Althea and Oliver Read online

  For two boys who have been locked up in an almost exclusively beige hospital for nearly two months, it’s all a little much. Oliver leads Will down the street in an earnest imitation of someone who knows where he’s going. Broadway is laid out before them like an exercise in perspective, terminating in a luminous explosion of colored light so intense that the sky above it looks like daytime. Oliver assumes this must be Times Square and says so to his traveling companion.

  “I don’t want to go there,” Will says. “That could melt our brains.”

  “Fair enough,” Oliver says, taking them what he hopes is east. His knowledge of New York geography is extremely limited and almost entirely based on his mother’s stories and the subway map shower curtain they’d had for a while before it had grown gray with mold and been replaced with a leopard print monstrosity he finds profoundly embarrassing.

  “I’m starving,” Will says, pointing to a hot dog cart. “I want one of those. Do you have any money?”

  “Could we have two hot dogs, please?” Oliver asks the vendor.

  “You want mustard? Relish?”

  “Make it however you would eat it,” says Will.

  The vendor makes a face. “I don’t eat these.”

  “How do we walk to Alphabet City from here?” Oliver asks.

  “That’s a long walk.”

  “We’ve got the time.”

  A bus rumbles by, an ad for Beavis and Butt-Head Do America across its side. Will points to the cartoon duo as he’s wrapped in a hot blanket of exhaust. “So, which one do you want to be?”

  • • •

  The snow evaporates as it makes contact with the streets and sidewalks, but leaves a dusting on the plump black trash bags lined up on the curbs.

  “I wonder if they’ve realized we’re gone yet,” Will says. “I hope we didn’t get Stella in trouble.”

  “You know what’s weird?” Oliver says. “I don’t even care.”

  “Think they’ll call our parents?”

  “Of course they’ll call our parents.”

  “You don’t seem real worried,” Will observes.

  “My mom’s a shouter. It’s annoying, but the consequences are minimal.”

  “What about your dad?”

  Oliver shakes his head. “It’s just me and my mom.”

  “Oh.”

  “He died when I was little. He didn’t walk out or anything.”

  “You don’t have to explain,” Will says, turning up the collar on his jacket.

  The subway passes under their feet, sending a rush of air up through a grate in the sidewalk. “People usually assume he left us. My mom hates that. They were really happy. She doesn’t want people to pity her. They do anyway, but I guess it’s different.”

  “I’m really sorry.”

  “It’s funny; Althea’s mom split around the same time, but people always think she died.”

  “No one likes to think that moms can leave. Too unnerving.”

  “Al loves to make people uncomfortable, so she usually makes a joke like, ‘My mom’s not dead, she’s just defunct.’” Oliver reflects on this briefly, thinking of the many times Althea had used that line or one of its variants to alienate any new adult who showed interest in her, how he had repeatedly watched her reach for her trusty defense mechanism as automatically as Will’s neighbors would grab the shotgun under the bed at the first sound of an intruder.

  “I’m sure this friend of yours has a lot of good qualities, but she sounds fucked up.”

  “She is at that,” Oliver admits.

  “What about you?” Will asks.

  “What about me?”

  “Your dad. Did it fuck you up?”

  Oliver laughs. “Something sure did.” He presses his temples with his fingertips. “Something’s not working in there.”

  As they get farther downtown and evening evolves into night, there are more and more bars and drunk people. If they were overwhelmed by Midtown, they are woefully unprepared for the insanity that is the East Village at night. Will stays close, and together they hug the inside of the sidewalk, trying not to get knocked down by foot traffic.

  The snow is coming down harder now, and the weather has given the night just enough sense of occasion to send the city’s revelers into overdrive. There is an electricity crackling among all the people, like when a famous musician dies or a new president is elected or a beloved underdog baseball team clinches the pennant, like some exciting piece of news is traveling down Avenue A toward Oliver and Will in a palpable ripple of energy, and overwhelming as it is, Oliver has the feeling that, at any moment, this urgent and unimagined revelation is going to reach them and tether him with some invisible thread to all of these strangers pulsing in the streets.

