The Woman Who Married a Cloud: The Collected Short Stories (35 page)

“Finally someone pulled him off and, like a minute or two later, we were all walking into the exam room for the test! Can you imagine? I had my handkerchief on my mouth, trying to keep the blood from getting all over me, but there was a lot.

“I sat down at my assigned seat and saw the exam paper, facedown on the desk. Remember that? Remember how the proctor’d say ‘Do not turn the test over until you are told’? The good old days.

“Sitting there, looking down, the first drops of blood started falling. Bloop, bloop, bloop. Right on my test. I looked at my handkerchief and saw one red mess. But there was nothing I could do, so I shifted it to a dry side and put it back against my mouth. We were told to begin. For the next few minutes I was busy trying to clear my head enough to concentrate.
And
the pain had begun.
And
I had to keep shifting the handkerchief to drier sides. Bloop, bloop, bloop.

“I was so busy trying to do all these things that, when someone sat down in the chair next to mine, I didn’t pay attention.

“ ‘Hey, what happened to you?’

“It was Clinton, who’d decided to show up for the test fifteen minutes late.

“ ‘Nothing.’ I waved it away like it wasn’t important. But I waved with my handkerchief and it was so full that some of the blood flew off and landed on his desk. He looked at the drops for a long time. And you know what? I was afraid. I knew he’d never do anything to me, but I was afraid, Ingram.

“Alan Piko was sitting behind us and said, ‘He and Anthony got in a fight and Fanelli hit him in the balls.’

“Clinton asked Piko how the fight started and heard about the coat hanger, the head lock, the punch in the balls, the punch in the mouth. Everything whispered—hiss-hiss-hiss.

“ ‘In the balls? He hit you in the fucking
balls
?” Clinton shouted the last word and the whole cafeteria looked up. I looked down. I was out of it. I wasn’t saying anything.

“ ‘Fanelli, you greaseball shit! You hit him in the fuckin’ nuts!’

“The next thing I knew, he was up out of his chair. Within a second he had it over his head and heaved the chair across the room in Anthony’s direction. It hit Tom Kates instead. Kates yelled, but no one paid attention because Clinton was already running for Anthony. Think of the room in a ‘U’ shape. We were in the middle of one of the verticals, Anthony at the top of the other. Luckily for him, because Clinton had to zig-zag to get to him. Anthony faked left and right, then blew for the door. Mrs Sellars was shouting, Clinton was shouting ... It was bedlam.

“Anthony made it to the door a few steps ahead of Clinton. The two of them shot out of the room like Ferraris. We heard Anthony shouting in the hall ‘Leave me alone, Deix, you creep! Stay away from me!’ His voice was loud, but had a scared falsetto in it I’d never heard before. I almost pitied him. Some kids got up and started for the door, but the teacher kept saying ‘Sit down and do your tests!’ ”

Michael took a deep breath and rolled his head as if there were a cramp in his neck.

“Did he catch him?”

He was in the middle of another neck-roll when I asked that. He stopped and looked at me. “Yes, he caught him. Caught him and killed him.”

“
What?
What do you mean?”

“He shot him in the back. As soon as they got out of the school building, Clinton pulled out a gun and shot Anthony four times in the back and head. Then he ran away and no one ever saw him again. Except me. And now you.”

“I knew a woman who said she was in love with a man but whenever they held hands, she wouldn’t take off her gloves. I knew a man who said he loved to travel to wild, dangerous places, but whenever he’d go, it was via expensive tours that guaranteed strong Jeeps and hotel rooms high enough in the tree-tops so one didn’t have to worry about the warm breath of lions.”

“What are you saying?”

Mrs Blackwell looked over indignantly. She pointed her elegant nostrils at me and said, “If you’d allow me to finish, Mr York, you would know what I’m saying in a moment.

“One must trust ghosts because they have no reason to lie. With human beings, there is always a periphery; ulterior motives abound. The dead aren’t interested in promotions or a nine per cent return on their investments—”

“Ingram—” The door opened and my producer stuck his head in. I do the interviews for prospective guests on the show and was delighted to have a break from Mrs Blackwell’s pontifications.

