The Duration Page 8

  The quarry was a mile back in the woods off of Route 183, a rectangle of limestone, shades of green and bottomless. One long edge was crowded with trees, but the other sloped gently down into the water. On the eastern short side was a sort of altar of rock, 12 feet up at its highest point, with sloping sides and a perfect flat top for lounging. On the western edge was the sacrificial cliff, a promontory 65 feet high, with leap spots at 30, 40, and 60 feet. I’d done the 60-foot jump once, in my sneakers, after a half-hour of mind games. Chickie did it every time we went, even though he couldn’t swim very well.

  We pushed through the undergrowth, a determined expedition, Unsie on his crutches and the rest of us in swimsuits. Eventually we emerged at the base of the quarry. Shaunda and a bunch of the other St. Eustace girls were crowding the altar. A couple of disgruntled junior males scuffed along the edges. Girls like that always had body men. Someone had to buy the Slush Puppies.

  Shaunda waved at me. Alas, she was wearing a T-shirt.

  The four of us waved back.

  “Hello, ladies,” Jimmer said, but it came out sounding skeevy and he frowned.

  We crossed the vestibule and emerged at the water’s edge. Nods were exchanged and we began unfurling our towels, marking off our plot of quarry. We weren’t there just for the girls. Of course, Unsie couldn’t go in on account of the cast, and Chick didn’t swim on his own. But the girls didn’t know that.

  “Shirts off?” asked Jimmer.

  I nodded.

  “Let’s do it.”

  I grabbed the hem of my T-shirt and began to lift. Jimmer pulled his over his head.

  I stopped lifting mine. Chick and Unsie didn’t move. Jimmer’s chest was a pale concavity, too much time in front of the PlayStation. It blanched in the sunlight, made him look like Casper.

  “Fuckers,” Jimmer said.

  Messing with Jimmer about girls was one of the best things we did.

  He took a running leap and piked into the water. The St. Eustace girls eyed him like gators.

  Jimmer emerged and went back under, vanishing like a frog, his head coming out thirty seconds later across the quarry. He flashed us the finger.

  “He’s the fucker,” Unsie said. He frowned at Jimmer, then looked at the girls and ducked his head.

  Unsie was also not great with girls, but for opposite reasons. Where Jimmer was determined, to the point of awkwardness, to crack the code of gender relations, Unsie was acutely self-conscious. Unsie could run for miles, even farther if a girl was chasing him. Whatever. They’d grow out of it.

  Unsie swung himself off toward the western promontory.

  I flicked my eyes toward Shaunda.

  “I’m gonna go . . . ” I trailed off.

  Chick raised his eyebrows.

  I nodded.

  “Wish me luck.”

  Chick stepped to me.

  “I’ll do more than that, you big bear,” he said, and threw his arms around me.

  I pushed him off.

  “But I love you, man,” he said, loud enough for the gallery.

  I gave him the finger and took a second to compose myself, check my hair, the tuck of my T-shirt. All good. I turned and tried to be casual in my walk toward the altar.

  The body men were waiting. I knew a couple of them from the soccer fields. I nodded. They closed ranks, acted like I was there to talk to them. Not much danger of anyone starting shit, as that wasn’t really their role and anyway I had my boys with me, but they weren’t entirely welcoming. Then Shaunda called to me from the top of the block, and I was like what do you want me to do? I slid past them and climbed up.

  “Hey,” I said, when I got up to the flat.

  She was lying on her back on a towel, propped up on elbows, pink toes pointed toward the water. Her T-shirt was one of those gray scholastic practice shirts that said “Work Hard” on the front, no doubt pilfered from some poor lacrosse slob now in the rearview mirror. She’d knotted it at her golden midriff.

  She took her sunglasses off and looked at me.

  “Hey,” she said back.

  I sat down next to her on the rock.

  “Your friend,” she said, gesturing to Jimmer down in the water. “He’s a little pale.”

  “Uh, yeah,” I said. “I guess so.”

  “And the other one,” she said, turning her head slightly toward the far promontory, where Chick and Unsie had vanished into the ledges. “What happened to him?”

