Fiction
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© 1918 Auguste Herbin "Cabeza"
COPYRIGHT © As per the specifications of the heirs of the Copyright owner or the managing society. Provenance: Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
Time and Time Again
Esme’s morning starts when she hears her tires grinding up the Auburns’ soft pea gravel. Mrs. Auburn liked it because it was easy on bare feet and crunched less when a car rolled closer to the house. However, the difference between the main road and the driveway was completely audible, and despite any efforts of alleviating it, the loud buzz of the rock on rubber remained. It alerted Mrs. Auburn that Esme was coming, and, even before she arrived at the gate, the remote-controlled doors opened and closed securely after she passed through without stopping to call up.
“Esme, I’m in the back!” Mrs. Auburn yells from the backyard as Esme closes her front door.
Esme totters slowly through the edgeway to the back of the house. She had always been a petite woman, but—after having two children and a whole life—at sixty, her feet no longer stopped aching whenever they touched the ground, even on the Auburn’s luxuriously gentle grate, the fresh spring brush of their zoysia grass.
Esme passes through the wooden gate to the garden and closes it, arming the electric lock with the passcode Mr. Auburn had shared with her after Mrs. Auburn got out and went missing for nearly forty-eight hours. A flat beep rings from the device as she returns to her path to Mrs. Auburn, bent before her prized flower bushes, pruning the dead heads and leaves.
“Help me thin the perennials.” Mrs. Auburn says when Esme is close enough.
Esme puts down her bag and dives her hands into the stocks. She parts each flower like she is doing a breaststroke through the brush.
After five minutes, Mrs. Auburn gets up which is Esme’s signal to stop. She looks at the work they have done. The red and yellow daylily rise from the purple catmint below a flush of dark violet beard tongue. It is a perpetual sunset or a sunrise at sunrise. Either way, any light was good for it. Darkness banished it to obscurity.
“Will you look at the light. It’s a perfect day to be outside.” Mrs. Auburn says and slowly settles in a garden chair. It is whicker and cackles as she sits.
Esme picks up her bag and looks up while she walks over. A westward wind lightly tugs at her pant leg. The sky is blue but red hugs the end of the mountains. Later, it will rain, but she doesn’t tell Mrs. Auburn this. Instead, she nods and takes a seat beside her, basking in the sun. “You need sunglasses for the light.”
“Got any? Mine are inside.”
Esme reaches into her purse and gives Mrs. Auburn a pair of sunglasses with red frames.
Mrs. Auburn puts them on and leans back. The whicker whines. “Well, this is nice, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” Esme says and zips up her bag. The sunlight never bothered her in The States, even in California where it was at its most brutal. She had grown up accustomed to the white skies in Sagada, her hometown, where the light pinched your eyes whenever you stepped out of the house.
When Mrs. Auburn falls asleep, Esme leaves her bag on the seat and goes into the house through the bedroom door. Before stepping onto the plush wool carpet, Esme steps out of each of her slip-on shoes and leaves them outside on the cold brick stoop before the entrance.
Inside, she proceeds with her daily routine of opening all the blinds in the house. It is not her job to do this, but it is a habit that the Auburn’s son, Robbie, had taught her, when he was just three years old, running through the house. To focus his energies in the morning, this was his job. Years later, he no longer did this, but the task still needed doing.
When she came to Robbie’s door, she knocked and gave him a minute before entering. This was especially an important custom to learn when he had reached his pubescence as to not disturb any teenage ritual of impropriety.
“Robbie. Excuse me, na.”
The room is perfumed with musk. Clothes and books lay everywhere is disarray, either piled or strewn about. At his desk is a plate of half-eaten sausage pizza Esme had left there from their dinner the night before. It was Robbie’s favorite midnight snack. If not that, he merely starved himself until breakfast the next morning. Growing boys were fickle. Esme knew so from her own. Now they were grown and gone.
Esme sits on Robbie’s bed and lifts her feet off the floor for a brief respite. She leans across the galaxy patterned comforter and opens the blinds to the yard. She looks at Mrs. Auburn, still outside before her flowers.
“Have you been watching your mother? It wouldn’t hurt to help sometimes, you know.” Esme says and pats Robbie’s pillow.
“I see you still haven’t picked up after yourself. Sus naman!” She lifts a book from the floor. A copy of Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy. Another, a copy of Planet of The Apes. She puts them back to the way they were and stands back up. She picks up one of his shirts with her feet and flings it by his rolling chair.
Esme had resigned herself to the fact that nothing would change. People grew up without doing.
Esme closed Robbie’s door after herself and went back out to wake Mrs. Auburn. Outside, her red sunglasses reflected twin suns and the wind did little to move her.
“Mrs. Auburn.” Esme said, casting her shadow over her.
Mrs. Auburn stirred. “Esme. It’s ok for you to call me Anita.”
Esme moves to put the sun back in her face. Mrs. Auburn winces. “We should get inside, unless you want a tan.”
“No thank you.” Mrs. Auburn says, lifting herself up to her feet. “Melanoma runs in the family.”
“I will start some breakfast.” Esme says, getting ahead of her. “Yogurt and dried mango?”
“You know what I like, Esme.” Mrs. Auburn says, following after her. “And what about Robbie?”
Esme looks at Robbie’s window, the vacancy behind the glass. “Let Robbie rest. He can get his own breakfast.”
“Boys and their cereal.” Mrs. Auburn says idly walking past Esme to the inside.
The Auburns’ son, Robbie, died ten years ago. A car accident close to home, late at night. He had been driving home from a party. They did not know whose. No one from his school showed up to his funeral. In his system, they found his blood-alcohol level well above the state limit to call his driving under the influence, but the Auburn’s had left that off the obituary and out of the papers.
Where Mr. Auburn turned to his work for salvation, Mrs. Auburn turned to denial. Robbie had survived, saved by the same sirens and the jaws of life and yellow emergency tape that had buried him. He still lives in their house, forever sixteen and making a mess. No matter how much she aged, Robbie still stayed the boy she knew, except, somehow, their paths never seemed to cross any more. The separation that comes from growing up, Mrs. Auburn had attributed it to.
What a difference a life can make, Esme had often wondered all her life, when it lingers long past when it is taken. When someone in her village died, they put them in a chair, tied them with vines, covered them with a cloak, and smoked their body to preserve them long enough for their loved ones to mourn and celebrate their life. They honored their dead before laying them in their stiffened fetal position in their coffin. However, for the most honored of them, they hung their vestige on the side of their ancestral bluff, well above the ground and closer to God.
The last person Esme honored this way was her father, and when she carried his body to the box her and her siblings carved for him, she felt like her father had transformed into a holy relic and they were all proud of what he had become. When she had witnessed what had happened to Mrs. Auburn, who was she to judge? Everyone was entitled to their dead and what they wanted to do with them. And when Mr. Auburn asked Esme to be more than their housekeeper and help Mrs. Auburn keep their son alive, she felt like she was more than qualified for the job.
Robbie had always been curious about her culture and people, especially where they kept their dead. When Esme had told him about the ancestral bluffs, he asked if she would be buried there one day. She laughed and replied only very important men to the village were allowed to be put there and that Robbie’s place was more assured there than hers.
In the afternoon, the air is stagnant. The air conditioning keeps the temperature at a perpetual seventy-two degrees that dries the skin well enough that Esme has to apply lotion to her cheeks and elbows to keep them from flaking. She used to apply chap stick as well but she has since taken to chewing on her lips instead, a leathery habit she had grown accustomed to in old age.
From the kitchen counter, she watches Mrs. Auburn snore through a fourth round of Stranger Things on the Auburns’ giant flat screen TV. It is her medication that makes her sleep, but it has not taken her son away.
Esme pours a bowl of Cheerios and milk and leaves it on the coffee table before Mrs. Auburn, careful not to wake her. She takes a mouthful with a spoon before dipping it back in the bowl. On the screen, Winona Ryder’s character is speaking to Christmas lights. Esme stands there, watching for a little while, before picking up the remote and lowering the volume.
She picks up her feather duster and proceeds to gently tidy the house. She quickly goes through the statues of gods and goddesses, the giant vases and decorative plates, but she takes her time and dawdles, as she does daily, at the pictures of the Auburns’. They grow older in each one, the youngest of them being their wedding portrait hanging by the entrance to their home. Both of their heads are permed, their eyes a dark blue, their teeth a pearly white. In the background, a faint-pink bleeds into peach, as if a light is shining behind a curtain. It is Esme’s favorite picture of them together.
As for Robbie, her favorite picture of him is the one that stays by Mrs. Auburn’s bedside. Esme saves it for last, as she runs the bristles of her duster on his changing form throughout the years. There are vignettes of him being born, collages of his numerous sports activities, and pictures of him in itchy sweaters at Christmases, the onset of Acne forming over Thanksgivings. But the one that stays behind a small leaning frame on her nightstand is one of him with Esme standing behind him. In the photograph, Robbie is two years old, struggling to stay on his two feet and reaching for the person behind the camera. Behind him, darkened by the flash, she stands behind and to the side, in the hallway of their home. She is smiling in her usual uniform of a simple blouse and slacks: an outfit she still wears, even a decade later. She remembers letting him go in that moment, but she does not remember who took the picture.
She stops before the picture frame and looks outside and sees the clouds, but the light still stays on the perennials in the yard. They shimmer, and in the reflection of the glass she catches herself darken their view.
“Can you believe that boy?” Mrs. Auburn suddenly says from the doorway.
Startled, Esme drops her duster. She leans forward too quicky to pick it up and she feels a pull in her lower back.
Mrs. Auburn walks in beside Esme as she groans quietly to herself. “Another perfectly good bowl of cereal again. I had to throw it in the sink. Some things never change.”
“Is that a good or a bad thing?” Esme says, grunting as she stands back up. She feathers her back with the back of her hand, the duster still on the floor.
“I’m not a philosopher, Esme. I just want the boy to finish his food. At least it’s simpler than when they ate it then threw it up. Remember those days?”
Esme nods, staying still.
Mrs. Auburn walks beside Esme, and puts her hand on her back. “Are you all right? You look pale.”
“I’m all right. Just waiting for my second wind.”
Mrs. Auburn picks up the duster and puts it on her nightstand. She looks out at the garden. “Don’t push yourself too hard. Maybe you should lay off helping me in the garden. You don’t need to help me whenever I ask. You can say no, you know.”
“No. I’m fine.” Esme says and manages to stand up straight without hurting herself.
“’No’ is fine, Esme. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you. All I would have left to talk to are men in the house, and you know how terrible they are.” She rubs Esme’s back and pulls her hair over an ear.
“Esme sighs and starts moving. “I will go rest my feet then.”
“Good. You do that. You want anything? Some berry’s and cream? Some water?”
“No, I will just sit awhile.” Esme says, and walks outside and closes the sliding door, leaving Mrs. Auburn behind.
Two years ago, Mrs. Auburn disappeared. Esme had fallen asleep on the couch, and, when she awoke in the late afternoon, she was nowhere to be found. She called Mr. Auburn, who came to the house immediately and told Esme not to worry and sent her home for the rest of the day. However, when she returned the next morning, Mrs. Auburn had still not returned. Feeling guilty, Esme walked up and down the hills of wealthy homes calling out her name for several hours. By the end of it, she had to be hospitalized for several days. It was while she was in the hospital that the Auburns’ visited her in the hospital. Esme cried tears of joy, but Mrs. Auburn did not understand that she had been lost. Instead, for the first time, she wept and apologized to Esme for working her too hard, and, even more so, apologized that Robbie was too lazy to tag along. Esme laughed and told her she was just happy that she was there. It was easy to forgive, Esme thought, when there was no harm done.
A large black cloud passes quickly to blanket the sun. The temperature drops suddenly and a chill runs past them from the east.
“Look at these goosebumps.” Mrs. Auburn says, sitting in the whicker chair again beside Esme. She has on Esme’s sunglasses even though she doesn’t need them anymore.
“Malamig! It’s getting cold!” Esme says, holding her boney form.
“How long is that boy going to make us wait?”
“We don’t have to wait for him. We can start moving.”
“No, you stay there. You’re always doing too much for him. He needs to grow up already and do things he’s supposed to. Show up when he’s supposed to.”
Esme doesn’t argue. Instead, she watches as the light goes out of the perennials, the grass goes from green to grey.
“Your children ever give you this much trouble?”
“Once, but they grew past it.” Esme says and thinks about them and thinks about her father.
“It’s hard to imagine that Robbie ever will.” Mrs. Auburn says and puffs.
Esme looks at Mrs. Auburn and smiles. “It took me a while to grow old, and now here I am. Eventually, we all get there.”
Mrs. Auburn turns, and her sunglasses reflect Esme twice. One of her closer to the ground, the other closer to the sky. “Some slower than others it seems.” Mrs. Auburns says and smiles back.
“Where I’m from in the Philippines, it is easy to grow old.” Esme starts, turning to the sky, “You have to grow up to survive. You’re always changing. But my father, he taught my siblings and I that, no matter what, no matter how old you get, you have to give. To give is to live.”
Mrs. Auburn looks up to the sky. In her glasses is only darkness now. “To give is to live.” She says to the clouds. “I like the ring of that.”
“When someone gives, especially at Christmas time, they sing this song.” Esme hums before she sings. “Thank you, Thank you, ang babait ninyo.”
“That sounds nice, what does it mean?”
“Thank you for your kindness.”
“Is that all? Sounds like it means more.”
“It does.” Esme says, but the weather changes and the sky starts falling on them. A little at first, but then it becomes enough they need to get moving.
“Come on.” Mrs. Auburn says and gets up. “We need to get out of this.”
