

Bells Above Greens

David Xavier

To all who have always wished to write,  
a great novel burning inside them...
Chapter One

The bus did not slow as it approached the narrow bridge to Fort Wayne. The driver leaned forward over the steering wheel, taking the small dip with the confidence of having done so many times before. His seat was nothing more than a foam pad on a large spring. I watched the back of his head submerge and resurface in front of me, the spring croaking beneath him. A whip-curve of crows jumped into flight from the bridge rail from near to far, and I sat with my forehead pressed to the window.

Young men filled the hard seats around me, each with excitement beating inside their chests like enormous hearts, their ankles tapping below them, and although I was happy to be home I was content to sit and be the last man off. I would have fought for the front of the line if I had known, because when I stepped off the bus and she nearly kissed me by mistake, her fingers around the back of my head and her lips close enough that I could smell the lipstick, the long drive had been worth taking for the surprise greeting alone.

The soldiers lowered the windows as the road turned from gravel to pavement and the dust faded behind us. Squids of arms filled the windows as the soldiers whistled catcalls to the girls who stood waiting behind the gates. A parade of waving red fingernails on jumping arms returned the excitement.

"Window." One of the soldiers tapped my arm.

I stood to open the window, the stiff latch requiring an open-palmed encouragement, and sat back down with my forehead against the lower half of glass. A squinty enlisted man with a baby face waved our driver through with a salute, the bus lurching as it shifted into another gear.

"They recruiting at the grammar schools now?" The soldier leaned over me to look out the window, chewing a piece of gum with all his teeth.

I pushed him back with my forearm to his chest. "How old are you?"

"Nineteen," he said.

"When did you sign up?"

"I was seventeen." The soldier looked around, nodding to the other men. "Had to lie to Uncle Sam."

"How old do you think he is?" I nodded sideways to the window.

"Still innocent in his dreams," he shrugged. He looked around and spoke aloud. "Sergeant sewed his name in his skivvies."

There was a faint laugh from somewhere in front of us. The soldier started to repeat himself in a louder voice but let it drop. Everyone stood at once to reach for their bags on the overhead shelves and make a surge to the front of the bus. As soon as they made eye contact with their girls outside everything in between was an obstacle.

The bus hissed as it came to a stop, some of the men grabbing a handhold for balance, some finding that balance on other shoulders. I could hear the girls outside, greeting the soldiers as they stepped off, the excited shouts from the men, the reunion of warm hearts on cool asphalt, all the happy chatter and squeals that women do when they greet their men.

A hand came over the back of the bench and gripped my shoulder.

"He was a good man. Sorry."

"Thanks," I said. I looked back. The man was dark, older than the others.

"I was in his patrol outside of Seoul. He always had the best cigarettes."

"He didn't smoke."

"No, he would give them to us. Hand-rolled smokes. I don't know where he got 'em." He patted my shoulder again. "I was sad to hear it."

"Thanks."

They hurried off the bus, the men at the back leaning to wave and shout through the windows as they pushed to the exit. I could feel the suspension bounce as each man stepped off. Then all the noise was outside and I sat alone. I stood and gathered my bag, slung it over my shoulder, and straightened my jacket. The driver sat potbellied behind the wheel, his elbow propped up, watching the men and women in the lot with a satisfied grin on his face. He twisted on the foam pad to face me, bouncing slightly as he moved about.

"Home again, home again," he said.

"Dancing a jig," I said. "How many of these drives have you done?"

"Many. Many more than I thought I'd have had to."

"What do you think of all this?"

He pulled his shoulders up toward his ears. "Truman wants to stop Communism. I am behind him. If I was twenty again I'd be next to you in the line of fire."

"Be glad you weren't."

He reached in his shirt pocket for a pack of gum, pulling one stick from the pack with his teeth. He held it there as one does to light a cigarette and it bounced with his words.

"I wish I was, son. Truly. Young men go to war because they have nothing else to do and they have been conditioned to think about freedom. They have been molded to protect a right that they don't fully understand yet. They just know it's important. That is real bravery. Old men understand it, but we can't soldier as well as young men. We'd be better off throwing the rifle downrange than trying to sight down its barrel. But you had better believe I would be out there with you."

"Yes sir."

"I don't know much about politics or military. I was never that brave. I just drive the bus. They won't give me a rifle, but they let me have these keys. So that's my service. I see boys like you come home and it makes me damn proud to be American."

"I mean this." I nodded my head to the soldiers and women embracing just outside the bus door. "What do you think of this?"

"This? Oh, I can never see too much of this." He peeled the stick of gum bare and pushed it past his lips with a thick finger. "Got a girl out there?"

"No."

His nose whistled in disappointment. When he realized he was frowning he spoke to cover it up. "Welcome home, son."

"Thanks for the ride, mister." I shook his hand.

"Thanks for the freedom, soldier."

I stepped off the bus, prepared to walk quickly through the hugs and smiles without disturbing anyone, trying to avoid the scene, when she nearly knocked me off balance and I saw up close the greeting the other men were getting. I caught my bag at my elbow, and she drew back embarrassed, straightening her skirt. She looked like a close-up movie extra who steals the one scene they're in, her hair longer than the short bobs the other men were embracing around us, her eyes big and bright.

"I'm so sorry," she said, almost in a whisper. "I thought you were someone else."

"That's okay." I could not help but to smile. I swept a hand through my hair and rearranged my bags. "I should come home more often."

"Are you the last one off?" She was looking over me to the bus steps.

The driver wound a crank, the doors closed, and the bus rumbled away, the hot exhaust billowing black from rusty pipes. He honked twice as he circled, his upper body rising and sinking a slow up and down behind the window as if he was floating in a wave pool. The pale, empty body of the bus shifted loose screws and relieved stiff bars with metal yawns, and she watched, her lungs slowly deflating more as it moved away.

"Not here, is he?"

"You looked like him. For a moment I thought you were him." She was concerned now, looking around at the circus of greeting, her lips pressed inward and her eyebrows pushed up on her forehead. Her eyes paused on each face around us. Not so bright anymore, but still big and filled with a kindness that had been pent up, waiting to be released on one lucky soldier who didn't show.

"We all look alike in uniform."

"No. Not him. I could spot him from a mile away."

I shrugged. "I guess not, right?"

"Is there another bus on the way?"

"No. We were the only bus en route."

"There must be one more. I've been here all day."

"Maybe he got bumped."

"What?" Her head snapped over and she looked at me, her face in a momentary mess.

"I mean bumped to another plane. Maybe later in the week."

Her features relaxed a little. "He said today."

"We're it for today."

We looked around. The other soldiers were walking away, hand in hand with girls. Some of them were still locked in a hug or dipped in a kiss, their bags scattered at their feet, wives or girlfriends with welcome posters rolled in their hands, children standing by.

"Looks like we're a mismatch," I said.

"What about later tonight?"

"For what?"

"For a bus. More soldiers."

"We were the last one, miss," I said. "I'm sorry. He was probably bumped to a later flight. It happens sometimes."

"He said today." She held her hands in front her, delicate and wringing. "I'll wait a little longer. I'm terribly sorry about the mistake. You have the same hair as him."

"Don't worry about it." I pulled my bag onto my shoulder and turned to walk. I looked back at her, a lone figure at the line with unreleased welcome still inside her. "You'll wait all night."

"It's all right. I've been waiting so long now anyway. I'll wait."

A cool, spring breeze tossed her hair sideways and made her squint. She put her hands at her skirt and looked to the gate, raising one hand to take the sun away.

I took a step toward the cafeteria. "Come inside," I said. "I'll get you a Coke."

Inside, I took two Cokes from the refrigerator. In the reflection of the glass, I saw her swipe her hands under her skirt and sit at the table. She had a great posture, but she craned her neck to watch the lot, giving her head a chickenlike stretch on her shoulders. The cafeteria was empty but for a Hispanic boy with a hairnet wiping down the tables. He smiled with big front teeth and gave a deep bow when I paid him for the Cokes.

"It could be that he was held behind for patrol assignments." I slid the bottle to her and sat across from her. I tapped a straw twice on the table and let her pick it from the wrapper.

"He said he would arrive today in his letter." She put her lips to the straw and the bottle drained slowly. She held her eyes sideways to watch the window. An innocent pose you might see in a soda advertisement.

"Well, it's not like a flight from Dallas to Midway International. They pack us like sardines into cargo planes until the space runs out. Lots of guys get bumped."

"He's important. An officer, I think."

"More the reason to bump him," I said. "Officers stay behind to tie up loose ends. You'll get a headache if you drink it fast like that."

She covered her nose with her hand. "I'm sorry. I'm just nervous."

"Don't be. I bet all you girls get nervous."

She squirmed in her seat. She was wearing a thin, wool sweater, colored for the springtime. "Wouldn't you?"

"I don't have a soldier to wait for." It was a joke, but she didn't laugh. Instead, she looked at me funny. I straightened up and cleared my throat.

"Do you go to school near here?" I asked.

"Yes."

"St Mary's College?"

"Yes."

"Let me guess your studies," I said, and leaned forward with my elbows crossed on the table. I was enjoying her. She put me in a different place. A place where there was no loss, only gain, and I could see firsthand the excitement of a prolonged reunion. Girls were excited to see the soldiers come home, and I included myself as the object of her anticipation.

"I would say you are in your first year, so if you've found a major, you probably won't stick to it long."

"I'm finishing my third year," she said. "I'll be a senior in the fall."

"You look younger."

"Do I?"

I nodded and she leaned forward, taking mock offense to my assumptions, speaking with a smile buried under her expression.

"Do I also look like the type of student who would not stick to her choice of major?"

"No. It's just that most don't."

"And you went to Notre Dame?"

"Yes. I'm not done yet. I shipped out nine months ago. I'll start again in the fall."

"You look more like a student than a soldier."

"Really?"

"I mean that in the best possible way. I like soldiers. But being a student is a good thing too. Don't you think?"

"What if I told you I did not stick to my first major?"

"You said most don't." She paused a moment. "What did you change to?"

"Geology."

"Why? Do you like rocks?"

"Because when I closed my eyes and pointed, geology was what my finger landed on in the book of majors."

"You must have been looking at that page to make it open there."

"How did you know? I must look like the type who likes rocks."

She bit her lip and I watched as the red halves parted thoughtfully. "Mmm...maybe. What made you change to geology?"

"Boredom. I chose electrical engineering as a freshman."

She sat up as if bitten. "That's an exciting degree."

"I slept in and was late to the first class. When I opened the door, the professor had the lights off in the auditorium, talking about the importance of electricity or something. I couldn't see where to sit so I backed out of the room and changed majors."

"You must not have wanted to be an engineer."

"Nursing?" I pointed at her.

"No." She glanced out the window again. "Journalism."

"You don't look like a journalism student. Where are your glasses?"

She had a small dimple on one side. It was the first time I had seen her smile unearthed completely. She reached into her purse and pulled out dark, catlike librarian glasses.

"How about now?"

"Now you look like a teacher. Kindergarten."

"Not a professor?"

"I like kindergarten teachers. There's something very nice about a kindergarten teacher."

"There's something that I like about soldiers too."

"Is it the uniform? Women always like the uniform."

"It's the ideals and the importance of the job. Not everybody is brave enough to be a soldier."

"Thank you," I said.

"The uniform is just the pretty wrapping."

"It's brown." I pulled at my collar. "The Navy and the Marines have better ones."

"But it's well-tailored. It's amazing how wearing something that fits so neat and proper makes a man stand out."

"Do I stand out?"

"Not among other soldiers."

"Thank you again."

"You know what I mean. _We all look alike in our uniforms, ma'am_." She did her best impression of me.

"Terrible. Do I sound like that?"

"I added the 'ma'am' part. You speak like a farm boy."

"Just Midwest. Everyone's a farmer out here."

"Are you?"

"No. Are you? A farm girl?"

"Yes."

"Really?"

"Does that surprise you?"

"You just seem like an indoor girl."

"I am now. My hands have no more calluses and my skin is not tanned."

"Your skin looks nice. I must look like a leather bag to you."

"Just tan. It suits you. Does it get hotter in Korea?"

"No more than it gets here. Humid though. But we were out in the sun all day. Look at my hands. MacArthur's calluses, Truman's swelling. Of course we weren't exactly milking cows."

A jeep passed by and she looked out the window, half-rising to get a better look. An enlisted man honked twice and a soldier jumped into the backseat at a run, the military-issued cylinder bag over his shoulder. The jeep bounced away with jerky, sudden changes in direction and a sputtering tailpipe. The lot was emptying of the men and girls.

"What is it about nursing wounded soldiers that girls like?" I asked.

"I wouldn't know," she said politely. "I'm a journalist."

I nodded stupidly. "Do you write for the _Fighting Irish Journal_?"

"I did. _South Bend Tribune_ now."

"A professional. You must be good at it."

"Not so professional. I tried to write for the _Chicago Tribune_. They wanted someone with more experience. I'll try again next year."

"I'll read your stories. What is your name?"

"Elle," she said. "Elle Quinn."

"Sam."

We shook hands over the table.

She was quiet for a moment. "Is it scary out there?"

"Sometimes." I remembered then that she had been waiting for someone else. It took some resolve, but I eliminated myself and mentioned him. "It's not that bad. When did he write?"

"It's been three weeks."

"What was his name? Maybe I know him."

"He said he was bringing a surprise."

"What was his name?"

"Peter."

I remember just a week ago, sitting across from him on a pair of cots. I sat up as he came in, his boots giving him away as he approached. He had a step that I had been able to pick out since boyhood.

"I have a surprise for you," Peter told me.

"What is it? Night patrol?"

"No. When we get back." He wrinkled his eyes and pushed my head down. "The surprise is when we get back. I can't wait to introduce you."

"A girl?"

"The _best_ girl."

"How'd you meet a girl out here?"

"I met her on campus at one of the games. We were dating for a month before we shipped out."

"You never told me you were seeing a girl."

"I didn't know if she would let it amount to anything. You learn an awful lot about a girl through letters. You're going to love her. I can't wait."

That was all he had said about her and I had been numb all week and forgotten. I looked at my hands on the table, the small half-circle of condensation from the bottle between us.

"Do you know him?" she asked me.

"There are many soldiers named Peter."

"Peter Conry."

I was back on the ground then and the lump that I had fought hard to push down had come back. I wanted to be away from it and away from her. She played with the bottle, anxious for me to speak. I could feel her eyes on me, and when I looked she had a probing expression in them, and for a moment I thought she could see right through me. I did look like Peter, but I hoped my younger, rounder face would put her questioning eyes at ease and she would knock it up to chance. Peter had a much harder, leaner face than me. Peter was very handsome.

"Did he ever talk about family?" I asked. I noticed that my voice had changed.

"Peter? No."

"Have all the girls been waiting all day?"

"Some of us. Some showed up just minutes before the bus came up."

"But the faithful waited all day."

"We are all faithful."

"Are we?" I was angry about the whole thing. Angry with Peter and angry with this girl, although I knew she was as much of a victim as I was. Peter was everything I ever wanted to be and could not be, and here this girl sat clueless, watching the window for those qualities to embrace her once again.

"Of course we are," she said. "What kind of a soldier would question that?"

"One who does not have a girl to greet him."

She didn't say anything.

"Which group were you in?" I asked.

She turned in her seat to face the window. She was short when she said, "I waited all day."

"What's it like to wait all year for a man?" I asked.

"I'm sorry?"

"To know you have a man over there who might not come home. What's it like to wait for that?"

"None of your business," she said.

Her words had lost the easiness that had carried them along, and although she remained polite, the kindness, the innocence, that made her so easy to talk to before was now behind guard.

"I'll wait outside if you don't mind." She gathered herself.

"I mean, don't you care about getting on with your life instead? Do you wear all this lipstick every day?"

"What?"

"Man goes away and out comes the war paint."

"You are being rude. You might have a girl waiting for you here if you weren't so rude."

"I might have dressed with a big red bow around my chest."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"You might have done the same. We're each other's surprise. It was nice to meet you."

She looked at me. I stood and pulled my bag over my shoulder.

"Peter's not coming home. He was killed a week ago."
Chapter Two

They gave him a military funeral in the South Bend Cemetery. The groundskeepers removed their hats and stood respectfully in silence as the ceremony began, their work set aside for a moment. My aunt and uncle were there along with a crowd of Peter's friends, larger than I had expected, and Father Donnelly spoke from the Bible. A short ceremony. I saw her standing under a tree, all alone in a navy-colored dress. I accepted the folded flag with tears in my eyes as twenty-one shots fired over his stone.

I did my best to forget the war. I enrolled in studies at Notre Dame for the fall and spent the summer on the rooftops of South Bend working for The Callahan Roofing Company. In the heat of the day I could see the spires of the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, the football players in two-a-days near the silent bleachers at Notre Dame Stadium, and the greens of the God Quad. The bells of the Basilica rang for miles.

Emery Callahan had bad vision. If you walked into a room, he wouldn't know it was you until you started speaking. He never wore his glasses except in class because he did not want to look studious. He said Gregory Peck never wore glasses. Women don't like coke-bottles on your face, he'd say, and he would walk around all day squinting at things. He might have been handsome if his face wasn't scrunched all the time. He sat with me on the rooftop and opened two beers.

"Dad says we have to finish this up by tonight," Emery said. He took a giant bite of his sandwich and pointed across the street, squinting hard. "We're working there tomorrow."

"Double turkey and ham sandwich," I said. "It must be Thursday."

"Lord, bless this food and this rooftop. May it not collapse under Sam's shoddy workmanship." He held his head to the heavens as he spoke, a crust of bread falling from his mouth as he crossed himself with a quick hand.

I shrugged.

"Dad says you can stay in our basement as long as you're of a mind to swing a hammer. We can get a mattress for you if you want."

"I'm used to the cot."

"He'd take it out of your pay anyway," he said. "Are you enrolled?"

"Sure."

"Geology?"

"No. Journalism."

"Why the switch?"

"I figured out that I don't like rocks. I don't know a thing about them and I don't give a damn how they're formed."

"Oh Sam, oh Sam, he lost his rocks and gives no...darn. What's in journalism?"

"Anything. Everything. There are a million topics to write about. All you need is an opinion."

"What's yours?"

"What's my what?"

"Your opinion."

I looked at him. Emery was in theater so everything had a dramatic undertone to him. Everything needed a Shakespearian reply.

"The world's going to hell," I said.

"Not us," he laughed. "The world crumbles around the Fighting Irish. There's a quick-pass on our chests and Saint Peter waves us through without a background check."

"If that's true then I can imbibe without guilt." I took a large gulp of beer.

"How are you doing without him?"

I held the bottle to my lips a moment longer.

"I mean Peter," Emery said. "I didn't mean to bring him up but now I have and I feel the need to ask."

"You didn't bring him up until just now," I said.

"The world around us _is_ going to hell. That's not an opinion. It's people like Peter who can save it. Sorry."

He ate the rest of his sandwich in one bite and chased it with half the beer. When he came up for air he couldn't stand the silence and had to fill it. He was like that.

"This beer is stale."

"It's heaven sent today."

"What's wrong with you?" he asked. "You've been mopey all summer."

"Nothing's wrong."

"You got a girl?"

"No, Jesus."

"Lord, protect this blasphemer. He knows not what he does." He dropped his chin and carried on. "You fall in love?"

"No."

"You did. I can see it. You can nail me spread-eagle to this rooftop for the birds if I'm wrong."

"You talk too much." I slapped his knee with my glove.

"The Sam I used to know would be all in on an ideal like love."

"I don't have any interest in it."

"You don't have any interest?" He looked at me with an overplayed eyebrow, as if I was standing across from him on stage and the audience in the back row needed to understand his confusion. "You have no interest in beautiful women who will take care of you and only you till death do you part?"

"Maybe. But who has time to look for it?"

"The war drained you."

"I see guys like you saying they need a girl, saying they need a confiding soul, and when they get one all they do is complain about it and worry about the troubles that come with it. It's strange to me."

"You are a romantic one."

"Have you ever met a girl who made you feel like you shouldn't be alone?"

"Ah, we're young yet." He paused. "You didn't fall in love with me, did you?"

"I hope not."

"Oh, good. Saint Peter might have a few questions for you if you did. There he is again. Sorry."

He finished the rest of his beer to shut himself up. At night we went to Blarney Stone's Tavern and drank more beer. It was a narrow bar with single tables stretched along the wall, booths further in, and a pool table and dartboard in the back. A dried out dead cat, blacker than coal and shriveled, hung from the ceiling. Higgins insisted it gave the place an Irish charm.

Higgins was behind the bar. If he had a first name, nobody knew it. He was balder than any man I had ever seen, and he had a habit of putting his red face inches from the pint glass as he pulled the tap.

"Will you play football this year?" Higgins asked me. Emery sat next to me at the bar while the pool table echoed with bad shots behind us.

"No," I said.

"Why not?"

"Why should I?"

"Because...you might be good at it." He glanced over my shoulder to the wall and shifted his eyes back to me. But I caught him.

"Because Peter was good at it?" I did not turn to look at Peter's jersey.

"That's not what I meant."

"Sure it was."

"We wouldn't be here to drink your bad beer if he did," Emery jumped in. "Do you even clean the kegs or do you just add new beer to the old?"

Higgins looked at him.

"Just kidding around," Emery said. "Your Guinness is the real deal. Tastes like it trickled straight from an Irish spring."

Higgins mopped the bar and threw the towel over his shoulder. "Sorry, Sam. I was just excited, I guess."

I waved it away. That's how it was that summer. I ducked the issue as much as I could. At night we prowled the bars or stood outside the movies and talked to the girls who waited alone for their dates, and during the day we put new shingles atop South Bend. There's a lot that you see from the roofs of a small town. You see the blue-collars leave their porch steps early with lunch pails under their arms, their wives waving them off. Children ride bikes down the center of narrow streets, playing-cards clicking in their spokes, and old pickups rumble through stop signs. In the distance are the hollow eyes of the two lakes under the brows of campus trees. Then one day, on the shimmer of St Joseph's Lake, an unleashed dog stirred the ducks to begin their arrow south. You feel the weary sigh of a football town, anxiously awaiting the first kickoff to the new season, and you hear the bells of the Basilica reminding folks to keep the Sabbath and not to swear too much.

God held a heavy hand upon me as autumn approached, a hand that I shrugged off my shoulder, unsure if I wanted the graces, unsure if I still believed. Religion is tricky. It tests your strength. When you want to give it up entirely, you feel weak for thinking that way, and you think He may not be there when you do need Him. So you hang on for appearances sake, but you question it underneath. It's an odd thing to say, 'thank God he died quickly.'

We watched the summer fade to fall with hammers in our hands. It came quickly one cool day and that was it. Then it was time for classrooms to fill and for gridiron giants to challenge school rivals. The trees on campus held the morning dew in hanging copper teacups that fell swirling upon youthful hearts.
Chapter Three

The green lawns on campus painted themselves with rushing waves of yellow and orange, the worn paths of late students crisscrossed, and the lingering crows bobbed black with yellow eyes, bold and unmoving. A groundskeeper pulled at the colors, making large piles, the edges drifting with the wind. He removed his cap and wiped his brow.

The girls made sure to include the concrete of Notre Dame as part of their walk to the neighboring St Mary's College, the girl's school, and they were eager to show off their new sweaters, crisp and well-fitting, looking back with flirty eyes upon the boys who adjusted cowlicks as they watched them.

Boys held the new smell of uncracked pages in their hands, pages that would remain a mystery to many throughout the semester. Mother's boys walked with rounded shoulders in buttoned sweaters and innocent eyes on the ground, discovering a new world in which they did not easily fit. The autumn breezes circled about, breaking the careful waves on boys' heads, lifting girls' skirts, and removing any doubt of a late summer. With the ring of the Sacred Heart bells, the first day of the semester spun differently in every stomach.

Watching them all walk by, I felt somehow that I did not belong. I had walked these sidewalks of campus before, but now I felt like an intruder to be carefully watched or ignored completely.

I stopped by the practice field to watch the players. They were hitting hard, the smack of shoulder pads, the grunts of the A-gap blocks, and the desperate yells of a new coach replacing a legend carrying high-pitched in the air.

There were two girls next to me, their books held against their chests, one of them pointing out a player to the other. The player was taking snaps at fullback with the second team against the defensive starters. He hit the hole hard and carried a linebacker several yards before being gang-tackled. He was quick to his feet, a clump of grass hanging from his helmet, and he waved to the girls on his way back to the huddle. They giggled to each other like grade schoolers and walked away.

My first class was in an auditorium. It was creative writing 101 for journalists. I felt like I was starting over. I might have been the oldest student in the room. I sat in the back as the professor came out and stood in front of the room. He was a short fellow with slicked hair, high pants, and a thick accent. He turned to write his name on the chalkboard and I left the room while his back was to us.

The practice field had two rows of bleachers. I sat at the top and stretched my legs over. There was a girl with pretty hair standing on the sidelines, a notepad held close to her chin, scribbling down names and talking with one of the assistant coaches. When she turned to give her profile I saw catlike, librarian glasses on her nose. Her red lipstick was gone.

I left before she saw me and walked past the Golden Dome of the commons. I picked up a copy of the _Fighting Irish Journal_ and the _South Bend Tribune_ and sat at St Joseph's Lake. The lake was a mirror to an early season, doubling autumn's brush. When the wind picked up, the waves flattened out and the mirror rippled apart.

There was an article about an upcoming pep rally, friendly competitions between the dormitories. There was an article about the game and the new football team, the new coach with high hopes, but Elle Quinn did not write it. I should have spoken to her, but it was easier to avoid her. I contemplated going back to the practice field, but then nobody would be here to watch the water flatten out.

At night I went to Blarney's. Emery was on his second beer, Higgins was leaning against the back of the bar, and two students with scraggly facial hair sat at a table nearby. The pool table cracked with a cue ball not yet under bleary operation.

"How goes the classes?" Emery asked.

"What classes? I skipped."

Higgins poured me a closely watched pint and placed it on the bar.

"First day of classes and you skipped. What for?"

"The chairs were uncomfortable," I said.

"And tomorrow?"

"They may be more comfortable by then."

One of the students at the table spoke, his sparse beard hardly covering his chin. "You're Peter Conry's brother, right?"

I turned with the beer in my hand. Their table was under Peter's jersey. Next to his jersey were two others: Bob Dove and Jim Martin, all three in glass frames with their names scribbled underneath in Higgins's handwriting on white paper. I shrugged and sipped my beer.

The student looked up at the jersey and then back to me. "Are you? You look just like him."

"Sure."

He stood at once. "I'm Garrett and this is Jake. We were friends of his. It's a shame."

"This is Sam Conry," Higgins said to them. "He doesn't play football."

"What do you have these jerseys on the wall for, Higgins?" I asked. "Why not Guglielmi or Lattner?"

"They played offense," Higgins said. "I like defensive players. Besides, I liked your brother."

"But nobody's heard of Peter Conry except you. Put the guys who carried the ball up."

"Defense wins championships. Or haven't you heard?"

"We knew Peter," the student named Garrett said.

"I'll add you to the list under Higgins," I said. They just looked at me. "Just kidding."

"He was well on his way," Garrett said. "We were in the stands when he ran that interception in for a touchdown. Against Michigan."

"We all were," Higgins said. "He hit like a load of bricks. Could hear it in the parking lot."

"Well, it's all over," I said.

"And you're not playing?" Garrett asked.

"No."

He stood there looking at me with his thumbs tucked in the back of his belt. "Shame about the war. We liked Peter."

"We all did," Higgins said again.

"What did he say to us, Jake? Before he shipped out. Football is a boy's game, but the world needs men. Needs heroes, that's what I say. He might have been an All-American if he had played the whole season."

"Might have been," I nodded.

"I remember this one time he ran with the track team." Garrett looked at his friend. "Remember that, Jake? Practice had just ended for him and we were walking together, the three of us, to the library. The track team was sprinting on the other side of the fence and Peter took off with them."

He smacked his hands together, one on top of the other with an excited smile to go with it. "Remember that, Jake?"

Jake nodded. "Beat the sprinters to the line. He liked a good competition. He could have been a sprinter. The track coach was calling to him to jump the fence and try out."

"Is that true?" Emery asked.

"Sure as hell is."

Garrett was shaking his head at the ground. "Well, anyway." He looked at his beer. "Here's to Peter."

They raised their glasses and I drank with them. They shared more stories and laughed, and Garrett gave me the rascally one-armed hug that guys give to other guys when a friendship is felt. Higgins poured a round on the house and clinked each of our glasses to Peter again. We sat at a separate table and Higgins brought us sandwiches.

"Don't worry about it," Emery told me. "Don't get gloomy. People are going to ask about your brother. People liked him."

"I know. Just when I get to feeling good again someone reminds me of him."

"Well, that's good isn't it? You don't want to forget him. Nobody does. Not even those guys. Must have taken them a year to grow those beards. Looks like an alfalfa garden." He pointed a potato wedge at me. "You don't want to forget him."

"No, I guess not."

"Don't get gloomy. What's the first thing you do when you see a gloomy guy walking toward you on the street?"

"What?"

"Most people go to the other side of the street or they pass by without looking at him. Nobody wants to be around a gloomy guy. Don't be the gloomy guy."

"I give him a high five."

"A gloomy guy?"

"Sure."

"A gloomy stranger on the street?"

"I give him a high five. Stranger or not. I give him a high five."

Emery laughed. "You'll be fine. You're coming back around. Just don't be gloomy."

"Do I sound gloomy?"

He looked at me for a moment before he spoke. "No, but it's there underneath."

I finished my beer and put my dollars on the table.

"Where are you going?"

"I'm tired."

"The night's just begun. You're going to miss it."

"I have a skipped class to catch up on."

"You're doing fine." Emery smiled and kicked out an attempt to hook my ankle as I walked by. "You'll be just fine."
Chapter Four

The practice field was soggy from an overnight rain that lasted into the morning, evaporating in a mist under the sun. I watched from the top of the bleachers as the team took the field in agility drills, their heads steaming through their helmet vents. The head coach was blowing his whistle and yelling, and he soon set the team to running laps around the field, kicking the field beneath him and spinning in curses.

She didn't come by that day. I skipped a second day of classes so I could catch her, but all I got was a soggy pair of shoes and waterlogged books. I stood outside the dormitories at St Mary's College nearby for the last part of the day, looking up at each of the girls who came out. The rain came on steady as the sun descended, darkening the cathedral shadows that stretched upon the lawns. When someone came out, I stepped inside the doors to stay dry. When I didn't see her, I was almost relieved.

A girl came down the stairs and stopped at the doors, peering out into the parking lot through the rain for a moment. Then she asked me if I could walk her across campus to one of her night classes. She didn't want to walk in the dark alone.

"They say to be aware of your surroundings," she said. "But I would be more comfortable walking with another student."

She was blonde and I liked the way she looked. Her voice was gentle and she smelled nice. She had a charming lack of height.

"I'm Sam."

"Liv." She gave me one quick shake of her hand. "You _are_ a student, aren't you?"

"Of course."

We went out into the rain. The sidewalks glistened where streetlights haloed like holy ghosts and the square beams of yellow from dorm windows stained the grass with church aisle silence. She opened a small umbrella and spoke in a friendly way.

"I would ask you to join me under here but I'm afraid it's too small."

"I like the rain."

"Were you waiting for someone? How rude of me to take you away."

"No," I said. "I was just standing out of the rain for a moment."

"And here I asked you to come back out in it."

"I'm as wet as I can get already."

"Don't make me feel worse. It's a cold rain. It will be snow in another week."

She walked quickly, two steps to my one. I watched the rain patter on top of her umbrella, doing my best to catch the short waves of her perfume.

"I suppose you think it's silly of me to take a class so late at night if I'm scared to walk alone in the dark."

"It was the only time the class was available," I guessed. "You must be a senior."

She tilted the umbrella so she could see me. "Bingo. I don't know what would make them schedule a class at graveyard hours."

"You don't have to worry about walking in the dark on campus. It's safe."

"The minute you let your guard down is the minute the dogs pounce. How would you feel if you came next week to walk me again and I didn't show? If I suddenly disappeared in the night, never to be seen or heard from again?"

"Are you guilting me into being your bodyguard?"

"Bodyguards are paid. I have no intention of paying you." She tilted the umbrella again, peeking out from under it as if it was a hat pulled low over one eye, and winked at me.

"Where did you get such a small umbrella?"

"It's part of my plan to not let boys get too close."

"And how's it working?"

"It's very effective."

When we came to her class building she shook out her umbrella and folded it.

"Here we are," she said. "As we agreed? Same time next week?"

I laughed.

"You won't forget my name, will you?"

"No," I said. We endured a silent pause.

"It's Liv." She smiled at me as she went inside.

