by Jeff Zentner
“At least I didn’t have another panic attack, right? I’m going to Percy Warner.”
Percy Warner Park is about a ten-minute walk from my house and encompasses acres of forest and miles of trails. Sometimes, the only way I have of dealing with stuff is to be around things more ancient than me and my sadness; things that will forget me.
Maybe when I get home, Jesmyn will have texted me.
They’re all doubled over on Eli’s couch, their controllers at their sides, laughing over my latest, especially ignominious demise.
“Did you see where his body fell?” Blake says, wiping tears.
“Look, shitlords, my parents won’t let me have a game console. And I have a life, so I don’t sit around practicing video games twenty-four/seven. So I suck. Whatever,” I say.
But my explanation only invites louder guffaws.
“Blade’s spinning in circles, shooting, and throwing grenades wildly until someone comes up behind him and clocks him with the butt of their rifle,” Mars says.
“Imagine if he were really in the army,” Eli says.
“No, please, everyone pile on the big video-game loser,” I say. “Anyway, Mars, you should be a lot better, like genetically. Wasn’t your dad a Marine or something?”
Mars snorts. “Yeah, he led a Marine company in the first Gulf War. Won the Bronze Star and a Purple Heart for some shit he won’t talk about. Stop trying to change the subject from your sorryness.”
Blake stands up and starts quickly spinning in a circle, making tossing motions. “Here’s Blade: ‘…and a grenade for you, and a grenade for you, and one for you, and let’s don’t forget you,’ ” he says, in an exaggerated singsongy preschool-teacher voice. They’re all practically pissing themselves laughing.
“What if Blade applied his video-game skills to other stuff?” Mars says, trying to catch his breath.
“Like if he were a waiter,” Eli says.
“Eat a bag of elephant buttholes, y’all. A gigantic old-timey burlap sack full of elephant buttholes. With an elephant butthole printed on the side like a dollar sign,” I say. They howl.
Mars stands up. “Here’s Blade as a waiter. He stands in the middle of the restaurant throwing everyone their food: ‘Here’re some rolls for you! And some coffee for you! And some meat loaf for you! And some…” He hesitates.
“He can’t remember any more food,” Eli says. “Mars’s forgotten food.”
“It’s hard to think of food when you’re on the spot,” Mars says. “Hurry, name a food right now. Go. Name a food.”
“Grilled cheese sandwich,” Eli says immediately.
“Name another one,” Mars says. “Hurry. Quick. Name another food. Any food. Go. Come on. Name a food. Do it.”
“Uh—soup,” Eli says.
“Another. Quick!” Mars says.
“Uhhhhhhhhhhhh.”
We all crack up.
This is what I was doing at around this point last year. I’m not sure it was exactly three days before school started, but it was close.
As I walk among the trees, sweating, I dwell on my possibly impending prosecution. I think about Jesmyn. I wonder if I’ll be able to think the same way on walks around a prison exercise yard. But mostly I recall that time Sauce Crew laughed together. One among many; it wasn’t anything special.
I’m not sure why this moment burns like a torch in my memory, but it does.
When I get home, Jesmyn still hasn’t called or texted. But Darren Coughlin has left a message on my phone asking me to comment on what Judge Edwards said. I guess he tracked down my number somehow. I don’t tell my parents and I don’t call him back. What would I say? I sure hope I don’t go to jail even though part of me is convinced I deserve to. I’m sorry I killed my friends. I’m sorry.
It’s eleven-thirty; I’m almost asleep when my phone buzzes.
It’s Jesmyn. Sorry just got your text. Practicing all day. Still need to talk?
I dial her so quickly, I drop my phone. I manage to pick it up as she answers.
“Hey,” I say softly.
“Hey,” she says. “What’s up?”
I lie on my bed and put my hand over my face. I groan-sigh. “Ahhhhgh. I’m freaking out right now.”
“Why?”
“Did you hear what happened?”
“No.”
“Okay, Mars’s dad is a judge.”
“The superintense guy?”
“Exactly. So this morning, my mom calls me in; they’re watching the news. And there’s Mars’s dad on TV and he’s saying he wants the DA to investigate the accident maybe for criminal charges.” My voice starts trembling at the end. I’ve cried in front of Jesmyn before, but no need to make it our new thing.
