by Will Walton
The courthouse is huge and square, and outside of it is a statue of a Confederate soldier from Warmouth. The plaque beneath it reads: William Griggers. The brave shall know nothing of death. He holds a sword in one hand and a hat in the other. He is smiling.
I think sometimes about how fake that is.
Surely William Griggers, when he was alive, didn’t smile like this, or carry his sword and hat around casually at the same time. Not after the war, anyway, I wouldn’t guess. Joe says most soldiers come back from war torn up with broken hearts. “You remember Uncle Dennis?” Joe asked when he was explaining this to me. “Yeah,” I said, but it was a stretch. Uncle Dennis (my dad’s uncle, so technically my great-uncle) hanged himself a long time ago—in our grandparents’ backyard, actually. It was a couple years after he came back from Vietnam, and he was experiencing severe post-traumatic stress disorder, and “probably,” Joe explained to me, “some other things, too.”
When I asked him what he meant, Joe said, “Basically, something happened to him in the war that messed him up pretty bad, something so bad he couldn’t shake it, not even after he got home.” When I asked Dad about it, he said it was weird; basically, Uncle Dennis could be normal half the time and completely off his rocker the rest of the time. Dad said once he walked in on Uncle Dennis standing on top of the sofa and peeing onto the Farm family TV set. I laughed at that, but Dad said it wasn’t funny. Actually, he said, it was a little scary.
I think, before he died, Grandma and Granddad tried to get Uncle Dennis to move into a home where he could get proper care. When Uncle Dennis found out about this, though, he said he wouldn’t go, and to prove his point, he … well, you know.
“Did you see it, Dad?” I asked. “Did you see him after—?”
“No.” My dad shook his head. “But your granddad did. Saw his own brother all dead and hanging like that.” I started to feel queasy. A little while after, Joe walked into my room.
“Tretch,” he said. “What’s up, dude?”
“Joe, I’m so glad you’re alive,” I said, and he stood there for a moment, looking at me. I remember he was wearing boxers, an undershirt, and a pair of knee socks. He had on his glasses. He came over to me, bent down, and hugged me.
“I love you, Tretch,” he said. I think that’s the only time one of us has ever said that to the other.
It’s a strange thing to be thinking about as I push the door open to Books and trigger the little bell near the ceiling. I try to wipe all emotion from my face and keep my eyes on the floor.
Please, God, I pray, let it be Lana Kramer’s day off.
Lana Kramer is in ninth grade, too. She wears big glasses and turtleneck sweaters and heavy eye makeup. Joe once called her a “hipster kid,” which made me ask him, “Joe, aren’t you a hipster?” to which he answered, “Well, maybe.” He does have big glasses, and he likes old things—books, movies, clothes, stuff like that. But all that stuff makes Joe interesting. And for some reason it just makes Lana Kramer a know-it-all. Like when I told her I didn’t like The Great Gatsby, and she said, “Well, you might be too young to actually get it.”
I was so mad that day I had to walk out of Books empty-handed—which was especially unfortunate because Mom was there, and she was all, “Tretch, pick out something you want. My treat.”—because, as a matter of fact, I did “get” The Great Gatsby. And I would even go so far as to say I got it better than Lana Kramer. I mean, I picked up on Nick Carraway being gay and actually had to tell that to Lana Kramer.
“What?” she had said. “No, he’s not.”
“He is.”
“He’s totally not.”
“He is.”
Then I showed her the passage that says it all, on page thirty-eight of my paperback edition, right smack at the end of chapter two.
“You could read that a lot of ways, Tretch!” she contested after she read it. But I don’t think so. I mean, for the whole book Nick Carraway is totally obsessed with Jay Gatsby. I mean, that’s why the story he’s narrating is called The Great Gatsby and not something like Daisy Is Crazy.
I’m probably narrating a book right now called The Great Gooby and don’t even realize it.
I try to put thoughts of Matt out of my mind and shrug over to the paperback new release section, where I’ll be safe to sneak a peek at the front desk. Sure enough, when I look up, I see Lana Kramer there in the flesh, wearing a pink cardigan and stamping the inside covers of used books, prepping them for resale.
