Why won’t you talk? Talk! I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I didn’t know you would see. I wasn’t me.

Steve just lays there. He won’t talk. Why won’t he talk? Talk! Mary, make him talk.

"Why won’t he talk?" Mary sat on the bed next to Steve stroking his hair.

"This was quite a traumatic event."

"Why am I ok?"

"Are you ok?"

"No." Mary held Steve’s head. "Why did I faint?"

"This was a great shock. Besides, Steve fainted also."

Mary went to the funeral. She sat with Annie’s Mother. Mary didn’t say a word — she barely blinked. Steve stayed home. The graveside service was in the cemetery behind their houses in the back corner right behind Steve’s house. Steve stood at the window of his upstairs bedroom and watched the service.

"But Daddy, I don’t want to go."

"Mary, you need to go away from home."

"Daddy, Steve needs me."

"That is too much pressure for a girl your age."

The week after Annie’s funeral Mary left for Fresno to live with her sister. Mary was enrolled in High School in Fresno. After a week Steve went back to school. He still wouldn’t talk.

While in Fresno Mary started wearing all black clothes. She also dyed her red hair black. Her sister decided no to fight it. She knew Mary needed to work this out on her own. About that same time Steve started wearing all black. Mary’s Father was worried that Mary would call Steve. He didn’t have to worry — Steve still wasn’t talking.

Not speaking made it a little hard for Steve’s teachers. Steve didn’t mind. The teachers did mind. They tried various ways to get him to talk. Some just called on him. He barely acknowledged them. One tried to get the other students to talk to him. Most of the students were not very cooperative. Steve hadn’t spoken to most of them before so no one really knew him. A number of the teachers sent him to the Vice Principal. Steve would sit quietly and ignore him.

"Steve, what are you in here for?" Mr. Nelson asked.

Steve resisted correcting his English (Mr. Nelson must have been a Math teacher). He also resisted telling Mr. Nelson that the question was unnecessary since Steve had read the note and it said that Steve was refusing to talk or answer any questions (did Mr. Nelson think he had magical powers to make Steve talk? I could hardly do it myself. I think only Mary had that power.). Steve just sat and stared at the floor.

Mary’s problem wasn’t that she wouldn’t talk. For the first time ever she gave her teachers as much trouble as she could. Of course, true to her nature, she kept her grades up, and even though she was a couple of months behind she had caught up. Steve, after a couple of weeks, started doing his work.

There was one strange incident. You would think that they had coordinated it, but it was too spontaneous. One of Steve’s teachers was getting very frustrated with Steve for not talking. One day, in complete frustration (Teachers can be so manipulative); he lashed out at Steve, not for his not talking, but for his clothes (What?).

"Why are you wearing all black? I don’t want to see you in black in my class again. Take them off."

Steve calmly got up and started taking off his clothes. Everything was black except for his boxers. That may have been fortunate. He calmly stood in his boxers and looked the teacher straight in the eye (No mean task for Steve) "How’s that?" He finally said.

Oddly enough that was not the strangest thing about that day. At the same moment Mary calmly stood up in class and started removing her clothes (very nice). Whether because Steve didn’t remove his underwear, or from modesty she left her underwear on (although they were both black). They were both sent to the office for that. It was an interesting site for the schools. Each walked to the office holding their clothes — walking in the halls in their underwear.

Unless he wanted to, unless it was something that interested him, Steve wasn’t much of a talker in the best of times. If the subject was of interest to him, and if he felt comfortable with the audience (only an audience of one) Steve would talk long on the subject. There had been many days when Steve was younger that his Dad would hear everything about a certain movie — everything. It probably helped that his Dad was nearly deaf in one ear.

The next weekend after the incident with the underwear Steve talked his sister into driving him to Fresno. Mary was sitting on the curb when they drove up to the house. When Steve got out of the car she ran up and hugged him. After giving his sister a kiss Mary and Steve walked off down the street. Mary’s sister was standing in the doorway. Steve’s sister went into the house with her.

When it was getting dark Mary and Steve walked into the house. After a short kiss Steve got into the car and they started driving back to La Verne.

"So, what did you do?"

Steve didn’t say a word, but turned his right wrist up and there was a small black rose tattoo. The jagged stem going halfway up his forearm.

His sister just nodded her head. "And Mary?"

"On her left arm."

"Maybe you should long sleeves for a while."

"Maybe."

The next week was Christmas break. Mary moved back home on Christmas break.

"Let’s sit by the rock." Mary and Steve put their books and instruments down by the rock in the middle of the quad. Mary took her guitar out of the case. Steve sat cross legged next to her reading his history book. Mary started playing.

Without looking up Steve said. "That’s new."

"I’m working on a song for Annie."

Steve kept reading his book. Steve had let his hair grow long over the summer. The school was relaxing the school dress code, so some of the guys were growing their long.

"Hi girls." Jason was standing above them. He looked back at his friends. "What are you reading?"

They both ignored him.

"Hey queer, have you had sex with a girl yet, or don’t you like girls?"

Steve had a stack of drumsticks lying in front of him. Mary grabbed them and started flinging them at Jason. Jason and his friends ran to a safe distance.

"What’s a matter girl, can’t defend yourself?" Mary threw another stick and it hit Jason in the leg (good shot). Unfortunately Mr. DeHerrera, the truant officer, was in the quad at that moment. He started running like he was a soldier bravely running into war. Since there was no real fight to break up, he started yelling. "OK, what’s going on here?"

