Black Chalk Read online

  ‘Yes, they are,’ said Chad. He nodded over and over. ‘And it didn’t stop at Pizza Face. There was Pizza Boy, Pizza Pie. Oh, and Chuck E. Cheese, which soon became Chad E. Cheese. And when I came into the room, invariably someone would ask, Who ordered delivery? I couldn’t even stand hearing the word . . . pizza. I don’t even like saying it now. And if a commercial came on TV, I’d start to burn with shame. And there are a lot of you-know-what commercials on American TV.’

  Chad laughed, so Jolyon laughed too. ‘How long did it last?’ he asked.

  ‘I still get the occasional zit,’ said Chad, ‘but throughout high school was the worst, the names never went away until college. I guess over the last two years it cleared up. Perhaps it hasn’t looked so bad for a while.’

  ‘Didn’t you use anything? I thought they had good stuff for acne nowadays.’

  ‘Yeah, they do,’ Chad said. ‘Only this wasn’t acne, this was bubonic frickin plague.’ He lowered his eyes. ‘I had some liquid stuff from a doctor, made my face stink and turn green. Loads of different pills. I tried a flesh-coloured cream but someone at school said I had make-up on. Or rather he shouted it out in the hall and everyone came running to see. Anyway, none of that crap really worked. Except the fleshy cream made me look better but I didn’t dare use it after the first day.’

  ‘So you really don’t like pizza at all?’

  ‘I guess maybe I liked it before I was thirteen. I don’t remember exactly. But in my head I’ve convinced myself now I can’t even stand the smell.’

  ‘So let’s order one,’ said Jolyon. ‘What better way to exorcise a demon than to tear him apart with your teeth? I promise you’ll like it. And if you don’t, I will personally trek to the kebab van and buy anything you like. With extra chilli sauce.’

  VI(iv) They sat around the coffee table and ate from the box. Neither of them said anything until the last slice was gone. When he was done, Chad fell back into his chair and placed his hands upon his belly. ‘That was great. I feel great,’ he said. ‘Thank you, Jolyon.’

  VII(i) A new day. I stand at my window looking down along Seventh, as restless as a barn-sour horse. It feels as if I am poring over the pages of an atlas. The sun topples into the room, further urging me to leave this dank hermit’s cave.

  In five weeks’ time we play again, our fourteen-year hiatus will be over. Did I really think I could escape? And if I can’t escape, if I have to play, I must be ready. Because if I can’t even face the outside world, what chance do I stand against the Game?

  So yes, I will go out now in broad daylight. For three years I have left this apartment only in narrow daylight, the thinnest hours of the morning. Fleeting 6 a.m. trips every two or three weeks to drop garbage in the trash and walk to a small bodega at the corner of my block. Enough to satisfy my needs. Not so many needs. Thin needs. Milk and coffee. Bread and tea. Tea to remind me of England, Lipton in brash yellow boxes, impossible to brew strong unless you use two bags but the double expense feels excessive. Jif peanut butter. Cans of chilli, boxes of rice. Confectioner’s sugar which I eat by the spoonful to help me through occasional energy emergencies. If you suck it just right, the dust in your mouth turns to smooth sugar frosting. And whisky as well, my one extravagance – although of course whisky cannot be bought from a bodega. Or anywhere else at six in the morning. But for the twenty-first-century hermit, the world of online shopping caters conveniently to almost every need. And yet I keep a thin oar in the water of life – I continue to visit the bodega because if it ever feels safe to emerge from this cave, I must be ready to face the real world.

  I look down at the street where cars drive by, half of them taxicabs, sliding and stopping as the traffic lights perform their duties in long lazy blinks. A flurry of pigeons blows past the window, whoosh, then wheels to the left and settles on the lip of a roof.

  Yes, this is what the world has always looked like. Wet, dry. Bright, dark. Blue, grey.

  I find this enormously reassuring. Yes, I’m going to do it. The hermit is going outside.

  VII(ii) I leave the apartment in something of a trance. For three years my only human encounters have been with delivery men beyond the crack of my front door or at the counter in the bodega. The thought of more contact than this makes me edgy, so I hum my inspirational music, the boxer beginning his training. I imagine the tooth clenched in my fist, strength and warmth radiate through me. And then at the bottom of my building’s front steps, I turn not right toward my bodega but left with a skip toward the unknown, the forgotten.