“Hey, Tretch,” she says, seeing me through the shelves with her new pair of pink-framed glasses. “Back for more Fitzgerald? Or will we be reading, yawn, Salinger today?”
It’s creepy how you remember all the books I buy, I think. “Uh,” I say. “Really just looking today.”
“Well, I’m obligated to tell you, there’s a sale this week on all young adult fantasy paperbacks.” She closes the book she was stamping and moves it onto a stack. “That covers your Twilight, your Hunger Games, and your Harry Potter.” She clears her throat. “Not that you would be interested in any of those, Mr. Literature.”
That embarrasses me. “Thanks, Lana,” I say. “I actually like Twilight. Problem is, I’ve already read them all.”
“Team Edward or Team Jacob?” Lana asks me, one eyebrow arched.
“Jacob,” I say. “I like pulling for the underdog. Plus, it totally sucks getting friend-zoned.”
“Sucks getting placed second banana to a vampire who sparkles in the sunlight.” Lana smiles. “Still, he’s smoking hot in the movies—”
“Smo-kin’,” I agree.
Lana squinches her eyebrows.
“Sarcasm,” I blurt. “Yeah, poor Jacob. Dumped by Bella in the books, dumped by Taylor Swift in real life.”
“Psh, whatever. I bet he was glad to be rid of her. She’s so dramatic and all—”
“You don’t like Taylor Swift?” I ask. “I love Taylor Swift.”
“Ugh.” Lana Kramer scrunches her face and sings in a mock whiny voice while shaking her shoulders. “ ‘I knew you were trouble when you walked iiiiin.’ Can’t stand her.”
I need to find a book and get out fast.
“You ever read A Separate Peace?” she asks me.
“Nope.”
Lana is holding a paperback in her hand. “Here,” she says. She gives it a few pumps and sails it over rows of historical fiction and nonfiction. I catch it safely. “Oh,” I say. On the cover there’s a young guy sitting at a window with his knees up around his chin. He looks cold and sad and lonely.
“This looks—” I start.
“Amazing?” Lana finishes for me. Her eyes are big behind her glasses. I check out the price tag on the cover. Six bucks.
“Just take it,” she says. “On the house.”
“Oh. Are you sure? You won’t get in trouble—”
She swats her hand in the air. “Please. My boss is my cousin. What’s he gonna do?”
“Thanks, Lana.” I feel bad just taking the freebie and not buying anything, though. “I’ll, uh … I’ll look around some more, too, if you don’t mind.”
“Oh.” She looks down. “Sure thing, Tretch. No problem. I, uh, I won’t distract you so much this time.” She gives a quick smile without looking me in the face, and I wander the shelves a little while longer.
I’m in the classics section, which feels right. I want something BIG. Something that will be a challenge for my two weeks off.
There are three F. Scott Fitzgerald books: Tender Is the Night, This Side of Paradise, Gatsby. There’s some Hemingway: The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Stories, The Old Man and the Sea, The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms. Of course there are Jane Austen and Charles Dickens. I haven’t read either of them since the abridged copies of Pride and Prejudice and Oliver Twist I got in the second grade. I hold a copy of Pride and Prejudice in my hand, then set it back on the shelf and trade it for a copy of Finnegans Wake. I weigh it in my hand, maybe the thickest book I’ve ever held, not counting th
e Bible. I put it back on the shelf and keep looking.
Moby Dick, Wuthering Heights, Silas Marner, Little Women, Their Eyes Were Watching God. I linger on Their Eyes Were Watching God for a minute, but finally I stick it back. Not quite it, I think. A book with a tattered, faded blue spine catches my eye and I free it from the shelf. It’s On the Road by Jack Kerouac, and on its cover is a black-and-white picture, like the one I pictured Matt sitting in, of two men standing close together. They are both facing the camera with sly half smiles and their hands in their pockets. One of them has his head cocked to the side.
I feel Lana Kramer’s stare.
“What you got there?” she asks.
“On the Road, Jack Kerouac.” I mispronounce the last name, which makes Lana laugh.
