How Evan Broke His Head and Other Secrets (32 page)

Evan is suddenly struck by all of this, all of the yelling. He turns away from his father, walks absently into the living room and drops down on the couch. He stares blankly at the lifeless TV.

He didn’t want to act this way toward his parents. He didn’t want to fight. After the gig, talking with Mica, it was all so clear: do not blame other people for being themselves, you will only be frustrated by it.

But he couldn’t help himself. He let them draw him into a fight. He let them get to him. Why? Why couldn’t he have just walked away?

There’s too much, too many years for it to happen easily, he guesses. It will take a lot of time. With Mica and Dean he can change his story, because they hardly know him. But with his parents, it will take years. It may never happen.

“Carl, ” Louise says, “let’s go.”

“No—”

“Carl!” Louise says more firmly.

Carl takes a few hesitant steps toward Evan, aware, perhaps, that something has just happened. Sensing that, in an instant, their entire family has changed.

“Can I take a look at your collarbone?” he asks Evan gently.

“No, ” Evan answers.

“Evan—”

“No, ” Evan repeats. He looks up at his father.“No. There’s nothing for you to fix here. I don’t even know why you’re still here.”

“Because we’re your parents, ” Louise says. “That’s what parents are supposed to do. We’re supposed to be here when everyone else has gone.”

Evan doesn’t reply. He returns his gaze to the dark TV, afraid they might see his face.

After a moment of silence, Carl nods, his head heavy. He turns and motions to Louise, who, dismayed, walks to the door. They hesitate a moment, perhaps hoping for a reprieve. And then they leave.

AS THE BLACK car creeps along the highway, Evan leans back and fails to relax; there is too much fight ahead of him to relax.

He takes out his cell phone and tries Ellen’s number; he’s startled when she answers.

“It’s Evan, ” he says.

“Evan, ” Ellen replies cheerfully.“How are you?”

“Tell me Frank hasn’t beaten Dean yet, Ellen. Because if he has, I will personally murder you both, and I’m quite serious about that.”

“Frank?”

“If he’s raised a fingernail against Dean, I will make sure I arrive with squad cars. Tell me Dean’s all right.”

“He’s fine, but—”

“Then why the hell did you bring Frank back!”Evan shouts.“You told me you’d never let Frank near Dean! Why the hell is he back?”

“Evan, he—”

“There is no possible explanation that will satisfy me. I’m on my way to Walla Walla right now and I’m taking Dean back to Seattle. We’ll stay as long as it takes to clear up the marijuana possession charges, but then we’re leaving and that’s the end of it. I can’t believe you would do this to Dean!”

“Evan, Frank isn’t here.”

“Well, not right now he isn’t. But he’s
there
, believe me. I know.”

“How do you know, Evan?” Ellen asks.

“Dean told me.”

“I see. Well, Evan, Frank
was
here, that’s true. He came by two days ago to pick up the rest of his things. He was here for several hours loading some furniture into a pickup truck. Then he left. He’s never coming back. I don’t know what Dean could have seen that would make him believe Frank was staying here, but he isn’t, I assure you.”

“But I thought—”

“He
isn’t
, Evan. I assure you.”

Oh, man. Could Dean have gotten it wrong? Could he have misinterpreted something?

“I’m sorry, ” Evan says.“My mistake.”

“And what’s this about marijuana possession charges?”

“Well, that I
know
is true. Dean called me from the police station. He was arrested.”

“He wasn’t
arrested
, Evan. I swear, I don’t know where he’s getting these stories. He was
detained
. For loitering. In the parking lot of a 7-Eleven.”

There you go with the 7-Eleven again.

“But there
was
marijuana, right?” Evan asks. Now he really doesn’t know
who
to trust.

“Yes, there was.”

“See!”

“They found a bag in the garbage bin. The police don’t believe it came from the boys because there was so much, and apparently it’s not the type they see on the streets around here. I’m not much of a marijuana expert. They believe it was only a coincidence: the boys may have unwittingly stumbled onto a drug deal and frightened the culprits who dumped their marijuana in the garbage to escape.”

Thank God the cops didn’t put the puzzle together differently. Obviously
Dean
stashed the pot in the Dumpster before he was caught. Clever kid

“So there’s no arrest?” he asks.

“No.”

“And Frank isn’t threatening to beat him to death?”

“No.”

“So I drove all night across the state, had a seizure and drove into a telephone pole for nothing?”

“Oh my! What happened?”

“I had a small accident.”

