Anything Could Happen

by Will Walton

  What black magic hath Ellie Goulding wrought this night? This is not the Matt Gooby I know. This is not my best friend. This is an actual best friend. This is him saying, I care about you, Tretch Farm, and I’ll still care about you even after I’m gone.

  “You care so much for other people,” he continues. “But I worry that, after I’m gone, there won’t be anyone at school to care for you.”

  I am looking out my window. I don’t want to see the expression on Mom’s face as Matt says these things, and I really don’t want her to see mine. I don’t want her to see it as it sinks in, as I realize, Matt does love me.

  He loves me, and he only knows the half of me, the half I let him see. The same goes for Mom, for Dad, for Grandma and Granddad. For everyone, really, except for Joe and Lana. This whole time I’ve been picturing my secret as something I’ve been keeping to protect them, to make it easier for them to love me. But instead I’ve just been robbing them—robbing them of the chance to love the full me.

  I’ve been making it harder on them.

  “Hmm,” I say. “Well, don’t worry about me, Matt. I’ll be—” I realize now that I have to tell him. “I’ll be fine. Really. I mean, I’ll miss you and all, don’t get me wrong.”

  “I’m gonna miss you, too, Tretch,” he says. “My best friend.”

  I turn in my seat to look at him. Mom has been quiet all this time, which I appreciate. Her eyes are straight ahead on the road. I have to tell them all, I think. But when?

  “Matt,” I say. “In case you ever had any doubt, you are my best friend, too. And everyone knows, you never meet anyone in your whole life who means exactly the same thing to you that your first best friend means. It just doesn’t work that way.”

  I turn back around in my seat.

  “You must have read that somewhere,” he says, laughing.

  Once we get back to my house and my room, Matt starts doing that thing where he takes off all his clothes in front of me before he gets in the shower. He’s still talking about the dance. “I mean, Tretch, you gotta teach me those moves. Did you see how everyone was crowding around you? Total genius, dude.”

  “Matt,” I say. He’s unbuckling his belt, and I think, Well, now’s as good a time as any. “I’m gay,” I say. “Uh, sorry it took so long for me to tell you.”

  Matt’s elbows sag at his sides, his hands still gripping his belt buckle. The look on his face is so warm, I think for a moment he might be about to confess, too.

  So this is it, I think. If it’s ever going to happen, it’s going to happen now, and he’ll tell me that he’s gay, too, and that all his girl-craziness talk has just been his cover-up, because, like me, he was just too embarrassed to say anything before.

  “Tretch,” he says. “That’s awesome. I mean, you know it’s cool with me and all, since I am the one with two gay dads here, but—” He smiles. “Thanks for telling me.”

  I bob my head. “You’re welcome.”

  I want to leave the room before Matt drops his pants. Honestly, I’m not even sure if he will drop his pants now that I’ve told him. That would just be disrespectful, right? Or maybe it would be disrespectful for him not to, since he normally would? I don’t know.

  “I’m going to run and grab a sleeping bag downstairs for me to sleep in. Oh, and maybe when you get out, we’ll go downstairs and watch the ball drop on TV.”

  “Sweet deal,” he says.

  I turn to leave.

  “Oh, and, Tretch—”

  “Yeah?” My hand is on the doorknob.

  “I mean, really, thanks, uh—” He hesitates. “Uh, thanks for telling me. I know it’s … Well, I know it’s not the easiest thing. It’s a big deal.”

  “Aww, psh.” I shake my head. He’ll never know how right he is. “It was a lot easier than I was making it out to be. Trust me.”

  He laughs. “Attaboy.”

  Downstairs, in the living room closet, I’m about to exhume—from beneath a hoard of wrapping paper and Mom’s arts and crafts supplies—Joe’s old sleeping bag from elementary school, when I start to really think about what I’m doing.

  Before tonight, Matt and I would have slept in the same bed together, no questions asked. But now that I’ve come out to him and all, here I am in a closet scrounging around for a sleeping bag so we don’t have to.

  Matt didn’t ask me to do this.

  Is there a reason why I’m doing this?

