The Secret of Life Read online

  “OK, Pop. It might not look that way, but even yesterday, I was careful not to get killed.” Conrad wondered if he should try to explain about his power ... oh, why bother, it would only sound like crazy bragging. “You really don’t care if I don’t believe in religion?”

  “You wouldn’t be much of a person if you believed everything that grown-ups tell you, Conrad. It’s natural to rebel. But you’ve also got to learn to control yourself, instead of wrecking cars, and spouting this silly stuff that you wish the Russians would blow us up. You can’t just tear down. If you’re going to rebel, it’s up to you to find something better than what the grown-ups have.”

  “I guess that makes sense,” said Conrad. This was not the time to say what he really thought, to say that nothing made sense at all and that it would be better for everyone to admit it. This was not the time to push his father any further. “I guess I should be grounded for wrecking the car?”

  “Three weekends.”

  “Counting this one?”

  Chapter 6:

  Friday, July 5, 1963 “You do know who Bo Diddley is, don’t you, Dee?” They were in Conrad’s mother’s car—repaired to the tune of $700—and on their way to a holiday-weekend rock and roll show at the State Fairgrounds.

  “He had that hit on the radio.Hey, Bo Diddley. ”

  “And the new one.You Can’t Judge a Book by Lookin’ at Its Cover. He’s the best. He even builds his own guitars. You know I have four Bo Diddley albums at home, Dee?”

  “That many! Tell me about the deeper meanings of Bo Diddley, Conrad.” Dee looked pretty good tonight. She wore a thin white cardigan, and a print dress with a Villager collar. Usually she wore sweatshirts.

  “Well, my favorite song of his is calledCrackin’ Up . It goes like this.”

  Conrad proceeded to sing the first few lines of the song, capturing the sense, if not the exact sound of Bo Diddley.

  He sang it loud, with just the right number ofdit-duh-duh-dit-duuh-dit-dit-dits , his voice rising to a hoarse shout on the last line “You crackin’ up.”

  “What’sbuggin’ you?” said Dee repeating the line from the song. “I should play that for my parents.”

  Dee’s father was a career engineer for GE. He and his family were due to be transferred out to California in only one month. Conrad’s family was moving at the end of the summer. It was all ending fast.

  “I first got that record when I was fourteen,” said Conrad. “I remember listening to it one day; it was the day that I really got the idea of rock and roll. I was alone at home, and I put onCrackin’ Up real loud, and I went and stood in front of my parents’ full-length mirror and danced a little, singing along, you know. As I watched myself, I realized that someday I’d be cool.”

  “Are you cool yet?”

  “I thought people might think I was cool after I wrecked the car. But no one outside my parents cared, not even Ardmore. And my parents didn’t exactly think it was cool.”

  “How about your friends at St. X?”

  “Oh, them. Thank God graduation is over.”

  “Sue Pohlboggen told me you took her to the senior prom. She said it was awful.”

  “She said that?” Conrad paused, remembering the prom. Normally he never socialized with the St. X

  boys. It had been strange to see them all at a dance, probably with girls they were going to marry and not use rubbers with. A mixture of hope and cynicism had led Conrad to bring Sue Pohlboggen instead of Dee. Sue was supposed to be easy. “Are you good friends with her?”

  “She was in my humanities class. She’s smart, you know. Did you make out with her?”

  “Well, I ...” Conrad broke off, unable to tell the story. On the way from the prom to the St. X

  breakfast, he’d parked with Sue Pohlboggen. She’d put up a struggle, but he’d gotten his hand down naked in her crotch. The problem was that she was wearing such a tight girdle that his hand had gone numb before he could figure out where her cunt actually was. He’d given up on that, and dry-humped her for a while, which was OK until the end, when her body started making strange, wetlowing noises.

  Noises from her cunt, like it was farting! Ugh! Was this how grown-up sex worked? And then at the prom breakfast he’d thrown up after about three beers.

  “Inauthentic,” Dee agreed and lit a cigarette. “Who else is going to play tonight? Besides Bo Diddley.”

  “Lots of people. The Shirelles, James Brown, Avalon ... or maybe it’s Fabian, and I think U.S. Bonds is coming, too. It’ll be great.”