  I remember now what a city of light and shadows New York becomes when the sun beats down and the tall buildings toss out their cool grey capes. I move from darkness to heat, then back into shade, smiling as the sunshine tickles my arms.

  And then arrives my first test of strength, people walking toward me, she in her forties with a shaved head and dressed in pink hospital scrubs, he wearing denim overalls above a Hawaiian-print shirt. He weighs in at maybe two-twenty with a bulldog jaw and cropped black hair. He looks like a children’s entertainer who could knock out your teeth.

  Oh deh bay-bee, Frank, deh baby, she says, you should have seen deh baby. (Frank is nodding, he can imagine the baby just so.) Oh but the clothes on him, Frank. She whistles. Not like we and you and me, Frank. This baby they dress beaudy-full.

  I repeat her words within and mentally confirm what she said. We and you and me, yes, what a wonderful slip of the tongue. The real world has welcomed me back right away. I am not twenty steps from my apartment building and already I have swallowed the first vitamins of my new training regime. We and you and me. The imperfections of the world, its daily beauty. Yes, I can face this. I can do it.

  I walk on toward a building covered in scaffolding. Underneath the poles and planks, the ground lies flooded brown with a liquid like old blood, the sidewalk stained where yesterday’s rainwater has fallen rusty from the girders. And I love everything I see. The rust, the angular graffiti, the water as it drips brightly through sunbeams. All around me life swirls with a fresh beauty, three years of darkness extinguished in the light. This is love rekindled, the world my old flame.

  I keep walking and beyond the end of the block I see swathes of green, the cool greens of plants and shade and filtered sunlight. Yes, I remember now, the park is here.

  I wait impatiently to cross the street, I long to roam beneath the trees in the wine-bottle light. The sign at the corner reads Avenue A. The world pours in.

  I look up past the street sign and spot three letters in the distant blue, H and E and L. A small airplane is skywriting, scratching the air with its smoke, with its loops and its swoops. Two more white letters are drawn in contrails across the shallow southern sky. I stop where I am and stare in amazement. H E L L O. Next comes an N and I applaud myself when I realise the airplane must be spelling out the message HELLO NEW YORK. I feel victoriously happy – an E forms in the sky – not only am I newly acquainted with the world but alert again to its futures.

  I stand and I wait but nothing more arrives. Disappointed, I guess to myself that the pilot, in error, has drawn out his letters too large. Just like me he is simply in training, he must have run out of fuel and returned to base.

  And then I nearly fall to the ground as my legs become weak. H E L L O N E, reads the sky. HELL ONE.

  I run back to my apartment as fast as I can.

  VII(iii) What a terrible omen. HELL ONE, like the zip code of my life. Or the title of its first episode, maybe. A movie featuring me fourteen years ago, my life in the Game, and in five weeks’ time, look out for the sequel. Hell Two: The Game Strikes Back.

  But I will go outside again. Tomorrow. Yes, I’m fine now. Baby steps, several minutes. Long enough for me to remember how much there is in the world to recommend it, enough for me to gain a little strength. And my tormentor was only an airplane running low on fuel, that’s all, nothing more.

  To calm myself while I write this all down, I make a cup of tea which I am currently f
inishing. And to hell with the expense – I used two bags so that the tea tastes good and strong. The tea soothes me, makes me think of England. Small hands around a mug, itchy warm in wintertime.

  And then I start to laugh. I laugh for the first time in years as I picture myself running from words in the sky. Eyes wide and my beard and pale limbs flailing wildly. Not exactly a poster boy for the advantages of the hermetic lifestyle.

  And when I stop laughing I realise that humour is a wonderful thing, a very good omen with regard to my comeback. In five weeks’ time I have no doubt I will have rediscovered the better parts of me. I can win this thing, I truly believe I can.

  So as part of my training regime I must head outside into the world every day. There are delights as well as demons beyond my four walls. And soon I will slip back, free and willing, into the warm and numb beauty of American life.

