“They’re bringing Quincy back home, but they tell me there’s a new development to discuss.”
Fifteen minutes later, Ms. B’s pacing her living room.
Whit’s in the bathroom.
I’m sitting on the couch, trying to not overanalyze what new development means.
A loud knocking evaporates our haze.
And I suppose I was expecting Q to come gliding in, ducking to avoid bumping his head the way he always did even when he could clear the threshold, a habit cultivated from years of knots and bruises on his face.
But there’s no danger of that now, as they deliver Q in a gurney identical to the one they took him away on. Q in some sort of deep sleep.
Eyes and lips clenched. Hands folded flat against his chest.
Ms. B doesn’t look surprised by Q’s state, and she leads them up to Q’s room.
As the men return, I hear Ms. B close the door, her body revealed from the feet up as she descends the stairs, like watching a picture leave a printer, a couple of lines visible at a time.
I don’t hear Mr. Oklahoma enter the house.
I don’t see him standing in the threshold.
But here he is, his demeanor all business.
“This will be hard to hear,” he says. “The good news is we were able to reset Q back an hour prior to his collapse. He will wake in a few hours and he will have no recollection of what happened.” He frowns. “However, Q did suffer a significant setback. There was an inexplicable surge in Q’s brain that induced, in simplest terms, a coma. During this comatose state, Q’s brain activity, along with the rest of his vital organs, began behaving as if Q were, in fact, dead.”
“What are you saying? Just say what this means already,” Ms. B demands. Her face a diagram of impatience: eyes narrowed, lips curled, forehead flexed.
“My apologies.” Mr. O nods, throat-clears. “It means Q’s length of stay was seriously impacted.”
“Wait, you’re saying he won’t get four weeks?” I interject.
“Regretfully, no,” Mr. O replies.
Ms. B’s voice jumps like someone startled her from behind. “So, how much time are we talking? How much does he have left?”
“Three weeks?” Whit asks. “Less?”
Mr. O shakes his head. “It truly pains me to say, but it would be a miracle if Q lasted another forty-eight hours.” He removes his glasses, gives them a quick buff with his handkerchief.
“No! No! You promised me . . . you said there was nothing to worry about!” Ms. B yells, and I have to step in front of her to keep her from crossing the room in a fury.
Mr. O, however, doesn’t seem to notice his life’s in jeopardy. “But we do have another option. We could put a hard cap on Q’s reanimation.”
“What does that mean?” I ask.
“We’d set the exact time Q would re-die. That way there are no surprises. That way everyone can prepare.”
Ms. B wags her head in disbelief. “But you just said you don’t know how much time he has. That it could be a day, two days.”
“We would have to schedule him to re-die tonight. We could give you a couple of hours to say your goodbyes.”
And I’ve never seen Ms. B move so quickly—even when we were racing to the conference room at the hospital. And then she’s barreling into Mr. O, shoving him back onto the sofa, Mr. O’s eyes like the first letter of his last name, wind knocked from him, he struggles to talk, to explain.
But Ms. B appears beyond all that.
“You lied to me,” she says over and over. “I never would’ve done this! I shouldn’t have done this! What was the point? Two days? Two days!”
I do my best to pull her away, the Center’s team of transporters don’t touch her, but they gradually slide between her and Mr. O, forming a human wall between them.
Mr. O stumbles to his feet, stoops to catch his breath, hands on his knees.
“You’re a liar! I’m gonna report this! Don’t you ever touch my son again! This is done! This is over!”
Mr. O holds a hand up, his face turned down. This, the first time he’s appeared uncollected, noncomposed. “I am so very sorry,” he’s saying. “But at least you had more time, you still have more time, please, understand that we—”
“Get the hell outa my house! Take your machines and your people and I don’t want to see you anywhere near my son! You hear me? If you come within a hundred yards of here, I’ll shoot you. I’m not playing! I’ll . . . I’ll . . . f-f . . .”
Her words falling.
Breaking.
Into bits, into letters, into wet sounds.
