Us Kids Know

for Mom & Dad and for Via

PART ONE

Cullen

BEFORE THERE WAS RAY, there was Ray’s sister, Brielle. The first time I noticed her—for real noticed her—was at a school dance. A dance that, as a senior, I had no business attending. For freshmen and sophomores, of course, at a place like St. John of the Cross Preparatory School, these dances are gold. They’re still corny and trite and mostly boring, and none of the first- or second-year guys admit to wanting to go, but they all go anyway. Because the dances happen twice a year—once in winter and once in spring—and these are the only times when girls—real girls, not a teacher or a mom or someone’s little sister or whatever—actually step foot inside our school. So if you’re a guy in the early stages of being imprisoned inside the walls of a single-sex Catholic high school like St. John’s, you’d be a fool to miss out.

It’s different for seniors, though. By the time your final year arrives, you’re supposed to have cultivated your own network of friends, and if that network doesn’t yet include members of the opposite sex—assuming you’re into that sort of thing—then you’re pretty much out of luck as far as making up ground goes. Because no fifteen-year-old girl from St. Anne’s or Marymount Academy is about to do anything but scoff at some creepy upperclassman prowling the disco-ball, slow-dance circuit.

But I wasn’t worried about all that. Because I wasn’t there for the girls. I was there because I had a trunk full of ice-cold, watered-down domestic light beer (two dollars a can, six bucks for ten) and three bottles of syrupy, cinnamon-flavored liquor (three dollars a shot, fifty-five for the bottle). And even though I was smart enough to park two and a half blocks away, in the driveway of Mark Martz’s house—Mark Martz, who had gone on a college campus visit with his parents for the weekend and who therefore hadn’t the slightest clue that I was using his driveway to make a few bucks—I still had to make the rounds at the dance to recruit thirsty freshmen.

My pursuit of customers led me to the cafeteria, where kids gathered to blow off steam when they finally grew weary of the hot-breathed, smothering darkness of the gym. It was there that I saw Brielle. She was carrying three Diet Cokes from the vending machine to two tiny blond girls. It’s both easy and difficult to describe the sensation of that moment. There was all the predictable stuff: butterflies, heart speeding up, hair on end, et cetera, et cetera. It’s not like I hadn’t ever seen a pretty girl before. But Brielle was different. Her friends—the blondes—were pretty. Very pretty. But predictably so. It was like if you asked a hundred ordinary guys for a description of their perfect girl, fifty guys would describe one of Brielle’s friends, and fifty would describe the other. But Brielle looked only like herself. And because of that, she shone.

Like me, she was from Rosewood, so I remembered her vaguely from elementary school. I suppose she remembered me well enough too, because while her two friends were wiping paper napkins across the lips of their soda cans, Brielle looked right at me and waved. She did this like she knew I’d been staring at her and was simply waiting for the right moment to acknowledge me. Like we’d been communicating before even looking at each other.

I waved back. Her cheeks were rosy and chubby, and her mouth was small and very red, and based on absolutely no tangible information whatsoever I felt like she and I understood something important that nobody else at this dance understood—or would ever understand. In that one quick moment—a look, a smile, a wave—we transcended the night. The giggles, fake flirting, sweaty palms, dudes in popped collars singing along to Nelly, girls in flower-print dresses throwing bony arms in the air and crying, Will the real Slim Shady please stand up, please stand up, please stand up, the DJ with his thumb rings and orange-dyed soul patch, the trusting teachers who moved among us believing we were all having an innocent good time, the suspicious teachers who were on the scent for boozy breath at every turn . . . Brielle and I seemed to float above all that ordinary, predictable nonsense and meet on some rare, electrified plane. I decided in that very same moment that I would do whatever I could to meet her there again.

The next week I drove to Marymount after school to watch her at field hockey practice. Brielle was made to play field hockey the way pillows are made to be bricks. Her only potential strength was that her elbows flew around so awkwardly that nobody could get close enough to steal the ball without risking a black eye. She didn’t have the ball often, though, and when she did, her twitching arms would fling it wildly out of reach before she could manage to do anything productive with it.

