He stepped up to the sink, propping himself over it with both his hands, and looked at himself. There were new lines in his face. There was a pimple above his mouth. His jowls appeared to be the collection point for much of the weight he had gained the past year. His blue eyes, reddened and dry from running the air conditioner all day, stared out from under half-shut eyelids below his uncombed hair.
Edward had worked on another response for two days before deleting it. There was no point in arguing, because his classmates were, after all, absolutely correct.
“Everyone hates you. You should write an apology, not a rebuttal.”
Edward returned to his room where the TV droned. There he fell onto the bed, putting his back against the wall, and spent the next three hours flipping through channels. The Price is Right, Animal Cops: Houston, Home Renovations, Restaurant Chef Secrets, American Prison Stories, an Oprah rerun, one of the diving programs on the tourist channel.
~~8~~
Edward had settled into a well-defined routine after two weeks. Get up when he felt like it, usually around eleven. Make brunch. Eat brunch while reading news about fine arts, gallery openings, and the latest young up-and-comers. He then played online games for three hours. In the afternoon, if he felt dirty or could smell his own perspiration, he would shower. This happened about every other day. He would take a break from his gaming at six to watch TV and eat a snack. Afterwards he would think about supper. At seven, he’d start making it. At seven-thirty, he’d eat it while watching his favorite sitcom. At eight, he’d reach over and put the plate on the desk, so he could watch TV while reclining on the bed for a few hours. Later he would mix trying out some new online games or flipping through channels. And finally he would fall asleep around two or three. The days blinked by.
He kept the TV on at all times, only adjusting the volume. When he was sleepy, he would turn the sound down. When he was in the kitchen or bathroom, he would turn it up. When he watched the news, he would speak to the TV. “What an idiot,” he had said after it was reported that a man was arrested while sneaking onto an airplane. The next report had the mug shot of a woman arrested for drunk driving. “Oh, she’s a real beauty queen.”
His bed was his nest. A couple novels and his ideas notebook pressed into the corner, the TV remote planted between the wall and bed under the AC, his laptop on the desk, a towel he used as a placemat underneath, a glass of lemonade on the floor at the head. Everything he needed was within reach of the minor indentation that had formed in the middle of the mattress.
He had stopped visiting his school’s forum two days after everyone had piled on him. He didn’t reply to Carlos’ email. He had watched as the replies to his comment had slowed and finally stopped appearing. In all he saw seventy-one of them and had read each three times. The only person he had emailed in the last ten days was a thirteen-year-old boy he had befriended while working at the Women and Children Center. The kid’s name was Christopher Condent and his father had just been sent to prison for attempting to murder his mother.
Edward never saw Christopher’s mother. She was in the hospital the entire time he was working. Christopher had become a ward of the state, and only attended Edward’s art class because his guardian needed some time in the afternoons for shopping and running errands. Edward knew his class was more of a babysitting service but didn’t mind. Christopher, a serious boy, liked drawing comic books and spent most of his time quietly working on these with typing paper Edward gave him. Edward sometimes stood behind him and gave sketching tips, but otherwise let Christopher do his own thing.
Almost a month after Christopher started coming to the center, Edward asked his thoughts about the latest blockbuster anime, an overhyped movie with characters that were being quoted across the country. Everyone had seen it, Edward had assumed. Christopher hadn’t seen it. Christopher wasn’t allowed out of his foster home. Christopher hadn’t been to a theater since he was eight. When Edward asked Christopher if he wanted to see the movie, Christopher’s eyes grew and he smiled. Edward had never seen Christopher smile.
Edward asked his boss if he could take Christopher to see the movie. She responded with a complex No. There were rules. There were New York State laws and regulations. Children had to stay on the property unless accompanied by a registered, professional, state-certified child welfare agent and there were inspectors watching, looking for reasons to fine the center – which had no money. It would be absolutely inappropriate and look horribly suspicious for Edward to take one of the children off the premises.
Before his boss finished her intricate answer, Edward had formed a plan.
Thursday was when he had his smallest class, only two other kids beside Christopher. He talked to their mothers, saying he needed to take care of some family matters and might not have class that day, quietly pressing them into finding other activities. His boss worked on the other side of the building, and only occasionally made the trek down two hallways to check up on a child or introduce a new student.
When Christopher walked into the classroom the following Thursday, Edward had just finished taping a dozen of his students’ watercolors over the door. Its window was completely covered. Edward looked down the empty hallway as Christopher moved a chair under one of the outside windows. Edward closed the door, crossed the room, unbolted and opened the window. He then stepped up on the chair and climbed out. Christopher followed. They ran up the alley, crossed the street and hailed a cab for the movie theater.
Edward sat at the desk and typed out a quick reply to Christopher’s latest email. It was always about some new anime series, movie, cool game website or some ridiculous joke. Christopher never spoke about his family and Edward never asked. They both seemed to agree that there was very little in the world to take seriously.
Cumulus clouds approached in the early evening that day. Looming like battleships starting an offshore bombardment. Lightning flashed a mile out, the first salvo fired. Five seconds later thunder rolled in and shook the windows. Soon, sun and blue sky were gone, replaced with a thick grey blanket.
Edward stood under the doorway of his front door for a long time, enjoying the cool breeze that passed over the island just before the accumulation ran in. The sea had picked up – even in the protected waters. The bay’s surface was jagged now and had lost its translucence. A wave rose and slammed into the riddled beach. The palms around the side of the house swayed and shook in gusts that threw the rain sideways. Later, in the darkness, lightning lit up the stray clouds hanging near the ground like an X-ray machine outlining some globular growth inside a body cavity. Edward kept returning to the door and looking out. There was an excitement in the fluency and wildness of the atmosphere.
At eight o’clock Edward’s TV station buzzed three times as a public service message appeared on the screen in red blocked letters: SEVERE WEATHER WARNING. The message continued, scrolling annoyingly slow across the bottom of the screen, reporting an electrical storm, dangerous gusts, and high seas. It seemed odd being superscripted over the sitcom Edward was watching that took place in a sunny park with green, green grass and two attractive people arguing about their relationship. Soundtrack laughter erupted. Neither of the two characters was worried about unsafe boating conditions.
Then something popped with the sound of an uncorked champagne bottle. The television snapped off, the picture closing into a glowing horizontal line before going completely black, and darkness swallowed the room. Edward jerked his head up. He stayed there on the bed for a few minutes, waiting for whatever affliction the power lines had suffered to self-correct or for someone else to notice. Lightning flashed outside, filling the dark screen of the TV with his reflection. He assumed an electrical transformer had blown. He’d heard the noise before – a massive explosion a couple blocks away from his family’s house in New York. By how muffled the sound was, this one must have been halfway across the island.