“It’s been a long time since it’s been just you and me,” Addison said that night in Mason’s room. “No Tommy. No Seth, no Balliol—who’s great by the way—but just us.”
“Whaddo you think of Sullivan?”
“That’s random,” Addison said. “Not that much, really. He’s okay. I suppose. But... He’ll never be with the four of us.
“There are four of us?”
“You, me, Tommy and now Balliol. It’s funny, because Seth really isn’t in our group. It’s like he’s my friend, and he’s your friend, but he’s not our friend. Balliol’s not a close friend. Not yet at least, but he fits in as part of the group. I think Sully will have to be like Seth is for me. Not even like that because I’m not sure I like the guy. There’s something funny about him.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” Mason disagreed. “I think he’s very sad. There’s something sad about him, and it sort of makes me want to reach out.”
“See. That’s the thing with you,” Addison said. “You always want to reach out and touch people and shit.”
“Is there anything wrong with that?”
Addison flashed him a grin. It was a proud grin. “No,” he said.
“But I don’t think Sully wants anyone to reach out and touch him.”
“Yeah,” Mason agreed, “I don’t think so either. So I’m not going to worry too much about that.”
“I need to tell you something,” Addison tried to sound light, but Mason picked up.
“All right?” he said, cautious.
“I felt like Matt Mercurio. All the stuff he said in the bathroom today. I felt like it was my fault that Andy died, and all that stuff happened.”
“How?” Mason’s laugh was bitter.
“Because the way that Matt.… didn’t let himself be nice, or kind—”
“You’re always nice.”
“Hold up. Listen, already.”
“Okay,” said Mason.
“The way he didn’t do that... I didn’t let myself… stand up. I didn’t protect life. And so...”
Mason sat there, waiting for Addison to continue. Finally he said:
“Addison, I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”
“The day after Christmas, Tuesday, Becky went to Ogden for an abortion.”
“Oh,” Mason said, simply.
“You don’t have to pretend not to be shocked. You see I was so shocked I couldn’t even say anything.”
“She didn’t tell you.”
“No, she told me Mason. But I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t tell her to stop.”
He looked at Mason’s face, but Mason wasn’t going to reveal anything. He was too good.
“Mason,” Addison said, drumming his fingertips on his knee. “We were careful. We were so goddamned careful. We didn’t plan on this, and I was scared. I just thought... I cannot have a kid. So when Becky said she would take care of it, I was just like, okay.”
Mason let out a deep breath and said, “Okay.”
“Mason, I really need you not to tell anyone else. Especially Tommy.”
“God, not Tommy!”
“I shouldn’t have told you,” Addison said.
“No,” Mason said numbly. “You should have.”
Addison shook his head. “You’re no different from Tommy. I mean, Tommy’s trying to be who you are. Yes, Mason, he is. I know how you feel about stuff. I know how I thought I felt. I’m not... I don’t know what I’d do if I could do it over again, but it’s done and I would have felt like I was lying to you if you didn’t know.”
“But you kept it from me for over a month.”
“I thought I could.”
“So why’d you tell me and not Tommy? Or Seth?”
“Seth wouldn’t understand that this hurts,” Addison said suddenly. “And I don’t think he’d get that....” Addison opened his mouth wide and stopped talking. “And I don’t feel I have to. And Tommy’s weak.”
“I’m weak too.”
“Maybe, but you can make yourself stronger.”
Mason stood up and shook his head.
“Why don’t you tell me how you feel?” Addison said.
“If you’re ready to be stronger?” said Mason.
Addison nodded.
“It was wrong, Add. I don’t care who says what or how people vote it was wrong. It was your kid.”
“I know,” Addison said. “And I know.”
“And I don’t. I feel... weird knowing. I feel like I’m not strong enough, but you want me to be.”
Addison looked at him and then at his bare feet.
“I sort of need you to be.”
Mason nodded and came to him.
“I know that.”
They sat together, quiet for a while, and then Mason put his arm over Addison’s shoulder and squeezed him. Addison was a few months older and several inches taller, but right now Mason felt like he was the older one, and the stronger one. Addison’s shoulder blades stuck out, his back was so thin.