  “Which one?” I asked, and meant it, but it was also sort of good, I thought, to act like we were all complicated guys.

  “The one with the cast,” she said.

  “Broke his leg.”

  She looked at me, trying to figure out something. I gave her my best Clooney smile. She burst into giggles.

  I was rocking this shit.

  “Want a hit?” she asked, lifting a small pipe from a crevice in the rocks at her side.

  I shook her off. “Maybe in a minute.”

  The day was sticky hot and the sun blasted off the white rocks like a concussion. Below, Jimmer had swum to our end and was making small talk with one of the body men, trying to entice a nearby center-half with a nice rack into the water.

  “You gonna go in?” I asked Shaunda.

  She shook her head.

  “Nnnnn. This isn’t a wet T-shirt contest.”

  She looked at me, daring me to react. I kept my eyes on the quarry.

  “So,” I said.

  She started laughing again.

  A voice came from below. One of the midfielders.

  “Shaun!”

  She wrinkled her nose.

  “What!”

  A ponytail bobbed below the altar, a short girl who couldn’t make the climb.

  “It’s three. We gotta go.”

  Shaunda sighed. The ponytail receded. She turned back to me.

  “My friends call you ‘Pete So Handsome.’”

  I blushed as strategically as I could.

  “Everyone calls me that.”

  Shaunda sat up and wrapped her arms around her knees.

  “Why?” she asked, grinning.

  Just then we heard a splash echo across the quarry, and a gasp rise up from the gallery below.

  “Oh shit,” said one of the body men. “He slipped.”

  I looked out at the water. Beneath the 30-foot ledge, a pile of bubbles was effervescing through the green water and making a jagged circle on the top. Then a hand came out, splashing around.

  I stood up. Shaunda put her hand to her eyes like a visor.

  Damn, fellas, I thought. Appreciate the effort, but she’s not even wearing a two-piece.

  Then I saw Chickie standing atop the sacrificial cliff. Checked on Jimmer, still below, now staring out toward the far end. Who’d that leave?

  I saw Unsie’s face in the water. Even 50 yards away, I could see he was scared.

  Above him, in a flash, Chick pushing off the quarry wall, a random spot between 60 and 35, torqueing in the air, and hitting the water with a slap.

  “Oh, shit,” said Shaunda. From that height, anything but a foot-first entry could break bones. And Unsie’s bones were already broke.

  I flew off the altar, 12 feet up, knifing into the water and coming up near Jimmer, the two of us hauling ass across the surface.

  It still took forever. Or felt like forever. Swimming, we couldn’t hear much, just sort of a localized commotion along the quarry walls. We just swam and swam, grabbing a breath every fourth stroke or so.

  When we got to them, they were underwater, Chick holding Unsie around the chest and kicking as hard as he could. Bubbles leaked from under Unsie’s cast and broke for the surface. Beneath them, the water was gradations of shadow. We grabbed Unsie and pushed for the side. When we got there, the juniors reached out and pulled us onto a low ledge. Unsie’s cast was dead weight, but he was a skier and had good lungs and rolled onto his side to cough and spit.

  “Hey,” someone yelled. We looked back at the water and realized tha
t Chick was still struggling, still below. I dove for him, 10 feet down, got a hand on an arm and pulled. Female legs splashed along the edge and female hands reached out for us. We pulled Chickie to shore by the collar of his shirt.

  His eyes were closed.

  “Oh my God,” said a midfielder. “Oh my God!”

  We levered him onto the ledge. He was splayed like Jesus. Shaunda scrambled out of the water and knelt at his head. She’d gotten wet after all and even with the drama of the moment I made a quick mental note of the swells on her shirtfront. Like, I didn’t feel anything about them, but I noted them anyway. Felt like the least I could do. They were notable.

  Shaunda put her hands below Chickie’s chin and lifted it slightly so that his lips parted. Then she pressed her mouth to his and blew.

  Chick’s chest rose, but the rest of him was still.

