The stroke slowed me down. For the sake of my own survival, I was forced to take in the outside world exactly as it was, without expectation or distortion, in order to exist in it without breaking myself in half. For once, I fought for realism, a state of mind that seemed the exact antithesis of who I was, what I did, but that allowed me to handle a toothbrush, go to the bathroom, walk without stumbling. I hated this—having no fantasy to soften the blow—but to survive, I did it. And sometimes, in return, the world gave me gifts.
So it is with Teddy. He is not subjected to any construction or treatment before I meet him. I no longer have the will to imagine what I want. The experience rises clean, without my greasy fingerprints all over it. When I meet Teddy, I meet him as he is.
I am surprised to find that I would know him, actually know this man, if I saw him as a stranger. The assertion of his nose, the sharp little chin, the pale skin on which I can see the faint outline of stubble as he stoops under the counter. This is the ghost of the boy moving through the world. This is his face, this is his body. He has become, as an adult, handsome. Square, solid, confident. A good-looking guy, looking for something as he dips behind the register, his shoulders shifting as things are socked and thudded down below. My entire body prickles.
Ryan ducks his head and shuffles over. “I’ll get em,” he says. “We got superstars in the house, man. Check it.”
Baldy points to us. “They made Nashville Combat.”
The shoulders stop. Teddy’s head tilts. His eyes appear over the edge of the counter, wide, train on me. He slowly rises, face soft and open, a little anxious. I am amused to see that Ted Caudill is wearing suspenders.
“Sharon?” he says.
I nod. Give a lame little wave.
He doesn’t move.
I scan my brain for something to say, anything. Feel it begin to fold up. Not again. Fuck.
He blinks. “Is that really you?”
“I had a stroke,” I blurt.
Mel coughs. “Jesus,” she sighs.
He comes around the counter and takes me by the shoulders, looking me hard in the face: first one side, then the other.
“You look exactly like yourself,” he says slowly. “I’d know that face anywhere.”
He puts his arms around me. We fall into each other.
It’s like remembering how something tastes, hearing a sound gone unheard for years; touching him is a sensory experience I haven’t realized I missed until it comes back to me, all that unfelt loss hitting me at once.
My face has disappeared into his shoulder. I manage to unearth it. Say, “I like your trampoline.”
—
Teddy suggests a bar near Weirdo Video. Two high school guys arrive to take over the store and we head out: Teddy, Mel, Ryan, and the bald kid, whose name is Tatum. (“It’s a girl’s name,” Teddy whispers to us, prompting Tatum to yell, “Shut the fuck up.”) It’s Friday night and Bardstown Road is alive with traffic. After-work crowds clog the bars, pack the pizza joints and coffeehouses. I spot a bookstore filled with people along the way. “Oh yes,” Teddy says. “Very literate city we have here.”
“Is that so.”
“It’s so.” We’ve slowed down, falling into step behind Mel and Tatum and Ryan, who are lighting Mel’s cigarettes and firing questions at her. I keep glancing at Teddy as we walk, unable to stop looking at his face. His accent falls in and out of shadow, the A’s still broad and unassuming, some of the words clipped, Midwestern-short. “So Faulkner’s own superstar artist. Have they rolled out the red carpet for you?”
“My mom fixed me beans and weenies.”
“Well, that’s something.”
Teddy’s only a few inches taller than me. My eyes fall just short of his Adam’s apple. I steal looks at it as we match pace. I feel him sneaking looks at me, too, fiddling with his little gold wire-rims, rubbing his five-o’clock shadow. He moves like one of those men who spent his adolescence with arms and legs too big for his body: slow, deliberate. He’s got a great mouth. Pink and even. We’re circling each other. What happened to you? How did you grow up?
I’m trying my best not to limp. “Do you ever miss Faulkner?” I ask him.
He grins. “Not really. Is that bad to say? My mom moving me up here was one of the best things that could have happened. I guess I didn’t have much of a choice at the time, but it was completely for the best. Louisville is home.” I feel him hesitate. “I already had this kind of, you know, sense of Faulkner. Like, kind of knowing that if I stuck around, the FFA guys were going to beat the hell out of me in high school? I didn’t really fit into the scheme of things.”
“I can relate.”
“I’ll bet you can.” He looks me over now with open curiosity. Bruised, beaten, and from the past; it makes me feel self-conscious, a little exotic. He sighs and squints in thought. “Let’s see. I moved here three days before I started the sixth grade.”
“I remember. It ruined middle school for me. Broke my heart.”
“Oh, mine too. I went through some solid Sharon withdrawal. Who else was going to force me to watch Liquid Television over and over?”
I bite my lip, hug myself. He remembers.
“So that’s been about twenty years. I think that’s right. Almost twenty years I’ve lived here, minus the four I spent in Lexington.”
“You went to UK?”
“I did.”
“I almost did, too,” I say. “But Ballister happened. The chance to put that many miles between me and my family was too good to pass up.”