But off the field, when she wasn’t forced to tighten up and move her body in a way it was never meant to be moved, she was a sight: on the sidelines, leaning on her field hockey stick, picking wet bits of grass from the back of her knee, swaying her long auburn ponytail from one shoulder to the other, silent and content and somehow totally unaware that she was outrageously beautiful.

I watched her every day for almost an entire season without speaking to her. To be honest, I was scared to death of her, and so for weeks I stood fifty yards away, leaning against my Buick, watching and wondering what to say to a girl like that. Sure, she was two classes below me, but you don’t just walk up to a girl like Brielle O’Dell and plainly ask her out like it’s nothing. And even though I nurtured some pretty serious delusions that she might approach me and break the ice herself, I also knew the occasion of our next meeting needed to be much more memorable than that. Ours was a story that wouldn’t stand for the commonplace.

The first encounter had to be astonishing.

Had to be grand. Epic. Fierce.

Violent.

Bloody.

And so, after one month of watching her giggle with her friends after they’d showered and changed, and then following her home through the slippery, foggy, winding autumn roads of north Jersey—during which I learned that she rode right past my house every night between five forty-five and six P.M.—I decided that Brielle O’Dell and I were going to crash into each other’s lives.

Brielle

BEFORE THE ACCIDENT, I recalled Cullen only vaguely from Rosewood. He’d been notorious at our public school before we each moved on to different high schools. He would wear the same pair of dilapidated jeans every day, and he was the first boy in school to grow his hair long and begin wearing oversized flannel shirts with black Doc Martin boots just like the high school kids were doing. It was a style he never really abandoned, even when the ’90s look faded away and boys started wearing khakis and polos and expensive flip-flops. Rumors would circulate that Cullen was going to fight someone after school or that he’d been suspended for any number of transgressions—pocketing school supplies, keying the principal’s car, burning the carpet in the library with hydrochloric acid pilfered from the science teacher’s closet.

We all knew about Cullen Hickson.

So when he started showing up at our field hockey practices, I pretended I was just as creeped out by him as the other girls. He’d stand there in the parking lot, beside that oversized sedan he drove, just watching us. We had only three seniors on the team that year, and they all assured us he was a dirtbag—that he went to St. John’s but that he worked at a gas station where he sold drugs and he wasn’t even going to college next year.

It wasn’t unusual for boys from the surrounding schools to drive over to practice, but most of them did so to see their girlfriends, and the ones without girlfriends were baby-faced enough that they posed no real threat; they were simply satisfying their own curiosity about the world of girls that their parochial schools had robbed them of. We were just as painfully curious about the male universe and so were happy to oblige.

But Cullen was different. He was tall, with sturdy shoulders, greasy, wavy hair, and a thick, obnoxious mustache stamped above his top lip. (St. John’s forbade beards, and Cullen pushed that rule as far as he could.) He watched us like we were in a zoo. Girls would point at him and laugh, or tell him to go fuck himself, or honk their horns at him when they sped by. He’d just lean against his door with the strangest, slightest grin.

I caught him staring at me a few times and never thought much of it. Girls were always telling stories about the terrible ways Cullen had gawked at them. Scarlett Reed and Katie Kinney would stand on either side of me in the locker room, so thin in their underwear but strong from their sportiness, the two of them flitting and skipping about without a hint of self-consciousness, while I hid all my soft parts beneath a loose-fitting shirt and folded arms, and they’d inevitably proclaim how Cullen Hickson had ogled them yet again today, how awful and gross he was. I assumed the looks he gave me were the same he gave to us all. I was happy at least to be included in that group of the wanted.

I was terribly inept at most athletic endeavors, and field hockey proved no exception. Katie and Scarlett, meanwhile, were two beautiful blond girls from Short Hills who were ferociously adept athletes. I met them the first summer practice of freshman year when the three of us randomly gathered on the same spot of clover-patched lawn for a lunch break. Life is arbitrary that way. Had I not decided—despite a total lack of experience with field hockey or any evidence that I would be even remotely good at it—that athletic involvement was an indispensable component of any serious student’s college application, and had I not sat down in that exact spot on that first day after only a few hours of practice—just short of the amount of time it would take Katie Kinney and everyone else to learn that I was the single worst player on the team—who knows how things would have unfolded?