  Possible answers:

  A)No. Nothing has really changed; you are the same devoted friend, good sheets-sharer, light sleep-tosser you were before you came out to him.

  B)Yes. Nothing has really changed; you are still in love with him, for crying out loud! And to sleep in the same bed as him would only incite misguided imaginings and instill hard-to-dislodge hopes in you that one day, someday, maybe … this kind of thing could be for real.

  C)No. Something has changed; you are not in love with him anymore. So, go ahead, sleep with him!

  C)Really, Tretch. Think about it …

  C)At the dance party, okay? Remember that part in the song, during the chorus, when Ellie shouts, “But I don’t think I need you!” You looked straight at him! It was like those words were yours, man!

  C)I don’t know, Tretch. Maybe don’t listen to me. Are you still in love with him? If so, I’d suggest answer B, or possibly A.

  D)No. There is no reason you should feel like you can’t sleep in the same bed as your friend, Tretch. Don’t be ridiculous.

  C)Oh! And one more thing! What did it feel like, Tretch? When you heard the words, “But I don’t think I need you!” What did it feel like? Did it feel like you had just let go of a balloon you’d been holding on to for so long you were about to just give up and let it drag you up, up, and away, until you either (A) asphyxiated, (B) disintegrated in the atmosphere, or (C) both A and B? Or! Maybe! Did it feel the way you feel, like when you let go of a sleeping bag—one that you’ve loaded down with all of this extra meaning—and watch it fall to the closet floor … but maybe minus that satisfying thud sound?

  Is that what it felt like, Tretch? Is that what it felt like?

  I love Matt. I know I do.

  But the thing is, for the first time, it feels kind of like our loves are … the same. And one love is not stronger or deeper or more hopeless or more honest.

  Am I still in love with Matt Gooby?

  Maybe. But what I feel now is different.

  I feel it without the hurt.

  Upstairs, Joe is brushing his teeth in the hallway bathroom. The hum of the electric toothbrush reminds me of Granddad, of his current welding project, the angel wings. Maybe he’s managed to make some real progress in the last few days without me barging in on him inside his shop all the time.

  “Hey, Joe.” I stick my head around the corner of the bathroom door. Joe’s already in his pajama attire—plaid bottoms with a Ramones T-shirt. “Happy New Year,” I say.

  “Happy New Year, Mr. Potter!” he replies, his mouth making funny shapes around the toothbrush. He takes a handful of sink water from the tap, and the toothbrush buzzing stops.

  “You have a good night?” I ask.

  Joe spits. “Yeah, except for I ate, like, ten slices of pizza …”

  “Oof.”

  “Yeah.” Joe dries his face on the hand towel by the sink. “But it was nice to bring in the new year with Melissa and a few of her friends. Pretty low-key. Melissa’s friend Becky Ambrose reads tarot cards, so she read all of ours out loud for us. And you want to know what my first card was?”

  “Yeah.”

  “The Death card. I almost had a panic attack. But Becky said that it doesn’t mean like actual, literal death. It just means like change, shirking off something old and sinking into something new.”

  “Oh,” I say. “Interesting.”

  “Yeah! So I really think it was just talking about college and me moving away and stuff, but at first, when I saw it was the Death card, I was like …”

  “Granddad?” I a
sk.

  “Exactly! So you thought it, too.”

  “Initially, yeah.”

  Joe shrugs. “I guess we sort of know what our greatest fear of the moment is.” He turns from the mirror to me. “How was your night?”

  “Good,” I say. “I, uh, I came out to a couple people.”

  “Wow, that’s … At the dance? Who?”

  “Matt and Lana. Matt after the dance. He’s here now.”

  Joe leans his hip against the sink. “That’s awesome.” He crosses his arms, smiles. “It go okay?”

  I nod.

  “What made you decide to do it? Just a sudden upsurge of bravery?”

  I laugh. Maybe it was the dance? The feeling of all those hands beneath me, lifting me up. I tell Joe, “I don’t know, exactly. I mean, if you can’t come out to your best friend on New Year’s Eve, then when can you?”

  Joe’s smile cracks open. “Hmm. New year, new leaf. I still say it takes some bravery, Tretch-o. Who knows? This coming year might just be the bravest year of your life.”

