“All right, I’ll tell you what I saw. If you want. You’re not going to like it, mind you. But it’s probably better that way. Because I’d really like you to understand. It was not about you. Absolutely not. It was about Elk.” Black takes the bandana off and stuffs it in his pocket. “You see, I ended up in the Sixth, and then it took me a while living there to finally understand what was going on with me in the Fourth. I was even asking myself afterward how I could be so stupid and not see it right there. But then I figured that if I didn’t make that step away, didn’t look from a distance . . . I mean . . . Try to do the same thing. Picture all of us back then. The House. Elk. Imagine that you’re that squirt, ankle biter, and there are all those grown-ups around, and they never have any time for you, none of them, except one. And that one you can’t just share among everybody. So we’re all jumping out of our skins to be special, to be noticed, to have him say something only to you, to ask something only of you. But all of that is on the inside, you never show that, because it’s embarrassing when you’re a big guy, ten years old already and so on. Blind wasn’t bothered about that and tagged after him like a mutt, but he was the only one. And Elk never fussed around over him more than with anyone else. He never played favorites. Until you. Yes, laugh all you want, it may sound funny now, but just imagine yourself in our place!”
“I’m sorry, Black,” I say, fighting the giggles, “please understand, but it’s been such a long time since I’ve last heard that. ‘Elk’s pet.’ And to think how much grief that nick caused me. Honestly, I would never have thought I was his favorite. Or that it would look like I was.”
“Yeah, I guess you wouldn’t.”
Black is very red, and it looks dangerous, though much more familiar than his newfound serenity. I’m bracing for the explosion, so it’s hard for me to concentrate on what he’s saying.
“. . . as soon as we stepped off the bus. He was waiting for us in the yard, in the corner. He assembled us around him and then told us about you. And that we shouldn’t touch you. And that we had to help you.”
“What? That’s a lie!” I scream, springing up from the chair as if someone hooked it up to an electric socket. “That never happened! It couldn’t have!”
Humpback pulls at my sleeve.
“Hey, what’s gotten into you? Shark’s looking.”
I crouch down next to his chair, and Humpback whispers in my ear, looking sideways at the podium, “That’s how it was. The way Black’s telling it. It’s true. I was there too when he said that.”
“You never told me!”
“In the back row!” Shark thunders. “Stop that commotion!”
I lower myself back on the chair, trying my best to look calm. Humpback stares ten rows ahead, all rapturous attention.
“What for?” he whispers. “What difference would it have made?”
“You were the first newbie we had to help,” Black presses on. “We were helping each other anyway, with anything we could. Some more, some less. But before you came in no one had ever told us we
“Damn,” I say. “Was he that much of an idiot?”
At the word “idiot” Humpback and Black both wince.
Humpback says, “Watch it, Sphinx.” Black doesn’t say anything, but his silence is so expressive that I understand: not only am I a favorite, I’m a favorite who doesn’t appreciate his privilege. Who treads on the most sacred. Now I need some time to come to grips with the Joseph complex that these two have managed to force on me, with being that one guy who always rubs his brothers the wrong way. And to accept that the disgusting blond youth whom I remember being tall as a tower, muscle-bound, and completely, utterly free of the need to be loved by anybody could have been tormented by jealousy. Him and the others. Him and Humpback, the proud loner. Him and possibly even Solomon née Muffin, who is no longer with us. All of them.
I need time to look at them from a distance. To understand and to forgive. I am stretching out that time, slowing it down, erasing their faces from the album of childhood memories and allowing the photographs to develop anew. I realize that there still won’t be enough time for me to do it here and now, that the work is too involved to fit into a few minutes. I also understand that I’ve just hurt both Black and Humpback, and that I’m lucky it’s them sitting next to me and not Blind.
“That was some favor Elk did for his favorite,” I say, trying to smile. “Wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.”
“Drop it, please,” Humpback hisses. “Leave it alone. It was long ago, and it ended long ago. Silly to still be talking about it now.”
“We wouldn’t be talking about it now if it really had ended,” Black says glumly. “Look at Sphinx. You see something that’s ended? I see something that’s only beginning. He’s pissed off like it was yesterday he got beat up. Any one of us would have given an arm to be in his place even for a moment. But he’s the one pissed!”
