As Simple as Snow (21 page)

“Completely self-taught,” my father said. “Never turned pro. He was a lawyer, a practicing lawyer, and he could golf like that. Look at him. It’s a completely natural swing. No one could play like that. You couldn’t teach somebody to play like that, you wouldn’t want to, but it worked for him. He was maybe the greatest golfer of all time, and he died a gruesome, painful death. Some rare disease that destroyed his central nervous system.”

My father was talking more to himself than to me. He drifted off into silence and we both watched the black-and-white images of Bobby Jones as he demonstrated his technique on how to get out of a sand trap. There was no editing, no second takes, just one long shot of him placing the ball near the pin time after time. There was something calming about watching him controlling the ball so easily in his shirt and tie. I sank back into the chair and felt my body relax for the first time in days. I could have gone to sleep. I looked over at my father, who had turned his head away from me slightly. He was crying. I wanted to say something, but I sat there and in a few minutes I was fast asleep.

 

 

 

On Friday there was a dance at school. I had no interest in going, but Carl talked me into it. “What are you going to do,” he said, “sit around at home by yourself and mope? You can do that any night.” His mother would drive us, he said.

She sat in the car and honked the horn when they arrived. Carl came and knocked on the door and said hello to my parents. They talked for a few minutes while Carl’s mom kept honking the horn.

The gym was decorated with red and white hearts and streamers. At least the place was dark so you couldn’t see how horrible everything really looked. There was a dj at one end of the basketball court, a concession stand at the other. In between, everyone was dancing. I had no intention of doing that.

Carl, of course, had his own reasons for going. A dance was always good business. But that night there were more chaperones than usual. Mrs. Crenshaw, who taught algebra, was stationed by one of the exits, where she kept track of who was leaving, or trying to leave. Carl discovered that you had to have a good reason to leave. “I thought she was going to follow me,” he said. “Going out to get some air” proved to be an excuse that she wasn’t buying. Mr. Davies, the history teacher, was stationed near the boys’ bathroom, making it impossible for Carl to conduct his transactions there. And Mr. Devon and Mrs. Wyrick wandered around the gym, along with Mr. Vorhees, the principal. Suddenly Carl’s job was more difficult. “This has to be your fault,” he told me.

“Suicide watch?” I said. “Or Columbine?”

“Either. Just don’t make any sudden moves.” He wandered off among the crowd, talking to almost everyone he passed. He was like a politician, shaking hands and nodding, smiling at everyone. I could almost hear him saying, “I’m counting on your vote.”

Mr. Devon came over by me. “It’s good to see you.”

“Thanks.”

“I think Mrs. Crenshaw is going to ask you for a dance,” he said. Mrs. Crenshaw was about ninety years old.

“Only slow dances,” I said.

“I’ll be sure to tell her.”

“Don’t make me spend the whole night hiding under the bleachers, Mr. Devon.” He nodded and we were silent for a while.

“How’s your hand?”

“Good,” I said. “Like brand-new.”

“That’s great. I expect to see you ready for baseball this spring, then.”

“Sure,” I said.

Mr. Devon stood there a few minutes more, then excused himself. “If you need anything,” he said, “anything at all, just ask me. All right?”

“Thanks, Mr. Devon.” He reached out and patted the back of my head with his hand. I watched him walk toward one of the exit doors and stop and talk to Carl. They walked past Mrs. Crenshaw and went outside. As I waited for them to come back, I saw Claire come through the doorway.

“I called your house and they said you’d come here,” she said.

“I hadn’t planned on coming, but Carl talked me into it. I’m sorry I didn’t call.” Actually, it hadn’t occurred to me. I thought that she would be with the rest of her friends. I didn’t really think that my relationship with her would continue. “Is anyone else coming?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “We didn’t talk about it. I was like you—I hadn’t planned on showing up.”

Carl came back, and the three of us went and got some soda and stood around and watched people dance. Almost everyone was on the dance floor, and almost all the girls tried to get Carl to join them. He politely declined.

