Grant Buday
THE DELUSIONIST
PART ONE — 1962
In Which Cyril Meets His Match
ONE
OVER THE PAST MONTH Cyril and Connie had started to notice each other. It began in art class when everyone had to draw each other’s mouth. Cyril did Connie’s whole face. It was a good likeness, an uncanny likeness, right down to the sardonic narrowing of her already narrow eyes, the curl at the corner of her lips, and the nostrils alert to the scent of Cyril’s excitement. Cyril knew he’d hit that one, like a ball square off the bat; the lines were not sketchy but bold, and even had flair. Sometimes it was like that: you lucked out, as if your hand did the work and you were just along for the ride. Not that Cyril admitted that to Connie.
“No putting pins in it,” she said.
“Then you better be nice.”
Her eyebrows rose in pleasant surprise as if discovering a worthy opponent while Cyril, breathless, went off to draw the next kid’s mouth, feeling the exhilarating heat of Connie Chow’s attention. Connie was strange. She once came to school with her teeth blacked out, another time wearing a boot and a runner, and once wearing a shiny red clown’s nose. She always used one of those painted Chinese umbrellas. Some said she was from The Twilight Zone. When she walked by they whispered just loud enough to be heard, “Picture if you will an alien who looks almost human…” She was an object of fear and disdain—disdain because she was small and skinny, fear because she was confident and unpredictable. The very elusiveness of her approval made it all that much more desirable to Cyril, who wanted it, meaning he wanted her. Somehow she managed to be terrifying and reassuring at the same time, and while she might say no thanks if he asked her out he knew she wouldn’t sneer, so he decided to do it right after school.
Art was the last class of the day. Cyril lingered on the steps trying to appear casual even as his mind was fizzing like a shaken Pepsi. He debated whether to sit or stand, and if he stood what sort of pose to take, hands in or out of his pockets, and if he did put his hands in his pockets should it be his front pockets or back pockets? But if he had them in the back it might look as if he was scratching his butt. And yet if they were in the front ones it might look even worse, as if he was playing pocket pool. Maybe if he hooked his thumbs over his belt? Yes, he could hook his thumbs over his belt, cool, like Gary Cooper. Except he wasn’t wearing a belt. He considered standing with his arms crossed but that would look like impatience. He groaned. All he wanted was to ask her to go see The Apartment with Jack Lemon. He rehearsed it in his mind. So. Connie. Too abrupt? Connie, hi, I was kind of wondering if maybe… Too passive? Hey, Connie, I’m going to see The Apartment. Interested?
In the midst of this rehearsal she appeared, book bag thumping like a dead dog at the end of a leash as she descended the steps.
He turned toward her, nearly snagging his right toe on his left heel, his words stumbling out faster than intended. “Connie hey hi how you doing?”
She halted on the step above him which put them eye to eye. She was tiny, about five-one, wore a tartan skirt and a jean jacket with the collar turned up. Her bangs touched her eyebrows making her hair resemble a helmet, and she was chewing a big wad of Black Cat bubble gum. “Okay.”
He had hoped for something more substantial, a springboard for further conversation, a delightful discovery of shared interests. “Yeah?”
She shrugged. She chewed with her mouth open then blew a bubble that popped over her lips and she chewed it back in as if gathering a black parachute into her mouth. “How about you, Cyril? You okay?”
“Good. You know. Fine.”
“Glad to hear it.” Her bemused tone reminded him that they’d seen each other only minutes ago. Kids streamed by whooping at their freedom, punching each other, or slouching off to hack a butt. Connie watched them pass with lidded eyes. Was she getting bored standing there with him? She blew another bubble, smaller this time, which popped with a snap. He could smell the faintly liquorice scent of the gum.
“Wanna go see Psycho?” He nearly choked. What was he doing? What had possessed him? The Apartment was safe and funny; Psycho was weird and horrific.
She stopped chewing. “You do realize it’s restricted.”
Of course he realized it was restricted. He was seventeen; you had to be twenty-one. But it was too late to turn back, so he shrugged offhandedly as if he went to restricted movies all the time. He saw her gauging that shrug, measuring it. As he awaited her answer, his pulse thumped a countdown in his skulclass="underline" three… two… one…
“Sure.”
“Great.”
And with that she hoisted her book bag, black canvas with a red drawstring, onto her shoulder and proceeded on down the steps. At the street she turned and looked at him, head tilted appraisingly, and waved as though wiping mist from a window.
All week Cyril was in a panic. He recalled paying a quarter to inhale a chest full of helium at the PNE, an experience simultaneously exhilarating and slightly sickening. Each time he and Connie met in the hallway or the cafeteria they nodded or, it seemed to him, purposely pretended not to see each other, as if they had an unspoken agreement. Was this a sign of an intuitive connection or a sign that they—she—was having second thoughts? He couldn’t imagine Connie Chow nervous. She’d been in the school performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream as Helena, and while the other kids over-acted or stood like mannequins, she made you believe. Cyril had watched understanding that she was exposing herself, taking the risk of humiliation with the entire school watching, and that therein lay her strength.
Friday afternoon she appeared in the hallway, book bag slung over her shoulder as if she was a hobo hitting the road. “So, meet you out front of the theatre, okay.”
Cyril nodded quickly, relieved at the casualness though at the same time a little disappointed. Shouldn’t they be going to the theatre together? Wasn’t he supposed to knock on her door? Or were they just buddies? He hadn’t been pals with a girl since he was five years old.
Saturday his anxiety mounted. His mother saw something was up.
“Vut?”
“What, not vut.”
She grew defiant. “Vut.”
His mother’s accent was a blunt and plaintive lament, embedded with centuries of history: eras of glory and eras of defeat, cathedrals and palaces built, cathedrals and palaces burned. Cyril habitually measured his own speech against her accent, fearing that it would erupt through his own perfectly pitched English, the way his voice had occasionally betrayed him during puberty. “Nothing.”
They were in the kitchen watching the funeral across the alley. She turned from the dark pageant and regarded her son. She was not a big woman yet bore an aura of weight, as though gravity reserved a special force for her alone. “You’re pacing.