The Bluish Glow

Before I realized how fascinating subway stations are, I never cared much for lying. Most of the lies that Ive been telling the past year have served to free me temporarily from the Charlotte Grimm Boarding School for Girls. Ive spent the last eleven years of my life at this grimy government-funded Catholic-practicing institution, meaning that Ive been imprisoned since I was six years old. I would have had a purely rotten time at this lunatic school if it hadnt been for the Charlie Grimm Boarding School for Boys that was right next door, between our school and the cathedral. I never got too friendly with the girls with whom Ive boarded all these years. They all think Im some sort of a whore, and they love to throw around words that they got from Othello or Titus Andronicus. My favorite word that they use is lascivious, because it really sounds sexy, and I dont mind likening myself to the Queen of the Goths. The word makes me feel powerful and somehow dangerous. I think one of these days Ill wear heavy dark eye makeup like Edie Sedgwick, and Andy Warhol will make a movie out of my face, and all the girls at my school will wish they could be dangerous and sexy like me. But they dont matter in light of my best friend from Charlie Grimm. His name is Ridley, and hes really good at making little crowns out of clover flowers. At least, he was good at it, but he probably doesnt remember that. I met Ridley eleven years ago one day in October after Sunday mass. He was sitting quietly by himself on the steps leading up to that magnificent and ominous cathedral, knotting together the stems of the soft little clovers he had collected. I remember being filled with whimsical intrigue at the sight of this solemn-faced boy with the clovers, so with the innocent flirtatiousness of a six-year-old girl, I sat down next to him and smiled prettily. We sat there for a time, he transfixed by his gentle task, and I dizzied by the chaotic kaleidoscope of autumn leaves erupting all around. If we had been older I might have quoted a Percy Bysshe Shelley poem to him, but I didnt know about such devices at the time, so all I could do was pray for a poetic end to this scenario. I suppose there must indeed be a God, because miraculously, with an impish fervor, the boy swiftly reached his little hands over and timidly placed the pink and white clover-crown on my head. I didnt react with near the amount of princess -like grace as I had intended; instead, with the greatest hesitation and dread, I lifted a frigid hand up to the assembly of stems and petals. I felt its fragility and was suddenly terrified that by simply touching the crown, the knotted coils would break and the whole blossomy decoration would fall apart. In the manner of Cesare the Somnambulist, whom I knew nothing about when I was six, I stood up stiffly, looking pallid as a porcelain doll, I suspect. Slowly I strode down the steps of the church, keeping my head perfectly still. Ridley and I would not openly acknowledge each other for the next ten years, but knowing that he had for a moment brushed his fingers against my tangled blonde hair was enough in itself to make those ten years bearable. I may have screwed up, but I still knew I had a friend.

That kid I never actually talked to would have been my only friend if it hadnt been for Sister Felicity. She had the friendliest face and the friendliest voice of all the sisters at Charlotte Grimm, and I think Ive always been pretty special to her. Shes always trying to help me, even if I dont need help. For example, its because of her good intentions to help me that Im where I am right now; I never asked her to help me in that way. It was April of last year, and I had just turned sixteen. She wanted to talk to me after class, and ended up giving me a piece of paper with information on it that I never wanted to know. It was the name and address of my mother. Why the hell would I want that? She tenderly suggested in a rosy, naive way, that I take the subway that weekend to visit my estranged relative, it being Easter and everything. I hadnt seen my mother since I was sixhadnt thought about her since I was ten. But Sister Felicity, thinking herself wise, I suppose, thought that I was old enough now to make the trip to that womans house, which, as it turns out, was only half an hour away. Her name is Tessa, by the way. She named me Sybil, because she loved the epigraph of T.S. Eliots The Wasteland. I cant understand why, though. The name has turned out to be a curse for me, as should be expected, because I have always felt too similar to the Sybil in the passage--like Im trapped in a jar and apothanein thelo. Thelo is a Greek verb meaning I wish, and apothanein is an infinitive Greek word, and it means to die, but it also means to be freed. I guess I like to emphasize