A slow song started and the dance floor emptied except for couples. Claire turned to me and said, “Come on.” She led me onto the basketball court and leaned into me, and we swayed in a little circle.

It was the first physical contact I’d had with anyone since the night before Anna’s disappearance, and it caused a sudden rush of feelings. I was nervous and embarrassed. I thought people might be staring at us, but I didn’t want it to end. It was relief; I knew things were going to get better. We continued to move with our small steps, circling around each other. My mind drifted there in the dark, a pleasant, drunk dream, with the soft lights swirling across the ceiling, the other couples’ shadows swaying in time with the music. I didn’t even look at Claire, I just tried to imagine that it was Anna, that she and I were dancing together. We had never danced together. Then I realized that Claire was crying. She wasn’t making any noise, but I could feel her tremble, and feel her tears dropping on the back of my shirt and soaking through to my skin. She lifted her face to mine and I felt the tears on her cheeks. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“It’s all right.” I held her tighter, and before I knew it I had started to cry. We kept swaying to the music, holding each other and weeping. When the song was over, she hurried to the restroom, and I tried to find Carl.

“What were you guys doing out there?” he said.

“What did it look like?”

“It looked intense.”

“She just started crying, and that got me started. Did everybody notice?”

“I don’t think they thought you were crying,” he said.

“That’s fucked up.”

“It’s a hard time for everybody,” he said.

Claire came back. “Did I make a spectacle of myself ?”

“Carl seems to think that we’re the talk of the night.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“What did you say?”

“It’s too goddamn dark in here,” he said. “Who knows what’s going on?”

“You’re making less and less sense,” I said.

“I’m having a bad night. This was a bad idea. Why did you drag me here, anyway?” He wandered off.

“I’m really sorry,” Claire said.

“There’s nothing to be sorry about.”

“Is everybody really talking?”

“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. There’s nothing we can do about it. You could do nothing, and people would still talk. This was a bad idea. I’m going home.” I went to the coat check and got my coat and started to leave. Mr. Devon caught up with me.

“Mrs. Crenshaw’s going to be really disappointed,” he said.

“Tell her maybe next year.”

“Hey,” he said, “I’m going into the city tomorrow for an art exhibition. I was wondering if you wanted to go with me.”

“Sure.”

“You can bring someone if you like. Maybe Claire would like to come?”

“Yeah, maybe. I’ll talk to her about it.”

“Great. I’ll be by about ten to pick you up.”

a step away from them

The next morning Mr. Devon tapped the horn on his pickup and waited for me. It was freezing cold outside, and maybe colder in the truck. I could see my breath forming clouds that drifted away from my mouth and nose. “I think there’s some warm air coming out,” Mr. Devon said, waving a gloved hand in front of the air vents. It felt like he had the air conditioning on. I wasn’t prepared for this. I had on a pair of khakis and a black turtleneck; and not even my warmest coat. I was shivering and tried to scrunch my head down into the warmth of my scarf.

“Is anyone else coming?”

“Just us,” I said.

“That’s too bad. At least it would be warmer. Instead, you’ll have to try this trick. Do a math problem in your head, you won’t feel as cold.”

“Are you serious?”

“It’s true. The area of your brain that registers cold is also responsible for solving mathematical problems. So if you give it a math problem to work on, it’ll get distracted from the cold problem.”

I tried it. I stopped shivering, but I was still cold. Mr. Devon looked over at me and laughed. “Don’t worry,” he said. “We’ll take the train. My treat.”

 

 

 

Mr. Devon sat across from me on the train. He was wearing brown corduroys and a heavy blue denim shirt. His black leather jacket was unzipped and a navy blazer edged from under it. A camera hung around his neck. He reached into his backpack and pulled out a thermos. “Do you drink coffee?”

I nodded and he poured me a cup. I took off my gloves to get the warmth from the plastic cup. “I don’t think I’m ever going to be warm again,” I said.

“Just wait until the ride home,” he said. “We might have to set the dashboard on fire.”

I had a book, a biography of Houdini that Anna had given me, and my CD player in my backpack, but Mr. Devon talked most of the trip.

