Сигрид Нуньес - Salvation City

They didn’t know it, but it was his parents who’d given him the idea. It began with his mother talking about how many women these days—even very young women—had thinning hair.

“At first I thought I was imagining it, but Shireen” (her friend who also happened to be a dermatologist) “confirmed it. There’s an epidemic of hair loss among women of all ages. No one knows exactly why, but it must be something in the environment—they think maybe plastics.”

Another time, his mother had brought up something else she’d noticed.

“When I started middle school, I remember there were just one or two really busty girls, and it was such a big deal. Now it’s the flat-chested girl who’s the exception. And look at Krystal” (the ten-year-old next door). “She’s got more cleavage than I do.”

In this case, too, the cause was thought to be contaminants in plastics.

Cole hadn’t noticed women losing their hair until his mother had said something. As for early breasting, he had noticed a lot—you couldn’t help noticing Krystal—but he hadn’t realized this was something new. Some of the girls in his class were so big he had trouble believing they weren’t in pain. And how could you not feel bad for them? Never to be able to sleep on your stomach—because of growths on your chest ? It wasn’t exactly vomitous—after all, ginormous breasts were a big part of what made a lot of apocalyptic girls apocalyptic—but it was close.

His father said, “When it’s warm out and the girls come to class half naked, it looks like something out of a men’s mag. I know it wasn’t that good when I was in school.” He roared with laughter when Cole’s mother said, “I guess that’s how women will look in the future: humongous boobs and no hair.”

And instantly they sprang to mind: a race of supergirls . . . bald, blimp-breasted, disc-eyed . . . with long muscular legs that they could turn into laser swords . . . supernaturally smart, although, because of some genetic defect, unable to read the alphabet . . . The Dyslexichicks, who communicated not with words but through a kind of music, like birds . . . engaged in never-ending battle with the evil Stubs, a race of short, bushy-haired bookworms (Cole envisioned something like troll dolls) who wished to rid the world of all music, even the music of birds . . .

His parents had stood by him, but still it was awful.

All he’d wanted was to show his friend Kendall, who could draw almost anything himself.

“What ya got there, boys?”

Mr. Gert. Short, bushy-haired, evil Mr. Gert.

“Mind if I have a look-see, too?” Like he was really giving them a choice.

Actually, the whole business had died pretty quickly. In confrontations like this his mother was a champ at getting the opposition to back down—not to mention expert at mimicking Gert’s sibilant voice: “Sssorry, but I know pornography when I sssee it.”

But in private his parents were less blasé. They were completely on his side, of course, and they thought Gert should be sssued. But they admitted that they also found Cole’s drawings disturbing. The sexy girls, okay, that was a normal obsession for a boy his age. But evil bookworms ? Here was something they needed to talk about.

They didn’t say anything else about the comic book, and though Kendall had delivered his praise like a blessing—“You got the gift, dude. Use it wisely”—Cole tore up the panels he’d drawn so far. He refused to discuss the subject with his parents, until finally they dropped it. But of course every math class he still had to face Mr. Gert, who treated him like a budding perv.

Proving there really was no pleasure grown-ups couldn’t spoil if they put their minds to it.

But what was wrong with him? With his dad so sick and his mom trying so hard to be brave—couldn’t he at least have some nicer thoughts about them?

In fact, this sounded just like his mother, who not long before had complained: “It’s like you get colder all the time.”

That was him. He was like a glass slowly being filled with ice water.

His mother also accused him of being ashamed of his own emotions.

Back when they were still in Chicago, his class had started doing something called mindfulness training. Fifteen minutes, three times a week. It was supposed to help improve everyone’s ADD. Dimmed lights, chimes, something called elevator breathing. Close your eyes, drain your head, focus on your breath rising and falling. Lame. Cole breathed normally and let his mind wander. Which was how he found himself back in the summer when he was nine and his parents had gone away for two weeks without him. A friend of theirs had been getting married somewhere in Ireland, and after the wedding they wanted to visit Aunt Addy in Germany. Meanwhile, Cole would go to sleepaway camp, where he’d been wanting to go anyway, having heard from other kids that camp was awesome.

A perfect plan, but they were all anxious about it. After all, they’d never spent more than a night apart before, and Europe was so far away . . . Cole would always remember their good-byes, the three of them on the verge of tears and at the same time laughing and teasing one another for being such big sillies.

And it wasn’t that he’d had a bad time. Camp was awesome. The counselors were much better than teachers at breaking up cliques and keeping bullies in line, and in two weeks he’d gone from being a spastic swimmer to an almost smooth one.

It wasn’t exactly that he was homesick, either. But never having been away from his parents before, he was unprepared for what it would mean to miss them. Even before the end of the first week, he was spending at least part of each day in agony. He kept it secret, of course; he didn’t want to look like a baby, and homesick kids were often teased or avoided.

It was worse at night, when, lying on his cot in the pitch dark with nothing to distract him, his longing bloomed into a kind of insanity. For the first time in his life he had trouble sleeping. He could not shake the fear that something would stop his parents from coming home. Things happened, didn’t they? Planes got hijacked. Buildings caught fire . . .

He dreamed that they had returned and had brought a strange boy with them. An ordinary-looking innocent-seeming little boy who wanted to be Cole’s friend. But in the dark world of the dream, Cole knew without a doubt that the boy’s appearance spelled his own doom. But you asked for a brother, his parents kept saying. Perplexed; annoyed.

And then, at last, their ecstatic reunion, it, too, like something out of a dream—but how could something that makes you so happy also make you feel like you were being beat up?

This was love, but it was also terror, and Cole didn’t know what to make of it.

And now, he did not like to remember that time. Because even though it was about something happy, something good, it had become only painful to remember. And that particular day in school it had been too much to bear. Had it happened in the middle of a lesson, he would have had some major explaining to do. But mindfulness training was known to make some kids emo, and Cole’s excuse, that he absolutely had to get to the bathroom, no time to raise his hand, was accepted without comment.

And it wasn’t the teacher but Cole himself who sternly warned: Don’t you ever let that happen again.

His mother was right. He was ashamed. He was totally ashamed even to have such feelings, let alone have them found out.

Later, when he was in the hospital, a volunteer grief counselor would come to see him. She took him out to the courtyard, where roses the size of melons were in bloom.