the latter meaning, since Im not exactly morbid. While Tessa was apparently crazy about The Wasteland, Im more of a Prufrock sort of girl. Let us go then, you and I, when the evening is spread out against the sky, like a patient etherised upon a table. Doesnt that sound wonderful in a numbing, ethereal way? I feel that way all the time now, every time when I walk to the underground and get drained of myself to a point of deadness as the sky disappears. I walk there quite often these days, and nothing could be more poetic. I can hardly hear my footsteps against the cold stone anymore, and Im pretty sure that my eyes have turned a very icy shade of gray. In fact, I wouldnt be surprised if my skin is subtly tinted blue now. But perhaps thats just because it is reflecting the blue lights in the underground. Everything about you starts reflecting the underground if you stay there long enough. The one day I went there, I stayed too long. And Im lying when I say one day, because I went many more days than that. The first time I went, it was truly because I was going to see my mother. I was scared into a state of stoicism, but by that age I knew that I would have to make this visit some time or another. The subway station was my favorite place in the world as soon as I sunk down into it. It was cold, it was beautiful, it was crowded, it was fast, it was never-ending, and it was sucking me in. There were so many people, and I found that I could sing little songs to myself and no one would notice. I noticed everything though, like the lonely old lady sitting on a bench, hunched over in her raincoat, getting erased by the wind and the

blur of the trains. I said a prayer for her to be happy and to find someone to love her. I still pray for her. I still pray for Peter. April is the cruelest month, he said to me. He observed that I was holding a book of Eliot poems (I thought I would bring it so mother and I would have something to talk about). I was sort of weirded out when this stranger by the subway tracks started talking to me, but he was a pretty good looking man, thirty-something years of age, with blonde hair and a good amount of stubble. He had glasses tooGod, how I love guys who wear glasses. Behind the glass he also had something of the devil in his eyes, but I forgot that when he laughed nervously and sounded like a child. So I smiled, and he smiled, and in all the noise, no one noticed that we were both feeling quite strange. Nothing cruel happened to me in April, so I made it to October in good health and high spirits. I was back on the steps of the cathedral after Sunday mass, alone, thinking about Ode to the West Wind and wishing I could tell someone about it as the leaves danced about violently. Then someone sat next to me and I stopped breathing. Ridley and I glanced at each other quickly, feeling uncomfortably familiar with the situation perhaps. It was odd how things seemed so strained between us; I felt terribly uncomfortable because I felt it was my fault somehow. We didnt look at each other or speak a word, but somehow within the awkwardness the situation felt precious. Then all of a sudden, Ridley spoke. Im sorry, Sybil. He still wasnt looking at me, but my head jolted towards him, my eyes wide. He looked strangely relieved, as though he had been wanting to say those words for ten years. Sorry for what? I inquired. Things used to happen to you, and now youre messed up and do messed up things, and I didnt do anything about it. Yeah, I remembered stuff that happened, and I knew that, growing up, I had become something of a squeeze amongst the more sinister boys of Charlie Grimm. Boarding schools like ours could be scary places, with dark, narrow, dusty staircases; most of the sisters and authorities there didnt care enough to notice anything. And then the cathedral had plenty of black and beautiful places to hide so long as you were silent and ignored the sacredness of the stained glass. I guess silence has been a theme for me; its a way of lyi ng sometimes. Its all right. I dont dare disturb the universe about this kind of stuff. Im really okay. Im going to be Edie Sedgwick someday and everything will work out fine. Ridley was still looking straight ahead, and I suddenly felt like there was a churning thorn bush in my stomach that I needed to fiercely defeat. Maybe it was just because I was menstruating, but I was quite sure that something else was going on. I wondered what would happen if I touched him, if he would fall apart like a wilting flower or get angry with me. But I was so moved by his unexpected concern that I couldnt help reaching over and grasping his cold hand in mine. He didnt move, which means he didnt pull away, which means he accepted me. We sat there in