I suppose that's how all people meet. A chance encounter of no consequence followed by a small flirt that hints at a second meeting. You just have to find that second meeting.

That night the bells rang over the empty lawns, giving it an eerie catacomb feeling. I walked a little faster and tried not to look over my shoulder, keeping myself from breaking into a run. I walked under the spires of the Basilica and looked up. The night sky was glowing with rainclouds, and the spires forked upward in a detached, dreamlike floatation as the paper clouds circled overhead. It was as if the fingers of humanity were reaching for something in Heaven, unable to touch what it needed to, but trusting that it was there, somewhere, beyond the gray glow. I watched the raindrops fall from the tip of the spire to rest upon my cheek.

They were the same cold drops I had felt months ago under a foreign sky. I closed my eyes and remembered the way they split Peter's hair in thick parts and drained down his face. We had taken a church and set up a communications camp when Peter's jeep pulled up. I was sitting upon the broken rubble, drawing pictures in the wet dirt with a broken stick when I saw him coming up the road, the villagers moving out of the street to make way.

The hood was billowing steam from a dozen bullet holes, the windshield shattered and webbed. A soldier was leaning from the passenger seat against Peter. The soldier's face had frozen in a dead fright, the cords in his neck were torn and exposed, and his shoulder pulled forward at an awkward angle, hanging from its socket by tendons and strings of muscle, visible where his shirt had been shredded and punctured a handful of times. In the back seat, a gunner sat unmoving, spread over his machine gun, his back dotted with black holes and soaked. His face was on his machine gun barrel, burned against it and his eyes were open and filled red.

Peter stepped out of the driver's seat, his shoulder had ruptured as if it were harpooned, the skin around it mangled. He looked at me and simply ordered us to gather the equipment and move.

He had an unfailing courage about him at all times. I had seen it that day and many other days. He also had a trust in people, which ultimately led to his death when he approached a rice farmer later on for hand-rolled cigarettes. The farmer, a communist sympathizer, dropped a grenade at his feet instead.

I opened my eyes again to the roll of clouds and the dizzy movement of the spires leaning over me. The basilica doors, black in the night and shiny with reflecting rain, were larger to me than they had been before, and they appeared to be an entryway I might have difficulty in crossing with conviction.

My brother had been reliably devout. As boys our aunt brought us up to attend church each Sunday, and as I entered the University I thought it would be something that would fall by the wayside. Yet Peter attended each Sunday and I followed.

He was a senior the last time I had entered, the last time I had knelt in the pews and crossed myself, and I was a junior. His was a growing name on campus, a talented first-year ballplayer that people only questioned why he had not played earlier. We sat in the pews behind coach Frank Leahy, who would turn to us to grant us the sign of peace and lean in close to Peter and tell him what a great game he played the day before.

We shipped out that month, Peter never to return, and me to come back and question my faith, question my existence, question why him and not me. I had come back and was just as aimless now as I was when I had first stepped foot on campus, watching as eager students passed me by, flattening the grass in the Quad ahead of me.

The basilica doors leaned over me, highlighted by the sky above it, and I thought for a brief moment how I could, if I could, enter those doors again when the lack of spirit in my heart would show upon my face and give me away. The spires stabbed upward and it crossed my mind what a fall it might be if one were to climb among the slippery pikes, the iron shafts and dark peaks, and jump.

The campus was quiet and I circled the buildings all night, searching my thoughts, unable to give up and lay dead upon a cot in a tomblike basement. To fall asleep is to relinquish the day, to relinquish your handle on memory and nightmare, to resolve your thoughts for another day's light. I had no purpose beyond that night, no worry of direction or future, keeping a class schedule now only because I could not let Peter see me turn away. In death, one becomes louder to the living.

I walked until I heard the noise from a dormitory, the occupants of which mirrored my desire to stretch the night and rob it of sleep.

"Over here," someone called out to me on the lawn. He called again, and I walked over to where two students stood drinking under the shelter of a large maple.

"What are you doing out here, poor devil?" one of them said. "You look like a homeless person standing out here." He was as small and frail as a girl, and he hid behind the lens of a camera, snapping a photo of me and dropping the camera to hang from his neck. I blinked away the flash.

"He may well be homeless," the other said. He stood with one hand on his hip, his jacket pulled back behind it in a pretentious way. I quickly saw that he was leaning backward with his belly pushed out not for conceit, but for balance.

The first boy tipped up a beer. "What on earth are you doing standing in the rain?"

"Nothing," I said. "Passing time."

"I'm Myles," he said. He slapped the chest of the other student. "And this is Jude Miller."

Jude wavered in drunkenness at the slap. "Have a beer, old boy."

"No," I said. He handed me one from his jacket pocket and I took it.

"Don't let his vernacular fool you," Myles said. "He's a farm boy in hiding. He doesn't belong on campus. Jude the Obscure, I call him."

I gave a small laugh and Myles looked at me, pleased with his joke.

"A goat could stand in for him at roll call," he said.

"I say, old boy," Jude's words were half mumbled. With his forced accent I could hardly understand him. "I thought you were about to climb the spires like Quasimodo."

I shrugged. "Maybe I was."

Jude smiled and staggered.

"Watch him," Myles giggled like a girl and quickly focused his camera in on the teetering drunk. "Just watch now."

Jude fell to his knees and did not put his arms out to cushion his face. He began to breathe the rich grass and I could hear rainwater snorkeling in his nose.

"Oh, golly. This boy. He can't hold a drink."

Myles touched at my elbows and motioned for me to gather his shoulders. He took his feet as one takes a wheelbarrow.

"He'll sleep 'til noon, this one."

We carried him across the lawn, Myles tripping several times along the way. I swung Jude over my shoulders, his dead limbs swinging like ropes, and carried him toward the house.

"Where are you taking him?" Myles said.

"Inside."

"Just set him up against the wall. He'll do the same thing wherever you put him. He's gone for the night."

I set him with his back to the dorm wall under an overhang. He quickly slumped to the side and curled up comfortably in blank dreams.

"Leave him there," Myles said. "The stray dogs will tear him apart and I'll be out of a roommate. Oh well. He brings a squeeze bottle of vodka to his classes. He's hopeless."

This boy Myles entertained himself immensely. I thought he could be immune to solitary confinement. He sat on a wet rock, his fist under his jaw like a thinker, and began to ask questions. What year are you? How do you like Notre Dame? You're a soldier, aren't you? I can tell by your haircut. You've let it grow out a bit so it hardly gives you away. But I can see it.

"I know you," he said.

"Do you?"

"I know your type. The type who stands in the rain and contemplates death." When I didn't reply, he continued. "I know this because I am the same way."

The girlishness was gone from his body, the androgyny in his voice had disappeared.

"Tell me I'm right," he said. "A happy man does not stand in the rain and stare up at the cathedral if he is not questioning his life upon earth."

"I was studying the clouds," I said. "I'm a meteorologist."

"You're a boy come home from war who's trying to pick up the pieces."

"You a psychology major?"

"No," he said. He held his head low. "I haven't nailed that part down yet. I may be a career student at this rate."

"Join the club."

"You carried Jude like he was wounded on the battlefield."

"He's not heavy."

He looked at me with narrow eyes. "No. You're the literary type. Jude the Obscure. Thomas Hardy. Bravo. Very good. That joke was meant just for me."

"I read that one."

"You must carry on then. The mind is a terrible thing to waste, as they say."

"I don't know what to carry on toward." It came of my mouth without thought, and I felt then that I had shared too much with this boy I hardly knew.

"The only thing people like us can do is keep moving forward," he said. "Keep going and let life figure itself out for us. We're along for the ride, you and I. Tell me I'm wrong."

In the glistening shadow his face was somber, and I saw a flash of myself sitting on a rock doing the same thing. It was a flash I'd rather not see again.

"You're right."

"Of course I am."

He stood and walked inside, pausing to kneel and photograph Jude Miller in the proper light and angle before leaving him to sleep the night away against the wall, his legs outstretched in the rain.
Chapter Five

The rest of the week I divided between catching up on classes and working the rooftops to earn some spending money. For whatever they were worth, the words of a wet stranger with a beer in his own questioning grip stayed in my mind. I wasn't going to be a boy on a wet rock.

Emery went to Blarney's alone and I kept myself busy. Friday was the pep rally in the Quad.

It had nearly escaped my mind entirely. I was walking alone when I found myself among a swarm of students running ahead of me. The sun was bright and gave golden highlights to the bouncing heads, their destination blotted out in the distance by sun spots, but I heard band music ahead of them. Lemmings to the piper.

There was a small wooden stage built in the center of the Quad, a student atop speaking through a cone. I found myself in the tide of students that crept up to the stage. At the front, greenfaced leprechauns led the cheers through cupped hands, cheerleaders were tossed, flipping into the sky, the students replied in mobbed excitement, pumped fists and painted faces, dyed coifs done up in fanatic gel, stomped feet and gorilla chants from the jungle echoing against the building walls.

I felt knuckles at my elbow.

"You remember this, don't you?" Emery asked me. He was wearing his thick glasses, his eyes looking huge behind them, his handsomeness spoiled.

"Yes."

"Rich in tradition. That's why I came to school here. See her?" He pointed to a brunette cheerleader standing upon stretched arms with her fist in the air. "I like her."

"Know her?"

"No. Seen her around."

The student with the cone was big, his shoulders mounded at his neck. He had blonde hair that waved back upon his skull, a big face with stumped jaws like uncarved stone, his neck jutting outward beyond the faceline. He held a watermelon in his hand, palming it above his head, and the golden-hearted gorillas pounded in frenzy. The green filled behind us.

"Seen him before?" Emery asked, yelling over the noise.

"Yeah," I said. "Second-team fullback. Carries linebackers like children."

"He'll be something next year. He's a sophomore. He's in my drama class."

"Nice guy?"

Emery nodded. "He's one of the boys. Professor makes him sit up front where he can keep an eye on him. Likes to have fun."

"You made it out of the rain." The voice came from under me. I looked over his head first, then found him at my shoulder. It was Myles. Jude Miller was with him.

"Good to see you dry," Myles said. He had his camera hanging from his neck, his fingers at the ready. "I thought you might have gills by now. I saw you from across the Quad. I called for you."

"I'm Jude Miller." He held his hand out to me.

"I know."

He looked at me funny, not remembering me. Emery looked over at them and didn't say anything.

"This your friend?" Myles asked, pointing to Emery.

"This is Emery. Emery; Myles and Jude."

Emery shook their hands quickly and returned to his pockets. He watched the cheerleader. "She is _some_ thing."

"Who is?" Myles asked.

Emery motioned with his chin toward the girl.

"I love seeing you boys go whirling over girls." He snapped a photo of the cheerleader. "It's so funny."

Emery just looked at him for a moment. He was about to say something, and I pointed to the stage to take his attention.

"Dillon versus Carroll," were the words from the cone. A few students came forward. The crowd pulled back to clear a short field in front. The fullback handed the cone off and jumped down with the watermelon held in his arms. Three boys from Carroll Hall stood on one side, two students from Dillon Hall and the fullback faced them.

"Get more," the fullback yelled. "More Dillon!"

"Watch this now," Emery said. "Enter at your own risk."

Two more students from Dillon Hall assembled among their mates. It was five on three. The crowd counted down 3-2-1 and yelled the signal, roaring together in a musical "Hut!" that seemed to carry like radio waves in the early air.

The fullback charged forward, going between his two blockers and the pile staggered. A student from Dillon fell and was trampled on, flailing upward with arms and legs to tangle among the feet. The fullback barreled through, Dillon Hall on his back, walking upright with casual effort. He walked across the chalk line with a student still grasping his waist like a child. The crowd of students roared with delight and the big man with hunched shoulders held the watermelon high.

The Dillon students gathered themselves off the grass like bucked rodeo cowboys and walked off.

"Are you going to classes now?" Emery asked me.

"Yes. I figured I should just keep moving forward."

Myles turned to me. "Did a wise man tell you that?"

"Carroll versus Morrissey!" the cone spoke again. The fullback looked among the crowd for Morrissey students, pointing to one and beckoning him forward with a friendly smile. He put his hands on the student's shoulders, facing the crowd, looking for more.

"The boy is an absolute madman," Emery said. "An absolute ape. He'll be something."

"What a bunch of cavemen," Myles said. "What's the point?" He was standing on his toes to watch, his hand on my elbow for balance. Emery looked over.

"It's tradition," Emery said to him. He leaned in to me. "You know this boy?"

"A little," I said.

Carroll versus Morrissey! Carroll versus Morrissey!

The green in the quad breathed with excitement as students from Morrissey came forward reluctantly, pushed by peers, and assembled on the short field. The fullback took his place again, the watermelon tucked tightly in his cradle.

"Boy's games," Myles said. "You could stop him."

"No," I said.

"Big guy like you. You could stop him."

Emery looked at me. I could see the idea become concrete in his head. "You could stop him."

"No."

"He carried my friend here over his shoulder the other night with barely a sweat broken."

The countdown from the crowd began again, six on three this time, Carroll Hall versus Morrissey Hall. "For the South Quad championship!" a student screamed through the cone. "Hut!"

Carroll and Morrissey collided, more fevered than before, bragging rights in the balance, and the fullback charged the line. He carried through, head above the tallest, walking like some sort of crazed, unstoppable beast, his big legs picking up and stomping as the Morrissey students grappled in the pile, one student punched at the melon, trying to cause a fumble. The melon popped and the fullback carried the dripping remains over the line.

"Carroll Hall wins!" The students cheered.

Myles gave me a shove toward the short field. "You can stop him."

Emery agreed with Myles in both the statement and the urging. I stumbled between the crowd, the pushes coming from all around me then, and found myself on the field, standing there like an unchained prisoner on a gladiator's court. The fullback looked at me with a triumphant smile. The student with the cone announced, "A challenger!"

The crowd roared. I turned to leave but the wall of students would not let me through, hands and forearms pushing me back. As Morrissey cleared away, I was alone on the field with the monstrous fullback. The cute brunette cheerleader handed me a watermelon and skipped away. I heard Emery yell out, "Get her name."

The fullback walked up to me.

"Just games," he said. He had a cheerful smile lodged in his rubble of stone, the baby fat still rounding out his cheeks. He patted my shoulder. "We're all on the same team."

He stood two inches taller than I did and I judged he had at least fifteen pounds on me. A large leprechaun pushed me to the centerline and the crowd began a long countdown from ten.

"Just for show," he said to me. He patted my shoulder again and I could see the bulge of corded deltoid between his neck and shoulder. "I'm Pat Carragher. I'll go easy."

"Sam Conry."

The countdown was at five.

"You're a big Mick. What do you say?"

I looked around at the faces, the chanting riot, and back to Pat Carragher. "Don't go easy," I told him. "Let's give them a show."

He looked at me hard then, and I wished immediately that I hadn't said it. He took the watermelon from my hands and stepped back with the 3-2-1 count. He crouched low and smiled.

I heard Emery yell encouragement from somewhere in the crowd. I lowered myself, and the crowd yelled altogether in a long, screaming, "Huuut!"

From his first charging step I knew he was not going to hold back. The turf under his shoes peeled away and flung into the air behind him. He came at me like a bull, the watermelon held in both arms, his shoulders lowered.

If you think about the hit you get hurt. You tense and stop and end up on your back. So I charged and lowered, under his shoulders, and drove hard with my legs. I didn't feel the impact but I heard the air go out of him, and the watermelon exploded between us. I picked him off the ground with my shoulder in his belly and my arms wrapped around his legs. We went sideways, neither of us overpowering the other, a great collision of determination, and we fell as one to the gasps of the students.

I stayed still for a moment and realized I had no lungs. I looked at Pat and saw he was fighting for the same air. We blinked through red pulp, our faces dotted with black seeds, and rolled away from each other, staring at the sky. The crowd stood and watched like mutes for a moment, then exploded in cheers.
Chapter Six

I found out quickly that the student library was a place where peace and quiet were strictly observed and I could read class textbooks in the silence one might find in a warm cloud. Conversations were cut off in mid-sentence at the doors and books were set down gently on the tables as if made of eggshells.

The sun was warm, cut intermittently by cool breezes that waved in the confused trees. The dying leaves and the chill of the season were on the air and I took my time walking to the library, the silence of it at the sidewalk's end oddly as ominous as rolling thunder. A fatboy riding a small bicycle passed in front of a small girl, startling her into a jump. It was Liv, walking alone, her wool skirt about her knees, her blonde hair blonder in the light. She saw me and waited.

"Will you walk me to my class?" I asked her. "I'm scared to go alone."

"You monster," she smiled. "You're on your own. Besides, it's Saturday."

"I know, but I need to catch up."

"Catch up? In the first week of class? You are either a slacker or an overachiever."

"Which would you guess?"

"I would say it depends on the day. You slack on Monday and overachieve on Saturday."

"You have me figured out."

"What happened to you?" She pointed under my eye. "A little Friday mischief with the boys?

"What?"

"Your cheek. You have a bruise."

"Oh. Yeah, I guess. With the boys."

"I haven't got you figured out at all. I thought you were studious."

Standing a little taller, I said, "I am."

"Studious boys don't get bruises."

"Well. My books were heavier than I expected."

She had a sweet smile and a pleasant way of being embarrassed by charming small talk. She covered her mouth to hide her laugh.

"Did you find the girl you were waiting for?"

"Who?"

"The girl you were waiting for. That night in the rain. Boys who wait in the girl's dorm aren't just there to stay dry."

I shifted my weight. "Are you going to take me to class or what?"

"Oh, brother. The minute a girl is mentioned you boys get shy. Are you seeing anyone?"

"No," I said.

"I don't believe you."

"That's okay. I'll just be on my way." I put my arm around an unseen set of shoulders, walked a few paces, and kissed an invisible cheek. Liv watched me with a peculiar smile.

"And who's this?"

"Hum?" I looked back with puzzled eyebrows and answered her with blinking eyes. I gestured to the leggy spot of air next to me. "Oh, this?"

She nodded and crossed her arms and did me the favor of humoring me. "Do you see anyone else around?"

"Oh yes. How rude of me to not introduce you, but you see, she's shy. She's the complete opposite of you. Falls to pieces in the rain. It's her one flaw."

"She seems nice."

I shook my head. "Well, she isn't. She disappears on me all the time. Doesn't answer to a word I say. I'm beginning to think she was born without a tongue."

"Some boys like quiet girls."

"Well, I don't." I looked at her. "I like them blonde and blabby."

She looked at the ground with her hands locked behind her and brought her head up finally to speak, as if she had been working up the courage. "How about you take me to the game later?"

I put my hands in my pockets and smiled. "Do you always panic and ask men out on dates when you run out of things to say?"

"Who said anything about a date? What sort of a girl do you think I am? I wouldn't dream of asking."

"Okay then, it's not a date. It's a coincidence. What game?"

" _What game_? You did say you were a student here. Season opener. Longhorns. Everybody goes to the games."

"I don't go to the games."

"Why not?"

I shrugged. "I just don't."

"I lied to you. I didn't think you were studious. I thought you might be a football player when I first saw you."

"Why? Do you like football players?"

"Because you're tall and you walk with a straight back."

"No. I don't play. I don't play and I don't go to the games. How's that for team spirit?"

"Were you at the pep rally?"

I hesitated for a moment. "I saw it from a distance."

"You're not doing too well. But I like you." She twirled her skirt. "Don't blush."

"It's the sun. It brings out a rare color in me."

"Well...?" she said. "The invitation may expire."

"An invitation to a coincidence. There's something new. Okay, how many guys would I have to fight off?"

"I'm flattered. How many would it take?"

"I would fight off the entire football roster to get a date with you."

"It's not a date. If you don't take me to the game then I shall be forced to spend the rest of the day finding someone who will."

So I took her to the game.

Notre Dame football holds an untouchable mystique that other schools reach for and fail to grasp. Some can touch it. Their fingertips can give a fleeting caress to it, whatever it is, but no school holds it the way Notre Dame does.

The students march together to the field, under the tunnel, flags held high, pride swelling, the marching band out front and the drumline rolling their never-ending tat-tat-tat.

Through the parking lot we strolled, Liv taking my hand in hers with a bubbly smile, through the impeccable flower garden, grass neatly trimmed, the murmur of the crowd vibrating through the steel beams of the bleachers. Into the entrance the pit of the field opens wide below as you approach the rail, the shades of green, patterned light and dark between the crisp white yard lines, and the smell of perfect grass, an immense crowd above, the seats filled, colors brightly waving.

Then the golden streak of players charges from the tunnel, spreading out into the field, players lifting their arms in encouragement like birds in flight, players living their boyhood dreams. The crowd responds and the stadium quakes with cheers. Quiet mother's boys raise their arms and join the shrieks, their timid shells shirked for the day. Pride turns over in your lungs, your heart quickens its beat, and you scream a golden litany with those around you, unashamed of your volume or the hoarseness that rattles your throat. You are a part of a team, a deep tradition, and your yells become mute whispers among growls, heard only as a buzz in your own ears.

With each crushing tackle, each sprawling catch upon the turf, every run through the guards, the students roar like lions. The echo of the play-by-play man on the speakers drowns away, and touchdowns are a stomping madness in the stands. Shirtless, painted students lean over the rails to their thighs, arms waving, controlled by brief lunacy. The stadium is braced and each face is distinguished in the stands. It feels on the verge of collapse with each crossing of gold in the end zone, the moment caught forever with the flash of newspaper photographers, going off in a dozen simultaneous blinks, and over it all are the gilded back and forth of the trumpets in the stands, blaring the world's most recognizable fight song.

Legends are made on the Irish green.

I listened to the hysterical shouts of victory from the parking lot.
Chapter Seven

I saw Elle Quinn in church the next day.

The morning sun breached the basement window as I lay on the cot. I was content to stay there, but the silent shame that chased me across the pillow tore at my conscience, my only escape was to rise and sit up.

Autumn shivered under my jacket as the basilica doors closed to darkness behind me. The familiar smell of incense and the mustiness of church walls took me from head to chest and through the shoulders as I crossed myself with fingertips wetted from the concrete seashell.

Kneeling in silence, a wall of a dozen suit jackets and wool sweaters ahead of me, I saw her across the aisle. A doily capped her waved hair, the cascades pinned modestly at her shoulders. She made all the motions, knelt at the right times, her lips whispered the Latin responses, her hands folded at her tucked chin throughout. She appeared undaunted, deeply religious, her faith still whole.

Peter used to say that leaving a bad impression with somebody was among the worst sins of a Catholic. It sticks on the mind of the impressed until they question not only the impression, but the roots from where it grew. To represent our Father in a bad light is the same as showing one how to be an atheist. If there was an eleventh commandment, that would have been firecarved upon the stone. I could hear Peter saying it.

Besides that, she had once belonged to my brother, maybe she still did, and the sin was magnified.

I passed the basket without dropping a dollar and I stayed seated during communion. At the door, Father Donnelly shook hands with everyone on their way out. He held my hand for a moment longer than a greeting, and looked at me. He was young and smooth-skinned without a trace of a beard. He must have shaved very close and it made him look younger. I thought we might be in the same decade.

"Good to see you, Sam."

"You too, Father Donnelly. Excellent sermon today."

He didn't let go of my hand. "What was your favorite part?"

I remembered his opening lines, the one piece that stuck in my head. "The part about Jesus being a fan of Fighting Irish football."

He released his grip on me and held his arms up to signal a touchdown. A big smile appeared on his face and I could see the wheels in his head turning, an idea sparking behind his eyes. "Wouldn't that be something?"

I spent Monday's class session sitting atop the wet bleachers. She appeared on the sidelines, hidden under a raincoat and jotting down notes on a notepad.

In keeping my eyes on her, I let my feet find their own way and slipped as I hopped off the bleachers. I put myself into a half-run on the grass to regain my balance, my book and notepad leaping out of my hands as if they were a live thing, landing butterflied against the back of her ankle. I sauntered on new feet to stand next to her with little dignity left.

Her immediate reaction was to ask if I was all right, and she knelt down to gather my books as she spoke. When she stood and saw it was me, she was almost startled. Her throat went up and down in a swallow.

"Hi," I said with an uncomfortable grin. It was the only word that came to mind.

"Oh. It's you."

"It's me."

"I thought I might run into you some day."

I nodded. "How – how have you been doing?"

"I'm fine, Sam." She said my name with ease. Like she had said it many times before.

"Sorry about everything."

"Don't be. Are you hurt?"

"No, I mean, sorry about being rude to you earlier. At Fort Wayne. The bus ride?"

"I remember. It's okay."

"Well, I hope I didn't leave a bad impression on you."

"You didn't. I've thought about you a lot since then. You were hurting."

"You've thought about me?"

"How could I not? You're Peter's brother."

"He would be furious with me if I didn't apologize," I said. "I've thought about you too. It's been hanging over me all summer. The way I acted. I was angry about everything and I guess you were there to bear the brunt of it all."

She didn't say anything. I thought I saw her lip quiver. Her eyes were wet. The team grunted from the field behind her.

I cleared my throat. "Anyway, I just wanted to set it all straight again. You probably have an article to write about here." I motioned to the practice field.

"I'm done. I have my quotes from the coach." She handed me my books. "I see you have a journalism book."

"Yeah, well the geology class had their lights off."

She smiled. "Will you walk me to my dorm?"

We went down the wet sidewalks to St Mary's College. I was getting wet in the steady drizzle, my hands in my pockets, and when I looked at her all I could see was a slender nose under her hood. The campus was quiet, almost abandoned of the students who would normally eat lunch in the sunny grass or sit on the steps outside the buildings.

"I almost didn't recognize you without your uniform."

"I know. I blend in just as much with other students as I did with the other soldiers."

She looked at me with a tender smile, a mask of happiness I thought. She had a beautiful sadness. "You probably don't recognize me without my war paint on."

I cringed. "Sorry."

"It's okay."

We walked a little.

"I saw you in church yesterday."

She was not surprised. "I saw you too."

"I was going to speak to you then but I thought it would be easier out here. More welcoming for conversation, I guess."

"Everyone is welcome in church."

"You know what I mean. Just less intrusive."

"I was glad to see you in church. I thought maybe you would stop going."

We turned a corner and St Mary's Lake was in front of us. I shrugged. "I can't say that I didn't think about it. Catholic guilt makes me go."

"What a wonderful tool of the church."

"You don't have any trouble with going, do you?" I asked.

"Of course I do. Or I did, anyway. But when your faith is broken the only cure is more of it."

"I guess."

We stopped in front of the lake and a cool breeze whipped my jacket lapel.

"I saw you at the funeral," I said. "Seems like that was such a long time ago now."

"They gave you the flag," she said, fighting the waves in her voice. "I used to go see him after that. I want to still. But it makes you so sad to see the stone sitting there in the dirt."

"I used to go to ask him questions. I always ended up in tears because I felt I would not live up to his expectations."

"It's easier for me to talk to him in a prayerful way. The same way I talk to God. Is that strange?"

I shook my head. "He mentioned you once."

She looked at me, fully in the face this time, her cheeks red and angular under her hood, her chin disappearing slowly into the shadow. She had removed her glasses and her brown eyes gained a new sadness about them. A window to a soul in repair.

"Just a few days before we were to come home," I said. "He was excited to introduce us. I guess I messed all that up."

"I wish he had told me about you. You look like him, you know? Not a striking resemblance, but it's there underneath."

"I know."

"He would be happy that we met."

We let a moment of silence pass as the lake shivered.

"Do you know how it happened?" I asked.

She put her head down and all I could see was her nose again. She breathed a whisper. "No. I'm afraid to find out. I've dreamed that it was doing something brave. Like saving another soldier. Like saving his brother."

I watched the water.

"Were you wounded?" she asked.

I did not want to spoil her vision of Peter's bravery by telling her that he was killed in a routine patrol after the war had already been called to an end. I didn't want to tell her but I did not want to lie to her. To Peter. "No," I said.

"Don't tell me. But say he was brave."

"He was very brave," I said. I was still watching the water then, and I could actually see myself there as if I was spying from a dozen yards away. "I wanted to be just like him. I've always wanted to be like him. Maybe the worst injury for a soldier to have is to not even be wounded when you have a brother who was killed."

"Don't do that to yourself, Sam." She spoke very quietly. "Don't put yourself in pain."

We walked on, an unspoken agreement made between us to leave that spot of conversation, that memory, and move away.

"How did you meet him?"

She smiled finally and that dimple showed up again. "I was writing sports articles for the school paper. I approached him outside the stadium after the Michigan game that year. He was bruised and sweaty, wearing a torn tshirt, and his hair was sticking up where the holes were in his helmet."

"And you fell in love at first sight," I said, trying to lighten the mood. She did not need any help to feel better. Her memory of the moment brightened her face.

"He was so nice to me. Some of the players are so tired after a game they can hardly stand. Peter spent nearly an hour and a half talking to me that day."

"That's longer than the actual game. Must have been a great article."

"We spoke for only five minutes about the game. He asked me to come to the next game and cheer for him. He must have known that I attended all the games anyway for the paper, but he still invited me. I thought it was the sweetest thing. I still have the article I wrote. I quoted him in it and I cut it out and kept it."

"I'd like to read it some time."

"He was a great player. I attended all three of his games before he shipped out. He was leading the team in tackles at the time. Everyone thought he was going to be an All-American. He was always the first out of the locker room. I was so excited to see him. He would run right past the news stations and _Tribune_ reporters and come right up to me. I was just a journalism student writing for the school paper."

"And now you write sports for the _South Bend Tribune_?"

She nodded. "Just Notre Dame sports. Readers are mad about Notre Dame sports. It wouldn't have mattered to Peter if I was a reporter for a big paper or a small one. When he came out of the locker room he always looked around for me."

"He was nice like that. He made everyone feel good about themselves," I said. "I always tried to be _manly_ like him, you know? I wanted to be as strong as he was but he was always nice to people too. Gentle, I guess is the word, and he wasn't afraid to show it."

She gave a shy laugh. "He was so rough-looking after that first game. Like he won the entire game by himself. I didn't expect how outgoing he was." She nodded. "Yes. Gentle is the word."

"You knew him for a month before he shipped out?"

"Yes. It sounds funny now, but it could have been a day and that was all we needed. He wrote the nicest letters to me. You learn a lot about a person through letters."

"That's exactly what he told me."

"Did he? It's true. You see who a person truly is by the words they write. There is no shyness in a letter. Every word was exactly how he thought it inside. I used to check my mailbox five times a day for his letters. They would always come all at once. A couple week's worth of his letters. I would respond to ten of his with one of mine. I wish I wrote more to him."

"It was enough. I've never seen him so excited. He told me he didn't know if you would let it amount to more. Your relationship. He told me that."

"Really?" She looked at me with big eyes, still in love with Peter.

"Yes."

She walked up the steps to her dormitory. I stayed at the bottom. She turned to face me, her expression suddenly twisted in sadness, her hands wringing together.

"Why didn't he tell me about you?"

"I don't know," I said. "Maybe he didn't want to be embarrassed if you didn't wait for him."

She looked over my head to the wet greens behind me, the pale trees shedding their summer wear. She looked back at me and her eyes were wet again. Her hair swirled about her face and she fixed it behind her ears with gentle fingertips.

"How did you get your bruise?" she asked.

I put my fingers under my eye. "Just games with the boys. Boys will be boys, right?"

She came down the steps and gave me a hug, her chin on my shoulder, pulling me in with a motherly hand on the back of my head. "Come and see me again, Sam."

"I will."

I felt good then. A weight had lifted and I was trudging forward in the world.

At the door, she turned one last time. "Sam?"

I twisted my shoulder back around. "Yeah?"

"I would hardly call Pat Carragher a 'boy.'"
Chapter Eight

Winter came early the following weeks. The snow piled high and stayed there for days, melting slowly and forming an icy crust that held your weight for a moment before breaking through.

Roads became slick with ice in the evenings, the snow piled black at the curbs. Cars slid slowly through stop signs, and children shoveled driveways for a dollar. Students walked to class with their chins tucked in scarves, flipped coat collars at their red cheeks, clouds billowing from their mouths, fumbling their books through mittens.

When the snow melted, the bleak cold was still there, crawling in your nostrils, numbing your ears. From the rooftops of South Bend, Emery and I worked between classes. Wind-whipped trees shook the air with thin, stretching arms and bare fingers. Hammer strokes took on an echoing clatter sound, and the bells of Notre Dame gained in volume as the rest of the world muted all around.

"I'm seeing that girl," Emery said in a crouch, shingles spread out before him.

I straightened my back and worked my shoulders. "Who?"

"That cheerleader. The brunette. Her name is Claire."

"No kidding. How did that happen?"

"I waited outside her classroom until she came out." He looked at me. "That makes me sound like a stalker, doesn't it?"

I took off my gloves to breathe into my cupped hands. I rubbed them together.

