City Light Page 5

  “Joanne,” I said, “did you take the mail in?”

  There was a hiss and Joanne blew gently on the joined part. “Told you no, George.”

  “Why not?”

  “There’s never anything for me.”

  “You didn’t see the mail?”

  “George! Negative.”

  I went upstairs and checked the mailbox again. Still empty. I didn’t feel like eating. I called Troy. No answer. I went up to Joanne’s room. Then I couldn’t remember what I’d come up for. There was a bluish glow coming from her terminal. Joanne had left her computer on. After a while, I sat down and began playing with the keyboard. “UNDERSTOOD,” I wrote. “I FEL BLAH. ALSOO BLAH BLEAGHH BLAHGH. AND BLAAAH BLAAUH BLAH BLAFLH BLAH.”

  I must have hit a key or a combination of keys. Things began to happen. Red lights blinked, the machine whirred. Words—not mine—appeared on the screen. “HOW DO YOU SPELL BLAA, ANYWAY? BLAH? OR BLAAGHH? OR BLAAAAAAAAAAH?”

  “BLAH,” I wrote. “AS IN THTS NICE END BLUGH.” I was typing fast. “BLAAAAAAAAAAAH.” I leaned on the Repeat key for that one. “MY SISTOR IS A COMPOTER NUT. WHT ABOUT YOURZ?”

  “WHERE’D YOU LEARN TO SPELL?”

  “I’M IN-TOO-ITIV. VOHCABULARRY BETTER THAN MY SPELL SKILLS.”

  “IN-TOO-ITIV, KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT ME?”

  “YOU LIKE COMPUTERS,” I tapped out.

  “HO-HUM.”

  “MAYBE THAT WAS A LITTLE OBVIOUS.”

  “FOR AN INTUITIVE, YES.”

  To redeem myself I keyed in, “YOUR SISTER PLAYS THE PIANO AND SINGS.” Wild guess. Very wild. He tapped back one word.

  “WRONG.”

  “MY IN-TOO-ISHIN MUST HAVE SLIPPED. YOU PLAY PIANO AND SHE PLAYS A FLUTE.”

  “WRONG.”

  “YOU PLAY A FLUTE?”

  “NO, A TIN WHISTLE.”

  “CLOSE. CLOSE. THEN YOUR SISTER IS A TUBA PLAYER.”

  “I WISH MY SISTER DID PLAY THE TUBA, ONLY I DON’T HAVE A SISTER. I HAVE 2 BROTHERS.”

  “YOU SHOULD HAVE A SISTER. EVERYBODY SHOULD HAVE A SISTER. DO YOU KNOW JOANNE?”

  “WHO’S JOANNE?”

  “THIS IS JOANNE’S COMPUTER. YOU’RE NOT ONE OF HER FRIENDS?”

  “NOT ME.”

  “THIS IS A REE-DICK-U-LUS KON-VER-SAY-SHUN. WHAT’S YOUR NAME?”

  “CALL ME ICEBOX. WHO ARE YOU?”

  “CALL ME TOMBSTONE. WANT TO TALK DEATH AND DESOLATION?”

  “YOU FEEL THAT BAD?”

  Briefly I thought of Julie’s letter. “I MAY FEEL WORSE SOON.”

  “DO YOU FEEL BAD A LOT?”

  “NOT THAT OFTEN, ICEBOX. HOW ABOUT YOU?”

  “SOMETIMES. I RECOMMEND LONG WALKS, LONG, HOT SHOWERS.”

  “NOT COLD SHOWERS?”

  “THAT, TOO, AT THE RIGHT MOMENTS. ALSO, TALKING TO A FRIEND HELPS. IF YOU HAVE ONE. RIGHT NOW, I DON’T.”

  “I THOUGHT I HAD A FRIEND, ICEBOX. BUT SHE WON’T TALK TO ME TODAY. OR YESTERDAY, EITHER.”

  “WHAT’D YOU DO?”

  “WISH I KNEW. SHE WROTE ME A LETTER. SAYS AFTER I READ HER LETTER I CAN TALK TO HER.”

  “UH-OH.”

  “EXACTLY, ICEBOX. UH-OH … IS YOUR NAME REALLY ICEBOX?”

  “IS YOUR NAME REALLY TOMBSTONE?”

  “NO, IT’S BEAUTY PARLOR.”