“You are my best fiend,” he told Addison. “That’s always the truth.”
That night Matt used Hardesty’s car. He drove down to Eastgate and parked on the corner of Harris and Meriwether. This was the street where, come summer, the trees would be heavy with leaves and the honey sick smell that his parents called “outside,” would suffuse the air.
Why was he thinking of summer now, when Lent was days away and everything was cold and bare? He walked down the old houses that had short yards and old thick trees, and cracked asphalt streets, not like his neighborhood where all the McMansions were built on long lawns. Everything was flat there. Nothing was flat here. Everything was dense. You couldn’t look for ten feet without a fence or a tree or a brick wall of an old house obstructing you. It was almost cozy, almost like burrowing through tunnels.
Suzie lived in the brick house with the little brass lanterns and the green shutters. She moved there when they were in sixth grade at Saint Pius. He’d always known her. He wasn’t very good with flirting with girls. He’d tried it, he was nice to them. They liked him. Matt Mercurio supposed he was good looking enough. But Suzie was his trusted friend. Things had happened between them slowly and, one day, to both of their surprises, but not to their parents’, they were girlfriend and boyfriend.
He went around the side of the old brick colonial. He walked right past the curtained living room where the light was still on but he knew her parents were in bed. They did it to keep the burglars away. What if a burglar climbed up through the window though? What if a burglar did exactly what he did and propped that old ladder Mrs. Mayer never put away, but always kept in that tangled, dirty part of yard. And what if they climbed up the wall like Matt did, and tapped on the window?
The light went on. She smiled. He loved her smile. She lifted the window and he climbed in. The first time he’d done this, he had sang, Repunzel, Repunzel! He only sang in front of Suzie and not because his voice was bad. It was actually good.
He didn’t sing often though, and he hadn’t sang in awhile. Her smile was guarded. She was worried. She was always worried. As he climbed into the window she cupped his face in her hands.
“I’m all right,” he told her, a little petulantly.
She hugged him. He bent down to hug her. For a long time his face on her shoulder, holding her. He kissed her.
And then he took of his jacket, and she helped him with his sweater. And then he took off his undershirt and his shoes and his jeans, and crawled into bed. She looked at him. He looked like he could use protection, though he wouldn’t ask for it. He was still so young. They both were. Suzie turned out the light and climbed into bed. It felt good to have him hold her. One day they’d get married. It would be just like a storybook. They were high school sweethearts, Catholic school sweethearts. She loved him so much. He snored. He slept well, He only slept here well. He had bad dreams. They woke her up sometimes, like bad waves on the water. Then they were gone.
When morning comes it’s just like the surprise they were in last winter when the line was crossed. The line was crossed and they knew it when it was happening. They were glad to leave that old country. This morning she is on her back to receive him surprised always by how he kisses her chin and under her chin and sucks her throat and presses her down under the heavy warmth, the encompassing warmth of the body that seems so thin to her sometimes. They kiss like that for a long time before they turn around and around and rise out of the sheets and Matt puts a hand in her mouth to keep her quiet, to keep her parents from hearing and knocking on the door. They turn around again and she takes him. It surprised them both the first time she did that, placed her hands on his chest and took him and took him and now he has to keep quiet. His hands go up her torso to her breasts in wonder. The nipples sit between his thumb and forefinger as he holds them in glory and then his hands travel down her sides again. His head is buried in the pillows as he gives to her what she takes. Take, take, take. All the warmth. All the heat.
So much has been taken away, so much has been killed before it got to live. There has been so much sadness and frozenness this winter. Please, please God, for this moment for this morning before he gets dressed and climbs out the window and goes home and gets dressed again for school, for this moment, the heat.
He pulls her down and starts to fuck her, listens to her cries, her hands in his curls, on his scalp. A few days ago—push, push, push—a few days ago someone pumped a gun in him, pumped it through the school and delivered death. No cure for death, no remedy for that.
Inside of him is life. Buried down there, in his body, nestled safely in a bag he hides away in his pants, life. And they groan. They both groan together and release their holds. Matt hears himself cry and his body spasms as life rushes hot and fluid from him.