The weather changes. Nothing stays perfect forever. Esme looks at the wooden side door and tries to remember if she had left it open the day before. She looks at Mrs. Auburn, already helping her out of the chair and leading her to the inside as the gate disappears from view.
When it is her time, Esme wonders if her children will take her home and raise her up like the rest of her family. Or will they burry her here, where the earth is rich, and let her wander, looking for ways to live again?
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E. P. Tuazon is a Filipino American writer from Los Angeles. His latest book, A PROFESSIONAL LOLA, came out in 2024 with RED HEN PRESS and was selected as the winner of the AWP Grace Paley Prize in Fiction. His Forthcoming collection, KAIN TAYO! (LET’S EAT!) OR FOREVER HOLD OUR PIECE, comes out 2027 (RED HEN PRESS). In his spare time, he likes to go to Seafood City and gossip with the crabs.
Form Letter for Firing Your Therapist
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Gogol, based out of the Global South is working on a fiction that is about the Dacoits of Sunderbaans. He is grossly worried about the undermining of liberal arts curriculum through out the globe and protests about it which ever way he can.
The location of the Hospital, although it is in the heart of the city, is inconsequential. At the peak of the rush hour, it may as well be shielded by an invisible steel dome, for while the town junction just a few metres from the wrought iron-ed main gate of the hospital bustles with car honks, however; inside the campus, one is able to hear even a slight flapping of the navy blue fabric of nurses walking hurriedly while being caressed by the marginally upskirtish winter wind. Neither the bland real estate of the Hospital nor the plain physicality of the uniformed nurses has prevented either from catching people’s fancy - both are abashedly functional even if not fashionably striking - the Hospital has become a pilgrimage for families of suicidals who are veterans of failed attempts in taking their own lives. A white ten storeyed building, graced by a marble colonnade at front, it is the centre of normalcy among the infinite and gratuitous chaos of loud dead streets of the city.
The Hospital’s doctors ( no less than modern day Freuds; called Sirs ) and nurses ( as fluorescent as Florence Nightingale; known as Sisters ) have inherited surnames; sisters from households that cook tapioca with fat red rice served on a banana leaf; sirs, from places that add potatoes and boiled egg inside steamingly hot chicken biriyanis in clay pots plastered by dough white on the outside and charred on the inside; but all of them are unburdened by the spectre that was once supposed to haunt Europe but has missed the geography by few thousand nautical miles and a hundred years; only to parachute into their respective native states.
Just as an incurable atheist goes to a place of divinity in hopes of an empathetic divine remission from terminal cancer while avoiding shame filled glances with anyone in his vicinity, so do these relatives walk the path of trepidation beyond the iron gate to swim away from the tide of guilt they have encountered at the near death attempt that has emerged from the mind of their loved ones. Psychologists from Hospital will be able to verify the null hypothesis whether relatives are more curious about the intent behind suicides or the actual well being of the patient, renowned as they are in tools of qualitative questioning and statistical sondering, however; we are content just to witness science take over the maddening mind and analyse its machinations as if on display is a thin section of a primordial cell or a metamorphic rock slide to be studied under high magnification. And if causal relations are established in life threatening self inflictions, the world will certainly become a place of less derision.
I must take a pause here - happy as we will be to discover reasons that lead to catalysis of one's death through self will - for nothing is more premium than a human life - I have to be parsimonious and unleash brevity - I refuse to turn our collective lens in that direction of the sticky human mind. For me, death is death, come what may, by own or otherwise - like those glazed james candy that unite in being shaped into a sphere and protest in colours, the makers are smart enough to create a salivating Pavolvian consumer who finishes the entire packet in a hurry leaving a void, while deaths come and go talking of Michael Angelo.
Another thing we won’t explore is the linguistic local love story - of how a lower caste woman defied odds to become a nurse and was impregnated upon by a high caste brahmin doctor in the Hospital for the obvious reason that I am bored of the very concept of Indianness, am eminently disqualified to advance the thoughts of intersectionality, and lastly; not very sure if any Freuds went on in a coition with the Florences. As much as I want this story about Malayali golden brown slightly fried areolas erected by chafed cigarette black Bengali lips accompanied with cliched heavy breathing and commutational undressing, I also want our story to be published and have been instructed by my tutor ( she is good, you ask her - she will tell you I am good) to go slow with the anthropological gaze on female nudity. And for male genitalia, well, I wasn't educated in a christian convent school to write about dicks. Sorry.
So to summarise, we will not get into the psychology of suicidality, the good guy will not expose his teeth, the bad guy will not have bad breath and our Femme Nightingale won’t philosophise monologues on the state of existence while cooking tapioca, red rice, biriyani, mashed potatoes, and temperately boiled brown eggs. For once, food prepared will be eaten without extraterrestrial events, grand revelations, and meta expositional narrative ludicrity; the cooked items will be mostly terrible because our Nurse will read the Annals of Medicine while helping bake chocolate cake that is largely incomprehensible.
Now that we have eliminated possibilities - if anyone objects now it will be deemed too late - for you aren't paid to carry one with this tale of regret, we will focalize our eponymous Wrist Stitcher who sits on the corner most room of the tenth floor. I will not barge into the other nine floors, rather - we will cut to the chase; and here it goes - the sky is not pale blue today. Wrist Stitcher is the premier stitcher of slashed wrists in the country. He has his breakfast set on the mahogany table - two idlis - cold, a couple of fried eggs - split in half and salted upon with a pot of tea. Last evening’s cigarette stays stifled, perfectly balanced on the edge of the ivory ashtray. Wrist Stitcher will enter his room when the grand clock in his room strikes 10 minutes to 9 in the morning.
2
Wrist Stitcher is frail and of vitreous complexion, with a jawline that can knife butter and wrinkles on his forehead that mimic the number of wrists he has healed. He has finished his breakfast, and picked up the dossier containing black and white photographs of severed tendons he needs to bridge for the day. The hands in the monochromatic photographs look like they are erupting black chocolate, which makes Wrist Stitcher frown. He hunches his shoulders to unleash his concentration on the cases at hand and sits on his quaint chair. His feet barely touch the ground, and he is incurious about the thoughts that have guided the sharp objects to those hands. There is a heavy silence in the air, a gravity of seriousness that pervades the room and adds to Wrist Stitcher's sombre, irreverent personality. This counteracts the near silent sobbing of the patient’s relative who is looking at Wrist Stitcher for a hint of kindness, a slight cordiality, and maybe even a dose of familiarity. She is being consoled by Sister, who is aware of this routine awkwardness and is simultaneously waiting for Wrist Stitcher's zygomaticus muscles to half pull his orbicularis oris and create a half humane smile above that almost beautiful jawline while offering her a glass of water.
A tedious hour completes. Sister has gone out on some errand, and Wrist Stitcher is alone with the relative who is anxious not to sob and disturb the meditative air in the room yet not cruel enough to stop the tears that have upwelled to her throat. I am unable to write about the exactness of the thoughts that have engulfed her mind, as much as I would like to get into the recesses of my experiences and draw parallels. Her quiet muffling of sobs, quick throbbing of the slightly enlarged Adam's apple and almost lack of control in the movement of limbs might be caused by the mishap on her son or due to the absence of her husband in the Hospital to placate her and the situation - I do not know which would be more stressful now, although I can guess an unconditional collapse on her part happening or might have already occurred outside the Hospital. I am limited by my imagination, I can only imagine her rumpled pallu being softly chewed upon, and I envy writers that were not prisoned by visual cues seen in cinema and photographs and were able to deductively reason what it is to be human without referencing advertisement laced videos of manic depressions.
The father, in this case a man with power, often seen in glimpses in television making fiery orations in the august house of the parliament, a person with strong whiskers and a central bald pate, an ornate politician, one who could ask after fifty years and thousands of miles away that island stories fiercely end only every islander is choked in blood; is currently arriving at the Hospital, and truth be told, won’t be adding much in terms of taking the plot forward. He is just a perfunctory nod to father trope here, a cliche to daddies who are clueless when their progeny go berserk; a dishevelled, two day untrimmed bearded, poorly ironed clothed weak Zeus archetype. Infact, patient’s sister should have been more important to us, she was supposed to have killed herself according to a family prophecy, but let's not digress now. Grief has disoriented the patriarch. Future holds uncertain mortality in its horizon, and that terrifies even the strongest of us.
Wrist Stitcher awakes from his trance and looks at the bereaved mother. There is work at hand. He is waiting for Sister to come back, he wants to rehearse the surgeon’s checklist; he won’t tolerate errors of ineptitude, and as for errors of ignorance, he hasn't allowed himself enough room to be oblivious of every intricacy of bridging wrists. He has been asked to write a catalogue on his most difficult days of surgery - today isn't that day. Wrist Stitcher quips the mother trivials - her age, her place of nativity, if the draught in the room is chilly and whether her husband drinks. He is disinterested in her son, won't ask his name, never the name. The reasons behind the act of commission for omission of life don't intrigue him, - he enquires if the mother has any food on her, for he is hungry, he is always hungry before the first stitch. The father enters and our Sister returns - I will end this detour fast - the father has hoped to bring with him false air of in control persona; he starts to bombard Wrist Stitcher with a series of questions, and is answered by Sister; he parades the room hastily, his hands tightly wrapped around each other; or he begins to sit beside the mother and humm consolations; and seemingly by that act, he looks at Wrist Stitcher in exasperated expectation, and is finally escorted out by our Sister ( she is a consummate professional and hasn't wavered her pitch of voice even once in the entire duration of the day); his current spasmodic nerves has turned him into a bumbling cataracted old father. He exits.
The stage is now set, Wrist Stitcher has risen from his chair, he will start his walk towards the theatre, the Operation Theatre, and sing his little hum there. He inspects the photographs one last time, and hints a nod at Nurse. I am solely aware of the fact that questions from the mother like “ Will he be alright doctor ?” and “ Please save him” are completely excluded from his mind, he has only the surgeon’s list in his immediate focus. His other thoughts are not for public consumption, I cannot comment on it for now, mystery is the shroud of this enigma. His needs are arranged in Operation Theatre, henceforth O.T; he saunters with the casualness of a person on the way to performing his seventy fifth stitch, and is followed by Sister and the mother.
3.
Hospital embraces alienation. The most it allows are token signboards of instructions for people to find their ways around the unfamiliar layout. Relatives are exposed to stressors, antiseptics cloud their nostrils. Control has disappeared around here, televisions in different floors feed a loop of visuals till eternity while the remotes are invisible to naked eyes. Territoriality has escaped, sense of belongingness is sufficiently diluted while wrist slitters are separated from their acquaintances. A kid suddenly cries and is quickly cajoled into silence, Sisters acknowledge each other while a fleeting sunbeam on the 6th floor slightly tickles their soft ankles. There is a smell of analgesics in the air. Wrist Stitcher has arrived, a red bulb above O.T blinks in anticipation; Sister follows suit while mother looks on with a hint of peril in her eyes and others rudely envy her luck.
Death in O.T has cerberus as its companion, its three heads are infection, bleeding and anaesthesia. Our Wrist Stitcher is Hercules, he steals from Death and has come again today at doorsteps of the operation room to fight him. He takes a look at the surgery list chart, yells “Sign in'' and his incantation starts :- has the patient consented to the surgery - yes; is oximeter on - blinking; are sites for surgery on his limbs marked upon - in black; are allergies tested for - peanuts; is his airway evaluated for risk of aspiration - won’t choke Sir; what about extra blood - 3 bottles of B+. Wrist Stitcher crumbles the right top margin of the chart and - “ Signature please” - to Sister and the accompanying anaesthetist while our patient inside O.T slowly droops into a hospitable sleep.
Mask up friend. Take a deep breath. Exclude the atmosphere. We are in for a show now.
Wrist Stitcher has entered O.T, worn his blue medical gloves, pulled up his mask halfway to the bridge of his nose and is calculating the probability of which will be faster, he finishing his job or the time he will take when he bakes a chocolate cake at the end of the day. 250 gms of sugar, powdered minutely; cocoa powder two tablespoons, large; 4 brown eggs, beaten to death; a cup of butter, filled to the brim; baking powder, one spoon to perforate the all purpose flour, at 250 grams exact. Thoughts of cake make him dizzy, he remembers a rose essence - will be added as an ingredient, chocolate insanity flower incense; Wrist Stitcher comes back to the next ritual medical.
Our eponymous hero is invisibly anguished, his face cloaked by the medical mask; he has to confirm everyone else inside the O.T, what a bother it is to acknowledge people by name and roll. “ Surgical site - on the right flexor.” Sister mouths hiding - “The patient is named Aman'' and outlines procedural details. “We anticipate the following critical events in this operation ”. Anaesthesist is ready with propofol for Aman’s peanut allergy. We are back to Sister who is sterilising the stainless steel knives, the needles, the gauges and the indecipherable cotton wools. Start now! It is 2448 words already. Back to Wrist Stitcher who fails to remember Anaesthesist’s name -( It couldn't be Lance ) and is now in a dilemma - should he operate transverse slits which mimic the patient’s scars or longitudinal incision that fake severe damage. Waiting for Sister to pass on the surgeric needle, we will together recall Wrist Stitcher's names for the toys he played with a near professional approach in his colliery boyhood; chocolate cakes; soft whistle of stainless steel pressure cooker; cotton sarees and starched petticoats as they do in black and white unsentimental video archives.
Childhood toys. Plastic elephant in pink! A dhol gifted by grandpa, two sticks made of bamboo, taken by a delicate grasp slowly, then sheerly and now to be thrown away for catching the elephant pink by its trunk for beating it against the dhol. The dhol would be carefully safe, not for long, to be poked by a plastic club ( gift from the other grandpa). Such dreadful joy, marooned in benthic childhood is evoked to simmer back when Wrist Stitcher puts the cotton string through the warm needle, his eager profile united in concentration against the surgical l.e.d lights while O.T red bulb outside continues to wink.
