Denny Brown Did Not Know

(Age Fifteen)

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N o fault of his own, but Denny Brown did not know very

much about his parents and their work. Denny’s parents

were both nurses. His mother was a nurse in the burn unit

at Monroe Memorial Hospital, and his father was a private duty

nurse, also known as a visiting nurse. Denny was aware of these

facts, naturally, but he did not know much past that.

Denny Brown did not know the extent of horrors that his

mother encountered daily in her work at the burn unit. He did

not know, for instance, that his mother sometimes cared for

patients whose skin was essentially gone. He did not know that

his mother was considered an exceptional nurse, who was fa-

mous for never losing her stomach and for keeping the other

nurses from losing theirs. He did not know that his mother

spoke to every burned patient, even the doomed ones, in cool

and reassuring tones of conversation, never hinting at the agony

of their prospects.

Denny Brown knew even less about his father’s nursing ca-

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reer, other than that it was unusual and embarrassing to have a

father who was a nurse. Mr. Brown sensed his son’s shame,

which was but one of the many reasons he did not talk about

any aspect of his work in the home. There was no way, therefore,

that Denny could have known that his father secretly would

have preferred to have been a psychiatric nurse rather than a

private duty nurse. Back in nursing school, Mr. Brown had

trained at a large mental hospital, in the men’s ward. He had

loved it there, and his patients had adored him. If he’d not

actually felt that he could cure his patients, he’d certainly be-

lieved himself capable of bettering their lives.

However, there was no mental hospital in Monroe County.

Therefore, Denny Brown’s father had spent his married life

working as a private duty nurse instead of the psychiatric nurse

he ought to have been. He worked purely out of economic

necessity and did not enjoy his assignments. His talents were

unrecognized. His patients were old, dying people. They did

not even notice him, except in spare moments, when they came

out of their death marches only long enough to be suspicious of

him. The patients’ families were suspicious as well, always ac-

cusing private duty nurses of stealing. Society as a whole, in fact,

was suspicious of male nurses. So Mr. Brown was met with

skepticism in every new job, in every new home, as though he

were something perverse.

What’s more, Denny Brown’s father believed that private

duty nursing was not nursing at all, but merely tending. It

frustrated him that he did more bathing and wiping than he

did nursing. Year after year, Denny Brown’s father sat in home

after home, watching over the slow and expensive deaths of one

wealthy, aged cancer patient after another.

Denny Brown did not know anything about any of this.

Denny Brown (at age fifteen) did not know that his mother

regretted the rough things that she often said. She’d had a wise

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The Many Things That Denny Brown Did Not Know

mouth as a little girl, and she had a wise mouth as a grown

woman. She also had a dirty mouth. The wise mouth had

always been with her. The dirty mouth came from her year of

nursing in Korea during the war. In any case, she often said

things that she didn’t mean or later was privately sorry for. Very

privately sorry.

For instance, there was a young nurse named Beth in the

burn unit where Denny’s mother worked. Beth had a drinking

problem. One day, Beth confessed to Denny’s mother that she

was pregnant. Beth didn’t want to have an abortion but couldn’t

imagine keeping a child on her own.

Beth said desperately, “I was thinking of selling my baby to a

nice, childless couple.”

And Denny Brown’s mother said, “The way you drink, you

could sell that baby to the fucking circus.”

Mrs. Brown was instantly mortified at herself. She avoided

Beth for days, secretly asking herself, as she often did, Why am I such a horrible human being?

At the end of Denny Brown’s sophomore year, he was in-

vited to the Monroe High School Academic Awards Ban-

quet. Denny’s father had to work, but Mrs. Brown attended.

Denny got a handful of awards that night. He was a very good,

though not exceptional, student. He was a smart kid, but he did

not excel in any particular subject, as he did not know yet

whether he was very good at any particular thing. So Denny

received a small handful of awards, including a certificate of

merit, honoring his participation in something called Youth Art

Month.

“Youth Art Month, ” his mother said on the ride home.

“Youth Art Month.”

She pronounced it slowly: “Youth... Art... Month...”

She pronounced it quickly: “YouthArtMonth.”