  Of course, he knows that’s wrong. There is no revelation circulating, only massive amounts of alcohol, consumed with gusto by the ten thousand people all hoping to get laid tonight in the same twelve-block radius. It’s like Jason’s party times a million, all the hooting and hollering and sweaty jostling, so much of it in the hope that at some point in the night you’ll rub up against the right person and that’ll be, as Nicky likes to say, the end of the story. But inflated or not he feels it anyway, that sense of possibility, the anticipation, like it’s already New Year’s Eve and the clock is poised at five minutes to midnight and everyone is waiting breathlessly for the moment that will elevate the ordinary into something singular and amazing.

  Oliver doesn’t even realize they have stopped walking until the door to a karaoke bar opens, unleashing five addled patrons onto the same small square of sidewalk where he and Will are now frozen, as well as the chorus of “Build Me Up Buttercup,” enthusiastically sung by a girl wearing a rhinestone tiara, clutching the microphone to her chest. The door is only open long enough to give Oliver this brief snapshot before it swings shut, the tiara girl and her terrible, terrible voice immediately silenced, safely contained on the other side.

  “It’s weird,” says Oliver. “Most of these people seem truly awful, but at the same time, I want to be just like them.”

  “We could probably find you a tiara, if it means that much to you.”

  “That’s not what I mean.” He leads them down the street, past a particularly rowdy bar called Doc Holliday’s, which appears to be filled with Hells Angels.

  “I know what you mean,” Will says. “At least I think I do. But I was strange even before I got sick. Even if my brain worked right, I don’t think I’d have much in common with this mass of humanity. And for what it’s worth, you don’t seem like you would, either.”

  “I was never a freak—even after. Althea was the big spectacle. I resented it, then. Maybe she actually did me a favor. I never stopped being the normal one.”

  “Sounds like a shitty deal for both of you. Look, I’m all up for this adventure, but can we go somewhere less—just less? All this action is making me a little swimmy in the head.” Will gestures to the chaos on the street around them.

  “Sure. You’re being a real champ, by the way.”

  “What are we doing here, anyway?” asks Will.

  “I really don’t know.”

  They head toward a park across the street, the one place the crowd seems to be avoiding, except of course for the homeless, bundled into shapelessness by their many layers of clothing.

  “My mom used to live here,” Oliver offers.

  “In the park?” Will asks.

  “On the other side.” He nods toward Avenue B. “Somewhere over there.”

  “With your dad?”

  “First with friends, and then yeah, with my dad. She says it was different then. Dangerous. There was a saying my dad made her memorize: ‘Avenue A, you’re all right, Avenue B, be careful, Avenue C, you’re crazy, Avenue D, you’re dead.’ He used to sing it to me like a nursery rhyme.”

&nbs
p; “And where exactly are we headed?”

  “That was twenty years ago. I don’t think you need to worry. It’s probably safer than living in a town where everyone is armed.”

  “We’re not all a bunch of toothless hicks, you know. My mom’s a dental hygienist. Pop works for the electric company. They read the newspaper. We don’t raise our own chickens.”

  This is exactly what Oliver had been picturing, but he’s kind enough to lie. “I was pretty much just imagining the suburbs where I live.”

  “I’d wager more of your neighbors have guns than you’d care to think about.”

  This brings to mind an image of a housecoat-clad Mrs. Parker standing on the sidewalk with a loaded rifle, picking off squirrels. Thank Christ Garth collects historical artifacts instead of guns; Althea is one person who should never have access to firearms. In the movies, they always make it look like a girl can’t bring herself to actually fire a gun once she’s got her hands on it; she might level it at someone for a second, but inevitably she starts to shake and get all teary, and then she’s easily disarmed and rendered harmless again. Althea, now; Althea wouldn’t hesitate to pull the trigger.

