Yet, here I am.
Shouldn’t have worn my black T-shirt, I guess, the one with the triangle and rainbow prism shooting out of it: The Dark Side of the Moon album cover. But I had to. Also in my haste I forgot to put on deodorant. This never used to be a problem until recently. Now I smell like a burning landfill. Damn.
I casually turn to his house. It sits high in the air, a shanty held up by wooden stilts. And the stairs barely have any paint left on them: Little flecks keep peeling off, floating down to the sand with the breeze.
Web doesn’t think I know where he lives, so I’m hoping he’ll see me and come charging out again . . .
Nothing happens.
So I sit, staring at the ice-cream truck.
And I wait.
Hours whirl by: The line of kids springs forward, the clouds glide like dandelion seeds, and the bright-orange sun fades behind the trailers.
Still nothing— Wait. Maybe he’s gone. Maybe when he said he had to leave, he meant leave leave, as in back-to-his-rez leave. I didn’t even think about—
Twing-aling twing-aling twing-aling.
Mr. Farley rings the ice-cream truck’s bell, signifying the end of the unofficial first day of summer.
I have two choices:
1) Turn around, get back on Stingraymobile, ride home, watch reruns of Batman and Star Trek, and no one’s the wiser
2) Get two ice creams as planned, walk up the stairs, and see if he’s home
Really, is there a choice here?
21.
I WALK TOWARD his house.
Okay, what’s the big deal? I just came to surprise him with a Push-up Pop thank-you gift for, you know, saving my life and all because we’re friends, and then I’ll say something like “Hey, maybe we should hang out sometime this summer,” and he’ll say, “Cool, man,” and then I’ll jump on Stingraymobile and ride home. Done.
I reach the bottom of his stairs and look up. Suddenly I have vertigo. Suddenly they look like they’re swaying and tilting and growing to fourteen thousand steps instead of the fourteen I counted a thousand times. Suddenly I want to run.
I don’t.
First step-creak. Maybe this isn’t such a good idea. You should go back home now, Collins. Second, third, fourth step-creaks.
Wait a minute: You did not think this through. You aren’t supposed to know where he lives, remember? And anyway, he’s probably not even here. And also anyway, he probably doesn’t even want to see you anymore. School’s over, presentation’s complete, he’s killed five Apes, WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT?
Eighth, ninth, tenth step-creaks. WHY DO YOU KEEP CLIMBING?
It’s like my brain is yelling in one version of me, my legs are wobbling up in another version of me, and meanwhile, little creamy orange driblets keep tapping my thumb like a water torture thing. JESUS.
Thirteenth, fourteenth.
I think I might be dead. I read somewhere that soon after you die you poop and pee yourself. I swear to Ziggy if I so much as look down and see such business I’m dropping these goddamned Popsicles and running.
I look down. Okay, no. Just a puddle of orange from the Push-up Pop that basically no longer exists and basically makes this whole thank-you gift about as worthwhile as a puddle of pee and poop.
This is stupid. Stupidstupidstupid. I’m leaving. Anyway, it’s dark now and I should get back before—
The door flies open.
A whoosh of heat flashes through me like somehow I just opened the doors to the sun. I can’t even swallow.
And it is not Web standing in front of me. No. It’s an ancient version of Web. His dad, maybe? Grandpa? His long white-and-black hair is straggled like a wet mop, and he’s wearing nothing but frayed denim shorts. I think he might be melting. I could be imagining this.
I close my eyes tight. Open them again. Nope, he’s still there.
I blink. And blink. And blink.
“This is fun. I could do this all day,” the old man says. Whoa. His voice like nothing I’ve ever heard before. It’s like the Jolly Green Giant, but it’s deeper, like the thump of your own heartbeat.
I blink again.
“I would say for sure I’m winning, since you keep blinking,” he says, “but maybe your rules for a staring contest are different?” He laughs.
For a second, I am put to ease. “Sorry. So sorry.” I look down. “Does Web live here?”
“Jonathan?” Web emerges from the darkness. He’s wearing nothing but loose boxers.
I swallow the lake.
“What are you doing here?” he asks. It’s part surprise, part accusation.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to . . . I just came by to give you this.” I thrust the Push-up Pop toward him like an idiot. It’s now an orange glob of goo in a paper wrapper on a stick. “And say thank you.”
“Oh,” he says.
Stupidstupidstupid idea.
“I should go. Sorry again. Catch you later.” That’s what I wish came out of my mouth. Instead: “Shabbadebops.” Sweet Ziggy, what is wrong with me. I turn to hurtle down the stairs or crash through the broken railings.
“I figured you must be the white boy,” the old man says.
The white boy? I’ve been talked about before?
“Yeah,” Web says. “Sometimes he speaks in tongues. Jonathan, this is my grandfather, Dennis Standing Bear.”
“You cause a lot of trouble,” his grandfather says.
“I know, I know,” I say. “I should—”
“He’ll be right out.” And he slams the door.
“Oh. Okay,” I say to the door.
I hear muffled words in a language I don’t understand. Maybe they’re arguing. Maybe Web doesn’t want to see me anymore. Maybe he’s in trouble for paralyzing five high school boys and he’s going to prison and they know it’s my fault. I’m the frigging troublemaker.