She laughed and said, “There’s just no right way to say that, is

there? That’s just an ugly goddamn phrase, isn’t it? ”

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And then Denny Brown’s mother recognized her son’s si-

lence. And she too was silent for the rest of the drive.

She drove on. She did not speak, but she was thinking of

Denny. She was thinking, He does not know how sorry I am.

Denny Brown did not know, at the beginning of his sixteenth

summer, what he was going to do for a job. He did not know

what he was interested in. He did not know what was out there

for work.

After a few weeks of looking, he ended up taking a part-time

job at the Monroe Country Club. He worked in the men’s

locker room. It was a fancy, carpeted locker room, fragrant with

hidden deodorizing agents. The distinguished men of Mon-

roe Township would use the locker room to dress for the golf

course. They would put on their cleated golf shoes, leaving their

dress shoes on the floor in front of their lockers. Denny Brown

did not know anything about golf, but this was not required for

his work. It was Denny’s job to polish the men’s dress shoes

while the men themselves golfed. He shared this job with a

sixteen-year-old boy from his neighborhood named Abraham

Ryan. There was no apparent reason that two people were

needed for the job. Denny did not know why these men needed

their shoes polished every day, in the first place. Denny did not

know why he had been hired.

Some days, Denny and Abraham would have to polish no

more than three pairs of shoes during the entire course of their

shift. They took turns. When they weren’t working, they were

instructed to stay in the corner of the locker room, next to the

electric shoe-polishing machine. There was only one stool in

the locker room, and Denny and Abraham took turns sitting on

it. While one sat, the other would lean against the wall.

Denny and Abraham were supervised by the Monroe Coun-

try Club sports and recreation manager, a serious older man

named Mr. Deering. Mr. Deering would look in on them every

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The Many Things That Denny Brown Did Not Know

hour or so, and say, “Look sharp, boys. The best men in Monroe

come through this door.”

There was one more component to their job besides polish-

ing shoes. Denny Brown and Abraham Ryan were also in

charge of emptying a small tin ashtray that was kept on a

wooden table in one corner of the locker room. Nobody ever sat

at this table. Denny did not know why the table was there at all,

other than to hold the tin ashtray. An average of four cigarette

butts a day collected in that ashtray. Still, since the table was just out of their line of vision, Denny and Abraham sometimes

forgot to empty it. Mr. Deering would look in on them and

scold them.

“Look sharp now, ” Mr. Deering would say. “It’s your job to

keep this place looking sharp, boys.”

When Denny described his work at the Monroe Country

Club to his mother, she shook her head. She said, “That is ex-

actly the kind of job that people in communist countries have.”

Then she laughed. Denny laughed, too.

Although he did not really know what she meant.

Denny Brown (at age fifteen) did not know how he had sud-

denly come to be Russell Kalesky’s best friend. He did not know

how he had suddenly come to be Paulette Kalesky’s boyfriend.

Both events had occurred within a month of graduation from

tenth grade.

Russell Kalesky and Paulette Kalesky were brother and sister,

and they were neighbors of Denny’s. As a little kid, Denny

Brown had been bullied senseless by Russell Kalesky. Russell

was a year older than Denny. Not a big child, but a mean

one. These were some of Russell’s favorite games — playing

with fire in Denny’s house, throwing eggs at Denny, treating

Denny’s pets roughly, and stealing Denny’s toys to tuck behind

the wheels of parked cars. Also, Russell Kalesky passionately

enjoyed punching Denny in the stomach.

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However, during Denny Brown’s sixteenth summer, he sud-

denly became Russell Kalesky’s best friend. He did not know

how this had happened. He knew when it happened, though. It

happened the day after Russell Kalesky bought himself a car,

which cost $150. The car was a huge black eight-cylinder Ford

sedan, which actually did not run at all. The previous owner of

the Ford — an amateur stock car mechanic — happily towed

the car over to the Kaleskys’ driveway and dropped it there

for Russell “to work on.” Denny Brown happened to be walk-

ing past the Kalesky house on the morning when Russell be-

gan working on the Ford, and Russell said, “Hey, man. Check

it out.”