Her knees buckle and I push myself under her body, do my best to lower her to the floor.
Mr. O nods at his men, and they exit the house, quickly, quietly.
Then he gathers his glasses from the sofa, finds one of the arms badly bent, the frames skewed. He slips them into his shirt pocket. Runs his hand around his waist, retightening his tucked shirt. He moves slowly across the living room, the way you do when you’re not sure you want to leave.
When you know you’re leaving things undone, and worse than before you arrived. He stands with his back to us, the front door opened, framing his slender body, dusk dropping into the horizon like flour into a bowl.
The lamppost light in the yard spasms to life.
A dog barks a few doors down.
Ms. B sobs into my shirt.
Mr. O turns around, tilts his head at Whit, at me, at Ms. B.
“What happened?” I ask. “Please. What went wrong? Was it something we did?”
“Dr. Iverson told you Q was our first spontaneous reanimation?”
“So, you’re saying this is all because you didn’t have enough time to prepare?” Ms. Barrantes says, her voice broken. “You told me he’d be okay. You gave me your word.”
“I am sorry that we did not fulfill the entirety of our promise to you, Ms. Barrantes. Truly sorry,” he says. “But the work we are doing at the Center is good work. Important work. And it will go on.” His words a promise and a threat.
“You should leave,” Whit says. “Now.”
His right hand plays piano on the door, and he nods again. Holds up the peace sign. “I do wish we could’ve given you more, but I know you will use the time that remains wisely.”
Day 4
<48 Q Hours Left
29
This time we don’t know when Q will wake.
And although none of us say it, given the Center’s unreliability, we can’t even be certain that he will.
Twenty-four to twenty-eight days reduced to forty-eight hours tops?
Just like that.
Had this always been a possibility?
Was it a coin flip, or even a likelihood that they’d opted not to mention?
At one point, Ms. B suggests that maybe they’ve gotten it all wrong—that maybe Q will go on living for weeks. Maybe months, she says.
Whit and I exchange looks, but we don’t challenge her. We know this is grief talking. We, too, have tried to speak impossibilities into existence.
We, too, have rattled off miracles, as if they were as easy as asking.
Truth is, we’ll probably never have answers.
Not that we’d believe them if they tried to explain what had gone wrong.
All I know is this:
Q likely has less than forty-eight hours left on this planet.
And as much as I despise Mr. O right now, he was right about this one thing:
Every minute was invaluable.
Every moment needed to be maxed.
We say spending time because time costs.
No moment’s free.
Every second, a price.
To Autumn: Hey, I’m so so so sorry!!! Please text me back.
To Autumn: Or call me. Whatever you want.
And then, later.
To Autumn: You’re right. I did lie to you.
To Autumn: But I didn’t want to.
To Autumn: I was trying
to do the right thing.
To Autumn: But the right thing wasn’t completely right.
To Autumn: Q’s back.
And then later, still.
To Autumn: Q’s awake.
His eyes flutter, he coughs, licks his lips, stretches, then leaps into the corner of his bed. “Why the hell are you guys staring at me while I sleep? Did you join a cult while I was out? Am I being sacrificed? Because you don’t want me, I’m all bones. But J, on the other hand, he’s a little meatier. Look.”
Ms. B falls onto Q and he’s clearly confused, concerned. But he pats her on the back. “What’s happening?” he asks. “Am I okay?”
“Yes,” she tells him, swiping her eyes, only for more tears to take their place. “You’re fine, baby. Everything’s fine.”
And then my phone buzzes.
Autumn: I’m glad Q’s okay.
Autumn: But until you tell me the whole truth, we still aren’t.
But how am I supposed to tell Autumn the truth when Ms. B, even with Q down to his final two days, still won’t budge on telling him?
“He deserves the truth,” I tell her, following Ms. B to the kitchen.
But she’s all no no no no no no no.
