Child of My Right Hand (2 page)

Simon rose each morning before six because it took him forever to get ready. First there was the long shower and for the past six months, no, almost a year, he'd been shaving his calves and forearms. Simon hated body hair. God, how he hated it. It was all Dad's fault. Simon's dad had so much chest hair—brown, black and white twined together—when he lay down, he looked like the Berber rug in the family room. Even his back grew hair. Damn, that was gross. Simon dragged one of Lizzie's purple razors across his calf as warm spray gusted down. His right leg glistened, perfectly smooth, and he moved onto his left. Did Dad care how gross he looked? No, he was conceited about his body and worked out at the university gym. He walked around the house with his shirt off and sometimes just in his boxers. When he saw Dad's body Simon would think in the high-pitched voice that wasn't really his but could be, Oh God, kill me now! for if there were two things he didn't want to be it was hairy and muscular, and it looked like he was going to be both.

He shaved every other day, legs and forearms, underarms, too, and avoided exercise. He already had these humongous legs and shoulders like Uncle Russ who'd played football in college. It was so unfair, Simon thought, moving the razor to his forearm. Why couldn't he be slender like Lizzie or Justin in *NSYNC and hairless like Peter in school. Thinking about those slender, hairless boys with sweet eyes and tipped hair, he began to get hard. Simon set down the razor. He was always getting hard, and wondered if he had time. He'd read somewhere, or maybe someone had told him, that teenage boys thought about sex eight times a minute. He wondered if that was straight or gay, and began to stroke himself. Sitting on the ledge in this shower with warm water gushing down was his favorite way to jerk off. Blood thumped in his ears. Uh-huh. Then he realized the thumping wasn't only in his head.

“Simon!” Dad beat the bathroom door. “Simon!”

He released his throbbing penis. “In the shower.”

Thump, thump, thump.

“Time to get out!”

Simon glanced at his waterproof watch. 6:22. He still had to pick his outfit, do his hair, maybe apply a little of the eyeliner he'd been experimenting with. “One minute!”

“Lizzie needs the bathroom!”

“All right!”

Feeling totally jerked around, ha-ha, Simon shampooed his hair, turned off the shower, wrapped himself in a towel and stepped into the hall where Lizzie waited, wearing the blue Winnie the Pooh sleeping shirt he'd given her for her last birthday.

“Jerk. You know how long you've been in there?”

“Use the upstairs bathroom.”

“Why don't you?”

“Someone's got PMS.”

Her eyes beamed death rays. “Asshole.”

Lizzie slammed the door. The toilet seat banged. A moment later, as he was stepping into his room carrying the clean clothes Mom had folded, the crapper door yawed and Lizzie shouted, “And don't use my razor!”

By the time he'd gotten his hair just right (gelled with short spikes), applied the black eyeliner lots of guys in his old school used, selected and rejected several outfits before settling on extra-wide jeans with green velvet patches on the cuffs and back pockets set off by a black Marilyn Manson T-shirt to which he'd added black fish-net sleeves, the bus had long since departed. That was cool. He dreaded the walk up the dark driveway, but now he had to sit in the car with Lizzie while Dad ragged on.

“I'm not a chauffeur. Or a cabby.”

“Yes, you are.”

She could say anything to Dad and get away with it.

“Cabbies and chauffeurs get paid.”

“If you'd let me get my license,” Simon said, “I could be driving us.”

“Don't start.” Dad glanced at Simon in the passenger seat, and a tendon, or whatever it was, popped on his bull neck. “Mom and I didn't keep you from driving, you did.”

“That is such crap.”

They were passing the campus. Out Dad's side, the sky behind the old trees and red brick buildings streaked pink and gold. Most students weren't awake, but runners in white shorts and t-shirts, tall and lean, short and lean, all of them, lean and buff, ran on the sidewalk.

“I like my idea about the taxi.” Dad glanced over his shoulder to smile at Lizzie. “Next time you miss the bus, it's fifty cents apiece for the ride.”

“I didn't miss it,” Lizzie shot back. “I waited because Simon missed it.”

Dad was always scheming to screw them out of what little allowance he gave them. Simon had discovered that if he ignored Dad's threats they usually went away. Talk about lack of follow through. He said, “Here's good.”

