The Language of Men (15 page)

Her moans quickened and for the first time I heard the bass of his father's voice, then silence. Normal sounds slowly broke through the blood-rush in my ears—the scratching of Mary's pencil, Josephina's singing in the driveway, the cool outside air blowing through the curtains. The bed creaked, and we ran back to the living room.

A few minutes later, his father came out of the bedroom and walked into the kitchen. He stretched in front of the refrigerator, then reached in and grabbed a can of Diet Coke. He popped the top and took a long swallow—each gulp audible in his throat. I pretended to watch TV, but I kept glancing at him. He absently flipped through Josephina's drawings, which were stuck to the freezer with magnets shaped like fruits and vegetables. He held up a family portrait: the mother in a long bathrobe with wild hair; Mary standing up straight, neat clothes, arms full of books; Billy holding a toy gun, spraying bullets in the air like a cowboy. The father in the drawing smiled in his white Camaro, three lines shooting out from the back of the car to show how fast he was going.

He put the portrait back on the freezer and finished his soda. The delicate echo of the empty can hitting the counter was followed by the papery slap of an envelope filled with money. He kissed Mary on the cheek and walked into the living room. He said goodbye to me and Billy. Then he took a quick look around the house, put his sunglasses on, and closed the door. I heard him whistle as he walked across the front lawn. Through the window, I watched him get in his car, the convertible top blossoming as he drove up the street.

Billy's mother shuffled out of the bedroom, her bathrobe never completely closed, always revealing too much. A blotchy breast, a pale veiny thigh. She seemed to sleepwalk everywhere she went—the kitchen, the backyard, the elementary school to pick up Josephina. In the evenings, Billy forced her to walk to McDonald's and get us food. Screaming and cursing, he told her to get a pen and write down our order. He said it was okay, that I could go ahead and tell her what I wanted. She knelt beside me with a pen in her hand, looking up at me with exhaustion, as if my answer could save her. I told her what I wanted.

As chaotic as Billy's house was, I didn't feel threatened. His life was so completely different from mine, so exotic and incomprehensible, in equal parts, that it seemed too far away to do any harm. I was a voyeur, an extra. I hardly said a word in his house. Even when his mother asked me if I wanted barbecue or sweet and sour sauce for my McNuggets, I would wait for Billy to answer and order the same. I couldn't imagine my brother and me sitting on the couch, telling my mother to "walk her ass down to Mickey D's" and buy us food. At my house, the food my mother cooked was ready by the time my father came home from work.

I rode my bike home from Billy's house, and as I crossed the railroad tracks, I pulled hard on my handlebars, hoping to lift my tires off the ground. I skidded to a stop in our driveway and parked my bike on the side of our house. On my way inside, I stared at my mother's garden. The finely-trimmed lawn. The blue sky shimmering in the pool—a reflected world washed clean of consequence. At the dinner table, I ate with visions of Billy's house safely tucked away inside me.

Josephina was five, but still couldn't talk. She communicated in one-syllable sounds and hand gestures. She'd point to a cheeseburger on the table and open her mouth wide, waiting for someone to feed her. She'd squeal and scream, reaching for a can of soda on the counter until someone boosted her up. When she wanted to go outside, she scratched at the door like a small dog.

With her bucket of multi-colored chalk, she drew bright worlds on the hot black driveway. Smiling yellow suns coaxed laughing purple flowers from tall magenta grass. Herds of unicorns and giraffes and dinosaurs ran together through open fields. She sang songs to herself in her own language, baby-talk much too young for her, as if there were an infant ventriloquist hiding behind her, controlling every word she said and lyric she sang.

Billy rode his bike up and down the driveway, screeching to a stop over her drawings until her worlds were blurry and his bike tires were coated with chalk. His mother and sister yelled and chased him down the driveway as he peddled just enough to stay ahead of them, laughing. I sat in the grass, the urge to stop him surging up in me, to kick Billy from his bicycle with the tip of my sneaker like a knight suddenly spearing the dragon with his sword. But I didn't. I watched Josephina stand above her world and cry, a stub of chalk in her hand.

Since Billy was younger, we never saw each other in school. I was closer in age to his sister, Mary, and sometimes I'd see her at the bus stop or in the corner of the library. If the hallway was empty, sometimes we'd wave to each other, our hands never any higher than our hips. Most of the time, we looked the other way.

