Читать книгу Nirvana Is Here - Aaron Hamburger - Страница 11

WE JUST HAD TO HEAR YOU SAY THAT

THAT FIRST NIGHT AFTER IT HAPPENED, I was too terrified to sleep in our home, so we all stayed at a hotel: me, my parents, and my brother David, who’d just come back from finishing his first year of college.

The next morning, I asked why we had to go back. Couldn’t we move?

“Let them move,” Mom said. “We did nothing wrong.”

The house was suspiciously quiet. I waited for my parents to go inside before I would. Inside, everything was in its place except for the clothes I’d worn, and a towel Mark had used to wipe himself. The police had those. Otherwise, it was nothing like a crime scene, no lamps on the floor or chairs knocked on their side like in an episode of Murder She Wrote. I felt almost insulted.

After we dropped off our bags, we had to go out again, to the police station to file formal charges. Though we’d driven countless times past the building, an old schoolhouse that dated back to the early 1900s, I’d never realized it was a police station. Behind the stone facade, they’d built an ugly modern addition with padded gray cubicles. The sole decoration of our cubicle was a yellowing spider plant languishing in the corner.

There weren’t enough chairs, so I shared one with my mom, who patted my back as if I were a baby needing burping. My father occupied his own chair, sitting forward in his seat, chin raised. David slouched behind him. Maybe he was ashamed to be here. “Why does he have to come?” I wanted to ask, but I had trouble finding my voice. Better to let it all happen, play out, burn out, naturally shed its energy.

The detective asked how Mark had gotten into the house—or rather, how I’d let him into the house. I explained that Mark had given me two choices: either he’d kill me, or if I let him in, he’d think about killing me. I went with the second option. The detective recorded me on a handheld cassette player, and he also took notes with a pen that said “Lose Weight Now, Ask Me How.”

The cassette ran out, and as the detective had to get another, it hit me, that this was really happening. This was no dream. I felt woozy with the weight of this knowledge. Focus, I told myself. Or maybe pretend you’re somewhere else. That’s what Mark told me, before the worst of it. Relax, and it’ll be over sooner.

The detective returned, and had me continue the story. When I got to the part when Mark had dragged me into the kitchen, the detective said, “He made you pull down your pants?” I said nothing, pretended it wasn’t a question that demanded a yes-or-no answer. My vision went a bit bleary. “Did he pull down his pants?” the detective repeated.

“I wasn’t really able to see.”

“Why not?”

I cleared my throat, which felt red and raw. “Because I was on the floor.” I couldn’t look at my parents, so I looked at their shoes, my father’s shiny brogues catching the glare of the ceiling light. My mother’s feet sliding inside her high heels.

I heard Dad say, “David,” and my brother left the room.

“Facing him or facing the floor?” the detective asked.

I closed my eyes and saw pink streaks of light running across the insides of my eyelids. Don’t throw up, I thought. “I don’t remember. Maybe the floor?”

“Was he on top of you?”

My mother gripped my shoulder. And then the answer slipped out: “I guess.”

The detective looked down at his notepad. I could hear the pen scratching across the paper, and I sensed the permanence of those ink marks. Mark had threatened to kill me if I told. So now I could expect death.

We were then informed of Mark’s statement. He’d claimed he’d fought me in self-defense. He said the sex was consensual. His evidence? In school, everyone knew I was a fag, and as logic would dictate, like all fags, I must have wanted it. Fags wanted it constantly. I hadn’t managed to fight him off, so I must have wanted it, right?

The detective watched me from behind his desk. I was expected to talk.

“But that’s a lie! I told him no, no,” I said firmly. “I didn’t want it.”

“We know.” The detective let out a deep breath. “We just had to hear you say that. We know you weren’t like that.”

Like that, I thought, my heart pounding. Like what?

The detective added, “He’s not going to be bothering you anymore, alright?”

“How?” I asked. “What if he comes back?”

“We won’t let him get anywhere near you. We’re making that very clear.”

Now I understood. Because I’d said no, it was their job to keep me safe. I could cling to my no like a life preserver. Nothing could be allowed to muddy that no.