“What’s up, Arthur?”

“There’s a kid outside says he has to see you. Life or death.” He shrugged.

“What does he look like?”

“About sixteen, brown hair, tall ... Nothing special.”

“Wearing a football jersey?”

“Yes, that’s him.”

I got up and went for the door. “Where is he?”

“At reception.”

“I’ll be back, Mrs Blackwell.”

What was I expecting? I had no idea. Walking along the corridor to the reception desk, I was nervous and intrigued. All the things Michael had told me about Clinton Deix were focused into one point a few feet away.

The boy sat with hands on knees, like a patient waiting in a doctor’s office. The expression on his face was bored. This one had smeared shit on my walls? He looked more like a kid who served cheeseburgers at McDonald’s, or came to the door in a winter snow to ask if he could shovel your walk. When he saw me he jumped up and put out a hand. His face was suddenly all eagerness and warmth. “Mr York?”

We shook. He held on longer than I.

“Yes. You’re Clinton Deix?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What do you want?” As soon as we stopped shaking hands, I crossed my arms.

“I’d like it if you’d come with me for a couple of hours.”

“That’s not possible—I’m in the middle of work.”

“I know, but this is very important.”

“Why?”

“Because I know Michael Billa’s been lying to you and it’s dangerous if you keep believing him.”

My arms remained crossed. “He’d probably say the same thing about you.”

Grimacing, he looked around the reception area. “Can we at least go outside and talk? Please? At least do that.”

It was hot and sunny in the parking lot behind the radio station. There were only a few cars and my motorcycle there. I went over to it and climbing on, sat down. “Did you slash my tyres?”

He shook his head. “No! Did Michael tell you that? I didn’t. That’s what we’ve got to talk about.”

“Go on.”

There was nowhere to sit, so he squatted down with his arms around his bent knees. “Listen, I am Clinton and I am fifteen. I’m sure he’s told you that, but the whole thing’s different from what he says. He’s been telling you
bullshit.
He did it before, I swear to God. I swear to God.”

“What’s bullshit?”

His arms clenched around my waist as I geared the motorcycle down and went into a curve. We were in Beverly Hills looking for an address on Walden Drive. What Clinton had told me in the parking lot had been sufficiently convincing and sinister for me to cut out of work in the middle of the day and take Deix, living time warp, onto the back of my Honda to go looking for a piece of my own past.

He said she lived on Walden Drive, was married to a rich man and had three children. Her name was Blair Dowling and she was the only woman I’d ever loved. But all that was back in high school where I spent my senior year learning, among other things, that I was gay. We’d broken up by the time graduation came around, but Blair was a witty and smart woman who I knew even then would get a good grip on the world and go on to live an intriguing life. After a few years I lost touch with her. The last thing I’d heard, she was a lawyer somewhere in New York.

What did Blair Dowling have to do with Clinton Deix and Michael Billa?

“I can’t tell you—you have to see and feel it for yourself. Then I can explain it better. She’s living in Beverly Hills. She knows we’re coming.”

The house was massive stone, half hidden by vines and flowers and kitsch statues that stood watch in the driveway. Houses like this always made me think that whoever owned them had ripped a photo out of some
House and Garden
magazine, gone to a builder and said, “Make me this. No matter what it costs, I want to live in this magazine house.”

I wanted to see Blair after twenty years. I wanted to know what she had to do with Clinton Deix. When I asked how he knew about my connection with her, the boy told me he’d started looking for someone important to me as soon as he knew there was a friendship blooming between Michael and me. He said he’d tried other ways before, but none was as convincing as this.

“What has Michael done ‘before’ that you’re so worried about, Clinton?”

He looked at me, squinting. “He wants you to kill me. He keeps trying to find someone to kill me because he can’t do it himself. Doesn’t have the power.”

“Why not?”

“Because he’s only the one who froze me. He can’t do anything else.”

I rang the doorbell. No one answered. I was about to go away, but Clinton rang it again and said he knew she was home. A moment later the big door opened and there was Blair Dowling.