  Although, come to think of it, wasn’t that what had made her so handy to have around? Suddenly he can’t recall why he had been so furious when she’d tackled Jason outside of Lucky’s—the clown had keyed her car, after all, and called Oliver a freak, and it was that uninspired dig that finally made her commit to taking him down. No, he can’t remember why he’d been angry at all; only the perfect pitch that launched the glinting arc of Jason’s keys into the woods and the perverse exhilaration as they peeled out of the parking lot.

  “So what does she look like?” Will asks.

  “I told you, she’s beautiful. Tall, blue eyes. She used to be blonde, and then she dyed her hair black. That I didn’t care for so much.”

  Will stops walking. “Wait. She has black hair? Long black hair, but the roots coming in blonde at the top, like a skunk?”

  “Yeah.”

  “She’s tall, right? About your height, but still kind of scrappy-looking? Puffy vest and a real worn-out hoodie with thumbholes, like, chewed into the cuffs? That sound about right?”

  “How the fuck do you know that?”

  “You were right, man, she is beautiful.”

  Oliver freezes. “How do you know that?”

  “I think she came looking for you. If she’d gotten here, I don’t know, half an hour earlier, she would’ve caught you before you went down. I didn’t know who she was—she just looked like some girl who’d gotten lost, wandered into the wrong part of the hospital. I can’t believe no one told you.”

  “Did Stella know?”

  “Stella’s the one who talked to her.”

  “Fuck me till I die.”

  “Are you okay?” Will asks.

  “I think I want to sit down somewhere.”

  There’s a pool hall across the street and down a flight of stairs. “Come on,” Will says.

  It’s basically a rec center for grown-ups. In a row of booths by the door, groups of men and women in their twenties are playing all manner of board games: Scrabble, Connect Four, Battleship. Farther back, past the bar, the space widens considerably to accommodate air hockey, several pool tables, and a Ping-Pong area enclosed in white mesh, presumably to keep the players from having to chase the tiny white ball across the filthy floor every time someone scores a point. Underground, without windows, it’s stale and close; the heat is cranked up, and it smells like everyone’s wet jackets. A row of couches separates the pool tables from a cement clearing where several microphones and a row of instruments, including an organ, are plugged in and ready, waiting for their masters to attend to them.

  “You want to shoot a game of eight-ball?” asks Will.

  Oliver starts to say no. Just looking at the vacant pool table fills him with dread—not because he’s bad at it, but because he’s very good. Althea is the one who’s useless with a cue, and a sore loser. But wait; he’s not here with Althea. “Sure.”

  After Oliver pays for the game, Will wins the flip for the break and sinks two solids; Oliver chalks up his cue and assesses what’s on the table. When Will misses his third shot, Oliver steps up and takes a good look at Will’s face, reassuring himself that this guy can handle losing a game of pool.

  “What?” says Will.

  Oliver smiles. “Don’t blink or you’ll miss it.”

  He leans over his stick and lines up the first shot, which sends the thirteen ball trilling neatly into a corner pocket. Examining the new configuration, Oliver circles the table, searching for the best angle to exploit. It’s just simple geometry, which he has tried to explain to Althea. He doesn’t struggle to block out the sounds—balls rocketing heavily into the pockets, the plastic tapping of the Ping-Pong ball across the room, the steady thrum of enthusiastic, beer-fueled conversation—but as he zeroes in on his task the noise naturally recedes, as if someone has thoughtfully turned down the volume so he can concentrate. It all goes away until it’s just him and six stripes, now five, now four. He focuses, and one by one, he clears the rest off the table.

  “Eight ball in the side pocket,” Oliver says, not daring to look at Will until it’s over in case he’s judged wrong. If Will is standing there in tears or in a rage, he doesn’t want to know, doesn’t want this moment spoiled yet, would like at least to finish what he started. The eight ball goes exactly where he wants it, with a precision that feels nearly telekinetic, and Oliver is sorry to see it disappear, because it means the game is over.

  I win, Oliver thinks. I win and it’s no big deal.