Chocolate delight. That’s what his mother would call the cake in making while he would put a staunch vigil in the kitchen, never to leave her side. Elephant pink would lie beside the dhol, while the club would be securely placed under his armpit; he would wait for soft whistle of pressure cooker and abandon his post only when whistles would grow louder uninterrupted. Aroma of rose and sweet cocoa would bring him back, eager for the first taste that is surprisingly salty, bloodlike which he once sucked while accidently cutting his finger. Wrist Stitcher lacerates the injured hand of Aman, rubs the blood off with the sterilised cotton and abandons it into the dustbin.
The mention of blood does not, however, lead to a gradual crescendo of a series of thrilling disasters in O.T., for Wrist Stitcher is methodical when extending a small laceration in patient’s hand; he thrusts the wound backward and locates two ends of the damaged flexor tendon, retrieves and joins both ends with a stitch, and we visualise a series of sweat droplets on his forehead. Weary of our attraction towards looming doom and eventual gloom, he tiredly knots the final ends of the tendons, without slipping, closes in on the wound and finally seals it with a tourniquet. Routine paperwork needs to be completed. The hand is won. No loss of blood. Who would notify mother ? Sign out now. Record the procedure; count all needles, sponges and instruments used; shout aloud the key concerns for the criticality of Aman ( None in anyone’s mind, Wrist Stitcher has completed his 75th stitch). Not yet !!!
Relax friend. Breathe. Take down your masks. Open O.T. Let the atmosphere come in.
Patient’s family history reveals that a group suicide had happened on his mother’s side a couple of months back, all of them hanging from the ceiling like roots from stems of banyan trees. Police had found a diary where prophecies of future suicide attempts were detailed out, Aman’s sister was to be one of them, Aman almost beat her to the race … Anyways, Aman’s hand is in fine health, his parents occasionally cuddle in their bedroom and sleep with a large white sheet intertwined beneath their waist. His father comes with mother in group therapy sessions, slurps hot tea from the saucer, and sometimes swallows dregs of tea leaves while Aman talks about things that appeal to him to a new Sister. The family exit sessions together, oblivious of the white colonnade, incoming scarred patients and their reticent family members, only to find themselves jolted out of the economy of silence into noisy streets with a singular thought in their mind - Will Aman relapse again ?
4.
Chocolate cakes dipped in honey taste different as ones not soaked in one. It’s lack of aroma makes up for the visceral impact on taste buds. Pores in cake glisten, like goosebumps on Sister’s neck when Wrist Stitcher bites her. There is a rhythm to events, a sequence - sugar and cocoa powder mixed together, the cotton saree is unwrapped of her; eggs cracked to be poured in a cup, white blouse is taken off; butter, baking soda, all purpose flour poured in a vessel, strings of her starched petticoat is unknotted; the melange is to be settled for five minutes before it is poured in stainless pressure cooker, her abdomen is divided into a tic-tac board of squares by Wrist Stitcher numbered 1 to 9 in his mind, his finger moves from 2 to 5 to 8 to back to 5 where the navel lies down to 8 just above her clit and the whistle knob gyrates loudly. Add honey to cake and Sister. What tasty shudder ! And I am a hypocrite.
I suppose the correct thing to do now would be to give them peace of privacy, allow their bodily contours to unite, functions to gear up and let soft October night play its magic; when our Wrist Stitcher and Sister are etherized upon the floor, rose fragrance for the cake is sprinkled on each other, a candle simmering on dinner table will be the near perfect ending but for the fact that this isn't that type of a story. A steel blade glistens at his side !
Wrist Stitcher performs a perfunctory cut on his body every time he completes a successful surgery, in the quiet embrace of Sister after the celebratory coitus. There are seventy four marks on his different body parts within the safety permit of surficial bleeding, Sister has endured this act from cut number one and is now oblivious to the hideousness of the performance, she just wants to be done away with minor laceration so that she can eat the cake and drink the wine. Why isn't he cutting himself yet?
This celebratory animalism has complemented the seventy four lives he has saved, for none of the patients have returned to hand mutilation after being resurrected by Wrist Stitcher. His surgeries are talismanic, he repairs the minds too as if through some telepathic sorcery, for every other Sir has had recurring torn patients, sans Wrist Stitcher who has none.
The story pauses here; there are two crossroads it wants me to see - one a rabbit hole where we go down memory lane of Wrist Stitcher; of cakes and childhood abuses; of memories that has catalysed him into a Demi- God persona that he is today; the end result being he successfully completes his seventy fifth stitch, saves Aman’s life, gets his catharsis and we get ours. To save a man is to gain a story, and what more could a writer want ? ( Except money for laundry bills ).
It is problematic, for I donot know if childhood trauma is still fashionable in literary circles, if editors who sip wine and create entry barriers for low life aiming to enter high brow work of art will take it in their stride to publish one more goddamn childhood abuse softcore issue in their hallowed magazines, for Art is nothing but fashion via exclusion and childhood trauma is all inclusive.
The other way round is to give an abuser ( whose? Wrist or Aman ? - does it matter ? ) a voice, an active voice, sketch his violent environment - maybe his father belted him; or a relative did the unspeakable, does the unspeakable, doing the unspeakable and will do the unspeakable. To hint at ultraviolent depraved strokes, an adult inspection of underage nubility, oh there are two stories to tell, of predator and prey and one story is less than two ( It has to be Aman’s abuser who breaks him again). Or should we explore the familial madness that runs in Aman from his mother’s side and causes him to successfully self harm this time ? And what about his sister, when does she appear in the story ? ( A suicide prophecy is Chekov’s gun, afterall).
Has the transition from seventy fourth to seventy fifth cut on Wrist Stitcher happened ?
5.
Mother has arrived !
In an ambulance, seated beside the ambulance driver. News spreads at the speed of light, from the gate to the ten floors and pauses at the corner-most room.
Sister enters Wrist’s room and informs him, simultaneously trying to check if he had cut himself seventy fifth time. She inspects Wrist closely, looking for hints of wounds at his body. If only she could remember the events of the last coitus, she had passed out from the chocolate cake and wine she had gulped voraciously.
The ambulance stops at the colonnade and two helpers jump into action to open the back door. Mother is softly chewing her pallu. “ Patient name? ” , she is asked kindly while the sky is pale blue.
The sofa is still on the sidewalk where she and James discarded it alongside the rest of his things. Most of it’s already gone–either taken or tossed–including his box of vinyls, which they dropped while carrying down the last flight of stairs. Discs slipped out of their album sleeves and clattered down the steps. That was just over a week ago. And each day, less and less of his things remained. It was like he was disappearing, one stooped chair at a time. The only items left were his mattress – covered in muddied leaves and spray-painted profanities – and his sofa. It’s elegant: a cherry-wood frame, raised armrests, with thick and fluffy white pillows. It somehow remains unscathed from the natural elements and Manhattan grime. She could bring the sofa back to her sparsely furnished place – the distance isn't too great– but it stings Louisa to even look at it. She keeps walking.
Louisa unlocks the gate to the back alley, the entrance to her building. She sidesteps a rust-colored puddle of God-knows-what and picks up her pace. It always felt like someone was lurking behind the heaps of rat-infested garbage.
The apartment is on the second floor, her bedroom facing a cement wall and the living room facing the ominous garbage alley. She keeps the blinds down. She has a roommate, technically. In her head, he’s a faceless Facebook profile picture. She met Draven on a group chat of people looking for roommates. As expected, he isn't home. Every evening without fail, Draven leaves exactly by midnight. By the time she wakes for work at seven, he’s already back in bed, snoring behind a locked door. She suspects he’s some sort of night guard. Yet on top of their contrasting work hours, he’s highly skilled at moving about unseen. The only evidence of his existence is the beverages he stores in the fridge: protein shakes in clear plastic pouches labeled do not touch, which take up an entire shelf.
Louisa sets her work bag on the kitchen table – the only set of furniture in the common area, which came with the place– she sits down and shrugs off her coat. It’s freezing. Winter has been biting and unforgiving this year. Something to do with an arctic freeze: a once-in-a millennium, Day-After-Tomorrow-esque phenomena. They’re calling it the Ice Age of the 21st Century. She checks the thermostat, still set to 70.
She huffs. She’ll have to call their super, Richard, who is almost as evasive as Draven. When a crack in their ceiling parted, started leaking, and grew black mold, it took Richard several weeks to handle it straight away.
Yet at the time she barely noticed. James’s apartment had become her home. He lived just a few blocks away, but in what felt like a different world. His place was a one-bedroom on the corner of 96th and Second Avenue, directly above a bakery. In the mornings, the smell of baked bread and cinnamon rolls wafted up the stairs and filled the entire space.
James's living room had a brick fireplace, filled with books, and shelved with candles on the mantle. A window took up almost the entirety of the residing wall and had a view of a tiny greenery across the street. The park had a playground and broke up the strict line of high rises. James kept a turntable by the window– which the previous tenant had left behind– and it worked sublimely.
In the evenings, the apartment dimmed to a soft orange glow. James would let Louisa pick an album to play from his growing collection. Her go-to was Leonard Cohen. Then they would lay on his plush sofa to drink wine and talk. They’d talk about their recurring dreams, their parents, their weirdest habits. Eventually, he would kiss her. Then the wine and the music and the dreams would all blend together and be forgotten.
.
James reached out to her that summer when he had seen via LinkedIn, she accepted a job in Manhattan. They started texting again, quite innocently. They Face Time, just once to properly catch up. Then the calls became spontaneous and habitual. First thing in the morning, at random during the day, then late into the evening. She’d wake in the middle of the night, facing her laptop, with the call still going. He’d be sleeping, illuminated by a blue screen. She’d leave it and close her eyes, falling back asleep to the fantasy of their reunion.
James and Louisa were high-school sweethearts, coming back together for old times’ sake. For her, it was like exploring an alternate universe, one where he didn’t break her heart at eighteen. He couldn’t do long distance in college; he had told her. I need to find myself. But today—four years later—both found themselves lonely and in transition, reigniting an old flame for temporary warmth.
Her friends were disapproving of this development in her life. He hurt you once, he’ll do it again, Louisa. She ignored them because it felt harmless and inconsequential. And good friends are apt to villainize an ex-lover. But they didn’t know him like she did. He was no villain at all. It was just complicated. Plus, she was moving to a city full of strangers, a familiar face would be relieving.
.
Taking lunch so soon? She wakes up with a start. Her boss, Roseanne, is staring down at her from above her cubicle. Her purple cat-winged glasses sit at the very tip of her stout nose.
Sorry, Louisa says, wiping the dribble of saliva from her chin. The heat in her apartment is still broken. She had tossed and turned in her long johns all night. She was welcomed into the office by a mighty blast of heat from the furnace. She sat at her desk chair, cheap but well cushioned. She thought about the couch – which she had passed by this morning, still intact– and she thought about James. The drum and hum of keyboards, monitors and coffee machines sounded as soothing as pattering rain.
Look, whatever is going on with you outside the workplace, deal with it. Don’t bring it here, please. Her ears burn with shame as she turns on her computer and opens her team’s Slack channel. She stares blankly at the unopened messages. Her eyelids grow heavy once more.
.
The movie he picked is so bad, she thought. Was this how they were going to spend their time together after not seeing each other all week? She’d barely heard from him. I feel like you’re blowing me off, Louisa texted him the night before, after her third glass of red. It came across as juvenile, she knew. And she felt instant regret after sending it. He replied, sorry work’s been crazy. His response made her feel hopeless.
He’d been quiet for most of dinner. They were sitting a few feet apart on the sofa and she was waiting for him to come closer, throw an arm around, put a hand on her leg, something. He was still and quiet. She gave in, making the first move by resting her head on his shoulder. She tried to relax into it and make it feel natural, but it wasn’t. His body was stiff against her. So she scooted away, laying her head on the armrest, and waited. She hated this movie.
James abruptly got up and retreated to his bedroom. The door shut with a dull thud. Louisa sat up bewildered. What just happened? She began to move mechanically, pausing the movie and picking up their dirty bowls. She brought them over to the sink, scraping out the leftover rice and vegetables in the dark. Her chest was tightening. Her hand darted to clasp her mouth and conceal a sob, the bowl clattered to the bottom. The tears came. She splashed cold water on her face, blew her nose, and entered his bedroom.
He was changed into a tee, boxers, and glasses. She walked across to his desk. Her presence felt invasive. She picked up her copy of Emma and made her way to leave. At the doorway she looked back at him. His eyes were still on his book. She was mentally begging him to look at me! Say something! He didn’t.
She returned to the sofa and pulled the quilt over her head. She cried. She felt pathetic. She longed for James to come for her. To hug her and kiss her and tell her he was sorry for being cold and distant. She stayed up all night, listening to the creaking floorboards of a fellow-restless neighbor. She was up until the night softened to blue. The streetlights flickered off, the garbage trucks and the birds began their day. The scent of cinnamon that morning was particularly strong. She opened her eyes. James was setting down a pink pastry box on the coffee table. It was bright out. She must have slept a few hours, after all.
I’m sorry, he said, leaning over and kissing her head. She felt so relieved. She was ready to forgive and be close with him once more. So…he said. I wasn’t sure how to tell you this, but I’ve accepted a new position at work. And it’s not here. I’m actually really excited about it. I’m getting moved out to London.
.
She takes NyQuil to fall asleep because it’s so cold. Yet something wakes her: a god-awful stench, like something is rotting and decomposing in her bed. She brings the bedding to the dry cleaners first thing in the morning and begs the man behind the counter to get rid of the smell.
