The Mourning After (20 page)

After she found me crumpled in a ball, writing pages that I refused to share, she screamed at the top of her lungs how I needed to go out and experience life instead of waiting for life to happen to me.  I held my hand up to her face, the universal sign for stop, so there was no mistaking my stance.  No one had experienced life as I had.  No one.

Grabbing me by the leg, she dragged me off the couch until my bottom slammed hard across the floor.

“
What’s that for?”

“
Get up,” she yelled.  “We’re getting out of here.”

I’m writing this down because I’m finding most of it hard to believe.  If I pen every detail, maybe what happened will seem more real, less like somebody else’s life.

I grabbed a jacket, locked up the house, and followed Lucy to her mother’s car. 

“
Get in,” she said.

“
You don’t have a license,” I said.

“
Get in,” she repeated again.  “They won’t be home for hours.”

Don’t ask me where my common sense had gone.  I tried, but I couldn’t seem to find it.  Not with her breathing so close.

She drove north on Collins Avenue passing the Eighty-fifth Street beach, through Bal Harbour, and over the Haulover Bridge.  She’s only been in Miami a couple of weeks, and she already knew to take it slow through the stately stream of high-rises leading to the bridge—the strip is notorious for lurking cops and their speed traps. 

It was a few minutes past six o’clock, and the air was dark and balmy.  I had no idea where she was taking me, until she turned toward the sign, Haulover Beach.

“
It’s a nude beach,” I said.

“
Are you serious?”she replied in mock surprise.

She parked the car in the vacant lot and said, “Levon, try to be brave.  Even if you’re just pretending to be.  I swear, no one will be able to tell the difference. Rule #412.”

I said, “I think the beach is closed; we’re not supposed to be here.” 

Anyone who knows me knows that breaking the law is not my idea of fun.  I am the one who actually puts the dime in the Brach’s candy jar before digging into the bin of bulk candy.  My only crime is how literally I take the word BULK, stuffing dollar bills into the canister and handfuls of candy into my pockets.  Besides, I’d visited the police station way too many times already this year. 

I panicked. I was afraid of drug dealers skulking in the bushes, waiting to kidnap us and do creepy things to our bodies.

Lucy ran off in front of me, and I had no choice but to follow.

The beach was noisy, waves thrashing against the shore, and I could make out her silhouette in the distance close to the water’s edge.

“
Haven’t you seen
Jaws
?” I hollered at her, the words caught in the cool air, echoing along the beach and missing her ears completely.

She threw her bag down on the sand.

 
I tried to dissuade her. “I can’t get my stitches wet.”

She started to take off her clothes. “Come on, Levon, become one with the world, free yourself, free your spirit…”

I was about five yards away from her when her spirit—along with her shirt and jeans—went flying through the air, revealing a modest one-piece.  She was off running into the crashing waves before the garments hit the ground.

I screamed for her to stop, but she didn’t hear me.  The waves were clamoring for her, brash and noisy, wrapping around her like a swirl of creamy frosting.

I could barely make out her shape amid the foamy spray, though I could hear her voice.

She was shouting at me to come in, citing prophetic, philosophical phrases about living my life to the fullest and how fear is for the dead and the way to actually live is to let go of fear. Then it dawned on me that this might be the first and last time I get this close to a partially naked, hot girl.  Was it worth getting mauled by a school of hungry sharks?

I struggled with this question.  If I couldn’t see the bottom of the ocean, I wanted no part of it.  But when I slammed my eyes shut and imagined my future, what it might hold for me, I saw a big nothing.  I surely didn’t want that. I had been roused, awakened by a slither of gold frolicking in the water.  Shark food or the golden ticket?

What the hell, I thought.  It was dark and she wouldn’t see the folds of skin around my middle or that my chest had no definition.  So I stripped down to my boxers, heaped my clothes in a pile next to hers, and ran as fast as I could into the frigid water.

“
Levon!”

The way she said my name, I could tell she was pleased.  She was gorgeous in the light of the moon with drops of ocean and salt on her face.  She was giggling and splashing me and humming the
Jaws
theme.  I was nervous and excited and thinking if I died at that moment, at least I was doing something adventurous.

We stood facing each other.

“
Levon, there’s something I have to tell you.”

She said it just like that.  I couldn’t believe it was actually going to happen to me!  A hot girl was going to proclaim her love for me, and she was going to straddle me by the light of a Miami moon and I would finally have my first kiss.  She was going to tell me that she didn’t care about my extra pounds, that she had been attracted to me since the day we met, especially attracted to my mind, though she needed to take it slow; she cherished our friendship and wouldn’t want to lose what we have.

But that’s not what happened.

“
Levon, I was raped.”

I swear the ocean stopped breathing around us.  The waves stilled; silence persisted. Shivering, I quietly wished for my clothes, for her clothes.  I wanted to move away from her, to tell her to cover up.  She raised her tattooed leg into the air, the one with the forgiveness tattoo.  There isn’t anything forgivable about that.

“
We were in Atlanta,” she said, bringing the leg down.  And then she added, “Nothing’s ever what it seems, Levon.  There’s so much more to a person than you think.”

Thank God she didn’t pin one of her meaningless numbers to that sentence. She turned her back to me and started walking to the shore.  I would protect Lucy Bell from any threatening sea monster, I decided.  I followed behind her.  I watched her long, skinny legs and pretended she wasn’t wearing a flimsy white piece of fabric.  I tried not to concentrate on her butt and her legs as they led her toward the pile of clothes.  When she bent down to get something out of her bag, I turned out of respect.