  The stage was in the middle of the big arena-auditorium at the Kentucky State Fairgrounds. When he was ten, Conrad had come here to see the Shrine Circus. Today they had a lot of flags up, since it was the day after the Fourth of July.

  Some people had reserved seats down on the coliseum floor, but everyone else was up in the bleachers.

  It was a very mixed crowd. There was a middle-aged black guy with baggy pants right behind Dee and Conrad, and when the Shirelles came out, he danced so hard that you could hear his dick slapping his leg. Some lesser-known black groups played next, and then some white singers came on. One of them was Dee Clark.

  “Same name as you,” observed Conrad.

  “Let’s go over there in the empty part of the bleachers,” said Dee. “I want to really listen.”

  The song wasIt Must Be Raindrops . Over in the empty seats, Dee and Conrad got into a kind of follow-the-leader game, balancing along on the seatbacks, childlike and free. The wonderful music spread out to fill all space and time, music for Conrad and Dee alone, centered in the eternal Now.

  Conrad felt like he could fly Dee to the top of the coliseum, if he wanted to. Fly up to the top where the flashing circus acrobats had whirled, years ago.

  Suddenly, finally, Bo Diddley and his band were out on the stage, red sequined tuxes and all. Conrad dragged Dee back to their seats. Diddley struck up a steady chicken-scratch on his git-box and began trading insults with his drummer.

  “Hey.”

  “What dat.”

  “I heard yo’ daddy’s a lightbu’b eater.”

  “He don’t eat no lightbulb.”

  “Sho’ ’nuff.”

  “Whaah?”

  “I heard every time he turn off the light, heeat a little piece! ”

  Conrad howled, and the man behind them stood up and slapped his dick against his leg again. Dee began looking around to see if anyone else from her class was here.

  “Isn’t that Francie Shields down there?” “Shhh.”

  Now the band was blasting an old tune called’Deed and ’Deed and ’Deed I Do , with the incredible Diddley sex-beat, and over it, the soaring alienation of Bo’s strange, homemade guitar. Bo Diddley, the man, right there, in the flesh, black as they come, sweating and screaming—for a few minutes, Conrad forgot himself entirely.

  Bo Diddley was the last act before intermission, and Conrad hurried down behind the stage to get a closer look at his hero. Incredibly, Bo Diddley was right there, standing around talking to some black women. He was shorter than he looked on the stage, and uglier.

  “Are you Bo Diddley?” blurted Conrad, pushing his way forward.

  “Yeah. I’ll do autographs after the show.”

  “Can I shake your hand?” “All right.”

  They shook briefly. It was incredible, to be touching the actual meat-body, the actual living person that made the music Conrad loved so well. During the moment he touched Diddley, everything seemed to make sense. And then the moment was over, as usual, every moment over, over and over again. Conrad mumbled his thanks and wandered off, a bit dazed, looking for Dee. He found her with Francie Shields and Hank Larsen. Conrad had known Hank was coming but had decided not to double-date, since Hank and Dee didn’t like each other, although right now, Dee was glad to see Hank. It seemed like he was the only other white boy here who wasn’t a tough yokel soldier from Fort Knox. Hank, for his part, was drunk.

  “Turd-rad,” he called genially. “How is y
our wretched ass?”

  “Cool it, Hank. I just shook hands with Bo Diddley. What are you doing for our generation?”

  “Feeling pretty good,” said Hank. “Around the edges. You want a belt, Conrad? Let me see that hand.”

  Conrad had meant not to drink tonight, but he heard himself asking Hank, “Where’s the bottle?”

  “Francie’s purse.”

  Hank and Francie and Dee had all gone to the regular public high school together. Hank had been voted most handsome, and Francie had starred in the senior play. She was a bit overweight, but pretty in a straight-mouth-straight-nose-straight-hair way. Her voice was a lovely, purring lisp. “Conwad. Do you like it heyuw?”

  “It’s communion,” answered Conrad. “You know? We’re all people, and Bo Diddley’s a person, too.

  Let’s go over in those dark bleachers and have a drink.” “Well, Conwad, I just saw Sue Pohlboggen and Jackie Pweston. Dee and I can wait with them.” Francie liked to stir up trouble. It seemed like everyone in town knew about Conrad’s gross prom date with Sue.

