telescope. It was only moments, surely, before she disappeared entirely.
âI âave some materials of readinâ for your perusalââ She fumbled with the lock of the suitcase, flipped the catch with her thumb, but neglected to hold the other side of the case. Fifty copies of the
Watchtower
spilled over the doorstep.
âBwoy, me kyant do nuttinâ right todayââ
She fell to the ground in a rush to pick them up and scraped the skin off her left knee. âOw!â
âYour nameâs Clara,â said Ryan slowly. âYouâre from my school, ainât ya?â
âYes, man,â said Clara, so jubilant he remembered her name that she forgot the pain. âSt. Judeâs.â
âI
know
wot itâs called.â
Clara went as red as black people get and looked at the floor.
âHopeless causes. Saint of,â said Ryan, picking something surreptitiously from his nose and flicking it into a flowerpot. âIRA. The lot of âem.â
Ryan surveyed the long figure of Clara once more, spending an inordinate amount of time on two sizable breasts, the outline of their raised nipples just discernible through white polyester.
âYou best come in,â he said finally, lowering his gaze to inspect the bleeding knee. âPut somefinâ on that.â
That very afternoon there were furtive fumblings on Ryanâs couch (which went a good deal further than one might expect of a Christian girl) and the devil won another easy hand in Godâs poker game. Things were tweaked, and pushed, and pulled; and by the time the bell rang for end of school Monday, Ryan Topps and Clara Bowden (much to their schoolâs collective disgust) were more or less an item; as the St. Judeâs phraseology went, they were âdealingâ with each other. Was it everything that Clara, in all her sweaty adolescent invention, had imagined?
Well, âdealingâ with Ryan turned out to consist of three major pastimes (in order of importance): admiring Ryanâs scooter, admiring Ryanâs records, admiring Ryan. But though other girls might have balked at dates that took place in Ryanâs garage and consisted entirely of watching him pore over the engine of a scooter, eulogizing its intricacies and complexities, to Clara there was nothing more thrilling. She learned quickly that Ryan was a man of painfully few words and that the rare conversations they had would only ever concern Ryan: his hopes, his fears (all scooter-related), and his peculiar belief that he and his scooter would not live long. For some reason, Ryan was convinced of the aging fifties motto âLive fast, die young,â and, though his scooter didnât do more than 22 mph downhill, he liked to warn Clara in grim tones not to get âtoo involved,â for he wouldnât be here long; he was âgoing outâ early and with a âbang.â She imagined herself holding the bleeding Ryan in her arms, hearing him finally declare his undying love; she saw herself as Mod Widow, wearing black turtlenecks for a year and demanding âWaterloo Sunsetâ be played at his funeral. Claraâs inexplicable dedication to Ryan Topps knew no bounds. It transcended his bad looks, tedious personality, and unsightly personal habits. Essentially, it transcended Ryan, for whatever Hortense claimed, Clara was a teenage girl like any other; the object of her passion was only an accessory to the passion itself, a passion that through its long suppression was now asserting itself with volcanic necessity. Over the ensuing months, Claraâs mind changed, Claraâs clothes changed, Claraâs walk changed, Claraâs soul changed. All over the world girls were calling this change Donny Osmond or Michael Jackson or the Bay City Rollers. Clara chose to call it Ryan Topps.
There were no dates, in the normal sense. No flowers or restaurants, movies or parties. Occasionally, when more
Learning to Kill: Stories