Russell had the hood up and was polishing the engine with a

rag. Denny Brown came over nervously, but trying not to look

nervous. He watched for a while. Russell finally said, “There’s

another rag, man. You want to help? ”

So Denny Brown took up a rag and started polishing Russell

Kalesky’s car engine. It was an enormous engine. Big enough

for two polishers.

“Excellent, right? ” Russell Kalesky said.

“Excellent, ” Denny Brown agreed.

After that, Russell started coming around to the Browns’

place every morning, asking for Denny.

“Hey, man, ” he’d say, “want to work on the car today? ”

“Excellent, ” Denny would say.

Denny Brown did not know a single thing about cars. To be

honest, neither did Russell. Together, they would unscrew parts

and peer at them. They would crawl underneath the car and

tap on things with wrenches. They could pass hours this way.

Denny would try to start the engine while Russell leaned over

the hood, head cocked, listening. Listening hard. They never

had the first idea what they were looking at or listening for.

During rest breaks, they would sit in the front seat of the

Ford with the doors open, one foot inside and one foot flat on

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The Many Things That Denny Brown Did Not Know

the driveway. Heads back, eyes half shut. The only part of the

Ford that actually worked was the radio, and Russell would find

a station and turn it up. They would relax. The other guys in

the neighborhood would come around, riding their bikes up to

the Kaleskys’ house and dropping their bikes into the Kaleskys’

yard. Then the neighborhood guys would lean against Russell

Kalesky’s Ford, arms folded, listening to the radio. Just hang-

ing out.

Occasionally, Russell would say, “Excellent, right? ”

“Excellent, ” the guys would all agree.

They would listen to the radio like that until Russell said,

“That’s it. Back to work.”

Then all the guys in the neighborhood would have to get on

their bikes and ride away.

“Stick around, Dennis, ” Russell would say.

Denny Brown did not know how he had suddenly come to be

Russell Kalesky’s best friend. He did not know how common it

is, in fact, for bullies to eventually befriend their victims. He was not yet completely sure that he would never be punched in the

stomach again. Denny simply had no idea how happy it made

Russell to have him come over in the mornings and work on the

Ford. Denny did not know that this was the happiest thing in

Russell’s life.

Denny Brown also did not know that Russell Kalesky’s older

brother, Peter Kalesky, made fun of Russell’s car every single

time he came home for dinner. Peter Kalesky owned a hand-

some Chevrolet truck. Peter was twenty years old and lived in

his own apartment on the other side of Monroe. Unfortunately,

Peter came home for dinner often. Denny Brown did not know

anything about Peter’s attacks on Russell.

“You know what Ford stands for? ” Peter would say. “It stands

for ‘Fix or Repair Daily.’

“You know what Ford stands for? ” Peter would say. “It stands

for ‘Found on Road Dead.’

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“You know what Ford stands for? ” Peter would say. “It stands

for ‘Found Out Russell’s Dumb.’

“You know why they have rear-window defrost features in

Fords? ” Peter would say. “To keep your hands warm while you’re

pushing your car up a fucking hill.”

Russell Kalesky put himself to sleep every night with dreams

of running his brother Peter over with his shiny Ford. Nobody

knew about this. It was Russell’s secret comfort. He would

dream of driving over Peter, dropping the transmission into

reverse, and driving over Peter again. Back and forth, back and

forth, back and forth. In his dreams, the car made a gentle thud

every time it ran over Peter’s body. And it was that sweet thud

thud thud sound that would finally send Russell off to sleep.

In the morning, Russell Kalesky would wake up and go over

to Denny Brown’s house.

“Want to work on the car, man? ” he’d ask.

“Excellent, ” Denny Brown would say. (Still not knowing —

never knowing — why he had been asked.)

As for Paulette Kalesky, she was Russell’s older sister. She was

eighteen years old. She was the best baby sitter in Monroe

County, and she worked constantly, tending to the children of

a dozen different families in the neighborhood. Paulette was

short, brunette, with large breasts and a careful, neat mouth.

