Grand & Humble (9 page)

Harlan ignored her, just turned and hurried straight for the nearest exit.

There was no exit.

Manny stared at the mess in front of him. The ceiling had collapsed, trapping him inside the cave. It was a wonder he had survived at all.

He adjusted the light on top of his miner’s helmet. Dust swirled in the beam like so many miniature galaxies. The falling of the ceiling had changed everything. The wall where he had been excavating had been ripped open. While digging, he had been certain that there was a vein of gold just behind that wall, but he saw now that there wasn’t. Just more rock.

Even worse, his exit was blocked. What had once been an opening was now a wall of boulders. He could never dig his way through, especially since all he had was a plastic miner’s pick—a child’s toy.

On the ground directly in front of him was a pair of crushed wire-rim glasses. All that remained of a fellow miner killed by the collapse? Manny didn’t remember having a co-worker; he thought he’d been alone in this cave.

What was he going to do? This was a mine shaft, not a natural cave, and there was only one exit. Now it was blocked, and he was trapped. Soon he would run out of air and die.

He looked again at the swirling motes of dust in the beam of his helmet light. They didn’t seem to be settling, even though the collapse was long since over. On the contrary, they whirled and spun about him faster than ever. It was almost as if Manny felt a
breeze
in the air. Could it be there was another exit?

He aimed his light up at the ceiling and, sure enough, spotted a jagged opening in the rock. The collapse had sealed the entrance to the cave, but it had also opened a breach.

He crawled up the mound of boulders, toward the opening in the ceiling. Would it be wide enough to crawl through?

Yes! He reached the opening and saw that it would be a tight fit, but that he could just squeeze through.

Manny clawed his way inside, into a chasm that
led straight upward. The two sides to the rift were close enough together that he would be able to support himself on either side and climb up it like a chimney. Already he could see the top—and daylight! He could even see clouds.

He started edging his way up the chasm, determined to reach the top. From above, he heard a distant roar, like a waterfall. For a second, he thought he smelled gasoline—or was it just the odor of some seeping subterranean gas?

Finally his fingers gripped the edge at the top of the chasm. With a grunt, he pulled himself out of the gash in the ground.

Freedom!
he thought as he fought his way up into the open air. The land around him was flat—concrete, a parking lot perhaps. Even as he struggled to make sense of the sight, he registered the sound of something squealing behind him.

He turned. And that’s when Manny realized he had crawled up onto a freeway—and right into the face of oncoming truck.

Adopted!
Elsa signed.
I can’t believe you’re adopted and your dad never told you!

I know
, Manny said.
Some big news, huh?

It was afternoon, and he and Elsa had walked to a
park near school. He’d waited all day for a time and place where there weren’t other people around, so he could tell her what he’d learned.

So that’s what he’s been hiding?
Elsa signed.

Manny nodded.
I guess so
.

This park was known for its outdoor displays of petrified wood. There had always been a lot of fossilized wood in the area, and years ago, during the Great Depression, work crews had been hired to take the rocks and arrange them into various shapes, using mortar to seal them in place. But the crews had been laborers, not artists, and their work was mostly of the pyramid-and-snowman sort. The result had to be one of the weirdest parks Manny would ever see.

As they walked amid the stone sculptures, Manny felt Elsa staring at him.
Are you okay?
she signed.

What do you mean?
Manny asked.

Well, it must be a big shock.

What? That I’m adopted?

Elsa nodded.

It’s not that big a deal
, Manny signed.
A lot of people are adopted.

Yeah, but their dads didn’t lie about it.

They stopped in front of what appeared to be a sculpture of a cannon. The petrified wood was mostly pink and blue. Manny just stared.

Elsa tapped him on the arm.
Manny? What’s wrong?

I had another nightmare last night
, Manny said.

That’s too bad. What was this one about?

He shook his head.
You don’t understand. It’s not the nightmare itself. It’s the fact that I had it at all. I was certain the nightmares had something to do with the secret my dad was keeping. And that once I figured it out, they’d stop. But I know the secret now, and they still haven’t stopped!

Maybe it was just a coincidence
, Elsa said.
Maybe it didn’t have anything to do with anything
.

Manny shook his head again. Then he told her about his dream, about the collapse in the ceiling that had changed everything in the cave where he’d been working—how even as it had closed off one exit, it had opened another up.
But it ended in the same goddamn place!
he said.
It ended like all the other nightmares—with me being smashed by something! What does my being crushed have to do with my being adopted, anyway? No, there’s something I’m missing
.

Missing?
Elsa asked.

About the nightmares!

Elsa watched him for a second. Manny hated it when she did that. It wasn’t just that she could read lips; sometimes it seemed like she could read minds too.