Jason was laughing. "Pretty boy can’t defend himself, so her girlfriend (now that was not fair) started throwing drumsticks at us."

"You two…" Mr. DeHerrera pointed at Steve and Mary. "into the office."

"What? Jock boy started it." Mary was furious.

Knowing he couldn’t manhandle a girl DeHerrera grabbed Steve. "I said, into the office." Steve dropped his book as DeHerrera pulled him up like a rag-doll.

"You leave him alone (you go girl). He didn’t do anything." Mary yelled at him. DeHerrera dropped Steve. "What about jock boy?" She said, pointing at Jason, who was still laughing.

"He didn’t throw drumsticks."

"Neither did Steve."

"Just get in the office now."

They both sat in the office, waiting to see the Vice Principal. "You didn’t need to throw the drumsticks." Steve said. He was wishing he had picked up his things. Just then a couple of girls were walking in with their books, guitar and drumsticks.

"That DeHerrera is a real jerk. Are you OK?" one of the girls asked Steve. Just then Mr. DeHerrera walked into the lobby. The girl quickly left the office.

"Mr. Nelson wants to see the both of you." Mr. DeHerrera said.

Mr. DeHerrera stood by the door as they sat across from Mr. Nelson’s desk. Steve had learned from his brother about Mr. Nelson. Mr. Nelson would come down hard on the freshmen and sophomore’s, and then let the junior’s and senior’s slide. He would sit and talk about the weather with the upper classmen, and when he was done he would let them go without a note and they would never return to class that period. Steve’s brother would get in trouble just to get out of class.

Mr. Nelson sat and stared at them. Usually the girls Vice Principal would take on the girls, but Mr. Nelson decided that he would handle them together. He stared at them without saying anything. "So, Mr. Ryan, what do you have to say for yourself?"

Steve looked down at the floor. He wouldn’t say a word.

"Now, don’t use that no talking thing on me Mr. Ryan."

Steve didn’t talk to most adults at the best of times. Mary cleared her throat.

"I will get to you in due time Miss Brady." (what is it about how men treat girls as lesser beings.)

"You won’t get him to talk."

Mr. Nelson looked at Mary.

"They were attacking Jason King. He is the Captain of the Basketball team." (big fucking deal) Mr. DeHerrera said.

Mary Huffed. "You need to let me talk."

"Yes Miss Brady." Mr. Nelson said.

"Steve did nothing wrong."

"Then why is he here?"

"She was defending me. Jason insulted me and she was defending me. She knows I won’t fight back — being a pacifist" Steve was actually looking Mr. Nelson in the eye. "Jason called me a girl because I hang out with girls… dammit, I mean a girl. Dammit, dammit!" He stopped talking and looked down.

Mr. Nelson looked at Steve. He sat and thought for a few minutes. "Mr. DeHerrera you can go now. I will take care of this." Mr. DeHerrera turned and left.

"It’s true, Mr. Nelson. What Steve said was true." Mary stopped as if to catch her breath. "Guess with all that has happened to us this year I just snapped."

"Under the circumstances I think that we can overlook this incident. Do you think we can bring in Mr. King and clear this up?"

Steve shook and let out a gasp.

"Well, I will have a talk with him in private, just to get his cooperation. You two are good students. Let’s try to hold our tempers Miss Brady. Why don’t you two go home for the day."

Sitting by Mary’s pool Steve was writing in his notebook. Since they worked together to do their homework they were ahead of schedule. They did most of their work while in school. They even did some of their work together in class. They had learned how to communicate silently.

"A song about Annie?" Steve said, not expecting an answer. "Maybe we can work on the words together."

Mary put her guitar down. "Sure."

Annie’s song was the first song they worked on together. Steve and Mary spent all of their free time working on new songs. Annie’s song seemed to always be growing, but never got finished. They worked on about twenty songs that school year. Most of them they had completed.

They couldn’t settle on a musical genre. They had blues, rock, country, jazz, and gospel. Some of the songs were just music, but most had lyrics. Steve had been writing poems for a few years now. He wrote most of the lyrics for their songs.

"We have all these songs, but who is going to sing them? Annie is gone." Steve looked at Mary.

Mary knew the answer. When they wrote, they both sang the songs. Mary had a perfect ear for music. She knew that she could convince him to sing. Mary smiled.

Mary and Steve were using the upstairs music room when they rehearsed. They had recorded many of their sessions. Out of consideration of the neighbors and her parents they had soundproofed the room. Mary had commandeered, cajoled, and borrowed old equipment from the studio where her Dad worked. Steve had picked up from the engineers how to use the board and they experimented with recording.

"We should record the songs we have." Mary picked up one of the acoustic guitars.

"We need a singer."

"You can sing."

"I wish Annie was here."

I am

They had gotten better since I left. I want to sing. I want to play the violin. I like their songs. I want to sing them.

Mary and Steve started laying down the tracks to the songs. Mary played most of the instruments. Steve wanted her to play all of them — especially for the recording.

"You have a unique touch to your playing." Mary told him. "If I imitated it it would not sound so natural."

"You have a nice way to describe my poor playing." Steve said.

Steve played the bass guitar and drums. He did have a nice unique way to play. They spent the rest of the school year perfecting their songs.