Glass Boys Read online

Garrett leaned back against a tree. In those dusky woods, he could be a hero. But out in the light was another matter. Though he tried, he was unable to quarantine his stepfather’s words, would say them inside his mind whenever his bladder threatened to relax on the stained fabric of his pungent mattress. Those words were there now, even though he did his best to leave them at the forest’s edge. Must have been hiding, he realized, inside the pouch of the lady’s slipper. He heard them blaring, and he was suddenly aware he was still standing there, with his bottoms missing. What would his stepfather do if he came upon him like this? What would his stepfather say?

  Trembling hand, Garrett let the blade hover over his parts, bent his head to see it, said in his gruffest stepfatherly voice, “If you wets the bed once more, my sonny boy, I’ll hack your flicker off.” Garrett raised both hands above his head, stomped his feet. He scanned the canopy for signs of arrival. His stepfather was supreme. That man could be anywhere. Was everywhere. “I’ll hack your flicker off.” Hysterical drunken laughter, replaying in Garrett’s mind. “Come ’ere, boy.” Point of a knife between his stepfather’s two front teeth. Picking away a strand of meat. “Come ’ere, I says. Turn you into a lassie.” No, sir. Garrett poked the sky with the knife. No, sir. That you won’t. But there was little conviction in his high-pitched voice.

  A shriek from a crow. “Garrett Glass! What in God’s name are you doing?”

  He jumped, nicked the flesh near the crease of his upper thigh. His mother standing there, between two scarred trees. “Idn’t doing nothing, Mama,” he squeaked. Knife dropped from his frightened hand, hidden underneath the broad wet leaves of the lady’s slipper.

  “You could cut yourself something fierce, horsing around like that.”

  “Clothes got wet.”

  “Well, they better get unwet. If Eli gets back, finds you haven’t done what he ask, you’ll feel the switch, my son. And you knows nothing I says’ll make a difference.”

  9

  SURE, LEWIS HAD dangled a fistful of carrots along with his proposal. But he wasn’t the first man to do so. Alan Firsk, who called himself a pop artist, had offered up a silver band only a short time before she met Lewis. Wilda was his muse, Alan told her, and he couldn’t abide a life without her. He was handsome, kind, and quirky, but it made her nervous when he sketched distorted line drawings of her face, images strained and haunted, smeared charcoal shadows in places that should have been shadow free. She disliked the enormous representation of her head made with a collage of clippings from old comic strips. Hated when he took snapshots of her, showcasing her attempted smiles, and strung them with cat gut inside a rusty bird cage. “These are your essence,” he called it, but she did not want to see her essence. Did not want Alan attempting to capture it on paper or otherwise.

  She had been carrying around his ring in the front pocket of her work apron for nine days, his proposal unanswered, when he gave her a handmade card. Bright white paper full of pretty silver fibers. He likely made it himself. On the cover was a single phrase, “My heart bleeds for you,” and beneath, a miniature painting of a bright red heart, tilted on its side, anatomically correct with veins and arteries arching upwards. And beneath that, several droplets, frozen mid-drip, traveling down to a tiny pool, complete with spatter. She slid the card into the pocket of her apron, along with the ring, but all afternoon she kept removing it, staring at it. She thought she felt it beating against her lower stomach, heard the card, too, those fat drops letting go, whizzing through the air, splashing in an ever growing pool of liquid.

  Such a horribly familiar feeling as she imagined the blood staining the hem of her skirt. Her tiny feet. Then, a swelling of words pressing behind her eyes. Her mother’s voice, high and tight and filled with fury.

  Wilda snatched the card out of her pocket, tore it into a thousand pieces. Dropped the ring into the penny slot of the cash register. When he next came to see her, she fled to the small bathroom at the back of the store. He rapped, several times, but she would not emerge, and he was forced to speak through the door. “Come on, Wil. A joke, is all,” he said. “Meant to be dramatic. I thought you’d find it funny. A good laugh.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Did you even open it up? See what I wrote inside?”

  “No. Now leave.”

  “But, Wil.”

  “Leave.” The card was a sign. Wilda knew a vaporous bridge had formed between her present and her past.

