One day, sitting in the back of social studies class, I wrote about a town beyond the hills where there was a boy who spoke his mind and twirled a dance with a girl in the snow.
That afternoon, I ducked into alleys and behind trees, avoiding Anthony Lorenzo and dodging soda cans hurled from moving cars. I forewent dinner, locked myself in my bedroom, opened the window, sat on the floor, tablet on my knees, pen in my hand, and began to write, ignoring Dad's footsteps as they shook the house.
***
$250 is not a lot of money, but to a high school senior with very little money to begin with, it might as well be a box of treasure. When I saw the essay contest flyer tacked to the cork board next to my English teacher's blackboard, I copied the information on a corner of the back of my math notebook.
The contest was sponsored by the Coxton College Department of Journalism, a "Junior Reporter" initiative, though the contest didn't seem to be asking for a piece of journalism per se. No sources, no reporting, just an essay about an event in your life that made you want to write. I thought to myself about what event made me want to write and couldn't think of one, any more than I could think of an event that made me want to breathe. Something from nothing. Maybe that's just how it was for me: a quick image or thought transforming into something bigger than it had any right to be. Maybe I wasn't following the proper methodology of inspiration. I really didn't know.
But, I thought, maybe that is how it starts. Something unseen or insignificant connects the breakers in the brain, completes the circuit that powers up the machine, an unmanned factory that can't be turned off. That lunch hour, I flipped to a new page in my math tablet, which had more doodles than actual mathematics in it, and started to write.
Ten pages about how a voice leaps out of nowhere, drills into your ear, stays there until you're old, dying, and demented. Ten pages that started with started with trees that speak, climaxed with a mother who dies, ended with a boy sitting on a grassy rise behind a school with pen in hand and tablet on knees.
Something from nothing.
***
I was called into my English teacher's room on a somewhat-warm December day just before Christmas vacation. I was dressed in a heavy flannel shirt, sweating from the heat, silently praying for the cold winds to return before I walked home that afternoon. Clouds raced over the town, painting the room in shifting blue and pale sunlight. I sat in a wooden desk directly across from Ms. Lear, staring at my books wrapped in book covers that I'd fashioned from brown paper bags.
Ms. Lear picked a manila envelope off her desk and unclasped its flap. "This just came in today," she said. Ms. Lear said everything in the form of a question, the end of every sentence rising in tone. She wore one of her long red paisley dresses, its hem almost sweeping the floor. She was a large, curvaceous woman who filled her room with decorations for the season. Above her brown-haired head, Santa Claus and his reindeer traversed the sky in a long, graceful arc.
"I wasn't sure they'd want to see this essay, Milton, since it didn't really fit the rules," she said. "Too long, not really following the prompt. But they didn't seem to mind." She pulled a thin stack of papers from the envelope. She handed the stack to me, a cashier's check, and a letter attached to its front. "Congratulations, Milton. You know, I really wish you'd write more—a lot more. Some kids do math, some kids do football. Seems you do writing."
I looked at the check, at the note, at Ms. Lear. "I don't think people are that much interested in what I have to say," I said, folding the check and slipping it into my pocket.
"I don't think that's true," she said.
"How is Brian?" I asked.
She perked up at the sound of her son's name. "Brian's doing very well. He's in his soph— no, he's a junior this year down in State College."
I placed the essay and attached note in a pocket in my binder, cloud shadow crossing the room. "One time," I said, "three kids grabbed me down by the Lackawanna, down near the railroad crossing over Lowland. I was going for a walk. Just walking. Sometimes I just like to walk. Back when my dad was alive, I used to walk a lot during the day, usually in the woods or near the river. You know, stay out of the house. This one Saturday I was walking down there . . . and I didn't see where they came from. Three kids grabbed me by the arms and started pulling me toward the river. I kept screaming at them, begging them to stop, not to push me into the water, but before I knew it, they pushed me in."
I wasn't looking at Ms. Lear when I spoke but at my fingers, picking at them. "The water was so cold. I didn't think it would be, but it was so cold that my arms and legs started to hurt. I waited until they left before I got out of the river."
As I talked, I remembered the smell of my clothes that day. Moldy, muddy, as if buried in the earth and left to fester for weeks.
"When I got home I tried to sneak upstairs so Dad wouldn't see me, but he did. Told him I slipped on the riverbank, and he hit me really, really hard on the back. He hit me even though I asked him not to. Just went ahead and did it. Didn't listen to a word I said, just like those kids."
I stood up, picked my books off the desk, and walked to the door. I said: "Ms. Lear, like you said, some kids do math, some kids do football. For me, when I write, it's for me, not for anyone else. No one really listens. My father didn't, and Brian didn't."
"What's Brian got to do with it?" she asked.
"Who do you think pushed me into the river?"
Sunlight burst into the room, then faded to blue. I walked out, hurrying to my next class before the rooms emptied their students into the hallway.
