Gone, Gone, Gone (12 page)

The dogs are faster than I am. I’ll never understand how
dogs can be so fast. These dogs could outrun me forever. I should have tied them up out back. They’re going to get me so tired and I’ll pass out and die, and then what?

Then what?

I stop in front of a house I don’t know and pant with my hands on my knees. I feel my shoulder blades pressing against my sweater every time I breathe in. Maybe they’ll turn into wings and I can fly away. Then I’d beat the dogs.

It’s not that I really want to beat the dogs, it’d just be nice to know that I could.

I hear a soft growl, and I look to make sure the dogs are okay, but it’s a car, old and slow, trembling its way across the block.

Its lights are off.

It comes toward me. It has tinted windows and I can’t see the driver.

I straighten up.

It drives past me, wheels clanking. I can hear the torn-up tar on the sides of the sidewalk crunching under the tires. It gives me a half second of a heart attack, and then it’s gone. That’s what it left me with, a fucking half-second heart attack and then my heartbeat back and loud and clear, going
you’re stupid you’re stupid you’re stupid.

I stay out to see the sunrise, and when I get home . . . oh shit. My parents, both of them in their flannel pajamas, the
ones I guess they wear when they’re not going to have sex. I wish they’d had sex. That’s really gross, but maybe they wouldn’t be glaring at me if they had.

But they probably would be. I think adults can probably have sex and a life at the same time, which is sort of a foreign concept for me.

“Where the hell were you?” my dad says.

I hold up the dog leashes.

My father says, “Jesus, Craig. Can you really be this incredibly oblivious?”

“I’m not oblivious. I’m also not going to let my dogs, like, atrophy because a few people have been shot.”

“A few
innocent people
!”
my father says. “A few people who were shot for absolutely no reason except for
where they happened to be
.”

But . . . but, no, I’m calling bullshit, because entire lives are determined by where we happen to be. It’s the only reason we care about the cities we care about. God, it’s the only reason we fall in love. It’s where you happen to be. I’m not going to spend my whole life fucking freaking out about it.

“I’m not going to get shot,” I say. “You’re not actually sitting here thinking that I’m going to get shot, come on.”

Mom has her head in her hands. She says, “I know you’re not. But you scared your father and me to death.”

“But what are you scared of, if you know I’m not going to get shot?”

Mom breathes out. “I know it must seem to you like there are
so
many other people out there who could be—”

God, Lio and my mom and everyone need to shut up about numbers, I don’t care, I don’t care, I just care that I’m not going to die because I’m
not.

I don’t think I’m ever going to believe that I’m vulnerable the way other people are vulnerable, and fine, that’s stupid. I get it. But all this shit keeps happening and I’m still here, so what else am I supposed to even think? I shut the door to the basement and tramp down the stairs. Fine. It’s stupid. But I don’t know how to change it. I don’t know how to convince myself that I could be like the people I see on the news or the people I imagine at Cody’s school. Do I need to put a gun to my own head to feel it? I’m not going to die, and this is my life, and I feel it in my fucking bones, so am I supposed to understand how it’s possible to not be alive? Being alive is all that I am.

This is all such bullshit. Hiding. Running in zigzags. The only thing I have to do is be me. That’s the way to not get shot. Be self-aware. I don’t mean that the dead people didn’t have a sense of identity or something. I just mean . . .

I don’t know.

They weren’t me.

I’m not going to die.

And I know how stupid it sounds, but even when I try to convince myself that it’s the dumbest way ever to think, I can’t talk myself out of it. It’s
the same voice that keeps me from killing myself every time I want to a little.
If I’m dead, who’s going to be me?

My cousins were supposed to visit this Sunday from Pennsylvania, but now they’re not because their parents don’t think it’s safe to be in Maryland. They’re worried about the kids, and it’s so stupid, because no one’s been shot since Friday, and he lived, and there haven’t been any kids.

“Your kids are safe at school.” The police chief said so himself. I mean, if anyone knows, it’s him. They’re probably safer here than in Pittsburgh, if you take air pollution into account, and the fact that if you trip in Pittsburgh you’ll probably get, like, speared through by a fucking piece of steel or some shit like that.