“It’s pronounced like ‘Karrow-ack,’ not ‘Kirrow-ock.’ ”
“Ah,” I say, and it bothers me that I’ve given her the chance to show off.
“Might go over your head. Then again, I told you the same thing about Gatsby.”
I look at Lana Kramer stamping books for a minute. I notice how she isn’t quite making eye contact. And then I realize something that makes me happy and sad at the same time.
Lana Kramer has a crush on me.
The best thing that could happen would be if I fell in love with Lana Kramer. But that could never happen because really, like, it’s actually impossible.
I take the Karrow-ack book to the counter. “I think this is the one,” I say.
Lana rings it up for me on the cash register. “Okay. Six dollars and one cent.” I pull a five and a one from my blue Velcro wallet, which makes an embarrassing ripping sound as I open it. The change part is, I find, empty.
Lana sees me searching and says, “Oh, no worries about the penny, Tretch.”
“Wow,” I tell her. “Two deals today.”
“Well, it is the holiday season.” Lana manages a smile at this. Her glasses slide down to the point of her nose. “Take it easy, Tretch. Enjoy those.” She points to the books now placed in the crook of my arm. A Separate Peace by John Knowles, On the Road by Jack Kerouac. I think it’s funny and kind of cool that the authors share the same initials. That kind of stuff always makes me feel like things are meant to be. Maybe they’ll teach me something I don’t already know about love, about being in love, or even just about being a person.
“Take it easy, Lana,” I say, careful to make sure it doesn’t sound anything more than friendly.
Once I’m outside the shop, I linger for a minute to spy through the shopwindow. I see Lana putting a wad of singles from her own pocket into the cash register. She’s paying for the copy of A Separate Peace. Then I see her digging even deeper into her pockets.
A penny emerges from her left hand, and she places it into the cash drawer.
When I get home, I knock on Joe’s bedroom door, though of course he’s not in there—he’s with his girlfriend, Melissa. I edge the door open ever so slightly and notice that his decorative lights, little red bulbs encased in these little Chinese takeout boxes, are still on, and I wonder if they’ve been on all day. After I unplug the cord from the wall, I do what I always do when I find myself alone in Joe’s room: I look around.
Joe’s walls are my favorite walls.
For starters, there are all these record sleeves tacked to them. College radio bands like Youth Lagoon, The Drums, Washed Out, and Zola Jesus, just to name a few. Oh, and Sufjan Stevens. I like to listen to Sufjan Stevens when the house is empty and I don’t feel like practicing my dance moves. He sings a lot about being in love in all of these different scenarios, which I like. And better yet, he puts them into stories.
Like, for example, there’s this one song he sings about a boy (I’m pretty sure it’s a boy) who’s got cancer, and it’s sung from the perspective of his best friend. At one point in the song, the best friend kisses the boy who’s got cancer, and there are all of these great scenes where they’re almost touching and stuff, and then there is this one line about the father finding out about them. It’s really beautiful—and sad, too, because of course the boy with cancer dies in the end, leaving the best friend to try to make sense of it all.
When I talked to Joe about the song, he said I impressed him, like he didn’t think I really listened to lyrics and thought about them as much as I did. I asked Joe if he thought Sufjan was gay because of my theory about the song being about two boys, and Joe just tipped his head to the side. “Hmm, I don’t know,” he said, and I nodded. I was about to cover my tracks—say “Just a thought” or something like that—but Joe added, “Although I don’t really see how that makes much of a difference. I mean, it’s not like I would like him any less.”
I couldn’t help but wonder what he meant by it. Like, was he trying to tell me something?
The phone rings. I run downstairs to the kitchen to answer it. I get there in four rings and snatch the phone from its cradle.
“Hel-lo?” My voice comes in an unintentional blast.
“Tretch?”
Oh my God.
“Matt?”
“Tretch.”
“Matt!”
He chuckles. “You sound excited to hear from me.”
“I am!”
Okay, Tretch, dial it back a few notches, why don’t you?
“Did you get the all-systems-go from your parents about Kong tonight?”