  And then, two weeks later, Lewis arrived, with his gray eyes and determination. Over the course of several months, sporadic visits, he lured her with many promises. He had some acreage, he said, a fair bit of it, and enough money to go along with it. There were spruce woods where she could roam, a warm stream to wade in during summer, and a tidy house that she could make into her own. Wallpaper and an electric stove and a robin’s egg blue soup tureen that had belonged to his dead mother. She could have it all if he could take her home. Said that if she didn’t agree, he’d club her over the head and drag her there anyways.

  Francis told her not to worry. “Go on,” he’d said. “Love when you’re young. When ’tis easy.”

  Leave it to Francis to turn a snarl of emotional yarn into a neat skein. But it wasn’t that simple. Even though she had grown used to Lewis over the months that he traveled back and forth to see her, his eagerness made her nervous. As he spoke of home life and family and any number of fat smiley babies, she noticed the soles of her feet starting to twitch. Her legs became restless, wanting to carry her away from those possibilities. To leave Lewis, and pretend she’d never met him. That would be easier. Before he realized what kind of things she had done.

  She decided to marry him anyways, decided the moment when she noticed someone had strolled across that bridge. She had been walking to the bank on a March afternoon, and passed a man she recognized. Six years since she had been home to Teeter Beach, but she still knew his face. Not that this particular neighbor had meant anything to her, but it was another sign. Anyone could be next. She was not willing to wait, a sitting duck, to see who or what might emerge, materializing at the crest of the bridge, riding through the fog.

  10

  “HERE’S GOOD.”

  “Here?”

  “Let me out.”

  “Your father might need you.”

  “He idn’t my father.”

  “Still. You got work to do, and you best do it. You don’t question him, Garrett.”

  Garrett nodded. On a cloudy morning in May, he’d gone with his mother to the drugstore, picked up yellow pills and toothpaste and tins of canned milk. He had planned to go straight home, but now, seeing that the harbor was full of pack ice, he needed to get out. “Early this year,” he said.

  “I don’t like it.”

  “I think it’s beautiful.”

  His mother never responded, but he saw her chest rise and fall in a silent sigh.

  “Tell him I won’t be long.”

  She gripped the wheel with wooly mittens, cuffs of her dark green coat worn. “No good comes from dwelling, my son.”

  “I idn’t dwelling, Mom. Seeing idn’t dwelling.”

  “Still. Steer clear of it. Steer clear of the water.”

  Garrett stepped out onto gravel, slammed the car door, heard her pull off the shoulder, drive slowly away. He went to the edge of the cliff, sat on the frozen lichens, let his legs dangle over. Out in the bay, huge shards of ice had crowded in, sharp layers lifting and buckling on the ocean waves. His heart skipped a beat when he saw three young boys dressed in navy parkas skipping from pan to pan. Arms out, balancing, and Garrett could hear them squealing. Maybe some cusswords, but he couldn’t be sure. Watching them through slit eyes, he pretended they were fleas, popping about on a clean bluish sheet. He projected himself out there next, spread eagle on the cold sheet, and the young fleas sprung over, grateful, weaseled their way underneath his layers. He would allow this, allow them to take what they wanted, wouldn’t think of nipping their hard shells bet
ween his two thumbnails.

  As he daydreamed, Garrett felt a familiar fever clamber across his body. He put his hands beneath his thighs, pressed them into the rock. His thoughts bounced back and forth, volleying, one side explaining how he might go down to the water, step onto the ice. Play. A second side telling him to stay put. Leave them alone. Move now. Don’t budge. Move now. Don’t budge. The opposing positions, like hot tea sloshing about inside his mind, and Garrett’s head swayed from side to side. Stay put. They were not fleas. They were young boys, and building friendships was not that easy.

  But what if one of them slips? What if one of them drowns? There is no one else around. No one but you, Garrett.

  He stood up.

  Garrett remembered how his mother told him that Morris Murphy had hauled him out of the water when he was four. When Garrett explained he remembered it all, his mother said that was impossible. “Morris assured us you was completely unconscious.” And Morris was the son of a doctor, so Mrs. Fagan gave no weight to any other scenario.

  Still, Garrett insisted he was fully aware. That those moments changed his entire life. He could easily recollect the face that peered down through the surface. The light surrounding the head. Every detail was right there, on a shelf, tucked away behind other thoughts. The truth that he, Garrett Wesley Glass, had touched the mouth of God.

