Garvey's Choice (2 page)

I give in. “Who's there?” “Your friend,

Joe, who's always here for you.”

“Dance with My Father”

spins on the CD player

on my dad's nightstand.

The words seep into me, then

leave my cheeks wet and salty.

Soccer games display

Angela's acrobatics

out on the field, but

there's another game she plays

that we both call Distraction,

and it goes like this:

Dad juggles his ball like a

hot potato, asks,

“Who's up for running passes?”

Angela always rises.

“I could probably

use some extra exercise.”

She winks at me—sign

of our conspiracy. Score!

I slip away, unnoticed.

Mom gets her chess set,

teaches me about

bishops, knights, pawns, then

says, “Football is fine, but this

is exercise for your brain!”

Joe and I stretch the

afternoon practicing chess

long enough to skip

potato-peeling duty.

We save our strength for eating

and being grateful

for roast chicken (at my house)

and glazed ham (at his)

plus mashed potatoes that make

our mouths two caverns of joy.

An extra helping

of Mom's famous peach cobbler

earns me a death glare

from guess who? “I've worked it out,”

says Dad. “Garvey stuffs himself

so he's too slow to

run passes with his old man.”

“Sure, Dad. Whatever.”

That's all kinds of crazy, right?

Maybe I just love cobbler.

I'm on school countdown.

Bring it on! More days with Joe

and fewer with Dad

who's still mad I didn't spend break

practicing serpentine runs.

Turns out, Mom was right.

My brain's beginning to bulge

with brand new muscles.

From now on, for Joe and me,

it's chess—and astronomy.

I lace up new kicks,

smile showing up like hope till

ugly whispers from

last year echo in memory,

scraping that smile from my lips.

I'm armed with earphones—

a perfect solution, till

Principal tells me

school rules won't allow them. So,

here I go, nervous, naked.

Too-skinny-for-words

bumps into me on purpose.

“Oops!” he says. “Sorry.

It's kinda hard to squeeze by

since you take up so much space.”

Under the stairwell,

I take a beat, close my eyes,

and hum loud enough

to drown the ordinary

sound of meanness flung my way.

My mirror throws back

reflections of a round boy

whose face looks like mine.

Who is he? And how have I

disappeared inside his skin?

I search through my shirts

for tan, brown, grey—colors that

can help me sneak past

any rough wall of words I'm

at risk of slamming into.

I need a new plan.

Some dumb kid named Todd

tried to be hilarious.

“Hey, Garvey! See you A-Round.

Get it? A-Round!” Sheesh. Really?

I glare at the stairs,

bare my teeth, and start the climb.

Breathless in ten steps,

I'm late to science, again.

I've come to hate the change bell.

Labor Day saved me.

Seriously. If this week

were one day longer,

I'd find a patch of earth and

pull it up over my head.

My tongue does a dance

when Mom's spicy lasagna

is passed round to me.

“Leave us some, little piggy,”

says Angela with a grin.

Not every cut bleeds,

so maybe Sis doesn't know

how deep the wound goes.

A second heaping serving's

not enough to heal my hurt.

In between big bites,

I hum to the jazz playing

on the radio,

the melody soothing me,

wherever words left splinters.

Joe drops by for our

weekly game of chess, where we

babble on about

nothing in particular,

which can feel pretty perfect.

The family gathers

for the first weekly huddle,

minus me. So what?

By kickoff, I'm knee-deep in

learning how to wrinkle time.

My candy stash gone,

the refrigerator howls

to my hollow stomach, “Come!”

On my way to the kitchen,

I catch Dad, eyes closed, humming.

I can't remember

the last time I heard Dad hum.

His voice shakes the ground,

deep as thunder. Not like mine.

Just one more way we're different.

My mom, dad, and sis

could fit inside my shadow

and—poof—disappear.

Whenever I stand near, that's

how it feels. They're all so small.

I could be smaller,

I think,
if I wanted to,

if I really tried
.

I swallow those words with a

tall glass of water, and sleep.

Breakfast is easy:

a cereal bar with nuts.

I figure that should

patch up my hungry spaces

till it's time for the apple

I brought for lunch. Wrong.

My stomach's an angry bowl

of empty. Why'd I

turn down today's menu of

juicy cheeseburgers and fries?

After a quick lunch,

I hit the boy's locker room

five minutes early,

jam on my gym uniform

so no one sees me naked.

