August and Then Some (17 page)

Streetlights from the interstate shined through the bare windows of my mom's new apartment and knocked on my eyelids. I opened them and saw Dani's empty bed. I rolled off the mattress that—due to the quick getaway—had no frame or box spring, and was still soaked with the smell of the old house. I reached in front of me navigating through the unfamiliar territory. In my old house I knew exactly where the furniture and pictures stood in the living room and dining room. I could easily walk the dark maze of the coffee table, couch, loveseat, television. But without light the walls of that house disappeared and left a deep empty darkness I could have walked into forever. And there was a presence. I could never see or hear it, but it was relentless. I'd try to rile it and say,
Hey
, but I'd get no answer. I'd yell,
Don't fuck with me
, and it wouldn't breathe. Its eyes would follow me like a moon up the stairs. I'd get to my room and they'd feel closer. I would reach in the air and snap on the light, and that thing would vanish into the brightness.

But in the new apartment the walls are close and I didn't feel anyone tracking behind me on the wood floor.

I saw Danielle's outline through the window, sitting on the fire escape.

She was in sweatpants and a t-shirt, a sheet pulled over her shoulders and bunched around her feet. She took in the highway noise like music. I leaned out the window. “Hey.”

Her head jumped but her eyes weren't startled. “Hey.”

“You sleeping out here?”

“Not really.”

I climbed out onto the fire escape and stood next to her. “Too hot inside?”

“No.”

I wiped crust out of the corner of my eye. “Weird, ain't it?”

“What is?”

“This place. Moving. The whole thing.”

She hinged a few nods, and kept staring out at traffic. I leaned against the rail and she knew that meant I was hanging out for a while and I knew she was cool with it. That's the thing about Dani—spending enough time in her quietness is just as good as talking to her. That is, until you absolutely have to use words. “Can I ask you something?”

She nodded again, highway lights painting her face red then white.

“I don't know if you're gonna remember this, but … this was like a while ago … there was this picture you drew … well, it was a painting really, and Mom put it on the refrigerator—”

“The sunset?”

“Yeah. That one.”

“What about it?”

“Well … You want to tell me about it?”

She bunched up the sheet into a little nest at her throat and rested her chin in it.

“I mean you don't have to, I was just—”

“What do you want me to tell you about it?”

“Well … OK … What was it?”

She didn't answer.

“Cause I got the feeling it wasn't a sunset?”

She looked at me until it got uncomfortable and then some. “Come here.”

I took a half step in her direction. She reached a hand out from behind the sheet, rotated her wrist into the light to face me. She pushed her bracelets back with her other hand showing me about twenty razor-thin lines of slightly raised scars the color of white tattoos on her forearm. Like crooked ladder steps carved from her wrist to the crease of her elbow.

“Jesus Christ, Dani.” I wanted to touch the scars. Maybe to see how real they were. Or to see if putting a finger on the evidence of this whole surreal thing might help. Whatever reasons I can come up with now feel weak. I don't know if I took too long making the move or if she didn't want me to touch her, but, because things go this way sometimes, her hand was under the sheet again before I got to it.

“JT, could you sit down?”

“Yeah. Of course I can.”

I faced her and settled my butt on the metal grid. “No, I want you to sit the other way. I want you to look at the traffic. Could you do that?”

“Absolutely.” I slid my legs through the bars and held two of them with my hands.

“This OK?”

“I want you to look at the road.”

“I am.”

“I mean when you talk to me could you only look at the road?”

“Yeah.”

“Could you not turn around?”

I rested my forehead on the bars in front of me. “I won't.”

I heard her fumble around with the sheet behind me. She took her time before she started.

