Bridge of Clay(24)

Penelope crossed worlds, and Clay crossed the fence: He walked the small laneway between The Surrounds and home, where the palings were ghostly grey. There was a wooden gate there these days, for Achilles—for Tommy to walk him out, and in. In the backyard, he was grateful he hadn’t had to climb over; morning-afters were obviously pretty awful, and the next few seconds would be telling: First, he took on the slalom course of mule apples.

Then the labyrinth of dog shit.

Both culprits were still asleep; one was upright on the grass, the other sprawled out, on a porch-lit couch.

Inside, the kitchen smelt like coffee—I’d beaten him to it, and clearly in more ways than one.

Now it was Clay’s turn to face my music.



* * *



—

As I did every now and again, I was eating breakfast out the front.

I stood at the wooden railing with cooked sky and cold cornflakes. The streetlights were still on. Rory’s letterbox lay on the lawn.

When Clay opened the front door and stood a few steps behind me, I went on finishing my cereal. “Another letterbox, for Christ’s sake.”

Clay smiled, a nervous one, I felt it, but that was the extent of my niceties. After all, the address was in his pocket; I’d taped it my very best.

Initially, I didn’t move.

    “So, you got it?”

Again, I felt him nod.

“I thought I’d save you the trouble of fishing it out yourself.” My spoon clanked in the bowl. A few drops of milk jumped the rail. “It’s in your pocket?”

Another nod.

“You’re thinking of going?”

Clay watched me.

He watched but said nothing while I tried, as I’d often done lately, to somehow understand him. In looks, he and I were most alike, but I was still a good half foot taller. My hair was thicker, and my body too, but it was only the extra age. While I worked on hands and knees on carpet, floorboards, and concrete each day, Clay went to school and ran his miles. He survived his regime of sit-ups and push-ups; he was tense, and tight-looking—lean. I guess you could say we were different versions of the same thing, most notably in the eyes. Both of us had fire in our eyes, and it didn’t matter what color they were, because the fire in them was everything.

In the middle of it all, I smiled, but hurtly.

I shook my head.

The streetlights flickered off then.

I’d asked what had to be asked.

Now to say what needed to be said.



* * *



—

The sky widened, the house tightened.

I didn’t move close, or aim up, or intimidate.

All I said was “Clay.”

Later on, he told me that that was what unnerved him: The peace of it.

In the midst of that strangely dulcet tone, something in him tolled. It lowered itself, steadily, from throat to sternum to lungs, and full morning hit the street. On the other side, the houses stood ragged and quiet, like a gang of violent mates, just waiting for my word. We knew I didn’t need them.

    After a moment or two, I took my elbows off the rail and placed a look down on his shoulder. I could ask him about school. What about school? But both of us knew the answer. Who was I, of all the people, to tell him to stay in school? I’d left before the end myself.

“You can leave,” I said. “I can’t stop you, but—”

The rest was broken off.

A sentence as difficult as the job itself—and that, in the end, was the truth of it. There was leaving and coming back. There was crime, then facing punishment.

Returning and being let in:

Two very different things.

He could walk away from Archer Street, and trade his brothers for the man who left us—but coming home meant getting through me.

“Big decision,” I said, more directly, then, in his face and not by his shoulder. “And, I guess, one hell of a consequence.”

And Clay looked, first in my face, then away.

He recognized my toil-hardened wrists, my arms, my hands, the jugular in my neck. He noticed the reluctance in my knuckles, but the will to see it through. Most importantly, though, he saw that fire in each eye, pleading as they were: Don’t leave us for him, Clay.

Don’t leave us.

But if you do.



* * *



—

The thing is, these days I’m convinced.

Clay knew he had to do it.

He just wasn’t sure if he could.

When I walked back inside, he stayed awhile, stranded on the porch, with the fullest weight of the choice. After all, what I’d promised was something I couldn’t even bring myself to say. What was the worst thing you could do to a Dunbar boy, anyway?

For Clay, that much was clear, and there were reasons to leave, and reasons to stay, and all of it was the same. He was caught somewhere, in the current—of destroying everything he had, to become all he needed to be—and the past, ever closer, upon him.

    He stood watching the mouth of Archer Street.





And the tide comes in with victory, and struggle along the way—for likely the fairest thing to say about Penelope’s entrance to life in the city was that she was constantly torn and astonished.

There was great gratitude to this place for taking her.