Bridge of Clay(114)

“There, that’s better,” replied Rory. “Firm.” He was looking firmly somewhere else. She hugged her suit jacket a little tighter.

“Stop that,” I said.

“What?”

“You know.” But now I was back onto Holland. It was afternoon and I’d come home from work early to be well-dressed and clean-shaven, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t tired. “If you don’t expel him this time, I’m going to jump over this desk, rip off that principal’s badge, pin it on me, and expel the bastard myself!”

    Rory was so excited he almost clapped.

Claudia Kirkby somberly nodded.

The principal felt for the badge. “Well, I’m, um, not so sure—”

“Do it!” cried Rory.

And to everyone’s surprise, she did.

She methodically did the paperwork, and suggested surrounding schools, but I said we didn’t need them, he was going to work, and we shook hands and that was it; we left them both behind us.

Halfway to the car park, I ran back. Was it for us, or Claudia Kirkby? I knocked on the door, I reentered the room, and they were both inside, still talking.

I said, “Ms. Kirkby, Mrs. Holland, I apologize. I’m sorry for your trouble, and just—thanks.” It was crazy, but I started sweating. It was the truly sympathetic look on her face, I think, and the suit, and the gold-colored earrings. The small hoops that circled a glint there. “And also—and sorry to ask this now, but I’ve always been caught up with Rory—so I’ve never asked how Henry and Clay are doing.”

Mrs. Holland deferred to Ms. Kirkby.

“They’re doing fine, Matthew.” She’d stood up. “They’re good kids,” and she smiled and didn’t wink.

“Believe it or not,” and I nodded to the doorway, “so’s that one out there.”

“I know.”

I know.

She said I know, and it stayed with me a long time, but it started outside at the wall. For a while I hoped she’d come out, as I leaned, half bruising my shoulder blades, but there was only the voice of Rory.

“Oi,” he said, “you coming?”

At the car he asked, “Can I drive?”

I said, “Don’t even Goddamn think about it.”

He got a job by the end of the week.



* * *



—

    And so winter turned into spring.

Clay’s times were still much slower, and it happened, a Sunday morning.

Since Rory got his job as a panel beater, he worked hard at the trade of drinking. He started taking up and breaking up with girls. There were names and observations; one I remember was Pam, and Pam was blond hair and bad breath.

“Shit,” said Henry, “did you tell her that?”

“Yeah,” said Rory, “she slapped me. Then dumped me and asked for a mint. Not necessarily in that order.”

He would stumble back home in the mornings—and the Sunday was mid-October. As Clay and I headed for Bernborough, Rory was staggering in.

“Jesus, look at the state of you.”

“Yeah, good one, Matthew, thanks. Where are you two bastards going?”

Typical Rory:

In jeans and a beer-soaked jacket, he had no problems staying with us—and Bernborough was typical, too.

The sunrise looted the grandstand.

We did the first 400 together.

I told Clay, “Eric Liddell.”

Rory grinned.

It was more like a dirty smirk.

On the second lap he entered the jungle.

He had to take a leak.

By the fourth he’d gone to sleep.

Before the last 400, though, Rory seemed nearer to sober. He looked at Clay, he looked at me. He shook his head in contempt.

On the fiery hue of the track, I said, “What’s the matter with you?”

Again, that smirky smile.

“You’re wrong,” he said, and he glanced at Clay, but the assault was aimed at me. “Matthew,” he said, “you’re kidding, aren’t you? You must know why it’s not happening.” He looked ready to come and shake me. “Come on, Matthew, think. All that nice romantic shit. He won State—so fucking what? He couldn’t care any less.”

    But how could this be happening?

How could Rory be knowing such perfect things, and altering Dunbar history?

“Look at him!” he said.

I looked.

“He doesn’t want this—this…goodness.” To Clay now. “Do you want it, kid?”

And Clay had shaken his head.

And Rory didn’t relent.

He shoved a hand right into my heart. “He needs to feel it here.” There was suddenly such gravity, such pain in him, and it came like the force of a piano. The quietest words were the worst. “He needs to hurt nearly enough to kill him,” he said, “because that’s how we Goddamn live.”

I worked to make an argument.

Not a single thought came out.

“If you can’t do it, I’ll do it for you.” He breathed stiffly, strugglingly, inwards. “You don’t need to be running with him, Matthew,” and he looked at the boy crouched by me, at the fire inside his eyes. “You have to try and stop him.”