Freeze Frame (18 page)

A
t dawn I snuck out. The moon still hung low in the sky. I walked to the Bishops' and tapped on Chase's window.

He popped his head up and peered out. He smooshed his nose against the pane and started to laugh, so that the whole window fogged up.

I put my finger to my lips. “Shhhh.” I stomped my feet, trying to keep warm.

“What?” he mouthed.

I motioned him to go to the back door and jumped the side fence to meet him.

“I'm sorry about your dad, Chase.” He covered his ears and turned his back to me. I walked around and faced him. “We don't have to talk about that. Okay?”

He uncovered his ears. “Whatcha doin' up so early?” he asked. “Do you need help shoveling today?”

“You know?” I asked.

“I figured it was you.”

I lowered my voice. “Does your mom know?”

Chase shook his head. “She doesn't get up that early anymore. She sleeps a lot.” He faced the rising sun, squinting in the early-morning light. “Did you know that the sun has been called Helios and sol? Nuclear fusion produces a really cool energy output of three hundred eighty-six billion billion megawatts. And there are over one billion stars in our galaxy. The sun's just one of them. Funny, huh? One in a billion.”

“Did you get a new book?”

Chase grinned. “You do know the difference between a solar system and a galaxy, don't you?”

I rubbed my arms to warm up, still stuck on Helios and his 386 billion billion megawatts.

“Anyway, the sun has eight satellites. We like to call them planets. You know Jason had the sun's satellites all messed up on his ceiling. He mixed up Saturn and Jupiter. And Pluto isn't even considered a planet anymore, scientifically speaking. Maybe historically we can talk about Pluto as a planet, but it's not really. I mean, how could Jason
not
know that?”

Since when was Pluto not a planet? “Hey, are the
planets still there? On Jase's ceiling?”

Chase nodded. “Yep.”

“Don't take them down. I mean, if you don't have to.”

“Mom doesn't touch anything in Jason's room. It's like a museum.”

“Chase, I can't stay long. Here, I got you something.”

“Wait a sec.” Chase ran back into the house.

God, I hope he isn't getting his mom.

He came out and handed me a card. “It's a winter solstice card. I meant to give it to you on December twenty-first, but Dad picked me up that day.”

I smiled. “Wow, Chase.” I held the construction-paper card in my hand. It had a picture of the sun and some stars. And on the inside he had written,
I like your orange shoes. Keep your head up, Orange Dragon.

“Mike helped me with it. He's still really into hiring you.”

I took a deep breath and tried to control my voice. “Maybe after your gig is over.”

Chase's eyes got real big. I cracked a smile.

“Nah, you wouldn't ditch me,” he said.

“Never.”

“Never.”

“Thanks,” I said. “It's the best winter solstice card I've ever gotten—the best card, really.”

“So how many days has it been?”

“Has what been?”

“The orange shoes? The bet? I told Mom that Jason owed you his 1948 Captain Marvel Adventures number eighty-one if you wore them for a year straight.”

“Oh yeah? What'd she say?”

“She didn't say anything. She just cried. She always cries.”

I kicked some snow off the back porch. “Yeah, well, the comic books don't really matter.”

“So why do you wear 'em?”

I shrugged. “Just because.”

“Honoring your bet?”

“I guess so.”

“Good enough. Well, I knew you'd like the card.” Chase eyed the present I had in my hands.

“Oh, so you want this?”

I handed it over, and he tore open the wrapping paper. “No way! It's a dragon! It's a red dragon!”

“I couldn't find orange.”

“That doesn't matter. Orange is a by-product of red and yellow. This is the best!”

“Just don't drag it on the street or anything. Maybe we can fly it at Mills. Saturday. Noon.”

“On the sly?” Chase grinned.

“Sure. On the sly.” I laughed. “Now go hide it. Don't tell anybody.”

Chase crossed his heart. “Boy Scout's honor.”

“Chase, you're not a Boy Scout.”

“But I have honor.”

“Yeah. Happy Christmas, okay?”

“Happy late winter solstice to you.” Chase left the wrapping paper soaking in the snow and went inside. I scooped it up and walked by his window. He pressed his whole face against it this time. Then he pulled back and mouthed, “Thank you.”

“A
ny New Year's resolutions, Mr. Caroll?” Mr. Cordoba asked, placing
Chronicle of a Death Foretold
on a pile of books.

“No. I, uh, don't make resolutions—not anymore, anyway.”

Mr. Cordoba tapped his finger on the book. He flipped through the pages. “What did you think?”

“I really liked it. Maybe I can read more by that author.”

He nodded. “He's Colombian.”

“Really?”

“From my hometown.”

“Oh, yeah?” No wonder everybody thought he was some kind of mafia guy. Carson City was so lame. Had
Cordoba been from Cuba, everybody probably would've thought he was a commie spy.

“Aracataca. He won the Nobel prize.”

“For what?”

“For literature.”

“Oh. That's a pretty big deal.”