I mentioned to them that I was excited to see House of Mirth on our English class reading list—I’d heard about the book and wanted to check it out.

Absolutely, Katie said, holding her chin aloft, tucking a stray piece of arugula into her mouth. "House of Mirth is Edith Wharton’s tour de force."

I nodded excitedly. This is exactly how I’d hoped girls at Marymount would talk.

Absolutely, Scarlett echoed, smiling, also nodding, obviously having no clue what we were talking about. I totally agree.

Katie rolled her eyes to me, out of sight of Scarlett. I held back a conspiratorial grin and knew that she and I had suddenly become friends. Katie had this way of conversing as though she was the teacher and you were the student. When you landed on a correct answer, there was no better feeling in the world. I was so proud of myself.

First day at a new school and, having left the old Brielle behind—the public school one, the nerdy one, the shy one, the invisible-to-boys one—I’d thrust myself right into a promising new social circle. The only question was how long I could make it last.

Despite my struggles to master it, I stuck with field hockey for all of freshman year and joined up again sophomore year. It was one of the few sports where no cuts were made, and being on the team meant I stayed close to Katie, and staying close to Katie meant I ate lunch with her and Scarlett. Which meant I hung out with them after school. And on weekends. And at parties. Which meant I was cool. I was popular. And yes, I did enjoy those benefits. I’d be crazy to claim otherwise. But the more important truth is much simpler: I liked Katie. She was smart. And funny. And, yes, beautiful. And Scarlett was fun too. A little dim, sure. But fun. They both so effortlessly saw themselves as worthy and desirable. It made me believe I could feel the same way about myself.

From Katie and Scarlett I learned what kind of shoes to wear and how to rip off the top band of your jeans so they clung to your hips a full two inches below where your shirt ended. I learned how that shirt should either be a pastel-colored polo or a pastel-colored spaghetti-strap tank, even in winter when you should shed all your warm layers whenever possible—walking around the mall, for instance. Or waiting in the backseat of a car while someone ran into the store to try their fake ID and you were perfectly situated so the driver could peek down your shirt from the rearview mirror. Or in the back of a movie theater so some boy could more easily feel you up, even though afterward you’d never admit to being felt up in a movie theater, let alone purposefully wearing a shirt that facilitated it.

None of this seemed like anything I wanted to do. But there was an overwhelming feeling that I should want to do it all . . . and more. Popular girls were supposed to be tilting and leaning and covering and uncovering their bodies in all sorts of cunning ways I did not yet understand. I remained convinced that my mastery of such moves lurked just around some unseen corner.

*   *   *

The night of the accident, coincidentally, was the same night that the delicate thread binding me to the sphere of the worthy and desirable first started to fray. Coach Tanner put us through an excruciating practice. We’d just lost our final regular-season game to Summit High, and with playoffs on the horizon, she aimed to make sure we were ready for battle. After what seemed liked hours of dribbling, wind sprints, and loose-ball drills, we assembled for a standard pass-and-shoot exercise. Coach T. stood in front of the goal and called me out of line.

It wasn’t purposeful. She didn’t intend to put any pressure on me. She needed a player, saw my face, and called me out. Simple as that. Normally, I’d have been off in my safe haven with the JV squad and she’d have summoned one of the starters to model a drill—Meghan Ngyuen, junior captain and our best forward, was a frequent choice—but that day the JV and varsity squads practiced together. That day, she called me.

No big deal, I told myself while stepping out of line, still winded from the last round of sprints. I got this.

Watch, Coach T. said. "We missed eight one-timers last week. Eight."

She passed me the ball.

I missed it.

It hopped over my stick and squirted through the line of players behind me. Nobody chased after it for me. I squeezed between two girls who didn’t exactly jump at the chance to let me by, retrieved the ball, and ran back into place.

Whatever, I thought. Anybody can flub one pass. God, Bri, please, just relax.

Coach T. backed up outside of the striking circle. Hit me where I was just standing.

