Forgive me, Leonard Peacock

THIRTY-TWO

“Is that a gun in your hand, Leonard?” Herr Silverman says, and his voice sounds a little shakier than usual—like maybe he’s more freaked than he’s letting on.

“Nazi P-38,” I say, and my voice sounds hard.

“Your grandfather’s war trophy?”

I nod.

He’s still a few feet away from me, but I feel sort of boxed in a little, so I take a step back.

“You wanna give that to me?” he says, and takes a step toward me with his palm outstretched. I can tell he’s really freaked now, because his hand is shaking, although he’s trying hard to steady it.

“Did they teach you how to deal with an armed student when you attended teacher school?” I say, trying to lighten the mood. “Was there a class on this?”

“No, they certainly didn’t—and there definitely wasn’t,” he says. “Maybe there should have been. Is it loaded?”

“Yep. And the safety’s off,” I say, hearing the edge in my voice.

Herr Silverman lowers his hand and stiffens a bit.

I don’t really understand why I’m speaking to Herr Silverman this way.

I mean—he came to save me, right?

I called him on the phone because I wanted him to come.

But it’s like I can’t help myself.

It’s like I’m too fucked up to be nice and appreciative.

“Just give me the gun and everything will be okay.”

“No it won’t. That’s such a fucking lie! You don’t lie, Herr Silverman. You’re better than the rest. You’re the only adult I really trust and look up to. So tell me something else, okay? Try again.”

“Okay. Did you write the letters from the people in the future?” Herr Silverman asks.

His asking that kind of surprises me, and invokes all these intense feelings I don’t want to feel. “Yes. Yes, I did,” I say in this defiant, almost yelling voice.

“What did they tell you? What did they say?”

“They said a nuclear holocaust is coming. The future world is covered with water, like Al Gore predicted. People kill each other for the little land left. Millions die.”

“Interesting. But I’m sure they said other things too, because you’re not all gloom and doom, Leonard. I’ve seen the light in your eyes too many times. What else did they say?”

His saying that bit about there being light in my eyes makes my throat constrict even more and my eyes start to feel tight. “It doesn’t fucking matter, because those people don’t exist.”

“Yes, they do, Leonard,” he says, taking another cautious step toward me. “They really do. If you believe hard enough—and if you hold on. Okay—maybe you won’t find those exact people, but friends will arrive at some point. You’ll find others like you.”

“How do you know? How can you be so sure?”

“Because I used to write letters to myself from the future when I was your age and it helped me a great deal.”

“But did you meet the people you imagined in the future?”

“I did.”

I’m kind of caught off guard by this information, and suddenly I’m truly curious about Herr Silverman’s life.

Who are the people he wrote to?

“How did you find them?”

“Writing those letters helped me figure out who I was and what I wanted. Once I knew that, I could send out a clear message so that others could respond appropriately.”

I think about it and say, “In the future I man a lighthouse with my wife, daughter, and father-in-law. We send out a great beam of light every night even though no one ever sees it.”

“That’s beautiful,” he says. “You see?”

But I don’t see, so I say, “Writing those letters made me feel even more fucked up.”

“Why?”

“I got to thinking that I wanted to live in that fictional world now—that the better world in the letters made me want to exit this world. That’s probably what led to me being here with a gun in my hand.”

Herr Silverman winces almost unnoticeably, but I see it. Then he says, “You ever feel like you’re sending out a light but no one sees it?”

I look at the lights of the skyline reflected in the water and think about how they are always here—every night—whether people look or not.

And mostly, people don’t look.

It doesn’t matter what I do.

It really doesn’t.

Herr Silverman steps closer, and I don’t back away. He takes off his coat, puts it between his knees, and starts to roll up his right sleeve, which makes my heart pound again, because I’ve wanted to know what the hell is under his sleeves for so long now.

When he gets the cuff up around his elbow, he uses his cell phone to light his wrist. “Take a look.”

I don’t see scars or needle marks or an abundance of hair or an unsightly burn or anything like that.

It’s a tattoo of a pink triangle—what the Nazis used to label homosexuals in the concentration camps; I know because Herr Silverman taught us that.

“Who did that to you?” I ask, thinking that maybe he had his own version of Asher Beal.

“I did it to myself. Well, I hired a tattoo artist to do it.”

“Oh,” I say.

It takes a moment, but finally, I realize what he’s telling me.

“I don’t care that you’re gay. It doesn’t bother me,” I say, because I feel like I should.

I never really thought about Herr Silverman being gay before, but it sort of makes sense in retrospect. He never wore a wedding ring, nor did he ever talk about his wife—and he’s a good-looking, well-dressed, middle-aged, steadily employed man who would make someone a great husband.

He smiles at me. “Thanks.”

“Why did you tattoo your wrist like that?”