Mr. Cordoba looked at me over his glasses. “Pretty big. So why did you like it?”

“I dunno. I guess I liked how this guy wanted to go back and find out what happened, but it turned out everybody had a different story.”

“Memory is tricky, isn't it?”

“It is.” I wondered what Chase remembered about Jason. If it was different from what I remembered. I pulled out my notebook. “I wrote this line down: ‘The broken mirror of memory.'”

Mr. Cordoba nodded. “That's a great way to describe memories. It's like your director's notebook.”

“How?”

“Fourteen versions of the same scene.”

“Yeah. I hadn't thought about that. It's just that none of them turned out right.”

“You haven't found the right director.”

I shook my head. “Not yet.”

“You will.” Mr. Cordoba watched me intently. Waiting. “Are you going to do homework today?”

“I don't really feel like it.”

Mr. Cordoba raised his eyebrows. “Come help me out, then.” He handed me a pile of envelopes to lick.

“What are these for?” I passed my tongue across the sticky sweet glue.

“I'm trying to raise money to open a boxing gym in Aracataca.”

“So you're a boxer?”

“I was.”

Cordoba was actually telling me stuff about himself—not his books. Maybe I'd tell Kohana. I paused. “Do you still box?”

“Just for exercise and training.”

“You train boxers?”

“A little—down at the community center gym.”

“Were you a good boxer?”

“Some say so.”

“Were you pro?”

“Almost.”

“What happened?”

“I came here and became a librarian.”

Intense! “Why a librarian? I mean, you could've been a boxer. You could've been superfamous or something.” Mr. Cordoba looked up from the letters he was folding. “Well, not that a librarian can't be famous. I'm sure there are famous ones out there.” I felt my face get hot.

Mr. Cordoba pointed out the books on the shelves. “Because here, every day, I can be anything I want to be. There is no limit to what I can do here”—he tapped his temple—“and here.” He pointed to the books.

I shrugged. Weird. After that, we didn't talk for a long time. I just licked and sealed envelopes. The silences with Mr. Cordoba were cool, too.

“Do you need another book, Mr. Caroll?” Mr. Cordoba asked while I gathered my things.

“Sure. That'd be good.”

He handed me
The Outsiders.

“Hey! This is a great Coppola movie.”

Cordoba smiled. “I've never seen it.”

“You don't like movies?”

“I never know what to watch.”

“Oh, c'mon, Mr. Cordoba. I can give you a list a mile long of movies to watch.”

“Okay, then, pick one, and I'll watch it this week.”

“Narrow it down to one? Let me think.” I zipped up my pack and grinned.
“Black Mask.”

“
Black Mask
?” Mr. Cordoba wrote it down.

“If you have trouble finding it, I can download it for you.”

“Thank you, Mr. Caroll. I look forward to watching it.”

When I turned to go, I asked, “Mr. Cordoba, um, can I ask you one more thing?”

He nodded.

“Is that how you got the scar? Boxing?”

“No.”

My ears prickled. They were probably about the color of Mark's head after his trip to Cancun over the holidays. “Uh, sorry. I just thought…”

“See you tomorrow morning. Don't be late.”

The sun was about to drop behind the mountains. I rode home as fast as I could, pumping my legs, feeling the burn in my thighs and sweat trickle down my back. My heart pounded, and I think I was smiling.

Mr. Cordoba was a boxer.

E
verything started going back to normal all around me. Almost like October 8 had never really happened. I worried that I was the only one remembering Jase, keeping him from disappearing forever. After school one day I went to look for Jase's locker. I just wanted to see it. Instead, I found Alex and his friends surrounding Kohana in one of the back hallways. Pinky and Troy held Kohana down while Alex ripped his photography portfolio out of his hands. “Nice pictures, man.” Ever since they had taken the heat off me, I'd noticed them hanging around Kohana more. They never did things other than say lame-ass stuff and try to look cool. Kohana didn't put up with their shit, anyway. The day before, when Alex tried to trip Kohana after school, Kohana slammed him into the flagpole. Alex had
been alone. It looked like Alex got his henchmen to take care of things for him again.

Alex showed Kohana's photo to Pinky and Troy. He tore it down the middle. The vein on Kohana's temple pulsated as he tried to break free. I felt the red rage again and raced down the hall. No teachers were around. These guys thought they ruled the fucking world.

I threw myself into Alex, and the portfolio went flying. Pinky and Troy pounced on me. “Get your photos, Kohana! Get 'em!” Kohana ran to his portfolio as Troy kicked me in the stomach. Not this again.

“Oh, look who we have here, guys. A true hero, huh?” Alex stood up, brushing off his pants. His voice quavered.

Fucking pansy.

Pinky and Troy pulled me up and shoved me into the lockers. My hand throbbed. I'd only had the cast off for a week, and it still hurt—useless for a fight.

Kohana was a step from his portfolio when he turned around. “Leave him alone, assholes.”

“How sweet, Clock. You found yourself a little friend.” Alex laughed.

