---

 

This writing was accepted for publication in the 108 page perfect-bound ISSN# / ISBN# issue/book... “Farewell to Seafaring” Down in the Dirt, v153 (the January 2018 Issue) You can also order this 6"x9" issue as a paperback book:

Order this writing in the issue book At Midnight the Down in the Dirt Jan.-Apr. 2018 collection book		get the 418 page Jan.-Apr. 2018 Down in the Dirt issue anthology 6" x 9" ISBN# paperback book:

Infinity

Barry Hill

    I first saw the image in the doctor’s office, just a few weeks before. I had been there with my mother, not long after my 12¹² birthday. She was a nurse and believed in regular medical care, which she called a “minor expense” compared to the cost of poor health. This was not a routine visit or checkup. My mother told me that there was a new doctor that she wanted me to see. The receptionist had already put me in the office, but I could hear my mother talking to the doctor just outside the door. She reminded him of their phone conversation and told him that I was very active and seemed to have more energy than other kids my age or her other children. I was sometimes inattentive and it worried her. She also said that it has become more obvious lately. It didn’t seem like any reason to see a doctor to me.

    They both returned to the office. There was no table with paper to sit on, like my regular doctor’s office. No medicines, jars with cotton, alcohol smells, or those wooden sticks for your tongue. Just couches and tables with lamps with ugly shades. The doctor wasn’t wearing a white coat; instead he was wearing a suit and a tie.

    He asked me how I felt. I said that I felt good. Then he asked me a lot of questions, but in a friendly way. He asked how I did in school, what I liked to eat. He asked about my friends and if I liked sports. I got good grades when I felt like trying. I like fried chicken and baseball. I always did my homework, I told him. I play outside with my friends all the time. What else was there to do?

    Then he took out a book for me to look at. My mother was always trying to get me to read books. I did have a book about World War II, and I was starting to like this new author, Beverly Cleary. She wrote about a character named Henry Huggins who liked pet fish like I did. The book the doctor showed me had pictures in it that looked like something you would do in art class, like throwing ink in the middle of a page and then pressing it together to see what you made. That was the kind of art I liked. Plus I liked when we built pottery with clay.

    The first one looked like a fish. A really ugly fish, but still like a fish. Henry Huggins would have liked it. He would have said the same thing.
    The next one looked like a bird. Maybe a bird that might not fly or lay eggs, but still a bird. Maybe a dinosaur bird.
    Another one looked like butterflies. It was a butterfly and not a moth because the wings were wide and tall and looked like sails on ships. I almost said sails but instead I said butterflies.
    Then there was something that looked like a sideways figure eight, but the edges were not very smooth. It was also a little twisted. The doctor had told me at the beginning when he took out the book to show me that I should say the first thing that came to my mind. I said, “Death.”

    My mother, who sat in the corner of the room, drew a fast breath. The doctor slowed down now, and turned the picture towards himself to look at it.

    Immediately after I said it I realized I should have said something else. I should have been reminded of the way that I tie a rope to a cleat on the dock. I should have just said that it looked like a sideways eight. Sometimes I say or do things before I have had enough time to think about them.

    “That’s interesting,” he said. “Why would you say something like that?”
    The words flew out of my mouth like someone else was saying them. “Well, Dr. King was shot last week. And since then I’ve wondered what it must have been like. Did he know he was shot before he died? It must be awful to have a bullet in your head. And I picture what his eyes must have looked like when he realized someone killed him. If he had time to realize it or he just went straight to heaven. That picture. It made me think of Dr. King and the bullet in his head. I don’t want to be shot in the head. I don’t understand why he was killed. Why would someone kill a man who is trying to help people?”

    The doctor closed the book.
    “I don’t know,” he said.

    He got up and left the office with my mother. They left me alone and I didn’t know what to think about while I sat in the chair. I looked at the pictures on the wall, pictures of his family. He had a girl who was older, maybe my sister’s age, and a boy about my age wearing a Yankee’s cap. I didn’t like the Yankees, but who knows maybe his kid was an OK kid even though he liked the Yankees. I felt like the room was moving higher. Not that it was moving but I felt like the room was not on the ground. I wasn’t thinking about breathing but I felt like I could not get enough air. I just held still and tried to breathe as deep as I could. My father had some tickets to a baseball game for next week. I wanted to be happy about going to the game. Maybe I would catch a foul ball. Plus my dad would buy me a hot dog.