“What did I tell you about the show?” he said.

“Not much.”

“Well, did I tell you that some of my work is in it?”

“No,” I said.

“Nothing to get excited about, but I’ve got a few pieces. It’s a group of us who have known each other for a while, and we periodically rent a space and exhibit some work and try to sell it. There’s some good stuff there, some stuff you will like. Not mine, I mean some of the others’. There’s also a theme to this show, which I thought you might get a kick out of. It’s called
A Step Away from Them
, and every piece has to be based on or influenced by another work.”

“What works did you use?”

“You’ll have to figure that out for yourself,” he said. “I just hope that you like it. I hope it’s not a waste of a Saturday for you.”

“I didn’t have anything planned.”

“I imagine it’s been tough.”

“It’s been tough,” I said.

“Have they been good about getting you information?”

“I guess,” I said. “I’m not so sure there is any information.”

“I haven’t heard anything,” Mr. Devon said. “Everybody’s hoping for the best, though.” I nodded. “I’m not going to say that I know exactly what you’re going through, but I know a little about it. I lost a girlfriend myself.”

“How was that?”

“A fire,” he said. “She fell asleep on the couch, with a lit cigarette in her hand. I was asleep upstairs.” He lifted his left foot onto the seat and rolled his pants leg to his knee. A pinkish-white scar ran up the front of his leg, from below his sock to above his knee. “It’s sort of how I came to teach here. After it happened I just wanted to get away for a while.” He pushed his pants leg back down to his boot and put his foot back on the floor.

“I’m sorry about that, Mr. Devon. I didn’t know.”

“Not too many people do. It’s not something I want too many people to know about, if you know what I mean. Anyway, as I said, that was part of the reason that I came here, to try and . . . not forget—that isn’t the right word—but move on a little, put some distance between us.”

I nodded and we lapsed into silence.

 

 

 

We walked out of the train station and into the bright, cold noon light. We made our way to the exhibition space. I guess I expected the place to be a museum, with clean white walls and guards standing around watching to make sure you didn’t touch anything. I expected the quiet and sterility you would find in a hospital. This was nothing like that. As you walked in off the street, there was one large room with a couple of old couches haphazardly placed near the center. A short hallway on the left led to a room that was being used as a theater—a few rows of folding chairs, and even a few armchairs, which looked as if they had been saved from the dump. A staircase in a corner of the main room led down to another, smaller room. We put our coats in an office near the staircase. There were about twenty people in the studio when we arrived; they were sitting on the couches or standing, smoking and drinking coffee or beer.

Mr. Devon introduced me to the five other artists who were exhibiting. They were all younger than he, guys just out of college, and they all looked deliberately unkempt. Their clothes had holes, and one guy had duct tape holding his worn-out army boots together. A few of them had scraggly goatees, and all of them had filthy hands, stained with paint and tobacco and who knows what else. They seemed nice enough, but after meeting them I hoped that I wouldn’t have to talk to them again, at least not about their art.

Most of it looked worse than the stuff we did in Mr. Devon’s class, and only a few pieces were better than the things Anna had sent to me. A few I liked, though. There was a smashed boat in the middle of the room, between the two couches. Its splintered planks stuck up from the floor like a broken rib cage, and each board was painted with a different scene, like a marauding band of Indians or the starry night sky, or with lines from a poem. The piece was called
Le Bateau Ivre.
“It means ‘The Drunken Boat,’” Mr. Devon told me. “That’s a poem by Rimbaud. Do you know Rimbaud?”

“I know who he is,” I said, “but I don’t know that poem.”

“Well, there it is,” Mr. Devon said, nodding at the wreck on the floor.

The rest of the exhibit wasn’t really worth commenting on, except for his stuff, which was the best in the room. He had a series of black-and-white photographs, disturbing pictures of bare, burned backs and shoulders and arms. They were obviously women in the photographs, except one that showed a naked couple embracing, just their shoulders and arms, blistered and scarred. I didn’t say anything. Mr. Devon explained that the photographs referred to a movie,
Hiroshima Mon Amour.