She looked ten pounds heavier but it made her prettier. Her hair was also much shorter; the cut of a no-nonsense, athletic woman who plays a lot of tennis at the club and drives around with kids and big dogs in the back of a station wagon. At first she was startled, then seemed glad to see me. But not
that
glad, from the subsequent expressions on her face.

We all want to know what the charter members of our heart do with their lives. But the danger in finding out about them is that rarely have these significant people gone the way you expected, or the way they wanted. That’s not to say their lives are failed or sad detours, but after a while of looking and listening to them recount what’s happened, you know they didn’t “do” it; neither in their eyes nor yours. No matter whether they won prizes or lost all their money: what they sincerely wanted from the world, or promised themselves, just didn’t happen—or worse, they weren’t able to make materialize. Meet someone after half a lifetime and these signs of diminished hope or defeat are written across them like airplane vapour trails on a blue sky. Blair’s life was pleasant enough, but the wealth and the kids and the love of an appealing, prominent man weren’t enough. Particularly not enough for the teenage self who, I realized that day, lives on in every one of us and is too often dismayed—and then so unjustly angry—that we haven’t lived up to the dreams
it
created so many years ago. Yes, our fifteen-year-old self is the harshest critic. All the things it thought we were capable of when it was in charge. All the obstacles it
knew
we’d have the power to overcome. The words “safe” and “cliché” would never be part of our vocabulary. We were too special, too strong. That young self was ready to be angry and thorough as a vacuum cleaner over the rest of our days.

And although we’ve grown to smile at (or scorn) the part of ourselves that thought bell-bottom pants were cool and we were capable of licking the world, something of that young soul lives on and watches, like a child ashamed of its parents. Only we are our own parents, our own child. No one gets left behind; every part of us sits in judgement of the other.

We spent an hour with Blair. After thirty minutes I wanted to leave. She had become a very genial, very capable, dull woman. If we’d met as strangers at a party, we’d have had little to say to each other. As it was, once we’d slid down the slide of our reminiscences, there was no way of climbing back up and taking the ride again. So-and-so was married, so-and-so ran a business ... So what? These people and their lives had been important to us once, but they were meaningless now.

I suppose Blair took Clinton to be a member of my family because although pleasant enough, she said almost nothing to him the whole time we three were together. Later I realized it wasn’t that so much as a talent the boy had for making himself almost invisible when he chose. It was eerie to walk into a store with him, for example, and have the sales person look at and address only me.

Although dismayed, I wasn’t sorry to have met with Blair. By the time we were leaving, however, I was giving Clinton long looks, silently asking why seeing her had been so important.

At the front door after brushing cheeks goodbye, Blair put her hand on my shoulder and said, “Ingram, I’m sorry about what happened to your friend, but I’ve got to tell you you
look
wonderful. It’s hard to explain, but ever since you came in I’ve been marvelling at how alive and vital you seem. I don’t have that so much. I love my family and my life, but you seem to be ...
in
love with yours. Know what I mean? Like you’re having a wonderful affair and are just beaming out all kinds of great energy. And hope! I envy you, Ingram. You’re very lucky. So few people I know like their lives. They just live them and wait for what’s coming next. You can’t get enough of yours!”

I drove to the nearest restaurant and sat Clinton Deix down across from me. Before I had a chance to give him the third degree, he lit a cigarette and smiled widely, at ease with the world: looking like he’d just proven everything.

“What was that all about?”

He sat forward. “Didn’t you hear what she said about how you look? It’s what I’ve been saying! Billa found you now, when you’re at your moment. It’s here,
right now
you’re at the top! When it happened to me, I was in high school. That fucker knows exactly when it comes to you.”

“Start again. Tell it simply, Clinton.”

I felt the weight of his frustration across the table. How could I not understand when it was so simple?

My body felt as if it were charged with electricity which made my skin tingle. What he was about to say would change everything. He put his hand in his pocket and brought out a sea shell the size of a small coin. I remember Michael saying Fanelli always carried intriguing things in his pocket when they were young.

He offered the shell to me. “Look familiar?”

I took it, rolled it in my hand, passed it back. “No.”