the relentless silence watching the leaves and wondering if God was there in the wind. Sitting there holding his hand was the best thing thats ever happened to me thus far in my life, and to be honest, I dont remember ever letting go. Sister Felicity is really pretty nice, so I feel kind of bad about taking advantage of her. I mean, I lie to her a lot, and she just trusts me. I figured I wasnt completely lying to her, because I was going to the subway station all the times I told her I was. The place where I deviated from the truth was where I said I was going to visit my motheryou know, have dinner, spend the night, be back the next day to do schoolwork. I guess Sister Felicity felt pretty pleased thinking that Tessa and I were reconnected in some magical way, and that it was largely her doing; thats probably a big reason why she let me go all those weekends. She even financed my trips, although I never actually took any train rides. I ended up going to the underground every weekend for, well, a long time. It wasnt to see my mother, it was to see Peter. I dont quite know how everything started. I dont know why Peter was at the subway station that day or where he was going, but I know that he missed his train too. There was that strange connection when we picked each other out in the crowd, me in my school uniform (an ugly gray plaid skirt and ratty sweater) and him in his wrinkled, un-tucked button up shirt, baggy pants, and worn-down shoes. There was the awkward eye contact and the tender smiles that didnt seem dangerous at all. Im not sure exactly what it was that attracted us to each other so automatically, because he was pretty unkempt looking and I wasnt quite Edie Sedgwick yet; but the attraction was there, and it was like a disease. I guess we were embarking on something illegal, and we couldnt bear our disease out in the open, so we took it somewhere where I suppose diseases were acceptable, along with anything dirty, although Im not quite sure what dirty is anymore. There was a small, rusted, filthy bathroom in the underground, in a far back corner; hardly anyone knew it was there. Its probably best that people didnt know about it, because there was never any toilet paper anyway. It had a practically eroded chain lock, and the yellowish-white paint on the wood door was peeling off like the flesh on a leper. I came to know that bathroom pretty well; I came to love the rusty lock, the corroding and ice-cold toilet and sink, the darkness. I think I loved those things, anyway, but maybe I just loved Peters hands. They werent too big, and they were gentle. I dont know what he did for a living, but it couldnt have been anything too rough, because his hands were so damn gentle. Its strange, but shitters dont smell quite so bad when your own bodily fluids are boiling and filling your nostrils with a fantastic sort of sex sensation. So this man with the tender smile and the devil behind his glasseshe and I kept coming back to the underground to have our adventures. We didnt have to tell each other that we were going to meet up there; we both just knew. We knew that wed see each other there every time we came, we knew that neither of us would

get on the subway, and we didnt know when the pattern would end. I didnt think it ever would. Peter is a good guy. Really. Hes ruggedly and dangerously angelic looking, if that makes any sense, and he cares about me a lot. I mean, why else would he have rushed me to the hospital? Hes always been very tender to me, in strange ways that make me feel like everything is completely worth it. Once, late at night, when the underground was nearly empty and the blueness was glowing more romantically than ever, Peter and I came out of the bathroom and started walking around in a light-hearted way that made it feel like we were in a musical and should start dancing. I sat on a bench and smiled at him, and he said I looked very beautiful and that he wasnt lying. Then he took my hands, yanked me up to his chest, and started dancing with me real slow. He was softly singing some old sentimental song that I didnt recognize, but I clung to him as though he were the most familiar thing in the world to me. Nothing could have felt better, although I knew he was going to leave soon. He always left afterwards, though I sometimes stayed the night. Sometimes I would walk back to Charlotte Grimm and sneak in around midnight, but sometimes I would just stay locked in the bathroom, not sleeping. Id just sit there with my back against the toilet, not crying or anything, but feeling kind of weird about how I was just wearing my undershirt and panties. Sometimes I was afraid someone would bust open the door one morning and let light flow in to stab me; I anticipated it each time I was there with surprising eagerness. No one ever did though. Im sure that God understands, Im sure of it. He knows that what Ive been doing