  Hank took a half-full pint of gin out of Francie’s purse and stuck it under his untucked shirt. “Let’s roll, Paunch.” “I’ll come with you,” said Dee. “I’ll get drunk, too.”

  “Fine,” said Conrad. “It’s existential.”

  “Listen,” he told Dee, as they started back down to the main floor. “The incredible thing is that I’m not drunk yet, but by the time I get down there, I will be. Can you feel it, too? With each step ...” He paused to retch again, and Hank started talking. He was all worked up.

  “Bo Diddley is right here, and all these crazy blacks are having a good time. Jesus! The sixties have begun! Why should we be all white at college andlearn stuff to be faceless Joe bureaucrat with kids like us? I want this summer to last forever! Are you on the Larsen bandwagon, folks?” Hank trumpeted briefly with his lips. “I want to be black, I want to go hood!” Just then he tripped and fell down the last few steps.

  “Do you feel it yet?” Conrad asked Dee. Everything was hot and roaring. Another band had started up.

  “Yes,” said Dee. “I do.”

  They stood there for a few minutes, leaning on a railing, Conrad staring upward, mouth open, staring up at the spot high overhead where he’d once seen the acrobats, the spot where, in his dreams, the flame-people always flexed and flickered,showing Conrad, telling him what he’d need to know during his long mission,know to forget , in search of the Secret, the Answer to a Question unnamed, the Question whose annihilation is, in some measure, the Answer, for a time at least, though, no matter what, the Question always returns, making a mockery of yesterday’s Answer, but just here and now, at the Kentucky State Fairgrounds, July 5, 1963, wiped-out, drooling, and staring, Conrad has it, Conrad knows ...

  Chapter 7:

  Wednesday, September 11, 1963 Zzt-bing-boinggg.“And now the WAKY weather report, September 11, 1963. Carol?”

  Rrrrwwaaafzz. “Thank you, Chuck. We’re expecting more of the same today, with late-evening thundershowers and possible—”

  Conrad turned off the clock-radio and sat up. It was barely light out. FiveA.M. No time to lose. He got dressed and took the cream pie off the kitchen counter. It had defrosted nicely overnight. Hank was leaving today. High school was all over.

  Hank was out in his backyard, by his ham-radio antenna, waiting for Conrad. He had his pie ready, too.

  The idea had been that instead of saying goodbye, they’d push pies into each other’s faces. But now, at five in the morning, they just stood there, the two of them, holding their sad, flat frozen pies.

  “Have fun at Columbia, Hank. Look out for the dipshits.”

  “You think you’ll make it down here at Christmas?”

  “I hope so.” Conrad’s parents were about to move to northern Virginia. Moving and college, this was really the end. “It’s been great, Hank, all these years.” “Right.” Hank’s face was stiff and tight, the way it always got when he was upset. “Goodbye, Conrad buddy. I’ll never forget any of it.”

  Just yesterday, he and Hank had had a last talk about it. Hank was half-inclined to believe his old friend’s claims—the problem was why Conrad was not, in fact, able to give a demonstration. “Maybe it’s a kind of vestigial survival mechanism,” Hank had suggested, drawing on their common store of science-fiction wisdom. “Maybe, in ancient times, some races could fly, but it was eventually bred out. Say that the flying-genes happened to crop up again for you, Conrad, but you can only be sure of flying when it’s a matter of life and death. We could test it by going downtown and having you jump off the Heyburn Building!”

  Instead of that, they’d settled for having Conrad jump out of a tree, but the catch was that unless there was a real chance of dying, then the power wouldn’t necessarily cut in ... and Conrad wasn’t willing to take a real chance at dying. After a while they’d given up on the project and gone to a movie instead.

  And now it was over, and Hank was gone, and Conrad’s parents were moving, and he had to go college, and ... He went back to bed and slept till his mother woke him by coming in and shaking his foot.

  “Get up, lazybones. It’s twelve o’clock!”

  “Aw, Mom ...”

  “You have to help get ready for the movers. Your closet is arats’ nest .” Conrad’s mother always used idioms like “rats’ nest” with a special gusto. She thought language was funny, especially English. She’d grown up in Germany.

  “I don’t want to get up. I don’t want to do anything.”

  “Poor Conrad. Aren’t you glad to be going to Swarthmore next week?”

  “I’m scared.”