He brings them up to his nose and takes a big whiff. What smell? He asks.
What do you mean ‘what smell’? The man looks at her incredulously, mutters something not in English, and takes the bedding. Come back by the end of the day.
When she picks them up, the smell is still there. And it’s stronger.
.
Slicing the onions, mincing the garlic, and boiling the water; Louisa wafted task-to-task about James’ kitchen, humming to herself. She felt so domestic in a way she’d never experienced. That afternoon, she had been browsing the flea market on 67th and came across a beautiful vase. She bought it, then walked to the closest flower shop and grocery store. This must be what adult love is, she thought. Wanting to impress and please your lover.
James's voice came muffled through his bedroom. He still had an hour of work left. She couldn't wait for him to be done. Evening light spilled through the window. It was crisp outside. She stared out at the autumn leaves and thought about the future. She wasn’t imagining the impending one, she saw that as simply a blip in the larger scheme of things. However, it would be a blip sweetened by longing and surprise visits and snail mail and late-night calls. It would be a rough time they’d tell their kids about one day, once they got curious about how they met. That was the future she daydreamed of.
My parents were long distance for 5 years, she had told James. Mom said it just prolonged the honeymoon phase.
I remember you telling me that once. He said. I think about that a lot.
Her thoughts were interrupted by a sharp pinch on her ass. She yelped. James had snuck up behind her. Are you done working? Louisa asked. He nodded. She wrapped her arms around him and sighed in contentment. Mm, it smells good, he said, breaking away and leaning over the dutch oven. She was cooking ricotta pasta alla vodka. She spooned some into his mouth.
It’s so good, he said. He enveloped her in an embrace. And they stayed like that, gently swaying in silence. Louisa closed her eyes and felt the firmness and warmth of his chest. She’d like to stay in that moment forever. He swiftly scooped her up and carried her over to the couch.
.
Nope, everything seems to be working as it should, Richard said once he’d finally come to check the heating. You sure you’re okay? You look a little...
Louisa re-makes her bed with a newly purchased set of sheets and duvet. She changes into her long johns, sweatpants, and warmest sweater, then gets into bed. It’s frigid, like camping with poorly insulated gear. The smell is gone, at least. She passes into a shallow nightmare-fueled sleep. The discomfort demands her attention, even in unconsciousness. It’s inescapable.
That night, she wakes yet again. Not only is the smell back, but her bed also feels slimy and damp. She gets up and lifts the covers. Wet leaves and mud spill out. Some are stuck to her legs. The sheets are also covered in spray paint and odd wet stains. She screams in fury. Who could have done this? Was it Draven? She goes to knock on his door but remembers he’s not home. She goes back into her bedroom, changes out of her soggy clothes, and takes a pillow from the bed to the floor.
Her body is stiff in the morning. She picks up her discarded pjs and notices they’re dry. On her bed is a swirl of blankets. They’re clean.
.
Louisa and James called out sick from work to take shrooms. It was his idea. His apartment was a mess from getting ready to move. They lay on his couch, waiting for the effects to take over…
She watched him stare at the popcorn ceiling as though it were the heaves. His curls framed his head like a halo. He looked angelic. She watched the slight crinkles by his eyes deepen into crow’s feet. The lines around his mouth caved inward. His hair grayed. His supple skin spotted and sagged. She couldn’t stop staring.
I want to see you grow old, Louisa said.
James was unmoving and silent for a while. Then he said, I see the place where we die. I’m no longer afraid of death.
Louisa looked away, disappointed. Almost heartbroken. They were both seeing the future, but not the same one. Perhaps, selfishly, she had hoped their trips would be more intertwined and connected. Yet he was in a world of his own, while she was absolutely fixated on him. And it was lonely.
Suddenly, he reached out and held her hand. It was like a lifeline. Then they both felt it… alive, it pulsed from him to her, from her to him, and pulled them together. The same force that kept them in each other's lives for all these years. Like all life gravitating to earth.
I love you, James said.
Him saying those words relieved her from something. It escaped her all at once, gushing out as tears.
I love you. Louisa said. I love you so much.
She was looking back at him now, hopeful. Waiting for him to meet her gaze. He never did.
Then James said, we were always meant to be together. Just not in this universe.
.
It’s so cold and her bed is so rancid. She’s so tired. If she could just get one night's worth of sleep. Tonight, they’re saying it will be one of the greatest nor-easters recorded. Warnings of this storm have been issued for weeks. Everyone is being advised to stay indoors. She leaves the apartment.
.
James baked eggs and toast on an early January morning in his bare apartment. From his bed, Louisa could hear the oil sizzling and the kettle boiling. In her direct line of vision, his packed duffle bag rested against his closet. She pulled on a sweater and walked into the kitchen. He handed her a mug of tea. The sink was emptied of the pile of dishes from the night before. The pot— which had needed to soak—was stowed into a set of boxes. Louisa was relieved and guilted by how much he cleaned while she was asleep. She sat at the table watching him at the stove. It was six in the morning; he had an hour before he had to leave for JFK and catch his flight to Heathrow.
Once breakfast was cleared away, James asked help me carry the rest down? Louisa nodded, picking up the box labeled as vinyls: please take!
In the dark and damp morning, Louisa and James held each other for the last time. She stood on her toes and buried her head into his shoulder. Her tears dotted the pavement. A man walked past, whistling contently to himself. James kissed her cheek. I’ll miss you, she said. He said the same and joked that she could meet him in London. She laughed because they both knew that would never happen.
.
She trudges through the snow. Much had already accumulated during the day. The snow and wind are biting, it stings her face so badly she thinks it must be venomous. No cars, no people, no lights. She can’t tell if she is on the street or sidewalk. Everything is blended into a dark white mass. It’s so cold.
Yet in the distance, she sees a soft glow. Golden and warm. She makes out an outline. It’s the sofa, though not illuminated by the streetlight above. The sofa is radiating from within. The snow parts around it like the red sea. She crosses the final few feet and collapses onto the familiar cushions. She pulls the quilt over her body. She feels cozy and warm. James would find her here in the morning and take pity. But finally, she rests. She dreams about their goodbye. In the dream, he kisses her lips instead of her cheek. And she says I love you and he says I love you too.
-
Grace Wanebo studied journalism and politics at NYU and has since interned on MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show and worked in Geneva with women’s rights organizations and at the UN. Her interests lie in gender equality and freedom of the press. In her writing, she enjoys weaving gothic and sci-fi influences into personal, dreamlike stories about memory, love, and what lingers beneath the surface. She’s excited to be moving to London this fall to begin her MSc in Gender, Policy and Inequalities at the LSE.
The Sidewalk Sofa
-
Britton Buttrill is a writer from the American South, who received his MFA from The New School. He was a Nick Darke Award finalist and a Tennessee Williams Scholar at the Sewanee Writers Conference. Britton’s publications include Sam Fifty Four Literary, The TONIC (no.1),
CHAPTER 2:
August 1949;
Long Swamp, GA
Now, Boog White’s ‘shine was good ‘shine. He prayed over that shine and it’d baptize you better than the holy water in the back of Silas Dinesmore’s church. Stronger than communion wine. Some folks said that shine would bring them closer to Jesus than the water at the bottom of the Tate marble mine. That’s where the Black preachers baptized their folks, after Daddy got to drinking. That baptizing ‘shine was drunk by the White folks and the Black folks, because Boog White didn’t discriminate none. I know the White folks drunk it nearly every Saturday night, because they wasn’t getting a drink come Sunday morning. See, we ain’t get communion wine but once a year. I don’t know how often the Black folks did communion. But, I do recall that the White folks and Black folks could get Boog’s shine any time they pleased.
So, after Momma died and Daddy got to drinking, he’d send us up to Boog’s holler to get him ‘shine. Bill and me both.
2
I recall the first time we done it, we was ten years old. It was a Sunday morning. Me and Bill took off to Boog’s on account of Maw. She sent us up there because she knew Daddy would get the shakes if he didn’t get his liquor. She didn’t like it none, but she loved my Daddy, and when you love somebody, you get them what they need. Daddy needed a drink or ten after our Momma died. So, Maw had us skip Sunday service to get a jar of Boog White’s shine.
We found ourselves walking up the road that wound around the marble mine up to Mole Mountain. From there, you could look out over the whole quarry. There wasn’t nothing to keep you from falling right over the edge, down into the lake that stretched across the bottom. There was kudzu growing all up and down the trees, but you could still hear the echo of the miners working. Seemed like the kudzu messed with their voices, making them all come together so we couldn’t tell one mans words from another. Just more of them mountain sounds.
Oh, and me and Bill was talking boy talk. How lil’ Joe Perry’s boobs done growed over the summer, and we seen her pink nipples through her white dress at last Sunday’s service. And son, you best remember that it ain’t proper to talk such things in front of women. You was raised better than that, hear?
Anyway, ‘course we stopped to take ourselves a piss, compared our peckers. They was different colors but the same size. You know how boys is. Kept walking, and figured if we found a mountain lion, we’d catch it and tame it, just like Grandpaw did when he was a boy.
I forgot to tell you that Bill’s momma died, same time as mine. But, we didn’t talk about that. Didn’t need to. We both missed them something terrible. The little things made us miss them. Things you don’t notice till your Momma’s gone. Sound of singing. Taste of collards. Feeling of her arms around you before bed. Me and Bill Bradley both missed them things. I reckon you might miss ‘em too.
3
Anyhow, we kept talking that boy talk until we got to an opening in the kudzu. A path through the pines that led up to Boog’s. We went under the trees. So thick, it was like night done fell. They was briars and thorns everywhere, and Boog White kept it that way.
See, Boog was a deserter. When the draft come up he skee-daddled. Mountain folks didn’t begrudge him none. Wasn’t many of us that cared about the war. We had our own families to worry over, and couldn’t be fretting over some killing across the ocean. Of course, Boog White didn’t want the Law to find him, so he kept as many briars as he could covering that trail up the mountain.
It was about that time that Bill stopped and studied them trees.
“Bill, we can’t be stopping here,” I says, “Daddy’s gone be in the tremors if we don’t get him that ‘shine soon.”
He fished in his pocket and got out his tobacco and papers. “I’m gone smoke me one. You gone smoke you one too.”
“I ain’t never smoked before,” I says.
“We be Men now, John Boy, so we gone smoke like Men.”
“I don’t know how.”
“I’ll teach you,” Bill says.
“Alright.”
Me and Bill took a seat on a fallen oak tree. He give me his papers and tobacco after he got a pinch for hisself. Then, he showed me how to roll a cigarette. Same as I rolled them the night of Grandpaw’s wake. I’ve rolled my cigarettes, same as Bill Bradley done, every time. All my life. After our smokes was rolled, Bill flicks a match and lit his right up. I just sit and stared at mine until he handed me them matches. I lit mine on my thumb. Was always good at that.
4
Then I took myself a big old drag.
Now, I ain’t gonna lie, I about coughed my ass off. So, Bill Bradley gets to laughing, slaps me on the back to help with the coughing. A big old smile runs across his face. I caught my breath. Felt sick for a second, then I relaxed into the feeling. Was like my head went up past them trees. Into the clouds and back. Felt good, that there.
Bill looks at me all proud, says, “Now you’s a man, John Boy!”
“Think so?”
“Hell yes.”
Bill Bradley got quiet, looked up through them trees, thinking about something he didn’t say. That’s how your great uncle Bill was. Thinking, deciding truth, then doing his best to speak it. I puffed on that there cigarette, getting used to the feeling, liking it more and more.
After a spell longer, Bill turns and says, “Know what I keep thinking over?” “Bill, I never can tell what goes through that head of yours,” I says.
“What I be wondering is how come y’all’s school got baseball, and ours ain’t got no baseball.”
“Didn’t know y’all ain’t got no baseball.”
“Naw sir. Not a glove. Not a bat. Not even a patch of dirt to play on.”
“I reckon the reason is cause y’all’s school’s Colored.”
“So, why y’all White folks ain’t be wanting us to play baseball?”
“Hell, Bill, I wish y’all did play baseball.”
Bill took another puff, looked down at his smoke, then says, “Ain’t fair they be keeping Colored kids from having baseball.”
I took another drag, same as Bill done. “That’s mighty true. It ain’t right.”
5
Bill nodded, and I was happy that we were agreeing.
Then he asks, “John Boy, when you think they be letting you and me go to school with each other?”
“Well,” I says, “They was one time I asked Maw if I could accompany you to your school, but she said no. Says only Yankees let Colored and White kids go to school together.” “Hm,” Bill says, “My cousin Gideon, he been North after that there war. He say when kids like you and me get going to school together, well, niggas and peckerwoods ain’t friends. Say they stay with they own. When they don’t, they just whoop the tar out of each other.” I thought about that for another couple puffs, and truth is, I’d never put my mind to trying to understand all them things about keeping folks separate. So, I asked Bill, “You think we’d still be friends if I went to school with you?”
Bill has a chuckle, says, “Not after I whooped your cracker-ass in baseball.” “Well, I aims to prove you wrong, no matter what the gum’ment says.”
“Fuck the gum’ment,” says Bill, raising his cigarette to the sky, like it was a glass of rich folk wine.
I done like he done, declaring, “Fuck the gum’ment!”
Well, we laughed for a spell, then got quiet again. Bill’s eyes went some where’s I couldn’t follow. He squinted like he might cry, but didn’t.
“You ain’t cried none since your Momma died,” I said.
“You ain’t cried none neither,” he said.
“Well, where’s it say we gots to cry? Ain’t none of that in the King James.” “True, and they ain’t be no preacher saying it neither.”