She had lovely skin. She walked up and down the streets of

the neighborhood, pushing other people’s children in carriages,

with more children following her on tricycles. She gave piggy-

back rides and supervised ice cream cones. She carried Band-

Aids and Kleenex in her purse, just like a real mother. The

Kaleskys were not the best family in Monroe County, but peo-

ple liked and trusted Paulette. She was very much in demand as

a baby sitter.

At the end of June, Denny Brown was invited over to the

Kaleskys’ house for dinner. It was Russell Kalesky’s birthday.

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The Many Things That Denny Brown Did Not Know

Mrs. Kalesky made spaghetti. Everybody was there. Peter Ka-

lesky had driven over from his apartment across town, and

Paulette Kalesky had taken a rare night off from baby-sitting.

Denny Brown was the only nonfamily member at the party.

He was seated across the table from Russell, wedged between

Paulette Kalesky and Mr. Kalesky. Russell started to open his

birthday gifts and Paulette just went ahead and put her hand on

Denny’s leg, hidden under the table. Denny and Paulette had

only spoken to each other once before this incident. The hand

on the leg made no sense. Nevertheless, Denny Brown (age

fifteen) slid his hand under the table and put it on top of the

hand of Paulette Kalesky (age eighteen). He squeezed her hand.

He did not know where he had learned to do that.

Over the course of that summer, Paulette Kalesky and Denny

Brown developed a system. She would let him know where she

was baby-sitting that night, and he would ride his bicycle over

and visit her after eight o’clock, once she had efficiently put the

children to bed. Alone together, Denny Brown and Paulette

Kalesky had hot, hot sex. Incredible sex. He did not know how

or why this system had been established, but there it was. They

were terrifically secretive. Nobody knew anything about Denny

and Paulette. But there it was. Hot sex. Out of nowhere.

At age fifteen, there was so much that Denny Brown did not

know about Paulette Kalesky. She had great big breasts. He

knew that, but he only knew it by discreet observation. Hot sex

notwithstanding, Paulette would never let him see or touch her

chest. She kept her shirt on all the time. Denny did not know

why. The fact was, Paulette had gotten her breasts in fifth grade.

Way too early, way too big. Her brothers, Peter and Russell, had

obviously made huge fun of her about it, as did her schoolmates.

There was a period during sixth grade when she was getting so

regularly mocked that she would cry every morning and beg her

parents not to make her go to school.

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Paulette’s father had told her, “Big breasts are nice, and some-

day you will be happy to have them. In the meantime, you’ll just

have to be ridiculed.”

Paulette continued to get ridiculed throughout high school,

with a new twist: some girls in her class were now jealous of her.

There was one group, in particular, who called her Paulette the

Toilet or Paulette the Slut. But it was not that she was taking

anybody’s boyfriends. Not by any measure. Denny Brown was

her first boyfriend, her first kiss. By that time, she was already

finished with high school.

Denny did not know why Paulette Kalesky suddenly liked

him any more than he knew why Russell Kalesky suddenly

liked him. He had no idea what this was all about.

There was, in truth, a very good explanation for Paulette’s

attraction to Denny, but it was a secret. Denny Brown would

never know about it. Denny Brown would never know that

Paulette Kalesky had been a baby sitter for several months in a

home where Denny’s own father was a visiting nurse. It was in

the home of an affluent local family named Hart. Mrs. Hart

had a new baby in the very same year that Mr. Hart’s father was

dying of cancer. In the same house, therefore, the Harts had to

tend to a colicky baby girl and an eighty-year-old senile man

with a rotting liver. Paulette Kalesky was hired to care for the

baby. Mr. Brown was hired to care for the old man. Paulette and

Mr. Brown did not spend a lot of personal time together during

these months, but their paths did cross in the Harts’ house,

usually in the kitchen, where Paulette would be making up a

bottle while Mr. Brown would be puré eing carrots.

“Do you want a cup of tea? ” Mr. Brown would ask Paulette.

“Maybe a glass of water? You look tired.”

“No, thank you, ” Paulette would say, who was shy of an adult

treating her as if she herself were an adult.

“You’re doing a very good job, ” Mr. Brown once told Paulette.

“Mrs. Hart would be lost without you.”