Someone's at the door,

Dad's old friend, guitar in hand.

He mentions “the band.”

“No time,” says Dad. “Have fun, though.”

Me, I whisper, “Band? What band?”

I ask him later,

learn the meaning of regret.

Dad's head snaps around.

“Since when do you listen in

on private conversations?”

I thought I'd ask Mom,

but what if she went to Dad?

He'd only get mad.

So I drop it. In minutes,

the memory slips away.

That's what Joe called it,

a sprint down the block and back.

I near cracked a sweat

just contemplating the run.

I huffed, puffed, and crashed halfway.

“You okay, buddy?”

Joe bends over me, all love.

I tuck in my shame

with my shirt, cough up a joke.

“Dang! This was easy on Mars!”

“Well,” I tell myself,

“I've got some homework to do.”

I stagger upstairs,

flip on something with a groove,

and sing my way into math.

Skipped another lunch,

then piled my plate at dinner.

Might as well give up.

Lose one pound, then put on three.

Diets are not helping me.

I flip through pictures

of Dad when he was my age,

laughing while Grandpa

held him in a loose headlock,

close as I wish we could be.

“What was Grandpa like?”

I ask Dad after dinner.

He shrugs. “Strong. Silent.”

“Like you, then. Never talking.”

“He talked some,” says Dad. “Football.

Pigskin, the grid iron,

throws, passes, tackles, touchdowns—

I guess you could say

football's the way Dad and me

knew how to be together.”

Here, I've been thinking

Dad pushed me to play football

'cause he thought I was

weird, or some kind of weakling.

I had it wrong, all along.

“Dance with My Father”

plays in the kitchen while I

choke on eggs, missing

my right-here dad like Luther

missed his own gone-so-long dad.

Blue notes, sad as me,

wail their way from a classroom

I've never been in.

“Chorus,” says Joe when I ask.

“It's a new club. You should join.

You're always singing,

or at least humming out loud.”

“Yeah, but I don't know.”

“Look,” says Joe, “your voice is choice.

You should let others hear it.”

I know some kids think

chorus is full of sissies.

“Ignore them,” Joe says.

I nod my head but wonder

whether Dad will think that, too.

Chorus. The word sings.

It may not bring me closer

to my dad, but still,

chorus might be a way to

fill in the puzzle of me.

Fear is that flip-flop

in my belly, like when I

tried out for baseball.

All I got for my trouble

was being laughed off the field.

Will this be the same?

What if I open my mouth

and out comes—nothing?

Will kids laugh me out the door?

I can't take that anymore.

In a week, Joe asks,

“So, have you joined chorus yet?”

I sigh, turtle in.

“May not be for me,” I say.

“In other words, you're afraid.”

Best thing about friends:

they know you inside and out.

Worst thing about friends:

they know you inside and out.

My turtle shell is useless.

Joe's head hangs heavy,

warning me he's got bad news.

“I switched math class, then

the school switched my lunchtime, too.”

For once, I don't feel hungry.

I groove on Luther,

whose music lives at my house.

“Love Won't Let Me Wait,”

“Endless Love,” “Your Secret Love”—

How many love songs are there?

No thank you. I'll pass.

But somewhere Luther V. said

being true matters.

The words weren't in a song, but

they sound like music to me.

Ignoring my nerves,

I march into the classroom,

squeak out why I've come.

Feeling numb, I take a breath,

tickle that first note, then soar.

My voice skips octaves

like a smooth stone on a lake.

That's what they tell me.

“Well, class,” says the director.

“Guess we found our new tenor.”

I would have skipped home,

but I told myself, “Act cool.”

Couldn't help the grin.

Try wiping it off my face.

Go on! I double dare you!

I float up our stairs,

breeze into Angela's room,

forgetting to knock.

My goofy grin short-circuits

her lecture on privacy.

“Okay. What is it?”

“You'll never guess,” I whisper.

“I just joined chorus!”

Sis bubbles up like soda.

“Great! So why the whispering?”

“You're the only one

I can tell. Except for Joe.

Don't want Dad to know.

Or Mom, because she'd tell him.”

Sis bites her locked lips and nods.

Ask me what scales are.

Yesterday, I'd say, “fish skin.”

Now, I push my voice

to climb a new kind of stair:

do
,
re
,
mi
in F and G.

Paler than skim milk,

a strange boy sits next to me.

I can't help but stare.

“It's called albinism,” he