  “AND MINE IS TOP HAT. WHERE’D YOU GET THAT NAME? DO YOU WORK IN A BEAUTY PARLOR?”

  “YOU MIGHT SAY I ALMOST OWN ONE.”

  “OWN YOUR OWN BUSINESS? ME, TOO, IN A MANNER OF SPEAKING.”

  Just then, Joanne came in. “Out, George. I want my room.”

  “GOTTA GO, TOP HAT. TALK TO YOU AGAIN. SIGNING OFF NOW.”

  “OK, THAT’S KOOL.”

  I got up from the computer. “It’s all yours, Joanne.”

  “It always was,” she said, giving me a push in the direction of the door.

  Later, my mother called from work to say she had a letter for me at the shop. “I’ll bring it home, George.”

  “When are you coming home?”

  “You know we’re open till nine tonight.”

  “I’m coming over.”

  Mom had taken the Bug, Dad had his car, and the only thing on wheels at home was my bike. When I got to Leonard’s, Mom handed me a letter. I looked at my name written across the front in black ink. It was Julie’s handwriting, all right. Why had she sent it here? And why no return address? I turned the envelope over. Nothing. Not a sign that it was from her.

  I tucked it in my back pocket and left. I thought I was calm—I had the letter now, I’d read it, and that would be that—but I walked away and forgot my bike. It was only later, when I was already home, that I remembered where I’d left it.

  As I walked, I took the letter out of my pocket, smoothed it, and studied the way Julie had written my name across the face of the envelope. For a person as well organized and neat as Julie, she had surprisingly big, loopy handwriting. I looked at everything on that envelope. I looked at the postmark and the stamp. A regular stamp with the American flag, but I noticed it was pasted on crookedly, as if Julie had slapped it on. Angrily? Hastily? Or had she been nervous, too?

  She shouldn’t have written me a letter, no matter what it was about. She should have told me whatever it was she had to say, straight to my face. I started to get mad, and instead of reading the letter I folded the envelope and put it in my breast pocket.

  It was a long walk home. I could feel the letter riding in my pocket. It was almost like feeling Julie’s hand against my skin, as if she were slowly rubbing the contents of the letter into me. Soon the message would move upward to my brain.

  There were clouds overhead, moving with me. For a while I walked hard. I thought of hiking over to Liberty Mall. Julie would be at work. I’d wave the letter at her, then read it out loud. No. I’d read it silently, but I’d move my lips and give her plenty of significant looks in between.

  The truth was, I was scared of the damn letter. Scared of a piece of paper with a handful of words. Did I know what it was going to say? If I did, it was somewhere in the far reaches of my brain, somewhere in the Siberia of my mind, a cold, cold place I knew was there, but that I couldn’t reach.

  Read the letter!

  I turned around as if someone had spoken to me. Behind me, a woman in tight leather pants and a red tunic was talking to a small girl also in a red tunic. I drifted over to the other side of the street and leaned against a brick wall. An old man was standing opposite me near the entrance to Rite Aid. He was shabby, wearing house slippers. His lips were moving. Praying or talking to himself? I watched him for a while, wondering if he lived on the street or had someplace to go home.

  Read the letter!

  A cop got out of his covered tricycle and stepped into the middle of the road and stopped traffic. The woman in the leather pants crossed with the little girl. Then two old ladies in animal skin coats and flashing glasses crossed. The cop raised his right hand against the traffic; his left hand beckoned. The old man in house slippers shuffled across the street and settled himself in the doorway of the White Rose Laundromat. Praying again. For clean laundry? Maybe that was what I should do—pray.

  Read the letter!

  I crossed the street, went into the laundromat, and sat down by the window. I took the letter out of my pocket. I held it in my hand. The sun was bouncing off the window as I ripped open the envelope. Inside, there were three closely written pages.

  Chapter 8

  My dear George,

  My dear George. What kind of opening was that? So formal, almost foreign. I never heard Julie talk like that. Did she think she was writing a business letter in school?

  I’ve been wanting to say something to you for a long time.

  Then why didn’t you?

  I’ve been trying to say this to you. It’s hard for me to say it. No, I take that back. It’s not really hard so much as—

  Make up your mind, damn it, Julie; was it hard or was it easy?

  I started
the letter again.

