later Robbie was back in the lobby. He pushed through the revolving doors and out into the cool, fresh air of the street. Tears streamed down his face.
God?
Mom?
Anyone?
Help me. Please, please help me!
Running blindly down Park Avenue, Robbie Templeton began to sob.
The depression had started in earnest at the age of twelve, with the onset of puberty.
Before that, Robbie remembered periods of great sadness. Times when he missed his mother so badly it registered as a physical pain, like acute, grief-induced angina. But these were only temporary interludes. By playing the piano, going for a walk outside or goofing around with Lexi, he could usually shake them off.
Once he turned twelve however, something seismic seemed to shift within him. An inner blackness took hold, and this time its presence was constant. Robbie felt as if he’d descended into a tunnel without end, and that someone had blocked off the entrance hole. There was nothing to do but put one foot in front of the other, hopelessly, for eternity. Voices, sweet voices tempting him to suicide, followed him everywhere. If it weren’t for Lexi, he would have heeded their call years ago. As it was, he struggled for his little sister’s sake to go on. On and on and on, deeper and deeper into the never-ending darkness.
Once, he’d confided in his Uncle Barney about his feelings. The next day, his father came bursting into his bedroom guns blazing, pressing Prozac into his hand and forcing him into thrice weekly sessions with a therapist. Robbie listened politely to the therapist for a year and flushed the Prozac down the toilet. He didn’t know much any more, but he knew that his father’s guilt-pills were not the answer to his problem.
That was the last time Robbie Templeton sought help from adults. From then on, he was alone.
As if the blackness weren’t bad enough, Robbie was painfully aware that he was not ‘normal’ in other ways either. Girls were a problem. His so-called friends, the group of kids who hung around him because he was rich and good-looking, and who knew nothing of the tortured boy within, were all obsessed with girls. Specifically with their breasts, legs and vaginas.
‘Did you see the tits on Rachel McPhee this semester? Those babies have, like, tripled over the summer.’
‘Annie Mathis has the sweetest, tightest little pussy in tenth grade. Talk about the Tunnel of Love!’
‘If Angela Brickley doesn’t wrap those lips around my dick by the end of this year, I swear to God I’m gonna kill myself.’
Of course, there was a lot of bullshit being talked. A lot of bravado. Robbie knew full well that most of the boys in his class were still virgins, for all their talk about pussies and blow jobs. But that wasn’t the point, or the problem. The problem was that they were all interested in girls. All of them.
Robbie Templeton wasn’t.
He remembered how his heart had stopped a few weeks ago, when Lexi announced blithely: ‘I know why you haven’t got a girlfriend.’
Skipping around the kitchen in her favorite neon-pink princess dress, sipping cherry coke from the Soda Stream through a swirly straw, she fluttered her eyelashes at Robbie like Mae West.
Four years old, and already she’s better at flirting than I am.
‘No you don’t Lexi.’
‘I do.’
Did she? Was it that obvious?
Robbie tried really hard never to look at other boys in public. So hard it sometimes made his eyes ache. Certainly he never did it at school. Not because he was scared of what the other kids might say, but because he was disgusted by his own feelings, consumed with a shame he could neither understand nor express. He couldn’t be gay. He refused to be gay. Besides, if you never did anything about your urges, if you never acted on them, then you weren’t technically gay at all. You were just confused. Weren’t you?
Lexi gazed up at him adoringly.
‘It’s because you’re waiting for me to grow up, so you can marry me. Right?’
The relief was so overwhelming, Robbie burst out laughing. Scooping his sister up into his arms, he twirled her around until she squealed with delight.
‘That’s right sweetheart. That’s exactly right.’
‘I’m your princess.’
‘Yes, Lexi. You’re my princess.’
‘Open your eyes, moron!’
Robbie glanced up. He’d been so engrossed in his own thoughts he wasn’t looking where he was going. He’d bumped into a businessman on his way to lunch, knocking him clean off his feet.
The man bellowed: ‘What are you, retarded or something? Freak.’
‘Sorry. I didn’t see you.’
Robbie kept walking, head down. Inside his head the tape kept playing, over and over: He’s right. I am a freak.
He had no idea where he was going. He knew he’d have to go home eventually, but he couldn’t face it right now. Turning into Grand Central, he bought a ticket at random and jumped on the first train to anywhere.
The girl was red-headed. She had huge breasts that seemed to wriggle like puppies beneath her tight, angora sweater. Her black leather mini skirt was so short that Robbie could see the daisy pattern on her white cotton panties.
Her name was Maureen Swanson. She was captain of the cheerleading squad, the most popular girl in school. Every guy at St Bede’s wanted to fuck her brains out.
Almost every guy.
Maureen Swanson stared at Robbie. ‘Don’t I know you?’
Robbie looked at his shoes.
‘Hey. Rain Man. I’m talking to you. Hellooo?’
It was just his luck. Of all the hundreds, maybe even thousands of trains leaving Grand Central that afternoon, he had to pick the one with Maureen the Mammary Monster on board.
‘You’re the Blackwell kid, aren’t you?’
Robbie looked around for a means of escape but there was none. The carriage was packed with commuters. He was hemmed in like a sardine in a tin.
‘Bobby, right? Tenth grade?’
‘Robbie.’
‘I knew it!’ Maureen couldn’t have looked more triumphant if she’d just solved Fermat’s theorem or discovered the meaning of life. ‘Robbie Blackwell.’
Hearing the name Blackwell, other passengers turned to stare at Robbie. Some of them were squinting quite openly to get a better look. Was he really one of them?
‘Actually, my name is Templeton. And you don’t know me. We never met.’
Maureen rose to her feet, eliciting admiring stares from the more circumspect businessmen and wolf whistles from the braver ones. The women in the carriage glared at her as one.
‘Well, Robbie Templeton,’ she smiled lasciviously, easing herself down onto Robbie’s lap, ‘we can soon fix that.’
Robbie felt his insides liquefy. Not with desire. With fear. Why the hell hadn’t he thrown himself onto the rails when he’d had the chance? Anything would have been better than the death-by-smothering he was about to endure in the rift valley of Maureen Swanson’s cleavage.
‘Where