Okay, decidedly now a bad idea. I did what I wanted to do, I said my thank-you, I’m going. Down the steps, back to my home, back to my room, back to my closet, back to my records, back to my—
“Hey.”
I flip around. Bright blue jeans, white ribbed tank clutching his chest and abs, shining black hair, and his twinkling eyes: like the sky decided to rest in them for the night.
“Hey,” I say, shoving the Push-up Pop at him. God.
“Thanks. Nice shirt.”
“Thanks.” Cool, he noticed. “Are you okay? I mean, from the other day.”
“Yeah, man.”
“Cool.” I rub my fingers against the grainy wood; paint flecks stick to my skin. “Your eye looks better,” I say. It does. Somehow in the span of three days it went from purple mess to yellow nebula. Of course it looks cosmically cool.
“They ever come back for you?” he asks.
“No. They left.”
“Left?”
“Yeah, they’re gone for the summer. Did you get in trouble?”
“Yes and no,” he says. “Let’s go.”
He sweeps past and smells like a funnel cake. “Hey, how’d you know I’m staying here?” he asks, unfolding the wrapper.
“Oh. Uh—” I look down, slowly unwrap what’s left of my Bomb Pop, which I now realize has streaked my arms in red, white, and blue stripes. Perfect. Anyway, I can’t lie. Not now. “I came back here. Last week. I saw you.”
He slurps his ice cream down like a tequila shot. “I know,” he says. “I saw you, too.” He laughs and bolts off.
He did see me, AND MY TENT. I knew it. Ohmanohmanohman. I can’t. I just. There’s no. What the. My brain is fizzling.
“Why didn’t you—say something—”
“Come on,” he yells. “Let’s go to our spot.”
22.
WHEN I REACH THE summit of the crying cliff, I grab a few poofs of PeterPaulandMary and glide over to Web.
Because his eyes have built-in night vision or something, he’s clearly been settled here for seven years waiting for me. Sprawled out on the mossy patch, arms folded behind his head, he’s lost somewhere in the sky. The three-quarter moon shines a perfect white glow on “our spot.”
I flop down next to him, follow his gaze, and KAPOW.
Whoa.
Above us, someone’s plugged in the Lite-Brite, I swear. I’m tingling. More than that, I am the Lite-Brite. And all the plastic pegs inside me zing to life.
I can’t help it. I start giggling. “Whoa.”
“I know, man,” he says, turning to me. “Whoa.”
We lie side by side. The only other sound I hear: our synchronistic breathing.
“Don’t you wish we could go up there?” I ask after a while. “And look back down on all this and laugh?”
“We can in our mind.”
“Like the moon,” I say.
“Like the moon . . .”
I tuck my hands under my head, smiling. “You know, Carl Sagan says we’re all made of star stuff. Everything is made of it. When stars die they fall into our atmosphere and turn into these chemical compounds that become things. Sometimes they become people.”
“Far-out.”
“I know. I hope one day we’ll all see each other without these stupid labels and instead see each other for who we really are. Starfolk.”
“Yeah,” he says. “One day . . .”
“Yeah . . .”
We’re staring. We’re swimming. We’re lost.
“Your turn,” I say.
“My turn what?” he asks.
“It’s your turn. Last time we were up here, I was the one to answer a question. Now it’s your turn.”
“Oh, so this is a continuous game that, what, goes on for our lifetimes?”
“Maybe.”
“Okay, then. Fire away.”
I nestle my cheek in the earth, facing him. “Why do you get so angry?”
“Oh.”
“I mean seriously? Sometimes I’m just waiting for your skin to turn green and your muscles to rip through your clothes and you’re going to start eating people like they’re little gummy bears.”
He laughs. “Yeah. It’s a problem.”
“So?”
His face hides nothing. You can see the wheels cranking, the mind gears spinning. Either he’s about to punch me in my face or—
“You really wanna know?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s kind of a long story . . .”
“Okay.”
His chest grows into a balloon, like he’s taking a deep breath for both of us. “Once upon a time—”
“Wait. For real?”
“What?”
“Once upon a time?”
“Yeah, man. What, are there rules on how to tell a story now?”
We laugh.
“Okay, then, go,” I say.
“Once upon a time,” he starts again, slowly. “There was a little boy. And this little boy loved his father very much.” His eyes glaze over, disappear in the night. “After his mother died, the father taught this little boy everything he knew. They had dreams. To drive across the country and eat a different slice of pie from every diner they could find. To be the first American Indians in space. Together, the father and son were indestructible. They were invincible.” The stars explode in his eyes. His voice drifts away.
“Then one night, driving in the middle of pitch-black nothing, two red and blue flashes appear in the sky. Carole King sings on the radio. A white cop beams a light through the window. The little boy’s father is dragged out of the car.” He yells, punching the wind with his words. “Crunching. Beating. Screaming. ‘Shut the fuck up, Injun, go back to your land!’ ‘This is my land!’ ‘Don’t you talk back to us!’” Pools of sweat drip from his forehead. “More screaming. Crunching. Beating. The little boy crawls in the back seat, curls up, cries. The cops drive away. A huge dust cloud blows all around the father and son. The little boy opens the back door. He looks down. His father lies in a river of blood. His eyes, dilated. The little boy’s superhero was dead.”