"Well, I don't care if it does," Emery said, his frozen breath swirling around his head. "Between you, me, and the hammers here, I _was_ stalking her. That's the only way to meet a girl out here. But if she asks you about it, it was mere coincidence."

"Of course."

"She likes to ice skate. I'm hoping the lakes take their time in freezing over because I can't skate worth an Indian nickel."

"All those theater classes and you can't skate?" I crouched against a wind gust. "I thought you'd be pirouetting over the ice like an angel."

"You're the one hanging around puffs," he mumbled.

"What do you mean?"

"What's that kid's name? Follows us around all the time taking pictures. Little guy."

"Myles?"

"Yeah, that's him. Clings to you like a child. I imagine he's taken an interest in you."

"I don't know him too well."

"He likes to think he knows you. Sits against the wall all night watching us play pool. He's probably stalking you."

"He's harmless."

He nailed down a series of shingles then dropped his hammer and whipped his hands back and forth to get the feeling back. "We're going to the game on Saturday. You can meet her."

"Who?"

"Claire. You have someone you can bring?"

"I don't know."

"Well, you do or you don't. What's her name?"

I looked around and said, "Liv."

He looked at me and held his hands out after a moment. "Well, what's she like?"

"I don't know. She's nice."

"Jesus." He looked heavenward and crossed himself. "Am I a dentist today?"

"What?"

"Pulling teeth. Nevermind."

"She smells good," I said finally.

"That's better than not, I guess. We'll save you some seats. You want to bring her?"

"I don't think she would come with me if I asked."

"Why not?"

"I left her alone in the stands at the last game we went to."

Emery rolled against the rooftop, his laughter sounding as a frozen cackle of hammer strokes. The ladder against the gutter came alive, bouncing a hollow aluminum sound. Mr Callahan's head appeared.

"Cold enough for you boys?" His fists appeared beside him, steaming. He steadied himself. "Brought some hot cocoa. Just like a mama would."

"Thank you, Mr Callahan," I said. I scooted down the rooftop to the ladder and took the broken handled mugs from him. He made an immediate boxer's feint to my chin when my hands were full.

"Got the teeth rattling there."

He came aboard, a barrel-chested man with legs forever bent in balance, his back ruined in a roofer's curve, a paper silhouette against the white sky, his sunwrecked eyes searching about.

"Season's coming to an end," he said. "We'll have a few houses through the winter."

"How'd we do for the summer?" Emery asked.

"Good enough."

I walked on my knees and gave Emery one of the mugs. He curled his fingers around it and stared into it, the steam making frozen spikes of his eyelashes.

"No marshmallows?"

Mr Callahan looked about at the bare spots on the roof. "Marshmallows are for the ladies. I gave you extra." The old man bounced his weight twice on a new patch of shingles. "Nails running low?"

"Nails?" Emery made a wondering face of joked confusion that quickly turned to a smile. His father circled his fist clockwise at his hip. He stopped and studied the sky, the shades of white and gray clouds folding over themselves.

"Won't snow for a bit."

Emery looked up and around. "How can you tell?"

"Radio told me so."

Emery nodded. "Give Sam some old man advice, dad."

"Advice for what?"

"How to court a lady."

Mr Callahan shooed a passage of cold breath, tossing his hand in a gesture over his head. "You're asking the wrong man."

"Sam thinks it's best to leave them halfway through a date."

"It wasn't a date," I said.

"Leave while you're ahead. Not a bad strategy if done right." The old man looked at me with kind eyes in a rough mask. He grinned at the corner of his mouth.

"You're fishing in the right hole," he said. He pointed off toward the bells on campus. He pulled a fold of hot paper from his inside pocket and unrolled it. Breaded fish fillets steaming in the cold. He held it to both of us.

"It's not Lent," I said.

"It's Friday," Mr Callahan said.

I ate in gratitude. "Thank you, sir."

He settled in on the roof, a large man finding the softest way to drop himself, rolling back just enough to take the fall out of it. Sitting Indian style he went to work on his fish fillet.

"Tell him, dad."

Mr Callahan rolled a bite around in his mouth to make room for his tongue. "When I was your age I would not even date a girl who wasn't Catholic. Bless your mother, Emery. She was a handful, God rest her kind soul. You'll not have that problem if you stick to the girls here."

"What difference does it make, sir?" I said. I caught a glance of Emery's face behind him.

"A whole hell of a lot of difference." Mr Callahan looked to the sky and crossed himself. "You'll be fighting an uphill battle the rest of your life."

"Love conquers all, right? Sometimes you can't help it what the other person believes in."

"I left a girl in the middle of a date once," Mr Callahan said. "Found out she was a Protestant."

Emery was laughing with a mouthful of cocoa behind him.

"That's close enough, isn't it?" I said, trying to keep my face straight.

The old man shrugged. "To each his own, Sam. I'm just laying out the groundwork for you. This girl of yours, did you find out she was a Protestant?"

"She goes to St Mary's College. She's a Catholic."

"There are wolves in sheep's clothing."

"She goes to church. Christmas and Easter." I looked away to hide my face. I heard Mr Callahan almost choke.

"Jesus," he crossed himself with a half-fillet.

"Emery's seeing a girl. A cheerleader."

Mr Callahan shifted and spoke over his shoulder. "She a Catholic?"

"Yes sir."

"She nice?"

"Yes sir."

"Marry her quick. Only half of a successful marriage is falling in love. The first half is finding a Catholic." Mr Callahan nudged me with his foot. "You know what I had to do with Emery?"

I turned to face him. "What's that, sir?"

"My wife, beautiful rose that she was, she wanted Emery to be brought up in a Pentecostal church. A sing along service. People are whooping and yelling, dancing like idiots right there in church. You seen it?"

"No sir."

"I took him out for a run in a stroller one day. Told my wife we'd be back in a flash. Had him baptized at Holy Cross instead. Father O'Hara was there waiting with the oil and water, and me in my jogging shorts at the altar. Not the first shotgun baptism he's performed."

"You baptized him without her consent?"

"Sure. She named him without mine."

"Did she find out?"

"Sure she did. I told her. Said I was sorry she missed the ceremony."

"And then?"

He shrugged. "And then she gave up on religion entirely."

We sat there for a while, finishing our fish and cocoa. A blackbird landed on the far side of the roof and ambled toward us before stopping sidelong and watching us. It moved over the peak of the roof, big shouldered like a buzzard.

I turned back to Mr Callahan. "You don't regret marrying her, do you?"

He looked at me with eyes that still burned with delight. "Not a Goddamn bit." His chin swept from one side to the other. I waited for him to cross himself but he did not. His hands stayed by his sides.

He crumbled the paper in a ball, then stood and shuffled to the ladder, bending and twisting to find the best way to climb aboard it. "Well, this roof won't fix itself." He turned back. "Will it?"

"We'd be out of a job if it did, sir."

Stepping down, he disappeared a foot at a time over the edge. He paused a moment when his eyes were even with the shingles.

"But life is a whole lot easier when your wife is dragging _you_ to church on Sunday."

Then he vanished in a magical cloud of breath, the clacking of the ladder giving away his prestige.
Chapter Nine

I waited in the stands with my arms draped over four empty seats. The aluminum stomp of thousands around me, a sea of school pride. I was the only student in his seat when the helmets ran from the tunnel, spreading out to take the field, to take the stadium, with a rush of cheers. The mystical shouts seeped into my bones and I came alive with the rejuvenated exuberance of an old man awakened from his bed, the pounding of green blood still ran hot in my veins.

Liv was the first into the aisle, followed by Claire and Emery. I was swept up in the magic, caught in a banshee hoot, when I suddenly found myself surrounded by them.

"You _do_ have school spirit," Liv said. I looked and found her with a smile.

"You caught me."

"Don't be embarrassed. I like it."

"He's an Irish through and through," Emery said with big-goggled eyes behind the thickest pair of frames in the stadium.

"We need you in the stands," Liv said. "We lost against Purdue."

"But we walloped Pittsburgh," Emery said. "I bet we don't lose another game all season. Sam, this is Claire."

The brunette cheerleader stood in front of him. She matched Liv in stature.

"Nice to meet you," I said. "Shouldn't you be on the sidelines?"

"Next year. I'm a sophomore."

"Emery likes younger women. He practically stalks them."

Emery reached behind and smacked me upside the head. Liv took to my arm and huddled in.

"I wasn't sure you would come," I said.

"Emery convinced me."

"It wasn't difficult," Emery leaned across the girls to me. "She finds shy boys irresistible."

"Is that true?"

"It must be." She stood on her toes and kissed my cheek.

Within the hysterical shouts, I heard nothing. The game played out close, an exciting back and forth, and yet I remember only a few plays from the field. I was in the stands and there I stayed to play my own game. We huddled together in the cold, a pocket of happy warmth. When she stood to cheer, so did I, and then we would collapse again into the squeeze of sweaters, coats, and smiles.

It turned out they did need me there. Notre Dame won by one point.

Strolling through the campus afterward, flag-carrying greenmen running by us with victorious yells, Liv told me it was my voice in the stands that made all the difference.

"You seem to know a lot about football for such a little girl."

She hugged me tight. "I should. My father once played here."

"No kidding."

"It runs deep. My grandfather played before him."

"Who's your grandfather? Knute Rockne?"

She laughed in a way that showed she recognized the name but not the details behind it. "You wouldn't know them. They sat the bench mostly. Only played on special teams."

"Well that's more than most kids get. Does your father still watch the games from the stands? I bet he can still play."

"He passed away," she said.

"I'm sorry. I got carried away."

"Don't be sorry. It's nobody's fault."

"Well, he probably watches from above. He's probably smiling down at us right now."

"Is that what you think?"

"Don't you?"

"I don't know. When a person is gone, they're gone. It's strange to think they're still around somewhere, listening or watching. But people do become more important when they pass on. Don't you think?"

"I do."

Emery and I took the girls to a small sandwich shop off campus called The Ragged Trouser for a late lunch. The tables were filled to capacity and the line poured out the door and followed down the sidewalk, people fresh from victory, the excitement still breathing in their chests to keep them warm. The open door exhaled the smell of fresh bread. After the games, hungry or not, people followed their noses in flocks.

Two boys stood off the curb, waving their shirts at passing cars like matadors, the bulls honking in shared triumph, the crisp sun glinting off their chrome horns, their windows marked with winning slogans in white shoe polish.

"Let's go somewhere else," Emery said. "There won't be a line."

"My vote is for Blarney's," I said. "Higgins will serve us on the side. We won't have to wait."

Emery looked at the girls. "Do you like stale bread and oversalted ham?"

"The beer is good."

"Anywhere where there's a warm place to sit," Claire said, bouncing in a little red coat.

"Emery will keep you warm. Right Emery?"

"Every time the chaperone looks away."

We walked under the gray sticks of trees, the scattered swirls of leaves crisping at our feet, cutting through a neighborhood to get to Blarney's. People had ND flags on their porches, and banners slung gold and navy over fences, waving in breezy victory as we passed.

The tavern was busy but Higgins had a booth open up against the wall and we filed in with the girls taking the inside spots. The dishes from the previous customers were still on the table. Claire rubbed her hands together and Liv released her short ponytail. Her blonde hair framed her red cheeks.

"I just love your hair," Claire said.

"Oh thanks. I thought I could do waves with it, but it's just too short."

"It's beautiful. The perfect color."

Emery had removed his glasses and was squinting around. Claire flattened her hair with smooth hands, her eyes on Liv's hair. Liv squirmed out of her coat, the mothy smell of a deep closet passed under my nose.

Higgins rushed over, wiping his hands on his white apron. "Beer tap is self-serve for you boys today."

"Looks like dishes are too," Emery said. He began to gather the plates and cups.

"Give me your orders and I'll put them on to burn."

Liv was looking at a menu.

"Just four Flappy Shoes for us, Higgs," I told him.

"Okay." He looked back over his shoulder. "Just mark down your beers. Don't steal nothing."

"I'll have a Coke," Claire said.

"She's underage." Emery had the dishes in his hands and came back with his fingers dipped in the lips of three pints and a Coke.

"Hell, Emery. Fingers clean?"

"I washed yesterday."

People continued to stream through the front doors looking around for a seat. The place carried the loud murmur of conversation. We had another beer while we waited. Higgins rushed over with the sandwiches and slid them across the table.

"Gameday rush, folks," he said. "Heaven sent."

Emery was pinching the top bun of his, peeking under. "Medium rare?"

"Well done all around. Mark down your beers?"

"Sure thing, Higgs," Emery said. He handed Higgins a scribbled on napkin. "Need some help back there?"

"Not from you. Customers like to be able to taste their food."

Emery shrugged and bit into his sandwich while the girls picked the onions and pickles from theirs. We had another beer and the girls had Cokes. My head was loosening up. The lights turned on overhead. It was almost a shock how dark it had become without them.

"So that's what I've been eating," Emery said in the new light, a theatrical surprise on his face. Claire nudged him with her elbow.

"You're funny."

"Wait until you get him on the ice," I said. I felt a kick under the table.

"I have skates," Liv said with big eyes. "We'll have to go. All of us."

Emery gave me a fool's grin across the table, his cheeks bloated with sandwich. When I looked at Liv a sharp twinkle gripped the corner of my eye, reflected light from a glass frame on the wall just behind and above her head, and pulled my face toward it. I looked away.

"So, where are you from?" I asked Claire.

"Detroit. Born and raised."

"How does one get here from there?"

"Take the highway southwest until you see the Golden Dome."

"Isn't that so? Midwesterners are summer bugs congregating to the golden light. I meant what saved you from walking among the apes who call themselves the Michigan Wolverines?"

"Watch yourself," she said with a smile, pointing a butter knife at me. "My father was one of those apes."

I held my hands up. "Just keeping the rivalry alive."

"It's a wonderful rivalry. My mother was a Fighting Irish and my father was a Wolverine. I always sided with my father when I was a girl. He gave me a Michigan sweatshirt that I wore until the sleeves came up to my elbows."

"And here you are," Liv said.

"And here I am. I guess mother won."

"Mothers always win."

"Not mine," Emery said. "Dad won all the arguments in our house."

"Your dad is sweet," Claire told him. "He makes the same faces as you."

"You mean I make the same faces as him. I'll wear his expressions and be him for Halloween."

"And every other day after that for the rest of your life," I said. Emery laughed at the joke. He did have the same laugh as his father.

"What about you, Sam?" Claire asked me. "Why did you come here?"

"I liked the sports here."

"So much that he left poor Liv in the stands," Emery said to the girls. Liv leaned her head against my shoulder the way a puppy does to cheer you up.

"You're quite the athlete yourself," Claire said to me. "At the pep rally."

"Ah, he went easy on me."

Liv brought her head up and looked at me. I must have made a face that showed disinterest or embarrassment because she hid her curiosity and did not ask questions.

"No he didn't," Emery said. "He was looking to take your head off."

"He was going half-speed. And he slipped."

"It must be a rush to be on the field," Liv said.

I wiped my hands in my napkin. "Let's find out."

We finished eating and I ushered Liv out of the booth and positioned myself to keep her attention off Peter's jersey. Emery filled two plastic water cups with Guinness to go and we paid Higgins on our way out. The streets were dark and the leaves crunched under our feet. Small groups of students were out, walking to Saturday night parties, the streetlamps playing yellow on their faces and frozen breath like ghostheads.

"You aren't going to break in, are you?" Liv asked.

"No. Not breaking anything."

"I bet it's fantastic at night."

I tipped up my plastic beer and saw blue and red lights through the bottom. A cruiser pulled up next to us at the curb and a cop leaned across to the window.

"Going to a party?"

"Yessir."

"What's that you're drinking?"

"Apple cider," Emery said.

The cop looked at us for a moment and we stared back like idiots. He stepped out and crossed over to us. The girls stood behind us on the sidewalk with their shivering hands tucked under the most innocent looking faces they could manage. Emery fumbled his cup into the grass.

"You're a clumsy one, ain't ya?"

"Yes sir."

He looked at me. He was young in the streetlight, looking out from under his police cap with his head back. He had pimples on his chin.

"What about you? Cider?"

"No sir."

"Well, it's not smart to have an open container of alcohol on the walks here."

"No sir, I never was one for smarts." I shook my head at my own words.

The cop looked us over. "Got an ID?"

"Yes sir." I stepped forward and set my cup on his cruiser hood.

"Damnit, get that cup off my hood."

"Yes sir."

"Unless you want a free ride in the back."

"No sir. I'll pass on the offer."

I shook my head again and groped singlehandedly in my wallet for my ID while the cop seemed to grow in stature with each second.

"Now see here, officer," Liv stepped forward. "I'm freezing my tail off out here while you're wasting time."

The cop and I both stood motionless, looking at her. She stepped in front of me, catching the young cop off guard.

"Just a minute, ma'am -"

"It's only getting colder out here and you're scraping the streets for drunkards," Liv said, keeping her voice level and reasoning. "Well, take a good look at him. Does he seem drunk to you?"

He stammered. "Well, no ma'am but -"

"And take a look at any of us. Do we fit the bill?"

"I don't think so ma'am, I just -"

"Having a few drinks is not a crime. Is it, officer?"

"Technically, ma'am, you shouldn't have -"

"Why are you calling me ma'am? Do I look old to you?"

"Not at all, ma'am. Not at all, miss."

She was smiling now. "You're doing a wonderful job, officer. How boring your job would be if everyone followed the details. But there's no harm in taking a little drink of Apple Cider now and again is there?"

The officer cleared his throat. Somehow, an ashamed look came over his face.

"We're on our way home," Liv said. "Was there anything more you needed from us?"

He stood there and tried several times to say something before anything came out. He pointed to the cup in my hand.

"I'm sorry, miss. It's my job to..."

Then Liv turned abruptly with her elbow cocked outward, catching my wrist purposely, which made me fumble the beer all over my shoes. The cop looked down at it for a moment and then raised his head back again.

"Well." He tipped his hat up from his eyebrows.

"Yes sir?" I said, waiting for him to take me away in a burlap sack.

"You folks have a nice night."

He stepped off the curb and slowly climbed into his cruiser and drove away.

"That's one way out of a ticket," I said. "It's a little daring to get wordy with police, isn't it?"

Liv still had a sure smile on her lips. "Their job is to serve and protect. How dull our world would be if there were laws against where you can have a beer."

"But, there are," I said.

She winked at me. "Well who's going to follow them? Follow the rules just enough to stay out of jail and not hurt anyone. _That's_ an interesting world."

I looked over my shoulder. "Apple cider, Emery?"

"It seemed smart at the time. I was thinking on my feet."

We walked across the dark shaded grass, the gray sky above spread a globe of pale light. Notre Dame Stadium stood black upon the grass like some kind of ancient coliseum unearthed, the stadium lights reflecting glassy winks overhead.

"Wait," Liv said. She was hiding a mischievous smile. "There are guards."

"Guarding what?" I said. "Besides, you can talk our way out of it. You could probably get them to give us a tour."

Emery held his hands fingerlocked at his knees and I stepped up, grabbing the top of the chain link fence and wrestling my way over the top.

"You're about as quiet as the marching band."

I dropped over the other side and my footfalls echoed against the back of the stands. I ran to the ticket entrance and opened the door from the inside. Emery and Claire ducked in and ran ahead, disappearing into the darkness under the stands, flashing along the side through the corrugation of nightlight and shadow, their laughs following behind them.

Liv was huddling herself in her own arms, looking about, and I took her hand and ran through the first tunnel in the stands, the field appearing gray and silent below us, the empty circle of stands still alive with soundless cheers.

We ran down the aisle of stairs to the field, our footsteps slapping in the silence, the sweet smell of cold grass growing stronger. I jumped over the field rail and the grass muffled my landing far below. Liv leaned over, a figure against the silver matte seating, a great navy circle encasing the mighty ND in golden paint behind her.

"You want me to jump like an army invasion?"

"Don't think about it," I said. "I'll catch you."

"What if you drop me?"

"I won't."

She walked along behind the rail toward a concrete staircase. She stood there and looked at it, pondering it as if it was an equation. Then she put her legs over the rail with a smile and jumped, her skirts flying high. I caught her in a cradle, a small child boiling with crazy notions, an excited gasp still catching up, falling into her lungs from the rails.

Hand in hand we ran over the short grass to the fifty-yard line, the night warmed by adrenaline, the white yard markers floating under our feet. I held my arms wide and fell backward on the Fighting Irish mascot at centerfield.

"I've never seen the stadium like this," Liv said. "It's magnificent."

"Just think of all the games played here. All the power and glory on this grass. Knute Rockne. The Four Horsemen."

I thought of Peter. The way he used to charge from the tunnel to the fifty at full speed, screaming his head off and waving his arms. The way he would slap their shoulderpads to pump them up before the games. He was a born leader.

Liv circled on her feet to view the stadium, her eyes were wet with wonder. She lowered herself to sit and placed her head near mine, her hair spilling under her head, our feet pointing off to the separate goalposts. We made grass-angels and watched the fingers of clouds cross over the moon.

"So this is how they feel. It feels like a dream."

"This times a thousand," I said. "Imagine not an empty seat in the house, and every one of them cheering just for you."

We swept the stadium with our eyes, traveling over every seat, soaring from above with winged arms, taking it all in for a breathless moment, then collapsed into ourselves where we lay.

"Sam?"

"Yes?"

"Why did you leave the first game?"

I propped my head up with my outside hand, not wanting to tell her that seeing the players on the field and hearing the shouts of the crowd for the first time again had brought about memories that stirred roughly inside me.

"I don't know. I felt sick."

"Was it the stadium hotdogs?"

I laughed. "No."

"What then? One minute you were beside me and the next you were gone."

"I just felt sick suddenly. I didn't want you to feel like you had to miss the game for me, so I left."

She turned her head and looked at me, our eyes on opposite ends of our faces. Under the moonlight the wetness in her overwhelmed eyes still glistened and her perfume passed me over.

"You are a shy boy."

"Maybe."

"You have secrets."

"They're not secrets."

"Then tell me."

I looked at the sky. "Maybe I will."

She folded her hands over herself and crossed her ankles. "Will your parents like me?"

"I don't know. They died in a car accident and I don't remember them."

She whispered a gasp and when I looked she had her eyes closed.

"Don't worry. I said I don't remember them. I don't remember it happening."

"How horrible."

"My aunt raised us."

"Us?"

"My brother."

She propped up on her elbow. "You do have secrets. I didn't know you had a brother."

"You never asked. Do you have a sister?"

"Yes."

I nodded to her and gave her a wink. "Your secret's safe with me."

"Don't joke. She's ten. How old is your brother?"

"Oh, he's twenty-two."

"An older brother. So close in age. Did he go to school here?"

"Yes."

"What's he like?"

"He's like me, but better at everything that I'm good at. I always looked up to him."

She began to pick at the grass in thought. "Will he like me?"

"Almost definitely."

"What else are you hiding? You didn't tell me about the pep rally."

"Tell you what?"

"Claire said you were an athlete at the pep rally."

"Yeah. Just games." I shrugged my shoulder.

When she had a handful of grass blades she held her fist over my face and let them fall as singles. "You do have secrets. But you're exciting."

I blew the grass from over my mouth. My eyes were closed, shut by green bars. She leaned over me and kissed me gently on the cheek, and I blinked her into view. The clouds were gone behind her, making her head look like a cut-out against the starlight, her hair hanging just over my face. I went halfway and she met me there with gentle lips.
Chapter Ten

Thin, crystal veins crept onto sidewalks from frosted grass edges, and the lawns of dormant gray toothpicks were broken with footsteps.

The fatboy rides his miniature bicycle across the soundless school grounds, his eyes are slits in his round red face, and his freckles stand out as if freshly pocked upon his skin. He draws a thin double line of hissing black in the ice behind him, his tires are intentionally short of full inflation. He sits upright with his arms outstretched, tiny wheels to roll his large body, a scarf to hide his double chin and to filter the half-spoken joy that he carols to himself.

He twists his handlebars but the bicycle does not turn. It slides across the concrete with its wheel sidelong. The fatboy upends and rolls gently several times in the grass, making a giant rounded marshmallow track as long as a car, and the bicycle speeds away from him as if thrown, finding a place to sprawl among the empty bicycle racks. He sits up against the white, his hands palm-down on the grass, and shakes the cobwebs from his head.

The school hallways were wind tunnels where framed photos of priests and professors of old watched with glacial lifelike eyes from the walls, as if they themselves stood behind the walls, and banners and trophies filled the glass cases that whistled with cold.

Radiator heaters and student's bodies alike heated the classrooms, but when the doors opened, the air would vacuum away and slam the doors shut. There were many times when stamping feet would interrupt professor's lectures, or the professor himself would set down the chalk and whip his hands back and forth while the students collectively trumpeted heat into their hands. By the end of lectures the rooms would finally reach a comfortable temperature, only to empty instantly like a balloon through the puncture of a door.

Between classes I would sit in a commons area at tables against the windows and read. The season for walking the icy trusses of housetops had passed, and I had attended every class session with the intent to surpass my professors in knowledge.

An older gentleman, a tenured professor, dressed in a wool vest and bowtie, his white hair fingercombed to one side, passed me as I sat. He was hard of hearing, his eardrums bludgeoned repeatedly by the sound of the cannon fire he operated in World War I, and he would lean into your bubble of comfort with his ear leading the way when you spoke.

I watched him as he came near, a smile breaking out across his face and he lifted a hand to his shoulder to wave in an Indian caricature sort of way, his brisk walk never losing pace.

"Hi Peter, how are you doing?"

"I'm Sam, sir."

He nodded as he walked away. "I'm good too."

I read ahead in my studies as far as I could, speed-reading chapters to increase my retention of the information when the time came to read them fully. I also sat in the library and read literary works by authors like Charles Dickens, Rudyard Kipling, Alexandre Dumas, Theodore Dreiser, and John Galsworthy. Many of these I did not finish. I considered myself a decently read person, and yet I could not bring myself to close the final page of works considered to be of the finest in world literature.

Part of being a soldier included endless hours of watch and long hours stretched out on a cot with nothing to do. When you weren't carrying your rifle above your head in drills you were pulling the trigger. When neither were necessary, you read. Without a hammer to swing I found myself with a new book to read almost every other day.

At the risk of coming on too strong, I took Liv to lunch twice the following week and twice after. I always walked away from her with a buzz in my ears and an unstoppable smile. There were times when I would forget to eat. I would spend the lunch hour watching the snowflakes melt against the library window, looking twice at each passing girl making tracks in the snow to see if it was Liv, and I would fight off the urge to run across campus and see if she was up for a bite to eat.

I would stop by the practice field to say hello to Elle often, catching her once on a Monday as the players struggled for footing on the icy grass. I also sat next to her in church out of a sense of duty. I went only for Peter and for her. I did not want her to be alone. But I did not go to church for me, and I went through the motions of worship with little conviction in my heart. I wanted to feel my spirit move again but I did not trust myself to give false witness before a God I was not yet fully reacquainted with. I knew He was there, but I did not ask much from Him.

I went to church without fail and did my best to keep my legs from bouncing restlessly up and down in the pew, and I gave a devout smile each time I shook hands with Father Donnelly at the door.

Elle always had the warmest hands at mass, and once as a favor, after the Our Father, she did not release her hold on me until my cold hands pulsed with life once again. It was also this, the familiarity of her hands, that led me through the steeple doors on Sundays.

I asked her once if she had a sister. She had the most caring way about her, as if she had bypassed childhood play to take care of a younger sister. Peter always seemed to be much more mature than I was whenever I reached the age milestones that I remember him at, and I attributed that to having to watch over me at a young age.

"A sister?" she said. "Are you looking for a girlfriend?"

"Oh, no. I was just curious, I guess. Seems like you would have one."

"Isn't that the way it always goes, though? Guys asking their friends if their girls have a little sister just like them?"

"That sounds about right."

"You must have your hands full with girls these days."

"Not really."

"Classy dames. Is that what you call them?"

I laughed. "Just girls."

She buttoned her coat a little higher at the top and crossed her arms for warmth. "No, I don't have a sister."

"I just thought, what luck a little sister would have had to have you watching over her."

"That's sweet, Sam." She poked a finger to my elbow. "What luck in your case too."

"To have Peter? I know."

She looked at me. "No, I mean what luck for Peter to have such a sweet little brother to watch over."

I was feeling especially giving and complimentary, and with the exchange of compliments, I felt that I had crossed into another level of friendship with Elle. The level where sweet flattery can be given and taken.

"Well, what luck for Peter to have the most beautiful girl in Indiana to wait for him."

I was in between the library bookcases one night, staring at the floor in mindless wonder when a small dark flash of light went past my aisle and caught my attention. It came back on backward feet and smiled at me, a pen above his ear.

"I might have known you prowl these aisles at night," Myles said.

"No. Just tonight. I was looking for something to read."

He came close and looked at the shelf with his hand on his chin. He was never without his camera. "Let's see. What are the choices we have?"

His hand shot out and he plucked a book, top first by its spine with a flick of his pointing finger. He walked away with it in his hands, not showing what he chose. He spoke over his shoulder.

"Come along."

I sat across from him at a table in the darkest, quietest corner of the library. He was already cross-legged with the book in his hands. There were many students in the room with us but they were spread out and occupied lighter, more inviting tables.

"Are you ready for this?" he asked.

"I suppose so."

"Good, because this will change your life."

He shoved a book across the table at me with a slight giggle, looking at me as if he was handing over a safe-kept secret that only he knew about. I opened the hardcover and read it as E.M. Forster's _A Room With a View._

"If you can't connect with that in some way then you aren't human at all."

"I've read this one," I spoke into the hardcover, the smell of an old book.

"You're joking." He slapped the table. "I'm not at all surprised. Give it here then. What did you think of it?"

"I didn't finish it."

His mouth fell open and he nearly laughed his reply. "Come on now. Why not?"

"I don't know. I guess it just didn't interest me after a hundred pages."

"You should be burned and thrown in the lake. No, that would be a contradiction. You should be set afire and placed in the wind. People who aren't interested in the types of books that you read are searching for something."

He reached over and pulled the book close to him. Then he sat small in his chair and looked at me.

"Remember, I'm just like you. I know about searching. Tell me, Sam. What are you searching for?"

I shrugged and leaned back in the shadow, sticking my hands under my arms. "I don't think I'm searching for anything."

He looked at me for a moment before speaking, his eyes carrying over my face.

"You're not lost anymore," he diagnosed me. "When I first saw you I thought you were a day away from making some terrible choices in your life."

"Like what?"

"Like giving up school. Giving up trying. Giving up the effort and thought and just becoming another brainless lump that you see so much of in the world. It scares me to death to imagine I might turn out that way. You've changed. I'm glad to see it."

"What does change look like?"

He leaned in closer and pointed at me the way a child points out the ducks in a pond to his mother.

"Like that. There it is." He pulled his camera up, twisting the lens to focus on me, but I did not hear the shutter click. He dropped it to bounce at his chest. "You've changed and yet you're still searching, still confused. Now what would confuse our young Sam? You must have met a girl, have you not?"

"Sure." I was grinning.

He almost fell off his chair at having guessed correctly, but he rearranged himself, sitting upright and tense. "What is she like?"

"She smells nice."

"And? And you've told her everything about yourself?"

"Good Lord, no."

"Why?"

"Because she would run the other way."

"Gah! You boys don't know a thing about girls. They _want_ to know all those things. You boys walk around like neanderthals, bashing each other over the heads with clubs to get a girl's attention and then you don't know what do to with it when it throws itself at you."

"Girls want to hear nice things. Heroic things."

"Shows what you know. They want to see the bleeding hearts of men. You carry around this load, looking to pour it on something, but when a girl shows up to take it from you, you hide it away."

"I would think that you know the least of all of us when it comes to girls."

"You _would_ think that." He smiled and leaned backward with his hands behind his head. "The truth is, I know more about girls than any boy on campus, and I have more girlfriends than any of you boys put together and they tell me everything about you."

He dropped the front legs of his chairs and leaned across the table at me. He touched his nose. "Deep, dark secrets that nobody else knows."

"Why would they tell you anything?"

"Because they don't think I'm a threat to their wedding night." He winked.

I leaned forward and whispered for effect. "You're not, are you?"

"What do you think?"

"I think not."

"You'd be wrong." He moved sideways in his chair, crossed his legs again, and put his arm over the back. "I've done more damage on both sides than you could do in a lifetime."

I looked at him and he must have seen both surprised amusement and disbelief.

"I'm not going to walk through life with one eye in a blindfold," he said.

"Great God," I said. "Which eye is in the blindfold?"

He waved it away as if it was a gnat passing too close in front of him.

"Come on, then," he said. "What's her name?"

I did not tell him Liv's name. I simply sat there with a grin.