“Are you all right?” she asks.

“I’ll survive.”

“Well, Dean misses you tremendously; he talks about you all the time. He’s spent most of his time in his room.”

“Really?”

“Yes. And he’s made his Christmas list. He would like a guitar and some lessons, he told me. What do you make of that?”

Yes. What does he make of that?

He looks out the window of the speeding car. Outside it is vast and dry. Hillier than he’d remembered; hills that roll about playfully on both sides of the highway. He notices a marshy area and a large man-made lake, the back end of a reclamation project. There are farms and farmers, trucks and tractors, and irrigation systems with giant wheels that drive watering pipes around a central hub. There are fields of fruit which soon change over to fields of grain. There are fields of lazy cows and fields of galloping horses. Fields of futuristic windmills, whipping their blades around to provide even more electricity for the surrounding communities. There are roadside towns that look like they belong in a different age altogether. There are rivers that rush up to the highway and run alongside it for a little while, like a friendly dog, only to veer away quickly. There are children riding dirt bikes through a makeshift BMX course on the side of a hill. There is the road, relentless and sure, flicking its yellow tongue quickly before them, smelling its way to their destination.

E
VAN GETS OUT of the car and feels the brilliantly hot air quickly attach itself to his skin. One hundred three degrees in Walla Walla, ladies and gentlemen. One-oh-three. The sidewalk seems to grab Evan’s shoes as he walks. Each time he lifts a foot he hears a sticky sound, like peeling a label of a jar. It’s so hot, the streets are melting.

Evan’s shoulder hurts whenever he takes a breath. He wishes he had gotten some pain pills from the doctor. He steps up on the porch and rings the doorbell. After a moment, Ellen appears behind the screen. When she sees him, her look changes to concern.

“You poor boy, ” she says.“Dean’s around back”

Evan nods and starts off the porch.

“Will you stay for dinner, Evan?” Ellen asks.

Evan is startled by the question; then he considers it for what it is.

“Yes, thanks, ” he replies.

He steps down onto the walk.

“You’re welcome to stay the night if you like.”

“We’ll see. Thank you, Mrs. Smith.”

“Will you be taking Dean with you?”

Evan turns and looks up at her. He can’t tell if she asked with a hint of hope in her voice.

He nods at her slightly. And she nods back more vigorously. She wipes her hands on her apron.

“A boy needs his father more than he needs his grandmother, ” she says, and she fades into the darkness of the house.

HE HEARS SOMETHING, a strange squeaking noise.
Squeak, squeak.
Like bedsprings. Someone bouncing on a bed.

As he rounds the corner of the house, he can see into the backyard, and there he is. The Boy Wonder. Tossing a baseball into a springy net backstop that tosses the ball back to him.
Squeak,
squeak, squeak.

Evan opens the gate and approaches cautiously. Dean doesn’t notice him until he’s only a few feet away. When he does see him, he catches the ball and looks quizzically at Evan.

“What happened to your arm?”

“I—” He stops. How does he answer? “I broke my collarbone.”

A half answer at best.

“How?” Dean asks.

What can he say? How can he tell Dean that he drove into a telephone pole, knowing full well that Dean’s mother died less than a month ago in a high-speed automobile collision?

Dean senses Evan’s reluctance.

“You crashed your car, didn’t you?”Dean asks.“You can say it.”

“I crashed my car.”

Dean nods and throws his ball into the backstop.

“I was driving over from Seattle and I crashed.”

Dean catches the ball and throws it again.

“I’m sorry, ” Evan says.

Dean shrugs, catches and throws the ball.

“Did you have any trouble with Frank?” Evan asks.

Dean catches the ball and eyes Evan suspiciously.

“Grandma made him go away, ” he says.“He won’t be back.”

“Oh, that’s good. What about the pot thing?”

“I guess they let me go or something.”

“Oh, yeah? Do you think they’ll give me my pot back?”

Dean cracks a smile, but doesn’t share it with Evan.

“Can I play?” Evan asks.

“Sure, ” Dean says. He removes his glove and hands it to Evan with the ball in the webbing. Evan takes it with his good hand. “Knock yourself out.”

He walks away and sits on the porch steps.

That wasn’t exactly what Evan had in mind by play. He follows Dean to the porch.

“Look, Dean, ” he says, “you didn’t have to have an emergency to get me here.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I was coming anyway, you know.”

“What do you mean?”

“I was already on my way. You didn’t need to be in trouble to get me here.”

No response. They’re silent.