    I tried to hear my mother and the doctor talking outside the door again, but I couldn’t hear anything. I didn’t know if they weren’t talking or if they went someplace where I couldn’t hear. What was there to say? I thought I did pretty good in figuring out the pictures. There’s nothing more important than getting the answers right and I think I was able to do that. I think the doctor was telling my mother how smart I was because I got all the answers right. My mother was always proud of me and put all my perfect spelling grades on the refrigerator. Every time she looked at my report card she would tell me how smart I was.

    When I went home, I rode my bike in the street. Usually I would just ride in a circle, or a rectangular pattern, being careful of cars, staying in front of the house. I followed the tar that filled the cracks in the road. But I found myself riding in a figure eight now. I thought of the picture in the doctor’s office. I rode my bike faster. I imagined the figure eight and felt the wind in my face. My heart was pumping against my ribs and I was beginning to enjoy it. I wasn’t on my bike, I was on a motorcycle in a race on television, and I was famous. The figure eight was a more interesting ride. More turns. I felt myself getting better at riding my bike. I also found that I wanted to aim for the same spot in the middle, where the lines intersected. It was no longer fun to ride in a circle or a rectangle. There was no challenge in it.

*    *    *    *

    There is a particular delight in feeling the school year wind down and the freedom of the summer arriving.

    The calendar said it should be warm but it wasn’t, the sun higher, the winter air a stubborn enemy, breezing under sweatshirts, heavy coats lingering on hooks in the hallways, while a small fleet of boats had replaced the ice, the descending tide soon to be eight feet lower, the Creek draining of its sea, the open waters left as mud flats with decades of sunken boat skeletons and sex-starved clams, the air filling our bodies with a salty breath, creating a burn to the deepest tissues, the tall grasses shrinking the swimming area, too early for the lifeguard chairs to be lifted from their winter slumber, the soothing hum of low-horsepower outboard motors, electric power tools, chainsaws, and callings of sad scavenger seagulls, the smell of deck paint mixed with the gasoline and oil vapors that created a dance of blue magical illusion when spilled into the water.

    My best friend Phil and I pushed our dinghy across the sand, one that had washed up on shore after a storm and we claimed it as our own. The first voyage of the season, through the cold wet sand, wet sneakers, long pants clinging tightly to our legs, the man on the shore shaking his head at us while his dog puts a steamy turd on the beach between puffs on his Marlboro, his face buried in a hooded sweatshirt. The morning sun of early May burned our faces like it was August, a small price to pay, not a reason to stop pushing the boat, taking the middle seat with Phil in the back, the oars in my hands, now floating freely, nothing beneath us but murky sea water and 10,000 years of glacial erosion. I rowed with Phil sitting in the back seat, our knees nearly touching, first one oar, then the other, then both together, creating a rhythm like a Rolling Stones song. We headed towards Mill Neck and the waterfall of Beaver Dam.

    The sound of a siren interrupted our reverie, and the lights of a speeding ambulance flashed into view on Creek Road. We turned the boat around and headed towards shore, reversing the process by pulling the boat out of the water and dragging it above the high tide line, flipping it over on the sand. Phil jumped on his stingray, a high-handlebar bike with a banana seat, my wheels a hand-me-down from my older sister. The sirens continued to be in range, and our ears followed them much like a stray dog on the scent of a raccoon. We were following some kind of childhood script, yet felt free to improvise if something else entered the picture.

    A car passes us going very fast and barely misses me. I turn my head sideways so Phil could hear me.
    “Did you see that? The guy almost ran me over. I was almost killed.”
    Phil doesn’t say anything but I could sense that he was nodding his head. We pass Meadow Lane, then Oak Street. When we get to Bay Street, we see a collection of vehicles with flashing lights down at the end. It looks like an ambulance and a police car, maybe two police cars. We turn our bikes and ride dangerously fast down the hill, not wanting to miss a second of the action.

    When we arrive, a crowd had gathered outside the home of the Smyth’s. Both Annette and Robbie Smyth lived there. I first thought that maybe his father had a heart attack or maybe it was the grandmother who stayed with them. A lot of people seemed to have heart attacks. I thought she was pretty old, maybe 60. I wait with my bicycle between my legs, next to Phil. Suzie Pratt was waiting, a piece of the crowd puzzle. Susie had an older brother who married and lived in Alaska. She lived alone with her mother but was kind of a brat. Phil and I usually just ignored her.
    “Hey Suzie,” I said, “what’s going on?”
    “How should I know?” she says. “I thought I heard something like a firecracker. Then I heard a scream and then sirens and then the police and then an ambulance.”
    There’s maybe twenty people outside the Smyth house, waiting.
    We see a policeman exit the house. “Move out of the way,” he says. “There’s a stretcher coming through.” He starts to push people who aren’t moving.