"Well, if you won't tell me her name, then tell me how you feel about her."

"I feel fine about her."

"Poor girl. She doesn't know a thing about you. If she has half a brain she _would_ run the other way. You're hopeless and she's a dupe. I've seen all this before."

"A dupe?"

"Yes, a dupe. The type of girl who throws herself hopelessly at the first boy to give her some attention. But it's all in vain."

I tried to keep my smile from not widening too far. I stayed silent.

"You devil." His eyes went from narrow to big, first to match his accusation and then his offer of guidance. "Do you want my advice about relationships?"

I laughed. "I'm afraid to ask."

He looked me straight in the face, taking a moment to flatten out his expression. "Honesty."

"That seems like something you don't adhere to."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean you're not exactly honest with girls and your intentions. Using this... _disguise_ to get close to them." I waved a hand at him.

Myles faked a frown. "I said that was my advice on _relationships_ not girls."

"How many relationships have you had?"

"None that lasted through the week." He smiled.

"Then why do you give out advice for them?"

"Because it's the truth. If you don't have honesty then there's nothing else that matters. Don't tell a lie up front or your entire relationship after that is based on it and you have to bend over backward keeping that lie alive."

I sat back and watched him.

"But sooner or later the lie is uncovered and then your entire relationship is questioned. And I'm not talking about the big things like changing your religion for a day just so you can get close to someone. I'm talking about the little things like where you were born, or where you went to school, or what type of music you enjoy."

"Why would someone lie about that?"

He cocked his head. "To impress the other. People do it all the time. Then it comes out that you weren't born in the city, you were born on a farm, and then you have some explaining to do and some honesty to repair. Tiny lies turn into huge chasms of death. Death to the relationship. There's only one thing you should lie about."

"What's that?"

"The number of people you've been with."

I leaned forward. "Only a lothario like you would worry about that."

"I'm just telling you. Protect that. Hold it close to you and deny everything. Only hurt comes from that number."

"That sounds like terrible advice. People see more than one person in their lifetime. It's the way of the world."

"Yes, but nobody likes to hear about it. Especially a Catholic. Everything is sacred. Anything further than a kiss is promiscuous."

"I'm not a very good Catholic anyway."

He exhaled a dramatic sigh. "You can lead a horse to water..."

I laughed and held out my hand. "Give me the book. I'll finish it."

Myles handed it to me. "Sam?"

"What?" I put the book under my arm and looked at him.

"Tell me how it ends."
Chapter Eleven

I sat by St Joseph's lake and let the final rays of a peeking winter sun warm my sweatered back as the chill of evening swept in. They walked about me, the legions of students, still confident in themselves, their books at their hips. As evening fell, the legions donned coats. Each rung of the bell seemed to shake the water from the edge of lake ice, shake the cells of student blood, and remind everyone that they marched upon esteemed shadows.

It was a reawakening each time to lift your eyes from book pages fading with the sunset, see the Golden Dome and hear the chimes of Notre Dame. Even the passing students whose trails would be forgotten in just a few short years were a gift to the mind's eye of the reputation one must uphold with their name on the registrar.

So when Emery asked me once to set those standards aside for a night, my judgment must have been impaired by the simplicity of his plan and its noteworthy goal.

"There you are," Emery said. He sat next to me. His backpack bulged at his back like it was overinflated with a tire pump, the zipper teeth were wide apart and large strips of duct tape were strapped over the top to hold it together. "Come on."

"Where are we going?"

"A secret mission."

I took the last bite from an apple and pitched the core in a metal wastebasket ten yards away. Emery watched the core bounce from the rim to the basket.

"Sam snags a point." He pushed up at the bridge of his glasses and I noticed they were taped at the edges.

"What happened to your glasses?"

He took them off and looked at them. "Pat Carragher's big ass happened to them. He sat on them in drama class."

I imagined Emery squinting his way through the scene of a play and finding his glasses crushed beneath the big boy when he returned to his seat. I closed my book and shouldered my backpack. "What's the mission?"

"Details will unfold as needed."

"What's the objective?"

"To acquire the swoon of a female."

I looked at him. "Count me in."

We sat under a tree behind the St Mary's College dormitory like criminals waiting for the lights to go out. As night set in I wished I had brought my coat, and I stamped my feet for warmth. When the shadow of the dorm cast us in nearly pitch darkness, Emery pulled the duct tape from his backpack and a large, colorful flag or banner burst out of it in a gasp for freedom.

"Details," I said.

"Yes. You know I've been seeing Claire now for a few weeks."

I stood over him and nodded in darkness. He was kneeling over his backpack, pulling what seemed to be handfuls of a parachute from it. I felt him look up.

"You know?"

"Yes," I said.

He went back to work, down on bended knee if you will, ready to prove to Claire to what extent he would take things. "Well, St Mary's College being a girl's school and all, and boys not being allowed to prowl around on campus, Claire says I would not have the guts to step foot inside the dorm."

"So? We're here now. I stand outside the doors all the time. That's a respectable thing, right? That's how you met her, isn't it?"

"No," he said. "I was stalking her outside her classroom, remember?"

"Ah."

"Anyway, she said it in play but I'm taking it to heart."

"Good. Good decisions are made when under the influence of women."

"Don't joke. It's just for fun anyway. No harm."

"What's just for fun?"

"This." He stood and held the edges of a massive flag. I could see him smiling in the moonlight.

"Where did you get that?"

"From the stadium," he whispered it. "Behind the bleachers. They hang them all around. It must be a hundred feet long."

"You stole a flag?"

"Not just one."

He dropped the flag and walked to the bushes against the dorm. One by one he dragged out twelve hidden boxes filled with identical flags.

"What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing." He shrugged. "Just goofing around."

"Nobody saw you?"

"Almost. I had to hide in the stadium dumpster for a half hour while someone was looking around with a flashlight. Took me the entire night to get them all. I hid them here last night."

"What are you going to do with them? Break in and unroll them in the hallways?"

I could see him thinking. "That's too easy. I'm not breaking into anything. We're not felons. Just good college games. I'm going to drape the entire west wall with them. Encase the entire dorm in the great ND."

"You're a moron."

"It should get her attention."

"And cause her to swoon dramatically into your arms? Aren't there easier ways to get a girl's attention?"

"Probably. But none so dramatic. C'mon, grab one and let's go. You're not getting cold feet, are you?"

"They weren't hot to begin with."

Emery crisscrossed a hundred feet of flag around his upper body, over his shoulders and around his chest, looking like some sort of colorfully puffed up parade commando. I did the same. We used an access ladder on the sidewall to reach the roof, stealth movements in the darkness, Emery using a ridiculous crouched run across the dark lawn from the tree to the ladder, coming up to the roof with a new flag each time, his head popping out of the colorful mess.

At one point, two girls stepped out and stood outside the doors with cigarettes in their hands, chatting like birds. Emery froze in plain view, stopped immediately in stride on the lawn. He was paralyzed in his decision to hide either behind the tree or behind the side of the dorm wall. His lack of movement drew no attention, and in the darkness he was dismissed as a discolored patch of grass in the corner of their eyes. If they had taken a closer look they would have seen the night's reflection in two curious mirrors of eyeglasses.

We tied the flag ends to steel rails on the rooftop, spreading the flag across as far as it would go before dropping the length of it over the side where it hung just a few feet off the grass at the bottom.

When the first light of morning shimmered on campus, the girls of St Mary's awakened and yawned in confusion at the sun-kissed flags curtained over their windows. The dormitory stood bright in the cold morning shadows, the fly-by-night circus tent flapping over respected ground. Professors scoffed as they walked to their classes, and we stood outside with dark circles under our eyes, an ever-gathering crowd of cheering Fighting Irish behind us. The Le Mans dormitory of St Mary's College belonged to the boys of Notre Dame, conquered in the night.
Chapter Twelve

After classes, Emery announced to me that tonight was the hour he had been dreading since meeting Claire, and that Liv would be there to witness it, so I had better be there to help ease the burden of sure failure.

Before we went to the lake we went to the barbershop across from Blarney's for a shave and haircut. If we were going to look silly on the ice, Emery said, we could at least look sharp while doing it.

The barber's name was long buried under his professional moniker of Red Chips. He looked the part, a red wave of hair swirled on his head like hard butter, and he constantly spilled knowledge on us, knowledge gained from years of tipping back talkative old men in his barber's chair.

"What'll it be today, boys? A little off the top it looks like."

"Top and sides," I said. "And a close shave for both of us."

"Some lucky ladies out there tonight, huh? Lucky in that they get to feel the honest smoothness that ol' Red's blades can make. Unlucky in that it's wasted on your mugs."

He ended his sentences with a three-ha laugh each time, a habit of hearing himself speak rough barbershop talk too much.

His shop was clean and well-lighted. A row of bolted chairs lined up along a long mirror and a fresh scent wafted about the room. An old man sat at the far end reading a newspaper, laughing aloud at the funnies, and a radio was midway through the year's top forty hits.

I went from looking at myself in the mirror to staring up at the overhead lights as Red hit the lever, spun me around in the chair, and began to lather my cheeks and neck with a mint cream. His brush went right over my lips and I couldn't speak for a moment.

"Hey Red," Emery spoke from the next chair over.

"Hey what? You're next, don't worry. I'll spread out my time evenly so you feel special too."

"I was going to pay you a professional compliment."

"Go ahead, boyo. I always have time for those." He worked quickly and was already gliding the razor over my neck.

"You've fixed a lot of us boys up for dates over the years."

"Yeah, one or two of you boys over the years."

"So we're in good hands here is all I was going to say. We can rest assured that your work will get us to the next level." Emery put his hands behind his head.

"I can make you pretty, if that's what you mean. What do you want to get to the next level for anyway? You wouldn't know what to do if you had the chance. Good Catholic boys should be happy with a kiss."

"A kiss is all I meant," Emery said with bright eyes.

Red reached a foot out and kicked Emery's lever, spilling him horizontal in a second.

"You boyo's and your dreams. Always thinking that the girl you have is the one. At your age, you should be going down the roster. A new one each week."

"At our age? We're seniors. We'll be out of here in a year."

Red put a damp cloth over my face and went to work on Emery. "How many classes you got left?"

Emery mumbled through the barber brush. "Well, another year after this one. I fiddled around too much at the start."

I pulled the cloth off and stretched my lips, feeling the smoothness tingle all the way to my ears.

"And you?" Red pointed at me with the razor.

"I have another year after this."

"What do you mess around for? Get in and get out."

"Sam went away to war," Emery said.

Red looked up at me. "No fooling?"

I nodded my head. He came over to me and shook my hand, giving me a good hard look. "Thank you, son. Your shave is on the house."

"Thanks, but there's no need."

"You'll take it, 'cause I said so." He said it as a fact and walked back to hover over Emery. "But little nancy here with his fiddling around will pay double for his shave." He laughed his three-has. "I finished college in three years. You should be ashamed."

"An hey you ahh," Emery said.

"What's that?" Red held his hands still and leaned in.

Emery smacked the lather from his lips and tried again. "And here you are."

"Ain't wise to smart the man with the razor at your neck. Unless you want the jugular special. Yes, here I am. My own place, cutting the monkeyface off of smart boys who think they got it all figured out." He winked at me.

Emery mumbled something.

"There was this one kid," Red said. "A few years back. He'd come in to get spit-shined for a date with a new girl each week. Like clockwork. Every Friday he'd stand by the soda machine in a tie and wait his turn to be chopped and slicked by yours truly. Nice kid, too. Very respectful to his elders." He spoke those last words especially clear and slow to Emery.

"A real ladies gentleman, he was. Not like some of the kids out there with one thing on their mind. Used to buy a rose and set it right there on the counter while I made the gorgeous in him come out."

"A rose, Sam," Emery said. "We should get us some. I didn't think of that."

"Would you shut up," Red said. "Won't be doing much kissing at all if you get your lips cut off. This kid, he used to wine and dine the girls as best he could on a student's budget and write the most Godawful poetry for the ones he liked. Spent all his money on roses and haircuts."

"Roses, Sam. Is there a rose garden near here?"

Red paused and looked at him. He could not help but to laugh. "Not from someone's rose garden, you dimwit. He paid for them like a gentleman. Top notch roses with a long stem and big, blooming petals." He looked at me and shook his head, smiling. "Rose garden in the dead of winter? Great God, this boy. Where'd you find him?"

I put my hands up.

"Anyway, he must have seen them all. From freshmen to senior, he left no stone unturned. Good looking boy, too. Must have had all the girls in a sweat. I used to tell him the girls were taking a number and waiting their turns. 'Give me the Red Dandy', he would tell me. Because of my name, you see?"

I nodded.

"He would sit here in the chair and tell me their names. I think I heard a name repeated only a handful of times."

"And each one was the one?" I asked.

Red wiped his hands on his apron and put a cold cloth over Emery's face. "Nope."

I sat up with my elbow on the armrest. "He spent all that money and time and didn't find the one?"

"No sir."

"What was wrong?" Emery asked. "He didn't – he didn't like women after all? I mean, he found out he liked...you know, the other way?"

Red looked at him. "You have got a pea brain in there, don't you?"

"Well what, then? You said he'd seen them all. I haven't seen them all but I know the one when I see the one."

"And you think you found the one, do you?"

Emery shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe. We'll see."

"Boyo, when I say 'the one', what I mean is someone who makes you better. I'm not talking about the one that makes you feel warm all over and looks pretty and that's it. I'm talking about all that _and_ she makes you a better man."

"You mean she drags you to church on Sunday," I said. "That's what Emery's dad says about girls too."

"No," Red said. "That's not what I mean. There are plenty of good girls out there that will drag you to church, but that won't necessarily make you better. You just got to find the one." He waved his scissors in the air. "You'll know it when you see it."

"I'm confused," Emery said, laying back down and covering his face with the cloth.

"The one he was looking for wasn't going to be found in any woman from here to France," Red said. "Not even if he went looking until he was a nine hundred year old man."

"So what'd he do?" Emery said through the cloth.

"You go to church on Sunday?"

"Sure."

"Well, when you do go, you'll see him up there on the altar."

"Father Donnelly?" I said.

"Yep."

When we arrived at the lake, long stem roses bending in our arms, the stadium workers were still taking down the flags from the dorm walls.

Emery checked his watch. "Why are girls always late?"

"They do it to build our anticipation. Nothing is more exciting to them than to watch our reactions after we've waited for an hour."

"An hour? I'll be frozen stiff by then. They'll have to chip us out of ice."

"Isn't that part of the fun for them?"

"What? Thawing us out for conversation?"

"Exactly. Chip away at us until they find what we're about."

He looked at me. "You've been reading too many books."

"Maybe." I tilted my head back and blew a stream of fog above my head.

"My ears are about to fall off. Red didn't leave enough hair to keep the warmth in."

Claire and Liv came around the corner, dressed in peacoats that touched their knees, swaddled in hats and scarves, impeccably cheerful as if they had been conjured from a winter postcard. They saw us waiting and began a dainty run toward us, their ice skates in their hands. We stood with our roses behind our backs and watched every step of their approach, our excitement melting away the long wait just as they had planned.

Liv leapt into my arms and kissed me.

"You smell wonderful," she said.

"It's the barbershop." The rose magically appeared.

"Oh, Sam. It's beautiful."

Emery had already revealed his rose to Claire and he looked at me with his eyebrows dancing up and down.

"Where on earth did you get this?" Liv asked. "There's not a rose garden in bloom."

"Trade secrets," I said. "I can't tell you."

"Impressive."

"You haven't seen me glide across the ice yet."

She looked at my feet. "You haven't any skates."

"That's why it'll be so inspiring."

Emery and I followed the girls around the lake. They slid effortlessly over the ice on blades while we flailed off balance in our shoes. After I found the groove in a low center of gravity, I put my hands behind my back and pressed forward on rubber soles like a speed skater. Emery spent most of his time bear-walking on all fours or twirling on an upended turtleback. Eventually, he took to running up to the lake at full speed and sliding across on his knees.

Liv took my hands in hers and skated backward in front of me.

"You _are_ an athlete."

"Just enough to make you think so," I said. "You've done this before."

"Since I was a little girl. My father bought me a pair of skates and we had a pond in our backyard. We used to spend hours skating around until dark, and then dad would build a big fire and read aloud to me from storybooks."

"As far as I'm concerned you're an expert."

"I tried volleyball in high school. I was devastated when I learned skating wasn't a school sport. What did you play?"

"Football and wrestling."

"I could have guessed. Were you any good?"

"I was okay."

She pried at me with a smirk. "It's hard to believe you weren't an all-state player. Did you letter in football?"

"Letter? That's hardly a gauge for skill. They hand out letters to anyone who plays."

"And what did your brother play?"

"Football and baseball."

"Not wrestling?"

"He was too tall for it. So was I, but I wanted to try it anyway. Disastrous results. I was the worst on the team. I couldn't get under the squat of the other wrestlers."

"But you're so strong."

"Wrestling is all about leverage. If you can get leverage, you can beat anybody."

"Why didn't you try baseball like your brother?"

"I don't know."

"It doesn't interest you?"

"Baseball is a great game. I love it. I was good at it growing up, but I wanted to try something else. My brother was always better than me at everything."

"You're living in his shadow."

"Still," I said.

"When will I meet him?"

"Maybe sometime later."

I don't know why I didn't tell her. My nearest guess was because I didn't want her to feel sorry for me. I was afraid that type of sympathy might change the way she approached me. I heard Myles's words about small lies ringing in my ear, but I packed them away in a small box and shoved them into the corner of my head. I might deal with that when the time came.

"You're a mystery to me," she said. "I always follow my instinct about people. I have a way of understanding them completely by first impressions."

"That's quite a claim."

"Well, it's true, and I always go with my gut. It never fails me."

"And what was mine?"

"I'm still trying to figure you out. But you had a good first impression. You were sweet."

"Not always. Not with everybody."

"You try to cover yourself up by playing jokes. Some people may not understand that. But I do."

She sashayed naturally in front of me, not even looking over her shoulder to find the way. The white background of winter scrolled behind her like a motion picture reel, her cheeks flushed with health and vibrancy and she looked warmer than anything I've ever encountered. I felt then an odd jealousy of anyone who had loved her before.

"Hey, Sam," Emery said. He came shuffling over and Claire came up behind him. "Do you know anything about 'The Great Irish Caper'?"

"The what?"

"That's what they're calling it around campus."

"The flags over the dorm," Claire said. "You boys are campus celebrities with your stunt."

"I don't know what you're talking about," I said, scratching my head in innocence.

"Oh, give me a break," Claire said, smiling. "Your acting skills need some work. The girls have been laughing about it all day. It took all my willpower to keep my mouth shut."

"You boys," Liv said. "If you put half your energy into studies you might graduate cum laude."

"Was it a success?" I asked.

"Definitely," Emery said. He stiffened in a proud pose fit for a portrait painter by straightening his back and puffing out his chest, holding an arm around Claire. I shoved his chest and he flailed for a moment before gathering his balance.

"It caught my attention," Claire said. She held Emery's arm and put her smiling face to his. "I was only joking with you."

"Of course. But it sounded like a challenge to me."

"Lesson learned. I will think twice about what I say in the future." She kissed his cheek.

I looked at Emery. "Mission accomplished."
Chapter Thirteen

On the dry blustery cold Saturday before Thanksgiving, the stadium shook the earth on that side of campus. If the ground had not been frozen it might have broken apart under the roar. The Fighting Irish put thirty-four points on the scoreboard to the ranked University of Iowa, and the Hawkeyes left the stadium with heads held low, scoring only eighteen points of their own.

The students were in a dizzy state to begin with, the excitement of a holiday break around the corner stirring just under the surface of smiling faces, and the win served to ignite the excitement to eruption.

High spirits were determined to stay well beyond the football game's final gun, springing the student crowd out the stadium doors with light feet. The winter sun gave the short hope of tolerable warmth outdoors, gathering competitions of horseshoe and Frisbee on the lawns, and later setting the light just right for a planned holiday dance inside the student commons.

"I have to get ready," Liv said. "I have a nice dress I want to wear."

"You'll upstage me."

"You don't have a tie to wear?"

"No."

"You look just fine. Give me an hour and I'll be right down."

I left her at the doors of the Le Mans dormitory and wandered back to the stadium in the remaining light, crossing through a pickup game of touch football between two Notre Dame student dorms. When I heard the quarterback, a short kid with a rocket arm, give the signal I ran along the edge of the grass with my arm raised, a sudden addition to the game, and caught a touchdown pass on my way to the stadium.

Elle was outside the locker rooms gathering interview answers from the real players, her feet together the way girls stand in the cold, and a white knit hat on her head.

"Did they walk straight over to you?" I asked.

She twisted around with the notebook in her hand, adding a final word to her paper.

"Sam. So good to see you. No, they're all tired. I was hardly able to get a good word to quote."

"Are you hungry?"

"Famished."

"C'mon. Let's get a sandwich."

"I have to get this typed up and sent in to the paper tonight."

"Just a quick bite. I have nothing to do. It won't take more than a few minutes."

She hesitated for only a moment. "Okay."

She took my arm and we walked in the direction of Blarney's.

"They're setting up a dance in the commons tonight," I said. "Are you going?"

"I couldn't. I have to get this article sent in."

"Ah, the working strains of professional life."

"I wouldn't go to a dance anyway. I haven't been to one in ages."

"In ages?" I looked at her. "This is what college is all about. You'll regret missing it."

She spoke quietly. "No I won't."

I held out my hand to stop traffic and we crossed the street in a rush, hopping onto the curb on the other side as the cars filled in behind us, their headlights still dim in the fading light.

The moment might have passed already, but I couldn't let it go without an apology, so with the slim moment of her bowed head and quiet words still within short-term memory, I spoke.

"Sorry. I miss Peter too. That's all right. You don't have to go to a silly dance to experience college."

"Oh, it's not right of me to think about him still. I know it just makes me appear sullen."

"Not at all. It's a lot to ask. You look as fresh and happy as a daisy."

"I still think about him watching over me and I'm afraid to move on without him. We were going to get married."

"You were?"

"Well, I think so. He talked about the future in his letters. I would have said yes right away if he asked. Oh, listen to me, Sam. I don't want to bore you with it."

"You're not boring anyone. I could have guessed he was going to ask you. I could hear it in his voice when he spoke of you."

"You really think so?"

"Yes." I remembered that Peter had only spoken to me about Elle once, but I could still hear the happiness in his voice that day. "Girls think about proposals a lot don't they?"

"Only from the right person. It's romantic."

"You should never talk about a proposal to a girl. You should just do it without all the buildup. Catch them off guard, that's what I say."

"You might catch them _too_ off guard and spoil your chances. Peter wasn't afraid of that. We can talk about something else if you like. I do want to be happy."

"You look happy. It's okay to think about him." I put my arm around her shoulder and squeezed her close to me. Her hair smelled fresh and good, even through the knit hat, and I resisted kissing the top of her head. "At some point you have to get back out there, though. Have you been on any dates?"

"No, of course not."

"You can't tell me nobody has asked you."

She looked at me and gave a shy smile. "Just because they ask, doesn't mean I have to go."

"Ah, you're fighting them off with a stick, I bet. They're lining up outside your door. I've seen the line curl around the dorm. I asked what the line for and someone told me. I was about to get in line myself." I hugged her again with one arm. "Not a single date?"

"You wouldn't be mad if I told you?"

"Don't be absurd. I would be proud of you."

"There was one. It wasn't so much a date as it was just a lunch."

"He was probably thinking it was a date. That's what we do."

We walked through the pale light and dry concrete of the neighborhood lanes. The flags were up at full mast and beer drinkers hoorayed from their porches. A group of young boys was tossing a football in the park. We heard their shouts first, and then we saw the gray movement of them. The largest of the boys threw a long pass just over the outstretched arms of another and the ball went bouncing toward the street. I ran and picked it up before the boy could get to it. He stood there looking at me and the rest of the boys came charging down the field toward us, the largest of them leading the way.

"Go long," I said.

"How long?" the boy asked.

"As long as you can go."

He was dressed in a pair of handed down jeans and a coat that was too small. He looked over and watched Elle walk up next to me. He studied her with boyish, star struck eyes. The other boys came up in a stampede behind him, the large one coming close to me.

"Give it here, mister." He was a cocky boy without fear, and he wore white long sleeves in the cold.

"Go long," I said. "I'll throw it to you."

He looked back to the frozen field, then back to me. "How far?"

"As far as you can go."

"How far can you throw?"

"Farther than you can run," I said.

"Look who it is," the boy in the small coat said. He had not removed his eyes from Elle, and he was now pointing at her.

Elle had her arms crossed in her coat, her hair showing under her white hat. The other boys all studied her with the same big eyes.

"You write for the sports page," the boy said. "Has your picture in it and everything. You're Elle Quinn."

"Yeah, sure is her," the boy in the white sleeves said. "We read your articles. Never miss one."

"Why, thank you," Elle said. "You boys must be football fans."

"Sure am. Gonna play for Notre Dame when I'm older."

"And then the professionals," she said.

"Maybe." He gave an uninterested shrug. "I don't care about the professionals. Just Notre Dame."

A skeptical voice came from the group. "You won't make the professionals."

"What if I do?" He was quick to reply with sincere belief.

"You won't."

"Well..." the boy said, only slightly broken, "...what if I do?"

"Well," Elle said. "You'll make a good, strong quarterback."

"Nah, I'm a running back."

"Oh sure," Elle gestured at the boy's shoulders. "You have the build that all the greats have. I can see it."

"Better than Lattner even?"

"Much better." She was leaning in at their height with her hands on her knees. The boys stood without words for a moment, just staring with red faces.

"Dave is sweet on you." The large boy put a thumb over his shoulder and a sharp voice came back.

"I'm not either."

"You are too. He keeps your picture in the paper every time."

"I don't."

They went into a small scuffle of embarrassment and they all joined in. Only the boy in the small coat stood unmoved.

"You're sure pretty in person, ma'am," he said. "You think I'll play, ma'am?"

Elle leaned in and whispered. "I know you will. I'll be here to report on all your games."

He turned to me with a huge smile on his face, the blush coming out.

"Go long," I told him, and he went running down the field with the speed of a future great in his legs, the belief in his heart.

The other boys saw him take off and joined in the footrace. I waved my hand for him to keep going, the other boys frantically trying to catch him, and when he was on the other side of the park I threw the ball to where only he could get it. It bounced off his chest with a cold thump and there was a big scramble for the loose ball.

"You have quite the fan club here," I told Elle.

"Who would have thought it?"

We sat at the first table at Blarney's and debated about the easiest topic on hand. I tried my hardest to find a hole in her knowledge.

"...and Coach Brennan inherited a great team," I said. " _I_ could have coached them this far. Nobody could mess up what Leahy had going."

"That's not true," Elle was expert in her statement. "Guglielmi and Lattner are gone. He's working with a new quarterback and backfield. And his secondary had to be handpicked."

"Wins start with the linemen. One of those boys from your fan club could carry the ball a thousand yards behind that offensive line." I laughed at myself. "There you go. A line for your article."

She sipped her Coke the same way as when I first saw her. "There's a new running back coming up. He'll run for twenty touchdowns next year."

"Who?"

"You should know him. You did what the first defense has been trying to do in practice all year."

"What's that?"

"Tackle Pat Carragher. Coach Brennan is excited about him. He's been carrying around linebackers all year on the practice field. And _you_ took him down."

I leaned back and waved a hand. "Ah, he slipped. Everyone saw it."

"You should play next year."

"Not a chance. I'm not trying to tackle him again. I nearly broke my back. Besides, I should be a senior this year."

"You still have eligibility. They'll let you play for another year."

"I'll never be as good as Peter was."

"You don't have to be. Just have fun."

"Anybody without talent can just have fun. It takes talent to be serious about it."

She jabbed her straw into the Coke bottle. "I just saw you throw the ball across the entire park. Must have been sixty yards in the air without a warmup."

"Not a lot of women sportswriters," I said, changing the subject.

"Not at all, in fact. Most of the women in journalism write stylish domestic pieces of home life."

"How did you get in the door?"

"The school paper is excellent for creating a portfolio. I started with sports articles because it was the only spot left in the paper. Then I fell in love with it. Notre Dame football is the easiest piece to connect to an audience. The audience is already there, even if you're a woman sportswriter."

"And the _South Bend Tribune_ fell in love with your work and hired you."

She gave me a daring look and leaned forward with her answer. "They thought I was a man."

"They thought what? How on earth..."

"I submitted my portfolio as 'E. Quinn', and signed it in rough handwriting."

"You didn't." I felt my jaw hanging. "What a gutsy move. _You_ should be carrying the football for Notre Dame."

"You do what needs to be done." She waved a hand.

She surprised me with that. She hid her boldness under such fair skin.

I leaned forward. "Peter knew how to have fun too, you know?"

She broke into a smile and held herself still, her eyes big, waiting for my words. "What do you mean?"

"I was a sophomore when he was a junior. We went to a game and watched from the stands." I nodded and said again, "He knew how to have fun."

She waited a moment. "Well, tell me."

"After halftime he jumped the field."

"He did not!" her mouth dropped open.

I leaned back in the booth. "Leahy had the game won and sat the starters. There was no action going on, so Peter jumped the field when no one was looking and stood on the sidelines near the benches."

"Oh, you boys."

"He took a helmet from one of the starters and was going to hand it to me over the rail."

"And?"

"And he got caught. It was a defensive end's helmet. Bob O'Neil. Remember him?"

"He was drafted by the Pittsburgh Steelers."

"Yep. Bob O'Neil saw him with his helmet cradled in his arm, about to hand it to me over the rail. Leahy would have still had him running laps if he had lost his helmet."

"Well?"

"Well, Peter went running. He ran out into the field with this big defensive end on his heels. He did what college running backs had been trying to do all year."

"What? Take his head off?"

"No," I laughed at her response. "Dodge a tackle from Bob O'Neil."

Elle covered her mouth, embarrassed to laugh about it, but her eyes were bright and merry.

Higgins brought out a quick pair of sandwiches and slid them on the table. He stood over us.

"On the house," Higgins said.

"What for?"

"Just because."

Before I could argue, he turned and went back behind the bar. Peter was with us then, a medallion of reputable standards pinned upon the wall forever, and I felt his presence as if he was sitting across from us. I shrugged.

"This is just a lunch then," I said as a joke. "Don't get the idea that it's a date."

Elle had already taken a bite of her sandwich.

"You didn't even pick off the onions," I said.

"I'm hungry," she said with a full mouth.

"Usually girls pick off the onions and pickles."

"What girls?"

"All girls. There's not a sandwich on earth they just bite into like that without taking a peek underneath first."

"I must not be like other girls."

I sat back and looked at her. Under her notebook on the table was a book. I had dismissed it at first, thinking it was just a hard surface she was using to write on. I looked closer and saw it was _Madame Bovary_.

"Are you reading that?"

She put down her sandwich, nodding with enthusiasm. "I am. I know it's old but it's certainly not outdated. The rules of society hardly change over time." She looked at me. "I must sound like a square."

"No, I've just never seen anyone carrying around Flaubert."

"Isn't it grand," she said. "All the problems we could possibly face in the world, someone somewhere has faced them all before and written down the answers for us to read about."

She wasn't like other girls, I thought.

We walked back under the starlight of a cold night, brisk and clean, still fevered with victorious car honks from double headlights and the shimmer of a dancing crowd in the commons.

Elle hurried inside the girl's dorm, her feet carrying her quicker than she would have liked, bending backward to wave to me.

"Thank you for the sandwich, Sam."

"I'll read your article tomorrow."

"If I get it in before the deadline. I have an hour."

"Put in my line about boys being able to run behind our linemen. I'll look for it."

She rushed inside. I waited on the steps for Liv to come down. Girls were passing by wearing nice little dresses, their eyes darkened by shadow, sure in themselves to attract a dance partner. I stamped my feet to stay warm and was about to take to doing jumping jacks when Liv opened the door and appeared in a sweet breath of her perfume, her hair done up in a bun, and red lips that needed to be kissed.

"You weren't here the whole time, were you?" She was wearing a gray coat perched wonderfully on shapely legs.

"You look marvelous." I don't know if I stuttered because my lips were frozen or if I was speaking without the words properly formed.

"Oh golly. I bet you thought that of all the girls who came down."

I shook my head, still without words.

"Well don't just stand there. I'll freeze." The last word went up in a humorous pitch and she made the innocent face of a child, bundling herself deeper in the coat.

"What did I tell you? I feel upstaged." I tucked in the billowing ends of my shirt to make a tighter silhouette. I looked again at Liv and held my arms out.

"It's no use."

"You look just fine, Sam. You're as handsome as can be."

