Silent Boy (18 page)

Kevin straightened up. His eyes narrowed. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, let’s go down there to the Frosty-Freez and get some hot chocolate.’

His eyes remained intent. Then he shook his head. ‘I can’t. I’m not on a green pass. You have to be on a green pass to go off the grounds.’

You’re not on any kind of pass, Kevin. But it wouldn’t matter anyway. You’d be with me. They’d let you come, if I took you.’

I could see the fear bright in his eyes, but he was not for telling me about it. His fears had begun to embarrass him of late. I think it was probably Jeff whom he wanted to hide them from. Kevin and I were old buddies but Jeff he still wanted to impress. In a way that was why I wanted to take him out myself, alone.

‘It’s too cold out,’ Kevin said and leaned back over the map.

‘No, it’s not. It’s a beautiful night. I was just out in it when I came over.’

‘It’s too far to go.’

‘It’s only a block and a half. Maybe two blocks.’ I put my putty knife down. ‘Come on. This’ll wait for us.’

‘It’s too dark out there.’

‘There’s streetlights.’

‘But it’s probably slippery.’

‘Yes, probably. But we’ll make it all right.’

Nervously, he glanced up. ‘I don’t have a coat. I don’t have any boots.’

‘I’m sure the staff will find you something.’ I was on my feet.

Kevin just sat. His shoulders started to sag dismally. I knew he was running short of excuses. ‘You know what?’ he said softly and stared at his hands.

‘What’s that?’

‘I haven’t been going out a whole lot lately.’

‘I know that.’

‘I don’t want to go.’

‘I know that too.’

‘Then let’s not, okay, Tor?’

I shook my head. Kevin’s eyes wandered over our work on the floor. Absently, he scraped a bit of dried papier-mâché away from the edge of the board. ‘I …’ he started but never finished. A deep breath followed.

I knelt down across the map from him. ‘Just trust me, Kev, all right? Gimme a chance, okay?’

Then there was silence. It dropped on us as if someone had been standing over us, as if we were on a marionette stage and the puppeteer let drop a down comforter over us. It came down suddenly but softly, smothering us sweetly.

I could not break out of it. Whether he could or not, I didn’t know.

Gently I touched his hand. His fingers were cold. ‘What’s it feel like, Kev?’ I asked. ‘What’s it make you feel like inside?’

He shrugged.

‘How does the fear feel?’ I couldn’t imagine. I couldn’t fathom what that much fear must have been like.

Giving a deep sigh, Kevin slipped his hand out from under mine and caught a falling tear. He was embarrassed by it. It was the first time he had cried in ages, since those first weeks. Too much had changed since then. Even with me he was embarrassed by the tears.

Again he shrugged. ‘I dunno. I just get scared.’

‘About what?’

‘Well, like maybe something might happen.’

‘Like what?’

‘I dunno.’

We were still struggling with the silence over us. At least I was. It was like swimming in mud.

‘I wonder sometimes,’ Kevin began very slowly and his eyes studied the fabric of the carpet, ‘I wonder sometimes why people hate other people. What do you do to make them hate you?’ His eyes rose to mine. ‘What do you do to make them stop?’

The gray of his eyes had paled. They were the color of winter water before it froze.

‘Once,’ he said, his voice hesitant and very soft, ‘I had this book. My grandma gave it to me. About kittens. All these little kittens dressed up, doing things. I like kittens.’ He looked up. ‘Did you know that? That I like kittens? I do. And cats. Then …’ He fell silent. His eyes fixed on some unseen spot in front of him, I knew he was looking inward into some inner place I could not see. He remained silent a long, long time. And then,’ he continued very softly, ‘when I came back I couldn’t ever find the book again.’

Something had been left out of that story: I could not follow it. But he was communicating his feelings clearly enough. So it seemed inappropriate to ask for explanations.

