Bridge of Clay(91)

Each in ways of our own.

Clay, of course, was the quiet one, but not before he was the strange one—the one who ran the racing quarter, and the boy you’d find on the roof. What a mistake to take him up there that day—he turned it forcefully straight into habit. As for his running the suburbs, we knew he would always come back now, to sit with the tiles and the view.

When I asked if I might run with him, he’d shrugged and we soon became: It was training, it was escaping.

It was perfect pain and happiness.



* * *



—

First, in between, there was Rory.

His goal was expulsion from school; he’d wanted to leave since kindergarten, and would take the opportunity. He made it clear I wasn’t his guardian, or parent by hostile takeover. He was frank and undeniable: Vandalism. Constant truancy.

Telling teachers where to stick their assignments.

Alcohol on school grounds.

(“It’s just a beer, I don’t see what you’re all so upset about!”) Of course, the only good thing to come of it was my meeting Claudia Kirkby; the first time he was suspended.

    I remember knocking on her door, and going in, and the essays strewn on the desk. It was something on Great Expectations, and the top one got four out of twenty.

“Jesus, that isn’t Rory’s, is it?”

She made an attempt to tidy them. “No, Rory actually got one out of twenty—and that was for handing in paper. What he wrote was totally worthless.”

But we weren’t here for the essay.

“Suspended?” I asked.

“Suspended.”

She was candid but very friendly; it amazed me that she spoke with humor. Suspension was no laughing matter, but there was something in the tone of her. I think she was reassuring me. There were twelfth graders in this place who looked older than her, which made me strangely happy; if I’d stayed till the end myself, I’d have finished the previous year. Somehow that felt important.

Soon she got down to business, though.

“So, you’re okay with the suspension?”

I nodded.

“And your—”

I could tell she was about to say father. I hadn’t notified the school yet that he’d left us; they would find that out in due course.

“He’s away at the moment—and besides, I think I can cover it.”

“You’re—”

“I’m eighteen.”

It didn’t need to be justified, given I looked a little older, or maybe that’s just my perception. To me, Clay and Tommy always looked younger than they were. Even now, all these years later, I remind myself Tommy’s not six.

In her classroom, we talked on.

She told me it was only two days.

But then, of course, the other business:

    They were certainly something to see—her calves, her shins—but not what I’d first imagined. They were just, I don’t know, hers. There’s no other way to say it.

“So you’ve seen the principal?” she interrupted, for I was lost in my glance down floorwards. When I looked up, I saw the writing on the board. It was neat and looped, in cursive. Something about Ralph and Piggy; the theme of Christianity. “You’ve spoken to Mrs. Holland?”

Again, I nodded.

“And, you know—I have to ask. Is it…do you think it’s because—”

I was caught in the warmth of her eyes.

She was like your morning coffee.

I recovered.

“Our mother dying?”

She didn’t say anything else then, but she didn’t look away from me, either. I spoke to the desk and its pages: “No.” I even went to touch one, to read it, but stopped myself in time. “He’s always been like this; it’s just now I think he’s decided.”

Twice more he would be suspended; more visits for me to the school—and to be honest, I wasn’t complaining.

It was Rory at his most romantic.

He was Puck with a pair of fists.



* * *



—

Next Henry, and Henry was on his way.

He was stick-skinny. A sinewy mind.

His first touch of genius was making money at the Naked Arms. It was all the middle-aged drinkers there, standing out the front. He noticed they all had dogs with them, and the dogs were overweight; as diabetic as their owners.

When he, Clay and Rory came back from the shops one night, he put his shopping bags down on the ground.

“What the hell are you doin’?” said Rory. “Pick those bloody bags up.”

Henry looked over. “Check that bunch of blokes out.” He was fourteen years old, and a mouth. “Look—they’ve all told the missus they’re walking the dog.”

    “What?”

“Look there, are your eyes painted on? They go out for a walk, but come to the pub and drink. Look at the state of those retrievers!” Now he walked over. He gave them a turn of his smile, for the first but not the last time. “Any of you lazy bastards want me to walk your dogs?”

Of course, they loved him, they fell for him.

They were amused by the sheer audacity.

He made twenty a night for months.



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