YESTERDAY HAD BEEN, DECIDEDLY, A bad day. The truth was that Lincoln Balliol was not a blamer. He was too stubborn and had too much of a will to power to blame other people for the problems in his life. When you began to blame people, you might as well just give up and say you have no control anymore. And, at sixteen, while Balliol knew he didn’t have ultimate control, he was still sure he had a great deal of it.
That meant that to some extent things were his fault, to be fixed by him, even if he didn’t feel like fixing them right away, or didn’t know how. For days now his relationship with Sully had been on the fritz, and he knew what the matter was. He wouldn’t bend. He wouldn’t accommodate, he’d never lie and say, “Oh that’s nice, Sully,” when what his friend said was stupid. And Sully was the only friend he had.
It wasn’t until today, lying in Tommy’s face, that he realized how good it could feel to lie, how much power a good lie had to lighten up someone’s life. He could have lied to Sully a few times. He could have been nicer all these years. Hell, he could have been nicer yesterday.
He could have said, “Look, Sullivan, I just got invited two minutes ago, and it’s to something I really don’t want to go to. Mason begged me because he doesn’t want to go either and believe you me, you wouldn’t want to go. I’m not spiting you, which I know you think I am. I know you’re hurt, and I know that I’m mean enough to pretend that I don’t care. I’m sorry Sullivan.”
And every time he thought of picking up the phone and telling Sully that, he thought of that goddamned Sullivan Reardon, moaning about his problems to Chris Powers. Oh Chris, Chris Fucking Powers! That idiot! And he thought about him telling him “Balliol said this—Balliol did that, blah blah blah!” And it made Balliol want to push his fist through a wall. Which Balliol was far too dignified to do.
And Sullivan, running around going on about Chris Powers this, Chris Powers that...
Oh, God, yesterday had been so bad, really it had been. They had walked home together and they stayed at Sully’s house, but it was like they were far apart. They could hardly look at each other, and Balliol didn’t know how the hell to say that, or if Sully felt it. And he could not, absolutely not, be this Chris Powers, this bright light to Sullivan that Sullivan needed so badly.
Balliol sat there, in his room, absolutely at a loss for maybe the first time in his take charge, charge card life. If he’d had just twenty more seconds he could admit that he couldn’t control it all and didn’t know it all. He was just there. He was already there. It was already suggesting itself to him when he heard a car stop. Balliol looked down from his window and saw a beat up Toyota pick up.
Tommy Dwyer and Mason Darrow were here.
In the truck, Mason moved over so that Balliol could sit something like shotgun, and then all three of them were in the front of the truck, going up Metcalf.
“Is that enough room for you?” Mason asked Balliol.
Balliol put on a winning smile and said, “Ample room.”
And then he laughed.
“What?” said Tommy. “We haven’t even started the jokes yet.”
“Just...” Balliol began. But he couldn’t phrase it, or didn’t want to phrase it. So he said, “I’m not sure I know.”
“Shall we listen to some music?” Tommy began, reaching for his CDs.
“Yes, we shall,” Mason said, taking the CD out of Tommy’s hand and placing it on the floor, then turning on the radio.
“You’re listening to sunny 108.3 Cartimandua’s Christian Radio—”
“Nope,” Mason said and turned the dial until he heard:
Reflections of the way life used to be
Reflections of the love you took from me…
“Mason—” Tommy began, but Balliol was singing along too.
Mason looked at him in surprise, and then they continued.
Reflections of what used to be
Reflections of the love you took from me
They raced down Britten Street until Tommy’s truck took them onto the overpass and they were heading:
“East. No, it’s west.”
“It’s west,” Balliol said. “We’re going toward the south end of downtown, and we all live east of downtown.”
“Told you so,” Mason told Tommy.
“Yeah, but you didn’t know. Balliol had to tell you why you were right.”
“Does it matter?” Mason argued. “As long as I’m right.
“Hey, look at this,” Mason bent down as they raced over the expressway, cars going back and forth while they zoomed above Cartimandua, he pulled a photograph out of his book bag.
“Here you go.”
“Is this you?” Tommy said, trying to pay attention to the photo and the road.
“I think so,” Mason said.
“It looks a bit old fashioned, though,” Balliol said.
“Whaddo you mean?”
“I mean the hair. These boys. The white ones.”
The photo was from the chest up, against a white wall with a large wicker sun on it. Two white boys, just like Balliol said, one with very thick, very dark hair, the other with very thick, very blond hair.
“They look like the Dukes of Hazzard,” Mason said.
“Only the Dukes of Hazzard had a Confederate flag on their car and these guys are holding you up. Or I think it’s you. I don’t know who they are.” said Balliol. “But you must, cause you’re laughing.”
Balliol was quiet awhile as they passed through downtown Cartimandua, the skyscrapers rising up to the north. He smiled as he cocked his head.
“They look so happy,” he said. “Like you all would be friends forever.”
“Thanks for breakfast, Dr. Powers.”
“Um,” Mark looked away from the sink where he was scrubbing dishes.
“I said—” Sully began.
“Oh,” Mark smiled, “don’t mention that. I cook all the time. It’s a nice habit to learn, Sullivan. If you ever want to eat.”