“Wait, what?! Criminal charges? What did you even do? You didn’t shoot them. That’s crazy.”
One more person who holds me blameless. And an important person at that—my only friend left in the world. My racing blood slows. The tremor departs from my hands and voice.
“I don’t know what’ll happen,” I say. “We’re going to talk to a lawyer, in case.”
“If you need me for anything, I can testify or whatever. I’ll be like Objection.”
I giggle. “Pretty sure only the lawyer can say that.”
“No way. I want in on the objection action.”
“So yeah. There’s my cool life. What did you work on today?”
She sighs. “A Chopin nocturne that I’m considering for my Juilliard audition. But maybe not anymore. I might switch to Debussy. Or I might do something totally different.”
“Oh, I mean, how you not gonna do Debussy if you can do Debussy? Come on.”
She giggles. “Shut up.”
“Who’s your favorite composer?”
“Oh, please. Why don’t you ask me which is my favorite finger.”
“Which is your favorite finger?”
“Hmmmmm. Middle, actually. Right hand middle.”
“See? Favorite composer.”
“No. That was a bad analogy. Who’s your favorite writer? See?”
“Cormac McCarthy. Easy.”
“Crowmac McWhothy?”
“Oh, come on.”
“Shermac McCathy?”
“Dude. Stop.” I can’t believe she’s managing to cheer me up after the day I’ve had.
“ ‘Cormac’ is an alien’s name.”
She would have made a great honorary member of Sauce Crew. “ ‘Jesmyn’ is an alien’s name.”
“No, seriously. Doesn’t ‘Cormac’ sound like a Martian name?”
“Okay, it does kinda. Which works because he’s from Planet Awesome. Have you seriously never heard of him?”
“Nope.”
“Well, we gotta fix that. Where do you stand on cannibalism?”
“I would say…opposed? Generally opposed?”
“How about reading about cannibalism?”
“If it’s a good story. If I’m, like, invested in the characters.”
“All right.”
Something lifts from my chest as we talk. As if I were lying under a pile of stones, and someone is removing them one by one. An oh-so-gradual lessening.
We talk into the early morning. I have to plug my phone in. We both get so sleepy that by the end, we say each other’s name every once in a while, to fill the interlude between topics. To make sure we’re both still there.
My parents sit at the kitchen table having coffee and cereal when I stumble in. They look at me as though I told them I have an invisible friend who tells me to collect knives and save my pee in jars.
“Hey, sweetie,” my mom says. “We heard you up in the middle of the night.”
I rub my face. “Yeah. Couldn’t sleep.”
“You should rest today,” my dad says. “School starts soon and you haven’t been sleeping well. And this Judge Edwards thing can’t be helping.”
“I can’t sleep anymore today. Plus I’m going to go help Blake’s grandma weed her garden and do wh
atever else.”
My mom hands me a bowl of cereal. “You still haven’t talked to us at all about everything. It’s been a week since Blake’s funeral. It’s not healthy to bottle things up. If you won’t talk to us, we want you to talk to someone.”
“I’ve been through this with Georgia. I’m fine.”
My dad tries to speak gently. “You’re not fine. People who are fine don’t go to the ER with panic attacks.” He sounds frustrated. I can’t really blame him, but he frustrates me too sometimes, so fair is fair.
“That happened once.”
“Are you working on anything new? Any new stories or poems?” my mom asks. “That seems like it would help.”
“No.” Being asked the question while I’m totally blocked up certainly doesn’t make me feel better. Maybe my muse was in the car with Sauce Crew.
As we sit there together, I can sense their minds turning, trying to take advantage of the opportunity. Looking for the right words. I know what the air feels like around people who are trying to find perfect words and coming up empty. So I eat quickly and stay mum.
As I go to brush my teeth, my dad says, “We love you, Carver. It’s hard to watch you hurting.”
“I know,” I say. “I love you guys too.” And if it’s hard to watch me hurting, imagine how the hurting feels.
“Okay, check it out, y’all. Squirrel rodeo,” Blake says.