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Paulette thought that Mr. Brown did a good job, too, the way

he nursed old Mr. Hart. She’d seen how he’d brightened and

cleaned the sickroom since taking over the role of the primary

visiting nurse. Mr. Brown had brought a large, cheerful calendar

into the sickroom, which he hung right across from Mr. Hart’s

bed. He’d also brought in a clock with bright hands, which he

propped where the patient could see it. He spoke to old Mr.

Hart in the most clear and specific ways, using direct references

to time and location. He gave out every possible piece of infor-

mation, always trying to keep the vanishing Mr. Hart alerted to

the world.

“My name is Fred Brown, ” Mr. Brown would say, at the

beginning of every shift. “I am the nurse who takes care of you.

I’m going to be here with you for eight hours. Your oldest son,

Anthony, hired me. You are staying in Anthony’s house.”

Throughout the day, Mr. Brown would explain his every

move this clearly. And at the end of a typical day, he would say,

“Good night, Mr. Hart. It is seven in the evening, and time for

me to go home. I will come by to help you again on Wednesday,

October fourteenth, at eleven in the morning.”

Paulette Kalesky thought that Mr. Brown was a wonderful

person and a wonderful nurse. She thought he was the nicest

man she had ever met, and she secretly fell in love with him.

Eventually old Mr. Hart died of liver cancer, of course. Mr.

Brown moved on to another case, so Paulette Kalesky did not

see him anymore, except in brief glimpses around the neigh-

borhood. But then, suddenly, Denny Brown started hanging

around her house, working on her little brother Russell’s Ford.

“Your dad is Fred Brown, isn’t he? ” Paulette asked Denny,

way back in June. It was the first time they had ever spoken. In

fact, it would be the only time they spoke before the night that

Paulette put her hand on Denny’s leg. Denny would never know

why she had asked this particular question.

“Sure, ” said Denny. “He’s my dad.”

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Paulette did not think that Denny looked like his father at

all. Nonetheless, she very much hoped that he might grow up to

be like his father. Somehow, in some manner. So she secretly fell

in love with Denny Brown, for that reason. With that hope.

Naturally, Denny Brown did not know anything about any

of this.

As an adult, Denny Brown would look back on his sixteenth

summer and think that it was a wonder he was even allowed to

leave the house. He would realize how woefully uninformed he

was, how woefully unprepared. There was so much information

that Denny Brown was missing at age fifteen. Any of it would

have helped him. No matter how minor. Later in life, Denny

would believe that he had been sent out there knowing nothing.

Nobody ever told him anything about anything. He did not

know what people did with their lives or what they wanted or

regretted. He did not know why people got married or chose

jobs or chose friends or hid their breasts. He did not know

whether he was good at anything or how to find out. Everybody

just let him walk around without knowing a thing.

His education was so incomplete. Denny Brown (at age fif-

teen) did not know the meaning of any of these words: ethereal,

prosaic, fluvial, paucity, gregarious, vitriol, umbrage, nihilism, or coup d ’é tat. These were among a list of words that he (and every other high school junior in the region) would be taught by the

end of the following school year. But he would have to go

through his sixteenth summer without having the use of any of

those words.

Denny Brown did not know about Euclid or mitosis or

Beethoven’s deafness, either, but the Monroe County Board of

Education was all geared up to teach him those things as well,

come September.

And another thing Denny Brown knew nothing about was

the very name of his town. What did “Monroe” even mean? He

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had somehow been allowed to pass through ten grades of Mon-

roe County public schools without ever having learned that his

town was named after an American president, James Mon-

roe. Denny Brown thought that “Monroe” was just a word.

Denny did not know, therefore, what “Monroe” was referring

to, when used in the very central contexts of his life, like Mon-

roe Memorial Hospital or Monroe High School or Monroe

Country Club. Denny Brown did not know that James Monroe

was a wounded Revolutionary War veteran and a two-term

president. Denny certainly did not know that, during his 1820

re-election bid, James Monroe had received every single vote in

the electoral college except one — that of a New Hampshire

delegate named William Plumber. William Plumber had with-

held his vote intentionally, taking it on himself to ensure that no

man would ever share with George Washington the honor of a

unanimous election to the United States presidency. William

Plumber (who was notable in his life for nothing else) believed

that stripping George Washington of that singular achievement

would have been a national shame, remembered and regretted

by every citizen throughout American history.