“Do you need any help?”
“No, Sullivan, sit down and—” he suddenly turned around then said to Chris, “Why don’t you ever volunteer to do the dishes?”
Chris, sitting in the kitchen chair, sang out, “I can’t hear you!”
He wadded up a napkin and threw it at Sully who tossed it back. “You’re making me look bad.”
“Don’t you have to get dressed?” he said to Chris.
“Get dressed to roll around in the dirt with Cartimandua Central?” Chris said. “No. I think I’ll wash my face or something. That’s about it.”
“Well, I’m gonna go home and get dressed. What time is the game?”
“You’re getting dressed for the game?” Chris said.
“There’s not much else to get dressed for in Cartimandua.”
Chris weighed the truth of this and nodded before asking Sully:
“Well, are you gonna hang out with us when we have our victory burger at Tom’s after the game?”
“If there’s a victory.”
“There will be a victory,” Chris declared. “Besides,” he added, “if there isn’t, then we’ll have a consolation burger at Tom’s. How do you think Hardesty got that fat?”
Sully shrugged and said, “I’ll come if you guys want me.”
“Stop that. Of course we want you. You’ll be the only one not covered in bruises. You can even bring Balliol with you,” Chris pronounced the name in a sort of disgusted, strangled voice.
“Balliol?” Mark raised an eyebrow.
“Sully’s friend,” Chris dismissed him.
“No,” said Sully. “He went off with Tommy Dwyer and Mason Darrow for some conference out of town.”
“Mason?” Mark and Chris said together. And then Chris murmured, “Tommy Dwyer and Balliol.”
“You all know them?” But of course Chris knew Mason. “You know him?” he said to Mark.
“He’s my godson.”
“Oh,” that caught Sully up. Life was weirder and weirder.
When Sully left Chris said, “You know what? That’s a Balliol thing to do. Go off and leave Sully in the lurch. I think we should start hanging out more.”
“He makes you laugh,” Mark observed.
Chris looked at him strangely, and then he did laugh.
“Sully gets me is all. I get him and he gets me and... there aren’t a lot of people like that. You know, Dad?”
Mark nodded.
“Who’s this Balliol you hate so much?”
“I don’t hate him.” And then Chris said, “No, you know what, Dad? I do. I really do. He’s mean and he’s snarky and he’s richer than everybody so he wants to fight all the time and he treats Sully like a lap dog and...” Chris paused for a moment and then said, “God, Dad! I hate Lincoln Balliol! He’s.... he’s evil is what he is.”
“Chris.”
“I know you said I shouldn’t use the word hate. And it’s a strong word and... But that’s how I feel about him. The guy’s really the devil.”
Oh how I love Jesus
Oh how I love Jesus
Oh, how I love Jesus
Because he first loved me!
Balliol sang with Mason and Tommy.
“I haven’t sung that in so long,” Tommy told them. “It’s kind of a kid song, but it’s a good one. You know. When it’s true it’s true. I never knew you were saved, Balliol,” Tommy said.
Balliol was about to say something… Balliol when he switched tacks and said, instead, “I think you’ll find that there are a lot more saved people than you think there are, Tommy.”
Tommy stopped to consider this, and as he did, Mason hooted and pointed out the window.
They were driving past a dingy diner off of the road with a gravel parking lot filled with pickup trucks and a white plywood sign that in red letters proclaimed it THE BUTT HUTT.
“Too bad the convention isn’t there,” Balliol mused.
“Actually,” Mason said, as they turned off the road into a new a town, “chances are we’d be lynched and Tommy would be asked to join Aryan Nation.”
Balliol nodded to the likelihood of this and the town sprang up around them.
“Where are we?” Balliol said.
“Thrace.”
“How classic,” Balliol said, and then looking around at the two story buildings, the general store and the little town hall they were approaching, added, “How deceptive.”
“What church do you go to Balliol?” Tommy said. “You’re not Catholic, are you?”
“No,” Balliol pronounced, disgusted. “Saint George Anglican.”
“Oh, you’re Episcopalian. Like Mason.”
“I’m Episcopalian like me, but I see what you’re getting at. I prefer calling it Anglican though. Technically I don’t think it’s part of the Episcopal Church, and there is a difference.”
Mason elaborated.
“All Episcopal churches are Anglican, but not all Anglican churches are Episcopal. Not even in America.”
Mason and Balliol were fascinated by the multifaceted levels of their religion and Balliol went on.
“Technically we’re Anglican Catholics. So we are Catholic, but not Roman and not like a lot of Episcopal churches around here. It’s all complicated.”
“But none of it matters if you’re saved,” Tommy said as if this silenced everything. And for Tommy it did.
Balliol thought Tommy was dead wrong and a little simpleminded there, but he let it slide. To relegate the last two thousand years of Western Christendom to meaninglessness was blasphemous.
When the car pulled into the parking lot of a large church that resembled the bastard child of a Pizza Hut and a Cineplex, Balliol looked around and said, “I don’t know if I should feel more worried that everyone’s white or that everyone’s got a fish on their back and a cross around their neck.”