  My dear George,

  I’ve been wanting to say something to you for a long time. I’ve been trying to say this to you. It’s hard for me to say it. No, I take that back. It’s not really hard so much as—

  I couldn’t get any farther. I couldn’t keep reading. I kept talking back to Julie even before I finished a sentence. And I was sweating. The old man in house slippers had moved to the front of the dryers. He was still praying. Pray for me, old man. I stuffed the letter in my pocket and walked out. At the corner, I stopped, took the letter out, and read it quickly, straight through.

  She wrote,

  —not really hard so much as scary. It scares me to say what I need to say. So I’ve been cowardly and let things drag on.

  George, every time I try to talk to you about this, something happens. I say something and you say something else, turn my words aside or turn them upside down and inside out. It’s like a game, you catch my words and don’t really listen to them and shoot them back to me, but they come back different, so, somehow, I’m not saying what I was saying.

  But then again, maybe it’s my own fault, maybe I’m just not saying plainly what I need to say.

  That’s why I’m writing this letter.

  I wish I didn’t have to do it this way. I know it’s cowardly, but I know if I look into your eyes, I’ll never be able to say it.

  Do you know what your eyes are like? You say my eyes are like the morning, like water, like the sea, like the sky. You say all those things. Well, your eyes are you. There you are, right there, all of you in your eyes. Your eyes—they seem to me to be sad and lonely and demanding. I don’t know what your eyes are really saying—maybe this isn’t true—but they always make me think you want something from me I’ll never be able to give you.

  Sometimes I’ve looked at myself, at my eyes, tried to see the things you see, but I never do. Eyes like water? Eyes like the sky? I look and I just see me, and somehow I wish that was what you saw, too. I’m not what you say I am. I’m not wonderful, George. I’m not an unearthly being. I’m not an object of love. I don’t know exactly what I am, but I want to find out. And I don’t want you to tell me what I am. Because that’s only what you think I am—your Julie with eyes like the sky.

  I can hear you now, protesting, saying in that impatient, energetic way of yours, “But Julie, I know who you are!”

  No good, George, no good. It’s no use your saying you know me—I have to find out about myself for myself.

  Do you hear me, George? Do you know what I’m saying? It’s like this. I made up my mind, finally. I’m going to say what I have to say. I tried the other night when you were at the house. It didn’t work. I haven’t said what I wanted to say a lot of times we’ve been together. I’m doing it now. I’m getting to it. I’m saying it one way and then I’m going to say it another way and then maybe I’ll say it a third way or a fourth way, till you hear me.

  The other night, remember, we talked about your father selling our house to the developers and I got a little mad at you? I let myself get mad at you because your father has so much power over us. He can sell this house and we’d have to move and we can’t do anything about it. I know that’s unfair, it has nothing to do with you. Your father was just an excuse to get mad, because I didn’t have the guts to say what I really wanted to say. I was afraid for you. Afraid for me. Afraid for us.

  George, you’ve been my best friend for a long time. I don’t want to lose that. That’s what I’m afraid of. But I don’t want to end up hating you, either.

  And I’m beginning to feel that way. Hating you. Hedged in. Imprisoned. We go out every weekend. We talk on the phone every day. I don’t do anything, make any decisions, without talking to you first. We’ve got all these routines. I used to love them. They were like little fences around the two of us, closing us off from the rest of the world. It was cozy and comforting. Now they’re like bars. And I hate them. I want those bars down.

  I’m calling off this weekend’s plans. And next weekend and the weekend after. I’m calling off our daily phone calls. I’m canceling our consultations and our walks and every’ thing else that went along with all that.

  This doesn’t mean I don’t want to see you at all. Or that I want to be by myself. I might want to see other people. I do want to see other people, including other boys.

  There, I said it. That was the hard part, the hardest thing, the part I’ve been feeling most cowardly about saying to you.

  I know you’re feeling hurt reading this, and I don’t want to hurt you. Can you believe that? I don’t want to hurt you. I tried to tell you, to prepare you the other night when we were doing the dishes. You didn’t listen. Or you didn’t hear. Or you didn’t want to hear. Maybe all three.

  I love you, George, I’ve loved you since I was twelve years old. But we’re not twelve anymore, or thirteen or fourteen. I’m seventeen and I want to meet other people and I want to meet myself. Alone. Without you. Just Julie. I want to say, “Hi, Julie! Hello there, Julie, what hind of person are you without George?”

  Can you understand this, George? I hope so!

  Love, Julie.