“Uh, no.” I run the phone—thank God I chose the wireless—up the stairs to my room. “I, um, well, I kind of suspected it was off since …”
“Well, that’s the thing. Amy’s saying she can go now, so I’m having a total freak-out moment. I—I need you to be there. I mean, holy Jesus, what are we even supposed to talk about?”
“You just be yourself, Matt,” I advise.
“Just tell your parents you’re doing me a favor, Tretch, because I’m a hopeless case with girls, and I need you. Tell them I need you like no other, Tretch.”
Mom and Dad, I’ll say. Matt needs me.
“Okay,” I tell him.
“Do not take no for an answer.”
I know, I know.
“Are your parents driving?” I ask. “Do I even have technical permission from them?”
“Yes, Pop is driving. Dad is doing some introduction before the movie starts so he’s going separately. And you have their full and unconditional permission.”
“Awesome,” I say. “I’ll let you know.”
“Call back.”
“I will. Bye.”
“Bye.”
I have to make this happen.
Mom is wrapping presents in her room. I can hear through the closed door the unspooling of wrapping paper from its cardboard middle and the rusty shing of the scissors. I knock.
“Mom?”
“Yes, Tretch?” Her voice is mildly panicked. “Uh, hold on just a minute …”
“Got it,” I assure her, putting my hands in my pockets. When she opens the door, I take them out.
“Thanks for knocking,” she says, smiling. “It speaks to your personal integrity.”
“Ha! Why, thank you, Mother,” I say—and it’s apparently a little too much because she looks at me with squinty eyes, suspicious.
“So who was that on the phone, hm?” she asks. “Lana Kramer?”
Mom overheard my conversation with Lana about Gatsby. I guess she felt the tension and misinterpreted it.
“Uh, no,” I say. “It was Matt.”
“Oh yeah? What’s he up to?”
“Well, he’s asked me to go to the movies with him and with … with Amy Sinks. You know, Young-’n-Fit.”
“I know who Amy Sinks is.” She smiles again. “Beautiful girl.”
I nod once, so basically I’m just hanging my head. “Yeah, well, she and Matt are going to the movies and …”
“Tretch, I’m not going to let you go and encroach on that poor boy’s date. He needs his space.”
I snap my neck up then, so drastically it pops. “Mom, what? Are you kidding me? Y
ou never let me ride out to the Old Muse.”
“Come on now. You two are together all the time. When you have a car and can drive yourself to the Old Muse, that’ll be fine.”
“But, Mom, please. Mr. Landon is driving.”
“Tretch, enough. I’m sorry, but you boys are going to have to learn not to depend on each other quite so much. If Matt is taking a girl out to the movies, then you need to let him do just that. Let him take her. Without you.”
“But—”
“And you do the good friend thing to do, which is call him right now and tell him you’ll be waiting up for a phone call from him later. He can tell you all about it then.”
“But, Mom, it’s not that.”
“Well, then, what is it?”
I swallow. What I say next comes up in a blurt like it’s been pocketed away for a while. “But Lana! They’ve invited Lana!”
It is a bald-faced lie, which is honestly not something I’m super accustomed to telling. Especially with Mom. God, I feel so bad. Especially now that said bald-faced lie is making her face light up all huge. “Really?” she asks. “Oh, Tretch, that—”
And the bald-faced lie works.
“—that changes everything, sweetie. Why didn’t you tell me that to begin with, huh?”
“Uh. I don’t know.” I shrug. “I guess it just made me feel embarrassed or something. I don’t know.” Mom opens her arms and I move right into them—and I’m not sure why exactly, maybe the guilt from lying or something, but I suddenly feel like I’m about to cry.
She mashes her cheek against my forehead. “A double date.” Her breath flutters against my ear. “So you probably need some money, huh?”
I know at this point I don’t even have to say it. But I’m generally a pretty straitlaced guy.
“No, I don’t need money,” I croak.
“Any thoughts on what you’re going to wear?”
“Uh, not sure.” I pull back from our hug, spinning away so she won’t see my face. She can always tell. “I’ll go survey my options and let you know.”
I flee.
Upstairs in my room, my options are:
A)a white T-shirt with Edward Scissorhands on the front