is a twisted sort of underground redemption, but if He can bloody someone up on a cross and call it redemption, I can get bloodied up in a shitter and call it salvation. Life is just ironic, and God accepts that. I whispered this to myself, because I couldnt find the proper breath to say it to Peter. I didnt know why I got so upset in regards to my religion, but Peter really set me off this particular day. I had found this really nice beaded rosary on the ground of the subway station; I guess someone dropped it, which is pretty sad since its so beautiful. I showed it to Peter, and Peter said something like What are you doing with a rosary? I guess I never told him that I was Catholic and I was around rosaries all the time. Its not like you pray or anything, right? I started getting hurt. Peter, of course I pray. I pray about everything. He laughed lightly, not maliciously, but still, he laughed. Sybil, girls like you dont pray to God. He continued walking, but I stood motionless. I suddenly felt like J. Alfred Prufrock, like I was sprawling on a pin, pinned and wriggling on a wall, stripped naked. Not in a sexual way at all. I just stared into the blueness as wind passed through my hair. As I was formulating something to say, I felt horrified. Winter kept us warm. Thats what T.S. Eliot said, and I guess Peter and I understood that as we buried our souls in the underground and ignored the pain of the situation. It was a little painful to have this precious relationship with someone, and you couldnt be out in public

together. You couldnt hold hands, you couldnt go to parks together, you couldnt have dinner together, and you couldnt even go to mass together. The church was supposed to be a safe place, but not safe enough for us to be together in. I sat next to Ridley this past Christmas at the midnight mass. The cathedral was filled all the way with glowing Christmas-time faces and at least a thousand candles, and the haunting voices of the choir penetrated the air like never before. The organ was playing with dreadful intensity and was pounding through my veins. As the service was progressing I kept commenting to Ridley about all the different people as they walked up individually and solemnly acknowledged the Virgin Mary. He seemed to enjoy my observations, though he was strangely stiff and grave-facedstrangely even for him. The cathedral looked more beautiful than usual for some reason, and I feel like for the first time I was really analyzing the stained glass that was surrounding us ominously. Christmas usually didnt seem that great to me, but maybe I was finally sensing the whimsical mysticism of the whole ordeal. I kept looking around at the faces and wondering which people were going to be alone for Christmas; I found one person whom I was sure of. Goddam it, why the hell was Peter at Christmas mass? The man was a mere three pews in front of me and slightly to my left, still looking messy, though he had his arm around the waist of a woman, and two young children stood beside them. I felt my face turn red as my eyes watered. Peter didnt belong out in the open. We didnt belong out in the open. Not together, in the same place, where people could see us or sense that we were generating electricity. This was all so messed up. He wasnt looking at me yet, but I was staring at him maleficently in the middle of O Come O Come Emmanuel. Then he turned his head and glanced at me with shock, but converted the fear into tenderness with a devastating smile. Then he turned back around and I started to feel sick. I was furious to see him outside the subway station, so I hastily marched through the pew and then out the door into the snowy coldness. I wasnt noticed by anyone, not even Ridley. Because Ridley wasnt there anymore. As I marched toward the path that would lead to the Grimm schools, I looked for Ridley through the hot tears that were trembling in my eyes. Everything seemed very German Expressionistic that night, with the small houses seeming crooked and the streetlamps emitting strange colors. I caught up to Ridley, who was walking very slowly and melancholically. I came to his side, and like a hurt child said Why would Peter do this to me? He stopped to look gently at me, with the soft response, Whos Peter? Poor Ridleys question sent me into a manic rage, and I began walking very furiously. I felt the need to conjure up an explanation for my behavior, even though Ridley didnt ask, so I started shouting so that both Jesus and th e devil could hear me. You dont want to know who Peter is, Ridley! Im having a spiritual crisis all of a sudden. I needed to get out of that church before I started swearing or stripping or something. Maybe Id start masturbating, right there in church. Would you want to see that? Do you even masturbate? Like, when youre really frustrated? Like, really frustrated? Like, everyone just saw you naked and laughed at you, and youre so damn frustrated about it?! He