My mother and I often saw Billy's mom walking in her bathrobe. Limping up a quiet side street, her face caged in black hair. Or shuffling along the white line, cars whipping by at forty miles an hour, her bathrobe undulating in heavy waves like a waterlogged cape.

"That poor woman," my mother said, her tongue clicking on the back of her teeth.

We never stopped to give her a ride. We thought about her only when we saw her and drove on.

I didn't want to associate with Billy or his family outside of his house. Inside his house, I was not myself. I was Billy's protege, his understudy, learning how to be bad. Outside, I was the polite, chubby, red-cheeked child with the permanent smile. Always polite, always got along with others. I was known for my ability to share. But inside, I longed to learn Billy's language, to understand the way he communicated with the world. Because after his mother got us our Happy Meals or fetched us another round of Cokes, I quickly forgot about the look on her face. Billy's way of communicating worked like a charm, and though he often called his mother "Bitchy" or "Fat Ass," the name that he used regularly, the one that seemed to insult her the most, was her real name: Jeanie.

Billy was the opposite of me. Outside his house, he felt vulnerable and weak. Once, I invited him on a trip to visit my grandparents. He agreed. I guess I felt comfortable with the situation because we'd be far away from home and no one would know us. My parents asked me if I wouldn't rather take another friend, someone I knew better. They didn't know as well as I did what went on in Billy's house, but they sensed something, as if a sinister soundtrack became audible as soon as Billy appeared. As my father loaded Billy's backpack into the car, he looked at me as if I might still change my mind.

"Sure you wanna bring that peckerhead with us?"

I thought about Woody Woodpecker and heard the theme song in my head.

"Yeah, Dad."

Billy didn't talk the entire trip. Not one word. Nor did I see him eat anything. When my grandmother asked him if he'd like some lasagna or a slice of meatloaf, he just shook his head and sat at the table with his head down. Though he was obviously uncomfortable, I marveled at the power he had over the table, none of us sure how to behave in his presence.

One day, Billy and I were in Mary's room. Mary was downstairs. Jeanie was asleep. Josephina sat on the edge of Mary's bed as we flipped through a dirty magazine and dialed the numbers in the back. We used Mary's telephone, the trendy kind made of clear plastic so all of the inner workings were visible. The transparent receiver blinked in Billy's hand.

"What's that?" he said. "You want to speak to Anthony? Okay. Here he is."

Billy tried handing me the phone but I ran to the other side of the room, tripping over Josephina's Twister mat. He laughed and gave the phone to Josephina instead. I picked up the cordless phone on the table and listened. A woman on the other end moaned softly, asking Josephina what she wanted. She said she wanted to please Josephina and make all her fantasies come true. "You'd like that, wouldn't you, baby?" Josephina seemed soothed by the voice, as if listening to a nursery rhyme. Billy hung up the phone and Josephina screamed, holding the phone to her ear, slapping all the buttons, trying to make the voice come back.

That was when I would leave. Josephina would scream and Billy's mom would wake up and run to her—"What? What is it? What's the matter?"—but Josephina couldn't tell her, couldn't speak her language. She'd just scream and reach out in the air for some invisible savior. I'd slip out the back door and run home.

Once, while Jeanie was out buying us McDonald's, Billy and I snooped around her bedroom. My parents' room was spotless—the alarm clocks dusted and angled toward their pillows; the bed, wrapped tightly in blankets, rested high off the ground in its wooden frame. Jeanie's room was littered with shoes and underwear, and the bare mattress lay on the floor. Someone had thumb-tacked two bed sheets over each window.

I stood in the doorway while Billy opened drawers and rummaged through Jeanie's stuff. Then he started tossing around the clothes and makeup on the floor. One part of the room was piled so high with clothes that it reminded me of the ball pit at Sesame Place.

"Come on," Billy said. "Help me look." He threw more clothes over his shoulder, then bent down and pried the mattress up off the floor.

I didn't know why Billy thought I'd be any help searching his mother's room. He seemed to know his way around. But I was glad that he invited me in. He gave me permission.