  In the harbor surrounding Split Rock, Morris Murphy had been playing with his brother. They’d pushed shards of thick ice with sticks, laughing and stomping, until Mrs. Murphy tromped to the end of the wharf, holding her cardigan against the wind, told the boys that lunch was on the table. She said, “Tomato soup and crackers.” Garrett remembered that because he was hungry, as he often was. He imagined the thick red liquid spilling over his guts, warming him from the inside out.

  When no one was looking, Garrett had edged onto the wharf, walked to the end, and lowered himself down onto a slippery chunk of ice. Then he stepped gingerly onto the next broken hunk. The pans wobbled, but not nearly as much as Garrett had feared, and within a few minutes he was leaping like the boys had been. He glanced over at the Murphys’ saltbox, and wished, wished, wished for the Missus to appear as she had, call him in for some soup. Some crackers. Garrett hollered and leapt, head twisted towards the house, waiting for the curtains to shudder. Arms straight out, dancing over the ice, he moved confidently, but the clouds divided, and for a second Garrett was blinded. An irritable wave, the shards bucked, and Garrett jumped as high as he could, came down onto a patch of slob ice, alarm triggering when nothing solid touched his feet. A hidden mouth, opening wide and swallowing him. Dreams of hot soup and crackers shot to the moon.

  A shock of icy water had stabbed through his clothes, and Garrett was instantly numb. Twisting in the water, he saw the blackness below, shadows skittering, and above, a broken blue blanket. He floated upwards, mittens gliding over slick undersides of the pans, head knocking against a solid ceiling. Lungs bursting, only seconds until his muscles released, chest accepting the salt water, breathing it in and out like liquid air. Cold and scorching at the same time. Minutes passed, and he dozed in a limp sitting position, suspended in a dark place he could not describe. Where he felt nothing, no fear. Then, he noticed a bright window in the ice, and the face of a boy, plump cheeks, full lips, golden glowing halo around his head. Fingers of light reaching, reaching. Garrett turned away only for a moment, saw his father in the water behind him. Coming for him. But as much as he craved the comfort of his father’s arms, it was nothing compared to the warmth the boy was promising. Garrett could not turn away from the light. Like a fish now, fins renewed, Garrett managed a kick. He felt his foot hooking into his father’s neck, pinched for just a moment by his father’s collapsing chin and shoulder. A second kick, striking his father’s face with his boot, a burst of bloody ink snaking through the water.

  Hands on his coat, tugging, yanking, some other force moving him up and out. The ocean agreeing to release him. The boy wanted to be part of Garrett, wanted Garrett to be part of him. Garrett felt it through and through and through. And after that, even though his mother repeated “’Twas only Morris Murphy,” Garrett clearly recalled this other boy, a child, asking him to wait a little longer. And instead of taking him upwards, he kissed life into him. Kissed him back home.

  “Hey fellers,” Garrett hollered, hands to the sides of his mouth.

  The boys stopped, looked up, yelled back. “What do you want?”

  “Come here,” he called, scooping the air. “Come up here.”

  “Says who?”

  “Says... says... says me.”

  Silence for a moment, and they gawked at Garrett, gawked at each other. And next, childish laughter galloping up on the wind. Tongues stuck out, and then one of the boys turned, bent, hauled down his trousers, flash of pink skin. “And who’s you?” one screamed. “Who’s you? Telling us what to do.”

  Garrett felt his fever break. He was present again, fully inside his body. Shivering. He realized they were older than he had anticipated. Not children at all. Would not listen to him. Wouldn’t understand. Only viewed him as a newly sprouted teenager, suddenly tall and sinewy and awkward. If they came closer, they would see his cheeks and forehead, covered with scabs and whiteheads, his face an oily joke he tried to hide with a mess of orange hair.

  He turned, tucked his hands into his coat, strolled down over the rocky slope and up onto the laneway. He leaned against a picket fence, dipped his chapped hands into the pockets of his jacket. Inside the left one, his fingers found his small knife, a crumpled glove, a plastic bobber, three lumps wrapped in waxy paper. He pulled out a lump, removed the molasses taffy and popped it into his mouth. Then, in his right pocket, he retrieved the one item with which he would never part. Blackened edges, but no longer any trace of smoke. He pinched it between thumb and forefinger, looked only for a moment. Just enough to drive the cold out from his bones.