  “Yours, too,” I say. “With college.”

  “Yeah, maybe. I guess we’ll see, won’t we?”

  “Yeah, I guess.” I notice myself in the mirror. Funny, I hadn’t even realized I was smiling before, but now I see it. It’s not all that big or anything, but it’s there, effortlessly, honestly. “I guess we’ll see.”

  When I walk into my room, Matt doesn’t search for the sleeping bag on me. In fact, he doesn’t search for anything at all. The lights are out, and he’s stretched across my bed, his hair wet from the shower, in a peach-colored T-shirt and plaid pajama pants from my closet. His eyes are closed.

  “Matt?” I ask.

  Then they flutter open. “Hmm?”

  “You asleep already?”

  “What? Uhh, no, no—” He struggles to sit up. “I just, uh, geez, please tell me it’s not morning already.”

  “Ha! No, no. Oh my God, you were actually asleep. That was like the quickest falling-asleep I’ve ever seen …”

  “What can I say? We went hard on the dance floor tonight.”

  “True dat.”

  Matt’s hands flop into his lap and he smiles. I can see his eyes blinking in the dark, and when he smiles—I can see that, too. “Happy New Year, Tretch.”

  “Happy New Year, Matt. Now, scooch over so I can have some room.”

  At 4:30 a.m., the phone rings. Matt is sleeping on his stomach, with his hands between his hips and the mattress. His face is tilted to the side, and his mouth hangs open. Several long, slow breaths escape. He stays sound asleep—even through the sound of the screaming telephone.

  Finally, I hear Dad answer it. “Hello?” he says. But the rest I can’t make out. I slide out of the bed, open the bedroom door, and walk downstairs.

  The lights in the kitchen are on. Dad’s brewing a pot of coffee, his eyelids all puffy.

  “What’s up?” I ask.

  “Mary,” Dad tells me. “A little later than expected, but she’s finally having that calf.”

  “Oh,” I say. “Is it—?”

  “It’s a breech.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  “Better go wake Joe.”

  “Okay.” I start out of the kitchen.

  “You think you’ll be able to help us?”

  I turn. “Oh, yeah, sure,” I say, even though the last time this happened it was nothing short of traumatic. “But if we’re all going to go, I better wake Matt, too.”

  “Well.” Dad nods. “If nothing else, it’ll be a new experience for him, I guess.”

  “Yeah,” I say, and turn to go up the stairs.

  The Farm Farm house is lit up when we get there. Grandma has made biscuits already, and they sit on a warm baking sheet, butter melting out from the center of each one. Granddad is pacing the living room.

  “Better get them biscuits to go,” he says. He looks Matt up and down but doesn’t introduce himself. I think Matt is still too tired to notice, though. Grandma pushes two biscuits into his hands, two into mine, and two into Joe’s.

  “Thanks, Grandma,” I say.

  “No trouble.” Grandma waves her hand. “I knew y’all wouldn’t have had time to eat anything.” The clock on the microwave says it’s now 5:37.

  “Y’all ready?” An anxious hum carries Granddad’s voice. “I cain’t find her. I found her a little while ago, and now I cain’t. Reckon she got scared.”

  “Is the calf showing at all?” Dad asks.

  “Yeah.” Granddad gives one nod. “A little bit.” His lip curls.

  Delivering calves into this world is not Granddad’s cup of tea. He gets squeamish at the sight of the birth. Not to mention, it makes him a nervous wreck. The most uptight I’ve ever seen him was during a breech calf delivery last year. It was the first one I’d ever been around for, and that one had been in the day.

  It also hadn’t been freezing cold out.

  “You think this one’s still alive, Grandma?” I ask. The last one was stillborn, and I hadn’t been able to look at it.

  Grandma shakes her head.

  “Joe, run grab the truck,” Dad says. “You and Matt drive around and try to find her. Tretch, Granddad, and I will walk around with a lasso—”

  Granddad holds up his hand. “Naw, Richard. You better go with them, case they find her. They find her without a lasso, they’ll just scare ’er off even worse. I don’t want her gettin’ more upset. The more she run around scared, the harder it’ll be on the calf. Me and Tretch’ll go on foot. I’ll get us some rope.”

