Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes

  “We were the home team and batted the bottom half of the inning, so we touched our gloves together in the middle of the huddle and yelled, ‘Go Oilers!’ and broke to take our positions. I was so proud. But before I got even to the baseline, Coach’s hand was on my shoulder, and when I turned around, Ronnie Callendar stood next to him. And he said, ‘I want you to give Ronnie your glove.’

  “I said, ‘What for?’

  “He said, ‘He doesn’t have one.’

  “Coach watched my face fall—I know he did—and I think he knew how I felt because he was very kind, but he said, ‘Cindy, if we’re going to win this, Ronnie has to have a mitt. A shortstop has to have a mitt, that’s just all there is to it.’ I looked at the glove on my hand; I bit my lower lip while I read Warren Spahn’s name, and I handed it over. Coach told me to play as far back in right field as I could so no balls could get over my head—that I could run faster forward than backward—and sent me on my way. I walked so far back I almost disappeared into the playground swings beyond the field.

  “Just that quick I didn’t belong, and I remember thinking something always has to spoil it. I was hurt and embarrassed and I wanted to go back to being invisible me again, but I couldn’t because I had on the green shirt and cap, and all of a sudden that uniform was my enemy. I remember hating Ronnie Callendar for being poor, and I hoped his father never got a job and they’d have to move away.

  “Every game after that was miserable. I couldn’t quit because we would have only eight players and all the kids would hate me. Coach didn’t always take my glove; in fact, I don’t know that he ever took it again. But each time I walked down that hot, dusty summer road toward the playing field, I knew he might, that I didn’t really belong because they could take my glove.”

  Lemry looks down at me, returning to the room from her story. “That’s what I thought about all the way back from Reno. I remembered how I truly wanted to die. And all I lost was a baseball glove. Sarah Byrnes lost the one thing she’s been holding on to.”

  Lemry’s story is the story of my fat little life; life before swimming, before Ellerby. Before Jody. “You’re worried,” I say. “You’re afraid Sarah Byrnes has lost too much.”

  She chuckles, but there is no humor. “I am worried,” she says. “But I’ll tell you, Mobe, the sadness of this weekend has hit me hard, and I’ll fight to the death to keep the things I’m worried about from happening.

  “When the Nevada highway patrol pulled us over to tell us about what happened here with you and her dad, I saw a flash of the girl I drove down there with. I think it gave her energy to fight, but I don’t know. It’s a close call. At any rate, she agreed to tell me before doing anything rash, and I believe she will. That is one amazing kid, Mobe. I see why you’ve always liked her. She’s what courage is about. And she’s certainly changed the way I look at my own life. Anyway, she’s over at the house now, with my husband, who is happy as a pig in shit because all my arguments about why he shouldn’t have guns in the house just went down the toilet. Cops have the place staked out, too, so at least she’s safe.”

  God, the one person who could save Sarah Byrnes won’t do it. When my mother comes tonight to visit, I’m going to hug her till she breaks.

  CHAPTER 18

  Life is turning into a play. The theater is this hospital room, and mine is the finest seat in the house. Mark Brittain entered stage center again late last night after Lemry left. I was watching a rerun of “Taxi,” and I don’t know how long he stood there before I noticed and invited him in. He’s getting out tomorrow and was freaked about facing everyone.

  “What would you do, Mobe?” he said. “No offense, but you used to be the reigning prince of fools. I mean, let’s face it, you ate a lot of shit. You and your friend Sarah Byrnes.”

  I punched MUTE on the remote and rolled over to take pressure off my shoulder. The man had a point. If Sarah Byrnes and I had saved it instead of eating it, we’d have the beginnings of a fertilizer dynasty today. I really did want to help Mark—if for no other reason than it’s nice to be the expert on something, even if it is the ingestion of foul foreign substances emanating from deep in the bowels of my enemies. I wanted to say things would return to normal for him as soon as he got settled in school. But the time for bullshit has passed. I don’t know how close my brush with death was, but it seemed close. The time for bullshit has passed.