No emails from anybody, except that old one from Lio still sitting in my inbox. I’ll answer it later, I will, I will I will I will. That movie we wanted to see,
Phone Booth
?
They’re postponing the release because they think it’ll be too upsetting this close to the shootings. I bet Lio’s really pissed off and confused about that, because even I can’t believe the rest of the country even knows about the shootings, since I bet the same number of people have died in every single state in the United States this week, probably more, so God knows why they’re postponing a movie because of us. I really am starting to sound like Lio, I think, and I wonder if that means I’m
starting to think like him too. I’m wondering what it’s like in Lio’s head.

The shootings are on the news stations, all the time, which is how I guess the whole world knows. It’s like, weather, sniper, sports, sniper, international, sniper, local? No, local means more sniper. Can’t they report something different? It’s been days since anyone was shot, and I really don’t need to think about this all the time, but it’s getting to be like a song that’s stuck in my head, which is such a crude way of putting something where people are dying, I know, but with the news stories and ads for bulletproof vests and my father’s phone ringing again and again, it’s not as if I’m the first one making this vulgar.

Li—

I don’t know what to say to you. You were really an asshole. You’re probably still really an asshole while you’re reading this.

I guess D.C. is more important to me not even because of Cody’s dad, but because it was D.C. and that was where I was.

But it did suck about Cody’s dad. But you didn’t know that.

You did know I was in D.C. so you should probably assume that I give a shit about things that happened here.

Sorry if I
insulted New York. But this is your home now, you know? Wheaton, Maryland, that’s yours.

Craig

He IMs me Sunday afternoon.
This isnt my home. Im always gonna be from NYC.

I reply:
From NY yea but not in NY.

home is where the you know

I guess

So his heart isn’t here. I shouldn’t be surprised. I mean, neither is mine, really, right?

And it was only a kiss. God, what would I have done with his heart, anyway? Knowing me . . .

Before I try to sleep on Sunday night, I give Mrs. Carter a call. She’s got to be so lonely in that house by herself, no Cody, no husband. When I ran into her at the grocery store, her cart was practically empty. One tangerine, one thing of yogurt, one toothbrush, and all those avocados.

“Craig,” she says. “How
are
you?”

“I’m fine, you know, yeah, I’m fine. Mostly I’m looking for all of my animals.” And then I tell her about all of the animals, and she says something about how she doesn’t remember me having all of them back when “she used to see me all the time,” and we both dance around the subject of why she doesn’t see me much anymore and
why the animals are around now when they weren’t then. And what it could possibly mean that those animals are no longer around.

Or I dance around it, because I guess she couldn’t possibly know most of that. But she makes sympathetic noises in the right places and then she asks me about the sniper, which I guess was what she meant the first time she asked how I was.

She says, “God, I worry about you kids in a time like this. I still remember when JFK was assassinated. I was scarred for years after that.”

What does JFK have to do with anything? Maybe she’s losing her mind too, and I can’t decide if that would be a bad thing, because maybe she and Cody could be together then? Did she know JFK or something?

I say, “I was just wondering if maybe you’ve heard from Cody lately.”

“Yep, he called yesterday. They had a dance at his school; isn’t that nice? He sounded like he had a good time.”

Oh, God. He met a boy. No wonder he hasn’t been emailing. He has some boy and they danced all night like Eliza Doolittle and . . . whoever she danced with.

I say, “That’s great. Did you tell him I said hi?”

She says, “Oh, you know what? It might have slipped my mind. I thought you were still talking to him.”

“I am.” I breathe out. “He hasn’t emailed me in a few
days, so . . . yeah. That’s why I called, I guess. To make sure he’s okay.”

Her voice softens. “Aw, honey, I’m sorry. I’m sure he’s just been busy. You know, he has a lot to do right now, with his junior year.”

She keeps pretending he’s in normal school.

“I know,” I say. “I didn’t call to make you apologize for him, really. I was really just making sure he was okay.”