  Will isn’t crying, of course, because he is a normal person, but he doesn’t seem astonished by Oliver’s performance, either, and this is disappointing. “Nice” is all he says, and starts racking the balls. Oliver wonders if this is how Will is cloaking his irritation with being beaten so handily, by feigning nonchalance. Isn’t that what normal people do? There’s a name for it, he thinks—passive-aggressive. This is new to him, steeped as he is in so many years of navigating the plain old aggressive.

  Oliver rummages through the leather nets lining the table’s pockets, retrieving the balls as he finds them and rolling them toward Will. He had forgotten how much he liked their shiny solid weight and the way they gleam under the hooded lamps. Cheers erupt from a smallish crowd over by the microphones. The population of the couches has doubled, and several rows of people are lined up behind them, obscuring Oliver’s view of the stage that isn’t really a stage. Apparently whomever this audience has been waiting for has just come on.

  “Winner breaks,” Will says, removing the rack to reveal a perfectly symmetrical triangle.

  “Sure,” Oliver says. Sliding the cue through his fingers, he thinks about lithium tremors and eye twitches. Two months ago, if a doctor had offered him such a troubled cure, Oliver would have taken it without hesitating, confident that he had nothing else to lose. It seems now that he has more left than he thought.

  “What’s wrong?” asks Will.

  “What would you give to make it stop?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Is there anything you wouldn’t give up?”

  “My balls,” says Will. “And my dick.”

  “That’s it?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe I could spare one ball.” So Oliver repeats what the doctor told him. “That’s awesome.”

  “Didn’t you hear the rest of what I said?”

  “You know what your problem is?”

  “My fucking brain?” Oliver says.

  “You’re impossible to please,” says Will, shaking his head. “Did you think they would just wave a magic wand and make you better? Of course it’s not perfect. It’s an experiment.”

  “So you’re going to do it?”

  “Shit yeah. As soon a
s we finish this game I’m gonna go back up there, put it all on black, and let them spin the wheel. Maybe they can just write me a script and send me home.”

  “But it could turn you into a zombie.”

  “I’ve been a zombie, believe me. I’m ready to take my chances with the devil I don’t know. Now break already, so you can win and we can get out of here.”

  As Oliver’s aiming for the cue ball the organ starts in, and he knows the shot’s no good before the balls have even stopped caroming. It’s not a foul or a scratch, at least, but he loses his turn to Will, and with it goes whatever advantage Oliver might have had.

  He is still processing—an organ?—when the music takes shape and a voice that is part James Brown rasp and part Baptist tent revival begins to sing, backed by what sounds like a chorus of three. Oliver’s eyes meet Will’s over the table.

  Gospel? Oliver mouths.

  Here? Will mouths back, gesturing around the room.

  Oliver tilts his head in the direction of the music. Will nods, and they set down their cues in silent agreement, sidling up to the crowd so they can watch.

  It is, in fact, a gospel band, led by a black woman in a white suit and a red beret covered in sequins. She’s flanked by her female backup singers, who remind Oliver of three cardinals seated in a row on a telephone line, listening to the best news they’ve ever heard running through the wire beneath their feet. Poor Will is on his toes, trying to get a better look. Oliver takes his wrist and slips through to the front, where they quickly find a spot on one of the couches. Most of the audience is standing.

  The woman in the beret is singing about love, but not the kind Oliver is used to hearing about in songs. There’s nothing fleeting about the love she means; she’s talking about something that doesn’t go away when you’re in a fight with your best friend or your dad dies or your mother leaves town to pursue her own nebulous destiny. Oliver supposes she might be singing about Jesus, but she doesn’t call him by name, evoking instead the ideas of gratitude, courage, and compassion. Walking up and down the length of the crowd, radiant, she singles people out, turning her performance into a conversation. A thin Indian man wearing a porkpie hat over his shoulder-length, glossy black hair reaches out his hand and she clasps it with her free one, and they look into each other’s eyes like there’s nobody else around. Oliver assumes she must know him somehow, until she moves on and does the same thing to a tattooed girl with a Mohawk, who is in blissful tears by the end of their encounter.