  “You know, Mark, people call me Moby because I’m a chunko swimmer. I could get pissed; you know, threaten to go after anyone who calls me that. I’m not a fighter, but I could get up for it if I thought I needed to. I wouldn’t always win, but you’d have to want to mix it up to take the chance. I truly believe I could get people to quit calling me Moby, but I could never stop what they think when they see me in a tank suit, and I couldn’t stop what they’d say about me if I went around with a chip on my shoulder. Hey man, the sun comes up, the sun goes down; winter turns to spring, spring turns to summer, and Eric Calhoune is a barrel-chested, no-waisted hulkster. Besides, folks calling me Moby is pretty funny, don’t you think?”

  He shrugged. “I won’t call you that anymore.”

  “That’s not the point. I don’t mind it anymore. In fact I like it. It’s who I am. I’m Moby. The point is, if you go around making things look different than what they are—and what everyone knows they are—nobody’s going to want to get close to you because they know you don’t tell the truth. You just have to tell the truth in a way people recognize.”

  Brittain looked toward the window, watched his reflection in the pitch black of the night outside. His chin quivered, “How do I tell the truth about what I’ve done? How do I say I sent Jody to get an abortion by herself when I knew how scared and confused she was? How do I tell people that? I mean, what words do I say?”

  “You say you fucked up. You say you were wrong.”

  Mark was quiet. Then he said, “Could you do it?”

  “I don’t know. I really don’t. But if I were in your shoes, I should.”

  He was quiet again. Then, “You know who came and saw me today?”

  “Who?”

  “Steve Ellerby’s dad.”

  “No shit. What did he want?”

  Mark smiled. “He said if I was interested, he’d be willing to spend some time with me looking at some different perspectives on Christianity.”

  “That’s a good offer,” I said. “He’s a smart man.”

  He smiled again. “Yeah, well, I told him my dad might not look too kindly on that, and he said, ‘Mark, you’re only seventeen years old, and you’ve already tried to take your own life. I’d say that means something’s not working. If you need more information to make things work, I’d get busy with it.’ So I guess I might. No reason I have to tell my dad everything.” He looked at his watch. “Look, I gotta go. Just thought I’d check in before I got out.” He turned to leave.

  I said, “Hey, Mark,” and he stopped. “I’ll bet if you called Jody and talked about this, it’d go down easier at school.”

  He considered a minute. “I’ll think about that.”

  Act II opened when I blinked awake to one of those half-hour advertisements for a surefire way to stop male pattern balding in its ugly tracks, and Sarah Byrnes stood in her coat beside my bed, shaking me gently. It was after hours, so I knew she had sneaked in.

  “I’m leaving, Eric,” she said. “I stopped to say good-bye.”

  “Leaving? Where are you going?”

  “Away.”

  An empty pit expanded in my stomach. You can’t talk Sarah Byrnes out of anything. “Jesus,” I said. “Don’t leave. Please don’t.”

  “I have to.”

  “Why? God, Sarah Byrnes, this is the best things have ever been. I mean, you have a place. You’re safe.”

  “I’m not safe as long as my dad’s out there,” she said. “If I’m gone, and nobody knows where I am, then everyone will be safer. As long as he knows I’m around, you won’t be safe and neither will Lemry. But
he won’t try to get revenge. He just wants me. He’s crazy, but he’s simple crazy. He would have killed you that night, but not to be mean. He’d have killed you to get to his ‘family.’ That’s me. And he’d kill me before he’d let anyone else have me. I just have to get away.”

  “Where would you go?”

  “There’s this place I know about in the Midwest—Kansas, I think. It’s a group home where they take care of handicapped kids, kids with terminal illnesses and permanent disfigurement—stuff like that. I read about it five years ago in Life magazine, and I always thought I might go there and work someday. I was smart even back then; never let my dad see the magazine. He won’t find me in a million years.”

  “But you won’t even have a high school diploma if you leave now. At least wait until graduation.”

