Brightside (16 page)

“Uh…”

“Joey?” she whispered. “Is that you?”

The setting red sun filled my window, everything beyond it. I brought the phone back to my ear. “Yeah.”

Like she was sorry to hear it, she said, “Oh my God.”

I realized it was late in Ohio. “Did I wake you?”

“No, not at all. Are you alright?”

“I’m okay.”

She sounded genuine when she said she missed me. “So much, I really do.”

Suddenly, I was three years old again, just happy to hear her voice.

“I hate this,” she said. “I’ve tried to call, but they won’t put me through. I was scared. Have they hurt you?”

“No, I’m fine.”

“You don’t sound it.”

If anyone had been listening to the call, they probably would’ve believed her, the way she sounded so sweet. “You know you can call me anytime, right? I’m so glad you called.”

“Yeah…”

“So how you been, Joey? What’s it like?”

I rubbed my temple, tried to quiet the voice telling me to hang up. “It’s different.”

“It seems loud.”

“It’s my neighbor.”

“Oh, what’s his name?”

“Her.”

“Oh. Are they nice?”

I knew someone was listening in, waiting for me to slip up. I suddenly felt trapped, felt the anger building.

“I’m sure you’re meeting other people. Like you. That must be exciting? Just be yourself.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Nothing. You’re always smart, sometimes too smart—”

“I thought I was an idiot.”

Mom sounded a lot more like the woman I remembered, when she said, “I never once called you that.”

“You thought I was stupid.”

“Joey…”

“You did. I was there. I got a ninety-one on my IQ test. And you thought I was an idiot.”

I opened my eyes, looked out the window, everything red.

Suddenly, I was five years old coming home from the snowstorm, hating my mother. I said, “It wasn’t my fault. The stuff she was thinking made it so I couldn’t think.”

“Who?”

“The test lady. She wanted to hold me, feel my skin on hers. She wanted to breathe in my hair.”

“You didn’t tell us.”

“And say what? I’d been hearing thoughts my whole life, knew damn well you hated me?”

“Don’t you ever say that!”

“Why? Should I just think it? Does that make it better? Does it make it any less true?”

“Stop it, Joey. Stop it right now.”

I did. But only because I was done. I heard the hurt in her voice, even if it was barely there. That would have to be enough.

“Is that why you called? To accuse me? Point fingers?”

I thought about it a minute, loved not having to hear what she was thinking. Imagining her heart being crushed. “Closure.” Sharon’s word flying out of my mouth.

“How do you think I feel?” Mom said, “You don’t think you owe me an apology? Listening in to whatever you wanted.”

I took my time to answer, chose to speak the truth. “I guess I do owe you an apology. For the time when I was six and you were fucking Brian’s stepdad.”

“Don’t talk that way.”

“When all you could think about all day long was how much you loved him. How you wanted to fly away, how it’d be so much better.” I looked at the sky, wishing I could turn back time, put her on that plane. “How he was going to send you to New York, you’d only have to see me when you wanted to.”

“Joey, I always loved you.”

“I’m sorry for giving you the guilt trip. I should have let you abandon us. Maybe things wouldn’t have gotten so screwed up.”

“You make it seem like I thought bad things all the time,” Mom said. “What about all the good thoughts I had? Don’t those count for something?”

“Should they?”

“Don’t you dare tell me there weren’t times you hated me. I listened to you scream you wished I was dead.”

I kept quiet.

“It’s natural to have bad thoughts every once in a while. It’s natural to be upset and tired and cranky. It’s natural to not be satisfied, to want something more.” She paused like she had something important to say, then I heard the sobs. “You think it was easy living in that house with you and your father, leaving
nothing inside my head. Ripping it out whenever you wanted. I could have left. I thought about it. And yeah, I took comfort in the arms of other men. But I deserved some time to myself, away from you and your dad.”

“Poor you.”

“You have no idea what it was like.”

“Just put Dad on the phone.”

“He’s not here.”

“Then I have to go. I only have a certain amount of minutes.”

“Joey, please. I don’t want you to hate me.”

“Well, I do.”

“How can you say that?”

“You know, it wouldn’t even surprise me if you were the one who turned me in.”

I pictured Saul, that douchebag making the call. I pictured his fat fingers and that shit-eating grin.

Then everything changed.

“I would never turn you in, Joey. Never. And when I found out your father did, I felt like I was going to die.”

My stomach churned acid. “You’re sick in the head.”

“I don’t know why he did it. I’m so sorry…”

I don’t remember letting go of the phone, but I heard it crack against the floor, my mother sounding like she was screaming from the bottom of a well.

My foot stomped down on the phone, cracking it, shattering her goddamn voice.

Dad turned me in. Just handed me over.

I saw the closet. Opened it. All those fucking gifts. I flung them from the closet. Ripped them open. The little swan figurine, I smashed it against the wall. The fishing pole, I snapped in two. Everything obliterated. Tiny pieces flying across the room, sliding under my bed, cracking against the window. I destroyed it all and collapsed. My own father. The man who would never give up on me, told me he’d always be there. No matter what.

Through my tear-bubbled eyes, I saw a tiny piece of metal. Curved, shiny. Resting right in front of my face on the floor. My hand reached out. I held it under the light. So small and hard and silver, and it wasn’t the first time I’d seen it. Felt it pressed against my finger as a kid.

No…

Frantically, I crawled across the floor, sifting through all the broken bits, the tuning fork that wasn’t really a tuning fork. The fishing pole snapped in two, the bottom part hollowed out. The metal picture frame with the strange spring.