Had she looked my way when I walked toward her, I might have cowered in shame, but she did not.  If that was her way of garnering me the same deference, I wasn’t sure.  I do know that I have found my first real friend, and the fantasy of Lucy that I have conjured up has been washed away by her stormy truths.

She didn’t get dressed, instead, she laid out her clothes as a place for us to sit.  She was so comfortable in her body, though I couldn’t get my shirt and pants on fast enough. 

I sat down next to her, and she smiled at me.  Then she said this: “Levon, you are an amazing person.  You, what’s inside of you.  You hide it under that big body of yours, but I see it.”

Kids talked behind my back, whispering and joking about my body, but no one had ever come right out and flatly—and let’s not mince words here—acknowledged that I am a tad overweight.  When Lucy said what she did, I was hearing it for the very first time.

 
It’s impossible to imagine Lucy as anything other than beautiful and bright, formed and fashioned by good genes and good luck.  She was raped on a golf course in Atlanta in broad daylight by someone she liked and trusted. There was a group of them that hung out on the weekends, Lucy and her brother Ricky among them—though Ricky was absent that day, the first and only time.  They were drinking and horsing around, and one of the guys got so out of control that he followed Lucy into the bushes when she had to go to the bathroom, pushed her to the ground, pulled at her clothes, and laid on top of her. 

The boy admitted to the crime, cooperated with the authorities, and made several honorable attempts to apologize to Lucy.  He claimed he had no recollection of the incident.  He had used cocaine for the first time and was out of his mind.  Formally charged, his wealthy family had connections, so, after showing remorse, chalking it up to bad judgment, and a brief stint in rehab, he walked away with Lucy’s pride, virginity, and a slap on the wrist.

Ricky was racked with grief for choosing that afternoon to be away.  He wanted to kill the kid.

Their whole group dismantled, one by one, alliances and loyalties pitted against each other.  But the boy, despite avoiding jail, was not free at all.  Overcome with self-loathing and hopelessness, having become the community’s pariah, he swallowed a bottle of his mother’s Valium, went to sleep, and never woke up.  There was so much blame going around.  The lines between victim and villain were unclear.  Confused, Lucy cut off all of her hair.

Then the Bells sold the house, packed up their belongings, and headed south.

Lucy told this story as if it were an ordinary day she was describing and not the one in which her soul was ripped into pieces. “That’s why I chose forgiveness,” she said with a sigh.  For the record, I will never ever understand her forgiveness.  Then she asked me about my secret.

Being around Lucy makes me want to confess to all kinds of unspeakable thoughts and tawdry secrets; one in particular, how I was falling in love with her. 

But what if I told her a different secret?

What if I told it to everyone?

Would they be able to forgive me?

Would it help them heal or make things worse?

The rest of the night is blurry.  I was teetering on the brink, pushing down my secrets so they couldn’t escape. This wasn’t a time for the focus to be on me.  I wanted to be there for Lucy, to take care of her.  She begged me to tell, but I was strong in my conviction and remained tight-lipped.

We walked off the beach toward her car.  I wasn’t ready to go home yet, so we took a drive to South Beach.  Lucy parked in the garage, and we walked a few blocks to a tattoo parlor.  Daring me to get a tattoo, I vacillated between getting a permanent versus temporary one.  I wanted to be brave and daring like Lucy.  I picked the Chinese symbol for courage.  Lucy actually decided for me.  It stung like hell, but the symbol already has me feeling different, stronger.  It’s on my ass, and no one will ever find it there.  It hurts to sit, a small inconvenience I have to bear for the relief of knowing my mom will never see it.

It’s hard for me to imagine Lucy’s slender body harmed, violated.  Her flaws and blemishes are no different from mine.  I think we are all start out as beautiful, and then our pain and problems stain us.  I saw Lucy tonight with new eyes.  Lucy has forgiven the boy who wronged her.  Even though he took something sacred from her, she has made her peace with the loss.  It is her resilience and acceptance that inspire me to be a person who can right a wrong and survive chaos and turmoil.

We went to Jerry’s Deli and ate matzo ball soup and potato latkes in honor of Shabbat.  I thought about my mom and sister at temple and even though they were probably already home, I said a prayer for them, for all of us, a prayer that we would survive this.  Lucy and I talked for hours and laughed and shared stories of our childhoods.  Both of us had markers that divided the before from the after, the then from the now.

She told me I had beautiful eyes—honest eyes.

Was that her way of letting me know what was expected of me?

When I got home, the whole family was in the living room, oblivious to where I had gone, to what I had done.  Yes, I branded my bottom, but more importantly, I swam in the ocean after dark, and I rid myself of clothes that hid my burdensome body.  I was revived. Although I am the same Levon who woke for school this morning, when my head hits the pillow in a matter of minutes, I know that nothing will ever be the same. 

My mother smiled at me.  Whether it was because she was happy to see me or for some other dubious reason, I can’t be sure.

The rabbi offered her some writings he thought might be beneficial to her, to all of us, and this one I read over and over:

It Is Never Too Late

The last word has not yet been spoken

The last sentence has not yet been written,

The final verdict is not in.

It is never too late

To change my mind,

My direction,

To say no to the past,

And yes to the future,

To offer remorse,

To ask and give forgiveness

It is never too late

To start over again

To feel again

To love again

To hope again.

It is never too late

To overcome despair,

To turn sorrow into resolve

And pain into purpose.

It is never too late to alter my world,

Not by magical incantations

Or manipulations of the cards

Or deciphering the stars.

But by opening myself

To curative forces buried within,

To hidden energies

The powers in my interior self.

In sickness and in dying, it is never too late

Living, I teach,

Dying, I teach,

How I face pain and fear,

Others observe me, children, adults,

Students of life and death,

Learn from my bearing, my posture,