kept quiet. Then I stopped myself and felt ashamed, turning to face him. He looked like a ghost to me, and I felt awful for scaring him in such a hideous way. Im sorry, Ridley. I cant explain right. Sometimes you just cant explain stuff to people because its too nauseating. You probably know about that; thats why you never say a damn thing. But then he did say a damn thing, the same damn thing he said in October. Im sorry, Sybil, he whimpered as he suddenly began collapsing onto the ground. It was very dark, but thanks to the streetlamps I could see that the color red was seeping into the snow, coming from Ridleys wrists. We both were silent, and then I think we became surreal. I froze completely. I didnt run to him, I didnt scream, I didnt cry. I must have muttered something like, Get up, Ridley, its cold. You cant stay down there in the snow. Get up. Get up, its cold. The kni fe slipped from his coat pocket. Where did he do this. In the church? Outside the church? I thought to myself that doing something like that in or by a church would be worse than masturbating. Get up Ridley, its cold. He lied down peacefully in the snow as though about to make a snow angel. I think that he said Im warm, Sybil, but maybe he didnt say anything and I just like to think that he was warm. I nodded my head slowly and bent over to pick up the small knife. Okay, Ridley. I have somewhere to be now. Ill see you later. Really Ridley, I have to go, Ill see you later. I turned around on the path, leaving Ridley to bleed in perfect silence and tranquility. I was walking to the underground now. I could sense that Peter would already be waiting for me. I suppose that Ridley is dead now. I dont think about it much, but I havent seen him for a long time. It just seems probable that someone who is bleeding in the snow while losing consciousness would eventually die. Maybe he got buried in the snow and no one ever knew about it or cared about what happened to him. Yeah, the more I think about it, the more I think that hes probably dead. I guess he wont be moving to Hollywood with me after all, which is kind of disappointing, since I think he would complement me like Andy Warhol. He was always artistic like that, even though he never talked. Its kind of weird that he did what he did. Its kind of grotesque and disturbing to imagine the reasons why, but dark things in general can be kind of unbelievable. Doesnt mean they dont happen. He was probably going through a spiritual crisis too. I think I somehow always knew that he was hurt, that he was in a constant state of crisis, ever since the day I met him. Something in his eyes, something in his frailty, something in his dazed silence. I just wished that I had been the friend that I should have been for those ten years. I wish he had been my friend. We needed each other. Maybe none of this would have ever happened if I hadnt frozen up when I was six. When I got to Peter the first thing I did was vomit. It was glorious. After the eruption I sort of just dropped to the stone floor and laughed. I looked up at Peter and smiled real big, and I thought to myself that Christmas had made him look handsomer than usual. You look

good, Peter. I was perfectly composed when I said this, but Peter looked at me as if my constitution was off-kilter. You look good too, Sybil, he said in as genuine a way as he could. Lets go to the bathroom Peter, we need to go to the bathroom again. It wasnt really necessary that we retreat to the privacy of that rusty prison, since the subway station was empty besides the two of us, but maybe I just wanted the cold familiarity. Peter just stood there and looked down at me, and there was a sadness in his pale eyes that I hadnt seen before. He looked perfect and innocent in contrast to the blue glow behind him that was, for the first time, very evil looking. I felt weak being the one who was on the ground, so I lifted my hands up to him and he pulled me up to his chest as he had done before. He wasnt wearing his glasses, so when our eyes met a bit too intimately, thats when I pulled out Ridleys knife. Peter didnt even seem to glance at the knife, but continued to stare at me with that same sadness. I kept smiling, happy that he had his arms around me even as the blade was terribly erect and positioned between his face and mine. Inexplicably and abruptly, I stopped smiling and was disgusted that he was holding me. I yanked myself away, stepped a few paces back, glared at him, and then hastily stepped back up to him and put the knife in his hand. I stepped back again, like I was recoiling from a flame, and was disappointed that he looked so confused about why he was holding the knife; I was so