She pressed her lips gently to my cheek, a gift that I hoped left evidence. Then she took my arm and we walked across campus to the lights of the dance, pulled by the magnetic tune of a jazz band already in full swing, a beckoning finger of notes over the grass.

The commons was a large room with windows that reached the ceiling. People inside moved past the windows under a strobe of lights like fish in an aquarium. Two young boys held the double doors open for us and I was quick to lose any inhibitions in the musical air.

At the front of the room, a makeshift stage of tables had been pieced together, and four musicians stomped atop of them. A man with a stylish hat pulled low on his brow hammered away at a drum set, a man with a mustache dipped with his saxophone, a broad back played a piano behind him, and a handsome young man, probably a student, swung a trumpet back and forth under a fedora. The students on the floor were captured in swing, the boys circling the girls in spins under their arms.

Liv unbuttoned her gray coat and let it slide off her arms. I again found myself to be completely inept at language. She was wearing a flirty black dress with red piping. She twirled once, just for me, and gushed when I couldn't say anything.

We went right to the floor. There were so many dancing bodies, so much movement, that the frost vanished from the windows and seemed to reappear as sweat upon our brows. Liv danced well, her feet gliding under her as if she was on ice, and I kept up with the beat, shifting back and forth between the twirls of smiles and arms that floated by.

"You dance so well," Liv said to me, leaning close to be heard.

"I feel like my feet are on backwards. My knees are down by my ankles."

"No, you're good at it. I mean it."

The band had an ability to take one song into another without the slightest hint of dead air, and our feet never stopped. When I was out of breath I took a fruit punch and leaned against the wall. I wiped the sweat from my brow and sank into a sit. Liv took a drink of my punch.

"How do you keep up the energy?" I asked.

She tipped the cup down and her words struggled around an ice cube.

"You just have to keep going. Don't sit or you'll be there all night."

She leaned over me and gave me an ice-cold peck on the forehead.

"Let me catch my breath. Just for a song or two."

"Look at the musicians on stage," she pointed. "They don't get a break."

"I'll be here for another song. My legs are like clubs."

"Look at the trumpet player. He has more energy than all of us. Look at him go."

"He needs a shave."

"I like it. It's carefree."

"Just one more drink for me. I'm dancing in quicksand."

"Is he a student here?"

"I think so."

She shrugged with a little smile over her shoulder and dancewalked in tiny steps back to the floor, her arms held straight by her sides and her palms level with the ground, her shoulders shimmying with the beat. Three other girls from her dorm shimmied without partners, and she joined them.

I watched from the wall as the faces swayed above me, the lights reappearing in blinks behind them and the music probing through them, searching for a light heart to shake with rhythm. I collected myself with another fruit punch and stepped outside for some air.

The cold of outside was a relief, the music dispersed in the night. I wandered into the grass away from the pockets of conversation. From a nearby stand of trees on the lawn, the branches of which drooped in gray nakedness, I watched the fish swim in the musical bowl.

A dark figure appeared from the darkness of the lawn, moving the glow of a cigarette from hip to face. I saw it was Myles and I saw the reflection of moonlight on the lens at his chest. He was looking all around and finally made his way to me.

"So you're a dancer too?" He bowed with one hand in his pocket.

"Not much of one."

"Did you finish that book I gave you?"

"I didn't."

"Gah. Why not?"

"I haven't had time."

"What did you read instead?"

"I said I didn't have time."

"What did you read instead?" he repeated it almost identically in tone.

" _The Bostonians_."

"Ah-ha. I've read a few of Henry James. And how was it? Wait, let me guess. You didn't finish?"

I nodded. "I've been trying to keep up with my studies."

"Nerts to that lie." Myles began to snap his fingers and bob up and down on his knees to the muffled music, taking a moment to burn the final ash from his cigarette. He motioned to the dance floor inside. "The Midwest's finest."

"The brilliant minds of America," I said. "Dancing the moon into dawn."

He looked at me. "You should write that down. Moon into dawn. I like that. It's true, though. We are a privileged bunch here. Notre Dame academics can take anyone through life on merit alone."

"I guess so."

He tossed his cigarette butt. "To hell with all that, Sam. I didn't mean it. I wanted to see your reaction."

"Why shouldn't it?"

"Because it's no use if a person doesn't know how to use it." He straightened up. "I was given a full ride scholarship here, did you know that?"

"No. Is that true?"

He nodded. "Intellectually I could be one of the top five minds here tonight. But you know what? I don't have a blue moon clue what I'm going to do with my life. I'm on academic probation. They'll take my scholarship away and give it to a less brilliant mind, but a mind who knows what they want to do."

"So we have to figure it out," I said. "I only know what I'll do tomorrow."

"Balls. You do not. You and I don't know what we'll do tonight, much less tomorrow. Notre Dame holds the world's finest intellectual potential. They own us now, they bought us, and they want to see that potential blossom so they can take credit for it. And if it doesn't, they toss us. But potential is all it is unless you've got life figure out on your own."

He looked around, spinning all the way with his eyes still searching. "The campus is bubbling with potential. Brilliant minds who could rule the world one day. And I'd venture to say the majority of them will be stuck at 'potential' forever."

A rustle of dead leaves and broken branches occurred behind me in the stand of trees, and Jude Miller came stumbling out, his shirt flapping over his belt and loose zipper, and him struggling to put it all in order.

"I'm Jude Miller." He held out a searching hand to me, pinning his coat behind his waist with the other. He was wobbled from a hidden flask and his eyes did not match up and seemed to look far beyond me. The white cotton of his pockets were pulled out and hanging pouchlike at his sides. He took notice and tried to grope them properly back into his pants, but he fumbled with depth perception, his aim hopeless, and finally he was content to leave them hanging.

Myles gave me a sardonic grin and presented Jude Miller with a gesture. "The world's finest, as I said."

Jude Miller steadied himself. "Than' God we're close to th' forest. Couldn't hold it any longer."

The three of us went inside and found our way to the refreshments. Myles paused to take a photo of the crowd and the band, bending to capture the light. The band was in a bebop rhythm. Good dancing music.

"What do you carry that camera around for?" I asked him.

"Just a hobby. It's a fantastic idea, photographs are. I like the thought of holding small moments hostage forever. Proving that something existed."

He scanned the crowd with a rubbery neck, snapping his fingers to the music. "Who are you here with anyway?"

I looked at the dance floor and lifted my finger to point, but Myles pushed it down. "No, hold on. This is a skill of mine. Let me guess."

His head bobbed and weaved on his neck, and he pointed to a bookish dark-haired girl. "There she is. Right?"

"No."

"Hold on, now. There, that one with the ponytail. Oh God, is it her?"

"No." I laughed and sipped my punch.

Just then a bright face with charming lips and a blonde bun skipped out of the crowd toward us. Myles watched with growing disbelief as Liv came closer, his eyes widening with each of her steps.

"Who's your friend?" she asked me.

With a big smile I put my hand on her back and introduced Myles. Jude was standing asleep against the wall.

"You have to be _joking_ ," Myles said. He was still pointing.

Liv shook his finger and gave a friendly laugh. "Very nice to meet you." She reached out and closed Myles's mouth with a gentle hand.

"You _know_ her?" Myles asked.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

He stammered a little. "She's – she's so – well _look_ at her, Sam. She's in the top rankings as far as looks go."

"Why, thank you." Liv gave a polite curtsey. "But, Sam is very handsome. Don't you think?"

"Of course he is. But not _this_ handsome." His eyes crawled over her from head to toe and back again.

"You mean you've never had eyes for him?"

Myles blinked several times and laughed. "Am I that obvious? A gentleman never tells, dear."

"But what do _you_ do?"

He laughed again. "I tell everybody." He mimed a three-step tap and displayed his hands palm up. "No, truly, I have only platonic feelings for Sam. A good friend of mine."

I took another fruit punch while they talked. Liv flirted with Myles without risk the way only a girl can do when she feels completely unthreatened. I quickly discovered Myles earlier claims of conquest to be believable. He had a way of breaking down uncomfortable barriers by leaning in a manner that invited the other to come closer, as if seeking his approval, and he would reach out at various times to touch a hand or shoulder very intimately while keeping his interest strictly sociable on the surface.

The music stopped for a short break, and the murmur of conversation filled the gap. The musicians took their drinks on stage. Myles was pointing and Liv was looking with him down the length of his arm, their heads nearly touching. He was an expert.

"No, that one," he said. "The trumpet player."

"Yes, he never stops. Incredible energy," Liv said. "He's a student here?"

"He's in my economics class. A very bright young man. Has all the answers."

"Where did he learn to play like that?"

"He's in the school marching band. Plays nights at a jazz club in town."

"Did you hear that, Sam?" Liv turned to me. "At a _jazz_ club. We should go one night."

Behind us, Jude Miller lurched out of his standing sleep with a snort and stumbled a few paces.

"Oh God," Myles said, his back twisted to look around. "This boy. Let me take him outside for some air."

"No, I aim to dance t'night," Jude said. "I came here to dance and th' ladies of the room wan' me to dance."

"No, no, no..." Myles was giggling. He peeked at us over Jude's draped arm. "I don't want him to ruin the dance floor."

He took him under the arm and led him outside. Jude was half bowing with an overly gestured arm, telling everyone he passed how good they were to him. A few people gave him a friendly ovation as he exited, and as he turned to bow, Myles caught him from falling on his face.

"What a charming friend you have," Liv said.

"I don't know the drunk one too well," I said. "Jude Miller. He introduces himself every time I see him."

"I mean Myles. How very charming he is."

"He is an original."

"I think it's swell that he can be who he is and not worry. I could see that right away in him. People are always hiding who they are, but he can just be himself."

"I guess so."

I knew there was a piece of Myles that he kept hidden. He had shown it to me before. The thoughtful boy on the rock with no direction, the cynical straight-A student on probation. His skin was a book to read, but his heart and mind were behind a key.

"I mean it," she said. "It's hard to be the way he is and not feel ashamed about it. I admire him."

"You brought it out of him. You practically accused him."

"Did I? I suppose I did. I told you I could see it right away. He wasn't hurt by it. He laughed it off. Well, I think it's grand of him. Don't you like it?"

"Sure."

We went to the chairs and tables at the far end of the room. I pulled a chair out for Liv and rifled through the coats to find hers. I wrapped it behind her and sat down. The band was picking up their instruments again, blowing out the tubes. The drummer brought the cymbals to increase in sound, climbing the ladder of anticipation, and the dancers filled the floor again.

"What do you think of that?" Liv asked me. "Of Myles, I mean."

"Of what? He's a nice kid."

"I mean the way he is. I'm sure he can't tell many people. I feel so guilty now that I pointed it out. It was only in play, though. I could tell he wouldn't be angry."

"I like Myles. Even if he is taken by dramatics."

"Is he?"

"He thinks we're all floating around here without a map, not spending a moment of time on our own dreams."

"I'm talking about the _way_ he is. You know, one of..."

"I haven't thought about it. He's just Myles to me."

She pulled a small mirror from her coat pocket. I watched with an unconscious interest as she lined her lips again. She moved only her eyes to me and smiled while she pressed her lips together.

"Why do boys always stare at girls putting on makeup like that?"

I sat back and mimicked the drummer. The band began to play, but this time it had no effect on Liv. She leaned in to be heard.

"You don't think it's bad of him, do you?"

I continued my drumming.

"People get so caught up in what is good and bad, and it's not fair to people like Myles," she said. "People's vision of God can be so brutal sometimes. They make Him seem like an old man with a switch in His hands. It's so much easier to be free with yourself. To be _true_ to yourself. You can still love God and love yourself."

I pointed to the stage. "Do you want to dance?"

"Did you hear a word I said? Life is much more enjoyable when you can forget about rules and just have fun."

"One more dance?"

She exhaled and let a smile come to her. "A hundred more."

We danced until I could only carry half the beat in my legs, and the room began to clear out. I sat again and mopped my forehead. Someone had popped a soda bottle over the dance floor and my hair was beyond damp, my skin sticky. Liv came over from the stage and sat on my lap. She placed a hat sideways on my head.

"Now you can play in the band."

I tilted my head back so I could see. "Do I look the part?"

"It's all in the hat." She held my face in her hands and gave me a long, gentle kiss. I had no breath left and she let her laughter break our lips apart. She threw her hands to the ceiling.

"No rules!"

"Where did you get this hat?"

"From the band. The trumpet player tossed it to me."

"I'm going to fall asleep right here. Wake me up tomorrow."

"I'm going to walk back with the girls. Is that okay?"

"I couldn't move if I wanted to."

I helped her into her coat, I was going to miss that black dress, and the band played one last blaring tune to the empty floor, strewn with paper napkins and plastic cups, long streamers and crumpled banners.

"I don't know how I'm going to sleep tonight," Liv said.

"Maybe you should've danced more," I said with a smile.

"I _should_ have danced more. I wish I had four legs."

"Goodnight, Liv."

She kissed me once more, the type of kiss that should send you home lightheaded and full of hope through the morning hours. A kiss that should leave you sleepless in thought, touching your lips with your fingertips in the hope that the memory will never fade.

And in the darkness, I fell asleep.
Chapter Fourteen

I stopped by often outside the girl's dormitory. When I saw Liv, I saw only Liv, and when I saw Elle, I saw only Elle. I never saw them both together and I was relieved for that, which was something I could not rationally explain to myself why.

There were days when I stood on the steps with my head ducked in my jacket, waiting for one or the other of the two girls, and the opposite would appear. I found this to be a pleasant surprise in either case.

Liv made me feel the way a young man should feel when an attractive young woman returns his interest. She made me strong in myself in a way that gave my voice a deeper resonance and my chest a healthy push outward. I was immensely fascinated with her, and I found the curve of her eyelashes and the way she flipped her hair when she pulled on a coat equally appealing to the way she didn't know the rules of football and sometimes cheered when the other team scored a touchdown.

Elle was something differently entirely. Her humble trust in God and her unexpected recitations of _Prufrock_ pulled me in with the same curious force as the way she could eat a full Blarney's sandwich in the time it took me to eat half. She was attractive, very beautiful to look at, but she was, in a way, still Peter's girl, and if I ever forgot that in a momentary lapse of thought, it was brought back into light when Peter walked into our conversations. If I did find myself looking at the shape of her face or if I looked too long in her eyes at one time I would force myself to look away.

She gave me a rosary one day, pulled it from her pocket as if she carried it there at all times, and placed it in my palm with both her hands wrapped around my fist. This made me feel that she must hold herself in that position of a mother figure to me as well.

With her warm hands still on mine, the crucifix of the rosary dangling below, I realized just how cold my hands were.

"You still have your calluses," she said.

"From the roofing hammer," I said. "They should disappear soon. I won't be doing that again until Spring comes around."

"What did you call it? MacArthur's Calluses?"

"Yeah, just a joke."

She put my hand to her cheek and closed her eyes and then spoke of the way Peter's hands used to feel until a tear came falling down her cheek. It began in a normal enough fashion, a memory of hers suddenly brought to light, and I was not uncomfortable about it. However, my hand together with those words put me an utterly confusing state. Either way, I enjoyed her conversation and felt safe around her.

It occurred to me one night, locked in a tender kiss with Liv on the dorm steps, a closeness that was both exhilarating and frightening, how I could be there so completely in a kiss when I knew I could not share the loads that strapped my shoulders, could not unburden my heart to her. At least not yet, not yet as I already had to another so easily.

After lecture one morning the professor called on me to stay after class. His glasses were perched on the edge of his nose and his gray hair was blown back on his head.

"Sam, I'm concerned about you."

"Did my grade slip?"

He coughed a laugh and shook his head. "Your midterm was the highest in the class and you seem to have a better handle on the subject than anyone."

"What is it then?"

"Well, this is a journalism course and students are expected to make an effort outside of class. You'll get a passing grade in here without a doubt, but I've seen other student's works submitted to the school paper. Almost everyone has taken advantage of that except you. It shows a lack of interest. I wanted to ask you about that."

"I'm just trying to pass the course. I haven't had the time to put in to the paper."

"Have you taken a look?"

I shook my head. "I haven't."

He pulled a copy of my study exam and pointed mid-page. "Look here. You have a very negative critique on modern journalism. You pull it apart and make a convincing argument about the failure of objective reporting."

"Yes."

He looked at me from over his glasses, then cleared his throat and quoted from the paper. "'It's impossible to be objective and present a balanced report of both sides of the story without holding back assumptions of all facts.' Then you go on to compare objective reporting to some form of communist propaganda."

I shrugged, amused at my own brash, possibly fabricated observation.

"If it wasn't such an airtight exposition I would strike a red mark through it and send you to the principal's office or have you write an apology on the blackboard a hundred times. As it is, unfortunately, I can't find a single fault in your logic." He held up the paper. "Do you really believe this?"

"No," I said. "But it was an interesting opinion."

His face tore between amusement and confusion. "You have talent, Sam. You have brains and talent."

"Thank you, sir."

He tucked the exam away, peeled his glasses off, and folded his hands in front of him. "What is it that you want to do with all of it?"

"I haven't the foggiest idea."

"I pulled your transcripts. You're leading nearly all of your classes."

"Yes sir."

"You should be studying quantum physics or writing a dissertation on the fallacies of Newton's theory of relativity. But none of your classes flow together. You're not on a path to a specific degree. You're all over the map."

"I'm keeping my options open."

"Why are you in this course?"

"It sounded fun."

"But it's not, is it?"

"It's fine."

He leaned back and studied me. "What sort of articles do you read?"

"Sports."

"What sort of books do you read?"

"Classic literature."

"Not the entertaining throwaways? Not Ian Fleming or - or - or Ray Bradbury? Everyone else reads them. Why don't you?"

"I don't know. It doesn't interest me."

"I'll tell you why. Because you're an intellectual." He pushed his chair back and stood to stretch his back. "You don't read for entertainment. I could give you a stack of today's bestsellers and you might blink in boredom at the final pages. It may be entertaining but it doesn't serve any purpose for you, does it?"

"Sir?"

He sat on the edge of his desk and rubbed his eyes. "What do you find in classic literature?"

"I don't know. I just prefer it."

"What did you find in Jean Valjean's moral plight and final gift? His inner turmoil to be somebody else, to escape who he was?"

I looked at him.

"Didn't read that one?"

"I read it halfway, sir."

"I find Hugo to be too wordy as well."

"No. His digressions are the most interesting pieces."

The professor looked surprised at this and began a rising chuckle that shook in his shoulders. He sat back down in his chair, rolling backward on its wheels before walking it back to his desk.

"You hear of professor's telling students to keep their noses in the books. I'm going to tell you the opposite. Look around and take some time to figure it out. Figure out what you want to do."

"Yes, sir."

Saturday was Notre Dame's final game of the season. They beat Southern Methodist University 26-14 on a snow-covered field. Maintenance crews lined the sidelines with push brooms in their hands, running across the yard markings between plays while a cloud of frozen shouts hung overhead.

The Fighting Irish won nine of ten games for the season with an eight game win-streak to finish fourth in college football's power rankings. To say there was excitement ringing with each bell chime from the cathedral would be an understatement. The game clock's final countdown might as well have been a burning fuse. The campus shook with cheers.

The snow flurries became an icy sleet that clung to light poles and tree branches, weighing them down in a weary slump. I was walking Liv to her dorm, both of us huddled low in our coats while the chants of the leprechauns ignored the cold, their flags held high as they ran by.

"Let's get hot chocolate. Doesn't that sound great?"

"I don't have any cash," I said. "I don't want to start a tab with Higgins."

"I have a few dollars. Let's get ice cream."

"It's freezing outside."

"I'm too excited to go back. I'll just sit in my room. Let's go do something."

I heard Emery shout my name. It sounded clear, as if he shouted in my ear. When I turned to look, Emery was hanging out of the back window of a crowded Buick that was driving across the grass and over curbs toward us, the rear end fishtailing tire streaks in the snow, tailfins like a shark and a loud radio, a white swirl of exhaust behind it.

The driver slammed on the brakes and slid sidelong in front of us. Pat Carragher leaned out the driver's window with a huge smile.

"Get in," he said, sticking a thumb to the back. His hair was still ruffled from his helmet. "There's room for at least a dozen more."

The seats were jammed with bodies and it was dark inside. Emery opened the back door and popped out as if loaded by a spring. Claire was inside among the passengers, giggling hysterically.

"C'mon, let's go." Without waiting for me, Liv climbed in next to Claire as a dozen other arms searched to make room.

"We're going to Blarney's," Emery told me. "It's a riot in there."

I climbed in and filled what had to be the final spot available. Emery climbed in after me and found more room, and tried three times to close the door before it latched. Pat Carragher put the gas down and the car swung sideways before finding traction. He went over a curb and continued over the grass, we bounced in our seats behind him and I hit my head on the ceiling. Students in the lawns cheered us on with raised fists.

"Don't mind the roads," I said.

"Couldn't find them if I tried," Pat said.

He accelerated, twisting the steering wheel back and forth for intentional swerves in the snow, eliciting an excited shriek from the girls, and drove fast toward the main road off campus, blowing over a final curb and nearly sideswiping a sedan before straightening out and following the flow of traffic. The Buick seemed to thump inside itself with a never-ending protest.

"Oh hell," Pat Carragher said, checking his mirrors. "I almost bought the farm for all of us on that one."

In the back window I could see the driver of the sedan pounding his fist and honking. I waved an apologetic hand to him over my shoulder.

"Get your arm down," Emery said.

My elbow was in his eye.

"Go faster," one of the bodies said from the front seat.

"Go slower," someone said next to me. There were nine of us altogether, crammed like sausages, three in the front and six in the back. The windows were fogging.

"Sam," Pat Carragher said. "This is Dave and Evelyn up here, Marcus and Jackie back there. Jackie is the pretty one." He looked at each one in the rearview mirror as he said their names. Jackie was dark and slender, and Marcus was the opposite.

"Hey there." She held her hand to me and I shook it. Marcus had his arms pinned so he gave me a welcoming elbow.

"I'd shake but I don't know where my hands are."

"Move your hands," Jackie told him.

"I can't."

She turned halfway and enunciated each word sharply. "Move your hands."

"Nice to meet you all," I said. "I'm Sam, and Liv is somewhere under me."

"What a wild ride," Liv said. Somehow I ended up sitting on her lap. She wrapped her arms around me.

"Go faster," Dave said again.

"I'm not that crazy," Pat Carragher said. "I'll get kicked out of school. I want to play next year."

I pushed my head forward to a more comfortable position and situated myself to hang between the front seats with my head next to Pat Carragher's. He had a massive head and he hadn't showered from the game. His fingers were still taped.

"Good game today," I said. "Did you carry the ball?"

"Ah, hell. Only in the fourth quarter. Garbage time. Coach plays the seniors. Blasted seniority politics."

"You'll get the ball plenty next season. The sportswriters are already talking about you."

"Are they?" He straightened up. "I haven't seen. What'd they say?"

"Just that you'll score twenty touchdowns next year."

"Twenty? That's it? I'll go for thirty."

"You'll go for a thousand yards easy next year," Emery said.

Evelyn was leaning forward, messing with the radio. She tuned in and Rosemary Clooney was singing _Mambo Italiano_.

"... _Mambo Italiano go, go, Joe_ ..." Pat sang along. Liv picked it up.

" _Shake like a Giavano hey_ , see if you can find _Shake, Rattle and Roll_."

"This is the only station."

"I just love that song."

Up ahead, the traffic light went from green to yellow and Pat put the gas down. He held the steering wheel casually with one hand. We passed under the red light and Dave yelled out the window. Evelyn smacked him in the arm.

"You'll get us pulled over," she said.

"I'm not the one driving."

"Nope," Pat said. "Police are busy ushering people out of the stadium parking lot still. You could hold up a bank right now and get away scot-free."

"What's that kicking sound?" I asked.

"Kicking?" He reached up and adjusted the mirror, angling it so he could see us without moving his head.

"That thumping. There it is. Hasn't stopped since you blew that curb. Is our bumper falling off?"

"Oh, right," he looked at Dave in the passenger seat and laughed. "I forgot. Holy Mother. That's our extra passenger."

"Your what?"

"In the trunk. One more passenger in the trunk."

"Jesus." I hit my head against the ceiling.

"No, not Jesus. There was no room so he got in the trunk."

"Sounds like he was thrown in there."

"You boys are so mean," Evelyn said. "Scoot over. You're on my side."

Dave tried to press himself away. "I can't move either way."

"Mind if I cut a hole in the top?" I asked.

"Whatever makes you happy," Pat Carragher said. He looked at Dave. "Whose car is this?"

Dave shrugged. "Had the keys in it. We'll put it back with extra gas in the tank."

"And an extra passenger in the trunk." They laughed.

"You boys are rotten."

"Claire," Emery said. "Show Sam your finger."

Claire was beaming with delight. She wrestled her arm loose and held her ring finger out.

"Isn't it beautiful?" she said.

"Oh, Claire," Liv pulled her hand close to inspect it. "Why it's gorgeous."

"Nicely done," I said. "It sparkles."

"You should see it in the church," Claire said.

"Church light is the best for diamonds," Liv said.

I turned and tried to put Emery in a headlock but only managed to elbow his eye again. "Not a bit too soon?"

"No," Emery said. "Put your arm down. Why not?"

"I meant to say congratulations."

"Thanks. You know what Father Donnelly says about marriage?"

"Emery," Claire whispered sharply. "Don't say it."

Pat Carragher looked in the mirror. "What did he say? I know. To stay celibate and become a priest."

"No. He says-"

"Emery. No."

"-he says to marry young when your urges are at their peak. Otherwise you'll go and spoil it in sin. The younger the better, he said."

"He said that?" Liv asked.

"Yes," Claire said. "I was shocked to hear it from a priest. I was so embarrassed."

"Never marry in the morning," Pat Carragher said. "You never know who you will meet at night."

"That's terrible advice."

"But it's advice. Girls don't like that one but the guys always laugh. Alright, what's good advice?"

"Never go to sleep angry," Claire said.

Pat Carragher blew boredom from his lips.

"I can't wait," Claire said. "In the cathedral, right Emery?"

"Right."

"Right," she repeated.

"No, left," I said. "Go left."

"We're not going to Blarney's," Pat Carragher said. The car slid a little on the ice. "There's a jazz club further in."

"The jazz club." Liv was excited. "Sam, the jazz club, remember? We know the trumpet player."

"Which one?" Pat said. "The old guy or the young guy?"

"The young one."

"Because the old guy is my uncle."

"We don't really know him," I said. "He played at the dance last week."

"I talked with him," Liv said. "He threw me his hat. His name is George, but he goes by something else. Kings-horn or something. Royalhorn."

"Great name," Jackie said.

"Isn't it, though? He's in the marching band too."

Dave turned around in his seat. "Does he play the tuba?"

Pat glanced at him. Evelyn answered him. "She just said he's the trumpet player. She just said that."

"We were throwing tennis balls into the tuba section at the game," Dave said. "They get them stuck way up in there and can't blow them out."

"Why that's awful. Why did you do that? Don't do that."

"Why do they always give the tuba to the fat guys?"

"Sam, tell him to stop it. It isn't polite."

"Don't listen to Dave," Pat said. "He doesn't know why he does these things. His mother raised him as a girl until he was fifteen."

Dave punched his arm and Pat laughed. "That's not true at all," Dave said. "I was the family dog."

"Never house-broken."

Pat Carragher put a big hand on Dave's face. Dave moved his head around to get free and it soon escalated into a playful shoving match. The steering wheel drifted and the car began to veer off the road. Pat overcorrected and sent the rear end in a swerve.

"Oh hell."

He overcorrected again, coming within an inch of an oncoming car, its horn blaring, the driver at once drained of color, and the Buick spun completely around, hopping a curb and slamming backside into a pine tree. The back window webbed in cracks instantaneously in a snap of metal, and steam began to rise from under the car.

Pat Carragher looked back from the driver's seat.

"Just a fender bender. All right?"

We stood on the curb and looked at the car. Pine needles covered the roof and hood, newly shaken from the overhead branches, and a fresh wound in the pine gave a vanilla scent. A tire had blown and the trunk had crumpled on the left side, a taillight broken. It wasn't until we heard the thumping that we remembered there was a passenger in the trunk. He was kicking from inside, hard kicks that made the water droplets and pine needles jump from the metal.

"Oh God," Dave laughed. "The kid."

He stuck his hand in the driver's window and pulled the keys from the ignition, turning around quickly to unlock the trunk, slipping on the ice as he moved. The yelling was muffled from inside.

"Which key is it?"

"The same as the ignition," Evelyn told him. "That's the one."

"It won't open."

"You have to turn it."

"I am turning it. It won't budge. It's stuck."

Pat Carragher stuck his fingers under a gap in the trunk.

"Kid, can you hear me?"

An angry response came from the trunk and the kicking continued.

Pat Carragher yanked once and the car bounced. He yanked again from a squatting position, putting his legs into it, and the latch broke free, the trunk burst opened.

"Myles," I said.

He had cried his face red with frustration, his hair was mussed and he stuck his jaw out in iron hatred, but it soon fell to quivering. I felt the blood drain from my cheeks.

"Oh God, Myles," Liv rushed to him. "Myles are you alright? Myles."

She held him close under her chin, the way a mother consoles her bullied child.

"Sam," Emery said. "Sam, I didn't know it was him back there.

"Get the hell off me," Myles voice went high and sounded painful, strained in his throat. "Go to hell, get off me all of you!"

"Sam, I didn't know who was back there."

Marcus and Jackie hid their faces behind humped backs, looking over their shoulders as they disappeared down the sidewalk. Evelyn was painted in shame, her arms crossed as the bottom piece of the portrait frame, staring at the ground, and Dave spoke.

"It was just a joke," he said. "We weren't going to hurt you."

"You sons of bitches," Myles broke away from Liv and charged. "I'll kill you. I'll kill you."

Dave stepped aside and sent Myles away by a handful of his shirt. Evelyn put her hands to her face, and Liv shrieked. Myles rolled and came up. His face was twisted in pain, his eyes filled and poured over in streaks on his cold skin. He looked at me and tried to speak but it came out in chokes. He wiped his tears away as if they were the nuisance of rain, his face pulled in anger and embarrassment, hurt too strong to speak through.

"Oh Myles," Liv was hurting and began to cry. "Oh Myles, Myles. No."

"Don't touch him," I told to Dave. I found my voice to be a growl.

He removed himself from fault by showing me his palms at chest level.

"It's alright, boy," Pat Carragher said. "Hell, we weren't hurting you. Just playing. We were taking you to have fun with us."

"You were not," I said.

"We were. Just goofing off for fun. No need to take it bad."

Dave spoke. "Don't cry about it. Don't be a baby about it."

"Shut up," I said. "You guys are wrong."

"We were just playing." Pat said.

"Shut up, damn you."

"Ease off. We were clowning around. He needs to take a joke."

"That's not a joke. How long was he in there?"

"I don't know. Awhile. We were going to let him out."

"Do you know him?"

"What?"

"People only joke around with their friends. Do you know him? Is he a friend of yours? Myles, do you know them?"

"No."

Pat held his hands out. "So what?"

"Why'd you pick him?"

"Who cares?"

"I care!"

Pat Carragher walked up to me and put his face in mine. My eyes were level with his chin, I could feel my lips tighten and my nostrils burn. Pat spoke softly. "We were just goofing around. He should be a sport about it."

"You can't do that to people. You don't even know him."

"Who says I have to know him?"

"He's half your size."

Dave stepped up. "I know him," he said. "He's a fairy."

In my peripheral I could see the blur of Emery take a step forward. In front of him, clear in my vision, Liv stood with her arms around Myles again, and he stood with wide red eyes, waiting for me to answer. Myles needed someone to stand beside him, someone to walk through his uncertain world with him.

Pat Carragher glanced from Dave back to me. "Well?"

"You don't know him."

He lifted a shoulder and cocked his head. "I know that part about him. I know he cries like a baby when you play with him. He shouldn't be here in the first place."

"Don't say that."

"I don't know how he's been able to stay this long." He looked at Myles. "If I was the gatekeeper you wouldn't have gotten past me."

"Don't say that," I said again with a step forward, and Pat flinched his arm up in defense.

"He's not supposed to be here. He's wrong. You can't argue that, can you?"

"It doesn't matter. You're supposed to be tolerant. You're supposed to be respectful."

Pat Carragher lowered himself to stand even with me, exaggerating his crouch as if he were speaking to a toddler.

"Tell me he's right. Tell me he belongs here."

I stood there with balled fists and held my anger. I wanted to swing on him and put him down, but I searched for an answer instead and found none.

When I said nothing he shoved me hard, hitting my shoulders with open palms, making my head whip and my breath catch audibly in my nose.