    Phil and I look at each other. “Old lady Smyth,” Phil says. “Musta had a heart attack. The firecracker probably scared her and she dropped to the floor.” The door of the house flung open, and I’m expecting the grandmother to be rushed out with an oxygen mask strapped to her face. I see instead a pair of boy’s sneakers first coming out of the house, the body flat on the stretcher. They are twisted and crossed over each other. Black high-top Keds, very worn. I see the body is covered in a sheet. The place where the head would be is covered up. Right around where the eyes would be is red with blood in the shape of a figure eight. My heart stops and I’m probably dead for a second, but then return to life, managing to stand the whole time. Phil and I were right near the ambulance as the body is loaded in, like a box into a truck.
    “Is he breathing?” I ask Phil.
    “I don’t think so,” he says.

    Suzie, who had disappeared, now returns. “Tommy Sterns says Robbie shot himself,” she announces, proud to be one of the first to spread the news of the event, whether it was true or not. “And he’s dead,” she added.

*    *    *    *

    The next day, I was walking down the hall towards my classroom, having locked my bike in the rack outside. When I walk through the door of the room , there were two students in the front of the class next to the teacher. One was Suzie Pratt. “Number 17,” she smirked .
    “Why am I number 17?” I ask.
    “We’ll tell you later,” Suzie says. “Ha.”
    It turns out that I was the 17¹² person who did not say good morning to Miss Timson, our substitute teacher. The best teacher I ever had, Mrs. Goal, had broken her hip and would miss 3 months of school.
    When told of the news, Phil calls out, “What are you talking about? I was counted halfway down the hall.”
    “You still didn’t say good morning,” says Suzie.
    Phil looks at me with fire in his eyes. I shrugged. Phil was one of the most polite guys I knew. Last year, we had a teacher named Miss Craig and she would stand at the door and greet us. She said good morning to each as we came in. It was a great way to start the day. She was young and pretty and new and Miss Timson was old and grumpy. I will say good morning to her every day now whether I learn anything in her class or not. Sometimes school was a place where everyone was looking for what defects you had or what you did wrong. I guess they figured that you would become a good person by fixing the mistakes that everyone felt free to point out.

    As I asked around, some students knew about Robbie Smyth, but others didn’t. When I told Ronald Stilwall, he didn’t believe me. I guess because he was always making up stories and lies himself that he figured I did, too. Everyone replied to me, but no one said anything more than yes I heard or no I didn’t know about it. No one asked if I saw the dead body. No one asked if I saw the blood around his eyes that looked like a figure eight. No one said that too many people are dying or that he was too young to die. No one even asked if I was there, or said, yes it’s horrible.

    Once the spring coats were in the closet, and the books in the desk, it was time for the pledge. Every morning I said it with everyone else. I was proud of my country and was glad. Though I had heard that there were some people who didn’t want to say the pledge anymore. Love it or leave it I heard my neighbor say one time, about the country. Some college students were not saying the pledge and they were burning the flag because of a war in Vietnam. I didn’t know where Vietnam was but my parents told me war meant everyone stuck together to win. They were talking about a war called World War II. They got married right after the war because they had lived through what they said was a depression and then a war. They told me that 20 years old was a good time to get married. Vietnam did not feel like a war to me. I hardly ever heard about it except on the news. They would post casualties. 351 Vietcong dead. 4 Americans dead. I thought we must be winning because we were killing a lot more of them then they were killing us. I was used to looking at scores like football and baseball. I knew what scores meant and by the killing score we were winning.

    After the pledge we prayed. They called it a moment of silence, but almost everyone went to church so most of us were praying. I prayed that my family would be safe and love me. I prayed that no one I knew would die. I prayed that I wouldn’t get shot or ever have to feel what a bullet is like. I prayed that the people I saw burning stores on the news would stop, but also that no one would die in a burning store or a burning car. I had a large peace sign in my room at home. I prayed that God would not hate me for having that instead of a cross. I opened my eyes a little and wondered what other kids prayed for. I wondered what Suzie Pratt wanted in her prayers, and if she was thinking that if you talked to God everything would be OK. I wondered if she prayed for her father, wherever he was.