***
Dear Mr. Conway,
It is with great pleasure that we have awarded you this year's Junior Reporter Essay first prize. We on the selection committee were more than pleased with your effort. The essay's vivid imagery, intricate elaboration, and subtle thesis went beyond what those of us on the committee were looking for. We sincerely hope that you will continue to practice your writing, develop your eye, your ear, your powers of observation, and the ability to synthesize them into a strong, coherent piece. We not only hope that you will continue to develop these abilities, but that you will also consider Coxton College as the place where you will develop them further.
Congratulations on your well-deserved award, and please feel free to contact me should you have any questions regarding the Coxton College Department of Journalism.
Sincerely,
Terrance Bradbury
Chairman, Coxton College
Department of Journalism
***
Mom's suicide left the house hollow, bare. Even after Dad's death, she stayed quiet, still on her schedule, still making dinner at the same time after work, still looking out the window thinking he would come home, even though his gray Buick sat in the driveway every day, immobile, collecting snow and leaves until one day I cleaned it, started the engine, and let it run for a few minutes. And even though Dad's death ended the thumping of his boots on the wooden floors, the slamming of doors, the shouts at the top of his lungs and the insults under his breath, Mom remained little more than a shade, quiet and without substance. She wailed at Dad's burial, and sat listlessly on the edge of her bed, holding a piece of his clothing in her arms, whispering to herself. I guess what she said was true: it's surprising the things we get used to.
But even a shade can fill a space, and without Mom, the hallways and rooms sat empty. For weeks, I stared at my parents' bedroom door, opening it only when the house groaned. When a plank in the floor creaked, I thought my father had returned and was walking the floor.
The times I opened the door, the cold creep of air pushed through window spaces, and the smell of Mom's department store perfume and Dad's drug store aftershave spilled into the hallway. Dust on the floor would roll out at my feet, and dust in the air would fill the light shining through the large windows. When I was satisfied the room was empty, I'd close the door again, sealing the remn
ants of my parents' lives behind it for a few more weeks.
It was over a month before I finally set foot into the room, when I threw open the windows in a late winter windstorm, letting the wind scoop up the stale scents from the air and sweep the dust off the furniture and floor, motes spinning into spirals, speaking a mysterious geometry.
It was the day when I finally picked up the telephone and called Coxton College.
Chapter Five
There has never been bus service to Coxton College from Blackbridge since the only road connecting the town to the rest of the county splits off the regular bus routes. I had a driver's permit, but no license. A court-appointed lawyer managed to get the insurance and approval I needed to take the test with my mother's car. When the test was over, they took my picture, they had me wait, and a small machine burped out a laminated driver's license. I stood holding it, examining the picture and the watermarks. Its background was holographic and shimmered rainbow ribbons when tilted against the light. I examined it not knowing what to do next.
On the day I visited the college, I drove the twenty miles of twisting road from Blackbridge, to Pittston, to Scranton, to the tree-covered campus of the college. Walking through the campus, I was struck how the sky's brilliant light burned my eyes unlike the amber and gray light common in Blackbridge. The air had the smell of dried leaves, damp soil, and car fumes. Ornate brick and granite buildings stood at the ends of stone walkways that radiated from a central point like rays from a dark sun. I stood at the center of the campus, in one hand a paper scrap with directions to the Department of Journalism, in the other my olive drab army surplus bag that I used for school books but today held a folio of my writing, my writing notebook, my pens, and college registration forms.
I walked to a building and stared at it for a few minutes, stomach twisting. I debated whether I should turn around and go home or just stand on the walkway. Slowly, I walked up the steps and through the front door.
***
"I was wondering when we'd hear from you," Terrance Bradbury said, "or if we'd hear from you at all."
Mr. Bradbury was a tall man with white hair that gleamed in the yellow light pouring through his office window. His metal desk was piled high with papers and books, and the bookshelves behind him were crammed with journals and magazines, thick and thin books jammed in seemingly without order. My eyes fell on the spine of Walden Two behind his head. The air smelled of decaying paper and floor wax, like the office where my father had worked. "You know," he said, "we don't get many students from Blackbridge here. They seem to like Pittsburgh or Penn State. What do you think? Think that's true? I guess they're filled with the need to get far away. The quicker, the better. It's natural. I was that way. Left Scranton, went to California, came back to Scranton. Funny how that works. I guess kids there get a bit stir crazy. Blackbridge is kind of—what's the word?"
"Isolated?" I said.
"Exactly."
"Creepy?" I added.
Mr. Bradbury stopped, shrugged. "Every town has its legends and lore, he said. Blackbridge has that reputation, sure. I've been there a couple times. Didn't see much."
"You should have stayed longer."
"No doubt," he said. "So!" he slapped his hands on his knees, chalk dust flying from his fingers. "You're enrolling. You need advising. It's a requirement. Kind of a silly requirement if you ask me. Usually students figure it out on their own. If not, they can chalk up their errors as learning experiences. Isn't that what college's for? So, you're interested in journalism. You know, it's not a lucrative field. It's kind of, well, unstable, unless you go for a job in public relations. Companies are always willing to shell out for shills."
"I don't think I'd be good at that," I said. "Not even sure I'd be a good journalist."
He had my folio opened on his desk and was flipping through the top essay. "Would be a waste of talent to push PR pieces for a macaroni company, that's for sure. So this house you live in. Overlooks a cemetery, does it?"