Manny
, Elsa said at last.
You’ve been under a lot of stress lately.

It’s my dad!
Manny said suddenly.
He’s still not telling me the truth!

Wait a minute
, Elsa signed.
Let’s just think about this, okay?

Before he could stop himself, Manny signed,
Goddamn it, Elsa, whose side are you on?

He immediately regretted the outburst.
Elsa, I’m sorry
, he signed quickly.
I’m really sorry!
He’d never fought with Elsa before; now he’d yelled at her twice in a matter of weeks. All over these stupid nightmares.

Absolutely motionless, she looked at him. It was like she had become an assortment of petrified-wood pieces herself. Manny even imagined he could see the crude lattice of mortar that was holding her together and upright—mortar that was cracked and crumbling. Manny could see something else as well. Not just the hurt in her eyes, though he saw that too. Suddenly, even though he didn’t want to, it was like Manny could read
her
mind.

Elsa was in love with him. He didn’t understand how he’d never seen this before. It was so obvious in retrospect—the way she doted on him, was always so cheerful around him. Manny knew other deaf people,
Elsa’s friends, but none of them watched him the way she did, read every word he spoke. Then again, maybe Manny
had
seen the way Elsa felt about him, or at least glimpses of it, but he’d turned away, not wanting to accept the truth. Even now, he had a hard time imagining that anyone could ever truly be in love with a backstage geek like him. But in any event, he also knew, just as clearly, that he didn’t feel the same way about her. Manny couldn’t explain why; he certainly “loved” her. Just not like she loved him.

Elsa, say something
, Manny signed.
Tell me you’re okay.

She smiled.
Of course I’m okay!
And all the proof Manny needed of her love for him was right there in her quick and easy forgiveness.

You told me you wondered why your dad didn’t have any baby pictures of you
, Elsa soldiered on.
Well, this explains it.

What?
he said, shifting gears again.
Oh. Yeah. I was three when my dad adopted me
.

Well, at least he didn’t have to change any diapers.

What?
Manny was momentarily confused.

I said, at least he didn’t have to change any diapers.

That’s right
, he said, thinking.
He didn’t have to change any diapers!

Elsa was looking at him funny.

Something just occurred to me!
Manny explained, excited again.
Something my dad said: that I was a sensitive baby. That that’s why he didn’t tell me about the adoption.

So?

So how would he know I was a sensitive baby? He didn’t adopt me until I was three! Three years old isn’t a baby!
Now that Manny thought about it, he specifically remembered his dad referring to the boy he’d adopted as a toddler—definitely
not
a baby!

Manny? What are you saying?

He looked across the park, to a small castle made of petrified wood, complete with battlements and arrow slits; he remembered storming it as a kid.
I’m saying my dad is still lying to me.

There’s got to be some kind of explanation.

I’m sure there is
, Manny signed.
And I’m going to find out exactly what it is.

“Dad,” Manny said. “We need to talk.” It was later that night, and Manny had found him in the family room, watching TV and ironing clothes. The air smelled of steam from the iron. On television was one of those courtroom drama shows.

“Manny,” his dad said. “You’re home. Damn it, this shirt is missing a button.”

“Did you hear me, Dad?” Manny said. “I want to talk to you.”

“My sewing kit. Manny, have you seen my sewing kit?”

“Dad, I want you to tell me the truth.”

His dad looked at him as if he’d suddenly materialized out of thin air. “About what?”

“You know what! About my past.”

“Manny, didn’t we just have this conversation?”

“Yes, but you didn’t tell me the truth. I’m not adopted, am I? Of course not! Look at us—you and I look almost exactly alike!”

“Manny, you’re adopted! I said so, didn’t I? Now help me think where I put my sewing kit.” One hand on his hip, one on his head, his dad stared around the family room. On television, two good-looking detectives were examining a corpse in the morgue.

“Forget the sewing kit!” Manny said. “I want you to tell me the truth!”

“I did tell you the truth,” his dad said. “There’s nothing more to tell.”

“There
is!
I know there is.” Manny told his dad how he’d referred to him as a “baby” even though he’d also said he had adopted him when he was three years old.

His dad laughed. “Manny, is that what this is all
about? I used the wrong word! You were a sensitive
toddler
. Hey, I’m a guy. So I don’t use the right baby words!”

Manny shook his head. “That’s not it. That’s a lie.”

“Manny, don’t call me a liar!”

“Tell me the truth, Dad.” He wasn’t angry. It wasn’t about that emotion anymore. Now it was about determination.

“Manny, I don’t have time for this. I need to find my sewing kit.” It wasn’t about anger for his dad either—at least not yet.