It wasn’t sweat dripping from his face.
I want to reach out, but I’m paralyzed.
“From that day on, the little boy vowed to avenge his father’s death. To make the white man pay. And one day—” He wipes his face with his shirt and looks at me. Starburst heat radiates from his body, slapping my face. I don’t move. I don’t blink. I honestly don’t know what to do.
“I win,” he says, and chuckles.
The world skips back to life: Crickets chirp, soft curly moss sticks to our cheeks, the waterfall cascades below us.
“She’s crying,” I whisper.
“Yeah . . .”
Something’s happening. My heart starts fluttering; my stomach starts tingling. Before I can figure out why, he leans in,
and kisses me.
Oh.
His soft lips cushion mine.
Whoa.
He closes his eyes. I close mine, and slowly open my mouth. He tastes so— He feels so— Our tongues begin to tangle and—
A static charge rips us apart. I push him off, sit upright. “No! What are you doing?”
He shoots up with me. “Sorry, man. I thought you wanted to—”
“No no no no no—” I rub my lips. They’re sizzling. “You shouldn’t have— Oh man, oh no—I have to go—” I try scrambling up. My body won’t move. It’s plastered to the spot. My chest feels like a thousand butterflies flapping their wings, trying to escape. I start pounding it with my fist to squash them dead. “I just—why did you—I don’t know, I—” A tear leaps from my eye. I swipe it away.
“I thought you liked boys. I mean, I thought, you know, me.”
“I do—I mean—NO, Web. We can’t—out here—we can’t—you know the trouble we’d get into—it’s sick—we could go to jail. I can’t—WE can’t—I can’t like boys. It’s wrong. I’m NOT allowed to like—NO—” Tears spill. I close my eyes so tight my muscles start to ache. I wish. I wish with all my might we were up in the stars looking down on us, laughing.
When I open them, we’re still here.
The three of us.
Me and the American Indian princess: crying forever tears.
And Web: His face twists, but his eyes, oh man, his eyes still glow like a perfect starfolk . . .
And all I can do is.
All I can do is.
All I can do is grab his long black hair and pull him in so tight I become him.
Our lips collide. Like two crashing meteors who’ve been waiting our whole lives for the impact.
And he smells so sweet, like boy sweat and soapy springs.
And his soft long hair, like delicate feathers, caresses my cheeks.
And when I think, This is what it’s supposed to feel like, it dissolves in his mouth and he whispers back to me, “Yes.”
Bolts of lightning strike my nerves like a wild electrical storm. I flinch, but stay connected to him. Locked. This may be the only time. The only time I can ever feel this again.
And I want it to last forever . . .
A cackling laugh slams us back to Earth. “What the hell you guys doin’?” some girl yells.
I panic and push Web off. “Get off me, you queer!” explodes out of me. “You . . . you fairy. Get off me!” I yell this so loud, it causes another rip in the lake.
Girl: “Jonathan?”
Web: “Jonathan?”
Me: “Just GO!”
I can’t look at him. I’m about to jump off the cliff, join the American Indian princess, when I hear: “Hey, hoochie-coochie momma! Jesus, this waterfall’s slick.” Dad? He’s climbing up the cliff. NO.
“What are you—” It
’s Heather. “Were you and that boy—”
“Is this little squaw botherin’ you?” A glowing demon in a red hat squirms next to her. Her brother, Hal.
“What?” I say, wheezing. “No. I just. He just—”
“Here I come, baby! Ready or not!” Dad. Closer.
I push Web. “GO!”
He looks at me, stunned, broken. It rips me in half. “Don’t,” he whispers. “Don’t be like them—”
“Just GO! Please.”
He stumbles up, runs, disappearing in the trees.
I swipe my eyes, try to grab my breath, my heart. Trees uproot, rocks crumble, stars die, the moon falls, falls, falls with the American Indian princess.
“That’s right. Run back to yer own land,” Hal yells.
“Don’t tell Dad I was here,” I say to them. “Please.” Heather twitches her nose. Hal smirks. “PLEASE.”
“I can’t promise nothin’,” she says.
“Jesus, this waterfall’s crazy,” Dad yells. “How’d you climb up there so fast?” He’s near the top.
I run. Slide and roll down the other side of the hill. Fumble through the sand. Jump on Stingraymobile.
The world blurs around me in a watercolor of sick and shame. The Lite-Brite in the sky’s unplugged. Clouds cover the moon. Was it even on? Were there ever any stars? Probably not. Probably imagined them. Like I imagine everything else.
* * *
—
I throw Stingraymobile on my porch. Run upstairs. Slam closet door. Wail to Ziggy on the Cross. I punch the walls and slap my face and want to beat myself to a bloody pulp.
I hate what I am.
I hate what I did.
The same thing that happened to me at the lake.
At the spot. When IT happened.
When Scotty gave me my first kiss.
23.
Ziggy, Stardust and Me Page 13