  She shook her head, and that old look of disgust popped up. “Getting stabbed didn’t make you any smarter, did it? You think my dad’s going to wait until graduation to come for me? I thought I heard him in the backyard tonight. Look, Eric, don’t argue with me. I came because I might never see you again. All our lives I’ve been pretty tough on you.” She smiled and I watched her scars crease and stretch in that old familiar way. “I keep remembering how you stuffed yourself to the brim every day after you started swimming; staying fat for me. Jesus, Eric, you were such a dork.” She touched my hand. “But see, I didn’t want to be so mean. It’s just how I survived. Lemry helped me see that, just by being nice to me. When we were on our way to Reno, I felt like a regular person for the first time since I got burned. We laughed and told jokes and stopped to eat in these greasy little restaurants in towns that nobody’s ever heard of, and for a little while I felt like I’d stepped outside my prison.”

  “But you can stay with Lemry,” I pleaded. “You can have more times like that.”

  “If it wasn’t for my dad, I would,” she said. “I really would. I want you to tell Lemry that, okay?”

  The panic that had been crawling up my throat began choking me. “Listen, Sarah Byrnes, maybe this is just selfish, but I don’t know how I can stand the thought of you being out there and me not knowing where.”

  “Eric, I can take care of myself.”

  “I know. But I don’t know if I can. I can’t remember a time when there was no you. And I can’t imagine a time like that now.”

  “You’re just going to have to learn to be tough,” she said, and the cold crept in. “Look, I’ve been thinking a lot, and the only way I’ve held on was by hooking onto memories of my mother; fantasies of my mother, actually. I really thought someday I’d get back with her and find out there was a place for me. When my dad was at his worst—and you can’t even imagine it, Eric—I would just go away in my head and think of my mother. I’d remember all those times she dressed me up and took me downtown and played with me in the park and read me stories. I knew I’d never be pretty again, but I’d have someplace to be. And even when I had to give all that up, I still hung on for the day she’d come back and put my dad away for good. Well, that ended in Reno. My mother is gutless. It’s over.” She was quiet a second while I desperately tried to think of something to stop her.

  “Listen, I got a bus to catch, okay? Just let me do it. Let those newspaper people know I’ve disappeared. That way Dad will know.” Then Sarah Byrnes bent over and hugged me, and I felt the wet stickiness of her craggy face for what I believed was the last time.

  Tell you what. I’ve had enough of this shit. I’ve had enough of not being able to get anything to turn out my way. It’s two in the morning, and I’m standing in my doorway waiting for the hall to clear so I can get out of here the back way. My clothes were in that little closet by the door, so at least I don’t have to go into the freezing night with my fat butt hanging out the back of a hospital gown. I called Lemry and told her to pick me up in the parking lot, then hung up real quick so she couldn’t try to talk sense into me. Her curiosity will get her there. I’ll call Mom from the phone booth in the parking lot to tell her not to panic when the hospital reports me missing.

  Lemry’s tires crunch to a halt on the frozen snow as I hang up the phone in the booth. Carver answered, so I told him to take the phone off the hook so the hospital can’t call my mother and scare her. Carver is getting better all the time. He made sure I wasn’t about to tangle with old man Byrnes again, then told me to take care of whatever needed it, and after that we’ll all sit down and make a plan. I’m sure he’ll wake Mom and tell her, but he’ll also keep her from getting crazy. I’ve got a sling and a thick pad over my shoulder blade, so if I’m careful I won’t cause myself additional injury; it’ll just hurt.

  “What’re you doing, Mobe?” Lemry says as I slide into the seat. “What’s going on?”

  I tell her what Sarah Byrnes said and point her toward the Greyhound station. “We’ve got a little time,” I say. “I called and the next bus doesn’t leave until three-fifteen.” Lemry’s tires spin in the snow as we fishtail onto the street.

  By three, we’ve been standing next to the storage lockers, out of sight and directly across from the ticket counter, for more than a half hour, and there is no sign of Sarah Byrnes. My shoulder aches like a hot bowling ball is lodged inside, and sweat pours off me like a watershed, but I keep my mouth shut and my eyes peeled.

  “Are you sure she’s taking the bus?” Lemry asks.

  “She said, ‘I got a bus to catch,’” I answer. “Her exact words.”

  “She told you she had a bus to catch,” Lemry says, more to herself than to me. “That means she probably doesn’t. If she wants to get away clean, she’s not going to tell you how. Not with your big mouth.”