“Are you my biological father?”

“My bedroom,” his dad said. “I think it’s under my bed.” He started to leave.

But Manny stepped in front of him, blocking his exit. “Dad, I want the truth.”

“Manny…” He moved to one side, but Manny followed him.

“I mean it, Dad.”

“Manny, get out of my way!”
So now it
was
about anger for his dad. In a way, Manny was relieved. It proved he was right about his dad hiding something. But the prospect of what his dad had to say scared him too—so much so that he had to fight to keep from shaking.

“Tell me the truth, Dad.”

“Manny!”

“Tell me the truth.”

“Fine!”
he shouted. “I’ll tell you the damn
truth!
”

Manny stared at his father, his dad’s face collapsing right in front of him. There was only one way out of that cave-in too, and his dad had to know it. But Manny had learned in his nightmare that just because something was an exit didn’t mean it led anywhere he particularly wanted to go.

“You
are
adopted,” his dad whispered. “But I’m your father too.”

“I want to hear it all,” Manny said, wary, yet still resolute. “Everything.”

His dad couldn’t look at him, tried to turn away, but Manny could already see the tears streaming down his cheeks.

But he nodded at last. “Everything,” his dad whispered. “This time, I finally will tell it all.”

The locker room reminded Harlan of a morgue: cold, echoing, and smelling of antiseptic. As soon as Harlan had agreed to go to the Eye Ball, his mom had called the principal, and he was now back on the swim team. But for the first time in his life, Harlan was in the pool locker room after school and feeling something other than affection.

He found Ricky at his locker, just starting to get undressed.

“Hey,” Harlan said. “Can we cut swimming today? I need to talk to you.”

Ricky didn’t hesitate, just stuffed his things back into his bag and closed his locker. “Sure, man. Let’s do it.”

They headed out to the football field. They climbed to the top of the wooden bleachers and
looked out over the grass, the field’s chalk lines blurred by winter neglect. The sun was bright, almost blinding, but the air was cold.

“So,” Ricky said. “’S’up?” Neither had spoken a word since being inside the locker room.

“It’s about the way I’ve been acting lately,” Harlan said.

Ricky didn’t say anything, just listened.

“This thing happened at the Eye Ball on Saturday,” Harlan went on. “I couldn’t go onstage.” He hesitated a second, not sure how the rest would sound out loud. “I knew something bad was going to happen.”

Ricky hesitated too, trying to understand what Harlan was saying. “What do you mean?”

Harlan told Ricky about his premonitions—about how he “saw” horrible disasters in his future. And that while using the Ouija board that night at Jerry Blain’s, he’d “seen” himself drowning in the pool at Harriet Tubman.

“So
that’s
what was going on that night!” Ricky said. “And why you skipped the meet!”

“I had another premonition earlier, during swim workout. I saw myself being hit by a car. It was so bad I almost drowned.”

Ricky nodded. “I remember that too.”

“That one came true. A few days later, I was almost hit by a bus. Just like how I’d seen it.”

“No shit?”

Harlan looked over at his friend. “No shit. These premonitions, they’re
true
. But the one I had onstage at the Eye Ball was the worst of all.”

“What was it of?”

Harlan couldn’t bring himself to describe out loud what he’d seen—the sense of nothingness. “It was just really bad, okay?”

“Okay,” Ricky said.

Harlan stared down into the field of grass. “I want you to tell me the truth. You think I’m crazy?”

“Well, yeah,” Ricky said without missing a beat, “but not for having premonitions.”

Harlan didn’t want to smile, but he did anyway.

“You’re not crazy,” Ricky said. He said it casually, like it was unbelievably obvious, not like he was trying to get Harlan to believe something he didn’t really believe himself.

“But the premonitions!”

“Maybe they’re real, maybe not. But one thing is sure: your gut is telling you something. I say listen to it. People lie, even to themselves. But the gut don’t lie.”

Harlan knew Ricky was talking about his being
gay. But the fact was, Ricky did understand. And he was exactly right. Except he wasn’t. Harlan
couldn’t
listen to his gut, at least not about standing up to his mother. Not if he wanted to keep swimming.

Harlan kicked paint off the bleacher with the heel of his shoe.

“What?” Ricky said.

“I can’t,” Harlan said.

“Can’t what?”

“Listen to my gut.” He sighed. “It’s telling me to stand up to my mom.”

“So?”

Harlan explained how the one time he had stood up to her, she went and got him kicked off the swim team. “So you see? I can’t do it.”

“Bullshit!” Ricky said. “Har, are you listening to yourself? You just got through telling me that if you don’t listen to your gut, some disaster is going to happen. A
disaster
! You might even die! If your gut is saying the only way to avoid that is to stand up to your mom, you need to listen, dude,
listen
.”