She ran toward the goal. My hands shook with panic. I swung short, and the stick kicked up a splattering of dirt and grass, and quickly I swung again and this time hit the ball so hard and cleanly that it sailed clear past Coach T.

Behind me: anger. My teammates didn’t even mock or ridicule me. It was too late in the day, and everyone was much too exhausted for that. They wanted only to complete whatever tasks Coach T. wanted us to complete and then get home, because there was dinner to eat and papers to write and tests to study for and maybe six hours of sleep to grab before tomorrow morning, when it would all start again. And I was failing. Pathetically, tragically, pitifully failing. I heard the frustrated sighs. I sensed impatient shiftings of weight from one leg to the other.

Coach T. chased down the ball and knocked it back to me, harder this time. And again I missed it. And again I chased after it, having to hurry between two peeved teammates. I dribbled the ball clumsily back to my spot beside the goal, almost slipping in the wet grass before catching myself at the last moment.

I stood with the ball, awaiting further instruction. Coach T. bit her lower lip and glared at all of us. Oh no, I thought. Please scapegoat me. Scream at me. Call me names. Shame me back into line and summon someone else. Please, please, please, I thought. Punish me. Only me.

Coach T. spit and wiped her mouth and then, in a voice that was at once quiet and forceful, said, On the line.

One or two girls groaned.

On the line!

We ran sprint after sprint, even as the sun went down and rain started to fall and the temperature dropped so low you could see your own breath. We ran until we were just short of collapsing, and then we ran some more. It was not lost on anyone that this was entirely my fault.

Practice went so late that nobody bothered to shower. With sticky hair and muddy knees, I hopped into Meghan Ngyuen’s Jetta—the Jetta her parents had bought her for her seventeenth birthday and that she’d named, because of some inside joke I was never privy to, Chunky Tuna—and we pulled away, speeding home through a light drizzle so that Meghan could study for an upcoming AP European history test.

The trip took us from school to Green Valley Road in Rosewood through dark and forested streets. We didn’t talk. It wasn’t like we were very close friends, but we’d lived down the street from each other our whole lives, so on most nights we were at least friendly. Tonight she navigated the slick, winding streets without so much as looking at me. A Dave Matthews CD played quietly. I nodded my head like I was enjoying the song, in what I hoped was a subtle attempt at solidarity, but in truth, even though this music and all it suggested—carefree days, sunshine, flirting with boys, bonfires on the beach, green grass, bare legs—was almost a prerequisite for admission to Marymount, I couldn’t help but find it frivolous.

The rain fell harder. As we sailed down the hill into the dark, quiet streets of Rosewood, a large figure materialized from under a street lamp for the briefest moment—too brief for Meghan to brake in time. Too brief for her to do anything but pipe out a terrified yelp and yank on the wheel as the figure—a man—collided with the hood, smashed into the windshield, and flipped over the roof, out of view.

The car was tossed across the slippery street, wheeling around what felt like a million times, then jumping the curb and skidding across a muddy, overgrown yard, slamming into the front stoop of a house and stopping, finally, thankfully, just before its front door.

This all became clear to me later, of course. At the time all I processed was the man, the whooshing of the sailing car, the quick crack of my skull against the window, and the hollow humming in my head that followed.

When it was over, Meghan was breathing heavily, looking at me, eyes wide and stunned. I wiped a trickle of blood inching down my temple and felt an odd calm. Adrenaline must have been surging through me, obscuring the pain I would later feel, but I wasn’t panicked. I stepped out of the car and felt like I was in a dream. I eyed the obliterated stoop—which I would later learn was Cullen’s stoop—and the ruined yard . . . Cullen’s yard. And the man lying in the road? Cullen Hickson himself. He’d propped himself up on an elbow, legs crossed, like he was mocking the pose of a sweater model. His face was scraped and bloody, his jeans shredded, also bloody. One of his shoes was missing, and he was clutching his left wrist. He was in pain, anyone could see that, yet he looked somehow amused. He wasn’t smiling, exactly, but he looked . . . contented. And not at all surprised. As though he’d been waiting for this moment his whole life.