“He’s fine,” she says. “Cody’s fine.”

Yeah. “Okay. Thanks. Tell him I said hi?”

She says she will.

Maybe I’ll play therapist with myself. Maybe that’ll help. I mean, if Cody’s all better, and Lio says it helps, I mean, maybe they’re onto something.

Cody’s happy.

And how do you feel about that?

Really good. I used to do everything I could to make him happy, you know? One time I cranked one of those ice-cream makers by hand for hours and hours because they didn’t have mint chocolate chip at the store and that was the kind that he wanted. And his smile made it all worth it. And when he was happy, it was so, so good. So it really is good that he’s happy now. That’s what I wanted all along. The problem is that he’s happy because of a dance, which probably means that he met a new boy.

And how do you feel about that?

Really shitty. I thought we were made for each other. But it’s not like I was sitting here waiting for him, or maybe I was, and I don’t know if I’m supposed to be, or if I still am.

And how do you feel about that?

Lonely. Bored.

And how do you feel about that?

I feel like this is stupid.

Am I four years old? All I do is cry and say things are stupid.

I’m stupid.

LIO

I’M IN HISTORY ON MONDAY WHEN MY CELL PHONE
starts buzzing. Luckily, we’re in the middle of a rousing conversation about Rochambeau, so no one hears it vibrate in my pocket.

At that moment, we hear the
bing
of our teacher’s email, and he goes to his desk and checks it. He frowns, but he doesn’t tell us anything.

The buzz and the
bing
are connected. I know it immediately.

I fake a sneeze and duck into the hallway to fake-blow my nose.

I check my phone. Michelle.

She’s
already sobbing when my phone connects to hers. She doesn’t even wait for me to say hi and then start crying. That’s when I realize it’s real.

I say,
“Are you okay?”

And she says, “Thiskidgotshotoutsidemyschool.” And then she’s sobbing again. My sister. “H-he got shot.”

“What?”

“My friend saw it, j-just outside. He j-just . . . he was
about to go inside—
”

She’s okay. She’s okay. It wasn’t her. I still can’t breathe. “Holy shit, Michelle. Holy . . . Oh, God, God, fuck.”

She mews. “Th-they’re going to make me hang up in a second, we’re on lockdown.”

“Okay. Okay. You called Dad, right?”

I can hear her brush against the speaker of the phone a few times. She’s nodding. “He’s o-on his way.”

“You’re safe. You’re safe? There are adults with you?”

“Yes.” She sniffles.

“Okay. You . . . don’t do anything stupid, okay? Stay safe until Dad gets there. Stay safe after Dad gets there!”

I let her hang up first.

I should call Dad. I want to. But he doesn’t need to worry about me right now. All my sisters are probably attacking him with calls, or they will as soon as they recognize the name of Michelle’s school. Maybe I should call Veronica, my middle sister? She’s six years older than me, but she
always reads my papers before I turn them in, and she’s good at softball, and boys like her. Would she be good at this?

He told us our children were safe at school.

My lungs are tightening up.

He told us they were safe.

My teacher sticks his head into the hallway and says, “Lio.”

I’m standing here holding my phone. He could give me detention. I expect him to at least take my phone away.

He says, “Back to class, now, okay?”

My tongue feels too heavy for my mouth. I nod and follow him back inside the classroom, but I don’t know if I’m going to stay or if I’m going to get my things and run.

They’ve rolled out the TV, and everyone’s crowded around watching the news. There’s the outside of my sister’s school. There’s a reporter, and her hair is perfect. There’s the police chief, and he’s crying.

He’s crying.

He’s our police chief, and he’s crying.

I need to get out of here. I need to get to my sister.

I’m fully willing to fake an entire string of sneezes to get out of this class, but the bell goes off as I’m gathering my stuff. Everyone mills around, mumbling to each other.
Thirteen years old. How did this happen?

How the fuck do they think it happened? Exactly the
same as the ones who
weren’t
thirteen. Why do we care so much more when it’s a kid who dies?