Dad pulled over across from the high school. Simon climbed out carrying his back pack and waist pack, then waited for the silver Camry to drive off. He edged past the Smokers, a group of eight or ten tough-looking kids, both sexes, who gathered each morning just off school property to burn a last butt. His wide pants swished against the sidewalk, the coolest rags anyone had ever worn to this country-ass school. He started up the driveway knowing he was being watched and enjoying the feeling. Five bells, he thought, till lunch.

***

After fourth bell, which was French—a subject he'd barely passed last year (D was for diploma, he'd tried to tell Dad, who didn't believe it; D was also for Dickhead Dad), and a subject about which he seemed to remember almost
rien
after the summer even though his mom frigging taught it—Simon was approaching the corner in the first floor corridor, walking by himself. This was the fourth week of school but he still didn't know many kids, and no one at all in French where his ignorance prevented him from speaking in class; instead he filled his notebook with elaborate pen and ink drawings. He was singing the Britney Spears hit to himself, “Whoops, I did it again,” thinking about lunch and whom he might sit with, when he turned the corner and nearly banged into three guys coming hard the other way. They were all athletic-looking, two of them over six feet (Simon was five ten), the third only five five or six but broad-shouldered with monkey forearms and a neck thick as Simon's. All three sported the bowl-cut hair Simon associated with jocks in general and football players in particular. He didn't know them, just three more faces in the country-ass sea in which he was forced to swim each day. He gave way and they looked at each other and then at him, their mouths blood red in the instant before they banged into him. Then they swept on without apologizing, calling over their shoulders, one of them did. “Die, you faggot.”

Tears leapt to his eyes from the blows to his shoulder and to his heart. Then they were gone, and he couldn't have picked them out of a line-up, just three more moonfaced jocks. Simon trembled. He'd always cried easily, but not now, please, not now. Students swirled past, talking, talking. He was the only flower in a world of boulders, the only human in a galaxy of moonfaces. Simon continued on to the lunchroom, ordered chocolate milk, a bag of chips, two slices of pizza, a large salad and sat down beside some animals he knew from chorus.

***

The fall Jack and Genna arrived, Tipton was attempting to pass a school levy. The district had tried and failed to pass levies for a decade, maybe more; during that time funding had dropped to the lowest in the region. German, Psychology, Computer Programming, Art History, all lopped like beggars' hands. Class size had inflated, even in the lowest grades. Varsity teams were pay-to-play, one hundred a sport. Tipton teachers hadn't received raises in half a decade. They were the lowest paid in the county and experienced staff who hung on were surly and resentful. Half the high school teachers were in their first or second year out of college, gaining experience before job-hunting elsewhere. There were persistent rumors that if this levy didn't pass, school buses and all sports except football would be eliminated.

During the years they'd commuted from Cincinnati, Jack and Genna hadn't paid much attention other than to advise new faculty members, as they'd been advised, that Tipton schools weren't worth spitting at. Now that they were local, Genna had persuaded Jack to join a group of faculty and staff working for the levy. It was at an orientation for TUTS, Tipton University for Tipton Schools, that he learned the background of the troubles. He was sitting in the living room of Stan Murray, who taught English. His wife, Lynn, a lecturer in the same department, had baked brownies, chewy and dense. Everyone else had left with packets of flyers and voter registration cards, except for a small, pretty blond Jack hadn't met before.

“Excuse my ignorance,” Jack began.

“Ignorance can never be excused,” said Lynn Murray, who was large, big-busted and dark-haired, with a hint of moustache.

The little blond winked, her eyes unusually blue and bright. “Except by the ignorant, who tend to embrace it.”

“Will you let Jack talk?”

Stan Murray had a sensual face. He liked to eat, he liked to drink, and his small eyes peered out over cheeks flushed with wine and his wife's baked goods.

“I understand Tipton is the largest town in the district.”

“It's the only town,” said Lynn.

“And the farmers are hard-pressed for cash.”

“And don't think their kids are going to college, so what do they care about AP classes?” Stan popped another half brownie in his mouth.

“But no levies passed in twelve years?”

“I can explain.” Short hair, stylishly cut, fringed her cheeks and prominent forehead. “By the way, I'm Marla Lindstrom.”

