Seven

Funerals and Conversations

School let out at noon so any students interested in attending the funeral of Jeremy Liven could do so.

Steven had no plans of attending the funeral. He had no plans of any kind. Perhaps, if he had plans of one kind or another he wouldn’t have followed Elise home. Already, allowing himself to perform an act he had told himself he wouldn’t perform, made him doubt his mind. It made him doubt his thoughts. Never would he have thought he would actually follow a girl home, no matter how beautiful.

Where would it stop?

The frightening answer to that question was,
I don’t know.

He didn’t know much of anything anymore.

Only, that wasn’t true. He felt like he was discovering more of himself than he ever knew existed. While he hadn’t thought he would ever follow Elise home, he now knew he would. At least that part of his psyche had now revealed itself.

Ever since waking on the night of Jeremy’s death, writing those things in his notebook, going for that walk, he felt as though he were searching out the answers to a mystery. And the next night, that strange occurrence with the clouds around the water tower, only strengthened his feelings. Maybe he could convince himself that was why he followed Elise home that day. Maybe she was part of the mystery. Maybe she fit into it somehow. Or maybe he was just using that belief to fulfill some perverse desire.

School let out, the air of depression hanging over the students once again. Some joked more than usual, their way of coping with the sadness of the whole situation, but the overall mood was a very somber one. The buses were lined up in front of the school, ready to take the unlicensed and the carless home. Another bus was headed for the Langdon Road Baptist Church, for those interested in going. There were scarce few heads on that bus, he noticed as the students filed into the yellow monstrosities. He couldn’t blame them. There weren’t many people in the high school who knew who Jeremy Liven was. But it was nice of the school to give them half the day off. It let the family know people were thinking about them. It let the family know people cared.

And he couldn’t help noticing Elise coming out of the school, head down and boarding bus number 11. It surprised him. He felt like someone like her should be able to have older friends more than eager to take her back and forth. He felt relieved. It had just dawned on him she could very possibly have a boyfriend. Certainly, if she had a boyfriend of driving age, he would take her home. But that was not the case. If Steven were a different type of person, he could have approached her and offered her a ride.

Instead, he waited in the truck, smoking a cigarette and watching as the buses filed out. It didn’t surprise him bus number 11 headed toward Green Heights. He already thought he might know exactly where the bus was going.

And maybe that was the real reason for him following her home. Not some little obsessive thing. Maybe it was something deeper. Something scarier.

The high school was situated in the middle of a vast cornfield, brown and drab before the annual crop came up. The bus didn’t stop until it reached the foot of the hill at the bottom of Green Heights. It threw out its little red stop sign and blinked its light, stopping at one of the older, nicer houses before beginning the climb up the street and into the neighborhood proper. He knew who would be getting out.

A few seconds later, Elise walked down the steps and crossed the street to her house.

Feeling like it would be impossible for her to know he was watching, he stared at her the entire way.

He grimaced. Something inside him was secretly glad to know where she lived, even if it had meant breaking the pact with himself. Another part of him, the part he felt like he was just getting to know, was terrified.

He had known where she lived ever since waking up from a jolting nightmare at around three o’clock this morning, her address scrawled in his notebook.

Now he really thought he was going crazy. He thought maybe none of this was happening at all. That he just imagined writing those things in the notebook. Maybe he had unconsciously seen her step out at 1411 Albany Lane yesterday after school. That was a perfectly feasible possibility.

Even as he thought that he knew it wasn’t true. Of course he hadn’t seen her step out of the bus yesterday. With the current state of his obsession, he didn’t think it was possible he could be within eyeshot of her and not know she was there. If he had seen her step out of the bus yesterday, he would have known it. He would have immediately dedicated the address, or at least the location, to memory.

The bus pulled away and he reluctantly pulled away after it. He didn’t know why he was reluctant. He didn’t know what else he could do. Maybe hide the truck and go peep in her windows. Bust down the door and rape her. No, he didn’t want any of that stuff. He didn’t even know if his desire for her was entirely sexual. He thought it had more to do with thinking they were somehow connected. After all, he hadn’t even noticed her until that fateful night of walking.

In so many ways, that had become a night of firsts. That was the beginning to whatever mystery he currently found himself ensnared by. The notebook. The names . . . the names of the dead and the names of the clouds. Elise, so perfect and lovely there in the night. The nightmares. The water tower. Obscura (whatever that was). The clouds moving around the tower. That heart- and time-stopping hum. And now Elise’s address. And like a shadow over it all, the suicides. Even now, pulling away from Elise’s house and feeling alive with that sense of mystery, a funeral was underway at a small church out in the country.

His world had become a very strange place.

Overhead, the clouds were low and leaden, pressing down on him as he drove the few minutes to his house. He thought about that, marveling over it. A few minutes. He lived only a few minutes away from her. Why couldn’t he ever remember seeing her? That unnerved him.

He went inside and went straight to bed, hoping to get a couple hours of sleep before his dad came home. His dad had told him he wanted to spend an evening with him, maybe watch a movie or something and Steven thought that sounded like fun. Even though he was around him every day, he never really felt like he was just hanging out with the man. They were each too busy being depressed.