6
Sitting on that tree trunk, just me and Bill Bradley, everything was real simple. Hell, we thought we knowed everything there was to know about life, but we didn’t know a damn thing. All we knowed was the green of them woods, feeling of briars on our arms, not as bad as chiggers on our balls. That was the worst pain we could think of. Our whole Earth was in the sound of them blue jays and robins. Seemed like it was the people of the Earth that wanted to keep the red ones and blue ones on different branches. Me? Well, I figured then and I figure now that God wants Himself some purple birds.
Sorry, son. You know I get to moseying all over the place with these memories. Right. Well. Me and Bill sat for another spell, till our smokes was about finished, then I said, “So, are we gonna smoke and walk or smoke and sit?”
“Three more drags,” Bill says, “like Jesus, God, and the Holy Ghost.”
We come up through the trees, and there was Boog White, standing outside his shack with a shotgun breached under his arm. Flour sack shirt was open, and boy his sunburn was redder than a baboon’s ass. He’s so skinny, we could see his bones underneath his belly. He was staring at Bill and me with a look of perturbation, face crinkled up so them busted drinking viens was the first thing you noticed. Boog was drunk then cause he’s always drunk. ‘Course, only me and Bill could tell. He held his liquor better than anybody I knowed then or knowed since. Boog White loved his ‘shine, so he drunk his ‘shine. Simple as that.
Me and Bill stops right there, and Boog hollers, “Why ain’t y’all boys up at Church?” “Maw let us skip it,” I says.
7
Boog spat a chaw of tobacco on the dirt, saying, “Don’t blame her none. Ever since Silas took up that there pulpit, it ain’t even Holiness Gospel. I thank he got a bit of that Big City Pentecostal in him. Wouldn’t surprise me none if he ain’t never read the King James.”
Boog turned and put the shotgun on his porch steps. Sits down, then sticks another pinch of chaw in his cheek. “Now, what can I do y’all for?”
Bill Bradley piped up, says, “John Boy’s daddy be needing ‘shine.”
“Come on in boys, and I’ll get y’all squared away.”
Me and Bill just stood there, cause they wasn’t nobody allowed in Boog White’s shack. Boog got to the door, turned and says, “What? Y’all waiting for cooter or something? Come on in.”
Boog’s shack was nothing but plywood lean-to’s and cinder blocks. I never knowed how that damn thing ain’t fall in on itself, until me and Bill got inside. I swear, son, I ain’t never seen so many books in my life. And you know, me and your Momma done been to that big old library in Atlanna. Them books was all hard cloth covers in about a million colors. A whole rainbow of learning from long lost time. I realized it was them books that held up them walls. They was rabbit’s feet and rattler tails and jars of brown mush, held pieces of animal I ain’t seen before or since. All them was sitting on top of the books, and in one corner he had a stack of Bibles. Atop them was something called an “icon”. Thank it’s made by them Communist Russians, not that I got anything against that kind of religion. It wasn’t no picture of Jesus though. Hanging from the ceiling was one of them circle-stick-nets them Cherokees use to catch dreams. I didn’t want to know what kinds of dreams they was catching from Boog White.
Anyway, Boog rummages under his cot and takes out the biggest glass of moonshine I ever saw.
8
He handed that thing to me, but Bill reached out and took it. I didn’t mind, so Boog White didn’t mind. Bill took that jar and held it up to the light coming in from a hole in the wall, and it was clear as spring water. Casted some colors on the floor. Bill held that heavy jug, turned it round, inspecting it. Then he put it on the floor, and he didn’t betray no expression of content or discontent with the shine. Like a poker player, when you can’t tell if they’d bluffing or got a full house.
“Hm,” Bill says, “Well, Boog, John Boy’s daddy ain’t got no money.”
Boog White grunts, says, “That mean y’all got money?”
I piped up, says, “Naw, Bill’s telling truth. Daddy don’t got a nickel to his name.” “Then y’all ain’t getting any shine,” Boog says, “No nickel shine, no liquor-shine. That’s how I done been conducting my business, and how I aims to continue.”
Bill Bradley gave a look at all them hoo-doo hangings on the wall, then turns to go out the door, saying over his shoulder, “No problem, Boog. C’mon John Boy, let’s go.” Instead of following, I says, “Where we gone get Daddy’s shine?”
“We’ll go on up to Jasper. Them Black boys got ‘shine that’ll roast a hog with one pull.” “Hold on now,” Boog says.
Bill Bradley turned back around, looks Boog dead in the eyes and says, “Everybody know your liquor for shit, and we ain’t be needing no peckerwood shine.” Boog White got real, real mad, and his face turned redder than the sunburn on his nipples. Boog reared up, seeming like that haint-skinny fella would bust up through the roof. But, Bill Bradley didn’t budge one hair.
Boog says, “Don’t you be calling my ‘shine peckerwood shit, niggur’boy!”
9
Now, I’d always had a mind to protect Bill, since we was real little, so I stepped alongside him, and was about to say something, but Bill Bradley beat me to it. I’ll tell you, when he says what he says next, his voice got so low, the devil hisself heard it. “YOU BEST BE CALLING ME BILL!” he hollers.
Well, I never heard a man go so quiet as Boog White done. You could hear them birds chirping in time with the jingle of that dream catcher against a hanging rattler-tail. Then, Boog went from hornet-mad to sorry as sin.
“I’m sorry, Bill”, Boog says, “Right sorry. I’ll call you whatever you want to be called.” I couldn’t believe my ears. I’d heard White folks call Black folks that word my whole life, and I’d even heard Black folks say it to one another. But, I’d never done heard a White man say he’s sorry for using it. I don’t understand what Bill done to make Boog White behave like he done, but I was mighty proud of Bill. Seemed like Boog was right proud of him too. “Thang is,” Boog says, “I don’t care for anyone, White or Colored neither, to go insulting my ‘shine.”
Bill eased hisself, smiled real big, and says, “That’s okay, Boog. No begrudging. See, John Boy here, his Daddy’s all tore up since Miss Nancy done died. If Mister Red don’t get something strong in him, he’ll get them delirium shakes.”
“Hm,” Boog says, nodding that he understands, “Y’all come on ‘round back and I’ll get y’all squared away.”
“Thank you, Boog,” I says.
Boog White just nodded like he done.
We walked out of the shack, and I took myself one last look at all them things that touched the spirit world. Maw had the same kinds of stuff in the cellar, and like Boog, she
10
wouldn’t speak on them none. I never done cared to know, but I believe them things kept us safe. ‘Course, there ain’t nothing in the world that can keep the ol’ Devil away from you, entirely. You best remember that, son.
We gets back in the blinding sun, and Boog White took us around back. Before we got to his still, he stops, scratches that patchy beard, licks his Sears and Robuck dentures, and says, “Nothing in this living world is free, so y’all best be helping me with something.” “Depends on the something,” I says.
“Can’t ‘depend’,” Boog says, “Y’all want this liquor or not?”
Me and Bill Bradley looked at one another, then I says, “We need it.”
Boog White reaches under his porch steps and pulls out two Winchester, bolt-action rifles. Hands one to each of us, then asks, “Y’all shoot?”
“Squirrels,” we says at the same time.
“Don’t matter none. Alla God’s critters is the same. Whether squirrel or Man, the Lord mourns them all alike,” Boog says, just like he was quoting Scripture. That’s how Boog was. He knew the Lord and the Devil both. Saw their work in the mountain clay, the cotton-mouth snakes, poison ivy, and in the faces of the folks who drunk his ‘shine. He knew them better than they knowed themselves.
We took them guns and held them proud.
Then, Boog White leans down and points to the woods. Says, real quiet, “If y’all see some Law man sneaking up through them trees, y’all blow his ass to Kingdom Come, hear?” Bill and me didn’t know nothing about killing, yet, but we nodded our heads and pretended we did.
11
Boog walked over to his still, mumbling to himself, “Because it’s Sunday, they think I’d get assuming they’d got religion, but I know better than the Law.”
We followed Boog around to his still. We turned our backs when he started that pour. Out of respect. Man like Boog White had a real craft, and he took pride in what he done with his hands. You got to respect a man that can create a thing of quality, no matter what that thing might be. So, right then, Boog White done what he done best while we looked down at them trees; down the mountain to see all of Long Swamp. I wanted real bad to turn around and watch what Boog done, but I knowed better. Me and Bill just stayed steady with them guns, praying we wasn’t gonna have to use them none.
While he’s pouring, Boog White says something loud, strange, and serious-like. “Y’all been across the river Styx.”
“Boog, there ain’t no river on the mountain,” I says.
“And we ain’t be picking up no sticks,” says Bill.
Boog croaked a laugh, says, “Ain’t ‘sticks’… Styx.”
“What’s that mean?” I asks the trees.
“Something I read in one of them books in the house. A long, long time ago, the Good and the Brave Men used to have to go down to Hell when they wanted the wisdom of dead heroes. But, before they got to the Devil, they’d get to a wide old river that couldn’t be swum across. They’d have to ride in a boat, with Death hisself as captain. Death’s river was called Styx. Death collected a toll. Had to pay ‘em to get across that water, full of haunts and haunts a’ reaching up for you. If you payed Death two nickels, then he’d give you a ride across. Only then could a Brave, Good Man face the old Devil and get the wisdom he was needing.”
12
Then, Boog White come over to us with a big glass jug of ‘shine, even cleaner than the ‘shine he drunk. He took the guns from us and handed that jug to Bill. Boog steps back and says, “that’s the reason our women put nickels over the eyes of our men. So’s Death gets his toll.”
Boog White stretched hisself to the sky, and that’s the first real time I ever seen that he’s drunk, ‘cause drink was in his smile.
“That’s the river y’all crossed when your Mommas died. But, y’all done come back, yessiree… Y’all done come back.”
Me and Bill was both confused, so I says, “None of that business is in the King James.” Boog reached in his pocket and pulled hisself out a wad of chaw. He stuck it in his cheek, spat on the ground, then asks, “Y’all ain’t cried none, has you?”
I recollected the cigarette Bill give me, and I says, “Men don’t cry.”
Boog spits again, says, “Y’all ain’t men yet.”
I thought Bill Bradley was gone be mad like he done before, but he wasn’t mad. Voice got a little quiver, and he says, “Yes we is.”
Boog scratched his beard without protesting, and said, “There’s only one verse in the King James that I think’s got any real truth to it…”
“Which one?” I asked.
“John, Eleven, Thirty-Five… ‘Jesus Wept.”
I got quiet and listened to the mountains.
“Y’all boys go on and cry now, hear?”
Well, me and Bill Bradley both started crying, and we didn’t stop for a good long time.
Color as My Boy
The knot in his tie felt like a small fist pressing against his neck. It had hurt from the moment Bryce’s father had tied it for him, but Bryce had figured the pain would only last for a moment. But as the terrible boredom of waiting for his sister and mother to finish getting ready for temple dragged on, the pain continued. Bryce kept quiet, though, mostly because he figured his dad would explain that the feeling was normal – that’s how a real tie is supposed to feel, son – but partly because he was still embarrassed by not being able to learn how to tie the knot.
Now he just wanted to yank the stupid thing off his neck, run upstairs, and grab one of the clip-ons he usually wore. Why was I so stupid? He had wanted to wear a real tie ever since Aaron Shubhokov had teased him about the clip-on. I can’t believe you wear that in public, he’d said. Aaron was one of the only boys around his age who attended their synagogue, and Bryce had been trying to win his approval over the past year or so.
Thinking about Aaron was the only thing keeping the pain manageable – that and slipping his index finger down the collar of his shirt and pulling it away from his body. That’s what he was doing when his sister came walking down the stairs. It was always strange seeing her dressed up, walking carefully in her Mary Janes, holding the banister instead of sliding down it. He took his finger out of his collar immediately, his face coloring as if he had been caught doing something shameful. He didn’t think she’d noticed, but he couldn’t be sure.
“Is mom ready?” he said.
Tilly said she didn’t think so.
“The door’s still closed, and I haven’t seen her.”
Bryce looked at a clock and saw that they needed to leave in a couple minutes or else they’d be late. He didn’t much care for the Friday night service – mainly because he couldn’t watch TV or play videogames – but the thought of walking into the synagogue once the service had started didn’t sound great either.
“Should we tell dad?” Bryce said.
Tilly shrugged and walked past him. She went through the living room and into the little room they called the den. He heard the creak of the piano bench opening and then the opening notes of the Mozart piece she had been practicing. The first several bars she played smoothly. After that, instead of restarting the passage and getting it right, she continued through, no matter how off key the notes she hit. It made Bryce feel uneasy, like when his neighbor friend came over and moved stuff around on Bryce’s desk.
Bryce left the room and went to the back porch, where his dad was smoking a cigar and staring out at the backyard, the tall oaks rising over the fence line. Sometimes when Bryce woke up and looked out his window he still expected to see the big pine tree – the one he and Tilly used to climb - they’d had in their old backyard.
His dad brushed some ash from his suit jacket and turned around. Bryce hoped his dad would ask about the tie, offering him a way out of his stupid decision. But all he did was ask if Tilly was ready.
“Yeah,” he said. “But mom’s not.”
His dad set his cigar in an ashtray that seemed close to falling off the porch rail. He came over and put his hand on Bryce’s shoulder. It was heavy and surprisingly warm considering it was a cool evening in early spring; just the other day the last crusts of snow had melted from the grass at the edge of the yard.
“She’s not coming with us tonight,” he said. “You and Tilly hop in the car. I’ll be there in a second.”
Bryce stood there for a moment, waiting to see if his dad would say anything else. But all he did was take his hand off Bryce’s shoulder and go back to his cigar and whatever he had been staring at before.
