In The Beginning

The following is an excerpt from One For Sorrow, the debut novel from Chris Barzak released today by Bantam. It's all part of Chris Barzak World Domination Day, to which I submitted early this morning. Enjoy.


THERE WAS THIS KID I USED TO KNOW WHO ALWAYS sat in class with his head propped up in one hand. He always looked tired or mad about something, or sometimes just sad.

His name was Jamie Marks. But everyone called him Moony.

I'm not sure when or where or why he got the name, but I think it had something to do with him being fifteen years old and still a Boy Scout. It wasn't a good nickname or anything, and I sometimes wondered why, when guys in the eleventh and twelfth grades would sometimes shout in the hallways, "Hey, Moony! Moony Marks!" and laugh like idiots, Jamie didn't do anything to stop them. He'd just pretend like he hadn't heard. Sometimes there'd be a scuffle. One of the jerks wouldn't be satisfied with his silence, so they'd push him into a locker and say stupid shit like, "Speak when you're spoken to, Moony!" But he must have been a Boy Scout through and through, because he never did anything in retaliation. He just slid further down into the bottom of his existence, far away where they couldn't reach him.

When we were freshmen we started sitting next to each other in our computer classes. I didn't understand computers much beyond playing games on them, so he sometimes helped me. I never asked. Whenever he saw me stuck, he'd just offer his services. His voice was soft, not hard like I'd imagined it would be after everything. He was a good kid, really. I wished I knew how to be friends with him.

That summer I turned fifteen, and when fall came around again, I was put on the varsity cross-country team. I was a good runner. I did a mile in under four and a half minutes. My mother always called meher bolt of lightning. Then she'd tell the same old story again, the one about how I was born after forty hours of labor and how my lungs were undersized and there was a murmur in my heart. "The doctors didn't think you'd live," she'd tell me, or whoever happened to be around to listen. "But you were a fighter, my brave boy. You always fought to live."

I suppose I should probably say a word or two about my mother and the rest of my family.

We live in a white, one-story ranch house on a back road of a small town in Ohio. My father built the house right after he and my mom married, with some help from a few of his friends. He was a construction worker, proud of the buildings his hands brought into existence. When we drove around the countryside or through one of the nearby towns, he'd point out places he'd had a hand in making. He'd say things like, "Did the closets in that one," and would point out my window, his finger drifting in front of my face. I never knew what he was trying to tell me, so I'd just nod, considering the fine black hairs that curled along his arm. It didn't matter how I responded. Most of the time, my dad never had much to say.

My mom, on the other hand, is a talker. She could outtalk anyone, except maybe my grandma.

Mostly she has a good bit of advice or a word of encouragement for everyone. Usually she's in good spirits, unless she and my dad have fought, and when that happens she can be black for days and everyone knows to stay away. I remember in one of her worst moments she stopped me on my way to my room and said, "Don't ever put your happiness in someone else's hands. They'll drop it. They'll drop it every time." She'll always come around eventually, her smile settled back on her face like an advertisement for happiness, but I never believed in that smile except when I was a little kid and didn't know better. I learned early that smiles lie.

Along with my parents is my brother, Andy. He's two years older than me. He was a senior when I started running on the varsity track team. Sometimes teachers called me his name and, after realizing their mistake, said, "I'm sorry. Adam. Adam McCormick. Let's hope you're a bit more serious than your brother."

I'm a bit more serious, I guess. All of my teachers realized that quickly. Soon after their initial worry over me being like Andy, who was known for being a part of what you might call the burnout heavy metal crowd that cut class and always smelled like pot, they started making remarks on essays I wrote or on tests I'd taken that said, "Very good, Adam! You're on the right track! Keep it up!"

This was before all of the bad stuff started to happen. Or I should say this was before all of the bad stuff started to happen that had been coming into existence for years beforehand. It's just that none of us recognized it at first. Or I should say it's just that none of us recognized it except my grandma, who died in the spring when I was still fourteen and a freshman in high school. She'd come to live with us after my grandpa died of lung cancer and she'd been with us for a year when I went into her bedroom one morning to wake her for breakfast and found her dead.

Before she died, we'd gotten used to my grandma predicting a great misfortune coming. She always had odd sayings and rhymes to explain anything out of the ordinary. My parents said she was from the old country and never gave up that kind of thinking, but I always thought what she said made a sort of sense. And what she'd been saying for several months before she died was, "God's finger is coming. I see it in the sky. If you people aren't careful, he's going to pick you out for sadness."
To me she said, "If you see his finger coming, boy, run. Run as fast and as far away as you can. Understand?"

I nodded and she smiled, the wrinkles in her face folding. She patted my hand. The skin on her palms was soft and felt like it would slide right off her bones. I sat on the edge of her bed and said, "I'll run as fast and as far away as possible. I'll keep my eyes out for God's finger. I promise."