  VIII(i) They gave the academic terms quaint names over there. Michaelmas, Hilary, Trinity. But a week before Michaelmas began there came Freshers’ Week, a time to settle in before the onslaught of academia. And every night throughout that week the two of them found some time alone in Jolyon’s room. Cocktails and liberty. Justice and nubs of cannabis resin. The world rejigged and smoothed and social inequality banished forever in their chatter, their grand world schemes.

  Chad unloaded himself more and more in Jolyon’s presence, spoke ever more freely, and to hell with his twitchy mental censor. One day he thought he might even talk to Jolyon about his father, the daily look in his eyes that said there was something disgusting and wrong with his son. And Jolyon would do nothing but listen and shake his head. And then perhaps they would eat a whole pizza together.

  Toward the end of that first week, with smiles and mock indignation, they began to argue pleasantly over whose idea the Game had been. Just days after the first spark, Jolyon began to claim the credit. Chad, however, became convinced the idea had been his own. Both sides vigorously submitted their evidence but neither would admit defeat.

  Had they argued about the Game many months or any number of years later, then neither of them would have fought for the credit. They would, both of them, have bitterly ascribed blame to the other.

  For almost a week they had only a vague idea of how the Game would be played, just a few principles. A large financial reward for the winner. Numerous consequences for losing – like teenage dares – at first just embarrassing, later on mortifying. Sizeable deposits to ensure the performance of consequences. A gradual escalation. And the dares had always to remain purely psychological, nothing physically dangerous. A game of the mind.

  But the large reward for winning quickly became an insurmountable issue – Chad the farm boy on a scholarship and financial aid, and Jolyon, the product of divorced Sussex schoolteachers, only moderately better off than his American friend. The precise make-up of the Game hardly seemed worth pinning down while funds remained an obstacle.

  VIII(ii) ‘Oh, that’s a face I would definitely never tire of seeing on the end of my cock.’

  Jolyon and Chad already knew which girl Jack was referring to without having to follow his eyes.

  Jolyon sighed. ‘Jah-aaaack.’

  ‘What?’ said Jack, turning to see two disapproving faces. He bunched his shoulders and held out his palms. ‘Don’t you dare judge me. You think it. I just say it.’

  The cliques and cabals were already forming at Pitt. In each case there was a central core around which the groups formed, a heart dense enough to begin the accretion of human mass. Often a group would take shape around a shared interest such as rowing or rugby or studying Beowulf in its original Anglo-Saxon. Or a clique might orbit around qualities such as money or beauty or pretension. But Chad couldn’t describe his own group’s defining feature. He felt it peculiar that he could label every other clique but his own. Perhaps Jolyon was the only thing that defined them. They were all the sort of people Jolyon liked – the normal ones at Pitt, Jolyon would have said.

  They had met Jack a few days earlier and the customary introduction had included the information that Jack was studying history. A couple of mathematicians arm in arm had passed them by where they stood in the shadow of the college tower. She in severe skirt, he in severe sweater. Michaelmas term wasn’t even yet under way and already they had found love. Jack began to joke about how he imagined mathematicians might have sex, nasally reciting the instructions for the missionary position in terms of computer subroutines such as, ‘Thirty, insert penis. Forty, withdraw penis. Fifty, go to thirty.’ And when he finished the skit he said, ‘Because I have every right to judge, of course. Historians have always been known as the sex bombs of higher education. Maybe that should be our motto – historians, the scholars who put the stud into study.’

  Jolyon thought self-mockery was perhaps the best of Jack’s redeeming features. At least while laughing at the world Jack knew himself to be very much a cog in the grand comedy of life. And Jack was always happy to exaggerate his own flaws and shortcomings if he thought his own distortion might entertain those around him.

  Now the three of them were standing together in the crowded university examination halls, students chattering, stirring the air with excitement and dispute. Around the edges of the hall were arranged a number of stalls side by side.

  ‘Oh please, we just have to go and speak to those laughing boys!’ said Jack.

