Clay watched me.
He watched but said nothing while I tried, as I’d often done lately, to somehow understand him. In looks, he and I were most alike, but I was still a good half foot taller. My hair was thicker, and my body too, but it was only the extra age. While I worked on hands and knees on carpet, floorboards, and concrete each day, Clay went to school and ran his miles. He survived his regime of sit-ups and push-ups; he was tense, and tight-looking—lean. I guess you could say we were different versions of the same thing, most notably in the eyes. Both of us had fire in our eyes, and it didn’t matter what color they were, because the fire in them was everything.
In the middle of it all, I smiled, but hurtly.
I shook my head.
The streetlights flickered off then.
I’d asked what had to be asked.
Now to say what needed to be said.
* * *
—
The sky widened, the house tightened.
I didn’t move close, or aim up, or intimidate.
All I said was “Clay.”
Later on, he told me that that was what unnerved him: The peace of it.
In the midst of that strangely dulcet tone, something in him tolled. It lowered itself, steadily, from throat to sternum to lungs, and full morning hit the street. On the other side, the houses stood ragged and quiet, like a gang of violent mates, just waiting for my word. We knew I didn’t need them.
After a moment or two, I took my elbows off the rail and placed a look down on his shoulder. I could ask him about school. What about school? But both of us knew the answer. Who was I, of all the people, to tell him to stay in school? I’d left before the end myself.
“You can leave,” I said. “I can’t stop you, but—”
The rest was broken off.
A sentence as difficult as the job itself—and that, in the end, was the truth of it. There was leaving and coming back. There was crime, then facing punishment.
Returning and being let in:
Two very different things.
He could walk away from Archer Street, and trade his brothers for the man who left us—but coming home meant getting through me.
“Big decision,” I said, more directly, then, in his face and not by his shoulder. “And, I guess, one hell of a consequence.”
And Clay looked, first in my face, then away.
He recognized my toil-hardened wrists, my arms, my hands, the jugular in my neck. He noticed the reluctance in my knuckles, but the will to see it through. Most importantly, though, he saw that fire in each eye, pleading as they were: Don’t leave us for him, Clay.
Don’t leave us.
But if you do.
* * *
—
The thing is, these days I’m convinced.
Clay knew he had to do it.
He just wasn’t sure if he could.
When I walked back inside, he stayed awhile, stranded on the porch, with the fullest weight of the choice. After all, what I’d promised was something I couldn’t even bring myself to say. What was the worst thing you could do to a Dunbar boy, anyway?
For Clay, that much was clear, and there were reasons to leave, and reasons to stay, and all of it was the same. He was caught somewhere, in the current—of destroying everything he had, to become all he needed to be—and the past, ever closer, upon him.
He stood watching the mouth of Archer Street.
And the tide comes in with victory, and struggle along the way—for likely the fairest thing to say about Penelope’s entrance to life in the city was that she was constantly torn and astonished.
There was great gratitude to this place for taking her.
Then fear of its newness, and heat.
And then, of course, the guilt: A hundred years he’d never live.
So selfish, so callous to leave.
* * *
—
It was November when she got here, and although not normally the hottest time of year, occasionally it produced a week or two of brutal reminders that summer was drawing near. If ever there was a time not to arrive, it was one like this—a binary weather chart of that heat, humidity, heat. Even the locals seemed to be suffering.
On top of that, she was obviously an intruder; her room at the camp clearly belonged to a squadron of cockroaches, and God almighty, she’d never seen such terrifying things. So big! Not to mention relentless. They fought her each day for territory.
Not surprisingly, the first thing she bought here was a can of Baygon.
Then a pair of flip-flops.
If nothing else, she understood you could go a long way in this country with crap footwear and a few good cans of fly spray. It helped her get by. Days. Nights. Weeks.
* * *
—
The camp itself was buried deep in the unruly rug of suburbs.
She was taught there, from the absolute basics, to speak the language. Sometimes she walked the streets outside, and the rows of peculiar houses—each one set in the middle of giant, lawn-mowered lawns. Those houses seemed made of paper.
When she asked the English teacher about them, by sketching a house and pointing to the paper, he burst forth loudly with laughter. “I know, I know!” But soon he gave her an answer. “No, not paper. Fibro.”
“Fi-bro.”
“Yes.”
* * *
—
Another note about the camp and its many small apartments was that it was much like the city; it sprawled, even in such a tight space.
There were people of every color.
Every speech.
There were high-headed proud types, and then the worst offenders of foot-dragging disease you could ever hope to meet. Then there were people who smiled the whole time, to keep the doubt within. What they did all have in common was that they all seemed to gravitate, in varying degrees, to people of their own nationality. Country ran thicker than most things, and that was how people connected.
In that regard, Penelope did find others from her own part of the world, and even her own city. Often they were very hospitable, but they were families—and blood ran thicker than country.
Every now and then, she was invited to a birthday or a name day celebration—or even just a cobbled-together get-together of wódka and pierogi, barszcz and bigos—but it was strange how quickly she’d leave. The smell of that food in the stifling air; it belonged here as much as she did.
But that wasn’t what really bothered her.
No, the one thing she truly dreaded was the sight and sound of men and women standing up, and loosening their throats, for another rendition of “Sto Lat.” They sang for home like a perfect idea—like there weren’t any reasons to leave. They called on friends and family, as if the words could bring them near.
* * *
—
But then, like I said, there was the gratitude, for other times, like New Year’s Eve, when she walked through the camp at midnight.
Somewhere close by there were fireworks; she could see them between the buildings. There were great plumes of red and green, and distant cheers, and soon she stopped and watched them.
She smiled.
She saw the workings of light in the sky, and sat on the stony road. Penelope held her arms, either side, and rocked herself, just lightly. Pi?kne, she thought, it’s beautiful, and this was where she would live. The thought of it made her eyes close, hotly, and talk to the simmering ground.
“Wstań,” she said. And again. “Wstań, wstań.”
Stand up.
But Penelope didn’t move.
Not yet.
But soon.
“Wake up, for Christ’s sake.”
While Penny comes in, Clay begins the process of wading, gradually, out.
On the first day, after my front porch ultimatum, he made his way to the bread bags and remaining coffee. Later, he dried his face in the bathroom, and heard me on my way out to work. I was standing over Rory: Me in my dirty old work gear.
Rory still half asleep, half dead from the night before.
“Oi, Rory.” I shook him. “Rory!”
He tried to move, but couldn’t. “Oh, shit, Matthew, what?”
“You know what. There’s another Goddamn letterbox out there.”
“Is that all? How do you know it was me?”