And yet Denny Brown (at age fifteen) did not even know

that the word “Monroe” was a person’s name.

Denny Brown knew nothing about where he lived. He did

not know that his water came from a reservoir twenty-five miles

north of Monroe, or that his electricity came from one of the

state’s first nuclear plants. He’d spent his life in a suburban

housing development called Greenwood Fields, never knowing

that the area had once been a dairy farm. He did not know that

the land had once belonged to a family of Swedish immigrants

named Martinsson, whose only son died in 1917, killed in the

trenches of France. Actually, Denny Brown did not yet know

what trenches were. That was eleventh-grade history. He did not yet know very much about World War I. He knew nothing (and

would never really learn) about more obscure wars, like the

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Spanish-American War and the Korean War. He did not know

that his mother had served for a year as a nurse in the Korean

War. She’d never mentioned it.

Denny Brown did not know that his parents had fallen in

love literally at first sight, or that his mother was pregnant on

her wedding day. He did not know that his Grandmother

Brown had objected strongly to the marriage because Denny’s

mother was older than his father and had a wise mouth. Grand-

mother Brown thought that Denny’s mother was a “whore, ”

and said as much to her son. (That would be her only use of

dirty language in ninety years on earth, and Denny’s father wept

at the word.)

Denny Brown did not know that his mother had wept only

once in her married life. He could not imagine her ever crying.

It was over Denny himself, actually. It happened when Denny

was two years old. He had reached up to the stove and pulled a

frying pan full of simmering gravy down on top of him. His

mother was right there. She grabbed him and threw him into

the bathtub, where she ran cold water over him. She tore off his

clothing. His mother (the burn unit nurse, the war hospital

nurse) became hysterical, screaming for her husband. The baby

screamed; the mother screamed. She would not let Denny out

from under the stream of cold water, even when he was shiver-

ing and his lips were turning blue.

“He’s burned! ” she screamed. “He’s burned! He’s burned! ”

In fact, Denny turned out to be fine. Mrs. Brown had acted

quickly enough, and Denny had received only first-degree

burns on his face and hands. But his mother cried for a full day.

She thought, “I am not worthy to be a mother.”

What’s more, up until the day that Denny was burned, his

mother had wanted to have a second child, but she did not ever

consider this again. Never again. Denny Brown did not know

that he had ever been burned or that his mother had ever cried

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or that his mother had ever wanted another baby. He did not

know anything about any of this.

He did know, however, where babies came from. At age

fifteen, he did know that. His mother had taught him that, at

the proper age and in the proper manner.

But there was so much else that he did not yet know. He was

ignorant on so very many subjects. At age fifteen, for instance,

Denny Brown still happened to believe that the Twin Towers

were located in the Twin Cities.

On the morning of August 17, during Denny Brown’s sixteenth

summer, Russell Kalesky came over to the Browns’ house, ask-

ing for Denny. As usual. Everything that morning was just as

usual.

“Want to work on the car today, man? ” Russell asked.

“Excellent, ” Denny said.

But Russell looked different. His face and arms were covered

with ugly red spots.

“Are you okay? ” Denny asked.

“Check it out, ” Russell said. “I got the chicken pox, man.”

Denny Brown did not know that anybody except little kids

could get the chicken pox.

“Mom! ” Denny cried, laughing. “Mom! Help! ”

Denny’s mother, the nurse, came to the door and looked at

Russell. She made him lift up his shirt so that she could exam-

ine the spots on his chest. This made Russell Kalesky laugh so

hard out of embarrassment that a bubble of snot popped out of

his nostril, and that made Denny laugh so hard that he had to sit down on the front step. Denny and Russell were both laughing

like fools.

“You definitely have the chicken pox, Russell, ” Denny’s

mother diagnosed.