“What, like we’re going to ride the squirrels?” Mars asks.
“Yeah, we’re gonna ride the squirrels. No, numbnuts, here’s how it works. You see a squirrel by the side of the path, and you move to steer it onto the path. Then you follow it slowly. Not too fast, or it’ll bolt and you’ll lose. Every time it starts to go off the path, you move and cut it off, so it keeps going on the path. You have to keep it on the path for eight seconds. Squirrel rodeo.”
“Just when I’m afraid we’ve reached the limits of your hillbillyness, you dig down deep,” Mars says.
“At least he’s not suggesting that we catch the squirrels and eat them,” I say.
“Yet,” Mars says. “He’s not saying that yet.”
“Y’all are never going to make the professional squirrel rodeo circuit with that attitude,” Blake says.
“Listen, bruh, I signed up for a peanut butter and banana milkshake from Bobbie’s Dairy Dip. I did not sign up to chase no damn squirrels with my last week of summer vacation.”
“What if your dad could see you chasing squirrels around Centennial Park?” Eli asked.
“He’d be like, ‘Thurgood? To what end are you chasing these squirrels? How will the chasing of these squirrels advance your studies and learning? Are you pursuing excellence in the chasing of these squirrels? Your grandfather did not march with Dr. King so that you could chase squirrels.’ ” Mars delivers these lines in an imposing, staid tone.
We crack up because Mars is exaggerating only a little.
Blake raises his hand for us to shut up and approaches a squirrel by the side of the asphalt walking path. “Here we go,” he whispers, phone out and filming. He carefully herds the squirrel onto the path. For about seven seconds, the squirrel trots in front of him. Blake maneuvers to cut off each attempt by the squirrel to veer off the path until finally it bolts. He groans. We laugh.
For the next fifteen minutes, we all try our hand at squirrel rodeo while Blake films us. None of us is very good, but we enjoy ourselves.
Finally we sit under the shade of a tall oak, sweating in the close afternoon heat. Blake edits videos and posts them to his YouTube. Eli texts someone. Mars sketches. I work on a story on my phone.
“New tradition,” I say after a while. “At the end of every summer before school, we grab some Bobbie’s Dairy Dip, come to Centennial Park, and play squirrel rodeo.” If Sauce Crew had official positions, mine would be Keeper of the Sacred Traditions. I love the idea of the families we choose having all the features of familydom, including traditions.
“A tradition to rival Christmas and Thanksgiving,” Mars says.
“Way more fun than Christmas and Thanksgiving, dude,” Blake says.
“What about when we’re in college?” Eli asks.
“We’ll do it while we’re all home over the summer,” I say.
We hang out that way in the relative cool of the tree-formed shadows splayed across the grass, the sunset a purple fire in the leaves. The cicadas hum in our ears like the Earth vibrating.
There’s that feeling that you’ll never be lonely again.
That every time you speak, someone you love and who loves you back will be listening.
Even then I knew what I had.
Nana Betsy takes a while to come to the door after I ring the bell. “Blade? To what do I owe this pleasure?” It’s been a week since Blake’s funeral and she still exudes rumpled bereavement. I’m familiar with this from looking in the mirror. Inside the house behind her, it’s messier than I’ve ever seen it. The lawn is overgrown.
I pull my dad’s work gloves from my butt pocket. “You said Blake helped you with the weeding and it was hard for you to do. So I’m here to help you weed the garden and do whatever else.”
“Oh, heavens.” She waves her hand. “You don’t need to do that. I can pay a boy from the neighborhood a few dollars to do it. But come in. Pardon the mess.”
“I do need to do it.” I meet her eyes. “Please.”
She fixes her genial, even gaze on me. “No you don’t.” She says it softly but firmly.
“Yes I do.” And suddenly I want to cry, so I pretend to cough and look away. I have a flash urge to tell her about the possible DA investigation. As quickly as it comes, I quash it. I can’t bear her thinking of me as a criminal.
She lets me compose myself before she answers. “All right. Let’s go in the backyard. I’ll show you what needs done. Meanwhile, I’ll run to the grocery to pick up a few things to make fresh lemonade and feed you lunch. You deserve better than the week-old leftovers I’ve been living on.”