  They were at the Freshers’ Fair, an event run to showcase for the new students the diverse multitude of thrilling societies they could join – newspapers to write for, sports clubs to join, debating groups to conquer. There were societies for aspiring actors, tiddlywinks players, communists, morris dancers, Francophiles, genealogists, knitters, hunt saboteurs, homosexuals, lesbians, chocoholics . . . There actually existed an agricultural society offering students the opportunity to plough for the university. Jack, being interested only in approaching stalls representing the sorts of societies he would never join, had asked them how one could possibly plough for the university. Did the university require farmhands? Was there a university flock and did they supply wool to the radical knitters three stalls down? Did they own an abattoir? Could a cash-strapped student earn extra money slaughtering ungulates for his university?

  It was really very simple, they responded, pitying Jack with their looks and tone. Regional and national ploughing contests took place and if you proved yourself a good enough plougher then you could plough for the university.

  Ploughing contests. Of course! Jack had slapped his head, apologised for his ignorance and made his exit.

  The nomenclature of each society invariably concluded with the word Soc. So there was Drama Soc, Footy Soc, Tennis Soc and Weather Soc. Psi Soc was stationed in one corner, and not far away, their eyes filled with hatred for Psi Soc, were the representatives of Physics Soc. There were two socs for players of Dungeons & Dragons. Jack interrogated both to establish their differences which transpired to be that while one group favoured dressing up as wizards and orcs to act out their fantasy lives in the local countryside and caves, the other group insisted that games remained confined to the snugs of ancient pubs or cosy college rooms. Each soc utterly abhorred the other.

  Meanwhile, Jack’s latest target was locked in his sights. He stood with his hand to his mouth, pointing at a sign that read ‘Sock Soc’. Above the sign was strung, between two broom handles, a blue nylon washing line. And fastened to the line, using old-style wooden clothes pegs, hung a large collection of different varieties and colours of socks.

  Jack started striding purposefully toward Sock Soc’s stall. ‘Look at these two laughing boys,’ he said over his shoulder, ‘Tweedledum and Tweedle-fucking-dee.’

  In fact, the two representatives of Sock Soc appeared only slightly overweight and wore name tags, one reading ‘William’ and the other ‘Warren’. The name tags were designed in a sock shape with the names curling unevenly around the heels.

  Upon arriving at the stall Jack leaned his elbows on the counter. ‘Please, my friend
s, tell me everything I need to know about Sock Soc. I find it such a fascinating proposition,’ he said. ‘The name . . . it’s . . . it’s ingenious.’

  ‘Sock Soc is a society for the discerning socker,’ said William.

  ‘We don’t, however, meet regularly,’ said Warren.

  ‘The meetings are rather . . . ad sock,’ giggled William.

  ‘When we do gather, we like to discuss philosophical matters.’

  ‘By which Warren means we engage in . . . sock-ratic dialogue!’

  ‘I am the president of Sock Soc.’

  ‘But I am the true power behind the throne,’ said Warren.

  ‘Some people have called it . . .’ (now they spoke in unison) ‘ . . . a sock-puppet regime.’

  Warren, having just about contained his laughter behind ballooning cheeks, then continued their pitch. ‘Naturally you do receive certain guarantees as a member of Sock Soc,’ he said, trying hard to appear serious now.

  ‘Yes, we promise never to give anyone the sack,’ said William.

  Warren concluded with a smirk, ‘No, we just give them the sock!’ he said, producing from nowhere a pink-and-blue argyle to illustrate his point. Now they were both smiling and they held the pose together for several seconds while looking immensely proud of themselves. The scene reminded Jolyon of a holiday photograph, a humorous tableau snapped on a seaside pier.

  For the first time since they had entered the Freshers’ Fair, Jack had been rendered speechless. He stared in shock at the pink-and-blue argyle and turned very slowly around.

  Chad, whose attention had been focused elsewhere for some time, sensed the movement and his mind snapped back to his friends. He looked toward Jack, who was walking away gingerly, and became concerned. Perhaps something was wrong.

  When he had tiptoed the length of a tennis court away from Sock Soc, Jack finally allowed himself to laugh, an explosive outburst, his body creasing and tears squeezing from his eyes. ‘Sometimes I wonder why the fuck I came to this place,’ he said. ‘You know, there are normal universities in this country, places full of normal people. I could have gone to one of those.’