  “Eat something and you’ll feel better.” Another shake of his foot. “And then I want you to go through your junk and decide what to keep. I have a cardboard box for you.”

  After some milk and a bologna sandwich, Conrad got to work sorting his stuff: the shell collection, the butterfly collection, the fossil collection—all worthless garbage now—the school papers (going back to sixth grade), his recent poems, the letters from girls (Linda, Dee, and even Sue Pohlboggen), the model rockets, the photographs, the Gilbert chemistry set, the Electroman electricity set, the Brainiac computer set, the Walt Disney comics, the old schoolbooks with their enigmatic graffiti, the lenses and knives and coins and combs and pencils and matchbooks and pieces of wax. Too much. He drifted down to the basement to paunch out.

  His big brother Caldwell’s room was down here. Caldwell had been off in the army since last summer.

  He’d gotten kicked out of college after freshman year, and Big Caldwell had made him join the army. He was stationed in Germany. Caldwell’s empty basement pad was a pleasant place on a hot day. He had interesting college books, and a full two years’ run of theEvergreen Review . Conrad picked up an issue and turned to a sex-poem he remembered seeing: two lovers sleeping, with spit-out watermelon seeds on the floor, and

  “the mixed fluids slowly drying on their skin.” The mixed fluids. Conrad jacked off on that, and then started going through Caldwell’s desk.

  Conrad took out one of the little pistols and looked it over. It was a one-shot .22 caliber derringer, with a fat, short barrel, and a nicely rounded little wooden stock. There were bullets in the case as well. On an impulse, Conrad pocketed the pistol and a bunch of bullets.In case anyone gives me a hard time.

  He had a date that night, with an eleventh-grader called Taffy Sinclair. They’d met about a week after Dee left town and had been going out ever since. Taffy’s father was a psychiatrist. He didn’t like Conrad.

  On the way to pick up Taffy, Conrad stopped by Tad’s Liquor Store and got a half-pint of gin. If Tad was in the right mood, he’d sell to anyone. Gordon’s gin, with that red boar’s head on the yellow label.

  It was still a little early to pick up Taffy. Conrad took a back road down to the river, to play with Caldwell’s pistol. You had to load it one bullet at a time. Conrad fired it out over the water, missed seeing the bullet spl
ash, and tried again.There , right out in the middle, halfway to Indiana. He reloaded and shot a tree trunk from point-blank range. The little bullet bored right in.

  Imagine shooting yourself, Conrad thought. He took out the empty cartridge, made double-sure the gun was empty, and put it to his head.What if I were going to kill myself right now? He psyched himself up into half believing it and pulled the trigger.

  Click.

  The dry little sound made Conrad shudder. Idon’t want that. I may be miserable, but at least I’m alive. But with the click had come a sudden feeling like a muscle unclenching at the center of his brain.He could fly. He’d tricked his survival mechanism! Right now, for the first time, he was going to be able to fly as well as he wanted!

  Conrad pocketed Caldwell’s gun and angled out over the river. Twenty feet, thirty ... He was out over the real current now, looking back at his VW on shore. Somehow it felt very natural.

  But then, all at once, the power was gone. Conrad plummeted into the brown Ohio. It took a few minutes of real struggle to get back to shore. Good thing he hadn’t flown up higher—though if he’d been higher, then maybe the power wouldn’t have dared to cut off.

  Fortunately, Conrad’s mother had left a load of clothes for the cleaners in the backseat. Conrad got into a dry outfit and sat there thinking.Why me? What makes me so special?

  He wondered if he should open up the gin. Better not yet. Mr. Sinclair would meet him at Taffy’s door and try to smell his breath. A few weeks ago, Conrad had made the mistake of trying to talk to Mr.

  Sinclair when he was drunk. “Everything’s meaningless,” Conrad had slobbered. “God is dead.” The line usually went over great with girls, but Mr. Sinclair took it too seriously. “You’re suffering from extreme depression, Conrad.” Conrad was lucky that Taffy was still allowed to go out with him.

  Tonight they were going downtown to seeTo Kill a Mockingbird . Taffy looked great, tan and blonde in a spaghetti-strap blue dress. She had a solid little figure and pink bubblegum lips. She liked to talk about her horse, Tabor. Thinking about his plunge into the river, Conrad hardly knew what he was saying.