I really don’t. “You don’t need to do that.”
“Blade. This is not up for debate.”
We go into the backyard. She shows me where to weed. She gets me a basket for the ripe tomatoes. She shows me to the lawn mower and gas, and how to use it. She drives off to the store, and I set to work.
The salt of sweat burns my eyes in the syrupy, stagnant midmorning heat, the sharp, herbaceous scent of tomato vines in my nose. I lose myself in the mindless rhythm of the work. I forget about Judge Edwards. I forget about Adair. I forget about Darren. I forget about the Accident. Maybe this is good practice for when I go to prison and I’m cleaning up the highway in an orange jumpsuit. Bend down. Yank. Toss to the side. Bend down. Yank. Toss to the side. Bend down. Yank. Toss to the side. At first I use my dad’s gloves, but my hands are getting all sweaty so I cast them aside. My hands turn brown with dirt and green from the broken weeds. I don’t even notice Nana Betsy returning.
I’m halfway through mowing the lawn when I see her waving to me from the porch. I cut off the lawn mower.
“Lunchtime! Bring in some of those fresh tomatoes.”
I grab a few of the biggest and reddest ones and step into the blessed cool of the air-conditioned house, thoroughly wiping my feet.
“In the kitchen,” Nana Betsy calls.
I start to enter the kitchen, but for some reason, I can’t make myself. I want to go back outside and keep sweating; keep punishing my body. I want to feel hunger and thirst. I don’t want Nana Betsy to give me comfort and refreshment.
“Come on now,” Nana Betsy calls again.
I break my reverie and walk directly to the sink, scrubbing the dirt and weed juice from my hands. On the kitchen table sits a loaf of white bread, a jar of Duke’s mayonnaise, salt and pepper shakers, a pitcher of fresh-squeezed lemonade clinking with ice, a serrated knife, and two plates.
“Sit down,” she says, pulling out a wooden chair from the table. “Nothing fancy, but to my mind, there’s not a thing on God
’s Earth better than a fresh tomato sandwich on a hot day.”
“I agree.” My sodden T-shirt sticks cold to my torso in the air-conditioning.
Nana Betsy picks out one of the nicer tomatoes and cuts it into thick circles. She slathers mayonnaise on a couple of pieces of bread and lays some of the tomato slices on one of the pieces. “I’ll let you do your own salt and pepper.” She makes one for herself.
“Mmmmm,” she says, getting up to fetch a roll of paper towels for us to use to wipe the pink tomato-mayo juice from our hands and faces. “Fresh tomatoes taste like sunshine, don’t they?”
“Mmmm-hmmm,” I say, taking a sip of the sharp, tangy lemonade. It makes my salivary glands ache. “They taste like summer.” Or they’re supposed to. I don’t deserve this and so it tastes like sand on my tongue, even though it’s a perfectly fine sandwich.
“That’s exactly what Blake always used to say. He loved tomato sandwiches.”
“Blake kinda loved all food.”
Nana Betsy chuckles. “That he did.”
“Once, Blake and I were over at my house, and we were starving, but neither of us had any money to go buy something to eat. And our fridge was full of all this gross kale and stuff because my parents were on a health kick. So we went through my kitchen for something we knew how to cook. We found a pack of spaghetti, but we didn’t have any sauce. So we ate it with ketchup and mustard.”
Nana Betsy snorts and covers her mouth. She’s shaking with laughter.
“So anyway,” I continue, “I take maybe two bites, but Blake? He loves it. Eats the whole rest of the bowl. And he goes ‘Blade, Blade, we should make this a new food. We should call it hamburger spaghetti. Hamsghetti. We should sell this idea.’ And I go ‘Blake, the only reason you find this edible is you’re so hungry. This is totally gross.’ ”
Nana Betsy is sniffling and wiping tears, but they’re tears of laughter. For a moment, I don’t feel guilty anymore. The smallest taste of redemption. And it’s sweet on my tongue.
“Boy, between the two of us, we really had Blake’s number, didn’t we?” Nana Betsy says.
I catch an errant drip of tomato juice. “Yeah.”