I should have hit him for Myles. Pat's words cut deeper into Myles's skin than any knuckle could have, and I knew he was in a fragile state of mind. The only thing that hurt him more than Pat Carragher was my absence of words and my failing of fists.
Chapter Fifteen

The semester ended with ropes of colored light bulbs reflecting on the snow-white yards, towers of twinkling trees in store windows, and life-sized nativity scenes under the yellow lights of church steeples swirled in the angelic song of children's choirs.

I walked the sidewalks of South Bend, the busy shoppers who made last minute dashes inside toy stores, bakeries, and mom and pop shoppes, the ding of bells over a dozen store doors rang one after the other. Husbands stood on the sidewalks outside and smoked cigarettes, nodding to passers-by with glad tiding, a loose dog ran under the legs of several shoppers, their arms going up in the air one-two-three as it darted, a small boy carried his weight of frozen turkey in front of him and shouted ho-ho-ho. I was among hundreds of smiling faces, each one more eager than the last, and yet I was very empty and alone that Christmas Eve.

Liv had packed herself into a taxicab, and was whisked away to her parent's house. She had extended to me an invitation to Christmas dinner but she lived too far and my pockets were empty, so I had to decline.

"You might have a hard time getting past my father anyway," she said. "He plants himself in the front doorway and doesn't move until mom and I force him to."

I stood on the curb and waved as she rode away, and she blew me a kiss out the back window.

Emery left with Claire to break the news of their engagement to her parents. He told me later "her old man only wanted to talk about Michigan football and why Notre Dame will lose next year."

Peter was gone. It was the first Christmas without him, without his cheery voice waking me just before sunrise. He used to walk down the staircase at my aunt and uncle's house, his feet purposefully taking each step casually, his arms stretching outward to form a human gate, and me behind him anxiously trying to get to the tree in the living room.

My aunt and uncle had sent me a Christmas card wishing me a merry holiday season. They did not hint of an invitation to dinner and I did not ask for one.

With the smell of scented candles mixing with winter's stony breath I stopped in front of a jewelry store window, wiping the frost away with a circular motion of my hand and peering in like a hungry child at a bakery. Diamond rings winked outward, enticing the bloom of love, awaiting the warm fingers of happy women.

I stayed on the streets of South Bend until the last shopper went home. I walked the lighted, caroled streets of the neighborhood, warm chatter in the windows, the colors blinking, until the lights fell behind me and the dark stones of memories jutted upward from rows of blackness, alone in the night on a forgotten edge of the city. I found his marker and spoke to him as if he was sitting atop it.

We spoke of Christmas's long ago, starting with the first I could remember. He once wrapped me in a blanket before I could awake fully and escape, carrying me over his shoulder like Santa's sack of toys, and dropping me in a bathtub of cold water.

"I never did repay you for that."

We burned a holiday ham one year, cooking it until it was a smoldering black rock that smoked out each room and nearly burned the house down. We were wrestling with neighborhood kids in the front yard while our aunt and uncle were out shopping, and had forgotten about it.

We talked about snow forts, snow fights, and snowmen, building one so large in the middle of the street that cars could not get by and the city sent a snowplow to remove it.

"We hid in the tree and threw snowballs."

It's lonely here without you and I don't know what to do. I go to church like I should, and I go to class because I know that's what you would tell me to do. But I don't know where I'm going and I don't know what I want. You were always ahead of me to show me the way, and now without you in front I'm afraid to take a step.

It wasn't until my tears had dried and I stood to leave that I noticed a bouquet of flowers had been laid against the headstone, frozen in a lasting bloom.

Emery returned alone before New Year's Day. We went to Blarney's and drank until we could not see the dollar amount on Higgins's check. We ordered more, hoping a more legible number would appear. The bodies at the bar became deeper as midnight approached, the empty mugs lined up in frothy rows.

"You don't think it's too early do you?" he asked me.

"No, never too early. Nothing's too early."

"I mean getting married. Claire thinks it's a good age."

"It's a good age. It's a good age for everything."

"Have you ever thought of getting married so young?"

"Marriage is one of those things that you don't think of unless it's right there in front of you. Why should I think of it?"

"You shouldn't, I guess. So you haven't?"

"No."

"Mom and dad were always arguing about religion. Dad wasn't going to move, not a single inch. He's as Catholic as..." (he wound his hand around, searching for the word) "...fish. He wouldn't budge even if it meant a divorce. Which he wouldn't have stood for either. Mom was so strange about it, like all of it was some kind of language she didn't understand."

"So?"

"Well, so I'm getting married to a Catholic. I figure I owe it to dad. It crushes out the potential for argument. He's always telling me to make sure to marry a Catholic girl. It won't go right if you don't marry a Catholic, he says. As if that's the only secret to happiness. But I believe it is now. If I didn't then I wouldn't have asked Claire. And she believes it too, and she's excited about it."

I sat back and blinked. I waved my hand in front of my face and tried to single out the fingers. "You think married people argue only about religion? Money is the number one argument. I read that somewhere."

"Sure. But you can fix money."

"Not religion? Schedule a baptism if it causes a problem."

"It's so simple in your world."

I nodded.

"Anyway, I just think it's a smart decision. And if we do argue ourselves insane, neither of us believe in divorce so we'll be forced to hash it out until sanity returns. She'll be stuck with me and me with her."

"Good ol' Catholicism. Force it until it works."

"What do you think? Would you get a divorce?"

I squinted at him. "From who?"

"From anyone. It doesn't matter. First of all, would you only marry a Catholic?"

"I don't care. It's a great religion."

"Well that's why I say it."

"I don't know. Who knows anything? Love is blind. There you go. That's my answer."

"So you would marry a Protestant?"

"Why not?" I leaned forward. "You know who you sound like?"

"Like dad."

"Yes, you sound like dad. Smart man."

"The smartest. I didn't realize it until I met Claire."

"How did meeting her parents go?"

"Fine. They're nice folks. I spent the night sharing a room with her little brother. He wouldn't shut up."

"Good."

"We got in an argument."

"Even better," I said. "Show that little monkey who's boss. Kids need a good argument with an adult to keep them grounded."

"No, Claire and I got into an argument."

I clapped and sat up. "There. You see?"

"Her mom forgot the glaze for the ham, and Claire gave me the keys to go into town and get some."

"Good Lord, the nerve of women these days."

"Well, it seems small, but she didn't even ask me. She just handed the keys to me and told me to go. We argued right there in front of her parents and she threw my engagement ring out the front door."

I sat there and smiled at him.

"We spent two hours looking through the snow to find it."

"So, now what?" I asked.

"We found it and made up. It's like nothing happened. Let's get drunk." Emery raised his hand and Higgins stuck his red face to the tap.

There was a pounding of fists on the bar as a group of students provided the peer pressure around a strong-looking drink. The student in the center scratched a cigarette lighter and set the drink on fire. He tilted it back too quickly and his eyebrows went up in flames, burning unknown to him for a moment before someone put a towel over his face.

Emery turned to face the wall, raising his glass to the center jersey. "Here's to Peter Conry."

We stumbled into the street and watched the New Year's fireworks make shadow puppets of the Basilica of the Sacred Heart and the Golden Dome.
Chapter Sixteen

By the time the second semester began, the mighty flags of Notre Dame replaced the strings of lights that had curled through South Bend, waving proudly in lawns and over porches. There is no rebirth at that time of year. Classes begin with a walk through gray and white fields and under the weary sway of dormant branches. The holiday cheer has worn away and hearts return with mild beats.

But the students walked the sidewalks once again, and it was with them that we marched to classroom doors and sat upon cold seats to hear the drone of professors and the scratch of chalk.

Liv was back too. I met her at the looping curbside of the Le Mans dormitory, her bags left teetering on the concrete by a hurried driver, the cab still puffing a trail of white licks into the air.

"I have to get my hair done."

"It looks great."

"All this cold air has made it flat. Look the waves are gone." She pulled slowly at her blonde locks.

We went to the theater to see _On The Waterfront_ , and we stopped at an antiques store after. Liv had an impulse to look into each window we passed, and the relics of yesteryear had caught her eye. She was twirling an old clock in her hands.

"There wasn't much action, was there?"

"No, but it was a great story. I liked it."

"I like Marlon Brando but they made him looked bashed up."

"It fit. He was a hardened dockworker. I thought it fit."

"He has a marvelous nose. I like the way it looks broken all the time. Like he sleeps with his face in the pillow."

"I guess so. I should break my nose and see how it looks."

"Your nose already hooks at the end."

"That's the part I was going to break."

"Then make sure to break it all the way off. It saves your face from being too handsome," she said. She set the clock down, the chime inside ringing a little, and she moved on to a mirror with an ornate frame. "I think it's important for a man to stand up for justice. Like Brando did."

"He had a script."

"I know, silly. But I mean for all of us."

After a moment I said, "I did what I could."

She looked down. "I know."

I was standing with my hands in my pockets. "What did you want me to do? Get in a fight?"

"Heavens, no. I suppose you did what you could. Poor Myles. Have you seen him?"

I shook my head.

A short man with wire glasses and an apron came around the corner. His fingers were black with oils but he scratched through his sparse white hair anyway, leaving a thumbprint on his scalp.

"Help you folks?"

"Just looking around, I think."

"One of a kind pieces here. You break it you buy it sort of thing."

"Yes sir." I looked around at the walls and pointed. "How much for that?"

The man took a moment to turn completely around and follow my finger. "Which one now? The musket?"

"The leather helmet."

He squinted and removed his glasses to clean them, pulling the wire around his ears as he replaced them. "Not for sale. Not that one. Just for show."

"Who's was it?"

"Don Miller."

"God Almighty," I said. "Liv, look. Don Miller's helmet."

"Who's that? Was he a football player?"

The old man laughed. "Was he a football player? He was the shiftiest back to ever carry the ball for the Fighting Irish. Had moves that would fake out God Himself."

"He was part of the Four Horsemen," I told her.

"Signed by all four of 'em," the old man said. "Even Knute signed his name. That's why it's not for sale."

I shushed a rush of air, impressed. "Naturally. I wouldn't sell it for anything."

"I dust it every day. Keeps the names looking sharp."

I had not seen Myles since he had emerged in a fit from the trunk of the car. I went to see him one day after class.

The dorm was almost empty around midday, but the door was unlocked and I walked about the rooms searching for him. I found Jude Miller slumped in a beanbag chair in the corner of one of the rooms. There was a pile of new books in the corner where they might stay without another thought given to them.

"Is Myles around?"

Jude Miller looked up as if stirred from a deep sleep. "Who? Myles? Sure he's around."

"Where is he?"

He sat up and turned his head around, looking at each corner of the room, blinking away the haziness. "I don't know."

"How's he doing?"

"Fine."

I stepped into the room and stood over him, grabbing him by the shirt collar. He looked scared and tried to pry my hands off. "Is Myles alright? Where is he?"

"At class, I suppose. Get off me. Let go. I'll have you arrested."

"You're a worthless friend. You'll be kicked out of here after summer."

"Get away." He tried to crawl away, pulling at the beanbag for leverage. "Let me go."

I dropped him and he curled up in a ball, gasping in a dramatic fashion. "Oh, Myles, Myles," he said. "He's around, don't hurt me. He's taken a bit of shock recently."

"What do you mean?"

"He's horrible. Runs around naked, looking for fights. Hasn't had a haircut in months. He won't talk to you. He won't talk to anybody unless he's provoking them."

"Does he go to class?"

He composed himself and straightened out his collar. He smacked his lips. "I doubt it. Don't worry about Myles. He's just in a rebellious phase. He's smart as a...smart as a whip."

I waited outside on a bench near the door, snapping twigs in half and watching the hours go by until night crept in. Myles appeared finally, walking with a limp that he slowed even further when he saw me. The light from the door hung on his sunken bones.

"What are you doing here?"

He was shaggy now, the crisp part he normally sported ruffled in unwashed hair, and he had a sparse beard of probably two weeks. His smile was there, but it was forced and was not made of the usual cheer that made it leap out upon his face. There was something more awkward about his appearance. His camera was missing.

"I wanted to see how you were doing."

"Ah." He twirled around and landed on dancer's feet, his arms displayed. "As you can see, I'm spritely." He then rubbed his hip.

"Why are you limping?"

"An old war wound, Colonel."

"Jude Miller said you were picking fights."

"Why on earth would I do such a thing? Jude is becoming more and more obscure in his words."

"How are your studies?"

"They're fine, dad." He laughed at his words. "I didn't skip and did all my homework. Can I have a raise in my allowance?"

"You don't look well."

"Thank you so much for noticing. You shouldn't compliment people all the time. It'll go to their heads."

"Cut the bullshit, Myles. How are you? Why are you limping?"

He straightened up and frowned in defense. "I fell."

"Where?"

"Right here on the pavement. There was ice the other day. I'm going to sue the University and live on an island one day."

This was a spot of pavement that received sun all day. I looked toward the campus, the office lights of faculty going dark one by one. "Are you on probation still?"

He snorted. "I'll be an academic monument soon. They'll stuff dollars in my pockets and beg me to stay."

"I just don't want anything bad to happen to you."

"Go to hell, Sam. What do you care, anyway? All you care about is your own reputation." He enunciated the word with a mist of spittle. "Your reputation, and your...dupes. You've moved on, I bet. On to the next dupe."

"I stood up for you. What else could I have done?"

"You could have pummeled that brute."

"And solved nothing. He won't bother you anymore."

"Maybe I can convince him."

"Just don't go looking for trouble."

"I'm not. But I'm an animal. My primal instincts have taken over."

"Do it for me. Avoid trouble for my sake."

My words amused him enough to chuckle. "You ever notice how animals don't look for trouble? They're curious, and they'll go sniffing around, but they're quick to jump away when they smell trouble. Animals will avoid getting hurt at all costs. A dog will not jump into a raging river or leap off a building. That's a human trait. I'm a dog."

He shoved his way to the door, reeking of body odor, and when I turned to watch him go down the hallway, he had pressed his face against the glass of the door in an unrecognizable twist of features.
Chapter Seventeen

A few warm days in a row melted the lakes, and they didn't refreeze after that except in small white crusts that floated around in the dawn before vanishing into the water for the day. Students were gathering around and a faculty member was taking their dollars behind a table and slipping them under an orange cone. A mist was still rising off the surface of the water.

"Paid your entry?" Emery asked.

"No," I said. "I need to get back on the rooftops soon or I'll be broke."

"Everyone's broke. That's the most commonly used word in a student's vocabulary. Dad has a few houses lined up next month. We'll resurrect your calluses."

"Good."

"Come on, I'll pay your entry."

He untied his shoes and wrenched them off one at a time, pelican-hopping on one foot. I knelt to pull the laces of my shoes.

"Have you set a date yet?"

"Claire is thinking of a spring wedding."

I looked up at him, setting one shoe aside. "Better get cracking."

"Spring of _next_ year."

"Oh. A year engagement? Kinda drawn out, isn't it?"

Emery shrugged. "I guess. She wants to get school out of the way. This way she'll be heading into her last year. I should be done and ready to help dad more with the company."

"You'll be second in command."

"And you'll be third."

I looked at him.

"Dad wants to expand beyond South Bend. First into Elkhart and then Buchanan. I'll be in charge of that. I could use your help."

"Thanks."

"Sure."

The crowd had grown and people were peeling off their shirts and pants. A few guys were jogging in place in boxer shorts, their skin freckled with goose bumps, puffs of air coming from purple lips.

"Claire wants to start a family right away."

"After she graduates or after the wedding?"

"I don't know. She said right away. I'll be putting in a lot of hours. I want to get a house for her and I looked at my bank account the other day. It'll take a lot of rooftops to make that happen."

"Is that what you always planned to do out of college?" I stood and pulled off my shirt. Emery was standing bare skinned up top, his jeans unbuckled, waiting for the last minute.

"I don't know. I guess not. It's probably smarter than what _I_ had planned, though."

"What was that?"

"Move to Hollywood. Star in the movies."

"With that mug? They have a lot of roles for squinters?"

He was rubbing his hands together and breathing into them, his shoulders pinched in cold. He loosened his squint when I said it, his features relaxing into a completely different face.

"Well, I said it wasn't a smart plan."

"Things were so easy in your world."

He laughed. "How about you? How does roofing sound?"

"Good. I guess. Great."

"It's strange how we go through college with big plans, spending all this time and money on education, preparing to conquer the world, and then we just sorta slide into what's available after graduation."

A student with a hairy back lumbered up to us, his face and shoulders red-splotched by the cold. "Hey, Emery."

"Oh Lord." Emery looked up and crossed himself. "What'll it be, James? All the way across?"

"That's right. I'll race you."

"How about I just ride across on your back? There's plenty of mane to grab a hold of."

James put his dukes up in play, and Emery went into the exaggerated boxing stance of the Notre Dame Leprechaun, his fists held high.

The faculty member, wearing a coat and a hat, picked up the orange cone and read from a paper the annual address to the crowd of half-naked students, a crowd that had gathered large out of nowhere, fidgeting to find warmth. He shouted the word, and the laughter and shrieks broke out as people ran into the freezing waters of St Joseph's Lake. Emery shucked his jeans and fought with hairy James to be the first in. I followed them, long striding into the frothy melee.

Father Donnelly was speaking at the altar about stewardship and the duties of a Catholic. He always paced back forth as he spoke, his hands folded in front of him and his eyes on the ground, speaking loud enough to be heard in the back but never making eye contact, as if he were the only person in the church and you were listening in on a deeply personal conversation with himself.

Faces around me blinked in mystical hypnosis, upright in the pews, caught on every thorny word of Father Donnelly's monologue that struggled with good and evil in front of the pews.

When he was finished, he held his hands in the air and faced the crowd.

"...but you don't _go_ to church to get something out of it," he said with a clenched fist. "That's selfish baloney. It's not about _you_ , or what _you_ want. When someone tells you they don't go to church because they don't get anything out of it, you call their bluff and tell them the truth!"

The air went of the church and every breath held.

"You go to church because _you_ want to worship the Lord."

Elle had been in her usual place at the front. I had come in late and sat behind the wall of tweed backs. I stayed seated as parishioners filed out, still thinking about his words. Why did I go to church? I did not go for selfish reasons. I did want to know God, and yet in confession to myself I would say I got nothing out of it.

When I looked up I had forgotten to look for her and the church was nearly empty. I was Father Donnelly's last handshake at the door.

"Very nice homily today, Father."

"Thank you, Sam. I'm afraid I get a little riled up at times. Sometimes I feel like a fire and brimstone preacher and not a priest."

"What's the difference?"

"Just the style, I suppose."

"It made a point. I liked it."

"Good to hear."

As I walked away, the sky behind me chimed with bells and I paused to watch the pigeons fly from the tower. Father Donnelly was uncloaking himself, folding his green vestment as he marched around the corner of the church to the rectory, white sneakers on his feet.
Chapter Eighteen

The baseball field was ice-glazed and hard-packed. The diamond sat in a shadowed corner of campus, collecting the funnel of blowing snow and freezing wind from the buildings. It was a late winter, which meant when spring finally did arrive it would happen overnight. Baseball season was a month away from officially starting, but a baseball team can only practice so much on an ice rink. Just swinging the bat would send players home with twisted ankles.

Campus maintenance crews cleared the baselines away, making it possible to run the bases, but the outfielders were sliding on bruised knees too often, the shortstops pivoted on cold glass, and the pitcher made his windup on a mound of ice, pitching himself in a somersault with his follow-through.

I cleared the rest of the field for forty dollars. I hadn't felt the ruffle of money in my pockets in a while, and I wouldn't be on rooftops again for another few weeks. This would hold me over until then, and the maintenance crew was all too happy to let my hands be the ones that froze to the end of the shovel.

"The sun will come out and melt it soon enough," a crewman told me. "But if you want to take the time to clear away, be my guest. It'll get the coach off my back."

It was morning when I started and night when I finished. I cleared away the infield, scraping the crust of thin ice into piles of sheets, and then I decided to finish the outfield as well. I hated to leave a job unfinished. It was warm enough each day, even in the shadow, to melt away the frost that clung to grass blades each night.

I stood at the fence and watched the team drills the next day. The players were able to run without incident and the pitcher gave a confident windup.

The batter was cranking the pitches all over the field, sending the fielders left and right, sprawling for catches. He never hit one over the fence, but he had a great swing, his fundamentals were perfect, and he rarely missed a pitch. When he removed his helmet I saw it was Father Donnelly. He looked young and athletic enough to be a player.

He blew a whistle that hung around his neck and sent the team around the bases a few times, and then to the far fence in sprints. He popped the button on his batting glove as he approached me.

"Baseball is a pure sport, isn't it?" He said it more as a statement than a question.

"You're pulling double duty," I said. "A priest and a coach."

"What's the difference?"

I laughed. "Just the style, I suppose."

"It's almost the same. I pass along the teachings of God and baseball without a word changed. They are both pure traditions."

"Did you play?"

He nodded. "I was a first baseman and lead hitter. I led the minors in RBI's and was second in batting average to only Ted Williams. That was a long time ago."

"The Red Sox's Ted Williams?"

"Yep. He played in the minors before he was the Ted Williams that you know him as."

"How old are you?"

"Thirty-nine."

"It wasn't that long ago. You look twenty-nine."

"Well then it's all a failure because I was trying to look nineteen." He laughed. "It keeps me young. I played in the minors as soon as I graduated. Back then you could just show up and they'd give you a glove. I played for a few years and came back to the seminary. I had a different calling."

He turned to the field and clapped his hands, urging his players into another sprint to the backline.

"I heard stories about you," I said. "Red Chips, the barber."

"Oh, yeah?"

"He said you were a gentleman to the ladies."

Father Donnelly laughed. "Well, what else can you be? I spent every cent I had on dating. I'll have to tell Red to forget those stories. Things change. Priesthood was the last thing on my mind back then."

"What changed it?"

He looked at me and pointed to his ear. "I listened and heard the call. It was simple. When you open your ears to God, He speaks."

"I wish He did." I said it, forgetting that I was talking to a teacher, a priest.

"He does. What does He tell you?"

"I can't hear Him."

There was a brief pause. "Just keep listening, Sam." Then he jerked his head to the field. "Can you hit?"

"A little."

He gave me the bat and ran to the outfield, blowing his whistle and gathering his fielders. He gave them a quick demonstration of footwork. They watched him, young boys with their gloves tucked under their armpits like wings, listening the way a child minds his father. Father Donnelly called out to his pitcher to send the ball across the plate.

I gripped the bat easily, the familiar weight balanced in my hands, and stepped up to the plate. The pitcher mumbled something on the mound and then called out to me.

"Can you hit?"

"A little," I said.

"I'll gift wrap this first one."

Father Donnelly was crouched in the outfield, his hands on his knees, his fielders to the left and right of him, crouched and ready. The pitcher wound up and tossed a slow ball that floated by me. I swung and twisted all the way around, hitting nothing.

"They don't get easier than that," the pitcher said.

"Throw it harder," I said. "Give me something I can hit."

He mumbled again, almost laughing to himself, and he shook his head. He wound up again, a much tighter, much more powerful release, and threw a ball that came at the plate as if it had gunpowder behind it.

I swung and heard the crack of the bat. The ball flew straight back at the pitcher, who had to duck to keep his head attached, and bounced into the outfield where a fielder scooped it up with almost pure footwork. Father Donnelly watched and then gave a quick word of instruction to correct his player's technique. He clapped and shouted.

"Just like that, Sam. Keep them coming."

I gave him four more hits, one right after the other, and the pitcher was becoming frustrated. His pitches kept changing in speed and curve, trying to get one by me. He was not in the drills. He was on the mound in the World Series, bases loaded.

He gave me a staredown and I waited for his pitch, balanced on my back leg, the bat held high over my shoulders. He gave me a fastball, an asteroid burning up in the atmosphere. I swung hard and showered the infield with splinters. It felt good. A feeling I had not had in a long time. I saw the fielders' eyes follow the ball over the back fence where it disappeared in the grass. The pitcher slapped his glove on the mound and kicked it away, his hands going to his hips, facing away from me.

Father Donnelly clapped and smiled, shaking his head, impressed. He gave his pitcher an encouraging word and trotted over to me.

"That was the only bat I brought today. You put an end to my field drills."

"I didn't expect that. What is this made of?" I held out the splintered stub.

"That's a regulation outfield," he said, putting a thumb over his shoulder, still smiling. "Three hundred and seventy feet from home plate to the fence."

"The wind took it."

"My pitcher was top five in the conference in strikeouts."

"He made it an easy hit for me."

He looked at me and shook his head again. "A few guys play both, you know?"

"Both?"

"Football and baseball." He patted my shoulder without another word and ran back across the diamond, gathering his players for ball drills. The pitcher tipped his hat to me, giving me a sporting recognition, his expression still filled with personal disappointment.

Elle was standing behind the fence as I walked off the field, a notebook in her gloved hands and a scarf around her neck, prepared to spend an afternoon in the ignored shadows where Irish baseball grew unnoticed, where the coach was turning weeds into plants. She looked professional and smart. I felt my breath stop in mid-exhale and a smile leap across my lips when I saw her.

"Are you the baseball writer too?"

"Sportswriter," she said. She was particularly beautiful in winter wear, her smile beaming and her eyes moist from the chill. It brought out a brighter shade. "I cover it all."

"I didn't know our baseball coach was our priest."

"Clergymen are many things, especially at a Catholic university."

"Are you here to gather quotes from the team?"

"I was. Now I think I should write about the player who knocked it out of the park."

"Oh. No, I was just filling in for Father. It was a lucky hit."

"I've been covering the teams for four years and I've never seen anyone hit it that far over the fence. I don't know if I've ever seen it hit over the fence at all."

"The wind funnels in right here behind the plate," I said. "A big gust must have taken it."

She held her look on me, not giving in. "I was standing right behind home plate. It was calm. You can't make up stories for it."

As I walked up to her it was natural to open my arms and hug her. I only noticed the ease with which it came about because of the awkward fitting of our two very different heights, an obstacle I found myself happy to overcome. She gave a sincere squeeze back, lifting her chin to rest on my shoulder.

"How have you been?" she asked.

"Fine. I earned forty dollars last night. Let's get lunch."

"I have to get a story written. I've been so busy lately. Maybe tomorrow."

"Sounds great." We looked at each other, unmoving, with friendly smiles. Hers was a smile from deep within, behind layers. Was it worry that hid it? I wondered what she was thinking. "Do you need a line for your article?"

"I need several."

"How about this: Team in shock at mystery homerun slugger. Man retires after fluke hit."

"Sounds suspenseful. A bit long for a headline."

"Alright then: For Sale. Broken Bat. Used Once."

"Actually, I do have a project coming up that I could use your help on."

"Okay. What is it?"

"It's for the _Chicago Tribune_. I'll need you to drive me next month."

"Elle, that's great. Congratulations. Are you a reporter there now?"

"No, no, but I'm hoping this will change that. It's a tryout. A portfolio. If I knock it out of the park they might consider me."

"And I am to be your chauffeur?"

She gave a hopeful nod.

"Very well, but my services come at a price."

"What price?"

I waited for a moment, enjoying the innocent smile that my words put on her face. "A car," I said. "I don't have one."

"I'm borrowing my professor's car. I've already talked with her about it and she'll have it ready with a full tank of gas. She believes I have what it takes."

"Then it's a date." I said the word lightly. "And best of luck to you knocking it out of the park."

"Anyone with the talent to knock it out of the park should give it a try. Don't you think?"

She gestured to the field, no, not the field, but to the ball that I had clobbered. One of the players had hopped the back fence to retrieve my homerun, searching the grass for it. I looked back at Elle and she had her eyebrow raised.

"Trick question," I said.
Chapter Nineteen

The bicycle shop on the corner survived on the lean budgets of students. Anywhere else and it could have made a decent earning, but the former student who started the shop twenty years ago never could bring himself to move beyond earshot of the Sacred Heart bells.

Students were the bread and butter of his shop and there is nobody on earth who needs a bicycle more than a student. They hovered in swarms around the shop like bees. But with a generous student discount in place, written in black marker on his store window twenty years ago, the shop owner's earnings were meager. His business was never empty, his tasks never completed for the day. Hundreds of students were on a first name basis with him, his hands ached at the end of the day, and yet his pockets were never filled, his bank account never over a thousand, his meals were plain, but his heart spilled over with a joy he would not be able to find elsewhere.

His name was William, shortened to Will, turned and twisted into Wheel and then finally to Wheels. Go see Wheels, he'll get you fixed up. I think Wheels has one like that, just around the corner. He was as thin as a fence post, he rode a bicycle wherever he went, and he darted around the shop, inside to get a wrench, outside to change a tire, always in a sort of dance on his feet as his radio played on an outside speaker.

"Here you are, Sam," Wheels said, holding a pair of bicycles at his sides. "Pumped, jumped, and ready to hump."

"Thanks, Wheels."

I pulled a couple of dollars from my pocket, flattening them out and putting a crease down the middle lengthwise. Wheels snatched them, and with a lick of his thumb he counted the two dollars as if it were a hundred, tucking them into his shirt pocket.

"You're probably coming into your busy time of the year," I said.

"Indeed," he said, his knobby fingers wiped grease on the thighs of his jeans. "The first sign of spring sends everyone in a dizzy. Peter used to come by and turn a wrench for me when he had the time."

It seemed that everyone knew Peter or had some sort of connection with him. I was still learning the breadth of people that loved him.

"Shame about the war," he said. "I was at his funeral."

"Seems like everyone was."

"You were only a year behind him?"

I nodded.

"Catholic twins," he said. "Close in age like that. I have three brothers and we were all born within a year of the last. Dad used to call us that."

"You're the oldest?"

He spat to the side. "You bet. We lost the youngest in '44. Jim. He was in Normandy."

"I didn't know that."

"I wish it was me sometimes. I should have been there alongside him. I have bad vision. They wouldn't let me go. Jim was colorblind but he could see for miles. Being colorblind is a plus for soldiers. They can see through camouflage. You know that?"

"No, I didn't know that. Is that true?"

"I think it is. Jim wasn't but four years younger than me, a grown man, but I always thought of him as the baby, you know?" He took a large breath. "It's something you don't get over. There was still a lot I wanted to show him. I bet Peter is looking down thinking the same thing. He's probably glad it was him and not you."

Being a brother is a strange thing at times. There are so many things that go unsaid, things that stay under the surface and are only understood by actions. Peter was more than an older brother to me, he was also the man I looked up to and he filled the roles of protector and teacher to me since we were children. There was so much I wanted to learn from Peter still, and I realized now it was a two-way street. There was so much he wanted to teach me still.

Wheels must have felt that he had overstepped a boundary, saying too much, because he half-turned away and wiped his hands again on his jeans to fill in the silence.

"If you ever have a day when you need to earn some extra cash, come on down. I'll have more work than I can get to."

"Thanks, Wheels."

"Sure." He looked around, taking in the day. "Well. Swell day for a spin."

"Thanks for the loan. Have them back to you tonight."

"Keep them for however long you need them." He waved his hand. "They could bring you luck. Love happens on two wheels."

He stood fully confident in his claim. Bicycling on the first day of spring, when the sun suddenly appears in full and sprays the earth with so much more than rays. It was a romantic thought.

"Can it do all that?" I laughed. "Much more than just transportation."

Wheels nodded. "Oh, Lord, much more. A bicycle puts a smile on anyone's face. I should think the world would be a much better place if we got rid of cars altogether and sent people around on bikes. If Jesus had come two thousand years later He'd have entered Bethlehem under His own pedal-power."

"There's always the Second Coming."

"I'll be here."

Liv met me on the Le Mans roundabout. I was standing there with the bicycles on kickstands. Girls were streaming into the warm air as if it were the first day of the sun's existence. They were dressed in the thin spring sweaters and skirts, short sleeve shirts and shorts, ignoring the goose bumps that spread underneath, proud and excited to show off their long limbs. They want you to look but you always feel that you should not.

The opaque sticker of winter had peeled away the white and gray, all the coats and scarves along with it, to reveal a tender new world in bloom.

"When you said a surprise I thought we were going somewhere."

"We are," I said. "A bicycle ride."

"I'm wearing a skirt."

"Just be careful of the chain."

We pushed off the curb and rode through the neighborhood lanes of South Bend, under the floating tree buds. The early tulips sprouted in the sidewalk greens, the robins chirped from the fences, and the bees buzzed the blossoms. Old men sat in rocking chairs and waved in short sleeves from their porches, women looked up from their knees in their gardens. Everything breathed with warmth.

There was a market along the main street, farmers with outstretched hands weighing their early greenhouse produce, women waving fists of flowers, fresh bakery items steamed from tables and small boys stuck their thumbs in the center. Trinkets caught the sun, pages of old books flipped with the breeze; wives tested the firmness of melons, carvings stood in piles of shavings, paintings jumped out from artist's arms. Little girls ran from sidewalk to sidewalk selling homemade hair clips and barrettes with butterfly buttons and ladybug beads. The men whistled as they walked through the market and shook hands with each other while the women spoke in smiles and light voices.