“He asked me if I was asleep.” She fumbled more then started
again. “He woke me up to ask me if I was asleep. So no I wasn't asleep. He said he couldn't sleep either, said it was OK, that there's nothing wrong with not being able to sleep. And then he said he would rub my hair until I fell asleep again. And he did. He just rubbed my hair. And, it made me fall back asleep. That was it. He did this a lot, came in told me it was all right to be up and that we should help each other fall asleep again. He'd rub my hair and I'd fall asleep. Then once he said I should rub his hand. And I did that. Until I fell asleep. So it was all right touching each other like that. I didn't think anything wrong of it, I swear I didn't. Then one time he just touched me different. Between my legs. Only for a minute. And again he told me there was nothing wrong with us helping each other fall asleep. Said, that's all we were doing was falling asleep. We called it a game to help us go to sleep. Then he rubbed my hair and I pretended to fall asleep. He did it a few other times. But one time he put a towel underneath me and touched me hard. Inside. And there was blood. Just a little. I only saw it on me, because he took the towel with him. And I wanted to see the red on the towel because I wanted to know how much there was. I don't know why, I just wanted to. So I painted it in art class. And everyone called it a sunset. It happened a few times with the towel. Then one time he came in and I said I wanted to help him fall asleep. So I touched him. I swear I only did it because I didn't want him touching me anymore. It felt like something I could do to get him from touching me. And it worked. But when I was doing it he stopped looking at me and stopped talking to me. He closed his eyes and it felt like he was far away from me. And I liked that. I liked that I could keep him quiet and far away. I did it a few times. Then it stopped. I don't know why. But it stopped. It's done. And I don't want to talk about it anymore.”

I rubbed more crust out of my eyes.

“Push the button,” Ricky says, his palm still on my back. As I lift my hand to ring my dad's doorbell, the nausea hits hardest. I cough and bend over. Ricky lets me lead him to the side of the house and I puke in the neighbor's flower bed. He keeps his hand on my shirt, the way someone would hold back the hair of a retching drunk. I pick the head off a tulip and chew on it to get rid of the taste in my mouth, then make a mental note: Tulips taste like ass.

“You all right?” Ricky wants to know.

“Define all right.” As I spit out petals.

He pulls me up straight. “Come on.” Back at the front door Ricky finally lets go of my shirt and I tug it straight. Saliva builds in my mouth and I spit it out behind me on the stairs. I stare at the door like it's supposed to do something. I feel Ricky's eyes on me and turn to him. He says, “Ring the friggin bell?”

“Yeah, OK.” I just stand there.

“Or you want me to do it?”

“No, I'll do it. What, I can't ring the bell?”

“Not so far.”

“I'm doing it, OK? I just—” I spit on the stairs again. “My breath just fuckin reeks.”

“JT …”

“I said all right.”

“Ring. The. Bell.”

I knock softly on the door. Once.

“Like he's gonna hear that.”

“He'll hear it.”

“If he was a safe-cracker he'd hear it.”

“That was loud, what are you talking about?”

Ricky pushes his blackened pointing finger into the doorbell. The chime shoots through my head like moonshine. I don't think about spinning around and running down the stairs; I just do it. Ricky runs down after me. I try to jump the last three steps but I catch the edge of the last one and I go prick over elbow, roll once, hustle up and keep running. I cross the street, haul down the block toward the parkway when Ricky's hand lands on my back and knocks me forward. He stands over me, preventing me from getting up. I'm propped on my palms and ass, breathing heavy, wondering if I'm gonna get cracked in the teeth. “Both of you,” Ricky says and can barely get the words out.

“Both of who?”

“You cut out as soon as it gets tough. You fuckin wimps.” And now water starts to bead in his eyes. “He's gone, JT.”

“What? Who's gone?”

“Eugene.”

“Whudda you mean gone?”

“Died.”

“Fuckin what? What are you talkin about?”

“You know the LaSalles. James and Laura, across the street from you?”

“Yeah.”

“She knew him since he was a kid. He didn't want to live with us anymore, after the whole thing, you know? So Laura, she let him sleep out there on the porch when he wanted to. I mean he
was basically homeless. I didn't know what to do. I felt like I'd crowded the kid enough with the whole thing, and the papers were calling the house, the lawyers. So I wanted to give him time to do whatever.”

“Did you go over there? Talk to him?”

“What could I say? I didn't know what to—But your dad. Your dad went over there a lot. Tried to talk to him. Shit. This was probably stupid, but I wanted him to tell you about it.”