  I gulp. “Uh, rope?”

  “For a lasso.” Dad winks. “Don’t worry,” he whispers. “It’ll be fine.”

  I wonder what Matt is thinking about all of this. Lassos and breech calves. Does he even know the word breech?

  These are not things he’s going to need to know in New York City.

  “That’s when the calf gets all turned around inside its mom,” I explain. “You know how the head’s supposed to come out first?”

  “Yes,” Matt says.

  “Well, this way it’s like the feet are coming out first. That’s why Dad has to try and get his hand all in there to turn it around.”

  Talking about breech calves always makes me feel a little sick. My hands start to feel sweaty. I stick one of the biscuits in my mouth. Matt is chewing on one, too.

  “All right, Tretch, come on!”

  Granddad is already out the back door. I see the rope slung over his shoulder. Dear God, please do not make me have to use that rope on Mary. I bite the inside of my lip, swallowing biscuit. “Okay, I’m coming, Granddad!” I call, following him out the back door.

  I figure Matt is all right to hang tight with Dad and Joe. Honestly, I wish I could stay behind with him. Odds are, when this stuff happens, breech deliveries and all that, some kind of death happens. Usually, your best hope is that it will just be the calf who dies, not its mother, too. It wears away at Granddad when this stuff happens. Sometimes he loses his cool.

  He’s ahead of me now, going through the woods. I run to catch up. He hears me coming and snaps, “Don’t run, Tretch. It’ll startle ’er if she’s round here.”

  “Whoops,” I say. I slow to a walk.

  Granddad steps easily. Dried leaves crunch and sticks pop. Everything is dead quiet and cold. It is so cold. I can make out the clouds from Granddad’s breath though he’s a good distance in front of me. He has a flashlight and is shining it into ditches, behind spots crowded with the thick brush, all spots where he’s seen cows lying with their newborns before. It could be a peaceful sight when you just happened upon something like that: a cow lying with her newborn, cleaning it off, the birth having gone smoothly without any help needed from a person.

  I keep my eyes peeled, though it’s hard to see without a flashlight of my own. For the most part, I feel helpless. I know the trick: trying to catch the glint of the flashlight reflected off the mama cow’s eye. That’s how you try and find one in the dark.

  �
��Doesn’t help that she got a black coat,” Granddad says.

  We stray off of the trail and push through a clump of thickets. Everything would look bright white from the frost if we were in a clearing with moonlight. But we’re covered by a thick canvas of treetops up above, and the moon feels far off. The woods seem bigger and scarier in the dark. More leaves crunch beneath us, and breath clouds up around us like blank word bubbles. We say nothing, and I want to know what Granddad is thinking. I know the inside of his head is buzzing. His fear, his nervousness, and really just his hope. He puts everything on the line for his hope. And if it doesn’t work out like he hoped, well, it turns into despair.

  His artistic temperament: That was the explanation.

  But I don’t think it’s helped me understand him. It’s just getting to know him all the years of my life so far. I know when he wants to be quiet. I know when he wants to cut up. I know that, really, I’m more like him than anyone else in my family.

  “Tretch,” he breathes. He shines his light against a slope rising before us. “See?”

  I look hard, following the light as it spreads out and weakens in the distance. And then, surely, the glint of the eye. It’s Mary the cow, and she’s standing.

  “We gotta get close,” Granddad whispers. He crouches. “Hold the light.”

  I take the flashlight and keep it pointed steadily at her. Granddad begins a slow shuffle forward. He pulls away when the pants of his coveralls snag on some briars. The bramble plant rattles. I see Mary tense at the sight. She’s going to run.

  The rope slides in its coil from Granddad’s shoulder down his arm. The lassoed end touches the top of his boot before he lifts it. He holds it like a cowboy, then swings a big toss.

  It falls flat against Mary’s side just as she turns and scampers off. Granddad hollers like he’s in pain, and I catch glimpse of something I don’t want to see swinging from Mary’s backside. I stand, shocked. A second passes, and she’s gone.