Andrew – Seneca, Christmas 1987
The road is glassy, the woods an icy tunnel as Andrew guns his VW Bug toward Seneca. Snowflakes spiral past the beam of his headlights, sweeping down the mountainside and disappearing into the steep plunge to the right of the road. Andrew thinks it would serve Momma right if he slid off the hillside and wrecked around a tree, but with his luck he’d live, be confined to a body cast, have to listen until the end of time to the old woman ranting about his foolishness. The thought of Momma spoon-feeding him is more than he can bear. To hell with that, Andrew decides as he thunders onto the plowed road by the wooden school bus stand where he and his sister once spent their mornings waiting. The hit of gas causes the Bug to fishtail so much that Andrew has to pump his brakes to regain control. He has a reason to survive Momma, after all--a reason more substantial than simply escaping from home, of getting out from under her thumb. He has Jake Cahill in his life now.
Jake. Andrew’s first up-close meeting with him had more than stolen his breath away; it had been a sucker punch to his senses, something he still wasn’t quite sure he’d recovered from.
They had met back in summer. Andrew had been working for the county’s summertime recreation program, supervising a playground at a piss-ant elementary school over in Harman. The job provided a way to save a little money before the start of his senior year. As for Jake, he had been given the responsibility of supervising all such programs throughout the county, despite the fact that he was no older than Andrew— Jake’s reward, Andrew figured, for coaching endless county Little League games over the past several summers.
Already Andrew knew his name. Jake Cahill was famous in the sports pages of the Seneca Sentinel
for breaking track records, for being named baseball All-Star his sophomore and junior years over in nearby Belington. Sportswriters speculated Jake’s series of shutouts made him a shoe-in for first-string pitcher come spring of his senior year. Andrew had seen Jake play the spring before, a month before the school year ended when the Belington Bobcats played the Seneca Braves. Momma had dragged him along to work the concession stand in yet another of her efforts to shore up her running in whatever full-time teaching opportunities might open up soon. Despite working as a playground supervisor, Andrew barely had a passing interest in the game—until Jake cracked a homer in the seventh inning, bringing in three players to steal the lead. Selling pop in the stands, Andrew fumbled to make change as he snuck peaks at handsome Jake rounding the bases. As Jake hit home, his dirt-covered teammates rose from the dugout to clap his shoulders and smack his rear with their caps as they hoisted him on their shoulders. How good it must feel to belong like that, thought Andrew.
And then, come this past August at the playground in Harman, Jake had stood tall before Andrew in a pink Polo shirt and jeans so faded it looked like he’d slid home too many times to count. From beneath an unruly thatch of brown hair, Jake’s skeptical eyes sized Andrew up, seemed to tease him out as the two shook hands hello. At first, barely any banter--just the nuts and bolts of time sheets to turn in, of keeping the supplies and fix-it lists up to date. But soon Jake’s sense of humor came through like a copperhead’s strike, dry comments about keeping the tomboy girls out of fistfights, of frisking the boys for pocketknives. After that initial visit, Jake was only supposed to stop by Fridays to pick up paperwork and drop off arts and crafts materials, but he found reasons to stop by other afternoons as well. At first Andrew thought he must be doing something wrong, that Jake was checking up on him, making sure he had enough games planned, disciplined the troublemakers properly, wasn’t—what—stealing dodge balls? Then one afternoon Jake stopped by to show Andrew the Chevy muscle car he had traded his truck for, an old ’67 Camaro he had gotten off his uncle’s neighbor outside of Pittsburgh. With pride, Jake rattled on about the car’s custom grill guard, its original Z-28 engine. Andrew ignored the patches of Bondo on each side, the dent in the roof, the upholstery that looked like a pack of wolves had chewed through it. He liked seeing the marvel of the car through Jake’s eyes, the pleasure Jake took in the prospect of fixing it up. Andrew offered to help, and Jake said he might just take him up on that. Suddenly a job that had previously been a mere means to an end now afforded Andrew something more—the unforeseen but welcome prospect of spending time with Jake Cahill.
But what had it been about Jake that made friendship seem so likely? Was it the way Jake had cocked his head and looked at Andrew after each off-hand remark he made--likely that Andrew understood not only Jake’s lame jokes but also whatever meaning lay behind them? Had friendship been likely because both boys were really the same in some deep-felt way? Back then, all that Andrew could tell for sure was that Jake was unhappy. His mother had recently remarried, and his new stepfather had relocated them all to Seneca over the summer to be closer to his job at Armentrout Lumber. Though the move had been a short one, the change meant Jake had to negotiate, come fall, a new school and new friends during what should have been a piece-of-cake senior year. Worse, next spring, he’d be forced to prove himself anew among a baseball team he had formerly fought against. As Jake confessed these worries to Andrew, he kept a steady smile on his lips, but Andrew could sense that Jake was bearing not only the weight of these burdens, but perhaps something deeper, something that threatened to dim the light in his brown eyes altogether. Jake wanted to tell him something but couldn’t. And whatever it was, Andrew would have to work it out of him like a splinter.