“I tried to be who I thought the world wanted me to be all through high school. Always trying to please everyone else—keeping my true self invisible. It took me nineteen years to figure out who I was and another twelve or so months to admit it. I didn’t want to ever forget again. I tattooed my wrist with a symbol. So the answer would always be there.”

“Why that symbol?” I say.

“I think you know why, Leonard. It’s probably the same reason you have a Nazi gun in your hand. I was trying to prove something to myself. I was trying to take control.”

“So why don’t you show your students your tattoo?”

“Because it might hinder my ability to get an important message to people who need it.”

“What’s the message?”

“It’s the message of my classes—especially my Holocaust class.”

“Yeah, but what is it?”

“What do you think it is?”

“That it’s okay to be different? We should be tolerant.”

“That’s part of it.”

“So why not be different and promote tolerance by showing everyone your pink triangle?”

“Because that might make it difficult for some of your classmates to take me and my message seriously. It’s sort of don’t ask, don’t tell for gay high school teachers—especially those of us who teach controversial Holocaust classes,” Herr Silverman says, and then starts rolling up his other sleeve almost all the way to his armpit. “Here—use my phone to read this.”

I transfer the P-38 to my left hand and take hold of his cell phone.

I run the light up the inside of his entire arm.

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.

The words are printed in navy blue—just simple block letters stacked in two rows. Nothing like the fancy-word tattoos you see sprawled in cursive or Old English across the chests of rappers and famous movie stars. I get the sense that this tattoo is more about the message than the image—the message to himself and no one else, which is probably one of the reasons he keeps it hidden under his shirtsleeve.

“It’s often attributed to Gandhi,” he says. “But I didn’t care who said it when I came across it. I only knew that it made me feel strong. Gave me hope. Kept me going.”

“But why did you tattoo that up your arm?”

“So I wouldn’t forget that I win in the end.”

“How do you know you win?”

“Because I keep fighting.”

I think about what he means, about the message he sends out every day in the classroom, why he’s telling me this, and say, “I’m not like you.”

“Why do you have to be like me? You should be like you.”

I raise the P-38 to my head and say, “This is me. Right here. Right now.”

“No, it’s not you at all.”

“How would you even know?”

“Because I’ve read your essays. And I’ve looked into your eyes when I lecture. I can tell you get it—you’re different. And I know how hard being different can be. But I also know how powerful a weapon being different can be. How the world needs such weapons. Gandhi was different. All great people are. And unique people such as you and me need to seek out other unique people who understand—so we don’t get too lonely and end up where you did tonight.”

“I’m not gay,” I say.

“You don’t have to be gay to be different. I never thought you were gay.”

“I’m really not gay.”

“Okay.”

“I’m not gay.”

“Fine.”

“I’m not gay.”

“Why are you saying that over and over?”

“Asher Beal is gay.”

“Why are you telling me that?”

“He’s not gay like you. He’s horrible.”

“What are you trying to tell me, Leonard?”

“I went to Asher Beal’s house tonight. I was going to kill him. I really was. I’ve wanted to kill him for a long time now.”[68]

Herr Silverman gets this horrible panicked look on his face. “But you didn’t kill him, right?”

“I walked up to his bedroom window with the gun in my hand. I raised the P-38 up to the window, aimed at his head—but I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t.”

“That’s a good thing.”

“I should have killed him.”

“What did he do to you?”

I don’t want to tell Herr Silverman, and so we stand there in silence for a long time.

But he’s patient—he just waits like he’s not going to move or talk for a million years if that’s how long it takes me to answer his question. I don’t know why, but his waiting like that makes me feel safe—like I can trust him, like maybe he really, truly believes I’m worth listening to, worth saving. Finally, my mouth rebels against my mind, and all the words come out in a rush—like I’m trying to purge. I tell him everything.

At some point, while I’m losing it, Herr Silverman puts his arm around me and starts to pat my back. He’s really careful about it—cautious—but I can tell that he’s only trying to comfort me. It feels right. Safe. And so I let him hug me, and it feels okay to be hugged, even though I don’t hug him back, which probably makes him feel awkward, and I feel sorry about that, but I’m just not a natural hugger when I get upset like this. He keeps whispering, “You’re okay,” and I simultaneously love him and hate him for saying that. I’m fucking not okay at all. And yet it’s exactly what I most want to be: okay. He can’t give that to me, but I love him for trying.

I wonder if Herr Silverman thinks he has the power to make lies into truths just by repeating words over and over—like a magic spell.

There’s part of me that hopes he does.

There’s also part of me that wants to scream FUCK YOU! in his face.

Those two opposites battle inside my rib cage for a long time.

Finally, I calm down and he lets go and we both look out over the water without saying anything—just breathing.

It feels like hours go by, but I like standing there with Herr Silverman at my side.

I feel empty.

Thoroughly purged.

And for a second or two I pretend that we are manning Lighthouse 1—together.

Herr Silverman finally says, “You know that men can be raped, right?”