  I started walking again. My stomach tightened as if I were about to throw up. Phrases kept running through my mind. I know you’re feeling hurt.… I’m calling off this weekend … and the weekend after.… but we’re not twelve anymore …

  I didn’t get it. What was this all about? She wanted to meet herself? What kind of crap was that? She was right about one thing and one thing only. I could tell her what kind of person she was, if that was what she wanted to know. She was loving, warm, intelligent, directed. She was sensitive—or so I used to think. How sensitive could she really be if she sent me a letter like this, a bolt from the blue, for no reason. She said she’d tried to tip me off. Had she, really? I wasn’t that thick. I would have caught on. She was, just as she’d said, scared to do it. And why? Because she knew she was wrong.

  Why should we stop seeing each other just because she had some screwy ideas right now? If she didn’t want to go out this weekend, that was cool with me. Or next weekend or whatever. I wasn’t her master, we didn’t sign a contract, we didn’t have that kind of relationship. All she had to do was say, “George, let’s loosen up a little. Lighten up.” She didn’t have to like me every minute. I didn’t have to like her every minute. I’d gotten mad at her plenty of times. Only I always knew that it was temporary, that it was going to blow over, and that behind being mad was the way I really felt about her.

  Maybe she was kidding herself, and she really was stewing because of the house. My father never would sell the building, but she didn’t know that. She was scared for her family. I could understand that. But was our not seeing each other a cure? It was like cutting off your head because you had a headache.

  The more I thought about it, the more I thought she couldn’t possibly have meant all the things she’d written. By now she’d had time to think things over. She’d probably cooled off. Maybe she was already feeling remorseful and was just waiting for me to call her.

  In an outside phone booth, I dialed Buzzy’s. “Julie isn’t here today.”

  I hung up and dialed the Walshes. Nobody answered. I dug for more change, found the number of Julie’s school, dropped the coin in the slot, and dialed. The phone rang for a long time. I knew it was stupid, a lost cause, but I let it ring. I finally got a janitor, who told me the office was closed. “There’s still some people here, activities, but the office is closed till tomorrow.”

  “Would you know if Julie Walsh is there?”

  “No.”

  “She isn’t?”

  “I don’t know her.”

  “Tall girl, dark-haired.”

  “That’s half the girls in the school.”

  I walked over to my school. Parts of the letter kept going through my head. I want to meet other people. I walked fast. I went over to the field and watched Troy at football practice. I hung on the fence, felt my bones
stretch in their sockets, remembered how when I was little I used to hang on the clothes pole in the closet to make myself taller.

  It was a rough, hard practice. The Varsity against the Redshirts, the hopefuls, every one of them trying to impress the hell out of the coaches. Troy’s shoulder pad was poking out of his shirt. He was poised on the line like a charging bull.

  I want to meet other people.

  The whistle blew. The coach was on a platform, calling the plays. Troy was hit by a defender. For a moment they hung on each other, then Troy broke away and charged toward the ball carrier.

  “Hit him!” I yelled. “Grab him! Cream him! Waste him!” I slapped the fence. I want to meet other people. If only I was there, on the other side of the fence, cutting off the runner, hitting him low. “Hit him, Troy. Hit that boy. No mercy!” Troy caught the runner by the ankle and brought him down. “Yes!” I cried. “Yes!”

  Chapter 9

  My first reaction to Julie’s letter had been anger, fear and anger. But by the next morning, I’d cooled down. I had the anger under control and channeled. I knew Julie. She got passionate about ideas, got carried away, talked like she was going to change her life. This wasn’t the first time. What about her volunteer work in an old people’s home? Two days working there, and she was going to spend the rest of her life helping old people. She was sincere, she meant it when she said it, but a couple of months later she was equally passionate and equally sincere about becoming a veterinarian. And now she was being sincere and passionate about separating her life from mine.

  What you’re going to do, I told myself, is wait. You’re going to wait a few days and not do anything. Wait a week if you have to. You’re not going to call Julie. You’re not going to try to talk to her. You’re going to give her time. You’re not going to make demands. That’s step one. It’s going to blow over, you just have to be patient.

  It’s easy enough to give yourself advice, but following it is the hard part. One day without Julie, two days without Julie.… Three days without Julie, and I was talking to myself. Four days and I didn’t want to wait anymore. Wasn’t four days long enough? Why hadn’t Julie called me by this time to say the letter was a mistake, a big, fat, ridiculous blunder?