Friend. I had never thought that I was Kohana's friend. I just kinda figured he put up with me after school since he didn't have a lot of company.

Alex kept laughing. But nobody else did. Not even Pinky and Troy. Pinky looked at Troy and shrugged, still
holding me against the locker doors.

I felt like I was in a spaghetti western with a really bad script. I looked down the hall for a tumbleweed and listened for Ennio Morricone's theme music.

I tried to push Pinky and Troy off, but they were too strong.

Alex sneered at me. “Yeah, and we know what happens to Kyle's friends.”

“I said, ‘Leave him alone,'” Kohana said, and shoved Alex against the lockers across the hall. “Back off,” he whispered. “Leave us alone. Just back off.” Kohana looked from Alex to me. He cocked his head to the side. “What, Alex, you gonna piss yourself again?”

Pinky snorted. “C'mon, guys. They aren't worth it,” he said. Kohana let Alex go. “Maybe they'll go off and watch one of Kyle's weird-ass movies together.”

How did they know about the movies?

“It was Jase's own fault he died, hanging out with a freak like Kyle,” Alex said.

That sent me reeling. I yanked myself free of Troy and Pinky and raced at Alex. The hallways turned red. The rage overtook me, and I don't know what I would've done if I hadn't felt Kohana's hand on my shoulder. “He's not worth it, man. Let it go.” Kohana brought me back to the hallway. Alex whimpered. Troy and Pinky didn't move.

Then I saw Alex, really saw him. A pathetic shit of a
friend. And scared. It was like I could see his movie projected ten years into the future. He'd be that guy at the class reunion who still talked about being homecoming king; that guy who'd buy beer for the keggers at the creek, hanging out with the high school kids when his friends were long gone; that guy who wore his letterman jacket after graduation and never let go of the past.

I didn't want to be like him—stuck on a day, stuck in an era.

I watched the three of them walk away. Troy and Pinky walked ahead—the first sign of the end of Alex's golden years.

I sat against the lockers to catch my breath.

Kohana grabbed his portfolio and sat next to me. “You okay?”

“Yeah. You?”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

“You, too, man.” I rubbed my temples.

“What they say about Jason and stuff. That's not cool. They're losers.”

I leaned my head against the lockers. “Fuck, it's complicated.” Kohana flipped through his portfolio. “Are your pictures okay?”

“Thanks to you.”

“I know they mean a lot to you.” I sighed. “Your stories.”

Kohana took out his camera and took a picture of the hallway. “This was a good story, too.”

“What's the story? Getting picked on by the school tools?”

Kohana shook his head. “No. Friendship.” He cleared his throat and smiled.

I wondered if that was okay. Would it be okay with Chase and Jason that I had a friend? Plus I still wasn't completely sure I hadn't shot my last one on purpose. Maybe I ought to come with a “friendship warning label.” I closed my eyes and sighed.

“How can you be so okay with things, Kohana? Doesn't it just piss you off?”

He laughed. “Seriously, nobody's worth that.”

“Worth what?”

“There's this old Native American thing Gram said to me one time. It sucked at first, growing up here. My mom died. Dad left. He didn't want to be the dad of a deformed kid. I had no friends.” Kohana wiped his camera lens. “I didn't see the point of anything, you know. One day Gram said, ‘Kohana, I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.'”

“Huh?”

Kohana sighed. “That's what I said. I was only eight. But I got it after a while. Everything fell away, you know. And I was alone. So I had to figure it out.”

“Figure what out?”

“What sustains me.”

We sat in silence for a while.

“Gram gave me this camera, the first one she ever used. She was a professional photographer before I came along.”

“Is that what sustains you?”

“No.” He shook his head. “It can never be a thing. This is just a tool. But it helps. So that's what you've got to figure out.”

What sustains me? I'd have to think on that. “Hey, thanks.” I said.

“For what?”

“For your story.”

“Yeah, and what about yours?”

“Another time?”

Kohana nodded. “Another time.”

“I think you should take a picture of your camera.”

Kohana smirked. “Kinda hard to do.”

I stood. “Maybe you want to hang out at the library?” I'd never wanted to share that space with anybody before.

Kohana pushed his hair out of his face. “I dunno. I'm not really a group person.”

“Three people are a group?”

“Hey, man. I'm used to hanging solo.”

“True. It's a good place, though. I'll introduce you to Mr. Cordoba. He seems mean, but he's not. He's a”—I
mumbled the words—“a friend.”

“Then he must be pretty okay,” Kohana said.

We walked down the hall. “You know, Gram has a friend with a cabin up in Squaw Valley. Sometimes we go for the weekend to hike and mountain bike and stuff.”

“Yeah? Sounds cool.”

“Maybe you can come next time.”

“I'd like that.” Then I paused. “Squaw Valley's in California, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Shit, man, I'm not sure if I'm allowed to leave the state.”

“Oh.” He looked disappointed.

“I can ask my PO.”

“PO?”

“Parole officer.”

Kohana turned to me. I shrugged; then we buckled over, laughing.