They managed to be on time for the service. They sat near the back of the synagogue, right behind the Shubhokov family. Bryce tried a couple times to get Aaron’s attention – clearing his throat softly, “accidentally” bumping the pew in front of him when he set the prayer book down – but it was no use: Aaron never looked anywhere but the stage where the rabbi held forth. Meanwhile, Tilly engaged in her usual antics: holding the prayer book upside down, imitating old Mrs. Goldbloom’s squeaky voice, playing Rock, Paper, Scissors against herself. Normally these would’ve made Bryce laugh; tonight, though, without their mom to scold them and keep them focused on the service, it didn’t seem as funny. Eventually Tilly gave up and more or less paid attention.
This left Bryce with the choice of watching his dad or watching the rabbi and trying to follow along. For a few minutes he tried following the service, but the trouble was he didn’t know much Hebrew, only the little he’d been taught in Sunday school. In a few years he was supposed to have his Bar Mitzvah, which meant lots of classes after school. One day he’d gathered the courage to ask his dad if he needed to have his Bar Mitzvah, and his only response had been It’s too early to start thinking about that. Even so, he worried about it and couldn’t imagine himself helping the rabbi with the Torah reading.
Bryce had seen other boys help the rabbi spread out the massive scroll that was the Torah – which was what the rabbi was doing right now – and imagined his own clumsy fingers dropping the sacred text on the floor, then hearing the collective intake of breath of the congregation. All this played on a loop in his mind.
Only the Cantor’s song that marked the end of the service brought him out of it. The song was one the Cantor didn’t sing very often. It had a dark, circling melody, and he started off singing in Hebrew. Bryce noticed that Aaron, who usually knew the words to everything, wasn’t singing yet. When the words switched to English, Aaron joined in: “It is a Tree of Life for those who hold fast to it…”
Bryce didn’t know what the “It” in the song referred to, but he liked the sound of the words. He even joined in the singing, at first mouthing the words but then actually making the sounds. He liked the hopeful feeling the song gave him, too. It didn’t make sense considering the darkness of the melody, but Bryce left the synagogue feeling better than he had all evening.
Bryce started to take his punch and cookies to where Aaron was sitting, but then he noticed the older boys around him. He imagined Aaron saying something like Hey, look who finally ditched the clip-on. Did you get your dad to tie that for you? So Bryce sat by a couple kids he knew from Sunday school. One of them – a boy named David – pointed to Bryce’s plate and said, “Do your parents know how many cookies you have?”
He didn’t know how he should answer the question. Technically his dad didn’t know how many he had taken (six cookies, three chocolate walnut and three sugar), but Bryce knew he wouldn’t care. If his mom had been here, well…that would’ve been a different story. He wanted to say ‘no’, because he thought it made him sound tougher, but he decided on ‘yes’ instead. David tattled every chance he got. One day in Sunday school the college kid assigned to their class had them sing a song called “Slip Sliding Away”. Bryce hadn’t heard it before, but David had. This song isn’t religious. It’s by Paul Simon. And then he had proceeded to tell his parents. The next week they had a different college kid, one who didn’t sing fun songs or make the stories they were supposed to learn interesting.
“My mom only lets me have one,” David said. “She says that sugar is bad for you.”
Bryce nodded.
“I’m not going to eat all of them right now,” he said. “I’m going to bring a couple home for my mom.”
David looked over to where the parents were sitting as if to confirm this.
“Why isn’t she here?” David said.
The truth was that Bryce really didn’t know. His mom didn’t seem sick like she had a cold or the flu, but she didn’t seem to be feeling great, either. Bryce thought whatever was going on had something to do with how his mom would wake up screaming in the middle of the night; the noise always woke him, and usually he had trouble getting back to sleep. He wondered if Tilly heard the screaming, too. Every day he thought about asking her, but he always found some reason for holding back. Part of it was Bryce felt like it was his fault. A month ago he and Tilly had been playing a game where they tried to scare each other by popping out at someone when they weren’t paying attention. One night the bathroom door was closed, and Bryce crouched in the hallway, waiting to scare Tilly once the door opened. Only it wasn’t Tilly he ended up scaring; it was his mom, and he still remembered how big her eyes had been and how loud she’d yelled. Then the screaming started soon after that.
“She isn’t feeling well,” Bryce eventually responded.
David leaned forward, his face uncomfortably close to Bryce’s face.
“Is it really because she isn’t Jewish?”
Bryce felt heat rising to his face. David’s eyes looked big and twitchy behind his glasses, and Bryce wanted to hit them so bad, knock his tattletale butt right off the bench and yell into his stunned face, “Why don’t you mind your own business for a change?” He was seriously considering it – or at least knocking over David’s punch so it ruined his stupid tan pants – when his dad came over.
“Go and find your sister,” his dad said. “We’re leaving now.”
It only took a minute to spot Tilly: she was standing on the stage that their congregation used for plays and other social events. She seemed to be in the middle of one of her impersonations. Bryce waited a minute to round her up. He figured he could use a laugh.
On the way home, their dad pulled into the empty parking lot of their elementary school, which was a few blocks from their house. The maple trees that scattered helicopters across the playground were just getting buds. It was hard to imagine they’d be full of leaves soon. Bryce stared at them until his dad turned the engine off, taking with it the song that had been playing on the radio.
His dad unbuckled, turned to face them in the backseat, and loosened his tie. Bryce copied this gesture and sighed at the relief, although his neck still hurt from where the tie had pressed against it all evening.
“Listen, kids,” he said, looking at each of them briefly before directing his gaze out the rearview mirror. “Mom isn’t going to be home when we get back.”
Tilly asked where she was going to be.
“She’s going to stay at a hotel for a couple nights and then…well, she might go stay somewhere else for a little while.”
Their dad’s head drooped until he was staring at the floor of the backseat, regarding it as if just noticing it for the first time. Bryce heard Tilly swallow, and when he looked at her, it seemed like she was trying to blink back tears. He had to turn away, back to the line of maples on the street.
“Did you have a fight?” Tilly said. “Are you getting divorced?”
He raised his head suddenly, like he was a puppet on a string.
“No,” he said, wiping what looked like a cookie crumb from his moustache. “Nothing like that. She just isn’t feeling well.”
Bryce knew it had to do with her waking up screaming. He needed to confess, explain how it was all his fault, but his mouth was too dry to form words; and his stomach churned like cookies and punch were going to come back up.
“It’s going to be rough for a little while, but we’ll get through it.”
He smiled and touched Tilly’s cheek, then Bryce’s shoulder. As he turned back to the steering wheel, he seemed more sure of himself, more like their dad than a stranger who had interrupted the car ride home to give them bad news.
It was supposed to be bedtime when they got home, but their dad said they could stay up for a bit. Bryce read the latest Hardy Boys mystery he had checked out from the library but couldn’t concentrate on the words. It wasn’t just because he could hear Tilly playing piano downstairs – she was making progress on the difficult passage but still playing wrong notes. He kept thinking about what David had said about his mom not being Jewish. Before moving from Lansing to East Lansing, Bryce had been the only Jewish kid – that he knew of, anyway – at his school. He had been excited to find that several of his classmates were Jewish, but the excitement didn’t last long. When they asked him what congregation he attended, all they said was, “Oh, you go there.”
They still talked to him, but only to be friendly during class – never at lunch or recess. He didn’t know if it was because they somehow knew his mom wasn’t Jewish or if it was because he didn’t attend the right congregation. He wanted to understand why other kids did or didn’t like him. Sometimes it made sense, like with Aaron and the tie; but most of the time it was like a story problem where you didn’t have enough information to come up with the right answer, and all you could do was guess.
Bryce shut his book and set it on his desk. After getting on his pajamas, he went to brush his teeth. Tilly was coming up the stairs.
“Do you think dad will tuck us in?” Tilly said.
Usually it was mom who tucked them in – and when they were younger read them a story.
“I don’t know,” he said. When he saw her expression change, he added, “I’m sure he will if we ask.”
She nodded. He turned to brush his teeth but stopped when she asked another question.
“You don’t think she’s staying at the bad motel, do you?”
Tilly was talking about a place near their aunt’s house on the other side of town. Whenever they visited their aunt, they had to drive by the place with its burnt-out neon sign and people drinking on balconies and wandering around the parking lot.
“I don’t think so,” Bryce said, although he had no idea where she might be staying.
“Good,” she said. “Sometimes I have nightmares about that place.”
This would’ve been the perfect time to ask if she heard mom screaming in the middle of the night. He opened his mouth to do it, but nothing came out.
“Ok,” Tilly said. “You can brush your teeth now.”
Bryce woke up in the middle of the night thinking he heard his mom screaming. The noise seemed so real that it took him a minute to realize it had been a dream; it had to have been because his mom wasn’t home. She was by herself at some motel with no one there to make her feel better if she woke up screaming.
He wanted to get out of bed and go to his parents’ room, climb into their bed. Even if it was only dad instead of both of them, it would still make him feel better. But he hadn’t slept with them in years, not since they’d moved. Once in a while Tilly came into his room when she had a bad dream, but he was older so it didn’t seem right for him to go into her room.
He sat up and turned his light on to read. He tried following the story, but, like earlier, he couldn’t concentrate. Shoot, he thought. Now I have to pee. All he could think about on the way to the bathroom was the night he’d scared his mom. Part of him knew that what he’d done couldn’t make a person wake up screaming night after night, but he couldn’t shake the memory of her face, pale and terrified, as he’d popped out and yelled, “Boo!”
After going to the bathroom, he stood at the sink washing his hands when a noise made him jump. He jolted around, splashing some water on himself and the floor. The curtain was open – mom usually closed them and sang a song about shutting the night out - and he saw a branch scraping the window as the wind blew. It’s nothing, he told himself. Even so, his heart was still racing as he climbed into bed – and even for a few minutes after that.
He remembered his dad’s voice from earlier when he had told him and Tilly that everything would be all right. Bryce believed him; he really did, but he still couldn’t calm down or fall asleep. It wasn’t until the Cantor’s song – the first verse where the words were all in Hebrew – popped into his head that he felt his body relax, like when he lowered himself into a bath his mom had prepared. He pictured a great tree with low spreading branches and leaves of the brightest green. He was climbing the branches, and so was Tilly. Neither of them could see the top, but that didn’t matter; all that mattered was that he kept holding on.
-
John Abbott is a writer, musician, and English instructor who lives with his wife, daughter, and two Siberian Huskies in Kalamazoo, Michigan. His story collection is available from Underground Voices, and he is currently at work on a novel.
In The Temple, Among The Trees
And then, after the Christmas Eve incident, we had to figure out what to do about Connor. Nine days had passed, Christmas trees started appearing on the curb, some still twined with tinsel, and Ohio State had come up a field goal short in the Rose Bowl Game. So we decided that Wednesday would be a good evening to drink a little beer, play a little poker, and shake off the holiday stress. It would also be a chance to talk about Connor.
Believe it or not, back then the boy was only a teenager and couldn’t even legally drive a car. When I see him now at Whole Foods with his beard and tattooes, he looks all of thirty and a few years more. Joe, Ardell, and Reese—my poker buddies—chalk it up to the time he spent in Iraq and the shit he’d witnessed there. Ardell, who’d served in Vietnam and left most of his left arm in some nameless jungle south of Da Nang, said a lot of that shit that happened in the desert was probably worse than Nam and that Connor was simply lucky to have his sanity about him. But none of that explains what happened on December 24, 1984, when Connor was just fourteen and the four of us were practically kids too, and much less wise.
It was one of those Christmas Eves in Cleveland when it doesn’t feel like Christmas Eve. The sun was shining and the weather felt like April instead of December. Kids were out riding bikes while their mothers were putting the final touches on their casseroles or making last-minute dashes to the grocery for a loaf of bread or a carton of eggs. Connor’s mother was finishing up her shift at Lutheran General where she worked as an LPN. It was just before three p.m., and I know it because my girlfriend at the time was watching One Life to Live and gasping because some character had just received a cancer diagnosis. I’ve no doubt it was a horrible and touching scene, but what Connor did a few minutes later was real.
The little guy was only six and his name was Jason. I knew his father, a huge Indians fan who owned a small bakery in Parma. Steve, Marla, and this Jason lived a few blocks down on Crestview and had an older boy, as well, who suffered from epileptic seizures. I can’t remember that boy’s name, probably because he was never out much. But Jason always was, especially in summer, riding up and down the blocks on his yellow skateboard. He wasn’t the kind of boy to hurt anyone. Neither was Connor, for that matter, which is why we were all stunned when he ripped—out of goddamn nowhere—Jason from his skateboard and began pummeling him with a sugar maple branch. My buddy Reese is the one who saw it. And it was just dumb luck, really, as he was outside with his ladder adjusting a wreath that had become tangled with a line of Christmas lights. It had been a windy morning.
“The little one never stood a chance,” Reese told us over cards that Wednesday. “This Connor’s a decent-sized fellow, and that Jason, God bless him, could hardly hold a watermelon. Damn shame how some kids are. Just a damn shame.” We were flummoxed at the situation. “I should’ve called the cops or got there sooner, but it all happened so fast. By the time I got down and got over there, it was all blood and whimpering.” Reese drew a jack. “Ugly goddamn scene. He went for the face and head, too. He wasn’t dicking around.”
But why? we all asked. Why? we all wondered. What would possess a big kid like Connor Stone to go after a little kid like Jason Wehrle? “And for that matter,” Ardell chimed in, “what would possess a big kid like the United States of goddamn America to go after a little kid like Vietnam?” Nearly ten years had passed since the fall of Saigon, but Ardell’s bitterness hadn’t dissipated. If anything, it had grown and gelled. He had the right to be bitter too, having lost his twin brother Odell to the jungle along with many friends. Neither Joe, Reese, nor I had gone to fight. My draft number had come up low in 1969; Joe’s father had died at Omaha Beach, making him exempt as an only son; and Reese, well, no one really knew about him. He never talked about the Sixties. We figured he was holed up somewhere. But Ardell had a point: the powerful have this innate desire to beat up on the weak, to exhibit strength, and perhaps to make up for some lack in their character or development.
