Behind me, the shower came on. I immediately felt the humid breath of steam that exhaled through the lips of a moldy vinyl curtain.
Welcome home, Jack.
And Ethan helped me stand. He pulled me up from the cold floor by my hand and told me, “Come on, Jack. Get in. You’ll feel better.”
When I looked at him, I saw in his face so many things that all came rushing back to me: how Ethan the outcast, bed wetter, was the target of the stronger boys—the Odds—in Marbury. But here, I saw genuine friendship.
This is it.
It was almost as though I could hear Ethan Robson pleading with me in that piss-stained hell of a camp to let him look into the glasses one more time, just a peek; he was so desperate to get away from the other boys, to get out of Marbury.
“You don’t remember it, do you?”
Ethan smirked. “What? You passing out last night? I think I recall it a bit more clearly than you do.” He patted my shoulder lightly and said, “Don’t worry, Jack. You behaved within the acceptable bounds of propriety. For an American, that is.”
It was the same as Ben and Griffin.
They never knew anything. I could have left them there, un-fucked, shooting hoops at Steckel Park. But I didn’t. And just like Ethan, they’d begged me in Marbury, too. They wanted out.
So I took them.
And it made us all monsters.
I shook my head. I wouldn’t do it again. I was going to leave this kid alone.
But I needed to know.
All the strings had come untied, and I had no idea what I’d see when I went looking for them—the frayed ends, my friends, my life.
The lens.
So I stood there, shivering in the stale darkness of our bathroom, watching the steam puke its way out from the gashes in the torn shower curtain, while Ethan went back to his soccer match.
I found a light switch beside the doorjamb, and as soon as I flicked it remembered how the bulb had burned out weeks ago, and we’d never bothered to replace it.
This is it.
I pulled the leathery curtain back, snaked my legs out of my briefs, and got inside the shower.
I shut my eyes and leaned my head on my hands against the tile wall, letting the hot water stream down my neck.
It was like waiting to be born.
In the dark, it felt like being in the Under.
I didn’t know what I was waiting for. I only knew how much I didn’t want to open my eyes again, how much I just wanted to stay there, naked and mute in the warm dark womb of a filthy shower stall and think about nothing.
September 22.
Eight in the morning.
This is it.
* * *
If I thought about things too much, I realized I got panicky about not knowing anything.
I didn’t really know where I kept my clothes, or how this Jack got dressed, if he’d be uptight and nervous around other kids, just like the other Jack was.
Or if, maybe, this was not-Jack, confident and strong, funny and relaxed, and I didn’t know the first thing about him, except that he got drunk last night, puked, and ended up with some other kid’s piss all over his arms.
So what could I do?
I left my underwear soaking in the puddle of shower water that pooled on the dank floor of our toilet-cave, wrapped myself in the only towel that hung from the fake-chrome rail beside the tiled stall, and walked out into our room, aiming myself for the only piece of furniture that looked like it might contain clothing.
I tried not to think about which side of the wardrobe belonged to Jack, or what kind of clothes he’d brought along to school.
I just did it.
Ethan was still in bed, watching television when I came out of the shower.
“What time is the train in?” I said.
Everyone’s dead on the train.
Quit it, Jack.
“I don’t think I want to get out of bed.”
Ethan’s family lived outside Bath, a long trip for the kid to make and then have to come back to school tomorrow. From Orpington, where St. Atticus was, to London, took about forty minutes by train, including our walk from school to the station. Bath was another two hours beyond that.
And I remembered going to Ethan’s house. My brain flashed images of his parents, his two small sisters. We’d all gone to Stonehenge together, just a week ago. I looked at the ring of empties on our nightstand.
I rubbed my temples, squeezed shut my eyes.
Ethan grunted as he sat up in bed.
“Head hurt?”
“Huh? Oh. No. I feel a lot better now.”
There were school clothes scattered all over our floor: pants, socks, undershirts, shined dress shoes, shirts, and ties. The place was a complete mess, just like Jack’s room always had been. I opened the wardrobe. Nothing looked like me.
I tried to think, Where’s my goddamned phone?
Jack’s always losing his shit.
This is how it always is.
Ethan got out of bed, turned on the shower.
“Throw me a clean towel, please?”
I found a towel neatly folded beneath a stack of them inside our wardrobe and tossed it to Ethan, who stood in the doorway to the bathroom. I was relieved to know I could look through the things in the dresser and pick out this Jack’s clothes by size tags while the kid was under the shower. Ethan stood at least three inches taller than me, and was narrower around the waist.
It wouldn’t be a difficult sorting process.
And after I’d managed to finish my clothes shopping and gotten myself dressed, I sat on the floor and pulled on a pair of clean gray socks. I’d searched through everything scattered around me; turned out each pocket on every article of clothing. I found some money in both pairs of pants, keys, and Ethan’s wallet, too. But nothing of Jack’s. No lens. No glasses. Nothing. I even looked under the beds and between the mattresses, where Ethan had stashed a porn magazine.
I put it back in its hiding place and sat on my bed with my head down in my hands.
I couldn’t find anything.
“Are you sure you’re all right, Jack?”
Ethan came out of the bathroom and started picking folded clothes out of the open dresser.
I sighed. “I can’t find any of my shit. My phone, my wallet, nothing.”
Ethan smiled and shook his head. He looked at me with an unbelieving expression, and then he slipped into a pair of jeans and began threading a belt around his hips.
“You’ve gone completely crazy.” He pulled open the top drawer of our nightstand with his upturned bare foot and pointed a skeletal finger at it.
I stared down into the open drawer. It was like looking at an ancient tomb.
Jack’s tomb.
Everything was there: my phone, wallet, my digital camera, a wad of American money, a stick of deodorant, a half-eaten candy bar, nail clippers, some balled-up white briefs, and socks.
I swallowed. “No more drinking for me.”
Ethan Robson pulled a sweatshirt on over his head and shook out his long hair. He laughed at me.
“Right. That vow of abstinence will last for approximately … oh … three days, in my qualified opinion.”
Almost as soon as he said it, there was an urgent pounding on our door, and from out in the hallway came the booming foghorn voice of another English boy: “Oh, come on, you fucking wankers. What’s taking you? We were supposed to leave five fucking minutes ago.”
I knew the voice. His name was Neal Genovese. He played soccer with Ethan, and roomed with Conner. I knew it.
The doorknob jiggled and shook impatiently.
We always locked it whenever we got drunk.
Neal said, “Open the fucking door.”
Someone else down the hall shouted, “Shut the bloody hell up!”
When I stood, I tripped over my Vans, I was in such a rush to get to the door.
Ethan said, “You’re going to kill yourself, Jack.”
But I caught my balance and unlocked it without breaking anything.
When I opened the door, Neal was standing there in his Number-2 jersey and school warm-ups, square shouldered, hands on his hips, a little pissed off and red faced. He was broader and more angular than Ethan and wore a very unprofessional, uniform buzz cut that made his brown hair look like a shrunken bearskin cap.