He looked up at me. ‘When someone sort of hates you,’ he said, ‘they do things to you. You never know when it’s going to happen. You never know exactly what. But when someone hates you, you always know they’ll do things.’

My God, I was thinking, I’d be scared to go out too.

W
e did not go to the Frosty-Freez that evening. However, the night after we did go. Still sharing with God the privilege of creating the North American continent, I had returned the following evening to help Kevin finish the project. This time Kevin knew it was coming. When I suggested I was thirsty, Kevin rose without responding and went to the door.

Beyond the small white room, I had to tell the aides what we were up to and get permission to take him off the grounds. Then we had to locate a jacket for Kevin because he didn’t own one. Kevin went through it all mechanically and without words.

Outside it was bitterly cold for so late in the season. Yet it was a clear night, lit with the shattered brilliance of a billion stars. The Milky Way stretched out across the sky, a wide white pathway through the night. I pointed it out to Kevin but he kept his eyes to the ground. He did not fear attack from the sky; it was his least vulnerable direction. So he wasn’t going to waste precious time looking there.

Our breath came out in huge white puffs. The cold air startled up the sensitive lining in my nose, giving a tiny spark of pain with each inhalation. I loved the night; I loved the winter. This was a perfect time to be out. We were completely alone, but with so many stars, one could not get lonely in the earthbound darkness.

‘I’ve never been out in the night before,’ Kevin said, his voice cautious sounding. ‘At least not that I can remember.’

‘It’s beautiful at night. I think sometimes it’s more beautiful than in the day. I love the night.’

‘I don’t,’ he said. ‘You can’t see what’s coming.’

The Frosty-Freez was a little hole in the wall with a serving counter, six or seven booths with overstuffed, vinyl-covered seats and pots of faded plastic flowers. The windows were steamed up against the cold night, and the humid, greasy warmth greeted us like a fat auntie’s kiss.

There were a few other people in the place, teenagers mostly, hanging around the jukebox. However, it wasn’t crowded by any means, and it was easy to go to the far end of the row of booths and slip into one where we weren’t much noticed. I took out a menu.

Kevin was subdued. While there were no major manifestations of his fear outwardly, it obviously nagged at him, because he kept returning to it over and over in conversation.

‘I never been out. It’s been almost four years since I went outside. I never been out since the year I first came to Garson Gayer. Three years, six months, two weeks and a day. That’s how long I stayed inside.’

‘Are you okay?’ I asked.

Slowly, he nodded.

‘So what do you want? Hot chocolate?’

‘No, nothing. I can’t eat. I feel like I want to throw up.’

‘Well, I’m having hot chocolate. I’ll be right back.’ And I rose to go to the counter and order. When I came back to the booth with my cup, Kevin had disappeared.

‘Kevin?’ I looked around. ‘Kev?’

A tug on the leg of my jeans. I leaned over.

Kevin had slid under the table.

‘
Kevin
! What are you doing under there? Come on. Come up and sit on the seat.’

‘I can’t!’ he replied plaintively.

Oh dear. I felt myself redden. Quickly I glanced around to see if anyone had noticed that my companion had decided to sit under the table. No one seemed to.

The least objectionable thing appeared to be to simply sit down at the table with my hot chocolate and wait for Kevin to come out. If he weren’t so big, I might have taken a more charitable view of our predicament but as it was, I had to admit to being mightily embarrassed and in no way wanted to draw attention to what was going on. So it seemed best, if possible, to wait him out.

I hunched over my cup. Neither of us said anything, not that conversation would have been easy on two levels like that. I could hear Kevin rustling around down there but he stayed clear of my legs. The fixed seats of the booth made a small but effective place to hide.

It was seven-thirty when we arrived. As I sat, sipping the chocolate as slowly as possible, I watched the minute hand creep around to eight o’clock and then toward eight-thirty. The young man behind the counter came over and asked if he could get me anything else. I asked when they closed. Eleven, he said. I agreed to have another cup of hot chocolate.