I went straight for the closet because that was where Don hid all the good stuff in his room. He had a canister of Fart Spray that didn't really smell anything like real farts—more like garbage in the sun. Jeanie didn't have any Fart Spray, just shoeboxes filled with papers and some clothes half-hung on hangers. One piece of clothing hung in a plastic zippered bag. I opened the bag and touched the soft white material.

"Got it!" Billy yelled.

I ran out of the closet and stood next to Billy. He was holding a long white box, the kind that were often filled with roses and delivered to women in offices on TV. Billy walked over to the bed. I heard something knocking against the inside of the box. I thought maybe there was a gerbil or guinea pig inside, but there were no holes in the box. Billy hummed the Star Wars theme as he held the box high above his head, flying it over the mattress. He looked over at me and grinned.

"Ejector Seat!" Something flew out of the box and hit my arm, then dropped in the blankets.

"Ow, man. What the heck was that?"

Billy reached into the blankets, taking his time, making a show of it, then held up what looked like a pink rubber sword with two ends. "Bitchy's boyfriend."

I laughed and watched Billy wrap one end of the sword in a pillow case. He held it up as if he were leading a marching band. Each time he moved his arm, the sword flopped from side to side, like some animal whose neck was too weak to support its head. Billy stood in the doorway, gave the sword a jiggle, then walked out into the hall. I heard Mary scream.

"Billy! That's disgusting. Put that back."

I ran to the kitchen and saw Billy, humming and marching around the table, holding the sword high above his head. Mary chased him and Josephina chased Mary. Josephina was giggling and holding her piece of chalk up in the air like Billy. Mary grabbed hold of Billy's shirt and shook him, hard. His collar ripped.

"Fuck off!" Billy said, then continued humming. He opened the screen door and marched onto the deck, his sisters close behind. I stood alone in the kitchen for a moment. I could do whatever I wanted, I thought. I could run back into the bedroom and look for more stuff. I could sit on the couch and watch anything I pleased. I could walk out the door right now and no one would notice.

I followed them onto the deck and saw Mary and Josephina chasing Billy around the pool. Mary quickly gave up and went back inside. Out of breath, Billy sat in a folding chair while Josephina watched him, waiting. I dragged a small plastic chair out of the sandbox and sat beside them.

"She ripped my shirt," Billy said, picking at his collar. I stared at the sword.

"What are you going to do with that?" I asked.

"This?" He launched the sword out into the grass and it hit the ground with a solid thud. Josephina jumped up and ran after it.

"Josie, leave it," Billy said. But she didn't listen. She held the sword with both arms and brought it back to Billy. "I said, leave it." Billy said, tossing it back out into the grass, but again, Josephina chased it.

"God damn it," Billy said. He stood up and walked over to Josephina and took the sword from her. "I said, no!" He flung the sword high in the air. I watched it tumble, end over end, then slap the pool's surface. Josephina ran to the side of the pool, but the railing was too high for her to see the water. She started to cry.

"Let's go," Billy said.

When we walked back into the kitchen, Jeanie was unpacking our cheeseburgers and French fries. Her forehead was sweating and she kept rolling up her sleeves, but the elastic was stretched out, so the material kept slipping down her arm. She crumpled the paper bag into a ball. When the kitchen was quiet, she heard Josephina crying.

"Where is she, Billy? What happened?"

"I don't know," Billy said, chewing. "She's outside."

Jeanie ran out to Josephina, who was still standing beside the pool. She was reaching her arms up above her head. We watched Jeanie kneel down and talk to Josephina. Jeanie picked her up and climbed the steps to the pool. She leaned over the water, then looked back at us in the kitchen. Billy asked me if I wanted ketchup, as I stared at Jeanie, extending the skimmer's long metal handle, stretching out over the water.

If I kept going there, kept watching, I felt I would somehow be responsible. Billy's life would rub off on me and people would know where I'd been, like a miner covered in soot emerging after a long shift.

But I continued to go over there. All I had to do was stay away for a little while, sometimes a day, sometimes even as little as a few hours, before I felt invincible enough to go back. The feeling was similar to when my brother took me on the roller coaster. After I had gathered up enough courage to ride it once, the next time and the time after that and the time after that were easier. I might have to sit on a bench and wait for the world to stop spinning or drink a soda to calm my stomach, but eventually I'd walk back up to the roaring, twisted metal and get in line.