She’s all, you might as well pour concrete around my feet, because I’m not moving off this decision. I appreciate the situation’s gravity, the heaviness—how hard it would be for Q to wrestle with hey, man, guess what, you’re dead without adding the whole oh yeah and then you were temporarily resurrected thing.
The chances of that conversation going well?
That it wouldn’t result in a trifecta of wailing, obscenities, and grave depression? Go ahead and write ZERO in every language here.
But even a difficulty rating of FREAKING IMPOSSIBLE is not an excuse.
The right thing’s the right thing.
I finally want to do the right thing, no matter what.
And okay, I’m not saying there isn’t an argument to be made for not telling him.
When Ms. B says, “I want him to enjoy his last days on this earth, not grapple with his mortality,” I totally get it.
It makes a lot of sense. Deserves consideration.
But in the end, to me, it’s not good enough.
When you’re talking about someone’s life, I don’t think you should hang your hat on what you want.
On how you feel.
And yeah, sure, I get that it’s easy for me to say.
I’m not his bereaved mom. Or his grieving family.
I’m a once-upon-a-time best friend, now wafting within the margins of Q’s sadly all-too-shortened life.
But still.
Still.
Think how you’d live if you knew you had only days left.
Now think how you live most days.
Okay, so you tell me: would you rather have the time of your life doing the things you’ve always wanted, or would you rather spend twenty minutes staring into your sister’s magnification mirror while you pluck curly nose hairs so long they resemble a pig’s tail?
Guys, this is not a trick question.
And so I just say it:
“You deciding not to tell Q is wrong,” I say louder than I intended. Both of us louder with every sentence.
Maybe that’s why we never hear him come into the kitchen.
“Tell me what?” Q asks.
Ms. B and I both whirl around, stunned, jaws dropped, our eyes saucers, all of it.
“Nothing, baby,” Ms. B says, shooting me a look that could’ve easily wiped out the dinosaurs. “Jamal was planning a surprise party and . . .”
“A surprise party,” Q repeats. “For what?”
“Oh, uh, for, uh . . .”
And while Ms. B searches for the next lie to tell, internally I can feel it happening. The words. The truth. Swirling in my gut. Full of the worst shit and rising higher and higher with nowhere to go, like a clogged toilet, it’s gonna spill over. It has to.
“Q, there’s . . . there’s something I need to tell you . . .”
But Ms. B’s waving me off. Her death gaze on bajillion. “Jamal, shut up. That doesn’t belong to you.”
“I’m sorry, Ms. Barrantes. I love you. But this doesn’t belong to you either.”
“Jamal, if you say . . . if you do this, you will never . . .”
I shake my head. “Never what? Set foot in this house again? See my friend Q again? All of those things are likely no matter what.”
“What the fuck’s happening? Why won’t you see me again?”
Her face changes from anger to fear. “I’m begging you. Please don’t do this.”
“What’s wrong with you, J?” Q continues. “Are you sick?” And now he’s palming his forehead. “Fuck, you’re sick, aren’t you? When are you gonna catch a break, damn . . . listen, it doesn’t . . . you’re strong, man . . . and I promise you I won’t leave your side no matter what ha—”
“Q,” I say. I repeat his name over and over until he finally stops, Ms. B slumped in the kitchen corner. “I’m not sick, man. Please, please, just listen to me . . .”
Whit appears in the doorway beside Q. Her face perplexed. “What . . . what’s going on?”
“Your brother is about to ruin my son’s life. That’s what’s going on.”
Whit turns to me. “What are you doing, J?”
“The thing I should’ve done already.”
“I won’t let it happen,” Ms. B says, holding up her phone. “I’ll call the police.”
But Q walks over to his mom, takes the phone from her hands. “Mom, I love you. But whatever this is, you can’t protect me from everything. I don’t need you to. I love you, but you’ve gotta let me be my own person.”
“You don’t think I know that? You don’t think I want you to be? That I’m not already proud of the human you are?”
Q nods. “If you really believe that, then you’ll let whatever this is, happen.”
And she doesn’t say a word.
“Whit, will you stay with my mom for a bit?”