  Shaunda put her ear to his lips, feeling for breath. She brushed his wet hair from his face, then blew into him again. I grabbed his foot, shook it, just to do something. Unsie watched.

  “Chick!” said Jimmer.

  Then he coughed. Water dribbled out of his mouth and he turned his head. A second passed. Shaunda burst into tears and wrapped her arms around Chick’s neck, bending to him and crushing him to her chest. Chick continued to cough, but his eyes opened. The field hockey team cheered. The junior boys high-fived.

  I scrambled up behind them and threw my arms out, sandwiching Shaunda between Chick and me. I put my hand on the back of Chick’s head and kissed Shaunda on the ear. She was flat out sobbing now.

  “Holy shit, Shaunda,” I said. “You did it!”

  She sort of shifted from holding Chick to being held by me, and buried her head in my shoulders. Soon, her teammates began attending to her. The junior boys huffed a little and returned to their towels. Chick bent on the ledge as Jimmer rubbed his shoulders.

  “Damn, man!” said Unsie, reaching over from the side. His cast was bleeding plaster onto the rocks. Chick looked around and grinned at us.

  “Everyone okay?” he asked.

  What we were dealing with quickly became apparent when Unsie and I got to the Heirloom at six. The place felt on edge, the way a pick-up game feels on edge when some new guy shows up with his elbows. Ginny Archey gave me the eye when I walked in and gestured toward a booth at the back. As I crossed, I could see Chick on one side, slouching on the bench, and Tim-Rick on the other, upright and alert.

  “What’s the word?” I said as we closed, nodding to Tim-Rick the way you might greet a strange dog.

  Chick looked over hazily. A half-empty beer was on the table in front of him. A full beer was in front of Tim-Rick.

  Tim-Rick slid out of the booth and stepped to me.

  “He’s high as a kite. I don’t know what’s going on, but,” he said, leaving it hanging there.

  “Hey,” Chick slurred, his face clammy. “What’s that prick saying about me?”

  Tim-Rick’s face darkened and he half turned toward Chick.

  “I’m kidding,” Chick said. “It’s love. I love that prick.”

  He picked up his beer as if to drink it but just held it in front of him for a second. Then he let it drop to the table, a tiny bit hard, and slouched against the far wall of the booth. Unsie slid in next to him and pushed the beer away.

  “I’ll take care of it,” I said to Tim-Rick.

  He looked skeptical.

  “Look, he comes in here, Ginny asks me to sit with him because he’s clearly fucked up,” he said. “But, I mean, come on.”

  I nodded.

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  Tim-Rick seemed to be debating, weighing objectivity against the prerogatives of the past. Then he headed back toward the bar. Halfway, he turned around.

  “That’s one sad son of a bitch,” he said, louder than he needed to.

  Patrons fell silent.

  Chick roused from his catatonia and tried to push out of the booth, but Unsie held him in place with a steel thigh.

  I turned toward Tim-Rick, caught between bad options.

  “T-R!” Ginny hissed from the register.

  He looked a second longer at us, then turned to Ginny and spread out his arms, palms up, before huffing out the front door.

  Ginny turned back toward the register and put one hand to her cheek. Chatter resumed.

  I slid in across from Chick. Even spaced out, he appeared sheepish.

  “Prick,” he said.

  We’d been stoned plenty of times, but this wasn’t stoned, at least not the way I remembered. Back then, there was a humor to it. There was none of that now. Chick looked pale, unhealthy, his eyes both fidgety and lidded.

  “What are you on?” I said.

  Chick looked down and reached for his beer. I slid it out of his reach.

  “I’m serious,” I said. “What are you on right now?”

  I don’t really know why it mattered to me, since I wasn’t a pharmacist. I think I just wanted confirmation. I wanted him to acknowledge that he was betraying something.

  Chick looked back up at me and leaned his head into the corner where the booth hit the wall. He raised one hand to his lips and locked them with a phantom key. Then he smiled and closed his eyes. In seconds, his breathing was slow and steady.

  Unsie adjusted in his seat and looked across at me.

  “Well,” he said. “Not quite old times.”