frustrated that I had to start yelling things that I didnt really understand. Do it, you idiot! Peter said nothing. I want you to do it, I continued. Put it in me! Put it in! Just do it! Im not going to do this with you anymore, you bastard! Im not coming to this place anymore, you sexy ugly beautiful bastard! You put something in me, I feel something in me, I want it to die. I want it to die. I want to die. His eyes kept getting sadder and weaker, and they too were glowing blue. He never took them off me until his head began to fall a little. Trembling, he stepped up to me slowly, grasped onto my shirt, pulled it up, and slashed me on the stomach, but not deeply, not deep enough to kill what was inside me, the thing that I felt deep inside me. I clutched myself and backed away again. If I wasnt making too much sense before, I really wasnt making sense now. I was screaming, What are you doing?! Why would you do that? Why the hell would you hurt me like that?! Whats wrong with you? He could say nothing, and I felt like I had complete power over him, which I liked in a cruel and peculiar way. Why are you here, Peter? Dont you have a family to be with? Dont you have a wife?! Dont you have kids who sit on your lap and talk about Santa and pull off your glasses and laugh at the funny voices you make?! Peter dropped the knife and his right eye succumbed and let out a tear. He fell to his knees and began to really cry; I mean really cry, as if he had been needing to do so for a long time. I couldnt tolerate it. I began kicking him and hitting him and punching him with every ounce of crazy rage that was in me, tears streaming down my own red face, until I too fell to the ground, totally prostrate. Peter why are you on your knees, are you praying? Get up. Dont you goddam pray, Peter, dont you do it. People like you dont talk to God, God wouldnt listen! I clumsily rose to my feet and began banging myself against the benches and the walls, trying to break bones or get out of my

body. I felt Peter struggling to pin me down, and I felt myself fighting back even though I was blinded by my lava-hot tears. Thats all I could feel for what seemed like hours. Hours of struggling and lava and Peters hands bruising my flesh. I woke up the next morning in a hospital bed, and Peter wasnt with me anymore. When Sister Felicity and the others asked what was wrong with me, where I had been, or how I got to the hospital, I said I didnt know. I didnt know what the doctor meant when he said that I miscarried, until I thought about it and then everything that I said to Peter that night made sense. Somehow I didnt feel angry with him anymore. No one had a clue of what had gone on with me, or what had gone on with Ridley as far as I could tell. I didnt as k though. Peter is pretty amazing when I think about it; he would never have left me in the underground, even though I would have left myself there. And just think, no one at the hospital or at the Grimm schools or at the subway station will ever actually know him. Hes this mystery, and that mystery is mine and mine alone, and I like him that way. But I guess its inevitable that he wont always be mine and I wont always be his; or perhaps it was never that way. Perhaps that woman with him in the church really was his wife, and Im just his underground whore. I try not to think about that too much, but sometimes human voices wake us, and we drown in the knowledge that none of the magic was actually ours. Its the cruelest month again, and nothing cruel is happening as far as I can tell. Come to think of it, maybe I dont go to the underground anymore. Maybe I dont walk down those cement steps anymore, or tread ceremoniously past the glowing blueness and the sliding doors; maybe I dont get drained anymore to the point where my eyes turn gray. Maybe Im done, and I just spend all my time sitting on the steps of the cathedral tying together the stems of little flowers and placing them on my head. Thats hard for me to believe, but maybe its true. Its Easter time, Im seventeen, and I havent seen my mother for eleven years. Yes, its eleven years now, even though the past year seems like it should just remain in the bathroom and not be counted as a year. Winter isnt keeping me warm anymore. Im going to the subway station today, and Im going to see Peter. But the thing is, Peter is going to be getting on a train, and right before he steps through the doors, were going to look at each other and smile, and know that were really finished. Then Im going to become part of the blur of the rushin g subway train, and Im going to hold onto a pole as though its the most familiar thing in the world to me. Then as the blueness disappears and everything gets indistinct, Im going to sing a little song to myself and pray for the lady who was hunched over in the raincoat.