The faces changed. The young kids hanging around the juke-box gave way to couples, still in their teens but older. More quarters clinked into the jukebox. I heard one song by ABBA eight times.

‘Kev, how you doing down there?’ I whispered, saying it over the rim of my fourth cup of hot chocolate. I had an order of French fries too, to soak up all that liquid.

He moved but did not answer. I knew he was crying. We had been there almost two hours, he cramped into that tiny space under the table and me, trying to look nonchalant as I sat alone, waiting and waiting.

What was I going to do? Should I call Jeff? Or one of the aides? Perhaps I just ought to get down there and haul him out myself.

I think my biggest worry was humiliating him. Kevin worked extremely hard at preserving what little self-respect he had managed to grasp. He had quite a bit of dignity for a kid in his circumstances. And it had taken a hell of a lot of courage to do what he had done so far this evening. Even sitting under a table in the Frosty-Freez was a huge step forward. So I didn’t want to humiliate him by creating a scene, if I could help it. Undoubtedly, he was embarrassed enough on his own without my help.

Yet, what were we going to do? It was already 9:30 and there was only an hour and a half to go. My own embarrassment over the situation had long since passed. All I felt now was desperation that we should be able to resolve this with the minimum amount of fuss possible.

‘Kev? You about got yourself together?’ I asked. I brought my foot out to fake tying a shoelace so I could talk to him more easily. ‘They close here at eleven. We got to go before then.’

I had a Dr Pepper this time and another order of fries. French fries were the easiest thing to stretch out over a long period of time. I was half sick from all the junk but I felt obliged to keep eating something. The boy behind the counter continued glancing in my direction and the only thing that put him off was if I kept ordering and eating.

But it was getting to be too much. By 10:15 I leaned over again. ‘Kev, I’m going to leave for a few minutes, okay? I’ve been drinking stuff all night. I need to use the bathroom. I’ll be right back.’

That wasn’t a complete lie. I did need to. But I needed a phone too.

‘Jeff?’ I whispered. I didn’t want Kevin to hear me. I didn’t want the kid behind the counter to hear me either. ‘What am I going to do, Jeff?’

He didn’t know either and thank God, he didn’t laugh. It was blessed just to hear his voice. Actually, that was all I really needed, someone to share my predicament with, because when I went back to the booth, I still had no idea other than waiting Kevin out. But at least I wasn’t alone in it anymore. Someone else knew. Someone else thought I was doing the best thing. So I felt better.

‘Kevin, we got fifteen minutes. In fifteen minutes that guy over there is going to shut this place up, and if you aren’t out of there by then, I’m going to have to tell him and it’s going to be awful. Do you hear? We got fifteen minutes.’

The sound of a shifting body came from under the table.

‘Kevin, do you
hear
me? You’ve got to come out from under that table. Do you hear?’

Silence.

I shifted my foot around until I located him. I sharply nudged whatever part of his body I had found. ‘Do you hear me?’

‘Yes,’ came a hoarse whisper.

‘Good. Okay, listen, I’m going to get up. I’m going over to the jukebox and put a song on, and if you want to get out from there, this will be a good time to do it. No one will see you.’

I rose, went over to the machine and read all the songs listed. I didn’t like any of them very much. Finally, I chose something loud and raucous by Elvis Presley to cover up Kevin’s coming out noises.

When I returned, Kevin still wasn’t out.

‘I thought you were getting up,’ I whispered. ‘Now, Kevin, you got to.’

‘I will. Gimme another chance.’

‘Do you want me to go away again?’

‘Yes.’

So again I rose. I went back to the jukebox. We were the only people in there now except of course for the young man behind the counter. He was definitely giving me odd looks by this point. I had no idea if he understood what was going on. Probably not. Without a complete script none of this made much sense, no matter how you looked at it. Even if he had never noticed Kevin’s existence at all, my behavior had been strange enough on its own.