The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud - Excerpt

The bulk of this tale takes place here in the snug little village of Marblehead, Massachusetts, a wedge of rock jutting into the Atlantic. It is almost twilight now. I stand in the ancient town cemetery on a sloping hill where two weeping willows and a small mausoleum overlook the harbor. Sailboats tug at moorings, seagulls fly in force, and little boys cast their lines from the dock. Someday they will grow up to hit home runs and kiss girls. Life goes on, infinite, irrepressible.

Nearby, I see a fuzzy old man put a fistful of hollyhocks on his wife’s grave. A history buff makes a rubbing from a weathered stone. The tidy rows of monuments drop down to a cove on the water. When I was a schoolkid, I learned that once upon a time America’s first patriots spied from this hilltop on British warships below.

We’ll start by going back thirteen years to September 1991. In the rec room at the firehouse, we were polishing off bowls of my wife’s famous spumoni, arguing about Clarence Thomas, and screaming about the Red Sox, who were chasing the Blue Jays for the pennant. Then we heard the tones on the box, rushed to the rig, and took off.

Now turn the page, come along on the ride, and let me tell you about the death and life of Charlie St. Cloud.

CHAPTER ONE

CHARLIE ST. CLOUD WASN’T THE BEST OR BRIGHTEST BOY in Essex County, but he was surely the most promis-ing. He was junior-class vice president, shortstop of the Marblehead Magicians, and co-captain of the de-bate club. With a mischievous dimple on one cheek, nose and forehead freckled from the sun, and caramel eyes hidden beneath a flop of sandy-blond hair, he was already handsome at fifteen. He was a friend to jocks and geeks and even had a girlfriend one year older at school. Yes, Charlie St. Cloud was a blessed boy, quick of mind and body, destined for good things, perhaps even a scholarship at Dartmouth, Princeton, or one of those Ivied places.

His mother, Louise, cheered his every achieve-ment. Indeed, Charlie was both cause and cure for her own life’s disappointments. Those troubles had begun the very moment he was conceived, an unwanted pregnancy that pushed the man she loved—a carpenter with good hands—right out the door. Next came Charlie’s obstructed journey into the world, catching somewhere deep inside and requiring bloody sur-gery to be born. Soon a second son arrived from another van-ished father, and the years blurred into one endless struggle. But for all her woes, Charlie erased her pain with those twinkling eyes and optimism. She had grown to depend on him as her an-gel, her messenger of hope, and he could do no wrong.

He grew up fast, worked hard at his books, watched out for his mom, and loved his kid brother more than anyone in the world. His name was Sam, and his father—a bail bondsman— was gone, too, barely leaving a trace except for his son’s curly brown hair and some bluish bruises on Louise’s face. Charlie be-lieved he was the only true protector of his little brother, and someday, together, he knew they would make something of themselves in the world. The boys were three years apart, oppo-sites in coloring and throwing arms, but best friends, united in their love of catching fish, climbing trees, a beagle named Oscar, and the Red Sox.

Then one day, Charlie made a disastrous decision, a mistake the police could not explain and the juvenile court did its best to overlook.

To be precise, Charlie ruined everything on Friday, September 20, 1991.

Mom was working the late shift at Penni’s market on Washington Street. The boys had come home from school with mischief on their minds. They had no homework to do until Sunday night. They had already gone spying on the Flynn twins down the block. They had jumped a fence and snuck onto the property of the Czech refugee who claimed to have invented the bazooka. At sunset, they had played catch under the pine trees in their yard on Cloutman’s Lane, just as they had done every night since Charlie had given Sam his first Rawlings glove for his sev-enth birthday. But now it was dark, and they had run out of ad-ventures.

Sam might have settled for crashing and watching Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game” video on MTV, but Charlie had a sur-prise. He wanted action and had just the plan.

“How ’bout night fishing on Devereux Beach?” he asked Sam, setting his brother up perfectly.

“Boring,” Sam said. “We always do that. How ’bout a movie? Terminator 2’s playing at the Warwick. Nick Burridge will sneak us in the back.”

“I’ve got a better idea.”

“It’s R-rated. What’s better than that?”

Charlie pulled out two tickets from the pocket of his jeans jacket. Red Sox tickets. They were playing the Yankees. Boston was on a roll, and the evil Bronx Bombers had lost eleven of their last thirteen.