I don’t say anything, but I wonder if that’s what happened to me because I didn’t always put up a fight at first, and then when I did, it seemed like I was just trying to stop something that had been going on for a long time and was not likely to end soon—like jumping off a moving train because it was making you sick but the conductor couldn’t stop for some reason.

“I feel like I’m broken—like I don’t fit together anymore. Like there’s no more room for me in the world or something. Like I’ve overstayed my welcome here on Earth, and everyone’s trying to give me hints about that constantly. Like I should just check out.” I try to look at Herr Silverman, but I can’t take my eyes off the city lights reflected on the water. “And I think that’s why my mom left for New York and why no one wants to talk to me ever. I’m so fucking worthless.”

“You’re not.”

“But I am. Everyone hates me at school. You know that’s true.”

“I don’t hate you. I hope my being here tonight proves that to you. And our high school is just a tiny place. Just a blip in your life, really. Good things ahead. You’ll see.”

I don’t really believe him, and I sort of laugh, because who the hell tells a teen with a gun in his hand “good things ahead”? It’s so absurd.

I look down at the P-38 and sigh. “I can’t even kill myself properly.”

“That’s another good thing, right there,” Herr Silverman says, and smiles in this fantastic way, which makes me believe him. “That’s a beautiful thing.”

Beautiful.

I wish I could believe that.

I wipe my nose with my coat sleeve.

He puts his coat back on.

“What do you think I should do with this?” I say as we both stare at the WWII Nazi relic in my hand.

“Why not just throw it in the water?”

“You don’t think it belongs in the Holocaust museum?”

He laughs in this unencumbered way he never would in class.

It’s like a wink.

Like maybe he’s telling me that he thinks the SAT answers my classmates give are really bullshit, just like I do.

Herr Silverman says, “As far as I’m concerned, all guns belong at the bottom of rivers.”

“I wonder if it even fires,” I say.

“I’d feel a lot better if you’d at least put the gun down. I’m trying really hard to appear calm, but my heart’s still racing, and it would be much easier for me if you no longer had a loaded pistol in your hand.”

I think about how much Herr Silverman is risking coming out here tonight to deal with my crazy ass. There’s the gun. Plus the legal red tape if I actually do kill myself, because he’s involved now in a pretty serious way. If anyone found out we were having this conversation right now, I’m pretty sure my high school’s lawyers would shit themselves.

“My life will get better? You really believe that?” I ask, even though I know what he will say—what most adults would feel they have to say when asked such a question, even though the overwhelming amount of evidence and life experience suggests that people’s lives get worse and worse until you die. Most adults just aren’t happy—that’s a fact.

But I know it will sound less like a lie coming from Herr Silverman.

“It can. If you’re willing to do the work.”

“What work?”

“Not letting the world destroy you. That’s a daily battle.”

I think about what he’s saying and I get it on some level. I wonder what Herr Silverman would look like if I followed him home from work. I bet he’d look happy—proud of the good work he did during the day. So unlike the 1970s sunglasses woman who called me a pervert and all of the other miserable train people I’ve followed. I bet he’d listen to an iPod and maybe even sing along to the music. The other passengers would look at him and wonder why the hell he’s so happy. They’d probably resent him. Maybe they’d even want to kill him.

“You don’t think I’m capable of shooting someone, do you? You never thought I’d kill myself either,” I say.

“That’s why I’m here. I wouldn’t have come if I didn’t think you were worth it.”

I look at Herr Silverman’s face for a long time—not saying anything at all.

I look so long the tension between us builds and starts to feel awkward, even if Herr Silverman doesn’t acknowledge it.

“Throw the gun in the river, Leonard. Trust in the future. Go ahead. Do it. It’s okay. Things are going to get better. You can do the work.”

Maybe because I want to rid myself of all the evidence connected to this night, maybe because I want to please Herr Silverman, maybe because it’s just fucking fun to chuck stuff into rivers, I take three quick steps toward the water and throw the P-38 like a boomerang.

I see it spin through the light of the distant city and then it disappears a few seconds before we hear it plunk into the river and sink.

I think about my grandfather executing the Nazi officer who first carried that gun.

I think about how far that gun had to travel through time and space to end up at the bottom of a Delaware River tributary.

And how stories and objects and people and pretty much everything can blink out of existence at any time.

Then I think about my fictional future daughter S and me scuba diving with Horatio the dolphin after the nuclear holocaust. S has all of these cute freckles on her face. Her eyes are gray like mine. Her hair is bobbed at her chin.

“I wonder if we’ll find my old P-38 gun,” I say to her in my fantasy.

“Why did you have a gun when you were a kid?” she replies.

“Good question,” I say, and then we both lower our masks and fall over the side of the boat into the water.

Even though I know it’s just silly fiction, the thought warms my chest—I have to admit.

“So what do we do now?” I ask.

“Anyone home at your house?” Herr Silverman says.

“No. My mom’s in New York.”

“Then you’re coming home with me.”