“Why?”

“I don't know. I thought like … like maybe people can unfuck things. But maybe I'm an idiot.”

“What happened?”

Ricky's face shifts from poker game to car crash. “He laid on the train tracks.” He turns his back to me, puts his hands on his hips.

He wipes his nose and takes a deep breath. “JT, get off the ground, walk up the street and go inside your house and talk to your father.”

“Ricky …”

“Do it.”

I stand up. “I can't.”

“Goddamn, JT, just do it.”

I take a slow step away from Ricky toward the parkway.

“JT, come on.”

I take another step.

“JT, YOU OWE ME.”

Ricky's face tells me that he knows he just fucked up big time. And right now I feel like I just lost two best friends.

“JT, I didn't mean that.”

I turn my back on him and walk away slowly.

“JT, come on. I'm sorry.” He steps toward me.

“Don't follow me. Can you just get off my fuckin back? Please?”

 

I lean over the highway overpass; the cars come at me then disappear beneath me. I sink to the ground, my back against the stones of the overpass wall. I can't do this thing of getting out of bed on no sleep and walking into another day that feels like a tar ocean. If I could pray or beg hard enough to get the last year back I would. OK, God, how about I jump off this bridge and you let me fall into last August right in front of Nokey's GTI just before we come off this exit? Let me stand in front of the car and say the thing that will make the three of us turn back home. I'm making deals with fucking God now. My face is soaking wet and I keep tasting snot. I wipe my eyes with my shirt.

I look at the ground through my dripping eyes and see a dime half buried in the dirt.

I walk past the river moving toward the train station. Dry yellow grass looks up at the sun saying: enough, you destroyed me already, let me die in peace. Geese float on the water pecking at their own backs letting the current take them to wherever. That's what I want to do, man, just fuckin sit somewhere and be taken.

It's the middle of the day so the train station is quiet except for a few people going to the city. I walk to the edge of the platform and look north and south—no trains in either direction. I jump down onto the express track, the gravel crunches under my feet. I remember that sound so specifically. I step over the third rail onto the middle of the track. The air is still. I guess we were way out of the normal range of ups and downs, huh Noke? I hear the whistle of the express train, and look down where the track curves out of view. I stand on the rail and feel the distant wheels vibrate through my feet. An old guy on the platform wearing a hat yells a “Hey,” down to me. I look up at him, he points in the direction of the train. “Time to get outta there,” he says. I look at this guy and remember Ricky's face when he was scoping my apartment building. I see now what I missed then. He wasn't
just looking at its architecture, I think he was imagining Nokey living there, piecing together what could have been the rest of his son's life. I pinch the dime between two fingers and hold it up so the guy on the platform can see it. I feel a breeze on the side of my face. “Hurry up,” the guy yells. I place the dime on the track. A used napkin tumbles past me. The whistle blows again and I see the train come around the bend. My hair and clothes are blown to one side. I look up to this guy who is yelling louder for me to get up. I imagine the earth under these tracks. Hey Noke, I bet under the gravel and sewers there's a mess of frozen children buried standing up, their arms reaching toward the sun, fingers inches from poking through the surface. Every new patio, apartment, highway, and layer of living we add thickens the separation between us and them. “Hurry up, kid. Get out of there.” The whistle blows steady. I look down at the dime, then at the face of the train, and wonder what happened to Noke's insides right about now—now when it's decision time—now when cashing it in feels like the right move. Was it like floating, brother? Like letting a current take you? Wasn't there a single fucking thing that could have made you let go of this? I wish I was here for it. That guy is still yelling for me, now he's terrified, but the whistle drowns him out. The wind of the train is hot on my face. I fall to the gravel, roll under the platform, grab a crossbeam with one hand. The train flies by a few feet in front of me. Metal wheels squeak against metal tracks, the whistle whines, and the sounds knife through my ears. Pebbles and debris pelt my face. I close my eyes. Damn, I wish I had a quarter to put on the track. I hold tight to the crossbeam and hope Nokey will forgive me for short-changing him.