Liv held a handful of flowers to her face and sniffed herself into a delicate sneeze.

"There goes your first semester classes," I said. "I saw all the words jump out."

She waved her hand at her face while her mouth and nose pulled together in another sneeze.

"Now you're working on your junior classes. All your education, blown through your nose."

She put her hand on my arm and fought the last sneeze hard enough to keep it in her nose and release it as an exhale. "I'll forget who you are if this keeps up."

We moved down to a table of books. A small boy was peeking up from behind rows of literature, his hands folded in front of him as though he was a banker with a table full of investment advice.

"A quarter a book, sir."

"That's a good deal," I said. "Are all these books yours?"

"My grandpa's. He's a book collector."

"Have you read all these?"

His eyes widened. "No, sir."

I began to point out different books. "How about this one?"

The boy leaned in and read the title, making a great show of it. "Yes, sir."

"This one?"

"Yes, sir."

I grabbed the first hardcover, a tattered copy with worn edges. I held it close to my nose and breezed the pages.

"Ever read Mark Twain?" I asked Liv.

"No," she said, looking away at the other booths. "I've heard of him."

"Everybody's heard of him. He's a classic."

The boy came around the from behind the table with several selections he must have thought any girl would surely seize with both hands. He held them out to Liv.

"For you, ma'am."

"No, thank you."

He had not managed to get her attention. He gathered himself and tried again. "Only a quarter a book."

"No, thank you." She was looking away still and the boy lowered the books in disappointment.

"I'll take all of them," I told him. "Here's a dollar for the books and another for your expert opinion."

The boy exchanged the books for the money with a huge smile printed on his face, a new confidence in his service.

"That was awfully nice of you," Liv said.

"It was just a couple dollars. I have some of the finest novels in literature and I might have changed that boy's life."

"His life?"

"Sure. He now has the courage to approach strangers with his ideas. Maybe I revealed his calling."

"Such a high opinion of your powers."

"Well," I shrugged. "Maybe I just changed his day."

I put the books in the basket on her bicycle. "For you."

"But I'm not a reader," she said. "I'll never get around to them."

"Sure you will. You might love them. It might change your life too."

"I didn't know you loved books so much."

"There's a lot of information out there. We're lucky people wrote it down. It's comforting to know that someone somewhere has faced all the problems that we have today and they wrote down the answers just for us to read about."

"There can't be anything in these old books that relates to modern society. Things change."

"Not as much as you'd think."

I had to roll our bicycles alongside me after that. Liv caught and dirtied the hem of her skirt in the bike chain, and yanked at it in frustration until it tore away. She wasn't up for riding through the market, saying she would rather walk because life is missed when you go rolling past it. There isn't enough time to be spent goofing around on bicycles.

We spent the evening watching the sunset from the patio of a café. Liv spent the time talking about the world as she saw it. How the world is full of people who have no morals. How young men go to war without a single thought to the people on the other end of their rifles. How she was becoming less and less confident in religion and the power it has invested in just a handful of lofty bishops in Rome.

I listened and had seven cappuccinos. She drank five Irish coffees.

"I'm talking too much."

"It's the drink."

"The what?"

"The Irish coffee. It's spiked."

She pushed the empty cup away, looking at it as though it were poison, and put her hands to her head. "I feel tipsy. I thought it was too much caffeine. I was trying to keep up with you. I didn't want to seem dull."

I pushed the cups away. "You had too much."

"I didn't know there was alcohol in it. I thought it was a special flavoring. It tastes so good. You might have told me. Why did you have so many coffees?"

Because I didn't like what I was hearing from you and yet I couldn't help but to hear more. "I don't know."

"The world isn't fair. Your friend, Myles. It's not fair to him. If he doesn't like it then he should change and do what's right. He should be reasonable."

"I thought you liked Myles."

"I do. He's perfectly charming, but he's a rascal and he's a fraud and he feeds off of those who are good to him. It's because he is the way he is that I like him. I like the bad things in life."

"What things?" I said.

She shook her head back and forth in disgust. "I'd rather hear about you."

"What about me?"

"You haven't told me a thing about you. All I know is that you like sports. I just learned that you like books. How simple is that to tell someone? You're always – always hiding."

The spiked coffees had brought about the hiccups in her. She was suddenly in a foul mood and it pulled her features downward - all those feminine features that I had so many hopes for were now drowning in a spitefulness that I found somewhat relieving.

"I go to school here and yet I have so many disillusions about it," she said. "Everyone here is so devout on the surface and so different underneath. Every Friday is Lent around here and every kiss has to be pure. Life is better without rules."

"It doesn't seem real, does it?"

"And Saints. Why so many Saints? Why do you pray to a Saint when you can go to God directly? And why confess to a priest when you can go to God? Prayer doesn't seem necessary anyway. If God can see into us, can hear us, then why do we spend time praying? A Novena is the same as wishing upon a star."

I walked her through the shadowed campus lawns to her dorm. The drinks affected her greatly and she spoke without a filter.

"How many girls have you been with?" she asked me.

"I've been on dates before."

"But how many have you been with?"

"None."

"That isn't real. It isn't real. There are no rules about that sort of thing. If you want to then you should be with girls and not feel guilty about it."

"There are rules."

"And you've followed them?"

"Yes."

"Without fail? Without even the slightest question about them?"

"I question them."

"Rules are meant to be broken. Wouldn't it be easier to follow _most_ of them, but only _try_ to follow some of them? If you make a mistake then it would still be all right."

"Yes, that would be easier."

"You can still be a good Catholic and have fun. You can drink too much and swear and skip a mass to sleep in and still be good."

"I suppose."

"Then why are you so uptight? God knows we are human. He expects us to make mistakes, right?"

"Yes."

"Then relax and open up." She kissed me then, standing on her toes and wrapping her arms around my neck. She took her time and I felt the hairs on my neck rise.

"We can still be good in life and have time to enjoy it," she said.

She looked at me in the failing light, her eyes moving all around my face. She made a face of sudden discovery, of sudden distaste in what she saw.

"Why do we have to go through life with a constant reminder of what not to do?"

"I don't know." I do it because Peter was good and he's watching me now. I know there's a goodness out there that we are supposed to follow. I know it is there, I feel it in those around me. I follow it blindly.

"You don't know anything tonight," she said. "You're all wrapped up in yourself and you don't see that life is right here in front of you."

"I want to have fun. What are you talking about? I kissed you, didn't I?"

"No. I kissed you. And I hardly felt it."

"What do you want me to do? Forget about everything and run through green fields of happiness with you?"

"Yes!" She almost screamed it at me. She turned and walked up the steps to the dorm. When she turned, her eyes were wet. "I want to like you, Sam. I want to love you, but you make it so hard to know you."

I held my arms up. "What did I do? I didn't do anything."

She touched her finger under the lip of her eyelid several times, careful not to smear her makeup. "Nothing. It's nothing. I had too much. I'll feel better tomorrow."

And with that she let the door fall shut behind her and walked down the lighted hallway trying to catch her ever-changing shadow without looking back. I watched her room window square-out with light and I caught her silhouette only twice as she moved about behind the curtain.

What do women know about men? Only what we tell them and only what others gossip. Our words are not carefully chosen and few of them are edited or thrown out, but still it is the bare minimum. We speak in half-sentences, our stories greatly omitted of information. What is important to them does not cross our minds as necessary. There lies the problem. It takes a special understanding of this on a case-by-case basis, and women choose how many grunts they need to hear before putting all their trust in one man.

I found myself standing under the darkness of the tree behind the dorms. A torturous sense of duty made me wait outside and see if Liv would come out again. If I was gone when she did then that might present itself as an obstacle to hurdle with her later on.

A square of yellow windowlight, speckled by buds, spoiled my hiding spot then. I looked up and saw Elle moving about her room. She looked like she was trying to keep herself busy, rearranging her notes on the table, folding clothes, standing in the room with her arms crossed for periods of time and then starting all over again.

I called her name just loud enough to carry into her open window. She glanced at the sound and approached, holding her arms to her chest. She was in a nightgown.

I called her name again.

"Sam, is that you?"

I held my eyes to the ground, seeing only her shape in the corner. "It's me."

She disappeared and came back to the window after a moment, her hands busy with the tie-strings of a robe. "I should be more careful with my windows."

She said it in a way that pointed the finger at her. She was quick to include me in her night, despite her lack of decent wear and my strange appearance outside her room. Her comfort with it made me drop any feelings of accidental trespassing.

"I was just passing by and I saw you," I said. "I mean I didn't see anything. I just saw that it was you."

"What are you doing out there in the dark?"

"Security," I said with a grin she probably didn't see, but might have heard. "Making sure no peeping-Tom's come by. You make it too easy for them."

"Now I know."

"Well, I scared them all away. You're safe for now." I pressed my heroic knuckles into my hips. "You looked busy."

"I thought you didn't see anything."

"I lied. It's a security guard's job to see everything."

She combed her hand upward against her temple and held it there, a gesture of concern. "I'm just worried, that's all. I don't know what to do."

"What's wrong?"

She stuck her head out and looked left and right at the other windows. The lights were beginning to go out for the night.

"Come up here." She kept her voice low.

"A gracious invitation," I said. "What kind of a fella do you think I am? Sneaking into girl's rooms at night."

"Not _in_ here," she said. "Climb the tree."

I was already reaching for the lowest branch when she said it. I pulled myself up and crawled across the sturdy curve of the branch that led to her window.

"Can you even see me in here?" I asked from behind the screen of buds. I pushed away the branches as a chimpanzee would and sat across from her, balancing myself in a fork to let my legs dangle. "What's wrong?"

She leaned against her window and held the top of her robe closed with her fist. "It's my brother."

"Your brother?"

"Yes, he's been so awful lately and he won't tell me what's wrong. I don't know if I should step into his business or let him sort things out himself."

"I thought you didn't have any siblings."

"Yes. I have a younger brother."

"I asked you if you had a sister."

"And I told you I didn't."

Another light went out down the way and Elle's was the last one left. I lowered my voice.

"What's the trouble? Is he older or younger?"

"He's my younger brother. He's a student here. Myles."

I wobbled for stability and a few buds shook loose from the branches. "Myles is your brother?"

"Yes," she said, and leaned back from her hips. "Do you know him?"

"A little. Yes, I know him. He's in the dormitory. Hangs around a drunkard named Jude Miller. I met him one night in the rain. I've seen him around. He was at the dance last semester."

"How did he look?"

"He seemed fine." I didn't want to tell her about the car trunk and Pat Carragher. I wondered if she knew.

"He hides his troubles so well. I never know if he's happy or sad or what. But it's easy to see now that he's not doing so well. I just don't know what to do about him."

"Myles will be fine," I said. "He's just a little mixed up about what he wants. Everybody goes through that. But he's a smart kid."

"That's what I tell myself but he's such a child sometimes. I worry about him."

"What's he done?"

"He goes off on these tirades. These sulky, angry tirades. He worries too much about what other people think of him and he drinks too much. He says he doesn't fit in here and he's going to quit school altogether and go home. Mom and dad would be disappointed in me if I let that happen."

"Have you seen him lately?"

"I saw him sitting alone near the lake this week. I had to skip a class because he was in such a bad mood and I didn't want to leave him alone. I think he's failing out. I don't know if he even goes to his classes anymore."

"I'll watch over him," I said.

"Will you?" Her eyes opened with such gratefulness. "Will you please?"

"Of course. It's the least I can do. You have your hands full with enough right now, what with the _Tribune_ and all. Don't worry about it."

"Will you pray with me now?"

"Sure."

The she closed her eyes and made the sign of the cross. Before she spoke, I reached into my pocket. "I still have the rosary you gave me."

She led the prayer. I fumbled my way through it, saying the words, trying to speak with conviction.

"I'll stop by tomorrow and talk to him."
Chapter Twenty

Myles's room was empty. His bed sheets were pulled up at the edges and I saw him there for a moment wrapped up in them like a lost boy fighting for warmth. There were dishes scattered about the room and empty bottles in the corner, crumbs on the floor. His books were open where they lay tossed. More than one temper tantrum had taken place here.

The only place that was orderly was his desk, free of any distractions, a notebook and pencil placed squarely in the center, his camera just above it, and a dozen rolls of film scattered about. I opened the cover and found pages of careful handwriting, loopy letters you might see in a girl's diary. I was afraid to read the words, afraid I might find a note that would send me to every corner of the campus to search for him and find him too late.

Instead, what he had written were poems. Not the dramatic tales of gloomy hearts and lost ways, but the beautiful poetry of a sensitive boy who had found an outlet to a world where things were right. A place where he fit in, even it was just on paper, where a thoughtful soul placed the hopes he had for the future.

There were pages after pages of it. Soft, profound words, sometimes a simple verse taking up four lines on a single page, and sometimes a story put into tender stanza taking up several pages. He wrote with the innocence of a young boy who had not discovered cruelty in the world yet.

I waited outside for Myles until noon. When he did not show up I went to join Emery on the newly warmed rooftops.

Emery was sitting barefooted on the peak of a housetop, leaning over some sort of gadget. He looked up and pressed a finger to his glasses when I came up the ladder.

"I was about to send the search party," he said.

I pointed to the rigging of metal bars, a dog's muzzle or a catcher's mask, that he was tying to the bottom of one of his shoes. "What's that?"

"This," he said, holding it up with an inventor's smile. "This is the future."

I sat among the paper-wrapped bricks of new shingles with my back to him. "This should work out well."

"Just working out the kinks," Emery said. "You know how a sewing machine has a foot stomper? Or a piano has pedals? This here is the same principle. The next phase in roofing. You see this little piece has the bounce and the nails go in like this. You put it on your shoes and then all you got to do is stamp your nails into place."

"Oh good. For a moment I thought it was going to be something ridiculous."

I felt a carefully tossed nail land on the back of my neck and slip down my shirt collar.

"Dad doesn't want to buy a nail gun yet. I don't either. Too costly. This here is the poorman's nail gun."

"Patent it and make a fortune," I said, picking up a hammer.

Emery straightened his back and popped away the knots of knuckles that gripped his neck. "I've been working on it all morning."

"Time well spent."

He lowered the contraption, that bear's trap of a roofing device. "What crawled up inside you today?"

"Huh? Oh, nothing, I guess. Sorry."

"Everything alright with school?"

"I think so," I said. "I'm thinking about changing majors again."

"Oh, Lord. Stick it out or you'll never finish."

I tapped the hammer thoughtfully on the shingles between my knees. "Does Claire have any brothers?"

"Yeah. The talkative little weasel I had to share a room with. Remember?"

"Does Claire talk about him a lot?"

"Sure. I mean as much as anything else. The way any big sister talks about her baby brother, I guess."

"Why do girls always have such an easy time figuring out what they want to do? Boys haven't got a clue."

He made a noise of equal bafflement to match mine and we spent a moment free of words, just simple thoughts that the warm spring air breezed away as quickly as they appeared in our heads.

"Well this will cheer you up. You're the new lead on South Bend. Dad's pulling back his hours for a semi-retirement. I'm taking on Elkhart for now."

I turned and faced him. "I'm not done with school yet. Neither are you."

He shrugged and bent forward into his twisted mechanism again, forcing an ammo clip of nails into the side of it.

"I don't know if I'll finish. This is a pretty good deal I have here. I'm four years into a degree I'll never use and I'll be married next year."

"I'm four years into a degree I haven't started yet," I said.

"We'll keep your hours flexible. You can work when you have the time. Dad will stay on the paperwork and the phone calls. You won't have to worry about that side of things. He just can't walk the rooftops anymore."

I looked out to the houses, the hundreds of shingles that lay before me, a never-ending schedule of good work in my future. An honest profession. Why did it look so different than what those words stood for?

"Thanks, Emery."

He fought with the foothammer until the clip popped from his hands in a confetti-like explosion of nails that spilled down the roof slope, the galvanized tinkling of flat heads marching away in rebellion. He slowly lifted his head and looked at me, his magnified eyes behind those thick goggles, and tossed the failed invention.

"All right. We'll get _one_ nail gun."
Chapter Twenty-One

I stood curbside with my back to the dorms, my back to the glass door and the steps I had stood upon so many times. I was wearing slacks and Elle had given me a borrowed tie to wear. I think she wanted me to look my best if I was to accompany her. To complete the confident image of success.

She came up the roundabout in a long, winged, baby-blue Chevrolet. She looked like a child behind the wheel, stretching her neck above the dash, looking for the curb. I gave her the hand signals used to land an aircraft and she laughed at herself when the front wheel rubbed the curb.

"This thing is enormous," she said as she came around. I held the passenger door for her.

"What did you learn to drive in?" I asked. "A Volkswagen?"

"My dad's Plymouth."

"Always learn to drive in the biggest car available. Everything else seems small after that. You can speed around the corners like a bank robber."

"Filling the streets with new drivers in oversized cars seems like a bad idea."

"Not at all. Only the good drivers will survive and we'll have created safer highways."

We drove out of South Bend and merged the big car onto the black highway to Chicago. It felt strangely like I was leaving behind an old life and starting anew.

"We'll be there in just under two hours," I said. "You're in charge of the radio."

But she did not move to fiddle with the knobs. Instead, she put her head back on the chair and closed her eyes with a few deep breaths while the fidgets jumped inside her. She was dressed professionally; a conservative dress to make an impression, and her face held the delicate brushes of very little makeup. The slight amount she did wear accentuated the natural angles of her features perfectly. She must have been confident without it, I didn't see a single blemish on her cheeks, and I remembered her the first time with her red lipstick. That must have been a last minute addition for nerves.

"Are you nervous?" I asked.

"Just excited." She held her hand out and it shivered with anxiety. "I feel like this is the culmination of my college career. I can't mess it up."

"You'll do fine."

She reached between us to the back seat, her hand remaining a moment on my arm, her scent passing under my nose, a comfort. She came forward too soon with a folder of papers. A portfolio of clips to show the _Tribune_. She began to turn each page casually, as though it was a childhood book she had read many times before.

"Everything in order?"

"I've had this together for a month now, adding to it as necessary. I stayed up past midnight making sure it's all organized, and yet I feel like it's a mess."

I put my hand on her's. "It's fine. Don't look at it anymore, it'll drive you insane."

She did not move her hand away or shudder at mine. She took it and held it in her warm hands, closing the folder and looking out her window.

"I wouldn't worry about Myles, either," I said. "I stopped by and he seems to be fine."

"Did you see him? Did you talk to him?"

"No. But his room was in order and it looks like he's attending his classes."

We drove on without the radio. It would have been a distraction. We talked about our favorite songs instead, singing the lyrics while the other guessed the song. We pointed out license plates from other states and we mimicked the call of cattle as we passed them by, black spots on the hillsides. We spoke like old friends about ourselves and what we wanted to do in the future.

"I thought I was going to be a nun when I grew up."

"A nun?" I said. "I can picture you as a nun."

"Mom always suggested it. It was her hope for me, not mine, but it grew on me."

"A life of service, but a life nuntheless." She didn't laugh, and I looked at her. "Nonetheless, spelled n-u-n."

She reached over and rubbed the back of my hair. I felt her smile from the passenger seat. "You have the same jokes as your brother."

"Did he say that one already?"

I held my hands on the steering wheel, afraid to look over. Afraid I might look too long or say something with my eyes that should not be said. Elle had never used the word 'brother' to mention Peter before. It was always his name. He was always Peter. Now the absence of his name was heard loud and clear as if she had shouted it.

"Well, I'm glad you're not a nun," I said to fill the silence.

"Are you? I can still see myself as one sometimes. Mom wanted Myles to become a priest."

It made me laugh. "I can't see that one." Only after I spoke did I realize she did not see the same humor I saw in it.

"I can," she said. "He's very perceptive of people. He cares a lot for what makes people happy and he tries so hard to make people smile."

"Has he always been...the same as he is now?" I asked.

"Yes. He's had a hard sense of justice built into him ever since he was a boy."

Then we topped over a small hill and I looked in the distance at the towers of Chicago rising up on the other side. We passed under several bridges on our way in and Elle touched the Chevrolet emblem on the dashboard each time.

The streets were busy, attacked by sudden jaywalkers, messengers on skinny bicycles, the honks of daytime cabs, steam rising from underground, the lights of overhead signs, and the congested smell of hundreds of cars speeding in one lane and crawling in the other. A trolley bell echoed a block away and snuck around the building corners on river air. It seemed as though someone was calling out from a loudspeaker on the highest skyscraper. The dark glass of the towers mirrored a dozen different angles. We were both silent with open mouths.

Elle sat upright with her hands on the dashboard, trying to see it all. I hit almost every curb as I rounded the corners to downtown. I found the first open parking spot on the street and took it, backing into it as a friendly pedestrian stopped to guide me in.

"You need a smaller car in this town," he told me.

I called out from the driver's window. "I'm not moving until the city goes to sleep."

"Good luck." He tilted his head back in laughter as he walked away.

"Can you imagine living here?" Elle asked. "It's so fast."

"It's fast all right. We should be close enough," I said. "The _Tribune_ offices are a couple blocks over. We can see the town on foot."

"Thank you, driver," she smiled and sat back in her seat with a bounce. "Now if you'll get my door, I'll get you your tip."

"Some cabbie I'd make. Making you walk. I don't deserve a nickel."

"Don't worry," she said, gathering her portfolio. "You'll earn it."

There was a digital clock above us, scrolled in yellow lights, half spoiled by the sun, as dim as candles. "It's twenty minutes to the hour. Should be plenty of time."

"Actually, we're an hour and twenty minutes early. I don't go in until four."

I looked around at the building walls that climbed to the clouds. "I'll keep the meter running."

We swam against the current of walkers: businessmen with the front of their suits dog-eared by the wind, their ties waving boneless arms over their shoulders, professional women in fitted skirts and high heels on the pavement. A lean man with torn hems and a scorched face stood against an alley wall and children in dirty clothing kicked a flattened can behind him.

At the corner I put my arm in front of Elle to stop her as a taxi sped around the turn. I took her hand and we ducked into the first doorway we saw, feeling almost sheltered from a storm.

"And you want to live here?" I asked. "I wouldn't last a day."

"Don't say that. You'll make me change my mind."

I pointed to a hotdog cart on the sidewalk. "Let's get a bite."

We stood on an unhurried pedestrian bridge overlooking the Chicago River and ate our hotdogs with the building rise at our backs, the boats at our feet, and the wind at our face. We laughed together as Elle struggled to take a bite without having her hair blow into her face.

"I should pin it back and keep it there," she said. "Or cut it short."

"No, I like long hair. Don't cut it."

"All the professional women have short hair."

"They don't have hair like yours, though. It'd be a shame. Not all of them look like you."

"And how do I look?"

The river reflected in her eyes and the sun highlighted her hair. I was about to tell her exactly what I saw when she blinked away the wind and, smirking with mischief, took the largest bite of her hotdog that I've ever seen a proper girl attempt.

"Is there a contest going on?" I made a show of looking around for one.

She almost laughed the bite right out into the river but she managed to keep her mouth shut and laughed through her nose until her joy watered out her eyes.

"Even when you're trying to be gross it comes off as endearing. Don't touch me with those fingers."

I dodged her reaching greasy fingers.

"We had better get out of the wind. You're going to look frazzled."

"I doesn't matter how _I_ look." She spoke from behind her fingers, her words filtered through full cheeks.

I turned and looked at her. Her hair had taken so much wind it seemed to have no correct way about it. It blew sideways, revealing her ear.

"You'll want to hide those ears again," I said.

"What do you mean?" She was running her fingers through a napkin.

"Has anyone ever told you how little your ears are?"

Disbelief spread across her face as it would to somebody who has probably never been given a disparaging comment about her looks in her life, but only half-believed the flattering comments she frequently received.

"Why, you're as mean as can be. My ears are just right."

"No, they're shrunken and they stick out a little." I walked two of my fingers in the air behind my own ear to demonstrate.

"They do not," she said. "You're looking for trouble."

"Don't worry. I have a hooked nose. You can make fun of it all you want if it makes you feel better."

"No, I like your nose."

"Do you? Rub the end of it for luck."

"I don't count on luck. The _Tribune_ could be on the thirteenth floor and it wouldn't matter."

"You're not superstitious? Not at all?"

"Not at all."

"Then what was that business with the tunnels and touching the emblem in the car earlier?"

"That was just for tradition's sake. Faith conquers luck." She spoke her last sentence through a mask of beautifully blown hair.

"Would you hurry and come out of the wind?" I said. "You're going to look like Dorothy in the twister."

"I already told you. It doesn't matter what I look like. You're the one who needs to straighten up."

It was because I was to take her portfolio into the _Chicago Tribune_ offices for her. That was the reason for the slacks and tie. I was to be _E. Quinn_ for a moment and scrawl the name into the front desk ledger in rough handwriting.

"It's not an interview," she told me. "You just hand it to the secretary at the front desk. I'm afraid if I do it they'll pitch it in the wastebasket as soon as I turn my back. They wouldn't look twice at the audition of a woman sportswriter."

I stood there and looked at her as she pushed a strand of hair behind her ear, an ear that wasn't so much small as it was beautiful.

"You're scared, aren't you?" I said.

She frowned her eyebrows. She probably didn't think of herself as that before, and now she didn't agree with the accusation.

"You called it gutsy when I did it for the _South Bend_ writer's position."

"It was gutsy then. You were unknown and hardly had a scrap of words to your name."

"I still don't."

"But, Elle, _you do_. You write the best columns in the paper. You can paint a player with a single word. I've read your articles. The games come alive on your pages. You have a fan club for goodness sake." I held my hand to the top of my head for effect, as if I was trying to keep my mind from getting carried away.

She shook her head and spoke quietly. "They're just boys. They don't even read the words."

"You brought me out here to turn in your folder. That doesn't show much faith at all."

She twisted inside her folded arms like a shy child. "It's just a little favor. You won't even have to talk to anybody."

I held out the folder and didn't say anything, letting the moment drag out until she gave in and grabbed it from my hands, marching a few steps before turning to face me. She was about to say something when I spoke instead.

"Tell the front desk you are Elle Quinn of the _South Bend Tribune_. Say it with pride."

She fixed her hair and straightened her dress with a few quick moves of her hands. I held her compact-mirror for her while she touched up her eyes. Her lashes fanned and I watched her kiss her fingertip to her lips and I watched the tip of her nose as she spread her finger along her cheeks. I noticed for the first time she had faint freckles that must have been hiding under the bridge of her nose.

Then she snapped the mirror closed in my hands before I was ready, and I was looking into the biggest, brightest, kindest, and most frightened eyes on the planet.

"Here goes nothing," she said.

"Here goes everything. I'll listen for shouts of congratulations from the thirteenth floor."

"You may want to watch for me jumping out."

"I'd catch you."

At the door to one of the tallest buildings, she paused and looked back at me. I was standing on the curb. People moved around her and people walked between us. She gave me a confident nod, and entered the doors with a deep breath.

I waited on the sidewalk watching the traffic of both cars and people gain and lose its fever, the building shadows bounce from different angles over the jungle of urban noise. I watched the people going in and out of the doors, looking at each of their faces and going on to the next. A noise would distract me, a bell, a horn, a shout, and I would look away long enough to feel like I missed her coming out of the door and I would look about with darting eyes to try and catch sight of her before the waves of walkers carried her away.

A man in a sandwich board spun on his heel and wandered back the way he came. A boy sat on a stack of the evening edition, collecting dimes from buyers, and a scruffy-looking man with an open box hanging from his neck scooped roasted candied nuts into twisted cones of yesterday's edition and collected nickels.

It was dark when she came out. I saw the city lights reflect off the glass of the revolving doors and out she popped, looking winded and more nervous than ever.

"Was it an interview?" I asked.

"I guess you could call it that. It wasn't supposed to be. I was just to leave the folder with the receptionist. There was a box behind the desk with dozens of folders just like mine. I didn't want to get lost in the pile so I told the lady my name and the name of the _South Bend Tribune_."

"Good."

She held her head in her hand, looking at the ground as if retelling the details of a burglary. "I asked how many women had stopped by with their folders for the job and she told me I was the only one today."

"Good," I said. "They'll remember you. You're already standing out from the crowd."

"The editor came out and asked questions about my experience and what I could bring to the paper. He didn't even open my folder to take a look. It was all for formality's sake. A big mistake, Sam. You should have gone in for me. I would still be a name in the pile."

She looked delicate in the dusk, huddled against the wall a dozen floors below the offices. I was proud of her. She had shown great courage against her insecurity.

"Don't look at me like that," she whispered.

"Like what? I'm proud of you."

"The way Peter used to look at me." She sank against the smooth stone walls, burying her face in her arms. "Don't do it, please. You're nice to me and I know why. Don't say it."

My heart wanted to speak but my head wouldn't let it. I sat next to her against the wall and we watched the streets rush at the hour. She put her head on my shoulder, forgetting her day for a moment.

"We won't get out of here for another couple of hours with the streets like this," I said. "I'm not driving that boat through this traffic."

"Sam, do you believe in soul mates?"

"What sort of a question is that?"

"Just a question. I've seen you with that girl."

"What girl?"

"That girl. The blonde one. She's pretty."

"Does that make a soul mate? I might have a hundred then."

"Do you think I met mine already?"

"Peter was wonderful," I said. "I don't know. Is a soul mate a Catholic ideal?"

"It's for anybody. Would God have given me my soul mate and then taken him away so suddenly?"

"I don't know. There's a lot of things I don't understand about God. There's a lot of things I don't understand about war, about why Peter had to go, about people and why they do the things they do. I don't understand women either. There you have it. I'm a damn mess. You better get while the getting's good."
Chapter Twenty-Two

I was twisting wrenches for Wheels at the bicycle shop the next week. Not because I needed the work - I had a handful of rooftops in South Bend that I ignored - but because I lost his loaner bicycles outside the café the day of the street market.

"Don't worry about it," Wheels said. "Those bikes may have been old and rusty, but they make smiles just as well as the new ones. Just give me a couple days and we'll call it even."

A boy was fiddling with the hand pump while I fastened his wheel back in place with a freshly patched tube under the tire tread. The boy stuck the nozzle in his mouth and slammed down on the hand pump as if he was setting off a cartoon stick of dynamite. His cheeks flapped with air and saliva, a round hole with teeth inside.

"Alright," I told him. "You pump for thirty seconds, and I'll finish it off."

"I'll go the whole way, mister."

"If you say so. Go until the tire is too hard to squeeze."

"I know it, mister." He was already pumping away, going up and down on the handle with the persistence of a railroad cart getaway.

I stood up and there she was, looking over the cruisers in the rack with the handsome trumpet player, his hand on the small of her back. She was being agreeable and flirty with him, much the way she was when I first walked her through the darkness. It was a small dagger in my side to see her with another, but I was strangely calm about it.

"Hi folks," I said, making a great production of a fabricated smile. "What can I do for you?"

Her laughter cut away in a gasp and she stood with her hand on her chest. The trumpet player didn't seem to notice, poking around at the bicycles.

I sauntered over to the rack with a big grin, acting oblivious. "May I interest you in a cruise around town? There is a market every Saturday. It's loads of fun."

"That sounds like a grand time," the trumpet player said. "Liv, what do you say?"

She didn't answer. She just stood there and swallowed any words that might have been trying to escape.

"Liv, darling. Doesn't that sound like fun? What's the matter?"

"She's overcome with joy," I said. "Here are two of our best loaners. Very easy to ride."

I patted two seats, still grinning like an idiot.

"The lady will love them. Keep her away from the book shelves and don't let her drink any coffee."

The trumpet player gave me a funny look and reached for his wallet. "I suppose that's the oddest bit of advice I've ever heard. But we'll take them for the day. Liv, you'll want the pink one."

"Sam," Liv said. "Sam, you behave yourself. This is Kingslips. You remember the–"

"The trumpet player," I said.

"Oh," Kingslips said, holding out two dollars. "You know each other?"

"Kingslips? That's your name?"

"Sam, be good, will you? Please be nice."

"My professional name," he nodded with a proud grin.

I snatched the two dollars the way Wheels would have done and counted them as if I was holding a handful of cash before stuffing them into my shirt pocket.

"Watch the steering on the pink one," I said. "It has a tendency to wander when you look away."

"Sam, how dare you." Her face flushed with anger. It could have been embarrassment.

"What's the trouble?" Kingslips said.

"You could have told me, Liv," I said.

"How dare you," she said again. "You never told me a thing about you. I had to hear it from Emery."

I looked at her. Kingslips stood there, his head moving back and forth between us.

"What's going on here?"