    Miss Timson said, “Get out your math books.” As we all groaned and dug deep into our desks, there was an announcement over the speaker. It is time to start the emergency drill. There will be no talking. Everyone is to proceed out into the hallway. This was done once before. It wasn’t a fire drill where we would go outside and pretend the building was burning and that we wouldn’t have to go to school for awhile. This was in case of an attack. I wasn’t sure who would attack us, but apparently our country had enemies that were bad people and hated us and might bomb us or start a war. I had seen pictures in my grandfather’s book that were taken after the atom bomb was dropped and most everything had been wiped out. I hoped it was not an atom bomb that might be dropped on us. We all listened to the instructions and lined up to go into the hallway. We wanted to be orderly in case there was a real attack, just like one day there might be a real fire. Every student was made to sit with legs crossed that in Kindergarten they called “Indian style.” It was very quiet. Somehow, I ended up with Suzie Pratt next to me, and it felt really nice for some reason. I wondered why such a pretty girl like her hardly had any friends. I wondered where her father was because she never talked about it and thought for a second what it would be like if I lived with only my mother and never talked about my father.

    It was so quiet then and I imagined the sound of bombs hitting the building, and planes roaring through the sky just like in the movies about war where America always won and saved the world from evil like Nazis.

    During the quiet, with our faces to the concrete wall, Suzie pulled out a marker. It was a purple one with a thick felt tip. She showed it to me in clear violation of whatever rules we were supposed to be following. You obviously would not need a marker during an attack. I put my hand out and Suzie put the marker in it. I took the top off and noticed that Miss Timson was well down the hallway. I took a big sniff of it. The smell made me feel funny, but good, even though it was a strong smell like ammonia and burned a little. I may have put a dot of purple under my nose because Suzie stifled a giggle. As I held the marker, I got a very strong urge to do something, an urge that I was not able to resist even though I was thinking it was wrong. I held the marker in my hand and pointed it straight out. I slowly began to draw on the wall in front of me as Suzie watched. I drew the sideways figure eight. I made it about the size of my hand. The purple ink on the light green wall made it look black. I turned to Suzie and was not sure what to expect. But she was smiling in a way that I had never seen before. She had bright white teeth and her blonde hair fell over her face and some strands fell in her mouth when she tilted her head. Her skin looked light and soft, and when I looked down, I noticed that she had begun to grow breasts, small pointy bumps on her chest that I could almost see the details of down her white blouse. Things started to stir inside me like something I had never felt before. The new sensations excited and scared me.

    What I did not see was Mr. Heffler over my left shoulder. From a few feet away, he must have seen what I was doing. They say in sports always know where the referee is. He grips my right shoulder tightly, then breaks the fearful silence.
    “Get up,” he says. “What do you think you are doing? Drawing on the walls during a drill? What is wrong with you? Come with me, young man.”

    I don’t think that there was a person in the school who did not hear his loud, booming voice. As I get up, he maintains his grip, then marches me like a prisoner on the way to a firing squad down to the principal’s office. On the way, I must have passed every kid and teacher in the school. Right then I was wishing that a big bomb would drop. Maybe even an atom bomb. It was the only way to end the humiliation. If I died just then, I wouldn’t have cared. I was beginning to admire Robbie. I was thinking that he knew more about life than I did. When would this humiliation end? When would I forget about it? I knew even then that the answer was never.

    I was still sitting in a chair in the principal’s office when the drill ended. There was a window to the office so that every kid and teacher could see me sitting there as they walked back to their classrooms. When Suzie went by, she was smiling. I wasn’t sure if she thought I was a loser or a hero. I was hoping that she thought I was a hero because maybe I really was one even though I was feeling like a loser sitting in the chair. Finally, Principal Trotta returned from supervising the drill. He passed me frowning, the kind of frown my mother had when I said I hated watching my younger sister. He went into his office and made me wait.

    He calls me in.
    “Sit down,” he says. I sit in front of him. My heart beats fast in my chest again. It is happening so often now that I stop trying to figure out why, though I think this time I’m really scared. He leaned forward with his elbows on the desk.
    “Why are you here?” he asks.
    What was this? He didn’t know. Oh. He wanted me to confess.
    I shrugged my shoulders. “I don’t know,” I say.
    He leaned back in the chair now, and pushed it away from the desk.
    “Oh, I think you know why you’re here, you little criminal,” he says. “You drew on the wall. You turned our school into your own personal artist’s canvas. Didn’t you?”
    I guess there was no way out of it. There were witnesses. I was guilty.
    “Yes, sir,” I said.
    His face turned red and I could see the veins in his neck like when someone is yelling.
    He raised his voice. “You know that what you did is illegal? Defacing public property. You’ll probably go to a Juvenile Home for a few years. That would be right where you belong with the rest of the criminals, wouldn’t it. Maybe I’ll call the police now so they can arrest you and take you out in cuffs.”