She extended her hand and he shook it.

“Jack Barish.”

“Until about fifteen years ago,” Marla said, smiling, “when I took this job at the age of fourteen…”

“No, twelve,” said Lynn.

“…there were two districts, one for Tipton, one for the outlying townships, but only one high school, which the districts shared.”

“How did that work?” Jack asked.

“As well as you would have expected,” said this Marla, who spoke quickly and somehow lightly, looking directly at him, “given that the Board was dominated by university interests and they've always been so good about respecting the needs of the community. Anyway, the districts merged. And though there weren't supposed to be changes, the unified board voted to close the elementary schools in Roscoe and Milton and start busing into the schools here in Tipton. Since then, Roscoe and Milton residents have voted three to one against new levies. It doesn't matter that they're hurting their own kids.” She looked straight at him, and there was an intensity in her eyes, a willingness to make connection he found thrilling, even scary. She added, “It's sad, really.”

Five minutes later, Jack was walking out to his car as Marla was walking out to hers, one of the new Beetles, metallic silver, reflecting the cool glow of the halogen street lamp.

“Thanks for the short course in Tipton history. What department are you in?”

“My nightmare ex was in English, which is how I know Stan and Lynn. I'm a guidance counselor at the high school.” She smiled, again actively sought his eyes. “That's right. It's my salary the levy will raise. One hundred fifty a month.”

Jack glanced at the silver Beetle. As if she'd read his thoughts, Marla said, “My new toy. I inherited some money.”

“I hope someone didn't have to die for it.”

“They usually do.”

“Oh,” Jack said, “maybe you've met my son Simon. He's a junior, new this year.”

“Oh yes.” Something passed across Marla's face, as if she weren't telling everything she knew. “What a sweet kid. Well, goodnight, Jack Barish.”

With a flash of slender calves, she climbed in her Beetle and sped off.

***

When Jack arrived home, the kids were downstairs watching
Charmed
. Genna was in her study, where she spent most evenings. She had also volunteered to address students, but Jack had attended orientation for both of them. He knocked and waited. After last spring, which they'd barely survived, they were still tiptoeing, not just around each other, but around the potholes and roadblocks of family life.

“Hey,” Genna said, setting down her paperback. “How was the meeting?”

“Slow. They'll set up our talks in a week or two.”

“What were the people like?”

“Earnest.” He thought of Marla, and since their new policy was to avoid potholes with honesty, he added, “This one woman was kind of interesting.”

“Oh?” Genna's face got a wary look.

“Marla Lindstrom, a guidance counselor at the high school. Said she knew Simon.”

A worry line appeared between Genna's eyebrows. “I wonder why.”

Not, I wonder why, Jack thought, but I wonder what's wrong this time. Simon's official guidance counselor was Tom O'Neill, whom they'd met when they enrolled Simon last spring and again the first week of class.

“Has he mentioned her?” Jack asked.

“I don't think so.” The wary look appeared again—a narrowing of her eyes, a slight hunching of her shoulders—and Jack felt annoyed and guilty, because he'd helped put it there.

“Did she seem nice?”

“I guess.” He turned to go, guilty again. He hadn't said Marla was pretty. “She's an old friend of the Murrays.”

***

Saturday night, Lizzie was out with new friends from her soccer team. Simon, Genna, and Jack stayed home watching the original
Father of the Bride
, starring Spencer Tracy and Elizabeth Taylor. They sat in the family room on the semicircular couch purchased from the previous owners, Simon wedged between them, his dyed hair running into the naturally blond permed curls that fell past Genna's shoulders. Mother and son looked a lot alike, Jack thought, they always had, Genna's oval face grafted onto his big frame. Although Simon weighed two hundred and thirty pounds, when he nestled his cheek on Genna's shoulder and tucked his legs up on Jack's lap, it was as if he were four years old again, just down from riding Jack's shoulders, and they were a young family watching Winnie the Pooh, with baby Lizzie tucked into her crib in the back bedroom of their California house. It felt safe and sweet as it hadn't since Jack couldn't remember when, although earlier in the evening Simon had picked a fight about some damn thing, then groused about what a drag it was to stay home with them.