He looked down the street toward Jerry's apartment building. He searched the facade, the rows and rows of windows, fastening finally on the fourth floor. Wondering if Jerry was standing behind the curtain at one of the windows, staring out.
Aw, Jerry, he thought. Why did things have to turn so rotten? Life at Trinity could have been so beautiful. He and Jerry on the football team, the quarterback and the long end, linked by the beautiful passes Jerry threw, linked even more by a budding friendship. All of it gone now. Brother Eugene dead and Jerry Renault maimed. And him, Roland Goubert, the Goober, dogged with guilt, almost afraid to look at his hands, afraid he'd see bloodstains.
Stupid, he told himself. You were stupid. Acting that way when the Goober came. Stupid. The word was a theme weaving its way through his thoughts, and he got up from the chair, threw down the magazine he'd been holding for ten minutes without reading a word of it, and went to the window. Pulled the curtain and looked out at the street. Everything gray outside: the street, the cars, the buildings, the trees. Glancing back at the room, the drabness of the beige walls and the nondescript furniture, he wondered whether he was the one at fault, had gone colorblind, would forever see the world in muted tones.
All of which was evading the question, of course.
What question?
The question of the Goober and why he'd acted so stupidly when the Goober visited him.
I should have stayed in Canada, he thought, turning from the window. I shouldn't have come back.
After those bruised weeks of pain and desolation in the Boston hospital, he had accepted without protest or any emotion at all his father's decision to send him to Canada, to spend a few months with his uncle Octave and aunt Olivine. They lived in the small parish of St. Antoine on the banks of the Riviere Richelieu, where his mother had lived as a child. His small Canadian world had three focal points: the modest farm operated by his uncle and aunt; the village, which consisted of a few stores, a post office, and a Sunoco service station; and the ancient church, a small white frame building overlooking the aimless river. He spent a lot of time in the church, although he found it spooky at first, creaky, buffeted by stiff river winds. The winds breathed life into the old building, made the floors squeak, the walls buckle, the windows rattle. He didn't pray; not at first, anyway. Merely sat there. The winter had been mild by Canadian standards but the wind was relentless, blowing away the snow that fell almost every day. The church was a good resting place after his daily walk from the farm to the village. He picked up a few groceries, checked the post office for mail (his father wrote at least once a week, brief, keep-in-touch letters that said nothing, really), and began to look forward to the church visits.
The wind made the church talk. The Talking Church. The small hum of the boiler addressing the hiss of the steam pipes. The walls and windows chattering to each other, and the creaking floor contributing to the conversation. He smiled as he listened to the small whispering, chatting sounds. His first smile in ages. As if the church had induced his smile. After a while he knelt and prayed, the old French prayers his mother had taught him long ago—"Notre Pиre"; "Je Vous Salue, Marie" — the words meaningless but comforting somehow, as if he and the church had joined each other in a kind of companionship.
His aunt and uncle treated him with gruff tenderness and affection. A childless couple, farmers, at the constant mercy of the elements, they were patient, quiet people. His uncle's only vice was television, and he watched it continuously when he wasn't out in the fields or the barn, marveling at the succession of programs on the glowing tube, uncritical, amused, whether watching a soap opera in French or a hockey game with his beloved Canadiens from Montreal. His aunt was a small peppy woman whose hands were never empty and fingers never still as she knitted, crocheted, sewed, cooked, dusted, swept, bustled around the modest house. She did all this in silence. The television provided the soundtrack to their lives.
Jerry spoke a bit of French, enough to get by, but he too enjoyed the absence of conversation, learned to accept the sounds of television. He immersed himself in the daily routine of chores, going to the village and the church, reading late at night, blocking from his mind all thoughts of Monument and Trinity, as if by some magic he was able to turn his mind into a blank screen at will.
More and more drawn to the church, he found comfort there, despite the chilled atmosphere. He had read somewhere of contemplatives, priests or brothers or monks, who spent their days and nights in solitude, praying, musing, contemplating, and Jerry could understand the peace these men must attain. The afternoon sun would lose its warmth, the church growing colder, the pipes rattling, and Jerry would shiver himself back to the warmth of the farmhouse.
So the winter passed, a succession of peaceful days and evenings, Monument and Trinity existing in another world, another time, having nothing to do with him. Until his father telephoned to say it was time to come home. "I miss you, Jerry," he said. And Jerry felt tears stinging his eyes. I miss you, Jerry. Although he was reluctant to leave the peace and serenity of St. Antoine, he felt a leap of gladness at his father's words.
Once back in Monument, however, he longed to return to Canada, to see the spring season bursting in the fields, wondering what kind of conversation the church would be carrying on with the windows open to the outside world. But knew that was impossible. He had to resume his life here in Monument. Enter Monument High in the fall. Live according to the rules he had established for himself after the chocolate sale. Don't make waves, go with the flow. Pretend the world wore a sign like the kind hanging on doorknobs in motels: DO NOT DISTURB. But the Goober's visit had upset his balance, taking him by surprise.
"I really acted stupid this afternoon. Right, Dad?" he had asked as they sat at the supper table that evening.
"I wouldn't say stupid," his father replied. "Besides, it was my fault. I didn't realize you weren't ready for that kind of thing. . "
"But I should be. And I should tell the Goober that he didn't double-cross me last year. Cripes, he acts like he was a traitor or something. And he wasn't."
Silence in the dining room. Their lives were filled with silences, but not the comfortable land that existed in the farmhouse in St. Antoine. Because his father was quiet and reserved by nature, they had never talked at length, communicated mostly in brief conversations with many stumblings. The death of Jerry's mother a year before had stunned them into a deeper silence, his father moving as in a trance through his days and evenings while Jerry had been immersed in his own troubles. Entering Trinity. Football and making the freshman team. The chocolate sale. And everything that followed. Which Canada had helped him forget. Until the Goober showed up.
"I should call him, right?" Jerry asked.
"Not if it hurts you, son. You're the important one. The Goober can always wait. . "
Again the silence. In the silence, Jerry was grateful for his father's words. Let the Goober wait. He felt bad for his old friend, but he had to make certain that he himself was back to normal again, restored and repaired, before he worried about others.