  I picked up Tim-Rick’s untouched beer. A hefeweizen. Figures, that pansy. But I drank it anyway.

  Ginny Archey maneuvered her swollen belly over to the booth like a magic bumblebee, bar stools seeming to move out of her way on their own.

  “Bottoms up,” she said, a smile on her face but not in her eyes. “You’ve got to get him out of here.”

  Unsie and I carried Chick out to the Escalade and deposited him in the passenger seat.

  “Don’t overdo it,” Uns said, patted me on the shoulder, and headed off on a fast walk down Housatonic. I wasn’t sure what he meant.

  Chick was snoring by the time I started the truck. I drove him through town, past the library, rounding away from the police station. We headed toward the long rise up to the Church-on-the-Hill. At the bottom, I heard evening bells, like vespers, but not from the hill. They were from the tower of St. Barney’s, just on my right, silent and dark on a weekend night.

  When the shit with Bill Trivette went down, people didn’t know what to do. He was some sort of youth leader, young and engaging and relatively new, on loan from an archdiocese out East. He hung out with the altar boys and the Scouts, organized picnics and just-say-no-to-drugs stuff. One Sunday after Mass, Chick and I were up in the bell tower, killing time before basketball practice, passing copies of Sports Illustrated and Victoria’s Secret back and forth. We weren’t supposed to be there. Bill Trivette caught us, took our magazines, told us to go home or he’d tell our parents. Then, at the last second, he called Chickie back. I waited outside for a half-hour.

  Chick’s mom was a regular at the 8 A.M. service, and she didn’t want to believe that anything bad had happened. Chick was dramatic, everybody knew that. Bill Trivette swore it was some sort of misunderstanding, but my mom pushed it with Chief Winston and threatened to go to the Franchise if something wasn’t done.

  Bill Trivette left soon after that. We never heard where, just that St. Barney’s had sent him away. Events receded. Trivette’s departure became another local mystery, its gaps filled with whispers. For his part, Chick just stopped going to church. Me too, come to think of it. That’s when we took to the woods. But of course people treated him differently. At least for a while. The tenor changed when he walked into a room. Something had happened, something bad, maybe, though nobody knew details. It just became part of the fabric, like a fire scar on a tree trunk, a cross on the side of a highway, a memory of a thing that became the thing itself. There was plenty of stuff like that in childhood.

  Chick snored on, and I turned the Escalade onto a side street, unwilling yet to face the garishn
ess of the Knotsford-Gable Road. I drove down Old Normanton Road, past Elm Court, looped back around Tanglewood and the big summer houses on the hills. I wound the truck up toward Richmond, sliding below Saranac and the Apple Tree Inn, above the cow pasture where one summer night Unsie had been getting his first hand-job (allegedly!) from a mildly intoxicated junior named Yolanda Sepulveda and they’d stumbled into an electrified fence. Then above the other pasture where, that same summer, a feeble local kid named Billy Glib got a flat tire on his Mustang, and we were so drunk we jacked up the wrong side of the car. Billy Glib’s Mustang was a stick shift with only four gears, but he didn’t drink and it was the only regular ride in our high school class. He used to say, “Nowhere you can’t get around here in fourth gear.”

  I pulled the Escalade into an overlook at the top of Richmond Road, empty on a frigid March night, and got out of the truck. From the overlook, you could look down onto Normanton Bowl. The big lake was limned with moonlight and I watched the clouds roll past the dim distant swell of hills. Lights blinked in the surrounding hillsides, homes and barns and bars, furtive headlights. The hopes and sins of our forebears. My breath floated up into the speckled galaxy. In summer, the woods would be humming with insects, but right then there was no sound, just a sea of stars, an ambient glow, all the dark curves of the majestic nighttime county.

  In the parking lot of the Horse Head, the only other car was a purple Trans Am. I pulled up next to it. It was empty, but the lights in Chick’s room were on.

  I left him asleep in the truck and crossed to the door. It was open a crack. A quick scan of the lot suggested that we were the only guests staying at the Horse Head, which, I guess, was hardly surprising since it was March, and the Horse Head.