  In seconds we’re back on the street, shooting down the unplowed street toward Amtrak, which is ten or twelve blocks from the bus station. “I hope we’re right,” Lemry says. “God, I hope we’re right.”

  We’re right. Sarah Byrnes sits on a long bench in the brightly lit cavernous hall, her feet propped up on her raggedy suitcase, scarred face hidden deep in a book. She’s famous now, and though her picture was never in the paper, anyone who sees her knows exactly who she is.

  She glances up as we approach and leaps to her feet, but Lemry is on her like a gentle bulldogger, wrestling her to a halt, then sinking with her to the floor.

  “Just let me go,” Sarah Byrnes says quietly. “Please, Ms. Lemry, let me go.”

  “No can do,” Lemry says back, and I scoot over to grab Sarah Byrnes’s bag.

  “The only way this will be over is if I leave,” Sarah Byrnes tells her. “You don’t know my dad. Nobody knows my dad.”

  Lemry rises to her feet, pulling Sarah Byrnes with her. She grasps her shoulders firmly in both hands and looks her straight in the eye. “I don’t give a good goddamn about your dad. I’ve heard enough about your dad. He…”

  “He used to tie me up. He wouldn’t let me eat. He locked me up sometimes. He’s bad, Ms. Lemry.”

  “Then he’ll go to jail,” Lemry says without flinching. “I’m taking over here. That’s it. You’re out of the pilot’s seat.”

  Sarah Byrnes starts to protest, but Lemry tightens her grip, and Sarah Byrnes folds, falling into her. Lemry says, “That’s better.”

  Shit. This was too easy.

  CHAPTER 19

  Boy, ain’t it a trip where heroes come from.

  Sarah Byrnes went home with Lemry, and I got out of the hospital officially a day and a half later. It took Brittain a couple days to get up the courage to come back to school, which is two or three days before I’d have made it, so we showed up together. Two TV trucks set up at the edge of the parking lot to tape my return, but Mr. Patterson ordered them off the grounds and all they got were pictures of me and Ellerby driving into the parking lot. Ellerby had the Cruiser washed and waxed so it shone like it really was from heaven, and he gave them a couple of blasts of Mahalia Jackson belting out “Bless This House” on the speaker system before he shut her down. I believe Ellerby may have the power to bring Mahali
a back, or at least bring on some righteous letters to the editor.

  I caught Brittain watching me several times in class and a couple of times in the hall, and finally I walked up to him and asked if I could help.

  “Gotta do this on my own,” he said.

  CAT class was still a study hall, with Mautz monitoring, because Mr. Brittain lodged a formal protest, and even though Mr. Patterson told Lemry he could lodge all the protests he wanted and CAT class would roll on, Lemry was on paid leave. She was home with Sarah Byrnes in a kind of protective custody until the cops figured out what Mr. Byrnes’s next move might be. It seemed smart to not place his targets in the middle of fifteen hundred kids. So Patterson didn’t need to worry about taking Mr. Brittain on until Lemry got back.

  About fifteen minutes into study hall, Mark Brittain raised his hand and asked Mr. Mautz if he could speak to the class.

  I think Mautz thought the fat kid with his arm in a sling or the handsome renegade preacher’s kid might turn study hall into a verbal free-for-all if Brittain said the wrong thing, but the part of him that thought all kids should hear Mark Brittain won over. “Sure, Mark. You can talk.”

  Mark stood and cleared his throat while everyone turned in their seats. You could hear his heart beating from across the room. “I need to clear some things up,” he said, “or I’m not going to be able to show my face for the rest of the year.”

  We stared in silence.

  “I’m a liar,” Mark said. “I think the last words I said to this class were that Jody Mueller was a liar. Not so. Jody got an abortion just like she said. It was my baby. I was too scared to face what I’d done and too ready to protect myself, so I let her go up to the clinic alone and get an abortion alone and go home alone. Then I tricked her into thinking it was her fault. On one of Jody’s good days, I couldn’t have done that, but after her abortion she didn’t have any good days. Everything she’s said about me is true.”