Weeks went by. Whatever bond was building between the two remained unspoken but nonetheless communicated--a charge that filled the air. Perhaps Jake was testing Andrew, biding time. Andrew, on the other hand, was reminded of what he once felt for lifeguard Artie (probably back home in Delaware, having
last Andrew heard, having moved there after his old man was jailed for spousal abuse). And yet what Andrew now felt for Jake was different than all that, more than just a tug in his guts or groin.
As now, as Andrew drives to town, he pictures that first Monday after Thanksgiving when months of second-guessing finally crystallized into the hard truth of desire: the sight of sweaty Jake shooting baskets with the Harman kids, their shouts echoing in the cavernous expanse of the multipurpose room. Jake pulled up his shirttail to wipe his face, revealing the corded muscles of his belly. A fuse was lit inside Andrew. The beat of his heart became a string of cherry bombs, one explosion after another.
But that was a month ago. Driving now in the car, Andrew hits the split where the road from home joins town’s Route 33. Atop a craggy triangle of rock in the split of the intersection stands the Iron Indian, a statue commemorating Seneca Chief White Eagle. The snow is falling faster, hard enough to warrant windshield wipers, but still Andrew can see the mark on one of the boulders beneath the Indian’s feet--a pale scar his father once told him got made the icy New Year’s Eve his parents wrecked coming back from visiting Uncle Si and Aunt Adalene.
Andrew slows. But instead of forking right toward the Mountaineer Mart and the shovel Momma wants him to buy, he heads left onto Davis Avenue and the direction of Jake’s house. The streets that branch off in each direction are dotted with the glow of houses decorated for the holidays. Andrew punches on the radio, desperate for some music, but the stupid station from over in Elkins is still playing Christmas crap, “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.” Good for her, Andrew thinks. He switches off the station and scrounges through the glove compartment for the tape he’s made Jake for Christmas.
He jams it into the cassette deck for one last listen before he takes it to Jake, unable to wait until Christmas break’s over and work starts up again. Even on his Bug’s crappy player the first song sounds good with the treble high and the volume up, Robert Smith singing “Why Can’t I Be You?”, his voice wailing overtop a mix of jangling synthesizers and explosive horns. Momma always complains that what Andrew listens to isn’t music at all but robot noise, and he hasn’t the words to explain to her how the ironic lyrics of bands like The Cure provide an antidote to the poisons of the world. Each time she grinds him he pops a tape in his VW’s cassette deck, cranks the volume and drives out the old logging road to Cheat River. He lets himself be reconstituted song by song, each new mixed tape he another installment in the soundtrack of his life.
Momma doesn’t get it, but will Jake? Is a tape too much, too soon? Andrew fears his intentions are too easily decodable when what he should do right now is aim for a more subtle route into Jake’s heart. But he can’t help himself. The inside of Jake’s Chevy is littered with cassettes by Def Leppard and Quiet Riot; the boy’s in obvious need of reeducation, something only a healthy dose of songs culled from John Hughes soundtracks and import albums can do. He needs Eurythmics; he needs Talking Heads. He needs The Cure, same as Andrew. A few foot-stompers as well, tracks by Madonna and Cyndi Lauper, something to get the blood going and the feet moving, get Jake dancing like Kevin Bacon in Footloose, that scene in the back-lit
barn where beads of sweat sling from his skin. On the tape, Andrew’s squeezed in songs from other
movies, too: Fast Times at Ridgemont High,The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink. Cruising through town, he runs through the band names he’s listed in gold magic marker on the cassette liner: Psychedelic Furs, New Order, Echo and the Bunnymen ….
Andrew hits a slick patch and skids through a red traffic light in front of the YMCA out into the empty intersection. “Fuck!” he cries, grateful no one else is around. He works his breaks, takes a deep breath, slows down to navigate the increasingly snowy streets on his way toward the development where Jake lives. On the car stereo, the tape’s first rousing wave has geared down to Suzanne Vega’s voice spiraling somewhere “Left of Center.” Andrew sings along to steady himself. Though he’s never been invited over, Andrew has driven by Jake’s place countless times, taking reassurance in the sight of Jake’s parked Camaro or sometimes growing crazy with insecurity when it’s nowhere to be found. And of course tonight there’s no way in hell Andrew will muster the courage to knock on Jake’s front door and force a meeting with his mother and stepfather. Having to explain why he’s stopped by unannounced, uninvited, would surely twist Andrew’s tongue into knots--and Jake would not be happy. Better to play secret Santa, to simply put the cassette inside Jake’s car if he’s left it unlocked as usual, or wedge it in a plastic bag beneath his windshield wiper as a backup. No note; let the music speak for itself, hoping Jake will
understand, will come to appreciate the songs so much he’ll learn to mouth the lyrics the way Andrew does now as he turns onto Jake’s street, matching Morrissey word for word: “please, please, please… let me get what I want… this time.”