"Yes."
He flipped a page. "Way out on the edge of town," he mumbled. "Must be like living in a lighthouse. Your mind must race with thoughts."
"Sometimes," I admitted. "It's quiet there. I don't get any visitors." I didn't mention the graveyard moans, the whispers in the shadows, the vapors on the roads.
"No family," he said.
I shook my head. "None that are close," I said. There are some relatives, but the closest one's in Philadelphia, I think." Mr. Bradbury looked me up and down. "But—I've always been independent. It's . . . my nature." I tried to decode his gray eyes, if they showed amusement or skepticism.
He nodded, smiled, gray eyes returning to an essay in the folio. "A journalist needs independence," he said. "Any writer does. An ability to record, organize, verify without prompting." He softly turned another page. "You can't do any of that properly if you don't have a scintilla of independence." He turned the essay's final page and placed the essay back into the folio. "Being a journalist or essayist or writer of any sort can be very tough, Milton," he said. "It can be tough finding work, and it can be tough on your heart and soul. Do you think you're ready for that kind of pain, Milton?" He closed the folio, gently pushed it to the side. "And," he continued, his voice almost a whisper, "it seems like you've already had a lifetime of having your heart and soul battered. Even the toughest ship hits seas it can't handle."
I sat in silence for several seconds. "We all sink eventually, Mr. Bradbury."
He nodded. "That we do."
***
That afternoon, after the advising, the transcript reviewing, the financial aid consulting, I sat in the far parking lot of Coxton College. The day students were leaving, either for home or for the dorms, and the lot steadily emptied until it was just I in the lot's corner sitting in my mother's car with its sunbaked cranberry paint and mud-crusted wheels. I was thankful that the windows were darkly tinted and that the sun was beginning to set.
Because, for some reason that I still don't know, I placed my hands over my face and wept.
***
The final school year was coming to an end. I was enrolled at Coxton and thought about the final day at Blackbridge Junior-Senior High School, if I'd show up or just stay home. I thought about what college would be like, how people would look at me, if I could fade into the background without a spotlight following me.
Bentley Burke was on his way to the University of Chicago. The local newspaper had trumpeted it on the bottom of the front page right next to an article on programming changes at the town's radio station. The school administration arranged photographs for the newspaper as if the event was as rare as lightning from a clear sky, but for the Burkes things were preordained: large houses, new cars, new clothing, the steady rotation of companions, the admission to the Princetons, the Stanfords, the Chicagos. Some machines in the universe just run automatically, as unchanging and as regular as the rhythms of atomic clocks.
Which made it all the more odd when he sat next to me on a bench facing the western hills in that cold late April. I'd ducked out of the cafeteria when it had become too filled and the space around me had narrowed to a single barrier of chairs. The bench's cold metallic mesh offered distance and security. He sat next to me, hands thrust into his gray pea coat, cashmere scarf wrapped stylishly around his neck, almost as if he'd not noticed anyone else on the bench. "So," he said, "you're off to Coxton in the fall."
I glanced at him, inched my body farther away. "Who told you?" I asked, aware that my army surplus coat had a slight tear in one of the elbows while imagining how I'd look in a tailored gray pea coat, scarf around my neck, Italian shoes on my feet.
He took in a deep breath. "The scholarship," he said, "the New Journalist Scholarship. It's from the Burke family. I'd heard you gotten it. That's good. Usually goes to some kid from New York or Philly or wherever. Good to see someone local get it."
I nodded,
saying nothing.
"That essay for that writing contest was really good, too. Felt honest. Not that kiss-up stuff you see in contests like that. That's what this town needs. Someone to look at it, hold up a mirror to it." Bentley dug his heels in the dirt. "You're usually in the cafeteria," he said.
"I needed—space."
"I know what you mean," he said. "But don't you think too much space can be, I don't know, harmful?"
"Too little seems to carry the most risk," I said. Behind us, the muffled cafeteria cacophony continued, before us the brown grass slope gently dropped into the churning Susquehanna River. "You're going to Chicago."
"Yes, I am."
"New city. Big-name school. Sounds nice."
He rolled his tongue in his mouth. "You think you'll be a journalist when you leave Coxton?" he asked.
"I don't know," I said. "Really don't know what I can do. I can write, sort of."
"Can I ask you a question?"
"Okay."
"Why're you so down on yourself? I know we don't know each other, but I've seen you since we were little, and you just keep getting quieter and quieter. You look down all the time, like you don't want the world to see you or like you don't live up to the world's standards or something."
"You really asking because you want to know," I asked, "or are you asking because your friends want to know? Are you going to tell them how I'm not going to Chicago but Coxton, or are you going to tell them that I'm as creepy as they think I am?"
"I'm just saying—"
"That you want to know why I'm out here or why I sit against a wall or why I avoid everyone when I leave school?" I said. "Maybe you should ask your friends instead. They might know." I gathered up my books and walked away, breathing hard. My eyes burned, my throat tightened. I knew most people didn't walk away from the Burkes. This time, someone did.