For some reason, this made Russell and Denny laugh so hard

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that they had to fall into each other’s arms and then hold on to

their stomachs and stamp their feet.

“Although it doesn’t seem to be interfering with morale...”

Denny’s mother observed.

Because he had already had the chicken pox, Denny was

allowed to go over to the Kaleskys’ house. Russell and Denny

worked on the Ford for a while. Their job for the day was to

take the mirrors off the sides of the car, soak them in a bucket of

soapy water, then polish them and return them to their places.

Russell kept stepping out of the driveway and into the garage

because he said the sun hurt his chicken pox. Every time Russell

mentioned the words chicken pox, Denny would start laughing

again.

“Who gets the chicken pox, man? ” Denny asked. “That’s

crazy, getting the chicken pox.”

“My whole goddamn family got it, man, ” Russell said. “No-

body ever had it before, and the whole family got it. Even my

mom got it, man.”

Denny laughed. Then he stopped laughing.

“Even Paulette? ” he asked. “Did Paulette get it? ”

It was the first time Denny Brown had ever said the name

Paulette around her brother Russell Kalesky.

“Paulette? ” Russell said. “Paulette? Paulette’s the one that

brought it home, man. Shit! She got it the worst. She got it

from one of her stupid kids, man.”

“Is she... um... okay? ”

Russell was not hearing or recognizing Denny’s tone. Russell

was not asking himself why Denny Brown would care about his

sister, Paulette.

Russell said, “Paulette’s a freak, man. She won’t come out of

her room, man. She’s just up there crying all day. ‘Wahhh! It

itches! Help me! ’”

Denny stood there in the Kaleskys’ driveway. He stood there

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The Many Things That Denny Brown Did Not Know

in the sun, holding a sideview mirror. Stood there and stood

there.

“Hey, man, ” Russell said.

“Hey, man, ” Russell said again.

Denny Brown looked up at him.

“Hey, man, ” Russell said.

“I have to go inside now, ” Denny said.

Denny set the sideview mirror down on the driveway and

went into the Kaleskys’ house. Mrs. Kalesky was lying on the

couch. The shades were drawn in the living room, and the

television was on. Mrs. Kalesky was pink with calomine lotion.

“Are you okay? ” Denny asked her.

She was smoking a cigarette, and she looked up at him. She

was usually a friendly lady, but she didn’t smile. She shook her

head, in fact, and looked miserable. Her face was covered with

lumps and swellings, worse than Russell’s.

“I’ll be back, Mrs. Kalesky, ” Denny said. “I’m just going

upstairs. I’m just going upstairs for a minute.”

Denny went up the stairs of the Kaleskys’ house and down

the hall to the room he knew was Paulette’s. He knocked on the

door.

“It’s Denny, ” he said. “It’s me.”

He went inside. Paulette was on her bed, lying on top of her

sheets and blankets. She saw Denny and started to cry. She was

worse than Russell and worse than her mother. She put her

hands over her face.

“It itches, ” she said. “It itches so much.”

“Okay, ” Denny said. “Hold on, okay? ”

The thing was, Denny had indeed had the chicken pox be-

fore. He wasn’t that young when he’d had it, either. Almost

eleven years old. His mother had been working a lot during that

time, and Denny’s father had nursed him. Denny’s father had

done a very good job nursing him, Denny remembered.

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p i l g r i m s

Denny went downstairs and into the Kaleskys’ kitchen.

Russell was inside now, too.

“What the fuck, man? ” Russell asked.

“Russell, ” Mrs. Kalesky said. “No.” She was too weak to

protest the dirty mouth further.

“Russell, ” Denny said, “I just need to get some oatmeal.”

Denny started looking through the kitchen cabinets.

“What the fuck, man? ” Russell demanded. No protest this

time from Mrs. Kalesky. She was really sick.

Denny found a large container of oatmeal, and said to

Russell, “It’s for the itching. Paulette needs it, okay? ”

He went back upstairs. Russell followed him, silent. Denny

ran some water in the upstairs bathtub of the Kaleskys’ house.

He poured the full container of oatmeal into the bath and tested

the water temperature, rolling one sleeve up and dipping his

arm into the tub. He swirled the oatmeal around and left the

water running.