Ray

AT SCHOOL, my locker was next to Nick O’Dwyer’s—a stocky guy from the Ironbound section of Newark with a cauliflowered ear and a gold crucifix around his neck. One day during the second week of school—before Cullen and before the stolen-car business—Nick and a bunch of other guys were crowded around his locker before class.

As I approached, I thought about asking them to move, but at the last moment I chickened out and tried to squeeze through without so much as a whisper. I thought maybe they’d seen me coming and would clear a path. Instead, I ended up squirming between them, my face rubbing painfully against a canvas backpack as I tried to push through to freedom without disturbing anyone, worming my way forward, burrowing my head in my open locker to retrieve my books.

Anyway, one of the guys was saying, I’ll catch you later.

Where you headed?

Downstairs. Bible class with the boy fondler.

Yo, Father Joe’s my boy. Nick slammed his locker shut and checked the lock.

I’m just messin’ around.

Whatever, Nick said. Don’t talk shit about him like that.

The group had started to disperse, so I lifted my head from the darkness of my locker.

I like that class, I said.

I don’t know why I said it. They were big guys who all knew each other from football—it’s not like I thought we were all going to be friends. I wasn’t even expecting a response. It was just a reflex. Early days at a new school—what was the harm in trying to engage with my fellow freshmen?

Huh? Nick said.

They were all looking at me. They had been seconds away from walking away to class without even noticing I was there, but now they were looking at me, waiting for a response. And I got the distinct impression that whatever response I gave would be the wrong one.

Father Joe, I said. I was just saying, I like that class too.

Nick gave a look to the other guys, who held back laughter. I turned to grab a history book. The locker door smacked into the side of my head.

Oh shit! Nick cried out. My bad. He turned to his friends and grinned. I tripped.

So that was the first time. There would be many more. Nick was very big—he had huge shoulders and rough hands and looked like he could grow a beard at a moment’s notice. I weighed ninety-nine pounds, my voice sounded precisely the same as it always had, and my body featured very little hair in any of the places a freshman boy is supposed to have grown hair. These essential truths, as far as I could tell, necessitated that Nick kick my ass or otherwise humiliate me whenever I failed to escape his sights. Except not in any ordinary way. At an all-boys high school, kids like Nick O’Dwyer don’t have to worry about what girls will think of the way they torment kids like me. So when I changed before gym, he’d grab my nipples until I screamed in pain and fell to the floor with everyone watching. He’d grab me by the back of my hair while I was pulling up my shorts and make me stand there while he slapped his enormous hand across my bare ass so violently I could hardly sit down for the whole rest of the day. Sometimes he’d sneak up on me in the hallway and smack me in the balls or just grab them really hard and squeeze. Maybe stuff like that happens at normal high schools too; I wouldn’t know. It didn’t happen in seventh or eighth grades, though, when I was still in public school. In any case, it was a shitty introduction to St. John’s, and it resulted in a lot of strategic maneuvering through the halls on my part. I forced myself to be either very late or very early for every class so that I could arrive at my locker before Nick showed up to retrieve some forgotten book and administer his daily shot of abuse. I started wearing gym shorts under my khakis so I could change more quickly in the locker room, but once Nick caught on to this, it only gave him more reason to come after me.

That’s when he started what he called his warm-ups for gym, which meant using me as a punching bag before class. With dozens of hot, purple bruises all over my arms, I resorted to changing clothes in a stall of the second-floor bathroom so I didn’t have to show up in the gym locker room at all.

The funny thing was that even though I hated every second I spent in his company, for a while Nick was pretty much the only guy at school with whom I interacted. Everyone else ignored me. And so, finding myself without any friends at all, I was left with a lot of alone time. Time to aimlessly roam the halls. Time to watch one New Jersey town after another flick by on the bus back and forth from school. Time to hang around in my bedroom in the afternoons rather than meet up with the other kids in my grade who were out in the world doing things I could only imagine—creating mischief, drinking beer, going to parties, talking to girls, touching girls, kissing girls. And so in those halls, and on that bus, and in that room, all I did was think. I thought about myself. And the world. And the fact that I, like every other person in the world, was alone. And would someday die.

I thought about God too—the idea that some unseen Thing was watching me, was interested in me, and was reserving a