    He watched me, waiting for a reaction. I was not capable of reacting. I just thought of myself in jail, or with a bunch of other guys like me who can’t follow the rules. Actually it would be better than this. I didn’t care, really. I didn’t care about anything at that moment.
    There is a long period of silence. I really needed to use the bathroom. “You know what? Since this is the first time you’ve been in my office, maybe I’ll just call your mother. Let her deal with a criminal like you. You can get your sorry self up and go and wait outside.”

*    *    *    *

    I waited a long time for my mother to come and pick me up. She didn’t seem too happy about it. She talked to Mr. Trotta for a few minutes in his office. I couldn’t hear what they were saying. When she came out she looked at me in that way she does when she calls me by my full name, middle name included. It looked like she was holding back tears. When we got to the car, she was still sniffling.
    “Brian, why would you do something like that,” she asked. She was trying hard to hide the fact that she was crying.
    “I don’t know,” I said.
    “What is it with you and this sideways eight? Can’t you just forget about it?”
    “I don’t know,” I said.

*    *    *    *

    When I got home, my mother told me that we were going to have to talk about it with my father. I don’t know if she was feeling sorry for me or not, but she let me go outside. I got on my old bike and started to ride. I tried to ride in a circle. I tried to ride in rectangle. I couldn’t. I rode in a figure eight. First a small one, then a large one, but I kept the crossing in the same place. I could see the figure in my mind no matter how big or small I made it.

    I was surprised to see Suzie Pratt coming up the street on her bike. I just kept riding in my figure eight, thinking that she was going to the beach. I was pretty surprised when she stopped to watch me ride. I kept riding awhile while she watched.
    “Hey,” she says. “What are you doing?”
    “Just riding,” I say.
    “You wanna talk?” she says. She gets off her bike and sits on the curb.
    “Sure,” I say, and I put the rusty kickstand down and my bike stands on the sidewalk near hers. I sit next to her on the curb, our sneakers in the street.
    “You know you shouldn’t draw on the walls,” she says, looking at me sternly. I don’t always know when someone is kidding or serious.
    “I know,” I say.
    “Did you get in trouble?”
    “Well, you could say that.”
    I think that she’s going to ask about Mr. Trotta and the office and going to jail.
    “Thanks,” she says.
    ‘“For what?”
    “Thanks for not telling anyone it was my marker.”
    I hadn’t ever thought of telling anyone that I got the marker from her.
    “Oh sure, you’re welcome,” I say.
    “Still. It was pretty cool what you drew. And you weren’t afraid of getting caught. I’m always afraid of getting caught doing something I shouldn’t be doing.”
    “Yeah. I know what you mean.”
    “Why do you like infinity so much?” she asks.
    “What do you mean, infinity> Like forever and ever?”
    “Yes. That symbol. The sideways eight. It means infinity.”
    “Really?” I say. “I didn’t know that. I thought it was just a sideways eight.”
    She laughs. “No, it means infinity. So you like something but you don’t know what it means?” she says.
    “I guess not. I just liked the shape of it.”
    “Why?”
    I start to think of a million things when she asks the question. All the things that have happened. The doctor’s book. Martin Luther King. Vietnam. Robbie Smyth’s eyes and now getting in trouble. I don’t know what to say to her. I don’t know how to put it into words. I lean back with my hands at my sides on the curb, and look at her. The lowering sun is in her eyes, and they sparkle blue, and I’m having trouble getting a full breath again. I look at her and say, “I don’t know.”

    She places her hand on top of mine. I ‘m not sure if she meant to, or if it was an accident. If a girl touches a boy, it’s usually a mistake. But she leaves it there, and at first I want to pull away, but instead I leave it there and try to keep still, but it is very difficult. I look at her and smile. She smiles back. I like what is happening. I like it a lot.

Copyright of written pieces remain with the author, who has allowed it to be shown through Scars Publications and Design.Web site © Scars Publications and Design. All rights reserved. No material may be reprinted without express permission from the author.

Problems with this page? Then deal with it...