Denny went back into Paulette’s bedroom. He passed Russell

without speaking.

“Paulette, ” Denny said, “you’re going to sit in the bathtub for

a little while, okay? That helps. It helps the itching. I’m going to

sit with you, okay? ”

He helped her sit up in bed, and then he led her into the

bathroom. She was still crying, although not as much. He was

holding her hand as they passed by the astonished former bully,

Russell Kalesky, who was still standing in the hallway.

“Excuse me, ” Denny said politely to Russell. “Sorry.”

Denny took Paulette into the bathroom and shut and locked

the door behind them.

“Okay, ” he said to her. “Here we go, okay? ”

Paulette was wearing her pajamas. They were damp with

perspiration. She was very, very sick.

“Okay, ” Denny said. “You’re going to have to get undressed,

okay? ”

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The Many Things That Denny Brown Did Not Know

Paulette put her hand on the sink, to steady herself. She took

off her socks, one at a time. She stepped out of her pajama

bottoms. Then she stepped out of her underwear. She stood

there.

“Okay, ” Denny said. “I’m going to help you out of this shirt,

and then we’re going to put you in the bathtub, okay? You’re go-

ing to feel a lot better, okay? Okay? Lift up your arms, Paulette.”

Paulette stood there.

“Here we go, ” Denny said. “Lift up your arms.”

Paulette lifted her arms up, like a little girl who needs help

getting out of a nightgown. Denny pulled her pajama top over

her head.

“Okay, ” Denny said. “Looks like you have the worst of it on

your stomach.”

“Look at my skin! ” Paulette said, and started to cry again.

“Your skin is going to be fine, okay? ” Denny said.

He tested the water again, which was lukewarm. Cool and

reassuring tones of water temperature. He swirled the oatmeal

once more in the bath and helped Paulette step in.

“That feels better, right? ” Denny Brown (age fifteen) said.

“That helps, doesn’t it? ”

She sat in the bath, knees up to her chest. She put her head

on her knees, still crying.

“Here we go, ” Denny Brown said. He scooped up handfuls of

wet, cool oatmeal and pressed them on her back, against the

patches of mean, swollen pox. “Here we go. Here we go.”

Denny packed the cool oatmeal against her neck and shoul-

ders and arms. He took a cup from the sink and ran water over

her head to calm the itching under her hair. He ran warmer

water into the tub when its temperature began to drop.

Denny Brown knelt on the floor beside Paulette. Downstairs

on the couch, Mrs. Kalesky wondered what was going on up

there. Upstairs in the hallway, the former bully Russell Kalesky

sat down on the floor, directly across from the locked bathroom

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p i l g r i m s

door. Russell stared at the door. He tried to hear what was going

on in there, but he could hear nothing.

Inside the bathroom, Denny was tending Paulette. “You can

lean back now, ” he told her.

He helped ease her from the sitting position until she lay

back in the bathtub. He put a folded towel under her head as a

pillow. The water was cool and high all around her, reaching just

below her chin. Her breasts floated up. They were lightened by

the water.

“You’re going to feel better in exactly five minutes, ” Denny

Brown said, and smiled at her. Then he said, “Do you want a

glass of water? ”

“No, thank you, ” Paulette said.

Maybe five minutes passed. Five minutes probably did pass.

Mrs. Kalesky waited downstairs, still wondering what was go-

ing on. A few houses away, Denny Brown’s mother got ready to

go to work at the burn unit. Denny Brown’s father helped a

dying patient across town eat some lunch. Monroe High School

sat empty. Russell Kalesky’s Ford sat in the driveway, still as

ever. It was August. All things were as they always are in Au-

gust.

And then Paulette Kalesky said to Denny Brown, “You’re

doing a good job.”

Just outside the bathroom, Russell Kalesky sat very still indeed.

He did not know what his friend was doing in there. He did not

know what his sister was doing in there. Russell did not know

what he was watching for, but he watched that bathroom door

as closely as any person can watch anything. He did not know

what he was listening for, either. But Russell Kalesky listened,

and his head was cocked sharply.

128 ✦