“But I also need to swim!” Harlan said.

Ricky shook his head. “No. Swimming’s not the same thing. It’s great and everything. But swimming’s just something you do. It’s not who you
are
.”

“So what now? What do I do next?”

Ricky thought for a second. Then he said, “You really feel like if you don’t stand up to your mom, something bad is gonna happen?”

Harlan sighed again. “I’m sure of it.”

Ricky shrugged. “Then you don’t have any choice. You have to tell your mom to go to hell.”

Harlan found his mother in her dressing room just off the master bedroom. She had a whole network of rooms back there: the dressing room, a walk-in closet, even her own private bathroom, which his dad was not allowed to use. But there were no windows here, making it feel a little like a cave. That seemed fitting, somehow—like Harlan was Beowulf finally confronting Grendel’s mother in the depths of her lair.

His mom was sitting at her dressing table, wearing a bathrobe. There was a huge mirror in front of her, but Harlan was standing at the wrong angle, so he couldn’t see her face.

“Mom,” he said. “There’s something I need to say.”

She didn’t even look over at him. “Not now, Harlan. I have an important dinner tonight, and I need to get ready.” Incredibly, Harlan’s mom still hadn’t said one word to him about his having a panic attack the night of the Eye Ball. Apparently, she
couldn’t conceive of a son of hers doing such a thing, so it was like she had just decided to pretend it had never happened.

“Yes, now,” Harlan said. “It can’t wait.”

His mom turned to him at last. She hadn’t put her face on yet. For the first time since he could remember, he was seeing her without any makeup. She looked drab and gray, like a burned-out lightbulb. But more than anything, she looked sad.

“What is it?” she said. “But make it quick.”

“Something needs to change,” he said.

“What? What are you talking about?” Did she really not have any idea where this was going? She sure sounded convincing.

But Harlan wasn’t giving up that easily. “You can’t just tell me what to do anymore.”

She turned back to the mirror and picked up a pair of tweezers. As far as she was concerned, this conversation was over.

“Did you hear me?” Harlan said.

She rolled her eyes—or was it just that she was tweezing her eyebrows? “Harlan, I’ve got a million things to do. There’s a new tie on your bed. I’d like you to wear it to the Harris Foundation dinner this weekend, with your navy jacket.”

“Mom,” he said evenly, “that’s exactly what I
mean. I never said I’d go to the Harris Foundation dinner. You never asked. In the future, I’ll do two events a month for you and dad. But they’ll have to fit into
my
schedule. I think that’s fair. And I’ve already done two events this month, so I won’t be going anywhere this weekend.”

His mother put down the eyebrow tweezers. “Harlan, didn’t we go through this already? Do you
want
to lose your swimming privileges?”

“I don’t care about swimming. This is more important than swimming.”

“Fine,” his mother said. She picked up a bottle of liquid foundation and started smearing it over her face. It made things smooth and uniform, but hard, like porcelain.

He studied the back of her swanlike neck. “Fine, what?” he asked.

“Fine, you won’t be swimming anymore. And I wouldn’t get too comfortable with that car of yours either.”

“Mom,” Harlan said, oh-so-patiently, “you saw what happened at the Eye Ball. Did you think I was putting on an act? Don’t you see? I can’t do it anymore.”

She didn’t respond. She was determined to keep pretending that the incident at the Eye Ball had never happened.

“Did you hear me?” Harlan said.

“I heard,” she answered. “It doesn’t change anything.”

“Mom, why are you doing this?”

“Doing what? What am I doing?” It sounded like she honestly didn’t know.

“Just answer me one question,” Harlan said. “Why are you so angry with me?”

She kept working on her face. She put down the bottle of foundation, then picked up another container and started powdering. “Angry at you?” she said. “Do I look like I’m angry at you?”

Yes, Harlan thought, watching her work. She looked absolutely furious. Who else would answer the question “Why are you so angry at me?” with such indifference?

But Harlan didn’t budge. “I’m not going to the dinner,” he said. “And, for the record, in the future
I’ll
decide my extracurricular activities.”

She sighed. “Harlan, I’m sorry you feel that this family is such a terrible burden on you.”

“Guilt won’t work, Mom. Not this time.”

“You’re going to the dinner, and that’s final. I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

“I’m not going, Mom. Get me kicked off the swim team, take my car, I’m still not going.”

She just kept working on her face.

“Mom?”

When she still didn’t answer, he stepped toward her. She was sitting in a swivel chair, and he reached for her shoulder, to turn her around and make her face him. “Mom, listen—”

The second he touched her, she pulled back, as if recoiling from the brush of a ghost. “Don’t touch me.”