Jake’s brick ranch house looks picture perfect beneath its snowcapped roof and evergreen hedges strung with blinking Christmas lights. In the yard, a light-up snowman offers a cheesy Bob’s Big Boy grin. Beneath the carport sits Jake’s stepfather’s Chevy Caprice. No sign of Jake’s Camaro.
Where the hell is he? Andrew parks at the end of the block, pops the tape from the deck and steps from the car. From beneath his seat he pulls the fifth of Jim Beam he paid Wino Williams to buy him. Andrew drinks deep, the sting of the liquor bracing him as he starts through the snow. The homes in the development are spaced far apart with big front lawns and no sidewalks, and Andrew can feel the snow seeping into his sneakers. He pulls his coat and new sweater tighter around him, takes another pull of whiskey before hiding the bottle. Already the snow lies an inch thick upon the ground, more than enough to leave incriminating footprints behind as he sneaks up Jake’s driveway and hurries around the carport to see if Jake’s Camaro sits in the alley out back. No such luck. Andrew smacks the cassette tape against his thigh in frustration. He rounds the house full circle, past the back porch and then the kitchen, where a glimpse of Jake’s mother washing dishes is enough to make his heart leap into his throat. Andrew hunches low, creeps past the black rectangles of other windows, other rooms, wondering which one is Jake’s, what secrets it might contain. He presses his face against the glass of one, but the glow from the alley lamp behind him
Around another corner toward the front he goes, the cassette still tight in his hand. At the living room window Andrew stops. He balances himself on a lip of snow made icy by a leaky overhead gutter and peers past a gap in the curtains. The room’s wood paneling gleams buttery and alive from the glow of lamps and TV. Beneath an enormous oil painting of a stag crossing a river sits Jake’s stepfather reading a newspaper. Still no sign of Jake.
What did he expect, the three of them eating Christmas cookies and wearing matching snowflake sweaters? It’s no surprise Jake’s out; Andrew knows how much he hates his stepfather. Andrew studies the man’s paunch and thinning salt and pepper hair and is likewise hard pressed to see anything special about the man Jake’s mother married. Still, something about the room makes Andrew pause, something beyond its warm contrast to the snowy cold around him. Maybe it’s the lazy curl of Mr. Munroe’s sock clad feet on the foot of his recliner, the neat stack of hunting magazines beside him, the framed wedding photo on the polished side table. Maybe it’s the sleepy-eyed way he looks up as his new wife calls from the kitchen. Andrew watches her enter, pausing in the archway of the room, her hair the same brown as Jake’s. Andrew finds himself surprised at the care with which she stoops to pick up a sprig of artificial mistletoe that has fallen from the arch. She digs its thumbtack out of the cream-colored shag before continuing to her husband’s chair. When the man says something to her, she smiles, raises her eyebrows playfully, slides onto the arm of his chair and holds the sprig above his head until his gruff expression melts and he cranes his neck to kiss her. It becomes apparent to Andrew what’s made him linger, what he’s long missed seeing but seldom admits: the sight of love between a husband and wife. Suddenly he feels ashamed for watching them, for not altogether disliking Mr. Munroe the way Jake wants him to.
“Who’s there?” someone calls from behind, and Andrew turns, startled to see a neighbor woman peering at him past the glare of her over-decorated porch. He slips off the icy ridge he’s balanced on, tries to catch himself as he slides toward the house. His hand with the cassette tape smacks against the window glass. Jake’s mother and stepfather flinch with surprise, their love giving way to worry. Andrew reels back, quick before they can get a good look at him. He stumbles on the ice, rights himself, takes off running as the old woman next door threatens to call the police.
Andrew hightails it back to the Bug. Something rises inside him, a feeling stronger than the fear of getting caught. He is suddenly mad at Jake, at everyone, but most of all at himself because he doesn’t know what to do when his emotions overtake him.
He guns the Bug, lurches from the curb, narrowly missing a mailbox as he skids around a street corner. A couple blocks later, his heart has calmed enough that he can pop in the cassette again. Right now, the thought of going to the Mountaineer Mart to pick up Momma’s shovel is the last thing on his mind. He wants to find Jake. Wants to know where he is, what he is doing. He passes an empty field edging town that bears a faded billboard advertising a business park that has never come. The street’s a shortcut to the road where the Barretts live: Sergeant Barrett, his wife, their daughter Virginia--the one Jake claims has been