"Emery told me you were in the Army. He told me you went away to war. I didn't even know that, Sam. And your brother that you told me I would meet someday. Emery told me about him too."

"Whose brother? Where? What are we talking about?"

"I hardly know you, Sam. You could have told me you were in the Army. You know how I feel about the military."

"Now just a minute," I said. "Truman called and I answered. I lost a brother."

"Why didn't you tell me? You didn't tell me anything. Why did you hide so much?"

She used the word 'did' instead of 'do', and I realized it didn't matter. I had let her go between her fourth and fifth cup of Irish coffee. Liv was a chance at getting free. She didn't attend church and she held religion in contempt for putting up barriers in her life. She could have it. Kingslips could have it. She wanted no rules, life was easier without rules, and Kingslips could figure that out on his own.

"Have a fun ride today," I said.

"This is absurd," Kingslips said. "I'll ask you not to upset the lady."

"You go to hell."

He stepped back into the ridiculous fighting posture of a musicboy who never so much as swung a fist at a fly trying his hand at being a boxer. I could have placed a trumpet in his hands and watched him blow, the way they were outrageously spaced in front of him. It was all for show anyway. I put my hands up.

"You win, Kingslisp," I said, intentionally.

"That's more like it." He put his fists down and straightened his shirt. "And it's Kings _lips_. Now apologize and we'll be on our way. And I'll have my two dollars back to make up for your rude service."

I gave him is money back and they went down the road without the bicycles, not even looking back.

I was connected to rules by religion and rules by the military. If Liv wanted to walk hand in hand with a man who lacked any healthy walls to confine his behavior, I would not be that man. I couldn't be if I wanted to. Peter would see it all, he would be hanging over my head every day. It made me angry to think I would be a slave to his watch, a ghost to keep me in line. It made me angry that Liv, and now this trumpet player with the silly name, could ignore their consciences and enjoy forbidden fruits.

The little boy nudged my elbow.

"I'll pump up any other tires you need, mister. I can be here all day."

"You're fixing to be a good bicycle mechanic one day."

He shrugged. "I just want to pump things."
Chapter Twenty-Three

Sunday morning's bells pulled me from sleep, the hand that woke me, the hand that I feared and the hand that I fought in grip. Why won't it leave me alone? Life would be so easy without the hand of God on my collar.

Why won't I accept His presence?

Elle was there in the third pew, hiding under the doily, an empty seat next to her. I sat in the back and watched her, all those hand gestures, the moving lips. She could be so at peace with a God that binds her for life.

At communion I took the Body and the Blood at the altar and crossed myself for Him and for Peter, but not for me, and not for Elle. I stepped over the kneeling legs of the parishioners in Elle's pew and found myself in the spot next to her. She looked up for a brief moment and smiled - a sweet smile that was too naive, too stainless in existence - moving her purse to make room before folding her hands again in prayer. I knelt beside her in the praying posture while the caboose of the communion line approached the altar. The hymn's final lines became loud without the shuffling of feet and moving bodies to cut into it.

Elle did not speak. Her head remained bowed, her eyes closed. I watched the prayer move about on her lips, still unaffected by tragedy, still pure. I leaned in and whispered.

"How do I pray?"

She did not look up, she did not stop in her prayers, did not make the slightest change in expression to show that she heard me, except that she reached over and put a hand on mine. I whispered again.

"I cannot pray when I don't hear Him respond."

She tightened her grip on me, squeezing my hands, but she remained silent and still.

"Life is so much easier, so much more realistic when there is no God to answer to. When there are no cables to strap us down, no arrogant faith to keep us grounded."

Elle looked at me finally.

"Peter is dead and I have not heard from God," I said.

Her eyes were suddenly heavy and moist. I realized then the church was completely silent, the communion line had gone, the hymn had faded, and Father Donnelly had replaced the chalice in the tabernacle. He was standing with his head bowed at the altar. I wondered if I had been heard.

There was no ache inside me to hear God, no explanation I was looking for. I had many questions but I had grown comfortable with them, knowing they may never be answered.

Father Donnelly raised his arms and the congregation stood. Elle held her hand on mine and I stood with her.

"Pray with me," she tried to whisper, and I pulled my hand away. The hymn began again.

"I've prayed for everything," I said. "I've tried to remain faithful. I'm not wasting any more time with it."

"Pray for the small things." She tried to disguise her words to sound like verses of the hymn.

"I have prayed."

As the church emptied to the praising tune, Elle genuflected and hurried out ahead of me. I swam through the parishioners to catch her, shaking Father Donnelly's hand at the door, putting on my mask of faith for him. I caught her arm in front of the church and she turned to look at me through tears. I was angry again, nothing had been solved, and Elle was there to bear the brunt again.

"How can you still pray?" I said. "Doesn't anything make you question?"

"Of course I question." Her sadness had changed to anger. "I question everything, but I have faith."

"You lost Peter."

"So did you," she said. "But there is a higher calling in it. Everything happens for a reason."

"That's high-ground Catholic simplicity. You can't face the world so you give God credit and say it's all part of His plan."

"It is." She pulled away and I caught her again. "Don't touch me," she said.

"There are other girls that see it plainly. That blonde that lives in your dorm, she lives without all this prayer and guilt. She knows the world out there will carry on with or without a God in it."

"Leave me alone, Sam. That's a childish way to behave."

"She knows that people die and people live and God has nothing to do with it either way."

"Then go be with her. If all you want to do is go from girl to girl and forget about life then go and do it without me."

"I wanted to. The only reason I didn't is because I had Peter looking over me. But girls like that are shallow. Just the type of shallow that I need. There's never been a girl I was friends with that I didn't try to sleep with first."

"What about me?"

"You too. That day at Fort Wayne I had one thing on my mind. Girls like you don't give any attention to a guy unless he tries to make a pass, and then and only then do you give them the time of day."

"Go and be with your pretty little blonde then."

"I'm not seeing her anymore."

She stood there in the shadow of the Basilica as people walked around us, some hurrying away and some taking a glance at us. I had spoken in anger and I had spoken words that were more for effect than for truth. I had crumpled her. She did not move to wipe her tears, letting them flow over her cheeks.

"Then what do you want me to say?" she asked.

I spoke then in truth.

"I want you to (tell me that you love me)." My words were drowned in a clanging of church bells. The tower rang above us, the bells swinging to shower the noise from under their metal robes, and when I looked down again Elle was walking alone down the sidewalk.
Chapter Twenty-Four

I didn't go to church after that. The spring air pulls the hibernating animals from their dens and the dormant flowers from their bulbs. I went deeper into mine.

I was not an atheist, I could only be so fortunate that my faithlessness had a name to cling to. The trouble was that I _did_ believe, and I was angry because of it. I could not bring myself to curse God's name. I could bring the words to thought, but I could not shout them. I was too weak to go on without Him.

Rains came into South Bend, strong spring rains that fill the pores of the earth and drench the same flowers that the sun had assured it was their time to leap out of the ground. They flattened, sprawled in puddles, then carefully lifted their springy heads for a gasp of breath.

How could God be so indifferent? I had prayed for many things in my lifetime. I kneeled at His will and asked for a sign that He was there. Just a simple sign, Lord. Show me that you are listening. A faithful man might say the bells muting my words to Elle was a sign that I was not supposed to utter those words.

I knelt in the grotto of Notre Dame, the night rains dripping in curtains over the entryway. I claimed to not have time for prayer any longer, no trust in it, but I could not turn my back. I would rather be angry with a God who ignored me, a God who confused me, than no God at all.

It was a cool night, filled with mist, the grotto echoed against wet walls that stored no heat, and yet I was sweating on my knees.

You took Peter. Why didn't You take me? Why didn't You leave us alone? You call Yourself a benevolent God. You call Yourself kind. Where is Your kindness? Answer me. Give me a sign that You are listening!

The rain pittered outside the grotto. No lighting flash, no thunder.

Why do you tempt me with blonde escapes from your grace? I could go to her now. There is no reason that I should not. I could knock on her door and forget about You, suffocating under her fevered kisses, her warm skin against mine. You don't want that. I said no to her already, is that not enough? Are you testing me? Why do we speak only in questions to you? Can you not take an order?

What am I supposed to do with Elle? Why did You bring her to me? To mock me. You give Emery and Claire their happiness and to me You give only questions with no answers. You took Peter and now You mock me with his undying presence.

Peter, Peter...

You were selfish to leave me so early. The world is so strange and confusing without you. I only stepped in your footprints before, and now I must test the soil without you. Where are you? I thought you would still be there, above, around me. I thought I could ask you but you are gone. Gone with God, standing together in silence. Can you hear me now? Say something.

I stood and walked deeper into the grotto, running my fingers along the wet stones, little holes in the walls holding snipped off squares of scapulars and soggy folded prayers, the ink running down with the rain. There would be no more use for prayer. I was alone. Alone on earth with only one person who understands how I feel. What was she now?

Peter was gone, so what was she? Say it.

Peter's breath was still fresh upon her, his name still formed on her lips, her hands still searching for his in dreams, still warm by his touch. Say it.

She was still Peter's.

I put my hands in my pockets and felt the beads of a rosary. Elle had given it to me thinking I was solid of faith and would put it to good use. How many times had Elle prayed with these beads and been answered? How could she continue to kneel before God when she had never seen His works firsthand? Or had she? Why would He be so present with her and not me? All I asked for was a sign.

I held the rosary wet in my white palm, the beads glistening the light from outside the grotto. I thrust my arm cocked behind me. I wanted to throw it, I wanted to curse God!

The rosary stayed dangling in my hand. I fell to my knees on the stone ground. I wanted to throw God away, He was not there, He was not answering me. And yet I could not throw Him, I could not even curse His name. I could only fall on my knees and manage a more fervent prayer.

Lord, show me a sign. Don't answer any prayer of mine, my prayer now is for the sole purpose of a sign. Give me a sign so I do not end up in a rain-filled ditch, the life falling out of me in shallow breaths. Just give me a sign!

There was only the rain outside. I put the rosary back in my pocket and wiped my forehead with my sleeve. There were no ears to speak to here.

Through the rain I heard a voice. A voice challenging God as I had been. It sounded blasphemous and shrill. Did I sound that way? How could someone challenge God? Was it my own voice in a distant echo? How distant and weak I had become.

The voice came again and I stood at the edge of the grotto to listen. Only rain.

Had I sunk so low as to cast God away? How horribly animalistic it sounded for man to experiment with God's temper.

Lord, forgive a sinner. I spoke in anger. But just one sign, please, be fair.

The voice came again through the rain and I went out after it. I stood on the sidewalk and listened, the rain rushing from my hair, the sweet smell of rain-drenched grass, the campus lights setting the sidewalk glares aglow.

There it was again, from the Basilica. I ran to it and saw a figure like a gargoyle on the Basilica spires above the bells, one fist thrust out in the rain, the curses streaming forth.

There were several students below, standing with their necks bent backward, shocked to see their school church gripped by a jumper.

"He's out of his mind," a student told me. "He's climbed the spires."

The figure was black in the night, his screams hard to make out. He was leaning out over the concrete, shaking his fist and laughing. There were no flashes of lighting to reveal him. The only light came from the twice-dulled reflection of a reflection below.

"Who is it?"

"He said his name is Myles," he said. "He's cracked up. He said he's going to jump."

I leapt the bushes that separated sidewalk from church wall and started climbing the gutter of the tower, using the bolts that fastened it for footholds.

"You're not going up there are you? It's too slick. Oh, Lord, you'll fall before you reach him."

My fingers hardly fit the handholds properly, only the tips were useful, my toes stiff on the bolts below me, rigid with my weight. The rain kept my eyes blinded to the spires, blinded to Myles. I could only hear his shouts, his curses to God filled with the disappointment of a faithful heart.

When I reached the first ledge I was able to stand and flex my fingers before carrying on. I could not hear him any longer, only the silent night and the rain over clay shingles. I shouted his name and there was no answer. Below me a few more students had gathered, they were still looking up, small now, their faces indistinguishable. I gripped the gutter once again, my fingertips clawed, my knuckles burning.

At the bells, shiny in their arches, glistening and humming with rain, I flattened against the wall and found a corner to hug. I worked my way around the first bell to where I could climb the spires. And there he was. Myles was sitting under the bell arch as if it were a park bench, weeping into his hands and shivering.

"Myles, it's me. It's Sam."

He did not turn in surprise. He looked at me and his sobs turned into a strange, watery smile, dull in the gray reflection of the bells. His teeth were like small, wet stones, his eyes were dark until he leaned his head against the wall. He had dressed up for the occasion, wearing a white shirt and tie, his hair had been cut recently and styled and was only slightly disheveled by the rain. There was a bruise around a slashing scab on his cheekbone, still subsiding in its swelling.

"You came to see me, huh?" His words had sober edges. He spoke as though he had been expecting me, as if those curses were not curses at all but rather a calling for help.

"Yes," I said. I sat on the arch opposite of him, the bells between us. I straddled the stone bricks and ducked to see him. He had twisted around to see me as well, and when we looked at each other with nothing to say, he laughed.

"Isn't it strange how everything comes around?" He made a circle in the air with his finger.

"What do you mean?"

"I saved you once from these spires on a rainy night, and now you've come to save me."

"I never climbed the spires."

"In your mind you did." The sadness had returned. "Remember, I can read your mind. You're programmed the same as me. You've come to return the favor, come to save your friend."

"I've not come to save you. You wouldn't do anything like this, Myles."

I turned my head and waited for his answer. He would not jump without my eyes to see it. I tried not to think of it, afraid he could read my thoughts, afraid my thoughts might somehow push him over.

"No, of course not," Myles said quietly, almost sounding disappointed in his lack of courage. I believed he hadn't come to the spires to jump, but it was a relief to hear him say it in a tone that instantly gave it credibility.

"You just came to take pictures, right?" I said it to give him a way out so he would not be ashamed. But he did not have his camera with him.

He looked at me, grateful for my offer of an excuse. "The city is beautiful from up here."

He brought his legs up to be with him on the ledge and leaned with his back against the stones, the bruise on his cheekbone swelling out of the shadow.

"I'm going home, Sam. I need some time to figure out what I'm doing. This plunging ahead, bulling my way through a brick wall that never ends is not for me. I need the clarity. I told you once that people like us need to keep moving ahead and life will sort itself out. I was wrong."

He looked at me and tried to find the humor in it. "It may surprise you, but I'm wrong more often than I'm right, as it turns out." He looked around, at the bells, the drop below. "This is a strange place for a conversation."

"It wouldn't have been my first choice."

"Why not?" There was genuine curiosity in his voice. "Are you afraid of heights?"

"No, I don't mind heights."

"You don't like the view? Then what?"

"The seating is uncomfortable."

He gave me a look of dark confusion that dawned into a laugh. Not a small laugh or a giggle, either. He squeezed his eyes shut and cackled, slapped his leg, and then pounded his fists on the bell, drumming it as quickly as he could.

"Oh, Sam. Sam, how could one leave such a funny world?" Myles thrust his hands over the city lights, the droning of the bell fading quickly to rain patter. "Is that why you never climbed the spires?"

"I was never going to," I said.

"You can't fool me, Sam," he waved his hand, "but have it your way." He held the brick underneath him and leaned over as far as he could. "Look at them down there. It would make an awful spectacle. I do hate to disappoint people."

"How long are you going to stay up here?" I asked.

"Why? Have a date you don't want to miss? How's that pretty little dupe you've been seeing? Sam, the world looks so large up here, how are we ever going to dupe all the girls in it?"

He was speaking slowly and calmly, holding the people below in pinched fingers, squinting through them with one eye like rifle sights. "They're so small down there. All the troubles become small from this angle."

"What's your bruise from?"

He gave his little giggle. "Oh. Your friend finally said hello to me."

"Pat Carragher?"

"It wasn't his fault. I asked for it. Don't go looking for trouble. I wanted to get hit." Then he looked at me like an investigator. "Where were you tonight that you came so quickly?"

I cleared my throat. "I was taking a walk."

"What is it about you taking walks in the rain? You were right below me, weren't you? What were you doing in the church? Still searching?"

"I wasn't in the church," I said. "I was in the grotto. And don't talk to me about searching when you're up here like Peter Pan."

Amusement leapt from his lips. "That's even more of a search. What is it, Sam? You're even more confused than I am. Bless the poor devil who takes advice from me. I can hear Him telling me to go here, go there, go home, look at your schedule. It's all so confusing. What does God tell you?"

"I don't hear Him at all."

Myles looked at me then with the same concern that I had brought with me to the bells.

"Can't hear Him?" he said. "What do you mean? You hear Him all the time."

"Where?"

"Here. There. Everything is God. You here in the tower, those students down there, the rain on our faces. You heard me from the grotto. That was God. He was there with you in the grotto. Everything. Your meeting me on that rainy night. God put us together. Your being there when I was in the trunk, the books we share. Your little dupes that teach you things. His fingerprints are all over the place. You just have to blow the dust away to see them."

He sat there looking at me, waiting for a response. I was not expecting such a testament from Myles.

"Alright already," he said finally, sitting up. "Let's get down. Let's get you to your blonde dupe who smells so nice and isn't so pure. There's a door here in the bell tower."

"As it turns out, _I_ was the dupe."

"How so?" He froze in his movement.

"She doesn't want to see me anymore. I don't share enough."

"I agree with her. You don't. What did I tell you about the little lies? About our small omissions that seem like such a small seed to grow into such a monstrous weed? I'm sorry, Sam."

"It's not a big deal. I didn't like the way she turned out."

Myles shrugged. "On to the next one," he said. "On to the real one."

I decided to destroy all the little omissions in my life. "Your sister has been worried about you."

"Naturally. It's sneaky of me to put everyone all in a fright about me. I crave the attention," he said. "Do you know my sister?"

"Yes. Her name is Elle. She's my brother's..." Then I corrected myself. "Was my brother's. She was the first person I spoke to off the bus. She's become a very good friend."

"And now what?" Myles asked.

"And now I'm in love with her."

I heard him sigh, and when I looked he was rubbing his hands on his pant legs. "She's not one of these other girls on campus. You can't lie to her."

"I just told you what I thought of her."

"If you've learned anything from me...don't hold anything from her."

"I wouldn't."

A thought crossed his features. "Don't tell her about me. Don't tell her about tonight, Sam, please."

"About your photos?"

He smiled then and we sat with the bells between us, listening to the rain.

"I'm glad it's you," he said at last. "You haven't been searching for God, Sam. You've been searching for yourself, fighting your brother's shadow."

I looked at him.

"I'm guilty of little lies too. I knew who you were when I first saw you, Sam. Peter was the biggest name on campus. You look just like him."
Chapter Twenty-Five

The ducks were back to bobbing in St Joseph's Lake, tail feathers in the air, little black dots in the yellow glare. They move on instinct, they pick up and go without a specific destination in mind, but a direction in which they are absolutely positive of. It's built within them, a compass that they summon when another instinctive reaction under their feathers tells them the seasons have changed.

God may be around, if I was to believe what Myles did. And if I did believe that, then I should believe that Peter was here too. I always did feel his presence, just not in the way I had when he was living, the way I had become accustomed to and expected would last forever. He was always the protector, the guiding light. With that silenced in death, he was now the golden cloud above I could put my hand in but never grab anything from. He was the jersey on the wall and the blank space next to it. He was standing next to God, larger than God.

I watched as one plump duck waddled the banks and marshaled several sunny brown ducklings back to the water's edge. I tossed the crust of my sandwich to them before I left, one duckling breaking the ranks for a quick sprint at a meal.

The manicured practice field near the stadium was empty, the grass growing slightly longer in the offseason, the early leafhoppers crossing the slanted sunrays like floating dust. The team would be starting summer drills within a month. In the distance I could hear the cracks from the final days of baseball practice.

I went to Blarney's. Emery was sitting in the only quiet booth in the tavern.

"We're moving the wedding date up," he said. "Three weeks from today."

He held himself there, not looking for a chance to explain why. I nodded and kept my questions to myself. There was no need for an explanation.

"We'll have to rent you a suit. You'll be my best man?"

"Of course. Thanks, Emery."

"You understand my rush? I'll need you on the rooftops, Sam. As many hours as you can give me this summer."

"All right."

"And during the school year. Claire will want a house with a nursery."

"I'll do what I can. I want to finish school. I was thinking of switching to an English degree."

"What for?"

"I might want to write."

"You'll be pushing your graduation another semester or two away. Are you sure that's what you want to do?"

"No," I said. "But I don't need a destination. Some people count on that clarity. They need a target, an endpoint. As long as I'm headed toward finishing school, I'll be fine. I just need a direction. Like a duck."

"Like a what?" He had to shout over the noise.

"A duck. I'll make a move when I'm ready. Until then I'll stay in the pond and learn how to swim."

I read his furrowed expression and saw the question mark escape his lips.

I said, "Guess what I've come to realize? Just now I thought of it. Nobody has anything figured out yet. What a boring world that would be. It takes all the fun out of life if you have all your choices made up before it happens. So, I have my direction. I'll cross the goal line when I'm ready."

He nodded. "Just as much time as you can give me, okay? The rooftops? Do what you can."

Emery turned in the booth and raised his hand for another round. Higgins was pouring beers from the tap as fast as he could and, from behind the foothills of backs at the bar, he did not see any hands beyond the fists on the bar top. Emery stood and pushed his way to the counter, muscling his way through a loud circle of drinkers.

"Let's have these and go," he said when he came back. Then he looked at me. "Boy, I'm already becoming a boring married guy. Once the ring goes on the finger the late nights go away."

"Here's to late nights," I said, raising my glass.

"Here's to a direction."

"Here's to Hollywood and squinty movie roles."

Emery gave me a challenging grin. "Here's to not knowing a single damn thing about anything."

"Here's to hammer shoes."

I could hardly handle a sip after that, and Emery was laughing so hard with his mouth full that he had to put both his palms flat on the table and concentrate on forcing his gulp down before it erupted in a geyser from his nose. He held himself rigid with hysterical but very serious focus, and I practically saw the beer go down his throat in a jolting lump.

Our futures were a mix of best guesses and complete mysteries, neither of them developing in the way we envisioned, if we were lucky to have ever had a vision at all. That was life and it came at me fully as an understanding that had always escaped before. There was just one detail that made a splotched watermark on the blank page of my life. It was Elle. She was Peter's. I would have to write over her.

Emery turned to the wall. "Here's to Peter."

"To Peter." I touched my pint to the glass on the jersey frame.

A bouncy fellow with a slicked-down cowlick hanging over the center of his forehead noticed my gesture, turned from his spot at the bar, and slid over to our booth with a beer in his raised hand. "To Peter!"

He threw down a swallow, the Guinness flooding the corners of his mouth. He seemed unaware of who he was toasting, he was just a student with enough drink in him to make him want to be a part of something, and he found us. He clinked his mug into mine.

Another guy jumped over from the bar and repeated the toast.

The circle of bar drinkers opened and Pat Carragher emerged from the center of it, a dark pint in his fist. He walked over with a few beers in his legs.

He stood over us without saying a word, looking from me to Emery and back again. Then he looked at the jersey on the wall, tipped his glass back, and finished the stout without taking a breath. He exhaled in open-mouth satisfaction.

"I'd toast to you too," he said. "But I'm out of beer. Have one on me."

A few of his pals had gathered behind him, peeking over each other's shoulders. The crowd of Saturday night drinkers carried on in the background.

"Don't worry about it," I said. "We were just leaving."

"Well, now hold on. Sit right there, Sammy-wonder. You and me got off on the wrong foot. It seems a little hostile of you to cut and run when I was just about to buy you a drink."

He leaned forward on the table, his short sleeves moving up on his thick, freckled arms.

"I've already had a drink," I told him. "But thanks. And you and I are fine."

"Chummy pals you and me, huh?" He stood and pulled a bent cigarette from behind his ear and let it hang in his lips. He did not move to find a matchbox. "Gosh Sam, I just don't think you're being level with me."

Pat Carragher looked at Peter's jersey and read the white name card. "You know, I used to come to the games when your brother played. He was an inspiration to me. I was a senior in high school and I was running over pimple-faced linebackers every Friday night. I told myself I'd never get hit by anyone, especially a hard-hitting strong safety like Peter Conry, without them getting their bell rung by me first. I like your brother, Sam."

"I do too."

"Why don't you play, Sam?"

"Because I don't care to."

"Why not? Are you afraid of getting hurt or are you afraid Higgins won't put your jersey on the wall?"

"Have a good night, Pat."

Emery and I stood to leave, finding ourselves in the standing beer-breath of Pat Carragher. I went for the door and he grabbed my arm and pulled me around.

" _Now, you wait a minute_."

He stepped forward with a suddenly red face and breathed down on me with the flared nostrils of a bull. I could see the whites of his eyes and I again noted that I was looking up at them from about two inches below. His neck and shoulders might have grown over the school's off-season fitness program.

"You keep that little puff away from me," he said. "You keep him the hell away, hear me?"

"Takes a big man to hit a little guy like that."

"He pushed me. He was asking for it, begging for it. I had enough," he took a step forward and jabbed his finger into my chest. "You keep him away."

Emery moved forward and one of Pat's friends barred him back with an arm.

"He's done," I said. "He's going home. You won't hear from him again."

Disappointment might have been what crawled into his features then. He said, "That's good for you. The next time I might have come looking for you instead. You were ready to take his lumps before. Now, let's get a drink and put all this behind us like a couple of men."

One of the floating heads disappeared to the bar. Pat Carragher seemed to relax a bit. He put his hand, a big bear mitt, on my shoulder.

"I didn't want to hit him, Sam. I hate that I did it. He's a nice enough kid. But he pushed me until I snapped. He just wouldn't leave well enough alone."

"I know that. He told me so. But you're wrong about one thing." I closed the space between us a little more by taking a half step. "You would not have had to come looking for me."

I was feeling good. I wasn't especially hateful of Pat Carragher or insulted by him. He wasn't a bad guy. He was rough around the edges and he hadn't met someone who could cut him back yet. He was just a big guy who knew he would one day be the largest thing stomping around the Notre Dame grass. But he wasn't there yet, and I was beginning to feel a surge of what had not yet been determined by our first meeting. That crash on the pep rally field.

Pat Carragher grinned just a little. A smirk that lifted the corner of his mouth and made the tiniest crease in his cheeks of baby fat. The floating head came back with two fists of Guinness. Pat and I lifted them between us and put them down our throats in equal time.

What happened next was a mutual desire to settle our toughness off the field. We were face to face with each other, neither of us blinking, both knowing what would happen here, just not knowing how to start it. It was the group of lookers around us, including Emery, who were standing there like they were watching a flame inch closer to a barrel of gasoline. A few students who had been watching stood behind me to even out the numbers, and a few students left the bar entirely.

Pat's forehead came against mine then, slippery with sweat from both us, and we pushed against each other like a couple of bulls looking to scare the other down but knowing there was only one way to settle who was the dominant figure.

Higgins was a mere voice in the crowd after that. He didn't even try to intervene when things grew beyond control. He simply backed himself to the bar wall and put his wingspan out to guard the bottles from flying objects.

Emery had to buy a new pair of glasses. He told Claire that a door opened into him. It explained the bruises on his forehead and the cut on his nose. If he had shown Claire his shattered lenses and snapped frame, he might have had to explain further that the door had fists. He was very proud of surviving a bar brawl, saying later that "college isn't college unless you've been in a fight and had a beer afterward."

Pat Carragher probably didn't feel a thing, that big manchild, but he had a black eye which I claimed credit for, although it could have been from a number of thrown fists. He was a strong bastard but I managed to throw him as many times as he threw me.

Higgins spent the month's earnings on replacing the booths and chairs. The tables only tipped over and didn't need fixing. When the police showed up to break it up, Higgins put out the lights and locked the door until they left. There were only smiles in the darkness and not another punch thrown. He didn't press charges on anybody, and had much the same idea of bar brawls as Emery had. He was almost proud of it happening at his place than at a competitor's.

Peter's jersey came off the wall when Pat and I went hurling into it with equal force, locked together in what had to be some sort of wrestling hold. It sat there on the floor, covered in bits of glass and stepped on by several scrambling shoes. Peter never needed to be on the wall, though. Higgins never put him back up, and I would rather raise beers to him in the sky than to his jersey on the wall.

I went to his gravestone many times after that and Peter never once mentioned his jersey. Elle came too. She always picked the flowers and I would pay for them. I dressed his headstone in my army coat one day and gave him a final salute. He would always be there for me.

So would Elle. Somewhere in the bar brawl, somewhere in the hammer strokes on rooftops, the rung of the bells, the pigeons of the Basilica flying overhead, somewhere I had figured out that I would never have it all figured out. I had figured out that Elle needed me and I needed her. It took a shattering of Peter's presence on the wall to confirm it.

Nothing was proven that night between Pat Carragher and me. Neither of us overpowered the other without having it come right back to him in doubles. We agreed with a simple nod, smiling across from each other in the darkness, again fighting for the same air, that it was a matter to be settled later. If the time ever came up.

It was with a huge smile that I paid Higgins my bill and folded Peter's jersey on the bar.

"Sorry, Sam," Higgins said. "You can keep the jersey if you want to."

"Sure," I said. "I know a few kids in the park who'll get some good wear out of it. And don't be sorry. I like it better this way."

I caught a quick glimpse of myself in the door glass, and it was with a bruised chin and a small cut over my eyebrow, but a relieved smile on my face and unstrapped shoulders, that I ran across the soft campus lawns to the tree behind Elle's dorm room.

She stood on her balcony with hesitation all over her features when I told her I loved her. She broke into a teary smile and I stepped across the curved branch to stand next to her and hold her.

"You're going to fall," she said with her hands to her face.

But I had never been so sure of my footing, and I pulled her close to me, her body flush against mine all the way down to our feet. With her head cradled in the crook of my elbow I kissed her gently there, just as I had seen done by many returning soldiers stepping off the bus to greet their girls after long absences, just as I had seen done in the movies and on magazine pages and advertisements. She whimpered a small sigh and wrapped her fingers in the hair on the back of my head. She had the softest lips, as if there were no strength in them to move or twist them if she tried, just the warm fullness of lips that were meant to be kissed at all hours of the day, I imagined just as soft in the morning as they would be at night.
Chapter Twenty-Six

The lanes crisscrossing South Bend warmed again, old trucks sputtered at intersections and the click of bicycle wheels rose and faded below. Hammer strokes were once again full in noise, dispersing quickly in the green cushion of summer heat. The bells of Notre Dame hummed and brought my smile out of sweat. I stood and gave my shadow to South Bend, the Basilica of the Sacred Heart in the distance, and shook my hands out.

A coughing Chevrolet, baby-blue with fins, came out from under the branches down the way, rolling up the lane, the leaves and branches playing their nets of shade upon the windshield. It grew larger beneath me and stopped in front of the house with a single honk of the horn. The driver's window unrolled and Elle waved to me, shading her eyes from the sun, as small as a child behind the wheel.

Myles climbed halfway out the passenger window and waved. "Hey, Sam!"

"Good to see you around," I said.

He held his camera up in his arm. "Yeah. I figure I still have some things I want to do around here."

Elle leaned out the window, her arm slung out like a trucker.

"That car's too big for you," I said.

"I think it fits me."

I dropped my head and laughed at her insistence. "Did you steal it?"

"I paid four hundred for it. My entire savings."

"You did steal it."

"I figured it made it to Chicago once, it can make it again."

The words caught me in a stagger. I was happy to hear it.

"They hired you?" I asked. "You're the writer?"

Her smile was the answer. "I'll be covering Notre Dame sports."

"I knew it. They'd have been foolish not to hire you."

Myles pounded his hand on the roof. "And I'll be taking photos of the games for her articles." He ducked back in the window, disappearing in an excitement that I had not seen in him before. His smile was back.

"That's right," Elle told me. "He put in a portfolio of his work and they hired him on the spot. How do you like that?"

"I guess you'll be spending a lot of time in Chicago then?" I said.

"A couple days a week. I'll be here more than there."

"Will you be needing an inexpensive chauffeur?"

"The least expensive."

We laughed with each other, the engine of the Chevrolet still chugging, neither of us knowing quite what to say next or what the summer would hold. That was the excitement of it all, taking each day at a time, making each decision as it came. There would be plenty of time to sit by the lake, many afternoon drives to the city, time to live in the present, and there would be plenty of time to look forward too.

"What about you?" she asked.

I looked around at the rooftop. "There's plenty of work for me to do here this summer, and I can see the highway from here. I'll watch for you."

"And next year?"

"Next year," I said. "Next year I might take a shot at playing ball and getting in the papers."

"Playing ball? Should I look for you on the football field or the baseball diamond?"

"Some guys play both, you know."

"I'll have to wait and see."

"I'll give you the exclusive scoop," I said. "I'll be the first player out of the locker room."

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