He withdrew his hand, but he didn’t step away. She immediately started working on her face again, but too broadly, awkwardly. She was trying hard not to let Harlan see her sweat, but it wasn’t working. So close to her, he could even see her tremble.

“You know what?” Harlan said. “When I came here tonight, I thought this was about the Eye Ball and the Harris Foundation dinner—about the fact that you’re threatened by my standing up to you. But now I see that this isn’t about that at all. It’s about the fact that you’ve resented me all along. The thing I still don’t understand is why. What did I do that makes you so unhappy?”

She froze, eyeliner in hand. “Do you really want to know?”

It took Harlan aback, hearing his mother basically agree that she “resented” him. At the same time, he
knew she was only trying to throw him off-balance—like the way she’d smashed the plates on the floor when she was resurfacing that mosaic table.

“I said I did,” Harlan said. “And I do.”

She swiveled around to face him. He couldn’t remember the last time they had been so close—and face-to-face, no less. “You may not like it,” she said.

“Tell me,” Harlan whispered, unnerved in spite of himself.

“You’re adopted,” she said matter-of-factly.

Harlan had expected her to say a lot of things. But he hadn’t expected this. “What?”

“It’s true. You’re the son of my brother and his girlfriend.”

It’s a lie, Harlan thought—another way to throw him off guard. Or was it? Somehow it had the ring of truth.

“I remember the first night you came to us,” his mother went on, almost wistfully, as her eyes lost their focus. “Just a baby. You looked so helpless. You reached up to me, desperate to be held. But you barely cried. You had already learned that it didn’t make any difference.”

“But why—” Harlan started to say.

“Because he was a drunk!” his mother said. All of a sudden, her eyes had their focus back, and more.
“Among other things. One night, he got drunk and left you alone in the bathtub. You almost drowned.”

H
₂
O danger Tub!
The words of the Ouija board hit Harlan right in the gut. That hadn’t been a reference to Harriet Tubman High School, or anything in his future; it had been a reference to his
past,
to danger in an actual
tub
—a bathtub he’d been left alone in as a baby! Did this also explain the premonition he’d had that night—of his drowning at what he’d thought was the meet with Harriet Tubman High School? Like all his premonitions, it had been shadowy and unclear. So maybe it wasn’t the future he’d seen, but the past; Marilyn Swan had said that the future and the past were often hard to distinguish. Maybe
all
his “premonitions” were impressions from the past! And speaking of Mrs. Swan, this could definitely be what she had meant about an “accident in the water.”

But his mom had no way of knowing what Mrs. Swan had told him, or what the spirits—or his own subconscious—had been trying to tell him with the Ouija board. Which meant his mom had to be telling the truth!

It was too much information. Harlan could barely take it all in. But he’d said he wanted the truth, so now he was determined to see it through.

“What happened to them—my parents?” Harlan asked. “Are they still alive?”

“Not your father,” his mom said. “Four years after he lost custody to us, he committed suicide.”

“Why didn’t you tell—” But even as he was speaking, Harlan had another thought:
this
was why his mother resented him! She was finally really telling the truth. Her feelings for Harlan weren’t about him at all. They were about her brother—a drunk, “among other things.” For the control freak that was his mother, that would have been inexcusable. Had his mom tried to control her brother too, only to lose him in the end? No doubt Harlan looked just like him. (This also explained her obsession with keeping him away from drugs and alcohol; it
wasn’t
just about him not embarrassing her and his father.)

“He was crazy, Harlan,” his mom said. “Eventually, he even started seeing things.”

Seeing things? Harlan thought. As in “premonitions”?

“When I look at you,” his mom went on, “at how erratically you’ve been acting, I see the same thing happening all over again. That’s why it’s so important that you listen to me, and do the things I ask. If you keep going down the road you’re on, you’re headed straight for disaster.”

Disaster. There was that word again. Was she right? Were his premonitions a sign that he was just like his father—that he was crazy?

Suddenly Harlan started laughing. And all the anxiety and confusion he’d been experiencing? It was gone, like black smoke swept away by a clarifying wind.

His mom pulled her robe tight. “You think this is funny?” she said.

“Yeah,” he said. “I think it’s hilarious!”

His mom wasn’t right; Ricky was. Harlan had to listen to his gut. It was all he had to go on. And even now, his gut was telling him that his mom was full of crap. Oh, her argument that his standing up to her put him on the road to disaster was interesting. There was a reason why his dad’s campaign manager and political strategists all ultimately answered to her; she was an expert tactician, and quick on her feet to boot.