  MRS. FAGAN DROVE up over the crest of the hill, pulled her car out onto the rocky cliff. Edging forward slowly, she stopped just as her front wheels touched the fat log. When she looked out over the dashboard, it appeared as though she were airborne, heading into the heaving sea. She wouldn’t hesitate to admit (but only to herself, of course) that the thought was not altogether displeasing. But she wouldn’t, wouldn’t ever. Who would look after Garrett?

  Taking a deep breath, she could smell the wet wool of her coat. Yes, her winter coat. Still. She hated spring, the false promise of it. How a bud or two swelled on the trees, teasing her, then, before she knew it, ice bullied its way down from the north, clogged up the harbor. Days or weeks of frosty gales, crystals in the wind, not a blue wave in sight. Icebergs stranded, wedged in by their girth beneath the surface.

  Cold, cloudless days like this reminded her of troubled times. Reminded her of the day her first husband, Wesley, drowned. He had been trying to save Garrett, who had wandered out onto the broken shards that filled the harbor. Minute after minute passed, before Garrett was hauled out of the sea by their eight-year-old neighbor. She watched him lying there, crumbled on a drifting pan, clothes freezing to the ice. Life pushed back into his body through his willing lungs.

  “A miracle,” she called it, but others weren’t so sure. Ruthless rumbling that God had met the boy, rejected him. People wondered why. “Well, He liked Wesley well enough,” Mrs. Glass, as she’d been known then, offered in weak retort. Handsome and clever, she thought that man was, and he remained at large for several months. She maintained a foolish hope until the spring thaw, when his body, bloated and damaged, skin slipping like a loose wet glove, was finally spit up onto the rocks.

  If she twisted in her seat now, she could just make out the form of her son. He wasn’t down on the beach like she’d feared he would be. Not like those foolish children out jumping pans and squealing. No, he had listened to her, and was seated up high, on the cliff. She placed her damp mitten over her mouth, felt the sharpness of a burn mark in the wool. She couldn’t fathom it, how her
son might be feeling. To witness the arrival of something that nearly killed him. To be mesmerized by it. She could only dream of the sort of torment trapped inside.

  11

  CHEEKS HOT, HAIR standing on end, dozy Lewis Trench lay his head on the shoulder of his wife.

  “Tell me the truth, Mrs. Wilda Trench,” he said playfully. “Tell me who you really are.”

  “You’re being silly,” she said, patting his hand.

  “We’ve been married a year, now. Don’t you trust me?”

  “Of course.” It was easier to lie.

  “Are you really a mermaid, Mrs. Trench?”

  “Do I have a tail, Mr. Trench?”

  “I believes you do. One perfect lovely sexy tail.”

  “You’d better watch I don’t swat you with it.”

  He lay down, nestled his head onto her lap, and his breathing grew steady, reliable. She leaned back against the pea green chesterfield, and watched the reflection of the flames in the sheen on his forehead. May had been a cold month, and Lewis had lit a fire almost every evening. Used up the last of the birch. As she stroked his soft hair, she whispered a phrase from the children’s story she’d just been reading from a thick book Lewis had owned as a boy: “Is your eyes awake? Is your eyes asleep?”

  He smiled, but kept his eyes closed, and she tugged a blanket off the chair, smoothed it over him. Crackling fire, wind scraping a branch against a windowpane, but beyond that it was quiet. No one was asking for her help. No one was showing her what she’d done. Telling her she was responsible for a black stain in the mud. Perhaps here in this little house, surrounded by woods and gently rolling water, she might be able to lock away the past. Perhaps she should try. So, while he lay there on her shoulder, mind lost in deep sleep, she finally told her husband the truth. Part of it, anyway.

  EARLY ONE MORNING, seventeen-year-old Wilda Burry stood smack in the middle of the only road leading out of Teeter Beach, her plaid skirt hiked to upper thigh. She was waiting for one of the few men who owned a car to pass. But no one was out for a drive, only Old Mackie, who edged up beside her with his creaky wagon, two dusty horses. “Put yer leg away, for the love of God,” he said. “I kin cart ye over to Spoonie Bay without none of that.” She hoisted herself and her father’s kit bag, stuffed with a sealskin coat, up and over the wooden boards, and plunked herself down on a pile of freshly cut logs, bark skin still slick with a nervous sweat.