On his way to go take a piss, Joe dropped the idea that Connor’s father likely beat him up. He’d studied psychology at Ohio State, and utilized his knowledge of the human mind well in his job as a car salesman. I heard him jiggle the handle before the toilet flushed, and upon his return to the table he expounded: “Kids not only mimic their parents’ behavior, but also—oddly enough—sometimes do so in astonishing detail. If I were a betting man, I’d surmise that Mr. Stone beats Connor with a stick. This doesn’t excuse the boy, but it does explain a few things. After the authorities get through with him, a thorough psychiatric evaluation will be in order, no doubt about that.”
That night the four of us played poker past midnight, relieved at the passing of the holiday season. Just after one, as I was lying in bed recounting the dollars I’d lost and the theories pertaining to Connor and Jason, the windows started rattling and the air in the bedroom seemed suddenly colder. Any Clevelander can sense a big winter storm plowing through Lake Erie (things just feel sinister), and as I drifted off to sleep, a little groggy from the drink, I told myself to remember that the snow shovel was behind the rake in the corner of the garage. Then I began dreaming. I was beating my girlfriend, who then happened to be visiting her mother in Omaha, with the wooden handle of the snow shovel. Her cries didn’t deter me, and her pleading and begging for mercy merely made me want to hit her harder. I beat her senseless, and I think I fractured her skull, but in the dream it felt good. It felt like I was accomplishing something. Truth is, after Christmas we were on the outs. She’d been pushing me to move to Nebraska so she’d be closer to her mother, but I was having none of that. I liked Cleveland—I still like Cleveland—and I’d as soon move to Nebraska than cut off my left ear and eat it.
The next morning—the city a winter wonderland—I went outside to shovel around ten. I wanted to finish before The Price Is Right came on. Just as I was finishing up, Jason’s father approached. He looked weary and worse for wear, and I expected him to thank me for putting Reese in contact with the cops. Instead he just stood there crying. The snow was still falling, and starting to accummulate on the Indians cap he wore summer and winter. He wept for what seemed like an eternity, then he hugged me. It was a hard, long hug. “You’re a good man, Boon,” he said, almost choking. “You’re a good man.” I wish I would’ve told him he was too, but I was cold and hungry and eager to see what Holly was wearing that day. She used to be my favorite of Barker’s Beauties, but she too, like much of what we loved in the Eighties, has gone away.
-
Carl Boon is the author of the full-length collection Places & Names: Poems (The NasionaPress, 2019). His writing has appeared in many journals and magazines,including Prairie Schooner, Posit,and The Adroit Journal. He received his Ph.D. in Twentieth-CenturyAmerican Literature from Ohio University in 2007, and currently lives in Izmir,Turkey, where he teaches courses in American literature at Dokuz EylülUniversity.
ABOUT CONNOR
We never go to Dairy Hut. Mostly because mom is close friends with the owners of Angelo’s Homemade Creamery two towns over and the service at Dairy Hut hasn’t been the same since Mr. Carlisle passed away. Most days, mom would happily take the thirty-minute drive for a few scoops of Angelo’s dairy-free triple chocolate chip supreme. Today, however, after two hours in traffic and Charlie’s bi-annual audiology appointment running 45 minutes late, Dairy Hut was our only reasonable option.
I cringe at the scene outside the passenger side window. Half the senior class is here. I’m not sure why I’m surprised. Porter Ridge High kids only hang out in one of two places: Dairy Hut and the McDonald’s on Main Street. I lean back in my seat as to obscure my face from anyone lingering nearby. I take a deep breath. Tell myself it will all be okay.
Mom is pre-occupied with Charlie. She doesn’t seem to notice my mild anxiety attack, for which I’m immensely grateful. Charlie, on the other hand, is practically vibrating with excitement. Ice cream is the only way he’ll sit through all the hearing tests. I think you can get a seven-year-old to do just about anything if ice cream is involved. You can get me to do almost anything if ice creams involved. I’m almost seventeen. Mom hands me a twenty-dollar bill.
“He only needs a small—kiddie size, if they have it,” she says. I know her usual, and I always get the same thing. An Oreo shake, with extra Oreos.
The back door swings open just as I pop open my door. I turn to Charlie, shake my head.
“Stay inside,” I say.
“Let him stretch his legs a bit,” Mom says. She rubs the sides of her temples like she’s trying to release pint up stress. She worries too much about Charlie. About what his life will be like if his hearing doesn’t return.
She blames herself.
Like she could have controlled all the ear infections he got as a baby. He has small ear canals, they said. I wave my hand, so Charlie knows to come on and wait until he scrambles out of the car and onto the grass outside the Dairy Hut. I clasp our hands together. His tiny hand is always clammy. I stop myself from letting go. We move past the cafeteria cliques and budding new relationships. I grip his hand tighter when I hear Ellis Montgomery’s voice from somewhere in the center of a crowd.
Charlie tries to wriggle free. He twists his hand slowly without ever looking up at me. Just when he thinks he’s achieved success I adjust my grip and give my best version of Mom’s glare. He smiles. His dimples cave into his cheeks like they were used to mold a gumball. I can’t help but smile back.
He signs, “I’m hot!”
I hear my name—Phoenix. Hear it with a hint of laughter attached. There’s nothing more embarrassing than being shot down by your crush in front of the entire rising senior class. It sounds cliché, I know. I swear that’s my life.
One big cliché…
#
The line at Dairy Hut is long. Long like this is the last time anyone will ever eat ice cream again. I take my place and beg Goddess that it moves quickly. It doesn’t. Each person orders three or more ice cream selections a piece. When we are six orders away, Charlie starts tugging on my shirt, his hand gripping himself in that way little boys indicate they have to pee.
“You have to wait,” I gesture.
He contorts his body, his hand still in mine. With his free hand he points to the ground as if to say, NOW!
We are two orders from the front.
“It’s almost our turn.” I sign.
He twists and wiggles more intensely. He bends his knees like he’s a ballerino or a master yogi, or a mime pretending to sit on an invisible chair. Why are little kids so dramatic! I look past the line hoping Mom is standing outside the car waiting for us. All I can see are varsity football players still walking around in their pre-season scrimmage clothes.
Charlie tugs my shirt again.
I ignore him.
I just want to order our ice cream and get away from the Dairy Hut. I have one more day before I’m forced to acknowledge any of these kids. Let me have my day.
The lady in front of us orders a large banana split. If you did not hear the order, you would never know by looking it at. It is topped with a mountain of white chocolate chips, gummy bears, whip cream and walnuts. It looks like a bowl of toppings with a spoon wedged in it. At Angelo’s, you can get endless versions of the banana split. It’s not my go to but knowing I could get a banana split with double fudge brownie, smothered in dairy-free oreo cookie ice cream, if I wanted to, is definitely good look. It’s one of the many reasons we like Angelo’s, best. Going to Angelo’s also means I don’t have to run the risk of bumping into Kenzie James.
Kenzie James appears in the order window as if she is a cardboard cut placed in front of me to play a prank. Her expression is unreadable. Mine feels a little like I’m about to crap myself.
We haven’t seen each other all summer.
Not since Ellis Montgomery’s Summer Kick-off party when I had the bright idea to tell her how I feel about her. Not since I tried to kiss her in Mr. and Mrs. Montgomery’s bedroom. Not since she pushed me away. Not since Carlos Amara caught it all on camera.
Shoot your shot, they say.
I have had a crush on Kenzie James since freshman year. For a brief, epically wrong moment, I thought she had one too.
Kenzie doesn’t say hello. Just looks me over for a moment like she’s trying to assess if I’m really here. Her micro box braids hang in loose curls that shape her face. I have only seen her wear braids. She’d look good in locs, too. I touch my own out of habit.
I think she’s going to say something, instead, she cocks her head and stares me down like I’ve just walked into another party I wasn’t invited to. Her skin seems drenched in shea butter. The sleeves of her Dairy Hut t-shirt are rolled to her shoulders. The bottom is rolled and tied into a halter top.
I stare too long.
Her face flushes, just a hint.
“God, Phoenix, are you gonna order, there’s like fifty people behind you,” she says.
I part my lips, but nothing comes out. I feel something drop in the pit of my stomach. I could either run away or throw up, right now. I hate that I like her so much. That even after that night she can still send butterflies zooming through me.
Kenzie fans herself. “Phoenix—seriously, there are mad people in line.”
I look behind me at the impatient faces sweating in this unmoving heat then back at her. Her gaze softens. Just a bit. Now, I kind of feel like she’s waiting for me to say something other than my ice cream order.
What would be the point?
“Yeah, my bad, can I get a medium oreo shake with extra oreos, one scoop of butter pecan on a maple walnut cone and—”
I look down to confirm Charlie’s order since I can’t remember if he said cookie dough or chocolate chip, which definitely matters when it comes to Charlie, only thing, Charlie is not here.
Charlie is not anywhere!
I do a full 360 as if Charlie is going to suddenly pop out like he does when he is hiding in the clothing fixtures at Walmart. I look over the crowd behind me like he’s tall enough to see and peek around the edge of the Dairy Hut building.
“Is that it?” Kenzie asks with her arms folded across her chest.
“Did you see a little boy?” I feel the fear growing in my eyes.
Her expression is unmoving. At first—
I don’t give her time to answer.
“He was right here, about this big—chocolate brown, braids down his back,” I say to the man behind me. “Did you see my brother walk away?”
It’s pointless. His eyes are buried in his phone, and he has on Airpods. Kenzie’s voice rings out again but I don’t know what she’s saying. I jump out of line and begin searching frantically. The man is startled enough to mumble something as he literally jumps out of my way. Some of the Porter Ridge kids start to focus on me. I know I look crazy weaving in and out of them, looking under picnic tables and bumping into their legs and fresh kicks.
I run back towards the line. Peak back around the building, again. I don’t realize Candice is there until she grabs my arm to stop me from running past her.
“What’s up Phee??”
“I can’t find Charlie.”
Her face goes blank then suddenly she is just as focused as I am. She reaches for my hand and squeezes it just a little. “Don’t worry, we’ll find him.”
Jayce Aberdeen approaches us instantly linking his hand in hers. I don’t have time to question it. I do, however, give her the universal, we need to talk, look.
Candice shrugs. “I’ll tell you about it later,” she mouths.
“Sup, Phoenix,” Jayce says.
“Her little brother’s missing,” Candice says softly. He drops his smile.
“Where’s your mom?” Candice asks.
I look toward the cluster of football players. It's only a few feet away but I pull my phone out and call her just in case Charlie went back over there. She would have called if he had. There is a different feeling in my stomach.
I don’t know how to tell her that I lost him.
As if to read my thoughts, Candice takes the phone and speaks for me. Mom is at my side so fast I think she teleported. Then she is blowing the whistle she keeps on her keychain. It stings my eardrums. My heart palpitates the moment my thoughts switch to Charlie. Mom blows the whistle again. Everyone stops what they’re doing, including everyone inside the Dairy Hut.
Including Kenzie...
“LISTEN UP!” Mom says climbing on top of a picnic table.
Mom has everyone’s attention, including the man with the Airpods. He’s short with a belly and thick legs that seem intolerant of the heat. I watch him place each Airpod in the case and stuff them, along with his phone, into his pocket.
Mom clears her throat before shouting, “We have a missing seven-year-old boy named Charlie.” She holds up the photo of him she keeps in the car. I big enough to hang on your living room wall but instead of it being in a frame, I backed with a piece of cardboard.
“He is four feet tall, reddish-brown hair styled in zig-zag cornrow braids. He is wearing black shorts and a Celtic’s jersey with black Nike sneakers—”
She pauses. “He has total loss of hearing in both ears.”
Mom’s voice cracks but she swallows whatever emotion is trying to take over her focus. She scans the crowd for a moment. Our eyes meet almost instantly.
She points me out.
“My daughter Phoenix and I are fluent in ASL. If you are also fluent, please find one of us.” She hops down and walks to where I stand. Pulls me into a side hug. Even gives me a kiss of encouragement. I don’t know where she gets her strength. How she can stand with barely a wobble in her voice asking strangers to help find her son.
I would fall apart.
“He had to go to the bathroom,” I blurt. “I was going to take him as soon as I finished ordering. The line, it was just so long and we so close—”
“I’m sure he’s fine,” Mom says with reassuring eyes. I catch her lips quiver. Maybe she wants to fall apart too. We smile fake smiles.
“He probably went to find a tree and got a little turned around.”
“He does like a good tree.” I laugh tightly. “I’m sorry—”
“Nothing to be sorry about.” Then she’s back to directing us. “If you see him, stay where you are and blow one of these whistles.” She pulls out a hand full of whistles from a package you’d buy at the party store. She hands out a few to anyone who seems worthy of the responsibility. A younger teen boy with a summer camp t-shirt tries to reach for a whistle. Mom pulls it away before he can. He says something that causes an adult in his group to force him to sit down. I lose my thoughts in his aimless kicking. Dust billows the air around him, covering his already grimy sneakers. Two blond-haired women turn to him at the same time. I can’t tell which is his mom. Both could be, by the way their eyes narrow in unison as they reach their threshold of patience for him.
Mom gives a few more instructions, then we’re off in mini groups tramping across the open farmland. She is totally prepared for these moments. I guess you have to be when your baby experienced total hearing loss by age two.