“Somebody made an offer on my apartment, ” Evan says after a moment.“I’d have to talk to your grandmother about this, but do you really have to live either here or in Yakima?”

Dean shrugs.

“Because I was thinking, you could sell your mom’s house in Yakima, I could sell my apartment, and then maybe we could get a little place near Green Lake or something. Nothing big. The schools are good around there, and we could get a windsurfer or something. They have a ton of soccer teams there. And I’m sure
someone
plays street hockey, right?”

Nothing.

“It doesn’t have to be a parent-kid thing. We could write down rules. We’d both abide by them. You know. It would be like a partnership thing.”

“What about Grandma?”

“Well, we can talk to her. Maybe she’d want to move back to Seattle. You know, she lived there when your mother was growing up. She might not even like Walla Walla.”

“She hates it.”

“See? Or we can make sure to get a house with an extra bedroom so she could visit whenever she wanted. We can figure something out.”

Dean studies the palm of his hand for a moment.

“So now you want me again?” he asks.

“Dean, I’ve got to be honest. I got scared. I got really scared that I would ruin you, you know? That I would make all the wrong decisions and say all the wrong stuff. When you tried to push me away, I let you do it, like I let your mom do it a long time ago. Instead of thinking about it a minute, I threw it back in your face. And when I hit you, it scared the shit out of me, honestly. I panicked.”

Dean doesn’t respond, but he switches hands and studies the other palm.

“People make up stories about themselves, Dean, ” Evan says. “They tell themselves stories, and then they try to make those stories come true. Sometimes the stories are good, but sometimes people make up bad stories about themselves because maybe someone told them something once and they believed it. It’s easy to believe, Dean.”

Dean nods at his feet.

“But you can change the story. You can take a bad story and make it good and try to fulfill it, take responsibility for it, and then nobody can do anything to hurt you unless you let them.”

They sit for several minutes thinking about what Evan has said, and about the sky and the brown grass in the backyard, about the dilapidated fence at the end of the yard that needs replacing or at least painting, about the man across the yard who’s shingling his house with a rhythmic banging that teaches an elementary lesson in physics: light travels faster than sound. What he’s said sounds a little ridiculous, a little simplistic, a little moralistic. But it makes sense, especially to a fourteen-year-old. Which is what Evan is. Which is why he can relate.

“So, what do you think?”Evan asks.“You want to rewrite our story?”

Dean shrugs a nod at him, again, not meeting eyes, again not speaking, just reaching down and pulling at his shoelace, tucking a small stone into an eyelet.

I feel like I’ve failed you.

No, Dad, you haven’t failed me.

“I’ll start, ” Evan says.“I have epilepsy. Did your mother ever tell you that?”

Dean shakes his head no.

“Do you know what epilepsy is?”

I feel like I’ve failed you.

Dean starts to nod, then shrugs, then pulls at his shoelace again.

Evan holds up his wrist.

You haven’t failed me, Dad. But my head is broken and you can’t fix
it. Nobody can fix it.

“This is my Medic Alert bracelet, ” he says.“There’s a telephone number on it that you can call . . .”

Dean glances at the bracelet, then looks at Evan, who is struck by his eyes, glowing at him like giant emeralds. And his ears. And his cheeks and his mouth. His hands and arms. He is Evan. He is Evan incarnate. Evan made him.

Dad, Mom, Brother. You haven’t failed me. But you have all grown up.
You have all grown old. And I’m still the same. I’m still fourteen-years-old.
And I’m just now waking up.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Lori Ames, Kristen Bearse, Tina Bennett, Bryan Devendorf, Yale Fergang, John Field, Douglas Fleming, Muffy Flouret, Wallace Gray, Tom Hobson, Lynn Hoffman, Ted Houghton, Laura Hruska, Soyon Im, Juris Jurjevics, Douglas Katz, David Katzenberg, Peter Kenney, Roy Kimbrell, Dena Jo Klingler, Jennifer Lager, J.R. Lankford, Ailen Lujo, Amy Lumet, David Massengill, Richard Morris, Scott Morrison, Arash Nadershahi, Len Nahajski, Joel Nichols, Kevin O’Brien, Sandy and Stephen Perlbinder, Janet Rumble, Astrid Sabella Rosa, Paula Schaap, Corey Stein, Marvin and Yolanda Stein, Liane Thomas, Doug Thompson, Terry Tirrell, Andrea Vitalich, Jonathan Wald . . .

Caleb and Eamon

and, in all dimensions, throughout all time,

Drella