Whit nods.
And Q turns to me, motions for the door. “Let’s go for a walk.”
We don’t ask which way?
We just fall into stride.
Fall into our route.
How many times had we run down this sidewalk?
Hopped off and pushed our bikes past this house because the owner used to yell sidewalks are for walking, not riding. Hopped back on soon as we turned this corner.
“Q, I . . .”
Q holds up a finger. “We got time, right?”
I nod. “Yeah, man. Sure.” Even though that’s what all this boils down to. Time.
We walk past a pink house and Q nudges me. “Yo, your spot, bro.”
“Dude, really?” I laugh.
“Caught you slobbing and dobbing Brenda Longfellow. It was like you were eating each other’s faces.”
“Okay. Whatever.”
“The same Brenda Longfellow who spent that entire summer calling you Janky Jamal and harassing you every time you walked past her house.”
“Then the last day of the summer, magical.” I sigh dreamily. “Ah, the mysteries of the heart.”
And it’s wild, how places keep our memories whole; a building, or a park, or a patch of grass between two houses, each like a preserves jar.
We pass an auto parts shop where all the employees knew my dad by name. And then the convenience store where Q and I spent all our lawn-cutting money buying fruit snacks, chips, SLAM magazine. Then we’re in front of Dollar-A-Slice Pizza.
28
* * *
JAUNCY IN THE STREETS
TuberOne
29,452 views 9.2K 374 | JAUNCY COMEDY DUO | SUBSCRIBE 21,265
* * *
CUT TO: outside DOLLAR-A-SLICE PIZZA
Q: So, we’re outside DOLLAR-A-SLICE PIZZA, where every slice of pizza costs just . . .
PAN TO: a fourteen-year-old kid wearing a personalized Lakers jersey and holding a paper plate with a
slice of cheese pizza on it
Lakers Jersey: Like five dollars?
Q: No.
Lakers Jersey: Three dollars.
Q: No.
Lakers Jersey: Man, I hate math.
Q: You just bought a slice of pizza.
Lakers Jersey: And?
Q: How much did that slice cost?
Lakers Jersey: I don’t know. I just handed him a twenty, bro.
Q: How much did he give you back?
Lakers Jersey: What, you want me to count it?
*Kid fishes a wad of bills from his pocket, zoom in on Q’s face*
Q: We haven’t even gotten to the actual question yet, but honestly, I’m . . . riveted.
Lakers Jersey: Wait, are you guys even famous enough for me to do your video?
PAN TO: Q’s face like, whaaaat did he just say?
Q: We just hit twenty thousand subscribers, so.
Lakers Jersey: Aw, well, don’t feel bad. You guys seem cool. You’ll get there.
*Q trying to hold it together, before busting out laughing*
Q: Wait, so you a big Lakers fan?
Lakers Jersey (points to the front of his jersey with pride): Ride or die.
Q: So, help me out. I’m not familiar with any Laker named C. D’Brickashaw.
Lakers Jersey (laughing): Man, it’s personalized. That’s my name. Coyote D’Brickashaw.
Q (head tilted in contemplation): Wait. So. Hmm. Your legal name, what’s printed on your actual certificate of birth, is Coyote D’Brickashaw?
Lakers Jersey: Yep. Why? Am I the first Coyote you know?
*Zoom in on Q’s face, nodding slowly*
*A chime plays and CORRECT flashes on the screen*
Q: I never say anything with a hundred percent certainty, Coyote, but I am one hundred and eighty-nine million percent confident you are the first Coyote this entire planet knows.
*A chime plays and CONFIRMED flashes on the screen*
Q: You got any siblings, Coyote?
Lakers Jersey (smiling): A sister. Her name’s Turtle.
*Q passes out on the sidewalk, unconscious*
CUT TO: Q, back upright
Q: I know you don’t like math, Coyote, but this is gonna be a simple equation, okay? I’m gonna throw you an easy lob for you to slam home. You ready?
Early Departures Page 18