#
In groups of different sizes, we check the barns and milking facilities. The petting zoo with the baby goats. Even the decommissioned barn where they castrate the bulls. Eventually, we find ourselves in the woods behind the farm. Candice pulls me into another hug.
“We will find him,” she says.
“I’m so stupid! I was distracted by frickin’ Kenzie James, per usual, and I didn’t even realize—” Candice breaks our hug with a nudge. I follow her eyes. I Kenzie—
“I want to help.”
I hold her gaze for a beat. I all I can manage.
“Yea, thanks.” We move deeper into the woods. Candice and Jayce walk ahead while Kenzie drifts behind me. Every so often Jayce whispers something in Candice’s ear. She giggles. Since when is my best friend the boy-in-ear giggling type. Jayce Aberdeen, at that. I think I feel some kind of way. Candice has known about my crush on Kenzie since I inception.
Why didn’t she tell me about Jayce?
They seem to float around each other. Like two people in a cloud commercial. Jayce hoist a giant tree branch it in the air like he’s Thor. I guess it does look like his hammer. Candice giggles again. I try not to feel a little frustrated by finding out this way.
“Hey,” Kenzie says. She closes the space between us. Our shadows stretch up the side of trees and across the ground in response to the setting sun. Purples and pinks peek through the treetops. The tailwind of a plane streaks the sky.
“Star or planet,” she asks.
“Definitely a planet,” I say. “it’s too early for stars.”
Kenzie squints at the sky. The sleeves of her Dairy Hut t-shirt now sit properly on her upper arms. Her stomach is no longer exposed as well. The temperature has dropped at least ten degrees since we’ve been out here. Someone calls Charlie’s name.
I can’t help but laugh.
Kenzie tries to hold hers in. Says, instead, “people are idiots.”
“For real! My mom legit said, he cannot hear your words.” My chuckle is different this time. More solemn. There is a bigger opening in the treetops.
“I probably Jupiter,” I say. “I almost always Jupiter.”
Kenzie cups her hands over her eyes like binoculars. I pull up my favorite astronomy website then hand her the phone.
“See, Jupiter.”
Kenzie takes my phone and expands the map that shows each visible planet and I proximity to the moon. Based on the angle—definitely, Jupiter.
“I want a telescope,” she says.
“Me too. No space tho.”
A group of football players run past us.
“Could he have gone this far?”
I shrug. “Anything’s possible, I guess.”
“You know the reservoir is back there?”
“I know.”
The last of the sun begins the fade. Crickets begin to scratch out their melodies. One by one, the flashlights from every phone pop on. It is like a sea of dancing fireflies.
“Charlie!” some guy yells.
“Dude, he can’t hear you,” another says with frustration.
A larger group of searcher move quickly past us. Two of the girls with them take turns practicing the help sign mom taught them. This must boost Kenzie’s confidence to say whatever it is she’s been chewing on for the last fifteen minutes. For a moment I think she’s going to say something about Ellis’ party.
I’m relieved when she says with hesitance, “I didn’t know you had a deaf brother.”
“I have a brother with total hearing loss,” I correct.
“Sorry. Total hearing loss.” Kenzie shakes her head as if to chastise herself.
“Did you know I had a brother?”
“I did,” she says. “From that project in growth ed…the family systems project,” she reminds me. I look at her with surprise. I barely remember that project. It was ninth grade, and we weren’t in the same group. We walk quietly for a long while.
“I’m surprised you remembered that. Didn’t think you really knew anything about me.”
“You don’t know anything about me either,” Kenzie states firmly.
She’s not wrong. Not really.
“I think I remember you have a few younger siblings, right?”
“5 younger siblings.”
“Geesh, your parents were busy!”
We both cringe at the thought of our parents making any of us. Kenzie wraps her arms around herself. The breeze cutting through the trees has caused goosebumps to form on her skin. In the movies, the love interest would offer their jacket, or in my case, my hoodie. I spend too much time contemplating. When I find the words to offer it, I’m not sure if her refusal is because she wants me to believe she isn’t cold or because Carlos Amara runs up and swats it out my hand at that exact moment.
“Oh my god, Carlos, you play too much!”
It seems like a consolation prize the way she slowly picks it up and pulls it over her head. She’s practically setting herself up for a year full of rumors.
“Thanks,” she says after she’s adjusted the hoodie on her body. She pulls her braids from inside the shirt. Sniffs the collar. “This is what you were wearing at Ellis’s party. What is it?”
I’m thrown by the question.
Thrown by the realization she remembers the cologne I had on that night. She was still dating Carlos, then—
The football players from earlier run past us at full speed. They dart in different directions. Ducking behind trees, dropping to the grown into army crawls. Trying their best—but fail—to hold in their laughter.
Without missing a beat, we say at the same time, “Manhunt.”
I watch Kenzie’s eyes glance over at me. Over my body and pause at my lips. Just as quickly, her gaze returns to the spreading darkness. I am immediately thrown back to the night of Ellis’ party.
I know she is too.
“I’m sorry I tried—”
“Think maybe we should talk about Ellis’ party?”
I chicken out. “Another time,” I say. Now is not the time, I quickly realize. Not when my little brother is out here somewhere. Not when the whole senior class is out here. I resist the urge to call Charlie’s name like everyone else.
We take the simplest things for granted.
I feel the corner of my eyes start to sting. I can’t start crying now. Not when I’m supposed to be strong like mom. I can fall apart later, but now—now is about finding Charlie.
“Here, I can give you your hoodie back,” she says, pulling it halfway off.
“Why—no. You’re cold.”
“You are too,” she says pointing to my own goosebumps. I rub my skin as if this will make them disappear. It only seems to highlight them even more. I check my phone to see if mom has tried to call or text with updates. It’s unnecessary. My smartwatch would have given me a notification, if so.
Kenzie exhales.
I think she’s about to say something else, instead she speeds up. She is shaking her head and although she is having a full conversation, I know she isn’t speaking to me. She is giving herself some kind of pep talk.
I know those pep talks.
I gave myself that pep talk at Ellis’ party.
Kenzie must realize how it looks because she stops again. Waits for me to catch up but never looks back. Never looks my way until we are side by side. Walking in lock step. Silence thickens the space between us.
“Why did you try to kiss me? After everything that went down that night. I told you I wasn’t interested. That me and Carlos were together. Why would you still try to kiss me?”
I feel like I might puke, again.
I want to give her a good reason. One that says romantic comedy love of your life, not “crazy dyke.” Who still uses the word dyke to insult someone, anyway.
Carlos Amara and his patriarchy shit.
“It seemed like fate when we both ended up in Ellis’ parents’ bedroom looking for some place to just be,” I start. I do not take my eyes off the ground. “Then we started talking. Started being normal with each other for a few moments. It was like, damn, maybe I’m not wrong about this vibe.”
Kenzie lowers her eyes.
“Look, I don’t know why I tried. It just seemed like a moment was happening between us. Like if there was ever a time for me, Phoenix Baker, to grow a pair—”
I swallow the rest of my words. What’s the point. I am afraid to look Kenzie in her eyes. Maybe she is afraid to look me in mine as well because we keep both our eyes on the ground in front of us.I wish Charlie could hear the leaves crunching under our feet. The unintended symphony created by the drought. Is that bad? Wishing he could hear? I’m supposed to be grateful I have a little brother who is only moderately annoying, right?
“What are you thinking?” Kenzie asks.
“I just want to find Charlie,” I say.
When she speaks next, enough time has passed to sing the entire alphabet song in my head. Not the old school way but the Gracie’s Corner way. I put Gracie’s Corner on my tablet, turn my overheads on, the bass on high, volume as loud as it will go. Charlie likes to feel the beat.
“There was a moment,” she admits. “I just—"
There isn’t time for either of us to lean further into this current moment. A whistle is blown, then Candice’s voice is calling out for me and my mom. We take off running to where they are, through a thicker brush of wooded area, down a slight hill that leads almost to a creek.
“Careful!” Candice warns, just as I slip a little. At the bottom, she is huddled next to a crying Charlie as he clutches his ankle. Blood dribbles down his knee and he has a few other scrapes on his arm. I drop drown beside him. Pull him into a hug.
“You scared me,” I sign when I’ve wiped his tears enough for him to see clearly.
“I’m sorry,” he signs back. “I had to go tinkle.” His face furrows with emphasis.
I chuckle at the rain drop gesture he does. I guess it works. There is a small crowd forming, mostly Porter Ridge kids. I cannot freak about them now. I cannot worry about what their whispers mean.
Kenzie puts some distance between us.
She watches intensely as Charlie, and I sign back and forth. I remove a leaf from his braids. Use my t-shirt to wipe away some of the blood. Hug him again.
“Can you walk?” I ask. I decide to hoist him onto my hip anyway. He wraps his legs around me the way he does anytime I carry him. His tears are warm against my skin. His fingers move against my chest, but I don’t think he’s trying to say anything. He sniffles into my collar bone. His body heaving with each breath.
Within moments, we are back outside that Dairy Hut where mom is already waiting. The relief on her face is undeniable. Mom pulls Charlie from my arms. Wraps him in the kind of hug only moms give best. Charlie fights against it, fights against the kisses she places all over his face. Fights against the ASL fluent EMT’s attempt to check him over and clean up his cuts.
“Mama,” he signs. “I’m not a baby.”
“I know, sweetheart. Everyone needs help sometimes, you know.”
The crowd begins to wash away like a good rain. I look around for Kenzie, but she isn’t anywhere to be found. I ride with Charlie in the back of the ambulance and Mom meets us at the hospital in her car. I offered to drive but I think the time alone will be good for her. She needs that time to fall apart and pull herself back together again.
I need it too.
I let the tears flow. I turn my head hoping Charlie won’t notice but he does. I feel his clammy little hand slide into mine. I feel him squeeze it then tugs to force me to look.
He signs. “Will I get a cast?” Like most little kids, he hasn’t exactly mastered the modern language. So, cast, looks a lot like he’s putting on a sock.
The EMT and I both laugh. “I doubt you’ll get a cast, but a cool boot?” I sign. Also like a sock but I stomp to make like I have on boots.
“Definitely a cool boot,” the EMT signs. He falls asleep the rest of the way to the hospital. I continue to silently cry.
#
It is after midnight when we get home. Charlie is asleep in mom’s arms, snoring like he worked the longest shift of his life. His thumb finds its way between his teeth, pressing down against his tongue. Mom worries he’ll mess up his teeth, but she doesn’t pull it from his lips like she would on other days.
“I’m sorry,” I say when I join mom in the kitchen where two steaming cups of tea, sit. “I fucked up.”
Mom raises her eyebrows.
We’re not exactly a kid swears at parent kind of family, but I really don’t know any other way to describe the situation. Charlie could have been really hurt.
I had one job.
Mom sighs. “You did not fuck up,” she says with air quotes. “However, you must be more aware. This could have turned out differently. I would not have blamed you. He’s quick and curious and tries to be independent, which I love—”
“He’s such a little man,” I say wiping tears from my eyes.
“But I should have listened when you insisted, he stay in the car,” Mom says. “I know this place can be a little distracting for you.” Her eyebrows furrow into both a question and an answer.
“You know you can always talk to me, right?”
I shrug.
“Phoenix Nicole Baker—”
“Yes…I know I can talk to you about anything. I will—when I’m ready.”
Mom seems reluctant to trust my word but releases my hand anyway. “Go on and head to bed, it's been a long day.”
I do not leave without letting her hug me once more. This time I’m the one who holds on for a little longer. I wait for mom to check on Charlie then pop in to do my own check. He’s cuddled against his stuffed T-Rex that he made at Stuffy Friends store a few months ago.
I wonder if he dreams in sound.
If he lives a typical life in other realms. I think, if anything, he’s a superhero in that world. I know it's the way he’d want it.
“I am so sorry, little man. I’m supposed to be the one you can always count on. Besides mom, of course. I hope you can forgive me.”
After a beat, Charlie shifts under his covers, a slight smile on his face. I wonder if he can sense my voice. One can only hope—
#
In bed, my phone lights up from my nightstand with a follow request from mac_the_incredible. The messages that follow read:
Mac_the_incredible: I’m glad Charlie’s okay. He’s lucky to have you for a big sister.
Mac_the_incredible: Maybe you can teach. Me ASL? And maybe we can talk about Ellis’
party soon. Like 4real talk.
I stare at the screen for way too long. Finally, I type:
Phoenix_Rising: Yea, I can teach you. Yea…we can talk.
Kenzie responds with a simple heart emoji.
All summer I’ve dreaded the first day of school, all because of what happen at Ellis’ party. I know I shouldn’t read into a simple heart emoji; but could this be another moment? Could this be the start of something? I let the possibility send me off into some distance slumber world where me and Charlie play tag and make up songs. He is always the drummer and I’m on guitar. Maybe senior won’t be so bad after all. Maybe, if the universe is truly in my corner, I’ll actually get the girl of my dreams.
The end
-
Aqueela C. Britt (she/they) is a writer, social worker and educator whose overlapping passions
center on underrepresented voices. Britt holds an MFA in Creative Writing in Fiction from Lesley University and a Master of Social Work from Simmons University, where she leads as the Director of Practicum Education for the Bachelor of Social Work program and teaches several
courses within the program. Britt is a 2022 Lambda Literary Fellow and the author of London Reign (A.C. Britt -2007). In 2023, Britt’s short story, A Manifesto of Hope, was long-listed for Solstice Literary Magazine’s Annual Literary Contest. Additionally, an excerpt from Britt’s young adult novel-in-progress, Everything Falls Apart in the End, can be found in the Lambda
Literary 2022 Emerge Anthology. Britt resides in Boston, Massachusetts, with her son and mini lop rabbit, Mocha.