Everything coming into focus.

My hands putting it together. Dropping the bolt slide into place like Dad showed me. Screwing the barrel.

In ten minutes, there it was.

Eight pounds of power. American metal. The shotgun Dad got when Grandpa decided a mouthful of buckshot beat cancer hands down.

Dad was an only kid, just like me.

The stock’s been rubbed smooth, the last bit of sun shining on the wood, bouncing off the steel.

Dad used to say an empty gun was useless.

I searched under the bed, gathered everything, but they weren’t here. I wondered if Dad had forgotten. Or if I’d have to wait until his next gift.

But there on the shelf, I had my answer. I walked over and picked up the D-Cell batteries, the ones that didn’t fit Billy Bass, the ones too light in my hands. I began peeling the label, saw the plastic red shell. Under an inch. Thirty-eight grams. Eight tiny balls to cause so much damage.

The shell slipped into the receiver with a soft click like it was meant to be. It was the first time I loaded this thing without Dad over my shoulder.

I heard his voice in my head:

Never be afraid when you pull the trigger.

Is this what he wanted? All these stupid gifts to give me a way out?

My hand ran over the stock, smoothed shiny from years of handling. It was a piece of history to be passed on, the history of my grandfather’s final shot.

I pushed in the shotgun’s safety then popped it back. The little circle was so red. Red like the sun. Like the rage eating at my mind, making me want to scream.

I raised the shotgun, liked how it felt. Something real. Something solid.

Dad’s voice still in my head:

Be a man and deal with it.

I looked back at the sun, my eyes hurting, chest hurting, everything fucking hurting. I wanted it to end.

I racked the shotgun, couldn’t hear Dad’s voice anymore. The man who was supposed to take care of me. The man that was supposed to be there, to love me no matter what.

I guided the barrel into place, the metal cool under my skin. I put my thumb on the trigger guard. The barrel pressed against my chin, keeping it up like Mom always said.

Head high. Eyes straight ahead. My last sunset. Seeing only red.

Everything yelling at me to just fucking do it. Like Belinda. Like Grandpa. Like all the other
Brightsiders
. The ones smart enough to escape.

But then I pictured Paul breathing into that tube to make his electric chair roll. I pictured my mangled face, some nurse cleaning the shit out of my pants.

I pictured Danny pushing me through the Square, everyone thinking,
What a fucking
dumbshit
. Couldn’t even kill himself.

The shotgun fell against my lap.

My father’s one simple request and I couldn’t even do it.

I just ran.

Day 100 and I’m just trying to get to work. Walking down the sidewalk, the morning air so cold. The helicopter is still circling, which means they haven’t found Wayne. That’s good, means the Boots are busy. Busy means they won’t be checking my apartment, the closet.

I’m running the plan over in my head when I see a group of people outside Lodge Two. They’re watching guys in white coats wheeling someone out on a gurney. There’s no hurry, because whoever it is isn’t moving under the black plastic bag. I know I should keep moving, get to work, look like everything’s normal, but I find myself getting closer.

I see Tommy, the nineteen-year-old punk with his bright orange Mohawk, and ask him what’s going on.

“Another one bites the dust,” he says.

I think about my closet, knowing it’s just getting started.

Palmer, the only Boot I know by name, is taking statements. He’s got his aviator sunglasses and fuck you attitude. He catches me staring and I don’t blink. Palmer’s the Boot who almost put a bullet in my head, the day I thought Michelle was coming to save me, when I ran out in the street waving my arms like an idiot.

Someone grabs my arm. Sheriff Melvin and that bushy white mustache.

“You’re supposed to be at work, aren’t you, Joe?” The way he says it, I know he’s telling me to move along, but I ask who died.

“Sheila Clark.”

Sheila, the one who saw me with Krystal, the one who swore she’d never tell Rachel. Swore she’d never say a goddamn word.

Melvin wipes crumbs off his shirt. “You know anything about it?”

“No.”

“Where were you last night?”

“Home.”

“People saw you running all over town. What were you doing?”

“Couldn’t sleep.”

“You do some laundry?”

“Huh?”

Sheriff Melvin steps in, sniffs. “A lot of bleach.”

“Yeah, like I said, I couldn’t sleep.”

Melvin takes off his sunglasses. I hadn’t really seen his eyes before, how they were so open, trying to look like hey, remember, I’m on your team.

Palmer’s staring at me, smiling all smug, wanting me to know when this is over he might finish the job. I give him a nod to say my schedule’s wide open.

Melvin thinks about reaching for his gun, shoving it in my face, yelling I’m one dumb son of a bitch. The sort of thing he used to do back in the real world.

“I should get to work,” I say.

Melvin says that’s a good idea. He waits until I’m crossing the street before he heads back into the crowd.

So I keep walking, not running like Day 66, after I found out my father was the one who turned me in.

* * *

I can’t tell you where I was running after I’d hung up on Mom. I just kept going, through the dark and desolate park and into the woods. I’d made it three steps when my foot sank into the snow,
cold rising over my shoe, seeping through my sock. I yanked my foot right out of my shoe, bent over and pulled it out with a loud
shhhlopp
. There wasn’t any grass nearby so I took off my sock and wiped down my shoe, cleaned it out as best I could.

With both shoes back on, I continued up the trail and looked for signs of someone else, kept an eye out for deep snow. The sweet smell took me back to a time I had hope. Back to all the hikes I’d taken with Dad. The hikes Mom couldn’t go on because her knees were acting up. How we all pretended it had nothing to do with how much time she spent on them.